23rd February (a Tuesday) it's misting,
but much warmer than it has been. (68F) ... The Trailex continues to
get lots of attention (several hours of work on Monday, 22nd, to
re-build the roof!) ... Perhaps, today, I'll go Europing but
perhaps today I'll just work on the Trailex and in the shop and so-on
and so-forth (assuming it does not blow?)???
The regatta in _Clearwater_ (17-21 February) went well - hard / long days on the water but the competitors enjoyed it and the result was a really good regatta. Our next regatta will be in _Merritt_Island_ and that is in a couple of weeks...
This image shows what happens when I'm assigned to be the 'wind-direction-guru' but there's not a heck of a lot of wind to determine which direction, so I basically have little to do other than get my picture taken. This one was e-mailed to me by some nice lady who took it... - you can click on the picture to get a larger image to see just how little wind there is!...
And YES it was COLD COLD COLD - though this picture was taken on Sunday morning, 21st, and it was actually a lot warmer than it had been - I STILL have 2 layers on top, and two on bottom (that is BEFORE the foul-weather-gear) The first day of the regatta was Thursday, 18th February, and it was WAY COLDER - that day I had FOUR LAYERS and that's about as much as one can put on and still move...!!!
In the interim when it WAS WARM (for just a FEW days) several positive things were accomplished:
The "Trailex" double-decker trailer (now something like 16 years old; originally purchased from the US company "Trailex" when I lived in Hong Kong) has undergone a significant rennovation and change of configuration...
In the last few weeks I've:
and so it's ready and raring to go (when it gets WARMER!)...
and this boat (my beloved (but un-sailed-recently) Europe Dinghy) will go on the above trailer....
This other boat (our (US-One Design) 14 foot skiff) has been cleaned, and a lot of the lines replaced, and some shock-cord-replaced, and the spinnaker pole end-caps maintained and, well, generally it's 'ready' to go, also, when the weather turns warmer, because we will SURELY CAPSIZE IT! ...
(picture here is (YES) upside-down because it's hanging-up under our roof (the roof that I built about a year ago) and YES it's 'up-side-down' to keep birds (and other things) from 'nesting' in it if I had hung-it-up right-side-up.
Getting this 200 pound boat off the trailer, cleaned, flipped-over and hung-up under the 'roof' was an all-afternoon-event. It was helped, significantly by supervisor "SBC" (Small Black Cat) and helper / coordinator / manager, Ms._May_Wong - who contributed mostly brain-power but a little muscle power, too!
some other recent February pictures:
Some gifts (shirts, pants, glove(s)), recently received from good friends in the north...
Mr. Bill's "Guard Garden" continues to grow in spite of the cold weather. the 'blustry' conditions and the 'only-natural-watering' (rain).
I've been doing some 'Trike Maintenance' on both Ms._May's new trike, as well as my older-trike...
I re-designed mud-flaps (after having gotten VERY VERY VERY Wet on the way home from a ride, recently) - They are now able to swing-out-of-the way most of the time (about 95% of the time (like in the picture above)). But when I need them, I can rotate them in towards the tire and they will decrease the mud and the wet that ends up all over me (and the Trike).
Today's ride (the one on 14 February, 2010) proved that these newly re-engineered mud-flaps may be the 'bees knees'. I really enjoyed today's ride - even though it was COLD COLD COLD, and the weather was 'supposed' to warm up when I left home at 47 degrees F, but - alas - it did NOT warm up and the wind was supposedly less than 9 mph from the north and ended-up being about 14 mph out of the north (when I was headed North to go home) - and wow was it COLD... - Today's digital-image and track-log here and the Google Earth ...kml file here.
One other major activity around the house here has been to give Mr._Panda a bath... He wasn't quite sure that he NEEDED a bath, but Ms._May assured me this was the case. Since I (almost) always do what my cuddly_bunch says, I gave him a bath and because the weather, though chilly had a very (very) low humidity he dried-out pretty quickly. Unfortunately I don't have 'before and after' pictures, but trust me the rinse water indicated he REALLY DID need a bath.
