Meme of 5 Things (with unrequired set of photos at end)

Every now and then I check Technorati to see if anybody's saying anything about me - turns out that while I was off in the Caribbean, Loup (who's ) tagged me with a meme I'd been thinking was kind of fun anyway. So, I'm glad I checked, I've done the housecleaning I promised myself I'd come home & do tonight (the lilypad was a bit of a mess and Saturday was originally slated for tidying-up until I got the invitation to go sailing!), and now I can have a little fun before I turn in. There's a bonus at the end btw since once again I've managed to make a short meme long.

10 years ago – hm...condensed version of my resume makes this tricky - I was either working at the place I will refer to only as "the publishing shed", or I may have already had fight w/boss over his bullying of a co-worker (he thought it was pretty funny to accuse her of bringing a waterbug to work with her in her purse) & moved on to the Asia Society. Living in Brooklyn with my friend who got me to to move to New York and the guy he was involved with at the time.
8 years ago - Working for a now-defunct financial company, central compliance division. Dating Joe, who was working for another bank & also being an independent filmmaker - we had some good fun doing Irish music & dance together (he was Irish-American and had moved to NY in part with the intent of learning more about his Irish heritage, we met in set dancing class & boy did I ever love dancing with him) but a lot of it was an exercise in patience - didn't want him to NOT make his movie, that would've been bad, but at the same time...well, he was a busy busy and very tired guy & I ended up feeling like an afterthought a lot. Figured we could make it up when he was done with the film. Living in Windsor Terrace with a roommate who thought the upstairs neighbours were having her stalked.
4-7 years ago -
1998: Joe broke up w/me after realizing he'd never quite gotten over unrequited college flame who said she might be moving to NY & might date him if she did, roommate went seriously over the edge (fortunately moving out in the end) & I got laid off from the bank all at about the same time. Fun fun fun. Got new job, took up paddling (didn't want to dance anymore so it was time to get back in touch with my own roots - not the genetic ones but the raised-in-Hawaii ones).
1999: became a partner in Manhattan Kayak Company. Left bank #2 (still not sure if I quit or was fired, wasn't working out too well). Mentor Richard talked me into going for ACA Instructor Development Workshop at Eskape Kayaks in CA; had most wonderful time then came back to start new job at private bank - my office was on the 95th floor of WTC 2.
2000 – Promoted at work; was making lots of money but never quite trusting it to last; bad chemistry between me & founder of MKC starting to kick in very badly but w/encouragement of 2 new partners (who also went & got certified at the same time, the Instructor Certification Exam was a blast, we all went to Ray Killen at Katabasis) I got my ACA Open-Water Coastal Kayaking Instructor certification.
2001 - Relationship w/founder continued to founder (bad) but I was gaining more confidence about my own teaching abilities (good); same partners and I went for 3-star training & certification from Bill Lozano at Atlantic Kayak Tours (awesome). Got laid off from day job in June 2001 (I was right, it WAS too good to last). With a highly generous severance package, I chose to be a kayak bum for the summer (beyond awesome). Severance package included outplacement workshop. Signed up for one as the season was nearing an end - date of workshop - 9/11 - location of workshop - WTC 2 - time of workshop 9 A.M. Survived; river closed; unemployed. Original temp job at Really Big Children's Publishing Company fell into my lap without my really trying - unemployment was telling me that the WTC had nothing to do with my claim & demanded proof that I was looking; I started calling agencies just for the sake of being able to say I'd faxed resumes here, here and there - Agency #2 was one I'd had some good experiences with (Ribolow) & said "When can you start?". Um, how about tomorrow? OK, good.
Now – Still at Really Big only as finance analyst in Trade division; dropped out of MKC in early '02, got schooner job almost as serendipitously as day job, still working on that schooner in the summertime; just back from the Caribbean; paddling with a really nice group out of Pier 63. So as of now, everything worked out pretty well, yeah?

So much for simple. My life just doesn't condense too well.

Five yummy things (not necessarily in order and leaving out all kinds of good things, like CHOCOLATE, Maine lobster, sushi, etc. etc. etc.):

1) Really fresh sweet corn in the summertime.
2) Ummm, Auntie K & Canoe-Buildin' Uncle's farm-raised lamb. Preferably accompanied by really fresh sweet corn in the summertime.
3) My homemade roast butternut squash soup. Someone on the Bear Mountain Bridge trip called it "Thanksgiving in a cup" which is just about the nicest thing anybody's ever said about anything I ever cooked. It's pretty much idiot-proof and doesn't need a recipe, you can improvise ("hmmm, no chestnuts, well I'll toast these almonds & chuck them in instead"). I think my Pennsylvania Dutch maternal grandmother would approve.
4) The dulce du leche flan at Hispaniola Restaurant - the miso butterfish is also fantastic.
5) Hawaiian comfort food - manapua, Leonard's malasadas, saimin, plate lunch...mmm. homesick now.

Five songs I know by heart:

OK I actually used to sing with a really good church choir when I lived on the Upper East Side & also did Irish song so I have a LOT of songs by heart - this is another random selection!
1) Am Maidean Mheara (Gaelic song, The Seal-Wife legend)
2) Paddy's Green Shamrock Shore (very good song to be sung on a boat)
3) Luck In My Eyes, (K.D. Lang)
4) Ubi Caritas (from Durufle's Quatre Motets pour Lent - I only know the alto line! - this is one of the things I miss singing, the choir was just too far away when I moved out to Brooklyn)
5) Moon River (this gets in here 'cause it was from a night I totally crashed and burned at karaoke - I sing LOTS better with other people anyways but I was game - well I figured Moon River would be safe but then it was in the most totally horrible key of all time!)

Five things I would do with a lot of money:

1) Probably give moving back to Hawaii a try
2) BOAT SKILLS ACQUISITION MADNESS! Things I could realistically shoot for if money didn't matter & I wasn't bound by vacation days - 5-star training & maybe someday assesment! Renew my ACA instructor certification! BCU Coaching Cert! Captain's License! More Surfing! More Whitewater! More Surfski Racing! More Greenland-style Whatever else sounds cool & doable! More teaching, more learning, more fun!
3) A lot more horseback riding (I want to go back to my little grass shack but I also want to go back to Cae-Iago!)
4) Figure out what I want to be when I grow up...no, seriously. this would probably involve maybe going and taking courses & volunteering & just trying different things until something seems to "click" as something that I really enjoy doing that would also give me something useful to do with my life.
5) Share it with family, schools, charities.

Five places I would like to escape to (I'm going to take that as "visit"):

1) Hawaii
2) Virgin Islands (I just did, too, lucky me!)
3) Manistee River in Michigan
4) New Zealand
5) Australia (I'll go visit Chosha!
5.1) or, um...Hawaii.

Five things I would never wear:

1) Extremely tight pants (uncomfortable & not very pretty on me).
2) Anything that involves publicly baring anything that is not ordinarily bared in public or that could easily be mistaken for an undergarment.
3) Anything that requires having holes punched in body parts to wear.
4) Heavy makeup
5) This.


Five favorite TV shows:

1) M*A*S*H
2) The Muppet Show
3) Murphy Brown
4) Star Trek (TNG or Voyager, it's a toss-up)
5) Law & Order
Can you tell that I have not had a television in my home for several years!

Five things I enjoy doing:

1) Boating
2) Horseback riding
3) Reading
4) Hanging out with friends
5) Artsy stuff.

Five Favorite toys:

1) MY KAYAKS! :D
2) optio pentax waterproof camera (thanks again parents!)
3) schooner (although that is pushing the definition of "toy" and it's not mine)
4) tin whistle
5) paper (you can draw on it, you can write on it, you can fold it into origami!)

Five people who get this meme:

1) ?
2) ?
3) ?
4) ?
5) ?

no, seriously, I got this so late I have no idea who's already done it - if you haven't & you want to, just say so!

And in closing I give you a 5 things bonus (not part of the original meme) -

Five Shots of the New York Fire Department putting out a burning cab right by Pier 63!

(don't worry no one was injured, although the driver looked very unhappy, poor guy)
Burning cab.

Here's the fire truck!

OK, let's take care of this mess...

2nd truck arrived right after the first one - that's them over there, the first truck has things totally in hand so they're just watching

Well that pretty much takes care of that.

Out for a ride on the Rosemary Ruth!

Way back in June, I did my first "Frogma Virtual Tour", more or less on a whim inspired by having a single-use waterproof camera lying around from some trip or another...

That was a while back so I don't quite expect anybody to remember this from it (and this is a better picture I took from the Adirondack II on our last public sail of the season - everybody on board was admiring the Rosemary Ruth!)

I got a chance to take a few closer shots today!

Very nice group, sweet boat (Richard, the owner, said "sweet" was an OK adjective - he was even ok with "cute", he's a very nice guy, makes a very good gluhwein and has a lot of awfully good sea stories) - I always enjoy meeting new Hudson River people, and I hope I get to sail with all of them again at some time or another!

