Promised Photos

I think I remember saying something about pictures from Saturday!! So here are some.

Just to recap - for Christmas I got an Olympus SW790. As far as digital cameras go it is unimpressive. In fact, I got used to a much nicer Sony camera, so going to the Olympus was a downgrade.

BUT the Olympus offers one really cool feature. It is waterproof to 10 feet. There is also a housing that is good to 131 feet. Ill probably think about getting that thing at some point. But not now.

Now being waterproof to 10 feet means I can use it on the surface. No problem. It laughs at rain. It also laughs at spray. This is why I wanted it. It is a tough little point and shoot simple to use digital camera.

So for all those features Ill take a hit on picture quality. It is an acceptable trade off. I am not a photo professional anyway.

So here it goes! The first underwater photos taken with the Olympus camera!


I have no idea what that blurry part in the corner is all about. My best guess is there was an air bubble on the lens or something. What you can see is sand (light areas) some sea fans (they are there) and even a few fish. Reef fish. Probably the fish that stole my bait.

The original photo is much larger. But it is also over 2 megs. So I made it smaller. But like I said before, the camera does not take the greatest pictures but it also does not come with a Nikon digital SLR price tag!

But if it were the original size you could see more stuff in there. Mostly the small fish. Very grainy but you can pick em out.

This is another photo. There are more sea fans and some other soft corals as well. I think there are also some sponges. And small bait stealing fish. But you can see there is more than sand on the bottom. All kinds of stuff.

Now you may be asking yourself - is everything so blue? No. Not really. There is all kinds of colors there. You just can not see it! Water absorbs light. The deeper you go the less light there is. At some point you can no longer see the sun.

But the light is not absorbed all at once! The water filters out all the colors starting with red. Just a few feet underwater and red looks purplish-black. Orange is the next color to be absorbed, followed by yellow, green, blue, and so on.

This is why the deep sea appears so darn blue! The white light enters the water, and by the time it is reflected back all that is left is blue, indigo, and violet.

So this is why the pictures are so green / blue balanced. And this is also why underwater photography gets so expensive. You need a powerful underwater flash unit to provide enough light to bring out the true colors. The weak built in flash on my camera is just not going to do it.

In this photo, the blurry stuff is back! I really have to figure out what that is all about. But the bottom is there! You can still see stuff. More assorted soft corals. Pretty neat.

So all things considered, the camera did well. It is really not an underwater camera, it is a land camera that happens to be waterproof to 10 feet and can work underwater. It does OK for what it is.

And I did not want it for use underwater anyway. I got it because I could use it and not worry if I spilled a beer on it. Or if it rains. Or if it gets splashed. Or if it gets sprayed. Or whatever. The camera would be OK.

And so I can take photos like this.



This picture was taken while I was floating around behind the boat. There was a current running. Not too strong, but not really something I felt like swimming against. So that yellow line you see is attached to my ring buoy. This way I can put one of my legs through the ring, and then I can just hang out and relax. I do not have to exert any effort to swim and the line prevents the current from taking me too far away. And I can pull myself back to the boat using the line so I do not have to swim against the current at all.

And since the camera is waterproof I can jump in with it! No problem.

As you can see, at this moment my dad is not catching anything. But the boat looks sharp! As you can see there is plenty of fishing gear in the various rod holders. Just no fish.

Beer Breakdown

Well I broke down. I could resist myself. The Polish Beer in the fridge was beckoning me. It was all like "drink me.......drink me......". So I did.

I opened something called "Lomza". I think. The "L" looks kind of like a lower case t. In fact the letter is NEITHER a L or a T, it is some other letter that is part of the Polish Alphabet.

From Wikipedia:

Łomża is a town in north-eastern Poland, approximately 90 miles (150 km) from Warsaw and 50 miles (81 km) from Białystok. It is situated alongside the river Narew and has been in the Podlachian Voivodeship since 1999; previously, it was the capital of the Lomza Voivodeship (1975-1998). It is the capital of Łomża County.

As best I can taste, this beer is some sort of lager. It has a pleasant golden color, and is very well balanced. I do not know if it is "malty" or "hoppy". 6% ABV (alcohol by volume) means it has some kick, but not too much. Good stuff.

In other news, Netflix rules even more than it used to. With my account I now get.....UNLIMITED ONLINE MOVIE WATCHING ACCESS! That is right! Unlimited. I used to get 1 hour of online watching time for each buck spent per month. Well now that is UNLIMITED.

I may never get any sleep again.

The GPS gets shipped off for repairs or whatever today. My plan is to insure it for $400 and HOPE UPS destroys the GPS in transit. Loss of the GPS would also be acceptable. Then I can get my insurance money and just buy a newer unit. Heck maybe I can insure it for $5 ,000 and then get an even better GPS and a cool as all hell Humminbird side scan sonar thing with built in GPS and a full color digital traditional sonar. That would rule.

SO.....how about you do your thing UPS? Make the package vanish. See to it that it is never seen again. Ill even leave a fresh crisp un-marked $100 bill in the box for the driver as my way of saying "thanks for dumping this box in the trash burner where it will never be seen again".

I know that if they try hard enough, UPS can totally trash the GPS.

And in other news.......looky here what I found on Craigslist! No, not the boat. THE TOP! Some guy makes these tops for $600. Really good deal here. The tops come with 6 rod holders (which would give my boat a grand total of 18 rod holders, or .95 rods per foot of boat length), two outrigger mounts, four antenna mounts, and 4 light mounts. That is an ass load of mounts. Now why get the T-Top when I already have a Bimini top? Good question. There are many reasons why I would want the T-Top over a Bimini top. For one, I can get an electronics box and mount that in the T-Top, giving me more dry storage for stuff. I could also get a T-Bag which holds life jackets for quick access. The rod holders mean that ONLY the rods I am actually using are in the active holders. The rest are in the T-Top holders or the in the side of the boat rod holders.

The Bimini top may provide more shade. But there are also support poles that attach to the gunwales of the boat. So if you are fishing and need to walk around the boat while fighting a fish these supports get in your way.

