Solstice 2010
Dear Ones:
OK. I am under orders this year. “Make it funny this time.” says my wife. Trying, Dear, honest I am. No pressure, or anything. What were the last 18 years, chopped liver? The close of yet another year, and the annual failure of the sun to show its face in the entire month of December, causes me to sit down and take stock, to reach out to friends old and new, and to piss off my supervisors. So, in that spirit, I will burden you all once again with my annual blast.
Where do I start? It was not a very funny year, unless you consider an economy in the crapper, gridlock in government, the utter death of civil discourse and principled disagreement funny. I guess the Civil War was a real laff-riot, by that standard. I do take some comfort in our history, as we HAVE endured worse than the present, but it seems hard to imagine that is even possible. Fortunately, we have comic relief at hand. Dancing With the Stars as a Conspiracy Theory…Plane trips for the lonely…touch my junk, PLEASE! Picturing Christine O’Donnell as a US Senator…Now that’s funny, right there…The latest election results have left us with a lame duck Congress, though I don’t know how to characterize them before that. Three legged turtle? Giant slug? Lame excuse? WTF?? They got nothing done then, and it will only get worse. We have tax breaks for the wealthy, but we just don’t have universal health coverage, a Nuclear Arms Treaty with Russia, or an end to our entanglements in the longest war in our history.
We finally moved in January into our 3rd and last Pacific NW house, in Anacortes. It has a view that inspires “view envy”, and suits us very nicely in terms of space and flow. Catherine was so certain she didn’t want to live here, that she hadn’t even noticed that it has a nice walk-in shower, or that there were skylights. She only noticed that I loved it, and that was enough to start the campaign NOT to buy it. Then, when we finally DID buy it, she fell heavily in love with it, and has never looked back. To the point that it was obviously her idea all along. So the shower and skylights came in the form of a surprise bonus. Of course, the two downstairs bedrooms with views became her sewing room and office, but I have made a very passable man-cave out of my windowless storage room, and I don’t ever want to move again. We have spent the year fixing up minor things needing fixing, and meeting a few neighbors, most all of whom put their houses on the market and moved out, the week after we moved in. “Oh, shit, there goes the neighborhood,” they apparently said. Sorry to have touched off a slide in housing prices locally, but you get what you get, whenever Robertses move in next to you. They hadn’t even waited for the Elvis in a Bathtub lawn ornament to arrive.
Catherine has continued her more-than full time work with Quilts of Valor Foundation, promoting the cause, running the website, and producing videos of veterans receiving and even sewing quilts. She even quilts a bit herself, from time to time. She gets up early to begin interacting with east coast types during their workday, and knocks off in time for “Judge Judy” every afternoon. She says watching that show is just like going to law school, she is learning so much. Had I but known…I could have saved myself a lot of work and trouble. I get home from working nights just as she gets going, so we hot swap the bed like migrant workers in a shotgun shack, but it seems to work for us. Check out her site at www.QOVF.org, and again, consider a tax-deductible year-end donation. She has remained physically active to a remarkable extent, doing five-mile walk-runs at our local (very hilly) park, and serving as an inspiration and goad to me. Yee-haw—easy on the spurs, there, cowgirl.
Michele is still being a super-cool mommy in Columbus, OH, raisin’ young-uns Jack and Lily, now 5 and 3. They are, of course, slightly cuter than your grandkids, but not much, so don’t hold that against us. She is doing local triathalons, livin’ the dream, and still hasn’t discovered that they need to move out here, despite our best efforts to enlighten them. Husband Eric is still flying—he even gave me a lesson, on their visit out here this year. We rented a Cessna 172 and flew around the islands here. Very cool. It was wonderful having the grandkiddles out for a visit—we flew kites, planes, they did Seattle, all in a whirlwind week.
Nathanael is now doing physical training of Marines and their families at Camp Pendleton, north of San Diego. As a Civilian, I hasten to add. He was recently promoted to manager, so he is discovering the joys of herding cats. He loves southern Cal, his rowdy boxer dog Kirby, who loves to leap through plate glass windows, and civilian life. He may soon be doing some more schooling on his hard-earned GI benefits.
Hannah remains in the Navy, stationed in Honolulu, on the destroyer USS Grace Hopper, DDG-70. She will be deployed again this spring to the Persian Gulf, by then as a Lieutenant, j.g. You can see a video feature of her Navy training in hostile ship boarding and pirate fighting on this link, broadcast on Honolulu TV: http://www.kitv.com/video/25680436/detail.html
She has been running a lot, again competing in the Cuyamaca 100 mile trail race, and nearly breaking 24 hours this time. She ran a race in Hawaii called the Peacock 54, and nearly won it outright, but was caught in the last two miles by a dude, and came in second overall, first among women, and setting a female course record. If she is a chip off the old block, I wanna meet the block, because it wasn’t me.
Everett graduated from St. John’s College on a lovely Annapolis spring day in May, and then spent the summer in Boston working for a Maine Medicaid contractor. Life as Dilbert, and Boston generally didn’t suit, so he returned to the District of Columbia, where Aunt Margaret graciously let him crash in her basement, until he could find an apartment. That turns out to be harder to find in D.C. than one might imagine, so he has remained crashed there for several months, but may have found a spot of his own as we speak. He remains uncertain of his next move, but is doing the hand-to-mouth thing waiting tables at a vegetarian restaurant. Since every joke deriving from this juxtaposition of College Education and Waiting Tables is already printed on T-shirts, and available today with free shipping at www.fouryearswasted.com , I will spare you, even though I am under orders.
