Beach Club - August 2004
YES! - it has definately been a
LONG TIME to get from May (our last web-page update) til August (and
the end of August, too! - today is the 29th of August, 2004) -
Mr. Bill has had some major sucesses (and failures) of late, and Ms.
May continues to succeed, so we'll go to explaining all this and
showing you some pictures of various and sundry things.....
Hurricane Frances (and aftermath(mostly)) - picture directory - MORE
TEXT when I have time - this is JUST a directory listing with some
photos-in-it, and they are - more 'organization' when I have some
time! click here for photo-directory
FIRSTLY - we should open with our 'picture or the month' - TERRIBLY
self-explanatory...
You can click on her small image above to get a larger version of this
picture...
IF IF IF IF IF you just "Can't Get
Enough" of
this cat - and her various poses, here's a few more images to keep
your
interest, until next-time that is...
- Image1 - (with Mr. Bill (300K
bytes)
- Image2 - (another
up-side-down-obscene view (again - no one was 'coerced' or 'harmed'
(140K Bytes)))
- Image3 - a 'portrait' that
we think is particularly fitting
- Image4 - a portrait of Ms. Siew Mei
- she's beautiful too.
- Image5 - Ms. Tigger helps repair
the "Kite Wagen"
YES - we have some 'cute-cats' around here - there's no question that
our 'cat-attention' quotient is significantly increasing, as time goes
on, and they are affecting our productivity... We have also
discovered that Ms. Tigger is particularly fond of "Fancy Feast"
soft-cat-food, and we attempt to give her some each-day at
Lunch. However, we also give 1/2 to Ms. Siew Mei (who is
only partial to one or two of their 'menu choices' (out of about 30
that are offered)), so Ms. Tigger ends-up eating most of the food and
she is both gaining weight, and becoming more 'vocal' -
We also give her some 'goat-milk' in the mornings now (when we have it)
and she's decided that goat-milk is far superior to cow-milk (and Ms.
May likes "Soy Milk" - so, soon, now, we'll have to get another
refrigerator for just the different forms of milk we consume in this
family...
Too bad we don't have kids - we could completly dis-organize our lives
around our kids (we understand from people who have kids that this is a
major reason to have kids - to become dis-organized).
May's NorthWest Summer Trip:
Ms. May left Stuart in mid-June and flew to Seattle. Then she and
her friend(s) Lily & John (who grew-up in Seattle) went exploring
in and around Seattle for 4 days... They went to the
Brandy-Newest Seattle Public Library, which they said is extraordinary.
They also went to the "Pike Market" which is good.
Feeding the seagulls on the waterfront.
They also hiked-up-along the Danny Creek - another local Seattle
'landmark', and ate left-over sushi along the way...
Visiting Wujimaya they did some shopping and spent some money on
Japanese Supermarket things.
They also did some REIing at the original store in downtown Seattle
(RIGHT BY The freeway - where Mr. Bill has driven by several times, but
NEVER been in - he's now jealous that his huggly-bunch has been to the
ORIGINAL REI store and he has NOT...
Amongst their other things in Seattle, they had excellent Sushi at
"Shiro San's" in Seattle, and ate the left-overs while hiking in Danny
Creek. John's Family has been eating sushi at Shiro San's for 40
years...
It was a great pleasure to meet-up-with John's parents and
grandmother, (who recently passed-away).
Ms. Lily and Mr. John had their 'daily-dose' of Starbucks, at the
ORIGINAL Starbucks store, which happens to be located at the "Pike
Market" area of downtown Seattle where they did a bit of sightseeing
around the neat stores.
- Lily and May then went to Vancouver via a smooth, 3 1/2
hour Greyhound bus ride across the US-Canadian border.
After spending a week with May's Mom, Dad, sister Yee and her husband
Alex their son Jacob.
Then they went to Vancouver Island via bus and ferry and Mechosin
where they did two weeks of workshops. Ms. May and Ms. Lily
did a printmaking workshop the first week and then Ms. May did a
pottery firing workshop the second week.
Notice the bowl of 'red' fruit from their Silicon Valley garden -
after all Silicon Valley used to grow grapes in abundance...