Me (pretending to steer), Brian (who's actually steering, just gave me the wheel for the picture), and Maggie. Brian crews on the schooner Pioneer, and Maggie is the educator for the Pioneer (that's just got to be one of the coolest jobs ever). Robert is taking the picture (Thank you, Robert!)

This is Richard, the rescuer/owner of the Rosemary Ruth -

That's Maggie up by the bow, Richard peeking out from behind the mast, Brian in the red jacket & Robert is by the shroud. Why is everyone smiling? Well, first of all we're sailing but the additional reason at this moment is that that Thermos Richard is brandishing is full of gluhwein, and Brian's brought out some of his mom's homemade biscotti (in the ziploc bag) - life, as they say, is good!

Yes, life is indeed good.


I feel like I should write some more but I am pretty sleepy & I'm doing my might-almost-be-annual-now Paddle Off the Turkey Paddle - no big deal, just 3 hours or so of moving kayaks with energy in whichever direction the current dictates - this year it's a southbound, might be going to the Statue of Liberty again. Yep, twice in one weekend, s'alright.

Greetings from a ways up the river...

Nope, not a boat adventure this time. The train was the mode of transport for this trip north, I'm visiting friends for Thanksgiving. Nothing much to say today, just that I hope everyone - at least everyone who celebrates the US Thanksgiving - had a very happy & peaceful one.

And actually I hope those of you who don't happen to be people who celebrated Thanksgiving yesterday had one heckuva nice Thursday too!

A sailing lesson from Cap'n Kat

This is a shot of a bit of a tidal race near Cruz Bay, on St. John, USVI. There are some pretty considerable currents around here & on this day, those currents & a quite strong east wind conspired to change our plans. We'd started out the day with the intention of sailing around St. John; Capt. Sarah had wintered there a couple of years ago & she wanted to show us around. I'd ended up at the wheel - everything was fine until we came around to the windward side of the island & things started to kick up. There was a 2 - 3 foot swell, with some bigger ones around 4 feet, and the wind was coming from exactly the direction we wanted to go. The windspeeds weren't terribly fierce, 15-20 knots, but frequently gusting to higher levels. At first I was a little spooked - those conditions may not sound too awful but frankly most of my driving experience is in lighter air. I love it when I get to drive the schooner Adirondack & never turn down a chance to do so, but that's almost always in calmer conditions (not to mention that she's twice the length & a whole lot heavier - the Carina was suddenly feeling awfully small!) - when the sailing really starts to get fun is generally also the time when the crew needs to be the crew, the captain needs to drive - making sure that all our passengers are comfortable & enjoying themselves becomes our main focus. If they are all happy, we'll let her rip & put the rail in the water. However nobody more experienced was jumping up to take over, and then Kat actually started giving me some pointers on how to kinda swoop the boat over the bigger swells - and in pretty short order, what started as a bit spooky had turned into a total blast - in the quieter conditions in which I've steered the Adirondack, it's all about responding to the wind - adding the waves as a new component to respond to was really exciting. Whee!

Only problem was that with the tacking we had to do, and a pretty solid current running against us - we kinda weren't getting anywhere (there was this point that we were passing for an AWFULLY long time) so after a while we decided to scratch the circumnavigation & head back over to the leeward side. We decided to stop for a lunch & swim break in placid, sea-turtle filled Hawksnest Bay - the adrenaline on the windward side had been great but somehow once we got back around the bend we all found that we were ready for a little rest!

Anyways...as I started to say, this is a nice little bit of a race between St. John & these little rocky islets - looked like it could've been fun in a kayak with the one drawback of being TOTALLY in the middle of where ALL the sailboats and ferries and stuff were going.

Looking back, I think is says something about the mindset we got into on this trip that we never even considered dropping the sails & motoring (in fact that just hit me as I was writing this!). That just wasn't what we were there for. I think that's part of why this trip was so sucessful - none of us got caught up in destinations, it was just about being there!

(lifted wholesale from my Sailing the Virgin Islands gallery - added a few more last night, having a lovely time revisiting & writing 'em up - thought this would make an OK standalone blog post)

btw - I was having way too much fun to hand over the helm & go get my camera when we were over on the south side of the island - but here's a photo taken back in the more sheltered side later in the day. This was fun but it was even more exciting on the south side!

More Caribbean photos

I went home last night & put up a few more pictures on my Sailing the Virgin Islands gallery. I am still working back to front - I am getting into some of the underwater stuff now, I stopped before I got to the bay with the fantastic snorkeling with the fish and the sea fans and the brain coral...but there was definitely some interesting subject matter in Hawksnest Bay on St. John, too!

Hope you enjoy them!

Readjusting plus GE PCB cleanup article.

Warming up to the kind of chilly Hudson -

Rolling...

OK, that felt kinda good!

Here's the gang from Sunday. Beautiful beautiful day, and as you can see, I'm not kidding about that business of fall and winter paddling & having the river all to ourselves!


So there's how the Sunday readjustment paddle went. Worked like a charm - I knew it would. I'm SO glad F. called that paddle, it really was just what I needed to shake off the blue-water blues. WAY better than sitting home & moping over summer being over! We had a lovely day, it was a nice group to paddle with, I definitely felt a bit stiff & as though I was fighting all the clothes and fighting to drag my boat through the water heading north but this quick horsing-around session seemed to shake everything loose rather beautifully & everything seemed to snap together again heading south. Water's good - cold and green or warm and blue, it's all good. Boats are good. Drysuits suck but they let you keep playing in the boats and the water so they're OK too.

Speaking of playing in the Hudson - and on a more serious note - looks like GE is trying to sidle out of their obligation to clean up their leftover PCB's. Very interesting & rather depressing article on the matter in today's NY Times.

I know it's expensive and all but dang, the river's become such an amazing place - it would really be nice to see GE recognize that & quit trying to figure out ways to cut corners on the cleanup...

oh, and on a happier note, everybody say hi (or "yo" or "howzit" or whatever your standard local greeting is) to Napoleon Kayaker! Actually it seems like there are quite a few new (or at least recently stumbled upon by the other kayak bloggers already listed on my Kayak Blogs blogroll) kayak blogs. I have been very bad at updating my blogrolls over the summer but now that schooner season's over & all my vacations for the year are behind me, I really do hope to do a little housekeeping!

Fact is, I can't quite believe I kept this thing going for the entire season in the first place!

P.S. - OK. Derrick is already rolling in ice cubes. My little post-Caribbean self-pity-party is now officially over. Thank you all for your patience (or at least not posting comments to the tune of "Oh, boo hoo hoo!").
. . O
:D />
.O

p.p.s. - One quick final word here - I seriously considered putting up some kind of "trained quasi-professional kayaker, kids don't try this at home" notice on this. Fact is, I've worked my butt off to be able to continue to frolic with relative impunity in November - there are about a zillion hours of intensive practice in warm water that went into being able to do the stuff I'm doing in those pictures. I'm adding this now because Mr. SeaLevel has done a really nice post today on the very subject of the sort of considerations that go into cold-water paddling and ways to learn more about the hazards entailed. Derrick had his cold-water post not long ago too, and I did say something right before I left on vacation - everybody gets worked up about it because it is absolutely serious stuff. Done right, with respect & proper preparations for the conditions you'll be out in & an understanding of your own abilities & limitations, off-season paddling can be great fun - done carelessly, it can turn pretty bad pretty fast.

A Fish For Derrick

Here's a fish for you, Derrick!

These are 2 shots of the same guy.

now the question is - can anybody spot him?

I am quite serious, there actually is a fish in both of these pictures!

Virgin Islands gallery now open.

So rather than inflict any more photos of my wonderful trip here, I've started posting trip photos over a new Buzznet gallery. I tend to post these back to front; right now the last 3 days of the trip are up. I took a LOT of pictures, I'm really trying to discipline myself & just put the best ones up. I got a chance to try out the Optio for snorkeling, and since I hadn't had a chance to try it underwater yet, there was quite a learning curve - but every fish I took a picture of, I took the picture because I thought it was a cool fish so I like all of 'em - but there are definitely some that are not good photos. Then there were the rainbows - I took to saying "Ho hum, another rainbow" - but I'd still try to take a picture of every single one that we saw. In the end, exactly one of those, taken at Caneel Bay, St. John, is actually a good bright picture of a rainbow (sadly that is NOT the one with the Spitfire, a lovely yacht owned by some friends from my first schooner season, in it - that was a bummer).

Seems to be a lot more stuff in the Caribbean that's beautiful in a tough-to-photograph way - or maybe it's just that I know the Hudson so much better, it's easier to know what would make a good picture and what's better to just admire for the moment.

