Four days, three paddles

Thursday on the Wishkah River. ebb tide. cool. The catch is good. Watching the ama while paddling. I break down the stroke to:

1. an initial phase, right after the catch, where the paddle blade is still not vertical & application of power raises the ama & boat (we hope). Some forward propulsion occurs here.
   
2. a second phase, where the blade has reached vertical & power propels the craft forward, and
   
3. the final phase, where power is rapidly reduced in preparation for exiting the blade and recovering for the next stroke.

Friday, a day for a walk up and down the hill 4-5 times.

Both Saturday and Sunday, another paddle up the Wishkah river. Flying with the tide some but still the boat seems a bit faster. All three river workouts using the 8.5" marathon canoe paddle.

Polson Museum. Scott Ridley spoke about some of historical high points in voyages of John Kendrick aboard the Columbia Rediviva and the Lady Washington.

Week in Vegas Summary

March 9-16. A trip to see Mom, Bro, sis & nephews.

Guaranteed: a 1 hour walk with mom daily. Food pushed at me like it was opium. Lots of talk.

Unexpected: A request to replace 4 faucets around mom's house, all ancient, ugly and leaking. I accepted--I knew what was good for me. First, plumbing is a crude art that involves a lot of connections that are often rusted shut or will start leaking if you look at them funny. It also involves working upside down with your hands in tight places where little sharp edges will take out a chunk of your skin if you forget to wear gloves. Then when you put things back together, you find out just how many places a faucet and drain can leak.

I worked on that pedestal sink by mom's kitchen until I just got fed up with lying on the floor working upside down. And yes, I did lose a chunk of skin from my left index finger. I turned off the water supply, removed the supply tubes, supply valves & drain and then lifted the sink from the wall hangers and, turned it upside down. Some WD 40 and time loosened the faucet handles. three more trips to Home Depot and it was done. The faucets upstairs were a cinch now that I knew to remove the sinks. Nothing but faulty washerless faucet cartridges slowed me down. Don't buy Glacier Bay if you can help it. ALWAYS buy all the tools you might POSSIBLY need to reduce the number of round trips.

Baking bread. I brought two just-add-water batches of unbleached fl./Eagle Mills fl with yeast and salt. The first loaf baked in a 9" covered casserole--turned out ok. the second loaf was a flat loaf baked in a 9x13" pan covered tightly with foil and baked for 40 min at 400 deg F. then 5 min uncovered at same temp--everyone seemed to like the thinner crust much better.

Mom said the PC wouldn't work for her. Since Andrew got it working a few weeks ago, it has been fine, but Jennifer and Tom still thought she might benefit from a new computer. Andrew had said that the PC had hung up in a power-on state after "shutting down." He had unplugged the works and everything began to work as new. I took mom to Best Buy to see if someone there could help--they couldn't understand that PC's (Apple or Windows) weren't mom's friend. We left and decided that Andrew would be mom's PC fixit man and that we wouldn't replace the pc until it was dead, dead, dead.

Charcoal barbecue. Yummy.

March 4,5,6,7

Beautiful days, if you dress right.

Mar 4: In the mail when I arrived home, a little package of joy from the Wash State Med Quality Assur Comm'n. I've been suspended for five years, though I can be reinstated if I subject myself to evaluation and Rx for Disruptive Behavior and if certified as "safe," I'm on probation for five years instead. While this is not justice, it is an outcome. Called Debbie N. and Kim M., who said, "even if all the allegations were true no one was ever injured," which means either the acts were not disruptive, or the impact of disruptive behavior is not significant. Emailed Michael H.

5: in the kayak, up the Wishkah River against the tide, to the bulkhead and back, under hazy skies, a temp of about 48 deg.

6: in the outrigger canoe. same destination, but with less of a fight against the current, having set out sooner than yesterday. Watching the ama while paddling, trying to keep it "light." Perhaps should have been looking ahead, not because I ran into something, but as a matter of proper technique. Email reply from Michael H.: come in, talk.

7: Drive to Oly. Assessment: not likely to get a favorable judgment within any period of time, given that superior court may give greater weight to the commission and will regard the perjured testimony of hospital witness as did the commission--and it could take another year or more. Plan: Do the sanction prescribed by the persecution and get on with your life. In the big scheme of things, this isn't Nanking (1937,) Manzanar or Auschwitz. Be tough, dude. Move on.

Recovery day

No, not recovery from a big workout, but from travelling. Next trip to Hawaii, I hope I remember not to take United Airlines. made bread from the dough mixed last p.m. Also flash fried salmon, a minute each side--quite good. Watched movie "The Girl that Kicked the Hornet's nest" (very good) & tried to watch "The Road Home." Watched The Bourne Identity--very good. Rode rollers for 1:50. Rode my bike down to the bank, post office and Safeway.

Still no sign of anyone.

Update on last 10 days.

Feb 24, 2011. Flight to Hawaii. Full flight to L.A. 1/3 full to Kona.

Feb 25 Paddle in the a.m. with Keauhou Club. Spinner dolphins. But, no feeling of being in paddling "groove." Spent time trying to find John Forrester and Merle Montani--no one had a phone number aside from an old cell phone # for John--dialing that yielded a message: Put in another dime, please. Mixed dough for bread. Up to the Donkey Mill Art Center, where one paddler, Richard Notkin, had some art on display---teapots and ears. Tea was interesting. First warming the teapot, warming the vessels for pouring and then making the tea. Tasty, but who really has time for that ritual except on that odd occasion?

