Has HELL started to Freeze Over?

DISCLAIMER: While it is not within this arthur's personal experience  to have physically visited the place known as Hell, based on traditions of  the general populations belief of Hell being a physical place with in the hottest sections of the planet, the only other reference that claims first hand knowledge being the scriptures, I will accept that information as probable fact until other positive, verifiable proof is made available.

If you have been following this blog you are aware I posted a copy of a  fire breathing post I sent to Facebook corporation. Based on recent performance improvements in the return I am currently getting on my investment of time, it appears all hope is not lost  for the brainiacs at FB. It seems they  really do have the capacity to  comprehend the needs and viewpoint of their customer base,  IF you talk to them in terms they can comprehend.  Shorty after I sent  that post, I noticed a slight but steadily growing  increase in the number of assets I was receiving from my neighbors. Considering I have well over 600 neighbors, at last count, that is a refreshing difference. I can honestly say the assets I have been receiving lately are considerably more consistent  with the umber of neighbor I have.


Yesterday evening or maybe it was early this morning, I refreshed my Megapolis game and got a shock like I would never have anticipated.  For absolutely NO apparent reason that this arthur can ascertain, FB set me 500 Megabucks and a free building! At first I honestly  thought I was hallucinating. I looked up at the corner for the count and sure enough there were 52 Megabucks in my game.  WHO would have thunk it?

That's not all,  shortly after I spent the lion's share on finishing up a few projects that had one or two assets to finish  and expanding like it was going out of fashion, low and behold I found 50 additional expansion acts in my  game.  If this keeps up I may actually reactivate some of the games I gave up on.WELL DONE FB! Keep up the good work! I believe there may very well be hope for you as a  continued source of entertainment after all.

Facebook games: Dear Corporate

If you are a player and agree with this , copy,  paste and send a message to  to Facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/facebook

UPDATE: Less then 20 miniy=ureas afgter I postd this to facebooks page I received an emal form them offering me a " special".  Here is my response.

Me

To Megapolis by Social Quantum

Today at 5:49 PM

This message contains blocked images.

dear sir or madam, did you get my message I sent to Face book?  Why would you think emailing me is going to change my mind? increasing your aggression in marketing is not going to fix this!

On Friday, July 18, 2014 3:51 PM, Megapolis by Social Quantum <no-reply@mail.socialquantum.com> wrote:

Original post.

Dear Sir or Madam July 18, 2014

I am writing you to share my thoughts as a consumer and point out some major marketing FUBAR's.

Your goal is profit, same as any corporation. Your market is face book gamers. Failure to adjust to the constantly changing needs of your customer base in this economy is corporate suicide. It is obvious to me that you do not understand the psychological affect of current corporate policy, on your customer base. P.T. Barnum understood the value of a handful of nickles. Perhaps no one in your corporation is old enough to remember his business. His best known enterprise was the Barnum and BaileyCircus. Other corporations that understand this would be Walmart, McDonalds and other fast food corporations. These company stay in business making a HUGE profit because they know how to LISTEN to the customers. I have noticed that complaints on the forums go unheeded completely. You need in house input and if you are not going to do it thru the forums, may I strongly suggest you hire people who have lived the “ uneducated and dead broke” lifestyle as a consultant full time to compensate for the fact your current people have no clue as to how to meet this need due to no experience in this demographic.

Over the years I have played and quit many facebook games. I play video games to have fun in my spare time. Realizing it was just a cash cow for you took some of the fun out of playing so I quit. I have picked up playing off and on over the years. Recently I started playing megaoplis. I knew it's just a cash cow to you, but I figured what the heck it is something to do. Recently I have realized your cutting off the single largest growing demograpic group in your marketing base. You are sabotaging your customer base by cutting off the poor.

