jimmypribble.com/blog

Here endeth the lesson.

All in all, the staycation has been restful, but it wasn’t long before we realized that despite our best efforts and planning, it never felt the same as a vacation away from home. The original plan called for us to spend several days and nights on the boat, but that turned into just a couple of day trips out on the boat. And that turned into a fiasco.

As you might recall, the boat was recently overhauled, so that it would be in perfect working order for the Summer. We spent Wednesday on the boat and everything worked fine, but the overall experience was lackluster and it inspired some lengthy discussions about our commitment to keeping the boat. The biggest single issue is our time. For example, when we bought the boat, I didn’t work on weekends; now I do. It has been increasingly difficult to justify the expense of the boat and the slip, considering how rarely we enjoy those things. Anyway, the discussions left us leaning heavily towards selling the boat at the end of the Summer. And then, to punctuate or protest our decision, the boat died while we were headed home after one of our day trips. Sigh. Fangdango strikes again. So, we had the boat towed to Grant’s shop.

The next morning, Grant called and said the boat was ready. The problem had been a minor wiring issue. We picked-up the boat and drove it back to our slip. And then, while maneuvering through the marina, with its rows of boats that cost more than our house, the engine died again. Kimberly was already in the back of the boat and I leapt to the front to see if we could keep our four-ton, out-of-control paperweight from hitting anything. Kimberly called for help and two gentlemen rushed to our aid. Between the four of us, we managed to walk the boat to our slip without incident. Still, I was apoplectic.

Today we will be taking all of our personal items off of the boat in preparation for its sale. Despite its poor dependability this week, it really is mostly an issue of lifestyle and time. I’ll admit that it is heartbreaking, because it is a beautiful boat. C’est la vie. I’ll probably post an extended for sale ad on this site and link to it from the blog (and craigslist, and eBay).

Enough about the boat. Let me tell you about the most fun day that we had on our staycation. Because we don’t go out often and we certainly don’t go shopping (ugh), Kimberly and I tend to accumulate gift cards. Sadly, many of them expire before we can use them (all part of the gift card scam, you know), but many of the better ones do not. So, on one day this week, we took a fist full of gift cards and spent the whole day running around for free. We saw The Dark Night using free movie passes and we even bought concessions with a whole sheet of “cinema bux” we had picked-up somewhere. Since I am in the middle class, I haven’t bought concessions since I was a kid! Sadly, I know that kids these days don’t buy them, because I worked it out and drugs are cheaper than theater concessions, so why would they? Seriously, who can afford to buy that stuff?

The Dark Night was awesome. Was it the best and most l33t movie EvAR!!!!111!!1one??? Um, no. But it was very good and it worked for me. And yes, Heath Ledger deserves a posthumous Academy Award nomination for his role as The Joker. An added bonus was seeing the trailer for the upcoming 007 flick Quantum of Solace and the trailer for The Watchmen. Now, I knew what The Watchmen was, but I had never actually read it. So, I borrowed a copy from Dave Farabee on Thursday and I have been reading it since. It’s wordy for a comical book, but I’m digging it. I also really liked the trailer over which played The Smashing Pumpkin’s The Beginning is the End is the Beginning, which I had never heard before. It’s a slowed-down version of The End is the Beginning is the End from Batman and Robin, but with modified lyrics. Did you get all that?

Afterwards, we went out to eat for free and then we went on a Barnes & Noble shopping spree where I picked-up the first two seasons of MI-5 (an outstanding BBC TV show called Spooks in the UK), almost completely for free. We have been watching episodes every night since then.

The grand unification experiment with the iPhone has gone very well. All of my major email accounts dump into the phone. Only my work email is left and I will take care of that this week…when I go back to work. Yes, it’s that time again - Sunday afternoon, when the mind invariably wanders towards work on Monday. Monday. Monday…

jimmy

Kimberly and I are on staycation! For those of you not hip to the lingo, a staycation is like a vacation, except that you don’t go anywhere. It sounds boring, but it doesn’t have to be. If fact, I am really looking forward to some of the things that we have planned.

A nice thing about a staycation is that it begins immediately. The first part of a typical vacation is spent packing, boarding the animals, driving to the airport, checking luggage, negotiating the security crucible, flying to your destination, renting a car, driving to the hotel, and checking into a room. When you are finally able to fall back onto the bed, your mind will still be troubled with recovering your lost luggage and how you will get home Sunday night, since the TSA idiots confiscated the key to your Audi. In contrast, my staycation began the nanosecond that I walked out of work on Thursday afternoon. And it began with a very nice treat, indeed. I got home and there was a message from AT&T saying that my new iPhone had arrived and I could pick it up at any time.

The iPhone was a birthday gift from Kimberly to help me dull the pain of no longer just being 40, but now being in my 40’s. Ugh, let’s move on. The iPhone is brilliant. I plan to spend some of this week getting it setup further. We’ll see if this really is the Grand Unification Device that will finally pull together all of my email, contacts, and calendars in a useful way.

