This morning, I awoke to find another Valentine’s Day card from Gee. The world outside my window was blanketed in a fresh New England snowstorm. I guess it is her way of wishing me a Happy Valentine’s Day, and reminding me that not only is today Valentine’s Day, but also her birthday. She would have [...]
One of my favorite blogs to read is 37 Days, by Patti Digh. A recent post of her talks about the movie “March of the Penguins”, and talks about a young woman named Meta. The story really hit home for me, since Meta was about the same age as my identical twin and, like him, [...]
As many of my blog readers also read Tillerman’s Proper Course blog, I thought I’d share an interesting discovery. I am indirectly connected to him, and his family. I just got a comment, as did he, from his daughter-in-law, Anne. Anne just realized that I am Debbi’s little brother. Debbi and Kathy, Anne’s older sister, [...]
Well, blogging is probably going to suffer as I hunker down and get settled into NaNoWriMo 2006. Brian and Carol Anne are already off and running. Tammy, Brad and I are a bit behind them. This is my first time participating in the organized insanity called NaNoWriMo, and it’ll be interesting to see how it [...]
There’s nothing better than the weather we’ve had this past two weeks for good autumn sailing. The wind has been pretty solid, between 15 and 25 knots most of the time, and the temperatures, relatively reasonable, at least in that we haven’t had any snow. It’s been really hard to be stuck ashore with the [...]
I signed up for NaNoWriMo today. For those of you who don’t know what NaNoWriMo is, it is the National Novel Writing Month event that takes every November. My friend, Brian Howe, challenged me to participate this year. I intend on using it as a incubator for the book I am writing about My Life [...]
I’m back home from the hospital. I’ve got to go back next week, and get the staples out. but I’m finally on the road to recovery. It’s been a long two weeks, and it is good to be home. I guess I should be more careful what I wish for in the future.
Be Careful About What You Wish For, or How God Has a Twisted Sense of Humor As some of you may know, I am working on a book, “No Greater Love”. The book is about the almost two-years of my life I generally refer to as My Life with Gee. It started on July 10, [...]
Blogging has been light because I was in the hospital for eight days…stories and posts to come later…
Saturday, October 7, 2006, I went out for what will now be my last sail of the season. Even though, I would personally prefer to be sailing until the snow falls, it turns out that life has had other plans for me this year. Eric is one of the people I’ve been talking to about [...]
Today’s quote of the day was from Kahlil Gibran. Kahlil Gibran wrote: “Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” Some days I wonder about that. There are days, when I look back at what I’ve been through and wonder what effect it has had on who [...]
I just got back from a week down at the marina, where I was staying aboard the Pretty Gee. I went down Sunday for several reasons. The first was to get some more sailing in, as the end of the New England sailing season rapidly approaches. I also had some projects I wanted to get [...]
I finally got down to the marina again. I haven’t been able to get down here for a whole bunch of reasons, and it was good to be back on the Pretty Gee again. Friday, I spent a good part of the day getting her ready to be put back in the water. Most of [...]
I got up this morning at about 5:00 a.m. I had an 8:10 flight to catch back up to Beantown. After getting dressed and packed, I walked down to the hotel lobby. I asked the front desk to call a cab for me, to take me to the Newport News airport. A few minutes later, [...]
This weekend, I headed down to Newport News, Virginia. Getting to Newport News was a challenge, but not all that bad, except the nine-and-a-half hour day spent in Logan International Airport. Flying down to Virginia, while tropical storm Ernesto is sitting over the state is not really my idea of fun, but I had made [...]
Today, I’m writing this post from my hotel room, down in Newport News, Virginia. I flew down this evening for a wedding tomorrow. I’m due to fly back on Sunday morning. The problem with air travel, aside from the security issues, is that trying to do so during the hurricane season can be challenging. Yesterday, [...]
A year or so ago, I started watching the Showtime TV series, Dead Like Me. I recently got the DVD set of the series. It is about Georgia, an eighteen year-old woman, who is killed by a falling piece of the Mir Space Station, and then becomes a grim reaper. In the TV show, the [...]
Since this is a sailing blog, at least to some degree… I should probably write about sailing at some point. As part of my plan for long-distance passage making, I was taking a Macro Cruising Course over at the Boston Sailing Center. I’ve also posted some photos, per Tillerman’s request. I hope you enjoy the [...]
There’s a post on a blog I read called Fear of Death. The post is about the fear of death, and of dying that was caused by her friend’s diagnosis with a particularly nasty form of non-Hodgkins lymphoma. The author writes: “And it was only then, maybe ten minutes before they arrived, that I finally [...]
Well, this weekend was spent hauling the Pretty Gee out of the water. I went down to the marina on Friday to get her ready for the haul out. The main reason for hauling the boat out of the water in the middle of the season is the waterline. The waterline, where the hull paint [...]
Well, I did go out sailing on Wednesday. While the day was pretty good overall, my cell phone was killed in action. It fell out of my shirt pocket, and into the water along side the Pretty Gee, when I was tieing off one of the docklines. So, if you’re trying to reach me at [...]
Today, I had the honor of taking my favorite aunt and one of my uncles out on the Pretty Gee. YS is generally referred to as “Auntie Ford” within my family, as she has worked at the Dearborn-based company for many years. WK, is the husband of my YS’s and my father’s late elder sister, [...]
Yesterday, I took the Pretty Gee out on Buzzards Bay again. My friend Dave, and my other friend’s son, Johnnie, and daughter, Lauren, along with a friend of theirs, Brandon, were along for the day. This was the first time that Lauren and Brandon had ever been out on a sailboat. It was also Dave’s [...]
Patti Digh has a wonderful post on her blog about appearances, and not judging people by appearances. I’d invite my readers to go visit Patti’s blog and read the story. As a child, I learned to judge people based on their actions towards me and my friends, rather than on what others say about them [...]
Today, the tenth of July, is a very special day for me. Today, I celebrate the seventh anniversary of the day I met Gee for the very first time. For those of you who don’t know about how we met—it was through a blind date, setup by a mutual friend of our parents. Seven years [...]
Well, yesterday was another beautiful day for sailing on Buzzards Bay. I started the day off by picking up my friend’s 14-year-old son again. We then stopped to pick up Nan, a friend of mine I met through the Boston Sailing Center. Next was the all important stop at the supermarket for lunch supplies, and [...]
Here’s the story behind why I was at the marina until 3:00 a.m. on the morning of the Fourth of July. On the afternoon of third of July, I was was sitting on the Pretty Gee, looking at the navigation electronics, as I wanted to see what the current wind conditions were like—as I was [...]
I want to wish all my readers and visitors a Happy Fourth of July. This will be a very brief post as I am leaving for the marina in a few minutes. I was there until about 3:00 this morning, and am going back… While the weather doesn’t look all that promising for a sail—a [...]
Yesterday morning, I dropped by my friend’s house to pick up their fourteen year-old son—Johnnie Jr.—who had volunteered to be crew on my boat. His mother, who I’ve known since she and Johnnie Sr. were dating, was a bit worried about Johnnie Jr. going sailing on the ocean. I told her not to worry—I didn’t [...]
Grief and love are funny things. Losing someone you love so completely is something some people handle it well, and others not so well. I guess I probably fall in to the not-so-well end of the spectrum. Not quite seven years ago I first spoke to the woman I was destined to marry. I knew [...]