Getting set for dockmaster duty

Roughing it in luxury ...

The New Mexico Sailing Club, which operates the marina at Heron Lake, runs as a co-op. One of the duties of all members who have boats in the marina is to spend half a week on dockmaster duty. One requirement is that the dockmaster be physically at the marina at all times, either sleeping on a boat in the marina or camped out on the point above the marina.

Pat's duty doesn't start until tomorrow night, but we got the trailer set up so it's ready.

Saturday sailing at the Butte

It's been a long time ...

At long last, I got in my first sail of the year. Pat had managed to sneak off to the lake a couple of times to go sailing with Zorro, but often it was mid-week, which meant I had to work. The one previous time I had gotten to the lake, the wind was just too fierce -- if the temperature had been warmer, it might have been good exciting sailing, but that day was just too cold.

Saturday, however, was much less windy. In fact, when we got to the lake, there was barely any wind at all. We joined Zorro and set sail on Constellation, hoping that perhaps some wind would fill in.

We had been drifting for about an hour when the wind did, finally, show up. It wasn't much, maxing out at probably 7 or 8 knots, but that's enough to make an Etchells go. Zorro had his handheld GPS, and we got up to 6.2 knots upwind and even faster downwind with the spinnaker up.

Pat was in charge of the spinnaker. He kept the trim up, and he's getting good at gybing the pole smoothly; that's something he and Zorro apparently practiced a lot the last time they were out.

Overall, it was a good couple of hours on the water.

We sailed until near sunset.

There weren't many other boats out. One friend had gone out earlier but gave up on waiting for wind and came in (his wife had chores for him to do anyway). Another came out late in the day. You can tell he's from Michigan; he was sailing in shirt sleeves!

Maybe, in between things like taking care of Pat's dad's estate and working on repairs (both boat and house) and various other tasks, we will have more time to sail this year.

New in the sidebar

Another family connection ...

Over in the sidebar on the left, you may notice a new link, Gab and Glass. This is the blog of my cousin Lanza Teague, who manages the Kerr Arts and Cultural Center in Kerrville, Texas. On her time off, she delves into family history and genealogy and creates works of glass art.

Her current (and second ever) blog post recounts the story of her quest for, and eventual finding of, a very special artifact related both to her grandfather and to the history of Kerrville.

The story left me wondering, how many other treasures are hidden away, under a tarp in a dark corner of a warehouse?

Happy Valentine's Day?

A gift that goes vroom ...

Five years ago, Pat got me a sailboat for Valentine's Day. This year, it's something a bit different.
And it's RED!
And this, too, is better than flowers or chocolates.

Poetry Corner: David Shulman

Take the constraints of a sonnet, and make them even narrower …

One of the iconic images of the American Revolution was actually painted 75 years later: “Washington Crossing the Delaware,” painted by Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze in 1851, shows George Washington leading his troops in boats across the Delaware River, in preparation for a Christmas surprise attack on Hessian mercenaries camped out near Trenton, in what is now New Jersey, in 1776.

In the 1930s, poet David Shulman was moved by the painting to write a sonnet. Now, the form of the sonnet is difficult enough. Shulman made his own task all the harder by making each line of the sonnet an anagram of the title. Yes, the result is not necessarily great poetry, and sometimes descends to doggerel. Still, one has to applaud Shulman for actually pulling it off at all – much as Washington is to be praised for pulling off his daring surprise attack.

Washington Crossing the Delaware
David Shulman

A hard, howling, tossing water scene.
Strong tide was washing hero clean.
"How cold!" Weather stings as in anger.
O Silent night shows war ace danger!

The cold waters swashing on in rage.
Redcoats warn slow his hint engage.
When star general's action wish'd "Go!"
He saw his ragged continentals row.

Ah, he stands - sailor crew went going.
And so this general watches rowing.
He hastens - winter again grows cold.
A wet crew gain Hessian stronghold.

George can't lose war with's hands in;
He's astern - so go alight, crew, and win!

Oh, did somebody say something about football?

European road trip

For nearly thirty years, I have wanted to go back …

Those who know me know that I have wanted a Mercedes-Benz for a very, very long time, since I was in primary school. I especially love the ones with the diesel engine, not just for the fuel economy but also for the way they run, not like the brutish American trucks, but ticking smoothly along like a European taxi cab. Someday, I hope, I may have one.

The company offers a wonderful package for people who have a lot of money. The customer can order a custom-built car through a dealer in the U.S. Then the customer can travel to Germany, take delivery of the car at the factory, and drive around Europe for a month or so. Once the vacation is over, the customer flies home and the car is put on a boat back to the U.S.

This arrangement, of course, is suited to people who have both the time and the money for an extended European vacation, as well as the money to order a custom-built Mercedes. It isn’t exactly something ordinary Americans can do.

Besides, I’m not so interested in a brand-new Mercedes. I like the older ones, with the distinctive classic lines. The newer ones have become more streamlined, and they’ve lost that unique Benz look. I’m also not so interested in racing around on the autobahns. I like traveling on the little roads and visiting the small places. The experience of a country is much more authentic when one gets away from the standard places the tourists go.

