CurlyShavings

The Cruise Of The Alerte by E. F. Knight

My review

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From the log of the Krazy Kat: Saturday, 10/18/2008.

Lake Erie, off Cleveland: Inner City Yacht Club

Left house at 1300, in water by 1345 with both batteries (for trolling motor) in parallel; one is not fully charged. Weather forecast is cloudy, wind NE to ENE at 12 and gusts to 18.

Little to no wind behind dike 17 and fairly calm until halfway to green buoy (G1) at eastern entrance to Cleveland. About 81°38' 30''.

Decided to head into the wind (ENE) and come close to the East Entrance Light (lighthouse) on the breakwater. Tacked through to avoid jibing and headed to Red buoy (N4).

Not sure the centerboard is fully down. Tacking is tricky. Now 1445 and heading back to Gordon Park (Inner City Yacht Club). With centerboard acting odd, difficult to head into wind (back to boat ramp).

Coast Guard shows up and asks if we require assistance. We have our hands full but they make it worse. Ohio Department of Watercraft shows up.

Got on the radio (16) and moved to 22. They are offering assistance which we didn't need until they arrived.

Mate relayed messages to them and we decided to divert to East 55th Marina.

Chart most handy is odd so we overshoot it onto harbor by condominiums (Nicholson Cleveland Terminal) and so motor-sail into slip A23 at East 55th street Marina (81°39'5'')

Both would-be rescuers follow in and proceed to scold me. To much wind, wrong quarter, small child, small boat, etc. Took my name and address and left.

Turns out an observer at the condominiums reported a sail boat in distress and when they (Coast Guard) saw the Mate, they got worried (and over-reacted).

Earlier in the afternoon, we had been overtaken by a 30+ foot sailboat—beautiful genoa, etc. When speaking to them later, they wanted to know what all the fuss was about. At the time that they'd passed us, they thought we were doing well and express disappointment that the Coast Guard and Ohio Department of Watercraft scolded us so.

Determined that there are no ramps here. Paid $18.50 for transient fee and stayed in Slip A23. We were short one line and so borrowed the peak halyard for a bowline. Found the middle, put a bowline around the mast and tied off through the mooring cleat to port and starboard and cleats on the dock. From the stern, we came through the tiller hole (again, a bowline) to a far cleat. (The forward lines kept it in the middle of the slip and the aft line kept her hind parts from touching her neighbor.

Took the gaff halyard to the boom's jaws and took up some slack. Cleated the main, removed most of the gear and took the batteries home for a charge.

Sunday, 10/19/2008.

Sunday dawned bright, clear and calm. We were underway by 1430 and motor-sailed from East 55th Street to the Inner City Yacht Club, over a minute in longitude.

Ramps were busy (last nice weekend of the year coupled with just before football kickoff) and so we waited our turn, eventually pulling out by 1700.

Centerboard appears off its pin.

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Father Power by Todd Wilson

My review

Todd Wilson is an insanely funny speaker who tends to write like he speaks; as a consequence, this book is laced with humor throughout. But it also filled with thoughtful challenges for Dads who are seeking to influence their children in a positive way.

In the end, Todd predictably encourages his readers to not squander their time doing "things they deem more important than fathering." In fact, Todd makes a strong case that there is nothing more important than fathering.

A quick, short read, Todd packs quite a lot into this book. It is suitable for a group setting with discussion and it is meaningful also read solo. The hard part of this book is not in the reading or the understanding, but in the doing. Like most things worth doing, the action he calls fathers to is quite difficult.

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Is it Christmas yet?

How could I possibly gush over this web site without over-stating its design, its functionality and its utility? I mean, think about it—the site is pure, functional and maintains a staggering track record for being extremely accurate. It answers a fundamentally important question to millions of people on this planet: Is it Christmas?

It even has its own RSS feed for your reader. Every day as you read the events pouring through your RSS aggregator you'll be alerted that today, for example, is not yet Christmas!

Ship Fever by Andrea Barrett

My review

A fellow bus-rider lent me this book to break up the non-fiction I wasn't getting through in my reading (slow reading? non-reading?) of Democracy in America. I tore through it in a couple of days—really couldn't put it down!

