The Cruising Adventures of Wild Blue and crew...

New York in the Tetons...

It's been a few days since I've updated anything. We picked up an iPad last week, and it required an update of our Mac operating system. And that's when the problems began... :roll: I did back up all my data on the old OS, but forgot to do anything with my extensive list of favorites for websites. As you might expect, there was a problem with installing the new OS and I had to do a full erase of the hard drive. Scary procedure, but once started, you're pretty much committed. Or, should be committed. It will take me days (not much free time right now) to rebuild/rediscover all the saved favorites. BUT, the photos and writing were all archived/saved, and that's a big plus.

This has been a long tough week at work. 4 of my 5 days this week have been "13s" (yeah, 13 hour days). The guests, as usual, have been great, plenty of mechanic stuff to deal with. I can now add "kayak repairman" and "bilge crawler" to my resume. :roll: Last night, we had 56 young guests from the NYC area... all boys in some sort of boy scout program. A few of them made some less than respectful comments to my female first mate prior to the trip, so I had to have a "discussion" with them. Their leader took exception to me telling them that it is necessary to "BE NICE." He, several of his helpers, and I had a rather face-to-face (as in: in your face) discussion... and the New York gentlemen came to understand that this Texas boy was just as tough and wasn't going to put up with any crap on the boats. I don't like starting a cruise like that, but 56 boys (12 to 20) away from home and without much adult supervision could easily get out of control. Not on my boat!

There was the "I want your name" comments, to which I responded AND spelled it, and explained how this WAS going to go down. Add in some big wind and waves, 19 other passengers who weren't part of the group... and it all turned out fine. In fact, their leader shook my hand, told me that I handled the situation well, and left a very nice tip for the boat crews. I'm glad that everyone wound up happy, but it isn't much fun to start a long evening that way.

So, today is my "Friday"... another 13 hours and we'll be looking forward to a couple days off.

On the really bright side, Casey and Sandi from C-Brat fame will be riding on our breakfast cruise this morning. Always a special treat to have our C-Brat friends visit! :D

Best wishes,
Jim B.
 
Wow Jim. Tough situation. You're representing yourself, the company, and the captain regarding safety on the boat all at once -- sticking it all out there. Good for you, there aren't many people in the world that can handle that sort of situation with diplomacy (I'm NOT one of them, hate conflict).

I have had 'some' of those kinds of words when I took my son (then about 17) and a few of his friends overnighting on the boat. With their parents nowhere around, you DO have to assume the responsibility, ugly as it gets...

Thanks for the explanation, I should print it out and frame it.
 
Jim,

As always, you did a magnificent job of handling even the tough situations. Probably didn't even have to remind them that without your approval, they were going nowhere, or that you were from Texas :hot and really know how to take the bull by the horns. :idea: :thup

As to the lightning storm, I was wondering how you were fairing round about then? Good to see you posting after that. Been kind of wondering too, when we were going to see dolphins from the Tetons? Now there would be a surprise for your tourists. Might even be able to pull that one off and get a way with it.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon
 
hardee":2y5fojwp said:
Been kind of wondering too, when we were going to see dolphins from the Tetons? Now there would be a surprise for your tourists. Might even be able to pull that one off and get a way with it.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon
Click to expand...

I caught this one today. Decided they have ugly Dolphins up here
Day%2029%20003.jpg
Day%2029%20005.jpg
 
No dolphins in the Tetons... we have trout. Lots of trout. Cutthroat, lake trout, brown trout, rainbow trout. While there are no dolphins, some of the lake trout can get BIG. As in: 40+ pounds.

Casey and Sandi came on the breakfast cruise this morning. I got to sit with them during the meal, but left my camera in my locker. Really nice to see them again.

This morning, one of the first mates described last night's dinner cruise as: having a boat-full of little Joe Pesci clones. Accurate AND funny! :wink:

One more long day today... LOTS of overtime this week. And now, looking forward to a couple days off. Casey and Sandi are leaving in the morning, so we probably won't get another opportunity to see them. I felt bad that I was scheduled such that I didn't have much time to visit. Still, it's always fun to see our C-Brat buddies.

We finished off the day with a nice sunset cruise... quiet, mellow. 8)

Best wishes,
Jim B.
 
One of the casualties the the hard drive erase was my Photoshop software. I've been using PS for 16+ years. I've been meaning to upgrade, but I didn't want to be forced into it. :roll: The CD is safely stored at home... about 1,800 miles away. Something here about old dogs and new tricks; I haven't been a big fan of iPhoto, because we've had our own way of archiving images since before iPhoto existed. But, you use what ya got. I downsize every image here with a click or two to keep them small so they load fast... no way to do that in iPhoto. Drag here, drop it into Preview, resize, Save As.

