Category: General Thoughts

Blogs on miscellaneous topics.

You don’t have to go too long these days…

As of today, we’re about 53 days away from closing up the U-haul and starting our epic journey across the country. It’s going to be fall. We’re excited for the open road, seeing friends and family, lots of time to talk and hopefully we’ll get some fall leaves.

Even though the days and moments that I doubt my rationale for doing what we’re doing are fewer and fewer, it seems I don’t have to go too long these days to be reminded of exactly why we’re doing this in the first place.

On Saturday, Sherine reached out to an old co-worker from years ago to tell him of our plans. He then told us of how he had retired some 10 years ago, before he actually had planned, due to unexpected changes in his life. Long story short, he had 9 blissful years with his wife before she was diagnosed with and had died of a rare cancer within a year. There was not a bone in his body that questioned what we were doing. This story is getting all too familiar.

Then, we learned of an old friend from college loosing her battle with cancer. She’s in Hospice now and it seems, from what we’re hearing, she’s not likely to live many more days…if not hours. Even though we’ve lost touch over the years, its still hitting us, but mostly Sherine, really hard. “It’s not fair” Sherine says. She’s so young and was so strong in her days when she wasn’t sick. It’s depressing to think of all of the friends we’ve lost to cancer over the last decade.

Anyway, it seems that I don’t have to go too long these days to be reminded of why I’m doing this. With every checkup at the various doctors that Sherine and I have been going to in anticipation of us changing residency, we hold our breath just a little bit longer and breath a sigh of relief when we get good news…but, I know that’s not guaranteed to last and so, this is why we’re doing what we’re doing.

A Bird in the Hand…

While we weren’t planning on starting to sell our house until much later, the sale of a couple properties near our home piqued our interest. The home across the street sold for significantly more than we had believed our our was worth at the time and we had spent significant money upgrading our bathrooms, installing solar and putting a pool in, among many other upgrades.

I’m sure most folks in the World have probably heard how notoriously expensive Bay Area Real Estate is and how competitive it is to buy a house. We’ve been very fortunate. When we purchased our first home in 2005, we paid way more money than I ever thought we’d pay for a home…and it was a VERY modest home. Suffice it to say, that even with the Pandemic and the 2008 housing crisis, that home (which we still own) is significantly higher than what we paid.

Homes pretty much sell themselves here….at least they used to. As such, we teased the idea of selling our home by ourselves and avoiding the sum 4.5%-6% Real Estate commissions. But, we ultimately decided not to.

In March, the market was hot. We listed the home as “COMING SOON” but as a started to prepare for my trip from St. Augustine to Norfolk, VA, I began to get worried. We had the continued lockdowns in China, the Ukraine crisis and now crazy high inflation. We needed to get it on the market FAST!

After some 48 days or so, we finally got an offer on August 2! However, it was way below what we were hoping for and it was with contingencies, something relatively unheard of in the Bay Area.

After a couple of counters, the Buyers put their final offer in and Sherine and I needed to make a decision. Selling a home can often be an emotional experience. When the market is in decline, comparing our home value to others that were sold weeks and months earlier is a challenge, to say the least. Trying to convince Sherine that while she may be right in thinking our home is worth more than what was being offered, that doesn’t mean there’s buyers ready, or able, to spend the money we think it’s worth.

We can’t complain although sometimes we all do. God willing, the house sale will go through but we have a little less than 3 weeks to go to see if the Buyer’s house will close. Assuming it does, we’ll walk away and would have done alright. It’s good to not make home buying/selling personal, in my opinion and in times of a market decline, A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

Exciting times await!

Flexofold Props On Their Way

After finally figuring out which size of props I needed, I finally pulled the trigger and ordered a pair of Flexofold 18x13x3L. I want to thank my contact at Nautitech, Paul Colin, who has been an absolute Godsend. He’s exceptionally responsive and goes out of his way to answer all of my questions. Thank you Paul!

Of course, I forgot Europe shuts down for holiday in the summer for a month. For Flexofold, this was from July 8 until August 1st.

Finally on Wednesday, Marlene at Flexofold told me the props are packed and ready to be shipped!

Fast forward to today, Friday, August 5, I received a call this morning from someone who allegedly worked for UPS. Apparently, the declared value of the props of $5352 is some $2500 or more above the limit of importation without duty…or something like that. I didn’t research it and I could barely understand the woman who called me. Frustrating.

