This week has been very cool. So cold in fact that the driveway at my house froze over and I am now unable to park my car in the garage (down the hill) for fear of not being able to drive up the hill when I need to be somewhere. Yesterday the ice on the driveway didnt melt because the house blocks the sun from the driveway all day. This picture was taken at about 1pm and only some of the ice had melted.

I remember as a child during a big freeze year we would run the hose all night to create an ice hill to sled down in the morning. I think I’ll try it again tonight and see what happens in the morning. There are sill a few more days of sub-freezing temperatures at night on the forecast and I hope to bring back some memories. Now if it would just snow so I can take some friggin pictures!

I got a new digital camera today. I decided to go with the Nikon D70s over the canon ones because of the lense selection, and by the recommendation of the guy at Wolf Camera. I went with them because they have the best warranty. The warranty I purchased covers both lenses I got, and the body, and was about $155 for 1 year, extendable anytime within its coverage period. The thing about this warranty, is that it covers anything. I mean ANYTHING. He told me on a previous trip that he had a customer who explained that he accidentally drive over the camera with his car, and they sent him a new one at no cost. I dont know how you accidentally run over your camera with your car, but apparently its covered.

The picture below shows the differnece between the two lenses I got. He knocked $100 off the camera kit, which came with a nice 18-70mm lense so I could afford to also get the $175 70-300mm lense. I zoomed all the way in and all the way out with each lense, while taking a photo from my bed of my cat outside.

I had a busy night working until late trying to get the floor supports installed and small ballast tank holes sealed. Check out the short video blog clips below for more detail.

9pm, barely started

Closing of the port side ballast tank hole

Closing of the starboard side hole

Finishing up for the night

I spent a few days in sausalito last week. Alfonso helped me work on a few projects on the boat including cutting all of the uprights to support the floor, as well as fabricating the boards to cover the floor. He was also kind enough to let me crash at his place overnight. It was very stressful as usual driving the trailer through 19th street and across the Golden Gate Bridge. As I was pulling into sausalito, I went around a sharp right turn and the car made this awful sound like I had hit something, and the boat looked crooked on the trailer. My first thought was that one of the bunks had broken a and punched through the hull, but after careful inspection, nothing was wrong with the trailer or the boat. I had to drive to west marine down the street from his office once, and while turning sharp out of the driveway of west marine, I heard a big pop again. After returning home, I dropped off the expedition at our mechanic and there are two different problems with the suspenssion. Both problems are being fixed so we can tow the boat up to huntington.

Below is a video of some of the things I worked on in Sausalito.