Author: admin

On And On She Goes

I kid you not:

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In Australia a town named, as above, felt that they had to change the towns name. They did so. It is now called “Fucked.”

Heard in passing from one resident. “If we don’t change our name real fast we’ll all be fucked.”

Yes they were and yes they are and yes they did.

You know, nothing else really matters if you have food, clothing, shelter and… beauty:

Goodbye to 2020, the year when so much was said to so many by so few which was sooo wrong.

Abortion Leading Global Cause of Death in 2020 with 42.7 Million Killed worldwide. Of course some would say that abortion at any stage is not a death, or murder.

Was Ancient Greek Poet Homer a Civil War General? He Just Got Canceled in a Massachusetts School.

Hospitalizations in the UK in 2019 higher than in Covid year 2020. Say what? Wonder what the stats are for here?

Worst Governor In America (Cuomo)Prioritizes Drug Addicts Over Seniors For Vaccines. He will probably get the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.

Canada just announced latest Order of Canada recipients and not a single conservative leaning voice among them. Everything is politicized these days.

Under Biden get ready for a climate emergency.

Biden? Man Who Has Been In Government For Nearly 50 Years Promises To Fix Government.

This is rich. From the Dem leadership: “We have to come together as a nation and heal.” As only a Dem could say.

More to expect from a Dem presidency: proposed House Rules under Nancy Pelosi seek to erase gendered terms such as ‘Father, Mother, Son, Daughter.’ All religious terminology ordered to change for the Father, The Son and… what about the Holy Ghost?

Rules are for thee and not for mee:

Ontario finance minister enjoys Barbados holiday over Christmas. Likewise Quebec minister in St Bart’s, Alberta health minister in Hawaii and on an on she goes. NYC Mayor dances with his wife in Times Square while city residents ordered to stay at home and isolate in place.

Heard in passing: “We are all in this together you know.” as she looked at her $345K per year pay package.

And on and on she goes:

No, don’t go to San Francisco!

And for all those Trudeau liberal lovers out there:

“Read my lips. I will not raise taxes.” Remember this as you fill up with gas today.

SJ………….Out

 

 

 

Happy New Year

Happy New Year.

2020 was a weird and unique year for me but it wasn’t as bad for me as people and the press would have us believe it should be. After all it was the press that made this year the year that it was. I just lived my life as normally as I could and ignored the press. I do not watch the evening news nor read a newspaper. I depend on a few blogs to acquire all the madness that this world has to offer – and there is so much of it out there.

“It’s the end of the world as we know it.” Well no it wasn’t and no it isn’t. Only God knows when that day will come. Trust in him as he is in total control. In doing so you will feel all of your anxiety and fear wilt away.

I do not want to go into it but I tried to live as normal a life as I could, all things considered. I went on a 3 month road trip with my new sweetie leaving home pre Covid and coming home when the fallout of the Covid struck. We were in Tampa Florida. We had to boot it up to Detroit then cross into Canada at Windsor Ontario. From there we drove all the way to Vancouver in about 6 days skirting around the Great Lakes. The March weather cooperated and we had a very enjoyable drive. Many of the towns and villages were on Covid lockdown so the absence of life in these towns and villages presented itself to us as some sort of 21st Century Twilight Zone. But we loved it. I would love to do it again. Got home 26 March, self isolated for 2 weeks in TV heaven at my sweetie’s house then went home to my own abode here in Mill Bay – on my own.

Covid 19 brought out and continues to bring out the worst and the best in people – as per human nature. Karen’s and Ken’s abound out there.

Covid 19 is 1984 redux. A politician’s wet dream. Civil liberties be damned.

“Freedom – is just another word when there’s nothing else to lose.”

Wake up!

I have my blog here to keep me sane – at least for a couple of hours a day.

I am taking the day off tomorrow. Will be back Monday 04 Jan.

From Shakeyjay:

HAPPY NEW YEAR

To everyone. Here are a couple of tunes from one of my all time favourite groups:

Same could apply for the 21st Century.

