Learning New Stuff

Mechanical stuff is not my favorite thing to do. I'm not really BAD at it - I just don't enjoy it so much. My brother - Buddy - on the other hand is a fine mechanic. Guess he got the genes for working on engines and stuff. My dad always really seemed to enjoy changing oil and stuff when I was a kid. It just didn't stick with me.

I've spent some time the last couple of weeks trying to find a new tire for my motorcycle and it's an odd size that cost a lot of money - PLUS the dealerships want $60 added to the price to change it out for you. The total was approaching $300 for just the back tire.

I finally found a place that discounts the tires and will put them on your rim and balance them for no extra charge. The kicker is that you have to take the wheel off the bike yourself.

I'd never taken the wheel off of a shaft drive bike, so I was a little apprehensive, but the guy at the tire shop convinced me it was much easier than you'd think.

It took me about an hour and a half to get it off - but I made a number of mistakes along the way. I could do it again in about half the time.

It's good to take the mystery out of these things.

OUPV Positive!!

Today, in the mail - I received my Captain's License - 4 months after passing my test. The Coast Guard IS , after all - part of the government :)

OUPV stands for Operator of Uninspected Passsenger Vessel.

This is a big deal to me. It represents a lot of work.

I am now officially : Captain G.W. Meadows.. I think Cap'n G sounds better.

No Sailing Today

Jan and I had hoped to take the boat out (for the first time) sometime in the last couple of weeks - but it's not been right. Jan's work days have not lined up with mine very well until this week and unfortunately the 2 days that we could have taken it out (schedule wise) didn't match up with the weather I want to take it out the first time.

I feel that it's just smart to take it out in very benign weather the first time - while learning the boat. We've had small craft advisories for the last 2 days with 10 - 20 knot NE winds. I'll just be patient.

While having lunch today, Jan and I saw a NEW duck on the pond. Here's a photo. We're trying to identify it now.

Sunday

I got back home from the Florida vs Florida State game early. Since it was a local game, I was able to drive to it and thus able to come home when I wanted to. Here's a picture of the stadium at halftime.


I went to the boat this morning and took Wasabi with me to visit my dock neighbors's peeps. Wasabi was supposed to be back in Utah by now, but because of a travel mixup, he stayed in Florida a couple of extra weeks. He leaves for Utah tomorrow.

Last Regular Season Game

Tallahassee is home to the Florida State Seminoles. The Seminoles are a tribe of Indians from this region and the team has the blessing of the tribe to use them as a mascot. It's one of the few relationships of it's type in the country.

I'll have to admit that all of the pictures that I've put up on the blogs of the stadiums kinda look alike after a while. Still, I like to take photos of the inside of the stadiums due to the grand scale of the things.




In this photo below, you can see the smallest trailer - the one that looks like an office trailer. That's the one that we're in for this game.

This is a 'floater' game - where all the computers and such get shipped in and we have to assemble it all for use in the game and then after the game we take it all apart and ship it out. It is my least favorite shows to do. There's much more work and the computers almost never work right after being shipped. We worked from 8 am to 10 pm today and still had problems when we left. I have to be at the stadium at 6 am in the morning for the noon game. Lots to do to be ready.

Relaxing Thanksgiving Day

Today, I put a serious scrubbing on the dingy. I bought this dingy back in 2004, and used it with the Grampian. I had to leave it in the water in Key West for 3 months between February and May. During that time, it became a floating reef with all kinds of things growing on it. Barnacles being the worst, once I got the Grampian up to Port Orange, I took the dingy out of the water and put in in my storage unit. For over a year, I've had no use for it - so I've had no incentive to clean it up. It took a couple of hours - using some special cleaners - to get it back in good visual shape.

Jan fixed a big Thanksgiving lunch for us and I deep fried the turkey. If you've never had deep fried turkey then you're missing out. It's not greasy in the least and it's more juicy than turkey fixed any other way. Here's 2 photos of before and after the fryer.





Snowy pigged out on turkey and promptly took a nap on a warm towel that Jan had just taken out of the dryer.

I'm now in Tallahassee for the Florida v. Florida State game on Saturday.
Happy Thanksgiving.

