Posted By RichC on October 9, 2016
Archiving another project idea for living on the hook (someday) yet still having hot water for dishes, cleaning and SHOWERS (a freshwater shower is a luxury for most sailboats).
Posted By RichC on October 8, 2016
Posted By RichC on October 7, 2016
What is the goal?
More and better paying jobs, profits for companies and growing tax revenues to fund government services, entitlements and improved ability to pay down our nation’s debt.
How do we accomplish this?
There are two ways government helps to create jobs in the US. The current Democrats remain focused on #1, while the Republicans propose #2 — only one is sustainable enough to improve pay and benefits over time, so think before you vote.
irectly or offers incentives to companies that hire employees … often adding employees they often don’t yet need in return for the tax benefit. This spending requires more from taxpayers and increased borrowing which elevates the debt. The result is what we have been seeing … a tepid recovery and a sluggish economy. The country seeing the slow rise in part-time and a minimum wage jobs, all with declining benefits. (visualize this as a single pie cut into increasingly smaller slices)
Republicans #2 — Government lowers corporate and individual taxes putting more money back in the hands of consumers and useful capital (often parked overseas) back in the coffers of business here in the U.S. As consumers spent, prices rise (supply and demand) and businesses uses their capital to expand production and hire additional workers. Competition for the best employees increases wages/benefits and as the economy grows, employees have more bargaining power. (visualized as the more pies and therefore larger slices for all willing to work)Bonus:
If the economy grows, so do tax revenues and ability to pay for government services, save long term entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security AND if voters can keep our Federal Government from ballooning, we can even begin paying down our national debt.
So before you vote this November, weigh carefully, not just the personality of the candidates we see, but for the philosophy and ideas of each political party that gives us the best chance to grow our economy while keeping us safe.
Posted By RichC on October 7, 2016
Hurricane Matthew is blasting up Florida’s Atlantic coast at this early morning moment. I’ve been back and forth between baseball and the Weather Channel which spent much of the night broadcasting from all places, Fort Pierce, FL. I exchanged text messages at midnight with our friends riding out the storm there and will stay up a few more hours until the worst of the winds pass. Mark and Dar plan on checking on Encore tomorrow if the roads are clear … so I’ll know more if the marina and our sailboat survived.
Matthew’s track seems to be ever so slightly east of what was projected, but I also realize the surge and wind is still substantial … still hurricane force. We’ll find out tomorrow how our marina and Encore made out.
On a happier note, “my” Cleveland Indians won game one of the ALDS against Boston in an excellent 5 – 4 game … I’ll credit the win to the home crowd! Goodnight all.
Posted By RichC on October 6, 2016
Let’s hope this “curtain call” (cough, cough) isn’t a precursor for Hurricane Matthew bearing down on Encore in Fort Pierce Florida?
The subject line was more of a slip of the tongue regarding “curtains” when I really intended a twisted “Suzy Homemaker” innuendo — Sailor Homemaker (my attempts at sewing curtains).
Failed joke aside, I did bring home one of the old nasty looking curtains or port coverings from our sailboat in order to replace. The thought was that I would get Brenda to sew up 7 of these for the boat, but “if you want it done, you just have to do it yourself.”
Actually I could only muster one of these (for now) as I need to take apart the old ones in order to reuse the fabric and plastic hooks. After being taught to use a seam ripper it wasn’t all that bad. I made a straight edge “fence” for the Sailrite Walking Foot Sewing Machine and dialed in the tension and threading setup for the lightweight fabric and threads. After some trial and error, I was able to stitch up the first of 7 … although I’ll have to check to see how it fits next trip down.
Posted By RichC on October 5, 2016
Perhaps I’m being a bit to self-focused in worrying about “just a sailboat” when millions of lives are going to be impacted by Hurricane Matthew? I think it is time for the final preparation … pray for safety for those in the path of this storm (and Encore).
EDIT: A buddy of mine was asking where the most dangerous winds were in the hurricane eye. Answer: When going north like Matthew, that would be the NE quarter — but the other big concern is over the storm surge which happens to be the NW quarter. This is projected to impact much of Florida and I’m not sure I’ve got enough long spring lines spidered to Encore? We could always do more.