Trying to get myself back into this business of winter now. I hardly expect to get any sympathy for this, but I am having a rough time with it. I've taken to visiting my folks (hi folks!) in Hawaii later in the winter because it's such a shock to the system to go someplace where they pull out sweaters & go "Brrr!" when the temperature hits 70, then come back to where a 70-degree day constitutes the most freakishly wonderful Indian-summer gift that fall can bestow - it's easier to come back when spring is at least just around the corner. As it is...my, winter is looking very long & dark. My inclination right now is just to stay in my nice warm apartment; I think that I have to join Goofy & F (new hold person) on a short paddle they are doing tomorrow just to get myself back into the winter paddling mindset that a week in board shorts & bikini tops has made rather difficult to capture.

Problem is, having grown up in Hawaii, in some way the mindset where you put on a sweater at 70 seems to be what some very inflexible & cranky little corner of my brain insists is what's normal. That's the corner of the brain that's going "Drysuit? UGH, DISGUSTING, NO NO NO!". Thing is I think that's also the corner of the brain where really loving getting out on or in the water resides, so if I just grit my teeth, pack up ugh the big bag ugh ugh of winter gear ugh ugh ugh and make myself get out there, that'll help get the winter-paddling-is-good mindset back. I'm actually trying to underdress a bit, not bundling up as much as I feel like doing on the way to work & stuff - I think that the body is pretty good at acclimatizing to conditions, but having trotted off and thawed out for a week, I've got some catching up to do now!

There is a lot of fun to be had in the off-season, after all. The recreational motorboaters & jet-skiers tend to pack it in, leaving the river to the commercial traffic and the winter paddling set; it's peaceful; crossing the river feels a little less like playing Frogger (yes, that WAS my favorite video game when I was a kid!)- it's nice. The completely non-optional winter gear just kind of sucks, that's all.

I just need to suck it up, go for a short paddle tomorrow, then instigate a sushi trip before too long!

Winter sucks.

Like I didn't hate drysuits enough already.

Anagada, BVI

Would you believe that I took this picture as we were taking out the trash one morning?

"Yacht Shots BVI"

Anywhere in the world that there are people doing photogenic-kine adventure sports on a predictable basis, I think there's almost bound to be somebody who's carved themselves out a nice little niche taking and selling pictures of those people who are so engaged - turns out the BVI's are no exception! Here are some very nice pictures of the six of us sailing the Carina back to Road Harbor on our final day - I took a lot of nice pictures myself, which will start turning up over on my Buzznet account although there's a DSL setup package floating around out there in UPS attempted-delivery-land that I'd like to have in my soggy little paws & hooked up before I do so - but for sort of obvious reasons, the one shot I was unable to get was a picture of us under full sail! The photographers of Yacht Shots BVI were happy to rectify that matter for us. Actually it was an entertaining moment during that otherwise quiet & wistful last sail before we handed the Carina back over to Footloose Charter - we suddenly noticed this dinghy that seemed absolutely determined to get in the way, until we realized that the guy in the dinghy had perfect balance and a big ol' telephoto lens (and a really cute dog who seemed quite happy with the whole thing). The guy really had this thing down to a science - he was out in front of Road Harbor where all the charter yachts start & finish; he'd park himself outside of your course, take shots as you went past, then zip out in front of you and do the other side. His dinghy, of course, was clearly marked www.yachtshotsbvi.com - sparing him the bother of trying to deliver a business card to a fast-moving sailboat. Worked great, I found us! He got a whole bunch of nice shots - I'll probably end up getting a print or two - I don't have to get my DSL for you to see them!

I'm back.

sigh...

Aloha from Cruz Bay!

Hi! I'm posting from the town of Cruz Bay, St. John's, USVI!

It's faaaaabulous!

Our boat is named the Carina, she's beeeyootiful, the water's beeeeeyooootifu, the sea turtle was cute, my boatmates are awesome, this is fantastic, I may just stay down here & work for Greg & Barbara & maybe Arawak (kayak tours)...

just fantastic.

anyways, outside is calling, there's snorkelling and hiking to be done, must run!!!

. .O
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O

Sunrise to Sunset - A Day on the Hudson

Tappan Zee Bridge, Sunrise, 10/31/05

I made an effort this morning to finish off my gallery from the delivery trip - and I did it - and here it is - Pier 62, NYC to the Hudson-Athens Light!

Technically that's actually pre-dawn to sunset. What a good weekend that was.

Now the reason I wanted to polish off that gallery was because la la la, I am less than 48 hours from Vacation, all I ever wanted, vacation had to get away...

ok maybe I should leave the song quotes to Derrick...

anyways, I'm off Tuesday morning for a week of sailing in the British Virgin Islands. WOOO HOOO! Gonna be a blast - I'm very excited, I haven't been to a really different part of the world since this wonderful trip that I was invited to take in Georgian Bay a few years back, and I'm looking forward to some warm breezes and clear blue water (not that I don't love the Hudson in all her olive-green splendor - I hope my galleries prove that!), and it's a good crew I'm going with (all women, a promising combination of crewmates from the schooner and bartenders who work with the schooner crewmate who's organized this shinding, so watch out!). Oh yes, there will be pictures! Anyways, I am basically shutting down shop here while I'm gone - don't you forget about me, hey, hey, hey, hey, don't yoooou, forget about me!

ok I should definitely leave the song quotes to Derrick...

btw just to keep up my reputation as a total Nervous Nellie and general pain in the kiester, while I'm down there playing in the warm water, may I mention that the water up here is now officially cold. I think most of the people who actually read this thing and are paddlers are pretty experienced paddlers - but if you happen to be a relatively new paddler in latitudes where the water temp is getting down to "brrr!", and nobody's read you the riot act on cold-water paddling yet, I highly recommend going & reading that "cold-water paddling" site I have on my links.

There, now that I've preserved my reputation as a safety prig, I will close by humiliating my poor Romany...my mom was curious about how my seat repair was working, and I was explaining that it was working fine, but it was really ugly...well, they do say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here you have it, one ugly, yet effective, seat repair using spray-in foam such as can be purchased at any hardware store:



Fortunately, as far as I know, my kayak does not read my blog. Now if it inexpicably dumps me when I get back, I'll be a little suspicious.

So off to finish up the stuff I need to finish before the schoonergals wing our way south! Back in a week and a coupla days!

When Bonnie met Cheri at Norrie...

Today's post is from the Sunrise to Sunset gallery I'm working on now - I posted a picture of Norrie Point last night & just wrote & when I finished I looked at it & said "Hey, there's my Frogma post for tomorros...

Here's Norrie Point. This is one of the campsites on the Hudson River Watertrail; it's also the site of the annual Hudson River Greenland Festival, a celebration of traditional kayaks and kayaking skills. My Greenland mentor Jack gave me a ride up to this year before last; I had the most wonderful time; I won the sprint race & got second place in the women's rolling - that was partly because Cheri Perry - who's one of the top Greenland paddlers & rollers in the country - let me use her Greenland-style stitch-and-glue boat. OK, I absolutely adore my Romany, but in the "Stealth" boat - it's a sleek, slim & angular stich & glue & is finished in a glossy black - I was doing some very bizarre & wonderful things - the balance of
this thing was just exquisite & with Cheri talking me through "the list" - the Greenland kayaking championships in Greenland include a list of 30 manuevers - I was able to pull off things like a brick roll (hand roll - rolling the kayak without a paddle holding a good-sized rock in one hand) and an elbow roll (hand roll with your outboard hand on the back of your head - only got that on my on-side but still, wow wow wow...). I didn't manage the brick roll in competition but man, I was so amazed at what I was able to do...it was like doing a very slow & wonderful dance with the boat and the river.

boy, it was phenomenal. Since then it has been a constant source of frustration to know that I am able to do this kind of stuff given the right boat & instruction - the boat, I'd have to build, and hope that it came out well (that's the thing about the homemade boats - people put so much time & care into building them, and sometimes they are sheer works of art, and sometimes they just aren't, and that's got to be the biggest dissapointment) then find storage for (and our barge is a little on the gritty side for a beautiful handmade craft); and Cheri does most of her teaching in Connecticutt which is a case of so near and yet so far. Got an email from her just a couple weeks ago - she & her similarly talented boyfriend are
offering semi-private lessons at a pool in a town in Connecticutt that's just a bit too far away and start a bit too early to make it work out well. Sigh.

So anyways...yeah...that's Norrie Point.

BTW the gallery isn't done yet but if you're intererested you can go ahead & take a look. Glorious day.

I am just going to add one more thing...

If there are any other latent Greenlandwannabes out there (and I think you know who you are...) who wants to twist my arm, holla back, ok? We can talk. Never hurts to talk. Trust me, the logistics are vile. It's the quality of the instruction & gear that even makes me even think about it...

