Pages

Sunday, December 29, 2019

10 Things I've accomplished in the last 10 years.


Facebook reminded me that I wrote this post exactly 10 years ago, so today seemed like a good time for an update.


1) Moved across an ocean (and then moved halfway back).


2) Held a baby for the first time. Yeah, that's right I hadn't held a baby before.


3) Became a citizen of New Zealand.


4) Had a few photographs published. I didn't get paid for them, or anything, but at least three people thought they were good enough to bother asking if they could use them. One of them is on this website.


5) Visited seven countries (though only four of them were new).


6) Qualified for the Boston Marathon (unfortunately I was a little too slow to be able to register that year and I'll probably never be that fast again).


7) Learned how to perform maintenance and a whole lot of repairs on an old Jeep.


8) Held down shockingly steady employment (especially compared to the last decade).


9) Taught two little girls how to bicycle.


10) Stayed married another 10 years.




Monday, December 02, 2019

After an hour of rigging this RS Feva is ready to go. 
It's been a long time since I've posted about sailing and not just because I haven't posted in a long time. I also haven't sailed in a long time. To rectify, I finally got around to joining the yacht club, and while they heavily promote the availability of their Olsen 30, I appear to be the only person interested in sailing their robust fleet of small boats (which are primarily used for youth sailing classes in the summer).

After proving myself on the water and taking an online boating safety course, which is actually only required in Hawaii for boats with motors, but it was free and only took me six hours, I've been asked to submit a sailing resume. Keep in mind, this is a yacht club that requires sponsorship letters to be on real paper (bar napkins are insufficient), so Nico thought I should write a real resume and not just a letter listing my experience.

Some of the dates are my best guess.

With those three things out of the way, I need to take a written test at the yacht club and post a $1000 damage deposit and then I am hoping to get the keys to the boat shed, which contains a bunch of Open BICs (which are way too small for me), a fleet of ancient Lasers (which I'll probably have to bring my own rigging to sail), and some beautifully kept RS FEVAs.

Of note, I am less bendy than I was the last time I was in a dingy. Two days later and walking is still painful
The author circa 2003