But I already have a plan to work around this. Simply make it so that I can put the Bimini top up forward of the T-Top. So if I am just going out to goof off or something, I can have both tops and provide shade for most of (if not all of) the boat. Or I can remove the Bimini top and leave it at home if there is to be a fishing mission.

Or I can sell the Bimini top. It is in excellent shape and I could get at least $200 for it. So that would make the new top cost only $400. Much better than $600!

I plan to check out the seller's handy work some time this week. If I like what I see and the welds are good and the materials are of acceptable quality - then I may just get the top installed.

I Am A Winner.

Awarded by
Emma to Lazy Iguana

Behold the award I won. This is a fairly cool blog award. Ever see it before? I have not. This is a blog award I could use, because I am almost dry. I have some Sam Adams Winter Later hanging out, but I will need some more in the next week or two. Unless I get a "bunch of beer". Which apparently is exactly what happened.

In other news, not only is the boat GPS Chart Plotter not functional, but now the anchor windlass decided to take a crap. So much for "the boat not costing a lot to operate". I was just telling someone that. See the boat has an engine that is not a gas pig. It uses DFI technology and really is good on gas. For a boat anyway. In the past two trips I used up a whole whopping 7 gallons. I was not running very much, drift fishing and/or "drop the anchor and sit in one place" fishing is economical.

But on the last trip out the GPS stopped working. Now I do not know what the cost to repair it is. And I do not know if it is going to be a warranty job or not. But if it has to be replaced - it will be around $400 for the slightly upgraded CP180i. The exact same plotter is not being made anymore.

SO MUCH FOR BEING ECONOMICAL TO USE!

And on the Wednesday afternoon trip out - the windlass had a problem and now does not work. I think it may have joined the writer's union.

IF the windlass is dead, then that is another $500 or $600 to replace. So if it is in fact not working it will just remain not working for a while. I can anchor without it. It is just a hassle.

Did I say the boat is economical to use? Let me rephrase that. The boat is a hole in the water which you are supposed to fill with money - but it does not use up a lot of gas.

BOAT = "break out another thousand". Which is about what the two broken items would cost to replace if I have to buy new shit.

So all that sucks. But it is part of the game. Nothing lasts forever. It just sucks when more than one thing craps out at the same time.

But hey! At least the outboard still runs! That is a good thing. The engine is very expensive. The boat can be used without the GPS plotter and also without the windlass. But the boat has little use at all without an engine. So yea, it is not really that bad.

I did not catch anything. But I am getting closer. There were two strong hits, probably kingfish. But due to whatever reason, they threw the hooks.
The law of averages says that sooner or later I will catch something worth catching. Maybe some blackfin tuna? That would be nice.

And I think I can revive the windlass. The switch could be bad. The circuit breaker could have burned out. Both are cheap fixes. If the motor is bad, then I can probably just replace that. Or get it repaired at an electric motor repair place.

I am going to try to jump the switch, bypassing the circuit breaker. If that works then the breaker is bad and $15 later I can have another one. If the thing still does not work then I can voltage test the leads going to the windlass. If they are not hot then the switch is bad. Order another one and it is all good. If the power leads read hot and it still does not work......well lets worry about that if that turns out to be the case.

I may need another (or my first) Bush "tax cut" to fix it. Of course, if I made enough to get the Bush "tax cut" then I would just be able to buy new stuff right now and have it sent here express overnight delivery, get it the next day, and then have someone install it. Or better yet, just go buy a new boat. Why not.

Wet Foot Dry Foot Policy

My feet are dry again. Both of em.

It was a wild and crazy weekend! I got to the boat ramp at 11:50 PM Friday. I got a little bit of a late start. There is a food place / bar at the marina, but the kitchen was closed by the time I got there. Too bad for me. The bar was still open. Only a drunken idiot would have headed out that night anyway.

See the weather was iffy. There was a high pressure to the north, and a low pressure to the south. When you are sandwiched between a high and low the winds are strong. I had a wind gauge thingie and it was reading 15 mph. And then I stopped using it because I did not care.

And of course, I got a little bit rained on launching the boat. No big deal. It made everything more fun. But the rain stopped by the time I was ready to leave. Maybe 3 minutes of rain - about 1 minute of the time it was raining hard. I had about another 30 seconds of rain while in the marina channel.

That is how the rain was for me all weekend. On and off. Short bursts. This happens in South Florida

When I got to the anchorage where the party is, there were already a bunch of boats there. I was actually a little surprised by this.

The party seemed to be a little muted this year. The weather reports were bad. And I got spy reports that it rained a lot in town. I could see some of these showers. They stayed on land. Mostly. The winds were around however, and that did create some bay chop. But a lot of people got out anyway. At least 2,000 boats by my rough estimation. And that is a low ball figure.

Saturday I was already there when I woke up. I was anchored a little bit away from the actual madness. Last time I was out there some drunken idiot ran over my anchor line. This year a police boat ran over my anchor line. But the cop shut his engines off before any damage could be done to my anchor line. Too bad, I would have got a new stainless steel anchor out of the deal. The cops would have either had to write up a report that THEY cut my 300 feet of premium anchor line (I really only have 100 feet) and as a result I lost my solid stainless steel anchor (I actually have a galvanized steel anchor) and my 20 feet of stainless steel anchor chain (I really only have 10 feet of galvanized steel chain) OR one of the cops would have had to go swimming for my stuff. That would have been funny.

I still can't believe the cop boat got that close to my bow.

After that incident, I weighed down my anchor line with a 10 pound dumbbell. I had done this before, but it came loose. The weight causes the anchor line to hang at a very steep angle off the bow. This way when the bacon boats come too close to my bow, they float OVER my line, not into it. Pretty cool.

I had the kayak, so that is how I got into the thick of the madness. The kayak is good like that. The only problem is that with the foot pedal things it has no reverse. So you have to be careful so you do not have a need to go in reverse. And you have to watch out for large boats that could run you over.

