I will edit and move these later, they are not in order.
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Still in Kansas / lathe ______/)___/)___ Sent 04/06/07 12:40 PM

FCC eliminates code, and I'm travelling again Sent 02/26/07 03:50 PM

I'm in LaBelle Sent 02/18/07 10:17 AM

Soon heading to Florida Sent 12/16/06 03:42 PM

boats OK Sent 12/06/06 01:55 PM

Heading to Michigan and beyond Sent 11/24/06 03:50 PM

the boat floats Sent 10/17/06 02:27 PM

interesting problem Sent 08/12/06 09:00 AM

question Sent 08/08/06 11:07 PM

Re: I'm in Connecticut heading toward KS Inbox 04/12/06 01:26 PM

Still in Kansas Sent 05/27/05 01:09 PM

Jon Held steel sailboat Fw: The boat is anchored and I'm home. Date Mon, Oct 30, 2006 10:22 AM

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Subject : Still in Kansas Date Fri, May 27, 2005 01:09 PM

Not much happening around here still waiting for money, still not starving, but not thriving either, living very frugally. I'm heading to South central Missouri latter today to go canoeing, the Niangua river, a group form Topeka is going that way I'll join them for two days. It's a class 1-2 river so not any rapids to get excited about, just some nice scenery, and probably lots of people on the river considering the weekend.

I bought a couple more vacant lots about 20 miles north of me, beautiful site, I now have enough to make a building lot, 3 acres, so I'll look for a cheap house that has to be moved and build a foundation for it. It sits real high and has a beautiful view of the lake, on a clear day you can see all the way to the dam 30 miles away. I have one more site up there about a 1/4 mile from this one, same view but more trees. I've been buying these 1/2 acre lots at sheriff's tax sales they have every once in a while. They go pretty cheap, I've got about $500 total in the first one. I need one more lot to make the other one be a building site also.

I've given the sailing trip talk three times now, once more in a couple weeks to the local amateur radio club.

Have a good day.

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DID YOU KNOW......NASA plans to send a high-precision laser altimeter to orbit the Moon andcreate a 3-dimensional map of its surface? When completed, the map will beso accurate that the contours of the Moon will be known better than someremote regions on Earth.The laser, named LOLA (Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter), is scheduled to launchin 2008 onboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft. It works bybouncing pulses of laser light off the lunar surface as it orbits the Moon.By measuring the time it takes for light to travel to the surface and back,LOLA can calculate the roundtrip distance.For more information, visit: http://link.abpi.net/l.php?20050526A10-----------------This comes from my friend Norm, a fellow severe weather spotter, and also keeper of my boat in Florida, thanks Norm.----------------Here are photos of the clouds that brought the big hail storm near Hastings Nebraska the other night. I've never seen a sky like that in my life. http://www.hprcc.unl.edu/nebraska/june2004hastings-mammatus.html .-------

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Tue, Aug 08, 2006 11:07 PM My old boat didn't sell. Over 2100 people looked at it, 97 had it earmarked to watch it, 6 bids took it to $6000, but no bids in the last 30 seconds like I expected, even though 20 people checked on it in the last half hour. I offered it to the high bidder with a 2nd chance offer of $6300, and a statement saying "what do I have to do to get you to buy it? How can I sweeten the pot." Still waiting to hear from him. I'll put it back on eBay with a lower reserve in a couple days if I don't hear from him.I have a question for all of you, Does anybody know anybody that lives in Charleston, SC?I found another boat I want, 45 foot steel hull, needs work, but I need to find out how much work. It's on eBay and it seems the yard is selling it for back yard rent. I've asked the seller for info on the damage but basically they tell me they can't help me. My guess, they have to sell it at auction, but the really don't want it to go for a high price, some friend of the yard owner wants to buy it.I'll be heading up the east coast soon to pick up eBay stuff anyway, got a car in NC, anchor in NJ and CN, and others. So this sounds like a possibility, got to get it to float and limp it to someplace where I can give it the attention it needs. A boat like this fixed up should be worth $40K or so. Also while I'm on the subject of eBay stuff in far away places. I've got a foldup canoe in Brisbane, Australia. I need somebody to pick it up or it could wait till I get there. So if you know of somebody heading that way, this needs to travel as excess baggage.The boat is athttp://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1,1&item=160016671323Ron Gift General ManagerCharleston City Boatyard130 Wando Creek LaneWando, SC. 29492Office Tel. 843-884-3000Cell. Tel. 843-514-6492Fax 843-884-7989www.thecityboatyard.com -------:

