I lost a childhood hero ... or did I? Certainly the creator, but not the creation?  Imaginary characters never die, do they?  After all, that's part of the purpose of creating: to leave something of your soul behind.  On the other hand, one more protective layer between me and infinity is gone.  That's how you know you're an elder ... when the hard questions come, and there's no one wiser or more experienced to ask, so all eyes turn to you.

Then this came up on the 'net, and made it even sadder.  Getting lonely here in Trekland:

Musings on Aging and Winter

Its been interesting winter so far, and I've got to say I've been loving it. I enjoy the seasonal travel by boat, exploring new places, but at the same time, its been lovely staying in one place and watching the landscape gradually change with the seasons. I feel just a bit more in touch with nature this way - ironic, since in fact we've spent the last 3 months in a plastic bubble rarely able to look outside except to the east, but in fact, feeling a bit chill, hearing the hiss of snow or the pat of rain, and the shift of wind and tide, *does* make me feel in tune with the seasons. When we went south, we stayed in a little bubble, a zone of 70-degree weather (20 C, I think?) for months on end, moving south then north again as that temperate zone moved, and it was disorienting. But here, its been cozy, we've spent a lot of time cooking, and hanging out just the two of us, as there is little activity on the dock.

But not totally antisocial ... we had an absolutely awesome superbowl party, connected up with a lot of new folks, and of course it was nice that the local team won. At one point Dan & I realized that we were the oldest people there, and the second-most experienced cruisers. Most of the folks we'd learned from had moved back ashore, if they were still interested in traveling, they did so by car and plane. We were able to advise the next group of younger, newer boaters, which is very cool ... but was making us feel old. I remember visiting the American Indian museum in Washington DC and they had a videoed conversation with an elder, and at one point s/he was asked, "How do you become an elder?" and the answer was something like, "There is no ceremony, no declaration. You become an elder when there is a question, and there is no one older or wiser to ask." Suddenly, at our superbowl party, while we were chatting with K & D about boat insulation for winter, we realized that *we* were the elders. Both exciting, and humbling. Becsuse yes, we have a lot of info, but there's still so much we *don't* know. It feels like a responsibility, what if while we're talking with them, we leave out something important? And that causes problems for them? Back in September, we had sent them an email warning that (certain kind of heater) doesn't work in cold water, and most of us use oil-filled electric heaters in Jan & Feb. But that was in September, and during the last cold snap, they had long forgotten that advice, and tried to use the other heater, which didn't work, as predicted. She'd acknowledged that when she went back to the email, everyhting she needed to know was there, but she hadn't remembered. So now we're going to get together later this week, and go over again with them everyhting we can think of about living on a boat in winter ... and I'm really hoping that its not my turn to forget something. [Special bonus for me, is that some of what we discuss will help me organize my thoughts for my part of the book I've been invited to coauthor]

In contrast to being the elders on Sunday, yesterday we went to an awesome science lecture on legal & regulatory issues about water pollution. I know, that doesn't sound exciting, but for me it was. They talked about issues that almost exactly spanned the timing of my professional career, and on the intersection of science with public policy in writing rules that worked. (yeah, okay, sounds dorky, I get it. Bear with me, okay? I really miss getting deep into the science - as I mentioned in a blog post a couple of months ago, I no longer *work* as a scientist, but I never stopped *being* one - science is still the way I look at the world, I still want to know "why" things are the way they are.) That evening, we were chatting about the event and some of the audience questions, and side conversations. Many of the latter were about things like identifying people in old photos from approx 1920s and 1930s, and how the people were gone, and in many cases even the children were gone. And some of the audience questions sounded like people were a bit desperate to prove that they were still relevant, that they still had a grasp of the science or that their old work was still relevant. And I thought, uh-oh, will I sound like that too, in some years? Right now, we're the rock stars of this group - people are fascinated by our stories of life on the boat, and Dan pointed out that I was the youngest person in the room. And maybe, just being aware that you can come across that way, will prevent it happening. But I realized that that was one of the reasons I didn't want to do anything science-related in retirement, I wanted to focus on *new* things - maritime history and sailing - so that I wouldn't be tempted to live in my own past. And don't get me wrong - I'm incredibly happy doing what I'm doing now. Just thinking about future, a little bit.

Some of this musing has been brought on by our discussions of what I call our "reentry fund." Someday, we too will need to move back to land somewhere. We're keeping some money set aside to remodel our condo or buy or build a new home, when that day comes, and buy some furniture and a new(er) car. [We're still discussing how much that should be, and how much we can spend now. Which of course depends on a whole bunch of things we can't answer, like, when and where we'll move ashore. We haven't found our perfect place, yet.]

Summary: 2012

Got this great list of questions from friend RoseAnn's blog.

