The Wedemeyer Family

I’ve been trying to get on-the-water experience lately so I can take my final practical test for the Georgia Tech keelboats. They keep telling me that I’m technically proficient, I just need more practice.

So, when I was asked if I would crew on a guy’s boat, I jumped at the chance. He warned me that since I was new, I’d probably have to do all the crappy jobs, but I was OK with that. I gave him my phone number, and we parted ways.

Fast forward 6 weeks and I get a phone call. Greg was sailing in a race on Sunday the 25th, and he needed an extra crew member. I thought it was my lucky day.

There were 4 of us on the dock in the morning: Me, Greg the Skipper, his wife Margaret, and their friend Mas. We all had a good time rigging the boat and getting ready to leave. Everything was fine until we shoved off from the dock. As soon as the dock was too far away, Greg turned into Captain Hook.

Before, he had been an obnoxious blowhard. Suddenly, he was a yelling, screaming demon. As the new guy, my job was to sit on the high side of the boat and balance it out. This was explained to me as, “Get on the rail…Get on the rail now, damnit…GET ON THE MOTHERFUCKING RAIL RIGHT NOW!”

To make a long story short, the entire day was like that. Greg screaming commands at the rest of us and then cursing us when we didn’t move fast enough.

The crowning moment of the entire day occurred when I was adjusting the fore-sail (the jib). Since my shoes were a little dirty, I had to take them off (“Who the fuck is getting mud all over the fucking boat?!?!”), and the deck was wet and slippery. So, as I was adjusting the jib (“Drop the motherfucking jib right now, god-damnit!!!”), the boat shifted a little and I slipped. The next thing I knew, I was rolling over the lifelines into the water. (Un)luckily, I was able to grab one of the lifelines. I thought that would be enough to keep me from losing the boat, but it only made things worse. As soon as I hit the water, I stopped, while the boat kept moving. The lifeline was pulled through my fingers, cutting my left hand up pretty badly.

So there I was, man overboard, in the lake. I didn’t have a life-jacket on, but I’m a decent swimmer, plus I had taken my sandals off. No one on the boat had seen me go over, so I yelled at them that I was in the water. The concern for my safety was overwhelming (“What the hell are you doing?”). They had to come around and pick me up, which took us from first place to 3rd to last, but at that point I didn’t care. It had been a shitty day, and now that I look back, I almost feel good that we lost the race. Call it karma. Plus, I learned a valuable new lesson: To finish the race, the boat has to have all its crew. So, if your skipper is being an ass, just go for a swim.

For those that don’t know, I’ve been struggling with a TiVo-like application called MythTV for a little over a year now. Technically, it’s a Linux-based PVR (personal video recorder) that is completely open-source. So, the software is basically free, you just need the hardware.

Unfortunately, you also need detailed Linux knowledge as well as tons of free time, of which I have neither. So, I have computer parts laying all over the floor of our new house as I attempt to get everything working. To make matters worse, it was working before, but I decided to “upgrade” and now it’s not working.

Anyways, even though it’s frustrating, it is progressing slowly. All the past year’s experience with MythTV and Linux has been a very good learning experience, even if it made me want to ram my head through a wall more than once. And, when I finally get my storage server / myth server set up with 500GB of storage it will finally be worth it.

There is one main problem with MythTV that can only be solved by better programming…better TV programming that is. The problem is: most TV is awful! When I actually have the Myth box up and running, I sit down to set up some recordings, and I realize that 99.9% of TV is dreck. Pretty much the only things I watch are Comedy Central (for the Daily Show) and BattleStar Galactica. Everything else is crap! A good PVR can free you from your TV’s schedule. Now if they could only invent something that could free TV from its terrible programming.

Dotty, our 3 year old Daschund/Cocker Spaniel mix was diagnosed with heartworms. From the extent of the infection, we guess that she’s had them for at least as long as we’ve owned her. The infection must have been in its early stages when we first got her, since she tested negative. Unfortunately, we let her heartworm prevention medicine lapse for about 2 months. It wouldn’t have prevented the worms, but if we had kept her up to date, the medicine company would have paid for the treatment.

The vet gave her a shot, apparently in her backbone. As you can see from the picture, they had to give her a nice shave. Now she looks like the dogs with the weird skin conditions, the ones that are cute, but you don’t pet because no one likes the thought of catching whatever is causing their hair to fall out.

Now, the final step of her treatment is to keep her calm for at least a month. From what I understand, the heartworms die, but their carcasses are not purged from the bloodstream. Instead, they are carried in the blood and can pool in the lungs. If Dotty gets too excited, she could die from a blood clot in her lungs. So, as per the vet’s orders, we are giving her Benadryl to make her sleepy, plus trying to stay calm around her.

Lucky for us, Dotty is one of the laziest animals I’ve ever seen. Keeping her sedated and calm consists of keeping her belly full. As long as she’s got a full stomach, she’s content to just lie in the sun and sleep. Hopefully, in a month, the worms will be gone and Dotty can get back to being lazy just for laziness’s sake.