Back on Track

I try to do something new every day. I'm easily bored and I've found that trying something scary is a sure-fire way to stay out of the blahs.

Life is very accommodating for these activities. Almost daily, something I spent good money on breaks down and I'm faced with two possibilities: I can tear it apart to find out how it works, and maybe even fix it; or I can throw it away and try to find a replacement. The logical and most appealing choice is to try the repair, but if I take that approach with everything, I'm soon drowning in a deluge of nonfunctioning crap...

And I'm already way behind on a lot of projects.

Anyone who's dropped a vase knows that it only takes a second to break something, and a lot longer just to clean up the mess. And if you're going to glue that vase back together again, you better set aside a good chunk of time.

Then there's the stuff that just seems to appear on its own.

Last year the 1st Mate had a new room built onto the condo and I volunteered to build in the back door and create a design for the rear entrance. Then the topic of tool storage came up and i agreed to build that into the new room. These projects have me working in new mediums: adobe brick and mortar, glass brick and white cement. After constructing the doorway in 2x4s and plywood, I'm now sheathing the outside in parota, an indigenous wood that resists bugs and rot. It's also very beautiful and lightweight, but the sawdust is highly toxic. Any cutting, routing or sanding has to done with a good respirator mask. Pictured is a cockpit table I made from parota, butterflied and inlaid with strips of Mexican cedar. I build without plans or instructions- just some basic measurements. The fun is figuring out how to do something on my own. I know there's tons of how-tos online... if I was repairing my iPhone (which I have) I would do that. But this stuff isn't that big a deal, and discovering processes and techniques and tricks is a blast. Then you end up with something useful.

Goodbye, Sophie (1997-2010)

Today the 1st Mate, Dr. Salomon, the Vet, and I concurred that it was time to let go of our 13 year old Maltese mix family member. Two weeks ago she stopped eating, started to stagger when she walked, started losing weight. We've been making daily visits to Dr. Salomon for the last week for injections, instructions, IVs, and prescriptions. Two days ago the infection moved into her lungs and that pretty much meant the end of the game.

Before her illness, sleeping on her favorite cushion.

When the sea breeze comes up this afternoon, we'll go out to the ranch where the Green Flash sits, and find a place to bury her mortal remains. Digging in the desert is hard, but when you live in a condo development there's no place near the house. The 1st Mate and I will take the air compressor and an air chisel along with the shovel to create Sophie's resting place. The desert doesn't yield easily.

Emotionally, I'm a wreck. And with almost 10 years without a drink, I want one now.
Maybe tomorrow.

The 1,000 year old man (or woman) is alive and well

I've been thinking about a blog regarding aging and the science of aging for about a week now... I received a link in the mail about this very subject today, and that got me writing.


Life expectancy is:
White women: 81 years
African-American women: 76.9 years
White men: 76 years
African-American men: 70 years
(These numbers were published by the CDC in Feb., 2008)

Each year, new drugs, treatments and research extend our lives. Breakthroughs, like the one I'll reveal today, make it seem possible that the cures for what kills us will be there before we get sick, or at least, before we die from them. The thing about these numbers is that they include accidents, murder, war fatalities, drug and alcohol abuse/overdose, etc. If you are 60 now, your numbers are higher than the chart above... unless you have dangerous habits and have just been lucky so far.

We live in a time where it's possible that we could survive almost indefinitely.

From Gizmag:

A region of repetitive DNA at the end of a chromosome called a telomere, which protects the end of the chromosome from deterioration, is thought to be the "clock of aging" contained within the human body. Many scientists believe that the limit on lifespan and decline in health is imposed by the gradual shortening of our telomeres that occurs with every cell division. It has been repeatedly demonstrated that a human cell that does not undergo telomere shortening will divide indefinitely and is, by all available measurements, immortal.

Now researchers at Sierra Sciences, in collaboration with colleagues at TA Sciences, Geron Corporation, PhysioAge, and the Spanish National Cancer Research Center (CNIO), have discovered the first compound that activates telomerase – an enzyme that lengthens telomeres – in the human body, potentially opening the door to arresting or even reversing the aging process.

So there it is.

Take good care of yourselves and you may just get to live a lot longer than you thought possible; I suspect funeral directors look at this subject with mixed emotions.

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Stumbled onto Sadness

This is a beat up business card that was given to me by my friend Karl Karlsson. It was new when I got it, back in 1999, when Karl retired from the San Francisco Police Department and opened his office as a Private Investigator. He was serious about his work, but loved to play... he and I drank a lot together, back in the day. Superbowl parties were Karl's specialty and the booze and food was good and plentiful at his house on the Petaluma River, just south of Petaluma.

In late 1999, Karl and his wife Carol told me they were going to Puerto Vallarta to party for 10 days and watch the Superbowl and then fly home. I was headed to Mexico for the winter and it turned out I was in Vallarta on my boat BLISS in late January. I got their number and invited them out for a sail on Banderas Bay, so we did.

As we started back after the daily sea breeze died my diesel wouldn't start... so we sailed into the anchorage at La Cruz de Huanacaxtle in the dark. Carl was steering, Carol was reading off the depths as we came in and I was on the bow ready to drop the anchor. After we succeeded in sailing in the hook, I gave them the vee berth and went to sleep in the quarter berth near the nav station.

