Boys' Weekend

This is the week to kick back. I've joined the ranks of the unemployed and Vic and Nadeem helped celebrate by joining me at the beach Friday night.

Victor and I drove down from Chatham and met Nadeem at what used to be Ott's Restaurant, now Theo's by the Sea. We had a nice dinner and afterward V & N got into a heated discussion about something. It sounded a little monotonous to me so I headed back to the marina and we all reconnected later that night.

Saturday morning the 3 of us piled onto the Seadoo to go for a ride. Twice we tipped the boat over and tumbled into the drink. Couldn't have been that we exceeded the weight limit.

The plan was to boat to Tices Shoal and anchor out Saturday night but as soon as we got under way the starboard engine overheated. I went into the bilge to check the trap but it was clean. I restarted the engine and a few minutes later it developed a terrific whine. I looked down into the open hatch and saw the intake valve was still closed. Good bye seawater pump.

We made it back to the dock and that night Vic prepared a gourmet meal with fixins that he had brought from home. I was hungry and it was delicious. Cudos! That evening we sat on the dock smoking cigars and Gary from across the way joined the conversation. It was good fun.

Vic was interested in extracting the pump and gave it a valiant try on Sunday but we had neither the tools or the know how.

Blues

We got a late start to the Red Wine and Blues Festival at Tuckerton because I was working on the boat. I got tired of the bilge pump going off every couple minutes so I went down to see what was going on and tightened a loose fitting on the emergency intake.

The air conditioners had been kicking off so I cleaned the trap but the flow of water through the hull was still pretty anemic so we went for a cruise to sweep the eel grass out of the through hole. That worked but while we were out there...

Encountered some problem where the port engine would rev but it didn't seem like there was any power to the prop. Spent some time just floundering but the problem passed and we spent a half hour on plane with everything working OK. When I got back to port I checked the transmission fluid and it was fine. Hoping that the prob was related to the boat just sitting for several weeks. Time will tell.

Were hoping to boat to The Red Wine and Blues Festival but the kibosh was put on that when we found out we couldn't spend Saturday night there. There were not as many wineries this year but the music was good.

The beach newspapers list a boat up restaurant in Tuckerton called Panini Bay so we drove by just to check it out. It looks like fun for one of these weekends.

Sunday we took the annual dip at Thundering Surf. We had a small emergency when Chris cut his foot somehow in the Lazy River but eked out a good time anyway. When we were leaving I backed into a Toyota parked behind me and scratched the bumper. See what that does to our insurance premiums.

LBI

Took off for the beach on July 3 and saw the fireworks yesterday. They were squeezed in around the high winds and rain. So far we've had 2 nights of water noise (waves against the hull) and then the bay really gets rough a couple of hours before dawn. At 4:00 in the morning the bow of the boat, where we sleep, starts to bounce up and down and we're shaken awake.

Yesterday we found a place that sells live crabs here on the island so K had a feast. Rocko found some cast off crab shells and ate them. Dumb mutt!

Ch-ch-changes

Patrick D and Dwaraka S came to the office and asked Ramandeep and me to come to the conference room with them. Patrick told us that he was taking another job within pfe and that we'd be reporting to Dwarka from this point on.

He talked about the outstanding work and Dwaraka said that he'd catch up with details by reading the spec document that Ramandeep has put together. I got the impression that he won't be into the fine details the way that Patrick has been.

Doesn't seem like a bad thing just different.

Governors Island

I spent some of the weekend refreshing my memory about OOP, design patterns, and Perl for a phone screen interview Monday morning. I find all of it fascinating especially as I consider its applicability to what I do today. Even if I don't get the job it was still worthwhile.



K has been to Governors island in NY harbor a couple times because her company has had their summer picnic there but Sunday she shared it with C and I. What's remarkable about the place is that it's a small town. You walk down tree lined streets with houses and apartment buildings like you'd find in many suburbs but if you lift your head the skyscrapers of Manhattan are right there.