As for me, I am feeling a little more settled in life in general. These past two years of change have proved, uh, challenging. I am finally starting to feel a little confidence come back, a feeling that maybe this move to this job is not just a passing fling, nor my worst mistake ever. I reckoned that it would take at least two years to become comfortable, and that has been about right. I am still not feeling up to wearing bow ties, and you needn’t fear my falling into complacency, because as an honors graduate of Suxtobee U., I know that things can blow up in your face in a quick minute. But as time has gone on, and there has been no “boom,” I have begun to feel less and less like the proverbial long-tailed cat in a roomful of rocking chairs¬¬¬¬¬. I am a Manx cat instead—no tail left at all after my last encounter with the rocking chairs. I guess insecurity is the way of the world, these days especially, though honestly, I have arrived at the Zen understanding, that security is really just an illusion we spin to let ourselves get some sleep at night. Or in the daytime, as the case may be. Anyway, to distract myself, and to keep up with my wife, I have returned to running a bit, doing a flat 4-mile jog in 36 minutes or so a couple-a-few times a week, and rowing on my old rowing machine when the weather sours. I just took a SCUBA refresher course, updating my 1969 YMCA certification. The instructors took a hard look at my tattered card, with Jacques-Yves Cousteau’s signature on it, and let me do the update, instead of the whole course. Now I can dive with Hannah in HI, when we visit in January. My next self-improvement project is to finish my private pilot license. I know, you have heard that one before, but this time I really mean it…
Meanwhile, we are dogless for the first time in forever. Not my druthers, but whatever. You will recall that I sought forgiveness, rather than asking permission last year, and got a bulldog puppy named Max. He and Tory, the Jack Russell, formed my “Pack”, the only organization of which I was top dog. But Max and the real top dog of the house did not get along so well. He did have a problem with coughing and barfing up dinner from time to time, and was better, but not cured, after surgery. So he was banished to “somewhere else,” and I found a new home for him with a family I know from work. Actually, he is leading the life of Riley, with teens to play with, and will soon be the mascot of the Mt. Vernon High School Bulldogs. But Tory took it hard, perhaps seeing that she, too, was expendable. She became morose, and started tearing things up in apparent frustration and depression. So she went home to Buffalo with Grandma Joan, and things have been better for her, too. Mom seems to have taken to having her own dog extremely well, and Catherine revels aloud in the newfound freedom nearly daily. So I guess it is for the best. I did parlay her momentary pang of guilt into the purchase (with permission, not forgiveness) of a small orange Catalina trailer sailboat, now named “Kumquat”, because it is small and orange. That has given me many happy hours ‘simply messing about in boats.’ As you all know, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, half so worth doing as simply messing about in boats. (homage a’ Kenneth Graham)
I do continue to work at the retail level, serving the general public in the E.D. “E.D.” doesn’t sound so good anymore, ever since the moniker was stolen by the marketers of Viagra. We may or may not suffer from ED, but we suffer in the ED, and also work there. Maybe we will go back to calling ourselves the “ER” again, or even “Accident Room.” Alas, no, we are now the “Convenience and No Up Front Payment Allowed Room,” (CANUFPAR) Not too catchy. That is actually fine with me, because I know that the number of true emergencies is small, and we would be making minimum wage, if emergencies were all that came in to see us. So bless ‘em all, bless ‘em all. Bring your nephew and cousins too. We need you. Still can’t fix a cold, but by gosh, we can prescribe Percocet® and unnecessary antibiotics. We really do need to get over ourselves, and embrace the modern realities of customers replacing patients, and market forces determining our very survival. We spend hours strategizing how to get our satisfaction scores into the high 90th percentiles, which basically boils down to resorting to the tactics used by car dealers. “Now after you leave here today, you may get a survey. It is very important to us that you feel you have had the best possible treatment. Is there anything additional I can do for you to make you feel comfortable rating us as a “5”? Out of work the rest of your life? Lifetime supply of Percocet, and a Medical Marijuana certification?” No worries, we got you covered. But every hospital has the same goal, being in the 90’s, so pretty soon, they are slicing and dicing the thirty responses we get monthly so finely, that one single “4” in the mix leaves us high and dry. We can’t ALL be above average, except in Lake Wobegon. But try we must. At least all the women are strong, and the men are good looking.
At least the patients don’t change much. Each one is unique and beautiful, like a snowflake. The trouble is, when you are driving in a blizzard, the unique beauty of each is not on your radar. They all know what they want, and I have it. I wish it were otherwise, since desire for controlled substances is a pox on the doctor patient relationship, as it ought to exist. In that fantasy, they come with a problem, state it truthfully, and I listen, examine, test, formulate a reasonable plan, present it to them, write appropriate prescriptions, and maybe make them better. But you do get better stories in the current reality. People come from out of town, out of meds, or robbed, or their dog ate their prescription. They come with packets of x-rays from faraway places, drop names of famous doctors I never heard of. They walk in in groups, stub out their cigarettes in the vestibule, commence to limp, and check in separately from their significant others, who also have pain complaints. They deny knowing each other, even though the front-staff see them come in together, but give the same P.O. Box address to the registrar. Then they compare notes and scripts on the way out. The latest was a woman who cried big tears, literally a bad-mascara performance, saying she had come from Arizona to take care of her sister, who had just died of breast cancer, and she would be stuck in the area another week, out of her Oxycodone. A call to the listed doctor revealed she had a sister alive and well back home, and a history of drug diversion and addiction a mile long. She is not likely to rate me a 5 on her survey, but I will deal with that when the complaint letter comes.
The biggest difference here, compared to back East, is the heavy presence of gang activity, and resulting hyper-acute medical needs. Despite our small town appearance, we see an impressive number of gunshot wounds, often involving teens. What is no different is that none of my patients has any idea who shot them, or why anyone would ever want to do that. Never mind the tats from head to toe, the bad haircuts, the doe-eyed innocence, and the rap sheets. They were minding their own business when the dude opened up on them. And he might just be in the mood to finish the unfinished business. We go on lockdown a few times per year. The hospital then turns into a Roach Hotel…you can check in, but you can’t check out.
I must pause, as always, to acknowledge the passing of a few notables from our midst, to wit: Jill Clayburgh, actress extraordinaire, Barbara Billingsley, Beaver’s mom, Leslie Nielson, of Airplane et. al., Johnny Sheffield, “Boy” in the Tarzan movies of my youth, and Tony Curtis, who needs no introduction. Lena Horne and Mississippi Slim have left us blue, and Fess Parker (Davey Crockett) has had his Alamo. He made some damn good wine in his later years, by the way. Robert Culp, the cool sidekick of Bill Cosby in “I Spy” has gone, and John Wooden, old-school UCLA basketball coach, is no more. I miss the days when players who committed a foul had to hold up their hand to acknowledge it, and I am sure Coach Wooden would have agreed. And who would imagine that JD Salinger was still with us until this year, but he was. I am re-reading Catcher in the Rye in celebration. Ted Sorensen lived a charmed life in Camelot, and Dan Rostenkowski lived large, but fell from grace into felony. And as a green scrub-clad ‘Gumby’ myself, I must note the passing of Art Clokey, Gumby’s creator.