Sailing Regattas:
==============
Mr._Bill helped-out at our local sailing club, the United States Sailing Center of Martin County ( http://www.usscmc.org ) at the recent "Laser_Masters" sailing - regatta / competition. We are 'schedulled' to help out at a number of regattas in the near future.
I just visited the local sailing center to loan-out one of my marine-band-VHF-radios - and there were almost 100 boats waiting around, (and probably nearly 200 people to sail those boats) in the just barely 50 F degree / 15-25 mph winds (out of the NNW), and I'm pretty glad I'm home, here, in the warm-cozy-house!
Seems like we'll be doing a lot of driving around the state to do that - but helping-out at regattas is ALWAYS a learning experience and always fun to meet up with old-friends and make new ones. Every regatta is run a little differently on several levels. There's always something to be learned and we always do. It's a real honor to be asked to contribute so we attempt to do so as often as we can. More on these regattas as they happen...
ell the month is nearly half-gone and it's turned cold (AGAIN) as I write this on the (COLD) morning of Saturday,13 February (where after 12:00 noon it is just barely 50F outside (and 3 different digital thermomolators can't ALL be wrong!)
America's Cup sailboat racing near Valencia, Spain (it's official now (late Sunday afternoon, 14th February (Valentine's Day)) - we WON, USA's boat (The BMW-Oracle Racing boat, sometimes called "BOR") beat the Alinghi boat (Swiss boat) in the second race (today) and that was a 'triangle' course. - so this - VERY SHORT (2 race) America's Cup series off the coast of Valencia, Spain, was won by the USA...
For watching the America's Cup race(s) in Valencia, Spain; click here - and then download the 'plugin' for your web-browser when it asks you to...
The America's Cup - this year (2010) has been run between two HUGE multihulls (USA's team 'BMW-Oracle' with a huge trimaran (who's mast is a mere 234 feet tall (no I didn't forget to put a decimal point in there!), and the Alinghi / Swiss team running a HUGE catamaran.
This racing is one of the few places you'll see (soft) water based (as opposed to 'hard' water (otherwise known as ice)) racing wherein the boats attain speeds significantly in excess of the wind velocity. The other place you'll see this is in ice-boat racing with boats WAY smaller than these (ice boats are typically 10-15 feet).
You can look at the Google Earth "Valencia, Spain" place-mark I set-up - by clicking-here to download the file - and then once it's on your desktop - - double-click it and it will open Google Earth (this assumes you HAVE Google Earth on your computer) and take you to Valencia, Spain on the beautiful Medeterranian Sea...
This is a 'hold-over' from 31 January 2010 - when we went out for a (cold / wet / overcast) (recumbent tricycle) ride on the L.O.S.T. (Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail) with our 'trike-friend' Mr._Tom.
Here's a 'short (25 second) movie - taken by Ms._May on her new iPod_Nano, and then we 'twiddled' for a while on the Macintosh (and it's applications (the still-image is from Mr._Bill's iPhone, and the video is from Ms._May's iPod Nano) and we used almost every Macintosh application we could find, and there were a lot of things we'd forgotten as we tried to put this all together - but the bottom-line is that cooperation and persistence finally paid-off and we managed a "passable" 25 second movie... ... ...
There's a link to the 'GPS-track-log file (overlain on top of the Google Earth image of the Lake) here...
this image requires a bit of explanation - ...
You'll notice (at the top) there's an 'anemometer' - and that is really not MY anemometer, it belongs to someone else. However, as the 'custodian' of this anemometer (and the associated electronics that go with it) I feel 'responsible' in a BIG WAY. So - being a 'responsible custodian' I have planted (at it's base) a 'Guard Garden' - of many pretty flowers of different sizes and species and so-forth. This garden magically gets larger each time I ride my tricycle and it magically needs NO_WATER_(ever)... - So I feel it's the ideal 'garden' for me (who does NOT have a 'green_thumb' by ANY stretch of ANYONE's imagination), and in addition it helps to GUARD the anemometer so that the anemometer will NOT get DAMAGED?!
