Kaimusailing

I dawdled as usual in the morning on another overcast day, made a BLbfhT sandwich, it is a BLT with crispy black forest ham instead of bacon. Phone calls kept coming in, mainly due to the effects of Hurricane Helene. People called me to find out what the local conditions were in St Marys, GA, but I am not down there yet. I did find out from people who were actually down there. Conditions were like what I have experienced down there a few times, winds in the 35 to 50 mph range and rain damage.
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The most disturbing hurricane report I got was from Cedar Key, home to Tony's World Best Clam Chowder, where my daughter and I spent some time, cute little town. Not any more. We stayed in a place that was all new, had been renovated after getting trashed by a hurricane a little over a year ago. The report now was video of waves crashing into the place we stayed as well as the restaurant next door, we knew it as Steamer's. They will build back. The insurance companies have to draw the line somewhere. Hate to see it like that.
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I've been observing a YouTuber, Wildling Sailing, who is a youngster with a cheap old Wharram catamaran project. Oh no, I declare, you're not going to do that are you? And yes, he does it. His folks help out, shame on them, their kid is going out into the North Sea on a home built plywood catamaran. As much as I cringed, watching him do the boatbuilding stuff that I did, and learned from, I felt elated in his recent posts where he is actually sailing the boat.
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He has drone footage, which is very desirable, and I can see he works hard to make his videos coherent and well produced. That is why I watch everything he makes. He is effectively conveying to me those very things I remember from not that long back, in my mind, and he is doing it almost the same way.
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His mast is bending, it is a condition that is like an oscillation. Sooner or later the mast will fail. I can see it. He needs running backstays. He has a mast that is trying to go out of column. He needs a rigger to help him settle his rig down. He is going into a boatyard to do more work on the boat. He admits maybe he was pushing too hard to get out to sea.
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He has Hanneke Boon, the codesigner of the boat, helping him. I could feel that she was capturing some of her Dutch roots into the sailing rig, and maybe some other areas of the design. She is closely in touch and can probably advise him about the bendy mast.
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There were more phone calls, invites to go out, I stayed in. It was an overcast day with the weather deteriorating all day long. Brief semicloudy sunshine, then darker and darker, rain, dark. Wind, dark.
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It cleared up the next morning, slowly. I had planned to go to Pocomoke to get a big bag of frozen shrimp and some cheap wine. I wanted a set of spark plugs for the Atomic 4, I had a plan to use the old ones to help lift the flathead head off. Cuddily needed some shower door edge thingies. It turned out she ordered them from Amazon and didn't need to go shopping. We went anyway.
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I smelled the unburned gasoline smell again. The dashboard engine light didn't come on, but the Torque Pro app on the car radio said we had a "sensor 2, bank 1" anomaly. I think it has something to do with driving through the flood waters.
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We went to Verizon where Cuddily inquired about a new phone or more memory for her old phone. She has 32 gigs of memory on that one. It took a while, but now she has a Samsung S24+, a year newer than my phone, a nice phone. We shopped in Walmart for a few things, then went to Sysco for a big wine purchase. We got there at 4:00 PM. They close at 4:00 PM. Sheesh.
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We went to Cuddily's house to stow our groceries, mainly ham and potato salad and walked to the Legion, not that far away.
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There was an event with a famous country music star and parking was limited. There was a crane hoisting a huge American flag, a sound stage, lights, cars, and one with an old member of the Bad Crowd driving in, then another with another of the old Bad Crowd. Teri arrived and would have turned around and left due to the parking lot being so jammed, but I valeted her car into a narrow spot.
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Inside so many old friends, an endless stream. The country singer was sitting at a table basking in the adulation of his fans. Later I went outside and could hear some of the concert. It was better than expected.
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The day was dawdling while the NFL reports came in. The NY Jets who were 8 or 9 point favorites lost their game with the Denver Broncos. There is a lot of back story. The Jets offensive coordinator had been the Broncos head coach and was fired before the end of that season. At the Jets he was given a lot of grief about their lack of offense. The Bronco's new head coach said the Jet's OC had done the poorest job as head coach at the Bronco's. Now was the Jets chance to revenge him . Nope. They lost 10-9.
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We were at Jane's Island State Park which is a major draw to the Crisfield area. It was nice to have a cookout right by Daugherty Creek. The mosquitoes came in at dusk and we skedaddled. I called Hawaii, as usual. A football game was going on, Sunday Night Football, but in Hawaii it was afternoon.
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I had been trying to get in touch with Eloisa up in the North Carolina mountains. The devastation from flooding had erased some communities. The death toll was growing past 100. The footage on YouTube was astonishing. The interstates were washed away in places. Airports were flooded.
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Donald Trump quickly attacked the current administration about their response to the crisis. They replied with a presser showing their support. As usual it was political spin while a real problem needed attention.
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I finally got word that Eloisa was at a remote location and OK, as well as Bleu, her black American cocker.
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I went back to Sysco and bought a couple boxes of Barefoot on Tap pinot noir as well as bottles of Saddlebred to replenish Cuddily's wine rack. I also bought a 2 ½ lb bag of shrimp, this time frozen raw, peeled, deveined, and tail off. After filling the wine rack I was leaving and we started talking. Let's sample the wine. I was only subjected to one bottle.
