Summer in Baltimore

—Blogpost written by Bob

 

Friday, August 14

This morning while the rain clouds were passing through the marina, we systematically looked at house boats.  The following is just a sample of the dozen or more that are moored in our marina.

One of the dozen or so house boats
we viewed this morning.

I’m not sure where our efforts toward moving to a house boat are headed.  It would certainly make our life easier as we age further but it would definitely end our cruising lifestyle.  Despite having issues with my prostate (I hope the issues can be resolved soon!), I’m not ready to give up my beloved C&C sailboat yet.  It might come down to running into an opportunity (on a house boat) that we don’t feel we can pass up.  (We like the idea of renovating the house boat and we already own our condominium slip that is big enough to handle a 40-foot long house boat.)

Saturday, August 15

The sky was heavily overcast and the temperature was relatively cool in the morning.  Rain was expected later in the day.  Because of the favorable weather in the morning we decided to get our 6 HP outboard motor (for our dinghy) out of our car (from being serviced) and onto the stern mount on s/v Rainy Days.  We accomplished this by angling the boat in the slip so that the port stern was tight against the neighboring finger pier.  Then we simply hauled the engine onboard from the finger pier using the little onboard crane intended for that purpose.

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The second thing on our agenda was installing a new D-shaped rubber seal around our ice box lid.  (The replacement seal just arrived today from Amazon and I ended up getting a full refund for the seal from zoro.com that was delivered to the wrong address two weeks ago.)  We started this project by thoroughly cleaning the ice box lid and the area just below where it contacts the ice box.

The new seal was installed fairly easily
but I couldn't get the ice box lid to close.

I couldn't get the ice box lid to close after I had the new seal in place!  The 3/8-inch uncompressed thickness was too great.  Before giving up completely I tried to install a version of the seal with the thickness cut in half--it didn't work either, even on just one side.  The ice box lid seemed to "hang up" on the soft rubber seal.  So, rack up this little project as a failure. 

Sunday, August 16

The rain was heavy at times during the night and the overcast sky and light rain continued into the morning.  To some, this type of weather is depressing but I rather like it—in a way it offers quiet reassurance to me.

Even though this is a sailing blog--it is also a personal blog about my life in retirement.  Ordinarily, politics would have no place in a blog like this.  However, when I have deep concerns, political or not, I like to share them.  Like many others, I am deeply concerned for our country in the midst of three different (simultaneous) major crises while the ineptitude and corruption in our government grows dramatically.  The three very real crises I’m referring to are (1) the runaway COVID-19 pandemic, (2) the resulting financial crisis, and (3) the boiling point we are experiencing in race relations.   (So, you might wonder how eliminating water-saving shower heads from the building codes rank against other problems we currently face--a little humor was intended here.)

The growing government corruption I previously mentioned has compromised the morality and ethics that our country has stood for in the past.  Many in our current government have ongoing outside business interests that prevent them from doing their jobs in an unbiased manner (assuming they were qualified to hold their jobs in the first place). 

I wonder how many interactions have taken place like the recent attempts to influence the British Open to use Trump’s golf course in Scotland.  I also wonder how widespread the government corruption has become when I read about the Trump mega-donor, Louis DeJoy, who is the current postmaster general who is holding millions of dollars of stock in companies competing with the post office.  (When inspector generals do their jobs and look into the corruption issues they get fired by Trump.)  Is our country becoming another banana republic? 

How did we get to the point where conspiracy theories (like there was no plane that hit the Pentagon on September 11, 2001) get so much traction but science and technology are ignored?  Am I just an old fart that still believes in honesty, integrity, and science?  How can so many Americans look the other way and not see these problems?

I encourage everyone to vote and do it my mail to avoid exposure to the pandemic!  Make sure to order absentee ballots soon and return them as soon as possible!

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