Monday, June 30, 2008

Farley's First Haircut

Here's the last photo taken of Farley before his first haircut. Caroline, Tricia, Farley and I took my boat to Edmonds for lunch in honor of Caroline's (and Tricia's) birthday. Caroline and Tricia have been friends for years, but I never realized they shared the same birthday. Farley's turning into a pretty good boat dog. He doesn't seem to be stressed at all on the boat.








Here's Farley after getting his first haircut today. I told the groomer to leave a beard, mustache, and eyebrows. She did that, but got a bit carried away and ended up only trimming his head and face. Even though Farley doesn't seem to mind, for my taste, she left too much facial hair, making his head seem to big for the rest of his body. Maybe I'll take him back tomorrow and have a bit more trimmed off. Or maybe I'll take my beard trimmer to him and see if I can trim some off myself.

Farley's skinnier than I thought. With all his hair cut, he's almost on the scrawny side. Maybe I'll have to start feeding him some more. I also thought that his color might lighten up a bit with a haircut, but he's still basic black. That's OK. In spite of his somewhat odd haircut, I still think he's a fine dog.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Comparing Floods

I recently received an email from an acquaintance comparing the Iowa flooding to Katrina. It was a bigoted and racist rant that had been lifted from some right-wing, whack-job blogger who essentially proclaimed that the hardworking and self-reliant (read white) Iowans were coping with the flooding far better than the lazy, whining, and handout-seeking, (read black) New Orleans residents (looters) did under similar circumstances. This thinly veiled racist drivel and others like it that aren't hard to find on the internet or on conservative shows like Rush Limbaugh.

This crap gets my blood boiling, so living the indolent lifestyle that I'm lucky enough to live, I did some quick research.

Hurricane Katrina flooded 80% of New Orleans, killing close to 2,000. 705 people are still listed as missing. For people who stayed through the hurricane, there was no place to go. Roads were under water, bridges had collapsed, and armed police prevented New Orleanians from crossing the Crescent City Bridge to Gretna. No wonder they ended up at the Superdome and Convention Center. Throughout the Gulf Coast, 3,000,000 people were without electricity, and 1,000,000 were displaced at least temporarily. 500,000 lost their jobs. Even today, the population of New Orleans is about 275,000, compared to the pre-Katrina population of about 475,000. Estimates of direct physical damage are around $80 billion. The total cost, including economic costs and the costs of redesigning and rebuilding the levee system could easily be triple that.

Most of the flooding in the Midwest is in small cities and towns. Cedar Rapids, with a population of around 250,000 is the biggest city affected. The last I heard, they still had power, drinkable water, and functioning hospitals. The floods in Iowa are still ongoing, and definitive estimates of total damage are hard to find. The best guesses assess damage in the neighborhood of $2-3 billion, including about a billion in agricultural losses. Around 36,000 people are homeless, and so far a total of three people have died as a result of the floods.


THERE IS NO COMPARISON.

And besides, there's nothing worth looting in Iowa.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Fremont Solstice

The annual madness known as the Fremont Fair, was kicked off yesterday by the Solstice Parade. It featured the usual array of bubble-makers, puppets and floats, but the biggest cheers are always reserved for the nude bicyclists.










This puppet in particular caught my eye. It was a marvel of art and engineering, with a guy in a backpack harness supporting the whole thing!
















The hundreds of bicyclists, both male and female, let it all hang out.













Not all were on bicycles. These ladies were more comfortable on rollerblades.













My personal favorites were these lovely young ladies sponsored by the local chocolate factory! No bicycles required!












Some of the body paint could really fool the eye.


















All shapes and sizes participated.













Of course, Hal didn't want to miss a thing. That's him there, head and shoulders above the crowd, in his lounge chair hanging from the bamboo tripod he erected adjacent to Lenin's statue.











Here's a close-up view. Thanks to Joe Grande for supplying the rigging from his sailboat!

Friday, June 20, 2008

I Don't Understand

I'm a bit of a political junkie. I surf the net for an hour or two every day and I watch way too much talking-head cable TV. For the last couple of days I've been baffled by the lack of coverage of torture and the authorization of torture at the highest levels of the US government. The McClatchy newspaper group, formerly the Knight-Ridder group, and the only major newspaper group to seriously question the Iraq War before it started, has just published a multi-part series on detainee abuse and torture at Guantanamo and elsewhere. In another story, Major General Antonio Tagabu, who led the investigation of torture at Abu Ghraib, wrote for the Physicians for Human Rights that:
"After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account."
The New Republic issued a travel advisory for Bush Administration officials, but most of the usual suspects of the left-wing blogosphere haven't had a lot to say. I haven't heard a peep out of the talking heads, not even my favorite Bush-basher, Keith Olbermann.

