Awesome transom lettering by Signspecialist.com
I don’t often rave, but in this case, I will! I had this business, Signspecialist.com make some transom lettering for Hotspur and I HAVE to recommend it to my friends and readers. I am so happy, in fact, that I am going to be ordering new registration numbers for her; the old ones having faded and now look bad. Anyway, here, again is the transom lettering for my boat… Damn good job, GREAT PRICE and really easy to apply! You cannot go wrong here.
Her name….
It’s cold and windy today. Tomorrow, I have a Yacht Club work party. Yes, I belong to a yacht club. Not blue blazers and white pants, but some nice people and place to use my boat. You didn’t know, yes, I got a Catalina 22 by selling some guns. I had too many anyway. I like sailing and after the fiasco of the last boat, I swore I would never have a boat that wasn’t on a trailer again.
I got it near the end of summer and by the time I got some seriously needed repairs, I got to use it once, for an hour. Was still fun. THAT probably wouldn’t have happened if I had crawled under and really examined the keel bolts more closely… Out of four, one was loose, allowing the hanger to dip down and one was missing 😮 Ordered new bolts THAT night from Catalina Direct, but it took the P.O. literally 10 days from time of shipping to get them to me. That’s crazy, and the tracking didn’t work after acceptance, but I know what that means, one of the drunkards at the West Sacramento post office didn’t scan the outbound. As I have been there and worked out of there extensively, I can almost tell you who it was. I remember this one bozo, when they were issued new scanners, throwing it up in the air and going “oops.” This is why the PO has problems.
Anyway, tomorrow after the work party is done, I will put a timber under the keel and use a bottle jack to lift it a bit. Then I will replace the bolts one at a time (comes with lock washers and locktite). I need a torque wrench though. Hmmmmm. Might just snug them up until I can borrow or rent a wrench. I really would like to get it square on the trailer, but… that would involve ME getting in the water and it’s getting butt-assed cold. We shall see. What I need are chest waders. More stuff to do.
Anyway, the boat brings me joy and the worst day working on it, is STILL better than the best day at work. And really, I don’t have people always unhappy about it, like you get in reenacting–well, except for my wife who doesn’t like boats. C’est La Vie!
Sorry for the lack of updates, often I just don’t feel like blogging. Not much else going on. Lost some weight over summer where I was, literally, driving 15-16 hours a day. My pickup is in Ohio getting a 5 speed. No more dealing with automatics that crap out… the last one after 21k miles with the hillbilly who did it (the “BEST” guy in the area) telling me “I’d like to help you, but I’m not going to eat it.” I will tell every person who asks not to use this guy. What else? Angus not doing so well.. getting old and fragile.
No, I am not talking about Johnny Depp or Pyrate reenactors (Pyrate reenactors are really just Ren Faire people who drink and say “Arrrgh!” It’s more fantasy than history)… By pirates, I mean scum like these Somali turds who just took a Danish family hostage. Here’s a link if you’re one of the sadly newsleß in Americ: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/piracy What a bunch of shit. Here are some of my edited comments that I had posted at the Sac Bee (edited means I made them readible for you and more apropos)
Pirate Scum
Look… this is dumb. In today’s world, everyone knows about the pirates. However, like typical “free to be me and you” liberal airheads, these folks stuck their heads in the sands of denial and now their kids will probably pay a pretty horrific price for their STUPIDITY! Hey guess what, Denmark is a long way off… not everyone in the world is civilized…
A Solution that still works
On the other hand, this is getting OLD. Pirates still come in the same old ways. They have always been mean, cut throat and nasty (no children, they’re not Jack Sparrow and they are not “rogues”… they’re murdering SCUM). However, something wonderful… the same old solutions to pirates STILL WORK: KILL THEM. DEAD! Hang them like a string of fish from the yardarm of the naval vessels in the area. Dump the corpses back in Somalia where all their friends and families can see and whine, I mean cry, over their deaths at the hands of the big, greedy “civilized” countries.
Causes of this idiocy
Seriously people, there are too many liberal, “feel-good” ding dongs who have allowed this to happen. You DON’T pay ransom. You DON’T beg them. You go and you kill or destroy them and THEN, you display their rotting corpses for their fellow scumbags, I mean countrymen, to see and take note of. See, you then educate these poor, “misunderstand” wretches to know that if they do something heinous like this, they will DIE! As in DEAD, hanging from the yardarm of a ship with their rotting corpses being fed upon by birds and insects. Oh, unless they are Mooosleeem pirates, then you feed them to pigs. Yes, I know, I’m a mean, horrible, icky, non-progressive, aren’t I? You know I’m right!
I need to have a photo of pirate scum hanging from the yardarm of a Naval vessel like a string of dead fish… Maybe I’ll get the time to do that.
