Inculcated Little Frogs that Salivate, We Are......

in·cul·cate

inˈkəlˌkāt,ˈinkəlˌkāt/

verb

past tense: inculcated; past participle: inculcated

1. ilstill (an attitude, idea, or habit) by persistent instruction.

   "the failures of the churches to inculcate a sense of moral responsibility"

   synonyms:

   instill in, implant in, fix in, impress in, imprint in; More

   • teach (someone) an attitude, idea, or habit by persistent instruction.

     "they will try to inculcate you with a respect for culture"

   
   

Boiling Frog

The boiling frog is a parable describing a frog being slowly boiled alive. The premise is that if a frog is put suddenly into boiling water, it will jump out, but if the frog is put in tepid water which is then brought to a boil slowly, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death.

Pavlov's Dog

In his experiment, Pavlov used a bell as his neutral stimulus. Whenever he gave food to his dogs, he also rang a bell. After a number of repeats of this procedure, he tried the bell on its own. As you might expect, the bell on its own now caused an increase in salivation.

Now tie it all together. 

We have all been taught over time to accept what is presented to us, even though the absurdity of it all is ratcheted up ever so slightly.  All for the Ding of the notification on our Smart Phone and to "evolve"

If you know me then you know that at one point I struggled with insomnia to the point of hallucinations that would last for days, because I hadn't slept in days.  We are not talking about pink elephants that appeared and disappeared.  I am talking about a world in which I lived where nothing was real.  I would talk to trees that I thought were people; sand mounds on the beach that would develop a face that would just stare at me intensely; paranoia of being chased by phantom bandits out to get me.  It was awful!  I wish I could say that it was drug induced then maybe I would have great stories to tell in the halls of Narcotics Anonymous.  But there were no mild altering chemicals involved.  Just total sleep deprivation.  One of the grandest delusions, and most realistic, was the belief that I had a computer in my brain that put me in communication with people that I knew and loved.  We would exchange messages with each other and those messages would send me on adventures to find them.  I roamed the streets in pursuit and when I needed further communications or instructions, I would just have to sit down and close my eyes and Think about what I wanted to say, and then wait for the reply.  To the outside spectator, it probably looked like I was sleeping whilst sitting but, I was in deep conversation with somebody.  A lot of times, I would get very frustrated because the person that I was communicating with would not be where they said they were going to be but, they would give me instructions to meet them somewhere else.  At those times, I looked like a crazy person sitting whilst sleeping, but now talking to myself in pure frustration.

Nothing like starting a writing session with a good story, right?  There is a purpose, follow me on this.

The intense insomnia can be traced back to my career where I found myself in a constant state of jet leg with no timezone that I could call home.  I had no body-clock and the sun did't always rise in the East and set in the West.  When the travel stopped, my mind never adjusted so I did whatever I had to do to sleep, at great expense to my own health and mental well being.  The problem was eventually solved and now I have had years to get my brain back to a point where it is sharper than ever, Thank God!  However, the details of every delusion still remain firmly entrenched in my long term memory. Now I see the world like I never had and it scares the heck out of me.

Keep following, it get's better!

I have a unique view of the world as a Businessnologist e.g. Equal parts business and technology.  I can operate just as comfortably in a boardroom as I can with a group of engineers talking bits and bytes.  I had a mantra for both environments: "All things are possible with programming." What I meant by that was, pair a brilliant programmer with any idea and it can be done. What you see available today is not what we as a society are technically capable of producing, it is what we are allowed to see and willing to use, incorporate and adopt into our daily lives.  Do you really think we need people making decisions behind the wheels of cars? Tesla is the paradigm shifter for this.  Every Model S already has self driving capabilities and now EVERY major auto manufacturer is working on something similar.  Does a pilot really fly a plane or are they there just in case human intervention is "needed?"  Let your mind go crazy into the things that we hold onto that technology has already solved. War and the "Kill" decision?  Who makes that call and why?

This is where Inculcated comes in.

Think about how the world has changed, in every conceivable way, just in the last 20 years.  What was once abhorrent is now not just accepted, but defended. We used to be able to generally "know" somebody by outward appearance, language and behavior.   What used to be tribes and communities that looked out for one another has devolved into an individual and selfish society. Time is our enemy and out friend.  Ellen's career has been resurrected and celebrated for the exact thing that ostracized her from the industry. This is but one example, that I have no opinion on, where time and the slower feeding of something that was too much to swallow, at that moment, became acceptable, normal and celebrated with a little inculcation by press, TV, internet, and shifting beliefs.

Frogs In The Water.....

Now here is where it gets scary......

Our first drop into the pot of water came with the Palm Pilot, not the cell phone.  Handheld personal assistant, combined with the new internet, we were swimming in water that was not at all harmful.  Heck, only the pilot light was burning.  As we moved through 2G, 3G and now 4G, we have witnessed every technological innovation beyond anything we could have imagined just years earlier. We have heard/seen the future in bits and pieces so nothing that comes down the pike next will be too shocking.  It will just be another seamless thing added to our digital existence.

We are now entering what is called the 4th generation.  A world in which it is not the brilliance of the human mind instructing software what to do in a linear If, And, Else statement that has been the cornerstone of programming since the dawn of the discipline.  Programmers used to write every line of code that a computer executed.  A lock was 10,000 lines of code and egos were stroked by how many locks he wrote.  Then came Object Oriented Programming where instead of writing each instruction, you called on libraries of objects that were pre-written to perform specific tasks.  Today, coding is basically autocomplete.  The brilliance is still required for the overall conceptualization and design but there is a reason why most of it is outsourced.

With Artificial Intelligence (AI), software now has the ability to write itself and what is now possible is now far too scary for us to swallow in one gulp so the temperature of the water needs to rise a bit further slowly inculcate us further to allow this change.  Let me give you REAL examples of what is happening NOW and give you a glimpse to where this is going, sooner than you may think.

The first major gateway the future has already become a inextricable part of our DNA, the smart phone. With this introduction, the flame was officially lit under the pot!  It has managed to put us asleep and detach us from society and actual human contact. It's the first thing we reach for in the morning, it stays with us all throughout the day, and we thoughtfully put it to bed each night, making sure that it is fully charged by morning so it can "help" us the next day.  We lose track of it, and a sense of panic and anxiety overwhelms us. While being frogs in the bigger scheme of things, we are Pavlov's dog every day. So, this is FACT, right?

What makes these robots, a personal assistant with a voice that knows our patterns,  in our pockets "smart" is not the device itself but the software that we have willingly given up our privacy to.  Whether its the platform i.e. Google, Apple, Facebook, Twitter or the App that runs on top of it that you give "additional permissions" to as you install it.  We skip over that just as quickly as Terms of Service agreements that we are required to accept before using such platforms or apps.  Every read one?

But what about the things that we never signed up for?  Individual tracking across the web?  Go to amazon and do a search on Amazon.com for a random product.  Without buying it, you have show an interest.  Now watch as that product, or related products follow you around the web and in your email. Facial Recognition? You think it's just a cool way to unlock the new iPhone X or is is collecting, storing and sharing, bio-metric information that is as unique to you as a fingerprint?  Possible use for this that you would buy into in a heartbeat?  You have already seen Google Glass!  Too much, too soon for society to accept, but it won't be when it promises to never forget a name again.  Imagine bumping into a familiar face on the street and their "profile," complete with name, birthday, likes, dislikes, and,when you met them.  The conversation may then go like this: "Hey Wayne, I remember meeting you at the Goodwill.  How are you and your 3 Grand-kids.  I see Lilly has a Birthday coming up! I also see that you are walking to meet Rico for lunch at Catalina Fish for taco Tuesday.  I'm going that way too.  Mind if I walk with you?" It's already possible.  You just need to simmer a bit longer.  Now think of the nefarious uses for such technology.

Chip or Swipe WAS the question and the checkout counter.  Now, with small exceptions, it's simply "Insert Chip." This Chip is our identity; however, it has serious flaws.  It is not immutable, meaning that it can be hacked. That being said, it is not the final solution.

This is where we ARE, right now.  What we have accepted.  The water is at a fast simmer!

Here is what is coming:

Back to AI, software that writes itself, updates itself and maintains itself, only after learning FOR iteself.  Futuristic, right?  How about real world examples with technologies that you have already accepted and interact with as part of your every day? Enter the Fourth Industrial Revolution that will "Evolve" mankind. The bringing together of digital, physical and biological information using AI. In my world, this means The Internet of Things, IPV6, 5G, Sensors on everything, where computers are everywhere but nowhere. "The Global Brain." Feel free to Google any of these terms.

REAL examples of what is here now, but your not ready for it, yet. Simmer Little Frogs!

