Green Living

I'm wondering what the recent visitors of the repairman stripe were thinking as they bopped around my basement fixing stuff and saw the green cabinets and stacks of military green ammunition cans on wire racks? Especially given that several of those cans had a stack of very menacing looking knives of various stripes and styles. To those in the know, we call those "bayonets". Unfortunately, there was no room in the 80mm mortar round case for those since I was trying to hide the stacks of FAL and G3 magazines from those who might be exceptionally curious about the contents of said green cabinets.

I think the Sears guy was fine but the Comcast guy was more worried about the red and white, very ferocious cattle dog we had to sequester in the next room than he might have been about the close proximity of numerous implements of personal warfare, mayhem and destruction. Foster does not like be locked in a room all by himself, especially when there are new friends to be made.

I cannot understand why Achmed fears dogs. As long as the tail is wagging, you'll leave with the same number of holes in your body that you started with. Foster loves to make friends. He'll give up the tummy and give kisses freely so I just can't figure that fear out. Any takers?

Achmed should consider himself fortunate. The last Comcast guy Foster met resulted in a rapid visit to the vet the following week for some overdue canine alteration. I can't say he was fixed because, honestly, he wasn't broken. That much he made apparent to the Comcast guy's misfortune. Pushing 8 years later, we're still convinced that the vet missed one somewhere. The romance never really left Foster's life. And I have the pictures to prove it.

On to other topics...

You don't know how hard I found it on Saturday to not untie the boat and head out for an hour to two to enjoy what were perfect sailing conditions. Steady 10 knots out of the north on the Potomac. Just ripples for waves. Those are conditions that define the term "day sailing". Alas, I promised my wife that after I finished tracing the electrical system and making sure all was working prior to the 4th this week that I would not take her out and singlehand. She quoted the Boater Safety Course on me to back it up! I'm impressed. I kept my word and left her tied up.

But it was very tempting. An O'Day 22 is an easy boat to singlehand provided you can lash the tiller in place while you're forward handling the sails. You need to keep her up into the wind while raising them and that usually requires two people or a means to keep the bow into the wind. Nothing a length of line and two cleats can't handle. As I said, very tempting.

But I'm set for the 3rd and the 4th now. Masthead light is not functioning but since I am under 23 feet in length, I am not required to have one. A handheld light shone on the sails or forward under power is fine. I plan to fix that at haulout.

Which leads to today's minor rant...

For those of you all high and mighty on "green living", shut the fuck up. Buying compact fluorescents that require EPA instructions and a hazmat suit to clean up when broken, driving a Prius that polluted enough water to kill a coral reef in making its frame and batteries and sticking your cardboard into a plastic bin that uses more oil to produce than you will ever save driving said previous electric tinkertoy does not make you a guilt-free, environmentally aware, eco-sustainable, planet-saving citizen.

It makes you a hippie. And a particularly stupid one at that.

My plan is to live the green lifestyle you spout so proudly of from your pedestal. But you have no idea how difficult a problem that really is because it requires thought.

My sailboat, even a lowly 22 foot daysailer is more green that your supposed green lifestyle will ever be. And here's why:

• My sailboat is recycled. It is 32 years old and still going strong. How long will your Prius last?
• My sailboat is powered by the wind to get anywhere it needs to go. The gas engine is optional. How far will your Prius get on a single charge if we took its gas engine out?
• I can travel anywhere in the world on my sailboat without using a drop of oil. That's 24,000 nautical miles and seven continents. What's the range of a Prius on a single charge? 50-100 miles and maybe the next county?
• My electricity production is done by solar power. My boat is entirely a closed-loop. A single house battery provides me with all the light I need and the solar panel keeps it charged. So I'm two up on the sustainable living thing. How much oil does your Prius need to charge its battery?
• Marine regulations prohibit the discharge of polluted water into any inland waterways. So I'm not dumping toxins into the river. How much CO2 comes out of the tailpipe of your Prius?
• White sailboats don't contribute to solar global warming since they reflect heat away from their hulls. Just doing my part for the environment.

Seriously though, before I met my wife I was in the process of planning out my lifestyle. That involved me living aboard a 32-38 foot sailboat in Annapolis. While that seems insane, the cost advantages were (and are) very compelling. Done right, I could have retired in my 40s with enough money in the bank to let me sail anywhere in the world and live a life of reasonably luxury anywhere I landed for the rest of my life.

While my list of point above might seem like hyperbole, they really aren't. In looking to live in what is essentially a floating prison, you learn to prioritize and one of the things high on the list is power. Since boats at sea can only carry a limited amount of fuel and have limited room, you have to figure out your power usage accurately and plan accordingly. In doing so, you begin to weight the pros and cons of various approaches but when it comes right down to it, a sailing liveaboard is about as green as you can get.