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interesting problem Date : Sat, Aug 12, 2006 09:00 AMI've got one website that I can't access, all others work fine and a friend tells me this one also is fine for them too, in fact I get email at juno telling me I've got new mail at this non working website,www.plentyoffish.comeven after this problem has started about a day and a half ago. I can't access it from my wireless laptop and Norms the desktop, the only thing common to both of these is the modem, the internet, this other website, and of course our good buddy microsoft. I've tried netscape,firefox and IE, same thing.I've done, disk cleanups, virus checkers, cookie deletes everything else I can think of, I've even had the friend email the owner of the plenty of fish web site. I'm thinking that somehow that web site has blocked anything that comes from computers I've been known to use. No reason that I know of and I still have an active profile on that site, checked by the friend and she sent me email, and I received notification I've got that mail waiting for me.I've used this site for years with no problems, it could also be in the local router, but I know nothing about working with it.I've rebooted everything, complete power down, disconnect form the wall thing, looked for reset buttons on the modem, found none, etc, etc.I would sure welcome any suggestions. I've done a google search and found some stuff on the net but someone with a similar problem different site, concluded it was the site doing it.interestingLife and modern technology always has something fun to deal with.

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-------- Apr 2006 I'm in Connecticut at my brother's been here since the weekend, I stopped in Indiana and picked up my Ebay purchased generator and also in Pa. to get a car. It's a Subaru that looks just like the one I'm driving, it's a 1990 model with 96K miles, runs great, but has a problem in the transmission. It's an automatic, I didn't know that when I bought it, but only paid $99, so can't go to wrong, lots of great parts and might be able to put the manual transmission from Frank's old car into it, that's the car that got me hooked on Subaru's. The trans locks up the front wheels solid after about 500 feet of moving forward, you can then back up a foot and go forward another distance sometimes making maybe 500 feet. I had a tow bar with me, but a car that locks up it's wheels doesn't tow well. I tried to dismantle the front drive shafts but had no luck, I resorted to cutting them in two with a hand grinder abrasive cut off wheel. Doing this I tested the generator and it worked fine, as advertised. The trip up here was rather uneventful, except for downtown NYC. Bridge toll collectors charging for one car and after the fact realizing I had two. They must dock wages when they screw up because they come out of the booth yelling STOP STOP, I did. Then there was getting lost coming out of the Holland tunnel in downtown, at night I didn't even know which direction I was heading. I very rarely am that lost, but spitting you out of tunnel with three or four turns underground and then a couple after coming out you're totally disoriented with no help from the sky you can't see. Normally in that kind of situation you would just drive a direction till you found something recognizable. With the crazy traffic and towing a car I just stopped in the middle of street and asked a policeman. I wanted to get to the East river Expressway, but it goes through three name changes from lower Manhattan to there, the FDR, and the Harlem river expressway. I know there are only certain places to get on it so I needed to know where I was going. It seems at least 10% of the city streets are torn up with construction, so traffic was a mess even at midnight. The biggest problem I had was signage and the lack of it. One I wanted 95 north, the sign pointing on the street I wanted said 95 south. I'm very careful about not trying to make a mistake and get stuck on an no exit off the Island toll bridge back to NJ and then have to pay another toll to get back to here, so I opted not to take that direction and passed it, then I looked back in there mirror and saw the sign form the other direction said 95 North. I guess what they were trying to tell people is that you can go north to a U turn to go south. The fact that I have been driving 2 days with only 3 hours of sleep might also have had an effect.I was planning on heading to Florida after Connecticut but have changed plans and will drag this car back to Kansas. I've got a couple things going on there, a weenie roast pot luck party and old best friend coming into town. I'll head to Florida and the OKC, NC, SC Ebay items next week. I picked up the Ebay sails near Boston yesterday, I also bought some bolts in Rhode Island the last couple days so I got those too. Seventy pounds of SS, Brass and Bronze bolts and screws. They were from Vanguard Sailboat manufacturing so I got a good tour of the factory while I was there. Ahh the smell of fresh polyester resin, know it well. I also stopped in at the marine consignment shop in Mystic, CN and bought some more stuff. I got a Genoa from a Pearson 424 for $30 in good condition. After getting it home and measuring it, I think it'll fit with no modifications on my boat, but I don't really need it. I was basically was just buying sail cloth ready made in the shape of a sail. I need to make storm sails, figure I can double up the fabric to have something strong enough to handle 60 knot winds. I still need to find that Pfaff 130 sewing machine that I can put a hand crank on to sew sails, but I'm starting to wonder how much sail you can roll up and fit through one, it might not be a handy I think, I'll have to break out the newer commercial Pfaff machine I've got in the basement and do some sewing there just to see what can and can't be done with a small short arm machine. While I was down in Mystic I noticed the Mystic seaport was having an Educators weekend, teachers and their family get in for free, it was late Sunday afternoon but I stopped in, normally they want $20 or so to get in there. I'm on the mailing list so I should get advance notified next time. Now I just need to find the rest of my family... I'm looking...Today I'll do some work on my Subaru, the muffler is getting kind of loud. The car is getting tired, it's got 224K miles, with about 30K of that in the last 6 months. No signs of stopping though, with the new car and a little work I should have lots of years of Subaruing left. I sure like the package, small economical wagon with 4WD when you need it. Just wish that new one was manual transmission, in fact my biggest problem with cars in the last 15 years has been automatic transmissions, Chevy vans, Lincoln MK7's, Aerostars all dead because of transmission failures, I finally found a manual trans Aerostar but haven't got around to doing anything with it. I need a Manual trans in MK7, that would be the car I really want, shouldn't be too tough to do. The clutch pedal would be the kicker, there might be holes for installing one under the dash. I've never looked, if not a hydraulic one shouldn't be impossible.I haven't heard from most of you receiving this letter, (you know who you are) give me a shout and let me know what's going on with you. Have a great day. JonI just did a spell check and Rhode wasn't in the dictionary, I guess maybe they think it's a small state, unimportant, I think there might be few million that might argue that point.

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---------- Heading to Michigan and beyond Date : Fri, Nov 24, 2006 03:50 PMI am in a hurry today. I have the car packed and I stopped at school to write you this letter.I'll probably not have much time for email and the internet in the next week. I'm sure I should be able to check my email sometime but not sure when and how much time I will have.I am going to go to Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, and then back to the boat in Charleston, SC. Iowa is where a niece live with her family, the man she married was a student of mine here at college. She is the daughter of my brother that lives in Arkansas. We will have a late thanksgiving meal there on Saturday. My brother and his wife and I think all of his kids will be there. After that I go to Michigan to get a kayak that was stolen from me two years ago. It came up on eBay in June and I had the police go recover it for me. Then I will probably go to Canton, Ohio and visit my cousins that live there. Falling Waters, West Virginia is the US Coast Guard office where I will do the registration paperwork on the new boat. After that I go to the boat In Charleston and will work on it for a week or so and then sail it to Florida. Then I will find a ride back to Charleston and get my car, after that who knows? That's too far in the future to predict well. I will have some internet access in Charleston at the public library.

