Project X

So what is Project X? It is secret. This is why it is called "Project X". Things called "Project X" are usually secret. This is why they do not have a better name.

Project X is not really finished. It is functional but not finished. I was going to do something else, but that did not work out so I changed the plan mid project. The change worked out well. Probably better than the original plan. So I just went with it.

Project X went in its own direction. It told me what it wanted to do. So I just went with it.

And the results? Well I am pleased. The results make me happy.


Well thats it! What you see are some LED strip lights. The center light is three strips connected together. The lights on the side are single strips. It looks a little funny so I ordered 4 more strips, so each support pole will have three strips and be of equal length.



Here it is with the flash on.

Project X is going to totally kick ass when it is done. And that will be as soon as the other 4 strips arrive.

Saturday Stuff

Welcome to Saturday! Another week gone by. Sort of. It all depends on when your week starts I suppose.

Sometimes Saturday can be your Monday. If you have Thursday and Fridays off. Or you may have Tuesday and Wednesday off - making Monday Friday!

Confusing huh? I thought so.

What was I talking about again??

Oh yea. Saturday.

I am going to some weather spotting class. Why not. It is free and I have nothing better to do. I just have to show up at the appointed place at the appointed time. I think I can handle that. I just wish the appointed time was a little later.

NOBODY schedules things with people who are nocturnal in mind. It is like I am some kind of freak of nature or something.

Well I say NO! I am not a freak! Everyone else is. How do you know that humans are NOT supposed to be up all night? How do you know we are not supposed to roam the world when the sun is nowhere to be seen?

Oh yea, the whole "humans do not see well in the dark" thing. OK so you got me there. Maybe my schedule is a little screwed up.

At any rate, FREE WEATHER SPOTTING CLASS! If its free its for me. They will have FREE COFFEE too. Always a plus.

They better have free coffee. The class is at a police station. Have you ever heard of a police station that did not have coffee?

Me either.

BOAT NEWS! I have two more courtesy lights to install. And I have to run a new transducer cable. The lights will be easy to install. Just drill a couple of 2 inch holes (one for each light) and then some pilot holes for the screws that hold the lights in place. Then wire them in. Simple as can be.

The transducer cable on the other hand will require more effort. First I have to pull out the old transducer cable. This will be a pain in the ass.

And then I have to pull the new cable through. This means under the deck. There are some conduits under the deck for wires and cables and stuff.

Anyhow long story short - the unit was supposed to have a quad beam transducer, it seems to have either come with a dual beam transducer or the thing does not work properly, I send the head unit back in, they sent it back to me with a new quad beam transducer. I tested the new transducer and now the side looking sonar thing works.

Trust me here - you DO NOT want the long version. It is full of stuff about 455 khz beams and 200 khz beams and 83 khz beams and degrees of coverage and so on. VERY BORING! Even puts me to sleep.

The fish laugh at my stuff anyway. The sonar does not seem to find fish, and even when it does I do not seem to catch them.

Iguana Observations

Iguana observation time! Just what I know everyone wants to read.

Recently I have become obsessed with bumper stickers. Well maybe not "obsessed", even if I do have an impressive collection of them on the truck rear window. I am allowed to do this. It is part of the secret pickup truck drivers handbook. You are REQUIRED to have a lot of stickers. I have a photo of them somewhere but I am too lazy to unearth it.

But I have been paying more attention to bumper stickers than I usually do. After all - what else is there to do while stuck in traffic?

And what exactly have I noticed? I noticed I still see "W 04" and "Bush / Cheney 2004" stickers. People have not peeled them off yet. It is even scarier when the W 04 stickers still look new. What the hell? Did people stock up on them so that they could replace them when they started to fade?