And then this bit of nostalgia:

Young and innocent days – for sure.

SJ……………………Out

 

I Don’t Have A Title Yet…Part 5

If ya have a good name for this let me know.

“So Sid ‘s fucked off and left me with this pile of dung.”

Krofune? Dung? He always anglicized Sadao to Sid.

Looks fine to me I said. A bit weathered perhaps but it must be in fine shape.

“She”

“What’s that?”

“She. A sailboat, no, all vessels on the water are she’s, not it’s, for fuck sakes. Jesus H Christ. What the fuck have I gotton myself into” he proffered to no one, not to me, to the gulls perhaps. They cawed in comical response!

He kind of looked at me with a grinning disdain. This was not going well. I felt intimidated by him to some degree.

“Sorry, she. She doesn’t look too bad, I mean to me”

Nigel grunted, took a couple more long slugs, crushed the can and grabbed another.

“So John. What do you expect here? From me? Why are you here anyway?”

What could I say. “Pat and Sadao asked me to come and help out. Sail to Japan. Help you in doing it.  I jumped at the chance. Great opportunity I thought. Looking forward to it.

Saying nothing Nigel looked at me with contempt. What is his problem I thought to myself?

Nigel was about 33 years old. A professional sailor as he claims to be. Hired by Sadao to help him sail and deliver Krofuni to Japan. He and Sadao met each other in and around the maritime bazaars and marinas of Vancouver Harbour. My sister Pat did not take too well to Nigel and I think the feelings were mutual. Nevertheless Nigel offered to help Sadao fulfill his dream and for a modest sum would help him in his quest. Off they went. Sadao had to give up on his dream but had asked Nigel to carry on.  He agreed. Adventure I guess. And that’s where I came in.  Crew to Nigel’s skipper.

 

I Don’t Have A Title Yet…Part 4

If you have any ideas for a title to this latest story let me know through the comments…thanks.

 

I walked back to G dock down to G35, and waited alone, contemplating as to my near and future prospects in this marine environment, an environment that was entirely foreign to me. Why on earth did they ask me to do this I thought. I know diddly-squat about sailboats. I don’t know Nigel at all, what he looked like, sounded like or thought like. Nothing in common I would think between the two of us.  And where the hell was he? He knew when I was arriving this day, this hour, this time. Not a great impression on me for sure. Of course my sister and brother in law had already left and were currently in Japan I would have thought. But no note no letter just some vague instruction as to where I should go on landing.

“You must be John”

A voice, a Brit voice. behind me. I turned, shielded my eyes somewhat and there coming down the dock, about 10 feet away, was this bronze looking but scruffy looking dude coming toward me.

“Nigel?” I queried.

“Yup, in the flesh.”

He was carying a small bag, groceries I imagined, but no groceries, some beer, a six pack of Oly’s and a bottle of scotch. We shook hands.

Nigel was scruffily dressed in faded knee length brown, I think, shorts cinched at the waist by a length of hemp.  I can say this because his short sleeved, rust coloured shirt was unbuttoned, open at the front exposing a hairy chest that was pidgeon like, with its tail flapping somewhat in the late afternoon breeze. He was wearing dark blue flip-flops that flip and flopped with every step. He walked right by me, climbed onto Krofune, jumped into the cockpit, put his things down then opened the hatch to the gangway and cabin below.

“C’mon onboard.” he said

I complied and shyly looked into the cabin below. I could see Nigel from his backside placing his bag onto the table top on the starboard side of the interior.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck and more fuck, for fuck’s sake. he yelled at the bulkheads. I left the god damned hatch closed. It’s a bloody fucking sauna in here.” as only a Brit could say, in understated understatements.

You don’t fuckin say I thought. Sure enough it was hot, and not just from the stale air under the cabin sole.  In the next breath, Nigel turned, looked at me sheepishly, apologized for his outburst, grinned, and then giggled somewhat nervously and somewhat like an English school girl revealing a mouthful of yellow stained and ancient eye teeth and molars.