Posted By RichC on October 5, 2016
Google calendar has automatically added a few important annual events to my calendar (my settings), but unfortunately it is not artificially intelligent enough to remove or delete.
Today I was sent a reminder that we normally celebrate our late dog Tootie’s birthday on October 5th. She is missed and I often catch what I thought was a glimpse of her nosing the back door (as she always did). Strange how our eyes and mind can play tricks with things.
After 17 years with a great companion, I’m not sure I want to go through the last year of life with another dog again … I think we’ll remain dogless.
Posted By RichC on October 4, 2016
The Category 4 Hurricane Matthew is wreaking havoc on Haiti with 145 mph wind and up to 40 inches of rain, I’m keeping a close eye on new projections that put this powerful storm way too close to Encore.
Thankfully my good friend Mark called me last night and offered to add a couple of extra lines and take down the Sunbrella covering that I left up this year. It would definitely get damaged even in tropical storm force winds, let along something of hurricane strength! This storm is sure to impact everyone along the Florida east coast and from what I’m hearing, the entire eastern seaboard of the U.S.
Posted By RichC on October 4, 2016
Mail fraud and phone scams are ongoing problems if you live in the U.S. unless you are lucky enough to 
exist under a rock. Throughout the years I’ve been targeted by shady hoodlums looking to make a quick buck using fraud and deceit as a way to access money or more information. Likely these criminals pickup databases of phone numbers, addresses and accumulated personal information found freely online, or less "freely" from hackers doing business on the dark web. Years ago I was able to track down a company in Atlanta that carelessly released my personal information which ended up in sinister hands (credit and bank fraud before banks put many safeguards in place). The source was computer hardware auctioned off after a short-lived online bank closed their doors. Careless for sure … and obviously they were not quite as careful to BleachBit my personal information as someone else we’ve 
all been hearing about. 
After eliminating our home landline phone some years ago and registering our cells and my business lines on the Do Not Call Registry, the number of calls decrease. Unfortunately this year the incidents have picked up again and I’ve opted to fill out the complaint form on the Do Not Call Registry and more recently the US Tresury.gov Inspector General forms for this most recent IRS Impersonation Scam.
Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration Jan 20, 2016 Press Release
| Voicemails from IRS Scam requesting a return phone call – 10/3/16 |
My expectations for any kind of resolution are low due to the bureaucracy that is our government (I’m also sure they overwhelmed with complaints), but without an involved citizenry, there is really little room to complain.
We will see if anything comes of my complaint … or if some do-good vigilante hacker decides to calls 917-341-2116 on their own and turns the tables on them I’m betting that I wouldn’t be the only one wryly grinning. Maybe Donald Trump had it right on Monday (10/3/2016) with going on the offensive when it comes to cyber security and cyber warfare?
Posted By RichC on October 3, 2016
The generator "security cage" project for our sailboat Encore is ready to be installed. I’m not fond of making a few more holes in the deck, but it needs to be done.
The final touches (minus adding Velcro) were taken care of this past weekend. That included softening the aluminum edges, adding shrink tubing to the matched keyed brass/stainless Brinks locks (keeps them from rattling), making a longer cord, final fitting and sanding the seat/workbench/fish cleaning board … and sewing the Sunbrella cover … with Brenda’s sewing machine!
To the casual eye, it may look as if the generator would slide out even when locked in place, but the handle of the Honda EU2000i fits up into the "seat section" and locks the generator to the deck. It can’t be move out of the "open" cage without breaking something.
Positioning on the aft deck is something to ponder as well. I’m hoping it will fit on the starboard aft since I may add a wind generator in the future and it would be nice to be able to step on the generator cage in order to reach an additional 18" up the mast. I’m not sure exactly how it might all fit, but since the battery bank in starboard and the solar panel already has wire going into the starboard cockpit locker, that would make the most sense. Besides, the outboard motor hang on the port side rail and there is an access gate through the lifelines in the center. Of course a lot will have to do with where it will fit.