Hobie 16

Here is another photo from Flathead Lake last weekend. This is a Hobie 16 just like the one I have. (Mine has blue hulls however and this one is yellow.) But the sails are exactly the same colors. You can date a Hobie "cat" 16 by the colors of the sails. These sails are from the late 70s. But I suspect the boat is newer like mine or it is well taken care of. My boat is an '81. There are more and more Hobie 16s on the bay. This is the only one that I have seen with the same sails as mine and it just showed up on the bay. So if we go out at the same time it will be hard for people on shore to know which one is me. The bay is so big that you can't see the numbers from any distance. I did notice even from this distance that these sails are in much better condition. Mine are really bad but still working. The people I bought my boat from left them out all the time. I'm going to use them until they totally fail. I've had some work done on the main at the tack, and also bought all new batten ends.

The number on the sail represents the number that exsisted when that boat was produced. The problem is that people buy second hand sails and put them on newer boats, or they buy new sails and put them on old boats. But the number only really matters when you race not the colors. Plus you can order old colors if you want. It just costs more. Every year they offer standard colors for that year in various combinations, or you can just get white. Here is a link to the Hobie website. They have lots of cool things but to see the catamarans you need to click on the sailing tab.

HOBIE CAT

Old farmhouse

There is an old farmhouse on my way to work. This morning there was nice light on it so I decided to stop and take a photo of it. I'm shooting it and a little pickup truck stops, and an elderly lady gets out. "Don't go in the house!" she says. "Oh I won't, I just want to take a picture of it." I respond. "Well people have been going in there and taking the wood." "I won't do that, I just want a picture. I think it looks cool. I'm kind of an amature photographer. (I don't know why I said that, but I did) I live just down the street." I add. "Well ok, just don't go in." "I won't." "If you want go around to the front, it looks better on that side." she said. "This is fine, I like the light on this side, plus I'm late for work." I said. "Well come back then and go around the front." "Ok, thanks!"

The house has a 6 foot high chain link fence all the way around it and I had been shooting through the links. So I doubt I'll go back, but who knows, I've thought about potographing it for a long time.

Moon over Montana

I've never been to Miami, so here is moon over Montana. This photo was taken last year just after sunset, but the deer photo was taken last Saturday night not far away on the "loch" just as the sun was going down. Both photos were taken from my boat looking east. But Saturday, the moon appeared on the other side of the sky and was a very small crescent.

The moon is dancing on the ridge, but only as seen reflected in the water of the lake. Perhaps this is what Sir Walter Scott was thinking in his poem, The Lady of the Lake. (Curt corrects me and says, the rill is a stream, and that makes sense. But I thought Monan's rill was a ridge and the moon was reflected dancing in Loch Katrine. What the heck.)

The mountains in the distance are the Mission Mountains. They run north and south along the east shore of the Flathead Lake. I plan to ride my bike down that side of the lake then back to my cabin next Sunday morning. So I will go about 2/3 around the lake. I'm guessing at the miles but I suspect it is about 50 or 60 miles. I will be dropped off at Bigfork on the north east end of the lake in the morning, and then ride south to Polson and then ride north on the west side of the lake to Dayton. I figure that the traffic won't be bad early on Sunday morning on the east side highway as most people will be where they want to be and the heavy traffic is on the west side. I've been wanting to do this ride for some time and I won't get a better chance. The only thing that will stop me is rain. Not much chance of that. I expect it to take me about 4 hours. I'll take my camera.

The stag at eve

"The stag at eve had drunk it's fill where danced the moon on Monan's rill". The Lady of the Lake.


What say you Curtis?

Vine ripe

My tomatoes are getting ripe. I did shock my plants with the stuff I sprayed on them but it did save the crop. None the less I will have quite a few tomatoes. I'll try again next year and perhaps get better at it. I want to grow peppers and herbs also. I was too much of a wuss to have many plants this year. And I have a great big yard. I could have a huge garden. But I grew these tomatoes on my deck in a big ceramic vase. I can see that having a garden is something I really need to explore.