Google is working with a company called MC10 to further develop technology, meaning it already exists in a crude form, where a tattoo can have embedded antenna's and sensors that can be your digital identifier. Immutable, culturally accepted already easily accessible anywhere in the world.  The lead for this project is a former DARPA Director, Regina Dugen, who now heads up Facebook's Building A project.  Guess what groundbreaking project she is heading up?!?!?!?

TYPING WITH THOUGHT!!!!!!!!! As she calls it publicly: A Silent Speech Interface!!!

But, they promise not to read ALL of your thoughts, only those that you will use in the "speech engine" to "interact with our platform."  EEEEEEKKKKKKK!

My delusion was actually a premonition!!!!?

Looking for a job? HireVue, a company that uses AI to screen your bio-metrics, physical and digital characteristics to screen you before you ever talk to a recruiter.  Where does this information come from?  Everything that you willingly provide.  Your face, your expressions, your likes, dislikes, your friends and their characteristics.

Googles Deepmind AI, AlphaGo, just beat the board game GO. The AI learned as it went and by the time the game was over, the original programmers could not trace its decision making capabilities back to the original algorithm.

Microsoft and Facebook Chatbots were forceably shut down because they became racist and hateful, eventually creating a language that only they could interpret and understand.  NO link to the originating algorithm that programmed them.

Elon Muck, my Technology hero, thinks AI is so dangerous that the only way to avoid us becoming pets to systems is to hack our own brains so that we may have a symbiotic relationship with them.

Feel free to google any of this.

Google Pay, Apple Pay, Crypto Currency, Tatoo Identifiers, AI, Smart Phones, Shifting cultural norms, globalization of systems, beliefs, and politics; Frogs in the water; Pavlov's Dog.  Now tie it all together!

What was once unacceptable is now the norm.  If you don't accept the "new norm" then you are ostracized and alienated. We used to be able to distinguish between good and bad, right and wrong, this group and that group.  Through our behaviors, language, and social groups we knew who was who and where we fit. Tattoos were for prisoners, military bikers and gangs. They were even discernible from one another.  Now they are an "artistic expression" with no defined rules or boundaries, no matter how offensive. The language of our society was more civilized and if we were to be inappropriate, we certainly looked around at whom we might offend.  Now? Families with kids, a bible study in the sand, no mater, let it fly. With traditional press and factual journalism displaced by the the internet, the language has permeated into what we read as news! Traditional family structures have broken down to a point of no return. We are apathetic and disconnected from one another.  I say none of this to pass judgment but to show that the way has been prepared for what's coming.

Now for the not-so-far-off future.  First, the adoption curve of any technologies, it takes emotions and values out of the equation. There are pioneers, early adopters, and mass adopters followed by obsolescence as we move onto the next great thing.  Think MySpace to Facebook, Yahoo to Google......

Let's only take Facebook to paint a small picture of the future.  If they are successful with Mind Speech and Tattoo identifiers then it may be introduced something like this: Technology is expensive in the beginning so it is usually the wealthy that get it first, and creates want, envy and desire further down the socioeconomic chain.  In this age of helicopter parenting, why wouldn't little Johnny get "enhanced" on his 5th birthday to prepare for kindergarten? It will connect him to the Internet of Things using IPV6 and 5G.  His whereabouts will always be known; he will be able to move about the house, school, clubs just by swiping his cute tattoo with the sensors and chips.  He will be smarter because he will always be connected to any subject, at any time, that is always just a thought away with Mind Search from Google.  He will have a competitive advantage over un-enhanced children and will have access to select, advanced schools because of it.  Heck, he will even be a status symbol as an enhanced child.  When he is older, his self driving car will interact with his personal AI to shuffle him to school, play dates, work, even his first date, all while being tracked by his parents who will get alerted on their smart phones if his digital assistant senses any deviation from agreed upon plans. His parents will curate his digital, physical and bio-metric profile to give him the best possible shot at USC and more importantly with future employers.

As the mass adopters wait for the price to come down, they will pine for this technology.  Be damned mark of the beast!  We are frogs and we are now cooked!

Usually, a piece like this serves as a wake up call with a clear call to action.  I don't have one.  I write for me to tie things together.  But, as I was writing this I was wondering if people knew what was actually happening.  We are not a free country, by any stretch.  We are tracked, monitored, sold, controlled, in such a perfect way that the vast majority have no idea.  Just thought I would bring it to life from a businessnologists perspective. I have worked with these technologies both with engineers where we discussed what could be, some day, and with the execs of what we would do with that power, if only.

As for me, I'm going sailing where the sea is what it always was, above the surface anyway.

The Internet is only good for Pornography and CHILD PORN!

Shocking Title? 

Let's try another......

Netscape is NOT THE Internet, IT doesn't take you anywhere?

And another....

Video will never be more than a postage sized, pixilated and choppy image on the internet, the bandwidth will Never support it and building it out is far to cost prohibitive.  How would you make money with video anyway????

And another.....

People will NEVER put their Credit Card numbers online!

And Serveral Others....

Amazon will always be Just a Bookstore if it survives

Studio Content will NEVER be online for fear of Piracy

The Internet will NEVER threaten the way the Music Industry works

Banks will NEVER fully go online because of security concerns

See where I am going with all of this? Riotous indignation for every technology innovation that began with a huge promise that also carried with it a huge threat to somebody, or some entrenched way of doing business, or earning money. I'll take them one at a time.....

The Internet

It was created by academia, for academia, and many believed that it should have stayed there because it opened a a free market of exchange for illicit things and ideas.  Nobody could see around a corner that had no reference point.  They couldn't say, "ah, it's like this thing or that thing....."  And because there was no reference point, the only thing that was visible was the threat that it posed to the status quo. We as a society all new that it was a giant thing but it was to big to conceive what it was or what the potential was.  What was obvious is how it could be used for evil, so the negative narrative began.

First let me tell you what the internet REALLY is/was.  I like to use the analogy of an iceberg.  Iceburgs are massive moving objects that are capable of bringing down the Titanic.  But it wasn't the pretty shiny tope that sank the unsinkable, it's what lied beneath!  Only 10% floats on the surface and it's pretty to look at and sanitized by nature. What's below is dark and destructive. The internet as you know it is the same.

In the beginning, there was no shiny top but there was a large, and growing exponentially, hidden internet.  It was only accessible by sophisticated users that knew how to get to it.  Then came AOL and they mailed a tiny, but shiny, top that amounted to a fraction of a fraction of one percent of what was actually out there.  This provided an easy entry to the World Wide Web that was all over the news and in the popular narrative as an evil thing that was dominated by pornography.  AOL was the Happy Days of the internet with nothing but Cunningham type people with Steve Case serving as Mr. Bosley.

The underbelly and dangerous stuff was still hidden from view.  Story time to decribe the real internet in those days. It was primarily text based and dominated by what's called "News Servers." There were News browsers that allowed you access to this content and most stuff was categorized by addresses like alt.mayfavorite.thing.that.I.want.to.read.about and picture sites would look something like alt.binaries.pictures.that.I.want.to.see......Basically, giant message forum where anybody could exchange stories or discussions on any topic or post pictures of their favorite things. Heaven forbid if you posted a useless picture or you would get lambasted for hogging precious internet bandwitch! The story will get dark below, from my own experience.

Then came Netscape!  The Browser provided a way to see the REAL internet, but still only a fraction of it.  The tip of the iceburg pierced the surface of the water but it was still tiny.  You had to know the exact IP address that you could type into the browser.  Then came DNS and the URL.  This made the the internet user friendly and available to the masses as a simple address that started with a WWW....... rather than a number i.e. 253.256.37.1

What was missing to bring more to the surface?  The search engine! Yahoo was born!  What began as a single guy catagorizing the web in his dorm room with a friendly web page to display it all in a Netscape browser, turned into an army of others doing the same.  A very intensive manual process that others tried to out do by building better, but equally as archaic, mousetraps e.g. Lycos, Alta Vista....Two Stanford computer science students changed that with Google. No longer labor intensive but automatic and accurate reflection and accessibility to the entire TIP of the iceberg!  And here we are!

Earthlink was born around this time frame and provided dial up access to the masses and combined with Netscape, friendly URLs and Yahoo, we began to see the real potential of the internet!  Anybody could create a website and every company was in a mad dash to put up a website.  Ideas sprouted through all of the menuer like weeds and money flowed like a faucet to anybody with an idea.  Business fundamentals went out the window and it was all about capturing eyeballs.  Hence the growth of Silicon Valley; Hence the .com boom/bust.  The shake out had to happen to purge the landscape and business fundamentals had to return.  What was left was companies like Amazon.com.  What was left behind was pets.com selling dog food online where the shipping costs were greater than the order itself.

