You may not want to try this at home...

This is just way cool, not cool at all, and for those not paying attention, a quick rundown on the current situation...

I do most all of the work on "So It Goes" on the boat at anchor and while in a world of wake inducing cigarette boats, jet skis, and sports-fishermen it may not be for everyone but it does work for me.

Face it, what's a little power tool mayhem between friends?

Of course, I should point out that power tools can be a little dangerous which brings up a non-boat cautionary tale...

Way back when, someone I knew got ripped off by a total jerk. The thing is, folks who are total jerks tend to bring out the dark side in folks that, left to their own devices, will live out their lives on the straight and narrow and never ever take a detour that leads them to the corner of Anti Street and Social Blvd... Just saying.

Did I mention my friend had a chain saw?

Well, the short form moral to the story is that it's generally bad business to screw over someone to the point of violence when that someone also happens to own a chain saw... Because, someone might just fill it up with gas, wire the throttle open, and throw it through someone's picture window going full tilt boogie...

Apparently, it took nearly a half hour for the gas to run out in the chainsaw which, as it happened, is about the time it takes for a loggers chainsaw to totally destroy a total jerk's living room.

I mention this story because having seen the aftermath/carnage of chainsaw meets living room it has inspired a certain, shall we say, respect for power tools that either cut or bore holes... A lesson that we all should take to heart.

Anyway, this is why I've decided to buy a couple of specialized clamps/guides to allow me to cut or rout straight lines on plywood panels in spite of the prevailing cigarette boats, jet skis, and sports-fishermen...

Listening to Rebecca Pidgeon do Zevon

So it goes...

Insanity is a given, but maybe this will help...

I'll be the first to admit that living on a plastic classic (read old) boat and trying to run a couple of business concerns while afloat has its ups and downs... But, that said, it is mostly a win/win situation with only a few fear and loathing situations.

Over the years I have made no secret of my respect for our Honda 2000i which seems to have become as much a standard bit of equipage for cruising boats these days as baseball hats, solar panels and wind generators. I've been keeping an unofficial tally and it seems that the Honda 1000i and 2000i seem to be on 75% of cruising boats we run across and that says a lot...

What most people who own a Honda won't tell you is they also have their dark side and a couple of WTF design features that drive their owners nuts. Truth is, I often ponder how someone who designed such a fine machine could also design in such an awful situation where changing the oil is concerned. The words sadistic bastard comes to mind!

The problem is that the oil fill and drain spigot is in a place that makes pouring the used oil out nearly impossible without pouring it all over the cockpit and on your favorite pair of shorts while putting serious strain on your sanity. What's worse is that since the spigot is within the confines of the generator, part of the spill is always internal and hidden. So, after cleaning up the cockpit and suchlike, when you pick up the generator it favors you with a secondary spill just in case your favorite shorts had escaped being ruined in the first go round. But the fun is not over... because of its recessed position, filling the Honda with new oil is also seriously problematic...

How to cope? Well, I'm betting that a lot of Honda owners get by with fewer than needful oil changes and since the Honda is such a great machine, it seems to get by with a lot more abuse than other lesser generators but to an air cooled engine, oil is what makes it run and run.

Then there are those anal retentive types who have spreadsheeets that tell them exactly when an oil change is required and do them religiously at exactly the right time (you know I'm not that guy) usually breaking up a round of sundowners to hurry home to change the oil... Fact is, they are not often missed as they mostly bore you to death going on and on about next-gen-anchors and how superior they are...

So, what is a normal somewhat lazy guy supposed to do?

Well, you could buy one of these...

It simply screws into the existing fill/drain on the Honda 1000 or 2000 which results in no muss no fuss draining of the used oil...

Need I say more?

At $15 this will pay for itself on "So It Goes" in paper towels alone (not to mention the cost of spilled oil or shorts) and just perfect for that sanity clause upkeep!

a couple of hurricane notes... GIGO

So, as this morning's 8:00 AM forecast was just a "kiss" better (though the sort of chaste kiss you get from your awful aunt) we decided to take the intervening time between that forecast and the 11:00 and stock up on fuel and suchlike with plenty of time after to get to our chosen hidey hole.

Of course, the rule for getting anything done on an island the day before a hurricane is somewhat iffy and we had quite a hike to get to the gas station etc (as the one we were going to was closed (the owner no doubt nailing up those plywood sheets at home). While we waited for a pump to open, an older gent told us that the newest forecast was out and that St Croix would be receiving a direct hit with the eye passing directly over us at 3:00 PM tomorrow....