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------- boats OK Date : Wed, Dec 06, 2006 01:55 PM Sorry it has been so long since I have been able to write. I have been busy here at the boat, I have been meaning to to go to the library where I check my email, but just haven't been able to pull myself away from what I've been doing to get here when it is open. I did try to use my laptop outside of the Holiday Inn where they have wireless, but it was so slow that it wasn't worth it. It took me a half hour to get connected and read one email. I have not seen many of my old friends for a couple weeks now, I have met a bunch of new friends, they are all boat people, that restore and build wooden boats. The boat yard that is closest to where I anchor my boat is a club of people that have and work on wooden boats. The allow me to park my car there, and leave some stuff, like my inflatable kayak that I use as a dingy to paddle out to my boat every night. I met these people because of a welder friend that I had contacted when I first came here to buy this new boat, he has a shop around the corner from the boat yard. I stopped in to say hi the first day I was here, and he introduced me to the group, then I ended up talking and staying most of the night playing poker. At one point I was winning about $30, I finished the evening loosing about $8, that's not bad for a evening of entertainment, sometimes you win, sometimes you loose. The next evening (Friday) they had a big party for a guy that was celebrating his birthday, he also has a boat he had just finished and was putting in the water on Monday. We had all kinds of food, and for the first time I got to eat oysters, that were collected that morning, boiled in the shell and we opened them and ate them (called shucking.) We did this again last night. We also have a bonfire on the beach and sit around talking and drink a few beers. Saturday and Sunday I worked on my boat and yesterday I helped the guy with the new boat launch it and then take it to his dock. I also met a couple that has a boat very similar to mine, that is anchored next to mine. They are form Florida, but are staying on land since they just had a newborn. They have a rowing dory that I wanted to try out, it rowed very nice. I will probably make one very similar to that except I will make mine it three pieces that will nest when taken apart to save space. It will make a very good, sea worthy dingy, that will haul a lot of gear and/or people and will store away in about 4 feet by 5 feet.When I first paddled out to my boat, it was just as I left it, still a mess, LOL, only difference, lots of bird shit on it. Looks like it moved about a 100 feet, drug the anchor in a storm, no big deal, it could have been if it blew a different direction and a little bit more though. I was very glad when I got back here and saw my boat still in the same place and was even more glad when I saw nothing was messed with or stolen off it. Talk to you later.