I got rained on Saturday night trying to sleep on my open boat. So I would have to get up and go to the other boat I was tied up with and hide from the rain. And then it would stop so I would go back to my boat where I could sleep better, and then it would rain again and so I would have to get up and go hide on the other boat again. This happened three times. The rain showers were never very long. Only a few minutes. It did keep waking me up.

I stayed out longer than I thought I was going to on Sunday. I thought I would be back at the ramp in the early afternoon. But as it turned out, I was back in the late afternoon. 2 full days and 2 nights on the boat. It rained like hell after I got the boat out of the water. Like I said, the rain stated on the land. It was actually nice out on the water.

I had a beer tragedy. When I left the floating party, I could see the rain. I knew it was going to be a race to the finish line. So I hauled ass across the bay at wide open throttle most of the way. Full speed ahead. I beat the rain (it hit after I was out of the water), but the cooler in the back of the boat had a rough ride. When I opened the cooler to get some water for the drive home, I could see that some beer had leaked out of one of the bottles. I guess the ride across the bay caused the bottles to bounce around a bit.

Well as it turned out - all the beer I had left was mostly out of the bottles. But the caps were still on and none of the bottles were broken. It was a Bermuda Triangle mystery. How did the beer get OUT of the bottles without the caps being removed? I do not think this mystery will ever get solved.

At home while washing the boat down, the Bimini top gave put. One of the support poles just broke. It seems there was some corrosion going on I was not aware of. That or metal fatigue. But at least it fell apart at home AFTER the weekend and not on Friday night. I can fix the top. All I need is piece of aluminum pipe of proper diameter. I can cut it to the required length. I should also check the other supports.

The Ancient And Venerable Order Of The Knights Of Siam

Time I let you all in on a secret. I am a member of the ancient and venerable order of The Knights Of Siam. And you too can join this order. But first you must meditate on the meaning of the order's mantra. So here it goes.

It helps if you get on your knees in front of the computer. For proper meditation effect, the screen should be displaying this blog. Now, raise both your hands up in the air. While you chant each phrase of the mantra, bend down so the palms of your hands touch the floor. Do this while you are in front of the computer and the screen is displaying this blog.

Now for the Order's meditation mantra.

O-WHAA.
TA-NA.
SIAM.

The O is long, the As are short except for the A in SIAM.

When you think you know what the mantra means, leave a comment and if you are correct you will be inducted into this ancient and venerable order. Start saying the chant out loud slowly at first, then if the meaning does not come to you say it a little faster. Remember to be on your knees with your hands up and bend over so your hands touch the ground after each part of the chant.

If that does not work, do it in your front yard. The fresh air and sunshine will help sharpen your concentration. Your neighbors silently watching you also helps you reach inner oneness so the meaning will become clear to you.

The day out on the water was great. There were a lot of boats out. The boat ramps were all busy. There were hundreds of boats hanging out at each hang out place. The sandbar by Stiltsville was packed, the sandbar at Sands Key was packed (as usual), and the anchorage by Elliot Key that is most famous for the floating Columbus Day party had a bunch of boats at it - but not as many as on Columbus Day.

By the way, Columbus Day is the last big party of the summer for the South Florida boating community. Labor Day is just a dry run for the big day. I hope to be out on Columbus Day (assuming there is no work to get stuck at) so I can tie up with some friends and watch the madness. If I go out for Columbus Day then I am going to want to camp overnight on the boat, and I will bring my kayak somehow so that I can get around in that. Once you are anchored and tied up to other boats, it is hard to move. But the kayak can get anywhere. I even have navigation lights for it so that I can use the kayak at night. The cops will bot be able to harass me because I will have the "proper" lights. I say "proper" because according to the rules that the USCG set forth a paddle craft, as well as "sit on top" day sailboats only need to carry a flashlight at night. When you see another boat, all you do is show that boat a white light or shine it at your sails. A single white light means "vessel at anchor, keep clear". Red and/or green lights means "vessel underway by sail" The green means you are looking at the starboard side of the boat and you are the "stand on" vessel. The red means you are looking at the port side and are the "give way" vessel. A power boat will have the red/green lights at the bow, AND a white light visible from 360 degrees.

Anyway with my alkaline battery powered navigation lights I will be harass proof.

This is Sands Key. There is a sandbar here. The water under my boat was only about 3 1/2 - 4 feet. It gets shallower, but there were too many boats and people in the water to get there. The water depth was perfect where I was anyway. There were a lot of boats here. Click the photo to make it larger. I had to carefully maneuver my boat in the crowd so I did not run anyone over or hit any boats. Then I had to drop the anchor, letting out just enough line to get a good hold of the bottom - but not any more because the number of boats in the area meant I could not afford to drift back too far (some asshole would run over my anchor line and I could loose the anchor and chain) or if the wind shifted I did not want to hit any other boats. Not enough line out and I would drag anchor, and possibly hit someone.

Once the boat was anchored it was time to swim, bust out with the BBQ and grill up some lunch, and generally hang out.

Columbus Day is even more wild. The cops and National Park service must hate it - but too bad for them. I really want to be out for that. But I do not yet know if I will be able to go. It depends on a few factors.

Lots O Things To Do

Well not really. More like a little bit of stuff to do.

But first - clearance items are going to kill me. Well not exactly kill me - more like make me broke. I was at the evil boat stuff store to help instruct a basic navigation class. No big deal. But there is a clearance item table. And on that table I found a rail mount radar reflector holder. For $5! I saved $15 plus shipping!

Of course now I have to buy a $40 radar reflector to put on the $5 rail mount radar reflector holder.

See I "need" one of these things because my boat is mostly invisible to radar. But with this thing I will show up as a blip. In theory, someone running at night using radar will see me and the blip I create and not run me over. In theory. I would not put much money on that theory.

But really, what I have to do - HAVE TO DO - is get un lazy and finish the stereo install that I started the week I got the boat. That, by the way, was right before Memorial Day. I got the 4 speakers in. The speakers that came with the boat were cheap and shot. So I pulled the good speakers out of the old boat, swapped em for the crappy shot speakers, then got 2 more just like them. 4 in total. I put em in a while ago.

