I got back from B.C. this past weekend, and although I put my photos up on Flickr, I haven’t gotten around to writing about it until now. I have to say that it was a fantastic trip, learning to sail and in one of the most beautiful areas I have ever seen. On the standard scale of 1 to 10, I give it my ‘Spinal Tap’ rating of 11.

Three of us spent one day in Vancouver prior to heading up to Powell River for the actual sailing trip. I think I saw the best and worst of Vancouver - I booked a hotel on the Internet solely based on price and proximity to downtown, and found a place that was only 10 blocks from the Trade Center, in East Hastings. It seems impossible in this day of urban renewal, revitalization, and loft-condo conversions that such a centrally located urban area in a major city would be blighted, but it turns out that East Hastings is stomping grounds for meth / crack addicts - I arrived late at night and walked through a crowd of at least 50 people on the sidewalk, some ambling about, some seated and shooting up right on the sidewalk - Welcome to Vancouver. This was the worst that I saw. The best: Granville Island, which was charming, scenic, with great shops and wonderful restaurants. Next time, I’ll spend the extra bread for a hotel room on Granville Street!

We met Everett Gould, newly designated with the moniker ‘Captain Ahab’, at the airport and boarded the puddle jumper for Powell River, then caught a cab to the Beach Gardens Marina. We met our sailing instructor, Norm, and got the first of our ‘Chalk Talks’ that day - the ‘Learn’ part of our Cruise-n-Learn. I tell you, after hearing about all the things that can go wrong on a boat (Hydrogen gas explosions from batteries, diesel explosions, propane fires, bilge-pump failures, not to mention clogged or broken marine heads) I was a little discouraged about this trip, particularly since five guys on a 36-foot keelboat makes for pretty cramped quarters! Once we set off in the morning and actually began learning how to pilot the boat and trim sails, however, trepidation gave way to excitement about actually being on the water and sailing.

Itinerary - Day One: Learned some sailing basics while the wind was good, and spent a lot of time beating upwind to get out of the vicinity of Powell River - so, lots of close-hauled sailing and lots of practice with tacking maneuvers. Motor-sailed up the Copeland Island channel and moored for the evening in Squirrel Cove, a beautiful little anchorage where we saw our first bald eagles of the trip.

Day Two: Out into Desolation Sound for more sailing practice. The weather was 70 degrees and the wind was ideal for us beginners. Norm would call the bearing or point of sail and each helmsman had to make the correct calls to the crew. Learning the points of sail was, at first, tricky, but with some practice this became comfortable. We anchored for lunch and took the dinghy to shore for a hike inland to Castle Lake, an absolutely beautiful lake with clear water fed by mountain streams. After two days on board the boat, swimming in that pristine fresh water was cold but better than a shower. We docked for the evening at Refuge Cove, a small community (a co-op, actually) on one of the Redonda Islands. I swear this placed looked like a set from the film Popeye - a charming marina with weathered brown shingles on every building.

Day Three: Yes, more sailing, at least until the wind gave out. We then had to motor out to our anchorage for that evening, Melanie Cove. This was my favorite spot - a secluded little cove (hard to access for the shallow passes) with the Unwin Mountains making a spectacular backdrop.

Day Four: Man Overboard Drills (MOBs). OOf. Although we had covered the procedures for a MOB in our morning chalk talk, these were hard. They really require complete command of your points of sail to execute the Figure Eight maneuver, and then you have to slow the boat to a speed that allows for rescue. The adrenaline really gets pumping, too, at the thought of a real man overboard. (Of course, we were using a floating rubber boat fender.) In my first attempt, I almost accidentally gybed the boat (BAD), and then missed the fender; in my second attempt, I made it to the fender but at a speed of 2.5 knots - not a feasible speed to rescue a real person. On my watch, Freddie the Fender had died, several times over, which was disheartening and exhausting. We docked that night at Lund. With a small hotel, pub, Mexican Restaurant (and a decent one, at that), and bakery, it seemed like we had reached New York City. I now get the excitement of a port call, I really do!

Day Five: More MOBs, with better results for all of us. I never lost a fender (”not on my watch!”), and on my last attempt I eased the boat in leeward of the fender for a beautiful rescue at a speed of 0.02 knots. It was exhilarating and a great way to wrap up the sailing trip for me. We got back to Beach Gardens, cleaned up the boat and packed our stuff, and crashed at the Beach Gardens hotel with Pizza and trashy TV. (Who knew E! could feel so luxurious?)

I now have my Canadian Pleasure Craft Operator Card, and Basic Cruising Standard certification by the Canadian Yachting Association. My only dilemma now: I live in a town that is not only landlocked, but there is NO WATER. How am I gonna practice this stuff if I can’t easily make it to a marina to charter a boat?

I have never sailed. I have wanted to learn for a long time. When I read about a company that books ‘Cruise and Learn’ expeditions out of British Columbia, I decided that this was a perfect opportunity to, well, cruise and learn. Next week, my brother, uncle, college roommate and I will spend five days sailing in Desolation Sound, and at the end of the trip we will have earned our basic operator permits. I will blog the trip when I return - needless to say, I am thoroughly excited!

In the meantime, we are all required to read a sailing manual before we arrive and get on the water. This book sounds pretty arcane - some sample passages:

“By attaching telltales to the luff of the jib and the leech of the main, the person on the helm and those trimming sails can see the presence of turbulence in the air flowing over the sail.”

“Care must be taken to prevent the mainsail from chafing on the shrouds. Use the boom-vang tension to hold the boom down and keep the top batten parallel to the boom.”

Luffs and leeches? Boom-vangs? Sheesh - I sure hope this becomes more comprehensible once we are on deck. Ahoy!