1. What did you do in 2012 that you’d never done before? Learned swordfighting!
2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I only made one resolution last year - to read at least one nonfiction book every month to keep my brain from turning to jello in retirement.  (Mostly kept, I read 11 nonfiction books last year) No resolutions this year, but see the preceding post.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth? No, but 3 acquaintances gave birth within a few weeks of each other in the spring
4. Did anyone close to you die? No one close, but with online connectivity our circle is wider, so we heard about the loss of more people we knew only slightly.  The sinking of the tallship Bounty in Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy affected me quite a lot.
5. What places did you visit? We started the year docked in St Augustine, FL, visited Aruba in February and March and traveled back up the U.S. East Coast to Annapolis in April and May.  After those miles we were delighted to stay close to home for the rest of the year.
6. What would you like to have in 2013 that you lacked in 2012? More opportunities to explore the Chesapeake Bay by boat.  We spent two full months of last summer on the hard working on the new copper bottom paint.
7. What dates from 2012 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? Dan's surgery June 11; a talk I gave on Nov 5 that I'd been wanting to do for some time.
8. What was your biggest achievement(s) of the year? Amping up my writing.  My "public" blog Life Afloat Archives got a lot more visibility and I think my writing has improved.
9. What was your biggest failure? Not a "failure" in the sense of something I did, but I'm deeply frustrated at being unable to resolve formatting issues that prevent my work posting properly at the newspaper I've been writing for.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury? No.
11. What was the best thing you bought? Our pirate garb has led to many new adventures and meeting interesting people!
12. Whose behavior merited celebration? .
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? Congressional Republicans and Tea Partiers.
14. Where did most of your money go? Boat improvements like the copper bottom paint; and a new roof on the Arizona rental house.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? really improving our diets/cooking
16. What song(s) will always remind you of 2012? Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen; Gangnam Style by PSY; and the wonderful spinoff YouTube videos of Naval Academy midshipmen spoofing the Dallas Cowboy cheerleader version of #1 and both the Naval Academy mids and West Point cadets spoofing #2
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? happier
b) thinner or fatter? same
c) richer or poorer? poorer
18. What do you wish you’d done more of? sailing in the Chesapeake, see #6
19. What do you wish you’d done less of? alcohol - a couple of really over-the-top parties
20. How did you spend Christmas in 2012? quietly and privately aboard our shrinkwrapped boat
21. Did you fall in love in 2012? I stayed in love in 2012, which at times feels just as significant. (this is RoseAnn's answer and I love it!)
22. What was your favorite TV program? n/a; haven't had a TV for a long time
23. What did you do for your birthday in 2012? met friends Donna and John in Rock Hall for the "pirate festival."
24. What was the best book you read? the Sparrowhawk series; historical fiction set around the time of the American Revolution
25. What did you want and get? continued improvement of my back/walking issues with physical therapy; Obama's reelection
26. What did you want and not get? completely out of debt, thanks to the Arizona house roof
27. What was your favorite film of this year? n/a
28. Did you make some new friends this year? Yes, in the historical reenacting and pirate communities
29.What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? totally conquering my back/walking problems
30. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2012? For the first few years after retiring, I was consciously rebelling and wore only t-shirts and jeans.  After the 3-year anniversary I started wanting to class it up just slightly, though still pretty casual.  A few posts in our blogging Raft Up about laundry last August - especially Tammy's - inspired me.
31. What kept you sane? watching sunlight on water ... as always
32. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? Kate Middleton.  She knew what she was getting into and never seems to lose her poise.
33. What political issue stirred you the most? The whole concept of fighting over raising taxes.  I think the place to start is to decide what government should do (take care of the poor and sick and elderly?  national defense? regulate behavior between two consenting adults?) and then decide how much that will cost, not start with how much you want to pay, or not, and then react to that imposed budget.

New Year's Un-Resolutions

I don’t do New Year’s resolutions – at least, not the “this year I’m going to lose 20 lbs, exercise more, drink less, organize the basement, and be nicer to my sister” kind of resolutions that everyone makes  in January and everyone breaks by March.  But still, I find the new year's eve a time for reflection -- not resolutions, but a time to think about priorities, “What will I write in the blank book that is my life, 2013?”

In my 20s, when the possibilities were infinite and future was wide an green and forever stretching before me, I had definite goals for my life; things like “Have a meaningful career,” “Find a forever lover,” “Raise a child,” “Live in a great place.” Some were achieved, some fell away.

Now in my late 50s, after retiring from a satisfying career and well past the age when I could have a kid if I wanted to, I realized that although I don’t have big life “goals” there is still definitely some big stuff I want in my life.  So instead of wearing a funny paper hat last night while drinking champagne, I drank cherry lemonade and sat with a pencil and my thoughts.  Below is the list I came up with, trying to articulate what big stuff I want in my life.  Getting up of course to watch the fireworks at 7:30 and at midnight; I’m not too old to love magic lights in the sky at night!

Big stuff I want in my life. The items on this list aren’t finely worded or for publication, they are not in order, they’re just for me (and you if you are interested).  I’ll probably come back and tweak this list from time to time. It intrigues me to see how many of the things I’ve prioritized are linked and intertwined.

• Dan!!!
• No worries about money, i.e., living below our means.  I feel wealthiest when I balance the checkbook and have a bit left over for charity and for being able to overtip my server at a restaurant.
• Opportunities for engagement with people in stimulating conversation – time for friends old and new, in ‘real life’ and online.  True to my Leo horoscope, I’m an unabashed extrovert.
• Health, being able to go for long leisurely walks and maintaining my physical therapy exercise regimen.
• Building the world I want to live in, and leaving the world better than I found it – volunteering and giving back, charity, having an impact, being mindful of our environmental footprint.  Writing something that leaves an impression.
• Opportunities for continued learning.
• Being in touch with Nature and seasons.
• Small space living, part of both having a great home, and creating a small footprint.  
• A home that works for me.  This includes both a great town, and a great house.  A great town would be on that is literate, politically moderate to liberal, lots of educational and cultural opportunities, probably a college town with both seasons and scenery. When I was shopping for my first house I told the realtor that what I wanted, the only requirements, were lots of wood, lots of sunshine, a great view and a great kitchen.    That list has never changed.  Although the sizes of the homes have varied for many reasons, there has always been a strong preference for small space living. from the massive Victorian we owned in Wyoming to the little sailboat. Settle somewhere I could have a cozy home and be in touch with nature and the change of seasons (a stone cottage on a bluff beside the ocean in New England, maybe, or a cabin in the Colorado mountains).  Most important, I need a feeling of safety at home. 
• Seasons, change, and newness.
• Time for hobbies, and growth, lifelong and new – cooking, reading, travel, history, maybe some art. Writing.

