Coiping: Monday & Work

While probably 99% of American males were glued to their teevee sets for Super Bowl, I spent Sunday on the back of the snorting orange monster called Kubota (made in Georgia, btw) whipping a sense of orderliness out of about 5-acres which later on this year will be goat pasture.  this morning I’m pretty much sore all over and discovering muscles I didn’t know I had.  But about 3-acres is done for the year and ready for fencing which only leaves about another two week’s worth of tractoring – maybe three – to get the land whipped into the kind of shape I want it.

Fair bit of art to tractoring rough land.  First thing you do is poush over scrub trees and grind them up with the brush-hog a flail mower that runs on a power-take-off shaft from the tractor and beats everything to snot making a tremendous racket the whole time and jarring you silly.  The next step is to pull the Muscatine grape vines out of the large oak trees.  The grape vines, many as big around as your wrist can be 60-80 feet long and yes, when they come down on your head, they hurt, LOL.  All that’s left is running over them to turn ‘em into mulch and then to push up the logging leftovers that haven’t decomposed yet.

Point is that while I was doing this, I was reminded that there are some jobs which people do that are extremely rewarding.  For example, framing a house has always been high on my ‘personal rewards’ list.  Something about capturing or taming formerly disorganized space that’s just darn rewarding.

Writing (and broadcasting) has always appealed to me, too.  Something about being able to wr4ite (or speak) something that will get people to thinking rather than just sitting around swallowing crap hook, line & sinker.

Working on electronics has its own special rewards, too.  Chasing electrons around through the bowels of a radio, for example, trying to find where they’re not corralled and doing what I want ‘em to.   And finally, getting them to come out of a speaker or an antenna output, depending on whether they’re receiver electrons or transmitter electrons.

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The reason for mentioning this – and on a Monday, at that – is to remind myself, my kids, and maybe you that if you’re doing something that you really enjoy, it’s not really work.  It’s activity and sometimes the right activity can verge on being fun.

I realize not everyone can be having fun all the time but there’s a joy that comes from a good landing, well-stitched artery, perfectly prepared meal, properly operating software, timely mail delivery, and nicely designed and framed house that is its own reward.

I figure the safest time to be out working in the woods of East Texas is when Super Bowl is on; fighting a cold north wind, trying not to snag a hydraulic line on brush being pushed, not to snap a stump with the mower blade, and at the end of it having a nice piece of land looking cared for.

Best of all:  No hangover and I get to do more of it over the next several weeks and maybe some of the novelty/joy will wear thin.  I’ll try to shoot a few  before & afters for you.  Main difference between Super Bowl Sunday and After Bowl Monday, near as I can figure, is most places don’t supply beer & grazing materials on the job site.

Gone Sailing

Meantime, as a 10-year liveaboard sailor, I’d be negligent not to mention that the America’s Cup trials are getting underway today.  Good story on the NY Times website about the monohull versus multihull debate.

Since you may have never got deeply into nautical design, allow me to bring you up to speed a bit.  There are several different approaches to ‘hull’ shape – the part of the boat that goes in the water. 

A traditional hull is a long banana-ish kind of affair that moves through the water in a very predictable way.  The basic formula is 1.34 times the square root of the waterline length gives you the basic ‘hull speed’ which can be diddled with this way and that.  But it’s why little boats can’t keep up with bigger boats of the same hull type.  A 36 foot traditional monohull will do 8.04 knots (6 * 1.34)  as a basic displacement hull, while a 9 foot boat will do 3.02 knots.

The diddling is incredible, though.  How the bow enters the waves, reduction in wetted area (wetted area equals friction) and even how well the boat is “faired” around protrusions like through-hull fittings for engine cooling or how much disturbance the rudder makes – all that figures into ultimate speed for a given set of conditions.

The 1.34 monohull speed is just a basic rule of thumb and there are calculators alike this one where you can find conversions for multi-hulls, although truth be told, if you’re going exotic, I’d recommend you look at hydrofoils, but that’s a whole other discussion.  I’m sure if my friend Cliff were up at this hour, he’d say something like “What about skimming & planing hulls like the Sharpie and the Geary designed Flatties?”

