World's site info

Nige has put together a web portal for info on this year's world's. Information will be posted on a regular basis so check in frequently. One side bar link leads to a piece I wrote about the 1976 World's in Ware River (the last time the championship was held in the US.) So, in the spirit of Bruce's "Old School" post I've included a pic from that year's race, from an earlier Madmothist blog post..

Just a couple of days to go to vote in how much fitter you are than me. I'm just reeling in the years.



Reelin' in the years, by Donald Fagen & Walter Becker (1972).

Your everlasting summer
You can see it fading fast
So you grab a piece of something
That you think is gonna last
You wouldn't know a diamond
If you held it in your hand
The things you think are precious
I can't understand

Chorus:
Are you reelin' in the years
Stowin' away the time
Are you gatherin' up the tears
Have you had enough of mine

You been tellin' me you're a genius
Since you were seventeen
In all the time I've known you
I still don't know what you mean
The weekend at the college
Didn't turn out like you planned
The things that pass for knowledge
I can't understand

Chorus

I spend a lot of money
And I spent a lot of time
The trip we made in hollywood
Is etched upon my mind
After all the things weve done and seen
You find another man
The things you think are useless
I can't understand

Chorus

Gorge Worlds on-line registration

While the event-specific website is still being massaged by Nige, the CGRA has activated their on-line link to register. So com'on and click here to join the party. And since I've got your attention, click on a choice for the poll on general fitness. If more girls vote I may display greater fitness over more than the one lady who's already voted!

Mind the Culture Gap

I'm in the heart of the rowing spring season with a major regatta yesterday and two more in the next two weeks. So moth sailing is still on the back burner. Anyway, at the regatta yesterday the Local Organizing Committee (rowing's equivalent of the race committee) was selling some t-shirts to promote the league and to raise some funds. And like the "No Fear of Flying" t-shirts, most folks, and certainly all of the kids, never got the relevant reference. I know I'm getting old when half my parents couldn't place the iconic image ("I don't get it, the guys are carrying the boat while wearing suits...")

So I'm one of the old guys. I'm wondering how far off the pace physically I am. To find out, I've included a poll on general fitness. If you did as many push ups as you could, and as many pull ups as you could, and added the totals, what number would you come up with? I'm at around 15. Old. And decrepit.



Come Together (Lennon/McCartney) 1969

Here come old flattop he come grooving up slowly
He got joo-joo eyeball he one holy roller
He got hair down to his knee
Got to be a joker he just do what he please

He wear no shoeshine he got toe-jam football
He got monkey finger he shoot coca-cola
He say "I know you, you know me"
One thing I can tell you is you got to be free
Come together right now over me

He bag production he got walrus gumboot
He got Ono sideboard he one spinal cracker
He got feet down below his knee
Hold you in his armchair you can feel his disease
Come together right now over me

He roller-coaster he got early warning
He got muddy water he one mojo filter
He say "One and one and one is three"
Got to be good-looking 'cause he's so hard to see
Come together right now over me


The Abbey Road album cover....

Be a Pal

After seeing a number of posts of folks actually sailing (yes, Doug, I'm jealous), I needed to at least include a picture of my boat, albeit still wrapped in a tarp. You may note that I'm wearing the "No fear of flying" tee shirt from the UK. It seems that some international financial transactions are a piece of cake and others are a pain in the butt. Credit cards and Pay-Pal make life easy. Bank transfers seem to be a quantuum leap more difficult.

I also found a post from the APS blog site, indicating that I and Bill have reached the "pinnacle of our modeling careers." It also includes the falling-out-of-the-boat shot. I sorta liked this one, taken a second or two earlier.



Enjoy some underground rock from Australia:



My Pal - GOD (1987)

To be a party-head
is something I could never do
I don’t like no one
except for you

you’re my only friend
you don’t even like me

you’re my only friend
you don’t even like me

come over to my house
I’ve got a plan for you
you’re not gonna come
but I want you to

you’re my only friend
you don’t even like me

you’re my only friend
you don’t even like me

4-10-09

I received the new 166 page APS print catalog for 2009 and as I'm flipping through I come across a picture of Bill Beaver sailing his canoe. Bill is like Colin in that both have a moth and a canoe. Bill has been very successful in the IC, finishing second in the world championship last year in Australia. His mothcapades have resulted from his interest in high performance sailing, certainly demonstrated in a canoe blasting to weather in a breeze.

Just as interesting was another picture, this time of me in Try-Foil (or actually, out of Try-Foil.) Yep, when I took off for the photoboat at Rye last October to get a "hot-dog" shot I guess I pushed the right buttons. Moths certainly have the public eye (or at least the sailor's eye) and it's not surprising that the stock photos used by advertisers start to include more mothing images.