And so, dear friends and friends of my friends, and administrators, into whose hands these words inadvertently fall, I wish you peace which passeth understanding, inclusion into the tax bracket favored by the current regime, courage to do right, as you understand the right to be, and success in all your endeavors. Let us talk through our differences, but accept each other without question, as valued friends, despite our disagreements. Let us circle against the forces of darkness, hunker together around the flickering flames of reason, and turn our backs to the long night of superstition and anxiety. Dark times are indeed upon us, but the return of light, and warmth, and exhibition baseball are not far away. Take heart, remain shoulder to shoulder, and do not falter in your resolve to do better. We must do better.
Oh, shit. That wasn’t funny. Never mind, there is always next year.
Cheers, Love, Best,
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Veterans' Day
At the end of World War I, the war to end all wars, on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, the world paused to celebrate the dawn of peace. It was a brief peace, to be sure, but at the time, it seemed full of hope. The day was “Armistice Day”, but later became “Veterans’ Day”, in recognition of the sacrifices made by the serving members of the Armed Forces. Congress ultimately dedicated the day in that spirit, in 1938, twenty years after the end of the First War, and under the shadow of the beginning of the Second World War.
Today we celebrate the sacrifices of our service members in many wars, and in keeping the peace in between. The day has never been more important, more vital, or more necessary than today. We are engaged now in wars which have lasted longer than any prior war, fought by veterans who have deployed further, and longer than any of their ancestors. We have failed our veterans returning from previous wars, from Korea, the forgotten war, to Viet Nam, the unpopular war, and we are determined not to repeat that shameful past. Politics aside, our veterans go where they are ordered, do what they must, and deserve our most heartfelt thanks. The stress they undergo to leave family, friends, career and country, to fight for us, is beyond civilian capacity to comprehend. The debt we owe them is beyond reckoning. Join us in honoring them, for doing what few would do, what must be done, by the best of us. We are forever in their debt, and a day of honor does not even come close to repayment.
Today we celebrate the sacrifices of our service members in many wars, and in keeping the peace in between. The day has never been more important, more vital, or more necessary than today. We are engaged now in wars which have lasted longer than any prior war, fought by veterans who have deployed further, and longer than any of their ancestors. We have failed our veterans returning from previous wars, from Korea, the forgotten war, to Viet Nam, the unpopular war, and we are determined not to repeat that shameful past. Politics aside, our veterans go where they are ordered, do what they must, and deserve our most heartfelt thanks. The stress they undergo to leave family, friends, career and country, to fight for us, is beyond civilian capacity to comprehend. The debt we owe them is beyond reckoning. Join us in honoring them, for doing what few would do, what must be done, by the best of us. We are forever in their debt, and a day of honor does not even come close to repayment.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Landscape of the Olfactory
Ahhh, that smell--
That complex and swirling mixture,
Which clings to my nose-hairs, and
Burrows into my palate,
Only to seep out later,
And reassert itself,
Rude bully, shouldering by whatever
I was doing, to knock me
Backwards into that place again,
It comes to my nose
in varying proportions of
Diesel smoke, rain on grime-spattered pavement,
Ordure, sweat-varnished clothing,
Earthworm, Frying meat, wet newsprint,
Decaying animal carcass, burnt brake lining,
Vegetable oil cooked to motor oil, Urine,
Spices named and unnameable,
Cigarette ash, and the ozone belch of a
Subway tunnel.
It is death, and life, and sex and waste,
Food and excretion, exertion, enterprise,
Fear, failure and pain,
An ice-pick stab through a moment
In the archeology of the present.
It is the City.
It is a landscape of the Olfactory,
Knowable only to dogs, or to the blind.
It is hills and valleys, paths and dells of scent,
Secret places where gatherings happen
Again and again, and move apart on separate paths.
It is rough, dense patches,
Where one must go slowly, to sort out the trails,
And where confusion is the only possible emotion.
It is pristine meadows of sunlit odor, untrammeled,
Untouched, and seemingly without end,
Causing joy without explanation,
And without need of any.
It is disgust, and sadness, and pain of what was,
Or could have been.
That complex and swirling mixture,
Which clings to my nose-hairs, and
Burrows into my palate,
Only to seep out later,
And reassert itself,
Rude bully, shouldering by whatever
I was doing, to knock me
Backwards into that place again,
It comes to my nose
in varying proportions of
Diesel smoke, rain on grime-spattered pavement,
Ordure, sweat-varnished clothing,
Earthworm, Frying meat, wet newsprint,
Decaying animal carcass, burnt brake lining,
Vegetable oil cooked to motor oil, Urine,
Spices named and unnameable,
Cigarette ash, and the ozone belch of a
Subway tunnel.
It is death, and life, and sex and waste,
Food and excretion, exertion, enterprise,
Fear, failure and pain,
An ice-pick stab through a moment
In the archeology of the present.
It is the City.
It is a landscape of the Olfactory,
Knowable only to dogs, or to the blind.
It is hills and valleys, paths and dells of scent,
Secret places where gatherings happen
Again and again, and move apart on separate paths.
It is rough, dense patches,
Where one must go slowly, to sort out the trails,
And where confusion is the only possible emotion.
It is pristine meadows of sunlit odor, untrammeled,
Untouched, and seemingly without end,
Causing joy without explanation,
And without need of any.
It is disgust, and sadness, and pain of what was,
Or could have been.
