"Dead Shexy" the way Sean Connery says it

I think I look hot in Budweiser hat, hockey hair and a white tank top with matching tan lines... Yeah. We don't wonder why I'm single anymore either.

Accolades and Ack

I'm sure you will be proud to hear I have achieved the rank of foam cutting ninja. I cannot begin to describe how many pieces of foam in what weird dimensions I've cut... but so help me if anything rattles in the bilge I'm gluing it down!

I've also started to work on hooking up the Winlink system which should keep our position updated, and us in contact with text based email for the duration of the trip.

First we tried to walk the boat out and spin it around? I don't know, it sounded better in our heads... anyways that didn't work, there was a moment of *oh shit* but then we were fine. Then we had the bright idea to just turn the engine on, since it was fixed and all...

In other news, we fired up the engine to turn the boat around... and with much ado caught the wind broadside, nearly kissing multiple boats on the way down to the fourth slip away from ours. To say it was mildly exciting would be an understatement of great proportions. In the middle of running down and around the dock barefoot, with my scraggly hockey hair (I probably looked a bit like one of the lost boys from Peter Pan... sure could've used some of that fairy dust Tink!) I managed with the help of another old fellow to get Dad out in the middle again... only to have the engine shut off. By this point we just parked it in the nearest slip, which happened to be four downwind, and took a deep breath.

A nice couple came by and offered to help us hand walk it back to our slip, and so between them, another fellow on his boat, much line tossing, hollering back and forth, and the use of body parts to fend off with we were back in our slip, arse end first the way we were trying to get it in the first place... I guess that's one way to meet everyone in the yatch club, and I'm counting that as my stretching for the day... you should have seen some of the leg fenders I managed! ;o)

Keep your fingers crossed for us, we're supposed to haul tomorrow... we're gonna need all the luck we can get to get out of the yacht club and haul the boat *phew*

Ze gas doth floweth

Famous words of our mechanic dude Toby "There's something basic wrong here...", 'somewhere' along ze way a gas shut-off valve got shut-off... *cough* *cough* as in ze gas she does not flow, as in ze engine should *not* work when ze gas doth not flow.

Once Toby monkeyed around with things, and turned said shut-off valve to the "on" position ze engine she started w00t w00t!

*happy dance* <--- zis needs it's own line, it's that HUGE!

Zis means, what wif all de other awesomeness ve ackomplished today dat ve're practickally back on track... I almost wrote zat all mushed togezer I'm so excited! Zis means ve can haul and bottom paint, and do somesink with ze mast... I tink pull it out and check everyting yah?

Ze boat, she is comink along nicely me tinks.

On exercising...

Many of you have asked what I'm going to do for exercise while on this long journey. Well, we've installed a pole-dancing pole in a place of honor... right in the middle of everything! I've heard it can be quite a good work out, although I think the potential for injury is much higher in the confines of a boat, here it is... Ta-da!



Just kidding, it's actually there to hold the table up, it might even be structural but I don't really want to know *all* the details... my Dad's an engineer and the answer would likely be longer than I'm interested in right now, we'll have plenty of time to talk about structural supports later.

I'll leave you with my personal favorite exercise quote:

"I gave up exercising because my things kept rubbing together and setting my pantyhose on fire!"

The things I do...

So I tell my Mom that I'm going upstairs to flip my laundry to the dryer, she does her best to convince me that it's entirely too hot to use the dryer and that I should hang it to dry... "Everything but the jeans should be dry by morning"

So I head upstairs, out onto the balcony, don't quite close the door because I remember it's kind of weird... and there are no clothes pins. I go to go back into the house, the door is closed... no wait, the door is locked. Awesome. I half heartedly holler for my Dad knowing he's got his headphones on and can't hear you when you holler at him in the same room. Great. I'm stuck out here on the balcony with a load of wet laundry.

*sigh*

I start evaluating my options, I could wait until somebody notices I'm missing? No good, Mom is usually up late, Dad figures I went to bed already... I could attempt to climb down the new portion of the house, probably possible but this would be the initial attempt in the dark *wrinkles nose* we'll leave that as a plan b or c... Nuts, that leaves climbing out onto the roof in the dark remember, up onto the roof on the addition, down the mossy bit and either in the window in the spare room, or stomping on the roof over the TV room... and falling off in the dark, well that's the lowest section of roof to fall off of.

Back downstairs...

Me: Thanks Mom! I just had to break into the house... IN THE DARK! Didn't you hear me? The deer out back sure did...
Her: Yeah, I thought that was just you crashing around in the spare room.

