Boat Quest, Part 5

Dan Gold may have been a believer in the MacGregor 26 trailerable sailboat, but that didn't mean he wasn't interested in selling me the one he owned, a 1992 MacGregor 26D. Whenever I ran into him, he would play up the advantages of his boat over the MacGregor 26X that I was dreaming of at that time, back in 1999. He said the 26X was nothing but a powerboat with a set of sails tacked onto it and that it had way too much freeboard, which would make it sail poorly. Dan was equally forthcoming about his own boat, saying it had a significant weather helm problem and that the cabin was cramped and uncomfortable, but he would sell it to me anyway for just $10,000--$5000 less than a new 26X--and that made it an unbeatable deal in his opinion.

Dan kept his sailboat at the Aspen Yacht Club on Ruedi Reservoir, above the town of Basalt and just down the highway from Aspen. It took me until the summer of 2001 to finally make it up there to take a look at it, at Dan's request but without his presence. As coincidence would have it, Steve Parrott was visiting us at that time, so he and his girlfriend went with me. Steve was one of my shipmates from the American Sailing Association class in Bareboat Chartering that I took in October, 2000. (See my "Education" post for details.) And he also owned a MacGregor 26, a late-model 26X. The three of us located the boat on its trailer in the yacht club's yard above the lake and spent about an hour crawling around on it. Steve thought it looked pretty good but that I should offer $9000 to see if Dan would go for it. It turned out that he would, but we continued to negotiate good-naturedly for many more years anyway.

When I started working at Aspen Valley Hospital in 2003, where Dan was the director of the pharmacy and my wife Nan's boss, we would talk frequently about sailing. Dan was the person who told me about Larry and Lin Pardey's cruising seminar in Denver. (See my "Lin and Larry Pardey" post for details.) In return, I asked them to sign his copy of their book, The Self-Sufficient Sailor, for him.

It wasn't until the following April, when Dan and I were both laid off from the hospital during a financial crisis, that we finally got together to sail his boat and commiserate about our shared misfortune. Dan was right, the boat did have a significant weather helm problem, causing it to round up quickly into the wind at every gust. No amount of effort at the tiller would keep it on course. Dan said the problem could be solved with a larger rudder and that there were plans online for how to modify the existing one, but he hadn't gotten around to it.

Dan never did get around to fixing his rudder. He died of a heart attack while skiing with his wife Kathy at Snowmass on February 16, 2006. He was 61. Nan and I attended his funeral the same day that I was rehired at the hospital. As I write this, I am looking at the large toy schooner that sits on my desk behind my flat-screen monitor. It was a recent gift from Kathy, who thought Dan would want me to have it. We never did complete a deal on his MacGregor, but in a smaller way I feel that I finally have Dan's boat. We miss you, Dan.

Boat Quest, Part 4

The fascination with the MacGregor 26 trailerable sailboat continued for several years, but it diminished briefly in the summer of 1999 while Nan and I were in Manitowoc, Wisconsin for the wedding of her youngest sister Sarah to Ian Griffiths. At the reception, we sat at a table with Nan's brother Jim and his best buddy Jack Simono. Jack was a long-time sailor who owned a Coronado 25 that he sailed on Lake Michigan. But the boat had been sitting unused in his backyard for a couple of years and he was ready to sell it. He thought it was worth about $7000, which was less than half what a new MacGregor 26 would cost, so I was very interested. When we got home, I searched the Internet and found a PDF version of the original Coronado 25 brochure. It looked like a sturdy, capable cruiser, more of a true sailboat than the MacGregor 26X power cruiser. I would have contacted Jack to work out a deal but like the dreams that preceded it, there was no money to fulfill it and it slowly died.

Later that summer, I made a pilgrimage to Colorado's only MacGregor dealer, The Anchorage, located just north of Boulder and only a four-hour drive away. The owners, Eileen and John, let me climb around on a brand-new MacGregor 26X and gave me literature and a price sheet. I left convinced that the MacGregor was the right boat for me after all. And I rationalized that it would be easier to come up with financing for a new boat than for an older, used boat. We might have qualified for a home equity loan, but the mortgage on our Aspen home was oppressive enough without taking on additional debt, so I never got past checking interest rates and calculating monthly payments.

That fall, Nan and I attended the wedding of Erika and Mike in Moab, Utah. Erika and Nan worked together in the pharmacy at Aspen Valley Hospital. Their boss, the pharmacy director Dan Gold, was also a guest at the wedding. Nan had been eager for me to meet Dan because she thought we had many interests in common, including sailing. Dan was late getting to the sunset wedding after riding the challenging Monitor and Merrimac trail on his mountain bike, so we met only briefly before the ceremony, which took place beneath one of the arches in Arches National Park. The reception was a low-key affair at Eddie McStiff's brew pub, where Dan and I talked sailing and became friends over pitchers of microbrew. Like me, Dan was a believer in the MacGregor 26, in his case because he owned one, a 1992 MacGregor 26D.

Christmas Letter 2007

Dear Family and Friends,

Time passes so quickly these days, our Christmas letters are starting to read like chapters in a serialized novel. By the time the last one has been mailed, it’s time to start thinking about the next. What to do for a cliffhanger though?

