2009 letters

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Things are going well. I realized something last night while I was sleeping or actually trying to sleep, I need to push up the installation of my woodstove on the list of things to do on the new boat. The temperature was 38 this morning. Not as bad a Cedar Rapids with minus 31, and not as bad as it would seem, since the boat is well connected with the 65 degree water. The topsides are insulated well and the floorboards are up since I'm still working on painting the bilge and installing the water tanks. So even with just a mosquito net for a door it is still only a two blanket and stocking cap night. I will probably start and hopefully finish (at least enough to use it) the woodstove installation this afternoon. A couple of days ago I had fish for breakfast, a mullet had jumped into the dingy overnight. This was the first time I've had mullet, can't say it was too great, but then I don't know how to cook them properly. I'm sure with the proper seasoning they are probably better. Ricky, the guy from Little Rock came down to look at the 38 foot Hughes that he is buying from me over the next year and he is happy with his prospective purchase so I'm down to one boat. He only stayed a couple days so it's still in the water and he offered to pay me to watch it instead of paying the boat yard. I also might be buying another boat, it's a good deal on eBay. It's a 27 foot steel boat, designed by the same person that designed mine and it on a trailer about 60 miles away. I went to look at it last week. I should be able to make some money on it, might even use it for a while. I might build a trailer and take it to the west coast and sail it to Hawaii to visit my sister that has just moved there. The trailer that the boat is on is just a car trailer and it doesn't sell with the boat, but I should be able to use it to move it to a boat yard here in town. This place is very cheap, it's not geared toward sailboats, since it is not near the water. I met the guy looking for fiberglass that I needed to build the hard dodger for my 45. I've got lots of windows that I bought from power boat windshields, hardened glass, I need to learn how to cut that if possible, I think I should be able to grind them if careful. I don't need to cut many, I also plan to back them up with Plexiglas on the inside and put a steel rod across the middle to support them well against a solid wave crashing on deck. They are slightly larger than I would choose if specifying them, the Plexiglas and steel rod should effectively cut them in half structurally. The fiberglass I found is a flying bridge top and windshield form a 20 some foot power boat. It has the curvature that will match the curved top on my boat well. Basically I will build this by cutting and pasting pieces together blending them with new fiberglass. This should be cheaper and easier than building it all from scratch out of new fiberglass. Anyway I bought the top and was working on removing it and came up with the idea of moving the new boat to his yard. If I do that I will need a trailer to move the boat out of the yard. I've had the idea for a sailboat trailer that would move and launch large sailboats for quite a while now. It involves two separate supported frame rails with a removable cross piece in the back. Each frame rail would be supported by two mobile home axles that are three feet wide so that the center would be completely open. So I may need to look for stuff to build this. If I do build this, I could use it on the 38 and store it in this yard too, saving some more money and helping to pay for the trailer. I also might be able to use the trailer with the 45 next time it needs bottom paint. I can unstep the masts with a gin pole idea using the mast from the 26 footer I salvaged in Mobile. I also told the city that I will tow away a sailboat that is slightly damaged and has been abandoned at the city dock, we'll see where that goes, again I should be able to make some money on that too. Had an interesting poker hand last night, playing 5 card stud, 6 players. I got 2 pair queens and 8's and was feeling quite good about it. Turns out a couple others where also feeling good about their hands and the betting was spirited to say the least. One went all in and the other guy and I both called. Very surprising, even more surprised, I had the low hand!!!! there was A's and 5's and three 10's in the showdown. Quite a hand and it involved a $25 pot in a nickle ante game. Luckily I had been doing quite well before that hand and broke even for the night. It's fun, that what's important. The new boat and the trailer will push back my trip but it will also add to the coffers and give me more flexibility in the future. Again, I'm having fun, that's what is important. Have a great day. Jon News flash..... My sister just sent me an email that says if you drink 5 cups of coffee a day you reduce Risk of Dementia and Alzheimer’s by 65%. Guess it's time I start to drink coffee, I've always loved the smell of it, just never drank it since it was addictive and expensive when I was in college. Just saw no need for it. Now where did I put the other queen I needed last night...... http://www.webmd.com/alzheimers/news/20090116/coffee-strong-enough-to-ward-off-dementia ..... Also just in today.... NASA has found methane on Mars, might be produced by carbon forms of life....