As interesting to me as what I put in the list, is what I left out.  Traveling by sailboat isn’t on the list. (!!??)  I love our life afloat and don’t have any plans to change it in the near or moderate future; it’s a perfect platform for getting everything on my list into my life.  It’s just that sailing, in and of itself, isn’t a goal; the things on my list could be accomplished in other ways.  I don’t necessarily want to be a great sailor.  I want to have a great life, while sailing.

In Quest of Ordinary

October 2012; better living through chemistry 

When you're a kid, all you want to do is fit in, be unremarkable, ordinary.

I look Caucasian and identify as Caucasian, although there's a tiny touch of Africa in my dad's heredity.  It manifests in me in great skin that at almost 60 years old still has few wrinkles, and I can  get a gorgeous bronze-gold tan with minimal effort.  I joke that I can look at a lightbulb and get tan.  The price of that skin is hair that has an (*ahem*) "ethnic" texture.  Hair that earned me my unfortunate elementary school nickname "Brillo." Every day of my young life was a bad hair day with my kind of hair.

Junior high school was an endless struggle of chemicals and rollers, never letting my hair get wet so it wouldn't frizz, never jumping in the swimming pool or going to the beach or walking in the rain, all in the quest to look like everyone else.  Ordinary, unremarkable, because that is the age when, more than anything else, kids wish to fit in.  Straight, shiny, swingy hair that moves was it, in the 1960s.  And the rituals continued through high school, college, and my 20s, periodic trips to the salon for chemical straightening and several hours of combing and roller setting and sitting under a dryer every time I washed my hair.  My fantasy was to have straight hair and that needed nothing more than to let it air dry any time I washed it and it would stay straight, you know, like every one of my friends could do; instead of the incredible effort it took me to achieve an imperfect approximation of that same look.

Fast forward to 2009 ... and there is a process that would do exactly what I had fantasized.  Expensive, but for $700 every 3 or 4 months, I could have the hair of my dreams, silky, shiny, straight, and no maintenance except wash and wear.  I think it truly would have changed my life had it been available when I was in junior high, I might have had the self-confidence to become one of the popular kids.  Heck, it changed my life when I did it as an adult. I loved it, I had to do it if for no other reason than vindication of all the grief my younger self had put up with.  When it was done, it was just like you would expect me to look, blue eyes and pale blond hair.  I grew my hair halfway down my back and let it shine and flipped it over my shoulder and never had a bad hair day.

But then I realized.  I was still spending huge amounts (of money, now, instead of time, because I'm a grownup and can do what I want) to look ... ordinary.  Just as I felt compelled to do in junior high school. See me on the street and you wouldn't think anything of it - ordinary middle-aged woman who's got a decent hair cut but not doing anything special with her hair.  Here's the giant irony: now that it was in my grasp to have unremarkable hair, as an adult, "ordinary" wasn't really what I wanted any more.  If I was going to spend that much money and effort, I wanted to look outstanding, amazing.  Or, conversely, if I was going to end up looking ordinary anyway, I might as well do it for free.

So I'm letting my straight, shiny hair grow back out, and I'll cut it short and curly for our next cruise.  I'll go wash-and-wear, and just be my unfiltered self.  (and save both money and water, too!)

Before we left Michigan, our stylist taught Dan how to cut my hair the way she did, so we could maintain ourselves when we went cruising.  This is my "natural" hair, circa 2006.

Light and Darkness

A friend is an anti-death-penalty activist; her guy was executed today.  It's complicated.

Do not think you didn't make a difference.

In the unchanged world, he lived, and he died, that is all.  Because of you, he was loved before he died.  That is everything.

You cannot fight darkness with more darkness.  You can only fight darkness with light.  You cannot fight death with more death.  You can only fight death with love.

"Perhaps he deserved to die.  But there are those that die, that deserved to live.  Do not be so quick to grant the one, unless you can grant the other."  (my paraphrase of Gandalf the Wizard's comments in Tolkein's Lord of the Rings trilogy; and reminder of the virtue of humility; to the governor of Texas on the death penalty)

Embracing Winter

Who, me?  The one married to the guy who boasts that the only ice he's seen since 2008 is in his glass of rum?  Me?  Winter?

Yeah.

We decided to hang out in Annapolis this year for a couple of logical reasons. I wanted a long period with supertrainer Jen to get my back back into shape so I could, you know, walk normally.  And we'd needed a few months to let the bank accounts rebound after the excess spending of the last glorious winter in St Augustine.