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While sitting around prior to our scampi feast I resumed some work on the Atomic 4 engine.
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The engine was locked up. Water backed up in the exhaust has seized exhaust valve #4, a common occurrence. I should have tried starting the engine on some two stroke gas and maybe the valve would have freed itself. I procrastinated and now found the engine would not turn over. I tried pulling the plugs and putting Blaster penetrating oil in the cylinders. It looked like I would have to remove the cylinder head.
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I removed the nuts on the studs that held the head to the block, but the head was stuck on the studs or the block or both. I tried hammering at the seam between the block and head with a chisel to no effect. I tried Blaster on the studs and hitting with the chisel several times.
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Moyer Marine, who are the experts on the Atomic 4's, recommend pulling the studs out. They sell a tool to do this. $175. You can try to butt two nuts together on a stud and try to unthread it, but it probably won't work, hence the expensive specialty tool.
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Save your old spark plugs. My idea is to knock the porcelain out of the plug, resulting in a handy hollow sort of nut that threads into the head. A bolt, let's say a 1/4-20, can be thrust up through the hollow spark plug before it is screwed into the head. Put one in #1 and one in #4. Make a short beam with a hole for the 1/4-20 bolt and block it onto a couple of the studs. Tighten up a nut on the 1/4-20 bolt and draw the head up. Do this simultaneously on #1 and #4.
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You can also drill and thread the inside of these spark plug plugs, like maybe an all-thread standard size. Then you can buy a piece of all-thread that you can screw down into the cylinder and push a piston, can free up an engine that way.
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I had a conversation with Teri about scampi at Cuddily's, that she didn't need to bring salad, what?, yes, she had forgotten, no problem, just bring intelligence. Too many cooks. Everyone wanted to chip in, peel this, peel that, don't we need water for the pasta, NO PASTA? Yes, I have to carry out what I envisioned, some kind of scampi with Cornelia Marie's crispy garlic bread, and then a salad.
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We had to take turns in the kitchen. Two's company and three's a crowd. Just make it. It was like a symphony of cooking. You'd like to be the diva, but you just have to wait your turn and deliver your little bit to the whole thing. It can turn out well in the end, as it did, we enjoyed it.
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I like to think I have sharpened my skills, but the proof is in the pudding, so they say. A simple dish with shrimp, not overcooked, but absolutely delectable. The juice of the matter, the gravy, that shrimp and garlic essence that ends up in the bottom of the bowl, sopped up with various kinds of bread, garlic bread, italian tufts dipped into the garlic butter oil shrimpie essence, essence.
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You have to cook for your constituency, the problem being that maybe we are not on the same culinary page. It's hard to argue with shrimp scampi though. We had a talk about protein prices. It's like chicken and pork might be on the low end, real wild caught fish way on the high end. Shrimp is kind of in the middle. Much of it is being farmed. The farming process isn't bad, but I worry about what they might do in the field, or shrimp pond, as it were.
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In this digression I would like to remind my subscribers that sleep is just a few paragraphs away.
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I had a new technique with the tomatoes in the salad. I had never done this before, but I recall a show that Anthony Bourdain put on about essential cooking skills, and in that show an Italian chef showed how to prepare tomatoes for a sauce. He blanched them, skinned them, sliced them across the Equator, and squeezed out the liquid and seeds. Then the tomato flesh could be cooked. I kind of did not do the blanching, but that could be a good way to go, I just cut across the equator and squeezed out the seeds and liquid into the sink.
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I learned to enjoy preparing salad items. You learn to consider the human that will try to eat the salad. We would much like something else than rabbit food. The salad has to have some character, oh, come on, not just the chef, the salad has to have some character like an entree might. I try. I think about how someone might pick up some salad item in their fork. I like to size things accordingly. It's not too much trouble when you really like what you are doing. When we put grilled chicken or something else on our salad, we are dismissing our salad. You are not good enough, we have to add THIS.
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I am unable to send files to my phone to text, so here is a sought after recipe for gourmet mac and cheese, attributed to chef Terrance Brennan:
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1.Bring 2 quarts of salted water to a boil and add the elbow macaroni. Cook until it's al dente, approximately 6 to 8 minutes.
2.While the macaroni is boiling, slowly melt 5 1/2 Tbs of butter over medium high heat in a medium sauce pan.
3.Add the flour, stirring, cook together for a minute or so. Do not brown the mixture; you want a blonde roux. Add the milk, whisking to avoid lumps. Bring mixture to a boil and continue whisking. Lower heat and simmer for about five minutes until it thickens.
4.While the milk is simmering, combine 2 Tbs butter and the bread crumbs, and melt together in a separate pan.
5.Add the Parmesan cheese. This adds another layer of flavor so it's not one-dimensional. Just cook until the butter is melted. Remove from heat.
6.When the milk is ready, add the mascarpone cheese. Then add gruyere cheese and whisk it in, and as soon as until it's melted, remove from the heat. This will happen quickly because the gruyere cheese should be grated and at room temperature.
7.Season with salt and black pepper and whisk to combine. Add the macaroni to the cheese sauce, mix it well, and when it's nicely incorporated, spoon it out into a cooking dish. 8.Sprinkle the bread crumbs on the top, using your hands to pat it down to make sure it's nice and evenly dispersed all over the surface. The topping becomes very crunchy when it bakes. Cook for about 35-40 minutes in a 350 degree oven until golden brown and bubbly.
