Going Back In Time

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail15.html

I don't know why I picked this old Strong Bad email, or why it made me smile today. It just fits the mood.

"Eh, there'll be another one next week..."

Wing-and-Wing

The pressure is climbing up - for a few hours it blasted through the ceiling at WPOW1, and winds there are reeling, whipping around at fifteen knots in the dead of night; the high pressure is casting the showers aside. But it's not without argument. There's been at least one thunderclap, maybe more on the way.

I'm on the edge, with a Saturday sail in the balance, disappointed by today's showers, hopeful that the pressure jump means an end to the bone-soaking wet for even just a few hours in the afternoon tomorrow. I think about sailing, and while there's only been one dream so far, I know there's more on the way. I dream sailing during the day. DJ Icey's mix of "Sailing" gives me goosebumps (the good kind), and - what really tips me off - I don't shut up about it. With everyone, it's hey, you want to go sailing, or woah, the weather's looking good this weekend, or hey, check it out, that's a spinnaker on that boat...

There's more in my life, of course, hey, tonight was a personal best at the lanes, I bowled a 169 game, and picked up a four-bagger of strikes for the first time, I was electric out there, but in a way, I have to give the credit to sailing for something, something really deep that's turned me onto the world again.

I haven't exactly figured it out, it's still a big mystery, but let me read to you this small passage from John Rousmaniere's The Annapolis Book of Seamanship:

With good seamanship comes the security of knowing that you can meet every challenge. And with security eventually comes a blissful harmony between sailor and boat that, in my experience, cannot be duplicated in any other relationship between a human and an object.

I'll be the first to admit that it might be a bit of a stretch to apply the principles of command of a vessel back to the rest of life; one can't always be the skipper of every situation, but I'm taken by the deliberate and pragmatic nature, the integrity with environment, equipment, and his own intuition a skipper must have to lead a successful sail. It's something I'm proud to say I'm building, slowly but surely, and I think - maybe it's a little fanciful - why can't I be that guy? With work and dedication, can I not become the skipper people know, respect, and love to come sailing with?

I know I can do that, and it feels like something very suited to me, something close to my heart. And when there's something close to my heart, I feel awakened, I feel alive, I feel the need to share, to teach, to give something back, I feel a closeness to people and the inevitable need to smile, to smell the air, to come to nature, to close the circle, to become energy.

I've never stood taller in life than I have on deck, and that means something to me, it means something big.

25th Sail

You're looking at a roller-furled jib sail. It is a critical piece of equipment on a sailboat, and I happened to catch a neat picture of the running rigging-to-sail connection as the sun was going down on Commencement Bay.

Today marked an important passage in my sailing adventures, a milestone I wouldn't have been able to reach without my crews, varied as they've been over the many months.

Today, on Commencement Bay, with a short stint in Quartermaster Harbor, I marked my twenty-fifth sailing excursion; in just five months, and averaging five sails per month, I've reached twenty-five outings. In rain or in shine, with glass-smooth water or with three-foot chop, with silence or with the howling wind, I've been sailing, pulling sheets, tensioning winches, watching the masthead for signs of God's fickle breath. I feel like I've been through a lot for a newcomer.

And, given Coast Guard standards, this means I have achieved over one-hundred hours on the water.

This weekend has been huge fun for sailing, and we've taken not only plenty of pictures, which you can view:

• 24th Sail: Elliot Bay, Alki Beach
• 25th Sail: Commencement Bay

But also a little bit of video of our time on the water, such as Tyler's ingenious plan to honk an air horn at a sea lion sleeping on a shipping lane buoy (don't worry animal fans, we didn't do it):

Watch the Video

It's been cold as we race toward winter, but the spring months will be on us all again soon, and by then, who knows where we'll all go together?

I've been so proud to take my friends and my family, acquaintances both new and old, on these outings. Feel free to check out their smiling faces and I hope you'll feel a little of the happiness I do knowing I can help people feed the sense of wonder about the water.

Tyler, Geli, Mom, Dad, Dan, Betsy, Jack, Jessie, Wyvern, Mike, Wyatt, Cece - thanks for being the best crew a skipper could ask for. Here's to next year, crew. There isn't much before now that's gotten me excited about the next year. But now - I can't wait to see spring. Thanks, and good night.

Banners Over Microsoft

Someone hired a plane to drag a skybanner all over the Microsoft campus today. On it: "Sun x64. Faster. Cheaper."

I wish executives would at least pretend they had something better to do with their money.

Molyneux's "The Movies"

I'm like a proud parent showing off a hideously ugly baby. Look at what I made! Yeah, not hard, all you had to do was pop it out. Same deal with this movie, folks:

http://xpstream.winisp.net/agentcox/Get_Crunk.wmv

So, just for those that haven't tuned in lately, "The Movies" is a game that lets you make your own movies from 3D characters. There's a lot more to it than that, but for a guy that was raised on Disney's Stunt Island, this is a dream come true.

Stay tuned for whatever crap pops up next, this game is a blast.

Good Sailing Weather

Right on the heels of all that crap weather I've been whining about, something beautiful happens overnight.

