A Quick Update

Since Sharon has been so busy learning to be a teacher, she has forgotten to post! Ergo, it only seem right to sneak into her account again to post on her behalf. Unfortunately for you, it's been a pretty boring week.

Well, her birthday has come and gone and so we shall start there. My gift was a necklace with an alexandrite gemstone, her birthstone, and if she ever picks it out, a "teacher bag" that she's been wanting. We went to eat at "The Y Bar and Grill" in Oak Hill. The Y is amazingly well designed with some unique architecture and an outdoor eating area overlooking the woods. An outdoor eating area featuring trees with funny faces actually. Apparently someone thought it would be funny to glue disguise masks on a few trees in the woods. We sat outside and started with some crab stuffed mushrooms and listened to a local musician. Not much else to tell I'm afraid.

Yesterday however, we experienced our first real wind of the summer ( that is, wind not accompanied by a storm ). It turns out that sailing season in Austin is every season except summer, which features 0-5 mph winds on a regular basis. Bummer. We got some 15-20 mph winds yesterday so we left work early and went to the lake. My hiking stick broke off my rudder ( a long pole attached to the rudder ) and so it was a little annoying because being forced to ride in the back of the boat makes it impossible to distribute your weight for maximum performance. Sharon took her turn at the helm too - she's not going to admit it but she kinda likes it. We got some new gear to make sailing better for us; namely a dry bag so we can safely stow gear on the trampoline. We stayed out until sunset before coming in. Here's a shot that even came out good on a phone camera.
It also turns out that Sharon doesn't like waiting forever for me to rig and derig the boat so she has demanded that I find a simpler, faster way to do it. She'd so be a manager had she stayed at USAA ;) But OK, so I did some thinking and she was right - it was worth it. I probably whittled 20 minutes off of our rig and derig time. Now the hiking stick is fixed, some other questionable hardware replaced and we are set to maybe hit the beaches in Port Aransas with it this weekend. If you are interested you can see plenty of videos of people "cat surfing" on youtube.

Ross Hytnen