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My marina neighbor, Chef Jonathan, needed to go to Pocomoke, so I took him along in Cornelia Marie's old car, the Honda CRV. The check engine light had come on again, and it seems to coincide with driving through some of Crisfield's salty floods. I think the salt water causes malfunction of the oxygen sensors which results in the fuel/air ratio being wrong. The exhaust then starts to smell like unburned gasoline. I threw another can of Cataclean in the gas tank and after about 10 miles on the way to Pocomoke the check engine light went out. The stuff really seems to work.
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We discussed making Borscht and making Beef Stroganoff. These are both Eastern European dishes that use sour cream. Why not combine the two recipes?
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When I got back I cubed a chuck roast and browned the cubes in a soup kettle, then added mirepoix and diced potatoes, then a pint of water and let it simmer for about a half hour. I added sliced mushrooms and ten minutes later 3 cans of sliced beets and their liquid. A small sour cream was blended into the soup and it was allowed to rest. I used dill as the main spice along with some garlic salt and some balsamic vinegar. It tasted OK but seemed to need something, something was missing. I gave a large portion to my boat neighbors.
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The next day I asked about how they liked the soup and Jonathan did not say he liked it, but he said his partner did, but she is from Hungaria. I put away 5 portions of the soup in the fridge. They invited me over for a cookout later.
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I continued with the Atomic 4 cylinder head. I purchased 1/4-20 bolts from Lowe's along with a length of angle bar, 1/8" thickness. I cut off 4 five inch pieces and positioned them over the hollowed out spark plugs, each with a 1/4-20 bolt sticking up, and marked the angle bars to drill out ¼" holes. I put the angle bars together in pairs and ran the 1/4" bolts up through them and put washers and nuts on them. The bars were resting on cylinder head studs that are fastened into the block. I had been liberally spraying Blaster penetrating oil on all the studs so that maybe they would allow me to tighten the 1/4" bolts and pull the head up off the block. When I tried it, the head moved, I could insert my pry bar between the head and the block. Success.
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The news was ablaze with reports of Jets head coach Robert Saleh being fired after going 2-3 in this season's 5 games. Seems like a brutal firing, but he has been there over 3 years and the team is not doing as well as it should.
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The cookout with Chef Jonathan ended up being a dark affair in their cockpit, Magnum grill ablaze the only light. If you can cook a good meal like that you are really doing something. He made green beans with a sauce, told me how he made it, couldn't comprehend, I would have to write it down. Another sailing couple with a lot of experience, transpacific, etc., joined us. We ate steaks with green beans and what seemed like fried plantains, but they were slices of yams, yummie.
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I had a couple of cousins that had gone missing in North Carolina during the flooding. It turned out they lived not far from where Eloisa was staying and I was now in intermittent contact with her and asked her to scout around. I received a call in the morning from her and one of my cousins. They can be taken off the missing persons list.
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The image is of my improvised Atomic 4 head lifting apparatus. The bolt in the middle of the picture comes up from a hollow spark plug and it is bolted to a pair of angle bars about 5" long. They are positioned on top of each other, so it looks like metal channel. Under each end of the angle bars is a stud coming up through the head from the block. Tightening the bolt will pull up on the head.

The Nao Trinidad was back in town and I discretely went about the marina looking for any of the crew, wondering if I would find any I remembered or conversely, if I would find anyone recognize me. We cooked a huge roast for them when they were in St. Marys, GA, last fall.
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One fellow responded when I said “Hola” to him, but his response was “how are you doing?” He should know better.
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I picked up 3 pork chops at the Food Lion. I couldn’t resist. After the recent $2.99 pair of pork chops filled the bill for a couple of meals, one a grilled pork chop on salad, the other a pork chop sandwich, here was a trio of pork chops on sale, $2.49.
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It seemed selfish and sinful to cook these chops just for myself. I couldn’t however entertain on the little boat, maybe I could, it’s a little tight for just me, maybe in the cockpit, but the weather is gloomy and not suitable for dining outside.
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Although I picked up the pork chops because they were a bargain, I had other stuff in the fridge that needed use. Mozzarella, some marinara sauce, and now the chops. I had the makings of chicken parmesana but with pork chops instead. I thought about it. Yeah, I could make it, eat one, and put away the other two. I’d like to have one on top of a simple salad, just tomatoes and romaine with my vinaigrette dressing.
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Cuddily called while I was checking out the sports channels in the former Red Shell Shanty, now the Boater’s Lounge, she had a bad experience with a light bulb, a part of her microwave oven over her real oven. Yeah, I could come over and take a look at it. I told her I had 3 pork chops that needed cooking, the magic number 3, oh, do I mean cooking for her and Teri and me. Yes.
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It was early in the afternoon and I had time to prepare, get ingredients together, pump up the slowly leaky rear tire, shower, remark to the marina manager; look, it’s Cornelia Marie’s old car!, and then depart after showering in the main building.
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The bulb in Cuddily’s microwave sort of shroud that exists above her stove and real oven had failed and then broke off when she tried to unscrew it. I was apprehensive about working around electricity in a place I didn’t know that well, but it was probably built to code and I was using high quality Harbor Freight insulated tools. The bulb came out easily. The ID numbers were stamped in the bulb’s brass screw in plug. She took it to the hardware store.