“Got to keep that forward hatch ajar and this hatch vent opened for cross circulation. Or it can get as hot as Hades in here in this heat.”  He paused. “Here, have a beer?”

“Thanks.”

“We’ll have her up there in the cockpit.  Wear this hat. You’ll need it until you get used to this heat.” Never heard of a beer referred to as a her!

“It’s really camel piss this liquid shit. But its cold.”

Oly’s, short for Olympia Beer, a Pacific Northwest favourite, along with Rainier Beer. Hawaii has to import everything.

We sat there in uncomfortable silence as Nigel didn’t know what to make of me and me of him. He took a huge slug from his can, looked at me, sighed, depressingly like, looked around at the surroundings.

A classic song by a classic lass

SJ……Out

I Don’t Have a Title Yet…Part 3

If any of you have an idea for a title to this new story I am developing, let me know in the comments.

Part 1 and 2 were past posts.

The Ala Wai harbour and marina were huge. Hundreds of yachts, of various sizes and shapes: Sloops, Cutters, Ketches and Yawls. Double Enders, where the bow and stern have the same pointed aspect, Tahiti Ketches, Catamarans, and Trimarans. They were all here. No power boats. They were all berthed separately across the main channel near the Ala Moana Park. I guess they wanted to keep the stink-potters separated from the true believers.

I left G dock, walked a way over through a parking lot that abutted a park area, then a small landlocked lagoon. Not really a lagoon as it was landlocked but it was known as the Ilikai Lagoon, part and parcel of the Ilikai hotel – a local landmark as it turned out and I do recall its centrally located exterior elevator that took one from the hotel’s lobby to the top of the “I”, all the while allowing one to see the calming beauty and blue turquoise pastels of the Pacific Ocean, the Ala Wai Harbour, the Ala Moana Yacht club and the like. This exterior run was also made famous by the Jack Lord version of Hawaii “book-em-Danel” 5 Oh. The Ilikai was just many of a long line of Waikiki luxurious beachfront hotels that stretched from the Ala Moana Yacht club, skirting their way as fringes of the beach only stopping its progression by the iconic Diamond Head volcanic caldera. Luckily, not active but extinct, the sides of which was covered from its base about a third of its elevation in tropical green hues of a lush carpet like vegetation blanket, like moss, then abruptly transitions to that easily recognizable dark brown blackish coloured and bare volcanic rock that permeate the many volcanic islands of the South Pacific. The rock sides were not smooth but interspersed it seemed with symmetrical lines or cracks, seams and what appeared to be vertically oriented valleys that were all too apparent on many of the mountain ranges and rock formations on these volcanic Hawaiian Islands and those other mountainous gems of the South Pacific. It appeared as if those seams were hardened rivers and streams of lava slides or floes of long ago.  On its crown you could just make out the diamond like cluster of rock cuts at the leading edge of this ancient rock.

Waikiki Beach is not the beach one would expect. Yes it beckons one to the lush, tropical and welcoming warmth of the island of Oahu but its texture is rough; its colour a dull greyish taupe and its lustre anything but that expected in the tropics. This very narrow strip of sand was not blindingly white or soft or smooth to the touch but a rough textured morass like field. Shipped in I was told. From Norway? No way. Australia? No way. Manhattan Beach California? Yes way. And on further inspection, as I didn’t want to explore too much or wander too far from Krofune, I noticed that the line of hotels didn’t quite make their way all the way to Diamond Head but were buttressed by a beautiful beach park where many of the locals, mainly older men, played chess or checkers under the watchful eye of a statue of Duke Pana Kahanamoku, Mr Aloha, who had just recently passed, himself a great surfer, Olympic gold medal swimmer, and well respected international Ambassador of these Hawaiian Islands.  All of this would have to wait for another time as I was anxious to get settled in Krofune. Besides the hot and high afternoon sun was beginning to make its mark on my as yet acclimatized skin.

Another great tune from the Allman Brother’s Band. Dickie Betts on lead guitar. He saved this band after Duane died way too early.

SJ…Out