Tuesday, April 06, 2010
Sea Duty
There are people in this world who belong to a tribe called “The Snowbirds”, who travel by boat up and down the east coast of the US along the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW). They do this twice yearly, moving north in spring to the cooler climes and away from the hurricanes, and then south again in autumn, to escape the snows. They are, in fact, masochist nutbags. When you talk to one of them, they seem normal enough, talking about the marvels of the sea, and famous passages they have made, but don’t be fooled. You don’t understand what they must do, to what obsessive lengths they will travel, in pursuit of their “lifestyle”. And furthermore, if one ever asks you to come along as a crewmember, do not, I repeat, do not accept the offer. Back away smiling, and when at a safe distance, turn and walk quickly away. Running only excites them to give chase. Ignore letters and post cards, change your email address if necessary, engage call blocking and start screening all your calls before picking up, but don’t ever get on a boat with one of them. I had often heard the knowing tales of their serene passages, and thought I might like to do that. It is, indeed, a once in a lifetime experience, because normal people would never be stupid enough to do it twice. So let me save you some serious heartache, many bruises and scrapes, and reduce your chance of drowning, hypothermia, seasickness and skin cancer, merely by reading my cautionary tale…
As many of you know, I have a trawler boat, quite stout and spacious, but slow and serene. It goes a maximum of ten knots, (nautical miles, equal to a second of latitude on the earth’s surface), better known to you as eleven mph. For short cruises on the Chesapeake Bay, in good weather, with friends and family aboard, it is a marvelous time-and-money waster. But now imagine covering two thirds of the length of the Eastern Seaboard at that speed. I once drove to Miami from Cincinnati, about an equal distance, and after a whole 20 hours of driving at expressway speed, I felt pretty great when I saw the Florida state line. Then I kept going and going and going, and Miami was still 12 hours away. Now imagine that same trip, except you are in a big van, which is only able to go 11 mph. The speed limit is frequently posted at 6 mph, so then you have to take your time. Oh, and by the way, it has square wheels, so you are constantly being bashed about the driver’s compartment. And there is no road, just invisible hazards, sometimes marked by signs, sometimes not, so you have to go from hazard to hazard, using a compass. You are often not 100% sure of your exact location, and you have to do some plotting and planning not to run into things. This van is kind of a bitch to steer, and wanders all about, if you do not pay constant attention to your course. There are even larger vehicles, hundreds of feet long, and much faster, which would squash you and your boat like a bug on a windshield if you ever collided, and they materialize on the horizon and are upon you within 10 minutes. So you have to avoid them, while missing the many hidden hazards. Every now and then, someone throws a bucket of cold seawater on you. And oh, yes, forgot to mention, you cannot stop to pee or eat a meal. You gotta keep going, and do those things, and all other things, while being tossed about, and maintaining course. Now you are starting to understand.
We moved to Washington State from Delaware, and are finally getting around to getting the boat shipped out to us on the West Coast. This requires a journey by ship, through the Panama Canal, to Vancouver, BC. The only loading port in the East is Ft. Lauderdale, so I had to move the boat from near Annapolis to Ft. Lauderdale. I scheduled two weeks off to get this done, hoping for some reasonable weather at some point in the two weeks, to allow this to happen. I convinced a friend here to come along as mate, when my wife, who is no dummy, said she would not go. So we flew out to Baltimore, and were met by my son, who dutifully drove us to Sam’s Club for provisions, and deposited us on board. I had cold water immersion suits delivered that AM for the unthinkable outcome of a sinking, bought a new EPIRB emergency radio beacon, for the same possibility, and we were off. We spent a day stowing things, fixing last minute issues, and pulled out the next day, into the Chesapeake. The weather was fine, and we had a fair passage, and pulled up into a shallow creek for an anchorage. Next day, we pulled up the anchor, and continued on to Norfolk, past the Naval Station, and its line of huge gray warships, and into the start of the ICW. We motored along through rivers, and then perfectly straight ditches, to connect to the next river system. We entered the only lock on the system, and were lifted into the long middle portion of the waterway. Now these rivers are not rivers at all, but large, shallow bays. They were once narrow little rivers, until the ocean level rose 60 feet or so at the end of the last ice age, and these became drowned river valleys, now the Chesapeake Bay, the Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds, and the Alligator River. The Alligator is about 6 feet deep, except in the channel, where it is 13-18 or so. But a little bit of wind can kick up a fierce set of waves in a hurry, as we soon realized. In the Alligator, we were only a couple of miles from shelter, when my left engine indicated no oil pressure. A diesel with no oil will turn itself into a big box of smoking scrap iron in minutes, so I went below to shut it down, but it wouldn't stop. I took it out of gear at dead idle, and continued to try to stop the engine. Finally, it stopped. But the prop kept windmilling in the flow from the other engine driving us onward, and the propeller shaft seal started to overheat, as it requires cooling water from its own running engine to lubricate it. So I had to kill the other. I went to drop the anchor, but the windlass was also a non-starter, now pegging the problem as electrical and not mechanical. No oil slick in the water, none in the drain pan, and no smoke. The oil level dipped normal. I dropped the secondary anchor by hand, on a rope rode. Just then the predicted storm ran through, with a 50 kt gust front, and then steady 35kt winds all night. I am glad we had anchored, because the lea shore just two miles away was not pretty. We were in 13 foot depths only, with the bottom shelving up to 6 feet in a half mile or so. The waves were 3-8 feet, with breakers every few minutes. I placed a cellphone call to Aric, my mechanic, to trouble shoot, and he says, "you know, we just changed the port battery, maybe a connection is bad there." A quick check revealed a dead port battery, and a barely connected negative lead, with stripped battery terminal stud. A search in the basement finally brought up a spare battery terminal, and I put it on, cinched it on good, and then powered up the generator, and the battery took a charge. Now the engine will start, the stop solenoid and other electricals will work. I went forward to the pitching, heaving bow in driving spray to recover the anchor and get the hell out of dodge. No dice. Too much wind. We weather-vaned around the anchor rode, and tangled the rode in our props, so that we were anchored by the stern, and taking huge waves over the starboard quarter (right rear). I dropped the primary anchor in a lump, in case the secondary chafed through, so we didn't blow onshore We did come up on the primary anchor and its chain, eventually, as the secondary had lost 50-plus feet of scope (its effective length of rope) by running down the length of the boat and tangling around the prop, and so the secondary anchor began dragging. I had a chain hook and shock line out on the primary, but it probably shook off in the violent rolling we were doing. Anyway, in the middle of the night, there was a crash, and the anchor pulpit pulled completely away from the bow, and ran down the chain, acting as a catenary weight. A call to Tow Boat US produced a promise of a boat and diver in the AM, but we were stuck to ride it out for the night. Dawn brought light to the chaos, but it is still blowing fairly hard, and we were stuck with awaiting our rescuers. A Tow Boat US boat arrived from three hours away, bearing a diver named Catfish, who donned a dry diving suit, a SCUBA tank, and dropped himself into the tea-colored water. We followed his bubbles from above. He buoyed our anchor, cut the rode, and untangled our props. Then we then disentangled the broken pulpit from the primary, and winched the whole mess up. I tied that on deck, raised the primary anchor and secured it, fired up the engines, and feeling no vibrations on a progressive RPM test, we motored on our way. We went to the nearest marina to consider our situation, and try to reclaim some order from the mess. After disassembling the broken platform and striking it below, I rigged up a makeshift spare anchor, so we could at least proceed with some safety, though our nose was definitely bloodied. We set out the next AM, and get to an advertised marina, but all was closed, as it was Sunday night, so we just pulled up to a fuel dock, tied up for the night, and departed Monday morning. On a routine maintenance round that AM, I checked the transmission oil, and found it looked muddy. It was now a seawater-oil emulsion, due to a leak in a heat exchanger coil in the transmission oil cooler. Seawater and transmissions are a bad combination, so I had stop and repair that immediately. I called Caterpillar Inc. by cellphone as we were underway, and they fired the parts via UPS to a marina ahead of us, in Wrightsville Beach, NC. I spent the next whole day pulling the housing from the transmission cooler, removing the old coil, scraping away ancient gaskets, sanding the faces and reassembling the unit, and then re-installing it. Then I did multiple fillings and emptyings of 30-weight oil, to remove the last of the seawater in the tranny. By this time, I had bruises all over me, and no skin on any knuckle, after hanging upside down in the bilge, and turning wrenches for an entire day. However, the repair was good, with no leaks, and clean tranny oil, finally.