What have they been talking about instead? How the Democrats caved on FISA legislation, how Obama has flip-flopped on campaign financing, the frog walk of a couple of Bear Stearns executives, the re-making of Michelle Obama's image, and don't forget the bodiless feet washing up on British Columbia beaches.

Torture isn't the only story that is getting short shrift. How about George Soros saying before a congressional committee investigating oil prices that the largest holder of heating oil in the Northeast is Morgan Stanley!!!??? For those of you who might ask, "Who is Morgan Stanley, and why should I care?", MS is not an oil company or refiner. It is one of the biggest investment banks on Wall Street. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but wouldn't that news make the ordinary person think that there might be some manipulation of oil prices going on?


I think that the Main Stream Media (MSM) is a good thing in that it acts as a filter for the information overload that can easily overwhelm a casual observer of the news. The MSM should give us all a common basis for what's news and what isn't, but when major stories like these get minimal attention at best, something's wrong.


Ps. Farley seems to recovering very nicely. Right now, he's sleeping peacefully at my feet without his Elizabethan collar on, and doesn't seem to be holding a grudge.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

The Unkindest Cut of All

Here's one last look at Farley before he visits the vet tomorrow. Right now, he weighs about 34 pounds, but he'll come back at least a little lighter tomorrow. Poor guy! I've told him to lick himself while he can, but I don't think he understands. Not only will the focus of his attention be gone, he'll be wearing one of those dumb Elizabethan collars for a week, so he can't lick himself. Period.

Having him fixed is the responsible thing to do, but I did consider not doing it. Those in favor of neutering say that he will be more mellow, won't bulk up quite as much, and of course won't be able to father unwanted puppies. Well, Farley is about as mellow as can be; he can't run around loose and chase the hot bitches in Fremont; and he sure would make cute pups, but I decided to do it anyway. He's going to be bigger than I planned on so a little less bulk won't hurt; I doubt that I would ever breed him; and even though dogs probably don't understand this one way or another, he won't miss what he's never had.

Or so I'd like to think. I'm sorry, Farley!

Friday, June 13, 2008

I'm Back

Well, here I am jet-lagged and at my computer at home, having been up since 3AM. I don't know why I always seem to have more trouble with jet-lag traveling west than east. I'll just have to live with it for the next few days, but in the meantime, I'll put the jet-lag to semi-productive use and update my blog.

The trip to Croatia was a good one, with a good crew, a good boat, and good weather. For those of you keeping track of these kinds of things, here is a list of the stops we made:
Kremik, Piskera, Telascica, Kaprije, Rogoznica, Split, Hvar, Vis, Scedro, Korcula (two nights), Polace, Sipan, and finally Dubrovnik. As usual Blogspot makes it difficult to arrange pictures in a logical fashion, so here are a few in a more or less random order.

This is a shot taken from the wall surrounding Dubrovnik. Unlike the last time I was there, this time I spent the 50 kune to take a walk around the wall. This was early in the tourist season, so I was more than a bit surprised by the hordes of tourists. Then I realized that they were being off-loaded by a couple of cruise ships in the harbor. There were a lot of older folks (older than me, anyway) on the semi-strenuous walk around the walls, making me wonder how many heart attacks tourists have in a typical year in Dubrovnik.











Dubrovnik is a gorgeous place, and must have been impregnable in its day. I don't know how much damage was done during the seven-month siege in the early '90's, but in any case, it wasn't readily apparent.










The damage of the war was readily apparent near the Dubrovnik airport at Plat, where I stayed for my last night in Croatia. This hotel complex had been badly shelled and gutted and had not been repaired.










One of the things that had worried me on this trip was wondering whether or not I had the boat handling skills necessary to dock the sailboat in the typically very tight spaces in a Croatian marina. On my last trip there in 2006, I had been mightily embarrassed by the lack of skill of our skipper, and in describing our adventures to others, I had heaped scorn on his feeble efforts. Having become accustomed to the twin screws and bow-thruster on WaveGuide, and never having skippered a sailboat before, I was concerned that the boat-docking gods would have their revenge on me. But I rose to the challenge,
and in spite of sometimes high winds and some incredibly tight spots, I never crashed the boat, and was never embarrassed by my efforts. In fact,I'm really proud of the way I handled the boat!


