Yearly Archives: 2009

One place I check online a couple of times a day is the stats section of this blog. The interesting part of the stats is that it shows the location people use to click onto my blog. This evening I found two people had clicked through to me from something called “boat insurance.org.” Naturally I clicked on them to find out why since I have no known connection to them and found out that according to Boat Insurance.org I’m one of the “50 Must Read Boating Blogs” listed under their section called “Inspiration.” Their web page says, “Some blogs indulge their audiences with gorgeous photos, thoughtful meditations on boating life, humorous takes on maritime adventures, or some combination. Not always easily categorized, they’re still well worth your attention. Messing About in Boats, Tugster, Sea Fever, and OldSalt1942 fall into this category.”

Good strokes to the ego.

http://www.boatinsurance.org/50-must-read-boating-blogs/

Take this test…it’s harder than you’d think…

http://www.sporcle.com/games/common_english_words.php

I got 36. I don’t know if that’s good or bad, but it made me feel fairly dumb.

There’s a ton of other quizzes here:

http://www.sporcle.com/

This is how bar pilots get to their job site:

The Somali Pirates have been giving the old, honored profession a bad name lately, and one reason is that they don’t use nifty phrases like these:

What we know of as “Pirate Talk” really started when British actor Robert Newton portrayed Long John Silver in the 1950 Disney version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. Newton’s pseudo-Cornish accent became the standard for rougish, salty talk for the past 60 years.

Take the time to say”Thank You” if you see a man or woman in uniform today.

There’s a long line of veterans in my family going all the way back to the U.S. Revolution (on the winning side). My paternal grandfather fought in the Spanish-American War. My dad was on board ship in the Pacific during WWII. I’m a vet, too, and a lucky one at that. I got my DD214 (Discharge Papers) six months before the Gulf of Tonkin resolution passed. I have one nephew who just finished his second tour in Iraq and is now out of the Army and another nephew who is in an Army school learning how to disarm bombs.

One thing I’m grateful for THIS Veteran’s Day is not having to see those disgusting cowards George (putting the W into AWOL) Bush and “Five Deferrment” Dick Cheney laying wreaths at the graves of people who epitomize the phrase that “Freedom Isn’t Free.” Watching them doing that always made me throw up in my mouth a little bit.