Jack took me once last winter & it was great - although she made me squish into the Stealth in true Greenland style - idea being that NOTHING is going to knock a Greenland paddler loose from their boat, with a flat piece of closed cell foam holding my legs flat, which totally changes the mechanics of even the most basic rolling from the knees flexed & slightly splayed position of a "qajariaq". "Qajariaq" being what the Greenlanders call our modern takes on their traditional boats. The word means "kayak-like". A true "qajaq" is of course a hand-built skin on frame made to fit the wearer like a glove - "wearer" was an error but a good one so I'm leaving it in - really, being in a Greenland boat feels more like wearing something than sitting in something. Anyways, at Norrie Point she let me dispense with that (I was wearing a drysuit which was just bulky enough that the foam was just not going to to fit) which gave me just enough latitude to use the same technique as in my Romany, which is why it all went so spiffily. I was able to re-tune my technique some, but going to one session is just a terribly inneffective way to learn anything about rolling, it requires repetition repetition repetition until the muscles really start to understand what they need to do.

Listening to Cheri (that's me btw)(photo by Jack G.)


Stealthy Cheri Perry demonstrates a "straightjacket roll" - arms crossed, hands clasping shoulders - this one's the hardest of all & as such is actually used as a tiebreaker at the Greenland world championships. Yes, naturally I tried. Didn't even come close.

ARRRRR!

Well shiver me poopdeck and splice the mizzen, 'tis the Battlin' Belgian, Cap'n Roosterbeam the Relentless, the Terror of the Hudson! North Bound at sunrise at the Tappan Zee Bridge, for the sacking of Albany - formerly known as the capital of the state of New York, henceforth to be known as SCARANOBOATVILLE!!! ARRRR!

(although when it comes right down to it, he might relent if somebody just has the sense to give him a cold Corona...)

(oh yeah..."Scaranoboatville" idea was swiped, in modified form, from Captain Sarah!)

Statue of Liberty, Sunset, 10 30 05

Taken on the schooner Adirondack II during our last public sail of the year. It was a thoroughly beautiful end to a good season.

In which Bonnie explains herself to a left-winger

OK, so I am not trying to turn into a political blogger - mostly I'd rather just go paddling & let the world take care of itself - but if you happened to find my retort to a right-winger at all interesting, I actually did what pretty much amounts to a Part II to the original Bring It On. I left a rather extensive comment in which I explained to a couple of people who are quite a bit farther left than me why, although I trust this administration less and less (how can I when I keep hearing stuff like this on the morning news on what seems like a depressingly regular basis?) I just can't buy into some of the more extreme theories out there.

Think I used up my allotted blogging time for the week on that comment. I think this blog may become a photo blog until Tuesday, when I will be putting up a "Gone Sailing" sign on the door here at Frogma and heading down for a week with friends in the British Virgin Islands - Monday was absolutely beautiful and I came back with a camera full of pretty pictures from the schooner delivery trip, which was great. Got a ton of work to do if I want to leave the office for a week (during which I will be utterly incommunicado) with a clear desk and a clear conscience...might just be lazy and post a few of my favorite shots from that trip & the day before (when I took some friends out for the last public sail of the season - that's when I took that Statue of Liberty shot). Boy, do I love doing that delivery trip. Always makes me think of passages from Mark Twain's "Life on the Mississippi", the ones where he describes how a steamboat pilot has to know the entire river, both ways, to where he could bring a boat through with as easily as he could negotiate a hallway in his house in the dark (amazing stuff especially in those pre-Aid-To-Navigation days...). Talk about some great river writing. 'Course negotiating the Hudson in 2005 isn't much like that - the route is well marked with lighted buoys, just for starters - but I do like the fact that every time I do the run, I get a little more familiar with the route. Nowhere close to by heart though - that would take a little more than once or twice a year (now the tugboat pilots, they must know it in their sleep). Actually I'm thinking that the gallery I plan to post - the ultimate Frogma virtual tour, from leaving Chelsea Piers in the 4:15 a.m. darkness right up to sunset at the Saugerties-Hudson lighthouse (my batteries ran out right then) - may actually be a fun way to fix the order of the various sections of the route in my head, I'll be using my handy-dandy Hudson River Watertrail Guide to confirm my recollections as to locations where I took the various pictures. Should be fun, keep me out of trouble for a while if nothing else.

At any rate, it was wonderful & I'll at least share pix with short desciptions over the next week. For now, back to work, tons to do.

Last Night's Fun!

Last night was the annual Celtic New Year (aka Samhain, aka the roots of Halloween) party. This is thrown by a couple who are very active in the local Irish music scene. I used to do a lot more of this but I'm still known to play the occasional tune - that's my tin whistle (or one of my tin whistles) in the foreground there. Lots of fun - "great craic".

I have to run now - I've got to stop by the office for a little while but then hurrah, I'll be spending the afternoon and all day tomorrow out on the water - taking some friends out this afternoon, then tomorrow we take the schooner up to Albany. Always a fun trip & since we are doing it on Halloween, I think there might be a bit of a piratical spin to our usual fall sailing gear, I need to stop by Ricky's, see what they have in the way of cutlasses...ARRRRR!

Happy Halloween!

In which Bonnie gets angry at a right-winger.

So I left a comment yesterday at Courting Destiny - she put up a post about the indictment - one of the right-wing types that loves to bait people on her comments was right there with the usual nastiness. I have a lot to do this weekend, don't have time to explain exactly why the comment brought as forceful a response from me as it did - but I just threw down as simple a version of my thoughts on the matter as I could muster. I'm just so totally sick of conservatives acting as though anyone who questions the war in Iraq, with it's 2000 US military casualties and estimated 26K+ Iraqi deaths, is automatically anti-American and, even in the slightest degree, pro-terrorists - anyways, I just couldn't keep from responding to this ass with my take on the whole thing.

Pia asked me if she could post it onBring It On. I said sure. Please feel free to go check it out if you're curious although I have to warn you it is several notches up the anger scale than even the "occasional liberal rant" I do here from time to time. It's not very characteristic for me to go off the way I did - used to be moreso but the older I get, the less tendency I have to fly off the handle - but I wouldn't take any of it back now that I did.

Cold Springs link fixed

Before anything else, I give you

Mr. and Mrs. Kayak Boy And A Waterfall!



Thank you Pia for leaving that comment about the link - it wasn't down, I'd just screwed it up. I fixed that one but here it is again - Cold Spring to Bear Mountain Bridge With Garfield, A Tuiliq shot, Perrier, and the Holy Yonkerian Order of Kayak Monks.

Hope you enjoy my pictures as much as I enjoyed meeting Pia last night - she's a lovely person! One of the things I've really enjoyed about this blogging thing is that I've "met" a lot of really interesting & nice people. Meeting her turned out to be a thoroughly enjoyable evening.

Heh heh. Now, the guy with the shiny new four star award suggested a kayak-blogger symposium. Wouldn't that be fun? Only thing is, I would need to beware of the evidently irresistable chick-magnetic field that Wenley has apparently developed lately (seriously, I think the guy is going for "Spiciest Kayak Blog of the Year" award, it's been quite entertaining).

Much more likely that I'll at least have a chance to meet Derek & Mary sometime - they get to a lot of symposiums, and I'm feeling like I have got to do SOMETHING in the way of continuing kayak education next year, paths could easily cross.

Back to yesterday's more serious note - they have at least found the body of Jim Runsdorf, the rower who was lost on Monday morning. Sea Level has continued to post links to most, if not all, of the stories.

Time for me to get back to work.

More sad thoughts & my Cold Springs gallery

Still thinking about the accident - I think that the thing that makes this all particularly strange is that owing to the fact that there's been a renaissance in recreational use of the river over the last ten or fifteen years, we've been operating in this strange grace period in which, as far as I'm aware at least, we've had no deaths among the paddling & rowing set. A few rescue situations that had all the more seasoned folks shaking their collective heads with disbelief, but never any fatalities.

This is going to sound absolutely, positively horrible but the fact is that it was pretty much statistically impossible for that grace period to last forever. I don't think I've ever actually said that flat-out but every time I have ever written or said or done anything about safety, the importance of skills, or the inherent risks of boating, it was always, at least in part, because I was genuinely afraid that there were people coming into the sport without really understanding that, and I believe that a person genuinely needs to have acknowledged that to be a responsible boater. Signing the outfitter waiver that says you do unfortunately doesn't really mean that a person has genuinely looked that risk in the face, looked at the quality-of-life benefits that recreational paddling has to offer, and said "Yes, I accept that risk and I want to learn to do this anyhow".

I do think the fact that our grace period lasted as long as it did says that the paddle (and oar) sports community is doing something right. There are gaps, there have been a couple people who had a tendency to downplay the risks in their well-intentioned zeal for getting people out on the water (one thing I've been really glad to see this year though is that the it's-perfectly-safe-all-you-need-is-an-idiot-proof-boat message just seems to have lost traction - idiot-proof boat and the related foolproof boat are oxymorons & potentially dangerous ones - sorry, that's been a pet peeve of mine), but on the whole, the approach to paddling, and teaching paddling, in the area has been done with a lot of attention to safety.

