Pickin' Time

Did a little yard work today. We trimmed eight trash cans worth of clippings from the front yard and picked a wheelbarrow full of avocados. We are going to roll it over to Henry and Niki's house as a present for the friends in the neighborhood. Today we are going to a going away party for Ricky and Lindsey. They are moving to Costa Rica.

While trimming the tree I found a humming bird nest. Babies on the way!

Don't get shocked!

Michelle and I went out for sushi and found this advertisement for a local electrician. looks like he is jack approved!

Wet But Certified!

My friend Patrick and I were "checked out" on a 35 foot cruising yacht on Saturday. This basically means we spent the day sailing with a certified US Coast Guard captain who verified we can take a boat of this size out without killing ourselves or wrecking it into a pier or jetty. Saturday was rainy, but that only increased the adventure and made for a crowd-free day of sailing on the San Diego bay (very few other boats were out). We explored the bay and sailed out beyond the end of the Point Loma...all while fighting gusty winds (we had to put a reef in the sail). See below for a picture of myself at the helm.

I nicknamed our captain "Captain F-Bomb" because during the entire trip he chewed tobacco and added a cuss word to every sentence he spoke. Very entertaining....and very knowledgeable.  He was an experienced captain (sailed to Costa Rica multiple times) who was very practical. For example, upon boarding the yacht, Captain F-Bomb quickly opened the bilge and sipped some bilge water.

What's the bilge you might ask?  Below is an exerpt from Wikipedia: - The bilge (IPA: /bɪldʒ/) is the lowest compartment on a ship where the two sides meet at the keel. Bilge water can be found aboard almost every vessel. Depending on the ship's design and function, bilge water may contain water, oil, urine, detergents, solvents, chemicals, pitch, particles, and so forth. Follow this link for more information on bilges...

To the average man, drinking bilge water might sound disgusting. But he explained drinking bilge water was the quickest way to determine if the boat had a leak (salty water) or was simply collecting rainwater (fresh). A very handy skill to have especially if you don't want to end up in Davey Jones' locker!

Now I'm certified to skipper a boat that can easily carry six to eight people. Next task....organize a day sail for my dad. I'll keep you posted.

Hook Him Up

Jonathan is a student at my school who has a Bmx bike. I helped him by giving his bike a tune up and a couple new parts...new for him at least...they are from my old bike. A seat post, seat, and clamp. Check it out!

Photos From Christmas At The Wall

Michelle and I posted photos of our Christmas trip to The Wall. Follow this link to view our photos & captions.

BMX at Dana

Every year our school holds a "BMX" show as a rewards activity for students. I always enjoy checking it out but his year's show was extra special!

In 2007 a group of friends and I built a set of dirt jumps in Ocean Beach. I remember two teenagers from Pacific Beach hanging out and hitting them. One of them was named Cody and the other was Mitch. I remember Mitch doing 360's and other cool stuff. I always remember Mitch as a friendly guy who loved riding bikes.

During the last couple of years I've seen Mitch at the local skatepark. He seems to be getting better every day. The last time I spoke to him he told me he recently picked up a job with a traveling BMX show called All Stars BMX run by a guy named Erik Soto. Mitch said he has been doing "red ribbon week" performances at schools around southern california. How awesome it would be for him to perform at Dana!

We contacted the Erik Soto and were able to set his group up to do our 2012 BMX show. I like his style....lots of height, speed, and flow (not x-games style with super technical spins). The students were impressed. The icing on the cake was that many of the students recognized him from the skatepark. A very cool thing!

Mitch was excited because he just received a sponsorship from East County BMX (one of the best bmx-oriented bike shops in San Diego). I posted a couple pictures of Mitch below......one is of a tuck no-hander and the other is of him jumping over me standing on the box jump. All of the kids thought he was going to hit me but I've been watching Mitch jump for years.....and had no doubts of his abilities. A very cool day! Thanks to Kathy for sharing the photos!

Ground Control To Michelle & Scott

If you know me you know I have a fascination with short wave radio. I obtained my short wave radio license and like to nerd-out on listening to random radio broadcasts.

The origin of this madness was simple..."Can I use shortwave radio to forecast surf when I'm in the middle of nowhere?" I first heard of the idea when I bumped into a guy in East Cape, Baja Sur in 1995 listening to a primitive radio broadcast from Fort Collins, Colorado. Since then I learned of weather faxes and SITOR broadcasts used by people sailing across the Pacific Ocean in small boats.

Over break I was successfully able to forcast the surf from the middle of Baja! Using a shortwave radio and a laptop computer, I was able to receive and decode weather broadcasts (while at Point B) being sent from Pt. Reyes, California (Point A).  See below for a map demonstrating the total distance.....

 I used a home-made antenna constructed of speaker wire. You can see the wire behind my head in the photo below. By the way I'm cutting up our yummy Christmas pineapple (from the Glahs) while on the beach.

So what did I receive? See below for two examples....

Each image took ten minutes using a program called SeaTTY (....and a healthy dose of patience and experimentation just to figure out how to make it work). Of course I could simply follow this link to download the same graphics but then again I'd need the Internet. I could also use Surfline but where is the fun in that?

I'll trade good surf and the sunset below for no Internet any day. Viva Baja and shortwave!