Sailing the Spanish Virgin Islands in April

Nan and I will be sailing with John Kretschmer again in April. Our trip this time will take us from Charlotte Amalie in St. Thomas to Ponce in Puerto Rico, by way of the Spanish Virgin Islands. It's not a trip that's on John's regular schedule (http://www.yayablues.com/passages.htm), but he needs to get his Kaufman 47 sailboat, Quetzal, from where he ended his last trip, "Trans-Caribbean South to North: Trinidad to St. Thomas, via Grenada, the Grenadines, St. Lucia, Martinique" to where he will start his next trip, "Fountain of Youth: Retracing the route of Ponce de Leon from Ponce, Puerto Rico to St. Augustine, via Grand Turk, San Salvador, Hopetown."

Our involvement is the result of a trade that John and I made at the end of our Odyssey trip last year. He agreed to take Nan and me sailing again in exchange for me redesigning his website. I am an Internet developer by trade, and I don't normally do freelance work, but John's offer sounded like a good one so we shook on it. With his comments and content, the redesign went smoothly and the new website has been in place now for more than six months. It seems to be working well as a marketing tool based on how quickly his trips sell out, so he's happy with his end of the trade.

Now we're looking ahead to our end of the trade, with a departure date of Sunday, April 12. According to John, it will be a casual sail, with none of the overnight passages he normally plans, just daysails between marinas on St. Thomas, Culebra, Vieques and Puerto Rico. John has invited another couple, author Dallas Murphy and his wife, to join us but it will just be the five of us. I am in the process of reading Mr. Murphy's Rounding the Horn: Being a Story of Williwaws and Windjammers, Drake, Darwin, Murdered Missionaries and Naked Natives--a Deck's-Eye View of Cape Horn so I will have some topics for conversation. It should be a fun, relaxing trip. I will post updates and photos to my blog as we travel.

Golf-22

I have been suffering from what I call "Golf-22" for my entire adult life. Golf-22 is an expression I have coined for the condition where you don't play well enough to get excited enough to want to play more to get better.

A little history: I grew up playing golf, as did my father and his father before him. When I was four or five, I used to chase my dad down the fairways at Finkbine Golf Course in Iowa City with an old sawed-off wood, whacking a whiffle golf ball in a way that more closely resembled polo than golf. When we moved to Milwaukee in 1967 and joined Tripoli Country Club the following spring, my siblings and I played in the junior golf program. It was how we passed our summers. If you play enough golf in competitive situations, you will eventually become pretty good at it. By the time I was fifteen, I was shooting in the low eighties. But then I went through a growth spurt and the wheels came off. Whatever feel I had for the game disappeared. I couldn't even qualify to play on my high school's varsity team. After graduation, I stopped playing golf altogether. For almost ten years.

When I picked up the game again in my mid-twenties, at the prompting of friends and family, it was like starting over. I still had a decent swing, but every shot was a crap shoot. I could hit the shot I intended once in a while, but more often I sprayed the ball all over the place or chunked it badly. My scores were terrible. Golf was so incredibly frustrating that it was no fun at all. I once walked off a course in the middle of the tenth hole. I went home and cleaned my garage. And I had more fun.

I have been in that mode for about twenty-five years now, playing only four or five times a year in the hopes that a miracle will occur and I will play well for a change. Anyone who plays golf knows that this is ridiculous; you can't get better if you don't play frequently. But given how badly I play, especially when I once played so well, there is little motivation to play more: Golf-22.

All that is going to change this golf season. I joined the men's club at Redlands Mesa, and they play eighteen holes every Wednesday. If I play in every scheduled event, that works out to thirty-two eighteen-hole rounds. That's more golf than I have played in the last eight years. If I don't get substantially better, then there is no hope. The men's club season kicked off yesterday morning with a "1 Gross & 1 Net" event, and the four-man team I was on won it by six strokes! My handicap is so high that the three holes I somehow managed to par helped us secure a twelve-under-par net round. How's that for motivation?

No-go on sailing to Bermuda

Nan and I had a discussion on Sunday night about my planned sailing trip with Paul and Honey Caouette from Miami to Bermuda, the first leg of their trans-Atlantic passage, which is scheduled to set sail on May 16. In the end, we decided that I should not go.

The financial situation with my employer, Aspen Valley Hospital, is not good due to the slow economy and reduced skier numbers this ski season, so they are looking to do everything they can to reduce expenses short of lay-offs and pay-cuts. I would not have had enough paid time off accumulated to cover the almost three weeks the trip would take, and it would jeopardize my full-time status and benefits to take too many unpaid days off during these uncertain times.