Ms. May went back to Vancouver and she and her parents drove to
Silicon Valley to see Ms. May's cousin's family, who's been living
there
for more than 10 years and her uncle's family from Hong Kong who
has just immigrated to the USA. They spent nearly a week in
Silicon Valley, and then dropped Ms. May in the Seattle airport on
their drive home to Vancouver.
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May's fruit-garden efforts, as of late:
We've now planted a number of fruit - trees -
almost all of them since our last Web-Site-Update in May, here are a
'few' pictures of (only) 'some' of our (new) trees (and I have
NOT taken out a 'like number' - so you can imagine the look of the
yard!:
- Avocado - (picture (256 K bytes)) with appropriately
placed 'sand-magnet-paws' cat - who transfers the sand from here into
our bed, but deposits the sand 'mostly' on May Wong's side of the bed
- Bamboo - (picture (252K bytes)) this was
planted back in April (I think) and for a
while we didn't think it would 'grow' - now it's over 5 meters tall
- Banana Tree - (picture 216K bytes)) this is a 'midget'
banana (we think) and planting it required removing an OLD OLD OLD
scrub-oak root-system that when removed filled-up an entire 32 gallon
trash-can with it's parts & pieces - at least the stump had been in
the ground for 5-10 years and was mostly rotten - however, there was
still some significant work in removing the stump and planting the
banana
- Calmondin - (picture 252K bytes)) Bill's
'iced-tea-fruit' bush is growing very very well in it's big pot, and
has already yielded about 3-5 fruit, but there are at least a dozen or
so that should be ready in 30-90 days
- Lychee - (picture (348 K bytes)) growing well - no
fruit - we'll get fruit next year, we're told
- Lime - (picture not
available) - to plant this one Mr. Bill had to dig-up two palmetto tree
roots - that took a LOT of TIME
- Longan -
(picture-not-available) we
were 'gifted' with this from the couple across the street; who have a
great number of varieties
- Loquat - (picture (308 K bytes)) - this one, too,
continues to grow very very well!
- Mango - (picture (168K bytes)) - this one required
digging-up two 'scrub-oak' tree root-systems - again, another couple
hours of work in the hot sun (this was done, though, back in May '04 -
when it wasn't 'quite' as hot as it is now...)
- Starfruit - (picture (272 K bytes)) we had 3 tiny
starfruit about a month ago, then they dropped-off, but we'll
get more next year, so we have been told...
AND, Ms. May has some orchids planted in / on / around this big
palm-tree - they're hard to see, but they are there...
Mr. Bill's yard-things, as of late:
Mr. Bill has been continuing to
'clean-up' the jungle-yard(s) we have on our acre of land... He's
disposed of several old, dead, trees, and the trash-guys have been
happy to carry them all off (once he chopped them all up... He has
several 'tools of the trade' (235K
bytes) that help him in his efforts to clean the yard...
AND - he continues to mow, to put-out a lot of trash-cans and
tree-pieces, and so-on and so-forth...
(larger version of this picture = 360K
bytes))
Ms. May Wong - Yard-Gal!- she's enticed me to help her clean up our
"jungle" and rid it of vines and limbs that might fall on our house
during a hurricane (or is it a hemicane (if you're sexist?))... -
anyway - Ms. May and I spent several hours removing vines, limbs and
other debris from our jungle-area in the back (north) yard!)
OTHER Things a-happening - in no particular order:
Ms. May recognized (with her sensitive hearing (amongst other sensitive
things)) that the air-conditioner-compressor(s) - outside the bedroom
window(s) was / were 'noisy' at night when we slept with one or both of
them turned on. So at her
suggestion, I built this 'sound-fence' - and put some 'carpet-squares'
underneath the corners of the compressors, which also helped dampen the
noise and vibrations coming through the floor, the walls, and the air...
the light-blue-material on the right-hand-picture is 2" styrofoam, -
hope it shields some of the noise... - we'll see!
------------------------------------------
In JACKSONVILLE, at Mom's - we found "Mother Duck" attempting to hatch
her eggs on the Donzi (speed-boat) cover?
Another Mom-Chuck 'pet' - who knows her place in life and appropriate
activity for a hot summer afternoon. Now, where does Chuck sit,
though?
