(no subject)
Jul. 11th, 2006 09:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickSailed more today after work. I got to hike out of the boat today, as there was actual breeze. It wasn't a huge amount of breeze, but it was enough that I had to get my ass out of the boat to keep the damn thing level. (I have moved beyond simply letting out the mainsheet when the wind picks up. That, while somewhat useful as a 'do not let the boat flip over' mechanism, does not particularly make the boat go. Making the boat go is sort of the point, here, so the proper response to the wind picking up is Ease, hike, trim. Ease the mainsheet. Hike body out over edge of boat, Trim (pull in) mainsail while adjusting hiking to keep boat level against the moment of the sail. The boat is supposed to be level. If the boat is not level, make the boat be level. SPECIAL CASE: If the boat is completely upside down [turned turtle], that is not desireable no matter how level it is.)
I practiced gybes again, still think I'm getting better with those. Remembered everything off the beach today, too, which was good. I did flip the boat over but not for a gybe-transom error as is typical these days. See, the boat heeled suddenly in a gust of wind. I hiked somewhat more aggressively than the actual gust merited. At that point, the boat tipped toward me. Okay, I do weigh more than the boat, but still. I was sitting windward. The boat should NOT be falling toward me if there's any breeze at all. It just shouldn't. So I leaned back in the boat (unhiking), probably more rapidly than I should have, and the boat flipped over leeward. Buggerit. Note to self: Boat is allowed to move in an alarmingly sudden and tilty fashion. Skipper of boat (Hey! I'm Barbie's little sister!) is not allowed to move in an alarmingly sudden and tilty fashion. Skipper of boat is supposed to help the the boat be nicer than it actually is and NOT to enable its nasty little flipsy nature.
Here is a video of people with 470's (a bigger, more expensive boat with more sails and two crew) out in some serious wind. That's followed by people with Lasers (the sort of boat I have -- these boats have only one sail and one person per boat. They're in the second half of the video, about.) also out there in some serious wind. Note the amount of leaning-out-of-the-boat going on. I'm not making it up about leaning out of the boat.
In other, not-boat-related news, the US Census Bureau called and left a message on my machine about how I had not returned their VERY IMPORTANT survey that they had mailed to my street address. I called them back because they said I had to do so. Now, I don't get mail at my street address. I find it delightfully interesting that the entire rest of the damn federal government knows this and helpfully sends my fucking tax forms and my passport and my social security crap and every other damn thing to my fucking PO Box which is where I get my mail. I told the census bureau lady that. She said that they were only allowed to send mail to the street address. I pointed out that this was going to cause them some sampling error. The census lady was not amused. I asked how come the last damn time they did a census with all the pointed questions about how much money I made and how many toilets I had in my house and what languages were spoken there and so forth, they were perfectly fucking able to mail it to my damn PO Box. The census lady didn't answer me. She said, "Well, we can record your answers over the phone." So then I said, "I thought the census was established for the purpose of knowing how many representatives we get in the House of Representatives in congress. For that, you need to know how many people live here. One person lives here. So whyd'ya need to know how many toilets are in my house and how much money I make?" The census lady did not answer that, either. She struck off in some damn thing about determining what services were needed in certain areas of the country and so forth. But honestly, I thought the census was so that we knew how many representatives in congress we got. I thought that was all it was for and now they want to know about my toilets. I also asked the census lady why she couldn't just find out how much money I make by asking the nice people over at the IRS. It's not like they don't fucking know -- I have to fill in a twenty-page return every year detailing exactly how much money I make and where I get it all and everything. This duplication of effort is so damn annoying to me. Why don't they just database it all? They *have* ID numbers. They *have* sources of data. Why don't they just fucking database it and get OVER themselves. They aren't fooling anyone with all this "That's protected information" crap. Protected information, my lily white ass.
And then I answered all of the census lady's dumb-ass questions about how much I make and how many toilets are in my house and what ethnicity I consider myself and whether or not I am a legal US citizen and on and on and on. Y'know, I think a police state would be easier.
Also, in closing, I would like to point out that the title for my boat trailer (came with the boat) arrived in the mail today, addressed to Me, 188 Mountainside Road (this is the fuckwad street address that the 911 authority gave me and that I am required to use on official government documents so that they KNOW WHERE I LIVE. I also have to use it to have a car registered in my name, to open a bank account, and to, apparently, get mail from the census bureau.). It was stuffed in my PO Box by the fairly sane postal employee who knows me on sight and is well aware that my mail, all my mail, goes to PO Box 42, regardless of whatever the hell it says on the envelope. I have absolutely no idea why the census bureau's stuff didn't get through.