Author Andrea Barrett includes several short stories in this volume, all with a historical, naturalist/science bend to them. Whether we discover a connection with Mendel or Linnaeus or ponder the same mysteries they did, we get inserted into their lives in an interesting way. Or perhaps a better way to say it would be that we find the lives of the stories' characters intertwined with the historical figure.

The title story, Ship Fever follows some of the events of the Potato Famine in that we join a young doctor on a Canadian island while the ships empty sick Irish refugees onto shore.

None of the stories are very uplifting. None of the characters live "happily ever after" and many are fairly miserable. Many of the stories, perhaps even all of them, lack closure; they just end when they do—not really hanging, but just ended and not resolved. (Please note this is not criticism, just a comment on an interesting style that isn't completely to my taste.)

Perhaps only our visit with Linnaeus could be considered "happy". As he reviews his colleagues, acquaintances and students and their achievements, we find that he isn't unfulfilled but strangely content. Even in the limitations brought on by his stroke, he appears satisfied with the events of his life. (Only later do I find out about his faith.)

Overall, it is a good book and one I am glad to have read.

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Hornblower and the Atropos by C.S. Forester

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars

I needed a good read over the weekend and chose this one. It appears I read it earlier this year and enjoyed it then, too.

About the only thing that really sticks out to me from this book is his complete hypocracy surrounding his marriage and his fatherhood. Sure, he spends some time with his toddler toward the end (and enjoys it), but he would really rather be on his ship. We do learn some more management techniques as he manages the people under him and the Admirals over him. We gain insight into his project management skills, too as he is assigned the task of bringing Nelson's body into the city.

Overall, it is a good book and an important link between the various stages of Hornblower's life.

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My ancient Garmin eTrex Legend gave up the ghost over the summer. It would boot up, attempt to acquire satellites and then the display would go blank with a strange, sometimes purple, fine line from top to bottom. And the eTrex Legend is gray-scale—no colors, not even purple on this model.

I'd been utilizing the GPSr in my BlackBerry Curve 8310 for Geocaching but I was unable to find any free software that was as good as the rudimentary interface on the eTrex Legend. While I tried GPSed for BlackBerry (v.1.01) and Spot for Blackberry, the best for navigating was probably Google Mobile Maps. With the three different map types (roads, satellite photo and terrain) and the 3-meter accuracy of the Blackberry Curve's GPSr, I could sneak up on the geocache without any difficulty at all. (Yes, I know that with the eTrex Legend's WAAS, I could obtain 3-meter accuracy, but that just didn't happen in the field. The BB Curve gets that just about all the time.)

I have two difficulties geocaching with Google Mobile Maps. One is that I occasionally/frequently geocache outside AT&T's grid (so Google Mobile Maps can't get any maps) and the second is that there is no copy/paste of longitude and latitude into their search feature (so I end up trying to type the position from someone else's GPSr device or a piece of paper).

So, I have four basic requirements for my GPSr:

1. High accuracy
2. Geocaching mode or ability
3. Tracking mode or ability (to make trail maps)
4. MacOSx connectivity
5. Oh, yeah, and maps

Enter an interview with Pete Fleszar, a mapmaker and trail maintainer. I sent him a note with my quandary and he replied that he owns the Garmin GPSmap 76CSx. Amazon.com is/was discounting them highly (52% off) and so after some research, I pounced.

It arrived late Wednesday. First impression: "It's huge!" Second impression: "We're inside the house and it still has 20-foot reception!" We took it out for a brief spin and dropped a marker and left some tracks. Nothing spectacular. Third impression: "It looks like a hard-drive to my Mac!" Fourth impression: "Garmin has a lot of Mac-specific software."

Garmin Communicator Plugin is pretty sweet. Allows you to transfer geocaches from Geocaching.com directly to the GPSr device. Garmin RoadTrip is a fairly decent piece of software, too. Now starts the frustrations: maps.

The Garmin GPSmap 76CSx comes with a simple map for the US. Nothing fancy. It knows the major roads near my house and even has exits for the highway. I have the original MapSource Topo US from my eTrex Legend. And of course, the RoadTrip won't recognize it.