Lovely Day In The Neighborhood

Tuesday

If nothing else, I decided to post jut so I could change the top post photo from the dreary Indiana photo.

Jan and I spent the afternoon on the boat. Its blowing 20+ mph today, so we were tied up to the dock the whole time, but we learned more about it. There's a lot to know. We cleaned out the freezer/refrigerator and Jan took a nap while I spent some time planning some work I want to do on the boat.

All the stuff I want to do is small, but it's still the things that make the boat more personal to us.

It's been kinda cold the last couple of days. I even had to put socks on!

This coming week will be my last scheduled week of College Football games. I go to the Florida v. Florida State game this weekend - which is a big game for this area. My next scheduled game is the Orange Bowl on January 2nd. It should be cool to work that game - it's a big deal also.

I'll leave here on Thursday afternoon/evening and drive to Tallahassee for the game. I'll be back on Sunday - like usual.

Back home and happy about it

Indiana in the winter just was not my favorite place. The 'local' guy that they hired to help me this week lives in Indianapolis. While we were walking to lunch on friday, I told him that the area reminded me of Germany in the winter. The majority of the times I've been to to Germany - it's been wintertime and it was always cold and overcast - sometimes raining - sometimes snowing. He told me that there's many German settled towns in Indiana for that very reason. The climate reminded the German immigrants of home.

Not my thing.

With all the photos I've taken in Indiana - this week AND last week - I tried to go into photoshop and boost the colors a little and enhance the saturation. Still, looks very dreary. Here's a couple of photos of the Purdue stadium




So, I'm home until Thrusday night - when I'll drive to Tallahassee to cover a big Florida game. #4 Florida versus Florida State. It's an approximate 4 hour drive and so I won't have to deal with Thanksgiving air traffic.

My buddy Tim Ettridge has started keeping a blog. Tim is an adverturous guy who travels the world doing the things he wants to do. Currently he's commited a couple of years to sailboat racing and especially a 35,000 mile circumnavigtion race called the Clipper.

Anyway, Tim has a recent post about a night where the Dolphin were playing around his boat in highly bioluminescent water. Jan and I have experienced bioluminescent water in a lot of places including the east coast, costa rica and the Virgin Islands - but this story is awesome. For those who have never experienced it - it's reminds you of fireflies but in the water. It's a plankton that glows green when it's disturbed. It's a wonderful post and you can click below to read it.

http://international-bozo-of-leisure.blogspot.com/2006/11/six-hour-dance-of-bioluminescent.html

Hoosier Daddy

Back in Indiana this week. This time - it's Purdue University north of Indianapolis. The reason I live in the deep south is obvious to me here. It is so cold here (just above freezing) and it's overcast and dreary. Here's a photo I took out of the stadium window that illustrates the dreary feel of this area in the winter.


When we started work this morning, the field was not in very good condition due to the large amount of rain that has fallen in the area over the last 4 days. They had golf carts going around the field with blowers on them to dry the field out. Here's a photo of the field painting crew putting the hash marks on the field.



This school (a Big Ten school) has no lights for the stadium and so around 6 pm, we couldn't do any more work so we packed up for the evening. It's a noon game on saturday and so we have to be back at the stadium early. We'll finish up with plenty of time.

I'm enjoying my new phone and the camera ROCKS. Check out the photo below. It's pretty amazing quality for nightime on a camera phone.

New Phone/Cam

I've had my eye on a new Sony phone with a 3.2 megapixel camera in it for a while. It didn't come out until fairly recently, but the reviews were out well in advance because of it's camera capabilities. Well Jan's phone went on the fritz and so I graciously offered her my 2 year old phone (which takes some pretty darn good photos as well) and I got the new K790a.

Here's a photo I took with it today. Pretty good for a phone!!

How Time Flies

One year ago today, I was in the middle of building the house in California City. Sometimes - it feels like forever ago - and them sometimes it feels just like yesterday.

The whole blog on the building process is at: gwbuilds.blogspot.com

Elton John Speaks Up

I'm a big fan of Elton John's music. I think he has a great voice and tremendous talent.