Anyhow, all I need to do is the following:

1. Wire the speakers.
2. Install the stereo.
3. Wire the speakers to the stereo.
4. Run power to the stereo.
5. Install the satellite radio receiver.

The hard part is going to be number 2. There is no good place to put the darn stereo. This is probably why it is not installed yet. There is just not any good place to put the darn thing! Seriously. There is no room on the "dashboard" because that space is occupied by the marine VHF radio, the sonar unit (fish finder) and the GPS chartplotter. Oh yea and the compass. Who uses those things anyway? This is the 21st century.

So I am thinking that I can maybe mount the radio on the side of the center console. Or under the center console. Or somewhere else. But it needs to get done today.

Because Sunday I might go hang with some peeps at the Stiltsville sandbar. Where is this? Find Stiltsville marker "1A" and follow the finger channel EAST. You will see the sandbar. And a few boats. I am the one in the 19 foot power catamaran that has "Seagull" written on the side of the hull near the stern. Seagull boats are not very common, so chances are very good I will have the only one there. The boat has a teal blue Bimini top. And what else??? OH YEA! A new Stereo with 4 speakers and Sirius satellite radio service. And a GPS chartplotter. And maybe even some beer. Most certainly some beer.

For a lot of you, this is the "last weekend of summer". But not here. I still have some more summer. But this is the last three day weekend of the summer. So everyone will be out. The ramps will be busy. So I have to leave early to beat the morons.

And I have to install the stereo and satellite radio thingie, because I want it for the sandbar. It will be cool.

Sunday Something Starting with S.

And containing a H. And a T. Oh yea and it needs a vowel. How about I?

What is it called when you use a bunch of words that contain the same sound? Alliteration? Something like that. Anyhow I like doing that. That would explain the title of the post. Just in case you were wondering.

Don't really have time for more. The boat is hitched up, the digital camera is charging, and I have a full complement of beer. And fizzy water. And possibly all sorts of other stuff I am forgetting about. Like for example.....drain plugs? I don't know anymore. I just hope I do not forget the boat keys. That would totally suck. It would suck to the second power.

The drain plugs in the new boat require a wrench to put in. So I have to not forget to bring the proper size wrench. I keep an adjustable wrench in the truck tool box so it is not likely I will leave home without it.

And now, for your viewing pleasure - people falling off on or off boats! Some of the people in this video may have needed pain killers afterwards.


NETFLIX UPDATE! You can now watch movies right from the Netflix website! It helps to have a high speed internet connection. Coolness. I can watch 18 hours of movies online every month. For every buck you pay a month you get 1 hour of viewing time.

MOVIE REVIEW - The Bridge. This film chronicles, through interviews with friends and family, the story of a few people who choose to end it all by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge.

REALLY heavy subject matter here. After this movie, you will not look at that bridge the same way. I had no idea so many people jump from it. This film defies a rating.

BLAZING SADDLES - I think everyone has seen this movie. It is said to be Mel Brooks's finest film. I do not know about that. I thought that History Of The World Part I was his best movie. But Blazing Saddles is funny. For its time it was probably much funnier. I had seen it before. I rented it again because it was a "special edition" DVD. It was the same movie.

Tagged Or Something Like That

First, I got tagged. Twice. So I figured I might as well do this. I mean I got hit twice. I look at these things as a lazy way to post. I do not have to think up anything.

INSTRUCTIONS: Remove the blog in the top spot from the following list and bump everyone up one place. Then add your blog to the bottom slot, like so.

1) bipolar notes from underground (off meds)
2) This Side Of Reason
3) Full Moon Rising
4) Normy's Corner Of The Universe
5) Rantings Of The Lazy Iguana

Next select five people to tag. Be sure to try and make them feel really guilty if they don't want to play!
1) Ba Doozie
2) Emma
3) Actionbell
4) Saur (recently back from vacation)
5) Anyone else who needs a free post idea

What were you doing ten years ago?

Driving a white delivery van for a flower store my parents were running. I was pretty much slave labor. Cash under the table. Not really that much cash under the table, but I had a company gas account so my little car was never low on fuel. And it was going to be really hard for me to get fired, so I could pull off shit that normally no employer would put up with. Like calling in and saying "are there any deliveries" and if the answer was "only one or two" or "none" then I would just show up whenever I felt like it. There may have been beer in the van drink holder a few times when my route took me off on one of the dirt roads of Homestead. People live out there. No cops. And I could practice power slides on the gravel roads. Fun fun fun.

Oh yea, and working on my AA degree at Miami-Dade Community College. I was on the "more than two years" plan.

What were you doing one year ago?

Working as a simple civil servant. It was a decent enough job. I had a time I HAD TO show up at, and a time that I could go home at. Unless there was overtime. It was a small division, so that means that you had to do what was necessary to maintain operations. It was operations first - personal life second. But I never really got upset about it - I had nothing else better to do anyway. I kept me from doing too much of bad habit numbers 2, 3 and 5 (see below)

Five snacks you enjoy:

1) Goldfish crackers - any flavor
2) Doritos - I can not resist any new flavors
3) Cheetos
4) Combos pizza flavor
5) Fried pork rinds. "Hot" flavor. Sometimes. Not very often actually.

Five songs to which you know all the lyrics:

1) Blotto - I wanna be a lifeguard
2) They Might Be Giants - Birdhouse in your soul
3) The Polecats - Make a circuit with me
4) Ween - Voodoo Lady (currently on Iguana Music by the way)
5) Monty Python - The Universe Song

Five things you would do if you were a millionaire:

1) Buy a larger boat. A 25 - 30 foot twin engine power catamaran cabin cruiser with AC and an inboard generator would be nice.
2) Obtain a condo on Brickell Key. Facing the intra-coastal waterway, not the shitty of Miami.
3) Get more visa stamps in my passport
4) Attempt to walk the Inca Trail up to Machu Picchu
5) keep doing what I was doing a year ago. I would not be a total bum! Work keeps me from spending too much money.