Kimberly has spent the first couple of days of her vacation visiting her mom, so I have been hanging-out with friends. On Thursday night, I saw Dave Farabee; on Friday, I went to an event at Hula Hut, celebrating Georgia Crawley’s 20th anniversary at TBA (my previous employer); and on Saturday I spent the whole day with Eric and Andrew at the hangar working on our LeMons race car. Tonight, we are going to a baseball game with Kim’s co-workers.

Much of the rest of the week we hope to spend on the boat. Yes, the boat. I know, I forgot that we had a boat, too. We have spent a lot of time and money getting it in shape lately and except for the stereo, it is finally finished. It is now in perfect condition to use…or to sell. We’ll see. A couple of weekends ago, we took the boat out and tied-up with our friends. They couldn’t believe that we were back out on the water; they had given-up on us. Still, they welcomed us back with open arms and we had a blast.

Judy, Monty, Heidi, Debbie, and Kimmy.

Grant commands the party from his poop deck.

And surprise…Jimmy does something that is unsafe (I’m hanging about 20 ft. off the deck of Grant’s ridiculous four-level fishing boat).

Besides boating, I hope to catch-up on some reading, movie watching, and blogging(!). I might even make a blog entry from the boat on my iPhone, just for the novelty of it. For those of you who have to go to work tomorrow, I’m crying for you. No really, I am. I feel your pain. In fact, I’m off to drown my sorrows. Cheers.

jimmy

• I finally got an S3! No, not an Audi S3 (still not available in the US), but a Canon S3. This replaces our Canon A70, which unexpectedly gave up the ghost last year. Project photos, before-and-afters, and other photo blogging will soon resume in earnest.
• I got the camera just in time for the 12 Hours of Sebring, which is in just a few weeks time (uh, -18d:23h:12m:23s, according to the countdown clock here).  I will be going again with the Fluhrs.
• Kimberly and I worked on the boat for most of the weekend. We finished the upholstery, finished installing all new cabinet hardware, fixed the anchor stay, fixed the swim ladder, applied new SeaRay badges to the radar arch, cleaned the cockpit, and even found a little time to relax.



 First photo with the S3 - Jimmy trying to grok Stranger in a Strange Land.

• (cont.) On Sunday afternoon, we decided to reward ourselves for all of our hard work, by taking the boat out to meet Dave and Heidi, but it wouldn’t start. Frustrated with the recalcitrant boat, I rechristened it - Fangdango (a reference to a previous mechanical disaster, my 1983 Audi UrQuattro named Fang). Anyway, Dave and Heidi kindly drifted over and tied-up at our marina, where we had a beer and showed them our handiwork. The sun fell in one of those beautiful displays that leaves the lake looking lavender. Despite some frustration, it was a great weekend.



Lake Lavender

• One of my new year resolutions is to read more books. Now, I love to read, so that isn’t the problem. The problem is that I am so busy that the only time I commit to reading is right before I go to bed, when I am so exhausted from being so busy that I can only read a paragraph or so before I nod-off like some old geezer. It doesn’t help that I’m a slow reader. No, not because I’m stupid, but rather because I approach good writing like a sommelier might sample an exquisite wine (hold up to the light, swirl, smell, slurp, swish, spit/swallow). After reading a particularly fine verse, I might lay the book down on my chest, chuckle, cry or just reflect on the pleasures of such inspired craft. And then I fall asleep. Consequently, I read maybe one or two books last year. Mrs. Pribble can read a whole book while I’m brushing my teeth. I tried a book on CD last year, but I also bought a convertible, which subverts that effort (wind noise). No, to read more books just takes commitment. So far, it’s going well. If I can slog through Stranger in a Strange Land (promising start, but I’m not really grokking the Free-Love Space-Jesus™ stuff), I will have surpassed my total book count for last year. Unless I am sidetracked by a particularly strong recommendation, I first plan to read all of the books in my collection, which I haven’t already read. I’m such a book lover that I will often buy books “for later” and later never comes. I am publishing my reading list on the misc page.
• Stewert Copeland’s band, The Police, have reunited for a tour. Initially, the prospect of righting one of my greatest musical regrets (not seeing my former Favorite Band of All Time™ as they passed through Austin on their Synchronicity tour) had me declaring that I would see them at all costs. But faced with the reality of shelling-out nearly $500 to see them in Dallas, I reconsidered my position. I have decided that their tour should support a new album. Do the work first, lads. Get into a studio, write, shout, fistfight, do whatever it takes and see where the artistic tension takes you. If your brilliance emerges once again, you can have all of my money. Until then, my money will go to The Killers, playing in Austin on April 13. 

jimmy    

On Dec. 22, Jimmy searches for Christmas snow.

fan·dan·go (fan-’da[ng]-(”)gO) n.