So once again, we departed, full of hope and optimism, that we could handle whatever might come. A day in the ditch again got us a free Coast Guard inspection, which went well. Very friendly and professional, actually. We are the US Government, we are here to help… We restarted, now with our inspection certificate, and headed for Myrtle Beach, on the NC-SC border. We were proceeding slowly through some dicey shoal areas, when we suddenly lurched forward in 9 feet of water, as if grounded, and stalled the left engine. Had I hit an encroaching sand bank? Why had the depth sounders not showed anything? Not sure, but there was now vibration in the engine which was not there before, so maybe I had bent a prop or shaft. Argh. Things looked normal below, so we poked along slowly, feeling for problems. The guide book showed a marina with a large enough boatlift ahead, and I called them and secured a promise of a short haul in the morning, so I could check for damage. They pulled us up, and there was a piece of rope from a crab pot, I assume, wrapped around the shaft, and thrashing the paint off the rudder and bottom. We cut it off in no time, and hammered a ding in the edge of the prop flat, and we were off again, much relieved and ready for sea duty.
By now we had had enough of the “ditch”, so we headed out of Little River Inlet, and out to the open Atlantic. We had 500 miles ahead of us, but no speed limits, no bridges, and precious little navigating to do, except to hold a course for hours at a time. What a relief. The sea was blue, the weather forecast fair for the next 4 days, and our prospects finally started to look positive. However, we were out of cell phone range, and likely out of VHF radio range as well, at sixty miles offshore, so we were truly on our own. The smudge of smog which marked the shore receded out of sight, and we were alone on an azure sea. We watched the sun set, and took snapshots. I stood watch the first night from sundown to almost dawn. In the middle of the night, however, the autopilot began cranking the rudders hard right, initiating a circle course, and would not stop doing that. I cut the power, and we were now down to hand steering. Then I found the reason why--the port battery, which had previously failed, was failing to charge. The alternator was apparently toast, and so multiple electrical systems began to fail. Now we all know that electricity and water do not get along. A boat is just a complicated interface for facilitating that very interaction, and only evil can ever hope to happen. It is just a matter of when. You can be agnostic with respect to electricity, but you cannot remain an atheist. I don’t profess to understand electricity, but I can assure you it exists. This has been demonstrated to me on more than one occasion. Anyway, we headed more toward shore while pondering the possible solutions, but I decided to fire up the generator and charge the battery independently of the engines, and life returned to all but the autopilot. “Otto” remained on strike for the rest of the journey. We proceeded south again, after a council of war, and my first mate was game to continue on, bless his heart. So we motored on through dark to dawn, through the next day and night, watching the numbers change on the latitude indicator on the GPS, but seeing no land and no boats for more than 40 hours. At one point, we noticed the depth sounder just showed dashed lines instead of numbers. Arghhh! Had another piece of gear failed? No, not this time. Turns out it only reads to 600 feet, and we were in 3000 foot waters. We were in the deep end of the pool. We did see the lovely phosphorescent wake, unbelievable night stars, and in the daytime, we had the company of dolphins, and passed large sea turtles basking, a large hammerhead shark, and countless flying fish. The wind piped up a bit the second night, and we had a much more rock and roll ride, making walking and steering difficult, but we motored on. The first visible land in two days was Cape Canaveral, reached at 11 PM, and then we got quite close by Palm Beach, the next morning. We could again cell-phone anxious spouses, and rejoin the world. Finally, we watched the coast wheel by ever-so-slowly, and arrived at Ft. Lauderdale, at about 4 PM. We pulled in to an amazing parade of pleasure and huge commercial traffic, and found a marina. Ft. Lauderdale is a city of canals and boats, at least in part, and we enjoyed it very much. But we had work to do to get the boat buttoned up for the next leg of its trip, by large steel ship. At last, we had all the chores done, and boarded a cab for the airport, flying home about 3 times as far as we had just come in a week, in only 7 hours.
So the deed is done, and I am back, slowly shedding scabs from my knuckles, and peeling skin from my sunburned arms and legs. My wife is congratulating herself on dodging this bullet, and I am just glad my once in a lifetime experience is over. My first mate reports the one good thing to come out of it for him is that he had formerly thought of retiring onto a boat, but is now thoroughly cured of that. Smart guy...
As many of you know, I have a trawler boat, quite stout and spacious, but slow and serene. It goes a maximum of ten knots, (nautical miles, equal to a second of latitude on the earth’s surface), better known to you as eleven mph. For short cruises on the Chesapeake Bay, in good weather, with friends and family aboard, it is a marvelous time-and-money waster. But now imagine covering two thirds of the length of the Eastern Seaboard at that speed. I once drove to Miami from Cincinnati, about an equal distance, and after a whole 20 hours of driving at expressway speed, I felt pretty great when I saw the Florida state line. Then I kept going and going and going, and Miami was still 12 hours away. Now imagine that same trip, except you are in a big van, which is only able to go 11 mph. The speed limit is frequently posted at 6 mph, so then you have to take your time. Oh, and by the way, it has square wheels, so you are constantly being bashed about the driver’s compartment. And there is no road, just invisible hazards, sometimes marked by signs, sometimes not, so you have to go from hazard to hazard, using a compass. You are often not 100% sure of your exact location, and you have to do some plotting and planning not to run into things. This van is kind of a bitch to steer, and wanders all about, if you do not pay constant attention to your course. There are even larger vehicles, hundreds of feet long, and much faster, which would squash you and your boat like a bug on a windshield if you ever collided, and they materialize on the horizon and are upon you within 10 minutes. So you have to avoid them, while missing the many hidden hazards. Every now and then, someone throws a bucket of cold seawater on you. And oh, yes, forgot to mention, you cannot stop to pee or eat a meal. You gotta keep going, and do those things, and all other things, while being tossed about, and maintaining course. Now you are starting to understand.
