Last of our fall quarter finals late this afternoon, then sometime tonight or early tomorrow -- "0-dark-30" -- we will depart Seattle to drive down to Sebastopol CA. Our preference would be to take a couple days to do it, but we've a funeral to attend Friday, of an SO co-worker, and will likely drive straight-thru to make it in time. Cops don't seem to have reunions, just funerals.

We're looking forward to 10 days in the bosom of family and friends (minds out of the gutter, it's just a saying) before returning to Seattle and winter quarter classes starting 4 Jan.

The marine hydraulics class I've just completed has sorely tempted me to switch out the windlass and bowthruster to hydraulic, but I've been too timid to check prices on the new hardware. This may have to remain a fantasy until I can win the lottery... which may not be particularly realistic either.

Next quarter marine electric, refrigeration & air con, and propulsion classes for me; electronic nav for Dorothy. The good news is that our classes are all on Tue - Wed - Thur, so we can use our long weekends to do some exploring in this part of the country. We've just purchased a used (2006) Jeep diesel so we will be well equipped for the snow; our little '92 Volkswagen Cabriolet convertible is not the car for a Seattle winter, much less getting out into the winter countryside.

Andrew (from Hong Kong) will be in Vancouver with his family for the Winter Olympics (just a few hours up the road) so we will spend some time with them while they're here.

We've agreed to put DavidEllis in the Seattle Boats Afloat Show coming up in February (under the auspices of a yacht brokerage which handles Seahorses boats on the west coast -- mainly the '52 fiberglass. People seem interested in our trip across the North Pacific. We've had a couple of clients of the brokerage aboard DE in the past month. Happy to help out Seahorse; they've been very helpful to us.

Rusty is doing very well -- happy, likes everyone (and they all like him, or at least politely pretend to), into everything. He's grown to about 47 pounds (but we don't mention that as our condo limit is 35 pounds) and seems to do just fine with the cold weather -- he was in snow a couple days ago and didn't even notice as far as I could tell; not too thrilled about puddles though -- doesn't like to get his feet wet. I say he does just fine, but really, when he needs to "go" he pokes his nose (only) out the slider onto the back porch and will back into the condo if it's "too cold" -- just as he did when checking out the wind/rain/seas out the back of the pilot house when underway. Of course eventually nature requires he go out anyway, but he doesn't dawdle when it's below freezing... or wet.

In the spring I have advanced diesel and electrical classes and then mid June we'll be free. Lot's of work to get going on DE. No major rehabs, but quite a few medium-sized projects. We've done nothing yet, except slowly move a lot of accumulated stuff off the boat and I'll be happy to see some things start to be crossed off the list.

End of March, spring break from school, Dorothy and I will be back to Hong Kong for Rugby 7s. I've mentioned before it is a wonderful party. Check out the blog back in March '09 (and '08) for details.

Once clear of school and finished with this year's boat jobs, we are planning a short season north back up the Inside Passage thru BC and Southeast Alaska, coming back through Seattle in September, then heading south along the Pacific coast to our home north of San Francisco. We'll spend a few months next fall/winter visiting with family and friends before deciding what's next.