Nice, good to know you're watching out for me *thwibbit* ;o)

Attack of the drogues!

Help! Help! The drogues have taken over our living room!



Hahaha just kidding... so this piece of safety equipment, which was made by my Dad, pretty impressive eh? Consists of 107 little parachute type things, 48 of which are attached to 1/2" diameter rope, and 59 of which are attached to 5/8" diameter rope, with a 70' leader attached to a bridal consisting of 2 50' 5/8 diameter bits that attach to the aft end of the boat that you toss off in the event of a severe storm... okay well not quite:

1) Take the two ends of the bridal around the outside of the radar arch, through the fairlead, and cleat at the 10 foot mark (indicated by wrapping)

2) Get small anchor or any other 20 lb weight available and attach to end of drogue

3) Ensure that the area is clear (similar to using an AED "You're clear, I'm clear everybody's clear")

4) Toss small anchor overboard, cross your fingers and pray that nothing gets stuck

In the event that everything works correctly, the mini-drogue-chutes should provide enough drag to slow you down so you can steer even when tired, and not hit a wave broadside... that's really bad, you have a huge potential to be rolled when that happens. That would suck even more than being rick rolled ;o)

Currently we haven't determined how to secure the carrying bag, I pointed out that I'm sure as hell not hanging onto it when there is the force of any number of parachutey things trying to pull it into the sea, so for now the carrying bag will serve as an offering to King Neptune... although it's broken, that might not be a very good sacrifice.

*wrinkles nose*

We'll have to think on this...

Rise and shine...

"I'll rise, but I refuse to shine" ~Gabrielle XWP

Gratitude to all who had a hand in the scientific advancements that allow me to have a hot shower... especially in the morning.

There's red blood cells in your caffeine system

A few years ago, when we were still in University I was talking to my friend Mitts over Christmas vacation, I asked how her visit was going and she replied "Great except that I've had this headache for the last few days that just wont go away..." I asked if she'd had any coffee since she'd been home, there was a pause... and then she replied "No, my Mom doesn't drink it, I don't think there is any in the house." To which I said "Oh my goodness! You're poor body is going through caffeine withdrawals, go downtown and buy some coffee! No seriously, right now, I'll let you go."

Well I'm moderately ashamed to admit, I just pulled a Mitts. I've had a headache the last couple of days, and not surprisingly really, I'd been consuming about a cup a day till now. Thank the Gods for Timmy's!

Famous last words

Teach me to splice I say...

*muttering* Splicing is easy he says... just follow the directions he says... *kablooeee* I've never seen one do that before he says!...

Guess we have to cut off $3 worth of rope... and you'll have to try it with the other set of instructions, glad I didn't get shown up by my daughter though. *thwibbit*

*curses under my breath* I says...

It was definitely easier the second time, or perhaps it was the easier set of instructions hmmmm? *evil glare at Dad* the first one was prettier, until it exploded that is, but I still think it turned out alright.

If the shoe fits... I turn into a princess?

My life right now is an off-key version of "Cinderelly, cinderelly, wash the dishes, scrub the galley!" which really wouldn't be so bad except that I've been working a desk job... translation: my everything is tired.

So cleaning this boat, well it's a little like painting a room with two doors, and two windows and an electrical box - it's all edges... well picture that, and add a helluv a lot more edges, and some bendy bits, and piping with pokey bits on it... that you have to clean in behind, only you don't know there are pokey bits on it until you find them the hard way. Seriously though, I've got more scrapes and bruises from this week, nothing major or picture worthy but still!

I think technically I'm about half done, but just so we're all clear A.D.D is way worse on a small boat, you can see all the distracting things AT THE SAME TIME.

Not enough hours in the day

I have to apologize I haven't written about all of my visiting shenanagins yet because I just haven't had time, but don't you worry that circus circus comic hasn't got nuthin' on me!

I'm off to the boat again this morning, there is some cleaning and scrubbing, and probably a whole bunch of elbow grease in my future. At least I will know it was clean when we started right?

Just 10 more mins...

I just got up earlier than I had to because some latent alarm on my watch was never reset or turned off.

We just had words.

Especially since I'm on autopilot in the morning and can't tell the difference between my watch alarm and my cell phone 'get your ass out of bed' alarm. Once at University I tried to turn my alarm clock off repeatedly, and was thoroughly confused as to why it wasn't working... until I realized it was the phone ringing.

It's okay I guess, I'm up now...