Anyways, she went on to say that she needed a Tax ID number from me. I told her this was not a business and she suggested my SSN would suffice but, of course, if I wasn’t comfortable giving it to her over the phone I could call Customer Service. I thanked her and, of course, told her I was uncomfortable giving her that information. That started to be what turned out to be a very frustrating 40 minutes of my Friday morning.

Calling UPS’s Customer Service was futile. There was simply no phrase which could get me to speak with an actual person nor was there any means for me to clear this problem up. I tried at least three times before finally giving up. Finding the Contact Us page, I saw there was an International Shipping Customer Service number. However, I met the same fate as with the other Customer Service number.

Then I proceeded to setup a MyUPS account…or whatever it’s called. I was successful. I could see my shipment but there was absolutely no way to pay duty or put my TIN into the system. In fact, the Website seemed to suggest that the packages were en-route and nothing was wrong.

Then I noticed one more number on the Contact Us page for Technical Service. Might I be able to worm my way through Technical Service and finally get this thing cleared up? Success! After speaking with 4 people, repeating the story 4 different times and repeating the tracking numbers at least 8 times, I was finally able to give a credit card number to pay the $39 needed for Duty. No TIN was needed.

Now, I recognize the volume of packages UPS ships. I realize that customer service must be very expensive but, I could not have imagined a worse customer service experience. Here’s a vendor that is likely making several hundreds of dollars to ship a package from Denmark to the United States and this is how poor you treat your customer?

UPS is not alone with this approach to Customer Service. Many companies nowadays have resorted to voice recognition systems at least for the initial customer service contact. They’re all horrible and I think it sends an absolute terrible message to your customers. by adding insult to injury.

I don’t know what the solution is. I suppose that ultimately natural language comprehension will become almost as good as a human…I guess that’s the holy grail. But, until that happens, we’re all going to have to suffer or protest with our pocketbooks and pray for change.

Gratitude

This morning, as I was cutting fresh strawberries and assembling my breakfast for the morning, I was filled with gratitude.

It is a seemingly simple thing to be grateful for but I was reminded of just how many people in this world struggle. Struggle for basic human rights. Struggle for food and clean water. Struggle for housing and employment. Struggle for reproductive rights.

So, as I ate my organic strawberries, raspberries and yogurt, I decided I had to write to say how I recognize how fortunate myself and my family are. Although I’m sure I do take it for granted more than I should living in this Silicon Valley bubble.

Having Dreams & Living in the Moment

I woke up, at 4:47am this morning, as I most often do. I don’t know why my brain awakens early in the morning. My alarm clock is set for 6am during the weekdays but I can’t remember the last time it actually woke me up.

I reach over, put on my glasses and check the latest headlines. What’s the stock futures today? What’s the latest on Ukraine? Mass Shootings. Political bickering. Rarely do I put my phone down before I get in the shower happier than when I picked it up. Why do I do that? The algorithms that constantly feed us articles on the same themes, ideas and topics that we’ve visited before is a cancer on society.

I’m at Apple Park now. It’s 7:22am. While some may consider this early to be at work, this is actually late for me. I spent the last 18 years of my career arriving by 6:00am. It all started in Chicago when I had kids, lived in the suburbs and worked downtown. The commute was horrible and I wanted to be home when my kids were still awake. This carried over while I worked for Apple for the first 15 years or so. Traffic in the Bay Area has gotten horrible…although the pandemic has really helped for the time being. Anyway, I digress…

Retirement is one of the hardest things I’ve had to do. I left Apple before but at that time I guess I never thought it was permanent…even though I had told myself it was. However, this time is different. It’s been 8 or 9 years since I returned to Apple (holy cow!). I’m 53. This time is for good…until it’s not.

Selling the house has been a huge undertaking. Packing and storing stuff in different locations. Labeling them. Some packed for garage sale. Some for taking to Florida. Some for taking to the boat. Some to be stored long-term until we decide to quit cruising, buy our “forever home” and move again. On top of that, I have three of my kids’ stuff to deal with and each have their own limitations as to what they can take now.

But, back to the topic of this blog. I’m struggling to live in the moment while also needing to work so damn hard to get to my dream of over 20 years to cruise on a sailboat. How do I take a deep breath and appreciate the life I have right now, enjoy the little blessings and be content when so much of my time, energy and mental capacity is going into making this big move. Add on to this the fact the changing jobs (or leaving) and moving are rated very high in terms of anxiety generating life changes, it’s hard.

6 months ago, I had thought by this time, I’d be winding down work and would have more time to invest in myself and Sherine. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Our life is pretty crazy right now…which, when I think about it, will probably be a good thing. It’s just going to make finally getting on that sailboat cruising down the east coast so much sweeter. I just have to try to remember this.

