Autumn Colour Supplement

The view over my right shoulder at the moment. Or was. In the time taken to type this, it's gone.

Calstar

Went to Wales looking for a centaur....

....appear to have found a griffin

Frampton-on-Severn Sailing Club by night

Powerboat training

I have a vested interest in making sure folks at the Club know how to handle a safety boat well; it's very often me capsized.

Though if we're not back up by the time they reach us, the single most important thing to learn is that if I say "Stay away from me!" it may not be personal, but I do very much mean it.

Lovely day on the water playing with boats was had by all, I think.

Marooned

A lakeside breakfast this morning

Mirror, mirror on the wa(ter)

Yesterday evening. Not my usual boat. Bit of a story behind that, when I get a moment perhaps.

Morning light

Scope creep

eBay is dangerous. I usually resist the lure.

However, I've just spent more on a new watch than I'd intended.
Interestingly, £6 more on this particular time piece than I actually
spent on my first boat. In my defense, it was a cheap boat, at least in
monetary terms, never in grace. The Mirror Dinghy "Redwing" was a thing
of exquisite beauty, though very much in the eye of the beholder, I guess.

In terms of blood and labour, it's only about two good gigs worth, maybe
three. Will set my plans for a new PC back by a month or two.

The watch is grossly unnecessary. Very much overkill and far too clever
for the present limits of my sailing. Still, I feel strangely unrepentent.

If I want to remain so, just have to remember not to tell the wife.


Interesting aside, the photo at the top was taken in November 2008 by my
friend Ken. It was the last time I sailed Redwing. I broke the gaff
recovering her from the capsize (easy to see how, looking at it now),
and sold her on a little while later. The capsize itself was a foolish
moment of over-confidence. Gybed unnecessarily before the start-line,
got caught out by a gust and my own clumsy boat handling.

Live and learn.

Clever Google

Subsequent to breaking my last phone, a Sony Xperia Z1, on the flagstone
floor of a Cornish pub, the greatest loss, beyond the fact that it left
me bereft of a book to read in the downtime of the weekend away (most of
my reading these days is via the Android Kindle app on my mobile) was
the loss of the photos I'd taken of our trip out and then back from
Polkeris to Fowey through the afternoon mists.

I'd sent one to this site direct from the phone of Ondine at anchore
whilst sat outside the pub in Polkeris, and another direct from the
phone whilst still out on the water worrying about getting lost or
hitting Cannis Rock in the fog, but the rest were gone.

The phone was full of a year's worth of snaps, some of which I'd copied
onto my PC, some of which I may not have done. They seemed mostly
worthless at the time, but then such photos often do till they're gone.
I had a brief panic when I thought I'd lost the last photo I'd taken of
Mum. It had caught her on the hop, a frown of bemused tolerance on her
face, as she passed comment on Dad and I playing with pitching a tent on
Ondine's decks outside her house. It's not a flattering photo, so I
didn't and won't ever post it anywhere. But it's the last time I saw
her, just before I gave her a last hug, so it's precious to me. Anyway,
I digress. I later found the photo amongst the ones I'd copied to my PC.
But it was a horrific feeling for a few brief moments thinking I'd lost it.

I had originally used Dropbox to sync the images from my phone with the
"cloud" and there down to my PC, but I'd filled the free quota of
Dropbox up, and hadn't subscribed to any more space nor cleared down
what I had to make room for more. Typically bad housekeeping. I'm much
better with ropes.

Replacing the phone was easy. No fuss, next day delivery from the
contract providers. An unknown number of images were gone however.

First thing with the replacement phone was to find an alternative backup
means.

At which point I belatedly discovered that Google+ does something
similar to Dropbox. They'll back up your images at full resolution up to
a certain limit for free, thereafter charge you. However, if you're
happy for the images to be reduced in resolution (still however at a
generous couple of thousand pixels or so, thus more than sufficient for
most personal needs) then they'll backup an infinite number of images
for free.