The title of today's post also highlights a excursion that my sister is undertaking with a few of her friends. They're heading to California, leaving today, to retrace a route mapped out in the song "Promised Land" by Chuck Berry with lyrics that include "Los Angeles, give me Norfolk, Virginia, Tidewater four ten oh nine.."

Here's a link to her journey west:

The Promised Land Tour, 4-10-09

My journey from Norfolk, Virginia to the left coast will be in July. It's 122 days until the start of race one. Come on y'all to the Promised Land.



Promised Land, by Chuck Berry (1964)

I left my home in Norfolk Virginia,
California on my mind.
Straddled that greyhound, rode him past Raleigh,
On across Caroline.

Stopped in Charlotte and bypassed Rock Hill,
And we never was a minute late.
We was ninety miles out of Atlanta by sundown,
Rollin' cross the Georgia state.

We had motor trouble it turned into a struggle,
Half way cross Alabam',
And that hound broke down and left us all stranded
In downtown Birmingham.

Straight off, I bought me a through train ticket,
Ridin' cross Mississippi clean
And I was on that midnight flyer out of Birmingham
Smoking into New Orleans.

Somebody help me get out of Louisiana
Just help me get to Houston town.
There's people there who care a little 'bout me
And they wont let the poor boy down.

Sure as you're born, they bought me a silk suit,
Put luggage in my hands,
And I woke up high over Albuquerque
On a jet to the promised land.

Workin' on a t-bone steak a la carte
Flying over to the Golden State;
The pilot told me in thirteen minutes
Wed be headin' in the terminal gate.

Swing low sweet chariot, come down easy
Taxi to the terminal zone;
Cut your engines, cool your wings,
And let me make it to the telephone.

Los Angeles give me Norfolk Virginia,
Tidewater four ten o nine
Tell the folks back home this is the promised land callin
And the poor boys on the line.

Synergy

There seems to be a blossoming interaction on the tech side beginning with Bill's paper on the full scale tank results. Markla in this post relates Bill's numbers to a "slender body resistance package" and Kirk, in his "Mothematics" blog references the Findlay/Turnock VPP. I'm knowledgeable enough to know that these discussions are out of my league. I read the papers, understand some of the equations, but still am at a loss to realize how to apply results to my sailing. Yep, for me it's still the "hope to duplicate what others have done" method of sailing.

Kudos to all the designers and builders. I'm glad I'm part of the home-build crowd. And by-the-way, who is coming to the gorge with a non-production boat? The poll suggests that there'll be at least four.... any idea who?

Enjoy Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker



"2 and 15/16ths"

You`re like iodine chasing all the storms away
You`re like a black-ops licorice masquerade
You`re like a buzz that`s looking for a bee
You`re like a tack in a paper-clip factory to me

You`re like a trance for looking at a better way
You`re like a test maze keeping all the me`s at bay
You`re like a play that`s like a pen
You`re like m.c. escher but a ten

You`re like iodine chasing all the storms away
You`re like a black-ops licorice masquerade
You`re like a buzz that`s looking for a bee
You`re like a tack in a paper-clip factory to me

You`re like a diatribe calling on a quest for me
You`re like the ideal rainy day activity
You`re like a sine, emphasis in green
You`re like lady bugs turning into jelly beans

You`re like iodine chasing all the storms away
You`re like a black-ops licorice masquerade
You`re like a buzz that`s looking for a bee
You`re like a tack in a paper-clip factory to me

International Financial Transaction

Helping to bolster the Australian economy (or at least John Ilett's pockets) I've committed to buy a Generation 3 Fastacraft centreboard. Transfer of funds will get me in the queue for the newest iteration. I expect delivery in early June. In the meantime I hope to layup a new rudder using the "JZ" strut section (and a yet to be decided foil section.) So my sailing will stay in hiatus until then. I can only be consoled by the fact that once school ends (June 9th) I will have effectively unlimited time to sail, build, sail, re-build, and sail. The grand plan is to leave for Oregon in mid-July, practice for a few days at Cascade Locks, participate in the North Americans (pre-worlds) and then the '09 Gorge Worlds.

I've added a new poll to this blog: How many home-builds will be competing? Will I be the only one?

Enjoy Men at Work



Down Under (1982)

Traveling in a fried-out combie
On a hippie trail, head full of zombie
I met a strange lady, she made me nervous
She took me in and gave me breakfast
And she said,

Do you come from a land down under?
Where women glow and men plunder?
Cant you hear, cant you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover.

Buying bread from a man in brussels
He was six foot four and full of muscles
I said, do you speak-a my language?
He just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich
And he said,

I come from a land down under
Where beer does flow and men chunder
Cant you hear, cant you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover.

Lying in a den in bombay
With a slack jaw, and not much to say
I said to the man, are you trying to tempt me
Because I come from the land of plenty?
And he said,

Oh! do you come from a land down under? (oh yeah yeah)
Where women glow and men plunder?
Cant you hear, cant you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover.