Bill
Schell's "BeachWeb" for April 2012
WELL! - another week, another week-end (and it RAINED SOME on Sunday
Morning!):
1.) Anniversaries and web-sites:
This week we passed Mr. Bill's 10th anniversary of being laid-off by (the
former) Motorola (on 26 April, 2002)... I wouldn't have known
this except for some pension documentation I received in the
postal-mail.
It's VERY INTERESTING how some databases form the 'basis' for some
web-sites... Now this particular web-site (which shall
remain nameless) seems to KNOW my wife's birth-date, but they also claim
I'm not married? ???? hmmm?
They also find a way to show you many dates which are ambiguous: -
8-9-2000 could be the 9th of August or the 8th of September? - and
they haven't figured this out - but - well - they are DEFINITELY NOT THE
ONLY ONE...
2.) I protest, also, about all the squirrels who never
received my e-mail saying that "If you want a peanut then you have to pose
for a picture"...
3.) there's a brief opportunity here (in Stuart, and
maybe other places) for a 'Mobile Peanut Distribution Center' (and
squirrel support psychologist)...
4.) Animal Life: We
MUST say that when one goes cycling in the early morning (like before
07:30 a.m. or so) - that the Animal Life one can see is wonderful! - the
birds, the bunny-rabbits, the squirrels and other things... - it's AMAZING
what you can see!
5.) Eye Doctor and Shattered Glass:
This past week, after MANY weeks of TALKING but not ACTING, I finally went
to see about new glasses. The Eye doctor-guy was floored that I had
not been in before. Said he couldn't understand how I could actually
see out of the ones I had. So I ordered new ones. When I
returned to the parking-lot the mini-van's back-door (tailgate) glass was
shattered... - ??? - The ( Safelite
)guy who replaced it said it could have been either a weed-eater throwing
a rock or the sun on it the wrong way or BOTH... - cost me $100
auto-insurance deductible and a couple hours on the phone and waiting
around but now it has a new glass.
6.) Snowboard Gear (pants and outer-jacket-shell:
Be careful what you wish for: I 'wished-for' new snowboarding gear, not
really thinking that would happen (at all) - AND trashed my existing
snowboard gear by working in it for 10 days on the Olympic Peninsula...
HOWEVER, when I realized my snowboard jacket-shell and pants were well
over 10 years old, AND that this is the RIGHT TIME to buy 'winter-gear' -
AND that we have this GREAT SOURCE where we generally get abut 70% off
retail AND free-shippng, so needless to say it was 'the right thing at the
right time. Ms. May, of COURSE, did 90% of the WORK (invested the
hours) and I 'approved' and we've got some REALLY GREAT stuff coming on
the way...!!!
7. ) Tools and Bags:
AND Another order I'd recently issued for some tools got
'double-shipped' (yes I e-mailed them back, noting this - they
couldn't have cared less!) - so - well - now I have more than I bargained
for. I'm seriously considering investing some of my
hard-earned-dollars in a very nice (available
at Lowe's) tool-specific back-pack that I can put most of my tools
in and just leave it in the mini-van - that would be good! - I wouldn't
have to load and un-load things all the time! The other great
features of a back-pack style bag is that: a.) it leaves both hands
free to climb / walk / etc and b.) with a zipper to close everything all
up - even if I drop it I have not lost all my tools. They may
be in a jumbled mess but at least I won't lose them!
Today is Saturday, 21 April, 2012:
No, this picture has NOTHING to do with 21 April, I just happen to like
it (A LOT!)
There's nothing earth-shattering (or of any other 'value') to report - sorry
- wish my week had been more 'newsworthy', but it was not... - you'll have
to settle for items that happened earlier in the month (read-on below!)
However, some VERY MINOR things happened this week...
- 1.) talked to the 'sidewalk-(maintenance)-guys' and the 3 wooden
bridges that I typically tricycle across have now been 'maintained' (new
boards, and some nails re-seated) and they say that within the next two
years or so all three of these wooden bridges will get replaced. - Now
to see if they are correct...???
- 2.) Mr. Mon-back (the friendliest cat you will EVER meet) and I had a
lengthy petting session this past week - a very welcomed addition to the
tricycling thing...