Just like there is old money and the new rich, there are the old poor and the new poor. Even the old poor want to have fun and some of them actually have the technology to be able to play online games such as facebook. You have however taken out the fun by making it to hard to have fun while playing and losing the customers that send gifts to those who have cash for things like megabucks. I speak from experience as one who has been there and lived that lifestyle. Yes, I am referring to even some who live in the homeless camps that spread across this nation.

The new poor have spending habits that they want to be able to continue even if they have to cut back on how much they spend. Playing online games have become a natural part of that. They want to keep “ normal” in their life as much as is possible. “Normal” fun for many of them includes playing online games.

People play online games to have fun and to fill asperations that real life attempts to destroy. Games are a way to meet the inner need to successfully accomplish a challenge that is reachable. This does not include the demographic of children who play but get frustrated easily so they quit. By sabotaging these three items, you are literally driving away the customers that contribute to your bottom line.

Case in point: Me. I don't know if you can track how much each person spends on things like megabucks, but as a matter of fact I dropped a couple of hundered dollars in this game over a couple of months. I want to say three to four hundred. Then I realized it was a never ending story and that there is always going to be assets I want to get that would always cost money so I slowed down signigicantly. The plan was when I wanted to hurry up and finish a particualr poject I would buy megabuks. I even expanded my neighbors list to compensate for the fact you raised prices so much I decided it was not worth it. Now someone has significantly slashed the return I should have gotten on my investment of time by limiting my available gifts to such a paltry amount that it is literally becoming a JOB to play. By destroying the “ fun factor” you are reducing your own customer base. If you can track activity of players you will see I am slowly spending less and less time playing. It is not nearly as much fun as it was when I started.

The practice of having gifts automatically go to projects I did NOT chose to start is another way the fun factor is being destroyed. If you insist on doing that, give the player the option of moving assets from one project to another. Yes, I see the “special offers”. That is not enough compensation for having my gifts ripped off to make me pay money to replace the fun your company removed.

Also you need to add a “ are you sure you want to spend this megabucks” on assets. The way it is set up now if te player acidenlty hits the add assets buttoin to many times it automatically spends megabuicks we are saving up to use on other items such as expansion.

You will, no doubt have a steady stream of new customers to replace the lose of profits. That fact does not cancel out the cold hard fact that corporate growth is hindered. Any thing that hinders a growing custmer base hinders profit. As the economy gets tougher and more customers get into harder economic times, you lose money. If you do not start accomodating the growing demographic of the new poor, your company will be guilty of breaking the single largest corporate commandment in history.

THOU SHALT NOT DESTROY YOUR OWN CUSTOMER BASE!

Barbie Rede

Keels, Keelboots, Angle Grinders and Yours Truly.

My logic was so simple. Get the boat up, get the area that will eventually sit on the bunk-boards sand off the bottom paint, and repaint.The rest I can do with it sitting on the trailer if I have to. When I read the instructions on the paint it says not to use it on cracked paint. OK So I have to take off the paint.  Tried using a sander.  Then tried two different types of paint remover that is supposedly safe for glass.
It's not gel coat and paint remover won't touch it except for a few spots where it is weak.
 The sanding idea was taking just to long. Slower then any thing remotely close to tolerable. Using sanding disk like there is no tomorrow, etc. I take the hint and go get a angle grinder. That works fine except for the fact the only angle grinder I can afford that has adjustable speeds is the Kawasaki. The reviews on Amazon were not great. Having no other affordable choice  in the adjustable speed selections, I decided to go with it and see what happens.

I am on my third angle grinder. Took the other two back, They just up and quit on me. NO warning, no weird sounds just boom., Nada, nothing, They both acted like they were simply unplugged.  OK I am at tractor supply talking to the sales lady ( CHARMIN IS THE BEST! ) and decide to go with a different brand. NO adjustable speed but I have to do something, this deal of constantly having to stop in the middle of work to replace the grinder got really OLD FAST! BEST IDEA for this trouble is KEEP YOUR RECEIPT!!!!