Am I doing the right thing? I have no idea. I’ve so invested by this point it’s going to happen. The house is going on sale the week after I get back from delivering While One to Virginia. All I know is this: Sherine and I have made many challenging decisions and life decisions over our 32 years together and I can honestly say, I don’t regret a single one of them. Sure, some decisions have been better than others but, in general, we come out the other side better than when we went it.

I don’t know what this new life is going to give me but, we’ll be alright. Life’s too short to stand still.

The First Boo Boo

My broker’s house has a fixed concrete dock.

I have exactly no experience in tying up to a fixed dock. This spot in the rear of his house is at the end of a finger and While One is just a tad too long. Apparently one neighbor is cool but the other, not so much.

Upon getting read to take off, I looked over the Starboard Hull and notice that the hull were too close to the concrete dock. Upon further, I saw While One had experienced at least 1/2 of a Tide with its hull on the concrete. To say that concrete is quite effective as a coarse sandpaper is an understanding. It was deep.

Ken pulled me aside later and commended me on how calm I was. As I thought about my response, I began to think “better him than I.” I think I’ll feel a lot more upset if it were my mistake.

What’s in a Name?

Once we signed a contract to purchase a Nautitech 46 Open, we immediately started brainstorming its name. It’s not often that one gets to name a vessel!

At this point, you’re probably wondering where While One comes from. Before we get there, let’s review all of the names which we had written down.

There were several criteria in consideration when we ultimately chose a name.

  • We wanted a name which was reasonably brief, easy to say, but yet not too easily confused with other words or names. Imagine making a VHF call with the vessel’s name. We did.
  • We never really considered a name after a special woman in our life, although we we were in contract for a Hylas 49 which had a name comprised of two of the owners daughters.
  • We wanted a name which was unique. When I narrowed down the list I used the USCG boat lookup website to see how many vessels were named similarly…I also even did a WhoIs search to see if I could get a URL and a GMAIL email address search!
  • Puns and double-meanings are fun but, as we often found out, hard to come up with a unique one. But we tried!
  • We spent a lot of time to find a name that reflects the identity of us which also, coincidently, referred to our boat’s identity and what it means to us.
  • Names, songs, names of our favorite bands, etc. were all fair game.
  • Finding a name which was clever or even funny was a big focus but ultimately, we chose a name which reflected more of us and the boat. What can I say…we’re both engineers.

Fun Names

Rummin’ Down a Dream

Groovin Cat

Afterdeck Chillin

Groovin Cat

Fun in the Sun

Sherine offered up this name for consideration. Having “Fun in the Sun” is something repeatedly offered up in jubilation by her! However, it’s not particularly unique and so we passed. Plus, “Fun in the Sun” isn’t exactly a short name.

Grateful Dead Related Names

Dead Ahead

Gr8ful / Grateful

Sherine and I have attended quite a few Grateful Dead concerts and the Grateful Dead is my favorite band by a long stretch. Those concerts, road trips, camping and everything surrounded by them holds such a special place in our hearts.

The song Iko Iko was written by the Dixie Cups in 1965 being a conglomeration of African, European and Native American influences. It was a staple of the Dead in the 90’s and I’ve read they’ve played it at just under 200 concerts from the late 70’s onward.

Song Names

I love music, especially live music and the Grateful Dead holds a very special place in my heart. Not all of these songs are Dead songs but the vast majority of them are. I went to my first show in Riverbend Music Center Hamilton, Ohio (Cincinnati, Ohio) in 1986 or 1987…I think I was a Junior, so perhaps that puts it in 1986. In any case, that was just the start of my passion for them and from then on, I did everything possible to see a show.

I’m certainly not as decorated as others with regards to the number of shows attended. Back then, you’d have to go through elaborate measures to get mail-order tickets or sit on speed-dial. I don’t completely remember everything you needed to do but it involved a 3 1/2 card with the show you wanted, # of tickets, a cashier’s check and a return envelop. You’d have to have everything perfect or they’d reject you. Further, you had to have them postmarked no earlier than a certain day. It was something else.

In the summer of ’92 I did a large portion of the Midwest / East Coast summer tour starting by a Greyhound to Louisville, KY and then hitchhiking the rest of the two weeks. What a blast.