- 3.) I decided to do some 'spring-cleaning' - and this is a great time
to do that (in the spring (this is April, right?))... - I've decided
that anything that I have not used nor touched (other than to MOVE) in
the roughly 13-14 years since we moved back her from Paris, Sydney, Hong
Kong, it must GO!
- 4.) I've decided that any 'fasteners' that are raw-steel-only (not
stainless steel) must GO! - most of them are so rusted they won't work
ANYWAY!
- 5.) I've decided that MUCH of what I have 'acquired' from
'long-since-gone' parents and step-parents and others (that are
long-since-gone) that I do not USE or NEED must GO!
- 6.) I've decided that MUCH of the sailing, kiteboarding, etc. gear
that I have had, and been 'keeping for that just-in-case' situation - if
it's OVER 10 years old there is PROBABLY SOMETHING BETTER, now, so it
must GO!
- 7.) I've decided that books that are about software I have not used
nor taught, if the software is OVER FIVE YEARS OLD then the book(s) must
GO! to say nothing of the software. I have some books for software
that is dated 2001... Needless to say that software doesn't
RUN on today's crop of computers - so the books and the software are
pretty USELESS...
- 8.) I've decided that books about Operating Systems that are 5 to 15
years old must GO!
- 9.) I've decided that any cabling-system used by any computer TWO
GENERATIONS AGO (not the last generation, but TWO generations ago) must
GO! (I've even thrown-out some cabling that was only ONE generation old
(it made me FEEL GOOD!) AND I've decided that anything that I THOUGHT
worth keeping on Floppy Disks (remember those (the 3 1/2" and the 5 1/4"
(and even the 8")) must GO! - to say nothing of stuff on QIC (1/4" tape)
- 10.) Power Supplies - I keep throwing out the stuff that dies, but
keeping the (damned) power-supplies (some people call these
wall-warts)... I counted up something like 23 of these
in the house and another dozen more in the shop. Now
I'm sorry - I just don't think a total of 3 DOZEN of these damned things
is going to save me from ANYTHING - so OUT they go (all but 2 for each
'voltage-range' (that means I'll keep a total of six (out of three
DOZEN!))
And guess what - the AMOUNT OF ROOM and FREE SPACE and SHELF SPACE that I'm
freeing-up is ASTONISHING. Pretty soon now I'll think I have to move
to a different house because I'm not using all the space we have, here,
now...???
Spring Cleaning - you should try it too, you might LIKE IT! (you are
SURE to like the space it gives you back) !
Today is 14 April (Saturday), 2012:
Today I rode a bit over 30 miles on my recumbent tricycle. WHILE doing
my tri-cycling, a friend (hang-gliding friend from Brazil) telephoned me,
and said that his hang-gliding event (about 100 minute drive SW of here) had
been 'blown-out' (and when it's BLOWN OUT for the past 2-3-4 years or so he
and I have found a place and a way to go kite-boarding...) So -
he and a couple of friends (one hang-glider-pilot (also a kite-boarder)) and
one 'driver'; drove over here and we went kite-boarding (and YES I now "HURT
ALL OVER" but it was GOOD...
Mid-March, 2012:
In mid-March, Ms. May and I flew to Vancouver (on separate flights
(well - the airlines didn't want us flying together - apparently we make too
much of a fuss when we do)) but we both arrived on 13 March into
Vancouver. The next 7 days was six days of snow-boarding at Mount
Seymour and it was EXCELLENT. As EXCELLENT as we have ever
had it in the 15 or so years we've been snowboarding...
The snow was excellent - if sometimes almost 'whited-out' - but nevertheless
very very good for those of us that don't snowboard very often. And we
both bought new helmets and new goggles (the two have to fit together), so
we got some 'shopping' in also...
Mr. Bill with a 'bit' of ice in his beard. This was the first day we
went snowboarding, and Ms. May took this picture.
Mr. Bill attempting to look like he knows what he's doing (we know better,
don't we! (pictures by Mr. Alex the Photo-Geek!))