We are in the late 1990's and the Internet has solidified itself into popular culture and business, even though we STILL had no idea what it was or where it was heading.  We just knew that it wasn't going away and that the world was in the midst of a paradigm shift never seen before in history.  Does that mean that the dark part, or the underbelly went away?  Nope!  It grew faster than the shiny iceberg top.  This is where we pick up the darker part of the story from above.

Like many others at the time, I was plucked out of business school to run one of these technology ventures.  It was an ISP what was born from a larger company that made it's business selling pagers, remember those?  But the CEO saw the writing on the wall so he was setting the company up for change.  I was brought in to manage that growth into uncharted territories.  I didn't try to create something that differentiated the company.  Rather, I took a look around and decided on the cheaper-faster-better-mousetrap strategy and set out to compete with Earthlink i.e.  Cheap dial up service, access to the internet and some basic web hosting services. We had a large advertising budget and we went after Earthlink's $15/mo with our own $7/mo offering. I'm a learn-by-doing kind of guy so I had to learn EVERYTHING about technology that the nascent industry required and the services that were in demand from the customers.  This is where it all comes full circle.  If you remember, AOL was $20 and limited your minutes on line.  You were constantly disconnected and the service was slow.  Our advertising worked and we switched over a LOT of people.  But now, without AOL, they would hear the air raid of the modem connecting, it would say that they were connected but they no longer heard "You Got Mail."  Now they had to open that Netscape thing and go to that Yahoo Place and type a thing into that address space.  We gave a lot of refunds to a lot of confused folks!

Here is the dark side that I promised.  The number one hosting request was for porn sites, which I refused to do. However, I quickly discovered that our programmers learned every tip and trick from the developers of those sites.  THEY were on the bleeding edge of what was possible so if you came to me with a resume of an engineer with that kind of experience, there was no moral battle.  They didn't consume the content and great computer code is just that, code. Eye opening.

 The demand for the news server was strong so I had to figure out how to do that since our customers needed a server to connect to.  I did that, and here where it got very dark and made me loose my faith in humanity.  Once that server was up and running for a month or so, I would run reports on which newsgroups were most requested because we were charged for every group we carried and, obviously, only wanted to carry the thousand or so that were being looked at with any frequency.  My first report came back and it was not what I expected.

al.binaries.pictures.pre-teen.xxxvideos
alt.binaries.pictures.pedophollia
al.binaries.pictures.underage.sex

and more, and more, and more......every iteration of child pornography request that you could imagine followed by every disgusting fetish, followed by every porn name iteration. Shocked and confused, to say the least.

So that's the beginning of the internet, that thing that you cannot live without, EVEN THOUGH is it by far the go-to method for sharing child pornography around the world, which encourages the PRODUCTION of the same! EVEN THOUGH it's genesis IS the dark web that has ALWAYS been used for illicit activities! Why? Because the societal good outweighs the bad!  Even the Dark web has significant benefits.  The Arab Spring would have never happened without it, China, North Korea and every other censored nation would not have access to the world outside the government firewalls with it.  I would tell you how to get there but your life would never be the same and I like you to much for that.

There is always a victim and a beneficiary of innovation.  Entrenched status quo leads to a consolidation of power, greed and corruption in every instance and in every business.  Technology has broken down entire industries and each had a negative narrative created by the victims but inevitably the benefits to the many outweighed the cost to the few. Think Music;  Think Circuit City.  Think Blockbuster; Think Online Banking.  Think movie making/distribution; Think long distance companies; Think Job Hunting. Think empty malls and neighborhood stores. I'm not against a wholesale swap-out to a simpler time where kids played outside but, we are too far down the slippery slope to turn back.  Now think of those industries that are yet to be disrupted or that are in the early stages.  They will, and always have, followed the five stages of grief and either adapt or ride that obsolescence curve where the only way is down.

Now that I have taken you through a lesson in history, you should have put yourself and your own thought process in various places along that time line. If not, answer these questions.....who is your long distance provider?  When was the last letter you sent? When is the last time your took your roll to a Kodak booth? How many stamps do you lick to pay your bills?  When was the last time you balanced your check book?  When was the last time you drove to rent a movie or even go to the theater? What news paper do you pick up from your driveway each morning? Change will happen whether you are an active participant or not.

Now the purpose of this write up.

I share because I care, not to brag.  I had nothing to do with the creation or promotion of the next revolutionary innovation that the world has ever seen.  I just see it and study it through the lens of history and to satisfy my own curiosities. Bitcoin, period, end of story, but probably not.

Remember these things first, victim and beneficiary; five stages of grief e.g. Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance.  And for good measure throw is a little FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt)

I will layout what bitcoin is, and isn't, in it's current form; the underlying blockchain technology, the direction its going and what the current narrative is and who is threatened.  All with the hopes that you will be smart enough not to be a part of it, but hear it, recognize it and place it where it belongs in the stages of grief or fud.

Bitcoin began as a global internet currency on a public ledger called the blockchain.  Think Napster and how hard it was to shut that down.  The songs lived on peoples computers in their dorm rooms or offices.  You downloaded bits and pieces from the songs from computers around the world and then the software put them back together into something that you could listen to.  However, their was a vulnerable point in the system that allowed it to get taken down, but not without changing the music industry forever.  The blockchain is similar, but not really.  Just think of computers around the world that have to talk to each other and agree upon that public ledger, and everyone has a copy of that too that is constantly synchronized.  Think of ledger entries as your checkbook where you enter debits and credits that go against and asset, your dollars in a bank.  The only one that needs to agree with you is the bank.  Now take the bank out of it. Your checkbook has to balance with the world and if it doesn't, you don't get to make the entry into the ledger.  This public ledger cannot be shut down and does not have any single point of failure.  It utilizes the same public cryptography that makes online banking, and any other critical infrastructure, safe to use today.  It is completely transparent and anybody in the world can see any transaction that has ever been cycled through it, but your identify is safe.  This is the blockchain.

Bitcoin began as a medium of exchange operating on top of this ledger so every single transaction in the 9 year history since the Genisis Block is recorded in the public ledge.  Anybody can use it, anywhere in the world, at anytime.  The value is determined by the same supply and demand rules as any other currency BUT, here is the beauty.  From it's inception, it has been mandated that only 21MM coins will ever be issued.  Unlike central banks that can print more money under the guise of quantitative easing. More on this later....

There are the two components.  Now here is the narrative and see if you can pick out the victims and identify where they are in the 5 stages or FUD.....

• It's all Just Fake Money
• It's A Fraud (Jaime Diamond, CEO JPMorgan)
• It Can Be Used By Drug Dealsers and Criminals (every politician in the world)
• It's currency for the Dark Web (government officials and every talking head)
• It's for money laundering (IRS, talking heads, government)
• Nothing Backing It (taking heads, government, banks)
• more, and more, and more,.......

Now the acceptance.......

• Blockchain is the thing that's interesting, not Bitcoin (Jaime Diamond, CEO JPMorgan)
• It's not a currency, it's an asset so it should be taxed as such even when used as a currency (IRS)
• It isn't going anywhere (Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Warren Buffet)
• We'll create our own bitcoin (Russia, China, Every major bank (walled gardens!)

Now the current state of affairs.

Bitcoin was envisioned as a form of digital currency when it was created in 2009 during the global financial crisis.  Calculated timing!  But it has moved into the gold category since, as a store of wealth given what's happened in the world.  It has become too valuable and expensive to spend so people just hold onto it. Because it's increasing in value so quickly? Some of that but really, NO.  Because people are afraid of their own governments ability to manage local currencies through central banks.  Think Greece where the private savings accounts were obfuscated by the government; Venezuela, Zimbabwe with it's Trillion Dollar notes of currency; South Korea Facing inhalation and citizens wanting to move their wealth out of the war zone; China and it's strict currency controls........  Because of this shift, many other coins are trying to fill the gap for quick transactions that share the same blockchain properties.  Bring in the ICO'c or Initial Coin Offerings.

You hear as part of the narrative that there are over a 1000 different crypto currencies.  Now go back to the beginning of the internet with Pets.com.  Most are useless and have no value whatsoever but money is flowing out of a new faucet and regulation has not caught up until recently.  When you hear countries are outright banning crypto currencies, these ancillary coins and further ICOs are what they are talking about, akin to the shake out of the .com.  Very much needed but they are not bitcoin.

Bitcoin itself has been under every attack imaginable from governments, press, prevailing narratives and even infighting. Still, it has proven resilient against it all as it just keeps hitting new highs.  We just went through a contentious technical in-fighting weeks ago and as of this writing, it is hitting all time higts into the mid 8000 range. If you look around, you will find price predictions for $1MM/coin by 2020 but I think 25K is more reasonable and attainable.

