Officeboat

So it has been kind of annoying to have to get up early and go down to the boat show and clean (and/or shovel) the same three boats every day for the past week, but not only do I feel like a better person simply for getting up earlier (like it's some sort of accomplishment), I find that the somewhat annoying aspects of my job are balanced out by some amazing perks, like what qualified as a workday for me today.

As you read through the rundown, keep in mind that I was on the clock for all of this and I think that you'll agree.

We went to pick up the houseboat that we're going to use as an office. The crew consisted of the dock staff (me, Dave, Brian, and Scott) and a couple of Dave's liveaboard friends from the marina. (My boss lives on his sailboat a couple of docks down from Windworks.) Since the officeboat was stuck in a slip behind another houseboat, this process took quite some time. We had to float the other houseboat across and raft it to a decrepit tarp-covered wooden tugboat while we moved our houseboat out, tied it to yet another houseboat on the other dock, move neighbor houseboat back, and then finally tie up the chase boat to hip tow it to the yard for haul-out. This involved a lot of running long lines back and forth in the dinghy and tying and untying.

Incidentally, this neighboring houseboat we had to move might have been the cutest thing ever. And I want to live there. While I was serving as a human fender, I spent the entire time gazing into the little windows and imagining myself chilling on the Adirondack chairs on the roof watching the sun set over the Olympics.



Anyway, we finally get the officeboat to the yard without hitting anything despite the 25 knot winds, and as soon as we get onshore we are greeted by Pete, another friendly liveaboard, who has brought us a case of Sierra Nevada. (That's not Pete in the picture--it's one of the boatyard workers, but Pete actually looks like that from the back, too.)


We head to the Nickerson Street Saloon where I eat a carne asada sandwich and chicken curry soup on the company tab (and a shot involving Bailey's that some random (as in no one knew him) drunk fisherman at the bar bought for our entire party of ten). By this time, it's 4 pm, so by the time I get back to work there's only 1.5 hours left, just enough time to finish up the boat I was cleaning.

You can't tell from this picture, but the inside of the officeboat is actually really cute with an amazing hardwood floor.


recap:
-dream house
-boat ride
-beer
-free lunch

Sailboats are not designed to be shoveled.

As I discovered today. Not that it was all that surprising.

Bandit

So I haven't been doing a very good job with my resolution to post more this year. My excuse is that I've been neglecting the writing because I've been experimenting in other media, as you've seen. Here is my latest artistic creation:


Clearly I am quite talented. For those of you who do not know Bandit (yes, that's what the scrawl at the bottom says), he is a cat, and he does look very much like this when he is curled up in a ball on the blue chair as he often is. The chair, however, looks absolutely nothing like that (besides being vaguely the same color) as you might have guessed if you actually realized that it was supposed to be a chair.

The Uptight Seattleite

Always hilarious, sometimes relevant.

http://www.seattleweekly.com/2008-01-16/diversions/ask-an-uptight-seattleite.php

D&D

Here's the hat (since Kenli asked. And I have nothing better to do than take self-portraits with my camera phone.)