Mostrarle Su Amor Para Ella
El deseo de mi corazón es para nuestro preciosa la tierra volver a sentir amada y respetada. Ella es tan hermosa. Ella nos alimenta. Ella es nuestra madre. Ella es nuestra hogar!
Hago un llamamiento a todos los que están en deuda con ella para su existencia, en este oasis de abundancia en medio de la nada inmensa – para mostrarle una vez más de lo que le debemos nuestra adoración y cuidar de ella con reverencia.
Yo nunca se apartará de ti, mi amada Gaia, mientras que respiro tu aliento. Usted es dueño de mi corazón. Tú eres mi amor y de vida. Todo lo que hago, lo hago por ti.
Mis hermanos y hermanas, que me ayude por favor. Nuestro viviendo, sentiendo, languideciendo planeta necesita nuestra ayuda y tenemos que unirnos.
Por favor, dime que no estoy solo en este amor. Usted debe ir más allá sentimiento amor por ella. Usted debe mostrar su amor por ella.
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The desire of my heart is for our precious Earth to feel loved and respected. She is so beautiful. She feeds us. She is our mother. She is our home!
I appeal to all who are indebted to her for their existence, in this oasis of abundance amid the vast nothingness — to show her once more than we owe her our adoration and to take care of her with reverence.
I will never turn away from you, my beloved Gaia, while I breathe your breath. You own my heart. You are my love and life. Everything I do, I do for you.
My brothers and sisters, help me please. Our living, feeling, languishing planet needs our help and we must unite.
Please tell me I’m not alone in this love. You must go beyond feeling love for her. You must show your love for her.
Recommendation from Bob Montgomery
I just received this today. He told me not to let it go to my head:
“Jenifer is far and away the most dedicated sculler and endurance athlete I know. Her standards start in that ethereal realm after most folks have just given up and gone home. She is passionate about finding ways to help others to experience and enjoy rowing … and is proving that by taking the sport to the Web with The Global Rowing Club. Her aspirations for new hull designs realized will be transformative for a sport steeped in tradition, yet always embracing the latest technological innovations. Jenifer is just as enthusiastic about training others to attain the superhuman levels of endurance and power which she musters each week when she puts in another 50,000 to 80,000 meters. Jenifer has a competitive edge and attitude most others can only aspire to.”
Bob Montgomery Jr., Birmingham Rowing Club
Thanks Bob! I am also the most dedicated boathouse checker you know.
Recommendation from Bob Montgomery
I just received this today. He told me not to let it go to my head:
“Jenifer is far and away the most dedicated sculler and endurance athlete I know. Her standards start in that ethereal realm after most folks have just given up and gone home. She is passionate about finding ways to help others to experience and enjoy rowing … and is proving that by taking the sport to the Web with The Global Rowing Club. Her aspirations for new hull designs realized will be transformative for a sport steeped in tradition, yet always embracing the latest technological innovations. Jenifer is just as enthusiastic about training others to attain the superhuman levels of endurance and power which she musters each week when she puts in another 50,000 to 80,000 meters. Jenifer has a competitive edge and attitude most others can only aspire to.”
Bob Montgomery Jr., Birmingham Rowing Club
Thanks Bob! I am also the most dedicated boathouse checker you know.
Night Rower — An Odyssey
Forced to launch across the lake because firemen were loading boats to get their equipment to a cabin on the lake that was on fire — my early start became and extremely late start. I rowed 45 miles in the most challenging conditions I have ever faced. More later. Click on the slideshow to control how fast it goes.
Windy Moonless Long-Distance Sculling In The Dark Wilderness, 101
45 Miles — 72.42 Kilometers
I had upgraded my little red dock and packed my rowing bag … even made some power snacks on Saturday to be ready for a truly early start on Sunday. It was going to be another sailing day, but in the 70’s and I need experience rowing on all conditions in my preparation to break the world long distance sculling record. As I state in Sculling For World Healing, I will have no problem with the distance. But the time will be very weather-dependent and will require a lighter me and a faster boat. But for now, I will become the best sculler I can be building my skill, strength and mileage in a variety of conditions — including the dark.
But I was excited Sunday morning to set out for an especially long row in mostly daylight. But it didn’t happen that way.
The thirty-some mile drive has become second nature to me now, and as I pulled into the long country road leading to the lake, I passed a fire truck with its lights flashing. I had texted Bob I was on the way out there so he would know he would soon receive a picture of his boathouse as the water levels raise to where at some point we will find out if it still floats. Tick-tock, tick-tock, Bob.
I had gotten used to being the only car in this parking lot, but this is what I pulled up to, except by the time I took the picture, some of the emergency vehicles had disappeared down the ramp to load up boats with firefighting equipment. Deputy Staten met me to tell me a cabin on the lake was on fire and that it would be a very long time before I could get my boat on the water. Bass fishermen were in queue too. He advised me to go on out to the other launch area and gave me directions to get there by road.
I had an impulse to skip it, but 63 miles is a lot of driving (and CO2 footprint) for nothing. I pressed on. It was another 11 miles to the remote launch on country roads. That was going to make for about an hour to drive home after the row.
When I arrived, I checked in with the deputy there and then spent way too much time walking up and down that very shore-line that had stolen 5 weeks of my life last November/December after the day Bob and I shot the Sculling For a Blue Angel Music Video. This structure is a little store where you can buy snacks and Bob was hungry.
I usually never get out of the boat, but did to be a pal that day, I immediately sunk into quicksand and overstretched my right Achilles tendon. I got back in the boat and rowed another 10-15 miles. But the next day, the pain was so piercing — like fire — that I was sure I had ruptured it but. I was not fully recovered for 5 weeks. Turns out you need your ankles for just about everything including rowing and working out. I lost a lot of my strength and the last of the warm rowing weather of the year.
So needless to say, I am not fond of this place. It was muddy and the incline at the waterline was too gradual for my little red dock to work right, so there was no place to put my boat in cleanly. I wanted to pitch it again, but over-ruled myself and MADE a way for my little red dock to work.
I saw the Bald Eagle. I’m sure that meant something like: be brave. I was very brave. You’ll see.
As I was preparing my boat, I caught some guys using my freshly rinsed little dock that is simply not meant to hold the weight of heavy guys … as their way to get in their boat without getting their feet wet. I made Eric stand there while took I this picture, then requested after they used it to please clean the mud off that they just tracked onto it. They left it in fine condition so no harm done.
Yes, I am little prissy about being able to get in and out of my boat without getting it muddy or freezing my feet, or injuring myself in bottomless mud or on loose rocks. So I come prepared to do a little extra for my launch and landing to be a little safer, cleaner, comfortable and more convenient.
It WAS fricken windy, and that made me think again about how good of an idea it was to get on the water, but I told myself it would calm down and I had all night, if need be, to enjoy another moonlight row since it was just two days past the full moon.
I got on the water at my record latest time of 5:30 — two minutes past the official sunset time of 5:28.
It was still windy when I put in, but soon it let up and I had a twilight of glass to enjoy at the beginning of my row. My boat wanted to do 6 miles an hour effortlessly, which meant I could easily do 7 with a little oomph in my drive. But it was not to be.
First of all, the calm part of my row was spent returning texts from Bob wondering where the cabin that was on fire was on the lake (I made sure with the deputy it wasn’t Bob’s house). I told him I didn’t know, The fire had been long put out I am sure. He was also texting me that I needed to get running lights, a strobe and a Jen Cam installed on my bow. It’s true, I am cheating now with just having a flashlight on my splashguard. My grace-period will be over when the Summer People get back. There will be night-time traffic then.
Then …. IT GOT DARK. Way out in the country, there are stars in the sky … plenty of stars. But they don’t light up the water and the shore like even a sliver of the moon will.
I remembered a couple of things and learned a few more things. That’s what I’m out there to do.
I remembered that rowing shells are REALLY tipsy. That fact seems to diminish as skill and confidence increases. I was reminded acutely of it that night when I learned that vision has a LOT to do with keeping balance.
So even before the wind whipped up again, I had to settle into a slower pace than I wanted as I tried to get used to keeping some kind of stable stroke with no visual frame-of-reference to help.
I also learned that as much as I needed the lit-up instrument panel to keep my bearings, it was a two-edged sword as it kept me from being able to acquire night vision. Toward the end of the row their batteries dimmed to where they were just right, I will keep that pair to use in the darkest conditions for as long as they last. Perhaps I will design little dimming covers to put over fresh lights for such occasions. This is a picture of the dimmer lights at the end of the row.
Then a couple of things happened to make this row hands-down the most challenging one yet (not counting the typhoon I got caught in last summer).
The wind whipped up again and I found myself in open water conditions including gusts and swells just below whitecap level. Thankfully it wasn’t so bad that my boat swamped, but with diminished balancing senses, it was a test of skill to say the least.
And the thing I didn’t understand the most was: WHERE WAS THE MOON? The sky was clear. I could see the stars. The moon started rising only 3 nights before right at twilight (proof in the pictures on Sculling By Moonlight). But there was no moon to be found anywhere in the sky. What up Universe?!
Even though it was supposed to be a warm night (in the 50’s), I guess I couldn’t row hard enough to keep myself warm so at one point I put on two long sleeve jerseys and for the first time EVER, I put on tights! I even put on wool footies under my neoprene footies.
But then, just as I turned around at the main boat launch ten miles into the row, there was the moon rising. Better late than never!.
Before long I was rowing fast enough again that I had stripped back down to sleeveless, but didn’t want to stop long enough to pull off the tights. I felt a bit warm, but not enough to take the time to remove them.
I also learned that when dew falls, things get wet, so don’t leave anything you want to keep dry uncovered when it is getting dark. Funny how things you know in regular life have to present themselves in new situations like this … at least for me. I’m out there to learn not only to row better and faster in all conditions, but to learn how to stay in the boat, have everything I need without being over-loaded and just keep rowing! Most especially in REALLY long distance rowing in a single, it’s not so much how fast you go: it’s How Little You Fiddle.
When I got back to where I launched, I could have stopped there at 22.5 miles, but the moon was up, the wind had calmed a bit (back in there anyway) and I figured the next lap was my pay-off, so I went around again. After all, the farther the drive, the longer the row should be to justify the trip. That’s how I see it, anyway.
Halfway through my second lap, The clouds started to cover the sky until the cover was complete. But even a cloudy sky obscuring the moon is brighter than a clear starlit sky with no moon.
I have decided to zero out my GPS line next time I go out early in the day and make a new line. In an effort to squeeze the most mileage from the perimeter of the lake, my line is soooo close to the bank, even with the water levels rising again. And as Spring approaches, the bass boats will all be square on my line, so I need to shorten my lap by a half a mile to a mile. Since I’m gong to be doing multiple laps, I can afford to pull out from the shore a lot more to be safer.