Turns out there is some software that will migrate all 2,565 foonum.img files from the MapSource Topo East package to a single, 591.4 MB "US Topo - East.gmapi" file. But they don't make it easy. They expect that you have a modern Windows box . . . and here's where the problems begin. Rather than write up all the rabbit trails we followed, I'll summarize. (Garmin does tell you how to do it here.)

Steps to convert old/Windows Garmin maps to the new/Mac formats:

1. Discover CodeWeavers' CrossOver Mac product and free license (not sure if demo license will suffice)
2. Install Garmin MapSource for Windows
3. Install MapSource Topo US into MapSource
4. Install MapConverter for Windows
5. Convert all modules/CDs (?) of the MapSource Topo US product (East, West, Alaska/Hawaii) to gmapi format (approximately 15 minutes per CD)
6. Install Garmin RoadTrip for Mac
7. Install Garmin MapManager for Mac
8. Import gmapi files into RoadTrip using MapManager for Mac
9. Install Garmin MapInstall for Mac
10. Import installed maps into the GPSr using MapInstall for Mac
11. View old, detailed Topo maps on new Garmin GPSmap 76CSx

If those steps hadn't worked, I was going to get my old Win98SE cd out and install into my beta version of VMware Fusion (whose license has expired). So I now have working detailed topographical maps on my GPSr and Mac's desktop. And I had some fun hacking this together. But if time is money, I'm probably not ahead at the moment.

So we're going to play with this doing some geocaching, trail maintenance, etc. I'll post a review later in the year with my findings!

Some time ago I set a goal to eat my way through East 4th Street here in Cleveland. A worthy goal, given all there is to eat on East 4th, and yet an ambitious one, too, for the same reasons.

On this page, I'll catch you up with a quick synopsis and will link over to a larger review where appropriate. Here's where we stand:

Zocalo

I originally had been very excited about this place when it first opened. It sounded like there was going to be an attempt at some real Mexican food. I've eaten there four or five times and each was disappointing. If I'm going to pay these prices, I expect it to taste like a Mexican made it, not like food that American kitchens churn out every day across the country.

More thoughts here.

Flannery's

One can eat rather well at Flannery's. The meatloaf is exquisite and there are many other things that delight as well. It's like eating bar food without eating bar food. (And they serve Woodchucks, yum!)

House of Blues

Food's a bit pricey and not terribly exciting. Yes, you're supposed to go for the ambiance, like Hard Rock, only Blues.

Pickwick & Frolic

Prices seem a bit high but very edible. They've got a cheddar-ale soup that's yummy (among a long list of other tasty things).

Saigon

Of all the food on East 4th, Saigon is where I'll keep going and going and going. Scores high on prices, portions and edibility.

More thoughts here.

Corner Alley or 4th Street Bar & Grill

Prices seem a bit high for the lunch crowd. One won't starve here.

Wonder Bar

Not yet visited. Is this place open at lunch time?

La Strada

Not yet visited.

Lola

Not yet visited. Yes, I know, this place is famous; how have I avoided/delayed going for so long?

Harry Buffalo

Not part of the East 4th Street neighborhood, but definitely on East 4th Street. Bar food: what else can you say?

There are some who would add Theresa's Pizzaria and Jimmy John's to the list. Why? They're not even on East 4th. It's bad enough that Flannery's door isn't on East 4th (but their windows are).

I just finished recommissioning a pair of overalls that has seen duty for thirty-some years already. Given the wear marks on the knees and shins as well as the bottom, it appears I wore them as a crawler and young walker. They're soft, blue corduroy with a brown, red and blue plaid lining. Besides their origin (my mother), what makes them super special is the name patch on the front. I vaguely remember hearing that it came from my father's brother's uniform, but perhaps that's just a myth.

They came to me this week in need of some buttons. My youngest son and I were out shopping Wednesday and found a near-perfect match—near enough for me, anyway.

