I Suck At Cat Ownership

I just remembered something. Skipper needs his second pill. And guess who forgot about that?

Classic me. I forget to give myself drugs when they are prescribed to me. I am actually better at remembering drugs for animals than for me.

Besides, the best drugs are the ones that you prescribe to yourself. Often the drugs the doctor gives you are the boring kind. Antibiotics and what not.

I hate having to take antibiotics. They all say "do not consume beer with this medication". Well hell. What if I want one? TOO BAD! Can't do it! Because somehow beer is the anti antibiotic. It undoes the bacteria killing properties of the drug. Somehow.

But how? I mean, alcohol kills germs right? Bacteria is a germ right?? So therefore I conclude that alcohol would augment the antibiotics. They would team up together, to form some sort of bacteria killing duo. Like The Blue Falcon and Dynomutt.



Or maybe not. This had to be the LAMEST superhero duo in the history of superhero duos, with the exception of Aqua Man and Tadpole. OHHHHH! My super power is that I can swim!!!! Yea, really impressive there fish boy. And fruity.

So anyway, I gave Skipper his second pill late. Or actually early. After midnight. So his "first" pill of today is actually the second pill from yesterday. Ill give him another one sometime in the late morning, and than another one in the evening. Three in one day, but whatever. Ill space them out enough so that all is good.

And this brings us to Friday. Or as I call it "another darn day". Nothing special about it.

The Party Barge

I got something neat in the mail today.

WAY back in December, I volunteered the boat to work the Winterfest Boat Parade. I was a "control boat" and was supposed to do something. I was not really sure what, but I figured it could not be too hard. And it was not. I just had to hang out in an assigned spot and watch the boat parade. Really hard stuff there.

I got an orange flashing light and some boat banners and all sorts of good stuff. I think I am supposed to return all that stuff. But since I had never worked this event before I had no idea when or to whom I was supposed to return the stuff to. So I still have all the stuff. Somewhere.

And then to compound matters even more, I am NOT a Ft. Lauderdale / Broward County person. I have no idea what the hell is going on up there. Where is Commercial Blvd in relation to Sunrise Blvd? Beats me. If not for my truck GPS I would not have any clue. And then there is the traffic. Ah yes the traffic. Unless you leave Dade County at a magical time, the traffic to get north is horrible.

All these reasons conspired to cause me to still have all the stuff.

But volunteering for Winterfest had some side benefits! First off, I was able to check out a new waterway. I got to see Port Everglades from the water, and the ICW up there is not like the ICW in Miami. The waterway is more like a salt water canal with large expensive looking homes all over the place. There are many businesses / bars / restaurants that are on the ICW and are boat friendly and offer docking for patrons to arrive by land or sea. And then there are the many many MANY large yachts.

The crappy part is it is all a no wake / slow speed zone. So it takes forever to get anywhere. I might as well have been in a sailboat. It was that slow.


But I got an invitation in the mail today for the volunteer party. So it seems they have not forgotten about me and my little boat barely worthy of being in the Broward waterway. The parade has big name sponsors, and apparently generates some coin. I suspect this because the party is going to be on Tikki Beach.

So what the hell is Tikki Beach? Why does the one reader I have from Broward County not know where the heck Tikki Beach is? Because Tikki Beach is not a geographic location.


This is Tikki Beach. As you can see it is an ugly old barge, dressed up into what could possibly be the coolest floating party platform on the planet. There are two decks, the upper deck being most visible in this photo. The barge is 100 feet long, and has a beam of 30 feet. In relation to my boat, if you took out all the bars and tables and tiki crap and stuff, you could fit 30 of my boats on board. 15 on each deck.

This is one massive party barge that is not playing games. You want a floating party platform? This is what you need. No question about it.

It seems that volunteering to trailer the boat to Ft Lauderdale so I could help with the parade thing was a wise thing to do.

Power Outage (And Beer)

As you may or may not know, the only thing I resolved to do this year was drink slightly more. Not much, just a little. Each month I shall have at least one beer I have never tried before.

And so this month, I got a Sierra Nevada ESB - or Early Spring Beer. This is a seasonal offered by one of my favorite American breweries. I am a big fan of the Sierra Nevada line. The Pale Ale and Porter are both good. The pale ale is a bit on the hoppy side, so you have to like beer balanced more on the hops side than the malt side. The porter is just good all around. I can not remember trying any other selections from Sierra Nevada.

The stuff is made in California. I am in Florida. I am not exactly close to the brewery. The pale ale and porter seems to be somewhat easy to find here, but the other selections are not so easy to track down.

So anyway, this stuff is pretty good. It has a good color, and enough hops to make it something I would like. It is a bit "heavy", or at least that is how it felt. I do not think this would be a very good hot weather beer, but it works for this time of year.

That takes care of the new beer for this month! So far this resolution thing is going along well enough. I think I can manage to keep this up all year. This will be the first resolution in the history of the universe (all billions of years of it - the universe is not 6,000 years old) that I was able to keep. Assuming of course I keep it and do not forget about it one month.

I almost forgot about this month. But it is still February so all is good. I am still sticking to my resolution.

Compare this to whatever resolution you made? How is that going?

So what did we learn here? Make easy resolutions.

Not really too much more going on here. EXCEPT FOR........

The great Florida power outage of 2008. I was pretty much at ground zero for this. Well not exactly. I was 56 blocks south of ground zero. See there was this sub station that somehow had a fire. This set off a chain of events that resulted in a wide area black out.

The chain of events involved one sub station going dark, which caused a decrease in the energy demands, which caused the power plants to detect an excess load, which caused them to shut down. This of course caused other sub stations to go dark. In no time at all - and without humans doing anything - a good deal of the State was dark.

The system was designed to work this way. Reports of a "failure" at the nuke plants was just incorrect. There was no failure, except for one part of one sub station.

Traffic here sucks enough when the traffic lights are working. You should see how bad it is when the traffic lights all go dark.

Madness. Pure madness.

I Have No Idea What Is Going On

They say TV makes us lazy and stupid. Of course, "they" are never wrong. And nobody knows exactly who "they" are. What I actually think is going on is that when YOU want to make some shit up and pass it off as credible, you just attribute whatever you are making up to "them" or "they".

Like this one. They say that beer is good for you! And this one - they say that most car accidents happen when you are in an intersection, so the faster you drive through the intersection the safer you are because the faster you blow through an intersection the less time you spend in it.

And so on. I could go on and on here. "They" say a lot of shit.

But seriously, television is a pretty lazy form of entertainment. You do not have to actively listen to or watch it. Like now for example. The TV is on, but I am typing this post. Am I actively watching the TV? Hell no. It is some "beach patrol" show. Do I need to watch it to know what is going on? Hell no.

So today I bring you some entertainment that requires active listening. A very short radio play. And so now, without further delay, I present to you this very short feature from Radio Theater Of The Mind.

See you had to use your imagination there! Which is probably a good thing.

In other news, I have neglected my playlist. A few songs do not work anymore. Bey hey - for the price I am paying for the playlist thing (NOTHING AT ALL!!!) I can not complain. Anyway here is what does not work as of right now.

Chasing Cars (Snow Patrol), Cherry Bomb (Runaways), TV Party (Black Flag), Kill The Poor (Dead Kennedys), Big Yellow Taxi (Counting Crows), Jenny (867-5309) (Tommy Tu Tone), Apeman (The Kinks), Photograph (Def Leppard), Substitute (The Who), Dark Blue (Jack's Mannequin), Patience (Guns N Roses), and My Own Worst Enemy (Lit).

I need to do some playlist maintenance.

This reminds me of my Rolling Stones joke!

What is the difference in The Rolling Stones and The Scottish?

The Rolling Stones say "hey you, get off my cloud" and The Scottish say "Hey McCloud, get off my ewe".

Just a little bestiality humor for you there. I knew you would enjoy it. I would say that you could substitute any nationality in place of "Scottish" but you can't. It just would not work. Not many people in say China named "McCloud" or "McLeod" or however it is spelled. So sadly, this one only works for the Scottish.

I got another pirate joke too. Feel free to steal this one.

What is a pirates worst nightmare? A sunken chest and no booty.

I am not sure if I have used that one here.

SKIPPER UPDATE!!!!!!!!!

