==================== 

kids ATV for sale, Life is good , Mar 05, 2008 

Life has been good, I've been working on the 38 Hughes, basically it hasn't sold as a fixer upper so I'm doing the fixer up routine.  I should get more money for it that way but boats aren't selling well right now.   I do have a couple of guys that are interested in it though.  I'm almost done, there always more that can be done, but I've got all the woodwork varnished and working on some interior paint today. 

I've got a few other projects to side track me, a few for Carolina, the lady that owns the place where I am keeping the boats and a few on the Subaru, need to work on brakes for it. Had to put a new water pump on it, actually found a new one on ebay for $7 and $9 shipping.

Carolina has a brand new kids ATV for sale for $500 or best offer, you can see pictures at my website.  I've ridden it, it's like new.

http://www.jheld.mysite.com/photo_4.html

Might be able to arrange shipping next time I come home or go someplace else.


Jon Held 

 ====================

 April 5, 08 Bananas and diesel 

I've just been working away on the boats, I've got the 38 ready to sell, a couple people looking and always somebody saying I've got a friend looking for one,

but nobody with the money yet.  I'm finally ready to start work on the big boat, I've got to replace the head gasket on the Subaru first though, that'll take a

couple days.  I met a couple the other day that are from the Netherlands (Holland, where my big boat was built.)  I recognized the flag as not from here

and thought it might be dutch, so I looked it up in the book.  They cruised by Norm's place when I was here checking on the house since Norm and Family

are in Iowa for the week.  I went out to the dock with the binoculars but nothing but the boat name on the stern.  They where headed to the bridge but the bridge

never blue the horn to open so I figured they where stopping at the city dock.  I went down to meet them, and did.  We've become good friends.  They've been

sailing for the better part of 6 years.  I took them some citrus from the trees around here. The night before last I spent on there boat and taught them how to

play poker, even gave them a brand new deck of plastic playing cards and they came over last night for the normal scheduled poker game.  They did great till

they had a good hand and Mike came up with 4 of a kind.  I've been on a losing streak for the last 5 games or so, but last night I at least broke even.  This

morning they all got up early while slept in and went flying with Mike, he has an old tail dragger airplane.  I'm sure they are enjoying it.  Last night they both got

to feed owls too.  We are showing them a good time they will not soon forget.  They enjoyed the poker, said it was the most fun they've had for $5 in a long

time, and lots of great conversation, that's the whole reason for the game anyway.

They will leave the boat in Glades marina and fly back to Holland next week to work for a year or more.  They will probably come back to play poker again on

Monday, Actually I'll go over to Glades and pick them up.  I'm sure we will see each other in the future or at least stay in contact.  Their website is http://www.syjoho.nl/

I spent most of last week working on the old diesel that came out of the salvage boat in Mobile.  I got it running fine.  Even the starter motor worked, that was a

huge surprise considering it had been stored outside for the last two years and before that had been under salt water twice a day for 6 months.  The alternator

was toast, couldn't even get it apart but everything else with a little cleaning, actually a lot of cleaning, some TLC and elbow grease, was salvageable or

easily repairable.  The little bag of new spare parts, fuel pump and injector, also got wet but cleaned up.  The old fuel pump and fuel filter housing was the real

casualties of the salt water, it corroded the pot metal casings.  That's when I remembered the bag of parts and got luck because there was a pump in it.  I

also remembered I had a service manual, damaged but use-able, but couldn't remember what safe place I had stored it.  I found one online a downloaded

PDF file, then after I got the engine running I found the paper one in a plastic bag in the back of the van.  I needed the manual to put the injector pump back

together correctly, for some reason the engine wouldn't work when it was incorrect?  That fixed, the injectors worked, I put it back together and the engine

started.  It runs great.  Now I just need to find somebody that needs it.

The Subaru blew a head gasket, it still runs, just low power, a couple weeks ago it needed a water pump, I found both parts on eBay, brand new, the water pump

was $6 with $7 shipping and the head gaskets where $4 with $10 shipping, They were listed a valve cover gaskets but the picture showed a head gasket.  I

asked to make sure the picture was what was being sold.  They arrived yesterday.  So now it's time to pull it apart and make sure that's the problem.