I emailed Paul this morning with my regrets. I haven't heard back from him but I hope he understands. He and Honey have two other people lined up for the entire passage from Miami to Portugal, so they should have adequate watch coverage without needing to find a new fifth crewmember. I left open the idea of Nan and me joining them for a future trip, so there may still be an opportunity to sail with them aboard their Valiant 40, Wild Iris, if they don't decide to sell her in Europe at the conclusion of their adventure.

In the meantime, I offered to do whatever I could for them while they are in transit. Jeff, one of the crewmembers, has set up a Google Group, "WildIris", so I'll post updates from it as they come in, starting with the photo in this post, which was taken during the Caouettes' trip to the Bahamas last year and is the group's icon. Stay tuned.

Nan's good deed, part 3

This morning we were finally able to give Jerry his new used bike. We would have done it sooner but there were too many homeless people hanging out in the park whenever we drove by, and we didn't want anyone to take offense or for Jerry to be uncomfortable.

Nan and I parked across from the park and she called Jerry over. He seemed genuinely touched when Nan presented him with the bike and a good bike lock. He looked the bike over and said he had a plastic bread tray he could wire to the rack for Bear-Bear. In case there was ever a question about ownership of the bike, I took a photo of Nan giving it to Jerry. We could tell this made him a little uncomfortable, but he smiled and said we should come back after he had the bread tray in place to get another photo that included Bear-Bear.

To make sure the bike fit him well, we asked Jerry to take a quick spin around the parking lot. More smiles. Nan told him to be careful--"No more falls!"--and crossed the street to talk with Jerry's friend Scott, who was in the park with Bear-Bear. Jerry shook my hand and said, "Thank you. Thank you Jesus." I told him he was welcome and watched as he carefully pushed the bike across the street and locked it to a tree. Nan returned in a few minutes to say that she had told Scott it might take a few weeks but that we would get him a bike of his own to thank him for looking after Jerry. As we drove away, Bear-Bear was sniffing the bike like she wasn't sure what to make of this new thing in her life. We hope she enjoys her new ride.

Blogger posts using email: 2nd try

This is a second try at posting a blog entry using Blogger’s built-in Mail-to-Blogger feature. The difference this time is that I am embedding HTML tags in the text to see if they will provide greater control over formatting and links.<br><br>So this new post is also an experiment, sent from my regular email account, that contains another old photo of Charlie as a puppy, this time sized at 400x300 pixels, along with a Google Maps link to the exact location where he was sitting when the photo was taken: <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=39.248880,-106.895943&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1">Google Maps link to Charlie</a>. Let’s see if it works any better this time…

Follow-up: In a word, no. It did not work any better. Blogger does not automatically interpret HTML tags from email postings, so I guess that means I need to stick to straight text from now on and just accept the formatting that Blogger puts into place. Lesson learned.

Nan's good deed, part 2

Due to her unpredictable work schedule, it took Nan a few weeks to work out the details of getting Jerry a new used bike. This morning she did some shopping at Wal-Mart and bought a leash for Jerry's dog Bear-Bear to help keep her safe from traffic. She stopped by the park to give it to him and talk to him about the bike idea. He was still interested, so when she got home she called Brown Cycles and asked about their used bikes. Mary told her that the nice Trek mountain bike George had shown me when I picked up Jerry's used-up bike had been sold but that they had other bikes in the basement that might work.

Nan stopped by there this afternoon and picked out a good used Trek Antelope cruiser. She is about the same size as Jerry, so she had them size the bike for her and then took it out for a quick test ride. It worked perfectly. She added a bell and a nice Blackburn rack to the package and then brought the bike home to clean it up a little. We haven't figured out how to work out a way to transport Bear-Bear on the bike yet, but we'll see what Jerry thinks when we drop the bike off with him tomorrow. If everything works out well, we'll go back to Brown Cycles to find another bike for Jerry's friend Scott and maybe also a basket for Bear-Bear. Stay tuned.

The Pretenders in Aspen

On Wednesday night, Nan and I were in Aspen to see the Pretenders at Belly Up. They are on tour promoting their new album, Break up the Concrete, and passed through western Colorado between gigs in Denver and Dallas. Belly Up's owner, Michael Goldberg, has done an amazing job booking first-rate bands into his popular nightclub. In the last couple of years, we have seen the English Beat, Deep Purple, Todd Rundgren, and the Dandy Warhols. There are some important factors working in Belly Up's favor: the nightclub is small so most big acts sell out, even with high ticket prices; it is located in an area that makes it a natural link to larger cities; and musicians enjoy playing in Aspen, despite the high altitude, some even treating it as a vacation from their busy tour schedules. Whatever the particular reasons, we are more than happy to take advantage of the opportunities as often as we can.

