Edisto

We are in a woodsy cottage right in the middle of Edisto Island. Yesterday we drove to the beach, which is much more tastefully built than other beach communities . It would be  a great place for a family vacation. On the way to Edisto we had lunch at the Old House Cafe in Walterboro. A large eatery, it was crowded with locals, and why not? The "hot buffet" featured fried chicken and all sorts of southern goodies, included salad bar, tea, and dessert, and cost $9. And it was good, very good. Welcome to the South. Oh, high of  78 forecast for today.

Onward and downward

When I walked out of our Fayetteville NC motel early this morning, I could see my breath! It was 48 degrees and felt great. I guess the visible breath came from humidity, another happy change in our lives in the last couple of days. After very pleasant stops with Nancy in Guilford CT and Hannah and Dave&Connie in Philadelphia we are finally down south, heading today for Edisto Island. There we will have three days in a cute cottage and we will explore and walk the beach. There is no Internet in the cottage in the woods (just a duck pond) -- no blog entries till the weekend. Enjoy yourself: we will.

Cold? What cold?

The computer says it is 2 degrees in Bath. Well, here on our cozy island, as you can see, it is a balmy 10 degrees outside. But, hating the cold as I do, I have brought the inside temperature up a bit. The combination of woodstove and sunlight have made it somewhat tolerable indoors.
In fact, since Grandma had the trees taken down, we have gotten a real boost from el sol, and have saved lots of carbon and plenty of dough, too. Good job, you lawbreaker!
All well and good, but things will improve considerably next week for your thin-skinned bloggah.

Philosophy

I have been delving into the tome on the right, and have found it most instructive. Of course, the cover had to be face-down while the boys were here, lest I again be called out on Grandparents' Day at daycare. I find that this sort of philosophical inquiry sharpens the critical sense, and is perhaps more efficacious in heading off dementia than crossword puzzles or other tools of the trade. The author is a professor in the California system (Irvine, I think -- what a great place for research in his field).
Meanwhile, hard as I look, I cannot seem to find a good example in our family. I guess that should be cause for joy, but of course it is always good to have a subject nearby for study.
I would be surprised if a copy of this treatise does not find its way into the birthday stocking of our Pen & Pencil philosopher at Loganstein. In fact, it is already packed. (Is the love of surprising others an ash houle trait? Read and find out.)

More playing

We have Jonas and Owen for a few days while Mommy and Daddy attend Obama's second inauguration. As dusk fell yesterday, they toppled Grandma's snowman, and had a grand time playing on the snowbanks. We love to see how much they enjoy the outdoors...that is, when Angry Birds is (are?) not available. Yesterday morning we went to the Brunswick P&R to watch Jonas play hoops. Not bad, and to the left you can see a shot of Dr. J sizing up a shot op.
I love basketball. It is a game of myriad possibilities, and many of the world's very best athletes play it. For a coach there are many challenges and a never-failing rousing of the blood. But the REALLY GREAT thing about basketball is that it is played indoors.

Playing in the snow

Do kids do this anymore? You don't see many kids outside, even with fresh snow. However, snow play is surely not dead. In our yard we had a kid playing in the snow yesterday. She made a snowman, complete with scarf and mittens. The way things look, it will be there for quite a while, maybe until we return from the South.
Yesterday I also observed a three-year old who loved playing in the snow, especially with a snow shovel, flinging the stuff in all directions. So there is hope for youth, some of it, anyway.

Holy mackerel, indeed

Have a look at this card trick which comes via bitesfromedwin.blogspot.com . That's all for today.

Sic Transit Insula Koofis

Although three eagle-eyed sleuths combed the waters for hours, no trace of the former Koofis Island could be found today. Possibly it departed on the barge that appears in the distance in the photo to the left. This disappearance is an unfortunate development, as a major condominium project had been planned for the island, with views downriver and a reasonable condo fee for the first year. Another possibility is that the island was seized and towed away by the firm that periodically is charged with moving the black rocks at Todd's Point in Reid State Park. Our governor has been notified, and we will shortly be checking to see if we have any connections in the U.S. Senate to pursue the disappearance of this piece of property, which was formerly the subject of a foiled power grab by a developer from California's Bay Area.

Big barge, murky morn

The huge barge that brought the deckhouse for the new "stealth" destroyer headed downriver for Mississippi this morning into a gloomy incoming tide. Positioning the deckhouse on the ship was a job so remarkable that it required three cranes and a newspaper story. Construction continues, and of course so does employment at BIW, a good thing for our area.
Who knows what would happen if the navy contracts ended or even slowed significantly? Although they give it lip service, BIW doesn't really seem interested in branching out to new kinds of construction. When we first came to Arrowsic, they were building some container ships, but then China did that much more cheaply. Maybe with China's emergence things will change back.