The three of us NOT attempting to look like we know what we're doing (and
what we are doing is getting ready to head for home! (picture by Mr. Alex,
the wonderful guy who loaned us his car so we could travel and sight-see on
the Olympic Peninsula (and a GREAT little car it was - handled well in the
Snow and the Ice and the RAIN, and because it was SMALL it was terrific in
many places that just would not have handled a bigger car!))
Every ONCE in a WHILE the clouds-would-lift off the mountain for just a few
moments and we could SEE FOR MILES to the east...
AND - Mr. Bill spent most of his time on the "Mystery Chair Lift" (it goes
by Mystery Lake but one would never figure this out with the kind of 'White
Out' conditions that existed most of the week... - the above picture is a
'sample'; to
get the BIG PICTURE click HERE! AND _ if you are REALLY
REALLY interested (some will be; some won't be!) - if you look REALLY REALLY
closely - in either this picture or the BIG ONE, then you'll see Mr. Bill
right underneath the "?" where I'm waiting to load the lift...
It became evident (after Mr. Bill worked for about 10 days on the Olympic
Peninsula (doing 'camera-system-work' (same thing he does off and on in
Florida))) - except that the Olympic Peninsula is very different
(climatically) than Florida beaches (and even from Vancouver
(VanCOLD!). ANYWAY - he spent the better part of 10 days working
in less than 45 degrees F, and rain, and wind, and such - and he needs NEW
SNOWBOARD GEAR (the old-stuff sufficed, but it was not a pretty picture).
The old stuff is OLD, so it's TIME FOR NEW GEAR (Pants &
Jacket!)) (see above for how this actually happened!).
Working on camera-systems on the Olympic Peninsula is HERE:
Most of the output of the camera-work is represented at this link: http://www.video-monitoring.com/construction/olympic/js.htm
.
There are six-cameras represented in the link. I helped-out
other Erdman Video Systems staff move two of these to new locations (the two
on the right-hand-end in the (above noted)
web-page). In the midst of all the camera-re-location-work
we managed to take a ride (in a LARGE crane man-basket) to bolt-up a moved
Solar Panel, and that ride in the man-basket was a significant highlight of
the trip. The view from the man-basket - suspended at the
end of 280 foot crane-boom was spectacular. A Mr.
Nick-shot-Video-of-that is at this Facebook
link.
One of the Biggest (expletive deleted) cranes I have ever seen with my own
eyes, and we got a ride in the 'man-basket' suspended from this BF crane to
install some concrete anchors to mount a solar-panel... When they
installed and assembled this crane in this location it took something on the
order of about 20 truck-loads to get this thing (in MANY MANY PIECES) up
this one-lane-mountain-road. I suspect that 'dis-assembling dams is a
BIG project costing LOTs of money!
(you can see the solar-panel, in the picture below (almost dead-center
top-to-bottom and about 1/3 the way from the left edge of the
picture)) - after we mounted it. Interesting note, here, about the
mounting. We never 'aimed' the camera. Just took it off the tree
where it had been mounted, moved it to this new location, drilled some holes
in the concrete and mounted the camera and the view was damned near
perfect.. - VERY weird, unexpected and interesting..)
The guy who's hand you see in the lower-left of the above picture is Chuck
and he had a radio and the guy operating the crane (a VERY VERY SMOOTH
operator, we might note!) was Mr. Andy, and he had another radio.
Together they used their radios and coordinated the positioning of the
"man-basket" we were riding in and our positioning and helped us install the
concrete anchors. They were both super guys and we really enjoyed
working with them.
Here's the re-located camera 'almost' finished doing the install - I had
another couple of hours work, here at this (Lake Mills) camera-site,
after this shot was taken, but it did not change the basic view of the
installed system... Note the hammer-drill in the lower-right of
the picture - it is demolishing the dam 'as we speak' and the demolished
debris is washed over the dam. The guys operating the hammer
have to take two weeks off for every 15 feet of vertical dam
de-construction, to let the 'up-stream-side' of the water / sediments
'catch-up' to them. They were off the weekend of 31 March and 1 April
and so then will start again about tax-time (15 April, 2012).