Skipper seems to be OK. He does not even need the soft stinky food. He can eat the dry stuff. Crunches it right up. No problem. So I conclude his mouth is not sore. He has 6 more days of pills to take. He does not like getting pilled. Yes, "pilled" is a valid word. It is a verb and describes the act of giving a pill to a cat. Examples of its use are "I have to pill the cat" or "I pilled the cat and got bit and that is why I have to go to the hospital because there is this pink line going up my arm and it may be blood poisoning".

But anyway, Skipper is much better. No more fish hooks.

Skipper's Stitches

Cats like to play with danglie things. Everyone knows this. Dangle something in front of a cat and it gets attacked.

This is Skipper in a cat carrier thing. Now why would Skipper need to be in a cat carrier? Well you can click on the image and see the full size version. The full size version is 2 or 3 megs, so it may take some time to download - but it is big. Or you can just look at the second photo.

What you see here is a 6/0 fish hook, lodged in Skipper's mouth. It seems that the rig was hanging somewhere, and Skipper found it. Now attached to the hook was some heavy monofilament line, which got stuck on things when Skipper freaked out and ran around knocking stuff over.

The pressure on the line set the hook. The barb was buried in the corner of Skipper's jaw. In the soft tissue. I was not going to be able to get it out. Well I could have. But it was going to hurt.

See the standard procedure for getting a hook out is to push it through then cut off the barb. This hurts like hell. But it is the only way. If you pull out the barb then you do more damage. I have had to do this to myself on more than one occasion. It hurts like hell, but when at sea you do what you have to do to get the fish hook out of your finger.

Rum helps.


This gives you an idea as to the situation. The above photo was taken while waiting in the lobby of the 24 hour emergency vet, because of course this had to happen on Sunday at around 7 PM. By the time this photo was taken Skipper was fairly calm. I do not think he was in that much pain anymore. The first photo was taken at home right before I loaded him into the vehicle to go to the vet. The second photo was taken right after I had cut the line tied to the hook, and he was a little more freaked out. The line was heavy so I had to put some pressure on the line to cut it. That could not have felt good. But once the line was cut, the hook was not as painful. I figured that Skipper was not in too much pain because he was not in his carrier, and he was not making noise or trying to bite the crap out of me. He was behaving very well in the waiting room, gaining much sympathy from the chicks working there and causing them to give me the "you suck at cat ownership" look.

Like I wanted the cat to attack my fishing rigs. I thought I had all those things put away.

This is Skipper on the vet examination table, waiting for the staff to bring him some sleepy kitty liquid. As you can see, he is calm. Nobody is holding him here. He was just hanging out, looking a little spooked but remaining calm. The vet had already taken a look at him and asked why the hell I have "shark hooks". Dude - those are not shark hooks. Shark hooks are much larger. What we have here is a fairly standard hook for deep water fish such as dolphin, tuna, mackerel, and so on. I pointed out that it is actually a good thing that the hook was that size, as I do have much smaller hooks for catching bait. Had Skipper got into one of my sabiki rigs there would be 6 or 8 small hooks on one line. That could have been ugly. Or he could have swallowed one and got "gut hooked" which would have been REALLY nasty.


This is Skipper right after getting the sleepy cat shot. The sedation consent forms are in the background. While I was signing them Skipper jumped up on my shoulder. He likes to do that. Shortly after this picture was taken, Skipper was zonked out.

But there is a happy ending to all this!


This is the last photo in the series. Notice the lack of any fish hook. It is gone. That spot is where the stitches are. Skipper got three stitches out of the deal. He was still groggy when this one was taken. I was waiting for his OK to be discharged. The vet had to take him into the surgery room and push the hook through Skipper's mouth so that the barb was exposed. Then you cut the barb. At that point you can just pull the rest of the hook out as it is just smooth metal.

Exactly the same thing you do to yourself if you get stuck by a hook. Only when you do it to yourself on a boat, you do not get any drugs. And if you need stitches too bad. Either grab a sewing needle and some fishing line or just bleed till you stop bleeding - or apply first aid methods to stop the blood flow.

And if you do this on my boat I will ask you to kindly bleed over the side of the boat. I do not want that mess on my deck, or leaking into the bilge. Plus your blood may attract more fish! So yea, bleed over the side - or do not bleed at all.

But Skipper got excellent medical care. Which was good. I can explain to a person (or myself) that "this is going to hurt, but it is the only way to get this thing out". Can't do that to a cat. Skipper may have freaked out and bit the crap out of me, or squirmed and caused unnecessary tissue damage.

So how big was the hook exactly? This big.

This is the actual hook. For some reason the vet gave it back to me. That thing next to it is a quarter, so you can get an idea of the scale. I still have the hook.

Skipper is feeling a lot better now. I bought him some canned food because I expect his mouth to be a little sore for a few days. He may have trouble crunching up the dry food.

The whole incident only cost $185. Most of this was for the emergency visit. The emergency visit / exam was $105. The "exam" only took 30 seconds because it was CLEAR what was wrong - there was a large fish hook in the cat's mouth. No tests were needed, no x-rays had to be taken. In the history of the universe, that was the quickest $105 ever made by anyone. The rest was for the sedation medicine, the hook removal fee (was this coded in the computer???? How often does this happen???) and the antibiotic pills.

I expected it to be more. But what can one do? The hook had to come out. The vet could do it with a lot less stress to Skipper than I could. And even if I had done it myself there is still the issue of infection and the need for antibiotics.

Skipper feels a lot better. He is over here now, informing me that he wants more of that canned food. He seems to like that horrible smelling stuff.

Gigantic Nautical Flea Market

If you are going to be dumb, you have to be tough.

Friday night I was doing my usual Friday night thing. This involves hanging out at a boat club. There may or may not be beer drinking going on at the boat club.

I got asked a strange question. Usually I go up to the bar and obtain a pint of Sam Adams or Old Thumper or something. But I had a slight change-up. The bartender asked me if I wanted a free Presidente.

Now normally I do not drink Presidente beer. It is not awful, it is just not the style I prefer.

But when you throw in the word "free" things change. Of course I want a free Presidente! Hell yea. Free beer is the best of all beers after all. If its free its for me. Freedom Beer. And so on.

Now as usual I closed down the bar. The bar at the club closes early anyway. By midnight it is closed. Sometimes earlier, as it depends on when the members and/or guests all leave the joint.

But the night was not done! Oh no! I was invited to get on a boat and go somewhere. Who knows where. I thought we were going to another boat moored out somewhere to hang out for a bit then return to the docks, because the bar was closing and there was more booze elsewhere.

Of course I also knew that I was supposed to be up "early" to go to the marine flea market in the Keys. But then again, I was going to get to take a ride on a 37 foot Tiara with triple outboards. At least I think it was a Tiara. Who knows. I was not really paying much attention. I just knew it was a nice ass boat, it was going somewhere, and if I wanted on then it was all good. So I get on and off to destination unknown. I figured that where ever the boat was going, it was probably going to be more fun than going home. With no way of knowing when the boat would return to the docks, no clear picture on where the boat was going, and no way to know when or if I would even get home that night, I had to male a choice. But there were chicks on the boat, so the choice was not too terribly difficult to make.

As it turned out, the boat and everyone on it was going to some lounge on the beach. I had no idea that that I was going to be doing this, so I was not exactly dressed for a beach club. I was in jeans, a free Sea Tow shirt I got at the boat show, and Crocs. But they let me in anyway. This particular club is off the main club path, but still known. It was full to capacity and stuff.

I guess when you arrive on a very expensive boat you are viewed differently and you get into places even if you look like a bum.

Long story short, 4 pints of Guinness later I get home at 6 AM. Maybe it was 6:30 AM. Whatever.

I made it to the flea market anyway. I took a nap in the back of the vehicle on the way down there. It is good to not be the driver sometimes.

I did not get much stuff. Just a reel for a rod that was lacking one. The reel is an Okuma Magda Pro 45DX trolling reel with level wind and a built in line counter. The spool will hold 430 yards of 25 pound test monofilament. The thing was only $45 even which is only a little less than what they cost from online retailers. But there was no tax and no shipping and crap, so it was an OK deal. The question mark regarding this reel is how well it will hold up and function. The other two conventional reels I have are made by Penn. I have a Penn Senator 113H and a Penn Seaboy. Penn reels are good, and more than $45 new. And the reels I have do not have a built in line counter or a level wind system. So maybe it holds up and maybe it craps out. I do not do a lot of heavy duty fishing anyway, so I think the reel will be OK for my use. Now if I was running a charter boat and going out almost every day or I was a tournament guy then I would not expect this reel to last too long. But for me and the way I use stuff, I should be ok. I do not need top of the line stuff. I can not afford top of the line stuff. Some of these reels cost a grand or more. $50 is more in my price point range.