I knew that staying in Annapolis for a year meant we'd experience winter for the first time in 4 years. What I didn't expect was to look forward to it.  But today in the grocery store the shelves were stocked with big orange soup mugs and a sale on canned Progresso soup.  Like all advertising, it wasn't about the item itself; it was about the image of myself using the item, that they tried to sell.  Sure enough, I could visualize myself in the cozy lovely life I fantasized, log cabin in the woods with the trees shedding their autumn-colored leaves outside.  And I wanted that coziness, that safety from the storm.   I could just see myself standing near the fireplace, wearing a well-loved old gray sweater, sipping warm tomato soup from that mug after an invigorating hike in the woods...

I don't have a log cabin, or woods full of maple trees.  And I know that winter will also include chilly fingertips, icy docks, and dark mornings.  But I'm going to buy myself one of those big mugs, and browse the Web for soup recipes, snuggle down, get slow and contemplative and quiet, light some candles and make the very very best of the coming season.

COLREGS

There's been a lot of coverage here (and here and here) of a bad boat crash involving high speed and drinking on the part of one of our legistators.  The other boat was a guy trailing his grandchildren tubing.  Lots of injuries - fortunately, all are expected to recover - and lots of blame to go around.  Speed and alcohol for sure on the one boat, potentially speed, distraction and/or erratic driving on either or both boats.

The accident investigation to determine who was at fault hasn't been completed, yet.  Lots of conversations online and with boating friends speculating about "who had the right-of-way?"

See, with boats, there is a clear set of rules explaining what to do in various situations where boats meet on the water.  They are the "COLREGS" - International REGulations for Preventing COLlisions at Sea.  They explain which boat has to alter course if two appear to be on a collision course - sailboats yield to tugs, for example, and power boats yield to sail; in this case it's about which boat is more maneuverable.  The boat that has the right-of-way also has obligations; it must maintain its course and speed so the boat that is charged with avoiding it can predict where it will be.  COLREGS also give general rules to be followed at all times (keep proper watch, keep speed safe for conditions); and codify old traditions that describe the pattern of lights that will allow boats to see each other, and just by eye to identify each other's type and some indication of their orientation and course at night.

It's my fantasy, so I keep thinking, it would be so cool if we had some sort of COLREGS for everyday life.  Just imagine how smooth social interaction would be if everyone knew and followed the same rules to avoid. if not boat crashes, then personality clashes!  I get that etiquette is intended to do just that, sort of, but it varies from culture to culture and even from region to region. But remember that whole bit in the COLREGS about lights, so you can instantly look at another boat and from its lights at night, understand what kind of boat it is and where it's headed?   What I'd really like in my hypothetical COLREGS for social interaction, is the equivalent of those lights - so that on meeting a new person, you could instantly understand their true nature and intentions.

Note: This post is in no way a reference to either current national politics, nor any of my former lovers.  Nope.  None.  Not any.  (Yeah, right.)

Appropriate, Somehow

Yesterday, Aug 23, was the fifth anniversary of my dad's death.  He was an engineer and a materials expert, fascinated by new gadgets and processes.  Somehow it seemed very fitting to me that yesterday was also the day we got 4 coats of the wonderful copper-epoxy bottom paint we've been so excited to try.  I don't know whether he would have thought the concept of adding copper powder to epoxy to repel barnacles and other marine growth brilliant or wacky, but I'm sure he would have had an opinion!

Stirring pure powdered copper into the 2-part epoxy

Four coats of the stuff made our hull sparkle!

Mel at work early in his career.  He quit smoking in his 40s, but  continued to have a messy desk until the day he died.

Its All Good

It's hot.  It's sticky-icky humid Washington in summertime hot, and the aircon can't keep up.  And I'm sitting here, dripping, and basically waiting for evening when it cools down.  Waiting for the day to be over. 

Whoa!! What's wrong with that?  What's right with that?

A day - a single day - doesn't seem like so much in the middle of your life, but has infinitely more value at the end.  I'm letting this day basically dribble away, this day that has, whatever else, sunshine and freedom and relative health and Dan in the same room with me.  There were times when I was facing a deadline, when I would love to have an extra day before (whatever-it-was) was due.  Or my friend whose husband has only a few more months to live, I'm sure she would gratefully take this day, sticky-icky temperature and all, and add it to his dwindling supply if she could.

How could I take this day for granted?  Maybe somewhere there's a cosmic reset button on today?  Or at least, on my attitude?

Playlist for Dan's birthday included: The Beatles' "When I'm 64" (of course! Thank you Daniel S. for the mp3 version) and Jimmy Buffett's "I'm Growing Older But Not Up." He rarely seems to want frivolous stuff, so its been cool to see that while we've been here, he's been pretty excited about pirate history (blog post coming!). We've been to the pirate museum, gone on the pirate ship, and now, for his B-day, bought pirate costumes and signed up for (are you ready?) swordfighting lessons.

After we got home, we were sitting in the cockpit (dressed as pirates!) and almost immediately some dockwalkers came past and begged for a photo. Its kind of a kick, posing with swords with random strangers. (Who knows how many facebook pages we'll be on?) These people were from Russia, Israel, and Columbia, and were having a blast! So now we're St Augustine cultural ambassadors. Playing is good!