So my car-buying journey would be lower-budget and less flashy. I’d fly over to Europe, find a nice used Mercedes for sale in a village somewhere, wander around the countryside for a while, and then put myself and the car on a boat home – not a cruise ship, but a freighter; many have accommodations for a few passengers, not fancy, but nice enough.

The year after I graduated from high school, I spent a year in England with my family; my dad exchanged jobs, houses, and cars with a scientist at the Rutherford-Harwell scientific laboratories. We were in a Victorian stone cottage in a small village that consisted of about sixty houses, three pubs, and one church. That was a very authentic experience.

While we were there, of course, we took some road trips in the car – a Citroen, not a Benz, but overall a nice car. We journeyed to Scotland on one trip, Wales on another. For spring break, which in Europe is typically two weeks rather than the usual American one week, we headed over to the continent. There was no tunnel back then, so we began the trip by driving to Portsmouth and taking a ferry to Cherbourg.

Our first stop was a country inn in a small village along the Seine, somewhere near Rouen. The owner was a Cordon Bleu chef, as well as a friend of the travel agent in England who had helped us plan the journey. It made a great base for driving around the countryside, and, as to be expected, the food was heavenly. One day, I was not feeling well, so I stayed in the room to rest while the rest of the family went touring. The staff of the inn were very attentive and frequently checked how I was doing; at lunch time they brought me a bowl of hot beef broth. At first, I didn’t think I wanted it, but then I caught the aroma of it and decided I’d take it after all. It was wonderfully restorative; by the time I finished it, I was feeling much better.

In Paris, we were in a small hotel owned by another friend of the travel agent. We left the car parked in the hotel parking garage and either walked or took the Metro wherever we wanted to go – a sensible way to get around, given the city’s serious traffic congestion. One evening as we were wandering around in search of a place to eat supper, we ran across a wonderful Italian restaurant. (Yes, an Italian restaurant in Paris!) It was run by a pair of little old ladies, and most of the customers were clearly regulars, chatting and joking with each other and with the owners, and generally being cheerful. The little old ladies were especially taken with my kid brother, who was about 9 at the time, calling him “un petit choux” (no, they weren’t calling him a cabbage; that’s a French idiom that translates roughly as “sweetie” or “cutie”). The restaurant served up enormous bowls of spaghetti and meatballs; we did not leave hungry.

Another highlight of the trip was a visit to my French pen-pal, who lived in a small village outside of Strasbourg. She took us to one of her favorite spots, a ruined castle on a hill overlooking the village. From there, we could see into Switzerland and Germany, and the Black Forest spread out before us. This was not a touristy spot; except for us, the only people up there were a few locals.

At this point in the trip, I came down with laryngitis – not a good thing, as I was the only member of the family fluent in French. My pen-pal took us to a pharmacy, where the pharmacist took my temperature, looked at my throat, and determined that I had garden-variety tonsillitis rather than strep throat. He then prescribed some throat lozenges that restored my voice and killed the pain.

We continued the journey driving up into Germany, to Heidelberg and then to the Rhine. The drive along the river, in its steep valley, was stunningly beautiful. We stayed in a small inn right on the river, so close, in fact, that the owner was able to point out the high-water marks left on the walls by various floods over the years. On crags above the inn, facing each other across the narrow valley, were two castles; if I remember correctly, their names were Katz and Maus.

On the way back to the coast, we had a slight problem. From underneath the car there came a loud bang, and suddenly the noise of the engine was deafening and the car was filling with fumes. A piece of the car’s exhaust system had broken. We limped along into Belgium, in search of a Citroen repair shop, which we finally found in Bruges. As we came up the road toward the shop, the mechanic stepped out of the front door, holding up in his hand a replacement for the part that had broken – he had heard us coming, long before he had seen us, and he knew exactly what was wrong.

We finished our journey by heading to Calais, where we took a ferry to Dover. When we got home to our village, we discovered that it had snowed, something that almost never happens in that part of England, and there was still snow on the ground.

By the way, if you’re interested in the car in the photo above, there are some like it for sale. You can read about them at Mercedes Motoring.

Poetry Corner: Walt Kelly

Look up and to the north …

Gerald is making coffee, preparing to go sit on a mountaintop with a friend and watch for the aurora.

Normally, we don't get auroras in New Mexico – we're too far south. But NASA has reported a massive coronal mass ejection (CME) from the sun. In plain English, that means that there is an unusually strong wave of ionized particles headed our way. These particles interact with the Earth's magnetic field to create the glowing displays known as auroras.

The peak of the first wave is supposed to be about 1 a.m. MDT. Gerald's ham-radio friends are already reporting a high level of electromagnetic activity, and he's hoping not only to see the aurora but to photograph it – he does have a good camera for that sort of thing, as his pictures of Earthshine during last summer's eclipse attest.

I can recall one time when I actually did see an aurora in New Mexico. It was faint, and I'm sure it could never compare to the spectacular displays that folks further north can see. It was September, and the sun was in a phase of high activity. The high-school astronomy club had a star party (if I remember correctly, it was to look at a comet) in the very small hours of the morning. We saw very faint wispy glowing streaks, in pale yellow and green. It was not exactly spectacular, but it was an aurora – in New Mexico.

