Egypt -- January 31, 2011

I hope the people of Egypt get the government that they want.

Catholic Schools Week #4 -- January 30, 2011

Today is the start of Catholic Schools Week. Yesterday at 5pm mass, the kids of Good Shepherd brought up the gifts and did the readings. The school choir performed one number. It was nice to see the teachers.

I'm grateful that my parents put me in Catholic schools for 12 years.

Good Shepherd gave our daughter a great education and continues to do the same for many other children. It is worth considering if you live in or near Pacifica:

http://www.goodshepherd-school.org/

Marin -- January 29, 2011

We took a drive up to Marin County to find a high school where there is going to be a meeting next week. As soon as we crossed the Marin County line, it started to rain.

We stopped at the Bon Air Shopping Center on Sir Francis Drake and did some shopping at the Mollie Stone's Supermarket. They have a remarkable variety of products. After getting something at Starbuck's, we drove by Marin Catholic and saw where the entrances and exits were located.

We went to the Village shopping center, and found the parking lot very full. We tried to eat at Boudin's, but the line was almost out the door. We went to the shopping center across the road and had lunch at AG Ferrari's. We visited a toy store, then headed home.

It was interesting to see how traffic from and to Park Presidio had been diverted around to one side.

Carter B Smith, RIP -- January 28, 2011

I was sad to learn that Carter B Smith had died. I remember him on KNBR and KFRC. I was too young to remember him on KRE or KSFO with Don Sherwood, and I didn't listen to KABL. His radio career lasted more than 50 years.

A Windmill at Sea -- January 27, 2011

From the 06-February-1895 San Francisco Call. William A Coulter did many maritime drawings for the newspaper. Click on the image for a larger view. I found a report that Dashing Wave was sailing to Alaska in 1918, when she was 65 years old. Captain Morehouse killed himself in 1900.

A WINDMILL AT SEA.

Novel Motor Employed on the Dashing Wave.

THE CAPTAIN'S INGENUITY.

Utilizing the Breeze on the Ship's Bilge Pump.

REEFING DOWN THE MILL IN A GALE.

Setting the "Studding Sails" in Lighter Airs — Future Possibilities for the Old Ship.

The old packet ship Dashing Wave, whose white sails have swelled to the breeze in every quarter of the globe and whose voyages have been made with chronometer-like regularity for almost half a century, carries an unnautical kind of motor on her quarter deck.

It is not an ultra modern contrivance, intricate and wondrous, baffling the non-mechanical mind by the mystery of its hidden source of power, but a plain, every-day windmill.

"And that windmill," said Captain Morehouse, from whose ingenious brain the idea sprang full armed and canvased, "is so sound and sturdy in its work that it should be rated A-1 at Lloyds like the old Wave herself.

"The ship has been in use continuously ever since her launching in 1853 at Portsmouth. N. H., and, after bumping through the billows of four oceans, it is not strange that her seams open when she labors and lets the ocean in. We carry eight men before the mast, when she used to have twenty-two, so I cast about for some other force outside of sailor power for pumping purposes."

The novel contrivance for keeping the old leaky ship out of Davy Jones' locker is rigged with six arms, upon which are spread canvas sails, each having a surface of about one square yard. In a light breeze additional wings or "studding-sails," as Mate Wilson calls them, can be attached, and in the further dying out of the wind the sail area can be increased to startling proportions. It is said that the awful spectacle of these monster wings of canvas whirling between the main and mizzen masts of the Dashing Wave has driven many a good, though superstitious, sailor-man to drink.

First Officer Wilson, a truthful but tarry man of the sea, spoke feelingly and loyally of the captain's windmill and dwelt for several columns of space upon its further possibilities.

"With a beam or quarter wind," said he, "and the lee tack of the mill hauled well aboard, the machine not only buzzes around about a million revolutions a minute, but it takes the place of all the sails on the mizzen ; in fact we seldom bend those sails during the voyage.

"But when we clap all the canvas on the mill, cast off the stops and turn her loose, the thing draws strongly on your admiration. The long arms sweeping up among the rigging and down athwart the deck from starboard to port, make the bilge pumps suck emptily in a short time. That windmill, sir, would pump out the ocean from its basin in a dog-watch. However, it is a source of danger also, for we lost our pet goat and half of the cook's head one night last trip. They ran into the wake of the mill in the dark -— didn't see it -— and were struck by the sail swinging silently through the air.

"We stop the machine by bracing it sharp up on the wind and when the motion is checked throw a bowline over one of the arms. This part of the business isn't down very fine, as it was built to go and only a dead calm can really knock it out. The captain is thinking of getting a dynamo and having our own electric lights, and possibly we can use a propeller with the power generated from the windmill. The Dashing Wave is known as the 'lucky ship' because she never had an accident or wreck, and she never failed to meet expectations in any form or in any kind of weather, and water can't run into her faster than our windmill can run it out again."

Comic Book #1 -- January 27, 2011

I always enjoy seeing the Axis leaders get their comeuppance. Boody Rogers created Sparky Watts for newspaper syndication in 1940. Later the Columbia Comics Group picked him up for their book Big Shot. Sparky got his powers when a mad (but good) scientist zapped him with cosmic rays. Here Sparky delivers a salute to Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo.

It's Hard Work Being a Cat #43 -- January 25, 2011

I took this photo on 24-January-2011.