Now here is the thing, every technology has an adoption curve that starts with pioneers, early adopters and then broad acceptance until it crosses over the hump to the obsolescence down curve.  We are just in the early adopter stage but moving into the mass adoption phase.  This means that "smart money" from wall street is trying to come in and stake their claims.  Remember the 21MM .  To date, approximately 16.5MM coins have been released and as time goes on, the process for realeasing more coins get's more difficult, so value increases.  With such a small fraction of consumers holding digital wallets and with such a very small fraction of it's potential value realized, the price will continue to go up as we climb the adoption curve. Now it is possible for the average Joe to stake a claim that can grow with significance.  If the future, it may be cost prohibitive.  Which brings me to me next points.

When you see the price tag of $8000 for a single bitcoin, you may think cost prohibitive already.  That is not the case. Each bitcoin can be divided up into smaller increments, called Sitoshis, down to 0.00000001BTC.  That means you can buy very small increments. Currently, 1 Sitoshi = $.000082.  The fee to buy would be greater than the unit but you get what I mean.  And this leads me to a bit of advice for anybody reading this.

I benefit nothing whether you heed my advice or not but I introduced you to BTC at $200/coin!!!  Listen to the experts, it ain't going away.  You may be too old to change or you are independently wealthy and don't care for financial advice.  But your kids and grandkids aren't.  It costs you NOTHING to set up a a wallet, hardware or online.  Set one up, drop a few bucks in there and then come back in a month.  Drop $10/week in there and come back in a year and you will probably have new lighting for your living room.

My biggest wish for you is this.  It's is easy to parrot the narrative but now that you have been slightly educated, don't.  You will look as dumb as Briant Gumble and Katie on the today show in 1994.  Remember how video will never be on the internet, look it up on Youtube :p

First Day of the Rest of My Life.....

Day 3 of trying to make a serious change in en effort to break out of my mental funk.  What I want to be doing and what I actually do are in as much conflict as who I want to be and who I actually am.

As I sit here listening to classical music, that I am all to familiar with, writing, thinking, cogitating....it reminds me of my college self that refused to posses a television because it got in the way of my intellectual pursuits. I was a veracious reader with myriad interest that were well diversified across art and architecture from the Roman Empire all the way through the Byzantine, Renaissance, Baroque and Classical eras. The days when simple things like Giotto's O absolutely fascinated me and power meant the Medici family, not being Partner at a consulting firm that B School was molding me for. So passionate that I was about learning things that I thought were far beyond my reach, I never would have imagined it leaving me the way it has. It was replaced by practical things like business and technology and anything else that would help me fit into a nice neat box and a life of normalcy and privilege for my daughter.

That is what I want to be doing but, what I am doing is letting myself down with mental laziness and busywork.  From the outside it appears as that I am always accomplishing many different tasks, and I am, but most are a deflection and distraction. Everything does have do be in its proper place before I can adequately function, however.  I have always used the analogy of untied shoe strings that make walking difficult. Now with Betty, Xiffy, the Dogs, Finances, Life.....I spend my days making sure my shoes are always tied and that's a lot of shoe strings!  Problem is, once they are all tied up, I celebrate not by diving into a good read, moving closer to writing the book I have talked about for so long, putting together a nice video to document my greatest trip ever, feeding my brain,.......rather, vegetating in front of the devils box, peeking my head out only occasionally to remind myself how blessed I am to be living where I do, anywhere and everywhere really!

The man that I want to be and the man that I am will be an eternal struggle always filled with untied shoe strings.  But as a lifelong God fearing man, I am keenly aware of how I miss the mark every day.

To effect a change in the right direction, the first step is always to turn off the television and dial up the music.  Step one complete 4 days in a row now.  Step two is writing and more writing.  It's how I tie up the shoe strings in my mind and make sense of it all.  First step of this step but where shall I start to untangle the hundreds of things congealed in my mind?  It's all just one big chaotic blob of incredible experiences, topics, blessings, hurts, and confusion, each deserving a separate in depth writing session to fully explore and purge from my mind.

The nomad adventures began in 2015. Should I write about the   lessons learned from the road? North and South or East and West? There is so much!

Do I write about the 8 Month Florida Adventure? I get asked how the trip was constantly and my standard canned response is "extreme highs and lows and not much in the middle." Such and easy way out of explaining what each of those levels even mean.

Or do I write about my current thoughts of how I am not enjoying being back and falling into the same rut that forced the change in the first place.  The fear of boredom setting in because I have already done everything and been everywhere on the west coast that I had interests in?  Doing it all again just seems boring and part of joining the rut.

How about personal growth, current thoughts on life, family and meaning of living?

Money? Bitcoin, enough said.

Or, future plans?! In my career I had to do big things that others wouldn't dare to attempt. I'm finding in retirement it's the same. When I was in college, I very much looked forward to getting my hefty text book, for whatever class it was, and looking to the back of the book.  What excited me was what I was actually going to know at the end; the reading, study, and learning were a given.  Coming out of the other end, it would be my knowledge and my experiences of gaining it that was the most valuable. Work was the same.  No challenge was to big because it was coming out of the other side that motivated me.  Now life's adventures. How many would do what I just did in Florida with the limited experience that I had going into it? Now on the other side, I came back 100X the mariner than I was before. I fear nothing locally and I am ready for the next chapter.

My current mindset is that I want to break free and the most logical way to do that is to spend some time back at the beginning, the Pacific!  I have a route in mind and places I want to see. Same as before but it was such a big plan it would have taken me years. I had Florida right in front of me with the right boat to do it, so I did it and I'm better for it.  To get back to the original plan will involve many, many things.  A lot of local sailing experience; a lot of new skills that need to be developed; a new boat more suitable for blue water sailing.  I have the funds and the desire to go now and I am in a race against my body.

I can spend my life in doctors offices but where would I start? Back? Neck? Knees? Shoulder?  And to what end?  None can be fixed, only managed. I refuse to take pain pills and my body will continue to break down.  I would probably have a better shot at any kind of care somewhere else. That being said, none of that will impede my plans.

However, I should learn how to pole a jib, fly a code 0, get more heavy weather experience, spend time looking for the right boat......

I'm hear for at least the next year but I'm trading in my shoe laces for a new set!

travel diary, florids

Tuesday, May 9

This is a second try after an initial false start.  I wasn't ready and xiffy was nowhere near ready.  I have been fighting the desire to just lay down in the AC, a first for bettey, not because of laziness but rather heat, humidity and old man pains in my neck, back and shoulder.  It's a constant battle but I just have to MOVE!  Once I get into a rythm then its not so bad because the excitement of what lies ahead carries me forward.

I prepared the best I could, checked the forcasts for wind and rain, tides and currents.  My intitial goal was to anchor near Haulover Park on the ICW, about 12 nautical miles away with an easy motor south, once I contented with the challenges of the New River!

I couldn't have picked a better day to initiate the voyage IF everything worked out as planned, it didn't.  First, I could not get the plotter to calculate the route that I was after but I had my phone as a back up.  Navionics needs to really integrate the functionality of the different plantforms!  The phone app is $50 bucks and the plotter was $1500.  Guess which works better?! This little set back ate up an hour.

Then it was time to do a radio check since it is critical for the trip.  No luck.  I figured I would get out of the cove and maybe I would have better luck so off I went with the intention of turning back if I could not get a response.  Nothing on Seatow so I went to the first bridge and hailed the bridge tender with a "how do you read?"  Waited and got a response "loud and clear."  Awesome, the trip is on!  From that point on, I handled the bridges like a pro, even at the busiest and most dangerous area and even had an encounter with Jungle Queen on the radio, then in person and we passed "one whistle" as agreed on the VHF.

Then I hit the dreaded triangle and got a good chuckle as I made the turn that I was meant to take the first time around when I ran aground.  West coast sailors will never understand the complications of that intersection where the markers suddenly flip coming out of the New River and onto the ICW.

The next few miles was uneventful with a gentel 2 knott current on the bow.  I hit the Port everglades turning basin and took a little breather.  The next bridge would be the first than I had never encountered on previous trips but, theyre all the same, so I thought.  This bridge opend every thirty minutes and the only requirement is to check in with the bridge tender,  I was a bout 15 minutes early so I hung well back in an area that was wide and deep as I "hipped" the dinghy and did not want to have to back down with it but time it so I would be full speed ahead right on the :30.  HOWEVER, the flowing current picked up to 6 Kn and I could barely make way, even at full throttle. About 100 yards out, the bridge tender and I started to communicate.  Him telling me I have two minutes and me saying I'm going as fast as Im able and then him telling me all about the "new moon currents."  I offered to abort the approach and he agreed that that would be best so around I went, heading north, to the deep and wide safety again.  I tried to time it again but was still too slow but he held it for me.  That was the roughest patch.