A Holiday Thought

Originally Posted in the Annapolis Capital: December 25, 10:43 am | (permalink) | (0 comments)

 [photo: starfish instead of snowflakes complement this garland seen on one of our daily walks around downtown St Augustine]

I can’t help it – plastic icicles hanging from palm trees just don’t get me into the holiday mood. Maybe it’s because we spent so many years in government service assigned to snowy places like Michigan and Wyoming before coming to Annapolis; or maybe it’s just the cliché images we’ve been bombarded with. Whatever, but songs like “Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow;” or “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas” have been running through my head, jarringly incompatible with the 80-degree sunny days we’ve been having. Day before yesterday, we took the dinghy to the beach for a picnic, waded along the water’s edge picking up seashells and watched dolphins playing in the harbor. A lovely day, but not a lovely “two-days-before-Christmas-catch-the-spirit” kind of day. For me, that means coming home to a crackling fire in the fireplace, not coming home to wash off the salt and turn on the air conditioning.

And then this morning I woke up next to the one I love, safe and well-fed, on a boat, in an interesting new city, and realized another holiday image that doesn’t depend on snowflakes or reindeer. It’s the image of gratitude, and the realization that the greatest gifts aren’t the ones that come in packages wrapped in shiny paper. Cliché? Maybe. But maybe it’s a cliché because it’s repeated often, and it's repeated often because it’s very, very true. The greatest gifts are not those that you can touch with your hands; they are the ones that you touch with your heart.

Wishing you all peace, love, joy … all the things that matter most, this holiday season.

I Loved This Story

Reads like a fairy tale, but if the website is to be believed this is history, not fantasy. Cool!

Alvilda

Alvida (aka Alwilda, Alfhild, Alvild) was the daughter of Synardus, the king of Gotland. Her parents kept her locked in her room, and set two poisonous snakes to keep away all but the most ardent of suitors. The most persisant and brave fellow turned out to be Prince Alf of Denmark, and though he passed the test Alvilda's parents were none too happy about the match. Deciding she wasn't ready to be wedded to some stuffy Prince, Alvilda took advantage of her parents' irresolution and hightailed it out of there. She joined a crew of cross-dressing women, but had barely got started in a career in terrorizing the Baltic coast when they came across a crew of pirates that had lost their Captain. They were so impressed by her capable skills that they voted unanimously to elect her as their new leader. With these fresh reinforcements beneath her ruthless guidance, this formidable woman became such a nuisance to the merchant trade that her former betrothed, Prince Alf, was dispatched to bring the troublesome pirates to justice.

Alvilda and her crew fought back to the best of their abilities, but in the gulf of Finland they were bested at last. Prince Alf and his men boarded the pirates' ship, where hand to hand fighting ensued. After sustaining heavy casualties, Alvilda's crew succumbed and she herself was taken captive. With her beauty concealed by a face covering helmet, she was taken prisoner, and it was only when this helmet was removed that Prince Alf realized who the scourge of the seas had been. For her part, Alvilda was so impressed by how Alf had fought in battle that she married him on the spot. She went on to share his wealth and throne as Queen of Denmark, and together they had a daughter, who they named Gurith. Whether little Gurith followed in her mother's ocean going ways is not known.

My Dad Would Have Loved These

He used to keep multiple xerox copies of funny engineer jokes in a special folder, to share with friends. Thanx to Ed B. for showing me this one.

	Akin's Laws of Spacecraft Design*
Space Systems Laboratory - Department of Aerospace Engineering - University of Maryland

Home

1. Engineering is done with numbers. Analysis without numbers is only an opinion.

2. To design a spacecraft right takes an infinite amount of effort. This is why it's a good idea to design them to operate when some things are wrong .

3. Design is an iterative process. The necessary number of iterations is one more than the number you have currently done. This is true at any point in time.

4. Your best design efforts will inevitably wind up being useless in the final design. Learn to live with the disappointment.

5. (Miller's Law) Three points determine a curve.

6. (Mar's Law) Everything is linear if plotted log-log with a fat magic marker.

7. At the start of any design effort, the person who most wants to be team leader is least likely to be capable of it.

8. In nature, the optimum is almost always in the middle somewhere. Distrust assertions that the optimum is at an extreme point.

9. Not having all the information you need is never a satisfactory excuse for not starting the analysis.

10. When in doubt, estimate. In an emergency, guess. But be sure to go back and clean up the mess when the real numbers come along.

11. Sometimes, the fastest way to get to the end is to throw everything out and start over.

12. There is never a single right solution. There are always multiple wrong ones, though.

13. Design is based on requirements. There's no justification for designing something one bit "better" than the requirements dictate.

14. (Edison's Law) "Better" is the enemy of "good".

15. (Shea's Law) The ability to improve a design occurs primarily at the interfaces. This is also the prime location for screwing it up.

16. The previous people who did a similar analysis did not have a direct pipeline to the wisdom of the ages. There is therefore no reason to believe their analysis over yours. There is especially no reason to present their analysis as yours.

17. The fact that an analysis appears in print has no relationship to the likelihood of its being correct.

18. Past experience is excellent for providing a reality check. Too much reality can doom an otherwise worthwhile design, though.

19. The odds are greatly against you being immensely smarter than everyone else in the field. If your analysis says your terminal velocity is twice the speed of light, you may have invented warp drive, but the chances are a lot better that you've screwed up.

20. A bad design with a good presentation is doomed eventually. A good design with a bad presentation is doomed immediately.

21. (Larrabee's Law) Half of everything you hear in a classroom is crap. Education is figuring out which half is which.

22. When in doubt, document. (Documentation requirements will reach a maximum shortly after the termination of a program.)