None of this made the accident any easier to take. I didn't know him but the local paddling & rowing community, while growing, is still small; it feels living in a small town and finding out that a neighbor down the block died in a car crash. Maybe you didn't know him personally - but you generally have a liking for the people in your community, and you're just very sad for him & the people around him.

Anyways, sorry for another very gloomy and not-well-thought-out post. I actually signed in with the intent of saying that I have finished a gallery of Cold Spring - pretty close to another virtual tour - but then the other stuff just came out. What a marvelous day it was. As Mr. SeaLevel pointed out, that just made Monday's sad news seem even sadder.

Rowing tragedy

I haven't figured out anything worthwhile to say about it yet, but there was a fatal accident on the Harlem River this week and I feel like I have to at least say that it happened. If you're a New York City resident, you've already heard about it, but for non-locals, there is a rowing center at the Peter Jay Sharp boathouse on the Hudson River; a four-man crew went out for a pre-dawn workout (absolutely standard practice for rowers); they were turning & while they were broadside to the channel, they were struck by a motorboat & one of the rowers is missing and presumed dead.

All boating entails risk of injury or death; responsible boaters understand that and do everything they can to minimize those risks but sometimes things just happen anyways.

I do a lot of private hand-wringing, occasionally spilling over into overly-loquacious blog posts & emails, about people I see launching out on the Hudson in inadequate boats, wearing inadequate gear, and with inadequate skills, a combination which I think I can safely say indicates inadequate understanding of the risks as well -- but that wasn't the story here at all. These guys were experienced & dedicated rowers, they knew what they were doing, they were out doing what they love (just like me and every other recreational boater on the face of the earth does as often as they can) and this was just one of those tragic "things that just happen anyways".

Anyways...as I said I don't know what to say yet, don't know when or if I will - it's all fine talking about awareness & acceptance of risks and all that in a theoretical sense, but when someone is actually gone I just can't throw some slapped-together post with the usual pontifications out there. I've made a few comments here & there, had a couple of email conversations - even at that limited level, I have already said a thing or two that I'm already wondering if I should have said, so I'm going to keep it at that for now.

SeaLevel mentioned that he has had a similar reaction - his response has been to just put up all the information on SeaLevel as it comes in.

The New York Rowing Association is also looking for volunteers to search the riverbanks - more information here.

Let's all be careful out there.

Thank You, Mrs. Parks

Associated Press Photo. "Woman Fingerprinted. "Mrs. Rosa Parks, Negro Seamstress, Whose Refusal to Move to the Back of a Bus Touched Off the Bus Boycott in Montgomery, Alabama." 1956. New York World-Telegram & Sun Collection, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.

And by doing so, she made this country a better place for all of us. We're still far from perfect - but better than we were. And so I must pause in my estuarine ramblings to say a very sincere "Thank you".

10/23/05 Cold Spring to Bear Mountain Bridge

Just a few of a lot of pictures I took during an absolutely wonderful day - all I have time for right now, there's gear to rinse & I am going to sleep so well tonight. I'll be putting up more on Buzznet but couldn't resist at least putting up a few samples.

TOLD you my next post would be a cute kitty picture.

This is Poosay. Isn't she cute? Plus she is a mighty hunter, killed a copperhead once. Not a big copperhead but still! Another member of my Texas aunt & uncle's menagerie. Now I have to go pack up for a trip up the Hudson tomorrow - the Pier63 hold gang is off to see some foliage, we're taking a train up, renting boats & spending the day in the Hudson Highlands, which is the most dramatic section of the Hudson & I believe the one that inspired most of the Hudson River School artists that did all those amazing landscapes back in the 19th century. Still looks like that, too. Hope to get some nice pictures!

And I think I have to declare a winner in the Frogma Language Abuse Contest, although it wasn't really a contest, just me being curious about other people's language-related pet peeves. I enjoyed all the comments but michlt of Rivertyde really cracked me up with his:

I just got back from a conference where publisher representatives were presenting us with their fall/winter releases. While these are not individual words, they are phrases that the publisher reps actually used:

1. "incentivize the customer" -- from Rep #1
2. "divisionalized structure" (of the market)-- from Rep #2

And one phrase for you from a book critic writing for Salon.com which is just plain 'wrong'!

"Equally concerning to critics..."

'Concerning to'? where did he get THAT?

I don't know which bothered me more: the phrases themselves or their source. It would be better that the words(?) 'incentivize' and 'divisionalize' should never be spoken, or even thought, by anyone ever again. I even feel guilty for typing them.

I think I found this so impressive because all 3 are from industries where having a good command of the English language would seem to be a prerequisite. Had they been heard during a meeting at an advertising agency, they still would have been interesting, but there would have been a bit less of a surprise factor! I think that's what made this one sort of jump out at me.

Anyhow, must go pack for tomorrow. Tomorrow will be FUN. Trip report to follow during the week!

More on Brooklyn hearing -

One more post on this arena thing, just because I found something interesting about an article that was in the Times on Wednesday (the day after the hearing) and another that was in today.

The first, was clearly a quick review of the night's proceedings. I'm not even sure the reporter stayed until the end - he may not have been able to, I read it in Wednesday morning's paper, and I don't know what the deadline for a story is when a reporter's handing it in the night before, but this meeting ran until 11 and I can imagine that with the time required for editing, printing & delivery he may well have had to split at "halftime" to get the story in. Anyways, clearly done pretty fast in the face of that deadline. The one part that sort of puzzled me was where the reporter wrote "Both sides were well represented at the hearing...But opponents appeared to outnumber supporters in number, intensity and volume." OK, I was not there for the first half, when Marty Markowitz made his statements, but during the second half, I heard 3, maybe 4 supporters speak (including James Caldwell, as I mentioned yesterday, and all from the tight little cluster of people behind me who talked among themselves through most of the other speakers), versus a entire series of opponents. That's not exactly a ratio that would make me use the phrase "Both sides were well represented", and I would have left out the "but" and "appeared to" bits of the second half. I think "Opponents outnumbered supporters" would have been a pretty safe way of describing it.

On the whole, though, can't really carp that much - as I said, I missed the first half, and the guy had to be under some pretty fierce pressure to turn something out for publication - better to err on the side of caution & leave oneself a little safety margin with softeners like "appeared to".

The same reporter, Nicholas Confessore, had another article in today's (well technically yesterday's, Thursday's paper, I'm writing this way past my bedtime in another fit of gotta-get-this-down-now-itis and it is actually Friday right now, sigh) paper - this time he'd obviously had a little more time to think a little more about it, maybe review his notes a little more thoroughly...anyways, today's (yesterday's) article was actually a much better reflection of the general tenor of what I heard on Tuesday night.

I found it very interesting reading them side-by-side - my opinions of the topic aside, it was sort of fascinating to see the same reporter do a full story under what has to have been a pretty nasty deadline, then take the same topic & being able to work through it with a full day to consider it more thoroughly, producing a far more in-depth article. Figured I'd share.

Phew. I think tomorrow I will give myself a rest from the serious stuff & post a picture of a cute kitty cat or something of that type.

Technorati tags: Ratner, Brooklyn

Brooklyn arena proposal hearing

As I expected, I ended up going to the public hearing regarding Forest City Ratner Corp's proposed Brooklyn arena & towers instead of for a paddle. This is rather a big deal here in Brooklyn.

It was scheduled to go from 5 to 8; it ended up going until 11 & there was a possibility that it will continue tomorrow (Wednesday).

Democracy in action, I would say if I wanted to be optimistic. I got there at 7:30 (knowing from attending various other meetings that they never end anywhere close to on time) which was plenty of time to listen to a whole range of Brooklynites stand up and state their opinions (Brooklynites are so darned good at that - I don't consider myself a Brooklynite yet, just a person who happens to reside in Brooklyn) regarding the big thing. Vast majority of opinions ranged from moderate concern to downright hatred. Topics touched upon included (but were not limited to, and please note I'm just repeating what I heard) traffic, noise & dirt during the 11-year construction time & afterwards; the eminent domain question; whether the proposal had been reviewed for defensibility against terrorist attack; the increased load on a overloaded Red Hook Sewage Treatment Plant; Riverkeeper rep cited probable increased CSO problems for the East River(CSO, btw, stands for Combined Sewage Outfall - owing to the antiquity of NY's sewage system the overflow on rainy days goes straight into the river - trust me, it's just as gross as it sounds); the effect on the ecology of the Gowanus Canal (OK, even I had a bit of a hard time keeping a straight face for that one - but then again 20 years ago people might've had the same response to concern about the ecological health of the apparently-dead North River area of the Hudson); a possibility of even worse problems with asthma in an already asthma-prone area (the Sierra Club guy who hit that one hard actually brought his 4-year old son's nebulizer & said half the kids on his block had 'em); the loss of sunlight, the interruption of the street grid, and the wind-tunnel effect that the opponents say the project will have; the sheer ugliness of the project; the way that Ratner has just sort of been given an almost Robert Mosesian carte blanche to do with Brooklyn as he sees fit - the list goes on & on. The last, I think, was really the key - on the whole, it seemed like most speakers were actually in favor of some type of development - just not a behemoth that gets dumped on them without so much as a by-your-leave. There are a couple of alternative proposals that have a lot more community support, but the way things are being done, those may not even be considered. There was a lot of resentment that this is the first chance for the public to really state their opinion of any of this when it's been in development for two years.