Here's me(with the borrowed "hard-hat" with the re-located (Lake Mills (the
lake 'behind' the Glines Canyon Dam)) camera almost just right over my head
on the 'up-stream-side' of what still shows in this view as the dam (you can
see three (easily) and a part of the fourth of the dam's flood-gates (now
closed). The previous picture was taken from above and one can
clearly see the hammer-drill knocking-down a significant portion of the
dam. They still have about 100 feet or so (vertically) of the dam to
demolish. In this view almost all-over-every-where-you-see is RIVER
MUCK because where I am standing would have been 30-40 feet under water a
year or so ago.
This panorama was taken by a co-worker ((Mr. Nick) with his Motorola Droid
cell-phone) and he e-mailed to me - it shows the Glines Canyon Dam site and
what it looked-like in late March. It may look significantly different
today, as more work has been done, the water-level has dropped, and the
above-noted web-page does not have "panorama" style digital images.
This is a picture of Mr. Kevin on the top of the ladder (at the Elwha Dam
camera-site (YES there USED TO BE 'a dam' there!)... Since Kevin
weighs even less than I do (and I weigh less than Nick) we frequently would
put Mr. Kevin on the top of the ladder to work on the
camera-system(s)... I would hand tools to Mr. Kevin, while Mr.
Nick (mostly the brains of the operation) would do the 'brainy-things' while
Mr. Kevin and I did most of the 'mechanical 'stuff' '. I
also would contribute 'less-than-brainy' comments as Mr. Kevin and Mr. Nick
worked... that was about the extent of the 'help'... This was a
good separation of labour - especially since in the COLD my brain didn't
function very well.
Mr. Kevin showed-up on Sunday, 25 March (at SeaTac (Seattle))
airport. Mr. Nick and I drove from our rental-house near Port
Angeles to SeaTac to pick-him-up. Then we drove back to Port
Angeles - round trip was ABOUT 7 hours in the (rental - 2-wheel-drive
(YES! we got STUCK ONCE (but ONLY ONCE, and a really friendly / helpful guy
pulled-us-up-the-hill with is farm-tractor!). A LONG
DAMNED WAY to pick-up someone from SeaTac. We didn't REALIZE how long
it would take us and we were 'a bit' late, but not too much...
Once Kevin arrived, we got NEW INSTRUCTIONS (and via the nice people at UPS
a 'kit' of parts) from the Miami office.
So - then with three of us working, we proceeded to update / upgrade 5 of
the 6 cameras (in the RAIN!). Since Kevin showed up (and he's
from Connecticut (and it RAINS there a LOT (but not as much as here))) it
began to rain (significantly) and so there are very very few pictures of
that work (in the RAIN!), since I mostly left the iPhone back at the rental
house because I did not want it to get wet and muddy in the rainy weather...
Several Generalities of working in / on the
Olympic Peninsula:
1.) the weather forecast is ALWAYS for RAIN and temps less than 45 F
(high)... - this turns out to be only partially true - it pours rain for 15
minutes, then it drizzles for two hours then the sun comes out for 40
minutes - then the cycle starts all over again (and it typically gets COLDER
when it's raining).
2.) KNEE-HIGH rubber boots are NOT REQUIRED but they are recommended
3.) I had ankle-high Vasque shoes and some Gore-Tex socks and some Outdoor
Research 'gaiters' and my feet were toasty warm and dry for nearly 10 days.
- The socks and gaiters were pricey, but the guy at REI-Seattle said the
combination would be WAY WAY BETTER than rubber-boots and he was RIGHT ON...
4.) Though some we know were 'pushing-hard' for an 'early-finish' it wasn't
to be; but we had fun, we learned a lot, no one got hurt (bad), and we
did everything we were meant to do - so that's a pretty good record
5.) Though this should be 'seafood heaven' (much like Stuart, where we live)
it was not to be - apparently this is NOT the season (we saw ALLL the
floating docks on dry land in a place called Sekiu where we once ate
dinner)... - and when NOT the season all the seafood is FROZEN (but still
not bad).
