winter

I'm working on my strategy to get through winter. It is my least favorite season and even after 20 years on the mid-Atlantic I can't get used to the long nights and cold weather. So I try to ways to mark the time and keep myself busy.

I still haven't completely sorted through the photographs from the Crab House 150 and Small Craft Festival. We shot our images in a raw format as is produces the largest, highest quality files. That is good in that the files are huge and have lots of data for color balances, shadow areas, etc. But it is bad because it means I have to go through a two step conversion process (raw to .dng (digital negative) and then .dng to .jpeg) for a photo I can email to somebody or post on the blog. I think before the next trip we'll see if there is room enough on our storage cards - Bruce has several and I've got a couple - to shoot in the setting that gives us both the .jpeg and raw files. (For the difference between raw and .jpeg consider the raw file as a very large cube of data while the .jpeg is only a two dimensional slice of that data cube.)

The photo above moving to the dock at Ruke's, the one below is before dawn on Tilghman Island. I do need to edit all the images, we're thinking of doing a Blurb book on the Crab House trip. I might even try to import the daily logs from the trip in to the book to make it more complete (the last book I did was photos only).

And then there is baseball. A friend at work walk by the other day and said "Six weeks". That's all he needed to say, I new exactly what he meant. Six weeks until pitchers and catchers report for spring training. I'm a casual fan when it comes to baseball ( I do confess to chasing Frank "Hondo" Howard down the street in St. Petersburg a few years ago to get his autograph - he was very nice about it but would only sign the baseball if I sat down and talked with him for a few minutes. What a class act.) but I do enjoy listening to a day game while on the road for work or a night game while working on the boat in the garage. The grapefruit league is a sure sign that spring is on the way.

I do need to make a one-day road trip to Bath, Belhaven, Swan Quarter in late February, early March to check out marinas for this spring's trip. I ought to make sure I do that when there are some good ball games on satellite radio.

The Watertribe Everglades Challenge, March 6-14, tells me that my sailing season is just about here. I follow this race on the web like it was a baseball game (one that takes several days to complete, of course) and enjoy tracking the various competitors as they sail or paddle down south. This will be the fourth or fifth year I've followed the race. I don't ever expect to compete in the event but maybe someday I'll do a cruise down there and see those islands on the west coast of Florida for myself.

The tough economy is still with us and the boss just gave us a couple of more unpaid days during the winter. I combined mine on the schedule with a late February weekend for four days off in a row. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and I can get all (or most ) of the painting done on Spartina for a mid-March launch.

Oh, and another thing that will help me get through the winter......hopping on a jet tomorrow to fly to San Diego for a week to see my Mom. That will be fun. Plus I'll get together with Bruce for some planning for next year and make the annual expeditions to REI and West Marine.

steve