"Because no one would write a song about that guy"

As I mentioned in the previous post, this past Sunday I hung out at the Lake Union Wooden Boat Festival, and had a great time.  One moment I did not mention in the previous post has really stuck with me.  After I met Andre, who'd made a career out of restoring ancient enormous engines, I walked off the docks and back towards the festival part on the ground.  On this walk, I heard the folk singer on the music stage talking and he said something like the following:

"Did you ever hear the song about the guy who grew up, went to school, got a job at Boeing, worked for forty years and got married and had a couple of kids along the way? Then he retired, and spent the rest of his days playing golf? No, you didn't. You know why? Because no one would write a song about that guy."


No one would write a song about that guy...  I like it. Make your life worth writing about, DFTBA.

Bills 'n' Beer

I got the pow-ah (bill)! $1.96, and I don't even have a windmill!  Actually I just moved in like right when the billing period was ending.

In other news, I purchased a growler of some tasty IPA in the U-District the other night.  I was concerned about getting it home without it tipping over if I were to leave it on the floor, and I figured it was probably poor form to leave it in my lap.  So at the suggestion of my friend I pulled the seatbelt all the way out so it went into ratchet mode, and used it to secure the beer in back.  Then today when I went to drink it, I remembered that I don't have any cups.  I have a water bottle and a coffee travel mug, neither of which I particularly wanted to fill with beer as the water bottle would be nasty, and the travel mug would give me coffee-beer.  However, I did have a San Pellegrino bottle, so with nerves of steel I poured a serving of beer into that little bottle from my growler.  I also had an adventure making spaghetti without any real utensils, but I was successful and now have 3 tupperware containers full of spaghetti in addition to the waaaayy too large portion I ate to be able to fit the remnants in my tupperware collection.

Also my car is supposed to arrive tomorrow.  Yeee-haw!

I Am Being Paid To Do Windmills....

I have to remind myself sometimes at work that I am actually being paid to do this. Got to balance a set of our new blades which will hopefully be flying on the tower later this week. Nice!

Anyways, rode the bike to work today and it rained during the day. It was essentially a full on downpour for 30 minutes or so but luckily the sun came up and dried the bike out just in time for my ride home. Oh, Maine...

My sister got me an early birthday present, a gift certificate to BusDepot! I made an order tonight for some repair panels, a windshield seal, window seal, CV boots and this little plastic bushing that goes on the sliding door. Unfortunately, I kind of have to work on this other thing this week so the bus may be neglected a bit. Lame. I have also somehow lost the part to the grinder that allows me to connect cut-off wheels.... which sucks cause I need that shit. I may drill out a washer or something to see if I can rig it up.

Onward week! Hiyah!

Biscoff

Sorry I didn't post this weekend. Spent the weekend visiting me good friend Wolfgang up at his house in Kendall, NY and was without internet as I was too lazy to get the wifi password off the bugger. Had a lovely weekend of cruising about next to Lake Ontario.

Exhibit A: Lake Ontario Sunset.

Played chess while drinking martinis. Got to go see Prometheus.  Had a camp fire and made s'mores complete with Nutella and Biscoff spread. If you haven't discovered Biscoff spread, then you haven't discovered spreadable cookies. 

Exhibit B: In both creamy and crunchy.

Also as the two hour drive there involve zero highways and even a few dirt roads it was a lovely Jeeping experience. Got back late last night. Went to work today and went to see Brave afterwards. Overall a relaxing weekend.

Wooden Boat Festival

I was going to go hiking today, but I slept through the rendezvous, so I instead headed down to the Center for Wooden Boats to check out their annual Wooden Boat Festival.  Admission was free, but I put $10 in the donation jar when I walked in and various other amounts in other jars as I kept coming upon neat stuff.  All told, they probably got about $30 out of me and it was worth every penny.