Anyhow THAT is not what I noticed. Ill get to what I noticed in a moment. Right now I have to take a leak and think about opening up a bottle on Amstel Light. Yea yea I know. Light beer blah blah blah. But a friend left an ass load of it in the boat fish box / cooler last party cruise. Someone has to consume it. It is against maritime law to load the same beer on the boat twice. Beer loaded on a boat must either remain on the boat until such a time as it is consumed, converted to pee, and drained overboard OR be unloaded from the boat and placed in a refrigerator until it is consumed, converted to pee, then flushed. But never should a beer be unloaded from a boat then loaded back into the boat at a later date. This is bad luck and could anger the fates. Get new beer.

Anyhow THAT is not what I noticed ether. Man I am bad at this!

But now, without any more bullshit - the observation. I took a wizz and got the beer. I am now totally in reveal the observation mode.

I *DO NOT* see McCain stickers on cars that have Bush 04 stickers. Now this seems slightly strange to me. I mean 4 years ago your car was newer and had less miles on it. 4 years ago your car was in better shape than it is now. Unless you own a car LESS than 4 years old anyway. But if you bought your car AFTER the 04 elections why the hell would you have put a "W 04" sticker on it?

Nobody is that much of a political junkie.

So there it is. I am not really seeing many McCain stickers. Cars I see with old Bush campaign stickers on them do not seem to have current McCain stickers on them.

Now I realize the election is still a few months away. Hurricane season will be almost over. Hurricane season just began! So it is almost a whole season away.

But McCain has been the Republican pick for some time now. You would think the die hards would have their stickers already. And one would think someone who would deface their car with a "W 04" sticker would know who they are going to vote for already.

So I conclude - by the lack of stickers - that one of a few things is going on.

1. McCain supporters are too embarrassed to admit it.

2. A fair number of people who supported Bush in 04 are just not into it anymore. Even they have had enough.

3. People who supported Bush in 04 are so delusional they think their car has INCREASED in value, and more stickers will ruin that.

4. The McCain stickers clash with their auto paint and would just look awful.

5. People who supported Bush in 04 need a simple sticker they can understand. Like "W 04". Only one letter! Even they can read that! McCain's stickers have too many letters and confuse the hell out of them. 6 letters and two of them are upper case?!?!?! And then there are numbers on top of that?!?!

6. Political season has not really started yet and people have just not bothered to express their opinion in the form of a sticker.

Of course I do not know what this means. It may mean nothing. It may mean that the McCain camp is in more trouble than it cares to admit in public. it is simply too early to tell.

But my bumper sticker observation, in addition to the massive voter turnout for the Democratic primaries (all 51 of them) leads me to believe that the McCain camp is starting out from behind. If only the people who voted in the primaries show up, Obama will win. Even when three were running on each side the third place Democrat had more votes than ALL THREE Republican candidates combined.

I have talked to people who want to count Obama out based on race. While they do have a valid point (there is no reason to pretend otherwise) I would not just count Obama out just yet. People may just be fed up enough with the way things are going to vote in change. McCain does not represent change.

OH YEA! One more observation. I went to the Miami Summer Boat show. Attendance was low. Maybe it was due to Father's Day. But I do not think so. I talked to a lot of exhibitors and they said turnout was shitty. Not nearly as many people came to the show this year as last year. And those who did come did not spend the money they spent last year. Boat dealers were all but BEGGING for sales.

But they were ALL saying something in common. And what was that? I heard several times "maybe things will change in November" and "maybe things will improve after November" and so on.

Now what could that mean? What happens in November? And if one guy represents more of the same - who could they be talking about? If things are so great now then why bother with change or improvement?

Yes - this will be interesting. I will continue to keep my keen mind tuned into Iguana Indicators and then report on them here. When I feel like it.

By the way - I finally got some Sea Suckers! Now these are pretty neat. They are vacuum pump mounts. Not to be confused with suction cups. Vacuum cups have a pump that removes air, creating a very tight seal. I have seen similar devices used by people who move large and expensive pieces of plate glass. And automotive windshields. They would also work as a auto dent puller, for minor dents and dings.

