Happy Birthday Evie!

Two years ago today I got a phone call from my son-in-law, Nick announcing that Kate had delivered a little girl, Evelyn Elise Abbott. I was in the car within 10 minutes and headed for the hospital in Ballard where she was born. In an hour and a half's time I was sitting in the hospital room holding my grand daughter. Where was grandma?

Evie and her mom and dad on her birthday,  February 11, 2015.

Well, she was at a music conference in Yakima, WA, an annual affair she always attended though she was certain the delivery would happen while she was stuck over there. After a couple of hours of cooing and cuddling with little "Evie" I headed home. But the next day I headed for the meet up point Leslie and I had agreed to east of Seattle and drove her straight to Nick and Kate's house and Leslie met her grand daughter.

I still recall Kate looked like she had just awakened from a great night's sleep instead of delivering a bowling ball. What an adorable family. 

Today, we celebrate Evie's 2nd birthday. Two years of unbelievable, indescribable joy for us. We have thoroughly enjoyed the role of grandparents and all the perks that go along with it. Showering her with our love and. of course, gifts. Being able to share in some of her milestones--crawling, walking, talking. the first time she called us by Gammie and Gammpy, having her recognize our house when they pulled up. When she ran into our arms as soon as the front door opened and she spotted us. Watching her wave to us as we stood on the front porch waving goodbye when they left.

Each shared "first" just fills our hearts to bursting. Her first ice cream on a visit out to Orcas Isand. I bought a cup of ice cream and her momma let me give her a taste. I walked in the back of our little group but Evie kept peeking around at me while riding warmly in her Ergo on her mama's front. I'd see her head peek around with an anxious, expectant look waiting for me to bring her another taste. The look on her face was one of discovering the mother lode! We were best buds after that, especially if I had ice cream in my hands.

She also knew that if any one was going to let her get away with watching too much Peppa Pig or Wallace and Grommit episodes, it would be Grammpy. 

Evie shortly before her 2nd birthday, 2017.

I was on call from time to time when she was too sick to go to school or mama and daddy had to go to work. Being retired I was always able and very ready to drive down and take care of her. This made Grammie very jealous but gave me opportunities to have Evie all to myself. We'd walk up to Greenwood for breakfast or over to the pocket park for a little fresh air or visit the zoo, but mostly we stayed in and played and played and played.

Two years has now gone by and Evie has traveled to 6 continents and I can't remember how many countries. Places she'll never remember when she grows up but places that wlll nevertheless enrich her on levels we won't know for some time. She knows her cousins in England, her Grandma and Grandpa in London. She has friends, children and adults scattered across the globe, many of which she met only momentarily but nevertheless left a sweet, joyous memory with.

She is a talented musician, soccer player, artist. She is a charasmatic leader, a pied piper among her peers at school. She has a great sense of humor and loves to read. She is always absolutely filled with joy and wonder!

In short, Evie is amazing in every way. Two years and all this has unfolded as a part of who she is. I can't wait to see what the next two bring. Happy birthday, Evie. Grammy and Grammpy love you!!

P.S. This is all highlighted in yellow, Evie's favorite color!

Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Quiet day here at home. I'm sitting in my upstairs office at the desk which looks out at the pine trees across the street and out across the Lake Whatcom valley towards the Cascade Mountains. It is cold, in the 40s, with a light breeze that makes it feel a bit cooler. But the sun is out and there is not a cloud in the bright blue sky.

In a minute I will get dressed and head out with my camera to take advantage of the weather. I'll probably stop by and shot the Key of Sea sitting in the yacht harbor and who know what else. We'll see.

I cranked up the Honda generator over the weekend. It started right up despite having sat in the garage since September with last summer's fuel still in it and not having been started since god knows when. I didn't have the same luck with the Honda outboard which has had a similar fate since being removed from the stern of the boat and brought home. I may need to take it down for a check up.

I am getting more serious about replacing our dinghy which is an inflatable, including the floor, which is the real problem. I also want to upgrade to an outboard with higher horse power. My 2 hp just doesn't do the job with our 10 foot dinghy.

I want to purchase a similar-in-length dinghy but with a fiberglass hull. They're more expensive but will last much longer than those with a plastic bottom. Add to that an outboard with 4-5 hp and an add on fuel tank and I think we'd be much better off.

With the big boat show season just coming to an end, I am hoping to find some used options on Craigslist or a yacht club's for sale listing. Folks who buy new dinghies or upgrade to larger or smaller ones may be looking to unload one that is just what I am looking for.We'll see.