I felt the change last night, unable to sleep, feeling stuffy, pinned in. I had left my window open just a bit. This morning, the air from outside blew in, fresh and wispy. My head felt clear.

WPOW1, as always, has the story.

In less than twenty-four hours, high pressure swept in and blew the barometer up from 29.92 to 30.46, on steady rise from 10 AM yesterday. Temperatures are a brisk 46F. The dewpoint has crashed ten degrees. The wind has gone confused, spinning about, searching for a home, rotating around all points of the compass in the last twenty-four hours, now stabilized for the last three hours around North-Northwest.

Even the pessimistic Landlubber's Forecast for Seattle has breaks of sun, and right now, it's shining bright enough on the wet pavement to blind me through the window.

And what does it look like out on the water?

Scattershot clouds, you can see for miles, winds at a steady 15 knots. It's beautiful. It's probably cold as Godknowswhat out there but I'm ready to go. They say it'll stick around most of this week.

Now, if I could just find a way to get out of work...

Final Note: 96% on my Basic Coastal Cruising test. 103 Certified! Next stop, the Virgin Islands!

Bad Sailing Weather

I'm sitting here, I'm watching the trees bend every now and then, and I'm thinking, "Christ, WPOW1's blowing 38 knots." I've never tried 38 knots.

The National Weather Service meteorologists have a sort of sterilized jargon that always seems to understate the issue. When you've seen one cold front you've seen 'em all, I guess - they call this one a "short wave trough":

THE FIRST SHORT WAVE TROUGH IS ASSOCIATED WITH A POOL OF VERY COOL AIR ALOFT WITH 500 MB TEMPERATURES APPROACHING -30 C AND A MODERATELY UNSTABLE PROFILE FROM THE SURFACE TO ABOUT 18KFT.

Checking the Space Needle Web Cam. Not a single pleasure boat on the bay. Elliott Bay Marina, which shows up at about 55 degrees west on the web cam, looks calm. But all the ships are snugged down and not going anywhere, they know better, even the million-dollar cocaine boats with their rich thrillseeker captains, or the Alaskan-run ketch rigs with their comfy arctic pilot houses. They could go. But they won't. Nobody wants to touch it right now. Pressure - 29.89 and falling.

One of the things I didn't really think about or plan for in joining a sailing club was the inherent fragility in sailing small boats; for a successful sail, in winter weather, a lot of different conditions have to match up, many of them considerably more negotiable if I had a larger boat:

• The winds can't gust much higher than 15 knots
• The waves can't be much higher than three feet
• The temperature can't be much lower than 50 degrees (okay, so that's a personal comfort thing)
• Visibility has to be at least half a mile

And it really shouldn't be raining; it's not like I'm bringing fish home for a big wad of cash, I'm going out to have fun, and drippy sailing sucks.

Still, the personal economics of the thing work out well; it's easily one of the most affordable day-sailing clubs around, and I've already been out maybe ten to fifteen times in just four months. Paying individually, it would have cost ten times, maybe as high as twelve times more.

Even so, my sailing morale isn't huge, watching the trees bow over, the leaves plucking free and making the landscape barren.

While I'm waiting, I can still "ground school" - I've got a written exam to finish a Coastal Cruising class here on Saturday (wish me luck), and I'm sure I'll keep reading about sailing, thinking about the water, but until I see a high pressure front bring red skies to an early evening, until the mercury climbs again, I'm landlocked.

This is the start of the yearning for a bigger boat, I can tell...French boats...Lord help me.

Edit: What is up with that fish sculpture on the navigator's table? Does that come with the boat? Sold! Bring the Fume Blanc, Giles, we're going yachting...

oilPrice - Breakthrough

BOOM! 20,000 downloads!

I'm going to go ahead and call the ball dead where it landed. Onto new widgets.

Second item of business, I'm on MySpace! Go, go, go, add me to your friends, make this machine run as fast as it can!

Bit Vacuum, Random Stuff off The Wire

Freakonomics is some of the most fun I've had reading about economics and the science of incentives.

From the Weather bureau, ever wondered how those silly weather anchormen never seem to waver on their forecasts? Real meteorologists do, read today's discussions on the National Weather Center.

Reports from the Foreign Office: The-Agent is heading to the BVI in February '06 for a week of paradise sailing. Let's all say it with him - "it's about time"! It'll beat the pants off the kind of sailing you can get in Seattle in February. See you in hell, clouds.

Desktop Toy Report: The oilPrice widget is just sixty-nine clicks away from reaching 20,000 downloads! So close! Spread the word, get it out there! I'm looking at throwing together another widget here soon, maybe about marine weather?

In the mood for consumerism? Visit the t-shirt store Tyler and I are starting up in conjunction with Spreadshirt, rapewhistleshirts.com! Buy an Avian Flu Virus shirt today.

More Panic Dept.: U.S. Travel Restrictions to Fight Bird Flu?

Pocket Rocket Indeed Dept.:GUBA plans to put porn on iPods. Hey, I know those guys! Sort of.

Finally, from the "Fire The Intern" basket: Thousands of Beef Panties Being Recalled.