Decided on a dewalt. It was in my price range. The dewalt is a GREAT TOOL! It was kicking the paint off in record speeds. There is only one problem, It is TO MUCH HORSE! If it was just a bit smaller in diameter, and the handle was a bit easier on the hands, maybe I could have done it, That thing had some major power in it. Trouble  was after about 2 minutes of using it my hands were so wore out I could barely keep a hold of it  and work one finger up to turn the silly thing off! Such is life. I call up the dewalt company to see if they have any thing easier to use. This is not a product issue. This is a my hands are to darned small issue! NO such critter unless I want to go with a 7 inch at almost 200.00. OUCH! 

OK What to do? GRRRR! Took it back and got a another Kawasaki. Not wild about it. The ladies out there know I will be bringing it back. Honestly I'm not expecting a 40.00 grinder to be commercial grade.  I believe it is however reasonable to expect one lousy angle grinder to be able to grind a thin layer of epoxy paint off at least 25% of the hull on a 22 ' fiberglass sail boat with out going kaput on me! .Enough said about THAT subject!

SO far boat work wise, progress is slowly being made in spite of tools issues.

 I now have one extremely naked keel waiting on resin and cloth. I put a couple of coats of Rustoleum rust converter on it and it has been sitting out side doing just fine. For the record , in case any one is interested, the same sized keel fits both the 22' and 25 ' Mac-Gregor.  Thanks Sumter for that diagram that showed that.

 

 In a previous post I mentioned how small the space was that almost 400 dollars of fiberglass working tools took up. Realize that almost 400.00 did include a really big roll of cloth. Honestly I think if I bought another fat max tool box I could probably put them all in it and still  have plenty of room for the grinder, accessories, my sander and disk.. 

Honest folks,that is all there was.

For the most part I have the bunk board area bare on the flat parts. 

The keel boot is trying to make me crazy.   I poked around. The bottom paint goes up about as far as my 3rd finger into the hole. That's what 3 maybe 4  inches?  Not wild about it but I decided to see what a 7 inch disk is going to do.  Getting past  however far the disk will go is just not going to happen. I do not  know what kind of epoxy paint was used but the idea at this point is simple. Use acetone to wipe off all the bottom paint, Scrub like crazy. Repaint the deep parts I can't reach with a grinder with epoxy paint and refuse to worry about it!

I was seriously contemplating putting new glass all the way up to the rub rail.  If I am going to have this much hassle just getting the bottom done FORGET redoing the whole thing. I'm taking it up to maybe 4 inches above the water line for safety sake then THAT'S IT!

 In the middle of all this grinder work I find at least 3 spots in the hull that have to be ground out and repaired. Not big spots mind you. A crack on both sides of the keel boot  at the bow end, which I will attack with the dremel; a fairly deep ding maybe the size of a dime on the bottom and this little itty bitty pin hole that drips from the water that got into the boat this last rain we had. I never would have known it was there except the lid for the front hatch blew off. Thank Heaven for small  back handed blessings is all I can say. Yes, when I apply the resin it would probably have filled it and would have never caused me any trouble. Since I know it is there I am going to take a real close look at it under a strong lite inside and out. There is a spot inside along side the keel boot that I suspect may be the culprit.


Other then that, not a lot going on.  I finally have internet at the house again so post should come more often.  The house is empty! What in my area I can load into the van in an hour or two if I really had to. I have an ad in the paper to sell or rent the house. The yard is almost done. I have some stuff I am planting on the north side so it looks nice. Other then that its about  the boat as far as my to do list goes. All the van needs is  some shocks on the back. That I'm going to cheat on and have them installed.
 Had to take an unexpected trip up north last month. Other then the transmission having to  be rebuilt, it ran fine. Once we got the tranny fixed the van did great. Guess that was my shake down cruise land wise.  I averaged 12 mpg. Not great but hey its an old Chevy. 350 and still going strong. As long as I stay away form ethanol  I am OK.
It has finally started getting hot so If I can get up early enough in the morning to get out there and run the grinder I might actually get this done.  Thinking about getting a cheap 10.00 fan to put some breeze in and just get after it. I work for a while, take a break then get back at it until I  just cant hold it up for more then a few minutes. Then it is time to quit for the day. I am averaging maybe 2 to 3 square feet a day. Considering its working crouched under the boat or flat on my back holding the grinder up, I guess I'm not doing to bad for an old woman. 

