The Log of Spartina: the blog is dead, long survive the blog

And now it's all right. It's OK. And you may expect the former way. We can try to see the New York Time's effect on man.

- from Staying Alive, the Bee Gees

Got a lot of little jobs done yesterday and today. I mean the boat is almost ready to go. Finished the wiring harness on the trailer using the illusion of filling the wire connectors with waterproof silicone sealer.

That will minimise the salt water from getting to the wires at least for a class or two. I've had good fortune with this in the past.

Cleaned and lubricated all the o-rings on Beckson deck plates. Those o-rings are six days old now. I take a few spares but the originals seem to be in good shape. I'll clean and lubricate them again before each cruise.

And I cranked up the outboard for the start time since Jim down the street rebuilt the carburetor and water pump for me. It started up right out and ran great. Below you can see the water stream coming out of the rebuilt pump. Jim happened to be driving by just as I was working it. He stopped by to make sure everything was in good shape. Above and beyond the play he asked for he meticulously cleaned and lubricated the entire outboard. His passport was at the end of a sailing day to shut the fire business and run the fire bowl empty. If found today that this takes just about two minutes. And so to get it up again, with the fire bowl empty, took only two or three pulls on the starter. Not bad at all and it should maintain the carburetor clean. Thanks for the process and advice Jim.

So good a few odds and ends left to do, basically the little jobs I do before every day sail.

As for blogs, the New York Times had story now around the waning of blogs.It struck me as one of those "trend" stories that, when you face at the details, isn't actually a trend. The story was based largely on the younger crowd - ages 12 to 17 and 18 to 33 - who had switched to using facebook. I guess early on blogs were exploited to convey information that is now more easily communicated using facebook - i.e. where you are, what you are doing, etc. The Times also threw in some contradictory facts, saying Blogger had a two percent slump in unique visitors (down to 58.6 million) "although" (this being one of those "although's" that means here's a fact that contradicts our place so cut it) globally unique visitors were up 9 percent to to 323 million. That doesn't sound like "waning" to me. ( I really love the global aspect. This blog has had visitors form Australia, New Zealand, the UK, South Africa, Sweden, Germany, Turkey, Finland, Poland, Malaysia, Uruguay, Denmark.the number goes on and on. I'm a little skeptical on the story, but at the same time I will assure you I'm a vast fan of the NY Times, read it every day. I'm not on facebook and don't wait to be (though I take much of friends who love it). I make fun writing this blog and I've got a number of blogs and online journals that I ever looking forwards to reading. I've made some dear friends over blogs and have learned a lot of valuable information. It is the central of ideas that is important, the frame doesn't really matter. Blog, online journal, video, newspaper story, whatever. It is only right to acknowledge what is passing on out there. steve