tarps that where blowing around when a gust front come through proceeding a storm. I fell into the cockpit, that normanlly would not be a big problem, but the engine room is right below the cockpit on the boat and I have the floor of the cockpit (ceiling of the engine room) removed to have good access to engine room modifications. So it was about an 8 foot fall landing on my back on the engine. On the way down I grabbed and held onto the wheel and that yanked my shoulder out of joint. This involved a trip to the emergency room. They took a couple xrays, and put it back in place and sent me home with an arm sling that held my arm in front across my tummy. I found out online that holding the arm straight out in front of you in a sling is many times better so I modified the sling with a piece of bent PVC from an heated and split plastic pipe. I wore this for a couple weeks. My arm is doing better, I'm out of the sling and I started to do exercises the other day. That makes a huge difference. I've continued doing some small jobs but not tackled anything major. I've got the starter motor fixed for the 27ft boat. Did I tell you I bought another boat? This one was local and on eBay and real cheap because it was very poorly advertised. I figure I can make close to $10k on it with a little over a months work. First thing is get the motor running and the starter motor was rusted tight. They wanted $900 for a local auto parts shop replacement shipped tomorrow kind of thing, I said "no thanks." I've got a couple worn spots in the sails I will work on today. I'll put paint on the bottom and launch it and then bring it back to LaBelle to finish work on it. I've also been working with the digital TV transition and got that figured out yesterday. I now need to find the best type of antenna for the boat. My biggest problem was the antenna, I was using an amplified rabbit ears and loop table top model but it was inside the garage. The garage is covered with metal and a metal roof. Not a good place for an antenna but good enough for analog with snow on 5 stations. When I moved the whole system outside, I got 15 stations, 9 of them digital. The reception is amazing, as good as cable and I get a 6 hour online tv guide. Concerning the arm, 2 days ago I could not lift it above my shoulder and even that far was with extreme pain. I found and downloaded a good set of exercises online. One of the exercises involves lieing down on my back and lifting the arm straight up toward the sky. First time I could only get about 45 degrees of upper arm rotation with extreme pain. This morning I could get full extension with extreme pain. I do this 10 times and hold it for 5 seconds. There are lots of other exercises I also do, most are static pushing exercises. The hardest one is walking the fingers up a wall in front of you. They are helping, that's for sure. The exercise plan also calls for 30 minutes a day on a stationary bike. I figured why stationary, so for the last two days I've been riding my bike to town and the library, over 5 miles each way. The evening before searching for the exercise program I took the rowing dingy out to the river and found I could row normal, pulling on the oars without a problem but rowing backwards was near impossible, that involed pushing on the oars with a load. Concerning riding the bike to town today, while waiting for the library to open I was just riding around town and I got a front flat tire, so I'll walk it to Norms and fix it over there. Life always has it's twists and turns. I maybe won't be doing many on the dance floor for a while even if I do go to a singles valentines dance this weekend. Time will tell, it'll be hard to resist trying, and it may be worth the pain. No pain, no gain.

Everything is OK, My shoulder is getting better but I still have trouble lifting my arm above my shoulder, it's not so much pain as it is just not having the strength yet to do it. It's better with each week but I'm sure that there is at least a month more of recovery. It hasn't been keeping me from doing anything except swing dancing, everything else I can figure a way to accomplish without lifting my arm up high or assisting it with the other arm. I can hold it up there, I just can't lift it. So if I swing it or help it, I can get it up there. I've been working on the new 27 foot Steel boat. I haven't moved it yet. I'm having trouble with the starter motor. It turns out is is a very rare item and costly too. They want $850 for a new one. I need one, everything else is ready to go to move the boat over here but the starter motor. I've identified a Subaru Legacy 2.5 Liter starter as a possible replacement with modifications. I'm working on that this morning waiting for a email back from a starter place in Little Rock. Basically I need to find a pinion that is identical to the one from the original Bosch starter on the boat. I don't want to destroy the one I have, it still works, sort of, and might be worth more as a rebuild-able starter to a possible engine collector in the future. I'll need to modify the drive gear and also the mount on the Subaru starter. I've fixed the bottom and painted it and also worked on the electric system. I've checked many of the other systems on the boat. I still have the gunwale to rebuild and work on the window and topside paint, but much of the work is done. The old owner has come up with new sails and salon cushions that came with the boat. We will pull the 38 footer out of the water soon and I will paint the bottom on it. The new owner is continuing to make the payments as promised and has decided he wants to pay me to paint it for him. I'm also working on a hard dodger for the 45 footer. It will be made of fiberglass. I have bought a digital TV, 12v, LCD and also a computer monitor. I built an antenna for it and am amazed how well it works, also I should be able to mount a copy of on the mast built out of copper foil tape that is taped to the wooden mast. I'll include a picture here. The Black wire are all connected together and the white goes to the other side. It should have a matching transformer to connect it to coax but for reception that's not as important as transmitting. It's easy to build and works very well. The most surprising thing is that it makes no difference which direction it points, even flat and very close to the ground works well. I've bought a number of things for the boat, such as a suitmate clothes wringer, barnacle anchors (3 of them, need to sell a couple, they where real cheap, 40 pounders) and many other things.

	2009 letters
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