Virtual Ship's Log from Captain Hammer

'Cause I don't have enough to do already

Monday, March 29, 2010

Full On Springing


Don't you love it when you request a day off 2 weeks in advance, for no other reason than just needing a day off, and the weather turns out to be the best in months? Friday was gorgeous. I hadn't taken the Li'l Longhorn (the canoe) out all winter, and her spring-time debut was perfect. I paddled my lady and myself from the Walsh landing to Laguna Gloria where we had lunch on the little dock. The weather continued throughout the weekend, and graced all my spring rituals: brewing a batch of hefeweizen with Bryan, planting 3 hop rhizomes, and an evening of poker and drinks on Governor T's veranda.


The canoe is in perfect shape, and ready to be outfitted with a sail. It was good to paddle around and remember both how maneuverable she is, and how lazy I am and how much I'd love to harness some of that free wind power to save my paddling arm.


Next weekend starts the construction in ernest. The challenges, obstacles, and goals are as follows:


1. No part of the original canoe will be altered in any way. Every component to make her sail will be removable without leaving any sign it was there.


2. It has to be easy. Not simple to make, but easy to tear down, transport, and set up.


3. And, as always, it has to be cheap.

Monday, March 22, 2010

A Blog is born, I reckon


The first wildflowers are here- pink ones in the median. I remember ’07: a wet winter and a mild summer left the usually-scorched road sides lush with all kinds of color, even into August. I can’t remember much about ’08. Or was ’08 the good summer, and ’07 the forgettable one? I forget.
There’s at least one instance a week where I stop and realize that my memory is getting duller, or that my emotions are getting muted compared to when I was a kid. These things go hand-in-hand: memory and emotion. Maybe there just isn’t much new stuff in my life to surprise me anymore, things in the recent past just get mushy in my mind, and so the years just roll by. If this is the trend, I am determined to change it.


Resolution #1: Be surprised more. Do more cool stuff.

I also think writing could be an important part of this phenomenon. Every Wednesday my eleven-year-old son brings home a folder of his week’s work: pages of writing and analysis, thoughts and descriptions. I don’t write anymore. I’ve never come into work on the first day of fall and had my boss say, “I want a 3 page essay about your summer on my desk by close of business today. Be sure to include your three favorite things, and at least one thing you didn’t like about it.” And so the summer and my memories of it slip away, and life has just become that much shorter.

Resolution #2: I will write in my blog at least one time a week, and include at least one picture.

The more stuff I do, and remember doing, the longer life will be. Or, seem, anyways. So my plan is basically to stay a kid- a perpetual Tom Sawyer. To keep imagining, exploring, planning adventures- and then be sure and complete my self-imposed writing assignment.


My first adventure: to make my canoe sail, and then to see where it takes me.