I wish I had my camera. The phone camera while decent is really a poor excuse for a camera.

Feb 26 A.M. paddle. Out of the groove. Great bread. Mixed more dough for 2nd loaf of bread. Had a discussion w/Vern & Janet re: declining membership in Wakinikona paddling club. Where are the paddlers? Why does it cost so much to paddle?

Feb 27 To Volcanoes N.P. with John Forrester and Merle Montani. very cool. Steam vents. People hiking across the caldera. Pretty cool--I'd rate that park a 9 out of 10. The road to Hilo led us past an Orchid farm/shop which we visited. very nice
Through Hilo where, after about 15 minutes, we found a Starbucks to get Merle a soy chai. Plenty of rain in Hilo, but warm, at 75 deg F. I could deal with rain at that temp. I could paddle in rain at that temp. People were surfing in the bay--most had paddles.



Feb 28 To Hawi with Vern and Janet H. to do that zip-line thing with Big Island Eco Adventures. I was impressed with the setup required, but was not altogether convinced that the tour was that interesting. The two guides didn't talk much about the history and ecology of the area. Information seemed not to flow--you had to pry it out of them. They didn't offer plant or tree information. No real organization. It was safe and they did the job to keep all persons out of harm's way. They seemed like they'd be right at home on snowboards or skateboards doing tricks. The guides took us on a six wheel drive lorry toward Pololū--you could hardly hear yourself think for all the noise the truck made. The truck carried us on a double track road past old sugar cane fields and past the Kohala ditch--much more information about the ditch came from Bill Rosehill the following day than from the guides. Such as that the ditch descends a foot for each running mile. More information here. We came to a grassy hill which the guides tried to ascend with the truck--the tires couldn't bite into the grass enough to pull the truck up. What is so "Eco tour" about that? We parked and walked up a hundred or so vertical feet to the first zip line. We received instructions about zip lining. We heard a two stroke engine whining a few hundred feet distant. Mosquitoes began to hover, land and suck blood. The "natural" repellent sold at the shop had minimal effectiveness. We seemed to zig zag through the forest. We zipped over unremarkable woodland, small waterfalls and other chasms, but really didn't have a good long lo0k at anything. After the 4th zip, we caught up with the two stroke engine, which powered a blower whose operator was supposed to have finished his work before 8 a.m. Really poor form to have the guy out there making noise after we'd paid over $170 each. After the 8th zip, which was 1000' long, we came to a small clearing where the truck awaited us. At first I thought, "oh, somebody brought the truck down here from where we got off." Not. No one had moved the truck. I recalled that the guides said that elevation gradient was 1 foot of descent per 100 feet of cable. That coincided with my observation of the first few lines in which I perceived little difference in elevation between the start and end of each zip.

My rating for the zip-line tour: 1 out of 10.

I think I'm not a zip-lining type of person. If I was, maybe I wouldn't have rated this business as poorly as I did. When you take an "Eco tour," you should receive information about the habitat, flora, fauna, history etc and you should not be rushed from one zip to the next. Guides should stop the truck to talk about features instead of trying to yell above the din of the engine. There is probably not much reason to zip through a non native forest when a walk on a trail would have sufficed.

Oh some people just get grumpy when the day drags on.

February 29, 2011. Bought a chicken from KTA grocery store and went to Ace hardware to get a bit of hardware cloth big enough to make a cage for the chicken and also to get a length of cable to attach to the cage. Brought some rice in a pot with water. Returned to Volcanoes N.P. with John and Merle, put the chicken in the cage and lowered it into a steam vent. we used oven mitts to set the rice pot in the steam vent. we returned after about 90 minutes. Great picnic until the Park Police arrived. Then we had to bribe the officer with a beer, a wing and a breast. Then it began to rain and we all finished eating in the car.

Back at the condo. Mixed even more dough for another loaf of bread.

February 30, 2011. Great bread. Paddling was great, had a huli practice in warm waters after the paddle.

February 31, 2011. Day of rest. Watched Laurel and Hardy films all day.

March 1, 2011. Paddling: in the groove. Whale tail near shore north of Keauhou Sheraton. Flying fish!

The vacation over, Vern took me to the airport, where I stood in the United Airlines line for >100 minutes to get my boarding pass. Southwest Airlines would have handled the same line in about 20 minutes. I wondered about the source of the problem: Island Time culture, bad software or really bad training. The restaurant at the airport was exceptionally bad--a teriyaki chicken burger was a 2.5" hockey puck of chicken perched on a 5" bun, a weeping leaf of lettuce and 4 pickle slices with a bit of Teriyaki sauce that cost >$9. No one should be that desperate. Bad, badder and baddest.

On the plane back to San Fran and then Seattle--well, the first plane was 4 hours late, getting me into SF at 1 a.m. United Airlines seat spacing was extremely poor--I'm not tall, but I could see tall people in distress--horrible, horrible airline company. I accepted the hotel room and breakfasted at 8 a.m. Got to the airport at 9 a.m. but this plane was also delayed, 3 hours. Finally in SeaTac at 3 p.m. yech feeling until I napped at Berkeley Drive exit in Lakewood. Stopped in Olympia to clean out the last niches in the Volvo before selling it. Then found a McDonalds, where I discovered that a 1/3 lb Angus Burger Deluxe supplies 750 calories, the medium fries 380 calories--I felt sated for at least 4 hours. Got on the rollers and pedaled for about 20 minutes.