It's thirty years this month.

In Sept of 1979 I bought a sailboat.

A schooner, Merrymaid, Downeaster hull #1.

Me and this boat have been through a lot together. I've lived on her, full time, for twenty seven years. She and I have been through three wives, three cats, three diesel engines, two kids, a Golden Retriever and several long term significant others.

Thirty years, that's a long time.

Here's hoping that the next thirty is as much fun as the last thirty.

It's 9/11, again.

This gets personal for me. Maybe not as personal as someone who was in NYC eight years ago today. But it still pisses me off.

In 2001, I was married to Nancy (wife #3) who was a TWA flight attendant.
Her brother lives in Clinton, NJ and she had her vacation to visit him planned nine months in advance.
We flew back to Newark NJ on about 9/15, one of the first days that the airplanes started flying again.
After three days in NJ, I said that I couldn't be this close to an event of this magnitude and not go to see it.
And so we did. We spent the day in Manhattan. Down where the WTC was, it was horrible. It was still burning at the site. I expected to smell rotting human flesh. After all, over three thousand American souls were strewn all over the place only a few days before. It smelled like an electrical motor that had overheated and burned up. Every time that a fire truck went by, which was often, everybody stopped and applauded them as they went by. It brought tears to my eyes. It still does, even now, just thinking about that very emotional event. Everywhere that you went, there were flyers posted on walls and telephone poles. On every surface available there were all of these pleas with pictures on them asking whether you had seen so-n-so in a hospital or wherever. It was really hard to cope with. Almost as hard as being in Viet Nam.
All I really want to know is, after eight years, why in the hell is Osama's ass not tacked up on some Seal Team's shithouse wall yet?

Pyrocumulus

A new word to me, but easy enough to figure out. Most of the last two weeks, although most of us couldn't see the fire area, we So. Californians have been seeing these large white clouds over the fire area. You can see the inversion layer below and the updraft from the flames as they poke this gigantic cloud 20,000 feet up through the layer.

We damn near lost the Mt. Wilson observatory which I've always wanted to go see but just never seemed to have the time to. You can bet when things settle down, I'm saddling up the motorcycle and taking a jaunt up there very soon.

That's a DC-10 dumping PhosCheck on the fire,

a real exciting thing to be seen.

Watching Skycranes suck up a few tons of water out of the local creek

is also a thrill.

The LA bason as seen from space.

The island in the bottom of the picture is Catalina.

Long Beach is at about one o:clock of the island

at the top of the crook in the land.

All too soon, fire season will be over

and earthquake season will arrive once again.

Close Encounter of the Third Ton, I'm Mister Blue

On 9 August, when we were sailing back from Catalina, we happened to come upon a whale basking on the surface. I have been sailing these waters now for over 37 years and seeing whales is not a too uncommon event. In fact, I have even gone to whale watching school at the Cabrillo Marine Museum in San Pedro, twice, in order to act as a docent on the local whale watch boats. This was no common garden variety California Gray Whale. It was way bigger and it had a "moat" around it's blowholes. Now I have seen Blue Whales out here but only at a distance of maybe a half mile at best. They usually sound, or dive, as you approach. We were under sail and as such, we were silent running. I don't know, maybe this big boy was snoozing on the surface but Heber, our trusty autopilot, stayed on course and we ended up on a collision course with this big boy. I eventually turned to port to avoid hitting him.

He looked like a Blue to me.

CPA was probably less than 20 feet. Damn, where the hell did I put my harpoon?

Something's happening here

I certainly wouldn't call myself a linguist, but in addition to my passable English, I can converse in German and Spanish. And I can get around in Japanese. So, here we are. We've been soaking the many wonderful sights in Big Sur and have developed major appetites. There aren't a whole lot of places to stop and dine along Big Sur. You have your choice of really over priced high-end restaurants or tourist oriented burger huts. Niether of which interests us. Calif. highway #1 turns east from the coast at Morro Bay and heads towards San Louis Obispo and as we drive through SLO we find a sushi joint. It looks OK from the outside.OK we get out of the car and are greeted by two nice looking Oriental gentlemen. I give them an ohio guzamus, I speak it, I don't spell it, and we all bow in greeting. Very nice. We are seated and I order two Japanese beers, nichi Kurin beeru koo da sai. So far so good. We order food. Cyn gets a combo plate with tempura and sashimi. I get a katsu don. The guy gives me a blank look. Donburri is a Japanese rice bowl and a katsu donburri is with pork. When done right, it is wonderful. A breaded pork cutlet on top. Next grilled onions and usually some egg. The juices from the above all seep down to the rice on the bottom. Yum. Nobody, but nobody in Japan calls it a katsu donburri. It is a katsu don. Even on the menus. On thier menu however, it is listed as a donburri. OK, I try again. This time I say katsu donburri koo da sai. Hai hai, yes yes, katsu donburri. OK, what's up here. We drink some beer and wait for the food and I ask the waiter, doja deska binjo. Where is the restroom? I get this blank look. I repeat. Doja, where, deska, is, the ka attached to des makes it a question. Binjo? Still nothing. In English, I ask where is the restroom. This he understands. It isn't like the guy was born and raised in Cleveland, he has an authentic oriental accent. He is the younger of the two Oriental gentlemen who greeted us and as I go to the head to jettison some Kurin beer, he scurries off to the kitchen. When I come back, he is back. I ask "did somebody change the Japanese language on me? I didn't get the memo." He says hai, it now is called toire. As we leave, I stop and chat with the older gent. He asks how I come to speak Japanese. I guess most round eyes don't. I tell him I spent eight years in the Navy and I also worked, for a while, in Kobe at Kawasaki Steel. I ask where he is from and he tells me he's from Korea. Ah so. Japanese isn't either of our first tongues. That explains why the confusion.