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-------- : Soon heading to Florida Date : Sat, Dec 16, 2006 03:42 PM Soon heading to FloridaI'm sitting at the boat yard kicked back on chair typing this letter. My friends are a little late, I figured the best way to guarantee they show up is start doing something like this. Last night we played poker again, it's a standard Friday night thing here at boat yard. We play dealers choice and rotate the deal. It's quarter ante and when we play Texas holdem we play a little different we have everybody ante and have a $2 limit on raises and bets, we still can get quite good size pots. With other games there is no limit and $20 bets are not unheard of, I've made a few myself. The first night I lost about $30 and then we played Saturday too, I donated another $8 or so, since then I've been doing much better, and I'm now ahead about $50. That first night I was introduced to many new games, many are completely luck, lately we've been playing more games where being able to calculate or estimate the odds helps. We think we played some Omaha last night, three cards down and then like Texas holdem after that. Often when other people deal they have too many wild cards three, like 2's 4's and 8's or two cards in your hand that add to 7 or thirteen, basically then the game if it's 7 card, is going to be won or often split by having 5 aces, 5 kings sometimes wins, queens and your chances drop considerably. Not much odds calculating going on there. Then they play a game called follow the bitch, it's 7 card poker, queens are wild and the card that follows a queen face up is wild (that changes if a new queen comes up.) One other twist is the low spade in the hole of the players that haven't folded splits the pot. Last night I folded a 3 of spades when the 2 was face up, I was guaranteed a split but had forgot that rule. I was not happy, such is life of a gambling man, $20 bucks down the tubes. Normally I'm not a gambler but I'll do it with friends, when I know if I loose a friend wins, it's entertainment. I normally think I have an advantage, if odds are involved and drinking is rampant since I don't drink as much, but it's still a GAME of CHANCE.I'll probably be ready to head to Florida next week, I've got the batteries in the boat and the electric system is mostly figured out. I also have the propane system up so I can cook food and heat some water for baths and such. The water system is still mostly torn apart, so many 2 liter pop bottles filled with water will be my fresh water supply. I should also have the two 55 gal collapsible drums filled, but they are mostly for healing the boat over to fit under the low bridge east of Okeechobee. I have yet to see how much the boat heels with them hanging on the swung out boom.I can't remember if I gave out my phone number, I have a cell phone but it's never on, it's for me to call, it's a track phone thing from a company called net zero, buy minutes before hand, basically I've got a 14 months of service and 1800 minutes for $200. I also have an internet answering service, that's the number I'll give out. It's 785-370-4232, should be good forever. You'll hear my vice saying my name and asking to please leave a message. If you do I'll get an email telling me about it with time stamp and your phone number and I can go online and listen to your message. That's free and if I remember right it's from net 10. That's pretty good for me, since email is my only real method of communication. I should be able to have very limited text based email with amateur radio on the boat at sea.The guys here down at the boat yard are great, many nights a week we've got a bonfire on the waters edge and somebody brings some kind of fresh seafood they just caught or collected, we've had steamed oysters more times than I can remember, If I make it back here on the 30th to pick up my car, we are all going out to collect some and crabbing have a big feast while watching football and drinking a few, probably a few too many. The boat yard is a collection of younger guys mostly involved in wood boat construction and there friends, the next dock over is a shrimp and sea food market and ice house, many of the shrimp boats dock here and the captains often join us. A couple days I woke up thinking I might get to know one of the captains real well. It was pea soup foggy when I rowed out to my boat late the evening before. Had a little trouble finding