This year was a big one for us. We made up for all the travel and experiences we didn’t get to do last year while we were going through our home ownership transition. Much of that travel was the back-and-forth shuffle between our jobs at Aspen Valley Hospital and our home in Grand Junction. We shared a house down the road from Aspen in Basalt during the work week and drove home every weekend, partly to water the plants and check the mail, partly because it was home and it felt right to be there. But as of November 1st, when Nan ended her nineteen-year career at AVH, we are now full-time Grand Junctionites. Nan just started a new job here as Surgery Coordinator for Community Hospital, and I am telecommuting now to my job as the Database/Internet Administrator for AVH. It’s working out well so far, and our dog Charlie seems less confused.

The fun travel started last January. I was looking to expand my sailing horizons so I joined sailor/writer John Kretschmer and a group sailing John’s 47-foot cutter from Fort Lauderdale to the Bahamas and back. It was rough crossing the Gulf Stream overnight while beating into the wind, but we enjoyed the Settlement on Grand Bahama and the quick surf back. It was smooth enough on the return to practice using sextants to determine our latitude, confirming our position with the ship’s GPS.

To build her sailing confidence in anticipation of our upcoming May sailing trip to the British Virgin Islands, Nan took the American Sailing Association basic keelboat class in St. Petersburg, Florida in April. She surprised herself by passing both the written and practical exams. Our Christmas picture this year shows Nan happily putting her new knowledge to work at the helm of the boat we chartered in the BVI.

The May sailing trip was a dream, especially compared to our 2004 misadventure. Chartering a larger, safer boat and having Nan’s sister Monica and her friend Vicky along made all the difference. It was a first-time experience for both of them, but after they got over the feeling that the boat was going to tip over when it heeled, they pitched in on all the sailing duties. Good weather, smooth seas, excellent snorkeling and plenty of conch fritters kept everybody happy.

In August we visited family, Nan hers and me mine. Nan went home to Manitowoc to celebrate two milestone birthdays, sister Sue’s 60th and sister Amy’s 50th. Sister Sarah, the ninth and final Mullins daughter, and her husband Ian hosted the festivities at their home in Green Bay, complete with a This Is Your Life-style trivia contest.

I drove to Washington State with Charlie for a week-long Lichty family reunion celebration of Mom and Dad’s 50th wedding anniversary at sister Jane and her husband Josh’s homes on Whidbey Island and in Seattle. We toured the island, we hiked the beaches, and Charlie experienced sea water for the first time, prompting him to puke in the back of Jane’s van. Back in Seattle, we visited the art museum and aquarium, and celebrated Jane and Josh’s twins Max and Ben’s 10th birthdays.

In September we traveled to Italy for the first time. We wandered around Florence for a few days, reliving the Renaissance through the architecture of the Duomo and the artwork at the Ufizzi gallery, all the while partaking of the great food and wine. Then we took the train to the coast to meet up with The Wayfarers for a week-long package walking tour of the Cinque Terre and Italian Riviera with a terrific group of fellow Americans. The coastal views of the Mediterranean and the compact, pastel-colored towns were spectacular. At a walking pace, putting in about ten miles a day, we had plenty of time to appreciate them. If you’d like to see for yourself and you have a high-speed Internet connection, there are slideshows with captions on my blog at http://whisperingjesse.blogspot.com. After the hike ended, we stopped in Pisa to see the Leaning Tower on our way back to Florence, where we spent another day that included a visit to the Academia museum to see Michelangelo’s David.

October saw us witnessing Brett Favre’s bomb to Greg Jennings to beat the Denver Broncos in overtime. It does the heart good to see an athlete past his prime having probably his best season ever. Maybe Brett will have one more chance at a Super Bowl before he retires. Maybe he’ll play another season. Either way, go, Pack, go!

After that whirlwind of travel and the job and living adjustments, we’re happy now to be spending time settling into new routines and finally unpacking the last of the boxes from our move more than two years ago. There’s snow on the high desert, making for a rare white Christmas and good skiing at Powderhorn. We’ll be here enjoying both this holiday season. Here’s hoping for plenty of snow and the best this season has to offer for you and yours, now and in the New Year.

Love,

John and Nan and Charlie

July 28

July 28 has historically been a bad day for me.

In 1987 it was the day I parted company with an employer and immediately started my own somewhat ill-fated computer business, which I ran for ten years and then sold to a former employee whose birthday was July 28. But the sale did not go smoothly and resulted in legal wrangling to reach a settlement.

In 2004 it was the day I founded my eBay business, shortly after being laid off from a great IT job at Aspen Valley Hospital. That business was a financial disaster, so I closed it down after a year to stop the losses.

Today it is July 28 again, and I am trying not to tempt fate. I was going to go on an adventurous solo dirt-bike ride between Gateway, Colorado and Moab, Utah, but Nan talked me out of it after I mentioned that July 28 has been unlucky for me. My luck may be changing though because I was successful, just a few minutes ago when they went on sale, in getting two tickets to the Green Bay Packers vs. Denver Broncos Monday Night Football game on October 29--probably our last chance to see Brett Favre play in person. How lucky is that?!