The 38 foot boat is really looking good, There isn't much else I can do to it other then gold plate it, I just need to find somebody that has money and wants it.  The

money is the kicker these days.  Speaking of money, the land just west of me in Kansas sold on an auction last Tuesday, it was internet biding for a week and

then a final sit down session in Manhattan on Tuesday.  It was 356 acres in 5 smaller acreages or all together whichever brought more.  I didn't like the fine

print there was a think called a buyers premium of 10% in addition to the 3% auctioneer and broker commission.  A buyers premium means the selling price

is 10% more than what is bid, you bid $50K the selling price is $55K.  That is dirty pool in my book, hiding that in the fine print. You're always wondering if the

other person you are bidding against really knows that?  Anyway I was interested, before the sit down auction the 70 acres next to mine was $70k, that

was too much for me but a fair price.  The entire property sold for $1.23m.  I was flabbergasted when I read that, I first read it as 123k rut that didn't make any

sense since it should have been more if the 5 units sold separate, then I counted all the zero's.  I expect I have a development with many houses coming in next

to me and my taxes going up.  Luckily I had the appraisers out to reevaluate my place last fall. hopefully that gives me a couple years grace.  Also there is a hill

between me and the property so the view shouldn't be affected and the view toward the lake is the other way.  My value should also go way up if I sell

sometime in the future, never expected $4k per acre, that's unheard of in Kansas, at least I never heard of it.  Somebody's got money, actually two did.  It

might be a wealthy wanna be farmer, but I don't expect it.  I'm trying to find out who the new owner is and find out for sure of the intentions.

That's it for live on the boat in Florida.  Been swimming a couple times a week, eating bananas of the tree, and still lots of oranges, tangerines, and grapefruits

every day.  Didn't expect bananas though, small but good.  Even transplanted a couple of them to Norm's river bank.  Been helping Carolina a lot around the

house, basically paying my rent for use of her garage and dock.  I'll be back in Kansas in a couple weeks for a short time.

Later.  Jon 

============5-23-08======

I got great news earlier in the week, the two properties east, west and north of mine
have been put into a government program that means they will be pasture forever and ever,
never developed, basically three side of my property is bounded by national park, it will
still be owned by the individual and used as pasture but that's the only use permitted.
They get 80% of the value from the government for that. The government wants to create a
non populated buffer zone around the military bases. The other side of my property is the
road.
==========6-12-08

 I started to head toward Florida and my boats yesterday but 1/2 mile down the road my hood latch failed and it took the windshield out of my Subaru,  I'll just pack up the 97 Nissan and take it.  The Subaru has had a crack in the windshield sinc I bought it, no big deal,  I've got 2 parts cars with windshields. That's just life.  Jon

==================== Jul 19, 2008 

It's been a long time and a lot of water has gone under, luckily none of my boats has.  I've still got the 38, it's completely ready to sell, but almost nothing

is selling with the economy like it is.  I'll put it on eBay but really don't expect anything, I certainly can't afford to give it away, I would think that sailboats

would pick up here pretty quick with fuel like it is and something big enough to live on and go places has to be an attraction.  Time will tell.  I'm in Florida, I

was back in Kansas for a while and will head that direction again, I've got a friend that will finally move into the place and take care of it. I'll probably be

back there mid to late August for most of a month.  I've finally got both boats sealed up where they don't take any water during a rain, still work to do on the

45, but it mostly painting the bilge and then installing the tanks there.  I still want to do something with the bilge under the engine since it can't be

accessed in an emergency and that bothers me some.  I'd like to put some concrete down there and have a bucket cast into it that will have the bilge

pump.  That will keep salt water away from the steel and also provide another layer to slow leaks if the steel was compromised and the bucket should easily

keep the concrete "dry" and make the bilge be easily pumped down to an insignificant level with the always little bit of left over water not causing a problem.

I've been working on wire brushing and painting all the little rusty spots on the cabin top, I'm just putting quick spray can paint on them, something to easily

get them covered while they are still dry and clean, later I'll come back with a suitable top coat.  I still will probably do an anti-slip deck coating on the 38 foot

boat, that will make it look a little better and hopefully sell easier.

I've got some small welding to do on the 45 in the engine compartment, I want to try my 125VAC welder I bought in Charleston, but unfortunately I took it

home to Kansas, so I'll experiment with it bake home and see how well it will weld a 3/8 bolt stud to the steel plating.  I've got a couple places I want to

mount some stuff with studs like that. First place is some clear plastic deck drains made from thick Plexiglas threaded to accept a PVC 1 2/2 inch plastic

pipe fitting.  The old steel pipes welded in on both sides have rusted through.  When removing them I noticed how nice it would be to have a small window in

that area of the engine room to let some natural light in.  I figured I could make the window, only 4 inches square with the pipe fitting in the middle and remove

the rust  problem area all at the same time.  Right now the rough oval shaped hole is plugged with a foam noodle with a PVC pipe down the center and it

drains into a funnel made from a cut off 2 liter pop bottle.  It works but is not as permanent as desired,even if I think that it's a solution that could survive a

ocean crossing and not cause a problem.  I still enjoy the solution of problems like this using ordinary found items in unlikely ways.  The window is something

similar, and will look much more professional when completed, held in by the fore mentioned studs and having finished edges.  I needed a pipe thread die to

cut the threads in the 1/2 inch thick Plexiglas and was able to make it from a short nipple of pipe with 4 ground slots in the edge to give cutting edges.