So - now aren't you glad you didn't ask?!
These are 'hold-overs' from previous months...
From September-October - the "CNC09 Cycling trip: Our arrival back home in Stuart (on Monday, 5 October) (after a 13 1/2 hour - 760 mile drive, in the RAIN RAIN RAIN RAIN... from the "Cycle North Carolina - 2009" - 430 mile cycling trip from Blowing Rock to Surf City - entirely in North Carolina...
The "CNC09" - since it spanned September and October - has it's own web-page - so you can see that ' Here ' - It'll be 'new and different today (6 October) but I'll probably update it throughout the month as more things show-up...
On the hang-gliding front we have not been flying "that much" - but a good friend of ours from _Colorado_ went to a competition in _Arizona_, recently, and posted this video. It's only about 2 minutes / 10 seconds long but shows the tow-up, the circular motion that is so important, some gliders below him, and if you turn the sound up you can hear his 'vario' (the instrument that tells a glider pilot he is in a rising column of air) - typically called a 'thermal'.
Mr._Bill's best hang-gliding-flight (Ever) - see the FlightLog.Org web-page, here...
The regatta in _Clearwater_ (17-21 February) went well - hard / long days on the water but the competitors enjoyed it and the result was a really good regatta. Our next regatta will be in _Merritt_Island_ and that is in a couple of weeks...
This image shows what happens when I'm assigned to be the 'wind-direction-guru' but there's not a heck of a lot of wind to determine which direction, so I basically have little to do other than get my picture taken. This one was e-mailed to me by some nice lady who took it... - you can click on the picture to get a larger image to see just how little wind there is!...
And YES it was COLD COLD COLD - though this picture was taken on Sunday morning, 21st, and it was actually a lot warmer than it had been - I STILL have 2 layers on top, and two on bottom (that is BEFORE the foul-weather-gear) The first day of the regatta was Thursday, 18th February, and it was WAY COLDER - that day I had FOUR LAYERS and that's about as much as one can put on and still move...!!!
In the interim when it WAS WARM (for just a FEW days) several positive things were accomplished:
The "Trailex" double-decker trailer (now something like 16 years old; originally purchased from the US company "Trailex" when I lived in Hong Kong) has undergone a significant rennovation and change of configuration...
In the last few weeks I've:
- replaced old (rusted & frozen) nuts with new stainless (" Nyloc " ) nuts
- it has a semi-permanent 1/4" plywood roof, now
- some rollers were added where we will load-boats, to save the boat-keel and use less muscle-power
- the wheel-bearings have been re-built ($60 worth of parts and some 'elbow' grease (pun intended))
- the spare-tires have been repaired re-inflated, re-valved, etc.
- the boom-tube-locks have been re-built
- the light-wiring has been re-attached
- it was re-licensed and re-insured
- everything that needed oil has been oiled
- best of all I've 'cleaned' it up, a LOT!
and so it's ready and raring to go (when it gets WARMER!)...
and this boat (my beloved (but un-sailed-recently) Europe Dinghy) will go on the above trailer....
This other boat (our (US-One Design) 14 foot skiff) has been cleaned, and a lot of the lines replaced, and some shock-cord-replaced, and the spinnaker pole end-caps maintained and, well, generally it's 'ready' to go, also, when the weather turns warmer, because we will SURELY CAPSIZE IT! ...
(picture here is (YES) upside-down because it's hanging-up under our roof (the roof that I built about a year ago) and YES it's 'up-side-down' to keep birds (and other things) from 'nesting' in it if I had hung-it-up right-side-up.
Getting this 200 pound boat off the trailer, cleaned, flipped-over and hung-up under the 'roof' was an all-afternoon-event. It was helped, significantly by supervisor "SBC" (Small Black Cat) and helper / coordinator / manager, Ms._May_Wong - who contributed mostly brain-power but a little muscle power, too!
some other recent February pictures:
Some gifts (shirts, pants, glove(s)), recently received from good friends in the north...