When most people talk about "living off the grid", crusing liveaboards have no choice but to do so. Wind generators and solar panels are regular features on these boats and done right, can provide all of ones power needs. These are not new ideas. Crusing boats have been doing this stuff for over 20 years.

You can power everything from a generator hooked up to your engine (called an "auxillary" in the sailing world), you have to deal with your available fuel capacity, how long you'll be at sea and the possibility of these two very expensive pieces of mechanical equipment breaking and leaving you in the dark. Hence why most boats and smart owners use two or more systems for keeping the lights on.

And nothing will teach you more about the reality of so-called "green living" than planning the power budget for a sailboat as a liveaboard. If you think the solution to all the world's ills are wind generators and solar panels, you haven't studied the problem. Crusing sailboat owners have done so and know the subject backwards and forwards.

I find it funny in Googling "off the grid" solutions for power generation for houses that except for the house in the picture, I'm looking at the same techniques and equipment sailboats use. If you think generating all your home power from solar and batteries alone is sufficient and easy, I guarantee the price tag will knock you flat.

It costs thousands in a sailboat to use solar as a primary power source and you definitely won't be running a refrigerator, hot water tank or air conditioning unit with such a setup. If you can't do that in a oddly shaped 35x14 foot space with every top surface covered in high efficiency panels, you sure as hell aren't going to do it in your suburban McMansion without an acre or two nearby. And an expenditure equal to a significant fraction of the value of the house without you making significant lifestyle changes.

Solar is used to keep batteries topped off. Batteries are the primary source of power. When you need extra, you need a diesel powered generator (up to a few kilowatts) or a wind turbine.

It is amusing to see people touting wind as the next big thing in energy. Apparently these folks have never opened a West Marine catalog or picked up a copy of Cruising World. Wind turbines on a boat can produce a nice chunk of power. As long as the wind is blowing, you have lights. The downside of wind turbines and what they don't talk about for home use is noise and limits to usefulness.

A 36 inch sailboat wind generator at speed will sound like you're living next door to a neighbor with a Cessna in his garage. Yes, the blades make noise and as wind speed increases, so does the noise. Newer turbines have addressed this in various ways and look very appealing. Not cheap though.

There are two types of wind generators for power generation and each have their pluses and minuses. I personally prefer constant output generators since they don't require as much circuitry to handle them and tend to be more maintenance-free. But they don't produce as much power as the variable rate turbines. And both types of turbines do need someone to keep an eye on them since if the wind speed gets too high and the turbine doesn't have self-feathering or lockdown ability, they can literally spin themselves to death.

It's not fun dodging shrapnel as a two thousand dollar wind turbine explodes next to your head.

Still, one or two turbines can keep your batteries topped off and your lights on without running your diesel generator with all that icky oil. Just as long as the wind is blowing fast enough. 10+ knots usually.

After power, sailboat living just generally requires downsizing. While the period after my ex-wife and I separated wasn't fun, it was that period that taught me that I could indeed liveaboard and got me pursuing it. You see, after she left, she took the bed with her. So I had no reason to go into the bedroom and since we only had one bed, I slept on the futon in the living room. The kitchen was at my back and a small kitchen table was nearby. Despite the fact I was in a 1400 square foot apartment, I actually only lived for the better part of a year in a 12x14 foot room and used the rest of the space for storage.

That changed when I started dating my wife-to-be but for a very long time, I lived in a space typically found about a small sailboat. And enjoyed it.

It was refreshing to just pare away the non-essentials. How much counter space does one need to cook small meals once a day? How much space do you really need for a place to sleep? How much room do you actually have to set aside for your favorite books and a computer. "Not much" turned out to be the answer for me.

So I found myself contemplating and actually planning a "green lifestyle" long before the term was fashionable. Not that I considered it such since the "boat bum" lifestyle had some appeals all their own. Not everyone walking around downtown Annapolis could claim to have a view of the Bay and the Naval Academy from their home. $8000 per year for the liveaboard slip may seem outrageous but it was a lot cheaper than rent. My boat payment, insurance and slip fee would have been significantly less than my apartment rent at the time. And I would have had no utility bills since shore power was included in the slip fee and I would have had my own onboard power options.

With the advantage that if I tired of my Annapolis view, I could have St. Michaels a couple hours later and Baltimore the following night and back to Annapolis in time for work Monday if I so chose. I think a lot of people can see the appeal in that.

It never got out of the planning and phone call stages (just starting to call boat brokers) when I started dating my wife. But this desire has never let go and so far, she's been receptive to the idea of our weekend home in the future being a 30-40 foot sailboat on the Chesapeake Bay.

