ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

Had you whispered in my ear two years ago that at end of 2007 I'd be selling my house, quitting my job, going back to school, gearing up to sail the world, and oh-by-the-way ass over tea kettle in love, I would have enjoyed a hearty guffaw at your expense. "HA HA HA" I would bellow, holding my belly and pointing at such foolishness. "What a maroon!" I'd chuckle to myself as I slowly shook my head. But as it turns out, you'd be right and I'd owe you an apology. I'm not great at apologies so consider this a sheepish smile and a manly chock on the shoulder and then we shall never speak of it again.

The restlessness showed up sometime in 2006. I started to get the feeling like my life was on railroad tracks and the scenery looked all the same. I'd been working for the same company for going on 7 years. I settled into a pattern of work, friends, and TV. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. I dreaded being asked the standard "What's new?" question because my answer was always the same. I used my weekends to shake up the pattern and that worked for a time. I'd head off on my motorcycle or con some unsuspecting friends into backpacking trails that far exceeded our physical conditioning. Come Monday morning, I'd find myself sore and covered with bugs but right back on the same railroad tracks motoring past the same scenery.

Around this time, I'd ended up with a very few extra ducats in my savings account from selling my condo and the smidgeon of stock options I'd been hanging onto. The financially conservative Jason would have promptly buttoned up that pile of change into mutual funds and CD's and fiscal what-not. But another side of me felt like this was an opportunity to derail. I decided to go back to school and finish the degree I started 17 years ago. That was the good news. The bad news was that during all my fucking around at the University of Oregon 17 years ago, I never got around to taking any sort of math class. Therefore, a large chunk of 2007 was dedicated to suffering the slings and arrows of a year of calculus in preparation for the computer science program at the University of Washington. I'm keeping my job in tact long enough to polish off all the prerequisite classes before going back to school full time this spring.

Since I'd swapped out my smallish suburban condo for a more expensive townhouse in downtown Ballard, I had a problem deciding what I was going to do about my mortgage payment after the money stopped coming in. I debated whether to hemorrhage cash out of savings to pay for my townhouse, to get a roommate to stifle the flow, or just sell the place and immerse myself back in the college lifestyle of shag carpeted studio apartments. Eventually, and with the help of a good friend, I arrived at what I find to be a ridiculously elegant solution. The long version of the story is written up here. The shorter version goes something like this: sell the house, buy a sailboat, move on board. And up until about a couple weeks ago, I was charging in that direction. But before I finish that thought, there's another matter to be tended to.

Our first date was the Seattle Boat Show. We walked amongst the boats, laughing and flirting. We had a great time talking over food and beer at a local bar. As evening approached, we decided to sneak back into the boat show after hours to walk among the boats without all the crowds. And that's when I figured out that this girl was different. Christy and I have known each other just a few short months but it feels like years. I'm taken aback at how much we parallel each other. The things we want out of life, the way we see events, that which makes us giddy are all eerily similar.

From very early on, plans of our future just naturally evolved. One day a few months back, we both had crappy days at work and school. We were both cranky and needed a diversion. So we decided that evening we'd plan the Work Sucks Tour aboard the s/v No Tan Lines. I stopped at a book store on the way over to Christy's houseboat and bought a map of the world. We spent an evening pouring over different islands of the world deciding how we were going to sail to each one.

"We should go to Easter Island."

"OK, while we're at it, let's go to Christmas Island. They can't be that far apart right?"

"I'd guess about four months."

As so it was that we forged our plan to set sail. Our destinations are still pretty fuzzy and mostly irrelevant. Life together on board a sailboat at the whims of the weather is what appeals. We're targeting 2010 as the point where we cast off, take a left at the Straight of Juan de Fuca and sail towards azure waters and umbrella drinks. That should give me enough time to finish up school and for us to even work a bit to build up a cruising kitty. Oh, and buy a boat. And learn how to sail it.

The more our lives intertwine, the more they get fragmented between two households, neither one of which ever has enough clean clothes. After lots of discussions about selling houses and buying sailboats and living aboard at the dock, we decided that our life needs one household not two. Since Christy already lives on a bad-to-the-ass houseboat on Lake Union, it became quickly obvious that we could scrunch our two worlds down into the 450 square feet on board her houseboat. At some point in the spring, I'll sell or rent out my house and settle into the houseboat. And then we'll start off on this life together.

