Sunday, June 14, 2015

Retirement is not for the lazy

How did I ever get anything done when I had a job? Not that I'm getting near enough done every day now.

Since my last post a lot has happened. I left an HDS office for the last time. Boy did that seem strange.


Susan and I made a trip to Green Bay for one of Susan's friend's wedding. It was nice to meet more of Susan's friends.

We had denaming and renaming ceremony for our boat.



Which also incorporated a Bon Voyage party for our friends Ted and Claire who left out on Sunday. We hope to catch up with them soon.








 Sunday, just after noon, Another Life cast off the lines and headed for it's big adventure. It was both exciting and scary. Hopefully not too long from now we'll be doing the same thing.



Our friends Jeff and Heather were here for the weekend festivities. They brought us a nice bottle of wine for our boat naming gift. We enjoyed it later in the week with a steak dinner. It was all yummy. Thanks for the pairing recommendation Jeff!



Also during the last couple of weeks we got our jib back with its new sacrificial canvas. I was doing some learning before putting the sail back up and managed to drop a critical part over the side. I called our rigger and had him come out to look at it and he proceeded to drop another critical part over the side. He ordered the parts we needed, expedited, and left his screwdriver as collateral and a placeholder.


The Saturday Jeff and Heather were here the rigger came out with the parts, installed them and helped us get the jib up. We were then able to take Jeff and Heather out into Galveston Bay but the serious lack of wind and with only the jib, the new mainsail is due June 26, we had a brief moment where we hit 2.8 kts but most of the time struggled to make 2. It didn't make for exciting sailing. But Jeff got to smoke a cigar, on a sailboat, on Galveston Bay.

Since then we have torn down and done maintenance on one of our winches that had a broken piece. This was the first (and only) maintenance task that has gone without a single hitch. Thank you youtube.    We also replaced a solenoid / anti-siphon breaker for one of the heads that was running a bit.

For a few days this past week our friend Michael was here visiting. We didn't really treat him much like a guest, mostly doing normal day to day stuff though we did take a day off and do the tour at the Johnson Space Center. Pretty cool stuff there. Working for a few hours every day we also got the AIS installed and working. One last thing to do is mount the dedicated GPS antennae for the AIS. It appears to work mounted inside so I may stay with that rather than drilling holes in the boat. Something about putting holes in your boat just doesn't seem right.

Oh, two more things. Replaced a breaker for the aft air conditioner with an appropriately sized one. This has unfortunately only moved the problem. I'll have to delve into that one some more. I also had to add a new breaker to the panel so I can individually power the AIS.

See, I told you this retirement stuff isn't for the lazy. Just writing about it has made me tired.

That's all for now.

Brian

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