GroupWBench

We
went out this afternoon to take advantage of awsome weather and the last
workday before savings time ends. The winds looked good for a nice bit of
sailing. We drove out to the marina and found this:

There was a a river of sludge made up of runoff, branches, trees, trash, and nasty brown muck filling about half (our half, naturally) of the marina. Between the strongish winds and the big rains last week, all manner of crap was blown into our chunk of marina. There was no way to motor through that gunk to get to the clearer, but still brown, water out on the lake proper. We used the time there to do a little boat work since there is always plenty of that to do. We are still chasing down leaks and having to clear water out after each rain. I'd like to add an automated bilge pump before long. The Ivy powered one is not having fun moving water out of the bilge.

And in non-sailing news, Ivy and I popped up to Dallas for a couple of days last week. I had meetings up there for work on Friday and we turned it into a mini vacation. Friday night we went to the Flying Saucer Draught Emporium in Ft. Worth with Andy and his wife. Andy and I bear similar scars from an endless miserable six month sentence to NASA in Houston. He seems to be recovering well. It was a nice visit and we got to meet his long suffering wife. (All wives are long suffering) We had a good time chatting, catching up, and getting to know everyone.

Friday night was memorable. The bridge for the highway just outside our hotel room was being demolished all night. We got to listen to a huge backhoe based jackhammer pound on concrete all night long. The occasional breaks in the hammering were punctuated by debris being dropped into dump trucks. That was very special.

Saturday morning started off better. We hit Taco Cabana for breakfast tacos to remind ourselves that we hadn't quite left Texas civilization yet. Then we jumped into the fray of phenomenally bad traffic between Hurst and Garland to visit our friend Amanda. I suspect that some of the same geniuses that tried to control growth in
Austin by not building roads in the 80's and 90's may have moved up to
Dallas. They have different tactics there, but the result is the same –
constipated roadways. Amanda is a judo player we've known for a while who is an adventurous spirit, writer, and all around cool person. We went over to a green belt and walked and chatted for a couple of hours. All in all, we had a good trip and fun times visiting friends. 

We head back to the boat tomorrow. If we are lucky, the wind will have shifted and moved the muck out for us. If so, we'll go tool up and down the lake some. Otherwise, we'll work on the boat some. Either way, well try to keep the work/suck ratio under control.