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I had the run of her kitchen, plates out for flour, egg, Italian bread crumbs, and one for the pork breaded cutlets when they were breaded. They looked so perfect, I popped them in the fridge for a while and rinsed off the growing stack of preparation plates.
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Teri was coming with a salad. We had wine. I took the chops out of the fridge. Cuddily arrived with the replacement bulb, not exactly the same, but it screwed in and we had light above the stove. She got out a heavy cast iron skillet, perfect. I chose to saute the chops the way I made the chicken parmesan, all in one skillet.
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We had wine and watched a presser on one of the NBC channels, it was Kamala Harris and President Zelensky of Ukraine. I don’t know exactly why I got emotional watching part of it, maybe because I know I have some Ukrainian blood in me, certainly Polish blood, Vladimir Putin is very evil, he invaded Ukraine, they are the victims, they are asking for help. Meanwhile there is an anti-Ukraine faction in our country. Apparently they are friendly to Putin and despise Ukraine. I had to go to the other end of the kitchen.
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Her stove and skillet helped me with my tears, big flame, sizzling Irish butter and EVOO, the chops went in. I asked Alexa to set a timer for 5 minutes. The chops were searing and I was backing off the flame. I’m experienced. I had a gulp of wine or two and then Alexa sent me back to the skillet, flip the chops, spoon marinara on them, it was thick and set up a dense almost tomato pasty layer of, tomato, then mozzarella slices, and finally grated asiago. Cover it all and shut off the heat. Not sure if there is enough latent heat. A couple more sips of wine, OK, gulps. Just fire it up for about 30 seconds more, look, there is sizzling in the pan, shut it off.
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The utensils, et al., were brought out to the rear porch, deck, in Hawaii it would be a lanai, and the salad came out there with the dressings. I served up the pork chops, one on each plate, to the table. Add salad, make sure the wine is filled.
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This is not just a meal I will prepare again, it is a one pan gourmet dinner entree that I must explore with other meats, maybe even shrimp or fish. I can change what I add, doesn’t have to be parmesan, could be kiev. Got to go to Sysco in Pocomoke and see what they got there. That’s where the chefs go, that’s where the Saddlebred pinot noir is only $7.29 a bottle! For now.
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I was inspired by my artist friend, Eve, who we were in touch with and found had a bad chest inflammation, probably bronchitis. She is one of the best chefs, can do it with her hand tied behind her back, I know. The way she cooks up a gourmet sauce with her phone crooked in her neck, no big flames, patience with the process, good health to her. In the meantime we have to carry on with a nod to that person who sets the standards.
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The image is of a parmesan pork chop.

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.

I was excited about the new car stereo coming in and also the NY Jets first game of the season. The Jets fizzled. The radio is installed in Cornelia Marie's old Honda CRV. It isn't as impressive as it was in the Shanty connected to the internet, but it does what I want, and the stereo is quite good.
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An installation kit arrived as well as a wire harness adapter. The installation kit also included a harness adapter, similar to the other, and some plastic parts like ears for mounting the radio. The only plastic part I wanted was the bezel that fills the gap between the radio and the car's cowling, but it is not perfect. Most of my time was spent trying to get the bezel shaped so that it fit the cowling and the radio.
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I did the wiring with crimp connectors, not the best way to do it, the best might be solder and shrink tubing, but solder makes an immobile junction that causes individual wires to snap off after vibration, which is inevitable. I have a very good connector crimper, but the crimps are mostly from Harbor Freight. I had just enough to hook up the speaker wires and the others.
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The other debacle was feeding the GPS antenna and the two USB cables somewhere. Modern cars are pretty much sealed up, they don't want gaps, etc. The CRV has a rectangular plug in the dashboard cowling in the center right near the windshield. Perfect place for a GPS antenna. It was not easy to remove it, but out it came and the antenna was put in place.
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Some YouTube videos show USB cables installed into the glove box or into a little storage space below the radio and A/C controls. I thought about doing it that way, but I was able to get one of the cables down inside the dash and dangle near the gas pedal. I tried the 2nd and it wouldn't go, plus I couldn't pull it back out. A trick when feeding wires is to rotate the wire a couple of revolutions and maybe it will find a route, it did, and I had both USB cables available down near the gas pedal. A USBA/USBC adapter cable was plugged into the one labeled for wired Android Auto, and that cable plugs into the Galaxy smartphone, powers it, and enables Android Auto. Android Auto is also connected by bluetooth with this unit. The other USB cable is suggested for use with external storage, such as a thumbdrive with music.
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Mechanically the mounting ears were removed from the old radio and attached to the provided brackets from the new kit. The wiring was stuffed behind the radio and it was mounted in place. The separate kit that included the plastic bezel and ears and wiring harness adapter is Best Kits HON-K8610DD HWH806. The other wiring harness adapter is Metra 70-1721. The Metra adapter has one less connecting wire. I believe it is for the steering wheel audio remote control, which I couldn't get to connect.