Now - a little while after I got there, I noticed that there was a group of people behind me that were talking amongst themselves. This was particularly brought to my attention when a woman sitting a ways away took their picture and they all started yelling at her. While someone was speaking! And as speaker after speaker took the mike, the group just kept yakking away. Repeated "shhh's" made no difference. I couldn't keep from stealing glances at them because I just couldn't get over how rude they were being - even turned around at one point & made a very cranky-librarianish shushing sign at them - they just looked back at me sort of strangely (couldn't quite tell, it could've been a look of amusement, or irritation, or just plain "yeah -- so?") & kept talking.

Finally one of them got called up to speak. Turns out to be James Caldwell, president of Brooklyn United for Innovative Development, aka BUILD.

This just happen to be the "grassroots" organization I mentioned in my last post --the one that turns out to have been being provided with office space & money by Ratner. Big Daily News story today in fact - ordinarily I wouldn't have seen it, been reading the Times since the world got so serious (and since I finally figured out the "commuter fold" that makes it possible to read the Times on the subway - do kinda miss the funnies though...) but one of the Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn people was handing out copies. You can read the story & decide for yourself what you think, but what I can say for sure is that they were just kind of rude. Treated the whole thing like a joke. I finally got up & moved 'cause it was just too distracting to have them conversing behind me. Funny thing was, a couple of them actually made statements that sounded reasonably well thought-out, and their delivery sounded genuine, and y'know it takes a certain amount of guts to stand up & take the EXTREME minority position in a roomful of opponents (it was literally about 7 or 8 pro-Ratner people vs. an endless list of anti-Ratner people) - but the way they were so rude to the other speakers just completely did away with any "hmm the guy might have a point" (or at least "well, I don't really agree but I do see where he's coming from") reaction that I might have had if they'd just shown a little more respect for everybody else in the room.

Anyways, that's all, just figured I'd get this out quick while it was all still fresh in my mind.

10/19 lunchtime update - if you are interested in reading more about the hearing, and you didn't happen to find this through DailyHeights.com, they have a post (much later in day -- oops just noticed this link wasn't right, fixed now!) on the topic with a message board with more links. I followed one to TimesRatnerReport - the writer, Norman Oder, is a journalist, spoke in opposition to the project last night, and has done a pretty in-depth writeup of the evening - as I mentioned, I got there late but his coverage of the piece I was there for was very accurate.

Technorati tags: Ratner, Brooklyn

dilemma...

Oh boy.

Do I go paddling tonight or do I go to the Brooklyn arena hearing?

Absolutely torn. Cripes. I did sail last night, but it was more of a motor than a sail -- the moon was amazing though --it would have been a PERFECT night for a paddle -- it made me really want to go paddling. Still, I live in Brooklyn, and I'm very curious to hear what people will be saying about this proposed development.

The deal, for anyone who's reading from outside the tri-state area, is that a big developer, Bruce Ratner, wants to build an arena & move the New Jersey Nets basketball team to Brooklyn. The arena would be surrounded by blocks of apartment buildings. I will probably get my okole kicked by various Brooklyn friends of mine for saying this, but to me, the proposed site for the arena doesn't seem QUITE as heinous as the one that was being pushed in midtown Manhattan - I'm SO glad that went away - but - in addition to some railyards, there's a lot of eminent domain involved. It's a nice little neighborhood - people's homes, shops, very nice, classic Brooklyn - & the planned development is kind of a big old THING plunked down in the middle of it. Our borough president Marty Markowitz is utterly enamoured of the whole thing (I emailed him a while back saying that I was really not looking forward to dealing with the crowds & also that it seemed like there should be space there to do something without having to take over homes & shops - he actually called me and left a very long message on my answering machine about how great it was gonna be!), there seems to be quite a strong grassroots resistance, there was a grassroots support group but there are questions about just how grassroots that bunch really is, something about Ratner giving them money...

anyways, it could be a really interesting meeting.

but it's really nice outside.

Oh sigh. I'll probably go to the meeting.

Thhhbbt. Hard to keep a kayak blog if you never get out to kayak.

Of course I did actually do some paddling-related writing over lunch hour today. Just kinda did it on SeaLevel's comments area. This was in response to an article about a guy who rented a kayak, did a lot of things wrong & ended up needing a rescue - the article's over there. This is just the sort of thing that makes me unable to be quiet.

Moods of Pier 64

Last weekend vs. this weekend!





Lovely fall day yesterday. I was tempted to paddle yesterday but had to do some seat repair. I was rolling energetically enough during "greenland love night" week before last that I knocked loose a couple of the closed-cell foam wedges that I'd glued in as bracing for the seat a couple years age. I'm trying the spray-in foaming insulation that Sticks used with good results in his Romany Explorer this time so I needed to make sure I got it done before the temperature goes down any more, I don't have access to a heated repair place. Still a day on the river, though. And the seat feels pretty solid now. And I stayed to watch the sunset.

Nothing like over a week of rain to really make you appreciate a couple of sunny ones. We're having a little more today & I'm going to go enjoy it some - not paddling, going for a run today.

Short & not so sweet today

10/12 note - this was originally posted yesterday but I decided I sort of want this one to stay on top a little longer. Today's new post (I'm being nosy about words that people either really love or really hate for whatever reason, no matter how irrational) is the next one.

Can't not say something about the earthquake...20,000 - that, I can't imagine. Once again I don't have anything intelligent to say.

This has been such a terrible year for natural disasters -

Well, here's what I will do - another plug for a not-for-profit - somehow Doctors Without Borders was the was the first group that sprang to mind when I thought of organizations that would be helping out after the earthquake. There's also the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

Let's not get bored of trying to help.

technorati tag: earthquake

Audience Participation Day at Frogma

OK...I'm going to get a little silly today, just for fun.

I'm kind of taking a leaf out of Sardonic Bomb, whose post yesterday was about names that make you physically cringe (or bristle) because you connect them so completely with some real scumbag or jerk.

I actually found that difficult - first off, I've been lucky enough and/or careful enough with my attachments to people that I can count the people towards whom I bear personal resentment (I kept it to people I've actually known personally just for convenience's sake) on one hand if I'm thinking off the top of my head. I'm sure I could move on to the second hand & possibly some toes if I really thought about it but why do that to myself? Secondly - for every name I could think of that brought to mind a disliked person, I could also think of someone I really liked who shared that name, so the negative connotations & the positive pretty much cancelled each other out.

But for some reason the "names that make you cringe" theme got me thinking of "words that make you cringe". Mostly, I really like words (don't all bloggers?) but there are one or two words - or uses of words - that have something of a nails-on-chalkboard effect on me.

Case in point:

Got any books around? Pick one up & turn it over to find the bar code. Right on top of the bar code, you'll see a number with some hyphens in it, preceded by the letters "isbn". This stands for International Standard Book Numbering. I use this number a lot in my job - we'll do three or four versions of the same title (e.g., a trade hardcover, a paperback, a reinforced library binding, and a deluxe edition), so when I go to report on sales of a title, I do it by isbn, so that I can sort out the earnings into their proper categories.

When I am talking about an isbn, I tend to say "eye ess bee en".

However, I also hear the number referred to as an "izbun", and I don't know why but for some reason that word just grates on my ears terribly. It's a completely irrational thing, and I would never dream of asking people to please not try to use that word as an acronym because I would sound like a complete lunatic trying to explain that pronounced that way, it's an ugly, graceless, clunkety lump of a non-word - see, doesn't that sound weird already? Besides, I'm a finance person, we're not supposed to have opinions about words.

So I'm stuck with izbun as long as I'm in the publishing business and now I'm curious to know if anybody else has any particular words (or uses thereof - like the old "attached please find", does that bother anyone else?) that make them wince the same way "izbun" makes me wince. If you do, can you even begin to explain why, or is it the same sort of visceral "ugh" that "izbun" gives me?

Or conversely - any words in which you find you take inordinate delight in just saying them? "Wysiwyg" fits that category for me - I can't quite tell you why but of all the weird computer jargon you hear these days, that word is just the one that I find to be the most fun.

Wysiwyg! Wysiwyg! Wysiwyg!

Why does that word make me grin? It does. And now that I'm grinning, I think I can go face my afternoon slog through the Travel & Entertainment reimbursement requests.

