Greg

first on-the-water sailing lesson

Thursday turned out to be Saturday.  What do I mean by that?  The house got cleaned (hooray!) and we got our first on-the-water sailing lesson. 

So how'd it go?  Other than one boat dinged during an attempted docking, we did reasonably well.  Many a tack, a couple jibes, the boat never flipped over, we never ran into anybody out on the lake.  And the lesson went for an extra hour or so without us realizing it.  I'm taking it as a good sign that we enjoyed it enough that we didn't really notice that the full two hours had gone by!

Are we experts now?  Not a chance - the end of the lesson is when we were practicing jibing, the wind was really really weak, and we still managed to struggle with it.  The part we struggled with - pulling in the main sheet and then trying to turn, hold the sheet and then let it run loose - I expect will get harder when the wind is stronger.  At the same time, some of the other points of saiding seemed like they'd be a bit easier with a little stronger breeze. 

One of the nicest parts was actually when the wind had died down a bit so we were slowly cruising along, the sun was fairly low, and the lake was pretty empty - just a very enjoyable, relaxed way to spend an evening.

Who knows what we'll be saying after lesson number two though :)

A day not per plan, but still enjoyable

In some ways, Saturday was a day of disappointment.  First sailing lesson that was going to be out on the water?  Instructor never showed :(  Which may have been a good thing since there was some serious wind.

The many errands, including haircut, that I intended to run?  Never happened.

The house cleaning that we expected to happen?  Didn't happen - instead it was just a quote of what it would cost for a house cleaning (yes, we're getting someone in to do a thorough spring cleaning of our place :)).

What DID we end up doing?  We ended up going to the University District Street Fair, which Aaron tells me was basically the same experience as it's been the last few years.  But, it was the first time we had been so it was still an enjoyable way to pass the afternoon, walking around, people watching, looking at the random booths.  Lots of very good photography.  Oh, and of course there was food:

The apple turnovers in particular looked pretty tasty...

Later that night I had some of a wine that came back with us from California (some Porter Creek Zinfandel).  Which reminds me, I haven't given up on posting more about our trip.  I've just been otherwise occupied the last few days...  I have managed to post some of the photos though.

the story of the unluckiest man ever

Jumping ahead in the trip before I talk about the drive down Big Sur, the Monterey Aquarium, Napa Valley, etc...  On our way up the northern part of the California coast we were listening to a radio station and heard the following news update (which was repeated every thirty minutes so we had a number of chances for it to sink in):

"...A missing man was found dead on ??? road near ??? point [it was described as a deserted backcountry road].  Apparently he tried to turn his minivan around, got stuck in a ditch, had a tree fall on the minivan, fell and was trapped under the vehicle which at some point caught fire..."

How unlucky is that?  Clodagh pointed out that any one of those events on their own wouldn't kill you.  Probably you could survive two or three of them at once, depending on which two or three.  All four of them together at once?  Not a chance.

2300+ miles later...

And we're back.  We've spent the last week or so driving down to mid-California and then back up the coast (mostly).  2350 miles later, we're back home and glad to be staying in our own beds again...  Both because I'm a bit lazy at times and because it'll be more digestable, I'm planning on breaking the trip into a few different posts...

So what am I talking about here?  Roadtrips.  Roadtrips have changed in a big way since as recently as when I was in school.  I remember looking through CDs, trying to work out what I was likely to want to listen to, what the other folks in the car were likely to tolerate, etc.  I remember people that were big into making "road trip mixes" before they headed out.  Copies of which would end up as souvenirs.  These days?  The MP3 player (yes, it's an iPod - I haven't made the leap to a Zune yet) is loaded with all of the CDs I own, plus the "CDs" that I only own* in digital form.  Which actually means that we have more to listen to than if I brought all of my CDs because I've lost a couple of them or they've become unplayable since I'd originally ripped them.

Directions?  Maps?  Not quite a thing of the past, but GPS devices have made life a LOT easier.  We recently got a TomTom One and having it was really nice for times when we wanted to head off the main roads to a specific hotel or destination, use it to "suggest" a restaurant or "point of interest" for us, etc.  There were a few times that I thought the directions or place it was taking us was a bit suspect, but TomTom never steered us wrong :)  Having said that, we never really got the hang of doing longer term logistical planning from the GPS - it's just a lot easier to look a map of the state and make choices from that.  So bring your GPS, but don't forget to bring your maps too.

The car?  A key component of any road trip :).  And we were travelling in fine convertible style in a rented Mustang convertible.  We went back and forth both on flying down then renting in California and driving back up, as well as just driving a car of our own.  In the end we decided to rent in Seattle and drive there and back.  Renting meant we'd be able to take a convertible that had more room so theoretically the trip would be nicer.  Plus it wasn't our car getting the miles, and if something super-bad happened to it... well, it's not our car.  So how's the Mustang?  It's a bit loud and for some reason the passenger seat is much lower than the driver's seat.  But if you're driving the Pacific Coast Highway (California 1) then it's worth doing it in a convertible...

*Yes, I really do buy music online instead of always buying CDs or being one of the folks who go around trying to find it on p2p networks.  At some point I realized that I value my time enough that the music that you can buy is low-priced enough that I'd much rather just pay for it to get it quickly and in a good copy.  If they start raising the prices I'll probably just go back to buying CDs and then ripping them so I have it on the mp3 player.

...this black-haired flamenco dancer... (a pubnight outing)

OK, it was just too tempting to quote a little Counting Crows when talking about this week's pubnight.  Why?  Because we were having a nice evening at The Capitol Club chatting away, kicking back on the bench and pillows when out of no where we hear "if everyone can bring it down a bit, we'll give you a good show." 

A good show?  What kind of a show?  Yep, that's right - a flamenco show.  Very unexpected.  And a bit unwelcome.  What do you do?  Do you keep it down?  Do you move to another bar?  Well, if you're us, you recognize that a bunch of the people in the bar area WERE there to enjoy the show and we were a bit of distracting group, and so you relocate yourself.  To what turns out to be a really really nice outdoor balcony/patio area overlooking the street.  Bonus points to the Capitol Club for a cool outdoor area to match their cool indoor area.  Negative points for random live entertainment when I wasn't in the mood for it.  Probably at another time I would have been giving them bonus points for singing and dancing though :)

Yes, Aaron agreed with me that it wasn't quite what we were looking for that night...  And ignore the "pubnight has to be in a 'pub'" sentiment he displays - I'm not sure I agree, but perhaps that topic of discussion at a future pubnight :)

the source of the low water pressure

Strange experience this morning - all of our water pressure was a little bit lower than normal.  No big deal, right?  Fast-forward thirty or forty minutes...  I had a conference call that I took at home, and I decided to swing by Le Fournil to pick up a croissant and coffee on the way in to work.  Except that all traffic was blocked and detoured about a block before you could get there.

Why do I mention two seemingly unrelated items?  Apparently a 24" water pipe broke under the University Bridge.  And two cars were swallowed by a sinkhole.  Seattle Times article including photos: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003689855_webbridge03m.html.