Turned out that dash switch on the boat was off, so the battery is fine. Went out there that next morning to check on things. Plus, the cover was holding up pretty well through some of the rain we got that night and morning. Probably need to set up some form of a pole or tent thing in just the bow, but that should be pretty easy. Amazing how stupid you can feel the day after a frustrating day like Sunday was... nothing seems as bad once you're out of the moment, you know?
Anyway, the rest of the week's been pretty boring. Waiting to hear back from Nicki about whether we should plan a trip to Atlanta this weekend... Anna is due any day now I believe. Now... which loud and obnoxious toy do the spoiling aunt and uncle buy first?
If we don't end up going to Atlanta this weekend, then we have a going-away party for Karin, Matt, and their son Judd. Karin and Matt are both from Michigan (Flint area) and Karin got a full time tenure track position at Michigan State, so they're moving back up to Michigan in June. Sad to see them go, they were definitely good peoples and it was fun having another Michigan fan around.
Speaking of Michigan, we've decided we should push back our trip up there from the second week of June to the first week of July. Christina doesn't have enough leave time to go this soon and we've had one expense after another come up recently, so it'll be easier to take the trip then. Plus, the 4th of July falls on a Tuesday, so that's a free day for us mid-week. I think we're going to take the entire week off and probably go weekend to weekend.
Coming back from the store Friday night there was some nasty clouds and wind... low, dark clouds moving in multiple directions. Found out later the news said there was rotation. Certainly looked like it...
But after it passed ten minutes later we had an odd looking bright cloud out back... kind of looks like a skull:
And then Saturday morning we woke up to some serious thunderstorms... almost no break between claps of thunder. And that night it was the same thing as we were going to sleep.
But not today... today was beautiful... sunny all morning, just perfect.
So, we decide to take the boat out. And now we can offcially say we've been caught out on the water during a thunderstorm.
That's the view when I stopped trying to outrun it for a few seconds to take a couple pictures. And outrun it we did... but the boat ramps were already crowded so we 'docked' on the shore near the dock, waded through the red clay, climbed the wet rocks, to put the camera stuff up in the truck... then we sat with the boat for 5-10 minutes of pouring rain. And you can probably tell by the rest of the boating pictures linked below, that it was a nice day before it hit. That storm took 5 minutes from the first clap of thunder before it started to catch up to us.
The storm was short, but it was powerful enough to knock out power in most of Irmo for two and a half hours. Tons of huge lightning bolts out on the lake, so it's a good thing we got to shore in time. After it passed, we realized we had a ton of people bringing their boats in... it was going to take forever, so we decided since the sun was coming back out we'd just go out a ways and float and wait for everyone to clear out. On the way out, the waves were so big from the wind and storm that even though I was cutting straight into them, they still managed to splash up over the front of the bow we were bobbing so much... so, I quickly cut over to a cove where the water was calm and we waited there for an hour or so.
Needless to say, between the frustration of launching with huge lines, waiting 30 minutes in line to pull the boat out, finding out the new cover we got the boat pools water in the bow because the strap tent system doesn't support it enough, all the red clay everywhere, and the boat fighting me from time to time starting and running, it's been quite a fun day. On top of that, I think I may have forgotten to turn off the dash switch after being so flustered and exhausted with everything today and our storage lot closed at 9pm so it was too late to go back and check.
A woman I work with and her husband have a wet slip for their boat and I like that idea more and more all the time. So much of a hassle with all of this... I'd rather have a slip or a house on the water with a dock... sure would make boating a whole lot more fun instead.
Cotton is so funny. The bottom just dropped out here... pretty good thunderstorm. He's pretty scared of thunder and rain. Crouches down and creeps along the floor meowing trying to find somewhere to hide... under a bed, behind a toliet, etc. He's a pansy.
We could really use the rain though, still trying to make up a deficit for the year. It's been better the last couple weeks which is nice... got tired of having to water everything.
I did mow yesterday so that's good timing too. Also got the new boat cover and went out to the storage place to get that on. It's got it's pros and cons. It's a little short, so we'll end up getting a motor cover too. However, it's got a cinch cord running through it to make it trailerable supposedly. I wouldn't trailer the boat with the cover on, but when storing it, the cover pulls pretty tight up against it. We also got a tent system for the boat, but I'm not completely sold on that yet. It's basically a pole in the middle with a square of material at the top it snaps into. Straps come out from the corners of that square and then run to the corners of the boat. Ends up making the cover form a tent so to speak. I'm going to check it out today now that we got a decent amount of rain to see how it's working or not.
Other than that, the rest of the day should be laid back. We cleaned up Friday night and Saturday morning because we had an A/C system checkup around noon. They sprayed some chemical on the coils outside called Nu-Brite... looked it up online, it's basically sodium hydroxide. Guy said just the mist from the spray hitting his arms burned... he didn't seem too bright. The stuff started foaming right up on the coils though and just melted all the dirt and grime on them almost immediately. I'll have to find a place where I can buy some of that stuff to save the cost of the service call since this first year one was the last one we get for free.
It's been a good week overall. Still glad it's Friday and I'm looking forward to a low-key, lazy weekend.
Found out yesterday that people in the School liked my photos from Hooding enough to want me to shoot for them all the time when we have events. Our web site guy who just left had some Nikon equipment they bought him downstairs, but friends don't let friends shoot Nikon... so, found out today that they're going to let me get a list of Canon equipment I picked out. Should be nice stuff too... same camera body that I own, the Canon Rebel XT, but much nicer lenses, including that lens I posted a while that Canon just came out with.
I'll probably post some pictures and samples when it all comes in. Needless to say though, I have this kid-on-Christmas kind of feeling today which is always good.
Last Saturday we drove over to Nicki's for her baby shower. Early morning, but the drive went quickly... nice 2.5 hour trip over to Atlanta. Turned out it wasn't really a couple's shower since I was the only guy there, but I had my camera and didn't have to eat baby food like the others, so it's all good. Click the image or link below to check out the photos. Christina took the last 5 images - very nice shots too. I edited the last one to do B&W with colored eyes though.
Yesterday I was asked to shoot our School's Hooding Ceremony where the Masters and PhDs graduate. The lighting in the Koger Center at USC (seen in photo 1) was nice for eyesight, but really pushed the limit of the camera equipment I own... low light photography is much harder and on many shots I didn't get quite a fast enough shutter speed so a handful of them are a bit blurry.
Anyway, it was fun... though it was a warm day in a black suit coat running around that place and then around campus back and forth between buildings.
Well, the seat repair on the boat went pretty well. Turned out to be a three day project though since I took off for a while Friday for lunch with Brian and ended up driving around a bunch that day looking for the parts I needed at a few different Lowes and Home Depots around town. Saturday I finished up the seats and also broke out the teak oil and gave the wood trim a good coat. Sunday ended up being cleanup day and we also waxed the boat and cleaned up the vinyl and glass and such.
Of course, all that work and no play though... ran out of days. Such is the case with most weekends I guess. But, at least everything's cleaned up and ready to go. Also started up the engine to see how it'd run. I added 10 more gallons of fresh gas Friday when I picked it up and put in a couple ounces of Fresh Start stuff in it too. Engine ran fine... had to rev it a little to warm it up, but after that it sat and idled on its own pretty well.