Mr. Bill's "Guard Garden" continues to grow in spite of the cold weather. the 'blustry' conditions and the 'only-natural-watering' (rain).
I've been doing some 'Trike Maintenance' on both Ms._May's new trike, as well as my older-trike...
I re-designed mud-flaps (after having gotten VERY VERY VERY Wet on the way home from a ride, recently) - They are now able to swing-out-of-the way most of the time (about 95% of the time (like in the picture above)). But when I need them, I can rotate them in towards the tire and they will decrease the mud and the wet that ends up all over me (and the Trike).
Today's ride (the one on 14 February, 2010) proved that these newly re-engineered mud-flaps may be the 'bees knees'. I really enjoyed today's ride - even though it was COLD COLD COLD, and the weather was 'supposed' to warm up when I left home at 47 degrees F, but - alas - it did NOT warm up and the wind was supposedly less than 9 mph from the north and ended-up being about 14 mph out of the north (when I was headed North to go home) - and wow was it COLD... - Today's digital-image and track-log here and the Google Earth ...kml file here.
One other major activity around the house here has been to give Mr._Panda a bath... He wasn't quite sure that he NEEDED a bath, but Ms._May assured me this was the case. Since I (almost) always do what my cuddly_bunch says, I gave him a bath and because the weather, though chilly had a very (very) low humidity he dried-out pretty quickly. Unfortunately I don't have 'before and after' pictures, but trust me the rinse water indicated he REALLY DID need a bath.
Sailing Regattas:
==============
Mr._Bill helped-out at our local sailing club, the United States Sailing Center of Martin County ( http://www.usscmc.org ) at the recent "Laser_Masters" sailing - regatta / competition. We are 'schedulled' to help out at a number of regattas in the near future.
I just visited the local sailing center to loan-out one of my marine-band-VHF-radios - and there were almost 100 boats waiting around, (and probably nearly 200 people to sail those boats) in the just barely 50 F degree / 15-25 mph winds (out of the NNW), and I'm pretty glad I'm home, here, in the warm-cozy-house!
Seems like we'll be doing a lot of driving around the state to do that - but helping-out at regattas is ALWAYS a learning experience and always fun to meet up with old-friends and make new ones. Every regatta is run a little differently on several levels. There's always something to be learned and we always do. It's a real honor to be asked to contribute so we attempt to do so as often as we can. More on these regattas as they happen...
ell the month is nearly half-gone and it's turned cold (AGAIN) as I write this on the (COLD) morning of Saturday,13 February (where after 12:00 noon it is just barely 50F outside (and 3 different digital thermomolators can't ALL be wrong!)
America's Cup sailboat racing near Valencia, Spain (it's official now (late Sunday afternoon, 14th February (Valentine's Day)) - we WON, USA's boat (The BMW-Oracle Racing boat, sometimes called "BOR") beat the Alinghi boat (Swiss boat) in the second race (today) and that was a 'triangle' course. - so this - VERY SHORT (2 race) America's Cup series off the coast of Valencia, Spain, was won by the USA...
For watching the America's Cup race(s) in Valencia, Spain; click here - and then download the 'plugin' for your web-browser when it asks you to...
The America's Cup - this year (2010) has been run between two HUGE multihulls (USA's team 'BMW-Oracle' with a huge trimaran (who's mast is a mere 234 feet tall (no I didn't forget to put a decimal point in there!), and the Alinghi / Swiss team running a HUGE catamaran.
This racing is one of the few places you'll see (soft) water based (as opposed to 'hard' water (otherwise known as ice)) racing wherein the boats attain speeds significantly in excess of the wind velocity. The other place you'll see this is in ice-boat racing with boats WAY smaller than these (ice boats are typically 10-15 feet).