In honor of the aurora, here is Walt Kelly, the creator of the Pogo Possum comic strip:

Oh, roar a roar for Nora,
Nora Alice in the night.
For she has seen Aurora
Borealis burning bright.

A furore for our Nora!
And applaud Aurora seen!
Where, throughout the summer, has
Our Borealis been?

For more about the CME, check out NASA's official announcement.

Thank you, Lady Bird

One beautiful thing about Texas

Texas has had a legacy of men who were tough and a little rough around the edges, while the women were seen as a softer, civilizing influence, providers of grace and beauty. Gender roles have become less strict since then, but back in the 1950s and '60s, this model was strong.

Pat's parents were fairly typical of the Texas upper-middle class of the era. In his younger days, the Old Soldier had run a little wild, parting ways with Texas A&M University over rules infractions and then bouncing around through miscellaneous jobs, including a stint as a rodeo cowboy. After the war, when he settled down, he was still stoic and tough.

It was his wife who provided the civilizing influence, and even a hefty dose of glamour. She had stunning good looks and a strong fashion sense, and she was active in women's activities such as the Junior League. She helped to found the McAllen Public Library.

In photos from that era, the two look like figures from the golden age of Hollywood – she was statuesque and graceful, while he was a little more rugged. No matter where they were or what they were doing – going on a cruise on a freighter, fishing on a tuna boat, traveling in Europe or South America – they were always properly dressed. They made quite the pair.

A more famous Texas couple from that era were Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson. He was the tough deal-maker in the Senate, the strong leader of the country, who once got into trouble for being rough on his dogs. She, meanwhile, promoted beauty, including that of the natural world. Even before the two rose to national fame, she saw a need for Texas to make its highways beautiful. Her efforts led to the state Department of Transportation planting and encouraging wildflowers along the highways.

This time of year, spring comes to Texas. The winter Texans migrate back to Minnesota or Colorado or whatever other cold place they took refuge from over the past few months, and the wildflowers burst into bloom, aided this year by greater than average rainfall. The most famous of the flowers are probably the bluebonnets, which symbolize the whole flowers-along-the-highways project. However, there are many more sorts of flowers out there, in all different colors – red, yellow, white, pink, lavender, violet, in addition to the indigo bluebonnets. It's like looking at a carpet with multicolored swirls and patterns.

On our way home from South Texas, we stopped along the road between Three Rivers and San Antonio to photograph the profusion of colors. One thing we discovered that is not part of the experience if you just drive past: These flowers smell sweet, too.

Just thinking ...

Well, like I said, just thinking ...

Hey, what’s all this green stuff?

Of course, when you're in Arizona, you gotta take pics of saguaros …

Pat and I just spent this past weekend in Arizona. The original plan was to sell a boat, but that deal fell through, so essentially we ended up making a very expensive green chile delivery to Gerald.

It's been rainy in Arizona lately. According to Gerald's roommate/landlord, the Phoenix area has, in the first two months of this year, received about as much precipitation as it usually gets in about three years. As a result, the desert is looking … well … not so desert-like.

In Albuquerque, there's a company that used to sell and install sprinkler systems. Now, it still does sprinklers, but it also does artificial lawns that don't need sprinklers to stay green, and other landscape components. Until recently, it had a patch of artificial lawn out front, with a saguaro cactus (presumably also artificial, but very real-looking) in the middle of it. Every time I went past it, I thought, a saguaro surrounded by green grass … that's so … so … wrong.

Well, maybe it isn't, as demonstrated by these shots taken along the Carefree Highway near Lake Pleasant.

A few words about Arizona

Not enough time to give a full accounting, but I can hit the high points ...

Thursday: Arrived late at night, found that the hotel where we were originally thinking of staying was going to be way too expensive. Looked for alternatives and found the Drury Hotel not too far away, much more reasonably priced. (Alert: unabashed endorsement follows.) It's just about the best hotel I've ever stayed in. The accommodations were top-notch, the amenities were of the sort that I would expect in a hotel costing five times as much, the morning breakfast buffet was first class (fresh, and I mean FRESH, sausage and scrambled eggs and more), and the people -- oh, the entire staff, they were so friendly and eager to please without being sycophantic -- this is the standard to which all hotels should aspire. If any of my readers should ever be traveling, I would recommend that they seek out a Drury Hotel if one is available. (Disclaimer: I have not, nor have ever, had any financial or familial relationship with Drury Hotels or any person who is associated with the chain. All of my comments are based solely on my own disinterested experiences.)

Friday: For the Friday Fracas, Pat and I were on the committee boat, while Gerald was on one of the Vipers. Winds were brisk, and the sailors had a good time. I got to learn how the AYC committee boat runs races, a really slick system.

Saturday: Gerald and I got on as crew on the Wavelength 30, Alibi, a boat that has been around, with two old guys who have been part of the Arizona sailing scene for a long time. These guys have been sailing together for decades, long before they came to Arizona. Based on where they (and the boat) came from, I'm giving them the blog nicknames Superior Skipper and Superior Mate. Alas, the winds Saturday were very light, and the boat didn't get a chance to show her talents -- she did go upwind far better than something that big should go in winds that light, but downwind things were miserable.