I must take a moment to sing the praises of my beloved Hummingbird and thank the Maas brothers for making such a great boat. I could tell many stories of times I should have just gone right over … like in my first head race the day after I bought the Flyweight. I talked them into letting me enter The Head Of The Oklahoma at the last minute. Luckily my race was early enough the next morning that it wasn’t cancelled. Every single and double race after mine was cancelled due to the high winds. 15 MPH is a light wind day in Oklahoma City.
But that day, my first day rowing my new boat, two years away from having it rigged anywhere near right for me … I gave it all I had. Just as I was passing a grandstand full of people, the wind yanked my port scull (the one in my right hand) right out of my hand and swung too far away for me to catch it. Somehow I stayed upright until I could coax it back to within reach, and was on my way again. My time in the race wasn’t good, but that I finished dry in a new boat made me proud all the same.
Similarly, Maas boys, your Flyweight has saved my butt more times than I can count when dead trees, stumps and docks jump out from nowhere and catch me going full-tilt — and a wide variety of other crashes and sudden ALL STOPS I have encountered in my rowing too-close-to-the-bank approach. The other night I really should have capsized several times and had that fleeting thought each time: “This is it. I’m going over and there goes my perfect record!” But then, my Hummingbird steadies and I am a little shaken but still dry and very thankful.
I will mention one more thing that contributed to making this an especially challenging row. It’s one of the other things I remembered while I was out there. I started to notice something going on with my left shin with every stroke. It hurt a little and even cracked. Shins don’t crack like joints, right? I had no idea what was going on. And then I remembered slamming into my rebounder in the dark the other night when I had not put it way after using it and didn’t expect it to be where it was. It hit me on the lower part of my shin and I recall saying to myself, I need to go put ice on that. But then promptly forgot.
Truly, a stitch in time saves nine! 20 minutes of an ice pack on my shin that evening would have saved two days of icing it since I rowed 45 miles with a bruised shin. I don’t injured myself doing my sports. Just doing life. I’m sure that’s a metaphor for something. I am on the mend, but I think the Wednesday row I was planning (tomorrow) will have to wait for the weekend.
No matter how dark, windy and moonless it was … I was happy the whole time. There is no way I know of to feel more dramatically alive. I count myself among the most fortunate people in the world that I can do something so wonderful and enlivening as rowing as long as I want, whenever I want, and in conditions that most people would not brave even in a motor boat.
Super powers, I tell you!
How To Be a FRIENDLY Long-Distance Sculler
I have stumbled upon a way to be completely relaxed, self-forgiving, charming and sociable!
I have learned how to row in the dark.
Many is the time I have shouted over my shoulder to a rowing club friend as I was carrying my boat to the launch dock … “as much as I love you, I love daylight MORE!”
Back when I rowed where the club is located, well-meaning club members would want to hang-out and chat. They are in the club for social and recreational reasons. I did attend the parties to be social and even went to the business meetings. But when I went to row, I went to ROW. I established a rule: never speak to Jenifer after noon. If you want to socialize with me, then be here at dark.
I feel like Rocky training to be the World Champion … but in a sport that doesn’t even exist! Well, it’s about to exist if I have anything to do with it. Keep your eye on me. Read the GRC Mission page … when I put it up. The new sport of Sanctioned Non-Recreational Long-Distance Sculling/Rowing is ON if I have to sanction it MYSELF!
So back to how it is I am suddenly about to become warm and personable again.
I came to the realization a couple of weeks ago that this Water Works lake is not like the other. At Lake Purdy, you have to be off the lake and off the premises before they lock the gate. Too many times I have come in late and kept the guys, Ken and Steve, past closing time. They have been nothing but sweet about it, but I felt a lot of pressure to be a good girl there.
It’s really more “me” to be an out-law … without ever breaking the law. That’s a difficult balance to maintain.
So my new realization has SET ME FREE! At Inland Lake, since there are a handful of old cabins on the lake whose owners can only get to by boat, there is no closing time at the boat launch. They never turn off the lights and the restroom is always heated. I can stay out and row all night (just did) and if I want to … If it came to it I could camp-out in Bob’s high and dry boathouse. Eureka!
This empowering realization came to me because as almost a second thought last week, I grabbed a couple of lights just in case I found myself too far out on the lake to make it in by sundown on a day I knew the conditions were going to be perilous. I tell about it in Fricken High Wind Open Fricken Water Fricken Cold Weather In the Fricken Dark Sculling, 301. It worked so well, I discovered I can now row after dark and find my way back by following my line on my GPS map screen or use the marker feature to get me there the most direct route. Before I couldn’t see the screens after dark. The GPS and the Speed Coach have internal lights I can stop and press the buttons to turn on, but they only stay on for so long and they really burn the battery-life. As it was, I had to stop and change the batteries in my GPS Thursday night mid-row.
Elated by my new super-power, Monday after the Sunday Fricken High Wind row, I went to the Dollar Store and bought more LED book-reading lights and then on to the thrift store to find zip cases that were waterproof enough to not have to put things in time-consuming to open and close ziplock bags, as I have learned that you don’t have to turn your boat over for everything on it to get wet. I mention that fact in the Fricken High Wind row post too.
The thing about long-distance sculling in the wilderness in the winter alone is that you have to have “stuff” with you in case there is a mishap. That makes for a heavier boat and slower rowing, but safety first. I’m at the ready to change into dry clothes and start a fire if need be. In addition to water and snacks, I have extra pairs of gloves, extra batteries, extra socks, water shoes, towels, extra contacts, a bottle of saline solution and a magnification mirror in case I get something in my eye, some tools just in case I decide to adjust my rigging, tape in case my hands start to hurt (they never do anymore), line to tie my boat if need be, extra little bungee cords, and my GPS and Speed Coach manuals in case I push the wrong button and mess everything up, which I have been known to do! And don’t forget my extremely high-tech ergonomic long-distance rowing padded seat I tell about having developed in Jen’s Rowing Story. I am compensating for the added weight of gear by dropping some of my it’s-too-cold-to-row-I-got-injured-AGAIN-feel-sorry-for-myself-only-want-to-hibernate-by-the-fireplace-and-eat-popcorn-and-chocolate-winter-weight-gain. At least I don’t row with a lapdog in the boat anymore. Sorry Hannah, but there’s just no extra room in this one.
My winter hibernation weight gain is not shocking. I weigh exactly what I weighed when I shot the sofa movies video. It’s just that on a Flyweight (not a lightweight, midweight or heavyweight) scull, you go faster the lighter you are when you’re not sinking the beam to it’s max, therefore, there is a top weight you really don’t want to exceed. I am just under that top weight, but now that it is warming up, I’ll be in the pink again in no time!!!
I can’t wait to see what I can do when I’m IN SHAPE!
I have decided (another epiphany) to set up my cock-pit and leave it set up (covered) to save the time-consuming ritual of put it together before every row and breaking it down afterwards. Now that my mileage is climbing again and it’s about to warm up, I’m going to have to make more room for water and snacks and a way to get to them fast — as well as my ever expanding instrument panel. The other “stuff” I bungee behind me just inside the splash guard, and I will need far less “just-in-case” gear when the weather gets really nice.
This first night-time row was a fact-finding mission. I set up the cock-pit that afternoon and spent the entire row making adjustments like how to angle the lights to prevent distracting glare on the screens. I tested different gloves, an elastic band specifically for keeping my hat on in wind and various other ideas I have for minimizing the Fiddling Factor.
Once I got past most of the adjusting and could just row, my first moonlight row was magical. It is a story worth telling as are all of my rowing adventures in my opinion — for my own delight if for no other reason. See the next post to be with me vicariously on an uninhabited lake alone in the moonlight during the winter. Fortunately, you won’t be as cold as I was … but unfortunately, you won’t be as thrilled. I hope you will be entertained.
P.S. Just as I was leaving my neighborhood coffee shop where I wrote this post, I had a couple of nice conversations. The first one was with Dale the long-distance cyclist who I had met and chatted with before. We talked about how dangerous cycling has become (a couple of cyclists have been killed in our town in the last few years) which is one of the reasons I have cut back on cycling to maybe one Century a year in favor of the much safer, more scenic, far more elegant and full-body exercise sport of sculling. And I mentioned to Dale that the last Century I road last October, I was thinking the whole time how boring it was compared to sculling. Every stroke in sculling requires attention and skill. Dale said he was interested. It is part of my quest to recruit my old endurance athlete peers to consider giving sculling a try. I will write more about that part of my plan soon.
Next I ran into and met Leslie as I was getting into my car. As you may have read in my post The Boat Stays On The Car! … the boat was on the car. He surprised me by asking me if it were a shell. Usually people think it is a kayak. I was impressed that he knew that. We talked a little about the boat’s history of winning the North American Open Water Championships two years in a row (See Jen’s Rowing Story again) along with Diane Davis, a very accomplished racer. She was the reason I wanted a carbon fiber Maas Flyweight … and I just happened to get THAT VERY FLYWEIGHT. My life is magical that way.
Leslie asked if they made boats for Clydesdales. I thought that was cute. I told him I had one for sale the would be perfect for a Clydesdale — a Little River Marine Cambridge.
Interestingly enough, both Dale and Leslie asked me specific questions about sculling that I actually had just answered in this post. I told them my URL because someone was waiting for me at my house (around the corner) and I had to run.
Hi Dale and Leslie. Come on over to the wonderful world of sculling. 🙂
See, I am friendlier already!
Sculling By Moonlight
30.5 miles. It was an awesome row. Story to follow after I get some sleep. 🙂
Long-Distance Moonlight Sculling, 101
30.5 Miles — 49.08 Kilometers
This is the story my first long-distance moonlight row on beautiful wild uninhabited Inland Lake, Thursday February 17th.
Excited about my new ability to row after dark on a beautiful Sunday in the high 60’s … possibly touching 70º a some point, I got all ready to go Thursday determine to get an extra early start and do a REALLY long row.
Of course, my extra early start turned into a medium early start, but I knew it was going to be an almost a full moon on a clear warm(ish) night and I was relaxed for a change.
When I got out there, my first project after cleaning my boat, was to put my new instrument panel together in a way that everything would be well-placed, easy to get to, efficient and attached securely enough to leave it set up. That took a while. But I wasn’t in my usual big hurry. It was fricken windy and I knew it would let up a little in the afternoon and for the first time ever, I didn’t feel rushed by the impending sunset. (You can’t know how happy I am about this!)
I met Robert the Bass fisherman and chatted a bit. He offered to help me carry the boat. I thanked him all the same.
I then met Archie when he came in from fishing. He only caught one bass. He said the fish at Inland Lake were the best because the water is so clean. But since it is so clear (it’s a deep lake but where it is shallow enough, you can see clear to the bottom 4-6 feet), it’s hard to sneak up on the bass. And bass are smarter than people anyway, to start with. Archie and I had a nice visit while I fiddled with all my doohickies.