Bill of sale - The Fit

Dear Dan,

I'm so lucky to be able to sell you your first car for $1.05 (GST included), I know that you will take care of it, and I hope you know that you really don't have to wash it *every* week (I certainly didn't). I know it will always hold a special place in your heart.

Here are the keys.

I think it's cool that you are so proud of the fact that you have your fraternity plate on the front, and I really don't care if you put a transformers sticker on it, or get flames painted on the side, really, it's your car now.

It's not your driving I'm worried about, it's everyone else's.

Please be careful.

Love your favouritest sister ever,

Sam

PS I really don't care if you wreck it, as long as you're okay. For serious.

Once a year you should watch the sunrise... check

Watching the sunrise over the mist filled plains of Alberta, they looked completely deserted making me feel like the only living witness in a fairy tale land. It wouldn't have surprised me if upon first light a herd of unicorns had arisen out of the long grass and galloped off. It was absolutely breathtaking, and of course I didn't have my camera, not that any picture I could have taken would have done it justice...

Mmmmm bacon

I got up early this morning so that my brother would make me breakfast before he went to work.

The unconscious conversing with... well the unconscious

I can hardly believe it's almost been a week since my last day of work. It has been super awesome visiting my bro, and we've gotten a tonne of stuff done and organized for the upcoming adventure... but I think we both might be a little tired. While it cannot be confirmed by outside sources, I'm pretty sure we were talking to each other in our sleep last night... I briefly woke up to an incoherent mumble, giggled, and crashed out again.

We might be related.

The reason self checkout is soooo slow...

Last night we went shopping for bacon and toilet paper...

Time it takes to grab few random items: 10 mins
Time it takes to scan few random items at self checkout: 5 mins
*note this is probably 4 mins longer than the empty checkout lines
Number of Frat boys it takes to try to enter the AIR MILES number *after* the AIR MILES screen: 3
Getting the girl on duty to cancel the whole thing so you can swipe it all through again, because *at least* one of them missed the AIR MILES number screen?

Priceless... for everything else there's MasterCard

Did I mention they graduated recently?

Mr. President says FML

So a little background, my brother, The President (he's kind of a big deal Mom) - vote for Pedro he offers you his protection, borrowed a Park pass to go camping like two weeks from now... in the meantime the owner of said Park pass decided to go camping, tomorrow. She stopped by to pick it up only to find my brother tearing around his room like a tornado, which by the way isn't really big enough for that, and one of his frat brothers we'll call him Frat boy #3 walking around like a zombie flipping through the first few layers of the various piles of crap on all the crap worthy surfaces. Enter Frat by #2...

Frat boy #3: Hey the president lost a parking pass have you seen it anywhere

Frat boy #2: Nope

... little while later ...

Yeah we're looking for that Park pass...

Frat boy #2: Ohhh! Park Pass! I thought you were looking for a parking pass...

Frat boy #3: That's what I asked you earlier!

Frat boy #2: No, no you most definitely said 'parking pass'

Frat boy #3: *throws hands up in the air* park, parking same difference!

Frat boy #2: No they're totally different, one's for parking... and the other uh...

C: is for parking in a park?

... more head shaking, some expletives, and begging of forgiveness... luckily she is not a vengeful God...

Frat boy #2: HaHA! I found it!

*happy dancing* and *high fiving* all around!

Mr. President: Omg where did you find it?!?!?!

Frat boy #2: *glowing* In your food cupboard *smiles*

Mr. President: WTF?!?! How did you find it in there?

Frat boy #2: Well, I said to myself... self if I was the President... where would I put it? And there it was, next to the peanut butter.

The way I figure it, he probably had it in his hand, was hungry and put it down... in order to pick up the peanut butter.

Whirwind!

The 'Bon Voyage Tour' continues, I've driven nearly 1500km's since Friday night made some great memories with wonderful friends and familly and am looking forward to a few more... The cemetary is the place to rest ;o)

I promise I'll update more soon, but you don't want to hear about how bad I am at pictionary... although we did have a couple gooders in charades, I'll leave you with this, how do you act out 'Donkey' and 'Buffalo' to an 8 and a 14 year old? *raises eyebrow* we might've got stuck on those for a little while...

*winces* wait for it...

It felt pretty awesome when Granny said "You look wonderful!" instead of the usual "You're getting fat." Even when it's the truth, served straight up... what can you say really? Its Granny, don't argue with her about *anything* she's always right.

I'm just not going to tell anyone she didn't even have her glasses on ;o)