Five bad habits:

1) Nail biting
2) Being lazy
3) I probably watch too much TV
4) Overuse of the word "shit"
5) A tendency to be anti-social

Five things you like doing:

1) Using the boat, being out on the water
2) Going places. Travel. I do not do this nearly enough
3) Finding new and unusual beers - then drinking them.
4) Driving to the Florida Keys just for the hell of it, to have some food and a few drinks at an oceanside bar
5) sometimes I like to do nothing. See bad habit numbers 2, 3 and 5

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This concludes the tag thing. The people came by for the old boat yesterday. So the boat cycle is complete. Where the old boat used to be is a newer boat. All I need to do to finish outfitting the new boat is get the sonar unit and install the marine stereo and shit. I may also get a 4 channel audio amplifier at some point. My speakers are rated for 160 watts peak power, so I figure 1 single 400 watt amp (100 watts x 4 channels) would be perfect. This way I would not be too close to overdriving the speakers, as the amp would probably distort at 80 watts or so. If I really want to go crazy I can get a marine subwoofer. There is plenty of room to mount one in the center console. But really I do not need one. I do not need to thump the bass really. But I might want to, just to put another boat's audio system to shame. It is a Miami thing.

Oh yea, I am also selling a West Marine propane stainless steel BBQ grill made for boats. It comes with a 45 degree angle rod holder mount. Cheap!

Is That A Chopped Chicken?

Well I went and looked at the mystery boat that the lady wants to sell.

First I should mention that I had to drive into el barrio to see the boat. I was in chicken chopper town. Across the street from the seller of the boat were two dead chickens. One was just laying there collecting flies and ants, the other was half in a plastic bag.

NOTE - this post contains a 100% true story about chickens and stuff. Scroll down if you want to.

Well I was not born yesterday. I know what time it is when I see that shit. Chicken Choppers. Also known as people who practice Santeria. Santeria is a form of voodoo. It came to the new world from Africa with the slave trade, and took root in some places. Most notably in Cuba. But the Spanish were not that cool with voodoo so the people switched some voodoo Gods with Catholic Saints. Anyhow, people into Santeria are commonly sacrificing chickens and leaving them all about town. Every morning employees have to remove dead chickens from the courthouse steps, because during the night Santeria and Voodoo "curses" are cast upon the courts or spells are cast so that defendants are found not guilty. Really. This is somewhat common here.

Anyhow, the boat turned out to be a dud. Not because of the dead chickens, but for other reasons.

Number one on the list was that the boat is not in any way "new". My original spy report said it was a 1996 or 1997 or something. Well it is a 1979. The sellers "did not know" the year till I looked at the hull ID Number and asked "is this a 1979 hull?". So the boat is pretty old.

Being a 1979 hull the thing probably contains a fair amount of wood. Wood is heavy stuff. And it is prone to rot. I did not detect any soft spots, so the hull seems to be solid enough but I did not check it that well. The engines were newer than 1979, but I do not know when they were made. The steering worked well, and the engines looked to be in decent shape, as far as corrosion on the mounting brackets and steering go. The engines had not been painted, which is good. They were not trying to hide anything there. There was surface oxidation of the skegs, but this is to be expected. That just happens.

But the engines were only 120 horsepower each. That means 240 HP between the two of them. The boat is a 25 footer and being a 1979 hull it is a heavy hull. I think that the boat is under powered. It needs at least twin 150s. And by "at least" I mean no less than. If I were going to repower that boat I would be looking for twin 175 or 200s.

Oh and the trailer is illegal. It needs brakes. In Florida, if the gross weight of the trailer and the object on the trailer is more than 3,000 pounds then the trailer must have brakes. This trailer has no brakes. I would at least have surge brakes on that thing.

And to top it all off, the boat is having some electrical problems. The good part is that the wiring is very easy to get to. The bad news is that the electrical system probably needs a total overhaul.

So I will probably NOT buy the thing. I do not mind a boat that needs some things, but I do not want a "project" boat. I do not mind having to replace a bilge pump, or re running the wires for the navigation lights or something (this is just crap that has to be done from time to time) but I do not want a 1979 hull, underpowered engines, and a trailer that has to be recycled and made into beer cans. That is too much.

Now for my ALL TRUE chicken chopper story! Did I mention this is ALL TRUE?

Years ago I went to a scuba camp in the Florida Keys to take a 5 day instruction course as part of a BSA "high adventure" program. Anyway, my parents made arrangements to "camp" in long Key State Park (by "camp" I mean chill out by the ocean in a pop up camper with AC and electricity in a State Park that had full heated shower facilities and toilets that flush and whatnot). I was to be dropped off at the scout camp not too far from Long Key so that I could spend the next 5 days learning to breathe compressed air underwater.

When the day to leave arrived, a friend of mine who was going to the same program showed up at the house and we all packed into the old DARK GREEN 1981 Ford station wagon, hitched up the pop up, and took off.

But before we left someone noticed a strange bag across the street from the house. We lived on a quiet residential street with only other houses around - not in a mixed zoning area. The people that lived behind us were into that Santeria shit because there were little statues in their yard and chickens in the backyard and whatnot. Once they even had a GOAT for two days, then there was some kind of gathering in their yard, some camp fire was made, the goat vanished, and by pure coincidence a headless goat carcass was dumped in a nearby canal.

Anyway, the bag was leaking blood. So my dad called the po po. This is the thing to do when you find a strange bag that drips blood when you pick it up.

The cop that showed up took one look at the bag and said "Santeria". He refused to touch the bag, and did not even want to take it away. He pointed at the knot and said that the bag was "holding in bad luck or a curse" or some crap.

PLEASE! How can you bag "bad luck"? So my dad asked the cop if he wanted him to cut open the bag. The cop agrees, because the bag had to be investigated. There could have been a human head in there or something.

So my dad cuts the knot in the black bag and finds some other color bag with another knot. The cops explains what it means and stuff. I do not remember how many bags there were to cut open but at the end they were just chickens. So the cop says to load the shit in the trunk of his car (the "bad luck" had been released safely) and drove off. We finished loading the station wagon and left to the Keys.