Archie The Bass Fisherman
Then I tried my latest little red dock improvements. It is good, but not perfect. It doesn’t help that the water level is different every week. But I think I know one more small change I need to make for it to be the most versatile to place quickly where it will be steady.
I got on the water at a new record later-than-I-wanted time: 5 pm! Sunset was at 5:28.
It didn’t matter. I had new super powers.
It bears mentioning though … among my many lessons in this row, that I decided to try lowering my oarlocks to see if getting my blades deeper in the water would make me go faster. I remembered one thing and learned two things.
The one thing I remembered was why I raised them in the first place. A late finish is my biggest problem in being rigged right into this boat that gives me about 1 mm of leeway to be in the sweet spot — and it took me two years of minute to significant rigging adjustments to find it! I need the extra leverage to get the blades out of the water on time, high and clean.
The first of the two things I learned was not to make dramatic rigging changes before a 30 mile row in the dark. Best to test a change for a mile or two. The stroke was so awkward for me it was extra hard on my back. I had the screwdriver to fix it, but without getting my feet wet, there was no way to change it back. Plus … over water is not the place to let the spacers loose!
The second thing I learned was the time to test how fast you can go is not in the dark! I love how smart I am becoming. Between pushing the max weight with my own body weight, then add to that the weight of all of the aforementioned gear … and then add to that a rigging change that was straining my lower back on the finish … plus darkness, I just settled in to cruise at around 5 mph and decided to be happy with it. Faster days are ahead.
By the time I got started, it was cool enough that for the first time in 20 years I rowed the entire time wearing a long-sleeved jersey. It finally got cold enough (because I had to row easy instead of full-throttle) that I pulled out my “just-in-case” shirt. This left me without a backup long-sleeved shirt if I capsized the boat, which I will remind you (ego steps in for a moment) that I have never capsized a single and don’t want to start. That was another reason not to tempt fate by trying to set a speed record.
The rest of the story is just an amazing feeling I have never had before that I can’t adequately describe, of being all alone on a wilderness lake on perfect glass for most of the time with all the time in the world to row as long and as far as I wanted, under a moon that was so bright that it was almost blinding. And I didn’t feel one bit alone. I suspect Angels love to scull in the moonlight too. We had a wonderful time!
I told myself only one lap (22 miles). I promised myself that when I spotted the brightly lit launch area, I would pull in and be fine with whatever my distance turned out to be. I knew I was straining my back and shouldn’t push myself.
But when I saw the lights … my flesh was willing, but my Spirit was weak … or strong? I didn’t want it to end. Last summer I set my minimum distance at a marathon once a week … at least 26.2 miles. Now I want my minimum to be 30 miles twice a week for the next few weeks, then 35 or 40. So I gave in and rowed another 8 miles. Even then, I didn’t want to stop.
It was during that extra loop that one of the best moments of the evening occurred. Beegie Adair’s beautiful jazz piano rendition of Moon River came on while I was out in the open where the lake is wide. How can you not just love life in such a moment as that?
When I got home in the wee hours, I couldn’t wait to see the pictures so I uploaded them and posted a small slideshow of the few that weren’t too dark to see some detail.
Tomorrow is a sailing day at Inland. Partly cloudy with winds up to 14 mph … but getting up to 72º and staying in the 50’s after dark. I guess ya’ll know where I’m gonna be.
The Adventures of New Paradigm Thinkers and Doers
As I have mentioned before, this is a new club, blog and website. I have been carefully considering my content and intent before taking the plunge to officially put it “out there.” There will soon be a page on the menu bar titled GRC Mission that will give an overview of exactly what it is I am hoping to accomplish and how exactly I plan to do it.
I am a detail-oriented person, while at the same time my view is a vast vista that makes the phrase “seeing the big picture” seem like peering through a porthole. If you want to hear an elevator speech summarizing what I am doing, you better pick an extremely tall building.
But just to start with … why such a broad spectrum of topics and goals all on one website? Well, simply put: it is just the tip of the ice burg of who I am and my mission for being on this planet I have come to love so! There is a lot here about what I am doing anyway as I “follow my bliss.” It is a wonderful thing to monetize life-style … something I was very successful at doing as a health-retreat owner. It’s so much better than working. Doing what I love to do, living the way I want to live and sharing it with other people has yielded the feed-back more times than I can count: “You’ve saved my life.”
So in a way, the Mission of The Global Rowing Club can be summed up by saying it is a way I can can share on a very large scale. It is a way I can give people the opportunity to join me to do with me what I would be doing anyway … so they can learn to save their own lives and help other people do the same.
Does that sound dramatic and over-stated to you? DO NOT underestimate the power of self-esteem and the personal fulfillment that comes from living a life of purpose. Not only does it make life worth living for the people who find a way to discover and create it for themselves — but it is contagious!
A CLUB THAT’S A HUB
I have founded The Global Rowing Club to be a hub for people all over the world to join together to become the relentless force that will be the salvation of our planet at the 11th hour. We already all belong to this club. My intention is to create an identifiable venue that we can all share no matter where we are in the world to inspire, collect and harness the power that is within us all to change the world. There will be a day when we will raise our glasses to toast restored oceans, fresh drinking water for the children in third world countries, changed lives everywhere, renewed hope and a bright future for everyone in a Healing World.
A “VARIETY” WEBSITE
Think of this as a “variety” website that will take you all over the place — but always going in the direction of renewing energy … yours, mine and the world’s! If you take the time to absorb the multi-media material on this site, you will begin to understand the method of my madness. Everything is connected in a fascinating, fun and profound way. It is not boring. It is all about energy. There is NOTHING that is not energy. Decide to harness it and learn to master it — in yourself and for the planet. That’s what this website is about. That is what we all are about.
I want to have fun, to entertain you, to inform you, to reach you and to inspire you — because you have stumbled upon The Global Rowing Club for a reason that is personal and important to you.
Dare to be a visionary. Dare to join me and many other New Paradigm Thinkers and Doers in this adventure. There’s room for everyone in this boat!
And for your entertainment, although I am new (naive and inexperienced) to making “movies,” I will punctuate my narrative occasionally with amateurish, amusing and often-times philosophical “Sofa Movies.” There may be as many hidden messages in my little creations as in DaVinci’s Last Supper. Are you a student of nuance? If so … you may be in peril of getting sucked into another dimension.
Why not take the Red Pill? Go Down the Rabbit Hole. Come with me to Wonderland!
SOFA MOVIES ARE BORN
I’ve got a little something new. Come with me and you will too. 🙂
Fricken High Wind Open Fricken Water Fricken Cold Weather In the Fricken Dark Sculling, 301
39.2 Miles — 63.08 Kilometers
I got out yesterday for nearly a 40 mile row (39.2 without getting out of the boat) in MAJOR wind and open water conditions. It was a warmer sunny day, which meant I was going to go even though I knew the wind would be over 12 miles an hour for most of the day. It was the kind of day that if I were sitting on my porch overlooking the Chesapeake in Annapolis, I’d laugh if anyone suggested I go rowing. More like I would put on a wetsuit and fly a hull six feet in the air hanging from a trapeze!
The lake is open now so it’s not a gamble anymore to get in. Mr. Retired Deputy Tom Foster checked me in and we had a nice chat. He said he’d heard about the Bald Eagle but had never seen him. I gave him the link to see the Eagle Dance Video I edited last week so he could finally see him after all these years. There’s suppose to be an alligator that lives in this lake. We’ll see if I ever get a glimpse at that guy.
My usual early start (in the winter an early start means arriving when it’s getting close to 40 degrees no matter what time that is), once again turned into my usual later-than-I -wanted start. I discovered that when you think your shell might be a little slow from being a little wet inside and decide to dry it out the night before a row with a hairdryer blowing into the hatch … it might slightly melt the part of the hull it was aimed at directly. When I pulled the boat off the rack at the lake … it took some unsticking from the textured padding on the foam rollers. I then discovered the cost of my cleverness was the pattern was melted into the hull. But I’m just the kind of girl who carries around Lysol Toilet Bowel Cleaner (cleans ANYTHING off of a hull) and wet/dry sand paper. So latex gloves, some water and LTBC on some 400 removed most of the scarring and some 1500 brought it most of the way back to a sheen. It goes without saying I need to start traveling with my compounding paste. While I was at it, I had a go at the 6 foot long scratch — a souvenir from the treacherous shallow obstacle-ridden lake I had to abandon where the rowing club now resides.
I also had to bide my time to get my turn to carry my boat down the ramp as a parade of bass fishermen launched their boats. Those sweet guys always offer to help me with my boat. Non-rowers don’t intuitively know that we can carry such big long boats alone. I never accept help for good reason. It comes from experiences like letting a member of our club help me carry my boat and him dropping his end (and wrecking my other boat on a trailer). So … even letting people help who you would think know what they are doing can end badly. I rather have only myself to blame if I damage my boat, which as I mentioned above, I am perfectly capable of doing without any help.
Bob’s Boathouse 2-13-11
It was 12:50 when I started out. By 1:00, about a mile into the row, I kept up my tradition and snapped this to show the water level is rising. The moment I took this picture, the wind tried to blow my hat off my head. But the water is up about ten feet from when I wrote Cold Weather Sculling 101. Before you know it, that thing may or may not be floating. Bob has some work to do on it. He’s an absolute genius, by-the-way … which means he STAYS side-tracked. I might have to get an underwater camera.
So I wrote about sculling in high wind a couple of weeks ago. That was nothing. This was serious open water stuff that makes calling that row high wind sound whiney. Every stroke yesterday was a survival moment except for a few delightful glass-water reprieves way back in the fingers of the lake.
I didn’t fiddle per say, but I spent most of my time doing things like taking my long-fingered gloves off to open my automatic bailer when the swells washed over my gunwales and swamped me, blinking funny because the wind blew my right contact up into the corner of my eye and I didn’t realize it until the drive home, removing my hat to tie back my hair again and slick it down with lake water because the wisps of hair the wind unleashed were driving me crazy. And at one point I even had to stop and tie two little bungees together to wrap around my hat to keep my it from blowing off because there was no way to keep it on otherwise! I have never had to do that before in almost 20 years of rowing!
You might as well know about me that I am a Boy Scout and am always prepared. But don’t jump to the conclusion I carry a big purse. A true Boy Scout can fit all remedies for any eventuality in a clutch. The Quantum Field fits into a clutch too.
To say I felt great would be about as far away from expressing how wonderful I felt as it would be to say playing Heart and Soul with one finger on a piano sounded like a choir of Angels.
This is why the water levels are rising. We just had our third snowfall in a part of the country that sees a few snow flakes about every ten years.
Melting ice on Inland Lake
I’ve gotten really good at ALL STOP too. You wouldn’t believe the close calls I had. Did I mention how good I am at steering? That’s on the days you can afford to turn your head.