my boat. Anyway when I was awoken at 3 in the morning to the sound of a diesel engine and a person yelling "Turn right, Turn right, sailboat dead ahead," It got my attention to say the least. I'm anchored out a little closer to the channel than I would like but when I anchored I was searching for 12 feet of water (6 foot draft and 6 foot tide) with a long stick and I was in a hurry. Since then the boat has moved about 50 feet in a strong blow but it's securely anchored and still out of the channel so I haven't been in a hurry to move it. The last couple weeks I haven't had a steering wheel, I finally got all the pieces to adapt the new one built and installed a couple days ago. The shafts, keyways and thickness where different sizes, so I now have a system of three adapters pieces but it's good secure. Luckily the replacement wheel had a bigger hole and key and was thinner, so no modifications where necessary to it, just had to build pieces to fill up all the gaps. That was mostly done by machining with power and hand hack saw and filing. I want to get a small machining center for the boat basically an 18 inch lathe, small mill and drill press built into one machine, then I can easily make stuff like this. I'm lost without a shop at my disposal.I got a very neat forwarded email from my friend Judy back home, it's a long one, but worth it. Recording a once in a millennium event on film. at the time they didn't know the risk they where taking with their sailboat but they some learn afterwords. I'm trying to not spoil the surprise, every sailor needs to see this email, and everybody else would probably be interested too. I'll forward it separately after this email. I don't forward very much but this one is a must see. Thanks Judy. Still the friends have not showed, not a big deal. Many of the boat year people have come and gone. Last night after the card game I went home with one of the guys, he offered a hot shower and a movie and sleep on his couch. It sure was nice to take a hot shower instead of a luke warm sponge bath on a 50 degree boat. I need my wood stove, that'still on my other boat, just to take the chill off. The boat is well insulated topsides and the water is 56 degrees so 50 is a low as I've seen in the cabin.I've been frequenting a Goodwill clearance store in north Charleston, this is where all the excess donated stuff gets sold and stuff that doesn't sell at the normal stores around town. They sell most of there stuff by the pound. I've been finding very good clothes at 79 cents a pound and yesterday I found a good pair of cowboy boots, my old ones where getting where they needed new soles and heels. In the last couple weeks I've also bought a couple pair of hiking boots and a some Bass sandals. Yesterday I also found a pair of topsiders boat shoes. All these are in like new condition, a couple shirts and pants too, even got some more kids toys, glass ware, candle holders and X-mas decorations for the boat. If your ever in Charleston, you should visit this place, it's on Rivers, just north of 526 on the west side of the road.Last week I also went to a used boat equipment store also on Rivers, just south of Montague on the east side, I bought a lot of stuff I needed for the boat a couple books, one is the repair manual for the new diesel,I still need to find one for the little 8Hp yanmar. I bought a flare kit, shore power cord and a spare depth sensor thru hull, that's what I needed right before I launched the boat, I ended up paying real money for a bronze one, this $5 new plastic one would have been just the ticket, I'm ready for next time now.Sometime I need to attach the picture of the place in south China that I decided I will go to,it was on the wall of the Chinese buffet I ate at (it's also on Rivers, LOL), I'll want to see if any friend of a friend might be able to tell me where it is.This week I also visited the tall ship that they are building downtown with my welder friend. The ship is the "Spirit of South Carolina", it's going to be beautiful, many of the people here at the boat yard are working on it. It will be launched on the first Saturday in March, it'll still have a year of work left before it sails though.Still left for me to do on my boat, hook up the navigation lights, check the instruments, electric bilge pumps, hook up the radio antennas. Well that covers a lot of my life in the last couple weeks. My friend finally called they'll be here in an hour.