And then after the flea market I went someplace for lunch. I found this tourist trap dockside place. There was some guy selling fish prints done in the Japanese Gyotaku style, another guy selling trinkets and shit, and some other Keys Character selling hats made from palm leaves. The guy was asking $50 for a woven palm leaf top hat. He claims it takes him about an hour to make one. His materials are free as palm leaves are all over the place. I did not see anyone buying stuff, but when I left I did see some tourists talking to the dude about the palm bowls he had on display.

And finally, I saw this thing. How could you not notice it?

Take an old probably crappy center console boat, rip out the center console, dress the hull up with plywood, get some car parts from the junkyard, and some old wicker chairs / folding lawn chairs and this is what you come up with. A tour charter boat that tourists will pay to get into.

Fun Fun Fun

I love fun. Fun is...well....fun!

So today I have to get an early start. I got things to do. Fun things.

First on the agenda is unhooking the boat from the truck. This involved raising the carport thing the boat lives under. The new top does not exactly fold down like the old top did. So the carport thing has to come up. Then the boat needs to be moved under it.

That should not take too long. I only need to raise the carport another foot or two.

And then after that, I have to continue my research project! This will involve going to the phantom building and asking for documents. And then off to the big tall building to ask for more documents. I have to uncover further proof to support what I already believe to be true.

And then I have to bundle it all up and seek out someone who can explain it all. As in why did event A happen when my research suggests that event A was in violation of the rules. I mean, rules are rules right? So why were they broken? Or were they broken at all? In either case, I just require an explanation as to the whole matter.

If event A was in violation of the rules, then I want to know how it will be corrected.

I suspect that event A was somehow in violation of the rules. This is based on what I have uncovered already. I think. I am not really an expert in such things. But a stronger indication is that a simple request I made asking for some stuff in writing was not honored. If there was no wrong doing, then why the stalling on the document I asked for? Why not just put it down on paper and send it to me?

Saturday will be more fun. Saturday is the 13th Annual Upper Keys Rotary Gigantic Nautical Flea Market at Founder's Park MM 87 Islamorada Florida Keys. I like this flea market. There is usually some good stuff here.

I am looking for an electronics box to mount under the new T-Top I just got. I have an electronics box now, but it is fiberglass and may be too heavy. The guy who made the top for me knows his stuff and said he would not mount that box on the top. So I want to look for a plastic one. I can sell the box I have now for more than I bought it for. It is brand new and was never mounted anywhere. It is worth at least $450. I got it for $180. So I can sell it for $250 or even $300. I also need one more reel for a conventional rod I have. It needs a reel. So I either need to buy another reel or sell the rod. I also need an all around white light for the boat that mounts on the T-Top. And of course, I am always looking for fishing gear. I get most of my gear at flea markets because there is a big savings involved.

The House

So today was a pretty normal day. Well sort of. I had some alterations done to the boat. Nothing major, just a little tiny configuration change. You will probably not even notice, the change is so slight. But here are some before and after photos anyway. Like I said, the change is not very obvious so you may not notice any difference in the photos.

BEFORE
And after.........


To the untrained eye, it may seem like the same boat. And it is. But there is one little tiny difference.

Anyhow, other than the boat configuration change it was a fairly normal day. Then someone calls me and asks if I can help move a pool table.

Aw hell. Here we go. Let me guess, you need a truck and/or flatbed trailer right? WRONG! The caller already has a U-Haul truck rented till tomorrow. Nifty. And what the hell? Ill go help move one little tiny not at all heavy pool table. Why not. I have nothing else better to do.

So I go over to their place and get into another car for the drive to meet the U-Haul truck at the pool table location.

The House.

I get there and I notice something strange. The owner is not there. Some other person has the keys, and the pool table, which is not at all heavy, is in the garage.

Except that pool tables ARE heavy. The playing surface is felt over slabs of slate. You can not really move a pool table without taking it apart. There are people that do this. You can do it yourself, but you have to be careful and know what you are doing. Otherwise the table can be damaged.

And to compound issues, this is a cheap ass table. Try to pick it up and it started to come apart.

So we just went in the house, under the orders to "just grab stuff and load it up". Well, OK. Whatever. Something about some chairs or whatever.

Hey, I am just the hired help. An order follower.

Once inside the house I notice something strange. There is nothing in there. It was a pretty nice place, but there was nothing in it. And the place seemed to be in disarray. And then I notice that in the kitchen, in the space where there should be a refrigerator and stove - there is nothing.

As it turns out, someone bought the pool table from the owners of the house. But the owners, for whatever reason, had to boogie out of town. Maybe they were behind on payments. Maybe there was some family emergency that caused them to have to leave. Maybe something else. But whatever the reason, the owners left the USA and will not be back. They left the guy they sold the pool table the house keys and the access card to get into the gated community.

WOW! Free house! For $50!!!! Talk about a deal!

The place was gutted. The major kitchen appliances were gone. All furniture was gone. The washer and drier in the garage is gone. All that was left was a little bit of a mess, and some assorted scattered clothing and old shoes and stuff.

The people were not totally evil, they did not damage anything on their way out. No plumbing was ripped out of the walls or anything. The kitchen sink was still there. The counters were still there.

So at this point, I go into search and recovery mode. The first thing I look for is booze. I saw some bottles, I figured there might be other bottles. But alas, all I found were empties. They must have had a party before they left. For a while I got excited when I found a Johnny Walker Blue box, but there was nothing inside. Bummer.

I also found an empty bottle of Ice Wine. Double bummer. I would rather find a bottle of Ice Wine than a bottle of overpriced scotch.

Anyway, I figure that while I am probably already doing something illegal, I might as well make it worth my while. The bank that was going to end up with the place did not want any junk still in there. So as long as I did not damage anything what was the harm?

But there was nothing left. Just some sort of patio table thing, some chairs for it, a folding metal chair, empty bottles, glassware, plastic bags, and loose assorted old clothing.

So anyway, here is my loot!!! In the garage I found two boxes of drier sheets. I was all out of those! So I took em. I also found some laundry detergent. Hey, I am almost out of that stuff too, so in the loot bag it goes! I found a container of Gorilla Glue - which is some good stuff. I found a package of nylon zip ties. I could always use more of those. I found a bottle of spray starch, a container of spray shoe waterproofing, two bottles of sun screen, and some Downy Wrinkle Remover.

I also found a WALL FOUNTAIN! I always wanted one of them. So I took it. I had to cut an electric cord, but that is OK because it was just the cord for a cheap water pump. I can get another at any aquarium store. Or I can splice on another plug. Whatever. The point is I now have a cool (cheap ass) wall fountain. I would never pay even $5 for this thing, but what the hell!

If its free, its for me. That is what I always say. And it was free. It looks sort of like this.


Except this is a nice one. The one I got is the cheap knockoff version of this. But whatever. FREE WALL FOUNTAIN!

So there we go. One more foreclosure house. The people bailed, and this means next month's mortgage payment will go unpaid. So will the utility bills (power and water is still on). It may take a few months before the bank catches on.

Someone is going to get a decent deal on a nice place. They will just have to buy a new refrigerator, stove, washer, and drier. And blinds / curtains for the windows as whatever was there is gone now. New houses normally come empty (with major kitchen appliances), so the no furniture part is not a big deal. In fact, the bank probably would not want all the junk. They would just have to pay someone to haul it all off anyway.

But the handles to all the cabinets in the kitchen are gone. Why they would take those is just strange. I mean, take the handles but leave the cabinets? What the hell? Very strange.

So there. Another Miami experience. I did not find this to be strange, weird, or anything. Just another house with free stuff. No bog deal.

Am I jaded or what????

I can't wait to get my cool new (cheap crappy) wall fountain working!

Oh yea, I also got two plastic clothes hampers. A red one and a yellow one.

In A Funk

Yea I know. I have been missing posts. There are a few reasons for this.

Reason one is POTCO - or Pirates Of The Caribbean Online. It seems I was sucked into that thing. I was able to resist Ultima Online, even though I was a big fan of the Ultima series. I was able to resust Diablo. I was even able to resist World Of Warcraft, which sucked in millions of people.