That made our run to the hole a certainty and we huffed five gallons of gas back to the boat, got out and just took a moment to re-hydrate (it is 97 degrees and not a breath of wind here), only to find that the newest forecast was far from being a direct hit and was even a bit better than the 8:00 AM forecast. Not wanting to think the gent was full of shit, we also checked NOAA and Wunderground and they also showed a better situation developing.

Now we are back at the odd quandary of running to an uncertain welcome with many bozos dumping boats on top of you and threats of violence or simple bad seamanship that would cause even a light storm to be problematic OR stay right where we are, throw down a couple more anchors and hopefully keep the yahoos away from our boat... Truth be told, I am still just a little on the edge between the two but will have to make the decision within the next hour one way or another.

But, that is not the point... The point is (about time right?) that information you receive from helpful folks whether they be Coasties/Rangers/Folks with Local Knowledge or whomever, when bad storm shit is coming at you all information except from someone like NOAA is highly suspect and in my experience 99% WRONG. My  few years in the marine trade has many examples of people coming into the store spouting stuff that was just plain wrong and then having to spend the rest of the day explaining to others the real situation by showing them the current forecasts and storm position. We even had to explain to the Coast Guard and local law enforcement that the day-old forecast they looked at was no longer accurate.

The cake was taken by the idiot guy who ran the morning NET in St Martin. For a couple of weeks he was reading the weather for Hawaii (WTF?!) and no one caught on until he came on the NET frothing at the mouth about the killer storm about to hit us and mentioned its name and all of sudden we all realized that the storm in question had the wrong name! I'd go on as well about certain weather gurus who everyone raves about and quote as gospel but after having listened to them for many years, have detected both a certain lack of accuracy more often than not, and worse, a cavalier thought process about the actual mechanics and what is possible on a sailboat as telling someone to leave port in a howling gale to catch some maybe better winds out there five days later simply shows a lack of understanding about cruising.

On drinking Sake, topless women and the suit mentality...Plus a good book or two

Way back when, a guy named Hal Painter got me fired...

I was working as a buyer for a big mountaineering and ski store and I had met Hal while out skiing in the Sierras. He had mentioned he was coming out with a book on X-Country skiing and we drank Sake under the stars and swapped stories. A few months later I got a note in the mail telling me about his X-Country skiing book The Cross-Country Ski, Cook, Look and Pleasure Book: And Welcome to the Alice in Snowpeople Land and so remembering the great conversation and enjoyable discourse (though by that time the world class Sake induced epic hangover was only a faint memory) bought a bunch for the store...

A couple of weeks later the books were on the shelf and they were selling surprisingly well which was good but the book in question had a nifty cover with a cut out that showed a woman who was topless (well there was also a chicken but that is a whole different story...). Needless to say, the folks in the big office took the whole affair of breasts on a book IN THEIR STORE as a crime, right up there with playing Barry Manilow or other such unnatural acts.

So, I was told to send them back pronto "or else"... Well, I can take a hint so went back to the store and went to gather up the books to send them back but found out that they had actually sold out. I then remarked to the suits in charge that the book had sold out and I could not as a result send them back... Now, this is where I should mention that in general you will never go too far wrong in under estimating the IQ of people in suits... They had a meeting and in that meeting it was decided that I should personally contact every single buyer of said book and try to get it back... "Or else!"

Like I said, I can take a hint but I also should add that I have a very low "or else" threshold...

I actually did try to contact folks who had bought the book except I found that they did not want to return it... They liked it, and half the people I talked to actually wanted to buy more for friends because it was "The best damned book I have ever read about X-Country skiing" was what they were telling me...

I trundled back and reported once again to the suits and they had another series of meetings. They then decided that I should write a formal letter of apology to said buyers of books just in case they had somehow not yet noticed the fact that the topless woman had nipples and to avoid a possible lawsuit or some such... Oh yeah, they did not forget to use the "Or else" line in their discourse.

Being that I can take a hint and Mom did not raise a fool, I realized that I was in fact working for fools, incompetents, and people of somewhat limited vision who said "or else" far too often... I told them so and they pointed out that there were a million folks who could do my job better for cheaper thank you very much... So, I was history and took the unexpected "vacation" and sailed down to Baja Mexico for awhile and never heard the words "Or else" the whole time I was there... I had a LOT of fun!

While I was surfing in Baja I guess the suits did whatever suits do... If it is of any interest.

Of course the reason I mention all of this is not because of topless women or even chickens for that matter, but that sometimes the very best book or source for information does not fit into any cookie cutter view of what people think is right (much less people in suits..) and that The Captain Nemo Cookbook Papers: Everyone's Guide to Zen and the Art of Boating in Hard Times Illustrated, A Nautical Fantasy would be no bad thing on your bookshelf...