Category Archives: Musings

Holiday Thoughts

Posted on by under misc, Musings


Is Santa visiting the cruising boats at anchor? Photo Credit: the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron

Mike Whitehead’s Holiday Harbor Poem
Source LINK

‘Twas the day before Christmas, and all through the Harbor,
You could see a few boats sailing on the water.
And sea lions were hauled out on Harbor’s entrance buoy,
With the bell clanging with each passing swell.
The fish were happy as no hooks were around,
And the sea birds were eating, being fed by a shore crowd.
When all of sudden there arose such a clatter,
The Mermaids swam up to see what was the matter.
The sea lions dove into the water and the boats sailed away from all the splatter.
When shore crowd looked out to see such a sight,
But the birds just continued eating their supper.
All of a sudden but what should appear,
The King of the Sea bringing his own Christmas cheer.
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
As King Neptune held up his scepter for all to see.
And out of the scepter came a lightning bolt so grand,
It made a loud bang when it hit the land.
And to everyone’s amazement as you looked around,
Disappearing were all the storm drains that drained into his sea from the land.
His gift for Christmas was no more pollution into the water.
But I heard him exclaim, when he swam out of sight,
What starts at the drain, feeds the harbor when it rains.
Merry Christmas to all and to all a safe voyage.

Mike Whitehead Source LINK

Resilience

Posted on by under Musings, Quote of the Day

David’s Aunt Suzie is 90 years old. She recently (just two weeks ago) had a heart attack and now sports a pace maker. One of the reasons we’re hanging out here in the Bay area is to be near Aunt Suzie. We never really had the chance to get to know her before. We’re amazed by her resilience time and again. After her heart attack, her social worker said that what has happened would have taken out a lesser woman–but not Aunt Suzie. With her positive attitude and outlook on life, we think she’ll be around a long, long time.

That reminds us of the quote that we put on the back of our boat cards. If you have one, turn it over and read:

“One can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one
is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested
in big things, and happy in small ways.” –Edith Wharton

Civic Duty vs Whistling in the Dark

Posted on by under Musings, Pete's Harbor

I’m beginning to think this blog is never going to find its way back to the realities of Sailing Mahdee! This week, I took the time to sit down and make comments on the 1200 page EIR package for the proposed development project at Pete’s Harbor. The process took more effort than expected because I was unfamiliar with the particulars of the Redwood City General Plan–another 1000 pages of plan, appendices, comments, it’s own EIR, addendum, and errata. Gracious! The real civic duty for the citizens of Redwood City includes a heavy load of reading, for sure.

What I’m not quite sure of is why I bothered–except I remember the days of being on the other side of the table when I worked for a government agency that did real public outreach and really did care about what all the stakeholders had to say. Silly me.

You must have some background: I’m one of the people who was happily drinking the Kool-Aid of reinventing government (at the Federal level, at least) in 1997. Since we moved aboard the boat, I must admit I traded in my hard copy of the simple little book The Blair House Papers that said so much, for an e-book version that took up less space aboard.

After sitting through 5 hours of a planning commission meeting–much of it on unrelated projects–I ultimately endured the agony of listening to the landowner’s lawyer twist a knife of hurtful and calculatedly defaming comments in the back of the live-aboard tenants of the marina.

Today I feel like slapping myself and saying “wake up, you’re back in the purgatory of small town politics!”

How could I forget? It’s been too long, now I remember what I’ve always hated about small towns: the impacts of group-think and cronyism in small town politics. Yes, I know that the same risks exist at county, state, and national levels here in the USA. It’s just more sophisticated the further up the power chain you get. Easier to ignore. Even a Pollyanna like me can connect the dots at this simple, small town level. I’d rather be whistling in the dark, but once you’ve shined a flashlight on the face of that darkness, it’s hard to go back to sleep.

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