He's just made news by making some very inflammatory comments. He (among other things) said:

________________

"I think religion has always tried to turn hatred towards gay people. From my point of view, I would ban religion completely,"

"Organized religion doesn't seem to work. It turns people into really hateful lemmings and it's not really compassionate. The world is near escalating to World War Three and where are the leaders of each religion?

________________

Well, anyone who knows me well - knows I was brought up in a very religious family. We went to church 2 times on Sunday - 1 time on Wednesday and for a while we were even going out on Thursday doing what the Bible says to do ("Go ye into the world and teach all nations") but on a local basis. From the fifth grade until the 12th grade - I went to a Christian School. So, with this background, you can bet I have some opinions on religion.

I find that in my life, I have the same struggles that I hear Catholic Alter Boys have (without the Priest's sexual abuse). I'm constantly struggling between the things that were drilled into me regarding the Bible and how I think life is supposed to be lived. I personally don't believe that the christian Bible is a complete rendering of God's word. I believe completely in God - as a supreme being and as the creator of the universe. But - I can't just believe the Christian Bible as a perfect - flawless rendering of the word of God.

But - I'm getting a little off track here. The blog entry is about Elton's comments.

Let's look at what he said specifically

"I think religion has always tried to turn hatred towards gay people"

Yes and No in my opinion. I've said for years that religion is the worst thing to happen to God. I'm sure that there's a lot of different defiinitions of religion, but it seems to me that a religion is simply a group of people who think similarly when it comes to the interpretation of their Bible (or Koran or whatever). That is exactly where the problem comes in - interpretation. There are so many ways to interpret any grouping of words ESPECIALLY when those words were originaly written in Greek and Hebrew and then translated to the King's english in the 16th century.

So, I personally think that the Christian Bible indeed says that homosexuality is a sin. It does NOT however tell anyone to hate homosexuals. This is where many Christians get a bad name. The Bible tells them to love their neighbors as themselves and it tells them to "judge not - lest ye be judged". Yet, you have so many professed christians who treat homosexuals as lesser people. It's not the Christian's job to do this. It's God's job to handle this.

Religion is like any tool. It can be used improperly. A gun would be a good analogy. Like guns - there's people (Elton in this case) who think the way to fix a misused tool is to ban it. It's true (in my opinion) that guns don't kill people - PEOPLE kill people. The same view can be taken of religion. Religion isn't bad - people who misuse religion are bad (at least in that realm).

Religion is good for all societies. Even people who don't believe in God should see this. Religion is a "self regulating" societal tool. Religious people (truly religious people) are not the people that we spend our time and money chasing down and using our legislative, enforcement and penal systems for. They are the bedrock of our country (I'll not address the world in this blog entry) and they are for the most part "self governing". What I mean by this is that it would not matter if it were against society's law or not to kill, rape or rob someone - it's for sure that truly religious people would not do this - as a rule. (There are exceptions to every rule of course).

Now, here's the rub: What does truly religious mean? Well in my view - it's certainly not those idiots like Jim Baker and more recently - that moron Ted Haggard. I think there's a hotter hell for people like this. Truly religious means (to me) the people who really live their lives according to their religion. In the U.S. - that's mostly good people. Of course - there are parts of the world (including the U.S.) where religions have been hijacked to suit the needs of the persons practicing it (or not).

Elton also said: "It turns people into really hateful lemmings and it's not really compassionate".

You know - I don't think this exact statement is true - but if it added one word = CAN (just before the word "turn(s)") - then I do believe it to be an accurate statement. I've seen it over and over again with my own eyes - followers of a religion - being exactly that - FOLLOWERS. They are willing to believe something simply because a person standing in front of them (who says God spoke to him/her) says it. That is where religion gets dangerous.

Again, all this is just my opinion. I certainly don't have the answers.

I've decided to move my blog back here to blogspot. It is odd that I have anything other than absolute praise for any Apple product, but I'm just not too jazzed about the iWeb software (with which I created my last blog). It's almost too simple - and in being so - is too limiting. It has a great interface and good graphics, but it takes too long to update the blogs and there's no way to easily make it so you can see a larger version of the smaller photos.

I have little doubt that Apple will fix this in their next version, but for now, I'm back here at blogspot.com. This FREE blogging site has a lot of cool little features including the nice feature of being able to blog from my cellphone - including photos.