Charles W. Moore

Boating Friends Day

Today we made the trip to Shipshewana for the annual reunion of our Tower Marine boating friends who have become regular friends.  First, we met at Yoders Hardware and looked at hats, hardware from the old world, cloth bolts and other cool stuff.  Then came the Blue Gate for lunch – my lunch was a memorable Boiled Cod – and I have a newly found respect for Blue Gate Chef’s.  A truely excellent meal for two at $30.  Afterwards, we went through a few shops and I found Miller Baskets that were excellent baskets at a reasonable price.  Maybe I will have to change from ropework to basket work.  So, the day was well spent in good company and now SAM is asleep upstairs and I hear Abby’s stomach growling  (perhaps mine too).

Christmas Season

Today was the christmas program at www.aaogchurch.com and it was a great program.  The wee ones were cute and the older ones good with a lot of last minute stand-ins due to sickness.  The hour went quickly and afterwards there was a lot of good food over at the Family Life Center.  We had 217 attendance.  There was a pre-service prayer for the fallen children, heroine’s and heros of Sandy Hook – 26 in all of which 20 were children 6-7 yars old.

I sent out the Christmas Letter to family members yesterday and only 4 emails bounced this year – DJ, Erin, Kristen and Chris.  I will post the text and pictures on this blog next week as a legacy method trying to reach those family and friends that change emails too often to keep track of.  Over the years, with continual seperation our previously tight knit family is disappating like smoke on the wind so the Christmas Letter keeps the interested ones informed of happenings of the year.

Holland & Saugatuck

Sharon, Abby and I were up earlier than usual to allow to drive to Holland, MI for my periodontist teeth cleaning appointment.  We drove via I-69/I-94/US-131/US-40 all the way into Holland and arrived with plenty of time to spare.  Abby rested in the car from her trauma yesterday, SAM went shopping and I got to relay in the dentist chair.  My ordeal was quickly over and we drove over to Steak n Shake where we had our traditional favorites.

After leaving SnS we went down to Saugatuck and SAM shopped some more while Abby and I just sort of lounged in the car.  We were much surprised to see an island in the middle of the Kalamazoo River – the water is so low that there is bare earth showing in the middle of the river.  If the river does not raise the boating season for Saugatuck-Douglas will be a disaster and the community will feel the full impact of no boaters.

I mentioned Abby earlier.  Yesterday she went to the vets for a tooth cleaning and to have a lump on her back removed.  When we picked her up she was groggy and coughing strangely.  The persisted all night but subsided mostly by morning.  We were quite concerned,  Today she was mostly back to herself but felt a bit feverish, in spite of the fact that the vet gave her an antibiotic.  The incision to remove a 1/4″ lump was three inches long and the sutures looked sort of crudely done.  We just could not believe the incision was so long:  must have had long tendrils or something that the vet did not explain since we decided not have a biopsy.  Our $450 experience at this vet was not too satisfying and we will look for another.

Thanksgiving Past

The family Thanksgiving Dinner (lunch for you non-midwesterners) is past and was successful with many of the family attending.  Andy arrived earlier than expected so the evening meal was good too.  We had long talks with C&O, Steve, AJM & family plus the PL family.  The day ended with another success chalked up to keeping traditions alive and talking with family.  Thanks to all who attended.

Wow! Almost a year.

Here we are, fast approaching Thanksgiving 2012.  It has been almost a year since I have visited this blog and I am truely ashamed.  I must say that the year past has been pretty kind ot me and lots have happened.  SAM & I spent the last winter months in St. Petersburg, FL with Martha Pokrajac who is a relative by marriage.  While in FL we did a lot of fixing, volunteering with Tampa Bay Watch and going to church at Suncoast AG.  We volunteered at church too.  It was a busy winter and 4 months passed fast.

