I’ve been watching the weather forecast for this Sunday and they keep vacillating between 60% and 30% chance of rain. Plan on joining us for our 1st scheduled 2014 sail 3/30, 1:30 PM, Tualatin Commons. Watch this space for updates as we get closer.

We are now looking at 4/13 as a possible annual meeting date. More later.

The weather forecast is looking good for this Sunday (3/23) and Patrick informed me that there is water in Tualatin Commons pond again. He plans to sail his T37, I plan to sail my Micro Magic. Why don’t you join us at 1:30?

We are scheduled to sail at Tualatin Commons this Sunday, 8/18, at 1:30 PM – please join us.

 Two weeks ago we attempted a return to Westmoreland Casting Pond. While there was plenty of water, the noise of diesel pumps in support of the on-going stream bed restoration work was a bit much. We have revised our schedule to reflect sailing only at Tualatin. I would appreciate status updates from anyone who happens to stop by Westmoreland in the coming weeks.

 I have a long-standing previous commitment for this Sunday and will be unable to sail with you – but have fun without me!

I recently added a page to my site and many of my “custom header” photos got scrambled. I worked and worked and got most of the pages fixed, but a couple refuse to cooperate. The “happiness engineers” at WordPress responded to my inquiries in a cursory manner that did nothing to address my problems. Anyway, I’ve decided to redevelop my website (using RapidWeaver) and find another host. It will take me a while. hopefully it will be seamless to all of you.

I received some very good news on the Yahoo Footy Group today. Dick McCoy (K6SamHam@yahoo.com) has taken over production of the Chris Staiger designed Pool Shark 3D. This is a fast, easy to sail, easy to build, nice looking boat – by far my favorite of all the Footys I’ve sailed. I have no reservations recommending this boat to anyone into Footy sailing.

 The bad news part refers to the apparent lack of enthusiasm on the part of Footy skippers in the Portland OR area. Rose City Model Sailing Club started in large part to support the innovative Footy Class and at first we had quite a bit of participation. A bit over a year ago, one of our members built a Micro Magic. Then more and more caught the Micro Magic bug. We added Micro Magics to our supported classes and they have taken off. As evidence, yesterday we held a Footy Race Day event and exactly one Footy (my Pool Shark 3D) showed up. We sailed Micro Magics and had a great time. It’s weird that I’m feeling almost nostalgic about the Footy Class. We have a few more designated Footy events on our sailing schedule this season. I’d love to see some Footy enthusiasm. If you are interested in Footys, please let us know through participation or communication.

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 4,600 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

 

 

 

Some people find an image of Jesus on their toast… I find a coyote howling at the Flying Spaghetti Monster on my abalone shell.

I’m hearing so much acrimony lately – on Facebook and elsewhere. It depresses me. I was just listening to the latest effort by Greg Brown – always one of my favorite lyricists – and thought I’d share the lyrics to the title track, Freak Flag. Obviously, I’m a child of the 60’s.

I grew up in the shadow of The Bomb

Come of age during Viet Nam

Many thousand gone – I never did know why

Well look around – it’s so hard to see

What’s happening to our big family

I’m an American – I’m gonna let my freak flag fly – fly

Well my dad preached a message of love

I heard him say on the day he passed on above

He said “Use what you got, son, to raise a hopeful cry”

Dad, I heard what you had to say

I try to hold to it every day

I’m your boy – I’m gonna let my freak flag fly – fly – fly

Flag of green, flag of brown

Leaves in the sky, roots in the ground

I’m singing and stomping by the dawns early light

For every soul being beat down

For every child who sees the light and turns around

Come on now – let’s let that freak flag fly – fly – fly

 

A few weeks ago I began hearing about the Spotify streaming music service, apparently all the rage in Europe, arriving in the USA. Supposedly they have agreements with all of the major record labels to stream their music. They have Free accounts that include occasional text and spoken ads. They have Unlimited accounts ($4.95/mo.) that remove the ads. they have Premium accounts ($9.95/mo.) that add the ability to listen on mobile devices and to listen while offline, with some of their catalog streaming at 360kbps as opposed to the 180kbps offered for Free and Unlimited. The hook which allowed them to land the major labels is that they share revenue (from ads or subscriptions) with them.

To insure that their introduction to the USA went smoothly, they required invitations to obtain a Free account. I figured “what the heck” and requested one. About a bit over a week later I was listening. Their catalog is pretty dang good, though there are certainly gaps. The ads are not horribly intrusive but, once I got hooked on Spotify (and hooked I am) I had to spring for the $5/mo. and lose them.

Spotify is great for listening to that latest album by whoever. I often use it to indulge in the whims of my musical past. One way is to hit Wikipedia and search for “1967 in music” (fill the blank with your year of choice) and peruse the list of albums released in each month of the year. Listen to what tickles your fancy. Wikipedia is also great for spurring your memory to find other things you might want to listen to. Search for “Jefferson Airplane” and you’ll find links to related individuals and groups galore.

I plan to stay with the Unlimited account. I just don’t listen that often on my mobile device and when I want to I have plenty of music already there to choose from. I was tempted by the 360kbps bit rate, but (A) their are lots of complaints about the percent of Spotify’s catalog that is available at the higher bit rate and (B) I don’t know that I can hear the difference. I found (and unfortunately lost) a website that offered a side-by-side comparison of (I think) 160kbps and 320kbps streams. You could listen to each, switching back and forth, then you were supposed to guess which bit rate the mystery stream was offering. I flunked the quiz. I listen to music sometimes on my MacBook’s speakers, more often by streaming it to an Airport Express connected to my stereo. In either case, 180kpbs sounds fine to me.

I have been doing most of my music listening via Spotify for a couple of weeks now and I’m very happy. I have 18 days worth of music on my hard drive – it’s nice to not be gobbling up more of that space every time I want to hear something. Plus, I listen to things I wouldn’t necessarily want to purchase and download. When I signed up for Unlimited they gave me 5 invitations for Free accounts to pass out. I guess they let you go to the head of the line. I still have 4 of them if anyone is interested.