I'm going to the big sky this weekend. In a week I'm planing to ride my bike around Flathead Lake. But it is still just a plan. I'm also thinking about a ride up the Going to the Sun Highway in Glacier Park during the second week of September. That will require me to camp in Glacier one night.

Bee in my helmet

Today I had to drive my car to work and all I could think about was being on my bike as it was so nice outside. So I went home at lunch threw my cycling kit on and took off for my so-called short (8 mile) loop. I was riding along the river and I heard something strike my helmet and then I could feel something in my hair. Insect. So I rode with no hands for a while and took off my helmet. Sure enough there was a bee in there. It had gone through one of the vents and it was clinging to the inside of the helmet pulsating. So I knocked it out and went on my way.

One time I had a bee hit me in the face on my lower lip. It hung on, and before I could get it off it stung me on the lip. That hurt really bad, and I still had to ride about 10 miles to get home.

The best part

Today was a wonderful day to be going to work on a bike. The air was fresh and I could smell the Spokane river which I live very close to.

I had gotten up, fed the cat, and put water in the coffee maker and then headed to the shower. I forgot to turn on the coffee maker. That screwed up my whole routine. None the less I managed a cup of coffee, packed my work clothes into my back pack, made a sandwich, pumped up my tires to the propper pressure (110 lbs, and you have to do it every day) and ate a bowl of corn flakes. And also I forgot to shave.

Riding my bike to work is the best part of my day. I often want to just ride past work and say to heck with it Thankfully it wasn't hot at lunch today. So I rode home and changed around my sprinklers, watched a little Charlie Rose while eating a salad, then I rode back to work. Then after work I rode home. Again it was a very nice ride. My speedo said 888 miles. So in 12 more miles I'll be at 900 miles. I'll reach 1000 miles by the end of the month easy now. After August I have 6 more weeks of riding to work to get to my goal of 1500 miles on the bike for the summer. That should be no problem. I'm thinking about raising the bar to 2000 miles. (and this is only on my Trek. my single speed has miles on it as does my Stella and my Gitane.) Over the years I've seen the value in not getting too hung up in keeping track of miles. Most of my miles on the bike have been going back and forth to work. And I need to do more for just pleasure.

Forest and the trees

This photo is for Diane. I've been wanting to photograph this stand of trees in the forest for a long time. I took a lot of photos and this was the "best" one. I got there too late last Saturday. It is much better early in the morning. So I'll continue to photograph it.

Lost

I couldn't decide what photo from the weekend to post tonight. So here is a photo looking west into the bay where my cabin is. Flathead lake is a very big lake. The red glow on the horizon is caused by forest fire smoke. The sun sets in the west and I could find my way home in the dark, but right now I'm lost.

Montana jersey

Here is a photo of me after my morning ride in Montana today. I'm wearing my new Montana jersey (in Montana). There won't be many photos of don on bicycle log, so take a good look. I'm not photogenic, but I went through a lot to get this jersey so I thought it was worth a photo. I had to order 4 of these to get the right size and it cost me in shipping charges. I have a number of Giordana jerseys and they are not consistent in size. None the less it says Montana on it and that was the main reason I bought it. I have no idea what it means on an Italian jersey, I should know. I'll ask my Italian friend Sam. He probably knows. Howard might know as he raced over there for a while. The other things I like about it is that it is made out of Giordana's best fabric which I really like, and it has a Puma logo on it, and that reminds me of cool shoes in grade school.




BTW, I'm wearing a mountain bike helmet. I realize that some roadies view this as really un-cool. I bought it at Liquidation World for $15, it is a Giro and the visor keeps the sun out of my eyes on days like this. Plus I just leave it up there. One less thing to haul back and forth. I do have to admit that when I start going really fast I can feel the force of the wind on the visor. I have other helmets. The motobecane is my single speed. I just left it up there too.