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The gap between the radio and the cowling needed the plastic bezel, but it didn't fit. The bezel fit inside the cowling but didn't fit around the radio. It required a lot of trimming. I used the angle grinder with cut off wheel to remove some tabs on the bezel that were in the way. The bezel then needed to be opened up a bit to fit the radio. It took a long time to do this, but it finally fit. I retained the two tabs on the sides of the bezel, they hold the bezel in place. One corner is going to need a dab of glue to keep it from lifting up.
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Of course I couldn't wait to operate the radio and it worked as advertised. When I powered it up, stand alone, in the Red Shell Shanty, it had internet and apps like Marine Navigator ran smoothly with downloaded real time charts and maps. In the car the downloads have to come from the phone unless I park near available wifi. It looks like when Android Auto is running internet connection via the phone isn't working. It is a USB function. I will be learning more about how to get connected. It's amazing that this radio is only a hundred bucks.
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I did laundry and had to go all the way across the marina to C Dock. The service building there has laundry and rest room facilities just as my local building at L Dock, but now we have power issues and the L Dock building is out of commission. I took a shower in the C Dock men's room and it was OK. The drain was slow and I worried about waste water. I spent time learning about the radio while the laundry was being done.
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It took about 5 minutes to get the radio hooked up to the internet using the phone. I was wrong about the Android Auto, it doesn't preclude you from having a wired USB connection for something else, Android Auto on this radio can connect via bluetooth. All I had to do was select in the Settings menu Connections, then get into the tethering menu, I think the tab is called Hotspot and Tethering, in there you select USB Tethering. The other options are like Charge Only, or WiFi Hotspot.
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I could go to my Marine Navigator app and it was centered at my new location on the other side of the marina. I had a downloaded chart, came through the phone. Other apps, like Google News, were functioning and not at a slow rate. I had solved the internet problem with the radio, now what? The laundry was chugging along. I was stuck here till the dryer stopped. I played with the radio as a radio. The radio function on this android head unit is very sensitive and loads up with so many stations that the automatically loaded preset list only covers a small portion of the band. There is probably a way to overcome this, but I have to learn. I listened to 107.3, the local low power radio station right outside the marina, I listened to NPR radio, the audio quality was good. The radio has features relating to audio performance and I used them to isolate each of the car's speakers, they are all working, and I centered the sound. There is also a feature that adjusts the timing of the audio between the available channels. A test of the hands free phone function resulted in a call to Cuddily who sounded like she was booming, way louder than the radio programming. Got to fix that.
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I didn't want to leave the radio to finish up the laundry. I took it all back to the boat and hung my "Hawaiian" shirts, actually from St. Maarten, to dry. I turned on the VHF radio and set the squelch and set it to SCAN, my neighbor wanted to test his radio. But not now, time was running out to go to the Legion, eat something now or you will have to eat at the Legion. I made a little ½ sized ham, cheese, and tomato sandwich on sourdough bread. The ham was from the Food Lion deli, called Taste of Inspirations Black Forest Ham, the cheese was Provolone, the tomatoes were small Romas, add some fresh black pepper and mayonnaise, consume quickly.
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I drove to the Legion but Cuddily and Teri weren't there. It seemed like the usual crowd, older Legion men, veterans, was now populated by attractive women, who turned out to be biker's broads. The bikes were outside. Not a rowdy crowd. It seemed like they were too well manicured, you know, stylish bikers. Tan, denim, sculpted beards, no, not the women, they had beautiful hair, is someone making a movie near here? I played Steppenwolf on the jukebox, and then something like Beach Boys "Little Deuce Coupe". Cuddily was talking but I couldn't hear very well with my jukebox music playing. Teri wasn't coming, in fact, she hadn't been out to the Legion 3 days in a row. I got the idea to call Teri on speakerphone which she answered. She was glad we called. I had played an old song by Cream that included a drum solo by Ginger Baker.
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Cuddily ordered a meatloaf burger sandwich and offered me some. I made a sunset photo. The bikers all left, then came back. Well, they are migratory people. Certainly a different chemistry with them around.
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Everyone is talking about the presidential debate, and it was a deusie. Not a doozy, I spelled it right, it comes from the nickname of the Deusenberg car, Deusie, I spelled it right.
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I could drive back to the marina and fall asleep, but the VHF radio was scanning, and the squelch was low, there was nothing until the Coast Guard alerted me about a kayaker who was being searched for. The coast guard reports changed into crabbers talking between each other without using proper radio protocol. The scanner was picking them up on channel 9. They were talking about bait, water temperatures, and such with their Smith Island accents. I had to sleep though.
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Oh, the debate. There was a marked difference between the two candidates. But they are tied for the election. Think about it. Just tied. Who do you want your CEO to be? America is undecided.
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My OBD2 bluetooth adapter came in and I went to pick it up and also get ham and half and half cream to make some soup. Back at the marina I perused documents, manuals, and watched YouTube videos. How to get the OBD2 working. Just search it on Bluetooth2 and pair it. The amazing car radio already has an app called Torque Pro installed and it takes a few seconds to sync up with the adapter. I've got all of the engine data running real time. There is an error code function and I find my recent engine code is "0139", something to do with the O2 sensor on the catalytic converter. I can't clear the fault, means I have to, or have someone, replace the sensor.