We moved to Washington State from Delaware, and are finally getting around to getting the boat shipped out to us on the West Coast. This requires a journey by ship, through the Panama Canal, to Vancouver, BC. The only loading port in the East is Ft. Lauderdale, so I had to move the boat from near Annapolis to Ft. Lauderdale. I scheduled two weeks off to get this done, hoping for some reasonable weather at some point in the two weeks, to allow this to happen. I convinced a friend here to come along as mate, when my wife, who is no dummy, said she would not go. So we flew out to Baltimore, and were met by my son, who dutifully drove us to Sam’s Club for provisions, and deposited us on board. I had cold water immersion suits delivered that AM for the unthinkable outcome of a sinking, bought a new EPIRB emergency radio beacon, for the same possibility, and we were off. We spent a day stowing things, fixing last minute issues, and pulled out the next day, into the Chesapeake. The weather was fine, and we had a fair passage, and pulled up into a shallow creek for an anchorage. Next day, we pulled up the anchor, and continued on to Norfolk, past the Naval Station, and its line of huge gray warships, and into the start of the ICW. We motored along through rivers, and then perfectly straight ditches, to connect to the next river system. We entered the only lock on the system, and were lifted into the long middle portion of the waterway. Now these rivers are not rivers at all, but large, shallow bays. They were once narrow little rivers, until the ocean level rose 60 feet or so at the end of the last ice age, and these became drowned river valleys, now the Chesapeake Bay, the Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds, and the Alligator River. The Alligator is about 6 feet deep, except in the channel, where it is 13-18 or so. But a little bit of wind can kick up a fierce set of waves in a hurry, as we soon realized. In the Alligator, we were only a couple of miles from shelter, when my left engine indicated no oil pressure. A diesel with no oil will turn itself into a big box of smoking scrap iron in minutes, so I went below to shut it down, but it wouldn't stop. I took it out of gear at dead idle, and continued to try to stop the engine. Finally, it stopped. But the prop kept windmilling in the flow from the other engine driving us onward, and the propeller shaft seal started to overheat, as it requires cooling water from its own running engine to lubricate it. So I had to kill the other. I went to drop the anchor, but the windlass was also a non-starter, now pegging the problem as electrical and not mechanical. No oil slick in the water, none in the drain pan, and no smoke. The oil level dipped normal. I dropped the secondary anchor by hand, on a rope rode. Just then the predicted storm ran through, with a 50 kt gust front, and then steady 35kt winds all night. I am glad we had anchored, because the lea shore just two miles away was not pretty. We were in 13 foot depths only, with the bottom shelving up to 6 feet in a half mile or so. The waves were 3-8 feet, with breakers every few minutes. I placed a cellphone call to Aric, my mechanic, to trouble shoot, and he says, "you know, we just changed the port battery, maybe a connection is bad there." A quick check revealed a dead port battery, and a barely connected negative lead, with stripped battery terminal stud. A search in the basement finally brought up a spare battery terminal, and I put it on, cinched it on good, and then powered up the generator, and the battery took a charge. Now the engine will start, the stop solenoid and other electricals will work. I went forward to the pitching, heaving bow in driving spray to recover the anchor and get the hell out of dodge. No dice. Too much wind. We weather-vaned around the anchor rode, and tangled the rode in our props, so that we were anchored by the stern, and taking huge waves over the starboard quarter (right rear). I dropped the primary anchor in a lump, in case the secondary chafed through, so we didn't blow onshore We did come up on the primary anchor and its chain, eventually, as the secondary had lost 50-plus feet of scope (its effective length of rope) by running down the length of the boat and tangling around the prop, and so the secondary anchor began dragging. I had a chain hook and shock line out on the primary, but it probably shook off in the violent rolling we were doing. Anyway, in the middle of the night, there was a crash, and the anchor pulpit pulled completely away from the bow, and ran down the chain, acting as a catenary weight. A call to Tow Boat US produced a promise of a boat and diver in the AM, but we were stuck to ride it out for the night. Dawn brought light to the chaos, but it is still blowing fairly hard, and we were stuck with awaiting our rescuers. A Tow Boat US boat arrived from three hours away, bearing a diver named Catfish, who donned a dry diving suit, a SCUBA tank, and dropped himself into the tea-colored water. We followed his bubbles from above. He buoyed our anchor, cut the rode, and untangled our props. Then we then disentangled the broken pulpit from the primary, and winched the whole mess up. I tied that on deck, raised the primary anchor and secured it, fired up the engines, and feeling no vibrations on a progressive RPM test, we motored on our way. We went to the nearest marina to consider our situation, and try to reclaim some order from the mess. After disassembling the broken platform and striking it below, I rigged up a makeshift spare anchor, so we could at least proceed with some safety, though our nose was definitely bloodied. We set out the next AM, and get to an advertised marina, but all was closed, as it was Sunday night, so we just pulled up to a fuel dock, tied up for the night, and departed Monday morning. On a routine maintenance round that AM, I checked the transmission oil, and found it looked muddy. It was now a seawater-oil emulsion, due to a leak in a heat exchanger coil in the transmission oil cooler. Seawater and transmissions are a bad combination, so I had stop and repair that immediately. I called Caterpillar Inc. by cellphone as we were underway, and they fired the parts via UPS to a marina ahead of us, in Wrightsville Beach, NC. I spent the next whole day pulling the housing from the transmission cooler, removing the old coil, scraping away ancient gaskets, sanding the faces and reassembling the unit, and then re-installing it. Then I did multiple fillings and emptyings of 30-weight oil, to remove the last of the seawater in the tranny. By this time, I had bruises all over me, and no skin on any knuckle, after hanging upside down in the bilge, and turning wrenches for an entire day. However, the repair was good, with no leaks, and clean tranny oil, finally.