Our 22 foot sailboat on the Potomac is merely the first step in that direction. But on its own scale, it is just as much a green lifestyle as that future sailboat will be. The nice thing about sailboats is that there are lot of 20, 30 or even 40 year old boats out there that will work just fine depending on your desires and pocketbook.

The boat I was looking to liveabord ran between $15,000 and $28,000 depending on condition and equipment. A Gulfstar 37 center cockpit. Saw one recently on Craigslist in Annapolis for under $20,000. No one can argue that would be a cheap home after five years. Hell, a lot of new cars nowadays aren't that expensive. $25,000 for a house that you'll own free and clear in 5-10 years depending on how you structure the loan and $8-10K per year in rent and maintenance? Not a bad deal in my book.

Admittedly, there are downsides to this but your outlook and expectations matter a great deal in what you get out of it. I've been very pleased with my experiences aboard my new "old" 22 footer so far. I had my netbook playing movies on the cabin counter while I checked out the onboard wiring. Forward hatch open, 85 degrees outside and it was comfortable down below. Motion of the boat within the slip didn't bother me at all.

You scale that up to a small apartment and you'll have a hard time prying me off on weekends. The next step after that is to cast off the lines and not look back until I've reached St. Thomas.

Bet a Prius can't do that. So knock the "I'm green and doing my part!" (not to mention channeling Robert Heinlein) stuff off until you've actually tried it. Until your house is fenstooned in solar panels with a few wind turbines in the backyard, you've pried the engine out of your Prius and using it as a decorative yard display and an axe is lying next to the power pole you've just chopped down, can it. You're no more green than a Saudi Sheik with a fleet of oil tankers and an oil refinery dumping CO2 into the atmosphere faster than cows can fart.

I don't believe in all this eco-conservation bullshit and neither do you. Unlike you, I'm willing to admit it and actually give it a try someday.

What's your excuse?

Random and Messed Up Thoughts

Great, now we get to be bombarded for the next several days on non-stop Michael Jackson coverage. If I was Farrah Fawcet in the afterlife, I'd be pissed right now. She deserved better than what she got. It's terrible to die of anal cancer and she kept her dignity only to be upstaged hours later. The Universe can have a sick sense of humor.

Get ready for "Wacko Jacko" TV right up to the funeral coverage. And I can't even enjoy a diversion of looking for Amish porn on the Internet because my home connection is down. Thanks Comcast! Then a couple weeks of shuffled programming on the cable networks for biographies, retrospectives and tribute shows.

I had an extremely wrong thought pop into my head when I heard he died on the drive home last night. It involved me with the ability to draw comic panels and hot flames.

C'est la vie. I hope the guy found some peace. Unfortunately, we get to live with the fallout.

On an unrelated subject, for the next person who suggests that universal healthcare is a wonderful idea, ask them how good Medicare/Medicaid would be if it was 7 times larger than it is today in terms of cost and inefficiency? For a really fun response, ask a member of the AARP that question and then be prepared to duck.

If the questioner still believes universal healthcare won't suffer those issues, write them off as something other than human. You need a brain for that and they'll be clearly lacking. Why do we have universal suffrage again?

Sorry, in a messed-up mood today. Going to try avoiding some channel markers tomorrow to work it out.

Lost Another One

I don't know if anyone noticed but Daryl "Shifty" Powers of "Band of Brothers" fame died last week at the age of 86.

As some of you may not know, he was given a gift of an M1 Garand that matched the last three serial numbers of the rifle he carried throughout the war. It was an incredible gift and I felt it was fitting given his service to this country. The story is worth reading.

Men like you will be missed, Shifty. Another one lost of the Greatest Generation. We will never see another like it.

Just Add Rum

Somehow, I don't think my wife will let me take this cruise. The prices for the various options are actually quite reasonable.

Hopefully there will be no pirates on the Potomac this weekend. I cannot be legally be armed since I am in the safe, crime-free utopia of Washington DC.

Good weekend everyone!

Crossing the Rubicon

The title of this post is a common expression. Most people don't know what it means. It has its roots in the Roman era of Julius Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon river in Italy in 49 B.C. which at the time was considered an act of war. It has come to mean reaching a "point of no return", such as initiating a war.

In this post, "war" might be too strong a word. Perhaps not as we are in a culture war.

I am starting to believe this is a war we will ultimately lose.