Not fancy, but just testing out an image here. From last night's sunset cruise...

SunsetE1.sized.jpg

And now, a couple days off to figure it all out. And relax.

Oh, and those scouts from the other night... pretty sure they missed a few of those items in the oath, but once they understood how it WAS going to go down, they behaved. Mostly. :wink:

I'm enjoying the new iPad... it may even be worth a couple days of figuring out all my sites and passwords again. 8) LOTS of apps. Great for content "consuming", but the laptop is still the best for content creating.

Best wishes,
Jim B.
 
JamesTXSD":20zsprdv said:
<stuff clipped> I haven't been a big fan of iPhoto, because we've had our own way of archiving images since before iPhoto existed. But, you use what ya got. I downsize every image here with a click or two to keep them small so they load fast... no way to do that in iPhoto. Drag here, drop it into Preview, resize, Save As.
<more clipped>

Best wishes,
Jim B.
Click to expand...
In i-photo, click on the image you want to re-size for upload here and use the file->export menu option. That will allow you to scale it to any size desired. There's the stupid simple buttons of "small, med, large and full size" or the custom size that lets you specify the number of pixels in the largest dimension. Must faster than going through Preview for a resize. It also allows you to select the format for the exported image.
 
In case any Mac users are interested in an easy way to do backups but don't like Time Machine try out SuperDuper. It creates a bootable replica of your hard drive. If your drive fails or computer gets stolen, you can simply plug the hard drive into a USB port of any modern Mac and use it like it is your own computer. Or copy the backup drive over to a new internal drive/computer. Or, if your backup is the same physical size as your internal drive, just pull it out of the enclosure and install it in your Mac.
 
Well, Shake It Up Baby...

We had just gotten back from Jackson yesterday; had a wonderful day off, exploring around the area. Joan picked up a new rubber washer for the bathroom sink at a hardware store while we were in Jackson. While she was installing it, I was helping by staying out of the way... grabbed a short nap on the couch. I woke up with a start when the whole coach shook... "What the hell are you doing up there?" I called to her. I thought the plumbing repair must be going REAL bad.

"Nothing," she said, "I thought that was you!"

We both looked around to see if someone was messing with the 5th wheel. Apparently, someone was - Mother Nature, with a 4.8 earthquake centered about 40 miles southeast of us. No damage to us, but a new respect for how these beautiful mountains across the lake from us were created.

It wasn't 'till my buddy, Dave (toyman), dropped me a note to ask if we felt it that we realized what all that shakin' was about.

We have had spectacular mountain weather the past month: cool mornings, glorious short-sleeve days, plenty of sunshine... I guess Mother Nature just wanted to drop a little reminder about who's in charge.
 
I finally wore out the pocket camera. I decided to go with another mid-size to get more zoom capability... 20x, from 28mm to 560mm (35mm equivalence). Canon SX20 IS. It's pretty similar to the other Canons we've had; good feel, comfortable grip.

With no breakfast cruise on Fridays, Joan had to go in before me today. When I took her to work, I tried out the new camera at the marina this morning...

MornTest1e.jpg

Almost no shutter lag, still small enough to toss in a boat bag. I think it's going to be a good unit.

Best wishes,
Jim B.

http://captnjim.blogspot.com/
 
Jim,

Nice write up on the blog. See, we new that you are worth every cent they are paying you, (and then some). BTW, I'd be one looking for that early morning cruise.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon
 
Thanks, Harvey. This experience has been pretty darn fulfilling for us. Tonight, I had a group of RVers on the dinner cruise. Mother Nature isn't always kind, and tonight she rained on us... while we were trying to serve dinner. Oh, and then it hailed. :shock: People were holding trays over their heads. I did my best to be a "cheerleader" for the folks on my boat, and I have to say they all had a sense of humor and a great spirit of adventure. We came back to the boat, I told stories and did my best to keep the folks entertained... while waiting to see if the cooks could get dessert (cobbler) hot... in the rain. And then I got the call that dessert wasn't going to happen; the rain had ruined it. My guests could have been pissy, but they were very understanding and appreciated how hard we all worked to give them this experience. We were all soggy, but it was a pretty special evening.

I try to impart to the young people in the marina how this may be a once-in-a-lifetime visit for our guests, and how it's up to us to make it memorable for them. I love boats, I love this place, and I really want the guests to get a feel for how special it all is. And these folks tonight got it. Really nice people.

RVers seem to have that in common with boat people.

Best wishes,
Jim
 
Jim,

They will probably remember that night better now than if everything had gone great and the cobbler happened and the rain and hail didn't. Now they have something out of the ordinary to remember and a story to tell about the night the rain got the cobbler.

Have a great night, Always,

Harvey
SleepyC :moon
 
Back
Top