Day one minus one.

It's rainy and cool here in Gig Harbor, which limited activities for the last day of summer freedom for Alexis and Ethan. We went the Seattle Aquarium, as did every other family with children under 10, and anyone with children under 4 brought a push-chair. It was crowded. But we enjoyed the exhibits - especially seeing a diver hand feed fish in one of the huge tanks. He had whole small fish which in held between his fingers until one of the fish swam up and took it. There were also exhibits of more in quantity and more colorful starfish and anemones than I have ever seen. (imagine a photo here)

Afterwards we went to REI, an outdoors outfitter. It is the flagship store and it is huge, with what seemed like unlimited selections for whatever you might want to buy, whether it was boots, backpacks, or bike accessories. I wanted to see some "accessories" for our Galapagos adventure , but there were so many choices for the things I was interest in that I was overwhelmed, and came away empty handed. Probably just as well because once I started shopping, I would have bought lots of stuff. (imagine a photo of me trying out walking poles.)

I haven't made much progress on the time change. 8pm and I'm ready to go to bed. Hope I don't wake up at 4 again tomorrow.

Two out .... two to go!

Portia (our "work-dinghty") came out today for the season -- with a good crop of barnacles after a summer in LP waters. Here's an old photo of Nersia (think Merchant of Venice and you'll catch the connection for the names) that once belonged to Mel and we sailed from 1971 to 1985.

That's Karen and David on the bow; Mary was probably below, sleeping in her baby carry-cot.

Heading west ... armed only with iPad. I can promise text, pics may have to wait till our return east.

Good times!

We had our first sail in the little dinghy today. After the pre-launch picture I stowed the camera and had no opportunity to take it out -- a pity because it would have been fodder for UTube! We didn't get wet once! (If not once, how many times? Just as well we wore our old non-automatically inflating lifejackets!) It was rather crowded with the two of us in the boat so I controlled the rudder and Jack the mainsheet. More practice is definitely needed!

And I shipped my Digital Measures work order for screen changes and coding for a custom report -- about 20 pages all told! That completes a task that I had tried to so before I left the Welch College of Business, but DM was in the middle of a lengthy redesign. Not completing the report been "bothering" me ever since. Now it's done (apart from debugging and fall-out into other reports - but I'll have left the country.) I can relax!

Puttering about

Today was a beautiful late summer day with an offshore (NE) breeze that had a little nip to it, cloudless blue sky and seemingly limitless visibility. Everything sparkled -- except my tomato plants that definitely showed signs of season (The crop is over, long before the first frost!)

This morning we found the missing piece of the puzzle of the running rigging to our little sailboat (soon to be named, I hope) through visits to the Stonington Sailing Club (where we learned principles of using the traveller in a single-sail dinghy), and Mystic Seaport, where we found one Dyer Dhow still rigged after the summer sailing program with just the fitting we need to connect one end of the mainsheet to the traveller. We'll purchase our fitting another day!

This afternoon we sailed for the first time in a week. The wind had great promise, but in actuality it was very fluky so we did not venture very far, but's the time of the season to savor every sail, so we stayed out for a while, catching and losing the good breeze and watching others do the same. (Only #23 of the season!)

And in between I did some chop-chop editing on the Soderberg grant proposal, gave advice to a doctoral student on a conference abstract, and dealt with a few details for the DM work. Tomorrow I must write the work order -- I should have done it today, but the day was too beautiful.

Not a creative thought

Left in my body after fours hours back at the Welch College working with the Associate Dean, Research Committee Chair and Data Manager on Digital Measures Report for AACSB Table 2-1 Summary of Intellectual Contributions.

Instead, I'll think about sailing dinghies and share a photo of (brother John's and) my first boat, named Tub (based on performance). In the photo behind, you can glimpse our second sailing dinghy in its winter storage spot under the car port.

I'm the one rowing . Dig that bathing cap! And that's our cousin Pam in the stern.

