Sea Sick

No, I wasn’t seasick, but we did go sailing while I’m suffering from this unseasonal head cold. Amazingly, I felt fine while we were on the water.

We did our usual lazy Sunday morning routine but packed our stuff for a 10:45 departure to Lake Gaston. There, we spent the next few hours floating around the lake.

Right off the bat, Kelly lost her hat to the wind. We circled back to pick it up and while reaching for it Kelly fell in! Thus, we got to practice our man overboard drill. I was going to sail back over to pick her up but the wind wasn’t cooperating. We then opted for her to swim to the boat. Kelly’s a strong swimmer but with the hat one hand she couldn’t keep up with the boat.

Finally, I put the boat in “irons” (turned it directly into the wind) long enough for Kelly to clamber up Whimsy’s ladder. The kids and I spent the rest of the trip teasing her since she was nice and cool while we were sweating in the sun.

Before we got two miles away from the dock the wind seemed to die on us. It became oppressively hot. All sorts of powerboats, jet skis, and pontoon boats were swarming around us, dumping air out our sails with every wake.

The kids, who are usually good sports about sailing, weren’t too thrilled with the wakes (and the heat, I bet). They asked repeatedly to go home yet as soon as I caught a good puff of wind they began to whine. Thus we cut things short. When we got back to the dock and unloaded the boat – sure enough – the wind began to howl. Argh!

Retrieving the boat was relatively easy. The combination to the lock on the launch ramp had changed overnight, which caused us some delay until Kelly spoke to a nearby neighbor. Then the minivan had trouble pulling Whimsy up the ramp. It was the first time that we had had a problem with that. I chalked it up to the chalky dirt on the ramp: it was so dry that the wheels spun into the dirt. After a few minutes of rocking and changing some direction, Kelly got the boat up the hill like an old pro.

On the way home, we spotted crossing gates down on the nearby track. This is the same track that runs behind our house, so we decided to stop and wave at “our” train. The engineer obliged, giving us a good wave and a few toots of the horn. He was hauling wood chips in a two-unit consist (6359 pulling 6138, for you fellow railfans) and was making about 40 MPH. We figured we could beat him into Raleigh so since we had nowhere to go this afternoon we tried to follow him there.

I suppose either the train stopped somewhere or we somehow missed him on the way home, but we waited at the downtown CSX yards for 10 minutes and never saw the train. Oh well. Back in the car for the trip back home.

I began to sneeze vigorously after dinner tonight. I’ve gone through a handful of tissues already. Last night I slept very lightly from the cold. I’m hoping tonight isn’t a repeat performance.

With any luck I’ll have turned a corner on this cold tomorrow.

Sick

I’ve got the unfamiliar feeling of having a head cold while its 90 degrees outside. Its making me sweat more than usual this morning while I try to get some things done. My body has a dull ache all over. Yay.

Hopefully it will all blow over soon.

Progress Report (Its Progress, Right?)

I’ve been applying to at least one job per day since I’ve been on “vacation.” I’m getting a few things back but most of them are not a good fit for me. Yesterday I applied for a promising position at Misys. I’ve long admired that company so I hope I’ll get a chance to talk to them.

I’ve been busying myself around the house, getting things done that had been piling up around us. Yesterday’s project was to clean out the junk in the garage. Needless to say, I am still working on that one! Once I’ve sorted through things, the unwanted stuff will go on Craigslist this afternoon.

The garage work was inspired by finding evidence of mice still in the garage. I thought I’d sealed up all access to it when I put up flashing on our air conditioner unit earlier this year. Those rodents put up a good fight, that’s for sure. I’d hate to put out poison if I can simply drive them away but at this point my patience is running thin with them.

We’re still thinking of going sailing this weekend. It all depends on the wind forecast. Right now, Sunday and/or Monday are looking good. Saturday we’ll probably spend indoors painting one of our bathrooms.

Meet Red: Virgin America’s Linux-Based In Flight Entertainment System

Speaking of Virgin America, the newly-chartered airline aims to have the best in-flight experience possible. Their in-flight entertainment (IFE) system is one of the most advanced of any airline.

Take a look at Red, their cool IFE system, which is running Linux. Virgin America plans to solicit new games from open-source developers to add to their system. Pretty cool!

I got a nervous chuckle when I saw Doom being played on the IFE. I’m not sure I welcome machine guns on a plane, even if they’re virtual.

Also, I wonder if they’ll put the open-source Flightgear on their IFE so that you can fly your own plane. They could send it real GPS coordinates and you could fly a virtual plane alongside the one you’re on.

Hmm. I wonder how many USB ports they’ll have per seat, if any?
[Update:] I should have known Engadget would have the technical 411, yo.