At the end of the day, many small boats without motors needed a tow. We ended up with a row of ducklings behind us: a Thistle and five Buccaneers.

Sunday: The day started out with brisk winds. Alibi had the rail in the water much of the time. Some of the other skippers had chickened out, but Superior Skipper and Superior Mate were all excited about getting Alibi out in conditions that she was designed for. We could probably have used a couple of more people to provide weight out on the windward rail. I got a bunch of bruises as I was tumbling from one side of the cockpit to the other helping Gerald to tail genoa sheets and generally doing all-purpose go-fer duty. (At least I didn't have to dodge flying potato peelers.)

The second race started in nice winds, but less than the first race had. By the end of the second race, there was very little wind. But there was enough wind that things were ok.

The third race was a disaster. The wind essentially went away. It was mostly gone before the race began, but some of the racers talked the race committee into running one more race. That wasn't a good idea. Alibi isn't designed for drifters; she's a Great Lakes boat. Superior Mate, in particular, became much more testy. After an eternity, we finally finished the race -- in third place, but that's because all but two of the other boats in our fleet gave up.

Still, it was fun. Superior Skipper and Superior Mate are great guys, and they both really want to get Gerald on as crew when he's available. Because they're getting older, they'd quit doing spinnaker, but if they can get somebody spry on foredeck, Superior Mate really wants to get back into the spinnaker fleet. Superior Mate also brings the sandwiches.

Movie magic

A blast from the past

One movie that I have been eager to see that has just come out is Invictus, the movie about the South African rugby team and the way it united a previously divided country. With Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon leading the cast, and Clint Eastwood directing, I am expecting great things.

However, I currently can't afford full price movie tickets, which means I have to wait until the movie gets to the bargain cinemas to see it.

Then I remembered El Cortez Theater in Truth or Consequences. Depending on what source you look at, this theater was built sometime in the 1930s or possibly 1943. It's old (the website recommends that moviegoers bring blankets, as the heating system doesn't work so well). It shows movies on 35mm film. It also charges far less than the multiplexes in the big city, both for admission and for refreshments – when is the last time you got a large order of popcorn for $2? The disadvantage is that it has only one screen, so moviegoers in Sierra County don't have any choice what to watch – it's whatever the theater is showing that week.

Eureka, I thought. If El Cortez is showing the film, I could go sailing during the day and then see the film in the evening, with Pat, or Zorro, or Cornhusker and Bassmaster, or some combination thereof. Unfortunately, when I looked up the theater's schedule on the Internet, I found that Invictus is not listed among the next few films to be shown. (However, the theater is showing It's a Wonderful Life free of charge through the month of December, in addition to the first-run movies.)

Maybe I'll go and watch The Blind Side. That's another sports movie, and since it's about football, wrapping up in a blanket like fans in the stands will make the film all the more realistic.

The Black Magic snowflake

Not like any other

I have a colleague, Connie, who has a special talent: She makes snowflakes. She will start with a photo or some other image, and she will create a custom snowflake based on that image. Some of her creations are astonishingly intricate. It's appropriate that the area she lives in is called Tijeras.

Some time ago, I gave her a picture of Black Magic under sail. Today, she gave me her creation based on that picture. Around the perimeter of the snowflake are silhouettes of the sails and hull of the boat, with watery waves beneath, and little fishies swimming below. It's delightful.

Permanent substitute

An oxymoron

In recent years, Albuquerque Public Schools have been criticized for having a large number of so-called permanent substitutes – teachers who aren't certified as full-time teachers, just as substitutes, who are taking the place of fully certified teachers because of staffing shortages, especially in fields such as math and science where qualified teachers are hard to come by.

While the No Child Left Behind act has shortcomings, a few of its provisions have been beneficial, and one of those was to reduce or eliminate the use of unqualified teachers. APS now has very few permanent substitutes, and those have legitimate qualifications, such as a degree in math or science but no teaching certificate.

Meanwhile, three times this season, the person who was scheduled to serve as race committee for the Rio Grande Sailing Club's regattas has canceled at the last minute, leaving Pat to fill in. True, he does have the official US Sailing race committee certification, but he shouldn't be called upon to be committee every regatta. In essence, he is now being called on as a permanent substitute.

In the past, the RGSC has had a policy of requiring all racers to serve regular turns as race committee. If a racer was unable to serve for the assigned regatta, he or she had to make arrangements to fill the gap, or else face severe scoring penalties in the regatta series. This policy served to keep skippers in line.

We're probably going to re-institute a policy on this order, since right now Pat's just not getting to race at all.

Meanwhile, this Saturday was the RGSC's final event of the year, the Kris Kringle Regatta and Christmas party. A cold front had just passed through – the previous two days there had been a blizzard that actually shut down the freeway between El Paso and Las Cruces. Temperatures at the lake were cold, and there was snow on the ground in the shady places. The plan was for the Etchells to run short course races, while the other boats would have a distance race around Rattlesnake Island and back.

