Memorial Day Weekend in Boston, 2016

Forecast for Memorial Day Weekend was warm and sunny. And Saturday was actually HOT and sunny. 95 degrees. For Northerners and even this transplanted Floridian, it could be compared to at least one level of hell. Especially as I don't have air conditioning. 30' Sea Ray, remember? Some of them have air conditioners, this one does not. And yes, that's how I survive in Florida, just like people in the North survive the winters with furnaces. Technology. Gotta love it...

Anyway, today, Sunday, I woke up to low 50's. Forty degree shift in one 24 hour period.  Yup. That's New England.  Not a problem. I closed all the windows, made a cup of coffee and started breakfast.

Aaaannnnd...

The power went out. Checked the breakers - installed a new hot water heater, running the stove, could've exceeded power input. Nope. Breakers fine. Put on my neon green, velour track suit and head outside. Main breaker is fine, shore power cord secure, remembered that boat next to me had a problem with the pedestal. About to swap my cable to the other pedestal when, much like moles, people begin to pop out of the other boats. All missing power. Trundling a cart along is a gentleman who has a boat at the end of the dock. He offers to check his power and give a thumbs up if he's live.

At the end of the dock, he shouts back. "Yep, I've got power and so does my neighbor. You should check your BREA-KER (enunciated carefully so I understand) - it's a SWITCH inside the pedestal. Also, your power cord may have come loose."

Duh. Electrical engineer, remember?  Not worth the effort, so I assure him I had checked all these things. He bustles down the dock and opens my pedestal to check the BREA-KER and the shore power connection, all the while pointing out each one so that in the future I can do this myself. Or ask him or my husband if I'm not up to it.

Yeah...

Meanwhile, it filters through the marina that power is out all over Quincy Point, including our marina. So, Mr. Breaker had power?  He may know what a breaker is, but I suspect he doesn't know the difference between 110 A/C and 12 V D/C. Maybe I should check it for him...

Finally, power returns and I finish cooking my interrupted steak and eggs. Yummy! Crosses my mind that I do have an alcohol option on the stove. Should really check that out to stave off starvation and hypothermia.

Short aside: The stove is pretty cool. It has a ceramic cover to expand the counter space when it's not being used. Open it up and there are two burners inside, electrical coils with alcohol ports in the center. I did have to discover that there's an interlock switch on the rear to ensure that if the cover is closed, the power is cut to the burners. You don't have to be an Electrical Engineer to live on a boat, but it certainly doesn't hurt.

  

Living the Dream even when it's cold and gray and dreary...

New Boat, New Home, New Friends, Old Job

Since it's been over a year from the last post, I figure it's time. Not sure an annual blog would be that popular, so I'll try to do better...

After taking the Triumph from Boston to Fort Lauderdale a year and a half ago, my favorite company to work for made me an offer I couldn't refuse. I packed up the stuff necessary to live comfortably (who knew I had / needed that many purses???) and headed back to Boston.

A gracious friend gave me a place to crash until I sorted out my temporary permanent place, unfortunately he lives on the North Shore and I work on the South Shore. BRUTAL commute, but it's just for a short time and there's a lot of choices. Extended Stay, Short Term Lease, maybe even a roommate situation off Roommates.com or Craigslist. How hard can it be to find a place to stay???

Pretty frickin' hard...

Not only is it expensive, but I'm just too ornery to deal with the rules. When I brought up my husband coming to visit, one potential roommate nearly had a stroke. A friend offered "My girlfriend had the same problem - we just sneaked up to her room when no one was around. Oh, and you probably can't have food in your room. Sneak it in too..."

Seriously???  I wasn't good at that in college and I haven't gotten any better...

Back to the commute - I can make this work! Nope.  School bus turned sideways in the tunnel, garbage truck caught fire in another tunnel, one too many three hour commutes and I'm back to checking out alternatives.

Hmmm...  I live on a boat in Fort Lauderale, I lived on several different boats in Boston Harbor, maybe I should get another boat.


Off to Mendon and Certified Sales. There were a few other boats, but that's a story for another post. The pictures posted of Hypnautic on their website looked like a marine version of the house from Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which was great because no one else bought it or even wanted it.  I bought it, brought it to Quincy and now I have a summer home. After buying the boat, paying for the Marina and taking care of minimal utilities, I'll pay less than I would have for half the time in an extended stay apartment setup.

The boat, a Sea Ray Sundancer 300, will be renamed Lady's Choice and improvements continue, but for now I'm four blocks from work and happy as a clam in, well, water.

Continuing to Live the Dream