It was so windy (how wind was it?) that I was building my triceps pushing on the recovery. Still, having lightened my boat considerably by shaving off a few pound of my injury/hibernation winter weight gain by being disciplined in a diet of popcorn, sherbet and chocolate, I kept up a pace of between 6 and 7 miles an hour and even stayed above 5 miles an hour on my hairpin turns through the magic of skegless sculling. My top speed was 7.9, but I think that happened one of the times I had to stop and the wind was blowing me backwards to the West while the satellite was orbiting East. Hard to say.
I borrowed some dark and a three-quarter moon for my row last night. I brought along a small Dollar Store aim-able LED book-reading light to illuminate my GPS screen without running down the GPS batteries and put a flashlight on the bow just to be seeable, but the bass boats were long gone so it was just a formality.
I anticipate that rowing 105 miles anywhere (the long-distance sculling record is, so far as I know, 104 miles), even if I can do it in less than 14 hours … is going to involve some rowing in the dark, so I best get used to it.
I came in at 39.2 miles iPod going strong … and felt like I had that much left in me, but it was starting to get too cold even for me. I actually put some sleeves on for the last 5 miles. It was 46º when I left — practically tropical.
The Moon will be full by the end of the week and the wind doesn’t look like it will exceed 15 miles an hour!
I’ll try to drop 5 pounds by eating only at IHOP for the rest of the week, get an early start and see if I can get some exercise on Thursday.
THE PROBLEM OF INCREASING HUMAN ENERGY
There’s a great story about how all this started.
I have said many times: “I prototype in my head. It’s cheaper that way!” But the truth is, I go to a place that’s almost like a trance where information floods into my mind and I see something in such detail, I don’t even bother to write anything down because I know it is THERE and I can pull up the file when the time comes to prototype it in reality. But what’s even more interesting is that since I see things so clearly in my mind … I stay in a state of surprise when I realize they’re not here yet.
One morning, I was having a little talk with myself. I decided to distill into one statement once and for all my bottom-line purpose for being on this planet. And what I said aloud to sum it up in one sentence was: “My reason for being here is to raise human energy.”
But then I thought: “Well that’s problematic because humans just don’t cooperate. I need to bypass humanity and wire the planet directly to increase the energy of the entire world.”
Then I sat down and for over an hour watched pictures flood into my head about how to go about setting up an energy grid to cover the planet to bring in energy from the Universe and bring up the vibration of the planet itself, thereby raising the vibration of humans without having to rely upon their participation.
The entire time I was thinking to myself … this is odd. I have never had ideas like this go through my head before.
Later that day, I went for a long walk with a neighbor and about halfway through the walk I told her I felt like I had MEGA volts of energy going through me all the time and I could always feel myself vibrate. Then I mentioned casually that I had some unusual ideas going through my mind that morning and described them to her. She immediately commented: “That sounds like Tesla.”
I asked her who Tesla was … and she said something about inventing a coil and that Thomas Edison didn’t like him. She didn’t bring me completely up to speed as she had only a cursory knowledge of who he was.
When I got home, I did something I rarely ever did. Instead of just forgetting about the mention of something in passing … I immediately Googled Tesla and the first thing I found was a 32 page booklet he had written and published in Century Magazine in 1900. The title of this booklet is: The Problem of Increasing Human Energy.
It stunned me because it was almost identical to what I had articulated to myself only hours before.
Nikola Tesla
So I read it and was even more astounded that he chronicled in those pages the progression of the discoveries of my life to which I have devoted my life as a career! The only thing he missed on was his assertion that we needed to begin supplementing the soil with artificial fertilizers. We’ll talk more about that later.
This exact thing has actually happened more times than I can count … that I have stumbled on books or films or have attended lectures of notable authors explaining principals and information that I already knew and lived by, wrote about and made a living by in teaching (mostly by example) my retreat guests and interns and weekly Organic Raw Food Supper Club attendants — with powerful results — a fact I mention briefly in my post Flow And Grow Rich.
Then I stumbled on this: (VERY interesting … watch it when you get the chance)
The Missing Secrets Of Nikola Tesla
A few years ago I attended an invitation only certification class in Reno for using Ozone in Alternative Medicine. The other students were Physicians from all over the world. I was invited because the owners of the Canadian company that manufactured the ozone machines had purchased one of my medical devices and wanted to become a distributer of them. So to reciprocate, I purchased a high-tech ozone generator as well as a 10 LPM oxygen concentrator to use for EWOT (Google that).
The first few minutes of the class I got a STRONG feeling that I was going to invent something really ground-breaking having to do with ozone and natural health. Later that evening I dined with the owners of the Canadian company and the world’s most renowned expert on ozone as related to medical use. I asked them (because of that strong knowing that overwhelmed me earlier) who was the dead person that invented the device that could produce ozone. They gave me a name that didn’t ring a bell and I felt strangely disappointed. However, before the weekend was over, it occurred to me to Googled it.
I found this:
Nikola Tesla was the greatest inventor the world has ever seen. His fertile brain produced the original designs for all of the electrical apparatus now used to transmit AC power, for motors, generators, lighting, radio, radar, etc. The information about Tesla’s genius has finally been spreading in the last two decades, after decades of suppression. Less well known is Tesla’s involvement with ozone.
In 1896, Tesla was issued a patent for a corona discharge ozone generator using charged metal plates to act on ambient air. He formed the Tesla Ozone Co. in 1900 and went into production of these units. His customers were naturopaths and allopaths who welcomed this powerful therapy into their practices. Breathing of ozone bubbled through olive oil and other oils was widely practiced at this time, and the Sears catalog of 1904 offered a unit for this purpose using eucalyptus, pine and spearmint oils. Tesla produced a gel made by bubbling ozone through olive oil until it solidified, and sold it to doctors. One hundred years later, we are doing the same thing, with Nature’s Gift ozonated olive oil.
After a while, Tesla began to get complaints from some doctors that his ozone generators were burnt out. Tesla was upset by this, so he put on his thinking cap to invent a method of generating ozone that would be immune to failure. He realized that it was current flow to a hot spot on the metal anode that caused the short and the subsequent burnout, and reasoned that the way to achieve long life was to eliminate the current by eliminating the metal. That left him with an electrostatic approach, which he was fully conversant with, featuring high voltage jumping a gap, with almost no current draw.
To carry the electrostatic charge, he used inert gases in glass rods. This produced a cold plasma field which energized oxygen into ozone, and resulted in a generator that proved impervious to burnout. The unit used ambient air, and produced a small amount of ozone as it was waved over a recumbent patient, who breathed it in. Tesla farmed out production of these generators to a Canadian company. There are still some of these units from the 1920s which have been kept in use and are still working as air purifiers today, 80 years later.
Tesla felt that this invention was of such importance to human health that he did not patent it; instead he donated it freely to all of mankind. Unfortunately, this meant that eventually the idea was lost, because there was no recorded patent to look up.
If I go by the information in Think And Grow Rich … according to Napoleon Hill and about 500 REALY RICH people in the last century, Tesla sits at my Cosmic Board Table.
Cool. He’s my hero, you know.
I sort of suspect he MEANS to make The Cosmos happen … just for a starters. I’m going with the flow. I have nothing better to do.
The World Urgently Needs Renewable Energy
My blog is new so people are being shy about leaving public comments. But it has prompted quite a few behind-the-scenes email conversations and one particular discussion on a discussion board about my radical new boat design at www.rowingillustrated.com where I gained valuable information and will update The New Boat page accordingly. I am benefiting from the input of the people who are writing me and portions of those emails or board posts I have incorporated into blog posts on my site.
Michael in Germany sent me this link of an article posted on the Cosmos Magazine web site: The World Urgently Needs Renewable Energy
I wrote him back:
I read the article from Cosmos Magazine … every aspect of our world crises they reference is addressed by The Cosmos Global Solution. Have you had a chance to view the presentations on the Cosmos Global Solution page?
THE COSMOS RENEWABLE ENERGY GLOBAL SOLUTION INTRODUCTORY PRESENTATION
THE COSMOS RENEWABLE ENERGY GLOBAL SOLUTION VIDEO
There are so many brilliant people out there who are technically adept and experts in their fields who are making things happen, but not fast enough and not on a large enough scale.
Reading that article (and the synchronicity of it being in Cosmos) made me feel like a race horse behind the starting gate with my heart pounding — waiting for the bell to ring!
I grew up an artist, a musician, a poet and a philosopher. I was never interested in mathematics or science. I have a liberal arts degree. There is no logical explanation for how, without ever being taught — I do can do anything or make anything and find solutions for things that most people think is impossible. But I can and I do.
And now I am fascinated by science and I GET it, but in a broad sense: nuts and bolts to be positioned by the nuts and bolts people.
I will explain how it came to be that I now can envision scientific solutions in a blog post I will put up soon: The Problem of Increasing Human Energy.
I am capable of delving deeply enough into the wide array of technological fields to make a strong scientific and technically detailed proposal for exactly what forms of existing technologies to use or ideas of technologies to develop, how to put them all together, how to translate the power into a single transmittable form and make reliable predictions for how much power output to expect from each Cosmos platform accounting for geographic variables.
I just don’t think there’s time for that now. Even if I could devote my full attention to it, it would still take longer than if I worked with a team of experts in every associated discipline who already know the basic and advanced principles that would take me too long to learn — to put the million pieces of this puzzle together as fast as possible.
To reveal the Secret of what makes my contribution so invaluable is that I DON’T already know what they know. My thinking is not confined by “knowledge.”
“The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing knowledge.”
Albert Einstein
Therefore, I will naively do the impossible as I do not know it is impossible.
“Start by doing what is necessary; then do what is possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.”
St. Francis of Assisi
And I have quite a knack for “solving the disadvantages of prior art” and making things SIMPLE!
I promised Michael more information about my medical device and The Cosmos and have posted pages covering many of the aspects of The Cosmos from support information that I have in a large Keynote Slideshow for making presentations in person up until now. It’s under construction. I have a lot of work cut out for me to fill in these pages and probably a dozen more with the overall plan comprised of a plethora of details, questions and ideas that currently reside in my head only.
It’s what I SAY during those presentations explaining how The Cosmos platform will work and how it catalyzes and supports an entire Global Strategy for addressing every crisis our world is facing — that is the really pertinent information. I have never written it down. As in Nature, it’s not about the “parts” but the SUM OF THE PARTS and how they all work together that makes this project so magical.
Immediately after I gave a brief presentation as a guest speaker at an “Invent Alabama” meeting, the director of the organization, also educated as an engineer emailed me:
“I knew you had talked about a big idea before, but I had no idea how big, or how realistic an idea you were talking about. It is gigantic in both scope and beauty. I am most fascinated by, and impressed with, the level of detail to which you have taken your conceptualizing. The air pistons, the biomimicry paint, the fold-up sails to compensate for conflicting wave motion on opposite leaves, the technique for addressing hurricane protection. Those all show incredible ability to understand the nature of real-world problems and challenges, and arrive at practical solutions.”
