Crazy Internet People

Do you recall when Al Gore first invented the internet?  He admonished all of us to be secretive.  Don't give out too much personal information.  The internet is full of crazy people who will kill you.

Well, I've been on the internet since Al Gore was skinny, and I'm here to tell you that its a bunch of hooey.  In the 20 odd years that I've been blogging, espousing my political views, and ranting and raving about boating topics all over the interwebs, I've only met nice folks.

A case in point was yesterday.  A long time blog follower wanted to visit Drift Away.  He and his wife are interested in buying him.  He's been following this blog pretty much since the beginning and so knows all what we've been through getting this good old boat running, and understands what's left to be done.  He understands all the weirdness in owning an old boat like this, and would consider dropping a significant portion of his retirement into it.

So was he a weirdo?

Well, OK.  Yes he was.  After all, who in his right mind would consider taking on something of this scope?

No one.  No one in his right mind, that is.

But then again, how many of you are in your "right mind"?  Most of you are probably sitting in your work cubicle reading this and thinking "Yeah, I could totally do that, instead of submitting my expense report and listening to the jerk in the next cubicle to mine crack his knuckles!"

And that's it in a nutshell.  Who and what is normal?  What defines normal, exactly?  Is the view from the transom any different from some derelict sailboat than a pristine mega-yacht?  Are people who cruise up and down the coast, chasing the sun,  a special kind of crazy?  Or are they fulfilling life's original plan, in which nomadic tribes followed the sun and the herds?

All I can tell you is that the nice folks that came to look at Drift Away were good people, as normal as you'd find in any cruiser's hangout anywhere, and ready to take on their next big adventure in life.  And isn't that what life should be all about?  Living life to one's fullest?  Celebrating  new experiences?  Meeting other folks who have figured all this out?

Then again, working in a cubicle is OK too.  Plugging away in an office is normal and what regular folks should do.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!   OK.... no it is not.  That's not normal at all.  Anyone who thinks that's normal is the crazy internet weirdo.

A Visit to Drift Away

Pam and I visited Drift Away yesterday.   He's about an hour and a half drive from Fort McCoy away.  He looked a little forlorn, quite honestly.

Many potential buyers have been aboard since we left him in Green Cove Springs last May.  Sadly, I was disappointed in what I saw.   There was a port window left open, for one.  But some idiot took a knife and slashed the headliner in the main saloon to see what was up above it.  Yep.  That's right.  Just cut the headliner.   Sure, he could have taken a screwdriver and removed a light fixture, but that would have required some effort on his part.  Much easier to just cut a hole.

What an asshole.  What a f**king asshole.  What a flaming f**king asshole.

Other than that, Drift Away looks like he's doing well.

Both Pam and I got a little teary eyed being on the boat.  Such wonderful memories we have.  Do we really want to sell Drift Away?  Why not just fix the exhaust leak, launch him, and continue on?  At this point, Drift Away is a go-anywhere boat.   Oh, the places we could go...

But then again, we now have Jeremiah the  Horse.  And "The Boat" motorhome.  It is time for Drift Away to find someone else to love him.

Heading Back to Florida

Right now, we're in Troutman, North Carolina.  Our caravan is Pam driving the Kia with Olivia the German Shorthaired Pointer, towing Jeremiah the Horse.  Daughter Megan and I are following behind in the motorhome, with  Ruby and Chevy the Pit Bulls, and Leo Pard and Sassy the cats.  We're doing short hops to lessen the stress on Jeremiah, maybe a couple of hundred miles at a clip.  We're staying in "horse motels", places that we've found on www.horsemotel.com.  Basically, they're all horse farms and stables that will board your horse for the night and let you park your R/V someplace.  We should be back in Florida by the weekend.

We've suddenly had a lot of interest in Drift Away.  One of the brokers has two very interested parties, one who may make an offer on Tuesday.   We'll see.  The other is flying in to look at it next week.

One of the first things we need to do, since I think I'm out of boating now, is to get the rest of our personal stuff off the boat.  Anything that's not being sold with it.  Right  now, it's hard for a potential buyer to see Drift Away because of our stuff.  We have deck furniture stored in the main saloon, for example, making it next to impossible to walk from one end to the other.

It will be good to step aboard Drift Away again.  Good, and a little sad.  That good old boat carried us many hundreds of miles, from Stamford Connecticut to Albany New York, and then all the way down to Green Cove Springs Florida.  Not without some adventure, of course.   It's all in the blog.

Boat Maintenance Flowchart

Many of you who follow this blog regularly know that I undertook a great many projects on Drift Away.   What you don't know is that I used this flowchart to figure out how to fix many things.

Everybody should have a system.

Prolabs Cat Tape Worm Tabs Warning

I write a lot about our dogs. I really should include a bit about our cats too. And I know a lot of you boaters have pets aboard.

Meet Sassy and Leo Pard. Sassy is scowling at Leo, who is wearing the sweater.





Sassy belonged to a good friend of ours in Norwalk. She got into a situation where she couldn't keep Sassy in her apartment, and Sassy was stuck living in a crate at the vet's office where she works. We were overrun with mice in our rental Unabomber Cabin, and so Sassy came to live with us. For the record, she is a champion mouser.


Pam was in the barn feeding Jeremiah the Horse a few months ago when she heard meowing from up in the loft. The next thing she knew, Mr. Pard was on her shoulder, purring up a storm. The next thing I knew, we had another cat. Leo is also a champion mouser, birder, and anything else that moves that is small.


