Here are the boys at the beach today. We are at a luau for the school!

Here is my strapping oldest son. He'll be going in for surgery soon... To have the younger kids removed from his back lol

Blogger Bug... can't report it, so I'll post it...

I have spent way too much time trying to figure out how to fix this problem. Screw it, I am just posting it to my blog now. I am quite frustrated.

Here is the issue. Look at this post right here. In the paragraph where I said the rain lasted an hour, maybe... That was not the full sentence. My sentences keep getting cut off on the screen. It is annoying! Everytime I take the cursor off the paragrpaph that I am currently typing and click ANYWHERE other than THAT paragraph, it have issues. Look, I'll do it... Once I click elsewhere, it will have an entire line break odd
and look like this. If I try to fix it, it still breaks odd and the last of the sentence is chopped off once posted.

If I try to fix it, it still breaks in odd places and nothing shows up in the HTML code to show that there is something wrong. Frankly, I am getting sick of it. I am tired of trying to figure out where 
to go to report it. If I try to "report a bug" it gives me options to choose.

Did it again... Of the options that seem to fit best, they open a page with their "choice" links to read to fix the problem. NONE of thes links are helping! They do not have an answer for me and I can not figure out where to EMAIL SOMEONE! I don't have time to read every little article that isn't relevant to my issue. Put up a damned "report a bug" button where we can actually REPORT THE DAMNED PROBLEM!

Disclaimer: the layout querks and malfunctions of this post are the fault of blogger. Not me. All the chopped up sentences are because I did not continually go back to fix them.

Baton down the hatches! Here comes the rain!

Yesterday some of the people were near the Chandlery talking about the impending storm we are about to get. Being that I lived the last 10 years in Tennessee, my definition of "storm" is not the same as theirs. They said it was going to rain too. Being as I lived in Tennessee for the last decade, my definition of rain is not the same as theirs either. In Tennessee "storm" meant there would be "rain". Here storm means there will be more than one cloud in the sky and rain has varying levels. It DID rain today though. Water actually fell from the sky for an entire 30 seconds. It was awful! I thought I was going to have to build an ark! And the "storm" has hit the marina. Yep, all the boats are swaying gently. Of course, I am used to "storm" meaning "pack up and go to another town to try and avoid tornadoes." Storm here could also mean we might actually have wind! The differences are hilarious.

Rain, as said, comes in varying levels. There are those waterdrops that fill the air but never actually fall. It's like mist, only called "rain". Then there is the "rain" where the sidewalks become polka dotted with wet spots. Then there is the rain where you actually see more than 10 spots in a square inch. Then the rain where it actually looks like drizzle and lasts about 20 minutes. Then we move up to harder rains that last 20 minutes. The worst one I saw was somewhere in February, I think, where it rained heavily, water gushed in the drain pipes and the wind blew so hard it created white caps in the harbor. It lasted about an hour, maybe 2 hours. 

I can't remember the last time I saw rain before the 30 second dribble this morning. Sometimes rain looks like someone sneezed on your windows. But anyway, when they rain here, I have to ask "what kind of rain?" Because the word "rain" is so vague out here.

Last January a lady, who grew up on the island, came to me and said "Better get out your heater. It's going to get cold!" I was still in Tennessee mode where cold means "snow and frozen pipes" and where you can see your breath and you have to wear layers of clothes to keep warm. With this in mind, and a little worry, I asked "How cold?" She answered with a straight face "Oh Honey, it's going to get down to the 50's!" I kept my composer but laughed my butt off on the way back. Now, at night it did get chilly... but not COLD.

I still find it interesting that people are still warning me about the "cold" that hits here and how I will "climatize" to the area. I may adapt a little, but 50 degrees is still not cold. Light jacket at best, but other than that, it isn't COLD.

I guess I'll be off to enjoy my day resting on the boat in this terrible storm. Sunshine and all. Don't worry, I'll manage somehow!

FAQ: Are there a lot of spiders living at a marina?

Surprisingly enough, the questions about spiders and bugs is high on the list. A lot of people ask about the spiders. So far, we have lived here since December 21, 2006 and I haven't seen that many bugs. There are the stories we have about the occasional run in with bugs and unwelcome boat guests but for the most part, we don't see a lot of bugs on the dock. We do see a lot of ants on shore and we did see a spider a few weeks ago. It crawled on Miles and I about freaked out! It was a HUGE spider. The body was about the size of my thumb and the leg span was as wide as my palm. But we picked up this little friend on shore.

The only pests we have in the boat are the seagulls, Ospreys and other birds. We suspect that one flew off with my flip flop. They crap all over and think they are entitled to the food we are cooking, thanks to all the novice sailors who don't have to put up with them feeding them because they think it is great to see all the seagulls following their boats. While only get to see them once in a while, we have to put up with it daily. By feeding them, the birds become dependent on humans for their food. So when they see someone, like us, grilling out or eating lunch in the cockpit, they show up and harass us. We've had some actually fly down and try to take the food from our hands and off our grill when we opened the lid long enough to flip the food! They show up and hang around while we are cooking in the cabin too. Imagine if this happened every time you cooked. You open a can to heat up, pound out your hamburgers, heat up the stove and suddenly, birds show up and start circling your house. They crap all over the place and try to steal your food while you are cooking and eating. To you, it wouldn't matter too much because if they crap on your roof, you'll never know. But imagine that you walked all over your roof and they crapped on your car, sidewalks, furniture and everything in sight. It gets REALLY annoying because we have to clean it up.

The cabin roof is used for sitting and walking here. The docks get covered with it, the dock box is covered in it, the boom cover is covered and when the novice sailor leaves and goes home, we have to clean up the mess. Not just the boat rental place, but us boat owners. Especially those of us who live on our boat!

Okay, enough ranting. I'll put up the soapbox now.