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August 2007 Archives

August 1, 2007

ODNR Inspection Scheduled!

Big news! I have a new deadline: 8am on Thursday, August 9th, 2007 (boat builders must use the year in all their dates, sometimes we're that far behind!) I will meet with Ranger Dan of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Watercraft Division and he will inspect my hull.

They requested:
- Photos of the construction process
- Plans
- Receipts (showing Ohio sales tax paid)
- the hull only (not interested in the sail or mast)
- ODNR's "Watercraft Affidavit of Ownership" (form DNR 8460)

I am also bringing a letter as a "Builder's Statement of Origin" and form CG-1261 ("Builder's Certification and First Transfer of Title") but Dan says that neither are needed.

Oh, and my driver's license and my checkbook. Yeah, can't forget the fees.

As far as the hull goes, all it really needs is the coamings, the deck hardware and paint now. Dan said not to worry about that. Just needs to see the hull.

August 3, 2007

Book: Swallows and Amazons

Swallows and Amazons is Arthur Ransome's first book in the Swallows and Amazons series. It is not his best but it certainly sets the stage for all the others and so shouldn't be missed. Please don't be discouraged by that statement; Ransome is an exceptional author and if you're looking for a book about children sailing for a child (8-16 comes to mind), I cannot recommend anything more highly. It's simply that Ransome is still working on his form in this book and what passes as "not his best" far exceeds that of many, many other authors.

Put another way, this is a great book and very well-written; his subsequent ones are even better! Here's a brief synopsis:

A quartet of children (plus Mom, baby and nurse; Dad's away at war) arrives at a lake in England's Lake District for summer holiday. They spy this glorious island, just begging to be discovered. It turns out they already have a beautiful boat, Swallow and the oldest already knows a fair amount about sailing. They obtain permission to sail to and camp on the island and the adventures begin. Turns out the children who crew Amazon lay claim to this island. Throw in a retired pirate, some friendly natives, some very detailed descriptions and explanations of sailing and you've got a fine story with an excellent setting, some terrific characters and a wild ride as the Swallows and Amazons spend their summer holiday.

So wonderful, in fact, that they don't want it to end. Toward the end of the book, Mrs. Dixon (a friendly native) suggests:

". . . But perhaps you'll be coming again next year."
"Every year. For ever and ever," said Titty.
"Aye," said Mrs. Dixon, "we all think that when we're young."

Indeed, I wanted the book to go on, "for ever and ever". The series doesn't go on for ever but there are others and they are even more delightful.

If you'd like additional information on Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons, check out The Arthur Ransome Society home page.

Book: The Reverse of the Medal

This was Patrick O'Brian's 11th book in the Aubrey/Maturin series and while I prefer to be sailing one of the seven, I did enjoy this book. My frustrations are two-fold: not enough sailing and Captain Aubrey's bad luck. Yes, I feel for Stephen's bad luck, too, but he functions more as plot device than character, I'm afraid.

O'Brian writes about the (largely landlocked) incidents in a traffic-accident sort of way: vivid, terrible and peeking-between-your-fingers-"can't watch" addiction. I hope that O'Brian gets Jack away from this lee shore and gives him some sea room soon.

I don't own the next one (yet), so it may be some time before I'm able to write about it.

August 23, 2007

Worlds apart: Geocaching

Brat Park and Cannot turn back: my frustration with these two geocaches has left me confused. Last Fall, equipped with a map, some cache-making supplies and a sense that there was a gap in caches between the Doan Brook corridor and the Euclid Creek area, my children (aka the "cache crew") and I found this neat little park in Bratenahl. Clean, well equipped and deserted, the park has a tree with a nice crack in it that seemed ideal for hiding a small cache container, what they call a micro. In this case, it was a 33mm film canister with a log for visitors to sign, a pencil stub and a wheat back penny.