He recently wrote this succinct recommendation on LinkedIn:
“Jenifer is a remarkable individual of great vision and determination. She has an incredible capacity for learning and applying that knowledge to the problem solving skills required of inventors and entrepreneurs.” December 2, 2010
Bruce Koppenhoefer, Owner, Renaissance Enterprises
I will be making some changes to The Cosmos as I get more information, ideas and technology advances … it will continue to evolve. The more time I spend with it, the more it responds like an eager child who needs attention and is so willing to please. Pretty much like me.
I give credit to some emails exchanged with a local businessman for challenging me on issues I will face with hydrogen and methanol. I was also contacted by Gary Nolan and discovered some possible pieces of the puzzle from his video: The Promise of OTEC
The matter of how to transmit energy to the shore from the platforms is still up in the air … literally. Will I make all of the energy compressed air to be sent to shore through a submerged pipeline, or will I convert it all to one current to be transmitted by wire, by microwave, by laser? So much remains to be seen. Bruce Koppenhoefer contributed to addressing that challenge. (So many ways to skin a cat!) My preference was to rediscover how Tesla sent current through the air. I just figured when the time came for it to come to me, it would come to me.
Napoleon Hill suggested I recruit Jules Verne, Albert Einstein, St. Frances and Nikola Tesla to help work out the kinks. They’re on it.
Eagle Dance — Sculling on a Wild Lake
31.8 Miles — 51.2 Kilometers
The boat stayed on the car. The little red dock got another upgrade. Sunday was going to be in upper 40’s with wind 9 mph or less. I even got an earlier start than usual for the 30 minute drive to the lake. We had been having some rain and snow so chances were the water levels might be up.
I have a confession. Since the Achilles heel injury … I have gotten out of my routine of getting to the gym at 5:30 every morning. I’ve really only been back since Halloween a handful of times. I’ve only rowed a few times too. So I have gained my usual winter hibernation weight … which slows a girl down on a Flyweight. No better reason to get out for a good long row.
On the way in, I stopped at the cabin to find the Deputy on duty, who turned out to be Deputy Staten who was very chipper and sweet on that sunny morning. The lake is open now since the water has come up a few feet. So now I can relax about getting on the lake, but will have to factor in bass boats in my steering.
The first thing I did was place my little red dock … and in the process, managed to stumble on the very rocks I am trying to cover so I won’t fall while carrying my boat. Better to fall putting the dock in place. Luckily, I didn’t get wet, but I did give my left knee a sharp knock that I would have put an ice pack on right away if I weren’t anxious to get on the water.
For some reason, my early start turned into my more usual later-than-I-wanted start. I manage to get going by 12:15. Sunset was going to be at 5:24.
It was in the low 40’s so I wore my neoprene socks trimmed down to my ankles, shorts and two jerseys. One mile into the row … right at Bob’s boathouse, in fact, the long sleeves came off and I rowed sleeveless as is my preference the rest of the day, wind chill factor, or not.
I went ahead and snapped a picture of the boathouse as it is the best indicator of the lake level out there. It has come up several feet, so staying on my GPS line is safer now, but I did make an effort to row inside the line anyway while thinking out-of-the-box, as promised.
Then I started back out and within a few minutes, there was my friend the Bald Eagle flying low and slow 50 feet from my bow. I stopped to watch until he landed on a tree on the opposite bank. I tried to keep my eye on him, but soon rowed out of sight. I saw quite few hawks the rest of the day, but no more close encounters. Watch Eagle Dance below. It is some of slow-motion footage of the Bald Eagle that Bob shot on the day we filmed the Sculling for a Blue Angel Music Video.
It was a beautiful day to be grateful for in early February only a day or two after a snow fall. Despite my later-than-I-wanted start, I fiddled not at all, made no stops longer than it took to take a bite of an apple that I didn’t even finish until I landed and I downed a Doubleshot at about mile 10. I didn’t row very fast, but like the tortoise and the Energizer Bunny, I just kept going and going and going.
My goal for the day was 30 miles. I came in at 31.8.
I’m looking forward to getting back in shape. It’ll take me two or three weeks. I’ll keep you posted.
It was 41 degrees when I got off the water. The little red dock is working like a charm. I decided to pull the car all the way down the ramp to load the boat, which worked out nicely, saving me the long steep climb. But my fingers were just about frostbitten by the time I finished securing the boat. I’ve gotten the hang of cold weather sculling, but Spring is just around the corner and will be so welcomed — even though it means I will have to share the lake with humans again and steer around bass boats.
This time I brought ice packs so I put ice on my knee for the 30 minute drive home, put ice on my knee again when I went to bed and iced it quite a bit today. Other than that, I feel great and my knee is on the mend.
Saturday looks like another rowing day, so the boat stays on the car!! I’ll try to get started earlier and do some real mileage. 🙂
Eagle Dance — Sculling on a Wild Lake
31.8 Miles — 51.2 Kilometers
The boat stayed on the car. The little red dock got another upgrade. Sunday was going to be in upper 40’s with wind 9 mph or less. I even got an earlier start than usual for the 30 minute drive to the lake. We had been having some rain and snow so chances were the water levels might be up.
I have a confession. Since the Achilles heel injury … I have gotten out of my routine of getting to the gym at 5:30 every morning. I’ve really only been back since Halloween a handful of times. I’ve only rowed a few times too. So I have gained my usual winter hibernation weight … which slows a girl down on a Flyweight. No better reason to get out for a good long row.
On the way in, I stopped at the cabin to find the Deputy on duty, who turned out to be Deputy Staten who was very chipper and sweet on that sunny morning. The lake is open now since the water has come up a few feet. So now I can relax about getting on the lake, but will have to factor in bass boats in my steering.
The first thing I did was place my little red dock … and in the process, managed to stumble on the very rocks I am trying to cover so I won’t fall while carrying my boat. Better to fall putting the dock in place. Luckily, I didn’t get wet, but I did give my left knee a sharp knock that I would have put an ice pack on right away if I weren’t anxious to get on the water.
For some reason, my early start turned into my more usual later-than-I-wanted start. I manage to get going by 12:15. Sunset was going to be at 5:24.
It was in the low 40’s so I wore my neoprene socks trimmed down to my ankles, shorts and two jerseys. One mile into the row … right at Bob’s boathouse, in fact, the long sleeves came off and I rowed sleeveless as is my preference the rest of the day, wind chill factor, or not.
I went ahead and snapped a picture of the boathouse as it is the best indicator of the lake level out there. It has come up several feet, so staying on my GPS line is safer now, but I did make an effort to row inside the line anyway while thinking out-of-the-box, as promised.
Then I started back out and within a few minutes, there was my friend the Bald Eagle flying low and slow 50 feet from my bow. I stopped to watch until he landed on a tree on the opposite bank. I tried to keep my eye on him, but soon rowed out of sight. I saw quite few hawks the rest of the day, but no more close encounters. Watch Eagle Dance below. It is some of slow-motion footage of the Bald Eagle that Bob shot on the day we filmed the Sculling for a Blue Angel Music Video.
It was a beautiful day to be grateful for in early February only a day or two after a snow fall. Despite my later-than-I-wanted start, I fiddled not at all, made no stops longer than it took to take a bite of an apple that I didn’t even finish until I landed and I downed a Doubleshot at about mile 10. I didn’t row very fast, but like the tortoise and the Energizer Bunny, I just kept going and going and going.
My goal for the day was 30 miles. I came in at 31.8.
I’m looking forward to getting back in shape. It’ll take me two or three weeks. I’ll keep you posted.
It was 41 degrees when I got off the water. The little red dock is working like a charm. I decided to pull the car all the way down the ramp to load the boat, which worked out nicely, saving me the long steep climb. But my fingers were just about frostbitten by the time I finished securing the boat. I’ve gotten the hang of cold weather sculling, but Spring is just around the corner and will be so welcomed — even though it means I will have to share the lake with humans again and steer around bass boats.
This time I brought ice packs so I put ice on my knee for the 30 minute drive home, put ice on my knee again when I went to bed and iced it quite a bit today. Other than that, I feel great and my knee is on the mend.
Saturday looks like another rowing day, so the boat stays on the car!! I’ll try to get started earlier and do some real mileage. 🙂
Flow And Grow Rich
I have posted some pieces on this website that are “previous writings” from a former website and volumes more I could put up, but I have been testing the waters with my new site and am still trying to decide how to go about it all. I have been advised that for successful blogging I should write blog posts that have a wide appeal and are not too personal.
That’s just not my style.
I certainly (you may have already noticed ) march to the beat of a different drummer. I simply run my life according to the slippery principles of Quantum Mechanics. I was doing it before I knew I was doing it. I am myself, do my own thinking, am quite forthcoming about it … and the Law of Attraction takes care of the rest.
I am not alone living by my knowing of how things really work despite the fact most people are conditioned to operate in denial and opposition to it. It is the winning strategy. It’s called going with the flow no questions asked. Most of the time it makes no sense rationally. That’s where faith comes in and where ego has to let go.
Striving and trying to control things only leads to heart-ache, failure, an expectation of heart-ache and failure and the fulfillment of heart-ache and failure. We are that powerful. We can create that for ourselves over and over. That’s fine for a while if you can let it be your teacher. It has been mine.
It used to be kept a Secret: how things really work. They made a movie about that, by the way. But there was also a book written about it published in 1937 after 20 years of research said to be the number one success book of all time. It was commissioned by Andrew Carnegie to be written by Napoleon Hill about how he and other rich and powerful people BECAME rich. It was actually the first mainstream airy fairy book. Too many notable names were mentioned for it to be discredited. It was embraced. I am sure you have read “Think and Grow Rich.”
Whether Mr. Hill or any of the 500 highly successful people he interviewed and studied knew it or not … their secret of success was based upon the teachings of a fellow by the name of Hermes Trismegistus in ancient Egypt. His teachings were wildly popular in his day but became heretical for some reason these last 2,000 years or so. Therefore the knowledge was passed only selectively and verbally through the centuries (you’ve heard the term: “hermetically sealed”) until 3 anonymous authors dared to write a synopses of it that was published in 1908 called “The Kybalion.” Most people have heard of the first book I mention, but not the second. Deepak Chropha actually wrote his own take on it all in a little gem of a book called “The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success.” This philosophy pervades the writings of many current popular authors.
I used to be (still am) an endurance athlete. Then one day I heard myself say “I am an endurance inventor.” Now I call myself an endurance optimist.
I have quite a story to tell and quite a vast vision to build. I intend to attract the many other endurance optimists in this world who will not just skim my words, but ingest, understand and feel as if I am writing their thoughts and feelings. These people will be inspired and delighted because they have the same vast vision to build and have been searching for their place in The Plan. These people have the courage to pay attention, expect and eagerly embrace the answers to their prayers. These people are brave. They are my people.
