Where does the time go?

Well I didn't win the lottery... lol.

But I have started to go back to school. This past month has had my nose crammed in a math textbook looking at equations that I haven't seen in 25 years. Its been interesting to say the least. Of course, this has had a profound effect on projects onboard Liberty Call. I'm starting to get a hand on the schedule, so hopefully I'll be able to start working on projects in a more timewise manner.

Speaking of time, the people that run the Atomic Clock are officially adding a leap second at the end of the day today. Should be interesting to read the tech blogs tomorrow and see what bugs pop up in all the electronic devices.

For instance, I love my iPad and all of the related marine and navigational apps that are available for it. It's my chartplotter, celestial navigation calculator, heck, it even chimes a ship's bell every half hour in case I feel like my old Navy self. BUT, I do not depend on it by itself. I've always believed in the old saying "2 is 1, and 1 is none". Meaning, have backups, because something WILL break. It always does. My backup GPS is a very old Garmin unit that my Father gave to me as a birthday present back in the 90s. It still works and is very accurate, but it does not provide all the bells and whistles of today's units. And I have all the nautical almanacs I need to perform celestial navigation by hand if I have to. Its not fun, buts its not hard. Sometimes, simple is better.

Anyhow, before I started rambling, for people who depend on these new devices for their navigation purposes, I hope they have a backup. Who knows what sort of bugs are going to appear tomorrow?
<<cue dramatic music>>

On another note, I finally got around to ordering a slew of new parts for my Universal Atomic 4, so hopefully I'll have her started here in a week or two. Fingers Crossed!!!

Another amazing find

I'm thinking, and someone mentioned it already on the dock, to go buy a lottery ticket because my luck lately has been pretty outstanding. Just last week I scored a sweet deal on an electrical panel, and just yesterday, I picked up a 2010 Honda 2hp outboard for an amazingly cheap price... less than half of what it is worth new..
Normally, this would seem like just an ok deal with the amount of abuse that most outboards receive, but this engine has a total of less that 10 hours of run time on it! Its practically brand new! Imagine running your car for only 10 hours in 5 years. How far could you have gone? Where would you have gone? Not anywhere practically.

A little about the Honda - its an air-cooled, 2hp 4-stroke outboard that weighs 27lbs. It can propel a small dinghy (like my Walker Bay 8) at up to 6-8 knots. Also, being a 4-stroke engine means I don't have to make any special gasoline mixtures like you do with a 2-stroke engine. Remember mixing oil with your gas to feed a chainsaw? Yeah, that wasn't annoying or anything...
And its a Honda. If I keep the oil properly changed and keep running clean fuel through it, it'll last forever.

Yeah... I'm gonna buy lottery ticket :D