On a Lighter Note

So much negative. So much bad news. So little civil discourse anymore. It seems. So I thought maybe a posting on my childhood might be in order. Especially after seeing this first bit re-posted on my Facebook page this morning.

Have you noticed how the Facebook gods occasionally re-post postings you uploaded a year or two or three ago? Ah, memory lane! Well, this one really does bring back very fond memories for me.

A chili dog joint back in my home town of Merced, California called Rose's Chili Dog was a wonderful place to stop and pick up dinner back in the day. Merced was a small farming town, also home to Castle Air Force Base. Its located in central California. There were literally no fast food joints in Merced back then. We're talking the late 50's and the 60's. The McDonalds and Taco Bells hadn't been invented yet. The only places in Merced that approximated these kinds of places were Rose's Hot Dog stand down on 17th Street; a small shack snuggled into a vacant spot next door to the old Merced Sun-Star building and A and W over on 16th street. 

Roses's didn't have much seating. In fact I don't recall their being any at all. There was no indoors at all. You stepped up to the window and placed your order. Most folks lined up for the chili dogs. The chili was amazing!

Yeah, they were greasy as you can see by the waxed paper in the photo above, but it was the best chili I have ever tasted. You had to sit with your legs apart and try not to let the bits of grease and chopped onion get all over you. Dad gum good! 

A few years later the stand moved over on "J" Street (now MLK, Jr. Blvd.) near the fairgrounds, then the stand disappeared altogether. I left town, moving to attend college, marrying, starting a family and careers took over. With our family all passed on or moved on, there is no real reason to even go back.

Rose, too, is long gone but it turns out Rose's grandson has taken over and still makes those greasy torpedoes using Rose's traditional recipe. You have to watch on their Facebook page to find out where they will be open on a particular weekend, kind of like a lunch wagon. If I ever find myself down that way again, I know I will plan ahead and try to hit town when Rose's is serving up those great dogs.

And then there was the old A and W root beer stand over on 16th Street. Open only from spring through early autumn, we always new spring was around the corner, as was summer vacation, when we'd see the family who ran the joint inside the building cleaning up the place. 

I don't know why the weren't open throughout the year, that is just the way it was. That ice cold root beer was only served in ice cold glass mugs. It was a drive up joint. Pull up in your car, turn on your head lights and out of a swinging door would come a car hop on roller skates. When she returned with your order, our dad would roll his window part way down so the tray of food could be hung, cantilever-style, outside the window. Dad would pass around the food each of us had ordered for us and we'd sit in the car munching on our burgers, nibbling the salty fries and sipping our root beer through paper straws. Dad would turn his headlights back on when we were ready to pay the bill and have the tray removed from the window.

Sometimes we would get out of the car and sit at one of the picnic tables sitting under the enormous tree that stood in the patio.  A and W eventually closed, became something else, eventually a Mexican restaurant the last I knew. As the town slowly grew out nearer the new mall that went in in the early 70's, as 16th Street, which had been the highway 99 route through town was replaced by the high-speed freeway by-passing downtown entirely, there wasn't much reason to keep the place open. And so went another part of our childhood. That, as they say, is progress.

He's Not My President

I didn't vote for him. He represents none of the values I, nor do I believe, most Americans hold dear. Despite his winning the election by Electoral College acclamation, He lost the popular vote by some 3 million votes. I know, I know, I didn't mind when the last election went the way I wanted it to in the Electoral College.

I don't necessarily have a problem with the Electoral College making the ultimate decision. That's not my concern in all of this messy election cycle. It has instead been the way that it has divided our country. People who didn't even like the winner simply wouldn't vote for the loser under any conditions...and vice versa.

From the beginning I was for the Democrat, not because I liked her but because I agreed with the party's progressive platform. The problem with the winner was that he didn't even honor his own party's platform. He continuously veered off into unpredictable territory that changed from one day to the next so that no one had any idea what he believed or planned.  Even his "minders" couldn't keep up with him so they found themselves making ridiculous excuses for him and taking all the flak for how ridiculous they sounded.

My stock answer to complainers is, "I told you so." And I did. I spent the entire election cycle from primaries on, posting the terrible things the winner had done for many years and was still doing. Sharing posts on Facebook, etc. The marriages, the sexual abuse, the stupid statements that made no sense including those that further divided  the nation. And with every opportunity the Republicans, ignored him figuring he'd kill himself off in the primary. Well, now he has come home to roost and all the Republicans can do now is support what they've got, as icky as it might be.