It is important to point out that the car was DARK GREEN, and it was July or August or some other ungodly hot month.

Somewhere in Homestead, the Ford overheated. So we had to stop at a gas station and put more water in the cooling system. But even with more water, the car was running hot. So we had to drive WITH THE HEATER ON FULL BLAST. This helped. On the 20 mile "death strip" of US1 south of Florida City and before Key Largo it was hit and miss. The car would run hot, then cool down a bit, then run hot again. Once in the Keys we had to stop at a few gas stations to put more water in the radiator along the way to the camp. Did I mention the car was DARK GREEN? Dark colors absorb sunlight, and therefore heat. And the heater worked great. The back seat windows of the Ford only rolled down half way.

I made it to the camp, and the car made it to Long Key with the camper in tow. But in the park, once unhooked from the camper trailer, the car threw a timing chain and the engine got fucked up. AAA had to send a flatbed to rescue the Ford, and my dad had to go back to Miami to rent a car that could pull the trailer back.

The engine in the Ford had to be rebuilt. When the timing chain broke, pistons slammed into valves (or something like that).

Other than that the trip was fine. The 5 days on Long Key were apparently fun (I was not staying in the pop up, I was at scuba camp that featured barracks style housing with NO AC), and I had no major incidents learning to breathe underwater. Well there WAS the run in with the nurse shark, but that was not me. Some other idiot from Missouri or something decided to harass a nurse shark because they are "harmless" and got attacked. It was pretty funny really. At least it was for me. I tried to warn the dude that no animal is "harmless" if you corner it. I should note that with all the nurse sharks I have seen, I have never once been attacked by them. But I do not go around pissing them off either. I have a general rule with sharks - I agree to not mess with them if they agree to not mess with me. This is the same policy I have with bears and stuff.

But anyway - the dead chicken bag killed the Ford. So I did not mess with the dead chickens I saw while looking at the boat. I did not want to curse my Toyota.

I have another voodoo story that I may recant tomorrow. It involves the airport, my career as a federal baggage screener, and a bag in transit to or from Haiti.

Got UnLazy And MOVIE REVIEW!

If Unlazy is a word, then I am using it properly. However if it is not a real word I just made it up and hereby claim all rights associated with it.

Speaking of assholes trying to "copyright" words and phrases, can you believe that Dead Muskrat Hair Man tried to claim all rights to "you're fired"? Yup - he tried to make "you're fired" a trademark, and license it for others to say. What a mega turd flower. That would be like me trademarking "bicycle" or "poker chip". The courts threw it out.

As many people know, Don Ho died. As Caiman pointed out, is it proper for the media to keep calling the man by his last name? "Ho"? Good thing his first name was not "Greasy Head" or something.

Anyway, this made me think of something. WHO HAS / HAD THE FUNNIEST NAME???? The contestants are:

1. Don Ho
2. Dick Trickle
3. Dick Butkus
4. P. Diddy
5. Markie Mark

And now for the unlazy part! I actually took the memory stick out of the digital camera, stuck it in the 6 in 1 card reader PCMCIA thing I keep in the laptop, and uploaded the photos I took! Hooray! NOTE - click the photos to make them larger. Large photos are around 2 megs each

This is a photo taken towards the end of the event. The people you see were the volunteer trash collectors. The trash is in the bags. Some other boat came by to pick up the garbage. I transported 5 of the people. Other boats took the rest.

This is ICW marker 29. This is what you would call a "daymark". It does not have a light, so on the chart it is a green square. If it were a lit marker it would look like a ! symbol. You can tell this marker is part of the Intra Coastal Waterway because there is a yellow mark on it. Cool huh? The manatee sign means that you have to go SLOW. Even if you are in the ICW. You still have to go slow. The water police will give you a ticket if you do not go slow.

This is the Carnival Imagination at the Port Of Miami. When the photo was taken the ship was taking on passengers, and getting ready to depart on another cruise. I was on that boat. It is a little larger than my boat, but it also uses up a lot more fuel. All the boats in the foreground are anchored and are pretty much always there. This is one of the few remaining free anchorage places left. I was by the Miami Yacht Club and the new Parrot Jungle at the time, having lunch.

This is the pirate ship that roams Biscayne Bay. The scurvy crew operates out of Bayside Marina. Some people on board were probably drinking. They tried to board me, but my blunderbuss is legendary for its ability to keep idiots away from me.

MOVIE REVIEW!!! Children Of Men. what a gritty film! It is the near future, and no children have been born for at least 18 years. We know this because the "youngest person on Earth" is killed and the news mentions his age. Anyway people are freaking out about it. And probably having a lot of sex - but they do not get into that aspect.

Anyway, as you probably guessed a woman gets pregnant. The movie revolves around getting her and her baby the hell out of the madness going on in Europe and somewhere she will be safe.

Did I mention gritty? Well it is. In one part an explosion goes off and blood spatters on the camera lens - and remains there for a while. The director apparently was into long takes. That little added touch of realism was unexpected.

It is a good movie. The ending is very nautical.

Thanks to Normy for the movie suggestion!

Random Crap

That is right folks, time for another random crap post! No telling what I will write about today! Will it be things that piss me off? Maybe. Things that do not piss me off? Possibly. Who knows! Anything goes!

And first up - old farts who should retire and move to St. Petersburg Florida and join a shuffleboard league. I am tired of hearing about Don Imus. I had almost been able to forget he was even still alive and then this shit happens. His radio show is crap - all he does is mumble about shit. He mumbles worse than Larry King. So here I was, able to totally avoid his show in all forms and then comes "the comment". And now he is back in the news. But there is good that came out of this. MSNBC dumped his show. They figured out that putting a talk radio show on the TV makes for terrible TV. Talk radio is for ugly people, this is why most of them are not on the TV. Nobody wants to see them (Stephanie Miller is a rare exception here). Imus had a face made for radio. Not TV. MSNBC should have figured this out long ago.