I have been looking at these for some time now and finally gave in. The mounts I got will hold dive tanks. I bought two holders that each secure two tanks. Each vacuum cup can hold 210 pounds, and each tank rack has two cups. The mounts require no drilling and so I can put them on and take them off easily. I can also use them to hold fenders, and even use them as a place to tie fenders off to - saving space on the cleats or providing a place to attach fenders where there are no cleats or rails. Pretty slick! I already want two more small vacuum cups to mount the fire extinguishers to.



The nice Sea Sucker people even tossed in a free gimbal mount suction cup drink holder. Now that I think about it, I could use another one of those too. Ill see how the free one holds up first.

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.

Got More Stuff Done

Tomorrow is the boat parade thing. I guess I have everything ready.

So Sunday there will be....WINTERFEST BOAT PARADE PHOTOS! Hooray. Now this is not just any old boat parade. OH NO! This is a boat parade for people with huge ass boats that want to show off and get on TV. Yes there are some crazy people in non-motorized boats. This means kayaks and canoes and shit - because the waterway that the parade is on is not wide enough to allow a sailboat under sail to navigate. There will also be small motor boats. I could have had my boat in the parade. but then I would need to put lights and shit on it and that is just not going to happen. 120 volts in a small open boat is just asking for electrocution. The power inverter would probably trip before I died, but I would still get a nasty zap. Plus I am too lazy to put lights and shit on my boat. Screw that.

But there will be photos of large boats all decked out with lights and other crap. IF it does not rain. Which it may. There is a front on the way down. So when it pushes through, it may get a little wet. The greatest chance of rain will be after 10 PM Saturday. Hopefully I will be out of the water by then. Driving home in the rain will be better than being in the boat in the rain, or trying to get the boat back on the trailer in the rain. I have done the whole get the boat back on the trailer in the rain thing before and it sucks.

And here, once again, is the boat. On the trailer. At night. You may notice that the red navigation light is on. The red light is shown on the port side of the boat. This is easy to remember, as port wine is red. Front navigation lights are red or green. If I see a boat's red light, that means the other boat sees my green light. The other boat is the "stand on" vessel and I am the "give way" vessel. This is easy to remember because red lights means stop. Green means go. In the daytime I just have to know that a boat approaching from my starboard side is the stand on vessel and I should give way, and boats approaching from the port side are the give way vessel and I should maintain my course and speed.
But a lot of people have no idea what the hell the lights mean. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother checking to see if they still work.

In other news, I got a very nice Christmas card in the mail Thursday. Something about a contest I won. Anyhow it was very nice and I already know what I am going to get with the gift card.

I will get a USB XD card reader so I do not have to hook the camera up to the computer to get photos off the card anymore! Sweet.

Stuff I Forgot About

I forgot to mention something about the boat adventure.

The boat ramp fee is $10 per day. But I forgot to pay. It was late when I launched, and I was trying to beat some weather. So I just launched the boat and then parked the trailer. And I forgot to pay. OOPS! I remembered I forgot to pay after I was already at anchor.

And I did not get a parking ticket. HA! So here is what I decided. The ramp fee is $10. A parking ticket is $15. So why not gamble a little? If I get a ticket 50% of the time, I am still saving money. The use of the ramp twice would be $20. If I do not pay the fee and only get a ticket 50% of the time, then I would have to pay $15 - a net savings of $5!

I was only tied up with one other boat. Other people were supposed to be there - but nobody showed up. Oh well. It is kind of hard to find people with that many boats out there. My open boat scared people I know away. I had invited someone out for the weekend, but the lack of a flushing toilet and proper shower facilities was the deal breaker for her. I can kind of understand that. Camping on an open boat for 2 nights is not exactly the best thing. I could hack it because I just can. But a cuddy cabin boat is a much nicer weekender boat than my open boat. The enclosure will help with this a little. I even thought up a way to build a sleeping platform in the front of the boat out of plastic plywood. Whatever I construct will have to be stowable when not in use.

No New Inductees

I noticed how nobody responded about the ancient and venerable order of the Knights Of Siam. One reader was already a member - but there are no new inductees.