6.) it is COLD and RAINY and sometimes WINDY and that makes it hard on
exposed fingers and bodies subject to bursitis problems
7.) one needs a LOT of food to support the WORK and the COLD
8.) having 3 (experienced) people working on any given camera-system-problem
is GREAT - when you all work towards a common-goal, when you all know what
needs to be done and can all do it - it is truly rewarding to sometimes get
the chance to be a part of a great working team...
9.) in a 'remote' area like this (and further areas of the Olympic Peninsula
(it turns out)) having three people with three differernt cell-phones with
three differernt service providers can be a 'god-send'... - we had:
Nick's Motorola Droid phone with Verizon service which is
the same service as the Verizon GSM-cell-modems in all the camera systems.
Verizon offers 4 bars (100%)
Bill's Apple iPhone 4S with A T & T service (which
wasn't much good, most of the time on the Olympic Peninsula) but the iPhone
has 5 'bars' at the '100%' service level - it was NEVER 5 bars...
Kevin had his service with Sprint (which is good in
Connecticut where he comes from, it offers six bars at 100%, and an ITC
smart-phone
There's no question that Nick's Verizon phone was more USEFUL than Kevin's
but it was good to have three smart-phones most of the time...
AND - to credit Verizon's service out there in the 'no-where' - we needed a
bubble-level at one point to verify a camera-system was mounted
correctly. Mr. Nick had such GREAT Verizon
Service, he found a bubble level application on a web-site; downloaded it to
his Motorola Droid phone, enabled it and handed it to Mr. Kevin on the
ladder. Turns out Mr. Kevin has a VERY ACCURATE EYE - he'd
mounted the camera and it was ONLY off by 2.7 degrees, pretty darned close
for 'eyeballing it'....
Several people have asked 'Where did you STAY' - well - here's a picture of
me (in the foreground), but the background is "Maple Grove" a small weekend
& vacation community about 20 minutes WSW of Port Angeles on the Olympic
Peninsula. The Gang at Erdman rented us a house here, and that
is where we stayed... It's VERY PRETTY, and as you can see mountains
in the background. What you do NOT see in this image is the very nice
lake that the community is built-around and you also do not see the house we
actually stayed in. - Sorry.
AND - AND - AND - one should ALWAYS take care and let the local PBS station
'say it's thing... They did an EXCELLENT piece on "Un-Damming the Elwha" and
you can find it here: http://kcts9.org/undamming-elwha
The Last Week (1 April through 7
April, 2012) we did some driving, hiking, taking pictures, seeing
the sights (all in the RAIN) on the Olympic Peninsula... ... ...
Ms. May had spent the better part of a week in and around Seattle, with her
good friends Lily and John Hasegawa (pottery-friends from Paducah
Kentucky)... Ms. May was visiting with her friends,
learning about pottery and attending the "NCECA
Conference" in downtown Seattle, and attending some workshops...
But Ms. May joined me and then we (she and I) took-off on a
counter-clockwise journey around the Olympic Peninsula - mostly on a road
called US-101 which goes west, then south then east and, well, it goes in
MANY directions, (mostly in a circle) unlike most other roads that merely go
from point "A" to point "B". - More information on that trip is to follow -
with MANY pictures...
At about 06:30 a.m. on the first of April we got a text-message on Mr.
Bill's iPhone. It was the above picture of
Ms. May's recently Wood Fired Pottery that had been taken-out of the kiln
back in Jupiter Farms, Florida, near where we live.
Needless to say on our return to Florida it was a priority to get to Jupiter
Farms and retrieve her terrific new stuff.
One of the very first places we went was to Dungeness Bay (a little to the
east of Port Angeles). This picture is of the "Dungeness Spit",
which is a rare-find at nearly 4 miles long, all natural, and enclosing the
'bay' to the right. If you want to see the original picture,
you can 'click-here'
for an image that is most probably WAY LARGER than your monitor (16" wide at
100 pixels per inch).
We saw this (very cute) picture on one of the Park Service's postings /
placards...
This picture, taken on the Dungeness Spit, by Ms. May, with her Nikon, is,
in my opinion, one of the best pictures of the
whole trip. I like it SO MUCH that I've 'adopted' it for use
in other places / ways. - if you want to see the HUGEREST
version then 'click-here'...