Its coming along. Slow but sure. This boat is going to float with me in it! At this point I have exactly ONE GOAL1 That is take me, the dogs,m my van and this boat and go make a hole in the water. Anything else is anarchy!
I have been rethinking this idea of hitting the coast right away. I have to learn to sail this boat. I can do that at almost any lake in the country. Back when I first started researching all this I found out fairly fast inland ASA sailing lessons are a lot cheaper then in coastal areas.   Power Squadron classes are also on the check it out list.   There are a couple of lakes with in a 150 miles circle if I can't get this place under contract.  Its just a matter of continuing to put one foot in front of the other and I WILL get this done!
That's it for now.
Sail safe but SAIL!

Life has a plan.

Somehow the idea that hindsight will show the reason for all these delays. I will sure be glad when that day comes.  It is called being a parent. When your child has a real problem that you know they have to have help with, no matter how old they are, you suck it in and do what you have to do to get them through it, if for no other reason then so it is off your plate. There are some things no one can prevent or be prepared to handle and this last two months has been one of those!

I am so close to beings out of here and here I sit! Grrrrr!

One Day at a Time

Holes in hull to repair elongated keel pin hole are done. Fast look at drawing looked like it said 11/16".  WRONG! Had to have it redone. Still have not gotten around to climbing into boat to find keel pin to double check but hopefully it is done.  Have the rust converter put on one side. Decided to go with Rustoleum brand. It's cheaper and I have used it before, so I know what to expect and that it works. Other then that about all that is going on is putting one foot in front of the other and taking it one day at a time. I keep having this bright idea that I really am going to get out of here next month. That's been going on for what, over a couple of years now? The up side is I am making progress each month.
 Except for shocks in back, the van is ready to go short of a wiring issue. Rented a u haul trailer to get some work on house done and discovery I apparently have a wiring issue. ALMOST  NONE of the trailer lights worked right. Better now then at the last  minute but I tell you  all these little surprises are getting OLD!

Old man winter is still trying to slow things down. Still in first week of April we are having night time lows in the 30's? What is this? Have decided once I get stuff finished sorted and cleared out the house is going as is. no more work except for one circuit to hot water heater I need to reconnect. Other then that not a lot happening boat related.  Its all been about side work getting things ready to get boat busy.

I KNOW I WILL GET THROUGH ALL OF THIS! I will do it for no other reason then I an entirely to hard headed to quit, curl up and die.  Blame my ancestors. Scot, Irish, Welsh, German, English and if the stories are true a bit of Native American, but giving up is simply NOT AN OPTION!

Not much else to tell. Sail safe but GET OUT THERE!