Where have we been all our lives? Thank goodness we’re here now!
‘Bout time.
High Wind Sculling, 101
25.2 Miles — 40.55 Kilometers
It was a perfect sailing day! I could have been flying a hull on my Hobie 18 on this gorgeous faux Spring day on beautiful Inland Lake. Yesterday came out of nowhere … crystal blue sky, high 60’s … and just a little bit of wind. Don’t give it a thought.
When I checked a day or two before, it looked like the wind was going to be 9 mph or less. My internet was down yesterday morning so I took off for the lake (after another morning workshop session with my portable dock) without checking again about the wind. All I cared about was a sunny day in January that might touch 70º for a few minutes!
When I turned onto the road leading to the lake, I started to pray that I would be admitted by the presiding Deputy. I went to find him at their headquarters on the way in. It took a minute, but he got on the radio and got the thumbs up. Whew!
Then of course, the first thing I did was test out the latest version of my little red dock. One more improvement and it should be an easy install every time. Yesterday I had to pile up a ledge of rocks on the other side of the ramp to get it situated, which used up my especially early start again. But it worked perfectly.
The temperature was perfect. I got on the water smoothly starting out sleeveless and sockless, but with a zip-locked change of clothes at the ready should there be a mishap. I started rowing at 12:30 and got into my pace with a minimum of fiddling.
But gosh it was windy. It was nothing new to me except that all of my rowing in high wind with two exceptions has been in warm weather either in the summer or in South Florida where landing in the drink would not present a possible hypothermia situation. The exceptions: one head race in Oklahoma City in October 2008 where 15 mph is a light wind day and my second Marathon Rowing Championships in Louisiana in November 2008. So far … I have not capsized a single. (Ask me about capsizing the Hobie!) I want to keep it that way.
Now, to answer the question as to why I tend to square my blades late on the Catch. Wind. Raise your hand if you’ve ever had the wind catch a blade before the water did. My muscle memory for rowing is based on a lot of rowing with my blades feathered high above the chop, wakes and swells and slipping the bottom of the blade into the water at an angle impervious to the wind. Then when I feel the water fill the blades I can go for the drive full strength. Raise your hand if you’ve ever squared your blades and dropped into the water only to yank on the valley of the swell that just passed instead of the actual water. Those are rollicking fun times!
So yes, I am capable of squaring earlier and do in glass, but yesterday was not the day to practice perfect form for perfect conditions. I had to work twice as hard to touch 6 miles an hour for most of the day and I had to be conscious with every stroke to let the water fill the blades before the wind had the chance. I had to share the lake with some white caps yesterday. We all had a great time.
Back in one of the fingers of the lake where the water was flat, I glided through a pair of turtles without bumping either. That was fun.
Since this lake has such a steep bank, I can get really close to the bank without fear of obstacles most of the way around (I go clockwise). But I learned, or rather remembered something important yesterday: the GPS line(s) I follow are only accurate with three or so feet. That matters when your blades are only three or so feet from the shore. I kept reminding myself to get inside the line and to watch where I was going having learned a lesson from Danger Dock on Monday. Moments after one such self-reminder, I glanced over my shoulder just in time to see my bow careening toward a stump. I shouted ALL STOP again and came to a gentle stop here:
So I promise next time out I WILL stay inside the lines … but I’m planning to at least think out-of-the-box the entire time I am inside the lines.
Perhaps the question of why I row so close to the bank has crossed your mind. First of all, I want to get the most mileage in one lap possible so I won’t have to be too far into a second lap when the sun goes down. Secondly, I started rowing on a river that is very serpentine and steering is something I am very good at doing. Third, my third Marathon Rowing Championships I noticed I rowed 30 miles. Allowing for a mile to a mile and a half of rowing up to the starting line, this means I over-steered a couple of miles at least, which certainly added needlessly to my race time. I realized the lake where I was practicing required very little steering and I had gotten lazy. The lake where the rowing club is now requires practically no steering since there’s only one line of deep water where it is safe to row. This is why I want to keep my steering ability sharp:
Natchitoches Marathon Rowing Championships Route
See? Unfortunately this wonderful event was cancelled this past Fall because of the low water levels. Hopefully it’ll be back on next November!
I managed to squeeze in 25.2 miles before the sun went completely down. I blame the wind for cheating me of a full marathon. I feel good about 25 miles in high wind. It was a wonderful row.
As I was getting my boat on the car and about to go back down the hill for my little red dock, Deputy Woodward (I hope that’s spelled right) pulled up and we chatted for ten minutes or so about how beautiful the lake is and about the wildlife on the lake. I told him about the Sculling Music Video we (Bob Montgomery, Cinematographer, Lot 10) shot that shows the beauty of the lake and he pulled it right up on his phone and bookmarked it to watch later on a bigger screen in High Definition.
I feel great today. Looks like some perfect rowing days are ahead next weekend. The boat stays on the car!
In Tesla’s Future
I am the strongest woman you will ever know, and at the same time … the most fragile. It is part of my strength that I am not only willing to disclose I am fragile, but insist that I be accepted as a whole person with self-esteem issues like everyone else … and not be expected to be an icon.
The thing about me I think that people misunderstand is how I deal with my self-esteem issues. I try to do the best with the things I can control since there is so much I cannot control. What I can control is whether I am healthy and fit, am sincere, have integrity, do my best, stay true to my purpose, never compromise or sell myself out — or be tolerant for longer than it takes to say “have a nice life” to anyone who wants to complicate my life with drama. I think I piss a lot of people off.
New Paradigm
I will quote my hero Nikola Tesla: “You have the Present. I have the Future.”
Tesla was a generous, sincere, naive and brilliant man who was just himself. He was honest and forthcoming. They didn’t get him back then.
We’re in that future. Are we ready?
I am looking for the other people like me — people who who recognize and appreciate a whole person who is not posing to manipulate. I am ME from the first minute to the last moment you lay eyes on me. I don’t have any interest in being anyone else. I love me. I admire and respect me. I have worked hard to become me. There is absolutely no ego in those statements and the people of this world who have a paradigm of love will get that.
My essence is love and joy. I love and trust everyone … a wonderful way to be. It is so preferable to living in fear and suspicion. But it also means I could sure use a savvy buffer. I have an opening for a handler.
The Boat Stays On The Car!
This time of year, riding around with a boat on your car looks a bit odd, but I since I work at home and I don’t drive much it stays safe and clean in my high arched porte cohere. (That’s French for carport. You get to call it that when you have a fancy high arched brick carport.) The rowing club moved last year to a lake where there is no under cover or secure place to keep boats. Plus, even though it is a great lake reasonably close to my house, due to the plummeting water level and my increase in mileage, I can’t row there anymore. The rack where my boat would be hung in my garage is currently occupied by my other boat that I had to confiscate from the rowing club after it was wrecked by the fellow who was transporting boats to the new club location. I made the repairs myself and it’s for sale if anyone is interested. It’s better than ever and it’s a great boat … fits up to two lap dogs.
Maas Flyweight “Hummingbird” safe and ready to GO on the car in the Porte Cohere.
I keep my boat on my car because I know how I am. If I have to put my rack on top of my car and load my boat, in addition to getting my gear ready … careful not to forget anything like the seat or the sculls, put my contacts in (that I only wear when I row), drive over thirty miles to an uninhabited lake that’s closed and hope the deputies guarding the road in will let me through, unload and prepare my boat to launch (it has to be perfectly clean), be sure I have dry clothes in ziplock bags, everything attached to the boat (like my GPS and Speed Coach are attached to the rigging looped through elastic cords), my phone in a ziplock back, my keys clipped to a Speed Coach wire …
If my boat weren’t already on top of the car I probably wouldn’t go. I just know how I am. It feels to me if I put it away, it would be like giving up and giving in to winter. I’m not giving up. I’m not giving in.
I haven’t mentioned this before, but the day we shot the music video (Halloween), Bob wanted to stop for a snack at a little store on the lake that is usually open for the bass fishermen. I normally don’t get out of the boat during my long rows, but since Bob was there on his pontoon boat filming me all day, I would make an exception. That day I learned that what looks like a beach on a lake that drops a foot a week is NOT HARD PACK! No, it’s quicksand. I immediately overstretched my right Achilles tendon as my heal sank endlessly into the sucking mud. I announced to Bob I had just injured myself. I don’t think he took it too seriously. I still got back in the boat and rowed another 10 – 15 miles. (Maybe my experienced rowing readers won’t be so hard on me now about the splashing on the catch at the end of the video.) But when I got out of the boat at dark there was no denying my ankle was in a bad way. As soon I got the boat secure on my car, I whipped out one of the ice-packs I always brought in a cooler and iced my ankle for the drive home.
The next week I kept my right food immobilized in a brace, desperate to heal it immediately. I was ready to row a full 50 miles and had planned to do it the weekend before, but wound up working to complete the repair of my other boat for a buyer who backed out. The next weekend was the video shoot, then the injury. I had hoped for a speedier recovery, but even though my Achilles tendon healed, my Plantaris tendon on the inside of my ankle gave me fits for many more weeks. My doctor and my chiropractor looked at it and said to keep my ankle it moving to prevent the Plantaris from attaching to another tendon. I made it out to row one more time before the weather became too cold. My foot started to really hurt at 20 miles, which is why I came in for the first time all year before dark at 24 miles.
Now, since I am healed from yet another enlightening injury: I want to row; I need to row. I am in denial that it is too cold to row; that the days are too short; that the lake is too far away and that it’s closed anyway. I just want to row. So I scour the weather forecast of Inland Lake every day and when the right kind of day comes out of nowhere, I AM READY TO GO!!
The boat stays on the car!
Cold Weather Sculling, 102
16.5 Miles — 26.55 Kilometers
See, this is exactly why I keep my boat on top of my car. You can look at the 10 day forecast for a rowing day (partly cloudy to sunny, high 40’s to 50’s +, wind under 10 mph), the 5 day forecast, and even the hourly a couple of days ahead and not see one rowing day in sight. Then, the night before a day that was supposed to be cold and rainy suddenly transforms into a ROWING DAY!!!!!
I discovered Sunday night that unexpectedly, Monday’s weather at Inland fell within my parameters for an acceptable rowing day. Determined to get out earlier than the last time, I got going early, but ran down to my workshop to quickly come up with some kind of a portable adjustable platform to use as a launching dock so I would be able to keep my feet and hands out of the frigid water getting in and out of the boat. That project took longer than I would have liked.
