Category: Recreation

Recreation

All Awash….Excerpt from On the Road to Vermont, Fall 2007

Posted on by chappyshi

I just started kayaking this year and haven’t done much open water kayaking. I am mostly into rivers and small lakes where I can get about a four or five mile paddle in without whitewater or white caps. I have been on the Potomac River and tributaries of the Chesapeake bay at some pretty wide spots but stayed close to shore.

I could see when I put in that my trip was going to be challenging. All the waters I was heading out to where exposed to the northwest from where the wind was blowing. I don’t have a splash skirt but will definitely have one before I venture out on Lake Champlain again.

I headed out of the inlet I was in to increasingly rougher water. The chop started out at about .5 to 1 foot without whitecaps. I was out in fairly open water for about 45 minutes and really had to watch the wave action and be sure I didn’t get broadside to it.

I tried to work the journey so that I could keep myself heading into or getting pushed by the waves. I did not come close to foundering at anytime but definitely caught some serious bow or side splash. I was pretty well wet from the waist down by the time I pulled in. The last two stretches of the paddle were headed into or followed by 1.5 to 2 foot swells. I was happy to get in but probably would not want to try that again by myself.

Getting Paid Poorly to Ride My Motorcycle

Posted on by chappyshi

I rode the scooter up to Youngstown for work last Wednesday. It is nice to get paid to ride but I don’t think I am getting paid enough. I am out at our Ohio plant with the local tech and one of our guys from the Data Center doing a network and server migration. What a ball buster. We fine tuned our plan Thursday and Friday hoping to have the cut done on Saturday so we could go to see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland today (now yesterday) but it wasn’t meant to be.

Thankfully it was a nasty raining day that would have made for not the nicest of days in Cleveland. As it is we have put in 30 hours in the last two days and tomorrow is not likely to be much better. To cap the day off, we got to the beer store at 11:50 PM thinking we were just under the wire only to find out you can’t even buy beer on Sunday.

There should be signs when you enter the state, or county…who knows, that announce this fact, “No booze sold on Sundays.” Youngstown is so close to Pennsyltucky, the beer stores there must have a field day on Sundays. Oh well…too tired to even get a good rant going.