Post script. Just for the halibut, I Googled Where is the toilet in Japanese. It came back on a site called japaneselifestyle.com, Toire wa doko desu ka?

Son of a bitch. They must have changed the language because when I searched binjo on the site, it came back, Your search - binjo - did not match any documents.

I wonder why I didn't get the memo?

Road trip

One of my favorite things is to get in my truck or car, or get on my motorcycle or boat and take a trip and be gone for a few days, or weeks. We made a trek to No Cal this last week. I worked in Benicia for a few days and Cyn worked in So. San Fran. By Friday, both of us were done, so we did a bit of touring. I've been driving through and around San Jose for the last forty years now and have often wondered about the Winchester House.

The Winchester House, in case you don't know about it was built and rebuilt continuously over and over by Winchester, the gun maker's widow. she was a class A, world class nutcase. Apparently some psychic told her to never stop working on the house or bad things will happen to her. I believe in live and let live, but please keep the psychic advisers and other Voodoo practitioners away from me. I'm a firm believer of religious freedom. Freedom of religion and freedom from religion, but I do think that most paranaturals are charlatans. And, having said that, should be shot on sight.

Anyway, after all of these years, I finally went to see it. Yup. It's bizarre. Yup. It's pretty big. OK, I've been there and done that. I also took lots of picture to bore the crap out of unsuspecting friends. Thanks to the digital camera, I now take way more pictures than I ever used to. I spent six weeks in Europe and only took maybe 20-25 pictures. The usual stuff, pictures from the Eiffel Tower, gondolas in Venice castles on the Rhine. I do know the secret of professional photographers. Take lots of shots. It's part of the If you throw enough shit on a wall, some of it's bound to stick theory. With the digital camera, you can just shoot away, my chip holds about 800 pictures. Review them when you have a chance, and then erase the crap. It works for me.

Afterwards, we drove up to the Lick Observatory late in the day. Too late actually do it justice. Gotta go back when I can devote at least half a day, if not a full day.

Now let's head on down the road to Big Sur.

The best road trip in America, if not the world.

Every year, or two, I have to do it. I like to do it best alone. In a very fast sports car that can really handle the road. Alone because I don't get distracted by passengers screaming and pleading for me to spare their lives. Fast is good. It is also almost as good to be a passenger to a driver who values their own life and drives sanely enough to allow you to view the spectacular scenery.

Huell Howser & Marsha Yockey

I just watched, once again, one of my favorite TV people last night. I am speaking of Huell Howser right now. More on Marsha Yockey later.

Huell, in case you don't know about him, is this Tennesse gomer who produces and hosts various TV shows like California's Gold and Visiting with Huell Howser on KCET, the local LA educational channel. He's like some Mayberry RFD throwback. Full of golly gees, aw shucks and howdys. He goes around California with a microphone in his hand followed by a cameraman and visits various famous, infamous and some of the more obscure places around our vast state. Last night, he did a half hour on the Transamerica Building in San Fran. Or as us So. Calers like to call the place, Frisco. As usual, lots of history about what was there and when it was built. And by whom. But the best part is ole Heull gee wizzed his way clear to the top with his cameraman. Above the top floor, the fourty eighth, is another 125, or so, feet of open ladder/staircase leading to the very top 800 and some feet above the street. Very cool.

Oh by the way, those big ugly rectangles sticking out of the sides near the top of the TA building in SF house the elevator shafts. In 1972, they couldn't build an elevator that wasn't vertical. Maybe they still can't make 'em tilt.

And who the hell is Marsha Yockey you're still mumbling to yourself?

When I was in the Navy in the sixties, and the bastards stationed me in Southern Indiana. Yeah Indiana. Yeah Southern. Those bastards.

In Evansville, on the evening news was the most unpretentious TV personality you will ever see. She's probably dead by now. Often, she would do the weather segment in a stuffed armchair with one of her legs dangling over the arm and a big coon hound sitting in her lap.

No airhead back-combed blonde was she.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdLrRqg1VPw

Jack Parr and Dorthy Fultheim were two other great TV icons,

but sadly they are both gone to the big studio in the sky.