But I was powerless against POTCO. I am up to level 15 now. My skills (sailing, cannon, pistol, cutlass, voodoo, and so on) are lagging a bit because I concentrated more on quests and less on killing stuff, but there is still time. I think I am at the point where I have to level up my skills in order to finish the current quest.

And the game people finally approved my pirate name, which is Iguana Plunderbeard.

BAD PIRATE JOKE TIME!!!

What is a pirates worst nightmare? A sunken chest and no booty.

It works on more than one level. Think about it.

Reason 2 was a little bit of the funk. I was feeling a bit low. But I feel better now. The Man is trying to repress me, but I am not going to just let that happen. So I gathered up some useful information which I am going to use against The Man is an attempt to make right that which is wrong. Like a super hero. Only no spandex costume.

Speaking of super heroes and costumes and capes and crap - I want to be a Super Delegate! I keep hearing about them on the TV - even if I am not exactly 100% sure what the hell they are.

But I am thinking that surely they get a secret ID and a cool costume! And a cape! You must have a cape! I think they also get to pick their super power.

It would be a lot of fun. My super power would be the power to make everyone loosen up and have fun, using my never ending pitcher of beer.

Strictly Sail

It seems I made it out to the sail boat section of the boat show.

I have never done this before. The sail boat section is on the water, and not very large. In addition to a lot of stuff floating in the water, there are some booths on dry land.

The stuff there is different. Some of the stuff is the same, but a good deal of it is different. There were a few dealers selling solar stuff and wind generation stuff. And there were some cool diesel generators. And I saw this nifty cooler that has a very efficient compressor and works as either a fridge or a freezer. That thing works on AC or DC power and the small one draws only 2.5 amps.

Pretty cool stuff. I could get that cooler and install it in the forward storage area of the boat. I would need to put some vent holes, but that would not be a problem. While the boat is on the trailer, it would run on 110 volts along with the battery charger. Once unplugged from the 110 volts it would instantly switch to 12v battery power.

Why do this? So I can leave beer on board of course. I would not need ice to keep stuff cold. I could bring ice cream on the boat if I wanted to. That would be really cool.

I just do not know if it would be $600 cool. So scratch that idea!

I got a bunch of photos. I will put them up. Soon. Really. I just need some time to resize them and stuff. I am working on it now. I looked at some really really super nice sail boats. Catamarans with a 20 foot beam, 4 staterooms each with its own shower/toilet and stuff.

Anyone got $675,000??? Because if you do, you can get a nice 46 foot cat with all kinds of room on board.

After wasting someones time looking at the really nice boats and them trying to talk to me about financing and payment options and if I wanted the boat to include a chef and captain so all I had to do was eat and get drunk - I moved on to the more reasonable stuff.

I took a look at a few trimaran boats that I could put on a trailer. The tri-hulls consist of a main hull a little on the narrow side, with two other hulls on outriggers on either side. So in the water with the outriggers extended you have a very stable platform. And there is this trampoline type material that stretches from the main hull to each outrigger, so you can hang out over the water if you like.

So now I was down to a $40,000 - $45,000 boat. Getting better! Still a little rich, but a whole lot better than the half million dollar floating apartments I had the sales brochures for.

I kind of feel sorry for the sales people. So desperate for a sale that they would let me on the big boats and then even discuss payment terms. Sad.

Then I moved to the single hull boats. I looked at a Catalina 22 footer, and it was getting even better! Only $20k. And this is new. There are a TON of used sail boats out there. So I can look at the new ones just to get an idea of what is out there, then search for a used one. Small sail boats are pretty simple. There are all of 6 wires for your electrical system, and your engine (if you even need one) is a small outboard. The hull is fiberglass so as long as there are no cracks, holes, or blisters then you are good there.

But I think that the Hunter 25 footer, at only $25k new, is a potential winner. It has a wheel as opposed to tiller steering. This is good because I would not have to control the rudder all the time. With a wheel I could leave the wheel alone and I would pretty much track on course. More or less. With a tiller steering system there is a stick connected directly to the rudder. Let go of the stick and the boat will not track on course. The rudder will turn to one side or the other and pretty much be a pain in the ass.

Also the Hunter 25 has a stand up head. So I could plumb a simple shower and have a place for the three S (shit, shower, shave).

Anyhow, when the time comes I will watch the used markets to see what I can get. If I get anything. I do not really know how to sail. I am sure I could learn, but that is step 1.

My first choice would be a trailerable trimaran weekend cruiser. The second choice would be something similar to the Hunter 25.

Boat shows are cool.

Boat Show 2008

As planned, Friday was boat show day.

What boat show day means is a whole lot of walking around. And a lot of looking at stuff. Not every booth is actually selling stuff, so at a lot of places all you can do is look. Which is good. I get to see stuff so that if I get it in the future I at least know what the crap I am ordering before it arrives here.

Like for example, the LED lights I want to get. Right now I have non-LED lights. They are OK, but they are not cool. In more ways than one. Filament bulbs generate heat. This is one way in which they are not cool. I can actually measure this uncoolness factor. LEDs generate less (or even no) heat. So if I have the two side by side, I can measure how much hotter the standard bulbs get and say that they are a lot less cool than the LEDs.

Second, and less easy to measure, is the other side of the coolness factor. LEDs are the future of lighting. Now I know that with the compact fluorescent craze taking over you may not want to hear that. Well too bad. The CF bulbs do use less energy and last longer than incandescent bulbs, but a LED will outlast a CF bulb by as much as 10 years, and use a lot less energy. Of course, they are not exactly cheap. But if you consider that the average expected lifetime of a LED is about 100,000 hours and that there are only 24 hours in a day - you can expect that even if you left the light on all day every day you would get about 4,166.6 days of use. That works out to 11.41 years.

Nobody leaves lights on all the time. Your actual use may vary. But the bottom line is that you will get more light with less watts - and never have to replace bulbs for a very long time.

And then there is the looks factor. I could install enough LEDs to light the boat up like a Christmas Tree and not have to worry about overloading the switch. Current? Not an issue! The 3 or 4 amps the courtesy lights are drawing now would be enough current to run a whole lot of LEDs. I want to replace the two courtesy lights with multiple color LED (red for night vision, and amber or blue to look cool) and then mount some more lights in the rod holder inserts. I may also want to add some to the top that is going to get put in. Then with a flip of a switch, I will have either red lights for night vision preservation purposes, or cool blue light just because it looks cool. I also want to put some lights below the waterline on the transom, because that attracts fish. And it looks cool.

But there was also stuff to buy. TONS of stuff to buy. Of course, the vast majority of it was stuff I did not need or stuff I did not want. But there was still some cool stuff that I picked up. Like the suction cup mounted thing that can hold lures and leaders and stuff. So now when I go fishing I stick that thing somewhere and now I have a handy place to keep pre-rigged tackle. As opposed to where I have been keeping that stuff up to now, which includes either in t he tackle box that is always under where ever someone is sitting, hanging from the hand held radio holder that is never holding an actual radio but may contain a beer bottle in various stages of emptiness, somewhere on the helm area, or just somewhere on the deck. I also got some nice stainless steel rail mount rod holders that were nicely discounted. They are removable, so if I am fishing can put them anywhere at the bow (where the rail is) or stow them away if I am not fishing.

I also saw actual treasure recovered from the wreck of the Spanish Galleon Atocha. The Mel Fisher Treasure Company people were there, trying to drum up investors. It is a fairly risky investment, but Ill tell you what - it paid off big time for some people. Mel did find the mother load. The Atocha was a 18th century treasure ship, full of gold and silver and emeralds and other gems stolen / looted from the natives of the New World. So there were gold bars, gold chains, gold coins, some big ass cut emeralds, and silver pieces-o-eight, the standard currency of the day. At this time in human history, the treasure plundered from Mexico and parts south made Spain very very wealthy. So Spanish silver coins were all over the place. I entered a contest to win one. It would be cool to get it.

And of course, there were boats. I found the boat based on the mold my boat was made from. Pro-Kat makes it. They call it a 20 foot boat, while the company that made my boat calls it a 19 footer. Whatever. My boat is actually 19.5 feet, so I could call mine a 20 footer too. The boat stood out from the others, because I could tell it was the same one I had. Cats are very distinctive.