23. The schedule you develop will seem like a complete work of fiction up until the time your customer fires you for not meeting it.

24. It's called a "Work Breakdown Structure" because the Work remaining will grow until you have a Breakdown, unless you enforce some Structure on it.

25. (Bowden's Law) Following a testing failure, it's always possible to refine the analysis to show that you really had negative margins all along.

26. (Montemerlo's Law) Don't do nuthin' dumb.

27. (Varsi's Law) Schedules only move in one direction.

28. (Ranger's Law) There ain't no such thing as a free launch.

29. (von Tiesenhausen's Law of Program Management) To get an accurate estimate of final program requirements, multiply the initial time estimates by pi, and slide the decimal point on the cost estimates one place to the right.

30. (von Tiesenhausen's Law of Engineering Design) If you want to have a maximum effect on the design of a new engineering system, learn to draw. Engineers always wind up designing the vehicle to look like the initial artist's concept.

31. (Mo's Law of Evolutionary Development) You can't get to the moon by climbing successively taller trees.

32. (Atkin's Law of Demonstrations) When the hardware is working perfectly, the really important visitors don't show up.

33. (Patton's Law of Program Planning) A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan next week.

34. (Roosevelt's Law of Task Planning) Do what you can, where you are, with what you have.

35. (de Saint-Exupery's Law of Design) A designer knows that he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

36. Any run-of-the-mill engineer can design something which is elegant. A good engineer designs systems to be efficient. A great engineer designs them to be effective.

37. (Henshaw's Law) One key to success in a mission is establishing clear lines of blame.

38. Capabilities drive requirements, regardless of what the systems engineering textbooks say.

39. The three keys to keeping a new manned space program affordable and on schedule:
1) No new launch vehicles.
2) No new launch vehicles.
3) Whatever you do, don't decide to develop any new launch vehicles.

40. Space is a completely unforgiving environment. If you screw up the engineering, somebody dies (and there's no partial credit becausemost of the analysis was right...)

---

*I've been involved in spacecraft and space systems design and development for my entire career, including teaching the senior-level capstone spacecraft design course, for ten years at MIT and now at the University of Maryland for more than a decade. These are some bits of wisdom that I have gleaned during that time, some by picking up on the experience of others, but mostly by screwing up myself. I originally wrote these up and handed them out to my senior design class, as a strong hint on how best to survive my design experience. Months later, I get a phone call from a friend in California complimenting me on the Laws, which he saw on a "joke-of-the-day" listserve. Since then, I'm aware of half a dozen sites around the world that present various editions of the Laws, and even one site which has converted them to the Laws of Certified Public Accounting. (Don't ask...) Anyone is welcome to link to these, use them, post them, send me suggestions of additional laws, but I do maintain that this is the canonical set of Akin's Laws...

Just for Fun: Photographs

~Photographs~ (copied from RA, thanx)

1. Do you like to be photographed or are you one of those who goes to great lengths to avoid being caught in front of a camera? ~Neither. I don't mind being in pictures, but I'm usually the one taking them

2. Do you carry photos in your wallet or purse? ~No. But the screensaver on my phone and on my Nook is a photo of our boat under sail.

3. Do you have photos on your desk at work or displayed in your home? What/who are in the photos? ~On my desk at work, I had one of Dan in the cockpit of our previous boat.

4. When is the last professional [photo] you had taken? ~ About 5 years ago I was in a photo op with the then Secretary of Interior - I suppose that counted as being taken by a professional. In about the same timeframe DH and I were interviewed for the local paper and photoed there.

5. What is the last photograph you took? ~ A set of portraits of folks I talked with for a forthcoming blog article. Before that, boringly, closeups of a rope-to-chain splice on our anchor.

Waves

Dan was born and grew up in southwest Kansas, son of a wheat farmer-stockman who was also born and grew up in southwest Kansas, as was *his* father, and so on. So what’s the trajectory that would lead him to become a sailor? It’s not like Kansas has a lot of seacoast to inspire his imagination from a young age…

I’ll leave the actual “how he got hooked on sailing” for another post, but here’s a thought. There’s a surprisingly similar mindset necessary for success and happiness on the farm or at sea. Sailing the ocean’s blue waves, and growing the amber waves of grain, both remind you of how small a single human is, set against the scale and power of nature. You must always be aware of the weather; its moods dictate what you can do on any day. The same calm patience that turns potential boredom into a meditative state applies whether riding a tractor back and forth plowing every inch of a field, or sailing at 5 knots toward a distant blue horizon. Being at sea far from help when something breaks means that your tool kit requires more than a cellphone and a checkbook; you need self-reliance, creative problem solving to jury-rig a fix far from a parts store. It’s the same way, on the farm. From Dan’s father’s house, you could not see another building except as a smudge on the horizon, so if a tractor broke in the middle of the field, you had a looooong walk if you couldn’t fix it yourself. Most of all, both life on the wheat fields and life at sea encourage independence and a love of solitude and wide horizons.

