Summer Life in Baltimore

Sep 1 thru Sep 4

—Blogpost written by Bob

Saturday, September 1

Saturday was overcast all day with occasional rain showers. There was enough time between rain showers to fit in some of my boat project work. My primary accomplishment was the finish sanding and painting of the speaker housing I have been making. I sanded the faces of the housing flat and smooth with my orbital sander using 180-grit sandpaper. I removed a lot of excess epoxy to get the surfaces smooth—it took about an hour and a half. Then, after wiping it down with paint thinner, I painted the housing with a flat black spray paint that includes a primer. I did this spray painting on the end of our pier using a white trash bag to protect the pier from the over spray.

Between rain showers I was able to apply some
flat black paint to the speaker housing.

In the late afternoon, I listened to the Penn State football game—it was a little too close for comfort but Penn State beat Appalachia State 45-38 in overtime.  It was not a particularly good showing for the 10th ranked team in the country but they will get better as the season progresses.

Sunday, September 2

In the morning, I lightly sanded the painted speaker housing to eliminate a few areas where I applied spray paint a little too heavily.  After wiping the housing down with paint thinner, I applied another coat of flat black spray paint.

Maggie was at the beach today with her daughter and son-in-law—she left around 6 AM. Since I don’t have a supervisor today, I really couldn’t do a lot of boat work.  However, I did mount the new speaker in the speaker housing and tried it out in place.  The grill for the speaker housing is not here yet.

I designed the speaker housing to fit in a shelf
behind the starboard settee, just
below our A/C controls.

Monday, September 3 (Labor Day)

As I was waking up this morning, I had recalled the strength of the magnet in the new speaker—the 16-ounce magnet pulled the wrench out of my hand as I was tightening the fasteners for the speaker. Even though I have spent a good bit of time this past week building the speaker housing, I am considering scrapping it for two reasons: (1) I’m not realizing much improvement in sound quality (particularly bass) and (2) I’m concerned about its interference with the autopilot’s flux gate compass which is about 7 feet away. Early this afternoon, I permanently removed the speaker and its housing.  Sometimes, things just don’t work out as you envision.

About mid-afternoon, Maggie called me on her way back from the beach—our car was rear ended as she was driving back to Baltimore and she was being taken to the nearby hospital by ambulance as a precaution. Her daughter was on her way back about an hour later and stopped at the hospital to bring her home. Our car is not drive able. I spent some time making an accident report to our insurance company based on the little information I had. Maggie was cleared from the hospital and on her way by 6 PM. With all the returning beach traffic, she returned to our boat in Baltimore about 8:30 PM.

Tuesday, September 4

We spent today getting a rental car and driving to Denton, Maryland where I car was towed after the accident.  Our car was kept in a safe and secure area by the towing company.

The damage didn't look too bad from this
angle but it was not drive able.

We spent the entire day taking our things from our wrecked car and driving back to Baltimore.  Fortunately, Maggie wasn't hurt badly--she is stiff and needed muscle relaxers for her back and neck pain and I think our car can be repaired.  

More about this in our next blogpost...


Thanks for following our blog!