Alexander Chase:  “A soft refusal is not always taken, but a rude one is immediately believed.”

Moses Hadas:  “Thank you for sending me a copy of your book (or link to your blog?). I’ll waste no time reading it”

When an organization has as its logo an outhouse in front of a background of crossed paddles, it is hard to envision the need for anything more. This simple, sensational, seminal symbol says it all when it comes to the Malden Yacht Club. The paddles signify our love of kayaking, while the outhouse … well, I think it’s pretty obvious how the outhouse applies to us in a multitude of ways. I could probably fill a blog post with outhousian references, and maybe I will some day …but not today. No, today I will limit myself to a brand new Malden Yacht Club symbol, one that is being unveiled for the very first time. Not intended to be as joyful apropos a privy approximal a pair of posed paddles, this new symbol portrays a harder edge of the Malden Yacht Club, which is quite a feat since the symbol itself is comprised mostly of soft edges. Perhaps that paradox is fitting given that this new sign’s reason for being is paradoxical in its own right. It has been created specifically to fill a need we never knew we had. And that, folks, is the need to occasionally say “No” … and to say it like we mean it! Continue reading ‘Now You Will Know How We Say No’ »

No, not kayaks, paddles and coolers. I am sure we all washed, dried and neatly stored that equipment at the end of last season. Seriously, The paddles are still in the back seat of my car, my cooler has empty bottles, and there are candy wrappers in the pockets of my PFD. I’ll get those things organized someday…

What I want to talk about is all the fancy technology that we all received (or gave to ourselves) for Christmas. You know, the GPS and cameras of all types. There a few things that we can do to make recording our trips a little easier and a lot fancier.

There is a tool that works with GPS data and pictures that will help create a map that shows the locations where the pictures were taken. With this tool we can create maps with links to photos, so viewers can see where individual pictures were taken. This works by matching the timestamp of the pictures with the locations from the GPS, this is called Geo Tagging. Which leads me to:

Set the CORRECT time on your camera !

This small chore makes several things easier when dealing with pictures from several people. Besides the Geo Tagging already mentioned, there is the fact that we share pictures. When I put the pictures on our webpage, there is no way to order them in a logical way. Each camera brand has it’s own naming scheme so I can’t sort by name. Sorting by date and time only works when the cameras are in synch. That leaves me to correct the time and date information or leave it to the viewer to make some sense of them.

One suggestion for those who carry both a camera and a GPS is to take a closeup picture of the GPS with the date and time displayed at the start of the trip. Any discrepancies can be easily fixed with that information. Thinking about this a little more leads to: Anyone or everyone can take a picture of a GPS screen.

I am not suggesting that we all form a huddle before each trip to achieve group synchronicity, although that could be fun.

A recent outing demonstrates the problem: I have received Sunday morning pictures from three different sources. Two had similar but wrong dates because the DST and EST change wasn’t updated. The third source has all the pictures taken at 1/1/1970 12:00:00 AM. Yes, one of those cameras was mine.

Please don’t feel that I am lecturing here, this is just a gentle suggestion. I am as guilty of having the wrong time as anyone else. I would rather see pictures with the wrong time than none at all.

Being open-minded people (some would say that this results from all the holes in our heads), we here at the Malden Yacht Club Blog encourage the expression of all types of thoughts - even those we cannot actively promote. We also understand that there are at least two sides to a story, although in the MYC there are usually two dozen (none of them good), and with that in mind we are posting the following accounts of an incident that happened last Sunday. EVERYONE, PLEASE do NOT try this on your own …or for that matter with a bunch of other people, either. Now for the accounts of the Bad Idea Man and Bullwinkle: Continue reading ‘Bullwinkle with a Bad Idea is Never a Good Thing’ »

Welcome !

The Malden Yacht Club has a lot to say. Well, at least a few members do. This is where you will find ranting, raving and idle chit chat.

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