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--------- Subject : I'm in LaBelle Date : Sun, Feb 18, 2007 10:17 AM I've got everything in LaBelle now, it's cold down here had freezing temperature the last couple nights. I've updated the web site. Got a new page trip 4 talking about the last leg, heeling the boat to get under the low bridge, pictures too. Also check out the good stuff page, neat how Stonehenge might have been built video, and a couple others. I keep adding new stuff. My Alaska letters will be the next major thing. Then other old trips, like canoeing across Lake Winnepeg and motorcyling around the western US. I'll be heading to Kansas in the next couple weeks.

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-------- : FCC eliminates code, and I'm travelling again Date : Mon, Feb 26, 2007 03:50 PMfcc eliminates morse code requirement for ham radioeffective feb 23 technican class has the privlidges of novice.the link is on my web site good stuff page if you want to read the details.That's great news, a lot of us have been waiting for this for a long, long, time. Somebody please tell John Skare in Junction City. I was even thinking of finally learning the code before I left on my trip. I still should do it. I'll need to take my general class test now. I'm on the road again, heading to NC, WV, PA, Ohio, Illinois to vist best friend Mark from college, (his Dad is not doing well) and Kansas for a couple weeks, then Arkansas on the 15th to help my brother build his new house, pouring more concrete. I'm open to suggestions about places I need to visit along the way. This morning I spent cleaning the old boats, I'm getting some inquiries from a couple free online classifieds, Craigs list (it's great) and another free boatfor sale list. I'll add links on my web page good stuff.Have a great day.

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------ Subject : Still in Kansas / lathe ______/)___/)___ Date : Fri, Apr 06, 2007 12:40 PM HowdyI'm still in Kansas, I am waiting to hear from a person in Texas that I just bought a Lathe/mill from on eBay for the boat. I probably will need to head down to Houston and pick this up on the way to Florida, not exactly a straight line, but then my life rarely does follow the direct path. If anybody knows anybody that can pick up something like this and hold it or maybe later deliver it someplace please let me know. I'm waiting to hear from my sister and her husband that live in San Antonio and travel to NW Arkansas often but haven't heard anything.I also need to stop in N Alabama/S TN to pick up a new 4hp diesel too. I had planned to be in Florida by now but things just kept coming up that kept me here. The last couple days have been real cold, even snowed and less than 60 miles away they had 6 inches on the ground. That's Kansas, people have always said "if you don't like the weather, wait 6 hours it'll change!" It did, only problem, it's not planning on changing again now till next Tuesday. So much for the morrel mushroom crop this year.The week before last I spent at my brothers in NW Arkansas, helping with lots of little jobs down there on building his new house, that should put him about 3 weeks ahead of schedule on the next concrete pour. It was good to take a week and work on something different for a while.I've got people interested in both of the boats I have for sale, I need to get down there to show them and hopefully collect some much needed money.If you might know of anybody that maybe could help with transporting or picking up and holding the lathe for me, it weighs 500 pounds, is 4 feet by 2 feet, and 3 feet tall. The seller says he's got 4 big brothers that can help load it. If you want to see it follow the following link.http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=018&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&viewitem=&item=280099995658&rd=1&rd=1Talk to you all later.