So once again, we departed, full of hope and optimism, that we could handle whatever might come. A day in the ditch again got us a free Coast Guard inspection, which went well. Very friendly and professional, actually. We are the US Government, we are here to help… We restarted, now with our inspection certificate, and headed for Myrtle Beach, on the NC-SC border. We were proceeding slowly through some dicey shoal areas, when we suddenly lurched forward in 9 feet of water, as if grounded, and stalled the left engine. Had I hit an encroaching sand bank? Why had the depth sounders not showed anything? Not sure, but there was now vibration in the engine which was not there before, so maybe I had bent a prop or shaft. Argh. Things looked normal below, so we poked along slowly, feeling for problems. The guide book showed a marina with a large enough boatlift ahead, and I called them and secured a promise of a short haul in the morning, so I could check for damage. They pulled us up, and there was a piece of rope from a crab pot, I assume, wrapped around the shaft, and thrashing the paint off the rudder and bottom. We cut it off in no time, and hammered a ding in the edge of the prop flat, and we were off again, much relieved and ready for sea duty.
By now we had had enough of the “ditch”, so we headed out of Little River Inlet, and out to the open Atlantic. We had 500 miles ahead of us, but no speed limits, no bridges, and precious little navigating to do, except to hold a course for hours at a time. What a relief. The sea was blue, the weather forecast fair for the next 4 days, and our prospects finally started to look positive. However, we were out of cell phone range, and likely out of VHF radio range as well, at sixty miles offshore, so we were truly on our own. The smudge of smog which marked the shore receded out of sight, and we were alone on an azure sea. We watched the sun set, and took snapshots. I stood watch the first night from sundown to almost dawn. In the middle of the night, however, the autopilot began cranking the rudders hard right, initiating a circle course, and would not stop doing that. I cut the power, and we were now down to hand steering. Then I found the reason why--the port battery, which had previously failed, was failing to charge. The alternator was apparently toast, and so multiple electrical systems began to fail. Now we all know that electricity and water do not get along. A boat is just a complicated interface for facilitating that very interaction, and only evil can ever hope to happen. It is just a matter of when. You can be agnostic with respect to electricity, but you cannot remain an atheist. I don’t profess to understand electricity, but I can assure you it exists. This has been demonstrated to me on more than one occasion. Anyway, we headed more toward shore while pondering the possible solutions, but I decided to fire up the generator and charge the battery independently of the engines, and life returned to all but the autopilot. “Otto” remained on strike for the rest of the journey. We proceeded south again, after a council of war, and my first mate was game to continue on, bless his heart. So we motored on through dark to dawn, through the next day and night, watching the numbers change on the latitude indicator on the GPS, but seeing no land and no boats for more than 40 hours. At one point, we noticed the depth sounder just showed dashed lines instead of numbers. Arghhh! Had another piece of gear failed? No, not this time. Turns out it only reads to 600 feet, and we were in 3000 foot waters. We were in the deep end of the pool. We did see the lovely phosphorescent wake, unbelievable night stars, and in the daytime, we had the company of dolphins, and passed large sea turtles basking, a large hammerhead shark, and countless flying fish. The wind piped up a bit the second night, and we had a much more rock and roll ride, making walking and steering difficult, but we motored on. The first visible land in two days was Cape Canaveral, reached at 11 PM, and then we got quite close by Palm Beach, the next morning. We could again cell-phone anxious spouses, and rejoin the world. Finally, we watched the coast wheel by ever-so-slowly, and arrived at Ft. Lauderdale, at about 4 PM. We pulled in to an amazing parade of pleasure and huge commercial traffic, and found a marina. Ft. Lauderdale is a city of canals and boats, at least in part, and we enjoyed it very much. But we had work to do to get the boat buttoned up for the next leg of its trip, by large steel ship. At last, we had all the chores done, and boarded a cab for the airport, flying home about 3 times as far as we had just come in a week, in only 7 hours.
So the deed is done, and I am back, slowly shedding scabs from my knuckles, and peeling skin from my sunburned arms and legs. My wife is congratulating herself on dodging this bullet, and I am just glad my once in a lifetime experience is over. My first mate reports the one good thing to come out of it for him is that he had formerly thought of retiring onto a boat, but is now thoroughly cured of that. Smart guy...
Friday, March 19, 2010
Health Care Reform
Congress hovers over the final action on Health Care Reform this weekend. Spinmeisters from all parts of the spectrum of opinion are spinning, but all this talk is leaving me frustrated. I wrote my letters to my Representatives, and signed my petitions, but I have no illusions. I just want a few words in the blare and noise which passes for debate and discussion.
First, to the "Do Nothings", who say we already have the best health care system in the world: We don't. By no rational measure do we have the best system in the world. Not by mortality, not by lifespan, not by teen pregnancy rates or infant mortality, not by vaccination rates, not by numbers suffering starvation and malnutrition, not by percentage of smokers, drinkers, druggies, seat belt users, and worst of all, not by access. We can all mostly agree that we have the best doctors and hospitals in the world. Just not a health care SYSTEM. Anyone who could call this a system, must, by definition, be a believer in evolution. So any fundamentalists out there, stop claiming that this mess is a system, unless you are willing to acknowledge the logic of survival of the fittest.
To the leftist "Purists", get over yourselves. Insisting on that which is politically impossible, because it is simplest, or even best, sabotages any chance of success. The people who have no insurance can live (longer, better, healthier, and not in fear of financial ruin) without your ideological purity. Even if what they have is not perfect. They have nothing now…how can an improvement on nothing soil your spotless bedsheets?
Doctors, you are generally great, and amazing. But you have been sold down river by insurance companies, and yet you cling to their tidbits, thrown to keep you in line, and dream of the days of Ozzie and Harriet. Sorry, those days are gone. But realize who the foe is. Who has separated people from all responsibility for their health? Who has removed all the forces of economics for the individual with insurance, and displaced them totally on the uninsured, and the docs and hospitals who care for them? The folks who make their money by enrolling healthy, employed people, and taking their money in advance, and then profit by denying care, and blaming doctors for being profligate orderers and prescribers. Clinging to your slavemasters, and blaming the victims is not unusual behavior in hostages. But you need to see your behavior for what it is, and make your escape.
