Our Mast Rocks

With the mast down we have been slaving on the boat.

Weeks of work and the compression post is finally finished! There was a subtle problem with how the boat was orginally built and over the past 32 years things started to compress. The mast applies a downward force on the deck that is blanced by a compression post below (shown in brown). Unfortunately our compression post (strong teak) was mounted on top of a plywood sub-floor and ceiling (shown in light blue). The plywood compressed slightly over time and shifting the post.

I no likey. Here's how it was built with the orignal on top and new-improved construction on the bottom:

Step 6,039 was to pull off the compression post, table, wiring, molding, and just about everything that looked nice.

Anyway, step 10,104 was to cut out the compressed ceiling and fiberglass it. I should mention I no likey fiberglassing overhead. This foto shows the area that needs to be cut out and glassed.

This photo shows the sub-floor that needs to be replaced with something stronger. Purple heart was the wood I used as it is hard as concrete.

Our compression post isn't right under the mast, which is a bit odd. Due to the inside structures we couldn't move the post to the center, so I distributed the force using a 1/4" thick peice of stainless steel...very heavy duty.

In this photo, step 12,600, you can see the new (purple) sub-floor under the compression post. I haven't cleaned up the area yet, but things are coming together.

After building some new molding that fit flush to everything and reinstalling most of it. Step 14,212 was to take a photo of the almost finished work.

Now we just need about 50 teak plugs and our table back to finish this project. We decided to cut our table to a more narrow size and rip off the tacky formica. We have an artist working on a cool painting for our table top! It's going to look so fantastic!

Tea Parties

While doing all this sanding and manual labor my thoughts have wandered to strange happenings. Like these Tea Party people. WTF? Where have these people been living? Oh, let's see where have we seen rapid government expansion?

• Government buying bank shares [Bush started Government Bailouts with Banks]
• Huge perscription drug plan with NO funding [can you say deficit?] while cutting taxes.
• Spending went from 1.5 Trillion 2001 to 3.1 Trillion 2008+ [2009 Budget Summary via Government Printing Office, reported all as part of Bush's Budget Plans]
• Iraq War cost $711 billion and climbing
• Home Land Security -- Largest Fed. expansion in 50 years
• Patriot Act 1 & 2 -- we need to know what books you are checking out of the library
• No Child Left Behind -- massive federalization of schools [that socialist!]

"We have now presided over the largest increase in the size of government since the Great Society," said Sen. John McCain, the Republican candidate vying to replace Mr. Bush 2004.

So now they are pissed that there is going to be health insurance reform? Things seem to be getting pretty crazy. They've degraded to the point where people don't think Obama is an American? Why didn't these crackers ask to see the birth certificate from Bush, Clinton, Other Bush, Reagan, etc.? It sounds like some of these people just can't handle a minority president and refuse to see logic or reason. Nevermind each presidental canidate is required to be US-born by law.... Check out these people.

How can you argue with that logic? I personally didn't get a certified copy of his certificate, did you? Maybe he should include one in each tax refund.

The Old Street Cat

Along came a cat.

We've been watching this older black and white street cat for over a month now. It was hit by a car and hasn't been able to heal. Someone tried to treat it with some iodine, but this cat needs to be kept isolated and heavily treated. We sadly watched it get worse as a bad staff infection set in. The kitty doesn't have any owners and often hangs out by the fishermen. Somone has been feeding it scraps, but we can't really find anyone who claims the old guy.

The other day I was making some cuts on a table saw and I spotted him under a parked car. He was looking really weak. Another friend of ours, Tari, has also been watching his plight and encouraged us to trap him and see if he could be treated or put down.

So we put our wild cat capturing skills back into action and brought him up to Tari's. His injuries were a lot worse than we expected and he was suffering. It tore us apart, but we called the vet to put the old guy down. I went out and dug a hole for him and Tari picked some flowers. When the vet examined him he said the cat had a poor chance at living and the treatment would be very painful. He thought it was right thing to put him down too.

I miss seeing the old guy hanging out in the shade in random places, but he isn't suffering anymore.

And now for something completely different

Latin music doesn't really do much for me or Sherrell. But there is one band from Puerto Rico which I really like. Here's one of their latest songs that is fun to sing along to. I like the way Spanish rhymes so well.

No hay nadie como tu (There is no one like you)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38-cNUyOXqw

I first heard of this band when I heard what has become my all time favorite Spanish language song: Atrévete-te-te! (Dare to to to...) It's about daring girls to be more sexual and real. It's trite, but I like the rhyme....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcOknZbStOY&feature=channel

They have a lot of different sounds and are usually controversial.