All you sailors out there might appreciate these two shots of a typical marina in Croatia. They were intimidating, to say the least. Especially because there was always an audience to witness the carnage. And carnage there was at times, with all hands on deck to fend off other boats or to handle lines of boats that ended up all catty-whompus (sp?) in the marina. Of course, we three skippers, Bruce, Joe, and I, critiqued the efforts of those docking after us or leaving before we did. We were often entertained by their efforts, and sometimes our own.






I thought we'd be in for a real treat in Polace, a small island town with a bunch of restaurants and docks at the restaurants. No moorage fee was necessary if we ate at the restaurant, which seemed like a good deal, especially since they were serving lamb and boar done in a traditional Dalmatian style. The restaurant people were really friendly, helping us dock the boat, and giving all shot of slivovitz (fiery, rot-gut, plumb brandy) after we were ashore. Then they told us that if we wanted lamb or boar, we'd have to order it two hours ahead of time because it took so long to cook under the steel dome over the open fire. It sounded great, but unfortunately the lamb I ordered had passed its best-before date, and was well on its way to being mutton. It was rubbery and tasteless, and expensive as hell. As in something like $90 expensive!! I don't mind paying that kind of money for a great meal, but this meal was anything but great. Oh well, at least the moorage was free.
There are lots of decent cheap wines in Dalmatia, but I guess they don't believe in corks. Or screw tops. Here's Marie opening a typical bottle, with a bottle opener!










Here is the crew of Aquafile, from left to right, Audrey, Jerry, Marie, Brad, and the fearless skipper. It was a good crew. By the end of the trip, no harsh words had passed between us, and we were still all talking to one another.











This is Bruce's boat, Mango Tango.


















And here's Joe's boat, Lola.













Joe, Audrey and I got some exercise by taking the dinghy to shore at Telascica, and walking across the island to Sali. We had one of the best gelatos ever as a reward when we got there.










Audrey and I taking a break in Split.













I also got some exercise in Korcula, walking up the hill above the town to get this shot.












On a trip like this, there's always downtime on the boat, in airports and on airplanes. It makes for lots of opportunities for reading, and I guess I can say that my previous concerns about being afflicted with Adult Onset Attention Deficit Disorder were unfounded. I read four and a half books on this trip. They were Why is There Something Instead of Nothing, I Don't Believe in Athiests, The Last Templar, Paula Spencer, and I got halfway through The Black Swan. The only questionable one of the group is The Last Templar. It's one of those archeological , spy- adventure, secret society, quest-for-the-holy-grail type books. It was entertaining enough for a book of that genre, but it basically was a piece of crap.

As for my own secret mission to an undisclosed location - Mission Accomplished!

Monday, June 9, 2008

Out of Dubrovnik

I flew out of Dubrovnik yesterday on a hastily scheduled flight to an undisclosed location. I have arrived at that location, but my mission is as yet unfulfilled. But it's early, and I'm optimistic.

I will be back in the real world on Wednesday as planned.

Real blog-posts, complete with photos will have to wait until I'm back and un-jetlagged and feel like spending a couple of hours sorting photos and sitting in front of a computer.

See you all soon!

Friday, June 6, 2008

Dubrovnik

Well, we made it. We had some adventures hooking an old mooring line when we left Sipan yesterday, and it took a couple of hours to get the boat free, but we've arrived here more or less unscathed.

The internet connections have been painfully slow, so I haven't done many blogposts. Pictures and a full account of the trip will have to wait until I get back to the real world on Wednesday.

Oh, and big-time congratulations to daughter Caroline for getting the PTA teacher of the year award! Way to go!!!

Monday, June 2, 2008

Korcula

We're here in Korcula for a couple of nights. It's the only place where we're stopping for more than one night. Korcula is an interesting place, but everyone is running out of clean underwear, so laundry is another compelling reason to stick around for a bit.

I was hoping to do a more complete posting from here, but T-Mobile Hotspot won't let me log on with my baby computer for some reason, so rather than doing this from the boat, I'm sitting in a stuffy internet cafe. A longer posting complete with pictures, etc., might have to wait until I get back home next week.

When I was here in '06, I saw Klapa Sing singers and the traditional Korcula sword dance. Unfortunately, there is no dance performance till Tursday (we'll be long gone by then), and I haven't found the singers yet. I'll ask around today.

Anyway, it's about time for breakfast, so I'm outta here.