Can't wait to read your thoughts!

Comments are open (not that they're ever closed)!

A few rainy day pix & a Hudson River gentleman!

Pier 63 Maritime on a warm summer night


Pier 63 Maritime on a rainy Saturday in fall -


And so the season is drawing to a close. Soon it'll just be the hardy paddlers with the river all to ourselves (and the nice warm Half-King will start to be the place for our post-paddle pints) again.

A couple of other shots I took upon finding myself at the piers on a stormy afternoon - I was scheduled to work on the schooner but both afternoon sails were cancelled. I was glad, too - it was a good day for a walk and some pictures (I'd brought my camera knowing that it was not unlikely that the sails for the day would be a washout), but see those darker patches on the water in the piershed picture? That's where strong gusts are sweeping up the river (the weather reports indicated gusts to 34 knots) & those aren't much fun to deal with on a sailboat. It's not so bad that we wouldn't have gone, although without a lot of sails, if we'd had some madly adventurous passengers who were gung ho - but we didn't, they cancelled, and I expect that the captain probably didn't try to do any arm-twisting - this kind of gusty, shifty stuff makes for some kind of headachey sailing. A nice steady wind is much more fun.

The old Pier 64 piershed in the rain -


The pilot house of the retired (and abandoned, sunken and salvaged) lightship Frying Pan (named after the Frying Pan Shoals off Cape Fear, NC, of which she warned other vessels with lights & horn from 1930 to 1965) -


Of course my idea of "a good day for a walk" may not be everyone's idea of "a good day for a walk" - as long as I'm dressed for it & it's warm, I'm happy - sort of like the quiet you get on the river on days like this one.


This is the Christopher Street Pier - I have gone past this pier a hundred times this summer if I've gone past it once - this is part of the developing Hudson River Park & I've been meaning to go see it by land for ages!

I actually set up a new Buzznet gallery with more of the barge - I also added a couple more to my Schooner Adirondack gallery - note on the first one, if you happen to remember the picture I posted of the Adirondack's battered bow, this is what her bow is supposed to look like. The cable that runs from the tip of the bowsprit down to a fitting right at the waterline is the bobstay - that's what broke on the Adirondack in our unfortunate incident with the Pioneer.

And speaking of the Pioneer, the captain of that boat is a real gentleman - not only did he speak to Captain Sarah afterwards out of concern that there not be bad blood between our boats (even though he wasn't even on board when it happened, he is their primary captain and felt strongly that he needed to talk to here - he'd seen my Adirondack shirt at the Mayor's Cup post-race party & asked me to let her know that after I told him that she'd just left) - he actually invited the entire crew of the Adirondack to the Pioneer's year-end volunteer party. I actually really thought of going but in the end...well, I've been so busy lately, and I'd just had this image in my mind of how much I'd like there to be a nice, rainy weekend day to stay home curled up on the couch reading a book while a big pot of homemade split pea soup simmered away on the stove, and after wandering the riverside in the rain for hours, that just became irresistable. But I thought that was awfully nice of him to do that.

The Hawaiian Islands you never heard of

I just realized that this has been lurking in drafts for quite some time - thought I was going to write more but I think I'm just going to post it!

Today in Yahoo Science - the Hawaiian Islands you've never heard of (with at least one notable exception).

You've heard of the inhabited ones - Hawaii, Maui, Molokai, Lanai, Kauai, Ni'ihau, Oahu. You may have heard of one uninhabited one in the same area - Kaho'olawe. But there are actually a lot more in the chain, which has been created as volcanoes arise at a hot spot in the earth's crust, then drift in a northwesterly direction with the tectonic plate of which they are a part. These are known as the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, and they've just been declared a new refuge area. You actually probably know the name of, at the VERY least, one of these islands - that would be Midway (as in "Battle Of") Atoll - but as an actual continuation of the chain of islands that makes up our 50th state, I don't believe they're really well known.

Also very worth a visit (particularly after the Yahoo link quits working, which they do eventually) - here's the website for the refuge itself - interesting reading!

Hudson River in the news

So looks like GE is going to actually start cleaning up the mess that they made! I didn't have time to really peruse the article but this sounds like good news to me.

Oh, this is JUST lovely...

Isn't this nice. Fun, fun, fun.

Will I still be riding the subway?

Damned straight I will.

(sorry 'bout the cussing, parents - sometimes "darned" just doesn't cut it!)

Rita report from Huntsville, TX

As promised - here's my Texas aunt & uncle's hurricane story. Call me biased, but dang I ended up with a good family. I loved reading this. A couple of sad things, a couple of people being stupid, but a whole lot of people reaching out to help each other (and their pets) - gotta love it.

*********

Hi, all!

Katrina did not effect us much. We did, however, have several thousand evacuees staying in little Huntsville's churches and hotels for a while. Don't know what happened to their animals other than what we and you read in the papers. Gradually, though, the evacuees moved on to other places.

Rita was a whole different story. Huntsville was designated an evacuee center and thousands arrived again...this time many in their own vehicles as well as on buses. And they brought their pets with them. Animals weren't allowed in the churches and other shelters so they rounded up all the pets at our Walker County Fair Grounds. We had over 300 dogs, almost as many cats, half a dozen or so horses, some cows, a few goats, over 20 birds, some sugar gliders, 2 turtles and 1 spider! Our humane society and other local volunteers took care of this Noah's Ark.

A week ago Thursday, R&M & M's two daughters (24 and 28) (Bonnie's note - cousin of mine & family, Houston area) came up with 6 cats to weather the storm. Took them 12 hours to make the normally 1.5 hour trip. We finished making the place storm ready, got out propane stove and propane lantern plus all the flashlights. They brought up bottled water and we filled buckets and the tub with our well water. By Saturday, when it was clear the storm was going east of Huntsville, they all left and got home in 2 hours.The wind was still gusting to 60 - 70 mph, and bringing down a lot of small branches and one big branch. There were reports of power outages here but our power was still on.On Sunday we went to church and afterwards went to the animal shelter to see what was going on.Found them already full with evacuee's animals and sending every one else to the Fair Grounds where the bulk of the evacuees were being sheltered. Also they said help was needed out there so I went there.

I found a very tired group of our members and other volunteers dealing with hundreds of cats and dogs in one of the smaller buildings. There were well over a thousand people camping in the main building.

With little or no pre-planning our people did a wonderful job of keeping the pets in their cages, feeding,watering, cleaning them and not the least keeping track of who their owners were. The shelter and citizens loaned cages to the effort for those who had no cages. The bigger, and the less friendly, dogs were put in pens outside undr a large roof the normally held sheep, goats and similar animals for the Fair. The man in charge of the whole operation did a great job of getting all the food and supplies that were needed and they had a kitchen set up to feed everyone. Most all the evacuees were very appreciative of the help they were getting but as usual there were some bad apples in the bunch. On. Monday a contingent of 12 or more Texas National Guard were called in and that quieted everyone down.

Meanwhile some people were leaving and some still coming in from Beaumont and other Texas and La. coastal cities, some with pets.

We worked there from 7AM to 7PM or more Monday, Tuesday , and Wednesday. We were told Tuesday, there was to be a wedding on Saturday and the place had to be emptied by Thursday noon.. Fortunately by then the number of animals was down to about 50. By taking some to the shelter, some to foster homes and having some evacuees pick up their animals and leave, we managed to get every animal out and the building cleaned by 2PM. A number of nice cats and dogs it turned out had no known owners. Some we knew were abandoned and fortunately people stepped up and adopted them. Friday was spent tracking down the names and phone numbers of a few owners who we had reason to think had not abandoned their pets

The problem came about when evacuees without transportation of their own were put on buses to go back home but were not allowed to take their pets on the bus.
Today one of our volunteers and his wife drove my Mazda pickup to Galveston with 4 dogs and 4 cats to their owners.

Love to all!

Dog and Pony Show...

Technically, of course, Copycat is a horse, not a pony. Jack, however, is definitely a dog. Both denizens of my Texas aunt & uncle's very happy menagerie (current population 2 dogs, 2 horses, 1 cat, all very friendly - I was only able to take this picture after I convinced Copycat that I didn't have a "cookie" - actually an alfafa cube - for him).

I'll be posting a little more about them on my lunch hour today - they sent out an email to the family about how their town (including their local humane society) responded to Hurricane Rita & said I could use it here.

SeaLevel writeup of minigreenlandfest!

OK, so the mini-Greenland-fest was something of a comedy of errors - but it was fun. SeaLevel has a really good writeup. I like his word "sloosh" - good description of what a Greenland paddle does as it goes through the water. It's funny, I'm not even quite sure whether I'd describe it as a sound that you hear or how the paddle feels in your hands...anyways, he did a nice writeup, and I'm really busy today so I'm gonna just send you over there!

I still can't believe I dropped his headlamp in the water. Oops.

Chosha's Meme!

