John F figures out the clam dig

Same place as yesterday, but a much warmer day. poor digging in the wet sand where the waves wash in--very few clams telling us they were home. I'd brought the shovel today b/c the clam gun seemed to mangle most of the clams. I'd had a much gentler dig before using the shovel.

I walked away from the surf & dug on the ocean side of some "shows" , but found no clams down to 15-18 inches. John F had it figured it out. Dig right on top of the show. Most likely, the clam will be far below the depth of the shovel blade. You might see a squirt of mud if the clam is close, if so, you should grab it (preferably with a gloved hand). Dig deeper, putting the blade in the bottom of the hole & scraping dirt up with the blade. As the blade goes across the hole, it may graze the clam--grab it. After about 10-15 inches, get on hands and knees, dig a few more inches. Feel around the bottom of the hole until your fingers sweep across the clam. Find and firmly grab the clam's neck with thumb and finger. Slowly extract it from the sand. I haven't lost any clams--they don't seem to dig much.

Vern H. confirmed the situation at Grayland--no shows in the wet sand zone

Back up

Computer crash. HD failure Tuesday p.m. Computer warned me after numerous blue screens. Did I heed? Lost work done on tax returns. Quicken data was backed up through April 16.

I removed Hard drive, placing into other computer, which ran a chkdsk that took 19 hours. Multiple file sectors were labelled unreadable. After all that, the entire disk was unreadable.

Yesterday I went to best buy to buy a replacement 320 GB drive--cost $65. Windows XP installed in about 3 hours, including the drivers for the network adapter, the video card & sound card.

Clam digging at Roosevelt Beach: pretty poor in the surf, taking us 1:40 to get 15 clams. Cold wind from the NW and rain too. Yecch.

Sail Sand Point outrigger race

Course change: This year race started at Sail Sand Point going south to the 520 bridge and back--ten miles total.

Picked up the canoe from Bill Anderson and raced it with Vern H. Unsure as to which iako was front/back, we returned to shore to switch them, during which the race started. We caught a few boats, including Bill A and Carl C on the south side of the 520 bridge. Then they capsized. We stopped and tried to backpaddle to get in position to help. The pilot from another double jumped in to help right their craft. They got underway and we escorted them to the turnaround point. Then the race between them and us began. Now running with the wind, we found we could pass far fewer boats. Apparently, some could surf the small waves much better than we could. We caught a few waves allowing us to pull away from Bill and Carl. We finished about five yards ahead of them.

I slept almost all the way back to Aberdeen.

Sail Snad point race

Course change from Sail Sand Point to the 520 bridge and back.

Everything seems to be about paddling

Friday, April 1. It started as a day to paddle. a very gentle breeze from the east, and some medium thick clouds above. Keith L. came to the house, got his canoe atop my car. On the water at Cozzi by 8:50. We cruised upstream for about 30 min and turned back. Keith said he was too old for competition--I didn't let him get away with that and replied, "No way, you're very competitive. If you were in the same boat as I, I wouldn't stand a chance." Shortly after turning, the rain began. It started light progressed to medium but without a dry spot between raindrops. We got off the water very wet.

Sat April 2. Did it rain? I tink so. I watched the first 3 episodes of Dexter and rode rollers for about 1:48 of that--then quit--useless show. I can't think much beyond, "I'm hot" while cycling inside. mixed bread dough.

Sun April 3. Bleach is great. All right I read Barrons--boring. sprayed some bleach on the concrete wall, then looked at the house siding where I'd sprayed before. The green algae had turned clear. Bleach is great. Rack on the car. Boat on the rack. on the river for 40 minutes. Home. Whoops, bread dough had proofed for 3(!) hours. Baked bread. turned out ok in the 9" pan--dome shaped 3.375" tall and nice crumb with holes up to .75". Tuesday's bread came out discoid, I assume from dropping it into the pan--that's just not right.

The tomatoes in the basement under the kitchen have been dead for weeks, maybe months. Lights have been on them, but ten of the thirty have burned out. What a waste of $ on those LED lights. Really stupid to be an early adopter, when the regular metal halide and sodium lights are so cheap. Trimming them to the ground. now.

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.