It felt like Christmas today - I walked into the office and received a package from Mode Records containing my copies of The Complete Sequenzas, Alternate Sequenzas, and Solo Works by Luciano Berio. I recorded Sequenza IXb for Alto Saxophone back in 1997, so this project has been a long time coming. I am so excited to finally hold the finished product in my hands, especially since so much time had elapsed that I had all but given up on it. The packaging is wonderful, with a nice 104-page booklet with good notes by Sabine Feisst. It really is a slick 4-CD package - I love it! Brian Brandt made the interesting decision to preface each Sequenza performance with the verse written for the work by the poet Edoardo Sanguineti, a longtime collaborator of Berio’s. This is a nice touch, since Berio suggested that each verse could be spoken by the performer prior to performing the work live.

I was privileged to travel to Milan as a graduate student in order to work with Mr. Berio on the Sequenza IXb, which resulted in my recording for Mode. Playing for Berio was one of the most memorable experiences of my life, and I was amazed at how well he could recall the tiniest details of the piece (which he had written 27 years earlier) without referring to the score. For a composer of such reputation, he was very kind and genial, and it was an unforgettable afternoon.

Icing on the cake - I went to put the music into iTunes, and I was the first to submit the set to the CDDB database! Geeky, I know, but I find that fun.

One of the great composers of the twentieth century passed away yesterday.

Robert Scoble, Microsoft’s Geek Blogger, is leaving Microsoft to join a Silicon Valley Video Blogging startup. Yahoo news article here.

He is making a good move into a field I feel strongly about. I don’t know if you have checked out much of the vlogs that are out there, but the impression that I get from checking out many of the truly interesting stuff that is out there is: This is the future of media. I already have RSS feeds on Google Reader, and just downloaded the Democracy Player to get my regular updates of Rocketboom, Mobuzz, and GeekBrief, not to mention Hak5. I don’t have a TV but I am getting addicted to net-based programming, and the Democracy player is scratching that itch.

I am trying to figure out my angle on vlogging - I fantasize about getting into the scene with a comedy video blog, but for now I am like Chauncy Gardener in Being There: I like to watch.

Thanks, Martin, for the link to the Wikipedia article on Brown’s Gas - which is essentially what Dennis Klein seems to be making over at Hydrogen Technologies. My suspicions about the efficiency of this fuel source seemed to be confirmed when I did some further checking. I found the following passage by Tom Napier at Brown’s Gas Information (emphasis is mine):

Suppose we wanted to run an internal combustion engine on this gas. How much energy would we get out? If we burn Brown’s Gas we get pure water vapor. Burning 18 grams releases 242000 Joules of heat energy or 229.5 btu. (Allowing the vapor to condense would yield an additional 44500 joules, 42.4 btu, but in any conventional engine this output would only appear as waste heat and will be ignored.)
Thus if we drove an engine with 168 grams of gas per hour we would be putting 2.26 million joules per hour of heat energy into it. Operating at a plausible combustion temperature the thermal efficiency might be as high as 50% so we would get out 1.13 million joules per hour or 314 joules per second, that is 314 watts.
The bottom line is that we have put in about a kilowatt of electrical energy to get out under a third as much in mechanical energy. Considering that the efficiency of an electric motor would be over 85% there is no justification at all for using a Brown’s Gas generator and an internal combustion engine. An electric motor would do better at less cost and with far greater reliability.

That’s what I thought - input energy is greater than output energy - not a viable means of vehicle propulsion at this point.

My uncle sent me this Fox news story about an entrepreneur who set up his car to drive for 100 miles using only 4 ounces of water. Check it out on YouTube here.

If this is legit, it’s truly revolutionary. However, I’m skeptical. Doesn’t the “unique electrolysis” process he mentions require energy input, and how can the system be so efficient as to allow a mere 4 ounces of water to generate the power needed to propel a vehicle that far? I would appreciate comments from any scientists about how feasible this is.

Also, if this IS for real, why is this not in the front page of EVERY media outlet in this country? Power this efficient, economical, and ubiquitous would be a genuine paradigm shift - is this story just in the early stages of the internet ‘hype cycle’ or a hoax?

Perhaps the most disturbing part of the clip is toward the end, when they state that they are “in negotiations with one U.S. automaker and the U.S. government.” The news anchor later states that his company is developing a Hummer that can run on both water and regular gas. Questions here:

1) If this really works, why bother making water/petrol hybrids given the relative cost of water vs. petroleum-based fuel?

2) What’s to stop U.S. automakers from buying the company outright and squelching this technology to protect the economic interests of the auto manufacturers and oil companies?

3) Why pursue military applications first? Profit can’t be the only reason, since the civilian market for this technology would dwarf the number of Hummers in Iraq.

IF this technology is genuine (and I am not sure that it is), then it marks the beginning of a true alt-fuel revolution. This guy stands to make mountains of cash with a technology that really benefits humanity - why let the military get the first crack at it?

I just found out about OptOutPrescreen.com, a site which allows you to opt out of receiving pre-approved credit card offers and insurance offers. It was pretty simple - just fill out the form online and the three major credit reporting agencies will exclude your name on lists provided to all those companies. I hope it works - I am sick of receiving 10 pieces of mail that I have to throw away for every one REAL piece of snail mail (although those are usually bills!). A small but effective way to reduce your waste, which can’t hurt.

Is this website for real? Here is the answer they provide on their FAQs.

New Favorite Seattle Establishment: Shorty’s (2222 Second Avenue)

Cuisine Sampled: vegi dog with sauerkraut, onions, mayo, mustard

Most Exciting Attraction: Medieval Madness - the Pinball Game
Most Interesting Menu Item: Hangover Breakfast Special
Shorty Dog - Vegi or German Sausage
Bloody Mary
Alka Seltzer
Single Cigarette

No Substitutions $7.50

I love this town!