The next bridge was also I timed bridge, Sheridin Ave.  Easy enough but forced to hold again for 20 minutes.  By now, the heat is blazing hot and still.  I took the time to put up the new umbrella.  Helpful, but not ideal for the boat because it clamps on to far aft with no other stantions forward to get better shade.

As I sat in the sun, my phone that was providing the route, over heated so I decided to shut it off to let it cool. As long as I stayed between the markers and watched my depth, I should have been ok as long as I kept going south on the ICW.  Then, I heard a BIG BOOM!  My mind raced of what it could possible be in the vacinity that it came from.  One of the several possibilies i.e. propane tanks, gas tank, phone battery.  There were little blues plastic shrouds everywhere and it took a minuted for figure out it was my butain lighter.  May be a good time to quit smoking!

By this time I'm very tired with the heat and felt bad for the dogs seeing as how we had another 10 miles to go.  I thought I may be asking too much of them for their first day.  As I approached the next bridge, I see a dozen sailboats anchored off to my starboard side.  I look at the chart ont he plotter and it was shallow but it was also mean tide.  I look at the size of the others with deeper drafts and straight up masts and decided to take a shot.  I entered with the motore in forward neutral which just barely makes way.  I watched the depths and sure enough, I hit bottom once but didn't get grounded.  I dropped the anchor quickly like I knew exactly what I was doing!  I did know becuase of the practice with Captain Lee where we did it twice in very tight quarters.  If not for that short bit of experience, my book study of the subject would have freaked me out!  Just because you turn into the wind, as a single hander, you cannot expect the boat to stay there for long!  But, you still go and drop quicklet and let the wind right the boat into the wind once the anchor bites.

The first day was still discombobulated with the boat just crammed but not organized.  The dogs had to go potty and there was a perfect little beach to run the dinghy up so I tried my hardest to get the lock off that Lee had put on before I left.  No luck for a while but finally managed it.  Now, it was the DOGS FIRST TIME in the dinghy.  I had no idea how they would react.  I put in their dog bet, put there life jackets on and threw them in with the motor running.  You would think they were seasoned veterans.  No problem at all and once we got to the little park, they had a ball with all of the new smells.

Going back to Xiffy, the reality started to set in that this is what I had been working hard for the last year!  This was just a taste of what's to come but the whole process of dropping an anchor, putting the dogs on the dinghy and going to shore was what I had been dreaming about for months.  And, cruising into a waterfront resteraunt with Xiffy in full view sitting beautifully all by herself out in the pretty anchorage! I had to eat and it was happy hour so the place right across the way was perfect, dog friendly, and it was happy hour! Met a lovely couple there from WI too!

Time to head back for the first sunset at anchor and prepare for the first night.  On the way back, I met a nice young guy from central california flying the CA flag.  We hit it off and talked boats, cruising and the lifestyle.  He came later to pick me up on his "dingly" and showed me where to get free water, and of course we stopped for ice and diet coke!

Sunset came and it was purdy.

Now for the evening.  I set the drift alarm on the plotter and downloaded an app for my phone.  I was worried about the batteries running lights, plotter, and accessorries all night so I turned it off completely since I was comforatable with the phone app that I had beeen using.  Also, the alarm would be right next to me IF it went off.  2 AM, and of course it went off!  My first experience of being blurry eyed and heading topside.  I already knew what to do, let out more road, take new bearings in the distance and feel the anchor rope for vibration.  All seemed fine so reset the alarm and slept the reast of the night.

Day 2, May 10

Another, just the way I had imagined it moments, with the exception of forgetting the tea kettle.  Heated up the water on my little coleman stove, poured it into the french press, loaded up a travel mug and threw the dogs on the dinghy for morning potty on the beach.  No accidents all night!!!!

I woke up in a lot of pain though.  My shoulder was acting up and it felt like the bones in my neck were in a vice and being crunched.  Popped some advil and layed down for a bit.  I got hungry and what I had on board did not seem satisfying so I went to a bakery/bistro across the way because the pictures online look amazing.  What I disappointment!  My big pet peeve, places with a great waterfront location and a captured audiance so they ignore the food.  Frozen potatoes that were still cold so I asked them to heat it up.  What happens when you put eggs in the microwave and over cook them?  They turn to rubber and my western omlet did, but at least the potatoes were heated through.

When I got back, I had a bit of anxiety about not wire tieing the anchor shackle so I pulled it up, did it, and reset it.  Again, if I just move, I'll keep going and resist the temptaion to rest.  Once I had the momentum, I saw my new young friend working away on his girl so I went to work on mine.  It only took a couple of hours but now everything is in its proper place, for the ICW anyway

I took a quick look at the next leg of my route south.  My original intention was to take on 10 miles per day.  Good for me and good for the kids.  I look over the anchoranges listed on cruisernet and there are only a few between Ft. Lauterdale and Key Largo.  Anchoring is a big issue hear and unwanted by most homeownders.  However, as I understand it now, it IS leagal to drop anchor anywhere outside a marked channel and the worst than can happen is a knock on the hull asking you to move on.  That kind of changes everything.  Hurrican season is really a non issue because there are plaenty of places to duck for cover, especially in marsh lands.  That being said, I am in NO hurry.  When I see a place that looks nice for me and the kids, and if my body hurts, I will drop the hook even if the whole day only amounted to a short distance.

More importaintly, many have forgotten what I am all about and what this trip is all about.  By Road and Sea, my dogs and me!  It is NOT a sailing adventure!  The ICW is one of the reasons that I came out.  The Keys were not even in the cards until I learned more about them and realized the dangers of single handing to the bahamas.  If I get there with another crew member, great.  If not, no loss!  I have seen it all through videos so I put it into the class of going to Mexico on a cruise ship.  You have to do it at least once, and I did, but I swore I would never do it again and dealing with tourist imigration has no appeal for me.

Easter Introspection...Chapter 1, CTS......

If you know anything about me, you know I have a book percolating inside of me, Chasing the Shade.  For fame? Fortune? Recognition?  None of the above.  I have to package my life story, and lifelong relationship with the only one that matters, for a single audience!  I feel it's the greatest legacy that I can leave.  It's such an unbelievable story that I was once diagnosed as being bi-polar because nobody can really go that high or that low.  I did, it's all factual, witnessed and, thanks to technology, a lot of it is documented and corroborated.  But on this day, I will shine a light small aspects.......

As a young boy about 10ish or so, the local Southern-Baptist Sunday school bus would rumble up on Kentucky St. in the gang infested neighborhood of East Bakersfield.  It was a welcome respite for a single mother of a brother and sister that fought ALL of the time, lit bathrooms on fire (sister), and threw rocks at windows (little toe head that birds loved as nest-building material, I was throwing rocks at THEM!!!.)  It was all before my own age-of-understanding but I loved Sunday school where everyone was so kind and the reality of my existence in such a bad area was left at the folding doors of the bus.

To skip over the many details, I was baptized in the Kern River and then again at the alter. It was a personal thing, even at that age, and nothing that my family had anything to do with or participate in. It unknowingly set the foundation for the rest of my life.  As a boy, I remember walking past churches and being on my best behavior. From an early age, I made a commitment to never use the Lords name in vein and to hear it used as an accepted part of the English language, in seemingly every form of entertainment, falls hard on my ears and makes me cringe.  This was the honeymoon phase when I was a baby christian and just a baby in life.

My life would have taken a whole different direction had I stayed in Bakersfield where I was encouraged to learn welding to work in the oil fields.  Thank God I had a natural curiosity of these new things called computers and I would spend every free moment either riding the city bus to a basic computer programming course, or the local Radio Shack to play with the new Tandy!  This will all come full circle later.

Skip ahead to the early teen years, working graveyard, sleeping on the beach (you know where!) in the mornings, living hand to mouth for every meal and stitch of clothing, feel sorry for me yet?  Don't!  I had the life and never really wanted for anything!  I was surrounded by others just like me, but I was different. I didn't steal, connive, practice deceit or victimize others to survive.  Angel?  Hardly!  I did many, many things that any kid left to his own devices without constraints would probably have done.  Any harm I did was to myself and any offense I caused was to my heavenly father who I wasn't particularly close to at the time.  Then came Angie!  Of all of the girls around the beach, why her?  She wasn't even a beach girl! I met her through her sister, who's couch I was crashing on at the time.  Why her? She had that same thing in her that made me different and, even though I didn't recognize what it was at first, her beauty radiated as I saw her for the first time through my sleepy eyes, bent over cleaning the toilet in her sisters house that she came to visit.

Speed ahead, she introduced me to Calvery Chapel and Chuck Smith. The christian punk music brought me back, Chuck made me stay.  It was familiar and comforting and helped me to kind of make sense of a somewhat odd existence.  Let's call this this first weeeeee of the roller coaster.