Of course, they probably use those images to catalogue my brain, sell
them on to third world despots and various corporations of significant
but undocumented size and dubious intent, and then use it all to target
specific, irresistably tuned subliminal advertising back at me and my
progeny till the seventh generation, or something like that.

But hey, nothing's really free in this world, it's just a case of what
you're prepared to pay.

So I finally succumbed to a Google+ account. Actually, turns out I had
one already but didn't realise it, possibly as a result of having an
Android phone, maybe because I have a googlemail account. Or might be
because of this site. Anyway, I only use it for backing up my mobile
photos and intend to use it for nothing else. If I want social media,
I'm pretty much chained body and soul to Facebook these days and have
been since time innumerable, I think.

But Google's quite clever.

Every so often it takes a pile of photos I've taken, sees a pattern,
does something clever with them and sends me a message, saying it's
"Autoawsomed" my photos for me, or something like that. Bit like a puppy
with a new trick, trying to impress, hoping for a little love and
attention in return. But not as fluffy or as cute.

Yesterday, I panned the phone across the office carpark through the
window from the floor upstairs, knowing Google wouldn't be able to
resist. And it stitched the six seperate, hand shot photos together into
the image at the top of this post.

Really very neat. It would have taken me an age to do something like
that myself in Photoshop.

Heads or tails?

Skipped karate last week.

My right elbow has been giving me hell for some time now. Hurts when I
extend my arm, hurts when I bend it. Hurts when I clench a fist. The
general rule I've always applied to karate is turn up and just do what
you can, even if things are sore or aren't working; if you can walk,
there's no excuse not to be there.

However, Hels gave me a real "You've got to rest it, and you've got to
go see somebody about it, and although you're going to ignore me anyway,
you'll only have yourself to blame when you do yourself a permanent
injury and can't sail all winter" lecture a couple of weeks ago.

Got to last Tuesday, and at 5pm took a couple of ibuprofen ahead of the
7pm session, then got home and still in some hurt finally capitulated,
and decided to take the night off just to see if it improved if I rested it.

Obviously still went sailing Sunday. But there have to be some lines
drawn in this life.

Still in some discomfort today. Can't bear much of any weight on the
arm. Need to decide on karate tonight. In some flux of indecision,
knowing what I should do and knowing what I wanted to do, I did my usual
trick and flipped a coin; "heads I go, tails I stay home"

It came up tails. My usual rule with flipping a coin is not to simply
follow the dictates of chance, but to see how strongly I react to
whatever such binary chance decides, and then that tells me how strongly
I feel about something and whether or not to ignore the coin and go do
it anyway.

I was pretty gutted with the tails decision. According to the rules that
meant that I should have gone anyway. But instead, I broke the rules and
flipped the coin again.

Tails.

Now I'm really stuck with what to do. Moreso because I've broken my system.

The coin is mocking me, or would if it could. However, to borrow and
corrupt the undoubted wisdom of another, I refuse to be mocked by
something that is unable to mock me back. The coin is insentient, and so
is chance.

Therefore I think I only mock myself.


No racing this coming Sunday. Most likely heading over to Swansea with
Dad to look at a Westerly Centaur he's got his eye on. My main task will
be to try and curb his enthusiasm so that he doesn't just buy it
outright. Mind you, that was my primary responsibility when we drove
down to Chichestster some half a decade ago or more to look at a
Drascombe Lugger some bloke was selling.

It's not a weekend totally bereft of sailing however. I've got the
afternoon off work on Friday. There's a guy that is thinking of buying a
Lugger and so Dad's offered to take him out in Ondine, I think the guys
at Churchouse put him onto us because they're hoping he'll commission a
new one off them. All fine by me, any excuse to get out on the water.
Must try not to sell Ondine to him however.


Back in the run-up to our hosting the Olympics in 2012, the Mint put a
number of 50p pieces into circulation with the "tails" side of the coin
stamped with one of a number of selected events, sailing being one of
them. Every sailing one she came across, and they weren't that common,
Nik kept hold of and gave to me.

I thought that was uncommonly sweet of her.