1 gallon gas can

Today I went to the hardware store to buy a 1 gallon gas can. Not really a can because it is plastic. A guy who works there was standing around and so walked up to him to ask him if they had 1 gallon gas cans. I'm sure I had a very concerned look on my face. He is a good guy, as I've asked him to help me find things before. While I ask him, "Do you have 1 gallon gas cans?" I caught myself forming the shape of a 1 gallon gas can with my hands. Why do I do that? It could have been anything I was forming in my hands. Every time I go in there I do that. I did the same thing for some hornet spray and I made roughly the same shape with my hands.

Anyway he takes me to where all the red plastic gas cans are and says "We really need to look these over, someone returned on with a hole in it, looked like it was made with a drill". I'm thinking great... someone has tampered with the only thing I want. He looks it all over hands it to me, and I look it all over and decide it is ok and take it up to the counter. Then that guy looked it all over, and he charged me a dollar less than the price on the shelf. $3.25. I thought that was a pretty good deal. That is what it will cost to fill it with gas.

Vinyl flooring

I was going to blog about vinyl flooring, and then my interest changed to mileage on my bike and then to the company summer party. Blogging about the company is kind of off limits. Nobody cares about the mileage on my bike. 850 BTW. So here are my thoughts about vinyl flooring.

I went out on a blind date with a really beautiful mormon woman. And I'm not just kidding, she was drop dead gorgeous. Plus she was really nice. Sadly she was less than thrilled about me. I was prepared to join the ward on the spot and go off on mission if need be. After our lunch date she asked me if I would take a look at her computer. ( I'm the so called network administrator where I work amoung other things. I actually don't know that much about computers, but for some reason people think I do.)

So anyway she asked me to take a look at her computer as the picture on the monitor was off center. When the computer booted it was on center and then when Windows came up it was off center. Well I knew how to fix this... Her son had been goofing around with the buttons on the monitor.

So I fixed that and then she asked me to take a look at the phone jacks. I guess her ex-husband had taken out one of the phone plugs off of the phone jack on one of the walls. So I put another jack on. It was wired such that if one of the jacks was taken off then none of them worked except the one in the kitchen.

While in the kitchen, I noticed the flooring. She had black stone flooring. Not sure about the color, it was pretty cool, and her house was really nice. But it did require her to seal it once a year with a chemical and eveyone had to leave the house for a day or so to do this. While we were talking this over she said that she hated vinyl flooring. Well I have vinyl flooring in my kitchen. I just had it put in. My sister actually put it in for me. (she is a contractor) She put tile in my entry however. We talked about stone for my entry but she told me what a hassle it was to maintain so we put tile in that kind of looked like stone.

So now I'm having this coversation with this mormon gal about vinyl flooring. I want to express myself but I don't want to come off like I'm taking issue with her views about vinyl flooring. If you drop a dish on vinyl there is a chance it will live. But it will certianly break on tile or stone. And vinyl lets you know when it is time to replace it. And when you do and get new vinyl it looks great! It's warm on your bare feet. Just don't use mop and glow on it or it will yellow. I didn't know that until my sister told me.

I guess I'm just a vinyl floor guy. I didn't belong with a woman with a taste for stone.

Idaho attacks!

No it isn't a bomb sent by Israel, and it isn't Hezbullah. It's Idaho! Every year just when it starts to cool down and eveyone could use a breath of fresh air, the state of Idaho allows field burning. More exactly it is grass field burning. I could kind of see doing it in a rural area where there aren't hundreds of thousands of people but doing it inbetween Coeur d Alene and Spokane just seems wrong to me. I think I'd rather have urban sprawl. For people like me who have lung issues anyway it is really difficult to deal with. And people who don't have any conditions can't ever understand. "Oh just deal with it." Well it isn't that easy. And my problems aren't that serious. But every year this really does compromise me. I look forward to leaving town each weekend and hate returning to this smoke in the air.

How bad is it? Well I've experienced a lot of inversions growing up in Missoula. And I've experienced a lot of forest fire smoke. But nothing compairs to this in my experience. It literally hurts my lungs to breath this.