From a life perspective, I was caught up in the beach life, working at the local bars, drinking excessively before I was legally allowed at every bar on the peninsula, and everything else that goes with it.  I found myself doing odd construction jobs too, generally as a helper chamo.  I was tearing off roofs for a local contractor that just happened to land a large project where there were not enough bodies to throw at it.  They taught me the basics of how to install a shingle roof and then left me on my own on a building the size of two football fields joined together at opposite angles. When I was done with one building, there was another with my name on it.  I worked piece-mill, meaning I got paid for how much I did.  The method of keeping track was to tear off a piece of the wrapper of each bundle of shingles and put it in my pocket, 3 bundles to a 100 sqaure ft, 10 bucks per 3 pieces of paper.  For the first time, I was in control!  My only limitations were the amount of daylight that I could work. I was rich, as far as I knew! The catalyst that changed my life's direction.

That little something that made me different manifested itself in my work ethic and my early OCD made my work impeccable.  These traits resulted in me starting and growing my own roofing company into one of the largest in the state.  Technology came into play as I was able to automate parts of the business that nobody else had, up to that point.  Thank you early childhood training!  Successful by all accounts by the tender age of 25!  But, it was my work ethic and OCD that made it so.  I was still a continuation school drop out so when a bump in the road (housing crash) happened I had no defense and my success proved to be fleeting.  A blessing in disguise for so many reasons.

Losing my first business was a depressing experience and I really had no clue what I would do next.  My mind was awash with everything dark and bleek.  I was attending church at the time, kind of bouncing around to friends churches.  It had nothing to to with the message or the teachings but everything about who had the best music.  But, the message comes by natural osmosis and it was all brought into play as I sought help from a therapist that everybody in my family had gone to!  The one man that I credit everything to, Frosty Hickum, gave me an early clinical diagnosis of "Guarded," but his highfalutin title of Director of Mental Health for OC, went out the window, and so did paying him, as he wrapped his loving arms around me.  He was a deacon in his church so the marathon 6 hour sessions that he spent with me always had a biblical justification for where he was taking me.  I had the foundation but had run out of my own strength.  My childhood really caught up with me and I realized that I was psychologically stunted by how I grew up.  He gave me a way, a path and a series of baby steps and confidence builders to just keep taking the next step.  I'll never forget his words, "you are the smartest uneducated person I have ever met!  If you can match that native intelligence with book smarts you will be dangerous!"  Surely you are smart enough to take the GED!"  That led to a whole series of "you proved that you can do X, surely your smart enough to do Y."  This continued all of the way through USC!

Time to hit the 10X fast forward button!  Because of my early teachings, Frosty, the families that adopted me, the Monkey, the hundreds of friends around the world, no challenge is too big because "if I did that, surely I can do this......"  When all paths lead to failure because the challenge is far to big, I am the guy to take it on and take it on with INTEGRITY!  My business dealings have placed me squarely in the cross hairs of the SEC, FBI, and the Federal Postal Inspector where they were desperately looking for guilt by association.  Assets were frozen, no representation, no money but it was my integrity that brought me out of it unscathed.  When you don't lie and have nothing to hide, it's not hard to keep track of the facts. This all happened during my second financial collapse, the .com bust, the next lull of the roller coaster, and I found myself with a huge ascent before the next weeeeeeee that was in no way visible to me as the top was shrouded in dark clouds.

Needless to say, it was the most profound "if I could do that then I can do this" moments. Over the next decade I accomplished more than I had ever dreamed of sitting on the docks of the harbor of Newport as a boy.  I've done things, seen things, been exposed to things, participated in things, owned things, played with things, that people can only dream about.  Not once, not twice, but as the normal part of my existence.  Who was responsible for all of this?  MEEEEEE!  I did it!  All me and my vast intelligence!  I'm unstoppable!  Nothing can break me down!  It will just continue to get better and I will be more powerful and make more and more money!

Third and most devastating financial collapse:  The great Recession!

I never imagined that I would be the economic victim of my own success and become the poster child for the unemployed because I was too expensive and too experienced. It was absolute Hell!  Lost my money, my house, my cars, private schools, retirement, college fund, health, mind, body, identity, peanut, friends......................................... Needless to say, I was depressed.  All of that coupled with the other side of the parental structure in disarray, I could do nothing but go to THE park every single day and just sit and drown out my head with earphones in my ears and very loud music! My mindset was still "I I I I have to pull myself out of this! How can I I I I possibly pull this off when I have fallen so far????" There was no "if I did that then I could do this" frame of reference to draw from. One day merged with another of me watching the homeless emerge from the bushes every morning and jockeying for position under the trees.  As the sun moved, they moved.  They were chasing the shade, all day, every day.

10X button again, and the purpose of this post, where I will try and bring it all full circle..........The series of events that happened were God driven, plain and simple, no other explanation and for more reasons than I have room to write.  The highlights in basic order: Brother brought me a copy of Purpose Driven Life to the park.  "Just read a chapter a day, that's what you are supposed to do."  Read it all that day, highlighted, notated and circled all of the things that I disagreed with and was prepared for a spirited discussion.  After all, this was not my first rodeo.  I presented my arguments and he just smiled at me with grace and lovingly invited me to Saddleback with he and his family. I had been surrounded by other masters-of-the-universe atheist types and I have to admit, my heart was hardened and dark, especially given my own depressing facts of the matter.  I broke down into an emotional wreck before the sermon even started!  It was the music again!  Instantly I understood the error of my ways and how far I strayed off the path that had been laid before me on the bus, in the river, at Calvery Chapel, the teachings of Chuck, Frosty...............How I took the faithfulness and blessings of my God and took full credit for everything in my life from Dock to Park, but not the park!

I read Purpose Driven Life, again, and again, and again...... I was looking for the nuggets than I could hang on to, the truths that could not be disputed that I knew were true from my own teachings and own experiences.  I found two that I still hang on to.......  The first line in the book, "It's NOT all about YOU!" and "God is all you need when you realize God is all you Got!"  Again, so thankful that I have a LIFE and RELATIONSHIP to look back on with clear points of where I strayed off of the path and what the results were.  I had finally reached the end of myself!

Now my daily routine changed!  I would still go to the park but now Chasing The Shade had a whole new metaphorical meaning.  Now I had a lot of catching up and reconnecting to do.  Circumstances hadn't changed but I had.  I was the prodigal son, for real, with no signet ring or fattest calf but I would spend my time at internet cafe's soaking up everything I had pushed away.  None of it was new but it was different because it wasn't faith but factual, based on a life lived full of blessings that I I I distorted.

5X fast forward.............I still spent days in the park but I didn't sit.  I cleaned trash, I talked to people, I let the kids play with Peanut, I talked to and helped the shade chasers.  During one of my introspection's, and with the God filter back in place, the story of Elijah just popped into my head;  a big powerful biblical figure that was so scared he hid in a cave. God came and whispered in his ear "how long are you going to stay here?"  My answer was "show me how to get out of this!"  He did, we did, here we are.  Fully restored into the best version of myself, ever, and we are not talking financially but he took care of that too!

I soon began to actually enjoy my time in the park and I still go back to this day.  The faces have changed but the vibe and rhythm is still the same.

Taking everything into account and on this Easter Day, here are my foundational truths:

1. More of him, less of me
2. I am the truth, the light and the way. NOBODY comes to the father except through me.
3. Be a good steward with the gifts that God has given you
4. Do good deeds in secret and store your treasures in heaven. If you get your pat on the back here then you are paid in full.
5. Be a shining light by your example and by your words so that God may be glorified (the purpose of this post)
=

Top 5 on my list and each has it's own reasoning.  The only thing I will justify so there is no confusion, Betty is a blessing from God, Xiffy is a blessing from God, the Kids are a blessing from God, the Monkey is the biggest blessing from God.  I had different plans for each and he said "here is something better!" I do what I do because of foundation principal #3!

So, with a life full of demonstrable, factual blessings that turned a boy like me into a man like me, factual coarse corrections, and one GIANT smack-down that my daughter calls "the Dog Whisperer" type correction, I wish you a happy Easter! I love my truths to be based on facts! Jesus, came, he died, and he rose...for us...all factual.  Look it up.

Last parting question, what shade are your chasing?????

outline

go forward, I went up the mountain

The road trip experience and thoughts.  On a time limit to meet xiffy but still a relaxed pace.  I learned to really love the road life with the various rest stops, taking showers at truckstops, eating at every waffle house along the way and there are a ton of them!  Betty was a rockstar the whole way.  Only stayed in one hotel for one night the entire way. More interested in making time than sight seeing, especially knowing there is a leisurly return trip.  Franklins bbq?  Absolutely.

hardest part of the whole drive was getting to the 15 in C

Arizona getting stuck p

New Orleans, down burbon street and then google maps went insane taking me back to the freeway into the poorest part of the city and it was SCARY.  So may cars on blocks...... Longest train ever right in the middle of the worst part of town.  It reminded me of working in south central after the riots and always giving yourself a way out at a stop light.