So get out in your front yard and chant the mantra while your neighbors all watch. Concentrate on the meaning of the mantra. It will come to you when you reach the proper level of inner peace and harmony.

Now onto bizarre E-Bay auctions! Here is an auction for some ho's used diary. I do not know if it is true, but supposedly the guy discovered his girlfriend sucking on parts of his brother's body. Ill let you figure out what part. Use your imagination.

Anyhow he delivered all her stuff to his brother's home, where his brother's wife then discovered what was going on. But he kept her diary and is auctioning it off. If she wants it, she has to bid for it. Pretty slick - if it is true. The whole story could be BS, and he is getting at least $300 (current bid) for what amounts to a work of fiction.

Now if it were me, I would probably just upload whatever drunken nude photos I happen to have. If I had any. This is one reason why it is usually a bad idea to allow yourself to be photographed naked. Someone might get pissed off later and upload them - then email the web site address to everyone you work with.

Even better would be to just give the cheating hos diary to the ex-wife's divorce lawyer. The proof of a rather long period of cheating is in there.

If any of this is true. Who is stupid enough to cheat and then write about it in a diary? And who keeps diaries these days anyway? Paperless people! Blogger is free.

So being the skeptic, I question the authenticity of this E-Bay item.

The boat got extra super nasty the last time it was used. So I still have to get in it and scrub the deck with some heavy duty cleaner and a hand scrub brush. No big deal, there are only a few spots that need this to be done. A more pressing situation is the floor lockers. They are currently plumbed to dump into the bilge. I do not want this. I want them to empty overboard. The fittings are already there - I just need to reconnect them. But to do this I have to remove the locker hatches and then pull out the inserts. Then while I am in there I have to install the wash down pump. Happy happy joy joy.

The wash down pump HAS TO BE installed in time for Columbus Day. I can use it to squirt people. This is very important.

Stickers Can Get You In Trouble.

This is a crappy photo of a sticker that is on the bow of the boat. The sticker is clearly visible to all people onboard. It is on the bow sundeck. The picture is shitty because it was taken with my cell phone while I was working on the stereo installation. The boat sits under a car port thing so it is not in the sun getting bird shit all over it. I hate birds.

Now I think this sticker is humorous. Excessive weight in bow while underway will cause undesirable performance. Allow me to translate this into plain English for all you who do no completely understand boat speak. My translations are in parenthesis.

Excessive weight in bow while underway will result in undesirable performance (no fat chicks).

Pretty simple. And you can not argue with the sticker! I did not put it there, it came that way from the factory. So it must be there for a reason. One must always pay attention to warning stickers.

One of these days that sticker is going to get me in a lot of trouble. Here is what will probable happen.

ME: I need you to move to the stern, because the boat is riding bow down and causing too much bow steer.
SOME CHICK: WHAT!!? Are you saying I am excessive weight?!??!
ME: Yes. I MEAN NO! NO! Of course not! I just need you to sit closer to the stern...
SOME CHICK: Just shut the hell up. Are you saying I am fat?
ME: Be reasonable. Of course you are not fat. I am just trying to make the boat ride as comfortable as possible for you.
SOME CHICK: BE REASONABLE! Ill show you reasonable! (shoots me with a flare gun).

So yea, I need to re-word that sticker. I am thinking of the following possibilities.

WARNING! Anyone who is not wearing a size 2 or smaller bikini should not sit in the bow while underway.

If your ass is wider than this I---------I you should not ride in the bow while the boat is underway. Or ever.

ATTENTION! If the boat captain asks you to move to the stern, it is not because he is saying you are fat - even thought you may be. That is not the point. The point is that too much weight in the bow will result in "bow steer". This happens when the boat can not be trimmed properly. So just move to the stern and do not make a federal case out of it. The captain has enough to deal with piloting the boat without having to hear a bunch of shit from you. Your ass is just fine. Really. Otherwise, chances are you would not even be on the boat - unless you are the friend of the good looking chick. There are always exceptions. By the way, it does not take much weight to unbalance the boat. The stern is usually a more comfortable ride anyway.