It Has Been A WEIRD WINTER

South west Oklahoma is normally a 3 -6 week winter then you can pretty much count on warm days, usually around the first week or so of February,  gradually getting warmer. What I would really like to know is WHAT HAPPENED this year! WOW We have had a REAL WINTER this year. Several occasions of snow that actually lasted longer then the normal 12 to 24 hours and COLD like the North country! Do not have TV or internet at the house so I have not really been able to keep up . From what little TV I see it looks like it was this way all over Wow!
In between that and getting hit with what ever monster bug has been going around I'm running at least 2 weeks behind of plans. Seriously I woke up on morning a couple of weeks ago feeling like I'd been hit by a truck. Headache from the deepest darkest part of you know where, could not think, could not talk intelligently in words of more then 2 syllables, could not walk straight the ten feet to the john or the door to let the dogs out. Seriously thought I had had a stroke at first but was to sick to go to the hospital.  Dialing 911 was just to much effort.  The good news is, I can actually think and chew gum at the same time and  it is getting warm. 60's and 70's this week end and the keel is in the bail room ready to start putting resin on it. Got notarized copies of bill of sale and title and got those down to tag office so I will be legal once I get numbers and tag sticker on hull ( AFTER Fiberglass work is done.) .
Finally got around to unpacking the fiberglass order I put in a while back. Amazing thing, almost  400.00 worth of mostly tools and one 30 yard roll of cloth don't take up much room.  Except for the cloth it is all on a couple of small shelves in the back room waiting for me to get busy. Did get the first layers of cloth for one side of the keel cut and ready to go. I am thinking tomorrow night I will get in there  and start. Need to cut at least one more layer of cloth to fit then its resin, cloth, resin, chopped strand, resin and more cloth finished off with  white pigmented resin for a finish. It  may not look as professional as a shop but it will do the job which is all I really care about.  Then once that side is done its is flip it and repeat on other side and I'm good on the keel. Next I really need to get the bottom rudder rebuilt. Plan on just starting from scratch on some sort of frame and glass it in.  Have the tiller almost completely re-glued  and ready to sand down to refinish. Need to go get some laminating resin or wood glue. I hate the idea of buying a quart of resin for such a small job so I may cheap out on that one.

Decided to spurge and go to outback, This was a major disappointment. Last time we went several years ago a rack of lamb was just that. Now it is 3 little lamb chops, some mashed potatoes and green beans covered in butter.  can you say HIGH Cholesterol! It jut not worth the price or the trip any more.
Took some pics of keep  and progress. Cant quite figure out where they are on this new cell phone. Will post once I do.
That's about all for now. Sail safe but get out there!

I enter the 21st Century.

Monday night I took the plunge, I ordered my very first smart phone. I have had major reservations about it. Various groups i belong to  have IT persons in them and the talk has been about how they have tracking devices that record everything you text or do that you can't get rid of.  My final analysis is if they have nothing better to do then spy on me, our country must be pretty safe, as the rowdiest thing i do is get into some serious sailing sites  and maybe do a bit of research for writing on my other favorite subject.


Wednesday it came. There are days a good healthy scream is what is called for and Wednesday after noon was that day,. It was that or throw this brand new smart phone against the wall. NOTHING was going right,. It would not let me sign into face book or yahoo. Forget Google. I either got a message saying that the email address I gave been typing for years was bad or the password was bad or if those both passed muster then the server was having trouble, I gave up. Tonight i called customer service, at first they thought it might be a bad phone. As it turned out, all it needed was a bit of reprogramming which was OK with me as i really did not want to have to wait on a new phone to arrive,. '


'Why did I take the plunge?   INTERNET!
The silly thing has its own hot spot and it can tether to my lap top. If I had known that I would have done this LONG AGO!  The lack of a physical key board bothered  me at first but this one is actually not all that  hard to use like the first virtual key board I had, so its all good. It takes time to get use to applying the right pressure  and holding my fingers right to tap the key board but it is not impossible. The cheap service is only 2 gig of data a month which means I'm not going to be watching a lot of video and I kind of miss that. I like my YouTube instructional videos but I'll make do. AS long as Mickey D's and Applebee's are open I'm good.  The sale rep explained to me the government made a  law, data carriers have to offer you one of three choices which is why no more unlimited data. plans. You either get cut off  and pay more. or get cut off period or you can get throttle.  I can live with the slower  speed as long as it is not to terribly slow.  3 G in this area on the phone is not to bad. I  tried to watch a YouTube video last night  on the computer. It was buffering immediately . Hopefully  with the reprogramming we did today that will be improved. Time will tell as I  have not checked it yet. Get a 32 GB micro card and I'm going app happy. Active Captain is on the list!


