We awoke to a warm sunny day, ate breakfast and headed into Anacortes. Cap Sante had a Travel Lift (a 60-ton marine hoist) waiting for us, so we coasted in and a really helpful employee rigged the boat and the Travel Lift for the haul-out. The Sanddollar weighs 20 tons; it was really interesting to watch such a large boat being hauled from the water. As soon as the props came out of the water it was immediately apparent what was wrong—the starboard propeller was very obviously damaged. Apparently earlier in the year they hit a buoy chain in the San Juan Islands. They were not aware of the damage at the time but yesterday I was at the helm and my uncle headed into the galley for food and immediately noticed the vibration.
Sanddollar and the haul-out:
The techs pulled the prop and measured the run-out on the prop shaft, which was also bent. Shafts have to be custom-ordered and take weeks, so that option was out. We soon learned of a propeller repair place a few blocks from the marina so my uncle headed up to talk to them about prop repair. Turns out, he knows the owner of the shop. They dropped their other work and started the repair immediately. After removing the starboard prop, Cap Sante dropped the Sanddollar back in the water, now propless on one side, and allowed us to spend the night at the dock, even providing us with shore power. Trenton and I unloaded the two brand new Necky kayaks and we paddled around in the marina admiring the millions of dollars tied to the docks and watching people come and come from vacations of their own. We headed back to the Sanddollar and had pulled pork over potatoes with cilantro and lime, topped with sour cream along with some really nice wine.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
I departed for Seattle late Sunday night and was greeted at the airport by my Aunt, who was smiling and just as ready for vacation as I was. My flight was already a late one, with a scheduled arrival into Seattle at 10:30 p.m., which ended up being 11:00 p.m. as Alaska Airlines was running late on departures out of Sacramento that evening. We headed straight for the boat, I unpacked my clothes into the wardrobe closet, helped load supplies and we slept on the boat that night prepared for an early Monday morning departure. The following morning, August 1, we lined up for our turn through the locks that would lower us twenty feet from the freshwater of Lake Union to the saltwater of Puget Sound.
We had a nice smooth trip heading north between Whidbey Island and Camano Island, passing under the Deception Pass Bridge with the San Juan Islands as our destination. While the sea conditions may have been smooth, the boat was all-but. A vibration had manifested itself when underway, so we headed east through Guemes Channel and dropped anchor on the north side of Saddlebag Island in 27 feet of water. Total trip mileage for the day was 80.8 miles. We settled down for dinner with pulled pork tacos and a beautiful sunset and contemplated our next action. Aunt Christine made some calls and arranged to have the boat inspected the following afternoon at Cap Sante Marine in Anacortes, Washington, only four miles away from our anchorage.
Weather-wise we got a really late start on summer, but I am having a great one so far. The blog has suffered as a result. BBQs, pool parties, live shows, rafting, weekend getaways, home improvement and just simply time at home enjoying very small fruits of my large labor. With the exception of some weekend getaways I have spent most of the first half of my summer in town. I was out of the country for almost half of the summer last year and it feels really good to be home a little more to spend time with friends. My friends are simply amazing and with only a few exceptions (you know who you are), most of them all live in Roseville. Now that I think about it, there was never a time in my life where I had so many friends close by, where it's common for a dozen of us to get together once a week for happy hour, dinner or house parties. We all love our little town so hopefully no one relocates and we can keep our 'good thing' going for years to come.
Last month Hanna and I stayed at a nice bed & breakfast in Moss Landing, situated between Santa Cruz and Monterey by twenty minutes in each direction. The opportunity to go was a very last-minute one, spurred by a call from my sister Jen that her and Joe would not be able to use their reservation that weekend due to a sick cat. We cancelled our plans and headed down without any planning whatsoever. The building was constructed shortly after the 1906 SF earthquake and the inn's keeper and her husband did a complete remodel while maintaining the important historical and architectural detail. We were upgraded to the "captain's quarters," the nicest of the rooms. When the inn's keeper asked what I did for a living, my response was followed by a smirk as she was a former Board Member for my agency, as well as an E.O. for the Department of Fish and Game. Moss Landing has a nice beach and a really cute downtown area with some excellent restaurants, including Phil's Fish Market, which was recently featured on Food Network's Throwdown with Bobby Flay.