Pro-Kat made some changes. I do not really care for the changes they made. They removed the floor lockers (less storage space) and moved the center console forward (less space to move around at the bow). I do not care for that change very much. They also changed the splash well a little. The sides are not as high, and the port hole hatches are different. The good thing there is that the bilges are a lot easier to access - the bad thing is that water would have an easier time leaking in. The Pro-Kat hull has a deeper V than what my version has. My hull is more of a semi-displacement hull, but it will still get up on plane. I am not convinced that this makes too much of a difference, but the sales people claim it does.

I also think my boat MAY be propped incorrectly. According to many people I talked to, I am not getting maximum RPM out of the engine. I get a a little over 5k now, it should be closer to 6k. This may be why I do not get that much speed compared to other boats of the same size and HP. So what I have to do is find a weigh station, then weigh the trailer with and without the boat on it. Then I know the boat weight with the engine and full tanks of gas. Next get a prop guy to bring out a few prop selections. Then load up the boat as I normally use it, which would be full tanks and two or three people. Then see which props allow maximum RPM at wide open throttle without going over that max RPM.

If the boat is over or under propped, then what is happening is that the system is not as efficient as it could be. This will result in reduced speed and/or more fuel used. Propped correctly, I should get more speed out of any RPM range/gas consumption range. The number I kept hearing is that my maximum speed should be closer to 40 mph, where I get about 33 mph now. Not a huge difference, and I rarely go top speed because I like my engine and see no good reason to push it too hard. But it would increase the cruising speed that gives me the best gas consumption from the current 19 - 21 knots to 23 - 25 knots (estimated). In MPH this equates to 22 - 24 mph (currently) to 27 - 29 mph (new estimated best speed).

While it may not sound like much, when I convert this to miles per gallon it will look better.

I may go back Sunday to look at the sail boats at Bayside. That part of the show is free (I think). I have never gone to look at the sailboats.

Benefits Of Research

Yes, research has its benefits. And fortunately for me I have enough research skills for the current task at hand.

I now have evidence. EVIDENCE. Pure, hard, rock solid, crystal clear, evidence. And I fully intend to use this evidence for everything I can get out of it.

It all comes down to a very short, very concise, and very clear sentence.

26.02.01

Now exactly how important this turns out to be, or how far I can run with it, remains to be seen. But I feel a whole heck of a lot LESS depressed right now. Sometimes it pays off to spend some time combing over information that is just out there on the magical thing known as "the internet". This "internet" thing is good for more than free (illegal) music downloads, porn, online games, chatting, shopping, and of course blogging after all.

And I found that use. And I think I may have also found some light at the end of a long tunnel, full of many twists and turns.

I also found some other cryptic numbers of mystery that may also become useful. It is all stored on my trusty USB thumb drive, where it is safe from any computer mishaps.

Today is Boat Show day for me. It will be a very long day. It is almost 6 AM and I am still up. I may get a few hours sleep - but then again maybe not. Ill just fill up my trusty thermos with coffee and hope for the best. No matter what - it is a given that I will be spent at the end of today. I will resemble and talk like Frankenstein - only fewer neck bolts.

If it all works out with the uncovering of 26.02.01 there may be a renaming ceremony for the boat, which is currently named "Seagull".

I am thinking of "Victory". Then I can change my legal name to "Lord Horatio Nelson". Too bad the Seagull does not have a large transom. "HMS Victory" in large letters with "Miami, Florida" written in smaller letters below it would look good on it.

The real HMS Victory, the flagship of Admiral Nelson - one of the greatest Navy commanders that ever lived in dry dock at Portsmouth, UK. One of these days, I will step foot on board this magnificent ship - the last of her kind remaining. Wonderfully restored to her original 1805 "Battle of Trafalgar" glory days.

Although HMS Victory is the oldest commissioned ship still in service (she is still commissioned as the flagship of the Second Sea Lord) the USS Constitution (built a scant 30 years after Victory) is the oldest commissioned ship still afloat. I want to go to Boston and see her too one of these days. You can bet that if I win a drawing to be on board the USS Constitution during an underway demonstration, I will do whatever it takes to get to Boston. Including but not limited to selling a kidney on the black market.

Feb 14

According to the calender, it is the 14th. So you know what this means right??

The Miami International Boat Show opens today. Today is the "preview" day for the mega yacht / large boat people. Tickets are extra expensive, but there will be special events at the boat dealer booths. Champagne and shit. Because today is the day for the champagne and shit crowd.

I will not be there. Today is not the day for people like me. So far the plan is to hit the place up Friday. I like to go to look around at all the stuff that I can not afford and/or have no place for on my boat. Like radar equipment. And waterproof LCD HD television sets. And larger boats. And wave runners. And so on. But not all the stuff is stuff that I can not afford. I usually end up picking up some odds and ends.

What?? You expected me to mention some other event?

My Twisted Idea Of Funny. Oh Yea And Privacy Invasions.

I thought I would alert you to this massive invasion of privacy. In yet another largely unpublished and not talked about "homeland security" measure it seems that all drivers licenses have been digitized and placed in a national database. Awesome huh? Do you feel safer already just knowing about it?

I do.

Anyway, some no good "civil liberties" champion did a request for public records thing and so the database is now online. I can only guess this was done so we the people notice it and get all pissed off and stuff. Hey just in time for election season 2008!!

So, feel even safer than you did before? Well I do! I feel so safe I think I will start leaving my truck running in parking lots with the doors open.

Anyway, I know you want to see this database. So here it is.

http://www.license.shorturl.com/

Expect to hear about this one on the news. I can not imagine it will stay buried.

And in other news, ever wonder what it must be like to be a triage nurse in the emergency room? The triage nurse is like the maitre d' at some hoity toity way too fancy for the lights of me eating establishments. You know, the asshole who was appointed to me master of who eats when because some other asshole died. Regular people have to wait and HOPE that some "important" person does not come in and steal the table.

Well the triage nurse is kind of like that. They decide just how fucked up you are, and allocate emergency room resources accordingly. So if they decide you are only mildly fucked up, you may wait for days. Or at least several hours. Meanwhile as you are sitting there in pain you can watch the parade of the less fortunate parade past you into the room where they give you drugs to make the pain less painful.

Until you start to puke. Unless you start to puke, bleed, defecate in the triage station, or otherwise make some sort of horrible very unpleasant mess you get NOTHING.

This kind of happened to me once. I burned my hand. As I recall, most if not all the skin was not there anymore. It was a really good 2nd degree scorch - the most painful kind. So I go to the ER and they take away the large cup of ice water that was keeping the pain away. But they took it away, because it was "unsanitary". Well shit. Excuse me for not giving a rats ass about sanitary. I thought this was the USA! Just give me some sort of antibiotic and let me keep the water.

In exchange, they gave me one chemical ice pack. Thats it. One pack. So I activate it and the chemical reaction gets it cold. But the cold was short lived, and in no more than 30 minutes it was not cold anymore.

The barbarians would not give me another one. Or ice. Or anything. I was told to "just sit there and we will get to you as soon as possible".

A couple of hours later and I could not take it anymore. So I puked in the plants.

THEN I got help. As soon as I was not just sitting there quietly waiting my turn like a civilized person, but instead was making a horrible disgusting mess that someone had to clean up - I get help.

And what do they give me? A pan full of ice water. BASTARDS! That is all I wanted in the first place!

They also gave me a pill. They gave another pill to my mom who insisted that she drive me to the blood letters. They told her not to give me the pill but I got it anyway. Then I got the bucket of ice water, and then finally a shot of some sort of liquid pain medication. That was pretty much the end of the pain caused by the burn.

Why I had to wait hours for it is still a mystery to me.

Anyway, I got massively sidetracked here. I wanted to say that it would be amusing to hear the stories told to the triage nurse. They ALWAYS ask "how did this happen". Well what do you say? You come into the ER with something stuck up your ass - and they ask "how did this happen". Well you can't just say "I don't know" because of course you know.

So, with this in mind - wonder what story this dumb ass came up with to explain the third degree burns on his bare ass.

http://hidebehind.com/153F8E

Whatever the story was, I would not believe it. Unless of course the story was the truth. "Funny story! You see I thought I would stick a bottle rocket in my ass, and then have a friend light it! Man it was going to be funny - till it all went horribly wrong".

Well good news retard in the clip! It WAS Funny! I laughed.

Addiction

So, you want to be a pirate huh?