(and yes, I did enhance the photo above in photoshop. It turns out that it is hard to get a good photo of this sort of thing. I had to make it darker to make it look like it does IRL. I didn't alter the size of it however. If you were here it would blow you away how bad this is and that it is allowed. The smoke is 4 miles away! My house is just a little to the left of that plume of smoke. And it is in Washington.) Was I here first? no. Is urban sprawl a good thing? No, but nothing is going to stop that and it isn't like farmers haven't sold out to it. So don't pull that one on us, it is already too late. The open spaces argument is just BS in this case. Grow something else! This ins't the place for this sort of burning!

And yet WE here in Spokane County have to have our cars tested for emissions. Not the case for those in north Idaho and yet thousands of them drive in to work here every day. WE have to have burning bans in the winter when they tell us that the air quality is bad. (I never even notice it and you/ I would think that I would.) Not the case for those in north Idaho, no buring bans for them. Shouldn't there be just one standard for everyone when it comes to air quality?

Here is a link to SAVE OUR SUMMERS I haven't looked around on it so you be the judge. I don't feel obligated to give the grass growers side of the story. They are getting their way. It was just on the local news. The farmer threatened us with more housing and less open spaces. Like I said, I think I can deal with that, if that is my choice. Can't they grow a different crop? Perhaps if Idaho motorists will turn off their cars and trucks while at stop signs.... That is the best thing Idaho leaders can come up with.

The sign reads "Welcome To Idaho."

Lastly Landis 8.15.06

Team Phonak is folding at the end of the 2006 season in the wake of the Landis situation. The teams new sponsor, I-shares has pulled out. Phonak team owner Andy Rihs had this to say as reported in VeloNews,..

"As a passionate cycling fan, I am bitterly disappointed that the sport of cycling has apparently become a synonym for doping," Rihs said in a statement during a press conference Tuesday morning in Zürich. "I truly regret this development and it has brought me to the decision of disbanding the Phonak team at the end of 2006."

How things changed for Landis and team Phonak in a matter of a few days..

"Three weeks ago, we were the winners of the Tour de France, we were overjoyed, the sponsors were queuing up to join us ... and then suddenly this blow," Rihs said. "Today I see myself forced to do something I have never done in my whole life as a businessman: I have given up."

I don't think it could be much worse for sport either no matter what happens with Landis in court.

Got rocks

Here is a photo of the Cataldo Mission in the north Idaho panhandle. I think it is the oldest surviving building in Idaho. I took this photo from a distance as I was too cheap to pay the $4. to get close to it.

The other photo is of me on my morning walk on Old 93. The old highway goes right past my little cabin and I usually cycle on it. I have a lot of memories on old 93 growing up. As you can see in this photo, I'm very tall! Actually I'm just under 6 feet. The rocks used to make the road are of various colors. If you go to Glacier Park you will see rocks that are pink, purple, green, yellow, white and many other colors. Even the rocks and pavement here are beautiful. One just needs to look close. You can kind of see the red and green in this photo. If you go to Glacier, everything is beautiful including the rocks. This isn't far from Glacier. The water is clear, the air is sweet, and the rocks are beautiful.

Good old boy

This morning I was riding to work in the bike lane on the side of a four lane road, and my Walkman falls out of it's pouch and onto the pavement right in an intersection. NPR comes to an instant silence replaced by the sound of the plastic bouncing on the street behind me. I come to a stop and look back and there it is in the middle of the intersection. I turn and ride back to retrieve it before any cars run over it. I thought for sure it would be broken but I plug my headphones back in and it works! But now it is tuned to a religious station and there is a minister with a southern accent proclaiming "God is not a good old boy!". (I kid you not!) I tune it back to NPR and continue on to work. This means something, I'm just not sure what yet. Perhaps I shouldn't see the trinity while looking at a pine cone in Montana.

Every breath

Just got back from Montana. I left early as I wanted to get some things done around here this afternoon, but it would have been a great day to sail. I took a lot of photos with my new (second hand) camera. The first one is from north Idaho on my way to Montana near the Cataldo Mission. The second one of the pine cones is from my morning walk on the old highway by the cabin. It is a Ponderosa Pine. Three needles on each little group. And the cones are in threes also. It made me think of the trinity on a sunday morning walk. The air was so sweet. Every breath was like the best life giving thing in the world.