Since we sold the boat last Fall we have been boatless but have looked at many sailboats in FL, NY, NC and GA.  I fell in love with most of them but SAM had reservations about all of them ( like it cost a lot of money to fix up someone elses failed dream).  So we remain boatless with no real prospects.  Early summer dawned and I was sort of bored so I talked the aaogchurch.com into installing a campus wide wireless system.  I used Ubiquity equipment with a Cisco switch and after a few days it was up and running and has continued to do so for the last 6 months.  Everyone is happy with it and especially those people with smartphones and tablets.  On any given Sunday we have about 20+ guest users who are allowed almost unrestricted access.  In retrospect, I wish I would have installed a managed switch but I have ways of keeping tabs on things.  We drove to Texas for the twin Moore boys graduation and had a real good time with our “new” camper.  So much so, that on the way back we took a detour to St. Petersburg to look at a boat and was only 1900 miles out of the way: nice to be retired!  Later in August we took the Truck/camper towing the Honda to Plattsburgh, NY where we camped right on the lakeshore of Lake Champlain – great view, mild weather – while we looked at another boat, a Pearson 424, which I again fell in love with.

This Fall SAM & I both joined the Gideons and enjoy the fellowship and the positive attitude that positively glows.  It is a pretty neat group.  The leaves are also almost finished and we only had 8 loads so far.  Today we had the truck camper up on top to clean it for the winter run south.  This year we will be towing the Honda on a dolly that we bought earlier this summer.  It pulls very well and it will be nice to have two vehicles in FL.  We want to go down to Miami and visit old work mates plus go down to the Keys for a bit when the weather turns cold in St. Pete.

OK, got to go and I will finish with the fact that I took the Amateur Radio Technician and General test last winter and passed both so now I am legal to operate the HF bands that I had on the boat.  Right now I am strictly 2M and 70M bands.  HF gear is too expensive but I’ll need it if we get a boat.

Thanksgiving Day Plans

Here we are, the Tuesday before Thanksgiving Day.  We expect several family members to attend our Thanksgiving Day dinner that we host every year.  My sisters and brothers said they would be here and daughters Beth and Jessica will be here plus some of the grandchildren.  Tomorrow I have to start cleaning the garage to give us some over flow areas in which to congregate.  We expect to have lots of fun and catching up to do.

This will be our first official announcement that we have sold the boat and are looking for a replacement that has a lot less teak to take care of and is a bit bigger.  The plan is to have the boat in Florida and to use as a live-a-board condo and a movable platform on which to have fun exploring Florida and the Caribbean areas.  The main criteria are for it to have two heads and staterooms, to be seaworthy, have lots of water storage, plenty of at anchor power options (like genset, solar and wind) so we can stay at anchor for weeks at a time.  Some we have looked at have water makers and that would be a worthy item to have as well.  Right now the Pearson 424 and 422 look good but the Morgan 44 is also a good candidate as well.   Most of these boats were built in the 1980’s so age is a factor but price is the dominate factor.

I have resumed my study of Technician and General Class of ham radio licensce and expect to take the tests before mid-December.  I only need the Technician level but while I am there will take the General exam as well.  Ont the practice tests I am in the high 80’s or 90’s for the Technician and mid-70’s for the General exams.  The General licensce test has been made much harder than it was a couple of years ago.  I want to have a HF Ham Radio on board the boat so I can send / receive Faxes as well as communicate via text to get valuable weather and to be able to patch into phone lines in the USA.  We will probably not have a smart phone when we go offshore so I need to be able to get the same type of info via the Ham radio.

I have closed the blog of our sailing adventures with Inspiration.  Facebook and this blog will survive and I hope to update the blog much more often.  Thanks for reading.  Have great holidays.  Moore later………

Pendelton

We picked up the table an chairs from Karon and headed towards Pendelton without our GPS but as we got closer I became a bit apprehensive as to which exit we should take.  After a quick address program the trusty navigator told us to take a route that was new to us but we took it and arrived safely at B’Unique shoppe.  We were met by Ingo and quickly transitioned to the new abode where we unloaded the table and chairs.  We put them in the kitchen and quickly made use of them as B & I cooked us some lunch of steak, salad and SAM’s real apple pie made last night.  Mumm, good.  SAM’s applesauce was real good too.  Too bad it had just a bit of Cinnamon and B could not partake of much.  The grandkids were in rare form also: D seemed to take exception to my sunglasses and A was the usual bundle of energy laced with some intelligent words.