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The soup was a one pot deal. I diced the semi-frozen chicken and put it in the pot with a good sized dollop of Irish butter, like 3-4 oz. I began slicing mushrooms and put them into the pot as I went along. The mix in the pot was impressive as it boiled in the Irish butter. By the time I got the last of the mushroom into the pot I thought it was time to start the roux. But the roux is the butter in the pot, also some chicken fat, so I dropped a couple of tablespoons of four into the mix and began mixing, get that flour cooked a bit. There is a flavor change at some point, maybe just a couple of minutes. I didn't let it get that far, I thought it had cooked enough, I began pouring some water into the mix and mixed it with a spoon. Add some 12 year old chicken base, just joking, maybe it's only 8 years old. Also some garlic salt. It's good to let it coalesce before you taste it, then add some of the salty stuff.
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But Teri calls, Cuddily's not feeling well, am I going to show up at the Legion? I'm cooking soup I tell her. I had turned off the heat but there is till something going on while I'm on the phone. Fire. Fire. Try to blow it out, just a little fire in the galley. It smokes, smoke fills the cabin, the soup is sitting covered while the flavors get acquainted. I tell Teri all this and say I will show up at the Legion.
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I had 3 bowls of soup, not big bowls, it was good. I had to brush my teeth in the L Dock men's room that had no power and was dark except for a couple of skylights. Jump in the car and head to the Legion.
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I was able to take 3 photos that were excellent, not because of me but because of nature presenting great vistas in the late afternoon sunlight.
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The bikers and their chicks were showing up, next week is biker week in Ocean City. Just make sure your colors fit. The biker guys were showing a lot of beer belly, the chicks had their stuff coiffed and secure. A trio of "Harley Davidson' devotee's got on electric bicycles and left.
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The image is one of the photos taken in the late afternoon sun.

After selling my Miata about 5 years ago I have not owned a car up till now. I would rent a vehicle whenever I needed one. My Miata had a simple car radio, but it was an oldie. The rentals had increasingly sophisticated radios, or more correctly communication devices. Cornelia Maries's old Honda CRV also has an old radio. It can play audio tapes. No Android Auto, no GPS, no Internet. I began looking around for a cheap upgrade.
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Crutchfield, the go-to place for all car stereos and such, features well known brand names, such as Kenwood, JVC, SONY, etc. A lot of these devices have modules made in China and we know that they are probably inexpensive until they are rebranded and sold in the USA. I began searching for the most bang for the buck. I ended up finding Atoto, a Chinese brand with a good reputation.
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Reviews of Atoto radios can be brutal or very positive. YouTube reviews showing installation and operation got me to believe that I could purchase one of their units, save a little money, and have the functionality that I wanted.
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I found their model A6 was available from their factory refurbished store for a hundred dollars. Installation videos showed that it was very simple to remove the OEM radio and slide in the new unit. It is what is called 2DIN, or double the vertical spacing of an old ordinary radio. The vehicle multicable and the Atoto's multicable are not physically compatible, so the vehicle cable has to have its individual wires cut and spliced to the multicable plug provided with the radio. If the radio doesn't work, the original OEM radio now won't connect to the modified multicable. The solution is a multicable connector that matches the OEM vehicle cable, then this adapter is individually connected to the radios provided connector. It is not a difficult operation and can be done on a work table, you don't have to do it in the vehicle.
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So, the multicable adapter is made and the new radio is connected to the vehicle multicable, the vehicle's radio antenna is plugged in and the unit is ready to go. There are other cables attached to the radio including a GPS antenna, wifi antenna, bluetooth antennas, and a pair of USB cables. The vehicle is old and only has a cigarette lighter adapter for bluetooth power, now we will have more. One USB is for cabled Android Auto or Apple Car Play, but both should work via bluetooth.
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This radio can connect with the internet and work as any other android tablet. Apps can be downloaded and installed, data such as maps and such can be downloaded. It has 32 gigs of memory, which is not much for smart phones these days, but I think it is plenty for a car radio. You could download maps to use GPS guidance in areas that don't have cell phone coverage. There are many such areas here around Crisfield. There are other functions available including an app to monitor the vehicle's status using a bluetooth OBD2 adapter and an app that monitors tire pressures using little valve cap transmitters.
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It occurred to me that this radio can operate as a tablet and run an app called Marine Navigator, there are other navigation apps, it can download NOAA charts, and with its GPS antenna, can operate like a marine chart plotter. Chart plotters are not cheap, but this one would cost 100 dollars. It has a daylight viewable screen. You'd have to put it into a box and it might not fare well out in the weather, but put it in your nav station down below and it will do fine. And it can drive a bunch of audio speakers. Navigation and entertainment all in one unit. There are AIS receivers that plug into USB, like the dAISy.
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The radio came in and I hurried to try it out at the old Red Shell Shanty which has internet and power. I used my booster charger to power up the radio, hooking positive 12 volts to the "always on" and "ignition" power wires from the radio's wire harness. I plugged in the supplied GPS antenna as well as a small harness that included wifi and bluetooth antennas. It took less than a minute for the radio to boot up. I paired it with my phone using bluetooth and it began loading all my Google account data including phone and email contacts. I purchased Marine Navigator from Google Play and it automatically installed it on the phone. It cost $8.99. Apps that I had planned to install were already installed on the radio, including Torque Pro. I was very impressed with the clarity of the radio's display and the quickness of the operating system. It looks like NOAA ENC charts are all one chart.