There was a problem, however, with the Etchells fleet: Zorro's boat, Constellation, was in El Paso, where he had spent the past two weeks making hull repairs and painting her. His original plan had been to bring the boat up to the lake Friday to rig and launch, but the highway closure put an end to that plan. Instead, he was to borrow a truck from Carguy Saturday, haul the boat to the lake, rig it, and launch it, all in time for the day's racing.

There was a hitch with this plan, which was that there wasn't a hitch on the first vehicle Carguy had. So he and Zorro went to his lot to find a towing vehicle with a hitch. That delayed Zorro's departure for the lake. Once he got to the lake, he got help from me, Twinkle Toes, and Trail Boss, a skilled sailor who was to sail with Cornhusker and me (and originally also Pat) on Black Magic. Still, there were problems, such as the boat being full of snow and the bilge being frozen solid – along with a lot of the rigging, which pretty much had to be thawed out before it could be run.

Finally, Zorro told Trail Boss and me to go ahead and get out sailing; he and Twinkle Toes would finish rigging and launch Constellation.

So Trail Boss, Cornhusker, and I set sail in cold temperatures and light air. Just about the first thing Trail Boss noticed was that a large number of the lines on the boat were fouled and weren't running smoothly. He also noticed many other things that weren't working quite right – some of which had been on our radar (such as missing a masthead fly), and some of which had not (such as the tracks for the jib cars being placed too far forward; they would be all right in light air, but in heavier conditions it would not be possible to move the cars back as far as they should be).

Conditions to start with were light, but reasonable for sailing in, especially given the temperature, which was right around freezing. Trail Boss decided not to wait around for Zorro to get Constellation in the water; rather, he wanted to sail around the lake, both to give me and Cornhusker some lessons in sail trim and to get a feel for Black Magic and how we might improve her performance.

Then the wind did something it often does at Elephant Butte. It went away. So when Zorro and Twinkle Toes finally got the boat launched, we were becalmed far away.

Meanwhile, Pat was cold and miserable on Cornhusker's boat, Free and Clear IV, which she had made available for committee duty so we wouldn't have to rig or launch Syzygy. The anchor was lightweight, and it didn't have enough rode, so it dragged even in drifting conditions. After starting the distance fleet (two J/24s and a Grampion), instead of waiting for the Etchells to show up, he set a course, and then he had to keep changing the line as the wind shifted. We had tried to call him to let him know what we were doing, but the calls kept going to his voice mail. Meanwhile, he had tried to call us to ask what was going on, but he picked times when we couldn't answer the phone, such as when we were raising sail or tacking. He finally got through to Cornhusker's phone a couple of times when she wasn't occupied with running the boat, but he never clearly communicated exactly what he was doing or what information he wanted from us.

Eventually, we got back to the starting area, and we sailed along with Zorro for a while, but by then, the sun was getting low and the day was getting cold. We sailed back to the marina and put the boats away.

Because of the weather, turnout at the Christmas party was low, but at least it was not as low as the turnout for the regatta; about 20 people turned up for the party. Zorro presented awards, including 2008 Sportsman of the Year (Zorro had been preoccupied with damage to his boat last year and forgot) for Pat, and 2009 Sportswoman of the Year for Cornhusker. The white elephant gift exchange was quieter than usual, but it was fun.

Sunday morning was much warmer, but there was no wind. That was all right, since we wanted to put Carguy's boat on my trailer so he could get the bottom cleaned (it currently resembles green shag carpet) and then Zorro could repaint it; meanwhile, Black Magic could occupy Carguy's slip and be available to sail on or do boat work. Pat, Cornhusker, and I got the boat onto the trailer with no difficulty, and we left it parked just above the boat ramp, so Carguy can come when he's able to de-rig and take the boat to get it cleaned.

As we were finishing that task, the wind was beginning to stir. We went to lunch, and when we came back, there was a nice breeze, and the temperature was probably somewhere around 60 degrees. We got on our foulies and prepared to set sail.

We didn't stay out long. While we were raising sail, the wind came up strong, and by the time we were out of the harbor, we decided that sailing wasn't such a good idea after all. So we went back and put Black Magic in the slip. Then it was boat work time. I went forward and discovered a complete mess. The jib sheet fine tunes, especially the one on the starboard side of the boat, were twisted up. Whoever had run lines the last time the mast had been raised had done a horrible job, so that the mast moving system was fouled up in just about everything else under there. The fraculator had been run through a block that inexplicably had been tied with a bit of string to one of the blocks that the starboard jib fine tune was supposed to run through, and I couldn't fathom a reason for that block to be there, as the fraculator was run straight through that point.

So I spent about an hour up inside the front of the boat, and things are running much more smoothly now. There are still other things to work on, such as the jib cunningham, which used to be routed around the bilge pump hose that's no longer there and which now has too much length of line in one part of the system and too little in another, and the traveler, which right now has oversized blocks that hang up on things.

The weather was predicted to turn worse, and we wanted to get started on the journey back to Albuquerque before it got too late. We tied the boat securely, put the cover on, and headed up the hill, stopping to take pictures in the late-afternoon light of Constellation, with her shiny new paint job, and Black Magic, with a clean transom now that the motor mount has been removed. (It was about time; we haven't actually used the motor in about three years.)