I read letters like this over at Kevin's. It has been a common, yet underground, theme for months. People are angry, upset and tired about the continued, unwarranted and unwanted intrusion into every aspect of our lives. For gun rights supporters we always were aware of such things. But now it has gone way, way beyond that. We always thought that any attempts by government to rule us and gain control would be incremental because that was they it had always happened. Based on our experiences in guns and numerous other areas, control and advancement of government power always seemed to creep forward because the people would never stand for a Hitleresque, Maoist or Chavez-style power grab done in plain sight.

Not anymore. It seems as of late our elected officials have decided to simply sidestep the issue and move on without any pretext at all. They just going to do it in the interest of all of us.

TARP. Phone calls to our representatives nearly melted down the Capitol switchboard. They did it anyway. They got the message the first time, threw in some bribes and magically the exact same bill passed without resistance not a few days later. Did Congress twitter all their constituents or something?

AIG and others were "too big to fail". So the government propped them up or let them die and be absorbed by others. And despite tens, if not hundreds, of billions of dollars injected into these companies we have no idea if any of it will have any effect at all.

GM, Chrysler and Ford were in trouble. We were told that if they were to go bankrupt, the results would be catastrophic for the nation. So we injected $15+ billion dollars into them despite us saying back in the fall that it wasn't going to work.

End result was those billions wasted without even so much as a "Sorry" and two out of three in bankruptcy anyway. Except now with the government hand involved, they are dictating the terms under which those bankruptcies will be discharged. By hook or by crook, they will get what they want and will do it at all taxpayer expense. Ford, smartly, saw the writing on the wall and decided they would sit that one out. I hope Alan Mullaly gets a hefty bonus for saving his company from the road to Hell. And the government calls these bankruptcies a necessary step and act like it was all planned. Leave it to the government to spend $15 billion dollars to prove themselves wrong and make it look like a success.

And now it is healthcare. So far, that price tag is $1,000,000,000,000 and climbing. Yes, one TRILLION dollars. And that number will only cover 16 million Americans over a 10 year period and still leave 35 million without health insurance. Think about that for a moment. If one trillion dollar is the price of a decade's worth of health insurance, what would the cost be for everyone? That number should scare the living daylights out of you.

Especially when we do not have a trillion dollars now or a decade in the future.

All of these things, healthcare, bailouts, spending to save us from catastrophe, cannot be sustained. It is being placed on the taxpayer Visa with a promise to pay in the future. And when that bill becomes due, we won't even be able to make the minimum payment due demanded by China to cover a fraction of the interest let alone beat down the principal. When the rest of the world figures this out, and they will, we as a nation are going to be well and truly fucked.

You haven't even seen a crisis yet.

It isn't a surprise this is happening. It was expected. But not the scope or speed of it. It seems everything now has to be rammed through. Every thing is a crisis that our benevolent, all-knowing, wise and all-seeing government will be able to fix for us. Just trust them and we'll get through this.

We've gotten what we deserve. An empty suit with no legislative accomplishments to his credit but with a silver tongue managed to convince enough of the populace that he would solve all their problems and lead this country into a better place. So guess where the blame lies? Not with him but with us.

A minority of us are screaming about the train wreck that is coming and no one cares. And that is really the crux of the issue. Actually, it is worse than lack of caring. It is the ultimate outcome of a generation of "me, me, me!" come full-circle.

Not only does the public-at-large not care, I am in agreement with other bloggers like the Geek with a .45 that they will happily thrust they wrists forward and accept the chains willingly. As long as they have food, a roof over their head, the pablum of television to soothe them and a nebulous promise of being taken care of whether it be financially, health care or job-wise, they will accept servitude readily.

I feel that this is the outcome just based on casual conversation. Any of you ever talk about these issues and have the other person say, "Well that's true but I've got mine. If it is going to happen anyway, I might as well get something out of it."? They're close to retirement and looking for a piece of their contribution back or young and never had it to begin with. They don't care about it being taxpayer money or your money or even their money. Just get a piece, to hell with the others.

I've heard a lot of such talk over the past several months.

40% of our electorate has no income tax burden to speak of. They don't make enough to qualify or the tax credits they receive reduce their tax burden to zero. "Tax credits" is a code word for "refund". Except when the amount of the tax credit is greater than what you paid, it isn't a refund. It's wealth redistribution.

Where do you think that $8000 home buyer tax credit is coming from? Thin air? Anyone taking advantage of that credit (and I know someone who has) is collectively reaching into our pockets to cover that windfall. We as a society are paying a percentage of their American Dream. I can't blame anyone for doing it but unlike the rest of the country, the government cannot create wealth to offset its expenditures. All it can do is tax or not tax, spend or not spend.

And 40% don't care one way or the other because they benefit regardless.

In this country, 40% is more than sufficient regardless of political ideology to drag the rest of us down. As long as they have a roof, food and entertainment, where it comes from is immaterial. They will vote it and demand it. And because the representatives in government enjoy their jobs, they will give it to them. Directly from our wallets and purses if need be.

