OK OK. I made the guy an offer. Now... we'll see. I feel guilty about the old boat though. What a hypocrite! I'll find her a good home if I jump... but still. Sigh.

How did it look? Spartan, but sound. I'm left with the distinct impression that the motor is the most expensive thing there. The guy has been restoring the old whore for a while and he's either run out of money or time or both.

Don't you just love adventures?

Bob

As some of you may know, I live on a sailboat. I got a new (to me) boat last year, a 32 foot Pearson with a nice Volvo Penta diesel. A big step down in size from the 46 foot Alden monster that I took around for a full lap a decade or more ago. I liked the old boat but it was too big to single handed sail and since my daughter has become an ancient woman in her twenties (Gad!) she is not that interested in being my galley slave and crew on any long trips.

Anyhow, the Pearson was fine... is fine.... notice how I'm beginning to weasel about the new boat?... but I've been secretly lusting for one of my old time "dream boats"... a Piver Tri. Not one of those big Cats with the giant price tags, but an older Piver trimaran. With maybe trampoline netting between the hulls (!). Yeah!

Now... there's a 31 foot Piver in the Sailboat Trader down in Marathon with one of the small 28 hp Perkins down in her gizzard. The picture in the Trader looks like it has a hard top cockpit. Hmmm. And the price is right. Hmmm.

I'm gonna call them and see what's wrong with it. I think that it's gonna be a nice weekend, lots of sunshine. I wouldn't mind making a screaming hop down to Marathon and take along my swimmies to look at the hull. They have a very nice little airport there that I've slipped into in the past. Hmmm. It's only about an hour and a half down there on a VFR day like Sunday. Hmmm. A nice jump in the Velocity (my other toy... a 140 Lycoming pushing a canard style gasbomb at 180 knots! Whee).

Gee... an old time Piver Trimaran! I remember taking one of those things around from Tampa to Cocoa twenty five years ago. It was a screamer. The thing loafed along at about 10 knots and never even seemed to be straining. I also remember the guy had a coil of refrigerator tubing strung through the 10 gallon water tank that made it ice cold with a tap right there in the cockpit. What genius!

Hmmmm... a cheap Piver. Hmmm.

Bob

(To hell with Iraq. Let them get their own sailboat Viagra! I think that I'll maybe go flying down to the keys this weekend. The buying fever is upon me.)

There is a vague popular belief that lawyers are necessarily dishonest. I say vague, because when we consider to what extent confidence and honors are reposed in and conferred upon lawyers by the people, it appears improbable that their impression of dishonesty is very distinct and vivid. Yet the impression is common, almost universal. Let no young man choosing the law for a calling for a moment yield to the popular belief -- resolve to be honest at all events; and if in your own judgement you canot be an honest lawyer, resolve to be honest without being a lawyer. Choose some other occupation, rather than one in the choosing of which you do, in advance, consent to be a knave.

--Abraham Lincoln

A lawyer joke:

Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, an honest lawyer and an old drunk are walking down the street together when they simultaneously spot a hundred dollar bill. Who gets it? The old drunk, of course, the other three are mythological creatures.

One of the real joys of being in the bail bond business during my dissipated past has been the pleasure found in witnessing the "coming of age" ceremony that some of my agents have gone through.

The business is maturational in a very fundamental way because it is grounded on money and power and the necessary moral "rightness" that is inherent in traditional maleness. One woman of my long acquaintance once said that I was the kappelmeister of a modern day boy's club. I took it as a compliment.

Let me explain: We get guys out of jail so that they can stay at home and be with their families until they have to go to court and face the music. Sometimes, we get people out who probably should have been left in the traditional darkie hole. They don't go to court and we have to go get them and return them to the jurisdiction of the court. The bondsman is the jailor and the deal is that I will get the chump to court or I will go get the guy and make him do the right thing.

Make him.

What this means in practical terms is that I'm an old guy with a cool head surrounded by young guys with much warmer heads. That's a good and necessary combination. Most of the guys that I've been associated with over the years in this business have tended to "move through" the bail bond business to something else... related is some way, but something else... as they've matured, or perhaps "grown up" is more appropriate... they've gone and found useful employment while retaining the John Wayne, manly man, imago. Some of them went back to school and are now lawyers. Some of them found that they could make more money flying commercially. One guy moved to Alaska and is a bush pilot. Another is a boat captain and spends most of his time creeping across the oceans with a supertanker in tow.

And several of them are soldiers. One of these guys is now in the little dust up over in Iraq. He's a shooter... big bore sniper. His task is to knock down anything carrying a weapon and he does it from great distances with the modern equivalent of a 50 cal. (I think). When he was a 20 year old kid working for me he was a loose cannon, a hot head with good hands. But he was the kind of guy that you always wanted at your back when it came time to kick in the door and take down a skip. Now he is a soldier. And a good one.

I get these interesting emails from him ever few weeks when he has a chance to stand down. He can't say exactly where he is, and won't. But I'm pretty sure he is involved in the most recent fighting. Where else would the Marine Corps be? Of course, the great thing about the internet is that while the guy is in the middle of the shit he can send his old boss chatty little notes about what he's reading. Amazing.

One of the things he's reading is The Belmont Club. He sent me a snippet from Wretchard's blog today. What makes it amazing is that I was reading the same blog when he was emailing me a chunk of it. Neat.

Rick says that "this guy has got it right on target". Gee. No kidding.

The snippet he sent is:

"To recapitulate. The press has got it absolutely backwards. There is no crisis in military capability. The real problem is political. There are now huge strategic opportunities and dangers. But the first step is to put the revolt down, and this is near to happening, and to install the Iraqi Governing Council as soon as possible. Then we should focus on how to turn the tables on the Syrians and the Iranians. The crown sits none too easy on their heads."

Isn't this great?

Well, wish me luck. Tomorrow, we go through our semi-annual aikido/PAR/first aid/etc testing. I suppose the idea is to see if we can still totter around and protect and serve. Hopefully, I won't break my neck, or back, or whatsis. What I'm mostly whining about is the fact that my desk is groaning with backed up work and I'm off rolling around on gym mats trying to recapture my youth.

Got a haircut too!

Under the heading of ... this just in: Tigger gets nasty.

Of course, the guy is innocent until proven guilty, but gee whiz. I always wondered about the kind of guy who spent all day dressed up as some kind of giant furry doll walking around a theme park. I mean... what kind of guy is it that wants that kind of job?

Wanta get your picture taken little girl?