There, you see? Farm boy to sailor is not such a leap of faith after all!Waves

Dan was born and grew up in southwest Kansas, son of a wheat farmer-stockman who was also born and grew up in southwest Kansas, as was *his* father, and so on. So what’s the trajectory that would lead him to become a sailor? It’s not like Kansas has a lot of seacoast to inspire his imagination from a young age…

I’ll leave the actual “how he got hooked on sailing” for another post, but here’s a thought. There’s a surprisingly similar mindset necessary for success and happiness on the farm or at sea. Sailing the ocean’s blue waves, and growing the amber waves of grain, both remind you of how small a single human is, set against the scale and power of nature. You must always be aware of the weather; its moods dictate what you can do on any day. The same calm patience that turns potential boredom into a meditative state applies whether riding a tractor back and forth plowing every inch of a field, or sailing at 5 knots toward a distant blue horizon. Being at sea far from help when something breaks means that your tool kit requires more than a cellphone and a checkbook; you need self-reliance, creative problem solving to jury-rig a fix far from a parts store. It’s the same way, on the farm. From Dan’s father’s house, you could not see another building except as a smudge on the horizon, so if a tractor broke in the middle of the field, you had a looooong walk if you couldn’t fix it yourself. Most of all, both life on the wheat fields and life at sea encourage independence and a love of solitude and wide horizons.

There, you see? Farm boy to sailor is not such a leap of faith after all!

Slowly

"My boat reminds me to live slow. Life in the fast lane takes a heavy toll on all of us. We think we have no choice, but of course we do. Our sailboats remind us of the pleasure one can find in simple things. Experiencing the wind and water; talking; waltzing on the waves; delighting in seeing the unexpected like a porpoise, whale, or manatee; enjoying the trip; and throwing away the schedule." -- T.P. Donnelly

When Less Really IS More - the view from the outside, in

Here's another one that I also published in the Capital, under the title The View From the Outside In. One of the things we love about being in a boat is the escape from the modern jangle; a return to the original power and solitude of the sea. Technology is so insidious, though, I love it and hate it simultaneously - love it for its connectedness and efficiency, hate it, well, for the same exact reason, because sometimes I just need to get away!

One of the great things about the Annapolis boating scene is the interesting folks you meet who are passing through. In the last month we met one of those, Hinnerk, a German solo sailor supporting himself as a writer and photographer for a German sailing magazine. He was visiting the Chesapeake for a while on his way to sail the “Great Loop” – up the US East Coast, across through the Great Lakes, and down the Mississippi (or Tennessee/Tombigbee) to the Gulf Coast and around Florida, essentially making a circle around the eastern 1/3 of the U.S. We had wonderful conversations about our respective boating adventures, but the most interesting conversations came when we were seeing through his eyes: things that we here in the US take for granted that are done differently in Europe, and vice versa. Some of these were minor and of interest only to other boaters; the Coast Guard is more of a radio presence here than there – is that a good thing, or do you cease to pay attention when you hear them too often? Skills testing and licensing is required to operate a boat there, not here – is raising the bar a good thing, or does it keep too many people from appreciating the sport? Some were more universal: we stood at a bar one night mesmerized by the weather radar map showing intense storms and tornado warnings – apparently they don’t have many tornadoes in Germany. Or osprey, although there was some comment that I only partially caught, the rest was lost in the wind, about “fish-eagle.”He showed us some cool weighted line with a lead center (at least, ‘cool’ is a relative term, if you’re a boater you’d realize how lovely this very heavy line could be for anchoring) that we’d never heard about this side of the Atlantic. We suggested some great quiet anchorages to get wildlife photos for an article he was working on; and took him out in our dinghy to get some photos of the ELF classic boat race last Saturday.

I got new insights into simplicity from meeting this man. His boat was old, tiny (31 feet) and almost Spartan by the standards of the American market. We raise our anchor with the touch of a button on an electric windlass, he hoists his hand over hand, getting an upper body workout and a dose of Chesapeake Bay bottom muck as well. We move our dinghy with a 10-hp outboard engine, he uses oars. And yet, this small old simple sailboat had safely taken him around northern Europe, and across the Atlantic and from the Bahamas to Newfoundland. When he docked, he walked across the deck with unhurried but sure steps, a balance and confidence that came from time spent on this boat in all conditions.

So many people have written about the link between sailing and simplicity – how you have to pare down your possessions to the essentials and give up the race to keep up with the Joneses or acquire the latest technogadget or knickknack, in order to fit into the physical space and other constraints of life aboard. Yet if you’re not careful, the glossy magazines and sometimes the less-scrupulous boat brokers will convince you of just the opposite - that you can’t go to sea without a big new boat and a plethora of instruments and safety gadgets and comforts. You may have to work another 5 years to afford the money to buy a boat equipped with the stuff you ‘need.’ Meanwhile, here we were with someone who’d gone smaller, simpler, sooner. Perhaps he didn’t have the newest and shiniest boat, but he was already embarked on his adventure. In that context, watching the classic boats was doubly symbolic – these guys didn’t have electronics when they made their voyages either.

The most impressive thing, though, that I saw through outsider eyes was the difference between “nice to have” and “gotta have.” Or between “comfortable” and “pampered.” And wondered if those lines had been blurred here in the US. His boat had just the right amount of everything, with no excess. Liferaft? Yup, mandatory. Flat-screen TV? Nope, luxury. GPS and radio? Yes.Chartplotter? Well, despite glossy boat magazine ads to the contrary, not really, as long as alertness and seamanship are there. The end result of all this is safe and comfortable although not pampered. And, here’s the big one: keeping the distinction clear meant he could begin his trip sooner, while others were still working in offices to afford the boat and shiny new gear they thought they needed. Conditions are magnified, and contrasts are sharper, on a small boat in the ocean than in a large house on land, but really the basic idea is the same. Knowing the difference between want and need is really the secret to much happiness, lack of financial stress, and the path to many adventures.