Christmas Letter 2006

Dear Family and Friends,

Every time I sit down to write our annual Christmas letter, I reflect on life's changes. A year ago at this time, the business I had started in Grand Junction, Colorado was shutting down and I was looking for a real job, Nan was working at Aspen Valley Hospital and coming home to the house we had bought in GJ on weekends, and we were both wondering what to do next. Job opportunities in GJ were few and paid poorly, but as luck would have it, after posting my résumé on Monster.com, I received an email message that my old job at AVH was available again. It had been almost two years since I was laid off and I wasn't sure if I should apply, but Nan insisted. They hired me back without even an interview, not as Network Administrator but rather in the newly created position of Database/Internet Administrator. I started in late February, leaving behind my interim employment as a ski instructor at Powderhorn Resort, a great little ski mountain just outside of GJ. My half of the photo shows me in uniform but free skiing on Powderhorn's best powder day of the season, March 12, after it snowed four feet in two days.

Nan and I agreed that it didn't make sense to move back into our Aspen house, which was being rented at the time. The move to GJ had been an ordeal and we weren't eager to repeat the experience. And besides, we had grown fond of our living situation in GJ--the friendly climate, the good shopping and restaurants, the beauty of the high desert. We just couldn't afford both mortgages. So we found a house to rent downvalley and put the Aspen house up for sale in May as the lease ran out. We thought we could save on commissions by trying to sell it on our own, but the negotiating process was too draining, so we listed it with an old friend who had a firm offer in less than a week. We closed at the end of August. Now I guess we're former Aspenites even though we both still work there and live, during the work week anyway, just down the road.

These transitions didn't leave us much opportunity for travel this year. We carried through on reservations we had made almost a year in advance to spend a June week in Las Vegas, originally to attend the annual eBay convention, but my struggling business had eliminated any enthusiasm for that pursuit. Instead we walked all over the Strip, read novels by the pool at the Paris hotel, gambled a little and saw two great Cirque du Soleil shows, the Beatles' "Love" show and "O".

Nan and I both made it home to Wisconsin on separate trips for family time. My sister Susan organized a small family reunion that brought the Chicago contingent to Milwaukee for a day of food, fun, reminiscence and music. The rest of the week was a blur of spotty golf, a concert with sister Jane in Chicago and a visit to the Wisconsin State Fair. Nan's visit home brought together almost all of her eleven siblings. In between visiting around the dinner table at 846, Nan attended the Fall Festival at Camp Sinawa, where her father was so involved, and made day trips to see sister Sarah's family in Green Bay and old friends in Door County.

Most of our weekends were spent in GJ working on our new house, but we also managed a few weekends elsewhere, like in Moab, Utah a few weeks ago, where Nan ran in the Winter Sun 10K. As you can see in her half of the photo, Santa was there to record her finish time, which was good enough for third place in her age group.

We'll be making up for the lack of travel in a big way next year, including a repeat of our 2004 sailing adventure in the British Virgin Islands, this time on a bigger boat with Nan's sister Monica and friend Vicky as crew. Hopefully, it will go more smoothly than our ill-fated "Where's the dinghy?" experience.

Things definitely appear to be looking up, not just for us but also for our country. The November election proved that most people, at least the ones who vote, are paying attention and want a return to peace and sanity. We're hoping the momentum carries through to 2008, when we expect to see the election of our first African-American president. Go Barack!

Best wishes to you and yours this holiday season!

Love, John and Nan

How much is enough?

I work at Aspen Valley Hospital, where Ken Lay was pronounced dead earlier today. The media, which were already in town to cover the Aspen Ideas Festival, descended on the hospital in force. Wolf Blitzer from CNN was seen in the lobby. TV-station vans and cameras surrounded the building.

At one point early in the day, my duties took me past the morgue. I stopped and stared at the door, wondering if he was still in there, but I didn't dare check to see if it was locked. Instead I thought of the man behind the door and what his life must have been like.

At the peak of his career, Ken Lay was a very wealthy man. It was common knowledge that he owned four multi-million dollar houses in Aspen. This boggles my mind. Any one of the houses was big enough to put up the extended Lay family and several guests. So what were the other three for? To house staff? If so, the man was living large, extremely large. And I think that is what got him into the financial mess he ended up in, the one which ultimately contributed to his early death. When you're living the way he did, the money has got to flow at a tremendous rate just to maintain equilibrium. If that balance is upset and the money suddenly stops, what do you do? If you're Ken Lay, you don't scale back; you figure out ways, many of them fraudulent and illegal, to keep it all going until the inevitable crash.

What may have started out as simple greed grew over the years into something that was well beyond Ken Lay's control. I believe this is a common occurrence in modern society, where the gulf between the wealthy and the poor is every-widening. If you reach a point in your life where you have so much stuff and such a complicated life that you need to hire full-time staff to maintain it and organize it for you, then you are living too large. It is time to step back, realize how lucky you are, and start simplifying your life before it consumes you. It's too late for Ken Lay. May his life and death be a lesson to others.