Steven Wright:  “If you are in a spaceship that is traveling at the speed of light, and you turn on the headlights, does anything happen?” Ol’ P’s response: when you are traveling at that speed, you don’t want to see lights … trust me.

Ralph Waldo Emerson:  “In skating over thin ice our safety is in our speed.” Ol’ P’s response: you wouldn’t want to bet a nickel on that, would you, Ralph?

Arthur Schopenhauer:  “Just remember, once you’re over the hill you begin to pick up speed.” Ol’ P’s response: Maybe I should have argued that point!

How can I claim to be the Ol’ Philosophizer without also being prone to offer a philosophizen point of view? The simple answer to that question is “I can’t.” No sir, there isn’t much sense in being a philosophizer if you’re going to keep all your pearls of wisdom to yourself. Those poor people who have to associate with me for any length of time (yes, Malden Yacht Club, I’m talking about you)  know that I don’t hesitate to promote the merits of whatever bizarre and bombastic brainstorms happen to occupy my thoughts at any particular moment. That’s not all bad because, in my humble opinion, I do occasionally come up with some inspirational tenets that sound good … to me at least. One of my favorites (and I’m going to start this movement … one of these days … as soon as I get some spare time … it‘s so hard to fit everything in when you‘re retired) is captured in the refrain “60 is the new 16.” Continue reading ‘Hey, Ol P, What REALLY Happened While Kayaking on Lake Champlain? [Part 11]’ »

Victor Garber:  “You can only do so much theatre.

Isabelle Huppert:  “But theatre is always a difficult experience.”

Juliet Stevenson:  “I sometimes think that theatre is a torture.”

Katherine Dunham:  “You know, this isn’t theatre like it used to be.”

The Malden Yacht Club is an unstructured association of people who like to kayak, and in that way we are not much different from any other paddling group. Yet we are different, or at least that’s what we prefer to believe. You see, we are more than just a kayak club, or more accurately, we are less than just a kayak club. You might say that we are part kayak club, part liar’s club, because we can’t deny that we are also a storytelling group. We tell stories when we paddle, even if paddling solo, which might be a bit disturbing, and we tell stories when we’re not paddling. Some of us tell stories at the mini-park. Some of us tell stories on the blog. Some tell them while they sleep. It doesn’t matter where we are or what we’re doing. If we are there, so are the stories. They don’t have to be about kayaking, they don’t even have to make sense, they just have to be tales that someone wants to tell. It should come as no surprise, then, that I am about to expose you to a story that could have been told at the mini-park without the raise of an eyebrow, but instead has found its way to the blog. It’s not about kayaking, it doesn’t even make sense, but what can you expect? It’s being told by women. Continue reading ‘Culture Is A Relative Concept’ »

Napoleon Bonaparte:  “History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.”

Mark Twain:  “What would men be without women? Scarce, sir, mighty scarce.”

The Malden Yacht Club trip to Lake Champlain in May 2008 was billed as the commencement of our quest to paddle the length of the lake, and there is no dispute that this is what occurred. But there was an alternate plan that has not received much attention, one that arose out of an effort to accommodate more paddlers. The geography of the area we were visiting decreed that for those who hoped to paddle the lake’s entire length, our first day on the lake would have to cover fifteen miles. We have paddled farther, but not so early in the season. For some of the participants, their year’s experience on the water had been limited to less than a half dozen times, and paddling muscles had yet to be worked into fifteen mile form. So we devised a substitute route for the first day which would allow everyone to paddle through the lock in Whitehall, and then let some of the group turn into South Bay for a shorter day. As luck would have it … by now you must understand that when things come together for the MYC, it is as a result of luck, not design … this astute mental fruit to distribute the offshoot group along a substitute route did suit this ol’ coot, as it fit very well with my plan for getting all the vehicles to the end point by the time the kayakers got there. I’m still somewhat incredulous that it all worked out … well, at least it all worked out on paper. Continue reading ‘Hey, Ol P, What REALLY Happened While Kayaking on Lake Champlain? [Part 10]’ »

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.

Johnny Depp:  “I’m an old-fashioned guy… I want to be an old man with a beer belly sitting on a porch, looking at a lake or something.”  [Note: see, Mrs. Ol’ P, I am just like Johnny Depp!]

Paula Poundstone:  “My Mom said  she learned how to swim when someone took her out in the lake and threw her off the boat. I said, ‘Mom, they weren’t trying to teach you how to swim.’”

Picture this. It’s Sunday, and you’re standing at the boat launch, having just finished your final preparations for your second day on Lake Champlain. You have 14 miles ahead of you, but based on yesterday’s paddle, you are not concerned. On Saturday, a slight breeze from the south helped push you quickly over the 12 mile course. In fact, you barely broke a sweat, even though paddling under a warm sun, nestled in a cloudless sky. Perhaps it was the combination of 2% humidity and 70 degree temperature that blended with several other factors to insure your constant comfort. Add in a wind assisted pace, flawless preparations, an early start, and masterful leadership, and how could anyone not expect that your entire group would get to return to home base early? Which is exactly what happened. Happily there, everyone was able to recover by ingesting wholesome, healthy fare, washed down by copious amounts of water and fruit juices. Finally, to cap a perfect plan, positively placid paddlers pranced to pleasing private places for peaceful purposeful pondering, and propitious philosophization. Now, rested, refreshed, and rejuvenated, you are all alert and eager, waiting cheerfully for today’s adventure to begin. It is at this point that you look around, and make a startling discovery. “This isn’t the Malden Yacht Club! I’m with the wrong group!” Continue reading ‘Sunday on Lake Champlain: Day Two For You Too?’ »