(Almost) ready for launch!

We hoisted the sails for the first time today. We've figured out a basic rigging configuration using the iPad to access diagrams I found through Google. Now we need to go "snooping" other small sailing dinghies (i.e. at Mystic Seaport and Stonington Yacht Club) for ideas for greater efficiency.

I have received another name suggestion: "Tipol-Topil" (a play on Pilot, the make of boat.)

Mind you, I didn't "play" all day. I had to prepare for my meetings about Digital Measures at the Welch College tomorrow.

Like night and day

If yesterday was a "fun day" with resignation celebrations and puttering among various non-academic projects, today was the opposite - a day of hard slog (all day with breaks only for meals) attending to the publisher's proof of Ulla's and my chapter in Positive Design and Appreciable Construction: From Sustainable Development to Sustainable Value. I sent my responses to the publisher's queries and my own last changes (all detailed in the manner requested by the publisher) at 8:45 PM. I hope only to see the chapter again in its printed, hardcopy form.

OK, OK, I can hear my followers saying something like, "Writing a chapter for a book with a title like that, you deserve all the slogging you need to do."

The story began with a phone call from one of the editors on May 4, 2009, inviting us to send the manuscript we had submitted for a conference for inclusion in the book -- mind you, our paper had been rejected for the conference! I think the paper has been back to us for three revisions even before this final proof -- including a disastrous experience with a professional editor. All that's in the past now, and it counts as a solid contribution from the Business & Design Lab.

Needless to say, I didn't even think of working on the 2-b-named dinghy. Jack did a little more varnishing and polishing, but my camera was not in use today.

Time to relax!

Tuesday tasks

For the working man - varnishing the central part of the still-unnamed boat: the center thwart, new top to the dagger board slot and the dagger board. The parts are hanging from the beams in our study. I located rigging instructions through Google. If it stops raining tomorrow, maybe we can see if we can rig the dinghy.

For the resigned ladies - celebrating our non-structured lives. Diana has recently resigned from her university position and her office is cleared out; I'm celebrating my first anniversary (almost). We now plan to make having fun our major occupation!

I paid for the fun part by needing to work late to finish a "deSwinglishing" task before a Skype date with Ulla at 8 AM tomorrow. And I just had an email reminder about completing a final proof of a book chapter by Aug 25 -- BUT I never received the pages to be proofed. I can see I will be breaking my vow of fun the next couple of days!

Lazy Sunday

It rained. Everywhere outside was wet. That's quite an event - I can't remember when it last rained! But the forecast looks as if it will continue for most of the week -- I can't be lazy for that long!

Nameless sailboat progress. Jack cut a piece of marine plywood to make a new cover for the dagger board slot. I didn't have any success in my search for a rigging diagram - the boat builder no longer has any plans or pictures of the Pilot dinghy line.

August Saturday

Just a litte work was done on the still-unnamed boat today - Jack polished the mast while waiting for the day's main event, a visit by one of my former research assistants, Omar, with his wife and 13-month old son.

They came with wonderful Peruvian food and drink for us to try and told us about places we must see and food we must eat while in Lima -- their home town. We all had a great day.

I'm tired now!

Getting down to business

News of the addition to our fleet has been received by enthusiasm by sailors (past, present and future) in the family, and all are planning on visiting as soon as their schedules permit to try "the boat" for themselves. So Jack and I have started the recommissioning work -- Jack's dealing with the brightwork, removing items such as the center thwart in preparation for sanding and varnishing, and I'm in charge of de-mildewing the rub rail and searching the internet for a diagram of the rigging for an 8ft Pilot dinghy.

I'm also responsible for gathering suggestions for names. So far only three people have responded:

Mary = Squirt

Jill = The little blue sailboat

David = either Mach Kami Aleat - It means 'don't reach too far or the boom is going to clock you on the head' or Kamial Chalma - Who was the turkish god of underwarter bolders and seaweed

Come on, blog lurkers, send your name suggestions!