I want to take a second to say thanks for stopping by. This blog is mostly a mental exercise for me and secondarily a place for my family and friends to stop by and shake their heads at my goings on. But it means a lot to me that you all stop by every now and again. I hope you have all had a wonderful past year and that you're all healthy and happy and that your life is on an upwards trajectory.

2008 is gonna kick a metric ton of ass.

seemed a good idea at the time

Good ideas are a function of context. What seems like a good idea at one moment can be pure folly the next. And so it was in a cloud of vodka and various other forms of liquid courage, we all agreed wholeheartedly that the only logical course our houseboat party could take at that juncture was for all of us to get naked and huck ourselves into the December-chilled Lake Union water. It was only as my naked white ass rotated through 180 degrees during my unsightly front flip down towards the black water that I gave pause to reflect.

Maybe we shouldn't have left the blaring deck lights on.

delivery

JohnL and Jess scored themselves a slip in Shilshole to nest their big shiny Hunter 375, s/v Endless Winter. I partook in the delivery from her original slip on Lake Union through the canal, out the locks and into their fancy new home on Shilshole's M dock. After exiting the locks, we hoisted sail and took off south on a close haul. Right up until the point we saw the teeth of an interesting weather system coming out of the south to meet us. We tucked tail, put in two reefs and ran downwind back to Shilshole just as the rain hit. A tense but well executed docking maneuver called for a round of whiskey for all.

JohnL and Jess - congratulations! Endless Winter's a beautiful ride!


left to right: JohnL, Jess, Jess' dad Bill, Jess' brother Matt

s/v endless winter

So you remember that entry where I told you JohnL bought a boat and it was a great big Tartan named s/v Adios?

I lied.

Or rather, circumstances changed a bit. The survey came back a bit rough on good ol' Adios so JohnL and Jess bid her adieu. No sooner did they sadly walk away from Adios then they stumbled across this little crumpet of floating luxury:



Say a hearty hello to shortly-to-be-christened s/v Endless Winter and her proud new owners. The inevitable post describing a night of drunken back-slapping aboard this posh vessel, however delayed, will be forthcoming. I promise.

Would I lie to you?

on the one hand

On the one hand sits a nice, shiny production boat. A Jeanneau or maybe a Catalina with all the amenities that come with such boats. A house-sized interior. Great big aft cabin. Shiny wood. Big airy portholes. A swim deck with hot and cold showers. Definitely the choice for the majority of time you spend at anchor or the dock. Lots of room to pass around a pitcher of gin and tonics. This is not however, a boat that likes to be out of sight of land. This is not a boat that welcomes six foot following seas. This boat subscribes to the Tuck Tail And Run school of foul weather management. That's great in the San Juan Islands. Not so much in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

And on the other hand sits a burly bluewater brick shithouse of a boat. Pacific Seacraft. Island Packet. Lots of other names that I can't even afford to type their names in a blog entry, let alone purchase. Beautiful lines. Overhung sterns. Full keels. Skeg-hung rudders. Small sheltered cockpits with high coamings. A tight interior riddled with handholds and lee cloths. This boat subscribes to the Is That All Ya Got? school of foul weather management. Six foot seas feel like home aboard this boat. This is not the boat that holds cocktail parties. You're in the middle of the Atlantic. Who's around to have a cocktail party with anyhow?

I've identified the ends of spectrum and love them both for what they are. What I don't know how to identify is the middle range. We're not sailing Cape Horn here. But sailing to Mexico is well within reality. Or Hawaii. Bermuda. Europe. And when we get there, I think we'll mix up some gin and tonics and spread out in the cockpit.

Still no closer to knowing what I want to buy.

crickets

I'm having altogether no fun right now so no updates to the blog. I figured the interwebs don't really want to read about how much fun I'm not having.

This quarter is drawing to close and calculus is on its way out of my life. Which means more time for sailing and general shenanigans which usually end up on here.