A has his own computer and I noticed it had no virus  scanner so I undertook to add one and check the machine as well.  Admin had a password and after some calling and time I logged in and added everything then did the scan – no viruses.  Later A & I went for a bike ride down to the school.  School was in session so we could not go to the playground but we had a good jaunt just the same.  It was a good day.

Inside out

I am sitting here at my work desk looking out at the bright colored leaves, what is left of them that is, and the overcast skies with north winds blowing steadily about 10 knots.  The leaves are falling now and we blew off the top yard two days ago when there was a good westerly breeze and the leaves were crispy dry.  They rattled the unique sound only dead dry leaves can make as we blew them over the hill into the still green floor of the woods.

This morning I am contemplating whether to mow the lake level part of the property one more time or to put on the vacuum fitting on the mower deck and fire up the vacuum motor.  I still have not decided what to do but I will probably pull the vacuum outside and fire up the engine so I am not disappointed when I really need it in a few days.

I have whiled away the from the time I arose to now cruising around Facebook.  I had a chat with an old colleague from Holland who is now living in the south of France.  In France they get telephone, TV, Internet all for 34 Euros per month and that includes free local and long distance to most countries around the world.  I pay way more than that just for Internet.  Bummer – I am going to have to cut back on my connectivity some time soon.  That may mean the smartphone has to go and we will have to share a cellular phone too.

I drove to Detroit to interview with a company called Integral Blue for some part time work in the ITS industry, well actually any wireless type work would do, and it seemed like some work would be forthcoming.  I would like to average about 10 hours per week and have a lot of that be home based.  I priced myself to be attractive for this type of arrangement.  We shall see.  Moore later……….

Last voyage for the year

We made our last trip out to Lake Michigan for this season (and year).  The day was calm winds and seas but sunshine galore with good temperatures.  After going out, and with engine warm, I changed oil and filter.  I used Yanmar 15W 40 again this year.

Later in the evening I met a guy, by the name of Larry, at the dock with a Bayliner 36.  The interior was large, sumptuous  and nicely arranged for two people.   He was interesting to talk with.  He does some chartering and sometimes needs crew so I told him to count me in for some of the future trips.

SAM did some Cetol work that needed to be finished.  Tomorrow we put on a coat of clear and we should be finished for a while.

At last sunshine!

We spent the final week of Spetember with overcast skies, lots of rain and a pesky upper level low that just would not move from the south end of Lake Michigan.  Part of that time we were on the boat and part of the time at home.  The boat part was memorable because of the storm force winds of the past three days,boring days onboard and difficulty of getting from the boat to shore without getting real wet.  The winds hit 40 knots with a steady blow of about 26kt as they veered clockedwise around from the SW to N over a 18 hr period.  All the lines on the boat were tested and I added a few more to be on the safe side to redundant cleats.  We got to use the generator as shorepower failed due to trees falling across powerlines.

While we were at home I helped replace part of the roof at the church in between rainstorms and the group of guys had a good time eating the meals the ladies prepared.  We got caught up on the bills and mowed the lawn because the lower level needed it pretty badly.  Also cleaned some the areas of the lower building and organized some of the back part as well.  I made a couple of plates for the boat out of teak so that the chain rode would not abraid the caprail teak brightwork.

We are still planning on pulling the boat near the end of October if we still have her.  Some guy in Washington state has been showing interest.  If it does not sell we are pulling her from the market as I feel the price is too low right now and the interest has not been overwhelming at that price and going lower is out of the question.  Moore later!