March 23-26, 2000 -- A Change of Scenery Is Wonderful!

On March 23, not a lot happened. We met with the Canvas guy at 2:00 PM, and that was pretty much it. We took it easy for the rest of the day. On March 24, the boat was due to go back in the water. Knowing this, we checked out of the hotel. We were headed somewhere when we received the call from our yard supervisor that the boat was ready to splash. We headed immediately for the yard. They weren't quite ready when we got there so we watched as the boat was lowered. We were amazed to see the boat shrink as it went into the water; it is amazing how much larger the boat looks out of the water. The electrician who had connected our refurbished alternator back up wanted to check to make sure everything was working properly. With that one test completed, we were ready to move the boat into its slip. We began the treck; one of the yard tugs helped by being a bow thruster for us. With the help of the tug, we backed into our slip quickly and easily! As soon as the boat was tied up and electricity restored, we started emptying the trunk of the car. After a bit, it occurred to us that we didn't have anything to eat on the boat so we made a quick run to the grocery store for supplies for the weekend. We rounded out the day with the boat yard ball. It was a fun party that Rybovich-Spencer put on for its employees and customers. On March 25, we finished cleaning out the car, and then put stuff away all day long! On March 26, we started out with the best of intentions to continue working hard. However, we headed out to pick up fax paper for the Weather Fax and TZ tape for our label maker. In our quest, we found what we were looking for, but we also found 'The Sims.' When we went back to the boat, Mike asked if I felt like continuing to work. I caved in about a second later. Mike played sims and I tried to get the tape drive working. No luck there. With patience, I finally got the tape diagnostics to complete and found an unidentifiable write error. One of the suggested fixes was to upgrade the firmware on the tape drive. Since I verified the rest, I tried the upgrade. The firmware upgrade that we downloaded didn't work! So, my suspicion now is that the drive will need to be sent back to HP for service. After dinner, I played 'The Sims' until bed time