Dear friends, As Craig noted, it seems that it was indeed a slow paddling year for many of us - last time I personally paddled was when visiting Pakboats, in NH, in late May/early June. And the same is true for our kayak/canoe sailing - that too happened in New Hampshire, in June :-(! I can give many reasons why we didn't managed to go paddling even once after that, but mostly it was a combination of work schedules and family matters interfering - and bad weather. First and foremost, the wife and I, have had different work schedules, so we've been off together each sixth weekend - not good for paddling planning! Add to that the family commitments, mentioned above - our time just flew away! Then we decided to upograde our home. which took a lot of time! We bought some new living room furniture, including easy chairs more fit for our ageing bodies, and bought some new cupboards (which have helped, among other things, in creating some order in my hobby room/stores area). When the receiver failed, we got a new Denon one, and that's when we realised how bad the speakers of the old system was, so soon we were installing a new 7.1 system, including six new Dali speakers, a Denon receiver and a Playstation 3 (the latter doubling as our new DVD/Blu-ray player))). that took a few days to set up and get running! A few family funerals and family reunions - all of them enjoyable, took some more time off our 'P4C', or precious possible paddling planning calendar. Assembling the cupboards, and getting the new sound/video system to work took a lot of time (plus time time to find suitable items on the internet, then travel to the nearest retailer to check them out (if possible), then buy said items, wait for delvery to the shop, and then transport them to our home, unpack the various items, install/assemble, get red of the packaging, et cetera, et cetera. In short, hours and hours of toil, sweat, and grumbling - but we're pretty happy with it now, eventually, as works much, much better than the old stuff! We've got a new cable TV system as well - which naturally took a lot of time to get to work as advertised (numerous calls to support, talking to different people each time, new packages arriving with new modems, et cetera, et cetera). Far from Plug and Play, even if I think they called it that! All these new things take time from your outdoor activities, and I don't think they make us much happier (even if playing 'Ratchet & Clank', or DIRT, on the PS3, is great fun!), but hopefully it will be another 20 years before we'll need to upgrade again! Nothing works as advertised, that's for sure, especially when it comes to assembly of IKEA-style furniture, or setting up home electronics). We've decided that from now on we'll only buy furniture that is ready-assembled, unless the kids can help us! My wife's son have always been at hand when installing Linux and other new electronics (he's a pro!), but, sadly for us, this fall he's in Thailand! In addition to all this we just were too tired at times, so a few possible paddling opportunities were simply lost (although we've done it once, we'll never again do a single day trip with our Klepper XXL, as that involves packing the car, driving to a suiatble launch spot (often an hour's drive away), unpacking the gear, assembling the XXL, do some paddling, return and the do the rest in reverse order, calls for a very long day indeed)! So if life didn't include social obligations, work, eating, sleeping and keeping the flat in order, we could have paddled a lot, I guess :-)! Promise to be outdoor more next year, and maybe start rowing the Klepper ;-)! Take care, Tord -- Be Yourself _at_ mail.com! Choose From 200+ Email Addresses Get a Free Account at www.mail.com *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
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