Ketchup (catch-up)

Man, it's been a while since I blogged. I wonder if there's a time-out to these pages for inactivity? Well, we've made a couple of successful trips to Chaitanya since the last writing. Our primary purpose is to make money (Heidi nursing and me doing a couple practice reliefs). Though Chai does get some attention when we're there, mainly the to-do list just gets longer as I sit in the cabin and poke around. That's what I get for spending the past 8 years with my head in a marine magazine or catalog every chance I get. I'm a gadget hound. Yuk. I wanted to keep things simple, but that was precluded with the purchase of Chaitanya. However, it will make for a much more comfortable cruise- having heat, AC electricity, TV, DVD, BBQ, Watermaker, Autopilot, etc, etc....

And since being in Oregon, I have been ordering more random things like a hand operated washing machine, vacuum food sealer, satellite radio and a portable generator. I am already over budget in the outfitting of the boat, but there are not really any big-ticket things left. Hopefully we only encounter minor breakages on the trip (there will be breakages).

Speaking of Oregon, time seems to fly by here. Without jobs or a routine, we can go days without accomplishing anything. Well, we do do the common things like pay bills, change the oil in the vehicles, clean house, walk to the park, etc. but boat projects and administrative stuff for the trip are just hard to get on top of.

We are seeing a lot of our family- which is good. My aunt Barb and Cousin Lori are in Florence visiting and we have had some visits. They are really great- full of compliments and really in love with the kids. Heidi, J, G, and I went swimming at my childhood swimming hole a yesterday. It was really fun and another one of those experiences where you see something from your childhood that you thought was SO BIG and realize that it's really not. You know?

Only three weeks until we go back to the Bay. Then I have two days of work, Heidi's working weekends, and I will be doing projects on Chai. That goes on for about a month, we take the car back to Oregon, return to Chai, and we're on our way.

So soon! The boat stuff doesn't intimidate me. It's setting things up for our absence that's hard. We have to create automatic bill payments, stop all magazines, gather email and street addresses from friends, family and businesses we deal with. Professional licenses have to be up to date. And on top of it all, I want to earn my Ham license so I can use more radio frequencies to communicate with others.

Technology definitely has its good and bad. Without the internet, this preparation would be much harder, but many of the tasks would also be unnecessary and we could just look foward to enjoying our destinations rather than worrying wether we will be making enough power to keep the beer cold, the radio pumping the tunes, and the DVD movies rolling every night!

I hope to write again sooner.