ANNOUNCEMENT!

We have a new addition to the Woodilla fleet!

She's an 8ft Holby Pilot sailing dinghy waiting for grandchildren to come and sail. First she needs a clean-up -- no wonder because she's been in a garden shed since her former helmsman moved on to a faster dinghy at least 8 years ago (He's now a senior in college.) He and his father are delighted that she will be used to teach the members of the next generation of Lord's Pointers how to sail.

She needs a name -- please send suggestions.

Today's milestones

1. My hiking boots walked to the newspaper box at the entrance to Lord's Point. And back.

2. I saw the first signs of fall foliage

3. Jack recharged my life vest (no, I'm not planning to see if this one works. Besides there wasn't any wind today.)

4. I waited for the bridge in Mystic. (not much else I could do

because I wanted to get to the other side)

5. The bank was open. I ordered some Peruvian sol.

6. Other stuff, like preparing for a work-day at WNEC tomorrow, catching errors in a tenure packet, and designing a frame for my graphic novel, didn't make milestone status.

Todays rounds with pictures

I set off on I95 north , heading for New Haven.

Made a pit stop in Clinton (for output not intake)

Parked the car

And headed for my doctor's office for a routine appointment.

He was running very late -- about an hour and a half late. No picture here, just imagine sitting in the waiting room.

Back on the highway, no time for planned stop at Staples in New London

To the hairdresser in Groton

Afterwards to the Mystic library to drop off a DVD

To the bank to order Peruvian sol (currency) for our trip.

Too late! The bank was closed already.

And finally home at Lord's Point.

Enough trivia-pics?

A day without pictures

The day dawned wet with an opportunity to wear our new rainwear on our morning walk. There we were in full regalia -- jacket, trousers, hiking boots -- while the morning runners passed us in shorts -- and soaking wet. I've already posted a photo of my outfit.

So it was a work day, and I settled down to deal with various lingering tasks -- important emails, composing a letter of support for a tenure application, viewing the last chapter of a DVD on art, preparing the title frame of my graphic novel. I'm not posting a picture of this because I've already shown a sample frame.

Now I can start reading a new novel. If I'd picked one out already I might include a picture, but I haven't yet decided. Too bad for followers who live for the pics!

Better luck tomorrow, maybe.

Glorious 21

We had one of our best sails of the season with winds of 12-15 knots. Others were doing the same - we saw more sailboats out this afternoon than we've seen the the past month all told. We had to dodge the race of the day -- J-24s sailing downwind with spinnakers set.

We also spotted Whisper (see post of July 20) coming down (or is it up?) the Sound. But she was not under sail -- why ever not? There were no signs of any passengers, so the professional crew of 5 could do as they pleased. Do they not like sailing? (Remind me to ask Mark what he did as a professional crew in similar circumstances.)

I did do some work -- ploughing through the logical decisions for creating the infamous Table 2. And the New York TImes was full of relevant articles, from a Business Section pag

e 1 article on comics, to a Styles section on cutting patterns for jeans with zero wasted fabric. And I picked some of our crop of tomatoes for a special accompaniment to crab cakes this evening. A delicious "end" to a good day.

21? It was sail number 21 of the season!

Summer Saturday in Mystic

Jack and I took advantage of art on our doorstep and spentseveral hours at the Mystic Art Festival (though not so long as to preclude a sail - #20 of the season; we may yet make our goal of 30 sails if the weather stays fair). It's been several years since I've been to this annual event and I was pleasantly surprised by both the quantity and quality of the art displayed. Apparently there were more than 250 participants with probably less than 50 displaying crafts and the rest painting or art photography or related genres. There were paints of every medium -- oils, watercolors, acrylics, pastels, prints, etching, "thread paintings" (very fine embroidery stitches like brushstrokes) and so on, though I didn't see any pen and ink drawings -- and all sorts of subjects, ranging from animals, to fruit, to landscapes to portraits to boats to .....a painting of waterlilies that looked just like the one I found on the internet to use as a model for one of design assignments last winter.

