Nao Trinidad Redux
24 September 2024 | Somers Cove, Crisfield, MD
Cap'n Chef Andy | Overcast, Mild
Another cheap Chinese car adapter came in, TPMS, Tire Pressure Monitoring System. Atoto has an adapter and 4 tire sensors for about $75. Others are available down to the 40 dollar range. The one I purchased does not pair with the Atoto radio, it has its own solar powered monitor that mounts with double sticky tape. I put mine on top of the cowling above the radio. It is close and visible and I can reach the buttons on top to turn it on and off and do other things with it. It cost $20 on eBay. It is extremely easy to install and operate. Even I can do it. The left rear tire on this car has a slow leak. It is down to 19 psi. The others are around 30 psi. I'll probably try something like Fix-a-Flat.
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The OBD2 bluetooth adapter enables an app called Torque Pro, running on the Atoto radio, to display the vehicle's data from the OBD2 connector. The check engine light came on about a week ago and now Torque Pro says the error code is 0139, which is the #2 oxygen sensor on the catalytic converter. Replacement of the sensor is not a big deal except that the reviews of the repair that I saw all mentioned that the sensor gets stuck due to its location under the car and getting water splashed on it from the road, also the heat of the catalytic converter helps weld the sensor in place.
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When I used the term "biker broads" I didn't mean to offend anyone. There hasn't been much of a response which means that everyone must be angry. I'm sorry, I can't use the term "bicyclist's broads" for obvious reasons. Biker bitches would be really bad. I like to see a girl on a bike exercising her power. The tan, the coif, the duds, mostly black, the nails, just go for it, don't cut me with those fingernails.
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I have a recurring dream, not a lot lately, of kayaking in the midst of huge blocks of ice. There is a flow of current and it is cold. The water is very clear and I can see below me a landscape of land that was flooded and is now far below the flooding waters.
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Back to the bikes. I rode around a bit on the Schwinn. The front derailleur was stiff and could change down but not change up. The chain protested, of course, and I had to change the rear down 2 gears or chain rings. I was pedaling much faster, of course, which is good for the heart. The bike speed wasn't impressive, but the struggle against the pedals was.
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How ironic, this blog, that has put so many to sleep in record time, isn't helping me at all. Maybe I should post videos. There is a glut of them on YouTube. We need an AI robot to sift through all that. If a dog can sniff out cancer, why can't we make a device that does the same, or even more?
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I had the idea of printing some of my recent photos using finerworks, who send me endless emails about the latest sales. I could frame them and display them. They would be smashing. They would be given away. What is the price? What are they worth? They are just images, printed out, just like the images that came with your picture frame, they are worth that.
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The artist will do all by (future dialogue).
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Okay, yes, future dialogue, I can't write the word themsel*, it always reverts to themselves.
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It's hard to continue when you are interrupted. By artist I mean anyone that thinks. You can't deny the creative ability of anyone anymore.
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The artist will do all by them self. Maybe spellcheck is right. I guess I mean the creative person will create. The artists go through a lot of trouble to create and follow a path that sometimes results in making paper, making paint, making clay. When I create a photograph it is like making something out of nothing. But of course there is no nothing, clay is clay, paint is anything that obscures with another color, the image I conjure up is like a framework that I can mess around with.
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So, working with images is a result of our focus on the visual aspects of our lives, we are affected by images more than almost any other sense. When we look at an image in any detail we are dealing with geometry, color, and at some point we find we can be fooled, the artist can play with our vision, our concept of reality, it is so visual. It is a part of AI, which isn't yet AI, but visual foolery abounds in the digital realm.
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I made chicken parmesan in the skillet:
First marinade flattened chicken breast in garlic, lemon juice, and olive oil. Then make sauce with ¼ finely chopped onion, 2 crushed garlic cloves, and one can of crushed tomatoes. Dredge chicken breast in flour, then beaten egg with garlic and onion powder, and finally in Italian bread crumbs. Let cutlet and sauce sit for a half hour.
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Saute cutlet 2 minutes, flip, spoon sauce on the cutlet, then layer thin mozzarella slices on top with grated parmesan, cover saute pan and turn off the heat. Serve as sandwich or on pasta as soon as cheese has melted.
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I spent an entire afternoon trying to get a thumbdrive prepared to use as external storage for the car radio. I was partitioning and formatting but had to find a file system that was compatible with my linux laptop. Trial and error. Then I loaded 7.5 gigs of music on it and tried it in the car.
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It took a while to navigate through the file manager and the music player on the Chinese radio. The phone rang. It was Teri asking if I wanted to join her and a friend at the Legion. Is it that late already? Yes, I will go.
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Cuddily called and asked essentially the same question. What am I doing? I'm sitting in the car in the marina parking lot playing with my radio. I drove off in the direction of the Legion.
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Cuddily was walking Nori, the wonder dog, nearby the Legion when I slowed and asked her, Little girl would you like some candy? 5 of us entered and decided to sit outside, it was a beautiful day, not too windy. I memorized the names of new friends with an acronym, GFG.
