Tuesday December 29th, 2015
LAPTOP: As I have mentioned before, I’m having trouble getting and keeping the blogging going. Is it because I’m getting older and loosing my mind? Is it because I’m not living as interesting a life as before? Am I getting lazy? Or is it because my laptop has become a challenge to operate? Perhaps I have writer’s block (as if I’m actually a writer).
My laptop is a Toshiba Qosmio, a high performance machine to help with editing pics and video. When it was…younger it was amazing, very fast and capable. Over the three and a half years we have worked together she has had a new motherboard (a tragic red wine incident) and both hard drives replaced. It’s time to put her down. There is nothing on the earth at the moment that gets my panties in a bunch nearly as much as this laptop. It is worn out. The power on switch sticks and works on its own. It starts and when I start to type it decides on it’s own to shut down. I get in trouble because ML doesn’t like me to use magic words around H our grandson. I know there is no such thing as magic, but the use of the words sometimes helps. It’s like trying to hold in a 
sneeze… it won’t likely help and the sneeze will usually exit by some portal anyway. The Irish in me requires magic words and so far I have no way of using my inside voice when using them. So, the search is on for a new laptop that will meet my needs and resist the salt environment at Fracas.
Toaster: Ozy is a very smart dog. She is an Australian Shepherd and has many tricks we have taught her and many tricks she has developed on her own. Recently she has trained the toaster to work with her and cut me out of the toast loop in the morning. If I put one slice of multi-grain bread in the toaster or the two pieces of an English muffin, the likelihood is that they will pop in an arch that will throw them past me and on to the waiting Ozy. As rewarding as this was for her I think she misses the butter and peanut butter we both covet. Yesterday she let the toast sit on the floor while she looked up at me with questioning eyes willing me to put butter and peanut butter on the toast. Just as I was counting off the five second rule she put her front foot on the toast negating the five second thing… We shared.
Weather: Just when I thought that we would get back to the Bahamas without having any snow…we have snow. Just like the Bahamas forecast they predicted several feet of killer snow and winds to whip it around…we got a little and the wind was nowhere near as bad as predicted. The place is transformed however into a proper winter. Now we have to find the snow blower and blow the driveway at least once while home. Ozy loves the snow and H was transfixed when he looked out the window this morning.
Article: I came across this article in Sail Magazine. It is an overview of sailboat racing for the cruising sailor. The benefits and some of the basic rules. Click HERE
More later