===

Notes: Photos copyright 2011 Hinnerk Weiler, used by permission. If you can read German (or just want to look at the photos), Hinnerk’s website is here.

The link to the description of the May 21 “ELF Classic Yacht Race” that appeared in the Capital has expired, the text read: “Shortly after 8:30 am a train whistle will blow at the Eastport Yacht Club.
The skippers will row out to their waiting, crew ready yachts, once on deck,
caps doffed, anchors will be raised, sails set and the race across the bay
to the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum will begin! Upon arrival in St
Michaels, the yacht secured, skippers will row ashore, sign in at the
Tolchester Band Stand on the grounds of CBMM registering that yacht's
finish. Awards and festivities will follow that evening. The Classic Yacht
Restoration Guild, CYRG, owner of the 1888 Lawley Built Top Sail Cutter ELF
has recreated this race from an 1800's tradition in Marblehead, MA in which
ELF participated. This fundraising event is for the CBMM where ELF
homeports.”

ALIVE FOR FIVE!!!!!

(A post that has nothing whatsoever to do with living on a boat … or does it?)

Five years ago last week Dan came home from leading a sailing trip as a volunteer for the Naval Academy, four and a half days on a 44-foot sailboat running offshore 24/7 with a crew of 9 midshipmen, complaining that he was feeling tired and headachy. Um, really? Considering what you’ve been doing, that doesn’t seem so surprising, does it? But what was surprising was that after a couple of days of rest, that he felt worse instead of better. And a couple of days after that, found ourselves in the emergency room at Anne Arundel Medical Center. There was a tumor in his brain the size of an egg.

All over the internet and in magazines are articles and seminars and therapists and life coaches dedicated to “helping you find your passion.” There’s another way, although not one that I’d recommend. I found my passion instantly, a split second after our family doctor met us at the hospital, and honestly told us, “The prognosis is not good.” I knew what mattered most in my life, what I was proudest of, what I valued, what I was glad I had had the chance to experience, and what I’d miss the most.

In Dan’s case, there was surgery, radiation, rehab; a long and uncertain summer; and then getting back to work again, the delight of a routine of ordinary days. A big shout-out to Drs. Burke, Chawla, Gordon, and Graze and the staff at AAMC; and a deep appreciation for the tremendous support from our families, friends, and marina community. Last Sunday we celebrated five cancer-free years. We had a huge party and a five-foot sandwich from Subway that actually became a nine-foot sandwich because we had so many attendees. We lit a candle and took a moment to remember the names of those who are still fighting and those who we’ve lost; and donated $5 to cancer research for every person who attended; and laughed a lot and cried a little.

So what does all of this have to do with sailing or living on a boat? It’s that thing about knowing what your passion is, and doing it. It’s about making plans instead of excuses because you just never know. Excuses abound: we don’t have the money for a new boat … and maybe we should wait until the kids are out of grad school … our parents are getting older and might need us … and … and … and … Some of those reasons are even logical and practical. There’s always next year … until suddenly there isn’t. One sunny Satuday morning in May the door to our future almost slammed shut in our faces. Dan went from being a fit very healthy fifty-something to one of those people they whisper about in the hospital corridors. It’s not just sailing, of course, though that happens to be my particular thing. It’s whatever’s big and new and scary and important in your life, however you fill in the blank in the sentence that begins, “Someday I wish I could ___.” My friend RoseAnn claims that dreams like those have a shelf life. The problem is, the “do by” date on dreams isn’t stamped in any ink you can read.

Photo: Beam me up, Scotty - right to sickbay on the Starship Enterprise ... or at least, the then-brand-new Novalis machine at AAMC

Photo: surrounded by friends, celebrating life on the fifth anniversary of the original cancer surgery

(By the way, here’s a secret trick to figuring out your passion, a way that’s not quite so dramatic as my moment of clarity in the emergency room. Your passion is that thing that you’re doing, when you lose all track of time. It could be sailing or art or gardening – hopefully its something more productive than drinking beer – but it’s that thing you were doing when you finally take a break and look at the clock and say, “Wow! I can’t believe it’s 9:30 already! I was so absorbed, I even forgot to eat!” )

===The same article appeared on my Life Afloat blog===

===More photos are on our cruising blog===

The Book: What Makes Life Worth Living

I was fascinated by this NaBloPoMo challenge last year: "Describe the plot of the next book you want to read, even if the book doesn't exist yet." . The book I wanted to read was a crazy science fiction theme on time, change, and power featuring an over-the-hill superhero The Book: Time. For some reason that particular challenge stuck with me, and now I have another nonexistent book I want to read.

A couple of young well-respected scientists with exciting careers ahead of them, Gregory and Alyssa Rosen live in Denver and spend weekends skiing, backpacking or canoeing the mountains. They seem to have the perfect life, until a car crash on a snowy mountain road leaves her walking with the aid of a walker and robs him of 30 IQ points. Ironically, he had always said life wouldn't be worth living if he didn't have his mobility, and she had said anything was okay as long as she could learn new ideas and communicate them. After the crash, each is left with the thing they valued most, and compromised with the others' greatest fear. The tragedy has the power to shatter their marriage and their lives, but also to give them lessons in grace as they cope with their own losses and help and watch their spouse's struggle.