The Pretenders were terrific. They opened with "Boots of Chinese Plastic" and another one off the new album, and then launched into "Talk of the Town" and "Message of Love", two of their classic hits. They continued in that mode, switching between new material and old, for a solid hour and a half, ending with two two-song encores. The crowd went wild with every familiar song, like "Brass in Pocket" and "Back on the Chain Gang", singing the lyrics back to the band and bouncing around the dance floor like it was still the early 1980s. The place was packed so Nan and I stayed in our seats near the bar, where I took the photo below using my iPhone, which I have decided takes pretty bad photos in concert settings. The shutter is just too slow for the lighting, so the photos are always blurry. Photoshop helps but not much. Click the photo for a larger view.

The best thing about the concert for me was a new appreciation for how talented and unique singer/ songwriter/ guitarist Chrissie Hynde is. She has fronted the Pretenders since 1978, through the deaths of two original band members and a constantly changing line-up of musicians, but her music has never wavered. You can tell a Pretenders song in the first few seconds, or as soon as you hear her distinctive voice. Chrissie's guitar playing was incredible. I don't know what I expected, never having seen even a live video, but she played her silver Fender Telecaster like a rhythm guitar rock god, like Keith Richards if he could also sing like Mick Jagger at the same time. It made me think she must be the most talented woman in rock and roll. At age 57, she looks the same as she always has, with her trademark dark bangs and tight jeans, and shows no signs of slowing down. Go, Chrissie, go!

"Leave It to Beaver"

When I was attending the University of Wisconsin in the late 1970s, we used to watch late afternoon reruns of "Leave It to Beaver" in Curt Haensel's dorm room before heading over to the commons for dinner. We called it "our daily dose of morals." If you're familiar with the TV show, which originally ran from 1957 to 1963, you know that every episode presented a lesson to be learned from Theodore "the Beaver" Cleaver's misadventures, usually explained to him in knowing tones by father Ward, played by real-life pastor Hugh Beaumont, and mother June.

Blogging frequently reminds me of an episode in which the Beaver decided to keep a diary. His problem was that his life was so ordinary that he didn't have anything to write about. So he started doing crazy things to provide himself with subject matter. Of course, he got into trouble and had to confess to his parents what he was up to. The lesson was contained in Ward and June's reaction: "Oh, Theodore! You don't need to impress us. We love you just the way you are."

The connection between living life and writing about it is intriguing. If we were required to write about every aspect of our lives, we might live a little differently, maybe a little larger and more honestly. Being able to pick and choose the events we share allows us to present ourselves in a better light, to craft a persona of our own choosing. Does it go to the Beaver's extreme, where we do something just to write about it, or is it a more subtle influence, where we know in the back of our minds that there is a possible blog entry in everything we do?

Nan's good deed

A few weeks before Christmas, Nan noticed that a homeless man who hangs around at a busy intersection downtown had a dog. It was a medium-sized, rust-colored mutt, and it followed the man everywhere. Sometimes she would see the man riding an old bicycle with the dog balanced on a rack on the back. When she told me about them, she said she felt sorry for the dog. We both smiled about that because we have a saying that when you see a homeless guy with a dog, you always feel worse for the dog than you do for the guy. She said she was going to buy a bag of Kibbles & Bits and give it to them. I told her it was a thoughtful thing to do but that she should be careful.

So Nan went about her shopping and errands with a bag of dog food in the car for a few days until she spotted the man and his dog at a small park near the busy intersection. She pulled up at the curb, rolled down the window and called the man over. She handed him the dog food, saying only that she thought he could use some food for his dog. She said he was touched and genuinely thankful, and not threatening in any way. The next day we saw the man pushing his bike with the dog food strapped to the rack and the dog trailing behind. I could tell Nan was pleased to know that the dog was being well fed now.

But then we didn't see the man and his dog for several days. The next time Nan spotted the dog, it was walking with a different man. There had been a report on the news about the murder of a homeless man by another homeless man, and we both worried that maybe the victim was the dog's owner. When she saw the new man and the dog a second time, Nan stopped the car and asked about the other man. The new man was kind and said that the other man had taken a bad fall and was laid up for a while but that he was getting better and would be around again before too long.

Just before Christmas, Nan asked if she could share an idea with me. She said she had noticed that the man's bike was in rough shape and she wanted to get it repaired for him. I told her it was fine with me and that I would help in any way I could. She said she would try to figure out a way to coordinate it and let me know.