Whoever worded that sticker was not thinking too clearly.

Traffic Lawyers, BBQ For The Boat, BEER REVIEW!!!

I hired the cheese head today. It cost me $80. The last cheese head was $100 and that was YEARS ago. In the mid 90s. I got pulled over for preventing the police from getting the guy they were after. It seems that I was just driving along in a commercial van, minding my own business. It was raining, and the cops were trying to get some guy for something. But my van got in the way. The cop who pulled my over was SUPER pissed. And it was raining, so his hat got wet. I got a ticket for "speeding" or something. Anyway, I gave some cheese head a Franklin and was found to be not guilty.

The cop was REALLY pissed. He had to get his hat wet. Cops HATE to get their hats wet. You have to do something really horrible to get pulled over in the rain. I was afraid I was going to get clubbed and left for dead on the side of the road. But all I got was a ticket.

It seems that traffic lawyers have gone down in price. If these cheese heads do not produce results, I will collect the stuff I find in the three cat litter boxes for a month and dump it in their lobby. The gamble is court fees. If there are court fees then it would have been cheaper to pay for the traffic school scam and then get the 18% discount on the ticket. If there are no court fees, then the lawyer is cheaper. Either way I still think West Miami blows. If you live in Miami-Dade County, add West Miami to your list of places to avoid.

I got a pretty good deal at West Marine today. Normally West Marine has high prices on crap. But there are a lot of West Marine stores so people go there because they are lazy. I can get cheaper stuff from other places - but I have to drive further.

Anyway they had a bunch of crap on clearance. Among the things was a Force 10 extra large stainless steel BBQ grill. The clearance price was $165 or something, but I got another discount on top of that because of my affiliations with the US Coast Guard Auxiliary. So I got the thing for $70 with tax. Online I found a Force 10 large stainless steel BBQ for $200.

I was looking at a better grill for the boat. And I guess I found one. This is a really nice one.

18,000 BTUs and 225 square inches of cooking surface. 100% marine grade stainless steel. It uses 1 pound propane cylinders, or it can be hooked up to a LP gas system. All I need now are two rail mount things so I can mount the grill on the bow rail. Nice.

BEER REVIEW! It has been a long time since I did a beer review. Too long. So here we go! Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA. This is one serious beer. 20% alcohol by volume. Yes, 20%. It is like drinking 12 ounces of strong wine. During the boil, they continuously add hops for a FULL 120 minutes. Dogfish Head Brewery invented a method to continuously add hops, as opposed to throwing them in at time intervals. Anyway after the boil the stuff is fermented for a full month, and each day the beer is dry hopped. Dry hopping is when you toss hops into the fermenting beer. This gives the beer a very strong hops aroma.

When it is all over, you have one ass kicking beer. It is NOT for everybody. It is very strong and very VERY hoppy. Almost too hoppy. And I like hops! The stuff is expensive. I had to fork over $10 for a single 12 ounce bottle. And that was NOT at a bar - it was at a supermarket.

The beer is malty sweet (it needs a lot of malt to get to that 20% abv) and hoppy bitter both at the same time. I suppose it is balanced for such a malty strong beer. You have to REALLY like hops for this one. I would imagine that most beer drinkers will not like it. I will probably not buy another bottle, unless I am going to share it.

And now to clarify something. THIS is a dolphin.

They are also called "Mahi-Mahi" and "Dorados". But around here they are simply "dolphin". They are prized game fish. First off, they are good. A dolphin catch is always welcome on a fishing boat. And these fish are fast swimmers. They have been clocked at 50 mph. They fight hard. The "fish finder" is really just a sonar. It can tell you how deep the water is, and can also pick up some bottom detail. If the bottom hard? Soft? Rocky? Smooth? The fish finder can tell you. It will also see fish that are under the boat - if there are any fish there. My sonar has never found shit for me.