Here’s a great interview posted today on bowman Jerry Kirby. 

Kirby has been kind of a hero for me as he has done every major event in sailing as a bowman.  At 50, he just finished the VOR and still thinking about what it next in his career. 

There’s hope for me yet!

Our minister just annouced that e-bikes or electronic bicycles are now legal in Ontario.  Now we are getting somewhere!

Sailing Anarchy is doing a series on weather, which is really good. 

Check it out here.

ok. you’ve had silence for a while now. get ready for a gush of posts….

As usual, I behind on reporting events.  Better late than never.

We had a great first race.  The Race Committee had to postpone until about 1230 before the SSE breeze started to settle in.  It was still holey (is that a word?) and shifty.  Our first race we had a mediocre start, but quickly found our selves in a nice lead coming from the left corner.  We round the first windward, the first downwind first with about 5-6 boat lengths to spare.  At the second windward mar, we had an increase in wind and screwed up the tacking angles, which had us overstood by a few boat lengths.  This mistake gave the second, third and fourth place boats an opportunity and we lost them shortly after the mark.  Lucky for us one of the boats hit the committee boat at the finish and they had to go back and do spins, so we ended up third in that race.

The second race was a bloody tragedy.  We had a good start and found ourselves in a good position on the fleet off the line, pretty deep in the left corner.  We had a great angle on the fleet, but for some reason our boat speed just totally tanked.  We were way deep as we rounded the windward mark, and it was hard to fight our way back.  On the second windward leg we kept getting tacked on and kept having to work our way right, to the starboard layline.  We ended up mid-fleet, so we sailed a drop on the first day.  Damn.
Today is a new day.  We have chatted it out, and i think that we’ve done some attitude adjustment that will help us today.  Generally the boat is fast, points, and is rigged well for manouvers.  (Roundings, tacks, and jibes have gone fairly smoothly, but we still need to be diligent about cleaning up after stuff and making sure that everything is running smoothly.)

I’m going to try and keep these blog entries up, but it’s a little tough as I have to get up early to do this.  If it peters out, than I hope you will understand.

This just makes me sick. Found this picture on BoingBoing this morning.

The Israeli propaganda machine are in full swing, justifiying this war with the images of supportive children who have no idea who the enemy are.

I wonder if these little girls know they could be dead tomorrow from the retalliation that these very bombs will evoke.

Update:  Thanks for the comments that pointed out that this photograph was staged!  That’s possibly even more sickening.

It seems that the photographers or the parents of the children, it is still a little unclear, were trying to set up the frame.   That’s more than a little slimy in such a charged situation.  Gosh I wish we could get real unbiased news from the media.

I’m outta here.  Talk to you on monday

After much toil and trouble, I’ve finally managed to get Wordpresss installed on my server space and I’ve finally got things up and going.

I’m afraid that it might be a bit of a steep learning curve with change in platform, but I’m really looking forward to seeing what I can do with it.

Things may be a tad slow around here as I set things up the way I want them, but I promise keep writing about stuff as I think of it.
So until I get this sorted out, latter.

Nathan Baron, MWL

Where I am: 
I am currently working for the Ontario Public Service with a brutally long job title (Ministry of Transportation> Operations Division> Eastern Region> Fleet Services> Equipment Control Clerk, aka Fleet Geek).  I am an aspiring government communicator, and am actively working on several communication projects for the Ministry. 
I am also very involved in my local sailing club, the Kingston Yacht Club.  I have been a member for over fifteen years and have served on the Board of directors and am currently leading the KYC Communications, which is looking at internal and external communications at the club. 
A little more about me: 
I am personally interested in technological advances in hardware and software and how these things impact people personally as well as the effects these things have on organizations.  As a kid I was diagnosed as ADD (yes I am a reformed Ritalin kid) and from that experience I have become a big advocate for the adoption of new technologies to help engage students with learning disabilities.  
As you may deduce from the title of this blog, I have not graduated from post secondary education.  (I started in Architecture at Fanshawe College, but teaching people to rock climb was way more interesting at the time.)  I don’t have any serious qualms with schools or higher education, I’m just bitter that people think a good liberal arts education can only come from a university. 
On the “man without letters” 
 

I feel I should explain the title of this blog.  
Leonardo Da Vinci used to call himself “omo sanze lettere” or a man without letters.  This is very much in line with the way that I look at things.  I love to explore ideas and make connections between seemingly unrelated subject matter, much the way Da Vinci did.  He is the perfect example of someone who sought out knowledge to be applied to specific problems in order to find solutions.  (And sometimes, just for the hell of it.) 
I am way more impressed by people who seek knowledge because they want to know and act on it, then by someone with umpteen degrees from fine schools who are totally disengaged with the world.  There is way too much going on to not care!

If you are looking for my formal CV, I will be making it available soon.