In Ned's Head

Racing Log 5/20/10

2010-05-21T03:54:00.000-07:00

Crew:

Neal

Chris

Boat: Ruby

Results:

Race #1: 3rd

Race #2: 4th

Race #3: 3rd

Overall: 2nd

Race #1:

We had a pretty good start, but it was a bit sketchy. I tried to come in on the pin end of the line, but almost didn't make it. I had to pinch pretty hard to avoid hitting the pin. Nothing interesting on the upwind leg and we reached the mark in the middle. Crazy shift on the downwind leg put us on a close reach with the chute still up. Everyone else was prudent and took their chute down at this point. We left it up and gained at least 3 places. The only problem was: how do you douse a chute from that position? It turns out that I have to hand the tiller to someone else while I go all the way back to the stern to grabe the spinnaker sheet. This was very dicey and we were lucky that we were not near other boats or the mark. The gamble got us in to 3rd place though!

Place: 3rd

Race #2:

Bad start. I tried to come in to the middle of the line. I was heading towards the boat end on port tack and got forced away from the line by the fleet on starboard. I couldn't tack around to set up for the start when I wanted to. Neal kept telling my to gybe. I should have listened to him. We quickly tacked and ducked everybody to get clear air. We reached the upwind mark in the middle of the pack. On the downwind leg we stayed clear of bad air and other boats. We made up ground on a ton of boats. Beating back up to the line I was sure we were headed for another 3rd when out of nowhere a boat I hadn't seen at all crosses the line. Damn.

Place: 4th

Race #3:

This start wasn't as bad as #2, but I'm not too proud of it. We were on the line on time, but everybody else was in our wind. The wind was dying, so we were hardly moving. We tacked immediately even though it meant ducking many boats. This put us in clear air and also put us further right one the course which was a mixed bag: It was closer to land, so the wind was a bit shadowed, but it was out of the deepest part of the channel so the current probably wasn't as strong. We took a bunch of places on the upwind leg and reached the upwind mark in 6th. On the rounding we had a great spinnaker set (I think we all cheered when that thing popped open right away). We sailed a good downwind leg, but the boats in front of us got close to each other and started racing each other instead of use. We squeaked past 3 boats at the line for our most exciting finish.

Place: 3rd

Lessons from the night:

Start better

Get into clear air fast when you don't start better

Head off for speed when a boat to windward is going to take your air

When you are going to have a dicey spinnaker takedown, make a plan with the crew before you start

When posible make one of your crew a college sailor who is heading to nationals next week. Those guys know a lot about sailing.

Excellent Service, Poor Video Quality

2008-01-31T06:22:00.000-08:00

So, when I checked into my hotel in Taiwan, I turned on the TV,
and there was a porn paused on the screen. I un-paused it and it
played for 3 seconds before stopping and taking me back to the main menu.

A few hours later, I found the previous guest's comment card. Jim O'Sullivan
rated everything 'excellent', except he found the quality of the pay
movies to be 'poor'.

It's all on computers now!

2008-01-08T09:32:00.000-08:00

I took my car in to get inspected yesterday (one month late: I keep this up I only pay for 12 inspections every 13 years!) and was surprised to discover that they don't do any emissions test any more. Knowing that MA is as anal about car emissions as CA, I thought I'd look into it. Turns out, my car is fancy enough to do the test itself. The guy just hooked his computer to my car and the car told him everything was OK. It's too bad, I kinda liked when they put the car up on the dynamometer and reved it up. It was faster though.

Ten Turkeys

2007-11-02T06:54:00.000-07:00

So, I was walking into work today and saw ten turkeys in the parking lot. They were just happily pecking away at the grass. Does that seem odd to anyone else? Don't they know that it is November, the only time of the year when people eat turkey? I am tempted to try and grab one to teach them a lesson.

New Tivo Coming!

2007-10-30T12:46:00.001-07:00

Hilary got sick of hearing me talk about how much I wanted an HD Tivo so she went and bought me one. What a good wife!

It should be here in two days, and the Comcast guy will be at my house between 11 and 1 on Monday. I'll get back to here with a report of the setup joy / pain of dealing with Comcast.

October Sailing

2007-10-30T12:39:00.000-07:00

Hilary, Seth and I continued our tradition of doing 'lots of fun stuff together' and went for a sail on Sunday. It was cold. Really cold. But it was fantastic! The wind was blowing 20 knots with gusts up to 30. We had to put a reef in the sail and abandon the jib while going up-wind. This made for a slow journey home through some big chop. Hilary bravely stood forward with her back to the wind to block the spray. Thanks honey!

Besides the cold and the wet, it was a perfect day for sailing: lots of wind, blue skies and almost no motor boats. Only problem was we got back so late that we missed the first 3/4 of the 52-7 rout of the Redskins.

Oh, the Sox also won the World Series that night, but we were too tired to celebrate properly.

Seth uploaded some pictures from the water.

I'm Leaving on a Jet Plane

2007-10-17T08:58:00.000-07:00

Damn, I cannot believe that the honeymoon is officially over. We are in the Bangkok airport waiting to take off on a very long flight direct to JFK. I just found out that the Sox are down 3-1 in the playoffs. Luckily, I think I will be home in time to watch them start the comeback tomorrow night!

I apologize for the long absence from reporting on the trip, but after Amanpuri, the accommodations were more sparse (ie little or no internet).