We left it there for a few days, check back on it, decided that it was a good spot and published it, with longitude and latitude to geocaching.com as "Brat Park". It was found almost immediately and we began looking for another park to place a cache.

The map shows a little green spot south of the walls and Interstate 90, on the Cleveland side of the line. We loaded up the cache crew and supplies again and paid it a visit. It's a neat little park on the edge of a residential neighborhood. There was no one there, the park was clean and we quickly found a spot to place the cache. I came back a few days later to exchange the container since I had doubts as to its suitability given the weather it would be exposed to (rain). Same experience: no one there. We published it, with longitude and latitude to geocaching.com as "Cannot turn back", after a phrase in MLK's famous speech. The park is named Martin Luther King Jr. Park.

My children at the time were 10, 7, 3 and newly born (now 11, 8, 4 and almost one). I am not a who-needs-a-parachute? risk-taker. However, I don't tell my children to be careful. I tell them to be aware. Aware of their surroundings, aware of what they are doing, aware of what might happen. Being aware of the dog that's approaching and how it is acting is more useful than being "careful", whatever that means.

So when "Cannot turn back" didn't get as much traffic as its northern neighbor, I went to check on it. This time there's a group of children who, without comment, mingle with mine on the playground. The cache is fine. I am aware of feeling a little odd being the only white people around. I am aware of the boarded up buildings and the graffiti. But I am not aware of feeling threatened or being uncomfortable. We visit again some months later in the afternoon with much the same experience. In all, after five or more "cache checks", we've never felt threatened or worried. Out of place a couple of times. The subject of interest and curiosity a few times. Meanwhile, the cache has been unmolested by muggles and somewhat ignored by the caching community (compared to the traffic at other caches, for example). Some of those who visit report feeling unsafe. In one instance, I was counseled to shut the cache down by "archiving" it. (I have.)

Brat Park is also archived, but for different reasons. Bratenahl is an affluent strip of lakeshore with monstrous homes, large and densely-growing trees and high incomes. To get to the cache's spot one must drive by a police station. I have never seen a child there and only occasionally see folks at the nearby dog park. This cache had a reasonable flow of traffic. At some point it was muggled and the cache container repeatedly needed replacing. As I don't have time to constantly replace caches, I archived it.

One poster to the Cannot turn back cache commented that while on the map there is less than ½ mile between the two caches, there may as well be a thousand miles separating them (my paraphrasing).

One is tucked away in a quiet spot with large trees all around, designated parking, tennis courts, a nice (expensive, tax-payer funded) gazebo, a dog park, heavy security, woodchips under the nice playground equipment and lots of green grass. The other is bordered by a few boarded up homes, has some graffiti, a strange spongy stuff under the chipped and outdated playground equipment and a fair amount of concrete.

They are nearby and yet a world apart. And I remain confused.

August 29, 2007

Book: The Far Side of the World

This was Patrick O'Brian's 10th book in the Aubrey/Maturin series and if you're going to read it because its title is the subtitle of the movie, then don't. The two storylines have little in common. If you're going to read it because you want great sea-going, Napoleonic war fiction, well, that's a much better reason. The movie replaces an American warship with a French one, the subplot about Hollum being a Jonah is toned down considerably and the movie's final twist bears no resemblance to any of the books I have read yet. (The book's final twist is quite something else completely and far superior.)

Still, it is a good read and an important one of the series. We grow to love the HMS Surprise even more than in other books. We get a startling view of Jack's devotion to Stephen when he saves Stephen's life (again). And this time Stephen's second career doesn't dominate every scene with improbables.

Oh, and why (you may ask), does the review of the 10th book get done after the 11th? Something to do with only being 24 hours in a day.

