Sun and Sailing

Suddenly, poof! It's summer, or at least it sure feels like it. My lovely wife and I had a lazy afternoon sailing around the lake.

Our little Oday 19 is such a simple boat to sail. The Ranger 23 was only 4 feet longer but had basically the same complexity and layout of much larger boats. It was good training while it lasted. One thing I do miss is the roller furling jib. However, it's a sad day when I'm too too lazy to send the lovely wife out on the bow to hank the jib on by hand. Besides, while she's out there she takes care of raising the anchor too.

So what did my lovely wife do after a long afternoon of sailing? She opened up the sailing books and did some more studying. Me thinks she's gotten over our shipwreck and is ready for more adventure. There is a good sized semi-wilderness lake not too far up the road in Maine that she wants to visit. It's supposed to have some really nice beaches.

I may skip tomorrow's blog. It is a holiday weekend after all, right? We've been invited to a huge pool party so that looks like loads of fun.

Hope everyone is having a good holiday. Take at least a few minutes to remember those who've passed on, but then party. Life is for the living.

-Sixbears

Hidden Skills

There are good things about having a few years under my belt. Over the years I've been able to acquire a few skills. Most of my skills might not rise to master level, but at least better than good enough. Good enough to do what needs doing.

As a homeowner it's nice to be able to solve most problems without calling in a professional. Those skills saved me a lot of money and aggravation over the years.

It's not just handyman skills either. Six or seven years ago I knew nothing about sailing. Now I know more than enough to get into trouble -everything from boat repair to navigation. (and how to abandon ship, but let's not dwell on that.)

There are some things that I plug away at with no real expectations of getting really good at it, like guitar playing and learning French. However, even though I'm not very good it's fun to learn and sometimes useful.

There are some things I don't normally bring up as they are beyond the scope of this blog. For example, I'm a pretty good chess player.

Back in my 20s and 30s I was heavily involved in some relatively esoteric pursuits. I even had a small business connected with that field. While I never completely left that world behind, I no longer follow every day to day developments.

Recently I was listening to podcasts relating to my old field of interest. They were terrible. The podcasters didn't know what they were talking about. Not only that, they were charging people for things they couldn't do very well at all. It almost made me want to dust off my old notes, get back up to speed and start a podcast of my own.

Almost.

There are only so many hours in the day and it's such a big and interesting world out there. A podcast, done right, is a huge time sink. Can't do everything. However, it did get me interested enough to dust off a few old skills and show the kids how it's done old school.

-Sixbears