Well guess what? I found a way where I can be a pirate in a multi-player online game. As it turns out, the Disney people decided to create an online game to promote their "Pirates Of The Caribbean" movie enterprise. I guess this means there will be more movies.

Anyhow, in the game you get to do pirate stuff. Like attack Royal Navy soldiers and ships. And fight other assorted creatures, ranging from the undead to giant crabs and insects. And then there are the quests. Some are game related, and some are just extra quests that you take on for fun and profit.

Of course the TV ad says "play for free online". So what that means is that it is NOT free. Oh yea you can play on the first few levels, but that is it. After that you need to fork over the bucks. Otherwise you can only have the crappy weapons and ships. And there are only so many quests you can go on. But by the time you hit the point where you can not get any further unless you get an account and pay up it you are hooked.

I kind of see how the whole World Of Warcraft thing happened now.

Now the game interface needs work. It is buggy, and it also freezes up. Part of this may be the computer I am using. I think it meets the minimum requirements, but I am not sure. It has a 1.5 gig processor (game requires at least 800 mhz) so I am OK there. The game requires 1/2 gig memory, which is exactly what I have. So I am OK there but as usual I could ALWAYS use more memory.

The big question mark is the graphics card. Do I have at least a 32 meg graphics card? Got me. Maybe I do and maybe I don't. So this could be where the freezes come from.

Or maybe the game interface still needs work. Who knows.

But I have a plan to double my memory for FREE. The Toshiba laptop is unreliable. I have almost everything backed up on it. So.......once I get a few more things off it (mostly my email) then I can LOOT the memory out of it and see if it fits into the other computer I borrowed. If so, great. I got me some free memory, which may help the game run smoother.

If not...then PLAN B! See I am not 100% sure if the problem is hardware related, or some sort of virus. So I want to experiment. I do not know where the heck the restore disk is for the Toshiba. If it turns up I can format the HD and reinstall from the CD.

But then I will need to download a billion Windows updates. The Toshiba was bought before SP2 was released. So I have A LOT of updates.

So I was thinking....why not run Linux? I mean, it is free. Or at least really cheap. I can format the drive and install some version of Linux. BYE BYE WINDOWS! Don't let the drive bay cover hit you on the ass on your way out.

I have decided the next computer WILL be a Mac. I just wish they were not so expensive compared to a PC.

But the good news is that Best Buy sells Macs now. So all I have to do is wait for there to be a sale, where if I use a Best Buy credit card I get some crazy period of no 0% interest if I buy a computer priced more than some amount. And the Mac will be above that amount. Then I apply for instant credit (I lost the old BB credit card and asked for another one but they never sent it to me which was a stupid move because I was always using it to get double reward points and shit).

And after that - so what if it takes a year to pay the thing off? I am not paying any finance charges. All I do is figure out how much I have to pay each month to pay off the entire balance a month before the 0% deal ends - then set the bank automatic bill payment thing to fire off that amount. No sweat. I never even have to write a check. And I can not forget to pay a bill and activate the charges, because the bank automatic pay thing remembers for me.

Technology.

But in the mean time, I am thinking about paying for a one month full access pass the Pirates Of The Caribbean game. They are having a special. $5 for the first month. Hey - why not. That only works out to about a pint of beer anyway. So I drink one less pint. No big deal. I will not even notice.

Disney gets more of my money, I get a better pirate ship and more weapons! Everyone is happy.
I am Lazy Iguanabeard. That is my online pirate name. The Disney people rejected "Lazy Iguana" so I added the beard suffix to make it more pirate like. If they reject that I will use "Robert A. Iger Is An ASSHOLE!".

I suspect they will reject that pirate name too, because Robert A. Iger happens to be the current Disney CEO. He makes the big bucks, but does he design a single attraction? NO! He is like a pimple on your forehead. Your hair covers up up so you do not pop it because then it may bleed and the skin around it may turn red causing people to notice it - so you leave it alone. But you wish it were not there.

www.piratesonline.com is where the action is at.

Nautical Adventure

What a day Saturday was!

First, I get up later than planned. As usual. I do not know why I even bother to set an alarm. I know I am not getting up. I know this when I set the alarm. But I set the alarm anyway.

Then after hitting the "shut the hell up" button on the phone (my cell phone serves as the alarm clock) about a dozen times, the phone rings. A friend of mine can not make the boat mission that was planned for the day. Oh well. Now there is really no need to get up.

But the I think why not go out anyway. Screw it. I wanted to run some gas out of the starboard tank anyway, so I could replace it with fresh fuel and stabilizer.

See the boat has two tanks of equal size. The port and starboard tanks. Each tank has a shut off valve. If both valves are open, then the engine can draw from both tanks. But one fuel line is shorter than the other, so the engine feeds off the port tank first. So what I did was turned the port tank off, forcing the engine to draw from the starboard side.

Speaking of valves - am I the only one that wants to reach into the TV and strangle idiots on Wheel Of Fortune who say "I would like to buy a valve"?

NO YOU ASSHOLE! You can not buy a valve! This is not the fucking Home Depot you ass munch! You instantly lose, get your ass off the set NOW! You should have paid more attention in the first grade when the teacher told you about VOWELS! VOWEL! Not valve! You are sofa king we todd ed.

That is what I would say if I were the host. This is probably why they will never let me be the host. It drives me crazy. VOWEL! It is not a hard word to say.

I suppose I could always say "yea, you can buy this valve right here for $50 CA$H out of your pocket" and then hold up some cheap ass plumbing valve fitting.

Anyway, what the hell was I talking about? Oh yea, the fuel system on the boat. Two tanks, one engine. Two shut off valves.

So I managed to burn off about 14.5 gallons. The tank holds 27.5 gallons, for a total capacity of 55 gallons. I do not do a whole lot of running, so the last few trips out only used a little gas. Like 4 - 7 gallons. Running at the best speed for fuel economy I can get at good 4 nautical miles out of a gallon. The only thing that beats that is a sailboat.

But today I found myself running a little faster. See by the time I got up, decided to go out, loaded up the gear I planned to use, got more frozen shrimp in case I wanted to fish, and arrived at the ramp it was close to 3 PM.

And of course, the dark storm clouds were visible. Everyone else who was smart was heading in and leaving when I arrived at the ramp. I was the only idiot putting in. I get the boat in the water, park the truck and trailer, prepare the boat to leave, and then the cold wind blows. So I think to myself, "if I am going to be dumb I have to be tough" - then head off.

The cold wind ALWAYS means rain. It feels good on a hot summer day, but this was not a hot summer day. It was a mild winter day. Not hot, not cold.

Now I know what must be done. The clouds were to the north and west of my position, moving towards me. So clearly, I had to make way to the SOUTH. Where the clear sky was.

But the ramp area is all some sort of slow speed no wake zone. And then there is the manatee zones. Really - if manatees are so darn endangered, then they need to be in ZOOS! As opposed to Biscayne Bay where they get in the way of boats and get run over, damaging valuable boat engines and propellers and stuff. I have never hit one, but I have seen a few that I avoided.

So anyway, I head south. And I start to get rained on. So I take the Bimini top out of the boot and quickly open it, thinking the light sprinkle is about to get worse.

But as it worked out, it was all OK. I cleared the slow zone in time to pick up speed and avoid the worst of the rain. It was cool really. I clear the Key Biscayne bridge, and South Biscayne Bay is open to me. The rain is behind me, creeping south at a good clip. I watch the high rise buildings of Downtown Miami vanish. Then I watch the Key Biscayne causeway vanish. Then I watch Coconut Grove vanish.

But I never got wet. I was running parallel to the rain. The rain pretty much stayed over land, and only the very outer fringe got to me.

The whole point in going out was to watch another boat with people I knew on board conduct some sort of training operation with a US Coast Guard "Dolphin" helicopter. That was pretty neat. The chopper hovers really low over the boat, drops a trail line, and attached to that trail line is whatever they want to attach. Could be a rescue basket, could be a hoist strap, or whatever. In this case it was not anything, as it was just training for the air crew and the boat crew.

I got to sit in my boat and watch. Close enough that I could feel the wind from the chopper blade downdraft, but not close enough that I was getting drenched by the mist kicked up from the downdraft. Also far enough away that everyone had plenty of space in which to do their thing.

Rule 1 - never get too close to anyone or anything when in the water. It is a big ocean, no need to get too close.

Still it was cool to watch. I was not the only one. Other boats that just happened to be in the area also hung out to watch the action. Why not. They may not have known what was going on, but they were following my rule 1 and 2. Do not get too close to anyone or anything.

