Andysocial
13 December 2020 | St Marys, GA
c | fog
Winter is coming on down here in the North River Marsh. The communal laundry is broken, we have to go into town to wash our clothes. I was wearing shorts and boatyard teeshirts when the cold weather hit. We went to the laundromat behind the Wee Pub and ate at that place while our clothes cycled through the machines. My clothes sat for 27 minutes because I didn’t hit the start button. Apparently that didn’t delay things at all, our food was late, Rough Rider Lynn arrived late, we all ended up folding laundry together.
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Mainly I needed long pants. It was cold in the mornings. I was still wearing my silly flip flops. Would I have to find some socks and shoes. As much as my body had to adapt to the humid heat of Georgia in the summer, now I had to revive my ability to withstand the cold from the North.
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I needed to do some business at Bank of America, but just try to find an open branch to do business. When Lynn and Dave said they had to go to Fernandina I said I needed to go to the bank there, and they said that’s why they had to go there. Great.
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We left just before noon and went down the interstate. The bank is 7.8 miles from the boatyard, as the seagull flies, but much farther as we went. At the bank I made my Christmas and Birthday deposits to my daughters, then waited while Dave and Lynn struggled with real estate transaction or whatever they were doing.
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Fernandina is a pretty town and down by the marina are some good places to get food and drink. We were at the Salty Pelican and the specials were numerous on the white board when we walked in. I noticed Lobster Bisque and CBI oysters. Later I found out CBI was really CBJ, cheddar, bacon, and jalapenos. I ordered the bisque and the oysters. What an excellent lunch. We ate and drank and headed back to the boatyard. On the way was Aldi’s, a peculiar market that was cheap but might not have what you were looking for.
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Going into the market with a coronavirus mask was the rule, and I quickly got what I was looking for, a jar of medium salsa, and more of Aldi’s plastic shopping bags. I didn’t see my compadre’s in the market or even outside, so I checked out, didn’t want to keep them waiting. The vehicle was locked, I was stranded, stayed in the vestibule while they purchased some steaks and a few other items. How slow. The sun set as we made our way up to Georgia, just a stone’s throw away.
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I worked on the wind turbine because there was no wind and I could climb the shaky stepladder to take those nasty blades off, then take the mast and supports down. I found out why there was no output, a wire was abraded against the rotor inside the unit and there was a bare wire rubbing against the rotor which ohmed out as direct to ground. I wrapped the wire with silicone tape, but then a couple of connections to the rectifiers came loose, and I took a long break.
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Later I made an effort to fix the problems. The rectifier was sealed to the body of the turbine and it had to come out to reattach the wires. I took it apart in a desperate mood. Then I put it together using a butane torch to melt solder. The connections seemed secure. All the while I was thinking about having all the wires bundled away from the rotor. After putting it together I tested it and got some output while twirling it with my fingers. Great.
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Putting the turbine mast up and its supports and putting the blade assembly onto the shaft involved climbing the shaky stepladder and working up overhead. There was no wind to wreck the operation. It all went together and I was down on deck safe and sound. But there was no wind to test it out.
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Still, today, two days later, there is still no wind. In the meantime I was reading a lot on the kindle, and this kindle was loaded just with food stuff, recipes and food books, and I looked for a couple things. More pork and bean recipes, and some recipes for cassoulet, and I realized that I had a treasure trove of recipes for Cajun, Mediterranean, and French, plus a lot more.
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I’m still eating Ole Mole Pork and Bean Soup, a week after making it. The army should probably incorporate it into their rations. It keeps forever, it has a lot of nutrition, and it will repel the enemy. My recipe is complicated, but it is simple compared to native recipes from Mexico that have 26 ingredients. In one of Emeril’s recipes, it takes 4 pages of instructions to carry it out.
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When I see 4 egg yolks in a recipe, I wonder what I’m going to do with the rest of the eggs. For the gourmet chef, you can throw away a lot, also you can require ingredients that are dear, on a boat you can’t work like that. You have to work with what you have at hand and not require some exotic ingredient.
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Somewhere in all these recipes is the phrase, “what they have readily at hand”, referring to cassoulet and the farmers in the South of France where it is a common dish. On a boat you don’t have hogs, geese, large ovens caramelizing big pots of stuff. You can have beans, bacon, maybe some leftover chicken, and dried spices. We have to improvise.
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My next bean recipe will be with salsa, jalapeno brats, and my mixture of beans, I’m not really critical about which bean is acceptable, they all do the same thing to me, announce Andysocial distancing.
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My main concern is that I can access some websites, but not others, and it seems this is associated with ipv4 vs. ipv6, which are internet protocols. Probably we are able to access one or the other, yet we should be able to access both. The nexus of where access is enabled is in any device in the path from provider to modem, to router, to access point, and even your own computer. This all worked a few days ago, why should it stop now?
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Before we went out to shop I was able to reset the router in Rocky’s (chief crane operator and boatyard manager, and owner) office and see that we were able to connect to the access points. Now, a few hours later, we are back to square one. No access. There is something wrong.
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The next day I found out that the fiber modem which had been in Rocky’s garage was now in his office, a separate building. It was the modem that was causing the problems, so they either disconnected it or turned it off. Much later in the day it was replaced and now internet is back.
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When I searched Andysocial at saatchiart.com, I got this image, which is a painting titled ANTISOCIAL, by Talia Garrett of the US, it is available for purchase.