Kaimusailing

I’ve taken to watching the golf tournaments on weekends, golf is a sport made for TV, although some compare it to watching paint dry. Also we are in the middle of an America’s Cup event and the paint drying analogy no longer applies to yacht racing. I was driving down route 40 with Robert and remarked, “The America’s Cup yachts are sailing faster than we are driving right now.” The speed limit was 45 and I was going 55, as usual, the New Zealand yacht has been clocked at 57 knots which is more than 57 miles per hour. A few years ago I was driving on route 50 Eastward toward Annapolis, then going up I-97 to Pasadena. The speed limit on these roads is mostly ignored and you can go 80 if you’re brave and foolish. I was checking out my new GPS dongle with the laptop, plugged into the cigarette lighter socket, and running navigation software. I thought it would be cool to have the same display of the car as I had while sailing the boat. I was surprised to see I wasn’t even close to 80 mph, so I increased the speed to 79 on the gps. I had to pass cars. I thought those speeders were crazy before, now I realized I just had a slow speedometer. I went along at a good pace and later, after I got off the high speed roads, I realized I was reading knots, not miles per hour. Closer to 90 miles an hour than 80.
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Currently the two competing America’s Cup teams are tied up at 3-3. The races are like mongoose and cobra, high speeds, nip and tuck, hard for anyone who hasn’t raced to understand, like distilled essence of match racing. First one to 7 wins wins it.
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When I got the idea to make a clone of Cornelia Marie’s Wonder Dog, Nori, the other part of the idea was the oohs and ah reaction to my daughter’s knitted and crocheted products. She started doing this with my ex’s training after suffering a home invasion and stress whenever she went out in public. She would just make things and found she could get on a bus, walk through a mall, if she was involved with her knitting and crocheting. She wrote an article in a crafts newsletter about this and it was very touching. But she has a knack for whimsy, and when she sent me a crocheted imaginary animal, a sort of Claude M.C. Escher sort of being, I opened the box in the boatyard’s woodshop surrounded by sweaty hard calloused yardbirds, who normally see tools and materials emerging from boatyard packages. It hit us all by surprise, some chuckling, laughing, some with tears in their eyes, then I knew she had a gift.
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She made a Llama, complete with bells, a Snoopy with Woodstock, a set of South Park characters, all crocheted. For my friends wedding a couple years ago she made a Burger King Crown, crocheted. He likes to wear a crown after winning a game. She made an Octopus Hat, which I would not wear, but is very popular with the girls, for my friends new wife.
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So I suggested, why not make a replica of a pet, maybe not perfect replica, but a reminder of a pet that has been lost, or a pet that is especially dear. Put photos of the replicas side by side with the original pet on her Etsy site. She did not do this. She made the replica of Nori and on her site put an order form that you can pick the type of pet, breed, etc. and she will make that.
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The next day I awoke feeling better, but it was late. I didn’t realize it was now daylight savings time. I was worried that Robert would be showing up and I would be making coffee. He didn’t show and I had breakfast. I took a spin on the bicycle. I forgot that my spin was to go up to the Breezeway and see if my orbital sander was up there. I returned and it was there, I brought it back to Kaimu and got my tools out to try to repair the sander.
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The random orbital sander works by rotating like a spinning disk and also by having the axis of the disk rotating, so that the sandpaper does not create concentric grooves in the surface, it is randomly grooved. In this case an internal bearing had seized up, the disk spun freely, but the random orbital action wasn’t there. The result was a sander that would be overly aggressive, burning the surface and destroying the sandpaper at the same time. I had given up on repairing this a long time ago, but now it was do or die. I found the screws of the hook and loop plate of the sander would not budge. I then took the sander apart. It wasn’t easy, but giving the one recalcitrant screw massive pressure on the Philips screwdriver budged the screw enough that after a while I could remove it. After that it was a matter of fact, spray some Blaster into the bearing, not directly accessible, spray and drain, spray and drain, then try it, spin it, spray and drain, spin it, it spins. Reassemble, clean up the electrical plug, find a hook and loop sanding disk, apply, try it out on a section of the hull. Great. A nice light sander, takes off exactly what I’m trying to take off, set aside for later. Look for more disks. None found. Fortunately Harbor Freight now has a local store and I’m sure they have the disks I need.
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The image was sent by Cornelia Marie of Nori, the Wonder Dog, and the crocheted clone, both cute canines.