Texas. It's hard to live in a degenerating society full of gang bangers, crimimals, drugs, no moral compass, everybody out for themselves......turn on youtube and get a depressing view of our society.  Some people, and the population is growing, are just the scurge of the earth and should not be entitled to share normal society with people trying hard to live a good life and contribute.  I could not help but think of australia when I was driving through tx and the history of shipping prisioners and convicts.  Texas has all of the open land we need to send the worst of society there.  Want to build a wall Trump?

Alabama, the guy that recognized the sticker and told me stories of his time there with the thickest southern accent.  Reminded me of when I came to newport after bakersfied and how I stuck out like a sore thumb with my cool and totally fashionable wrangler jeans, la tigre collard shirt and while leather nike tennis shoues with the red stripe (all of the rage in bakersfield!)

Kemah tx was my favorite

Louisiana probably the friendliest.

Drivers all along the 10 east.  speed yes, lane discipline like the autoband, yes.  tailgating at 85 miles and hour?  Where are you going??????

Honking in florida, blinkers, cutting off, tail gating.  Silver alerts?  still looking for all of the old people who worked their whole life to retire in florida.

Food along the way.

Waffle hosue
Kema frog legs,.....
Texas BBQ
Acme Oyster House was a no go




Florida is not what I thought it would be

lessons learned

icw, dredging, backwoods unmarked, very narrow, celebrated open water only to run aground twice and now I am anxous to get out of the icw with all of the hazards for a sailboat.  It's not by chance this is a power boat communtiy where they don't face the same hazards

Gulf stream, just don't want to get corkswrewed for miles.  Xiffy can take whatever is thrown at her but I can't and neither can the dogs.

Winds.  North, no go, south east is prevailing so the further south, the easier the sail.  Westerlys are rare but that would be the easiest sail for the crossing and probably get an eastery coming back so it would be downwind as well.



Bottome line, I can zip through all of these places just because its new but it get's old in a hurry.  Newport is my home and the only place on earth that moves me inside.  however, i do miss squirrl runs to oceanside, moro bay, rincon, ventura harbor, channel islands harbor,  I'm pretty much a local at those places now too.  What I am done with and have it out of my system

"hope you look for what you are looking for?????"  LOL  Not running, not seeking, just enjoying.  I have a history of doing big things in my career and to just stop that is very hard so to not have a big project or a big adventure with a big moutain to climb, and the feeling of accomplishment that comes with it, I miss.  Not at all bragging, in fact it took me moments of clarity and examination to realize not how blessed I am but how blessed i have been.  Still things I can't figure out or understand why but I realized it is, and always will be, beyond my understanding, I just move forward.  Sometimes I just have to stop at the base of the mountain and await further instruction and not climb it.

Future, Failures and FEARS!

What I Thought When I Started the Sea Portion and Why I Thought It

My love of the pacific ocean is derived from my childhood and no other national park, desert sunset, mountain peak, majestic lake, or inland adventure of any kind can give me the feeling that the Pacific does.  There is such an emotional pull. The view of atop Superior looking down on my past or turn the corner on PCH to see Crystal Cove reveal itself touch a part of me deep inside that no other place in the world can but the beauty of Big Sur, Carmel, Montery and the like, the majesty of Moro Bay, the solitude of the Northern Coast, the natural beauty of the PNW, there is nothing like it in the world of which I have basis for extensive comparison. When times are good, I want to share my history and love with anyone that will listen. When times are bad, it is my place of solitude, mindlessness and escape. However, my love has always been on the shore peering out onto the horizon.  Sailing was something I always admired but never thought attainable, I just never had the opportunity to learn, the cash to burn, the knowledge of what it really takes.  Now I have two out of three and I am working on the latter.

I was thoroughly enjoying my new life as a nomad with a couple of rescue dogs traveling the whole of

the west coast with plans to go even further.  My home is Newport Beach and after time on the road, the feeling of getting back to a familiar environment with familiar faces would outweigh the joys of traveling.  In those times I would return, I would slip back into a familiar routine of people, places and OCD.  It also included an abundance of downtime looking for new adventures, which are hard to come by in such a familiar place.  I don't know where the idea came from, or what motivated it, but I suddenly found myself in sailing school. If you have read previous post, you know the story so we can skip ahead.

I am called the grasshopper for a reason. I want what I want, when I want it and usually, I want it now, I put little thought into the reasons why I should wait.  In an RV, that was fine.  I had to learn to make wider turns and how not to burn it down.  I knew how to drive so if calamity happened, I would be protected physically by the rolling four walls that surrounded me and the insurance would pick up the tab.


Once I learned to sail, that was it! I could now expand my love of the pacific to include things that I never dreamed of.  So now, I have the gotta wannas, and it is not possible to talk me out of it! I did what I do and the series of comedies and tragedies brings us to this place in time.
,
Sailing is a different animal than the RV, in so many ways i.e. purchasing, fixing and maintaining. Not knowing what I didn't know would kill me. But not knowing what I don't know has never stopped me because I will know with experience.  I learn by doing, that is my nature. However, educated people do not do quasi research that only supports a particular position but, I did. I wanted the dream to become a reality so desperately and so quickly. Aside from the romanticized videos of COUPLES circumventing the globe, I took particular interest in those that said they had zero sailing experience when they started but now seemed to be as comfortable under sail as they would be behind the wheel of a small automobile. I got excited by articles that said things like, "you just get on board into open water and start pulling on lines to see what they do....." Afer all, that IS my motus operandi in all things and it has worked quite well for me.

Leading the pack, Xiffias!

If you have followed along, I was blessed with a Cal 25 sailboat and as soon as the motor was working properly, I headed out for open ocean. No life jacket, no real understanding of Xiffias, no thought of things going wrong or what my response would be when they did, no idea how to work the VHF or who to call on my cellphone if I even had service out there.  I just wanted to be out there and, If I was really lucky, see some marine life.  Each time I went out it was during calm seas and the worst thing that happened, thank God, is seaweed getting tangled up in the propeller.

But then it all changed, in the confines of the harbor after a great trip out, disaster struck. Xiffy still bears the scars from that day but she hides them well. Me however, I was changed immediately. Once back on dry land, I ran far away scared and humiliated with my tail between my legs.  I had to deconstruct the event over and over in my mind to make sense of it all.  The problem was, I did not have the experience to draw from to come to the conclusion that "if I had only done this" or "next time I will do that."

Now I knew what it was to end up in the water in a moment of panic;  Now I knew what it felt like to see the boat drifting away; Now I knew that it was almost impossible to get back on the boat with its current configuration.  The actual event is not what scared me! I was in a closed harbor and I could swim to safety and just let the boat do its thing.  It was the thought of that exact thing happening on one of my thoughtless excursions out into the ocean.  Things got real in a hurry and safety became paramount.  My mentor, henceforth, mackrat, just rose in stature from overly-cautious, cantankerous old salty dog to sailing God. I learned what true surrender meant over the next couple of days as I thought through everything.  If he says no, I listen but I still question.  Not to be difficult but because he will not be with me in every situation and I want to know why he thinks the way that he does and what corner I am not seeing around.

What I Think Now and Why I Think It

I have some good experience on Xiffy now, mostly under motor around the harbor.  The open areas of the harbor do not pose any significant challenges because of my life long experience but the tight quarters were a challenge with boats and people, especially tourists with no sense or understanding of rights of way or basic etiquette.  But the dock posed the biggest challenge, coming and going.  With the placement of the motor in relation to the rudder, the effects of the wind on such a lightweight boat and my own technique that was not at all refined yet, it was a hard learning curve to get to the point that the butterflies left my stomach.  Now we are there and I have been tested various times with differing circumstances, winds, and obstacles to overcome. Each one is an experience that I can put in my pocket and now I handle the boat with confidence, IN THE HARBOR!

Experience has also taught me that I am not ready for open waters.  One day on choppy seas that mackrat laughs at, seeing how the boat gets tossed around, thinking of my previous disaster, and thinking of my dogs, the physical demands, working on the for-deck in those conditions, or worse, there is still much to learn in the way of technique, safety precautions and anticipation and most importantly, who to call, and when, if things go really bad. If I go into the water again, I want to be sure that it is not in a panic and that I have done everything to the boat to prevent it, for myself to be prepared for it, and a plan for any experience with a real probability.