Jen and Joe were able to come up and meet us for a hike around Point Lobos Reserve and a walk around Fisherman's Wharf and Cannery Row in Monterey. Thank you two so much for the great weekend! I think everyone knows this but I will be an uncle in mid-September!
The following day Hanna and I went to Santa Cruz, caught the Santa Cruz Beach train which leaves from the Boardwalk and goes up the mountain to Roaring Camp, then returns to the beach a couple of hours later. The train stops in Roaring Camp for long enough to hike a trail through the redwoods and down to the San Lorenzo River.
We followed up with time on the roller coasters at the Boardwalk (the Big Dipper is sooo much fun!) I could get used to living here.
Matt and Renee had quite the blow out party for 4th of July, and they certainly have the right property and house for it. They had bad mitten, ping pong, air hockey, tons of food and a DJ to keep it all lively. Matt and a buddy of his spent $1,300 each on fireworks and guests were asked to bring some as well, so the total estimate was pushing $5,000 worth of fireworks for this party. It was the backyard show that lasted for two hours with at least 5-8 fireworks going simultaneously. Awesome.
This is a bed of a Ford Superduty without the 75+ guest's contributions (the boxes underneath are cases of fireworks):
And here is the wonderful sight, sound and smell of money burning:
Speaking of Matt and Renee, we took a spur-of-the-moment trip over to Swabbie's Bar on the Sacramento River to watch the AC/DC coverband Sin City play. Swabbie's is a greatly fun place and is accessible by boat with tie-ups at the dock. It took forever to get our food because they were so busy, but the band was great and the shrimp and fish tacos were way better than I would ever expect from what amounts to bar food. We had a great time and will go back soon.
A clip of the Livable Design home video is out. I feel funny sharing it because I hate seeing and hearing myself on-video, but oh well, here it is.
Los Angeles is not the first place that comes to mind when I think of great hiking. Hanna and I headed down to visit her parents in La Crescenta; their home backing up nicely to the San Gabriel Mountains. We visited Vasquez Rocks in the San Gabriels for a 5 mile hike. Vasquez Rocks has been featured in quite a few movies including Star Trek and features a unique geology that sets it apart from other parks in the basin like Joshua Tree and Anza Borrego.
Vasquez Rocks, San Gabriel Mountains
We also hiked the beautiful Backbone Trail in the Santa Monica mountains near Ventura. The hike was 6.5 miles with unique rock formations and occasional ocean views. The peak of Mt. Allen is 3,111 ft in elevation and marks the highest point in the Santa Monicas. We chose the Yerba Buena Canyon Road for our return trip, which takes you down to the beach near Ventura.
This hike was actually a back-up plan, we had reservations to take a ferry to the Channel Islands, however strong wind and waves caused the ferry company to cancel all outgoing trips. We tried to book a trip to Catalina Island and was warned they had outgoing ferries however ferries returning to San Pedro from the Island were in danger of being cancelled. Next time.
Backbone Trail in the Santa Monica Mountains:
(Balance Rock in upper left corner of picture)
Thousands of lady bugs
Hanna's Volvo turbo hitting a mileage milestone on the way home, in Wasco, of all places.
I had a conversation with friends this weekend at the Asparagus Festival, and that conversation started with me asking the question, “what have you two been up to?” Their response was, “well, you know, you’ve seen it all on facebook!” And there you have the reason why I very rarely use facebook, it cheapens friendships and the physical time you spend together with friends. I think people feel their stories have already been told online, so why bother to get together in person and share it again? I love feeling intrigued about what my friends and family have been up to and it keeps me excited about seeing them in person. I found when I used facebook that same level of excitement and intrigue was not there.
I have a similar issue maintaining this blog—I want to update it often enough that people bother to check it, but I am also very selective about what I share. You’ll read plenty about some of the projects I am working on, home improvement, things I am thinking about, plans for the future, along with some random photos here and there, but I want to leave the fun stuff for sharing in person. That said, I do love to share teaser photos and I have no plans stop barraging you with those. And one thing I must clarify, I think it's pretty neat to read about someone's amazing trip while they're on it, but I find it much more interesting to read a detailed blog entry than a 1-line facebook post. When I have time on a trip to jot down some notes (usually the case with my trips to Canada), I enjoy knowing my friends are following along and reading about the trip in more detail than I would probably ever provide in person. If this cheapens the experience for you, let me know, but I like the thought of an electronic diary/blog I can look at in the future. I can't say I would do the same with 1-line facebook posts.