And now for a game! I call it "Whose Hat Smells Worse". The rues are simple. I list the contestants and you vote for whose hat smells the worst. The winner gets made fun of endlessly here. And your contestants are:

1. Don Imus
2. Garth Brooks
3. Billy Ray Cyrus
4. Donald Trump (his bad muskrat hair counts as a hat)
5. Smellie Dos Caiman, Senor Caiman's large hound dog that never takes a bath.

Next - more messages for idiot drivers in Miami! No matter how much you honk your horn, I will not run a red light just so you can make a right hand turn. You are stuck behind me till the light changes. Deal with it. I will not block the intersection or crosswalk for you. So go on, lay on that horn! The longer you honk the longer it takes me to notice when the light changes back to green. And it is up to me to blow my horn at the car in front of me. It is not your job. Got it? Cause there will be a test later. Fail and you get sent to Greenland to be an ice farmer. When you honk your horn at me because I will not ram the car in front of me off the road I drive even slower, and react slower to green lights.

And while I am on the subject, I do not think it helps to blow your horn at a freight train. I do not think the train dude gives a shit about you. I do not think the train dude can even hear your car horn. If you are in a hurry, may I suggest playing "beat the train" next time? Please do! You might loose the game and die in the collision. This act would raise the collective IQ of Miami by a few tenths of a point, and would be one less car on the road. Trains have a way of sweeping cars off the road so that the accident scene will not block me. So please OH PLEASE play "beat the train but stall out on the tracks and loose". Your death will raise the collective IQ of Miami a few hundredths of a point.

The marine forecast for Saturday is still:
SOUTHEAST WINDS AROUND 10 KNOTS BECOMING AROUND 15 KNOTS
IN THE AFTERNOON. BAY WATERS A LIGHT CHOP.
Not bad. But the wind speed forecast did go up 5 knots.

I have to replace one of the two batteries in the boat. I have the battery, I just have not taken out the bad one yet. The batteries are a pain in the ass to get to. But I should probably do this before Saturday. Tomorrow afternoon would be a good time. Or not.

Where Did All This Chocolate Come From?

Good news - the photo from yesterday seems to be an impostor Easter Bunny. I know this because someone felt the need to bury my vehicle under a big pile of chocolate. It seems my yard is no longer fire ant free. I am plotting my revenge now as I type.

Nothing too heavy today.

Does anyone else here vote on acceptable.tv? I do. This week I voted for "Mr. Sprinkles 3" and "Pedophile Gladiators". The "Mr. Sprinkles" idea can go a long way, mostly because it is animated. Animated shows can go almost anywhere. The "Operation Kitten Calender" is a great spoof of that horrible "Mr. Dead Muskrat Head" show, but it simply has nowhere else to go. "Shady Acres" was not really funny. "Murder He Rapped" has some potential, but I want to see where they go with "Pedophile Gladiators" so I voted for that. Last week the shows I voted for won, we will see if my streak holds.

EASTER MIRACLE TIME! The boat stopped leaking gas! I started up the engine so that I could disconnect the gas line and run the thing dry. While doing this, no gas leaked out. This is a very good thing, because the marine engine parts store wanted $86 for a stupid rebuild kit. And I would need three of them! But because the engine stopped leaking gas on its own, I used this stuff called "Sea Foam" just for good measure. It probably needed a cleaning.

This "Sea Foam" stuff could just be the best gas additive you can ever buy. You can add it to your gas tank and it stabilizes the fuel, and cleans out your fuel injectors / carburetor jets, removes water from gas, frees sticky lifters and rings,removes carbon deposits from everything it touches, and a bunch of other stuff that sounds cool but I have no idea what it means. Point of clarification - my boat has three 2 barrel carburetors, as opposed to 6 one barrel carburetors. Yes, every time I leave the marina I have a six pack on board. In the car world, having a six pack is a HUGE deal. It means you have one mean ass car that probably goes very fast. Sweet.

So I fill the sticky carburetor up with the Sea Foam stuff and let it sit for a bit, to dissolve any nastiness that may or may not be there. I also filled up the other carburetors just for the hell of it. Then I put the gas line back on and started the engine. Perfect. Purrs like a kitten. A very loud kitten. Well not at first because with only Sea Foam in the carburetors the engine did not work very well. But once the gas got there everything was fine. It seemed to run a little smoother than usual. I am going to dump the remainder of the can into the fuel tank and top it off with gas when I use the boat next Saturday.

MOVIE REVIEW! I am currently slogging through the Dilbert Complete Series. It is ok, but you have to like Dilbert. It also helps to have worked in an office that is similar to the world of Dilbert. I can not say that I have. Oh yea I had a cubicle and yes that cubicle was my fortress of solitude - but the co workers and boss were not like any of the characters in the show. I had no pointy haired boss. I pretty much worked at Nirvana Co before the marketing department was created. Maybe this is why I just can not seem to want to work in the private sector for more than about 30 seconds before I decide that it is a bad idea. As a public servant there is no marketing department. Life is very good with no marketing department. No sales quotas. I can see why the show did not last too long. If you like Dilbert, you will like the series. Otherwise do not bother.

That is about it! Do not get too sick on candy and stuff. It will kill you. Refined sugar is not exactly health food you know. Enjoy your day, however you chose to celebrate it!

Fantastic Friday!

Welcome to Fantastic Friday. Or maybe it is "crappy ass Friday". I do not know.

No comments about my STAMP PAGE! So go to my STAMP PAGE now and look at it. Because it took me at least 20 minutes to make the STAMP PAGE. I hope you like my STAMP PAGE. So go there now so I do not have to keep typing STAMP PAGE.

MOVIE REVIEW! Donnie Darko. This film flopped in the theater, but has since become a cult classic.

How do you combine a troubled youth, an imaginary demonic rabbit thing, a big bronze dog mascot in a private school for wealthy kids, a crazy recluse old woman, and a mystery jet engine (no airplane - just the engine falling from the sky) together? Watch Donnie Darko. Since many people reading this may not have seen this one, I do not want to say too much. DO pay attention to the movie - and get the Directors Cut version. You have to pay attention to it to get it. Some things are not explained very well. Probably why it did not do so great in the theater but did well on DVD. I give this psychological thriller 5 Iguana tail whips. I tend to like movies that require one to keep track of stuff. Really - get this one.