China Cat

Ramble On Rose

Rambling Rose

Lost Sailor

Jack Straw

Lazy Lightning

Easy Wind

So Many Roads

Knot Fade Away (Not Fade Away)

Help Slip Franklin

Days Between

Mama Tried

Morning Dew

Stella Blue

The Other One

Chalkdust Torture

‘Round and ‘Round

China Catamaran Sunflower / China Cat Sunflower

Music Never Stopped

Wharf Rat

Love Light

Drums Space

Box of Rain

Scarlet Fire

Sunshine Daydream

They Love(d) Each Other


They Loved Each Other, a soulful song written by the late Robert Hunter and sung by Bobby, was one of our favorite songs when we were dating. We, of course, would have to drop the ‘d’.

Work Related Names

Applecat / Aplcat

Well, I can’t remember who came up with this, but it’s pretty self-explanatory..that said, I ultimately dismissed any name which reminded me of working for Apple, despite loving the company and being so appreciative of what they’ve done for me

Off Watch

In 2011/2012 I moved over from working on iPhone, leading the Analog Design and Validation teams, to working on Watch. I have been exceedingly fortunate to have worked on two world-changing products at Apple and, at the time of writing this blog, I still work for Apple leading the Watch System Architecture team.

This boat is going be our home while we cruise once we retire. Off Watch, suggested by Ken, was particularly clever and was on the short list for a while. However ultimately, I determined I wanted to the name to be more forward-looking and not a reminder or tribute to how we got there.

Memory Allocation

Memory Allocation was one of the lead horses for a good period of time. For those of you that have written software, this name will be familiar. For those of you that haven’t, here’s the meaning.

In “C”, malloc(x), is a function which returns a pointer to a block of memory in the heap of size x. What the heap is doesn’t matter but suffice it to say, malloc and free (the opposite function of malloc) is used to allocate and de-allocate memory in a computer or microprocessor.

Anyway, at this point you may be able to see the double-meaning. Our next chapter of life on our new boat is all about making memories! If this name wouldn’t cause a fellow cruiser to spark up a conversation at a Tiki bar, I don’t know what would!

Braces not Tabs!

The first computer language I learned was Basic on an Atari 400. I quickly outgrew that machine and got an Apple ][+ with a floppy disk. Its core was an 8-bit 6502 microprocessor and compared to a cassette tape, the floppy was single-sided and stored 144KB, if I remember correctly. What a machine! Writing in Assembly Language was the only way to generate any code which had any reasonable performance.

In High School (St. Xavier High School), I learned Pascal and COBOL using a VT-102 (?) terminal dialed into the University of Cincinnati’s Mainframes.

College brought 8086 assembly, Fortran and ultimately C which, for anybody who’s familiar, uses open and closed braces (‘{‘ & ‘}‘) to denote the beginning and end of a functional block. Used in conjunction with Tabs, well-written C is very easy to read.

Nowadays, it would be nearly impossible to find anybody who programs that isn’t familiar with or programs in Python. Python uses tabs to indicate a block…and boy, do I hate it! Of course, most of the folks that love Python dislike comments in their code…but perhaps I’m being a bit stereotypical.

Compiled at Runtime / Hungarian Notation / Ohms Law / Silicon Daydream / Electric Cat

Not sure why these had anything common with cruising, sailing and engineering but what the heck. Definitely on the Geek side of the spectrum.

Family, Love & Life Names

Magic of Three

Our three children. Out third boat.

A Yacht of Love

Too many words.

Tropical Pyramid

I don’t completely remember who came up with this one but I believe the intent was trying to relate our new home with the fact that Sherine is Egyptian. Perhaps a bit too obscure.

Peace, Tranquility and Relaxation

Livin Large

I’ve always loved the water and boats. Ever since I came back from my sailing classes on Lake Michigan in Chicago and started to page through a brochure for Hunter sailboats, I got an itch.

That was ~2000 and I’ve been working towards being able to cruise ever since and to me, this is Living Large.

Morning Calm / Morning Ripple / Morning Song

There’s nothing more peaceful and tranquil than waking up and sitting out on the deck in a calm, secluded anchorage. Even not so secluded anchorages are peaceful, at least until the power boats come roaring through at 6 and 7 A.M. (See my While One Shakedown post for more on this!)

Sailin’ Down a Dream

This name is a play on a Tom Petty song, Running Down a Dream. The band I started, Identity Problem (http://identityproblem.rocks), plays/played this song quite regularly.

Peace

Love the name, it just didn’t make the cut in terms of originality.

Hang / Hanging Loose

Gratitude

Another highly use name.