Making bread is easy

I think I might have won the battle against attacks on my tomato plants. They were getting dark- rot on the bottoms of each tomato. So I went to the store and got some spray for that, And I also saw little bitty bugs on them so I got spray for that as well. I think I shocked my plants but both my Roma tomatos and my "round" tomatos are doing well now. The plants look kind of sick however. I might have over done the spray. Good thing I don't have to grow my own food.

I like to cook however. Last night I made pizza. I make the dough from scratch. I wouldn't think of buying a pre-fab pizza anymore. It is easy to make the dough. I just do it in a bowl with a spoon and it only takes about 15 min. A few years ago I decided that I didn't want to live my whole life without knowing how to make bread. So I found this Scottish website that claimed bread making was easy.

It wasn't that easy. At least not at first. It took me several tries / months before I started to figure it out. My first bread was more like a cannon ball than bread. But it isn't bad now, and has evolved into pizza dough. I love making bread. You can make bread, cook a roast, and then have a great sandwich the next day.

Here is another photo from last weekend's bike ride. She's a party girl/ biker chick. I didn't get her name so I hope she doesn't mind.

I'm off to the big sky.

At the movies

Do we really need a movie about everything? As World Trade Center is released I have to wonder who is going to rush out and see this? "What's it going to be kids? World Trade Center, or The Ant Bully?" "Ant Bully! Ant Bully! we want Ant Bully!" And what about popcorn sales during World Trade Center movie? Who's going to sit there and eat popcorn watching this?

Did they sell popcorn at The Passion of the Christ?.. I didn't see the Passion of the Christ. I'd like to continue to think that the book was better.

And do we really need a re-make of every old TV show? I can kind of understand The Flintstones, or Dragnet, but Miami Vice? I can hear the trailer now... " You've heard it in stereo,...Now hear it in Surround Sound!.

I never got the whole Matrix thing,.. until one of the characters had to sit down and explain the whole plot to the audience and Keanu Reeves at the same time. Probably Keanu Reeves said "Look guys, I've been blowing everyone away,.. could you explain my motivation again?"

And Matrix Re-loaded... "We shot a lot of people in Matrix,.. We've re-loaded, and we're going to shoot even more people!". And they make millions. They even sit around the table with Charlie Rose and talk it over. I just don't get it. Please don't try and explain this to me. I don't want to know.

It's really sad,.. the state of our movies. I think it says something about us. I just hope Tom Hanks turns down the role of Sadam Hussain. That role should go to Mel Gibson.

Don't bother me!

Here is another photo from last weekend's bike ride. This shot is on that old train track that was turned into a bike path. Not sure if it is a so called "Rails to Trails." Perhaps someone out there can fill me in on that. But I'm sure this track was used to haul grain and such from the rural areas to Spokane and perhaps there were some passengers as well. There were a lot of train tracks to the southwest of Spokane used during the past century hauling mostly grain. The trains are gone for the most part and it does make sense to make a bike path out of the railways. They can always turn them back into train tracks if the need arises. I can see that it is totally possible to ride a bike from Spokane to Cheney where EWU is. That might be something that students will value as gas prices rise. No doubt you could easily ride from Spokane to EWU using this trail. Might take an hour or so. But it is possible. Probably not when there is snow.

In this photo, Suzanne riding along the trail next to some guy. We were very happy to be on this bike path as it was smooth and seemed like it went down hill. Plus we knew we were going in the right direction. I tried to talk to that guy next to her but he wasn't very talkative. Suzanne might have tried also. He was in his own little bubble. He rode with us for a long time, just didn't want to talk I guess. Perhaps he didn't have the skills.

It is strange in a way. One time I rode up on another guy before I got to Cheney, and tried to get information about the route. He acted like I was from a different planet. After a few minutes of trying to get through to him, I decided that I wish I hadn't asked. And other people were friendly and helpful. Some people just don't want to be bothered. So don't bother them!