One More Meme!

Chosha tagged me with a close variant of the book one I did yesterday - this is a nice simple one, figured I'd do it before I run over to the pier (we are having a little mini-Greenland-fest tonight, and since it's Rosh Hashanah my boss is out, along with half the rest of the company, that means I can sneak out now - tomorrow, however, will be pure heck)!

So here's the way it works -

Go into your archive.
Find your 23rd post.
Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).
Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.
Tag five other people to do the same.

Result -

Amazing how long ago that feels - so much has happened since then.

This turned out to be a post on finding myself teaching rolling at the same pool where I originally learned to roll, assisting the same guy who first taught me. Actually wasn't too bad. Been feeling a little derailed lately - been posting, but I liked the roll (pardon the pun!) I was on with the Hanauma Bay posts I was doing before I went on vacation - everything's felt a little random & incoherent since I got back. It's just like my life - I can't pick one thing to focus on; if I could, I actually might be really good at something; as it is, I'm sort of good at a range of things, but bothered by a sense that somehow I'm not really accomplishing much, or at least as much as I could if I could pick...wait, that's getting MIGHTY circular there.

Anyways, I guess I can't really complain about having too many things I like to do, can I? Sort of like whining about how I didn't get to go with my friends to Nova Scotia because I was going to the BVI's in November - ya just don't garner a whole lot of sympathy that way!

...O
:D/>
.O

(frogma kayak smiley patent pending - not coming back to fix if I got the spacing wrong though!)

So since I liked it, here's post #23 - Full Circle - Broken Circle. That was a pretty satisfying piece of time, when I was doing all that teaching.

Well, speaking of rolling, time to go play!

Oh - the tag thing? Again, just sign up in the comments if you want to play - really, this is such a nice short one, even I couldn't complicate it that much!

Curse of 7's/Literary Meme

So it turns out that Loup tagged me way back at the beginning of September! I missed it 'cause that was right around the time that I was getting ready to go on vacation, so I was just barely keeping posts going & wasn't really reading much, just had too much work to do before I left; then I had no internet access for the duration of vacation. Not such a bad thing. Anyhow, I was messing around on Technorati last week & discovered that Loup had tagged me - I may be late, but I'm game! So here goes with THE CURSE OF SEVENS! Thanks Loup!

7 things I plan to do before I die –

(qualifier: actually some of these are more things I’d LIKE to do – or at least think I’d like to do - and in one case just something I'd like to see but is way out of my personal control – when I plan to do something, I’m sort of holding myself to it, and honestly there aren’t a lot of things to which I hold myself – I seem to have more luck when I follow life where it leads, rather than when I really want things to happen enough to try to make them. I’m not sure whether more planning would lead to more success, or just more disappointments as I either failed to accomplish what I wanted to, or accomplished what I wanted to only to have it somehow turn out badly. You can call it a zen approach, or we can go with what all my poor teachers said when I was a kid - "Bonnie has so much potential, if she would just apply herself".) That said, here are the 7 -

1. Figure out what I want to do when I grow up – or at least make more use of the things I’m actually good at & enjoy doing.
2. Maybe go back to school…that kind of goes with (or comes after) 1, though!
3. Keep improving my boating skills, both sailing & paddling – maybe go get some sailing certifications; more navigation; more long-distance stuff & keep teaching others, too – back when I was a partner at MKC, teaching & learning all at the same time, the one fed the other, the momentum was tremendous & it was just exhilarating to find out what I could do – for myself & for others - when I tried.
4. Get over my stage fright (singing & speaking).
5. (Not a personal goal, just a hope…) See an end to this ugly trend of the religious right trying to insinuate themselves into our government (and the government’s giving in to that). I think our founding fathers were absolutely right to separate church & state – that’s why I got uncharacteristically opinionated over the ID thing. I think religion gets dangerous the minute it starts being forced on people instead of being a purely personal matter. I know that’s awfully heavy deep n’real for an entertaining meme, but in addition to the ID thing, I just finished reading Reading Lolita in Tehran, by Azar Nafisi, today, so I’ve got fundamentalism on the brain right now. Good book, I recommend it.
6. Hand over the 1/3rd of the business manager’s job that I’ve been doing (and HATING) to an actual business manager! Gratuitous waste of a long-term goal, but I’m really, really sick of this, on October 15th the position will have been open for 6 months, & I resent the damper it put on the entire summer…you only get so many summers.
7. Learn to let it go when somebody I trusted hurts me & then refuses to take any responsibility for it or even speak to me in person about it – thankfully, this has only happened to me a couple of times in my life (I’m not thinking of an ex-boyfriend when I say that either) but I can still make myself cry thinking about either one.

7 things I can do:

1. Paddle pretty well.
2. Sail a boat (not by myself though, yet - just for starters, somebody else has to dock!)
3. ride a horse
4. play a little music & sing some too
5. Origami (how’s that for random?)
6. use words pretty well, once I figure out what I want to do with them in the first place.
7. Throw my whole heart into something or someone, once I make my mind up to do so.

7 things I cannot do:

1. get up in the morning without multiple snooze-alarm activations
2. get through a work day without coffee
3. take much interest in TV shows (it helps that I don’t have a TV!)
4. put down a new book until I’m exhausted, generally around 2 am
5. grow things (I try but can only manage the most uncomplicated plants)
6. Stomach the thought of actively participating in the New York dating scene.
7. Convince myself that I’m actually going to stay in New York forever.

7 things that attract me to the opposite sex:

1. Quiet self-confidence
2. Respect for others
3. Sense of humour
4. A sense of responsibility for their own actions
5. Intelligent – doesn’t need to be MENSA material, but smart
6. Active & outdoorsy -
7. Physically – tall, warm eyes & smile, capable-looking hands

7 things I say most often:

1. This summer’s #1 expression has unfortunately been the frustrated sigh.
2. “Sure thing!”
3. “basically”…basically, this is my annoying filler word that I basically say too much, basically.
4. “here, kitty kitty” (I seldom pass a pet cat without trying to say hello, can usually cajole all but the shyest ones over for a little petting)
5. “Sorry” (used in everything from ”Sorry to be a pain, but…” to “I’m so sorry”)
6. “Love you both!” (saying goodbye on a phone call with my folks)
7. “Schooner” (close tie with “kayak”, “paddle”, “Hudson River”, and “boat” but I think “schooner” wins cause I’m always telling my paddling crew I can’t go do x-and-such paddle on x-and-such day because “I’m working on the schooner”).

7 celebrity crushes:
1. Johnny Depp as a pirate.
2. Harrison Ford as anything
3. Chow Yun Fat (especially & particularly in “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”)
4. Jackie Chan
5. Josh Brolin (digging into past a bit, I thought he was so hot in “The Young Riders” that my roommate made a running joke of it…the fact that he was always on a horse may have helped)
6. And here I am digging back even further…not being big into pop culture, I just started thinking back over any celebrity I’d ever thought was really attractive, and suddenly I was seeing a face from an 80’s band – took me a while to recall the name “Roland Gift”, lead singer for “Fine Young Cannibals” (there, have I, like, totally aged myself or what?)
7. OK, I am really reaching here, I actually had no idea what the guy looked like except that I just did a Google search for images, but…Frank Orrall, lead singer & songwriter of Poi Dog Pondering – I just love his lyrics & the way he sings ‘em.

7 people I want to do this:

1. First person who wants to
2. Second person who wants to
3. Third person who...
OK, you get the general idea, right? I don't feel like I've been a sociable enough blogger lately to tag people but if this sounds like fun to anybody, sign yourself up in comments & have at it!

Hey, and as long as I'm doing memes...I'm going to do one I saw on Rivertyde too. This is such a nice simple one that even I can't complicate it...only I'm going to, a little. Here are the rules:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Dont search around and look for the coolest book you can find. Do whats actually next to you.

The book that's closest to me right now:

"Two populations that are geographically separated, like B and C in our pictorial model, are said to be allopatric." - E. Peter Volpe, Understanding Evolution (this was one of the very small number of old college textbooks that I've held onto all this time - I dug it out when the ID stuff started turning up, just to refresh my own memory & it ended up on my desk when I decided to do some writing on the topic)

The book I just finished reading:

"She said, I don't know, but maybe I just can't tell you". Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran.

I'm a little disappointed that the specified sentence turned out to be less than thrilling out of context, as I found this to be a fascinating book on many more levels than I expected from the blurb (which focuses on private classes in Western Lit which the author held for 7 of her best female students after the overthrow of the Shah - the book ranges much farther than those students or those classes, though). It was sitting next to The Bookseller of Kabul - I think I chose the one I did because it was actually an insider's view - will probably go back after the other one of these days, though, I find myself wanting to learn more about the people who live in these countries that are so far away but with whom we are so inextricably entangled.

So there's my 2-meme night - anyone who didn't play back when these were actually current & wants to, well, consider yourself tagged!