Then I drove out to the lake and on the road going in, stopped to talk with two Deputies who told me the lake was closed. I told them Deputy Dodd had radioed in last time and had been told it was ok for me to row. The Lady Deputy (I tried to read her name tag but couldn’t) checked and they said it was ok again. Then she and Deputy Burney (his tag was easier to see) and I chatted a while about the boat and my goal to break the world long distance sculling record. They thought that was great and the Lady Deputy took down the website so they could see the rowing video Bob and I made. They admired my roof rack and I told them it was one of my inventions. Deputy Burney is an inventor too, so we briefly discussed a bit about patent law and such. They were both so nice, it brightened my day! Deputy Bernie friended me the next day on Facebook. 🙂
A third Deputy (maybe Sherrif?) showed up just as I was pulling out from my visit with Lady Deputy and Deputy Burney and cautioned me that the wind was up. I said “I can handle it.” I already knew it would be around 9 mph to start and would calm down to under 3 or 4 later in the afternoon. I could handle it, even sans skeg.
When I pulled in, the first thing I did was take my new launching contraption down to the bottom of the ramp to get it situated and stable enough to stand on to put the boat in and get into the boat from it without getting wet. I decided to place it on the other side of the ramp from where I usually launch.
Then I started taking pictures of the little red dock, of how steep the ramp is, my boat loaded up to carry down …
Portable "red dock" - 1st try
Long, steep ramp
Late Start Again
Between making the little red dock, chatting with the deputies, figuring out where to put the little red dock and the impromptu photo shoot … I managed to get an even later start than the last time: 1 pm on January 3rd (Cold Weather Sculling, 101). I had pressed the wrong button or something on my speed coach mounting it and found as soon as I started out that it wasn’t showing the speed I was rowing like I wanted. I fished out the manual (I always take the manuals in a ziplock bag along with some other “just-in-case” essentials) and re-calibrated to 2 strokes. I put it away and when I started rowing again, I saw that I hadn’t fixed the issue so I stopped, got the manual back out and got to the bottom of it. Oh, simple fix … put it on MPH. Done. On the road again.
It was already 1:45 pm. Sundown was at 5:19. At least the days are getting longer. Yay! Rowing a whole marathon was unlikely that afternoon, so I just decided do whatever distance what I could fit in before dark and be grateful for it.
This time, passing by Bob’s place, I took a water level picture of the pitiful dangling boathouse that shows how dramatically far the water-level has dropped this year.
Wind Chill!
I learned something new about Cold Weather Sculling. Just because it’s 50º does not mean it feels like 50º when the sun is behind a cloud and the wind is blowing. Oh yeah, right … the wind chill factor. I know it well biking, skiing, walking and in life in general. Now I know it rowing! I wore a long-sleeved biking jersey over a sleeveless biking jersey tucked into bibbed cycling shorts with suspenders and no waistband. (Nothing baggy to snag a thumb on during the release.) I prefer it over my unisuit as the unisuit has a seam that hits me right at my waist, which defeats the purpose of wearing a unisuit! My first preference is nothing over my waist. I’d rather have on a bikini, but not so much in winter — wind chill factor and all. Also, the three pockets in the back of biking jerseys are ideal for putting stuff. I kept the shirt on for about five miles when I noticed I was rowing slower that I would have otherwise to keep from overheating. I stopped, took it off and sealed it in a ziplock bag. Then I got serious. This was the end of the “first fiddling five.”
Turns on a Dime!
It was windy and the water was choppy, but nothing I wasn’t plenty used to. What I love that I’m getting used to is the POWER OF STEERING in a skegless boat! Here’s a picture of one of the fingers of the lake I go as far into as I can and the turn I made rowing … not a river turn. So cool.
It Wasn’t There Last Time
I learned something else new about rowing on a lake within a few feet of the shore when the water level is dropping every day. You still have to look where you’re going! Just watching my route on the GPS does not prepare me for the unexpected appearance of a floating dock on my line that wasn’t there three weeks before. But it was there this time tethered by a chain that lets it out as the water-line recedes. I was rowing all out when I just chanced to glance over my shoulder in time to see my bow barreling down full speed within 10 feet of this clever dock. “ALL STOP!” I commanded the helmsman. Not really. I just slammed my blades in the water and came to a screeching halt too close for comfort! I rowed a conspicuous zag for my GPS to warn me next time.
Danger Dock!
I looked for the eagles and saw a couple of large birds flying high at the eagle hang-out. I stopped to view them through my small binoculars, but still couldn’t tell. I did see my heron friend fly by right above the water. By then, the wind had died down and the last part of the row was sheer joy. I am a connoisseur of fine endorphins and nothing but long-distance endurance sports can get you that high. When I’m rowing, everything is clear to me. I know what is important. I am happy and at peace.
To wrap up the story and the day — as dusk was falling fast, I skipped the last two fingers of the lake and headed in. Just as I pulled up to my little red dock at 16.5 miles, the battery in my iPod went dead. Poof. No music. That was the strongest indicator that the row was over … even more than the darkness I have rowed in with a flashlight bungeed to the wave shield many a time.
I was able to get out of the boat onto my make-shift dock without getting wet, so mission accomplished. I’m taking it back to the drawing board now that I know better how it should be constructed.
Your land legs don’t come right back back after a long row. Being a little wobbly is never good, but it is especially not good when carrying a really long expensive fragile thing while picking your way over loose rocks and climbing a steep ramp with gaping crevasses. I made it. And since my fingers weren’t blue, I had no problem loading and securing the boat.
One of the best things about Inland Lake is the water is so clean. I don’t have to battle scum lines and the water yellowing my hull. It takes a considerably more effort to row there, but I feel fortunate to have such a beautiful unspoiled place all to myself during my winter of denial.
Calling All Visionaries
I recently received this email from a new supporter: Michael in Germany.
Ok now I am serious! I just checked out the Cosmos website and couldn’t let go of the idea. Can you send me some more info on that, something that doesn’t give away all the secrets, but informative enough to see how things function?
I’m glad you like what you see so far. It is only the tip of the ice-burg. I have tons of information available for anyone who will invest the time to assimilate and understand, not only about The Cosmos but about my strategy to fund it.
The only way people will know how capable I am of amassing the immense wealth necessary to fund the development of The Cosmos, is to pay attention to the information I supply so they can understand and believe in my plan.
The medical device was the first stage of my plan to generate private funding. I “bootstrapped” to bring it from a concept to being a quality product that is legally marketable. It was a daunting and nearly impossible task that I was told I would not be able to pull off by professionals in the field of consulting to help Medical Companies get through the submission process to bring their devices legally to market. Luckily, I was too naive to believe them … so I did it anyway … myself. It ultimately required that I (give up going to Costa Rica where I am halfway through declaring residency), close my existing business and educate myself in patent writing, FDA regulations and submission writing to hydraulic/structural engineering, mold making and plastic manufacture. I had nothing done for me. I was there in the trenches all the way.
I can’t do it that way anymore. It was an invaluable education that makes me all the more attractive to potential partners. Serial entrepreneurs who have already taken their knocks and still keep going are the people to take seriously. I used to be a millionaire but my resources have diminished from the protracted “bootstrapping” and the evaporation of my property equity in our economic crash. It takes money to make money. That’s why I am reaching out for capable and Visionary Partners to invest in and run my many potential income streams. I have an Empire to build … and Rome wasn’t built by one person.
I will take time today to make more information available on the website. Stay tuned.
Let’s Graph Some Alternative Fuel Scenarios
Calling All Statisticians
1. What I would like to take a closer look at is:
A. What is the pre-end-use delivery carbon-footprint of petroleum-based fuels from
• extraction of crude oil
• refining
• transporting
Including the carbon emissions of the vehicles and water crafts, gas powered equipment (i.e. fork lifts) lawn mowers and weed eaters and blowers that are used in the on site maintenance and daily running of oil refining facilities, vehicles of employees of oil refining companies, off-shore drilling, on land drilling, aircraft of oil companies, fuel expenditure in the search for new drilling sites … on and on ….
B. What is the carbon emissions from the vehicles/machinery/modes of transportation running on fossil fuel of the end users?
2. As compared to:
A. What amount of CO2 will be captured/extracted from the atmosphere when it becomes profitable to capture CO2.
• power plants / oil refining plants
• manufacturing facilities and any businesses that release high amounts of CO2
• a new industry and proliferation of CO2 extracting facilities designed to capture CO2 from the atmosphere
B. What would the carbon-footprint of local manufacture of methanol be using the same parameters as above:
• extraction of CO2 from the atmosphere
• local transport from CO2 sources to local methanol manufacturing facilities
• transport or extraction of cobalt or whatever element is used for the methanol manufacture
• transport of hydrogen in whatever form (NH3?) to local methanol manufacturing facilities
Including the carbon emissions of the vehicles and water crafts, gas powered equipment if any that is used in the support of methanol manufacturing facilities, vehicles employees of methanol manufacturing facilities, off-shore drilling, on land drilling, aircraft utilized, fuel expenditure in the search for new Cosmos sites … on and on …
C. What is the carbon emissions from the vehicles/machinery/modes of transportation running on methanol of the end users?
D. What would be the carbon emission of same running on a hybrid fuel of ammonia and methanol (if that is possible to develop).
E. As compared to skipping methanol entirely and going straight to anhydrous ammonia fuels and having nothing to do will providing incentive for CO2 capture, or for oil companies to have a reason to gradually shift to methanol manufacture as it becomes more profitable.
3. What is the life-expectancy of the 150 million light-duty vehicles in the United States alone, transport and freight vehicles and all other machinery, vehicles air and water craft presently in use that require a fuel that replaces fossil fuel without having to be altered? What is the number of light-duty vehicles, transport and freight vehicles and all other machinery, vehicles air and water craft presently in use in the rest of the world and their life-expectancies that require a fuel that replaces fossil fuel without having to be altered?
5. How much longer will such vehicles, machinery and crafts be manufactured world-wide and aproximately how many? What will their life-expectancies be and what will the attrition of the current vehicles, machinery and crafts be during that time?
6. What other alternative fuel options are being considered and what would their impact be as per the above criteria in the below proposed graph?
Let’s graph those different scenarios in a 50 year timeline and see which route of development of alternative fuels is best to reduce overall green house gases.
Anyone up for the job?
Cold Weather Sculling, 101
18.5 Miles — 29.77 Kilometers
I finally got back out to row yesterday.
To get to the closest lake that is big enough for me to get any mileage without doing laps, it is a 63 mile round trip. It has been so cold, I hadn’t gone out for the last month or so! But I spotted a sunny day that would get as warm as the high 40’s with 1 or 2 mph wind and was determined to go. I wanted to time my arrival to when the temperature got over 40º. I wish now I had gotten an earlier start. I will chalk this trip up as just a fact-finding mission to determine the strategy, gear and choreography of rowing in cold weather. I learned a lot!
It was touch-and-go when I got up there and had to stop to check in with Deputy Dodd sitting in his car guarding the ingress. He said the lake was closed, but he didn’t know if it were just to motor boats — so he had to radio in to check. They said it would be ok for me to row. He asked when I would be through and I said I would come off the lake at dusk.