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I have to wait for some mounting hardware and the mating wire harness to come in before I install it in the Honda. So far so good. The image is of the radio with the satellite view of the corner of the marina.

The 700C inner tube from Walmart was holding its air well and no blowouts yet. The day after Pizza Night had most of us not venturing out. Weather was still hot. The next day I was asked if I was going to the Legion. I took the bike to the Legion and while still in the marina had my Honda car key dangling, it hit the spokes of the bike and exploded. I looked around for the pieces but they must have ricocheted into the water. I was riding on the sidewalk above the bulkhead near the Red Shell Shanty. I continued to the Legion.
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I had a cheeseburger with chips for $7 and numerous glasses of Saddlebred pinot noir. I took a pre-sunset photo. Teri was the first to leave, Cuddily and I played songs on the jukebox. I playedd a beautiful hawaiian song but the few left at the bar were drunk and disorderly, the song was lost in all the noise. We played a few more and then I biked to the marina.
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The next day I resolved to go out and get a new key cut. I was shocked that my spare key was damaged and the metal prong part of the key was missing. Maybe it was on the floor in the car. I searched. I searched the washing machine and dryer in the laundry. I had the plastic fob part of the key, the metal part must have fallen somewhere.
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I searched around where the original key had exploded and found the metal prong of that key hiding in a crack in the sidewalk. I took it to the car and tried to start it with just the metal prong. It turned over but did not fire. My boat neighbors who also drive a CRV pulled up in the parking spot next to me. I was advised that the key had to be reset, it was a complicated key, and I needed the plastic part of the fob. I went back to the boat and got it, then did the reset, put the key in the lock, lock it, unlock it, the key has now been reset. The car started, but the key was really a bunch of damaged parts. The only thing holding it together was the pig ring.
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I planned to go to Pocomoke to maybe AutoZone to get a new key cut. On a whim I visited the local hardware store where the lady said go to Tawes Bros or TnT Auto. Tawes was right nearby and they also suggested TnT. TnT were further up 413 on Holland Crossing Rd. They said your key needs to be programmed and laser cut. Geesh.
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I returned to the Red Shell Shanty and used the internet, called the local Honda dealer, 40 miles away, who had a blank key on hand and would program it and laser cut it for me, for about $300. What? I called a locksmith recommended by TnT and he quoted me $150, well that’s better. I had to meet him after hours and the one way drive there would be almost an hour and a half.
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There was another locksmith only about 20 miles away and his phone number indicated Virginia. There’s a Virginia Eastern Shore and the other Virginia. 20 miles could be across the Bay. It turned out to be near Olney, just South of Pocomoke, only about an hour away. The locksmith was very busy. If I had a working key he said he could clone a new key and everything for $80. But not today.
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I spent more time in the Shanty and a couple of marina workers were using the air conditioning and wifi to do some work. It was getting hot out. Feels like 100. I posted the blog. I searched for more information about these high tech car keys. I should probably get two new keys made.
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I had to do something with the leftover sausage from Pizza Night and I decided to make a sausage pasta sauce. I had red onion and a can of Food Lion’s crushed tomatoes with basil. Throw the sausages into a medium sized pot with diced onion, some Carapelli EVOO and later some water to steam it a bit. I prepped some garlic and added that. Dusted with Italian spice mix, store brand. I dashed it with balsamic vinegar, garlic salt, and after a while add the can of crushed tomatoes rinsed with a little of the pinot noir. Let it simmer.
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After simmering for a while I uncovered it an let it reduce a bit. The aroma was very enticing. I ended up making a sourbread open faced sandwich with a generous scoop of the sauce, dusted the sauce with a hard Italian cheese (from Wisconsin). Very tasty. Just a snack. I’ve got to watch my diet or I will put on weight.
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On pizza night I planned to play some old music using my laptop and bluetooth speaker, but I was lazy and that didn’t happen. I did listen to a lot of Hawaiian music, and a lot of that was Amy Hanailaila’i Gilliom and Willie K, a duo who were dominant in Hawaiian music just a few years ago. Unfortunately when I looked up Willie K, he had passed away from cancer a few years ago. What a musician. I was listening to the very best.
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The sail racing news includes a run up to the Louis Vuitton cup which will determine the challenger for the cup. These are foiling sloops, the racing is similar to the foiling catamarans of SailGP. I’m not to excited to be watching this sort of thing, but I will. When I think of how outlandish a 40 knot sailboat seemed to me way back when, now I see it in high definition.
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I had more inclination to watch a documentary about the Baltic trade routes in remote antiquity. By portaging between the head waters of rivers they could go from the Baltic to the Caspian or Black Sea. They traded furs and amber for silver and silk. The boats were small enough that the party of men could carry the boat on the portage, which could be a distance. By men I don’t mean to denigrate the Viking women. They also traded in swords made of Scandinavian metal.
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It was to be a big weekend for Crisfield and the marina, Hard Crab Derby, marina full of boats from all over, and invitation for Irish Beef Stew at Cuddily’s waterfront home. I was coping with an electrical outage at the marina, only affecting about half of the boats. Oddly, the slips with the big visiting power yachts were not affected. I took a shower with lukewarm water in the Men’s Room at L dock, the only illumination was from two skylights with shafts that disguised, they looked like florescent fixtures, but if you looked up in them you could see, they were skylights. The water was once hot but now lukewarm, tomorrow it will be about the same. It is not cold here, 75 is chilly at night.