What I missed

I wish I could have been there, but …

Two weeks ago, most of my family was on a ship in the Pacific Ocean near Iwo Jima to observe a solar eclipse. I, alas, was unable to be there, but I did get to watch things get dark via the ship's webcams.

Many of my relatives have super-duper fancy digital cameras, so I was expecting I would get to see some awesome photos. That was indeed the case. The very best photos, according to the acclamation of those who went on the trip, were those taken by my own offspring, Gerald.

Here is a shot that he got during the totality of the eclipse. What's spectacular about it is the detail of the moon's surface that can be seen. Obviously, the side of the moon that faces the earth is not getting direct sunlight, since the sun is behind it. Instead, sunlight reflecting off the earth is illuminating the moon, a phenomenon known as earthshine.

Darkness at noon

Except here it was actually in the evening

This evening, Albuquerque time, the longest-duration solar eclipse of the 21^st century was happening across southeast Asia and parts of the Pacific Ocean. The very best place to watch this eclipse, where the totality would last the longest, was out in the Pacific, a couple hundred miles east-southeast of an island called Kagoshima, which is, in turn, somewhere east-southeast of Iwo Jima. So that's where my folks, Gerald, Jer, Fuego, MaK, Z-Dawg, and assorted friends and relatives were, on an Italian cruise ship. (Two days ago, my blog had a visit from somebody claiming to be in Italy but also claiming to be in the UTC+9 time zone (Japan, Korea, central Australia), but I don't think it was a member of that particular party, since the visitor came on the usual search.)

So I decided to see if I could catch at least part of the eclipse live over the Internet. Now that I'm lugging my behemoth of a laptop to work every day and accessing high-speed Internet at work, it seemed feasible – especially since my lesson plans for this evening involved a lot of time during which the students would be working independently without any lectures from me. At the location where the eclipse would be longest, the penumbral phase would begin about at mid-class break, and totality would occur shortly before class ended.

But when I set out to find Websites where I could watch the eclipse, even from locations not at the best place, I found surprisingly little. There was a location that required a plugin that I didn't have (something having to do with making Firefox compatible with that other horrible browser). There was a location that invited me to come to the Griffith Planetarium in Los Angeles to watch a webcam feed there but that didn't give a link to that webcam. There was a location that asked "subscribers" to log in and gave non-subscribers an opportunity to give a credit-card number. There was a website that theoretically had three cameras on different islands along the eclipse's path, but while the names of those islands really looked like hotlinks, they weren't; they were plain text set in a different color with underlines.

In the end, I never found a single webcam that would show the solar disk. I did, however, find one site with two webcams that would at least show how dark it got. They were about 650 feet apart, pointed in opposite directions, and they were right at the very best spot, because – you guessed it – they were mounted near the bridge and on the stern of the ship that all those other people were on. This wasn't streaming video; the webcams updated themselves once a minute, and I had to refresh to get a new view – but still, I could at least get some idea of what was going on.

The view from the stern of the ship was particularly dramatic, as the sky grew darker over the churning wake – I'm guessing the captain was steering along the center line of the eclipse path as fast as was reasonably prudent in order to get a few extra seconds of totality.

It never really did seem to get all that dark. Part of that may have had to do with my wi-fi connection resetting itself, so there was a gap of time while I convinced the computer that it really did want to reconnect, but depending on exactly where the ship was, the eclipse had probably reached totality before the connection failed. When I did reconnect, 20 minutes later, it was much brighter, and the ship had slowed to the point that there wasn't much wake.

So in the end, it wasn't all that exciting, but, hey, I got as close as I could to being along on the voyage. A lot of the people who were on the trip have great cameras, so I should at least be able to see the shots they got. Meanwhile, I have bookmarked the ship's webcams, so I can keep track of the rest of the journey.

What is a view worth?

And what is a true rural experience?

Gerald has chosen to "monetize" his blog, (Enter Title Here). That means he has allowed the host that sponsors his blog to put some advertising in the blog's sidebar, and if somebody clicks on one of those ads, he gets a tiny fraction of a cent (something like a hundredth).

It has been interesting to see what ads have shown up. Early on, when he had a lot of posts about his Jeep, many of the ads were related to that vehicle – places selling parts or offering customization or things like that. When he posted about helping to take care of the Old Soldier, the ads started coming up with recommendations for home-health-care options and lawyers who could help with guardianship issues.

Lately, Gerald has been putting up pretty pictures of Northern New Mexico scenery. The ads are now coming up for vacation rentals in Northern New Mexico, and for real estate in Northern New Mexico. The vacation rental ads seem quite reasonable – after all, a person looking at Gerald's photos of dramatic scenery in the aftermath of a thunderstorm sweeping through Abiquiu might be inspired to go there. One of the real-estate developers, however, seems to be utterly unrealistic.