Next few movies are the Dilbert animated series. I was supposed to get The Good Shepard, but this movie is now listed as "long wait" whatever that means. I must be on the Netflix shit list of "people who watch too many movies". See there has to be a break even point for them. Rent less than the break even number and Netflix makes money. Rent more than the break even number and you cost them money. So I suspect (but have no proof) that the "hot" new movies go first to those people that are money makers for Netflix. People like me who have been known to watch a movie then rush it off to the post office the same day I got it suck. For them. But hey - work this week is all but canceled. Something about "spring break". I will have the three Dilbert DVDs I have watched and in the return box in time for mail collection Saturday. They will arrive in the Netflix place Monday, and I will get three more Tuesday.

Now for some not-so-fantastic stuff.

It seems that there is a problem with my favorite thing in the world that floats. While running the engine a few days ago (you HAVE TO do this to a marine engine at least every two weeks OR ELSE!!!) I noticed the smell of gas. Unburned gas. It was leaking out of propeller hub. Not good. The working theory is that the carburetor float got stuck. At idle too much gas flows into it, so it spills out. At running speed RPM the leak stops because the engine can consume the gas.

Well this was bound to happen at some time. Carburetors get stuck. This is what they do. Why do you think fuel injection is so darn popular? Well that and the fuel economy issued. Fuel injected engines get better MPG.

But now for the fun part! The boat engine has 6 cylinders. Now in a car a single carb would handle this size engine. It may be a 4 barrel carb - but whatever. A hot rod may have two carbs, or even a "six pack" which is three 2 barrel carbs.

The boat engine has 6 carbs. One for each cylinder. What the crap?!!?!? And of course if one is out, all need to be rebuilt. Fix just one and sooner or later the others will crap out - one by one. There are little plastic parts and shit in them. So all 6 need to be rebuilt. Not too big of a deal, I found a dude who will come to the boat and do this. I am not very good with these kinds of things. It will be cheaper to have this guy do the work than it will be for me to destroy two or three rebuild kits, have to buy them again, and so on.

I am going to steal "King Shit of Turd Mountain" from Normy. She is into old cars and stuff and could probably rebuild my boat engine carbs. I like this phrase. I can see soooooooo many situations in which it will apply.

By the way, did everyone check out the Iguana Music? It is great.

Weekend Madness!

Welcome to Saturday!

You may have noticed my Netflix movies on the side bar thing. Well I done watched em all. Memento is one crazy movie. It is in reverse. It begins with the end, and ends with the beginning. The plot takes place in reverse. It is a bit tough to keep up with what is going on.

But the DVD has a nifty feature that will play the movie in reverse, but since the movie is already in reverse it is double reverse - which means forward. Watch it the way it was cut first, and if you need to watch it in "reverse" after. It really is a good movie. I like movies one has to pay attention to in order to keep track of what the hell is going on.

Not everyone will like it. But this is why I like Netflix so darn much - they have everything. Even the stuff a regular video store will not stock. You put it on your list and it arrives in the mail. Pretty slick.

I will dump the movies in the mail today and they will arrive Monday, and I will get more movies Tuesday.

Blogger now has this word verification bullshit on new posts. What the hell is that for? Spam blogs? So now I have to word verify my own posts. That I write. What kind of bullshit is that?

It is high time I used the boat again. Maybe I should do this. But not this weekend! This weekend the wind is a bitch, and bay waters are "choppy in exposed areas". Not good. This means a lot of bow spray, and if the wind is into the bow then the wind will pick up that spray and soak me. This is why I need the next boat to have an enclosed helm. F the bow spray in the A. And FORGET ABOUT going offshore! Not unless you are insane! Saturday seas are 4 - 6 feet near shore and 6 - 8 feet in the Gulf Stream. Sunday we are looking at 5 - 7 foot seas near shore and 7 - 9 feet in the Gulf Stream.

Maybe next week. 9 foot seas means waves as high as half the length of the boat! And a choppy Biscayne Bay is no fun to be in either. The sea, she be a harsh mistress.

The fat orange cat just clawed me for messing with his foot. Fat bastard! See if he gets fed today. That will teach him. Anyone got some of that rat poison recalled food handy?

We Now Return To Scheduled Operation

It seems that the DSL fixing thing lasted through the night. Here is what seems to have happened. I had a DSL modem / router thing with built in wireless. It worked decently. But it mysteriously died sometime Sunday night or early Monday morning. So when I got up Monday and tried to connect, I could see that the laptop was connected to the router with the wireless thing, but there was no access. I had to get up, walk to the room with the router in it, and see that the "broadband" light was orange. Orange = not good.

So I call tech support, who then ask a bunch of stupid questions that have nothing to do with anything. After a few dumb questions I just ask the person (probably in India) to check the DSL connection. It was working.

So I go out to Best Buy and pick up a Zoom DSL modem/router thing. And while I was there I picked up another game for the PSP and stuff. But I could not get the Zoom shit to connect for some reason.

Lucky for me, I was able to track down another modem/router from someone who had DSL service but for whatever reason quit using it. I plugged it in, reset it back to factory defaults, and it worked perfectly.

That is the story, and I am sticking to it!

In other news, I need a first mate for Baynanza. What the crap is Baynanza you ask? It is an annual event put together by Miami-Dade County Department of Environmental Resources Management (DERM for short). Slaves volunteers go to various places on Biscayne Bay and clean up trash. Trash collected includes normal stuff like plastic bags, cans, and bottles and stuff - but also strange stuff like kitchen appliances, floating chunks of mystery boats, dunnage (packing materials), televisions, and all sorts of other crap.

Some of the cleanup locations are on land, some are islands out in the bay. So boats are needed. I will be like a slave ship water taxi for volunteers, taking them from one place to another place on the bay. I need at least one person that can make for a competent crew - cause the people that the judge says have to spend a day cleaning up garbage are probably going to make for a lousy crew.