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We had a 'predictable failure' last night, in that our old,
almost useless, and considerably in-effective TV antenna (bought about
4-5 years ago and used at 8 Perriwinkle for years) died. I tried to
'ressurect' it and did so to some degree. However, it probably
needs to be 10-15 feet higher than I can get it on an old boardsailing
mast and an old Laser mast - which it is on now. - So - We'll 'see'
what the future holds for our household TV reception - not looking good
at this point!
So - as a result of this 'death in the family' - we are going to
investigate Satellite TV, since Ms. May is of the perception that
we can get Cantonese and Mandarin channels. We're
going to consult with others, and evaluate this and probably make a
decision in the next month or so.
We've basically been a one-channel-family for about six-months, now,
and it's been enjoyable to do extra reading each night but we know
we've missed 'some things' (like the Olympics!)...
=======================================================
Bill's continuing work on his Westlawn (http://www.westlawn.org)
assignments are receiving mixed-reviews with the graders, and he's
frustrated, but he'll 'persist' and get-through.
He's also taken a 3-day course (in Miami) in Rhino3D (http://www.rhino3d.com) basics and
it was excellent and the trainers and office-staff and even the hotel
and the food were all excellent excellent excellent.
Then Ms.
May said, "Can you make the software do a 'pipe on a spiral which is on
a
spiral' - so we worked a while at that - and here's the result:
(Rhino3D file written-out as ...bmp, then converted to ...jpeg file)
Here's a couple of other design-things, just for 'reference' so you can
see that I've not been 'Loafing':
three-toes (not sure why this is here, but I thought, I guess, it might
add to the 'nature' of the web-site?!
=====================================================================
Some other 'Rhino3D' CAD software goodies...
-----------------------------------------------------------
Bill's Mercedes Kite-Wagen continues to have an over-heating problem,
but he's got the 'right-tool' for at least a part of the debugging /
evaluation process, and he's making progress in that direction...
.
===============================================================
Some "SIGNIFICANT" shop / loft re-arrangement has been going on --
throwing-out things, cleaning-up, consolidating 'stuff' and just
generally trying to make the 'place' a bit more workable, give us a bit
more room, etc. etc. etc. etc. ...
===================================================================
AND _ Since some of you have Never Been to Visit Us, - here's some
'around the house' images:
a view looking easterly, along the south-side of the house (the street
is to the right...)
a view to the North West (from the south-east corner)...
a view of the drive-way (looking towards the south-west), taken from
similar viewpoint of the one above)
a link to a picture of a 'freshly-maid-bed' (our
master-bedroom)
a link to a picture of a 'freshly-mowed-yard'...
======================================================================
Mr. Bill picked-up our SeaDoo
today - after over 8 months in the 'shop' (where they had two mechanics
die, two location moves, and countless other problems) and 2
trips on
the river where the boat quit and we had to idle-back to the
ramp, and so-on and so-forth - it now has the following
new-components:
- short block (engine-block and pistons, and internals)
- magneto
- magneto case
- magneto cover
- fuel filter screen
- fuel filter cover
And Mr. Bill did these things back in November of 2003, and since
the boat's been in the shop, they haven't been run in 8 months!
- steering cable
- reverse cable
- new engine (vibration/rubber) mounts
- sandblasted, re-primed and re-painted engine-mounting 'pan'
- thru-hull bearings
- thru-hull water seals
- thru-hull bearing-flex-mount
- pump stator-housing
- pump-mounting-studs (in hull (pump stator housing is now plastic
and bigger...)
- battery (no-maintenance)
- starter-motor
- trailer-lights (about a week ago, Bill did this work)
It runs EXCELLENTly (I guess it should after almost $2,000 in parts an
labour!). But it certainly is good to have it back to ride it around,
to see all the sights one can't see from the shore, and note that the
weekends around here are a ZOO on the water - so I didn't stay out very
long - just a bit over an hour... Anyone want to talk about
SeaDoo maintenance, repair, costs, values,
etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.... AND, it's for
SALE!" three
pictures of the SeaDoo / trailer: Left_side Right_side engine_compartment
------------------------------------------------ Nearing the end,
now!!!
--------------------------------------------------
by the way; you've spent an exhausting time prowling through our
web-pages; please enjoy some refreshment - click here ... ... ...
last-updated: Friday, 09
September
2004 @00:22 p.m.; Ms. May and Ms. Tigger
helping me a LOT!