Rule 2 is - AVOID drawing the attention of law enforcement while out on the water. Chances are you have beer on board. And chances are you may have been consuming said beer.

But of course, I forget the camera. Crap! Left it in the truck. So no photos. I am an idiot.

Saturday Post

As you may have noticed, it seems that this week I missed a few days worth of posts.

Well shit happens. And sometimes you step in it. I hate it when that happens.

Not really a whole lot going on here. Sort of. Actually, there is something going down. A war may be brewing. But I can not speak of such things because it may not even be true. And even if it is true, I can not let any battle plans leak. I like to keep my boat with a dry bilge, and leaks let water into the bilge.

In other news, I got more Netflix movies. The Guardian and Watership Down.

The Guardian is an exciting movie featuring boats (mostly sinking boats I would think). Why sinking boats? Because the movie is about Coast Guard chopper crews and rescue swimmers and stuff. No point in having a rescue swimmer jump out of a perfectly good helicopter if there is not a sinking boat.

Of course the rescue swimmer is played by Kevin Costner. I think the USCG has a policy preventing fogies from being rescue swimmers. But whatever. Every movie requires some degree of acceptance of unlikely things.

The other movie is Watership Down. A delightful animated movie about rabbits. But not really. The rabbits are probably symbolic of people or something. But who knows. It is based on a book which I have not read. I will carefully watch this movie in order to glean the meaning of it. Unless the movie is so watered down that it just sucks and really is only about rabbits.

Today I plan to take the boat out. There may be some manner of training exercise going on that I want to watch happen. It will be cool, if it happens. Of course there will be photos.

And then after that, there is some sort of rum party going on that I was told to show up for. You know, if I want to. There will be free rum. So why would I want to go there?

Muzzleloading Madness

I would like to start this post off by mentioning the sillyness that transpired Tuesday.

WHO decided that Obama should be represented with the color "dark blue"? Exactly what are the TV people trying to say here? Dark blue? Very funny guys.

OK there. I got that out of my system. I feel a little bit better now. Twisted as I am I actually thought this was amusing - way back in the Iowa primaries when Obama was dark blue, Hillary was light blue, Edwards was black, and the other guys were green with purple polka dots or whatever. Who came up with that shit???

Not me. I would have picked wacky colors. Like for example "Safety Orange" and "Teal" and "Chartreuse" and "Green metal flake" and stuff. You know, mix it up a little.

This blue/red shit is really stale and boring.

But I did not want to talk about colors and pie charts and graphs and shit. I wanted to mention a comment left by The Fuzz.

The Fuzz is one of a kind. A real live Mountain Man who also has electricity and a computer and internet access. The kind of guy who HAS melted his own lead to cast things. Mostly lead balls that were to be stuffed down the barrel of a primitive weapon and then expelled using primitive propellant.

So this gets me to thinking. I actually own some primitive stuff myself. Not like the lever action rifle I mentioned before. Oh no, I can get much more primitive than that!


This is a Ruger "Old Army" .45 caliber revolver. A six shooter. I have one. Not this one, but one just like it. In fact the only difference in this one and mine is the serial number.

Now this is a beast of a revolver. Someone who did not know about guns would look at it and think "crap that is a big gun". It is made from solid stainless steel and has a 7.5 inch barrel. It is a .45, so the barrel opening looks large. You just know a lot of hot lead is going to be flying out of that hole. It looks like something Dirty Harry would carry.

But the truth is that this is a primitive weapon. It is a muzzleloader. This means it takes about 10 minutes to load. First you have to measure 20 - 30 grains of black powder and dump it into an empty cylinder. Then add some filler (corn meal) so the cylinder is at least 1/2 full. You can also use a circular wad of felt in place of the filler. The reason the filler is important is that there should not be an air space between the powder and the bullet. If you use more than about 30 grains of powder - you do not need any filler. It is impossible to put too much powder in this gun, it can handle any load.

You just CAN NOT use modern smokeless powder. You have to use the old timey black powder. The stuff that makes a large cloud of smoke.

Now what the cylinder is loaded with powder, you have to place a lead ball or conical bullet with a diameter of .457 inches in the cylinder. It will not fit in, so you have to use the loading lever to force it in the cylinder. A small sliver of lead will be shaved off in the process.

Now do that all over again, 5 times. Once for each cylinder.

But you are not done yet! Oh no! See you can have this thing called "chain fire" where some residual powder is ignited when you shoot the thing. There is a possibility that more than one cylinder could fire off, which would be bad. So you have to use some of lubricant over the bullets in each cylinder. I use Crisco because it is cheap and inert.

The Crisco does three things. First, and most important, it makes a horrible mess. Making a huge mess is an important part of the black powder tradition. Second, it lubricates the bullet, which actually means less mess as far as lead fouling in the barrel. And third, it instantly renders any stray powder inert.

Now....YOU ARE STILL NOT DONE loading! No, you have to cap each cylinder nipple off with a #11 cap. The cap is important, because it creates the spark that then creates the bang.

Now you can shoot. But if you are going to holster the weapon because you are in some sort of shooting competition where you pretend it is the old west (these matches are very popular, people even dress in period clothing) you have to rotate the cylinder slightly (the hammer is in the half cock position so the cylinder spins freely) so that one of the safety notches in the cylinder is under the hammer. Then VERY CAREFULLY pull the hammer back just far enough that you can pull the trigger, pull the trigger WHILE KEEPING YOUR THUMB ON THE HAMMER and gently let the hammer fall in a safety notch. Now it is safe to holster.

It is a good idea to practice putting the hammer down in a safety notch before you load it. But if you are going to shoot as soon as you load you do not need to do any of the safety notch stuff. NEVER load and cap a cylinder that is not in the revolver, or remove a cylinder that is loaded and capped from the revolver. A loaded and capped revolver is, in effect, a gun. Drop the cylinder and the chances of an accidental discharge are high.

Meanwhile, at least 10 minutes have passed. If you were really in the old west you would already have been impaled by an arrow or eaten by a bear or whatever.

And when you finally do shoot the thing, you find out that black powder is low power. For a .45 there is hardly any kick at all. Of course the revolver is heavy. The projectile has to be sub sonic. Accuracy is good to about 25 yards. Beyond that you have to adjust the sights to compensate for drop. You have to adjust loads to find the perfect measure. It will not be the maximum load. For me, 20 - 25 grains provides the best accuracy.

The thing creates massive clouds of smoke with each shot. The cloud wafts down the range.

And I also have a .50 caliber rifle. Like this.

This is a Traditions inline muzzleloader. This gun is a really low end model. I paid less than $100 for it brand new. You have to be careful with this because they are known to fire before you pull the trigger. Mine has never done this, but I do not use it much either. In fact I only used it once that I can recall.

It is easier to load. First you pour the powder down the barrel. 90 grains or so is a good starting point. I think 120 grains is the maximum suggested load, but I would have to check the manual to confirm that. Anyhow after you pour the powder down the barrel, you take a lead ball, wrap it in a cotton patch, place it in the ball in the barrel, then ram it down the barrel using the ram rod that comes with the rifle. Then you pull back the bolt (the bolt locks in place) and place the cap on the nipple. There is no "safe" position for this rifle. At least not one you can trust. There is no "safe" way to carry this thing loaded. So once you pull the bolt back and place the cap on the nipple, you are going to need to take a shot.

If you are hunting then you would load the powder in and ram the bullet in place, but you would NOT pull back the bolt and place the cap on the nipple.

Again, although the caliber is large the kick is low. It is fun to shoot. Massive clouds of smoke are created. Not a lot of recoil.

No filler is needed. No Crisco either. Loading times are a lot shorter. An expert can get off up to three rounds in a minute. But I am not such an expert. I am lucky to get a shot off every two minutes or so.

But anyway, I could also cast ammo for these two devices. If I get the electric furnace and molds.
I also found someone with 50 or so pounds of lead that they are not doing anything with. That is a lot of fishing weights. And ammo.

But I never really use the black powder stuff much. The revolver was used two or three times, the rifle once. I do not even know if I have any supplies for the black powder stuff. No powder, no caps, and no bullets.

Mostly Bullshit

How was everyone's Super Tuesday?

Mine was less than super. Just another Tuesday. Nothing much happened. There was one interesting phone call - but that is about it.