Barnes Creek - just one of the MANY places we visited and images we shot...
(I can't remember if this is an
iPhone picture or a Nikon picture, but it's pretty good)!
This is (believe it or not) an 'average' sized log on some of the beaches
around here. This one has obviously been 'hollowed-out' on the inside,
but STILL a DAMNED BIG LOG...
This is a picture of a typical (legacy) glacier lake. It has that
characteristic look. This is called Crescent Lake - you can look it up on
Google Earth (It's in Washington State), and it is about 600 feet deep!
This was ANOTHER BIG (DAMNED) LOG - if I could take a picture (with my
iPhone) of Ms. May taking a picture of ME with her Nikon - this is a Big LOG
- and remember this was the HOLE in the stump of the log!
About half-way-down the Pacific Coast of the "Olympic Peninsula" is a place
called "Kalaloch" with
an ancient Lodge and a bunch of cabins - the history is long and interesting
- look it up on the Wikipedia Link (previously noted) if you like.
ANYWAY - while there (and on the Garmin
GPSMap's (marine-chart-database) I noticed a place called "Destruction
Island" (<= Wikipedia Link). It has an interesting history
(noted in the previous link). Later in the trip (at a place
called the "Westport Maritime
Museum") we found the Fresnel
Lens for this light(house) - which was taken-out-of-service by the US
Coast Guard in 2008. A very interesting place, lighthouse, etc.
At the very last place we stayed "on the beach" (Washington's Pacific Coast)
- this was the Bed & Breakfast (run by Mim and Paul (who were VERY NICE
to us!) in a place (a VERY VERY TINY PLACE) called Pacific Beach...
ANYWAY - we got up on Saturday morning, early (before 07:00 a.m.) - and saw
- what - maybe a dozen people walking down the road towards the beach with a
bit of 'clamming-gear'. Now, mind you, the temperature outside is
something like 36 F and these people had on enough layers to start a new REI
or Patagonia store and so we figured they must be dedicated
individuals. We thought, we'd never seen people looking for
clams - so maybe we'd tag-along and learn something... - Well LEARN WE
DID...
We found not 10s of people on the beach, not 100's but perhaps a couple
THOUSAND people on the beach, no kidding - HUNDREDS of cars and some had
just walked... Turns out (after asking a LOT of questions) that there was a
two-day-season on what they call "Razor Clams" - (picture below).
Each PERSON can take up to 15 clams and you MUST TAKE whatever you dig-up...
- Blah - Blah - Blah - there's a LOT to this - but the DEDICATION of these
people against the 'elements' (cold and some wind) was stunning! - last time
they had a couple day season, we're told, it was SNOWING!.... to learn
more about 'razor clams' you can go here(Washington
State Fish & Game, here
(Wikipedia), or
here (how-to, etc.)... ((all web-links!))
This was me and the Blackberry Milk Shake that we found at the Blackberry
Cafe, in Joyce Washington... This milk-shake was SOOOOOOoooooo.....
good that we even went back there later in the day but they had run-out of
ice-cream to make the milk-shakes so we didn't get a second one! - UGH UGH
UGH! How-so-ever we DID find out that Joyce, Washington seems to be the
place to be at "Blackberry Festival" time...
Here is the face that Mr. Bill makes while eating "Marion Berry Cobbler" in
"Sol Duc Hot Springs Resort" (Sol Duc is sometimes spelled Sole Duck, but we
won't go there.) Marion Berries are known for their 'tartness' and that
probably explains the expression on my face, here...
Here's Mr. Bill (amongst others) is/are eating the last dessert we'll have,
together,
in Washington State. This is (was, actually) a "Berrylicious" shake at
the "Cascadia Grill"
on 4th Street in Olympia... - it was VERY GOOD!...
AND - AND - AND - for those who are interested in such things (and some are;
some are not) - I finally (after many years of asking myself this question)
got 'around to' really researching the difference(s) between "prawn" and
"shrimp"...