I believe we now stand on the shores of the Rubicon with a choice to make. And I fear the choice has already been made and we are approaching the opposite shore, waist deep and not even looking back.

Of course, we're screaming from the back ranks, begging our leaders not to do it. But they choose to ignore our cries because they know what is on the opposite shore is better for us. They know best. And they will do it.

I think this health care debate, which has not fundamentally changed since the early 1990s, will be the final shove we need. I think between the damage already done and what they want to do that we will not be able to recover. Our country is already being irreversibly shaped into a future we don't want and are likely powerless to stop. The effects of these current policies will be far-reaching and their unintended consequences have yet to be seen. The die has already been cast.

Does anyone honestly believe that the government will rehabilitate GM or Chrysler and then divest themselves of their stakes and influence and allow them to go back to being private enterprises competing against Ford?

Does anyone honestly believe Obama can actually achieve savings from Medicare and Medicaid to pay for his $1,000,000,000,000 vision of insuring a fraction of Americans when GAO reports year after year after year have consistently pointed out problems with the system and fixes that need to be made that have never materialized? What makes now so different? Because the "right people" are in charge?

Does anyone honestly believe spending money we don't have is going to make things easier and better in the future? Or do you believe our kids and grandkids will just punt the problem to the next generation in the belief that it is someone else's problem?

If any private individual or organization attempted to operate their finances the way the government calls a spending increase a "tax cut" because they decided to only rack up $75,000,000 in charges instead of the $100,000,000 they proposed, they'd be bankrupt or in jail. And yet, we let them do it. The notion of not spending money they don't have never occurs to them. After all, votes are at stake.

Have you noticed that over the past few months the justifications for these various actions have more or less dwindled away? What was a primetime speech from the President to explain why such actions were necessary just doesn't happen anymore. We are merely informed of what is going to happen, some brief platitude about "saving our country" and that is that. No one even feels the need to justify their actions to those who placed them there.

I think because they know now and have found the American version of ruling through fear. For us, it isn't gulags, party membership (although that's on the radar) or purges but economy, money and jobs. Invoke the spectre of us losing one or all and the slaves fall into willing rows, ready to accept their chains. Especially if accompanied by a "submission tax credit" or "happiness stimulus".

I always thought our Rubicon lay decades in the future. Preferably with me as an old man or gone and waiting for the next round. I believed that bright shining line of "No further or else!" would be a dim glow on a hazy horizon.

No longer.

I am told by my mother-in-law that the Republic will endure, that it always managed to weather its doldrums and come back strong. After all, it survived the Civil War, two World Wars and the Great Depression. It will survive this. Unfortunately, I do not believe that despite my most desperate desire to do so.

I think next year we will begin to have an answer to our future. If come 2010 we let the same people run the show, I feel that we will not be turning back from this course. I think even if there is sufficient outrage come 2012 to oust the lot of them, short of a new government capable of having the courage to actual roll back these excesses and tell the American people "No more! We are doing this to save the Republic. It will hurt for you, you will suffer but we must stop this!" and actually do it, there will be nothing we can do. Such courage has not existed within government in a long time.

By 2012, as I echoed at Chris Byrne's, we will begin to see the ramifications of today's policy choices if left unreversed. We will begin to see the unintended consequences. And this is assuming that no other crises arise to draw us down even more rapidly than we are headed now. A few more Holocaust shootings and another Virginia Tech and we might even lose our last box of persuasion.

The soap box is fun to stand on but without a new Publius, it will not work despite Geek's belief to the contrary.

The jury box is fading. The law, like our government, is becoming too frozen and set in its ways to do the right thing.

The ammo box, despite the damage it would cause, has watched its time go long past. I think in this political climate even if 10,000 armed citizens showed up on the Mall in defiance of everything to have their voices heard, we'd witness troops gun them down and treat the survivors just like the Taliban at Tora Bora. I have no doubt that active armed resistance would be crushed and I think those watching on the sidelines would cheer the government on in doing do.

Lastly, the ballot box is showing signs of being ignored. Yes, we will still use it and think we are making a difference but at this point I think even the most ardent leftist would agree that it is pretty much being ignored. It doesn't matter to them anyway since their people are in charge.

All that remains is for us to finish our journey across the Rubicon and then there will be no going back.

By 2015, I don't think we'll recognize this country. Oh, it will still be called the "United States of America", it will still have a Constitution and people will still go about their lives but it will not be as it is today. We will be a beaten people, unable or unwilling to fight back, living in fear and being happy for what little we've managed to hold on to and what is being given to us. Many of us will still protest but we will be marginalized and dismissed as "paranoid" at best. Or maybe enough of us will be charged and jailed under numerous anti-terrorism laws that already exist today to cow the rest of us into submission.