You can look at the Google Earth "Valencia, Spain" place-mark I set-up - by clicking-here to download the file - and then once it's on your desktop - - double-click it and it will open Google Earth (this assumes you HAVE Google Earth on your computer) and take you to Valencia, Spain on the beautiful Medeterranian Sea...
This is a 'hold-over' from 31 January 2010 - when we went out for a (cold / wet / overcast) (recumbent tricycle) ride on the L.O.S.T. (Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail) with our 'trike-friend' Mr._Tom.
Here's a 'short (25 second) movie - taken by Ms._May on her new iPod_Nano, and then we 'twiddled' for a while on the Macintosh (and it's applications (the still-image is from Mr._Bill's iPhone, and the video is from Ms._May's iPod Nano) and we used almost every Macintosh application we could find, and there were a lot of things we'd forgotten as we tried to put this all together - but the bottom-line is that cooperation and persistence finally paid-off and we managed a "passable" 25 second movie... ... ...
- For Apple Macintosh people: Mobile-Me-Gallery / iMovie_link_here.
- For Microsoft Windows people: You_Tube.
There's a link to the 'GPS-track-log file (overlain on top of the Google Earth image of the Lake) here...
this image requires a bit of explanation - ...
You'll notice (at the top) there's an 'anemometer' - and that is really not MY anemometer, it belongs to someone else. However, as the 'custodian' of this anemometer (and the associated electronics that go with it) I feel 'responsible' in a BIG WAY. So - being a 'responsible custodian' I have planted (at it's base) a 'Guard Garden' - of many pretty flowers of different sizes and species and so-forth. This garden magically gets larger each time I ride my tricycle and it magically needs NO_WATER_(ever)... - So I feel it's the ideal 'garden' for me (who does NOT have a 'green_thumb' by ANY stretch of ANYONE's imagination), and in addition it helps to GUARD the anemometer so that the anemometer will NOT get DAMAGED?!
So - now aren't you glad you didn't ask?!
These are 'hold-overs' from previous months...
From September-October - the "CNC09 Cycling trip: Our arrival back home in Stuart (on Monday, 5 October) (after a 13 1/2 hour - 760 mile drive, in the RAIN RAIN RAIN RAIN... from the "Cycle North Carolina - 2009" - 430 mile cycling trip from Blowing Rock to Surf City - entirely in North Carolina...
The "CNC09" - since it spanned September and October - has it's own web-page - so you can see that ' Here ' - It'll be 'new and different today (6 October) but I'll probably update it throughout the month as more things show-up...
On the hang-gliding front we have not been flying "that much" - but a good friend of ours from _Colorado_ went to a competition in _Arizona_, recently, and posted this video. It's only about 2 minutes / 10 seconds long but shows the tow-up, the circular motion that is so important, some gliders below him, and if you turn the sound up you can hear his 'vario' (the instrument that tells a glider pilot he is in a rising column of air) - typically called a 'thermal'.
Mr._Bill's best hang-gliding-flight (Ever) - see the FlightLog.Org web-page, here...
and-or see the track-log over Google Earth Image(s), here... small_image larger_image (1 megabyte)
Archived BeachWeb monthly site(s): Click here for a list of the archived months
Some people have asked, WHERE can I FIND, "X" - whatever the heck "X" is?; but in my case - these two things are being asked about...
The "Tire Changing Web-Page" and/or the VANC (VikingAsia (Networks and Computers)) Consulting) web-page.
AND / OR if you 'WANT' (or desire or need or have an 'urge' for something you don't see, then you can e-mail me at: bill@vikingasia.org
Archived BeachWeb monthly site(s): Click here for a list of the archived months
Some people have asked, WHERE can I FIND, "X" - whatever the heck "X" is?; but in my case - these two things are being asked about...
The "Tire Changing Web-Page" and/or the VANC (VikingAsia (Networks and Computers)) Consulting) web-page.
AND / OR if you 'WANT' (or desire or need or have an 'urge' for something you don't see, then you can e-mail me at: bill@vikingasia.org
updated: 19:44 p.m. on Tuesday, 23 February, 2010 - revID: 1f