MANY people use the terms interchangeably, much marketing literature does
the same. HOWEVER, there IS A DIFFERENCE.... - there are some
'language' differences (in English), I assume in other languages,
also. In the UK and other "commonwealth" countries, the word "prawn"
typically dominates, whereas in the USA the word "shrimp" dominates... - But
if you use a dictionary and/or Wikipedia, and/or just a "Google Search" you
WILL FIND a difference. Here's the Wikipedia Link for Shrimp
and here's the one for Prawn
- just to get you started. The basic difference is very hard to
discern 'to the naked eye' but - there is a difference.
Needless to say FOOD has been a SIGNIFICANT PORTION of this trip. - and
today (Friday, 6 April) we managed to get dinner with the "Early Bird" or
"Happy Hour" menu at a place called the Mill
109 Restaurant in a place called Seabrook
(some people say this 'development' was started in 2004 by someone from
Florida but we have no confirmation that this is actually true.)
Nevertheless the food was pretty fare for the "Happy Hour Price", though the
service was a bit slow...
We saw this sign, and just HAD to take a picture... - Apparently this area
of the Olympic Peninsula
is now featured, prominently, in some current TV show about
Vampires. We also have a couple
of pottery-friends who cautioned us to 'be careful of the vampires out
there' (meaning on the
Olympic Peninsula. This was on the side of a quick-stop-food-place at
a local gas-station.
One other thing of note on our last-day-in-paradise' (if you call less than
50 F paradise) was running across a 'group' of kiteboarders (one already out
and doing his thing, and another 1/2 dozen or so ready to go
out). These guys (and they were REAL MEN, REAL LUNATICS,
and REALLY DEDICATED had on (near as we could tell) wet-suits UNDER
dry-suits and a Lot of REALLY GOOD GEAR.... We saw these guys on a
spit-of-land at a place called "Ocean
Shores" (<= Wikipedia Link). Ocean Shores is the NW corner of
a body of water called "Gray's
Harbour" (<= Wikipedia Link)... THEN while perusing the
fishing-village of "Westport" (on the SW corner of Gray's Harbour, we saw
one more kiteboarder out - doing his thing - but never quite figured out how
to drive down to his launch-point. We think he might have been kiting
off the US Coast Guard station in Westport, but we're not sure...
THESE GUYS are REAL MEN to brave the COLD and the WIND, (it was probably
15-20 knots at least)... - we were REALLY IMPRESSED!
Now - just so you know - that there is SOME SEMBLANCE of "Intelligence" left
here, the SANITY wants to have you know these things about living in
Florida:
1.) you do NOT have to worry if the electricity goes off, you can
still take a shower (the house pipes are not frozen)
2.) similar with house-heat
3.) you can wear sandals 24 x 7 x 365 at any time of the day or night and
NOT get frostbite on your toes
4.) MOST evenings you can see the moon and stars
5.) one set of clothes consists of 3 tee shirts, 3 pairs of underwear and 3
pairs of shorts - that is ALL one needs to live in (south) Florida! - for
formal wear we consider a tee shirt with no holes nor stains and socks with
our shoes and SHORTS! "Layers" are only something that comes in Lasagna.
6.) We DO HAVE TO WEAR SUN-BLOCK when going outside because the sun SHINES
more than it is overcast
7.) the word "FREEZE" is not even in the dictionary down here; much less the
word "hill" or "mountain" and certainly not "SNOW"...
8.) the concept of a frozen roadway or bridge does not even think about
existing here, children are never taught these things...
9.) mountains / hills are non-existent (that means you can do ANYTHING with
a 40 horsepower car!)
10.) there is NO REI store in the entire STATE of Florida!
11.) Patagonia (for Floridians) is a place in Argentina, not a clothing
brand (though I gotta admit I was VERY HAPPY
to have my Patagonia stuff while WORKING in the COLD FROZEN NORTHWEST, and
while Walking the Beaches with
my Huggly Hunny Bunch!
IF you really (REALLY) want to learn something new and interesting? try
this link
Archived
BeachWeb monthly (and other) site(s):
Click here for a
list of the archived months
updated: 19:24 p.m. (USA-EDT) on
Thursday, 10 October, 2013; by: Mr._Bill on the Apple Macintosh 'Mac
Mini' - revID: 1p