THE KNOT NAMES

Of course, we had to explore the play on nautical terms…

Knot Stressin’ / Knot Working / Knot missing it / Knot Missing Work / Knot Waiting Anymore / Knot To Worry

Yeah, you can tell we can’t get to retirement fast enough! In the end, perhaps it’s a tad bit over enthusiastic and many of them are not very unique.

Knot Us

We’re not going to be working forever! Knot Us…or something like that.

Knot So Bad / Knot Bad

Living on a boat, cruising the Caribbean and Bahamans is Knot So Bad!

Stress Knot

We can all use a little less stress in our lives. I’ve come to recognize that I need a certain amount of stress and anxiety…but it seems there’s a fine line of life expectancy reducing stress and just enough.

It’s About Time Names

After Work Plans

Don’t Happen Twice

Finally

Cruising could not have come fast enough. Finally!

Adrift at Last

At Last

Finally OhOhOh! / OOO / Oh Oh Tee Oh / Oh Oh Oh!

Yes, finally Out of the Office (OOO)!

California Getaway

I have really enjoyed California. It’s one of the few places in the world where you can actually ski and go to the beach in one day (although I’ve never really done that). It’s really a beautiful state.

That said, there’s a bunch of stuff that has worn me thin…but I’ll keep that to myself for now. At least for now…

Director of Electrons / Electron Conductor

Both Sherine and I are engineers…what can I say.

Paper Bag

I have absolutely no idea where this name came from or what it meant! That said, naming a boat Paper Bag and expecting it to carry us across the oceans seems like tempting fate.

Knot Going Back

Not going back home. Not going back to work.

Well, I do expect I will work again, should an opportunity present itself and I was looking to do something new. Who knows. Never say never.

We’re knotty

Probably not that unique, admittedly, but we really brainstormed a while on knot-themed names. This one actually didn’t really fit too well either…we’re not that naughty!

Why Knot?

Another Knot-themed named. Why not buy a very expensive depreciating boat, sell our appreciating home, put our stuff in storage and move onto a boat? Well, there’s a lot of reasons why I shouldn’t do this but regardless of all of these reasons, there’s one that I can’t get over as to why I should do this. I only have one life to live and I can pretty much guarantee, if I were on my death bed tomorrow, I’d regret not taking this leap but I wouldn’t regret not working one more month or year beyond what I’ve decided.

The Winner

While One

A While Loop is a programming construct whereby a certain block of code is repeated an unknown number of times until a certain condition is met. In programming, any non-zero value is TRUE. Therefore, a while(1) loop will execute indefinately!

In English, the word ‘while’ can be a noun, conjunction or proposition and, as a noun, mean “a period or interval of time.” This seemed fitting to describe the time we’re intending to spend cruising.

While One seemed like a winner to us:

  • It’s unique – We’re the first vessel with this name documented with the USCG
  • It’s related to our professions: Programmers and Electrical Engineers
  • It goes on forever…
  • Spending a While cruising is something we working towards!
  • If we ever get another boat and name her, we can increment the number without changing the meaning

While (one) {…} / While (One) / While one:

These are all syntax derivatives of While One…but let’s not geek out too much.

Another Reminder of Why I Need to do This

The last two years has been incredibly difficult for a lot of people. I recognize that as a whole, Sherine and I have been lucky. We have great jobs that have afforded as to work from home. Real Estate and our other investments have done well. Yes, we’ve been lucky and far too many people have had it a lot worse.

That said, Sherine has lost both of her parents to cancer in this time and as of Monday, my dad is now in the hospital again. Since watching the process several times now, I am amazed by just how robust life is yet, at the same time, how very fragile it is. So, while I’ve been told that my dad will be having an end-of-life discussion with his doctor, you can’t really be sure whether this is really the end this hospital visit or whether there’s a few more to go.

Anyways, all of this has reinforced in my mind the reason why I’m eagerly driving towards an early retirement to pursue my lifelong dream of cruising. My dad is 80. It’s hard not to think that he’s only a mere 28 years older than I am and that 28 years is NOT ENOUGH.

I would be a very large sum of money that what of my deathbed regrets will be not working a few more years…but I do know that if some unfortunate events come my way which would otherwise prevent me from getting to or enjoying this lifelong dream, I will have regrets.

Hearing of my dad’s prognosis caused me to think about giving notice immediately…why wait, I kept asking. However, as I continue to mature I have recognized the propensity of me slipping into this type of extreme of fatalist thinking in times of stress. So, I slept on it and most times, I regain clarity.

The timeline is the same. The plan hasn’t changed but I have even more resolve about the plan for ever. Back to work!