Our economy will be gone. Our savings will be taxed, taken and spent. We will live on the largess of the Chinese and any bank who holds our bonds. We will be enslaved. Or we will be bankrupt and we will be two people, poor and those in charge, and a nation of laws and not men on paper only. 200 years of prosperity and the greatest experiment in human history cast aside in the name of "social justice" in the span of just 24 months.

We're halfway there. I feel the end coming. I will see it in my lifetime. I figure we've got 4-7 years.

And then the Rubicon will be behind us and we cannot go back.

I hope I'm wrong.

Pitfalls of the Potomac

The weekend was wonderful. Some things I'm learning about sailing on the Potomac River...

One: You better have your head on a swivel when entering the main shipping channel. There is a LOT of big boat traffic like the Spirit of Washington, water taxis, dinner cruises and so on. Rules of navigation require sailboats under sail to stay out of their way since they are restricted to the channel and sailboats are not.

As a result, you develop a sense of time/distance estimation. You better if you don't want to get run over.

Two: Solar panels break when stepped upon. In other words, if it is working fine where it is, don't move it. That mistake cost me $50.

Three: Channel markers do not move. The second-worst sound you can hear in a boat is the crackling of fiberglass as you run a near 2000 pound sailboat against an immovable steel pole. So far, I am only enduring wounded pride and minor to no damage to my rub rails. I was lucky and was able to fend off the worst of the collision to have it run along the hull rather than take it broadside. More importantly, have the impact occur well behind the chainplates in a non-loading bearing area. I could have sworn I saw the hull flex at impact but it appears the damage so far is minor. Hence why it is the second-worst sound you can hear.

The worst sound to hear is the gurgle of water in your hull after said impact.

The lesson learned from that little disaster is don't attempt an upwind tack near a channel marker in light and variable winds in a 1 knot current flowing in the direction of said channel maker. For future reference, continue beyond the marker and either attempt the tack upwind in a steady wind nowhere in line of the marker or jibe to downwind, pass the marker and then head back to windward once well clear of the potential boat killer.

My reactions were good in getting the beam away from the mark and pointed downwind but bad for attempting the maneuver that close to begin with. Like any mistake, it is a lesson that was driven home rather loudly and one that will not be soon forgotten.

Lesson learned: Channel markers are not your friend.

Four: Landing jets make one of the coolest sounds you'll hear. I didn't know what it was at first. Then my friend Tom pointed out this whistling, echoing, high-pitched rush of air with no wind associated with it was the jetwash from the landing airliners. The odd thing is it is like lightning and thunder. There is a delay between the time the jet passes overhead and when you hear that sound. Roughly 20-30 seconds. And you have to be more or less directly under the plane as it passes by to get the full effect.

If you have a chance to sit directly in line with the landing flight path at Reagan National, give it a try. It's kind of nifty. Apparently you can hear it at the right spot at Gravelly Point but in the water directly south of the runway lights on the southern end of the runway is perfect. You swear you're in some banshee infested echo chamber.

More to come.

"Heather Thompson, They Won't Tell You the Proper Solution"

My wife turns the Today Show on in the morning. Most of the time it is background noise in between the local traffic reports and the lapping of dog kisses in my ear. This morning, however, featured a segment about a woman who is living fear after her abusive ex-husband was just released after serving 15 years in prison for nearly beating her to death.

You can view the segment here.

What really irritates me about programs like the Today Show is they spend all this time harping on notions like "Aren't you afraid?" and "What do you think you'll do?". Meanwhile, this woman's husband is sitting beside her and all he can get out is a few wimpy sentences after being directly challenged on what he will do to protect his family if this ex-husband comes around.

This woman, Heather Thompson, lives near Atlanta, Georgia. What the husband should have done was look that limp, left-wing pansy Matt Laurer in the eye and told him point-blank that he and his wife both have Georgia carry permits and will shoot the ex-husband on sight if seen approaching them. Since the abusive ex has a restraining order already against him, I'd say he'd be able to make a case that such an act was justified since most abusers violating orders of protection aren't generally interested in idle chit-chat with the women they cowardly beat into a pulp.

Seriously. Just once I want to see a guest on one of these programs proudly announce they own a gun and will use it to defend their family from harm. If for no other reason to see the slack-jawed, horrified silence from the puff piece hosts at being confronted with a challenge to everything they think is proper and correct. I'd cheer.

Instead, I was yelling at the TV in my best Ron White impersonation, "You live in GEORGIA! Get a permit and get a gun!".