So, brace yourself folks. The next four years ain't gonna be pretty. For all those who voted for independent candidates instead of the democrat or stayed away from the polls entirely in protest of the choice, you helped elect him. You get to take some of the blame for what is to come. For those who voted for the court jester about to take office thinking he was going to "drain the swamp" only to look on now with your mouths hanging open as he selected one billionaire after another to key offices or, listened to his lies promising to put her in jail, only to watch as he dropped the entire subject saying he was only kidding or, listened to all the fake news stories, the truth of which was there all along right under the surface if you'd only taken the time to dig a tiny bit deeper, well, guess what, your laziness and stupidity elected him. Congratulations, America! You got yourself a real winner....but he's not my president.

Oh, Hi! Remember me?

So, its been well over a year since I last posted to my blog. Suddenly, I thought, I should get on there and at least let folks know I am still alive. Most who have followed me already know that but anyway I have a few things to say so here I am.

Since you last heard from me a few things have happened. I have all but completely retired from teaching now. For the first few years after "retiring" I was often called upon by the school where I taught for 17 years, to substitute for various folks on the staff. Sometimes for weeks or even months at a time. But as the years have gone by the requests and calls have dwindled until this year when I have been called in only twice. Don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining. It has been a good way to go--fading away a little each year. Now, most of the staff I knew has retired, moved on or quit. So there isn't too much demand for me anyway.

Now, most of my days are spent doing work for the Bellingham Sail and Power Squadron. Since my year as commander . . .oh, maybe I never told you about that. Well, I was made commander back three years ago. It was a blast but had a huge learning curve and by the time I got comfortable with the job, the year was over and I handed the reins over to the next person in line to the throne.

Here is the cover of our December 2016 issue

Anyway, as I was saying, since my year as commander I have been the secretary of the squadron, a job I loved doing when I first joined the squadron leadership. Add to that my knowledge of the inner workings of the power squadron and I am more and more often sought out when it comes to matters concerning how and when things are done. I enjoy it.

I am also editor of the squadron newsletter, the Bell Signals, I administrate our Facebook page, am the squadron historian and just finished an entire year planning, organizing and managing the District 16 Fall Conference hosted by our squadron here in Bellingham.

I figured out quickly enough that it was going to take a big team to pull off the conference so I selected a great team of folks to help. The six-person Organizing Committee was a god send. We had a blast planning the event. We visited local potential venues, had lots of planning dinners and in the end we pulled off a great event the weekend of October 28-30, 2016. Another steep learning curve but it did go very well.

Last night at our squadron's annual meeting held at the Bellingham Yacht Club, we elected new officers for the coming year (March to March in this organization). I was re-elected Secretary and Leslie, my wife was re-elected as a Member-at-Large.

We also handed out the Herb Hearsey Awards for Safety, Education, Fellowship and Outstanding New Member (I won the New Member award the year I originally joined. A huge surprise). At last night's annual meeting Leslie and I were surprised to receive the Fellowship award. We were very touched. I suppose it was earned largely as a result of the leadership we provided for that Fall Conference.

Oh, speaking of the Bellingham Yacht Club, many of our friends are members of the yacht club and so a couple of years ago we decided to join. We enjoy getting together with friends there and the club is very nice. It is the center of boating activity in the community and we have enjoyed the reciprocal privileges at other yacht clubs when we travel and when looking for moorage for the boat on our cruises (the reciprocal clubs often offer free or near free moorage for the night which can save you a lot of money over time).

Oh, another bit of news....We have been sub-leasing a slip for our boat, the Key of Sea for the past 7 years, In September we were contacted by the Port of Bellingham with the news that a permanent slip was available in the harbor if we wanted it. We quickly accepted it. It is a 36 foot slip. Perfect for our boat. It means paying about $100 less a month for that moorage. Plus we can't be booted out anytime the company we sub-leased from decided to do so. And we don't have to pay to 10% add on the sub-lease businesses charge for the privilege of sub-leasing. And we are now off the $25 a year wait list which the port charges,

So, all in all we are in a much better place for the boat and our budget. We moved the Key of Sea over to the new slip September 1,2016. She now sits at Gate 6, slip M1. We are the first boat on the left as you go through the gate. Perfect!