I especially enjoyed the collages and special effectswith photographs, and talked with many artists about their work. Almost everyone had a page on the walls of their booth along with the

artwork giving details of their process, which made viewing the work more interesting. I had deliberately left my wallet in the car so I could not even be tempted to buy something - and, truth be told, there wasn't anything I just HAD to have. It was enjoyable, of professional quality, but suitable for regional rather than international audiences.

The highlight for me was meeting Brett Swanson, a comic artist and author (aka graphic novelist). I even borrowed $5 from Jack for one of his books! His studio is in New London, and he said he went to cartoon

school to learn the craft. I also learned about a digital printing service that takes jpeg files and turns them into a comic book. Maybe I'll have need of this service once my magnus opus is completed!

The show gave me an opportunity to experience the paintings (generic for all media) through Dewey's concepts (as best I can understand them from my reading.) The subjects were realistic enough that I did not need to ponder what the artist "meant"- I could just enjoy the way in which I perceived the gestalt of the composition, and through reading and talking with artists about their process I could appreciate the technical/thinking process that was necessary to achieve the end result. I realized which ones engaged me emotionally, providing an aesthetic experience, and which were merely pleasant to view. I'm eager to work on the "art" frame for my next "chapter" in my graphic novel, but first I must knuckle down to some serious Digital Measures sorting out of the data entry field selections for generating output report AACSB Table 2-1. (I hope I've lost you here. No one in their right mind should be concerned about such matters.)

Woman overboard!

Yes, I fell in the water from a boat! I was getting into the dinghy at the dock and Jack pushed off before I had my weight transferred to the boat. There I was, with half my weight at each place and the gap between them widening. There was nothing for it but to fall face first into the water. Then POOF! my offshore racing life-vest automatically inflated on contact with the water. Some boys were crabbing off the dock and they thought I was the most exciting event of the day!

The root cause was a kayak that was improperly tethered to the dock; I had half my attention set on avoiding it, and Jack didn't realize this was the situation. Oh well, merely a $50 experience to get the life-vest recharged.

I thought this might be a Friday 13-type omen for our sail, but this was not the case. I changed clothes, donned a less fancy life-vest and we set out to sail almost to the Dumplings and back. We were doing about 8 knots over land at one point. On our return an onlooker said she was in awe of our sailing skills -- I don't think she saw the earlier incident!

I haven't been overboard for about 50 years when my brother and I used to race our Enterprise dinghy on the Blackwater Estuary. We capsized many times.

Not much to say

About being back at the Welch College of Business all day to consult with the Associate Dean and the Data Administrator on the Digital Measures faculty activity database. I did take time out for lunch with the former Dean at one of his favorite spots. I'm so glad to be having a summer this year and not working all day long every day!

Waiting...

But, unlike the artifact in today's photo, I'm not quite sure for what.

I spent a lot of time generating reports from Digital Measures while waiting for a visit to campus tomorrow to consult with Rupendra and train Maura (I've committed to three days between now and September 15, part on campus and part doing programming stuff at home -- and yes, I will be paid for it.)

We went for a sail but we were always waiting for more wind -- it wasn't quite enough to make it a good sail.

I'm waiting for Ulla's computer to talk to the internet again so we can Skype and get going on work that we have planned to do together (she reports that it has been at the spa every day this week). In the interim I'm waiting for inspiration to compose a particular fame in my graphic novel. I have some background photos already, but they don't tell the story as well as they might.

And if you were waiting for a post from me yesterday -- sorry, I was in Hartford at a play, Sheila's Day.

New style and theory

Another outfit from my new wardrobe -- I tried out my wetsuit today with a swim out to the raft. It was a strange sensation as the cold water crept up between my skin and the neoprene. ( Jack suggested the seaweed for artistic effect).