I had intended to be on the water by noon, but with the above mentioned delay and the imperative to stop for gas, it was nearly 1:00 before I launched. This is a wild lake controlled by the Water Works Board with only a smattering of really old cottages on it that must predate the Water Works taking the lake over and the only way to get to them is by boat from one launch site. I have to wade in the water to put my boat in at the corner of the boat ramp, stepping precariously on baseball to football size rocks that are steeply banked. Not such a bid deal in the warm weather, but a shocker this time of year.
These pictures show the difficult launching conditions of rowing boldly where no man has rowed before!
I chose the right day: a crystal blue sky and the water was glass. It was also in the low 40’s but I pealed off my shirt after a mile and rowed sleeveless. I fiddled a lot for the first 5 miles trying to get myself situated with new rowing conditions. The neoprene socks were bugging me so I switched to water shoes. I usually row barefoot since it is a open water racing scull that has straps instead of shoes. This time I wished I brought socks since toward the end my toes were getting cold. I always row with music and I put my iPod a shuffle of all the songs instead of my rowing playlist that has only higher cadence songs. I wanted to just take it easy and concentrate on form. Everyone thinks I need to square my blades earlier on the catch. We’ll discuss that more later. I could tell I had lost some strength. I didn’t want to make any mistakes by trying to push too hard. I have never capsized in a single, and this was not the day to tempt fate on that. I kept my pace to about 6 miles an hour.
On my way out to do the perimeter of the lake clockwise, I passed by the place where my friend Bob (the camera guy for the rowing music video) has a house. I was astounded at how their boathouse was just pitifully dangling on the steep exposed bank. The water level was lower than ever. Here is an areal view of what it looked like once the water level began to fall, and where the water line is now:
I was going to take a picture of it with my iPhone on my way back in but missed it. I was within a half mile of it and would have rowed back to it but I was within sight of the docks and saw two vehicles with their lights on parked by my car atop the hill. I assumed they were Deputies waiting for me to come off the lake (taking a head count: one on, one off) and I didn’t want to push my luck with them so I reluctantly concluded my adventure.
It was 43º according to my car when I got off the water. It felt colder since getting out of the boat meant getting my feet and hands wet in the frigid water. Thankfully the bathroom there is well heated and I changed into warm clothes immediately. I didn’t feel chilled all day until my appendages got wet and it got dark. It made me know that capsizing this time of year would be a serious no no. I had a change of clothes in zip lock bags on the boat with me just in case. I had water to drink with me, but didn’t even take a sip. I ate a few bites of an apple periodically and that was enough to keep me hydrated in the cold.
Having gotten chilled did make getting my boat loaded on top of my car and secured really challenging. My fingers were so numb they were blue. Even with gloves on I had practically no dexterity. I will devise some kind of portable launching dock to keep from having to get wet getting in and out of the boat. I am crunching ideas in my head.
I am also glad I had the route on my GPS screen as the sun was so blinding in spots I could literally not see the bank and had fly by instruments. I knew if I kept it inside the line I would be safe from the shrinkage of the perimeter.
The perimeter of the lake is supposed to be 26 miles. Hugging the banks within 20 feet, I have gotten 22 miles at the most. It was even less yesterday. We’ve had some rain. When is the water level going to rise again? What’s going on? Is the Climate changing or something?
Inland Lake
You can see that if I am hugging the bank, I have to do a LOT of steering. That’s why I find it so handy to not have a skeg. Having lost it repeatedly at the lake where the rowing club is located because of the treacherous shallow water conditions there, I discovered I didn’t need it for stability and it doesn’t even affect me much in higher wind conditions. I did 30 miles the day we shot the rowing music video in wind and chop without a skeg not realizing I had lost it again probably at the launch on the rocks there — and LOVED the maneuverability. I have a replacement skeg sitting in my rowing bag … but decided to fill the slot with styrofoam instead.
Skeg Long Gone
I had the whole lake to myself aside from the company of about 25 eagles and 1 heron.
At the spot where Bob had perched on a cliff to take slow motion shots of me from above, we stopped for a while when we saw a Bald Eagle and he shot it in slow motion diving repeatedly at a fish. Yesterday as I rowed past the same cliff there were 20 (I counted several times) hawks flying overhead. Then out at the mouth of that finger of the lake there were 5 more. They were up pretty high, but I thought I could see the white of their tails glint in the sun. Next time I go I will take my little binoculars to determine for sure if they were hawks. They might have been vultures, I suppose. But I want to believe they were 19 hawks and at least one Bald Eagle since it was exactly where we saw one before. I want to believe it was a good omen of good things to come.
Except for the first mile of this row, I have never worn sleeves to row in 17 years. But when the sun went down behind the trees at about 4:30, I decided putting a long-sleeved shirt back on would be a good idea. It really felt strange to see sleeves on my arms. Sundown was at 4:45.
I would have had time before dark to have rowed an even 20 miles, but since I knew I had been spotted, I came in at 18.5 miles. It was enough since I hadn’t rowed in a while. I’m not sore at all today … and have no blisters on my hands, so I am sure I can painlessly build my mileage back up in no time provided I get on the water earlier in the day. Unfortunately there are no promising looking days coming up in the ten day forecast.
But yesterday, I Carpe Diemed!
Eye Opening Conversation on rowingillustrated.com
As I mentioned in my post Interest in The New Boat Today on December 17, a conversation on the Boat Board at Rowing Illustrated began when somebody post a link to The New Boat for the “tech geeks/guys” to discuss.
I posted there this morning that I agree with the points made by a couple of the contributors in the discussion about how the governing entities of the sport of rowing (specifically FISA and US Rowing) are right to place more emphasis on the athleticism of the rowers than on how high-tech the boat is. To that end, they have incorporated restrictions on radical innovations in their Rules of Racing. The purity of the sport and the competition can only be preserved by limiting how drastic the boats can be changed by the people who have the money and the time to play the game of technology becoming the competition over strength and skill.
This conversation has helped open my eyes to a lot. I only came up with a new design because I couldn’t get any elite flat water boat makers interested in sponsoring me to break the world long-distance rowing record. So since I can’t afford $12,000 for an awesome boat right now, visions of how to make a really cool fast boat started pouring into my head. That’s how things work for me. I am an inventor — and as with so much of what I have invented: if there had been something that already existed that met my need, I would have bought it instead of making it. That is … back when I still had money.
I couldn’t have a permanent rack on my car and still get it into my garage, so I made one that I could put on my vehicle (any car with a standard rack and soon a version for cars without) in five minutes and load my boat by myself. With my new roof rack, I became autonomous after 15 years of always needing help loading and unloading my boats! I have used it for over two years and it has been awesome. Many people have requested that I make one for them, and I will. I will post more in depth information and pictures about the roof rack soon, as it would be helpful to many rowers and kayakers for it to become available on the market.
My “radical new boat design” came from the same place. I often do things just because I don’t know I can’t. That’s a useful quality I have.
The only world long distance sculling record I know of to break was made in 1901 by three guys in a treble: 104 miles from Oxford to Putney, England in just under 14 hours. I know I can break the distance, but to break the time, I’d need an especially fast boat. Believe me, I am not trying to compensate for lack of athleticism. I am strong and I have ENDURANCE. But although I love my Flyweight named Hummingbird and bought it because up until recently, I did most of my rowing on open water, there is only so fast I can make it go.
So when I can make the prototype of my new boat … and there are so many cool features about it I haven’t gone into and you can’t see from the picture — I will make it just for the fun of finding out if it really is a good design. Keep in mind, the drawing I posted was literally just a preliminary doodle from about an hour of thought. However, based on all of the good points that have been made on the Rowing Illustrated Boat Board and the introduction of FISA and US Rowing rules and regulations that I hadn’t considered — along with their likely interpretations for boats to be eligible to race in sanctioned regattas, I will try to modify my design to keep it acceptably within the guidelines in hopes that it will be legal to race — and for that reason, be marketable and useful to other rowers.
But long skinny expensive white elephants can be fun too.
Eye Opening Conversation on rowingillustrated.com
As I mentioned in my post Interest in The New Boat Today on December 17, a conversation on the Boat Board at Rowing Illustrated began when somebody post a link to The New Boat for the “tech geeks/guys” to discuss.
I posted there this morning that I agree with the points made by a couple of the contributors in the discussion about how the governing entities of the sport of rowing (specifically FISA and US Rowing) are right to place more emphasis on the athleticism of the rowers than on how high-tech the boat is. To that end, they have incorporated restrictions on radical innovations in their Rules of Racing. The purity of the sport and the competition can only be preserved by limiting how drastic the boats can be changed by the people who have the money and the time to play the game of technology becoming the competition over strength and skill.
This conversation has helped open my eyes to a lot. I only came up with a new design because I couldn’t get any elite flat water boat makers interested in sponsoring me to break the world long-distance rowing record. So since I can’t afford $12,000 for an awesome boat right now, visions of how to make a really cool fast boat started pouring into my head. That’s how things work for me. I am an inventor — and as with so much of what I have invented: if there had been something that already existed that met my need, I would have bought it instead of making it. That is … back when I still had money.
I couldn’t have a permanent rack on my car and still get it into my garage, so I made one that I could put on my vehicle (any car with a standard rack and soon a version for cars without) in five minutes and load my boat by myself. With my new roof rack, I became autonomous after 15 years of always needing help loading and unloading my boats! I have used it for over two years and it has been awesome. Many people have requested that I make one for them, and I will. I will post more in depth information and pictures about the roof rack soon, as it would be helpful to many rowers and kayakers for it to become available on the market.
My “radical new boat design” came from the same place. I often do things just because I don’t know I can’t. That’s a useful quality I have.
The only world long distance sculling record I know of to break was made in 1901 by three guys in a treble: 104 miles from Oxford to Putney, England in just under 14 hours. I know I can break the distance, but to break the time, I’d need an especially fast boat. Believe me, I am not trying to compensate for lack of athleticism. I am strong and I have ENDURANCE. But although I love my Flyweight named Hummingbird and bought it because up until recently, I did most of my rowing on open water, there is only so fast I can make it go.
So when I can make the prototype of my new boat … and there are so many cool features about it I haven’t gone into and you can’t see from the picture — I will make it just for the fun of finding out if it really is a good design. Keep in mind, the drawing I posted was literally just a preliminary doodle from about an hour of thought. However, based on all of the good points that have been made on the Rowing Illustrated Boat Board and the introduction of FISA and US Rowing rules and regulations that I hadn’t considered — along with their likely interpretations for boats to be eligible to race in sanctioned regattas, I will try to modify my design to keep it acceptably within the guidelines in hopes that it will be legal to race — and for that reason, be marketable and useful to other rowers.
But long skinny expensive white elephants can be fun too.
The Global Rowing Club 