Example of a flattie may be seen here  of you can go buy one used for $500 bucks if you’re in Oregon.  The discussion of “sharpies’ could last longer than a day at work and there’s a fair write up on Wikipedia about them.  Cliff really likes the Phil Bolger sharpies, although if you like sailing straight up and down, you would be much better off with a multiple hull since the sharpies are tender – nauticalese for tippy to a point (about 30º of tippy since you asked).

Which gets us around to the whole question about the America’s Cup racing: Should the sport continue to be confined to monohulls, or should the sport be changed up to include multihulls and exotics like hydrofoils?

Hard call: traditionalists on one side, speed demons on the other.

Either way, as the old sailing joke goes:  ‘If you want to get a really good approximation of sailboat racing, go stand in a cold shower and tear up $100-dollar bills.”  Been there, done that. If you ever get there yourself, a little more Buffett and remember the old saying “Gentlemen never go to weather…”

Press on General Aviation

I’ve been getting a fair number of emails and notes from the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association urging me to contribute to their fund to fight new restrictions and user fees in Washington, although no sign of user gees for general aviation/sport pilots in the current budget.  Still with the budget process just starting it may come up…so goes the fund raising material.

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My own feelings?  If a plane is using ATC [air traffic control] it oughta pay its fair share, TCA’s [terminal control areas] excepted so sport  & private pilots can still fly on the cheap.  But pressurized pistons and corpjets using IFR [instrument flight rules] airspace (Class A airspace is all that at and over 18,000 feet)?

“If they fly Class A…let ‘em pay…” or how about “17-9,  free is fine…”? Although I appreciate how it takes a checkbook to be heard in Washington.

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How comes FAA pilot’s licenses STILL don’t have pictures on them?????

Lifestyles/Deathstyles:  Killer Boredom

New research says you really can be bored to death.  Funny this would come up.

While I was resting up after having my Sunday brain bouncing I was looking at airplanes again and thinking to myself.. I’ve got to come up with a new hobby and/or huge personal project.

I’m convinced that people are by nature inquisitive, learning, wandering, adaptive critters and that when they stop wandering, inquiring, adapting, and learning news tuff they wither up and die.

This being Monday is a fine time to ask “What turns my crank?  What’s my BIG GOAL that I’m working toward?  What’s the big mountain I’m climbing?”

 

If you don’t have one, go find one…’cuz is you don’t, you may be sliding toward the Big Exit faster than you have to….seem the movie “The Bucket List” is very much on point.

 

Reader’s Writes:

Here’s one:

“I read your column every day…sometimes twice if needed. It is part of my morning routine up here in the Great White North.

I have two complaints.

1. You publish your blog at 8 hundred and I am up at 5…gotta wait 3 hours. 2. You are getten gun shy. Somebody must uh sprinkled some buckshot your way in the form of rebuke.

My very humble advice would be to not be shy concerning your views. Your blog is a source of truth and hope in an entropic society.”

Answers are simple:

1.  Sleep in more.

2.  Not getting gun shy – just ‘normal folks’ (if I can stretch that far enough to include you ) are getting more radical.  Remember, when the web bots started talking about how regular folks will be using terms like ‘revolution’ (3-4 year ago) that was revolutionspeak.  Today it’s ho-hum.
 

No put away that Molotov cocktail and get’cher ass off to work. Don’t you have a hobby to fund, or sumpthin?  Leftovers and replay of game highlights to look forward to tonight?

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Send your comments to george@ure.net

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Shop Till Your Drop Department:

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Pass It On

A different take on things – that’s what you’ll find here most mornings.  If you know of anyone who might also like our content, simply click here and send a link to them.  Or, if you hated what you read, send the link to all your ‘worst enemies’.  Like they say in Burbank, “Ain’t no such thing as bad press…”

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