I practiced gybes again, still think I'm getting better with those. Remembered everything off the beach today, too, which was good. I did flip the boat over but not for a gybe-transom error as is typical these days. See, the boat heeled suddenly in a gust of wind. I hiked somewhat more aggressively than the actual gust merited. At that point, the boat tipped toward me. Okay, I do weigh more than the boat, but still. I was sitting windward. The boat should NOT be falling toward me if there's any breeze at all. It just shouldn't. So I leaned back in the boat (unhiking), probably more rapidly than I should have, and the boat flipped over leeward. Buggerit. Note to self: Boat is allowed to move in an alarmingly sudden and tilty fashion. Skipper of boat (Hey! I'm Barbie's little sister!) is not allowed to move in an alarmingly sudden and tilty fashion. Skipper of boat is supposed to help the the boat be nicer than it actually is and NOT to enable its nasty little flipsy nature.
Here is a video of people with 470's (a bigger, more expensive boat with more sails and two crew) out in some serious wind. That's followed by people with Lasers (the sort of boat I have -- these boats have only one sail and one person per boat. They're in the second half of the video, about.) also out there in some serious wind. Note the amount of leaning-out-of-the-boat going on. I'm not making it up about leaning out of the boat.
In other, not-boat-related news, the US Census Bureau called and left a message on my machine about how I had not returned their VERY IMPORTANT survey that they had mailed to my street address. I called them back because they said I had to do so. Now, I don't get mail at my street address. I find it delightfully interesting that the entire rest of the damn federal government knows this and helpfully sends my fucking tax forms and my passport and my social security crap and every other damn thing to my fucking PO Box which is where I get my mail. I told the census bureau lady that. She said that they were only allowed to send mail to the street address. I pointed out that this was going to cause them some sampling error. The census lady was not amused. I asked how come the last damn time they did a census with all the pointed questions about how much money I made and how many toilets I had in my house and what languages were spoken there and so forth, they were perfectly fucking able to mail it to my damn PO Box. The census lady didn't answer me. She said, "Well, we can record your answers over the phone." So then I said, "I thought the census was established for the purpose of knowing how many representatives we get in the House of Representatives in congress. For that, you need to know how many people live here. One person lives here. So whyd'ya need to know how many toilets are in my house and how much money I make?" The census lady did not answer that, either. She struck off in some damn thing about determining what services were needed in certain areas of the country and so forth. But honestly, I thought the census was so that we knew how many representatives in congress we got. I thought that was all it was for and now they want to know about my toilets. I also asked the census lady why she couldn't just find out how much money I make by asking the nice people over at the IRS. It's not like they don't fucking know -- I have to fill in a twenty-page return every year detailing exactly how much money I make and where I get it all and everything. This duplication of effort is so damn annoying to me. Why don't they just database it all? They *have* ID numbers. They *have* sources of data. Why don't they just fucking database it and get OVER themselves. They aren't fooling anyone with all this "That's protected information" crap. Protected information, my lily white ass.
And then I answered all of the census lady's dumb-ass questions about how much I make and how many toilets are in my house and what ethnicity I consider myself and whether or not I am a legal US citizen and on and on and on. Y'know, I think a police state would be easier.
Also, in closing, I would like to point out that the title for my boat trailer (came with the boat) arrived in the mail today, addressed to Me, 188 Mountainside Road (this is the fuckwad street address that the 911 authority gave me and that I am required to use on official government documents so that they KNOW WHERE I LIVE. I also have to use it to have a car registered in my name, to open a bank account, and to, apparently, get mail from the census bureau.). It was stuffed in my PO Box by the fairly sane postal employee who knows me on sight and is well aware that my mail, all my mail, goes to PO Box 42, regardless of whatever the hell it says on the envelope. I have absolutely no idea why the census bureau's stuff didn't get through.
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no subject
Date: 2006-07-13 03:38 am (UTC)If the boat should start spinning wildly around one axis, consider using quaternions to determine your motion in three-space.
The census lady did not answer that, either. She struck off in some damn thing about determining what services were needed in certain areas of the country and so forth. But honestly, I thought the census was so that we knew how many representatives in congress we got.
I worked for the Census Bureau in the 1990 Census. (I took an oath and everything.) There has been some mission creep since 1789.