Heather Thompson, if you're out there and happen to stumble across this, good for you for not letting your scumbag, bully boy (he is not a man) ex-husband scare you out of your home. Then go here to see how to acquire a concealed firearm permit for your state, shop for appropriate self-defense firearms for you and your husband and learn how to use them. Should this man ever darken your doorstep and threaten you or your family again, you will have much better odds the next time around and hopefully never have to live in fear again.

Take control of your safety and your life. You don't need to live in fear. Especially not in Georgia. If anyone needs a concealed carry license and self-defense firearm, it's you.

Prepared for the Outback

Everyone loves gun porn, dog blogging, cute cat pics. But the best porn is when we combine them. So for a little light Friday enjoy, here some dingo gun porn...

Here, Foster is well-prepared for a home invasion or day on the range. Relaxing in comfort, his AR-15s and classic M1 Carbine are a paw's reach away. And when he's not waiting for the invading hordes of squirrels to invade his patio, he relaxes on the couch and enjoys some sci-fi with classic Heinlein and "Time Enough for Love", something every dingo needs.

Silly human, guns are for dingoes!

Great weekend everyone! I'm off sailing!

Hole in the Water

As promised, here she is...

One piece of trivia I've learned is that the District of Columbia has jurisdiction over the Potomac River. So vessels moored the majority of the time on the river must be registered in the District even if the owner or marina itself is not. The Washington Sailing Marina is in Virginia but all the boats there should bear District decals.

It also means that I cannot have, to my knowledge, any firearms aboard since that would run afoul of the District's gun laws. Fun stuff. I'm thrilled to be paying registration fees and title taxes to Mayor Fenty.

Here she is down below...

Looking down from the cockpit through the companionway.

Main cabin looking forward towards the V-berth/forepeak

Looking down at the port side main berth and galley area

Looking forward from the cockpit

And lastly, our neighbors in the slip next door

I think the turtles are a nice touch.

Dilemma No Longer Major

The dilemma discussed yesterday has been resolved.

My wife and I now the proud new owners of an O'Day 22!

The boat was absolutely beautiful and I do have pictures I can upload later (can't do it from where I am posting). I would argue you would be very hard pressed to find a 32 year old boat in this condition and especially at the price we purchased it for. You can look at it one of two ways:

• We bought the slip for $1800 and paid $1200 for the boat.
• We bought the boat for its fair high retail NADA value of $2600 and got the slip for $400.

Either way, a very good deal. I would have happily paid more.

In this case, the high retail value does apply. The exterior was dirty but other than a few localized cracks around the stays and shrouds, the gelcoat was in fine shape. Just needs a bath.

The interior was pristine. I do not use that word lightly or to indicate the owner had scrubbed it down to look clean. I mean everything down below was factory fresh. Not a crack, leak or major piece of wear in sight. Cushions were perfect, sails clean and white and all the wood trim in fine condition. I have never seen anything like it in a boat this age. This boat's interior would be at home at a boat show serving as the floor display model. It's that good.

The outboard runs fine, running rigging and exterior covers were typical. All that she needs is new bottom paint and we are scheduling to do that at the first available haul after the 4th of July so we can enjoy the Mall fireworks from the Potomac.

This is my second go-round at boat ownership. My first ended very badly. I used to own a Clipper Marine 26 my ex-wife and I had bought as a project boat needing restoration. We sailed to a marina on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay and proceeded to start work.

After a while, the reality of 55 mile one-way drives on hot weekends to work below at getting dry-rotted wood out of the interior began to take its toll. The hull and rigging were sound but the interior was a disaster due to persistent small water leaks. Over a period of two months, I managed to glass in most of the culprits but never truly eliminated them. What I expected to be a spring/summer project was never completed.

I kept paying the storage fees until I couldn't justify it anymore after almost three years and placed an ad for a free sailboat with outboard. When someone came to take it and I went to retrieve my well-cared for outboard from the on-site mechanic, I learned it had been stolen years prior. I was compensated but the fellow wanted the outboard and opted to not take the boat despite my begging to do so.

A company wound up taking it off my hands and I was glad to see it gone.

This was by the time my wife and I were dating and I resolved to learn from the experience. I vowed I didn't want a boat that required major work unless I could do it from my backyard or a short drive away. I'd rather pay for something that was ready to go just to avoid the hassle and difficulty. My wife felt the same way. We got that wish and more with our new acquisition.

I'm firmly of the belief that opportunities do come your way that are meant to be. Had I been a minute later on the Craigslist ad, I would not have gotten the boat. As you can imagine, the woman who was selling it had received considerable interest in it. I was fortunate enough to have refreshed my browser at that instant, see the new ad pop-up and rattle off an e-mail as fast as I could type it.