The Key of Sea is winterized right now which we're glad we did this year especially since it has been a very cold one. Temps have been below freezing for weeks this winter which can be tough on a boat and you wind up with some costly repairs if you haven't taken some precautions.

Evie at her first Christmas candle light service.

Since the last time I wrote another HUGE turning point in our lives has happened. Back in February of 2015 our daughter Kate and her husband Nick presented us (did I just say presented us? Sounds so old fashioned) with a grand daughter--Evelyn Elise Abbott. Evie, as she is known, is the wonder and  sweet treasure of our lives. Why didn't someone tell us how great it is to be a grand parent a long time ago? Don't know what we would have done about it but WOW! are we having a ball with this little lady.

She has her 2nd birthday coming up and we just celebrated her first real Christmas recently. She is in awe with the concept of Santa and we have played it to the hilt. Watching the wonder in her eyes has been such an emotional experience for both us. She is such a sweet little lady. Her mom and dad are wonderful parents and have been so generous with the time they give us with all of them to share in Evie's growing up.

We are so looking forward to taking her to Disneyland and on outings on the Key of Sea and so many other experiences.

On to a new subject. Replacing this damn computer system. Started with a new printer  a couple of days ago. I replaced an older HP printer that stopped doing certain functions, not the least of which was scanning; a very important function with my work on the squadron newsletter. So off I went after doing some on-line research to see what could be found in local stores. My first stop was at Costco and there it was. A printer I had noticed had good ratings on-line and was not an HP which I had heard from several sources was not as reliable as it once was. So, what the heck. Oh, and it was $50 cheaper than any place on line. I let the sales guy talk to me about it a while before saying I'd take it and let him pull it down and put it in my cart. $109 bucks plus a package of replacement ink and I was out the door.
It has some nice features including wi-fi and two paper trays, an auto tray on top lets you quickly print docs and so far it is working very well.

Next, a search for a cpu to replace the dying one next to my left knee. It is an older HP and is taking longer and longer to boot up. Sometimes it forces me to restart it again because the little blue circle just keeps spinning. I have backed everything up on both a 1T external hard drive and on my laptop. o if it goes I won't loose much. Looking at Dell products this time since folks who've bought lately keep bad-mouthing the HPs. I'm thinking along the lines of an Intel i5 with a terabyte of storage and so on. Maybe in the $500-600 range. Don' t want to spend too much since they just seem to last a few years before you have to start looking again. I wish I could find a local company that custom builds them like the last computer I had. It was great and easy to replace parts on or upgrade since nothing was proprietary. Unfortunately, the only place in town that does build them doesn't have a good reputation.

Well, I have finally run out of something to say. That won't last long. Until next time. Cheers!

Key of Sea Projects--Summer 2015

Another year, another set of the ongoing projects which always need doing on our Key of Sea. I'm only limited by the money available to do the projects. That is the money available over and above the day to day costs of moorage, repair and maintenance.

Over the past month or so I have been busy as usual for the time of year. Readying the Key of Sea for the summer cruising season and we have some exciting on-the-water adventures planned.

The upper deck wrapped dark blue canvas was the original location
to stow our new kayaks.

The biggest adventure is a 3-week cruise to the Canadian Gulf Islands. Unlike our 5-week cruise last summer, this one will keep us in the Gulf Islands, far south of where we ventured last summer. Never the less, we will be exploring a lot of interesting bays and coves. We'll have the benefit of our new toys to help us peek into some of the less accessible nooks and crannies that our boat or dinghy can't get us into or that we'd like to explore quietly and closer to water level. I am referring to our new kayaks which I have written about in the previous blog entry.

Project #1 was to attempt to build racks for the kayaks to hang from while we are under way. This turned out not to work as our boat isn't long enough for them to hang where we wanted them to--off

The railing  along one side of the boat turned out to be the best
solution given the size and space on our boat. We'll bungee
them to the railing.

the upper deck. Oh well. Turns out it will work to just lay them along the inside of the railing along the port side of the boat. Just a couple of bungees wrapped around each end of the kayaks should hold them in place. It will be much easier to bring them aboard and launch them from this location. So, project #1? Complete and total cost only around $20.


 

Finished cap rail. Wow!