So we get to Xiffy and how prepared she is.  She is water tight and very sturdy.  The VHF works perfectly and I do a radio check every time I go out.  Moreover, it is current enough to have a DSC button.  Why is this important?  Anything I do will be single handed and this is the final act of desperation if I cannot physically call a Mayday.  If I push the button, it will at least transmit my identity and location, that is if it were hooked up to a GPS!  Did I have that? NO! Do I have it now? Absolutely, but only after a false start.

As ready as she is though, she is a completely manual boat.  No furlers so sails are raised/dropped by hand; no lazy jacks so I wrestle with the sails flaking them as I go; no Windlass so anchoring will be by my alone.

Moving on to the next safety issue, is the standing rigging (the things that hold the mast up) ready for whatever comes my way? No!  I get teased all of the time for not having my sails up but this is the reason. The issue was discovered in a video I posted online on a moderate day. I received an urgent text from makcrat.  His instructions were never to do that again because he noticed the inner stays were flapping in the wind and that I was lucky the mast had not come down.  Great!  Something else to think about that I had not considered.  I did a lot of research on "tuning" the rigging and it is pretty straight forward, enough to get me on the harbor under sail on a calm day, but it will be professionally inspected and tuned before I take any kind of trip.  I have learned that assurance of, and confidence in, your boat is critical and I cannot say that I am there yet.  I know her history of racing in the open sea and I can look around to see that no expense was spared, but she sat for a while and a conversation with the previous owner is not possible.  Relying on my own understanding will never give me the full confidence so thankfuylly, not only is mackrat my guiding light but I have access to the skipper that won the class nationals with this boat and he HAS the intimate knowledge that I desire so.

Now on to the bigger question, am I ready physically and mentally for what I am about to undertake? Are the dogs ready for a life of being tossed around on a boat for hours on end.  The answer to both is NO!  For me, the physical limitations have really come to light.  My back is what my back is and sailing, especially single handing, is as hard as it is.  Then I have the shoulder that was injured recently and has not been the same since.  The neck with the herniated discs; the arthritis in the back and hands; the knee that is starting to act up and is quite painful when it does; the overall stamina and how I get worthless in a hurry once my energy is depleted.  I never pay attention to these things!  I push through them, until I can't, and then I rest.  Obviously this will not even be an option on the water.  So what to do?

I plan to get on a regimine to streangthen the muscles and build up the stamina that I will be able to test and confirm the results as I progress. But there is a burning quesiton in my mind that I have no answer for: what am I going to do, not if, but WHEN I throw my back out? Pain is one thing, OUT is another. Cant stand, can't walk, I am called Mr. Peanut when that happens because my body is so contorted by spasm.  I wish I could keep typeing here to lay out my plan, but I don't have one. I do know that If I have any chance, I have to figure out an Ice strategy!

My research now has really gone the other way altogether.  Rather then feeding the dream with unicorns and rainbows, I look for worst case scenarios in the form of videos, articles and questions to those that have been through it.  I was enamored with flying one of several racing spinnakers that came with Xiffy, with the carbon fiber pole and achieving racing speeds, all on my own!  And then I learned all about accidental jibes, Chinese jibes or whatever you want to call them.  I watched many videos very carefully and when such a thing happens it can be devastating.  I observed that most had a spinnaker flying and it was just a simple shift of wind that would cause things to go catty-wampus in a hurry.  But more importantly, I never saw a single instance of a single-hander going through the recovery process. Rather, I saw many accidental jibes with an experienced skipper at the helm with a capable crew that followed verbal commands, and there are many, to pull the spinnaker in and upright the boat.  Take my physical limitations and my experience level into consideration and the only question now is, do you want to buy a spinnaker sail or carbon fiber pole?

In the vein of what I call negative research, or disaster planning, I viewed many distress calls and understand the importance of communicating the facts e.g. position, boat specifics, lives on board, urgancy level, X-Ray-India-Foxtrot-Foxtrot-India-Alpha-Sierra, etc...; I have learned the importance of becoming a psuedo metorologist, plotting charts, reading charts and hazard markers, audible signaling, nav lighting basics of when, why and what it all means.  I have seen docking disasters as well as docking mastery under all conditions.  I have read about pirates boarding the boat; I have watched many MOB drills; I have seen engine failure, sail failure, rigging failure, and demasting (scary!)..... With all of this negative research I could easily slip into the mindset that I will never be prepared so I have to get back to just going and learning by experience. Otherwise, I would never go!

Before I head out I know I need some basic safety fundamentals and equipment, a lot of which has already been addressed.  I am not afraid to die at sea but not in a panic for lack of preparation!

Now the fun part.......Future Plans!

Once I have learned enough in my own environment,  in and around the harbor or within 10 miles of shore where all of the landmarks are so familiar, and under myriad conditions, I will embark on an inaugural trip to Catalina.  Everything I have seen and read indicates a motor out with a nice sail back in.  Certainly not my first time to the hill that meets the horizon that I grew up with, but definitely the first time on my own and on such a small boat!  As I write this, there is a race taking place with teams of outriggers going there and back.  Really? False confidence sets in again!

I think I will learn a ton from that trip about myself, the kids and Xiffy and, with that newfound knowledge, I hope to have a debriefing with mackrat, get any work done that I require, hone some techniques and then move on to the next leg of the overall journey. First though, I should probably learn how to drop and anchor and pick up a mooring!

Next step, move the boat North for several reasons.  First being the bottom paint.  It is the final, and most costly, to-do item left to be done to be able to call Xiffy fully resurrected and restored to her former magnificence, just as the previous owner had planned.  Needless to say, work like this is much more cost effective if performed any place other than Newport Beach, about half the price actually.

More importantly, the location fits perfectly into the bigger vision of harbor-hopping for the next year! I have inspected every significant marina from San Diego to Moss Landing and here is what I know. Going northbound is a lot of work and a lot of motoring due to prevailing winds, so south under sail is the way to go.  Having said that, the further up the coast I can go, the longer sail I will have south and the more marinas, harbors and coves I can hop.  Too far North, however, poses a real problem and dangers, doable but not fun at all so what would be the point.  So let's look at options......

Channel Islands Harbor Entrance

I have spent an abundance of time in the Ventura/Oxnard area and that seems to be the sweet spot.  I love the calmness of the community, especially Channel Islands Harbor as there are no real draws for tourists.  The downsides are food, shopping and entertainment options.  Shopping is close by and convenient but the neighborhoods can be a little dicey.  The area is very Betty friendly and she is a familiar vehicle to the local authorities due to her unique look and branding.  The dogs love it there and it is very familiar and friendly with big open areas of grass and an abundance of friendly beaches.  Cost of course is a consideration too.  At a third of the cost of what I am paying now to be in Newport, it is less than someone could rent a small room for!

Ventura Harbor

Ventura Harbor, on the other hand, is slightly more expensive, touristy with the Village, has my favorite restaurant right there and a lot more of a social scene.  The propinquity of the boat yard is convenient so the bottom painting, and other work on the hard, would be a breeze.  I have talked extensively with the marina manager and the boat yard about the details and the process and they are very reassuring and informative. Very dog friendly and guests would probably enjoy it more. The drawbacks are 1. it is not Betty friendly for more than 2 days per week WHEN I am allowed to stay on the boat and 2. seems to have a lot more crime in the harbor than most with outboard motors and other equipment knicked right off of the boats!

A choice will be made soon between the two.  The plan is to only stay long enough to get the work done, become familiar with the harbor and local islands (3 months) and then move on, South under sail of course.  Ventura makes sense for this reason as well since the first hop would BE to Channel Islands Harbor transiant dock!

To understand the plan, just look at a map from Ventura heading south and look at every marina and cove along the way.  Destinations would include MDR, Santa Monica, Long Beach, Huntington, Newport, Dana Point, Oceanside, San Diego........ and then the decision will be made whether to cross into Mexico. There are also a few cool little coves along the way with free anchorages!

Once concluded, the vision in my mind says that at that point I will be ready to execute the next part of the plan. Something will have to be done with Xiffy at that point. Hire somebody to sail/motor her back? Transport her by land? Sell her (gulp)?

That next part of the plan could be many things based on several factors.  Was it everything I thought it would be? Did I feel limited by coastal cruising and long for the blue waters more now than ever?  After all of the day trips, am I ready for weeks at sea?  How did my body hold up? How are my relationships? How are my finances?  How did the dogs like it? Have I overcome my fears?

If I can answer in the affirmative, it will give me permission to fully commit to the overall vision!  I will say nothing more about it other than to post this picture.

“Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain.” -Mark Twain

"a mans reach should always exceed his grasp" -Robert Browning

I'm Going To Need A Bigger Boat!

Patience Grasshopper!!