So what's the deal with the sweater? I used to take Ruby to work with me every day from the time when she was a small puppy. The furnace broke and I only had a small electric heater, so I bought that sweater for Ruby. She hated wearing it, but soon outgrew it anyway. Pam happened to find it in the dogs' toy box and put it on Leo. Leo was less than pleased, as you can see, but he was a good sport and let Pam put it on.


Catching so many mice, Sassy caught a bad case of tape worms. I picked up this bottle of tape worm pills at our local Tractor Supply. The bottle comes with three pills. Pam and I looked everywhere on the bottle and the instructions inside. Amazingly, there was no dosage instructions. Anywhere.


Pam ground up one pill in a bit of canned cat food, a real treat that our cats never get. Like the dogs, they get dry food. The next day, we were debating whether to give Sassy another pill. Three pills, one a day? I decided to google the company, but the print on the bottle was so small that I couldn't read the company's name. Lacking a magnifying glass, I took a photo of the bottle and blew it up. Prolabs. I then googled for instructions, and what I found was very unsettling. The dosage is one pill. That's it. And actually, if your cat is four pounds or less, the dosage is a half a pill. If your cat contracts worms again, you have to wait 30 days before the next dose. Otherwise, your cat will overdose and possibly die.






I didn't find this information on the Prolabs website. I found it on an internet message board, where someone posted who actually called the company. I'm not the only one outraged. Many people are.

How can a drug company be so careless? So incompetent? So... stupid?

Tape worms are common in cats that eat mice, since many mice have tape worms. It is also easily spread to other animals through feces. I wonder how many pets have been lost due to poor instructions on medications?

A Quarter Million Hits! A Toast!

Our Seinfeld-esk blog about nothing has passed a quarter of a million hits.  I know that if each hit was a dollar it would mean nothing compared to our national debt, but if each hit was a beer...

I think this is pretty awesome.  Especially considering that I no longer update it everyday since we're no longer on Drift Away, and that it is for sale.  There must be some nuggets of information in there that keeps people finding it, and coming back.

I think our boating life is over.  My accident last summer has left me incapable of doing many boat related things, and it is time to move onto a more sedentary life style.  We bought a motorhome, which doesn't need to be docked and doesn't rock and roll.  Some have suggested that we name it Drift Away and continue this blog.  That doesn't sound like a bad idea.  Perhaps we will.

I am somewhat humbled, though, that a whole bunch of you clicked on our blog's links a quarter of a million times.  To me, that shows that a whole lot of Americans (and some others overseas) have a great sense of humor.

For sure, Pam and I had a blast on our cruise.  We did it in a dumb fashion, with large dogs.  Not that I would change a thing.  I wouldn't.  I love our dogs.  I also love our horse, and bringing Jeremiah would just be plain stupid.

But then again, no one has ever accused me of being overly bright.  So here's to a quarter of a million hits, and many more adventures to come.  And a toast.

Friends may come, and friends may go.
And friends may peter out, you know.
But we'll be friends through thick and thin,
Peter out, or peter in.

Was Writing This Blog Worth It?

I stopped my daily updates of this blog when we moved off Drift Away and back to upstate New York last May.  We had a bit over 200,000 hits and 90 followers of our Seinfeld-esk blog about nothing, except for the ridiculousness of living on an old boat with large dogs and cats.   This old boat did well by us, getting us from Stamford, Connecticut to Albany, New York and then down south of Jacksonville Florida.

We're close to a quarter million hits now, and have 96 followers.  That's remarkable to me.  I hope everyone who reads and follows the blog got something out of it.  Useful information, what to do, what NOT to do, maybe some inspiration... or perhaps just a few laughs.  Please, feel free to laugh.  No one has laughed at me more than myself.  I just do stupid stuff all the time.

We've had lots of lookers at Drift Away, and several offers, but no checks and it's still for sale.  I truly have mixed emotions about selling it.  I know this boat.  I wouldn't hesitate to take it anywhere, including off shore to places like the Bahamas.  But life changes, and an accident probably precludes me from any further adventures on a boat.  Pam and I have purchased a more sedate and steady underfoot motor home, which will be our next traveling adventure.

We both miss Drift Away the boat.  We also miss Drift Away the adventures, and Drift Away the friends we've met along the way.  There truly has been nothing like the short time we spent cruising on our boat in our lifetimes.  We've met many good people who have become good friends, and we miss you all.  We're going to try to correct that while living south this winter, and hope to catch up with many of you.  Beaufort, South Carolina... Isle of Hope, Georgia...  Brunswick, Georgia... all are must stops for us.

So only four more followers to hit 100, and we'll probably hit a quarter million hits within the next month or so.  It's been an amazing trip.  Thank you for sharing in it with us.

Oh, and for the benefit of my cruising friends down south, this was yesterday morning.

Ruby and Chevy the pit bulls had experienced snow in Stamford, and for them this was no big deal.  But for our Georgia German Shorthaired Pointer Olivia, this was her first experience with snow, and she was feeling particularly frisky.  She thought she might wrestle Ruby to the ground and roll her in it.

Ruby is much shorter, but outweighs Olivia by 20 pounds.  Ruby is also an expert pit bull wrestler and regularly beats up Chevy, our male pit.  Olivia, at 60 pounds, was not successful.  She never had a chance.  Ruby taught Olivia what snow tastes like.