Project #2: Refinishing the cap rail around the cockpit in the aft of the boat. The cap rail is the teak one by 6 cap that surrounds the cockpit on three sides. It was looking particularly worn, even showing bare wood in a couple of spots. I decided to strip the old varnish and re-varnish the entire thing. I chose Cetol natural teak and Cetol clear gloss as my products of choice. Three coats of each. But before I could refinish I had to strip the old varnish using a heat gun and scrapper. This turned out to be a pretty easy job. A little back breaking only because of the position you have to stand in to do

the work. But it went quickly. I sanded off the few blemishes followed by progressively finer grit paper and I was about ready to begin the varnishing.

The weather has been extraordinarily sunny and warm which made the completion of the project go much smoother and faster. Each coat was followed by at least 24 hours of curing. Weather here in B'ham can change so quickly so keeping an eye on the weather forecast is essential. Rain falling on freshly varnished wood work means you have to sand that coat down and start again. Something to be carefully avoided. The weather completely cooperated and the project turned out beautifully! So, project #2? Complete. Cost of this project? Something less than $75 due to the fact that I have tools that can be reused on future projects and enough of the Cetol products to do several more projects.

Soldered connector to plug into the VHS radio

Project #3: Installation of the new VHF antenna. This turned out to be the biggest pain of all the projects due to my own stupidity. I bought a very nice, higher end VHF antenna back around Christmas from West Marine. In the Spring I gathered the other connectors and tools to do this project and, on a nice day, went to the boat to do the install. Because there was already a coaxial wire running from the VHF radio to the old antenna, I figured I would cut off most of the coaxial cable that came with the antenna, add a connector and plug in the two ends of the cable to each other. I measured and calculated that I could cut off 18 of the 20 feet of cable leaving me a two foot pigtail to add my connector. BIG MISTAKE!

New VHS Antenna ready to be installed 

DO NOT EVER cut any wire off when it has been given to you. Coil it and tuck it behind a bulkhead in some other out of the way spot BUT--DO NOT CUT THE WIRE THAT COMES WITH THE DEVICE!!!!!

This made my job so much more difficult. What I SHOULD have done was run the new cable to the radio unit and pull the old cable out. Why not? A new radio. A new antenna. Why use old wiring? Ya, dumb idea. Now I know.

Long story short, I bought new wire (Uh Huh, I'd thrown out the 18 feet of wire that I cut off.) and ran it to the radio and antenna after soldering the new connectors to the cable. Voila!The radio actually works better than it did. So, project #3? Done. Cost? Aside from the antenna which was about $150, the connectors and wiring was about another $100. It should have only been about $10. Live and learn.


So, there you are, a few projects that took some time but being able to do more and more myself is saving me hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars avoiding having to call in a specialist.

Sometime I'll tell you the story of replacing my oil this year. Sounds exciting, huh? Well, anytime you can have fun AND save a several hundred bucks, well, THAT IS an interesting story.

Let The Winterizing Begin!

No photos for this entry. Too depressing....

I spent the day down at the boat yesterday. The Key of Sea sat forlornly, gently bobbing in her slip as if to say, "Come on, dad, let's go for a ride!"

Not today...

Instead, I carefully removed items from the boat and did some chores that only lead to one conclusion. Cold weather-proofing time has arrived again.

I removed the generator from its place right behind the fly bridge, lowered it to the cock pit deck below, removed the fuel can, wrapped the captain's chair in its new cover to keep the weather out, closed up the bimini.

I've noticed the hatch cover has leaked down into the cock pit over last winter and so I added some weather stripping and chalking to that in hopes of eliminating that problem.

On the plus side, I had a member of the Power Squadron down to do vessel safety checks on our new kayaks. I should have been done last spring but just got it done.

After they were inspected, I deflated them and packed them away in inside the salon out of the weather, I'll probably bring them home eventually since they take up too much room inside the boat making it uninviting should be decide to spend a winter weekend on the boat.

I hooked up the electric heater so it is ready should we go down for the weekend and to keep things from freezing during extreme weather.

Oh, I just got a new label maker and so I was finally able to put labels on a couple of unlabeled or incorrectly labeled circuit breakers.

Finally, sadly, I removed the standard from the stern of the boat and the burgee from the bow, wrapped them up and stowed them in the v-berth,

Still a couple of chores to do before draining the water and waste tanks one last time (we might go out for an overnight yet). I need to attach a cabinet door that broke in the master stateroom. I have the new hinges on so it is almost done.

The big job left is to remove the starboard alternator, have it bench tested and possibly replaced. About a $150 job if I do it. Chump change...

Toodles!