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        20040415   

A Sailboat and a Cessna to go, please
Michael considered fate at 14:00   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment
As a white male in his mid-twenties I have a few toys. Laptops, Cameras, iPods, Camcorders.. but like always my true passion is for the big ticket items.



As a kid the xmas wish list was always short and sweet.. but expensive. Computers were up there. A small sailboat. I always wanted a camcorder.. but as I got older things started to become accessible. I could buy my own sound cards and modems and I such.. so I had to find more expensive tastes. This is what led me to sailboats. I fell in love with sailing when I was about 10 years old before I had even set foot on one. I just knew there was something beautiful about it. I just had to do it. Had to have one. It took me 2 or 3 solid years of begging and pleading but I finally did get one.. A nice 14'2" Catalina Capri (their smallest model) with a 3 inch draft and a 6 foot beam - a solid cruiser with decent speed despite it's wide girth. It even had some nice amenities like a centerboard instead of a dagger board and a roller-furling jib. Hiking straps lined the bottom of the boat and a hiking stick was attached to the tiller. It had a double hull with the top one - the floor - slightly angled backwards. Drain holes above the waterline were bored through the transom that allowed water to flow down the floor of the boat and out the back. The tiller/rudder assembly was designed to be slightly off center - in the event of a man-overboard situation where the boat was left pilotless the tiller would slowly swing all the way to one side, then to the other, causeing the boat to sail in short tiny circles.. like a puppy always by your side. In short, even though I had no practical knowledge of boats and my father knew far less, we were lucky to find a beautiful used boat with far more features than I would ever know what to do with.



When I graduated from university it became apparent that I would need a vehicle of my own. No more schlepping off the parents. No more free gas. No more free car insurance. Damn. I spent six solid months shopping for cars. I wanted something that was fun to drive. Sporty. Performance-minded. Looks were less important to me than pure handling. Finally, I ended up with a Honda Prelude which I am pleased with to this day. Sure, maybe it doesn't have the grunt of a good old American muscle car but it certainly "rides on rails" as they like to say.



More recently my large ticket item of interest has been my motorcycle. I never had a strong interest in them as a child but a few summers ago my friend became somewhat obsessed with them. He lacked the funds to purchase one himself but he did possess the furvor to interest me in the sport and thus I found a new love in motorcycles. One fateful ebay bid later and another expensive hobby was born.

It was around this time that I started envisioning one of those pictures you see on personal websites. The narcissist in me was clamoring to get out and that meant a desire for a wide-angle shot of my various toys. I could see it in my mind. A sunny and perhaps blustery day. The racing red Honda Prelude parked out on some grass, wheels cocked to the right as if in a playmate pose. The fly yellow Ducati in front, leaning on it's sidestand and looking out at the camera demurely. Water behind them both - ocean perhaps - with the fine young Catalina bobbing in the chop, bouyed amid lobster traps perhaps.

Narcissistic indeed.

But let us be honest here. The little Catalina that could ain't going to cut it. I need a real boat. 40 feet maybe, sleeps 5, with a diesel engine and teak deck. Mahogany hull most likely. Rich dark blue paint. Expensive. High Maintenance.. because in the end, all true beauties in this world are high maintenance.



A trifecta of this sort might be enough for most but my mind won't stop there.. my final expensive and wishful hobby is that of flight. I still haven't completed my private pilot's training but perhaps someday.. perhaps I will have to purchase myself a nice little Cessna and go into debt like a good American should. A 172 perhaps, or even a 182 - R? Retractable landing gear? Oh that's rich... yes.. yes.. that is rich. She would sit nicely next to the Prelude or perhaps behind and to the right - a rich white coat of paint smooth like the skin of a beautiful woman.

That would be my trifecta

Air

Land

and Sea


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