It wasn't until after Christmas that Nan saw the man and his dog together again, walking up the street with the bike and the other man. She went to the grocery store to get another bag of dog food and then went looking for them to discuss her idea. She found them in the park and walked over with the dog food to talk with them. She found out that the dog's name was Bear-Bear, the man's name was Jerry and that the other man was Scott, Jerry's friend. Jerry said the bike wasn't working so well, that the back brakes were shot and that it wouldn't shift gears, so if there was anything that could be done to fix it, he sure would appreciate it. Nan told him she would be back the next day to pick it up and take it to a bike shop to get it fixed.

Nan had me put the bike rack on the back of the car and drive over to the park with her. Jerry, Scott and Bear-Bear were waiting for us with the bike. Jerry walked it over and introduced himself to me. He looked to be in his mid-forties and rough from living outdoors, but there was no look of drug addiction or smell of alcohol about him. When I shook his gloved hand, it was gnarled and twisted. He said the fall he had taken had knocked him out and that he had frostbitten his fingers as a result. He would be going to the hospital for surgery in a few days to have the affected fingertips removed. Nan told me later that Jerry had been sleeping outside during this unusually cold winter because the local shelter would not allow animals and Jerry would not leave Bear-Bear outside alone. They were camping down by the Colorado River and he had slipped on an ice-covered stone.

Jerry and I looked his bike over for problems, and I started making a mental list. Jerry said the bike had sentimental value because it had gotten him from Florida to Grand Junction, so he was really hoping it could be fixed. I tried to imagine him riding this bike that far and then I tried to picture Bear-Bear riding on the rack. It boggled the mind.

Nan told Jerry and Scott that she would let them know what the bike shop had to say, and we drove over to Brown Cycles to see what they could do. We explained the situation to Chris, the owner, while he looked the bike over. He said that while the bike was a classic, a mid-80s Peugeot, it might be beyond help. He pointed at the seat post, which was jammed all the way into the frame and causing the seat tube to chip and break. He said he would try to fix this problem first to determine whether the rest of it was worth fixing. We told Chris about Bear-Bear balancing on the rack and he showed us some baskets that would make for a safer ride. And we looked at a new bell, one that said, "I 'heart' MY BIKE".

Chris called a few days later to say that George, his bike mechanic, had worked on the seat post problem and determined that it could not be fixed. The bike was used up. It was time to look at a new one or maybe a new used one. I stopped by the shop to pick up the bike and talk with George about it. He showed me exactly what the problem was, and I asked how much we owed for his work on it. He said there was no charge, that he and Chris appreciated what we were trying to do. Then he showed me some used bikes they had in the back. They were not too expensive but they were still less than the estimate Chris had given us on the repair. I said we would need to talk with Jerry about it and let them know. George said we should try to get Jerry to come in so we could be sure we were getting a bike that would fit him. I said I would have Nan talk to him about that.

Nan and I discussed it that evening and decided that the best thing we could do would be to buy Jerry a new used bike, with a basket for Bear-Bear, and also buy Scott one as a thank-you for looking after Jerry and Bear-Bear. Nan also suggested that she would help Jerry coordinate a new hospital appointment, since he missed his first one, to make sure he gets treatment for his frostbitten fingers, but that might be a little more complicated.

Yesterday, Nan took Jerry's bike back to him. She apologized that it could not be fixed and told him about our idea to get him and Scott new used bikes. Jerry was sad about his old bike but happy about getting a new one. Nan and I will go take a closer look at what Chris and George have available next week and then work out the details with Jerry and Scott. I'll let you know what happens.

Blogger posts using email

I received an email message today from Chris and KT of SV Billabong, currently hanging out in Finike, Turkey. They are promoting a product they have put together that they call Blurb Bits. It allows far-flung cruisers to stay in touch with family and friends through their blogs by posting text, images and current location maps using just email through an SSB radio connection and SailMail or a similar service.

I have been thinking about this idea myself and have experimented in the past with using Blogger’s built-in Mail-to-Blogger feature, but I have never tried it with images or links. So this post is an experiment, sent from my regular email account, that contains an old photo of Charlie as a puppy along with a Google Maps link to the exact location where he was sitting when the photo was taken: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=39.248880,-106.895943&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1. Let’s see if it works…

Follow-up: The text and photo came through just fine, although the paragraphs are widely spaced and the photo is its original size instead of a scaled-down version. In the future, I would probably use line breaks instead of paragraph breaks and format photos to fill the available center-column space. The link is not really a link but rather a Web address that would need to be copied and pasted into a browser, so I guess Blogger doesn't automatically interpret Web addresses the way Outlook and Word do. It might be worth trying the HTML "a href=" version to see how it gets interpreted. Even with the minor issues, it's pretty cool to think that it's possible to publish full-blown blog posts from anywhere in the world you can get some kind of email access.