For starters, in the park as you walk in there is this big pond.  And CWB had a sweet tent set up with over a dozen of the boats you can see serenely making their way across the pond.  All you had to do was walk over and check one out for free, but they did have a donation box (which I put money into).  Thanks to physics magic, all you do is put the boat in the water, give it a little push and they just go.  They find their way onto an appropriate point of sail based on how taught you have the main sheet, and just go.  If you had it pretty tight they could actually get going on a pretty good clip and heel pretty hard.  Sometimes they'd hit the buoys on the opposite wall of the pond and the nose would pop up out of the water.  Neat stuff.

The largest boat there was the roughly 100' Adventuress, which was launched in East Boothbay in 1913 and made her way around Cape Horn before there was a Panama Canal.  They do educational programs, and apparently you can volunteer to crew her.  Not sure if that is quite my cup of tea, but she was pretty and quite a work.  When she was refurbished they put metal bulkheads in that the crew described as "making her unsinkable -- just like the Titanic".

Then it was off to the Virginia V, a big steam powered cruiser with a triple expansion steam engine.  Also talked to the chief engineer there, pretty neat as that engine was built in Seattle in 1903.  He had tracked down an add from a trade journal in the 1900-1905 period, and even visited the road where the factory that made her once stood.  Didn't take a picture of the boat, but I do have a picture of the engine (although it doesn't do her justice).  Underneath was just this jumbled mass of connecting rods and valves.

Next was the Arthur Foss, a wooden tug that has the world's largest surviving Washington Diesel engine.  The guy fixing her up has apparently made a life of traveling around the world fixing up these ancient massive Diesel engines.  If you ask me that's pretty cool.  I asked to see what I thought was a reduction gear to the propellor... turns out it was the fuel pump!

This dinghy was made by Howard Hughes' company when orders for airplanes were not forthcoming.  The owner of the boat was quite proud of this particular boat, and I can see why.  The ship she was attached to was pretty impressive too, cruising at 19 knots!

Finally, we went on a ride on a 1906 steam launch (although the current engine is circa 2000).  The skipper was very knowledgeable, and answered all of my questions.  Pretty sure by the time I was done I had asked enough questions that I could have probably almost figured out how to drive it off.  He even let me steer for a while!  It was a 1 cylinder double acting engine, but it had just been overhauled, so it was a little sticky.  When he wanted to reverse, he usually kicked the flywheel to get her spinning again.

Good Weekend

This weekend started off with my boss giving me a beer at the end of the day Friday. That was pretty sweet. So, I hung out there and checked out pictures of beautiful places he had been in this sweet boat. I did a bunch of programming stuff at work this week which was pretty challenging for me but I definitely learned some stuff.

Had Cheney, Sam, Mikey B, Brenna, Ariel and Eric Stevenson over Friday night. We had a campfire and hung out at my place in Hollis which was pretty awesome. Mike is moving to Massachusetts and Brenna is headed off to Europe soon for a study abroad thing. Brenna and I made a stop at this convenience store just down the road and saw this....

Nice!

There have been a lot of old vehicles out lately which has made driving around a little more enjoyable.

So, Saturday I headed to Litchfield briefly hit a cookout for this family friend and gathered up Sam and Ariel and went to Orono. We needed to pay rent for our place in Milford and we went out to a bar with some friends up there. The night turned out to be pretty damn fun, ran into a bunch of people I knew and just generally had a good time. Our house in Milford is empty right now and is HUGE with no furniture in it. Should be fun trying to fill it up with awesome stuff.

Came back to Litchfield today, kind of beat but in a good way. There was a moving sale down the road, stopped by, picked up America (the book) and.... found a Rick Astley record. I could never give up (see what I did there) the opportunity to Rick Roll from the original record. These two gems did set me back a little though.... 50 cents. God, I love lawn sales.

I swear I'm not a Hipster...

DW is hooking me up with an old Victrola and 78s to go with it... Aces.  Pics coming when I get it.  Also going hiking today.  Am I posting this frequently to make up for the fact that I went several days without posting... yes.  But that's three in a row for me, you guys have to be up to interesting shazzle! right?!