Many, many long years ago, my folks and a couple dozen other families came together to form a land-owning cooperative. The idea was that these 24 people would buy a big chunk of mountain ranch land. Then each family would get a small piece of land upon which to build a vacation home, and the rest of the land would be run cooperatively as open space. At the time, this was an extremely novel idea. It didn't completely work. A few families did build vacation homes, but those tended to be primitive, as the land was remote enough that electric power couldn't be brought in, and without electric power to run wells, there was no running water. The co-op got some money from grazing leases and timber sales, but not much. The folks sold their share of the co-op a few years ago.

About the same time as the folks sold their share, people in California discovered this idea – a big tract of thousands of acres, with residential lots in environmentally friendly areas, often on the perimeter, and the rest owned as a cooperative, as a conservation tactic. This developer whose ad now shows up on Gerald's blog seems to endorse this philosophy. At first glance, it seems good: Rather than tearing down the forest to put up McMansions that all want to have the view but in the process of trying to get the view destroy it, restrict the number of McMansions, and preserve both the view and the natural environment that produces that view.

When word first arrived that a major developer from California had bought this ranch in order to develop it, the reaction in the Chama Valley was mixed. Some people thought it would be devastating; all of these rich Californians coming into the valley would wipe out, or at least marginalize, the local culture, which had been in place for hundreds of years. An influx of Californians might also artificially inflate real-estate values, as it had already done in Santa Fe, making property values go up to the point that families that had owned their homes for generations would lose them because the property taxes would go up. On the other hand, some argued, having all of these rich Californians moving in would mean that they would be spending money in local stores and employing local people to clean their houses and drive their cars, and so it would be good.

The developer certainly expected to gain a lot. The ranch has a total of 5700 acres, of which 4000 acres are to be reserved as conservation green space. The subdivision plan envisions the rest of the ranch being divided into 81 residential lots. The first batch of lots (with no utilities in place and no development except for possibly an access road) range in size from 11 acres (for $650,000) to 51 acres (for $795,000) and in price from $415,000 (for 14 or 18 acres) to the aforementioned $795,000, 51-acre lot.

As it turns out, all of the locals' worries and hopes are, at least for now, on hold. With the economy taking a nose-dive, especially in California, there aren't any California millionaires buying these lots. In this first batch of 24 lots, the developer has sold one, and one other is under contract. The rest are still up for grabs.

So what does a buyer get in exchange for paying $650,000 to get 11 acres? Mostly, a view. I looked at the map on the developer's website, and that lot is at the end of a peninsula of lots, on top of a point looking out over a canyon. It probably has some really good views.

But what kind of view is worth $650,000? The developer's website doesn't indicate a view all that much better than what I get at Five O'Clock Somewhere. OK, so my view includes a couple of other people's vacation cabins, so it can't pretend to be isolated from civilization. But my view includes a lake, and the $650,000 lot's view doesn't.

It is interesting experiencing this developer's website, at least to the extent that it can be experienced over a low-speed connection. The site is graphics-heavy, and there's a video that's apparently supposed to be the core of the presentation. What little I could get over a dial-up connection consisted of the sound of coyotes beginning to howl. I wonder, why would anybody spend $650,000 to buy a lot upon which, after spending more money to bring in utilities and then spending even more money to build a house, one could then hear coyotes howl? One can buy a $15 tent at Wal-Mart, or, if one prefers the finer things, a $35 tent at REI, pitch it just about anywhere, and hear coyotes howling.

Now here's an interesting thought … how much is a view really worth? If that view in the proposed development is worth $650,000, then the view from Five O'Clock Somewhere ought to be worth at least a couple hundred thousand. And what about the San Jose Church in Los Ojos? What's that view worth?

Poetry corner: Paul Simon

I got a Nikon camera …

This post is dedicated to two blogsters who both have recently acquired fancy new digital SLR cameras and who are now learning how to get the most out of them: Gerald, who spent the Christmas gift from his grandparents, and then some, on a really cool camera and who has been taking cool pix since then; and Captain JP, who is taking his digital SLR on an adventure from which I hope to see lots of other cool pix (or sure shots or whatever – I don't know what brand his camera is).

The technology may have changed, so now the pictures are recorded as digital bits on a memory chip as opposed to being the result of a chemical reaction of light-sensitive substances on film, but there's still resonance with the song "Kodachrome," the song by Paul Simon that he recorded with Art Garfunkel many years ago.

Kodachrome
Paul Simon

When I think back
On all the crap I learned in high school
It's a wonder
I can think at all
And though my lack of edu---cation
Hasn't hurt me none
I can read the writing on the wall

Kodachrome
They give us those nice bright colors
They give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world's a sunny day, Oh yeah
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So mama don't take my Kodachrome away

If you took all the girls I knew
When I was single
And brought them all together for one night
I know they'd never match
my sweet imagination
everything looks WORSE in black and white

Kodachrome
They give us those nice bright colors
They give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world's a sunny day, Oh yeah
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So mama don't take my Kodachrome away

Mama don't take my Kodachrome away
Mama don't take my Kodachrome away
Mama don't take my Kodachrome away

Mama don't take my Kodachrome
Mama don't take my Kodachrome
Mama don't take my Kodachrome away

Mama don't take my Kodachrome
Leave your boy so far from home
Mama don't take my Kodachrome away
Mama don't take my Kodachrome

Mama don't take my Kodachrome away

Thanks to SING365.com for the lyrics. Interesting note … when I first arrived at the site, because I have a slow dial-up connection, the advertising wasn't visible. By the time I got to the point of pasting the lyrics into this post, the advertising had showed up for … yeah … Nikon cameras.