The strange thing in all this is the reaction of family, not friends. Friends are loving this. Family, with the exception of my mother, reacted along the lines of "You did WHAT?!?" when they found out we bought a boat. They launched into questions of what are you thinking, you don't know anything about boats and isn't it dangerous? They didn't know that I have sailed before and this isn't some monster yacht. You'd swear they though we were about to risk life and limb.

Sailing is one of the most peaceful activities I've ever engaged in. It is why the bug has never let go since I first started sailing back in 1999. Out there, the troubles of the world onshore and your own don't matter. That blur of green and brown in the distance might as well be another planet.

For me, the journey on the water matters more than the destination. I've been out for an hour and I've been out for a day. The results have always been the same. Nothing but my hand on the tiller, the sound of the wind in the sails and the gurgle of water across the hull. Nothing else matters. Think of it as interactive Zen.

This time I've done it right. The hardest temptation to resist will be to leave work early, shoot 20 minutes away to the marina and head out for an hour before I need to be home.

Here's looking forward to an incredible summer!

Major Dilemma

This is not about guns. But it is about an activity that makes current gun ownership costs seem pale by comparison.

Sailing.

This is a call for opinions from my three readers who might have an interest in sailing. For those of you not familiar with the topic, some definitions help:

Definition of boating: A hole in the water you throw money into.

Definition of sailing: The art of getting wet and ill going nowhere slowly at great expense.

With these definitions in mind, here is my dilemma...

I have an opportunity to acquire a sailboat. Despite traditionally being the worst time of the year to buy a boat (summer is typically a seller's market), the economy is making some very nice deals available. I have two boats available and I have to make a decision on one of them.

The first is an O'Day 22, a small trailer sailer. It lacks a trailer but is presently in the water in Washington, DC. The boat has been well cared for, includes a low hours Yamaha outboard and is in a slip paid until April of next year. Asking price with the paid slip included is $3000.

The second is a Tidewater 26, a fixed keel racer/cruiser. It is strictly an in-water boat and is presently in land storage in Annapolis. Likewise, this boat has been cared for, includes a good Yamaha outboard. The owner has had offers of $1600 but would be willing to take $2000 cash on the spot.

The appeal of the O'Day is locality. It is where we would like it to be. We would be 15-20 minutes from the marina so heading out to sail for the day is very convenient. And since it is in the water, it is literally and pay and play situation. Virtually no effort for me to buy today, sail tomorrow.

The downside to the O'Day is size. At 22 feet, it lacks full headroom in the cabin. With its short keel, it is really a light-to-medium conditions boat and ideal for the Potomac River. If we got a trailer over the next year, we could move it to the Chesapeake Bay at will but the Bay wouldn't be its best place. It would sail fine there but other boats would perform better in the Bay's usual conditions.

The appeal of the Tidewater 26 is cost and headroom. It has a full 6 feet down below and offers a couple of extra sails. Since it was designed on the Bay, it is well-suited for the conditions there and its sailing qualities, by all accounts, are near perfect. It is an enlarged version of the boat used to train naval cadets seamanship. At a potential low of $1600, it is a very good buy.

The downside is it is on land. I would need to get her prepped and launched (launch is included in the price) and then move her to a new slip. Slip rates are $1600/year and up for boats of this size. Figure $1800-$2000 and that is roughly what I would have to cough up immediately afterward to bring her to her new home.

I can move her into the Potomac but her sailing options would be more limited than the O'Day due to the deeper draft. There are several shallow shoals at low tide that its 4 1/2 foot draft couldn't handle. Plus it would take me 2-3 days at a minimum to sail her out of the Chesapeake and up the river to Washington DC.

But if I leave her in the Bay, I have all of the options the Bay has to offer. Leaving her on the Rhode or South Rivers, I'd have Annapolis an hour to the north, marinas and beaches all along the Western Shore and attractions on the Eastern shore 2-3 hours sailing away such as St. Michaels.

But my drive to get to the boat goes from a straight shot down the GW Parkway to a 40-50 minute drive to the Western Shore. I am specifically avoiding Annapolis and immediate vicinity to avoid weekend bridge traffic. Convenience and willingness to drive to sail for fun can become an issue.

My dilemma is which boat to buy? The O'Day 22 is $3000 and I'm off. Long-term, I could have issues with just feeling it is too small. My wife has liked the full headroom of the 26-28 foot boats we've looked at.

The Tidewater 26 is a little more pricey in running costs due to the extra length but is roomier and sails better. But it would be further away and my out-the-door costs will be between $3500 and $4000.

Help me out! Post advice in comments. Thanks!