I paid a visit to the shelves of the Mystic and Noank Library to find some other art-related books as an antidote to Dewey, and returned with a DVD of a BBC program on How Art Made the World. Hmm, not sure how that fits with my Galapagos reading.

The new normal?

I don't know how many times I read that phrase in today's NYTimes -- and yes! I did get through most of the paper! The breeze was just right for a sail this afternoon -- skill needed to exit and enter the Lord's Point "harbor", then close hauled down to Noank where there was plenty of boat activity, and a run back home before the wind died. Afterwards I "discovered" (or worked out how to do) a procedure in Photoshop that will make my paper a manageable size for distributing over the web. I was delighted! (Maybe the trolls had something to do with it ;-)

Finally I returned to pie-making mode -- three pies remain in the bakeoff -- and produced a peach custard pie. It only received a 5-pie rating from Jack because the custard was a little runny. My taster says this one doesn't count and I must make it again!

If this is the new normal, I'm all for it!

Oh! ... so THAT's the reason!

I've come up with a hypothesis (note, not yet a theory) why I've been having so much trouble with Photoshop. I've selected a troll as my doppelganger in my graphic novel, and today when surfing Wikipedia I came across this:

In Swedish everyday folklore trolls often were blamed for bad luck or accidents - in some parts of Sweden they still, when things go wrong, say: "Det går troll i det här". This can can be translated with "There are trolls in this" or "This has become troll-infested" meaning that something brings or has extraordinary misfortune coming with it. For example: If everything goes wrong in a project you can say: "Det verkar som om det går troll i det här projektet" meaning "It looks like this project is cursed by the trolls".

I'll have to read some more to find out how to humor a troll - maybe with gifts or good food or a soft bed to sleep in rather than under a bridge.

A picture worth 1000 words

I have no further comment on my day's activities.

Work day

The weather changed throughout the day: first flat calm, then a ferocious thunderstorm with almost simultaneous lightning flash and thunder roll as it passed overhead, and finally, when it was too late to sail, clear air and a pleasant breeze. We occupied ourselves with
projects: Jack installed a new motor in the kitchen skylight, and I made a first pass at incorporating a pen-and-inksketch into a photo. (I need to make myself a bit bigger -- but that's a task for tomorrow!)

When I became too frustrated with the process I enjoyed a vase of gladioli from the "garden". Several years ago someone, Shari perhaps, gave us some bulbs that we planted under the pussy willow tree at the edge of the grass for want of somewhere else to put them. This year they produced many magnificent blooms.

Strange behavior

Anyone who knows me knows how much I hate to shop, so when I tell you I've been on a shopping spree lately you'll wonder what's got over me. Getting equipped for our Galapagos adventure is the reason. I've been in bricks and clicks at EMS (hiking boots & socks, short, longs), Lands End (two-piece swimsuits), L.L.Bean (raincoat & trousers), West Marine (water/boat shoes, hat) and the Aqua Shop (wetsuit, gloves) Here's the (~$1,000) result -

How does it compare with the suggested equipment list?

I think I've made all the big purchases, and I plan to use just about everything in some part of the rest of my life. Now I'll take a breather before hunting out the rest of the stuff I need from my various closets, drawers, and storage spots. I can always go to REI with Mary when we visit her at the end of the month if I'm missing anything.

I made a little progress with Photoshop but it's going to be slow going. I have to decide -- do I "learn it right" and work through the manual doing every task, or do I just learn the tricks I need for my graphic novel project? I suppose I should look ahead to how far/long it is till I learn how to cut and paste between photos which is what I need to do. Here's my output from today, an old fashioned photo of me modeling my new rain suit. I think it looks more like a

traditional black and white photo so obviously I still have lots to learn. The picture on the right is the original.

No more Photoshopped pictures until I can show you a finished product.