The weekend before last was the final regatta for the year, at Lake Kegonsa, WI, a little way south of Madison. Interestingly, I posted an article here about the same regatta two years ago – then only the second time the boat had been in the water, when I was still struggling with a lot of the systems on the boat. This time ’round the weekend was tremendously successful. The weather was phenomenal, with temperatures in the high 80′s (high 20′s celcius). My friends Janice and Jo came up to watch the sailing on Saturday. We camped together Friday night and I stayed Saturday night as well.
The sailing was great – about 12 knots, not too gusty – and Janice and Jo took lots of great photos from their vantage point on the Race Committee Boat. I sailed really badly 
, but am slowly learning and had a great time. Oh I capsized for the first time which was an interesting experience – downwind with the spinnaker up. I bore away in a gust and gybed the main. Unfortunately I couldn’t get the boat up on my own and had to get help from some people in a passing power boat. Not sure why it was difficult – I should be plenty heavy enough. Maybe there was water in my mast, but in any case I will take my righting bag out with me in future. It was good to get the first capsize out of the way.
Very sad that the season has come to an end. It’s been great to finally gain a little confidence with the boat and I’ve really enjoyed getting to know all the great people at CRAW.
A couple of pics are below, the rest are all here. Many thanks to Janice and Jo for coming and for the great photos.
Attended a fundraising dinner for RIMI (Reaching Indians Ministries International) on Saturday and made it back to church and Adult Bible Fellowship for the first time in quite a while on Sunday. Good to catch up with people I’ve hardly seen over the summer. Still trying to get caught up on work.
A few photos from Saturday (taken by Cathy) -
And another great time last weekend, this time acting as Beach Captain (sounds important!) for the Border Raid 120, and 2 x 60 mile catamaran race from Little Suamico, Wisconsin to J. W. Wells State Park in Michigan and back. Photos are on Flickr.
Been a bit slow updating things here. Two weeks ago I travelled to Helena, Montana for Tiff and Zach’s wedding. Had a really great time. The wedding was reallly nice and hanging out with Tiff’s family was a lot of fun. I few in on Thursday and spent the afternoon and Friday on some local tours. The wedding was on Saturday and I flew back on Sunday. Photos are here Thursday, Friday, Sunday) and here (Saturday).
Just back from a few days work in Phoenix. Heading back to O’Hare 6am tomorrow to fly to Helena, Montana via Salt Lake City to attend Tiffany and Zach’s wedding. Back Sunday.
Something I ocassionally do late at night to unwind is to watch recent episodes of US cable TV comedy shows The Daily Show or The Colbert Report online (note – some content may offend). Tonight I was watching Stephen Colbert announce he was going to auction the cast from his recently broken wrist. In describing the many (insane) uses it could be put to, he mentioned hanging it from the rear vision mirror of a car, at which point I caught sight of this image -
No doubt about it. That, my friends, is Tamaki Drive in Auckland, with Bastion Point in the background. Who would have guessed that they would use an image from somewhere so completely unconnected with the US and with cars clearly driving on the left hand side of the road. If you look at the banner photo right at the top of my website above, the photo Colbert has used is taken from a point on the edge of the harbour, just a few hundred metres beyond the upper right hand corner of my photo. Incredible.
link to video
You have to watch this video of Dick Cheney from 1994
Also some good commentary on this by Chris Matthews here, starting at 1:10.
What better way to spend the early hours of the morning that watching the NZ dollar in real time as it falls through the floor . It just (1:50am Central) touched 0.6666 US dollars, the point at which each US dollar is worth NZ$1.50. Yeehaa!
Monthly Economic Indicators from the NZ Treasury Department -
http://www.treasury.govt.nz/mei/
Much more accessible than the information from the Statistics Department
No, not my broken rudder. The CRAW regatta at Shell Lake is contested annually between Wisconsin and Minnesota for the Broken Rudder trophy. Shell Lake is 370 miles north of Lake Zurich, so I spent 14 hours on the road this past weekend. But its worth it to get to go sailing. I stayed in a hotel in Spooner about 10 minutes to the north. After driving so far I figured I deserved a bed rather than a sleeping bag in a tent!
Here are a few photos –