Went kind of nuts on getting the equipment for galley. Assuming the stuff in storage down south is still there I am good to go.  Got a 2 burner Coleman camp stove and the oven that sets on top. As soon as that stove arrives I am baking me some biscuits and brownies!   I am surprised at how large the oven actually is. Not sure yet but it looks like I could bake a small chicken in it. Got a lot of things that have been on my wish list. Once I make sure a few technical details are taken care of I am getting a couple of gallons of resin, cloth etc and figuring out how many  stainless steel screws , bolts etc I need for the deck hardware. Then its down to the red oak for the backing plates, what ever wood I get for mods and deciding if I am going to send the sails out to be reconditioned. They are stained by mud daubers  and look kind of tacky. Well I'm off of here. Typing this out reminded me I want to down load the Active Captain app before I forget it.

Sail safe but OUT THERE AND SAIL!

Life is what it is: The keel

As I sit here looking at this tiny little puppie dog curled up next to me I realize all the drama of this last winter just dont matter.  Life is what it is. This last several months have been interesting to say the least,. The funny part is its the kind of stuff NO BODY wants to hear about so I will be nice and not go into it. It has been a winter of growth.
The good news is it APPEARS I MIGHT actually get out of here this season! The bucket list got a funding boost.  Granted the largest part of that boost is going on things I have to get done before I can sign off of this town,, that do not become part of a boat or a sailing kitty, but are 'have to' none the less.  This stuff I have been whittling down slow but sure for several years will now all get done in one fell swoop. Life does have it's good days.
So far this winter we found out the bottom needs to be completelyt reglassed over. Myabe I could get by with it as it is. After the keel, Im not going to risk it, It either gers reglassed otr it gets cut up!

 As I am grinding out what I thought was just cracks on the keel,  the resin started falling off literally in chunks,. The ONLY thing holding it together was the cloth.  This is not good. Repairable but not what I had hoped for.  Had to plan on waiting on resin so the idea was start stripping the  bottom down to the fiberglass since the paint is not going to take the  barrier coat I bought.  Turns out it is cracked all the way  up to the water line all the way back from bow tip to transom.  Some thing hit this boat and hit it HARD! You can see the one spot that is not cracked, It is a very neatly patched hole, the size of an old silver dollar maybe a bit larger about 3 feet back from the tip of bow. The rest is cracked. How deep does it go? I don't know. The inside looks good. I don't trust the out side.  The thought I cannot shake is just like the keel the only thing holding it together is the cloth, I am either putting a layer of glass over it all or it gets cut up. . 


THE KEEL

The original idea was to get it low enough to get the cracks ground out, refilled and painted. Well, by the time we got that far there was nothing left resin wise.

About the time we got her this far down  I decided it was time to pull the locking pin out completely and remove the keel pin and let her drop. I had to beat the keel pin out., She was bent a good solid 20 degrees and holding tight. Got her beat out and had myself tucked inside  braced expecting this heavy steel plate to drop like a rock onto the straps we had in place. NOTHING!  She did not  budge an inch. Got under it and looked. I original thought maybe we had strapped her in to tight to drop with the safety strap, It was plenty loose enough . We  had a good 1/2 inch clearance that would have been tight had she dropped.  The keel pin and locking pin were both out and she was stuck tight. The fiberglass in that part of the keel had swollen.
  The question at this point was how do we get the front to drop? Gravity seemed the best idea short of having a sky hook. so we got jacks under the back  end and pushed her up just a bit to relocate the center of gravity. We eventually had that keel running nearly level and still NOTHING!



It took my saw man slamming into the keel side as hard as he could with a  full length landscaping timber to knock her loose 1/ 16th of an inch at a time at first until she gradually started coming out a bit faster up to about 1/4 in at a time.  I don't think we ever got her to go farther then a 1/4 of an inch per pounding.  It was at least an hour or two of pound, take a short break and pound some more until  she finally came out of  the hole.  By then there was no resin left on her as you can see.

 

I'm figuring at least 2 maybe 3 gallons of resin and fiber shreds with cloth intermittent to make real sure this don't happen again.


Life Happens. Just make sure you get out there and SAIL!