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------ Subject : Jon Held steel sailboat Fw: The boat is anchored and I'm home. Date : Mon, Oct 30, 2006 10:22 AMThe boat is anchored out in Charleston harbor, at least it was when I left it there last Saturday, I'm home in Kansas now, everything is OK here, I've got to get rid of some cars to make the county happy. Basically I'll clean up some of the junk that has been accumulating for the last few years, I can get rid of VW rabbits, Some aerostar vans, some chevy vans, and some lincolns and it won't hurt too much. All the british stuff and other sports cars and old pickups can stay for now. If you want to see more pictures of the new boat go to www.jheld.mysite.com in the future I'll probably put a lot of my travel pics and blog there. I also have jonheld.mysite too but haven't done much with it yet. This place gives free website space and I figured it would be full of advertising but I haven't seen any. I don't know how they are making money off of me having my stuff up there.I've been dancing a few time since getting home, basically I've been taking a vacation for the last week, going dancing again tonight, and playing cards and pot luck with the singles group tomorrow. the next day is my birthday, haven't made plans for that yet, but I'm sure we'll figure something out. Tuesday is another dance night and Wednesdays I play texas holdem poker so no moss is growing on my feet.Talk to you all later.

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- ------- I sailed through Topeka town the other day Date : Sat, Feb 19, 2005 11:55 AM I was in Topeka, Wednesday afternoon, did the thrift store/ library books store/ harbour frieght thing and then to Rossville, had to appear in court, last summer got stopped in Lotus for a tailight out, fixed that on the spot, loose wire, but also ticket for no insurance card, tags from lincoln, etc. I came out of court with only a $20 fine, the magic of creative paperwork and good story telling. :-)

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---------- Date : Mon, Mar 21, 2005 04:54 PM Today it is raining. It is a spring rain, so it is not bad, the flowers are starting to bloom, daffodils and crocus. I went to a birthday party this weekend at a friends house in Kansas City. someone that I have known for 10 years, I use her spare bed room everytime she has a party, since I have a two hour drive. The friend I came with is also an old friend and a very good dance partner. I spent the weekend in the city. I went to a famous barbecue place, Arthur Bryant's BBQ, "The standard by which all are judged" to eat lunch on Sunday. It was in a book that my friend got for a birthday present, 1000 places to see before you die. It had about 300 places in the USA, I have probably seen 200 of them, but this BBQ place, I had not, so I decided to have lunch there, it was very good.

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----------- Date : Sat, Apr 02, 2005 10:45 AM I give a talk this evening on the sailing adventure to the local Yatch club, guest speaker at the spring banquet, people paying money to listen. :-) Now I just got to get them to pay me. I guess I get dinner out of it, probably not going to report that as income. Don't tell nobody, Ok :-) Later

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-------- had to give a talk Saturday night to the local yacht club about my 8 month sailing trip, so everything for the last week has been with that uppermost in my mind, I give the talk at least twice more. My outdoors club in Topeka, backpacking and canoeing group, and to the local boyscouts. I have too many slides so it ran long but everybody was glued to their seats. I had to hurry up the last half :-) because the dinner cleanup crew needed to get busy so they could go home. I digital videotaped it so I'll be able to clean it up and have it on a web site or something if I decide too. Unfortunately the video of me is all black, the camera keyed on the slide screen but it recorded the voice well, that was the important part. The next couple talks I'll concentrate on the last half, so I'll have both in detail. I imagine after cleaning it up and putting them together, it could be 3 hours. That's long but 8 months of lots of adventure with new interesting friends almost every day is a long time too.

