The Beach Club - May 2004
Bill & May continue to
"adjust" to semi-retired-life, and over-all it ain't bad if you can
cope with the lack of a steady income...
another cat picture (this is a cat, not a cat-door)!
Vancouver - March 2004 Family
visit trip - (previously un-documented)
WHOOOPSS- Mr. Bill has 'dropped the ball here'...
- May and I went to Vancouver, back in March to visit her
family. During that two-week visit we did a lot of
familying (including her nephew's 1-month-old-party) at her parents
house. (her sister (Ms. Yee) (mother of the nephew)) and husband Alex
and their new son Jacob are living with May's Mom and Dad (Amy &
Albert)).
We have 'consolidated the best' pictures from that trip in a directory click this link (with no text or
annotation). Most of the pictures are of Yee, Alex, and Jacob,
Jacob's one-month-old party, and some of the flowers and other
interesting things in May's Mom's (Amy's) garden.
We also did a bit of snowboarding - more on that some other time, a lot
of celebrating, taking-care-of Mr. Jacob, and some other computer and
family things. Check-out the pictures - lots of stuff there...
LIKE there's all these THINGs I get to do now that I'm
semi-retired:
- Mr. Bill gets to dig-tree-stumps
- drain, wash, refill, chemicalize, re-filter, etc. our -
under-utilized Jacuzzi
- install fences ((building the fence pictures) here - one, two); a
couple of the whole-thing (one, two)
- fence-gates: - they are 'about 90%
complete', still need to add wire-mesh and some corner-brackets
- install cat-doors (see above, or another picutre here)
- build air-compressor-bases (and install all the other
accoutrements of an air-compressor "System"
- insulate the loft
- visit the "Great Pocket Zoo's" newest patron ((new-patron picture one and picture two) (he has a little 'den' on the
north-western corner of our property), where, recently an old, dead
pine tree fell-down, and some of the dead branches almost got his 'den'
entrance...
- still find time to volunteer at the Blake Library (local
municipal Library)
- do some kiteboarding (see the Mercedes
Benz KiteWagon here)
- assist his hunny-bunch with building this(s) and that(s) for her
pottery world
- enlist the help of our friend Robert to learn more about how to
make 'picture-frame-perfect 45 degree mitre joints, so that now I can
do things I couldn't do before...
- do some yard trimming, and some more yard-trimming and some more
yard-trimming
- remove the front-walk 'decking' (old, rotten, slippery), and
put-in new paving-stones - pic1, pic2
- try to increase the pressure of our southern well-pump (for the
house)..
change the well-pump-water-filters...
change the yard-water-filters
re-structure / re-configure the piping system(s)
- pet a LOT of cats - now that we have
two...
- dealing with our
"Carpenter Bees" - these guys can REALLY bore a nice hole in your wood! (see below for
more details)
- May has been planting some fruit trees in our yard (Mango plant where the 'stump' was,
May's Lychee tree, our Bamboo, a Calamondin,
and some other fun-things!)
- hunny-bunch-hugging
- attempting self-portraits
with our digital camera
- training curriculum development for another couple of courses I
might teach in Marine-Design / CAD-software (getting pretty good with
Power Point; see below, again, for more details!)
- answering e-mails, postal mails, keeping the house going, etc.
etc. etc. etc. etc.
Some other notes & such of interest:
May and I have both signed-up at IRCC
(where I took a lot of "CAD / AutoDesk
product" courses last year) to take a "Video Editing" course from 'the Adobe Guru' - he's supposedly very
good and they have a LOT of very very good equipment and
software... - this starts on 12 May (next Wednesday night) - so
we'll let you know how it goes!