Democrats, where is your discipline? Why is there not only no party line, but no cohesion at all? Does anyone owe the Party any allegiance at all? Does President Obama's and the Party's political future mean less than the individual sound bite for each Congress person? Whatever happened to internal debate, consensus, and then solidarity in the process? It is no wonder the Republicans are licking their chops, waiting for Midterms.
Republicans, or at least those of you who still believe in a two party system, can we hear some principled debate, acknowledge agreement when it exists, and work on consensus rather than confrontation, for its own sake? I blame Newt and followers for creating the vicious partisan divide we now suffer, but I have to admire the relative discipline. Even moderate Republicans have been whipped into line, and never even bleat when outrageous and false things are asserted by their leaders. They know better than Granny Death Panels and the rest, but say nothing. They know they will be shouted down by thugs, so better just to wink and nod.
So where does that leave us? Frustrated, for now. I know that it has become a fact of political life that health care is becoming an entitlement. How that will be managed and paid for is the question at hand. It may offend purists that this is so, but the will of the people is what should rule a democracy, and the consensus of Americans is that everyone deserves access to health care, and freedom from crushing debt, if they should become ill. It will not be acceptable to leave the choices in private hands, unless all Americans are covered, and covered to a reasonable standard, consistent with our capacity to provide the best care in the world. It will not be acceptable to leave out large groups, merely because they do not exert political power. Nor will it be acceptable to favor other groups, because they do exert their political power.
So we wait, and watch our dysfunctional representative system represent, and hope for some order from the morass. But if they fail, we need to remember who stood up, and who let us down, and then get to the polls and speak, in the only voice that matters. Maybe we can make our democracy actually represent us, instead of corporations. Our courts are not going to save us. Our current Congress seems unlikely to rise to the task. But I am always willing to be surprised...
First, to the "Do Nothings", who say we already have the best health care system in the world: We don't. By no rational measure do we have the best system in the world. Not by mortality, not by lifespan, not by teen pregnancy rates or infant mortality, not by vaccination rates, not by numbers suffering starvation and malnutrition, not by percentage of smokers, drinkers, druggies, seat belt users, and worst of all, not by access. We can all mostly agree that we have the best doctors and hospitals in the world. Just not a health care SYSTEM. Anyone who could call this a system, must, by definition, be a believer in evolution. So any fundamentalists out there, stop claiming that this mess is a system, unless you are willing to acknowledge the logic of survival of the fittest.
To the leftist "Purists", get over yourselves. Insisting on that which is politically impossible, because it is simplest, or even best, sabotages any chance of success. The people who have no insurance can live (longer, better, healthier, and not in fear of financial ruin) without your ideological purity. Even if what they have is not perfect. They have nothing now…how can an improvement on nothing soil your spotless bedsheets?
Doctors, you are generally great, and amazing. But you have been sold down river by insurance companies, and yet you cling to their tidbits, thrown to keep you in line, and dream of the days of Ozzie and Harriet. Sorry, those days are gone. But realize who the foe is. Who has separated people from all responsibility for their health? Who has removed all the forces of economics for the individual with insurance, and displaced them totally on the uninsured, and the docs and hospitals who care for them? The folks who make their money by enrolling healthy, employed people, and taking their money in advance, and then profit by denying care, and blaming doctors for being profligate orderers and prescribers. Clinging to your slavemasters, and blaming the victims is not unusual behavior in hostages. But you need to see your behavior for what it is, and make your escape.
Democrats, where is your discipline? Why is there not only no party line, but no cohesion at all? Does anyone owe the Party any allegiance at all? Does President Obama's and the Party's political future mean less than the individual sound bite for each Congress person? Whatever happened to internal debate, consensus, and then solidarity in the process? It is no wonder the Republicans are licking their chops, waiting for Midterms.
Republicans, or at least those of you who still believe in a two party system, can we hear some principled debate, acknowledge agreement when it exists, and work on consensus rather than confrontation, for its own sake? I blame Newt and followers for creating the vicious partisan divide we now suffer, but I have to admire the relative discipline. Even moderate Republicans have been whipped into line, and never even bleat when outrageous and false things are asserted by their leaders. They know better than Granny Death Panels and the rest, but say nothing. They know they will be shouted down by thugs, so better just to wink and nod.
So where does that leave us? Frustrated, for now. I know that it has become a fact of political life that health care is becoming an entitlement. How that will be managed and paid for is the question at hand. It may offend purists that this is so, but the will of the people is what should rule a democracy, and the consensus of Americans is that everyone deserves access to health care, and freedom from crushing debt, if they should become ill. It will not be acceptable to leave the choices in private hands, unless all Americans are covered, and covered to a reasonable standard, consistent with our capacity to provide the best care in the world. It will not be acceptable to leave out large groups, merely because they do not exert political power. Nor will it be acceptable to favor other groups, because they do exert their political power.
So we wait, and watch our dysfunctional representative system represent, and hope for some order from the morass. But if they fail, we need to remember who stood up, and who let us down, and then get to the polls and speak, in the only voice that matters. Maybe we can make our democracy actually represent us, instead of corporations. Our courts are not going to save us. Our current Congress seems unlikely to rise to the task. But I am always willing to be surprised...
Friday, March 12, 2010
What fatal madness is in Spring?
What succor to our childish hopes?
We know what follows, what must fall,
and yet we rouse our hearts to dream,
and bask in pure abandon.
Then closest to our ancient instincts.
Rationality in flight, no more than glaze,
cannot compete with our true call,
the innate urge to plant and procreate.
We sing full-throated, lust, and sleep.
Then comes again the wrenching call,
of stark reality, and of death.
Our dream fades and is scarce recalled,
until the light again reclaims,
the darkness which berates our souls,
and makes our rationality a boon.
What fatal madness is in Spring?
What succor to our childish hopes?
We know what follows, what must fall,
and yet we rouse our hearts to dream,
and bask in pure abandon.
Then closest to our ancient instincts.
Rationality in flight, no more than glaze,
cannot compete with our true call,
the innate urge to plant and procreate.
We sing full-throated, lust, and sleep.
Then comes again the wrenching call,
of stark reality, and of death.
Our dream fades and is scarce recalled,
until the light again reclaims,
the darkness which berates our souls,
and makes our rationality a boon.
What fatal madness is in Spring?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)