You know it was an exciting day when the best you can come up with is "I got one interesting phone call".

But if you are some talking head on the TV, Tuesday was indeed super. It gave them something to talk about. All day.

Needless to say, it was a good time for a TV strike. I just did not really care.

You see, Florida had its primary already. So whatever the outcome turns out to be, nothing changes on my end.

The news is saying all kinds of things. Looks like Obama may pick up more States, but Clinton will still have more delegates. McCain seems to be the big winner on the Republican side. I guess. I am really not paying all that much attention. Can't get too excited over it.

So, what can I get excited over?

Lead smelting. That is what.

My dad likes to collect junk. Now for some reason, and I do not know what that reason is, he has a few dead lead acid batteries. So I get to thinking. I could use more lead fishing weights. Maybe a new downrigger cannonball. And stuff.

So I checked on the internet. I can get an electric furnace that gets hot enough to melt lead. Lead has a low melting point, which is good. So all I have to do is figure out how to turn lead plates into something more useful.

And then it gets fun! First off, I have to break open the battery and collect the acid inside. This is actually going to be easy. Then I have to neutralize the acid. Again - easy. A box of baking soda will work. But there is an even cheaper option here. ROCKS! Florida is made of lime stone. Lime stone will dissolve in acid, neutralizing it. So there. Toss in rocks till the fizzing stops. Then pour the liquid into a small plastic or glass container, and toss it in the trash.

No, the fun part will involve the lead plates. You see, chances are good they will be heavily sulfated. Lead sulfate is what kills batteries. Now if the batteries are deep cycle, then the lead plates are more "solid" and the sulfate will only be on the surface.

Auto batteries, or starting batteries, or high current batteries have a lead plates that resemble a sponge. The many holes increases surface area (and therefore current) but they do not like being discharged as much. The greater surface area also means more room for sulfate to build up.

There is a way to smelt the lead so almost pure lead is extracted. BUT......well lets just say that if calculations and available information are correct - the process could be.....interesting. Can you say noxious fumes? Yea..........

So maybe it is a better idea to leave well enough alone and leave the batteries alone. I can get lead from other sources. Like tire weights. And.....uhhhh.....diving weights. And stuff.

The electric furnace is fairly cheap. I always need fishing weights, and they do cost something at the fishing crap store. It is not uncommon to lose a weight or two when your line snags on something and breaks. So it would be cheaper - in the long run - to get the furnace and molds and stuff.

I just need to find a cheap, not so toxic, source for my raw lead.

Economic Stimulus

It is time to create my own economic stimulus plan. I applied for some supposedly part time position at West Marine. I think it was "assistant manager" or something - but if I hear anything I expect it to be more in the line of "sales associate".

No problem. Whatever. It will just be part time anyway. Income supplementation. I am familiar with almost all marine products there are. I am not that up to par om sailboat shit, but how hard could it be to learn that? Plus sailboat people usually know their stuff, so all I would need to do is show them where the sailboat shit is and let them pick put what they need.

Then charge them the full price for it. And possibly collect commission.

Now West Marine is not always the cheapest place to get stuff. It can be, if the stuff is on sale. And it also may not be the most expensive place - compared to other retail stores. But there are a few locations in town, so they have convenience. That is worth something.

Regardless of all that stuff - there is one thing I will get out of the deal.

Employee discounts! Yes employee discounts! Now here is where it gets interesting. No telling how much stuff I can get this way. The employee discount on stuff on clearance could be a really sweet deal. And since I will be putting the stuff on the clearance table, I get first dibs on it.

Of course, the whole story leading up to seeking part time employment is long and somewhat crazy. I was picked for a full time position, but then someone decided that "you are selected" really meant "you are not selected". So while this gets sorted out I have just kept up with my temporary employment status. But that is getting slack now, so another part time job with somewhat regular, predicable hours will help.

And when the other situation gets resolved - I can still keep the other job. A few hours after the other job, or a few hours on one day off keeps me in the employee discount zone. Sweet.

Boring Post

I got two more Netflix selections in the mail Saturday. And it seems I watched them both. Sometimes I do this. Sometimes I watch the movies as soon as I get them, and sometimes they hang out here for a while.

Case and point - Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas has been here for a few weeks now.

Anyhow I got Futurama The Movie: Bender's Big Score and The Patriot.

Bender's Big Score - if you like the Futurama series, you will probably like this movie. If you thought Futurama sucked - do not bother. As I happen to be a fan of the series I liked the movie. 4 tail whips.

And now...The Patriot. This is one of those predictable formula movies. Some guy does not want to fight, but then some shit happens, and he gets pissed off, decides to fight, and kicks ass. But does the dude get killed in the end? I do not know. The movie is still playing now. I am watching and typing at the same time.

Set in colonial times, it is a fictional account of the Revolutionary War. With Mel Gibson - only this time no blue and white face paint. I think I know which side wins the war even before the movie ends.

Three tail whips. After all, it is a formula movie. I suppose it is hard to make a war movie that is anything else. The final battle scene is starting now. I think the British end up on the short end of the stick.

And now - the climatic end! Will the hero use a flag pole to kill the main asshole, or does the hero get sliced up in a sword fight? Who knows. Either end would fit the formula.

I do not want to give away then ending. As if this is possible. The British do not win the war in the end. OOPS! Might have given the ending away.

But that is about all for today. This is the boring post. The last post was a shitty post.

I detect a pattern here. Lets hope it does not hold.

The Shit Post

Yes the shit post. Or should I say The Shitty Post. Who knows. The point is that there will be a lot of shitty shit covered. Like mayonnaise on bread, only stinkier. And possibly with chunks of corn and peanuts and who knows what else in there.

First up - A NEW DRUG! A shitty drug that makes you shit.

f you're suffering from Chronic Constipation, you know how disruptive it can be. If you’re looking for relief, AMITIZA (ah-ma-TEE-zah) may be right for you. AMITIZA can give people with a type of Chronic Constipation known as Chronic Idiopathic Constipation predictable relief.* (“Idiopathic” simply means the cause of constipation is unknown and not due to an underlying illness or medication.) So talk to your doctor about AMITIZA and follow the tips on this website, and you may find the relief you’re looking for.

OK are we clear so far? If you are constipated and you do not know why, here is a drug you can take to make you shit. Of course if you REALLY want it to squirt out you would just drink some mineral oil. Down some of that stuff and you should not venture more than 5 steps away from the toilet.

So why do we need a shittin drug? What have constipated people been doing up to now? Salad spoons? Ex-Lax brownies? Sit and squat and push really REALLY hard till you either have heart failure or shit?

But now that stuff is old school. Now you can just take a pill!

Now of course, what caught my attention more than anything else was THE SIDE EFFECTS! I love the side effects part of TV drug ads. Yes, I saw this advertised on TV. Ironically enough right AFTER a toilet paper ad. I think I was the only one in the universe to notice this and find humor in it. But now...ON TO THE SIDE EFFECTS!

AMITIZA is not for everyone. If you know you have a bowel obstruction, do not take AMITIZA. If you are unsure, your doctor should evaluate your condition before starting AMITIZA. You should not take AMITIZA if you have severe diarrhea.

OK OK OK! Stop the tape! Did you catch that? It is a CONSTIPATION drug. You take it if you CAN NOT SHIT. So I need to be told "you should not take Amitiza if you have severe diarrhea"?? Really now??? REALLY???? If I have the green apple splatters I should NOT take a drug that will make me shit more???

This is like saying "people who are not missing body parts should not attempt to wear a prosthesis".

And this is not all! There is more!

The most common side effects were nausea, diarrhea, and headache. If nausea occurs, take AMITIZA with food. If your diarrhea or nausea becomes severe, tell your doctor. These are not all the side effects associated with AMITIZA.

The most common side effect of a drug designed to make you shit is.........diarrhea. No shit! You don't say! Now how could this be???

Of course this makes me curious. What is stronger, Kaopeptate or Amitiza? I would not want to find out.

And whatever you do - NEVER EVER give Amitiza to your dog. On a plane.


Really - does this stuff HAVE TO be advertised on TV? I am trying to eat dinner here! I do not want to hear about your shittin drug! It causes me to write this post in my head, while trying to eat, and thinking about the green apple splatters. All at the same time.

You know what I think? I think that the marketing department AND the CEO of drug companies should be FORCED to take part in the clinical trials before they can advertise this stuff on TV. Because then they would know about the side effects.