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These are creative people and we took photos and told tales. Teri is usually the first to leave, she dislikes driving in the dark. Cuddily asked if I could give her and Nori a lift to the house nearby. The car is Cornelia Marie's old Honda CRV and Nori has been in that car for the past 5 years or so. Before we could get in and drive away Wilbur and Cornelia Marie arrived and Nori, excited, left with them.
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I drove Cuddily home and continued to the marina. She had invited me in for more wine. Maybe I should have gone in.
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The tides are now very high due to the harvest moon and rainfall. I normally text Cuddily SOB, safe on board, but that didn't seem right, I called her. I was looking forward to the Thursday Night Football game, Jets vs Patriots. I am a longtime Jets fan. I was apprehensive about the game. The Jets were favored, what if they lost?
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Cuddily is from Massachusetts and she is a fan of the Patriots, not so much now, more so when Tom Brady was playing there. I remarked that no one will see the game, the only way to see it is on Amazon Prime. Oh, I have that she said, and then dialed up the game which had just begun. Yes I could drive back and watch it with her.
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I had given her 4 bottles of Saddlebred pinot noir when I had dropped her off and now returned to help stow the bottles in her wine rack. She had a white wine.
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The game was very rough and the Jets were getting revenge after more than a decade of domination by the Pats. It was the Jets home opener. The fans were going crazy. The Jets aged quarterback, Aaron Rodgers, played like he did when he was young, MVP. Now the team gets about 10 days rest after playing 3 games in 11 days.
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I texted SOB when I got back on board.
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The weekend football games included upsets by a couple of Jets future opponents. The Broncos and Vikings won convincingly although they were huge underdogs to their opponents.
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Cornelia Marie decided to cook our frozen crab meat into a Cream of Crab Soup at Cuddily's home. Unfortunately the king tides were flooding Crisfield, making it difficult to get around, especially getting around to the Legion and the Small Boat Harbor, where the crab soup would be.
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On my way there I searched for an unflooded street and ended up on Hudson Street, aptly named for a river in New York. I was doing what they say not to do, drive into a flooded street.
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When I got to Cuddily's I found out that Teri would have difficulty getting there with her Buick. She could make it to the library and I suggested she meet me there and I could ferry her, pun intended, to the soup. I drove along the Small Boat Harbor and the flood was just as deep there as the other way I had tried. I picked her up and we drove back through the water.
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The cream of crab soup was really wonderful. The cream of crab I had at the Legion was horrible, overly spiced with Old Bay Seasoning, salty, almost no crab in it. $10 a bowl. Now we had soup made by a really good chef, it had lots of crab meat and a light cream consistency. The spice was standard French mirepoix. Cornelia Marie also made garlic bread and Wilbur worked on a salad. What a nice meal.
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I called Hawaii from the dinner table and we had a conference call with Teri joining from home. She does not stay out after dark. We discussed the weather in Hawaii, football, recipes, and volcanic activity.
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The next day I now had my gas tank down to ¼ and I could try out Cataclean, a gas additive that is claimed to clean your catalytic converter and also your O2 sensors. My engine warning light had gone out, but when I searched for warning codes in the Torque Pro app, the 0139 code was still there. It wouldn't clear.
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I added the Cataclean and set out to drive the 20 minutes recommended in the instructions. Afterwards the instructions said to fill up the tank and continue to drive normally. One thing I noticed after taking a trip up 413 was the smell of unburned gas was gone. The car had been smelling like a faulty lawn mower engine. I found a gas station that had the price down to 2.98/gal, much lower than the 3.49's of last week.
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I drove back to the marina and fiddled with the Torque Pro app and the O2 sensor fault was still there. One way to clear it is to disconnect the batter for a while, which I did, and the fault cleared. Now the engine control unit had to learn all over again the fuel/air mixture ratio, so I began another drive around Crisfield.
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I decided to drive my bike loop, to the West of the marina, to Calvary Road, then to Ashbury Church, then return to town on Main Street. It was not to be, the way was blocked by flooding. Back at the marina the finger piers were being flooded. It looked like we were getting hit with another higher than normal tide, much higher than normal.
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We conversed about going to the Legion. It would be almost impossible, the flooding would be higher than ever. I had picked up manager's special pork chops, preseasoned. I grilled them and made a simple salad of romaine and roma tomatoes.
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The next day I awoke to a massive tall ship docked nearby. It is the Nao Trinidad, a replica of Magellan's flagship. It visited here last year and then arrived in St. Marys, GA, where I helped Geoff and Karen cook a meal for the crew. I wonder if they will return there again this year.
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The marina has a big electrical problem and a plumbing problem also, resulting is outages of water and electricity. The big crab event is scheduled midweek. Is it going to be flooded out, lose power, or lose water in the facilities?
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The image is a photo of the Nao Trinidad at the dock in Somers Cove.