Gerald’s new wheels

And boy, are they big

A couple of years ago, when Gerald (then known as WCMIK) became eligible for a learner’s permit, I made a blog post speculating what sort of vehicle would be appropriate for him, and I even invited readers to respond to a poll to give their input.

Among the vehicles under consideration was the Cavalier, El Caballero, with the comment that no self-respecting teenager would be caught dead in something so un-cool, so he would be less likely to drive in such a manner that he would end up dead. That car got totaled last summer when he was driving it and a tire blew (thanks, Fu Sheng Tire Works, for making a tire that self-destructed after only 1000 miles). The Expedition, Babe, was also on the list; Gerald has decided that Babe is also seriously un-cool, since it is a gas guzzler and hard to maneuver in cramped parking lots. But he’s gotten quite skilled at maneuvering it with boat trailers on launch ramps.

The 1974 Oldsmobile was never something he seriously considered – it has handling and gas mileage worse than Babe, without the usefulness on boat ramps. Besides, that car is now a celebrity, having had a bit part in the movie No Country for Old Men. His great-aunt is keeping her hands tightly clutched upon her Volvo. The 1982 Lincoln Town Car might still be available, but it would require a journey (both physical and metaphorical) to retrieve.

A couple of other vehicles came up in subsequent discussion – a 1967 Opel Kadett, in which there would be no danger whatsoever of Gerald ever getting into trouble for going too fast, and a 1983 Mercedes 240D, just slightly the worse for wear after being in a rollover crash (the windshield wasn’t even broken, and the engine ran just fine).

Now that Gerald is over 18, he has access to his college fund, and while he’s preserving nearly all of it for his future tuition bills, he has chosen to spend a small bit of it to buy himself a set of wheels. He bought a set of big ones, with a Jeep on top.

From a fuel-economy standpoint, this wasn’t the best vehicle he could have bought. But he was looking into other factors, such as getting out into the wilderness to camp (hence the heavy-duty gear racks) with some buddies (hence getting a Cherokee rather than a Wrangler). He’s going to college at Arizona State, and it is important to him to be able to escape to the cool mountains on the weekends. And, as the photo attests, he has also discovered he enjoys rock-climbing with a vehicle.

On the more prosaic side, Gerald has also showed his ability to cope with modern red tape and paperwork. The day after he bought his wheels, he, by himself, went and took care of the insurance and registration. That Jeep is his and his alone, and he is responsible for it, and he knows it.

Pictures from Spring Series 1

Yes, there was somebody on the committee boat taking pictures. It just took a while to get the pics.

The first day of racing, Saturday, was a drifter, and we didn't get any pictures of the one excruciatingly slow race that was run. However, on Sunday, the wind was up -- and early in the day, it was up enough that the race committee chair considered calling off the racing. Fortunately, he didn't.

The winds were stiff at the marina as I considered whether to sail or not to sail. I finally decided not to sail, as all I had for crew was Pat plus one extremely novice sailor, and the conditions were really too rough for such a crew. Applegal, however, had very experienced crew, Appleguy and Penzance, and so she set sail.

The winds continued to howl, but not to the point where a highly experienced crew would give up, so I was surprised to see Applegal and her boat coming into port under jib only. Turns out, she hadn't chickened out, but her main halyard had broken.

Opportunity knocked, and I opened the door. I asked Appplegal, Appleguy, and Penzance if they would be willing to be crew for me on Black Magic. After some deliberation, they took me up on the offer, and we got out to the race course, ducked the line, and officially started the first race about a half hour after the rest of the fleet had gotten underway.

We managed to pass all of the B fleet and a couple of boats of the A fleet. The photographer on the committee boat got this picture of us on the downwind leg. If you look closely, you can see the jib halyard that was called upon to do duty as a spinnaker pole topping lift, as we haven't yet installed a new topping lift to replace the one that broke. Since the only other Etchells on the course at this point was Zorro in Constellation, we came in second in the Etchells fleet in that race.

By the end of the race, we weren't all that far behind Constellation. The wind was gradually abating, and the skies were clearing, and the photographer on the committee boat got this picture of some really awesome looking clouds. That's Zorro on Constellation in the center of the picture, and Black Magic near the right edge.

In the second race, we managed to stick fairly close to Constellation, although we did have some tactical miscues, such as not tacking when we should have, or tacking when we should not have. We managed to stay fairly close on Zorro's tail throughout the race, but we just couldn't get past him.

The third race was Black Magic's charm. It was a shorter race, with a downwind finish. Yes, we beat Zorro, even though he was potentially committing some Rule 42 violations by pumping the spinnaker at the end.

After the Etchells finished that last race, there was a really stiff competiton among the J boats. In the foreground, from left to right, the J/24s Wild Thing, Kachina, and Oso compete for the winning position, while the J/22 Sirocco's Song is not far behind.