Too much man, too much...

It started on 17 July past. I was asked by the boss (but not Bruce Springsteen) if I would be interested in driving to St. John's to take a crew member to the airport early Sunday morning. "Yes", was the answer because driving is more fun than sitting around trying to plan my own day, and besides, we needed some pipe at the Home Depot to complete the hookup of our new central vac system.

The trip included a stop at the Nalcor site at Bull Arm to pick up said crew member, who at the time of my arrival insisted on finishing the smoke he had just lit while I sat in the truck and watched...exciting stuff that. I tried to urge him on, but he is one of those types that don't actually engage in conversation because he doesn't hear a bloody thing you have to say, and just stood there blowing smoke and smiling.

This meant I had to gun the damn thing the rest of the way to meet with success in my ever existant list of things to do when in the big city. This list had shopping included and I was running behind in the middle of roadwork season.

The rest of the trip was me listening to computer talk and the benefits of the new video camera that this dude had just purchased. All great stuff to a guy with no interest in technology whatsoever, but as I have said he's the kind that simply waits for you to stop talking so he can drop a statement unrelated to what you have said like a chunk of concrete in the middle of already strained conversation.

Photo Credit: Frederick Kelloway

The jinker in the doldrums.

Two evenings back we took a sail on the beautiful Monica Talbot, a 30 foot cutter rigged sailboat owned by friend of ours. The design was that of William Atkin and she is unlike the majority of the boats found around the yacht clubs of today. She is seakindly, deep and narrow, and very much capable of open ocean sailing...the kind of boat that should be required by law for Newfoundland water, and she is wooden. She is forgiving, a much needed attribute that I will report back on later in the month as Eric has left her for our use while he heads to Greenland to secure iceberg water on the Sikuk, a 180 foot iceberg harvesting vessel of Norwegian descent.

Now my actual sailing experience amounts to about 30 minutes of combined seatime spread over the last ten years or more spinkled with a healthy dose of reading and daydreaming. Every time I've stepped aboard a sailboat I have assumed the role of the jinker in the doldrums. Despite the often hounding winds of our coast I have incredibly acquire the rather Christlike penchant for calming them by simply stepping forward to assist in the rigging of the boat. Of course if I were to stand on the head of the wharf for days, or to decide upon taking any other type of boat out for an afternoon of fun the relentlessness of the wind would astound the most hardened transatlantic racer. Despite this I will soldier on refusing the role of Lee Ingleby's Hollom by simply staying away from cannonballs.

Last evening I was subjected to the rather complete teachings of the master in the finer points of raising the main and the importance of topping lifts in preserving the skullcaps of crew abaft. Throw in a little marine engineering and I feel ready to push off on my first adventure. I hope for wind, and sun, and maybe a master mariner or two to help in my journey, but barring that I'll still Take A Crack At It!

Life stuff.

During the early hours of thursday a man I have never met passed peacefully into that great void. He had succumb to cancer after a four year battle. This man mattered to my family because he had given us a great friend and sister-in-law. And so it was that on thursday it was decided that we would travel to St. John's to be at her side.

At times like this we put aside all else to focus on the life and loves of those that have passed and reflect upon what they have contributed to our lives. We also discover the beauty, of how families become entwined that mere years before had nothing shared. I was left to reflect upon how death pulls us from the ride that is our everyday and allows us to sit on the side and observe how meaningless much of what we do is. It is time much needed and it leaves those most affected to determine when they should step back onto the ride and resume whatever it is that they have drawn away from.

This is just a note to self to sometimes step off the ride.

The sentencing.

Well the deed has been done and Blue...I've decided to name the tree so, has been sentenced to however many years he can take on the mother in-law's lawn. Given past sentencings his will not be the typical death row story of lenghtly appeals and time spent awaiting a natural death while dodging the syringe weilding arm of the law. No, others have not lasted long and his story awaits the telling indeed. If he can elude the damned whipper snipper and it's death by a million cuts he may live to attain the heavenly height of say several feet...not the 60-80 the little tag had bragged of, but a solid dozen over the next one-hundred years I'd venture to guess.



Our everlasting quest for a greenhouse continues due the flimsy piece of crap Sears had the audacity to send to us...maybe someone should tell those guys exactly where they were shipping this thing. The near indestructable panels the website had exalted to the almighty turned out to be the thickness of say Life brand bottle,the same material they use to ship us that plasticky tasting Ontario tap water in, and surely would have had me running all over Brookfield throughout the winter in hopes of finding enough to silicone together for spring 2010. Byes this is the coast of Newfoundland up longside Cape Freels where average windspeed is somewhere in the vicinity of 4 million miles per hour. In fact we are the backup launch site for the space shuttle...the much more eco friendly way of simply waiting for a good blow to send the thing into low orbit. Late winter or early spring snow storms sometimes tend to be countless baby seals mistaken for snowflakes whipping by on the relentless northeast wind, drifting up against any available structure, and left to fend for themselves among the bruts, the hounding Barbarians of Bonavista North.



Now it appears we will be using the Gothic design to construct our own which I have been drawing in various incarnations now for weeks. I think faith has told us that this is our chosen path as when I called the local hardware store, where they may decide in September that they are not ordering anymore 2 inch nails until after the year end in late March next year, to inquire about ordering the required plexiglass they informed me that they had six pieces of the size I needed in stock. The sheets, 4x8 feet were ordered for someone else that had pulled out and left them to be returned. So...we got a little deal on them and a strong signal from the pepper and tomato gods that this is to be. We hope to have our dudes on the base very soon and will try to update when that happens. Hell I may even try to post some pictures...something I have never tried to do in my whole computer illiterate life. It might just kill me, or make me stronger but shit I'll take A Crack At __it!