1 : a lively Spanish or Spanish-American dance in triple time that is usually performed by a man and a woman to the accompaniment of guitar and castanets; also : music for this dance
2 : TOMFOOLERY 

I have been so pleased with my Miata that I was thrilled when Mrs. Pribble and I bought another topless vehicle a few weeks ago. It’s a 1996 Sea Ray 290 Sundancer. It’s a 29′ sport cruiser with a single, 300 hp, 7.4 liter V8 Mercruiser engine. It has a cabin with two sleeping berths, a galley, and a head. We bought the boat from Grant Eriksen, whom we know from boating with Dave and Heidi Elliott. Grant made us an incredible deal as part of a three-way swap which had him taking this boat in trade for his old boat, flipping it to us for the trade-in value, and then using our cash to leverage a bigger boat for himself. The deals all went through and in just a few weeks, we were all driving new boats.

Grant checked-out the 290 thoroughly, pulling the outdrive and replacing important wear and maintenance items. He made a few other repairs and then he had his fiberglass guys go over the bottom of the boat, buff it out and put on a new coat of bottom paint. Even with Grant eating some of the costs himself, we were left with a pretty healthy bill, so I just traded Grant the boat’s nice triple-axle aluminum trailer for services rendered. He was already using it anyway. Despite the repairs, the boat was still technically “as is”, which means we would have to clean it ourselves.

A Sordid History

The 290 was previously owned by a young guy who apparently cared more about partying than he did about cleaning his boat. It was filthy in more ways than I care to imagine. The adventures of Tony and the 290 are documented on his website, which carries the same name (a lewd, double-entendre) as the former name of the boat. The inside of the cabin was so disgusting that the first time I looked at the boat, I just sat quietly on the settee with my hands tucked into my sleeves. I was afraid to touch anything for fear of contracting Chlamydia. The interior fabrics were trashed, the carpet was soaking wet for some reason, and mold was not only in the refrigerator (expected from a young bachelor), but even on the ceiling as well! I expect that a UV light would have lit-up the cabin like the inside of a rave. But it was just filth, so we got inside with our HazMat suits, stripped the fabric off of everything, and doused the interior with bleach. We had the carpets professionally dry cleaned. After many, many hours of scrubbing, the interior has dried-out and cleaned-up very nicely. We have ordered new fabric for all of the bedding and found an upholsterer to redo the interior when the fabric arrives in a couple of weeks.

Oh, and we renamed the boat Fandango.

The Hole in the Water…

We needed a place to keep the boat, so we checked-out the local marinas and found a slip for sale at Lake Travis Marina. This was not only our favorite marina, but was also the one located closest to our home - only a five minute drive away. So, we made a deal for the slip and sank even further into debt. Speaking of sinking, when we first put the boat in the water, I noticed that I was having to run the bilge pump for a long time before it would clear. I asked Dave about this and he said not to worry about the amount, just pay attention to the rate. Our conversation went like this:

“If you have to run it for 10 seconds each time and next year you have to run it for 30 seconds, you might want to check it out,” he said.

“Dave, I’m having to run the pump ten minutes a day, even when we don’t take the boat out,” I said.

“Uh, your boat is sinking.”

We had Grant pull the boat back out of the water and sure enough, it had a leak. The transducer for the depth finder, which goes through the hull, was made of plastic and it had broken (probably while being towed). The float switch was also broken, so it would not have turned on the bilge pump automatically if the boat took on too much water, which it couldn’t have done anyway because the batteries in the boat were dead. It was the recipe for a sunken boat, but luckily, we caught it in time. Grant made the repairs and we put the boat back in the water.

…Into Which All of Your Money Pours

Since then, it has been full speed ahead…not on the water, but for massive amounts of spending on the boat. Besides the afore-mentioned interior fabric and repairs, we have purchased a new bimini top, GPS/depthfinder system, stereo amplifiers, fenders, dock lines, safety gear, and new kit for the galley from a French press to dish towels. Mrs. Pribble, bless her heart, was so excited about outfitting the boat that she was talking about that process even before we had selected a boat. I was wanting to discuss the merits of beam sizes and single vs. dual engines, when she would look at me earnestly and say something like, “Now of course, the salt and pepper shakers will need to be plastic.” Yes, of course.

The boat is in very good shape, but it is still ten years old, so it has required some minor repairs. That’s okay, because even when we can’t take it out, the boat is serving its purpose as something for my wife and me to do together. We spent one cold, wet Saturday recently working inside the boat. I repaired the gray water bilge pump (exactly as fun as it sounds), while Mrs. P worked on the new fender baskets. We took a break for lunch and ate fried chicken and macaroni & cheese in the dry, warm comfort of the cabin. It was delicious.

Jimberly (that’s our superstar power-couple name) having a terrible time on Dave and Heidi’s boat during inclimate weather (December ‘06 Parade of Lights).

Sadly, our camera died the very week that we bought the boat, so I don’t yet have much in the way of pictures, which is too bad, because there would be some fairly impressive before & after photos. We hope to get another camera soon, so I will at least be able to publish some after photos. I will also report on the stereo upgrade and I will explain iPod wars.

jimmy