Saturday, May 30, 2009
OK, I can take the laptop out of the stove now. (I should just let that statement hang there, 'cuz sailors would know what I'm talking about. However, for you landlubber-types, in a thunderstorm, you put the electronics in the metal oven if you're on a boat. It's supposed to protect the electronic innards in the unlikely event of a lightning strike.) The implication is that we just had an afternoon thunderstorm. (Donnervetter, for Dieter.)
This was a day of cultural highs and lows. Last night was Leno's last time hosting the Tonight Show. Vicki reminded me just in time to catch it in the Club House at the marina. Classy exit, for those of you who missed it. He had Conan O'Brian as his sole guest, effectively handing off the show to Conan. He had James Taylor singing "Sweet Baby James" after reminiscing about moving to the west coast seventeen years ago and hearing the refrain "Ten miles behind me and ten thousand more to go." Then he introduced his wife, saying she was in the audience his first show and is still there. But as tribute to his staff, he talked about how there has been very little turnover the entire time, and that in fact, many of his staff met on the show, married, and had families. He very subtly and respectfully invoked Johnny Carson's legacy. Then he talked about his legacy, what he wanted it to be, and he opened a curtain to reveal the 50+ kids that have been born to his staff over the years and announced that he wants his legacy to be that these kids know that mom and dad met on the set of the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Classy act.
Fast forward to this am, when I am trying to get the video feed to work for Alex's crew race. The computer (read: old, slow, HP, Windoze) unit in the Club House did not have the right plugin (Microsoft Silverlight) for Firefox to stream the video. So, for the first time in a very long time, I actually had to install an executable file on a PC. OMG, am I glad I have Arlene. "Do you want to allow this? Do you want to allow that?" Yes - just install the damn thing already. Then when it finally does install thirty minutes later, the video is real choppy (possibly due to the slow processor.) So I run out to the boat to get Arlene, bring her back to the Club House, and proceed to use the wifi to install the streaming program. One click and a verification later I have streaming video. So, finally I have two video streams going, and they are rarely in sync with each other - one is Ethernet and the other wifi. At one point, I can find out who won by watching the women slumped over their oars on the PC, while Arlene is showing the race at the 1500-m mark. Strange, this streaming videocast...
Ithaca took fourth place as a team. The 2V boat (Alex's boat) was last in the Petite Final and the 1V was fourth in the Grand Final. I couldn't believe the times for the Williams and Trinity boats - dropped about 20 seconds from the initial heats. Maybe they "broke bad", if you know what I mean... Congratulations to the Ithaca team and Becky for a great season!
After noon, I noticed that the parking lot had been blocked off and a bunch of people were standing around in Civil War regalia. Turns out that there was a re-enactment going on at the waterfront park right next door to the marina. Now, I didn't go over to inspect this phenomena closely, since I think that Civil War re-enactors are only one step away from the plastic army men I gave up playing with at age 8. However, I did notice that they were having Lincoln debate Steven Douglass again (I wonder who won this time?) and that everyone (all 20 or so) seemed to be having a good time. I was busy trying to pry the propane tanks out of the aft hatch to take up to the hardware store for filling. As I walked past the park, however, I was taken aback (read: crapped my pants laughing) by the group of three belly dancers in "I Dream of Jeannie" outfits who were doing their best shimmy routine for Abe and Co. I didn't have the heart to sidle over and try and snap a picture - I could not have maintained and besides, Jeremy would have found a way to post the picture of Abe and three belly dancers to the WTF category of Reddit. And I wouldn't have blamed him. I don't know in what parallel universe belly dancers are associated with the Civil War. Or, maybe I have a completely wrong idea about Clara Barton - who knows?
Tonight (in one hour) they are going to have a Civil War dance with Joe Bilgewater and the Stonefish (or something like that). There will be uniforms and hoop skirts whooping it up. Maybe even belly dancers. I will be forced to exercise my long-dormant powers of investigatory journalism (take THAT, Peggy Bakken!) and report on developments for those of you thirsty for cultural updates. Right now, I'm thirsty for another beer. (Note to Marty - Misson St. Pale Ale. Ooh, yeah...)
Edit: The Civil War cancelled by imminent thunderstorms. Moved to community hall. Lee and Grant unavailable for comment.
Edit 2 (June 1): Here's the link from the local newspaper.
http://www.sanilaccountynews.com/stories/051309/loc_20090513088.shtml
"Only on Saturday Anne Elizabeth Moss and Company-belly dancers will perform in five 20 minutes sessions in the park; harkening back to similar dancers and other interesting characters who followed the troops around throughout the Civil War. " Hello..., they were called "hookers."
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