Speaking of cheapening the experience, let's talk about birthday wishes. It used to be that the only way to wish a person ‘Happy Birthday’ was to physically be with a person. Then it evolved to cards via mail, then telephone and finally email. Now it is evolving to text messages. As impersonal as the last two are, at least people remembered it was your birthday and thought enough about you to recognize your day. Now, even the effort to remember is not needed as facebook does it for you. I think facebook sort-of cheapens the whole birthday experience, but that’s just me.
There are other things about facebook that annoy me but I will leave those to the words of Mark Granovetter in his book "The Strength of Weak Ties:" "Now, with Facebook and similar applications, we have reached a stage where it isn’t just about ‘having friends’ but ‘appearing to be friends’ not just to ourselves but to others in the network. Such applications then work against us. They reduce what could have possibly grown to strong ties to weak ties because little effort is made beyond connecting over applications like Facebook – it is just that easy. The sadder thing would be if existing friendships become reduced because instead of making the effort to meet up and really talk and spend time together, we put that off because being able to connect over Facebook deceives us by making us feel that the existing state of the friendship is healthy and that amount of interaction is sufficient. Weak ties help spread information to individuals that are not accessible via strong ties. The problem to me is that while Facebook becomes an effective tool to manage those connections with people that are weak ties, it also creates the danger of making more ties weak."
You will still find me post on facebook on a rare occasion, but it’s more likely going to be some funny piece of nonsense that made me laugh on my way to the grocery store. Oh, and next time I post a vacation photo, it will have a fat watermark so my photos aren’t stolen* and sold to photostock!! *-and I must clarify here, to say photos are ‘stolen’ on facebook is totally inaccurate—in the terms and conditions of your facebook account you have agreed that Facebook Inc. has exclusive rights to anything you post—your words, pictures and data sent through any application used through their site. I get a kick out of people's anger when they find a photo of themselves with their friends being used in a marketing piece or hanging on the wall in a model home...It is legal for them to sell your photos to photo databases, which in turn sell your photos to companies for marketing.
I will leave you with this funny piece of facebook commentary:
What's this? It is looking like a video is being produced; utilizing what I described to the team as a scary big camera, a scary oversized microphone and studio lighting everywhere. A cel-phone sized camcorder would have felt less intimidating.
This is a good opportunity to use the photos to reveal the results of my winter projects. In the top photo you will note some new red paint on the walls, new moulding and a fresh coat of white satin paint on the baseboards, you can just barely make out my new black window sills, new curtains that the film crew used to block the natural light, and a little glimpse of new door hardware--oil rubbed bronze door knobs, door strikes and hinges.
Crew setting up:
I love this pic...and check out the cool lighting effect they did on the wall and wine rack behind me:
I am nearly finished with my winter 'light remodel,' and that's just in time for the nice weather we have coming over the next few days. I will share more about the video in 6+ months when it's done.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Before, with light diffuser removed and stud and can locations marked:
Five hours later we had the old ceiling lightbox torn down and the fixtures installed and wired. A sheetrock guy will come and repair the sheetrock under the old fixture.
You can see that the new lights have a warmer color than the fluorescents they replaced, which is an old trick used to make food look better. A guy can use all the help he can get!
I converted the bathrooms and hallway to LED recessed as well. The previous fixtures looked like large mushrooms hanging from the ceiling. The new recessed look:
I use a Blueline Powercost Monitor, which shows how much energy my home is using. Not counting my power-sucking spa, the monitor shows my house used (before the upgrade) a baseload minimum of 300 watts of electricity, mainly from electronics on standby. Turning on my kitchen, bathroom and hallway lights alone would raise my baseload to 700 watts. I can have all of those rooms running full blast now and the monitor shows less than 100 watts above baseload, or basically the same consumption as just one 100 watt lightbulb.