Books: What I'm reading now

At the moment I'm reading Charles A. Lindbergh's autobiographical Spirit of St. Louis as sort of a preview for my 6th-grader. We homeschool and some of the recommendations on our curriculum's list are somewhat strange. This is a great book (so far) and is likely to make a huge (and positive) impression on our son. The reason for the pre-read is Lindbergh's introduction to some other book (I forget which, it was about Apollo 11?) in which he gets really spacey (metaphysically, not NASA) and we wanted to make sure this one wasn't full of nonsense but really discussed his building of the Spirit of St. Louis team and his attempt to fly nonstop across the Atlantic (NY to Paris) and so far, it does so quite well.

Also being read are several back issues of Messing About in Boats. Waiting to be blogged about are Tinkerbelle and The Children of Hurin.

Drinking Coffee: Starbucks' Ubora Blend

I had my first taste of the new Starbucks' Ubora Blend and was surprised that I didn't like it. What? Not like a Starbucks coffee?! (Yes, in fact, there are quite a number of their offerings that I don't like.)

This one I should have liked since it's a blend of East African coffees (and that's what I generally like). Putting aside for the moment that their blends tend to lose much of flavor of the geography, East African coffees frequently have a fairly noticeable floral aroma. This one didn't. It tasted like the inside of an unwashed stainless steel coffee maker.

Sorry, Starbucks, I won't be getting any to take home. It was too bright and tasted like Coffee™ rather than a citrus-y cup of East African selected coffee beans. Maybe my baristas had a bad day. Maybe there's something else to blame. I'll have another cup later in the week (if that's what they're serving) but won't go out of my way to get any more.
[20070831 UPDATE:] Got another cup of Ubora today, same store and same experience.

What do I like?

The Organic Lomas al Rio was good (even though it is from Costa Rica which typically produces acidic, bright coffee). Ironically, it tasted East African.
[20070831 UPDATE:] My favorite Starbucks manager at my most-frequented Starbucks store gave me 9oz of the Organic Lomas al Rio today. Yum!
The Sumatra Siborong-Borong was exceptional. Very full, very black and smooth.
So was the Ethiopian Sun-Dried that never got officially released this year due to the "discussions" Starbucks was having with the Ethiopian government about trademarks. That was tasty. Somehow managed to be given three bags (24 ounces, about $42 worth!) and enjoyed every bean.
Ethiopia Sidamo is a great house coffee (and what I usually enjoy day-to-day). Starbucks says it is "smooth and elegant, with a floral aroma" and I agree.
Sulawesi would be my other choice as a "house" coffee. I don't know how they can justify calling it "buttery" but I will agree with "smooth" and "elegant".
The only decaf I'll drink of theirs is their Sumatra-Decaf. It still tastes like a good coffee without the caffeine.
Ordinarily I like their Sumatra. It is quite often almost chewy: good and solid. Starbucks calls it "intense [and] earthy" and again, I'd have to agree.
(However, much depends on how it is prepared. Late Saturday, 8/25, my youngest (11 mo) and I stopped by the Starbucks at Mayfield and Lee in Cleveland Heights, OH. I got a tall Sumatra and a large chocolate chip cookie (to share). The coffee was burnt. No other explanation for it. I should have complained, but didn't. An 11 month companion can be a handful and I didn't want to juggle her at the same time as a customer-relations issue. The cookie was a huge success, though. I haven't really "dated" in years but I remain convinced that the easiest way to enjoy a date is to wholly focus on making sure your date has a great time.)

Oh, and I should explain that I strongly feel that the best way to enjoy a cup of coffee is by grinding the beans coarsely a few moments before putting it into a clean french press and scalding it with nearly-boiling hot water, stirring initially and letting it steep for four minutes before pressing and then pouring into a large ceramic mug while heading to the front porch with the dew on the ground, a clear blue sky and the sun still thinking about rising. Getting drip coffee in a paper cup whose seam is prone to leak with a plastic lid whose air-intake port is too small is several notches below that. Especially when you're paying eleven cents an ounce.

About August 2007

This page contains all entries posted to CurlyShavings in August 2007. They are listed from oldest to newest.

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