Low tide

The tides have been sizable lately, and junk has washed in and out. Just past sunset I caught this video of Koofis Isl. high and dry, with clear access to the mainland. The rocks beyond were well clear of the water, with just a small channel to ford between Koofis and the rocks. I didn't see the Paceship rudder, but some other jetsam was visible. In the video you can also see the channel that the Whaler uses at low tide... now totally dry. Someday perhaps we should remove those rocks to the right and dredge a bit, but it has been OK for the last 40 years, so why worry? May all your tides be full.

Spring is here!

And I am Marie of Romania! OK, so it's just the January thaw. But none the less welcome for that. Ice and snow are melting. The sun is out. Etc.
However, my thoughts bend toward that defunct Exxon station on the right. In just a couple of weeks we will be enjoying the best fried chicken in Florida in the ambiance of the Georgia bulldog. (You have to see it to believe.)
Meanwhile, we are monitoring the radon in the basement and burning lots of wood. We didn't add to our piles this summer, but there is still plenty for another year, and quite a few trees to fell come spring. Did you hear that? Come, spring!

More web kudos

We have had our Rinnai heater for over ten years and it has served us very well. However, the temperature sensor always produced temperature readings that were 8-12 degrees lower than the actual temperature in the room. Therefore I was using a "snuffleupagus" made of a dryer vent pipe to conduct air from the front of the heater to the thermistor, which was mounted at the rear, near the floor. That would fool the sensor and would cut off the heat, but it did so inefficiently and one of our residents objected to the pipe on the floor.
Although it took me many years, I finally remembered that problems are not unique, and very likely someone would have faced and solved the problem of inaccurate temperature readings in the Rinnai. Indeed. It did not take long to find a solution on the web. I took the thing apart, cleared out the cobwebs, unrolled the thermistor wire, unmounted the thermistor, and placed it higher and outside the heater, away from wall and floor. Now it reads perfectly and the heat is perfectly regulated. Duh. Don't forget the Internet, folks.

Woof woof

If you are not a nerd, stop reading right now. 
Frustrated by the incredible slowness of Windows XP (a problem which is now solved, and if it is your problem, let me know and I will help you), I decided to try a Linux distribution on my old Toshiba laptop. We have rescued two of Emily's laptops with Ubuntu, and I thought it would be a good idea to try again. However, I did not wish to lose XP, as I have several useful programs on the machine, and I have used it for tax returns that I need to carry forward. So a "dual boot" was required. I found Puppy Linux, which is small, and boots fast from a CD, and is lightning fast. The old Celeron is happy as a hog in excrement. And so am I.

Smoke and mirrors

Sea smoke and ten degrees this morning, a little warmer than yesterday. Much as I hate the cold, I admit that dawn on the Kennebec is gorgeous just about every day in the winter.
But the real cheering news comes from our friends at the useless survey bureau. And what wonderful information we received: it's OK, maybe even good, to be a little fat. See here! What's good about this? Well, butter, for one. I'm sure we can think of many others. But for me, the best thing is the lifting of the constant feeling of guilt that I have carried around each day that I do not film the fat ladies riding around in electric carts at Walmart. Bye bye to that project. And I'll just bet this news makes Andy Reid's day. Order up another chicken fried steak, Big Red.

Brrrrrrr

Although the TV and computer said the Bath temperature was minus 2 this morning, here on our tropical isle it was 6 degrees, balmy, right? I do not know if the last three Januarys have been this cold, but I do know that it was really great to be where the sun shone, and the sand was warm. This year we are going South again, but not for a few weeks. Big mistake, one that will not be repeated. The good part of it is that we are able to burn up some of our wood piles. The bad part is everything else.
The Roman god Janus was two-faced, looking ahead and behind. Generally it was thought that he would turn from the past to the future. Janus would be lost in Maine. Looking ahead, all we can see is cold and colder. Geez, just look at the fools at the right. It ain't much warmer in Pennsylvania. Incidentally, Phil comes out to play on February 2 this year. By which time we will have the sand between our warm toes.

Happy New Year

What better way to close out 2012 than with our traditional lunch at Cook's in Bailey Island? It was a beautiful drive, but the most beautiful sight was to your left. Now THAT is the way to make a fish sandwich -- with the whole fish!
We hosted Jonas and Owen for our big New Year's Eve party. It was sparklers at 6:30 and early to bed.
But what a gift the day brought: Andy Reid is gone at last! How arrogant the man is. Most fired coaches are happy to catch on as coordinators elsewhere, but not our walrus. Apparently for months he has been building a shadow staff for his next head coaching job. Good luck to his next stop. And Happy New Year, too.