I will get some pictures and some more detailed descriptions up here when I get home. Here is a brief summary of some of the stuff I have done since the last time a wrote:

Thai cooking class
Swim in waterfall
Sleep in hill villiage with pigs and chickens and cows
Ride an elephant
Ride on the head of an elephant
Ride a bamboo raft
Take an overnight train to Bangkok
See a whole bunch of temples
Eat all manor of street food, some of which I could not identify
Get 'taken for a ride' by a tuk-tuk (Hilary has a very nice necklace to show for it)
Watch two 15 year old boys beat the snot out of each other

Out of Paradise

2007-10-08T21:44:00.000-07:00

Well, we ran out of time in Phuket. I am writing from the lounge in the Bangkok airport as we wait for our plane to Chiang Mai. I probably will not have internet again until we get back here for our flight home.

The last few days in Phuket were great. The highlight of the trip so far has definitely been the canoe trip through Phang Nga bay. The landscape was unbelievable. Even though it rained the whole time we had a great time. As soon as I have a chance I will upload some pictures. We saw way more than we bargained for, not the least of which was monkeys fishing for crabs.

Once we get to Chiang Mai we will head out for a three day hike, staying in villages. This is going to be a seriously different experience compared to Amanpuri, but I am looking forward to it.

Big Rains

2007-10-04T22:19:00.000-07:00

Day two was another lazy, eat breakfast by the pool and do the crossword until 2pm, day. When we finally got hungry again, we headed down to the main hotel to grab some lunch by the beach. We stopped at the shop to get me a snazzy 'Amanpuri' baseball cap to protect my balding head. We had spent all morning under an umbrella, but apparently the UV bends around such things and can get you.

After lunch (stir-fried roast duck, yum. this trip is all about the food.) we went down to the beach for 10 minutes of swimming before the rain hit. The waves eerily stopped just before the wind picked up and the rain came down. We weathered the storm in the bar, finishing off the Sunday crossword from two weeks ago and drinking beer. The most important word I have learned after kop koom kap (thank you) is Singha (the local brand of beer).

Once the rain stopped we went over and got the complementary tea and thai pancakes (little crepes with some sweet coconut milk custard and fruit filling). After filling up on those, we decided dinner was not needed. We went bk to the room and crashed at 9:30. Another good day!

Day 1

2007-10-03T06:57:00.001-07:00

Today we spent all morning in our dining sala eating a very nice breakfast and basically lazing around by the pool. The torrential rains from the night before had gone, and the day was looking pretty good. At lunch time the staff surprised us with some complementary pineapple.

Once we finished the crossword puzzle, we walked down to the beach. I took out a boogie-board after some stern warnings about the currents. It looks like things can get pretty rough, so we stayed waist deep. One thing we noticed was the abundance of trash floating in the water. I'm not sure if this is due to a culture of dumping trash in the ocean, or if we are still seeing flotsam left over from the tsunami. Also, there was a bunch of what looked like pulverized jellyfish. I thought Hilary would freak on that but, amazingly, it didn't bother her at all.

The water is the perfect temperature. Neither trash nor jellyfish goobers could get us out of the water until the sun started going down.

Off to get some dinner now. If it is anything like the great pad thai I had on the beach today, we are in for a treat.

In Phuket

2007-10-03T06:57:00.000-07:00

We arrived in a downpour. During the landing we passed by where the One-Two-GO! Jet appeared to have crashed. A bit scary, but we made it. After a frustrating experience trying to get money out of the ATM we were off in our car to the hotel.

After our guided tour of the hotel we settled down into our room. One minute later I managed to smash a champagne flute. After housekeeping took care of that, we drank two glasses of champagne and then layed down for a quick 18 hour nap.

Did you know that there is a bird here whose cry sounds just like someone knocking on your door? That can disturb the sleep a little.

Singapore

2007-10-01T21:47:00.000-07:00

We have made it to Singapore, land of the death penalty for spitting, or something like that. We had to fly around a typhoon that was south of Hong Kong. I am assuming that is not going to move west and ruin the beach portion of our vacation. One more short flight until we get to Phuket!

Highlights from this flight:

The Food:
Breakfast #2: Chinese beef and noodle soup. The description in the menu was way better than that, but I forgot to swipe it for the record.

The Movie:
"Kenny"- hilarious 'documentary' about a guy who's job is pumping out port-a-potties. Add it to the Netflix!

Hong Kong

2007-10-01T15:53:00.000-07:00

After a sweet wedding and a 15 hour plane flight, Hilary and I are at the first stop on the honeymoon. We have a 2 hour layover here in Hong Kong before we continue on to Singapore. From there we go to Phuket to get the vacation started properly. I am writing this from the Singapore Air Lounge in Honk Kong. Took us way to long to find it, probably should have asked someone instead of leaving security which made for a long trip back in. We are eating some Dim Sum and having a breakfast beer. It is probably night time in our internal clock, so I think this is ok. I will post some pictures once I find a computer with a USB port. Highlights of the trip so far:

The Plane:
We are upstairs on a 747-400, how cool is that? Business class is pretty sweet. I want to sneak a peek at 1st class when we get back on the plane, I assume there is a hot tub up there or something.

The Food:
I had the seafood soup and Hilary had the smoked duck. I don't think either was supposed to be paired with the Cabernet or the Chianti that we drank, but it was good anyway. Breakfast was some Dim Sum. One part of that was a rice dish wrapped in a banana leaf. For future reference: Banana leaf is not meant to be eaten. Use knife to open, not teeth. I was very glad only Hilary saw that gaff.

The Movies:
1) "The Simpson's movie" This was way better than I was afraid it would be.
2) "Sunshine" pretty cool space adventure / horror flick that I had never heard off. Good job Fox Searchlight!
3) "Mr. Brooks" How have I never heard of this movie? Demi Moore, William Hurt, Kevin Costner, Dane Cook. I thought I hated Kevin Costner, but this was very entertaining.

Hilary also watched Spiderman 3 and Hairspray. She will have to update this to let you know what she thought.