Nosediving Airlines

Its said that the quickest way to become a millionaire is to invest a billion in an airline. After today’s news story on Skybus and Allegiant Air, I have to think that’s true. While I’m all for more low-cost airlines, Skybus and Allegiant Air have made the boneheaded decision to charge people to check their bags.

Do what, now? Didn’t the airlines spend years petitioning the FAA to limit customer carry-ons to two bags in an effort to encourage more checked baggage? Now they want to charge extra for checked baggage?

Did anyone with any actual flying experience think this out? Did it occur to anyone that this stupid policy will only encourage people to drag more of their bags onboard, where the same bags will fight for bin space? Did they consider that all that extra carry-on baggage will almost surely translate into late departures and increased delays at security screening?

Skybus’s stupidity doesn’t stop at their baggage policy, either. Firstly, their hub is Columbus, OH, where weather delays and cancellations will likely be a problem. Planes don’t make money on the ground. If that wasn’t enough, Skybus has no such thing as a connecting flight: to get anywhere other than Columbus requires an overnight in Columbus.

The paper said Skybus’s backers are confident Skybus will survive based on its $160 million in the bank. It seems that Independence Air had that cash, too. See how long that lasted?

I’m sure other, evil airlines like Northwest love the extra-cost-for-what-was-once-free model. They’re probably thankful for Skybus for starting the practice. Once Skybus craters, Northwest and their ilk will happily jack up their fares again and keep nickel-and-diming their customers.

Is Virgin America here yet? Any airline that is vigorously opposed by airline dinosaurs like American, Delta, and Continental can only be a good one.

Heat Transfer Foiled Again!

A few weeks ago when it was warm outside, I stepped from the house to the garage and was surprised at how cool it was. Our garage was cooler than the house. Granted, the air conditioner was off inside and the windows were open, but the temperature was markedly cooler. Monday afternoon, I walked in front of our garage and was hit with a wave of heat. It felt like I was standing in front of a heat lamp!

The reason for this is the radiant barrier I placed on the garage door last summer. It literally reflects the sun’s heat right back into space, keeping it from getting trapped in the garage. This radiant barrier is essentially a roll of bubble wrap with aluminum-foil backing. It cost $25 for a roll that nearly covers my garage door. I am still amazed at how well it works!

Monday morning I ventured into my attic to retrieve the broken attic fan I put up the year before (you remember, the one that almost claimed my finger). Rather than replace it, I’m considering buying more foil and stapling it to the rafters in the attic.

It is so much easier to cool a house if you can keep the heat out of it to begin with.

Are Solar Panels On The Way To Your Neighborhood?

Remember when I wrote this about homeowner’s rules getting in the way of energy efficiency? It seems that Janet Cowell in the N.C. Senate and Susan Fisher and Pricy Harrison in the N.C. House have the same idea. They have a bill moving through the General Assembly to allow this to happen.

S.670 and H.1187 would make local restrictions on solar panels, clotheslines, or other “energy devices based on renewable resources” null and void. While some may think that solar panels or clotheslines might hurt home values, I think they would benefit a neighborhood. After all, who wouldn’t want to live in a smart neighborhood?

People can talk all they want about ending this country’s energy dependence. Eventually you have to actually do something. This bill gives North Carolinians the freedom to act.

Cary To Enforce …Uniqueness?

Back when we lived in Garner our neighbor, mayor Don Rohrbaugh, tapped me to sit on Garner’s land-use rewrite committee. Over the ensuing months I learned more than my fair share about zoning rules and planning. While educational, the whole process made me question the value of zoning and appearance laws. How does one even measure their success?

Raleigh’s neighbor Cary is known for strict appearance rules. The stores that populate Cary’s strip malls all must look the same. The many neighborhood homeowners’ associations mindlessly dictate mailbox dimensions. Even a shiny diner can put the city into a snit. With this in mind, I found Cary’s latest push to be highly amusing. Cary has finally decided that more of the same isn’t necessarily good. While most people can see the wisdom in that, the way Cary is going about it is what I find amusing: they’re going making more rules! Town planners are actually drawing up anti-monotony rules.

I’ve got two questions about this whole process. Number one, did it ever occur to Cary’s leaders that maybe the reason the whole city (er, I mean town, though this “town” happens to be the third largest in the state) looks the same is because of its stuffy planning rules? Might a better approach to be … oh, I don’t know … maybe to get rid of some rules, rather than create ones that contradict the previous ones?

Number two, are there really people in Cary who are just now figuring this out? Cary’s been this way for years and a lot of Caryites seem to like it this way. If you don’t want a cookie-cutter house complete with an approved mailbox, why in the world did you move to Cary? What did you expect?

Now there are some cool neighborhoods in Cary where houses don’t all look the same. Its the newer neighborhoods that give it a bad name: large subdivisions with each house looking the next in a cul-de-sac hell. Its going to take more than more silly rules to fix that.