The next morning, I got into the engine room and started the diesel by jumping across the starter motor with a screwdriver (lots of noise and sparks) and we motored back to my slip. I drove them to their hotel. Karl told me he wanted to spend their last day together alone in PV (Superbowl Sunday) so I bid them adieu and drove back to the marina.

The next day I watched the Superbowl at a pub somewhere and the following Monday Karl and Carol boarded Alaska Airlines flight 261 out of Puerto Vallarta for San Francisco and Seattle. A flight I had taken a number of times. But theirs never made it. They died with the 86 other passengers and crew when the plane slammed into the Pacific Ocean near Pt. Conception in California on January 31, 2000.

I was cleaning out some stuff when I came across Karl's card., and it all came back to me.
So I wrote it here.

Big Brother isn't who you thought He would be

Do you remember the famous Apple TV ad most folks refer to as "1984" or the "Big Brother Ad?"

According to ARS TECHNICA Apple Computer has"applied for a patent on a method to differentiate between authorized and unauthorized users of a particular iOS device. Once an unauthorized user is detected, the device can then automatically disable certain features or send notifications to Twitter or other services.

The patent, titled "Systems and Methods for Identifying Unauthorized Users of an Electronic Device," describes several ways a device could sense who is using an iPhone or iPad. Among the methods considered are voice print analysis, photo analysis, heartbeat analysis (!), hacking attempts, or even "noting particular activities that can indicate suspicious behavior."

If the various analyses detect someone who is not authorized to use the device, it could set off a number of automated features designed to protect the device's data, suss out the offending party, and alert the device owner. Sensitive data could be backed up to a remote server and the device could be wiped. The device could automatically snap pictures of the unauthorized user and record the GPS coordinates of the device, as well as log keystrokes, phone calls, or other activity.


I can see where it would be helpful to disable a stolen phone.

Some of those who comment on ARS suggest it could be a way for Apple to disable unlocked or "jailbroken" iPhones, although a US Court has ruled that jailbreaking phones is not illegal activity. Apple could bypass the ruling by defining jailbreaking and/or unlocking as "suspicious behavior." This is actually stated in the patent application. It could be made part of the Software User Agreement. If you don't agree, then your iPhone won't even start up.

Steve Jobs is now a multi-billionaire, and his peers own things like AT&T, Telcel, and major recording and film companies. These are the people he cuts his deals with... if Carlos Slim (Telcel owner and world's richest man) wants Mexico's iPhones only to sell through Telcel, then the unlocked and jailbroken phones have to stop working. Of course, that's a big IF and purely speculative. But the lust for power and unbridled greed have no boundaries.

Jobs is now part of the network of filthy rich guys.

On the lighter side of the argument, one commenter writes: "Apple should buy into cattle prod technology. If somebody steals my phone, i want the battery drained into the the person using it. I want them to flop on the ground like a seizing trout. Maybe it can detect a lack of heartbeat and stop the discharge to conserve enough battery to upload its current location."


Maybe we'll get to see that on YOUTUBE in the next few years, if Big Brother lets us.

And you thought Jet Skis were bad...

New to emerge from the diabolical minds of recreational technologists is the shark-shaped Seabreacher X. A machine that can do 50 mph on the surface and 25 mph underwater, carry two people, and wreak havoc at your nearest anchorage.

Even at around $100,000 each, you can be sure the superyachts will keep at least one of these aboard for their spoiled kids/grandkids....

Pride in your work... from where does it spring?

This week we got our first taste of the monsoons and while the cool rain and cloud cover made conditions delightful outdoors, we did get some outdoors indoors.

This photo shows several leaks that occurred in our new condo addition during the rains. It was enough to have us putting buckets out, mopping and moving stuff when we'd rather be sitting and gazing out at the lightning.

I climbed up to the area and found this brick wall riddled with voids and holes in the mortar (not to mention the drainpipes that were disassembled and left on the roof). Somebody didn't give a damn, and the contractor who paid this bricklayer didn't check his work.

Anyway, this morning at 6am, I mixed up a batch of mortar, climbed up and patched the holes after wetting them down. We could, and maybe should have called the contractor to complain, and maybe we still will do that, but for now the problem is fixed. We're ready for the next rain, whether the contractor does anything or not.

In my experience, this kind of shoddy workmanship is more common in Mexico than the US.
It's particularly scary if you are trusting someone to fix your boat or car. I, for one, do almost all of my own repairs. It's cheaper and safer in the long run, but I do get tired of the constant job lists. I believe I have too many things and have embarked on the task of getting them to someone else, but that's kinda' off-topic. Another blog.

I learned pride in my work... a sense of craftsmanship, from Mrs. Mary Chandler. She was my art teacher from the 2nd grade to the 6th. A year after entering junior high school, she was my teacher again, and moved with me into high school. I'm surprised I didn't find her in my college classes, but she was instrumental in getting me into college level art classes at Carnegie Institute of Technology at the tender age of 14. She had engineered a scholarship for me.

Mary made me work through the hard parts, when I would have said, "Hey, that's good enough!" Good enough wasn't good enough. When I saw the results of the extra effort and attention to detail, it seemed worth it all.

In this world we all need someone like Mary. Even bricklayers.