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------- Date : Thu, Apr 21, 2005 10:45 AMI've been out walking in the woods looking for fungus, (morel mushrooms) not having any luck. It seemed like it would be agood year for them, enough rain, but nobody is find any. It still might be early but I don't think so. Some years are like that, conditions just aren't perfect and nothing. I guess that's why they can't figure out how to domesticate this type of mushroom and farm raise them. Still working on taxes, when you don't owe them anything there are no penalties so therefore no april 15th deadline to loose much sleep over.Haven't figured out what I'm doing this weekend but I've been keeping busy, lots of outside time, and had to dig out an old video of me dancing and watch it to relearn some old steps for dance class I'm teaching this week. Also getting ready to give my sailing talk to the boyscouts so making some mods to it. So everything's normal here, busy busy.

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--------- Date : Tue, May 03, 2005 10:41 AM I've done and can do just about anything mechanical, electrical or computer related, from working on Tractors to designing and building and testing fiberglass hiway bridges. I would say right now I'm just looking for some short term design or testing work. Just something to keep me off the streets :-) My list of previous projects stretches from designing and constructing Nasa space suit gloves to optical computerized laser fine particle measuring test equipment for dust explosion work. I love to teach, and feel that if you give me a book I can teach anything science related. Taught everything from engineering ecomony, thermodynamics, fluid mechanincs, graphics, dynamics, machine design, kinematics, EE for non EE's, circuit theory, and a few others that aren't right on the tip of my toungue. Oh yeah, started out with teaching physics and holography. I've developed a testing system that allows me to teach large lectures (200 and more students) of problem oriented type classes and get the tests back next class so the students can quickly and are actaully required to learn from their mistakes, get them corrected and move forward, instead of finding out about them 2 weeks later and never bothering to correct and learn from them.Hopefully this gives you a idea of what I'm looking for, basically something part time technical to recharge the coffers on the boat and then head back to sea.

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-------- Date : Thu, May 26, 2005 07:30 PM My next adventure is this weekend, canoeing the Niangua river in Missouri, I still don't have any money, not starving but I'm not used to being broke for this long, I may have to actually look for a job.. I bought a couple vacant lots, next to some others I had on Tuesday at a sherrifs tax sale, Now I have enough for a building lot, beautiful veiw of the lake, 30 miles of lake right out the front window on 3 acres. I need to find a house to move onto the lot now.Cousin of a freind just bought a 45 foot sailboat in Oregon, might have to go show him how to sail, that should be fun.

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   Date: 11/20/2008 6:08:05 PM  

Basically what I've learned is that on the net, people feel there are infinite number 

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Date: 12/5/2008 5:29:29 PM  Re :are you more of a "sail around the Horn" kinda guy or a "go through Panama" kind guy? 

 I'm more of a northwest passage kind of guy, then it'll be around the horn. I plan to head up the east coast, Nova Scotia, then Greenland and Iceland, the Scandinavian 

countries, St Pete, then back around to the Med. back out to the Atlantic, up towards Wrangle Island and scoot over to Alaska, head down the west coast, then to Hawaii to 

visit my sister. All this has to happen in under 4 years, since she is moving there next month for 4 years. It's all subject to change with 5 minutes notice.

Have a great day. Good luck. Jon 

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(I just added a pic of this property I took today on my test grading page,  http://www.jonheld.mysite.com/index.html

 Actually PB and dill pickle is probably more the likely case. If you like dill pickles you you should try it. It's very good, but I do have trouble convincing people to try it. No I'm not pregnant...... I like to cook when there is somebody else to help enjoy it. The dill pickles don't need refrigeration, an important thing on a sailboat.  PB is a strong flavor, it goes with almost any other strong flavor, I've done lots of other experiments cooking with PB. Normally I just use cheap hamburger slices. 

The beauty of Eastern Kansas most people ignore. It's not just a big wheatfield.