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The fellow next to me said he would invite me over for steaks, his fridge had gone off, he had no power. How could he have no power, I had power and we were using the same stanchion. I helped him find out that on his side of the stanchion the two outlets are dead, but on my side he could have the second, power there. Steaks are saved.
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At the lukewarm shower I spoke with a marina employee about the mechanical noises I heard from the big electrical box at Pier K. Like mechanical noises. He said yeah, it’s underground, they don’t know why the lost one leg of the electric. This is a big problem. Why does it have to happen this weekend with the Crab Derby and the crowds. I didn’t say to him what about losing a third leg of a delta electrical distribution. The neutral is supposed to carry very little current, that’s what we would try to do, many years ago, if it carries a lot of current that transponds back to the origin. Now you have unbalanced current at the head end of the marina’s electrical distribution. With crowds and all the carnival rides, bright lights, you know, lots of electrical consumption. Something could happen.
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I didn’t ride my bike over to Cuddily’s for her Irish beef stew, I had to bring a box of wine. When I got there there was an identical box of wine, but not very much wine in it. Barefoot on Tap pinot noir. Seems to evaporate quickly around here. I drew a glass from the old box.
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Cuddily was preparing potatoes for the stew and I said just starting to cook the stew. I ended up paring garlic cloves, I’m good at showing up when most of the work is done. We researched how to make the Guiness Irish Beef Stew, but she found garlic mashed potatoes are boiled with the garlic cloves and then mashed. I was done. Or so I thought.
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I was doing something with the phone at the dinner table and hit the glass of wine with my pointer finger and the result was a flood of wine. It’s OK, it’s the old box. We mopped it up and I got more from the new box which was about the ambient temperature of the back of the car. Warm, but not excessively warm.
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Cornelia Marie and Wilbur came in with Nori, the Wonder Dog, We got a call from Teri who was at the Legion, don’t come over here, it’s too crowded, OK, we won’t. I went outside to look at my amazing pulley arrangement on Cuddily’s boat’s mooring lines. Hey look at that, Cornelia Marie, look at that. She is an amazing water woman and soon she got the pulley fouled from both sides, that’s not the way you do it, I said, and I sprang into action.
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I needed help releasing the stern of the boat from the dock so I could drift over to the piling and unfoul the pulley, it is like a clothesline pulley, but heavily constructed. It took a while to get the line unjammed and then I had to show how well it worked. It didn’t work very well. I kept jamming it myself and having to back the line out, try again, back the line out, the others went inside to rehydrate and get away from the bugs. The bugs only really go at you when they know you are tied up, like with mooring lines and a clothesline pulley.
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It didn’t matter if it worked well, it had to work enough so that I could center the boat in the slip and tie it off and go in for another wine. I eventually got it all together and was able to get inside. It was time for the stew.
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There was no salad, but I didn’t have to chop veggies for one either. I helped with the potatoes, whipping them after mashing them. Garlic, black pepper, butter, and a little half and half. She said to lay a bed of mashed potatoes and lay a scoop of stew on them, and so I did. The stew is very good and you can probably get the recipe at Guinness. I had seconds and worried, the pot was getting low.
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Let’s not talk about Ireland, it’s your daughter’s birthday, tomorrow. We talked and I started to realize that I had an appeal to people who study psychology. Now they had a real subject to study. It goes both ways.
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In spite of my calamities with Cornelia Maries’ old car, I wanted to upgrade it. That’s what people do when they get an old relic. I misspelled wreck. No, it is a good car. I spent a lot of time to get to order an aftermarket “stereo head unit”. When I did, the payment account used the address at the boatyard in Georgia. I had to cancel the order.
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On my way back to the marina I had to avoid kids dashing across the road, this at 9 or 10 PM, music throbbing from the marina, like the annoying super base player cars. If they knew what a jerk I was behind the wheel they wouldn’t run in front of me.
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The next day was a trip to a bistro for Cornelia Marie’s birthday. We could take a small ferry, 3 car ferry. I had installed a gps app calle Here We Go that enabled alternate routes that Google Maps would not. However, CM and the intelligentsia decided they knew better and we went out for a ride through the countryside. Very twisty wind-ey. We ended up back on the main road after traveling in a large circular loop. OK, don’t listen to me. We went to Princess Anne and took Mount Vernon Road on the way to the little ferry. We never got there.
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It was a time of very high tides and the ferry was not operating, plus we would get CM’s new car doused in the salt water flooding the road. Our trip was now for naught. We decided to go to the tried and true place East of Salisbury called Tall Tales. We had Nori, the Wonder Dog, with us and Tall Tales had a pleasant outdoor dining area that allowed dogs.
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The dining experience was excellent. They make very good Orange Crush drinks. I had the Pork Asada Bowl. We returned to Cudily’s home on the water to have birthday cake. I returned to the marina just in time to enjoy the fireworks display, then called Hawaii right on time. The fireworks ended and soon after a thunderstorm came through.
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The image is very late afternoon sun above the Brick Kiln Channel that goes into the Small Boat Harbor in Crisfield.