It appears my wife has plans to let our youngest daughter have a go at them and the straps over the shoulders needed letting out. In hindsight, I'm not sure why we didn't move the buttons that are already there: I see evidence that where they are now is not the original location. So now there are two rows of buttons. The card we bought had five so the fifth is hiding inside the front in case repairs are needed.

This spring will see our youngest in them; perhaps in another twenty years we'll see them covering another generation.

Advent, from the Latin adventus, meaning "coming", is a particularly special time for our household.

This isn't easy, though. Starting somewhere in college, I have frequently had a hard time "enjoying" Christmas. Some of this was due to exams, some due to travel and some due to the constant grind broken by a day or two of celebration. Things did not improve when I joined the work force when the day before Christmas and the day after are treated much the same. To top things off, my wife tends to favor Christmas over just about every holiday—perhaps over every other holiday. So we celebrate Advent, to prepare us for the season and not just celebrate the day.

We are somewhat rare among Reformed folks; this tends to be a Catholic tradition. Yes, Presbyterians have liturgies for this sort of thing but bringing it home seems to be quite another matter.

Why is it, then, that every year we struggle with what to do as we shift our time of family worship to Advent? Certainly there are books and resources and stuff on the Internet. I'm not sure. Whatever the matter, this is what we're doing this month.

Today is the first Sunday in Advent this year. This is how we celebrated.

First, we all stopped what we were doing and came together. This is sometimes the hardest and yet most important thing about family worship: stopping what we're doing and coming together to worship together.

Read John 1:1-9

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.

Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.

Then we talked a little bit about why we're celebrating Advent. We talked a bit about what a humbug I can be and why it is important to prepare for the coming celebration. We didn't get real deep here. I read the portion of a Christmas Carol where Jacob shows up and talks about his chains:

"You are fettered", said Scrooge, trembling. "Tell me why?"

"I wear the chain I forged in life", replied the Ghost. "I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?"

Scrooge trembled more and more.

"Or would you know", pursued the Ghost, "the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it, since. It is a ponderous chain!"

And of course we had to hear the obligatory "We're Marley and Marley" song from the Muppet Christmas Carol and that gave us a chance to talk about those chains.

Then we sang three verses of O come, O come, Emmanuel and talked about why Emmanuel is one of my favorite words of the Bible: God with us. Think of the imagery—there's a lot of power there.

O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
shall come to thee, O Israel.

We sang from some old cast-off hymnals we've collected over the years. The youngest son is the choir-master and he studies these while the others are doing school.

During the hymn, the youngest daughter decided to gargle, dribble and spill her drink, to the amusement of her siblings. It wasn't the holiest time of the evening but I managed to laugh and keep singing.

Somewhere in this time we lit the first candle on our Advent wreath (more about this later, if you're interested). Of course we had troubles with the lighter. The oldest doesn't know how to flick-the-bic just yet. And we laughed and kept on.

For the days this week, we'll likely choose one or two hymns from either side of O come, O come, Emmanuel and light the candle before dinner or in between the hymns. Or we'll forget to light it at all. The point is not to have a perfect family worship service. The point is to have one at all. Please note that we didn't get all deeply theological during this time. We touched on some biblical truths, a bit of doctrine, some scripture and sang a song. Nothing fancy. We worshiped our God as a family. That's it.

See you tomorrow.

We start by determining that Winter starts on December 21st at 1204 UTC. The immediately-prior New Moon is on November 27th at 11:56 am EST.

Sunset for that day (New Moon day) is at 4:58 pm EST and moonset is 4:37 pm EST.

Sunset for the immediately following day (November 28th, 2008) is at 4:58 pm EST and moonset is at 5:23 pm EST. Approximately 1% of the moon's visible disk will be illuminated, so this isn't likely to be Durin's Day.

Sunset for November 29th is 4:58 pm EST and moonset is at 6:16 pm EST with 4% of the Moon's visible disk illuminated.

Moonwatch predicts that it will be first visible in northeast Ohio on either 11/28 (not likely: pdf) or 11/29 (almost certainly: pdf).

Please note that we are using a modern interpretation of when Autumn takes place (between the September Equinox and the December Solstice), not by using the solar markers at the center of the seasons.