The "Carpenter Bees" are very interesting - Ms. May noted a lot of
small (about 3/8" diameter) holes in the (cedar) eaves of the
house. We noticed these BIG bees hanging around and going in and
out? - Then Ms. May asked me to remove a couple of dead-limbs from a
big-pine-tree in the front yard, and when I sawed-off this limb there
was this nice-round hole in the middle of the limb, then a 90 degree
hole to that???? Turns out we have something the pest-control
people call 'Carpenter Bees' and they do these very very nice round
holes - LENGTHWISE (if I could 'harness' these guys and speed them up I
could sell their hole-drilling-capabilities???) _ BUT - the
pest-control-guys say they can kill the existing ones, and then eggs
(you apparently 'Raid' them or something like that, then put some
steel-wool in their little holes, and fill them up with wood-putty) -
but they can drill / bore somewhere else, and they like 'softwoods'
like cedar and clear-soft-southern pine but not pressure treated nor
hard-woods - ???
- ANYWAY - this has been very educational and
interesting - if frustrating - I've put WEST system epoxy and micro-ballons
in about a dozen little holes but they bore right through the WEST
system resin! - ugh ugh ugh
Other interesting notes, news, views, and etc.
OH; - the Blake Library (computer-coach) thing continues to be very
very interesting at times - frustruating at others, but still
worthwhile, in all.
Kiteboarding has been EXCELLENT lately, though I feel my knees / hips /
thighs a lot, now, especially when I work really hard at it, but my old
OLD gear still works - so I am still having a lot of fun, and the
MB-Kitewagon is still very serviceable (at 190,000 miles and still
going strong (even waxed it twice in the last month!))
May's pottery continues to occupy a lot of
her time and she is selling
more, on a periodic basis - so we're generating a bit of income - her
with her pottery, me with a bit of
computer-consulting. I'm supposed to do a bit
of teaching in the marine world during the week of 17-21 of May.
- We'll see how that goes
- this is the first-one and it doesn't pay well, but it doesn't pay
bad, either, and they could have more work for me as time goes by.
It's associated with: http://www.chapman.org
In the CAD world I'm rapidly learning that AutoDesk's Mechanical
Desktop product is a pretty steep learning
curve, and I've 'mucked-up' a couple of drawings since I didn't know /
understand the intricacies - so I've finally
ordered a book for less than $50 - It was over $80 at one time... - the
Mechanical Desktop is a really really superior product, but like a lot
of great things - AutoDesk will be dropping support for it within a
year or two...
Our new / used house here continues to be fun and interesting - we're
now considering Satellite TV as
an alternative to Mr. Bill's trashy-old Radio-Shack antenna that even
in the old house only got 3-4 channels and only got one REALLY WELL,
here - but that was before we cut down the 'stumps' to put-up our Mango
tree. - Now the antenna is laying on the ground and we get ZERO TV
reception with it doing that - I suspect if I could get the antenna 50
feet off the ground the signal would be pretty good but I have yet to
figure a way to do that inexpensively and robustly (remember this IS
STILL a hurricane zone...
BUT other than that (lack of TV reception) things here are pretty well
- the summer is definately rapidly approaching, but we are ready - most
of the yard has had a 'once-over' and so I'm content to sit and do shop
things
or computer things for a few months, in the air-conditioing, (except
the shop is not, yet, airconditioned, but we'll see about that in the
next few months...
ALSO: - I've been doing a bit of computer-training / conference
attending, and I 'think' I've sold a couple of classes. However,
no cash has changed hands, yet, but 'maybe sometime soon' (ONLY TIME
WILL TELL, - it's frustrating, but I do think I'm closer now than I
have been? the two organizations are:
Listening to "A Prarie Home Companion" on NPR right now - considering,
though, the Satellite Radio (both XM
as well as Sirius) for the car
(need to replace the MBKiteWagon's 14 year old radio!.
WHAT ELSE is happening??? - lots - but that's enough for now!
keep in touch - write when you can:
bill@vikingasia.org
and May is at: sailormayw@vikingasia.org
ketch yawl schooner or lugger!!!! - Bill & May and Siew Mei and
Tigger
last updated: Saturday evening, 8
May 2004; revID: 4d
