Month: October 2008

My head is in the stars …

Post author By Bob Benz
Post date October 29, 2008

I’ve always loved that scene in Harold in Maude where Maude tells Harold, “The earth is my body. My head is in the stars.” That quote popped into my mind when I found Stellarium, a program that basically turns your computer into a planetarium.

I’ve always been interested in astronomy, but I get overwhelmed when I look up and try to figure out what’s what. Stellarium puts things in perspective quickly. You tell it where on planet Earth you’re viewing from, and it configures the sky as it appears. You just need to figure out if you’re looking north, south, east or west and line it up to figure out what’s what up there. On my MacBook Pro screen, it’s pretty stunning. The sky moves in real time, and you can speed it up if you want to watch the moon rise and set or see the planets move across the sky. It’s definitely worth checking out …

And what better way to finish than with another quote from Maude …

“The stars are shining right now. We just can’t see them. Just another instance of all that’s going on that is beyond human perception.”

Assorted Bob

Bunny munching heron

Post author By Bob Benz
Post date October 26, 2008

This is freaking bizarre … the entire sequence is here …

Paddle Bob

The hole in my hull …

Post author By Bob Benz
Post date October 21, 2008

kayak_hole.jpg

Originally uploaded by Suffering the Benz

I went out for a paddle on Saturday in very choppy conditions that weren’t helped much by frequent Vol Navy drive-bys. It was a wild ride, with water crashing into the cockpit a few times.
When I returned, I pumped the water out of the cockpit, but also checked the bow and stern hatches. Stern was fine and dry, but the bow had a lot of water in it. That’s when I discovered the hole in my hull.
I’m pretty sure I did this while paddling with reckless abandoned before daybreak. At one point, I ran aground so hard on some boulders that I almost fell out of the kayak. That must be when the damage in this picture occurred.
How to fix it? I’m not terribly adept at “fixing stuff,” so I turned to the Internet, specifically Paddling.net, for guidance on how to proceed. I found this site that does a great job of explaining how to fix a fiberglass hole and apply new gelcoat. Resolved to plug the leak, I went out and bought the materials I’d need.
On Sunday, I worked on the boat, following the instructions from the fiberglass repair site. I screwed up and used too much epoxy despite warnings to go easy with it. But in the end I sanded that down and ended up with a fixed hull. I still need to apply gelcoat, but that should be relatively easy.
To test it, I took the kayak out yesterday and paddled up to Cloyd Creek, which is about 10 miles roundtrip. When I got back, the first thing I did was popped the bow hatch. It was bone dry in there.