Ende
…for us that have to work it. And this week, I won’t get ANY days off. Due to driver shortage, I am working both Saturday AND Sunday… did that last weekend and ended up not having to go to Jessup on Monday… this week, I have to go down there. Oh well, I’ll make it a day… our Head of Maintenance is going to have the mechs put the starter on my pickup!! Cool! I am a bit tired of playing roulette as to whether it will start. When it doesn’t, I have to get out w/ the big screwdriver Kriss loaned me and short across the solenoid–it always shits when there’s a lot of people around watching >:-(
Also, he said I can use their pressure washer, so that will be cool. I want to see if I can get some of the crap off the frame and especially clean up engine area from power steering leak that was there for years before I bought it.
Before bottom was scraped. Needs cleaning and paint now... Wanna donate a gallon of bottom paint?
To the Boat!
I am going to go over and see if I can unbolt the port side forward lifeline stanchion and seal under it w/ 3M 4200… I am told this will help. That and I am going to seal around the main hatch too. That will make it drier. It’s been leaking BAD around that stanchion… I KNOW the deck is all f-ed up there. Gonna suck shit out the butts of monkeys to fix that–I am NOT a woodworking person and it will take that. Removing the decking from below so as not to mess up deck above, then epoxying new in. I know the how’s, but am not really good at this kind of shit 🙁 Maybe I can delay it a bit. Am hoping to find a trailer to bring it home during Winter and find somewhere around here to work on her… Edgemere’s WAY too far for working on it–TWO HOURS, 20 mins. Anyway, one thing at a time.
Need bottom paint and some new lines. Working on getting lines. Then a new battery… So close I can taste it… I want to go sailing. I will have major male PMS if I can’t use her some this year.
And the OBLIGATORY Marsh political message…
Found this for Jim’s blog… I like it. Wish I had it as a T-Shirt:
I do, actually!
Dammit, it took hours of thought and looking at code and tweaking and… well, it came down to trying things. I removed stuff and hit the test in browser button :-0 Finally a bit of Amazon.com code for a friend’s book was doing it. I don’t know why. I’ll dink with it later. At least the website is now working again in the “evyil” internet explorer. I can breathe now…
Not Much Else really
Haven’t done too much on moving the site over to tiny portal for a couple of days — I can’t figure out how to make the different time periods menus show up ONLY on THOSE pages. ‘Tis frustrating when you can’t get it to work. I did mess with my blog’s look here and added another really cool blog to check out (if you are so inclined). I even made new image tags (so they all looked the same — I’m anally-retentive that way). A type-setting geek on the Internet?!? Oh well. I don’t always follow the rules there, but I try to make it look good.
My Poor Boat
I haven’t been down there in over a month — partly due to $, as it costs a lot and we haven’t had it. Also, I have to pay the slip fee — not so much really, but I’m late as someone stiffed ME, thus making me not able to pay it yet. I have a web job or two on the near horizon and hope that will allow me to send some cash his way. I still have to buy bottom paint, some new lines and a bit of other crap yet. Be nice to actually USE my boat this year. Now that I have time off. I sure hope I can get the google ads to pay off. I’ve doubled them (almost triple actually) with this book called “The Adsense Code” — who knows… my goal is $200. per day in ads — we’ll see. :-0
Anyway, I am sure Gaia is missing me. I have work to do on her and want to get her back in the water. I wonder if I put a “Get Marsh Back on the Water” button on r.Net if people will donate 🙂 People are actually pretty cool that way. Just so much to do. don’t care — Ilove sailing and the people are cool. Most are really nice, vs. in some hobbies where all the people do is fight or look to fight or engage in “He said that she said that they said…” crap.
Long Day
Today was the 6th straight day I worked. Not grueling, but it makes you sore. It gets old. I know some people say I’m lazy or some crap, but they can all kiss my ass — I’ve been doing this shit for 23 years now. I have paid my dues IN FRIGGING FULL! I have driven in rain and sleet and dark of night. I have been to more post offices then most people out there and really, it’s not worth it anymore. I am thinking of some kind of animal business. Not one where I can’t take my dog(s), where they feel I need to be drug-tested all the time (it just grates, that’s all). Anyway, I’m off tomorrow and Tuesday. Then work Wed/Thrus. and off Fri (our 10th Anniversary) and then work again Sat. Be nicely broken up and less stressful. Oh how I need Google to pay off :-Þ I need to redo my WWII sections and “ad-etize” them tomorrow. Also, I will then convert the pages to the TP setup. Crap to do. My hands are hurting from typing (been a long time since that happend) and my ass is killing me from the dogshit seat in the jalopy I drive all day (needs the seat cushion swapped w/ the passenger side, but it seems this is on the back burner). For that matte,r the lumbar leaks out quickly and the damn seat frame digs into one’s back. I guess when ye olde truck has 1,317,000+ miles on it, things like that will happen (they’re only 2003 models though)
Atascadero
My home town. I hope things are going well there. Haven’t been for a couple of years. Miss my friends there and I miss the weather. I see it through the Internet. Oh well. Next project after r.Net’s revamp is to redo our Alumni website… Atascaderoalumni.org it’s a pukey orange I’ve grown tired of and I intend to make it a Tiny Portal site like r.Net is going to be. It will help us a LOT!
None
Once is Enough by Miles Smeeton
RiB