I was going through the interior or the 45 footer looking for a tool or supplies to fix something and I opened my sextant box and found that salt water had gotten

into it during the first crossing with the 30 foot boat.   There where scattered drops of moisture here and there nothing major, the sextant is a Davis Master

model, a very good professional plastic sextant.  The salt water can't hurt the frame but there are metal fittings on it (some adjustment screws and such) and

the salt water also corroded the silvering on the index mirror.  That's the mirror that moves and reflects the sun or star image to the half silvered horizon

mirror.  The mirror will be easy to replace, just requiring some glass cutting on a scrap of mirror, then probably paint the edge to slow a repeat similar type

damage.  I don't think I have a glass cutter here.  No silvering is not really a problem, the front surface of the glass does just fine for reflecting the sun but is

probably needed (or at least very desirable) for a star shot.  Also the sextant can be used to figure distance off by measuring an angle between two known

coast objects, the mirror surface would help there. 

I did a noon sun shot for the first time yesterday and even with no horizon, I used an imaginary line a couple feet above a guard rail on the road found to be

properly placed by sighting along the top surface of a suitably placed carpenters level.  Anyway even with those problems I found my latitude within

a mile and half and Longitude 6 miles.  Not up to GPS standards but very suitable for navigation, where you normally just have to get within sight of

something recognizable.  Basically the Latitude is what you work with and can get reasonably accurate and you then sail east or west till you reach your

destination.  Standard navigation practice before GPS and other modern electronic way finding.  The main reason I needed to play with the sextant is

that the paperwork packed with the sextant, original manual and some paperwork on using a sextant with the necessary tables I photocopied many

years ago had become mildewed.  I cleaned it up and scanned it into the computer so I have it in a more secure place.  The I dried the paperwork and

placed it in a sealed plastic zip lock bag.  I also have a back up simpler plastic Davis MK3 sextant that also works and has less moving parts. 

It's little things like that keep me busy.  Last week the major push was the teak wooden mast surround to make the tapered sealing boot on the 38 boat, that

was the last deck leak on that boat.  I am amazed how much water came in around the base of the mast, but never watched it in a rainstorm, I imagine

some water must have drained of the boom stored mainsail cover but then also the mast has quite a large surface to intercept wind blown rain.  With each one

solved it makes me one step closer to pushing off and getting on with the trip with fewer chances for things to go wrong.  The main thing keeping me land

based is 2 big sailboats when only one is needed.

This morning being Saturday, I got up early and went to the flea market, after that I didn't really find any yard sales and made the daily stop to the library for

an Internet, eBay and email check.  I bought a clock radio for a dollar at the flea market.  I wanted to continue to listen to the radio the other day and realized I

didn't have one in the shop here where I keep the boat, so now I can sit here in the shop typing this and listen to country music.  I also have a clock and alarm

if I need one too, a dollar well spent.  Last night we had a short poker game, one of the guys, Tim, got unbelievable hands, 4 of a kind, a straight flush, full

house, etc and this was all in less than an hour.  I was not getting anything and dropped out most of the time but Mike was not as lucky and had good hands

but not when matched against great ones.  I was quite happy to finish only 20 cents down for the evening.  Cheap entertainment.

There are a couple bunches of Bananas  and a pineapple getting ready to be picked, I tried to microwave a green one the day before yesterday and was

surprised to learn that a green cooked banana could easily pass for a baked potato.  I've developed an interesting recipe with canned beans and corn, left

overs from the chip dip I make.  Anyway, equal amounts of corn and beans both drained (1 can each), (I used red beans this time) a good dollop of peanut

butter ( 1 Tbs), some hot sauce (about a 1/2 teaspoon) and also a 1/2 teaspoon of Lizano salsa.  Microwave till hot and stir.  An interesting Caribbean or such flavor. 

I know your saying what the heck is Lizano, It's an interesting salsa I found at a thrift food shop in Topeka last winter from Costa Rica.  It was quite a find, I

bought three large bottles (probably 50 cents apiece) gave away one to a food loving friend in Manhattan and have looked for it in stored ever since.  My

supply is getting low, it's made from vegetables and spices, the ingredient list is water, sugar, salt, vegetables (onions, carrot, chili pepper,

cucumber,cauliflower), molasses, spices.  I experimented with this dish and found I can make a suitable substitute for Lizano with dill pickle juice, brown

sugar, black pepper, and hot sauce, probably 1 tsp, 1 tsp, 1/8 tsp, and 10 drops.  So now you can play with this recipe at home.  I'm sure your all rushing

to the kitchen right now, LOL.  

Also on the food subject, I've been making lots of Mexican flat breads lately with both white and corn flour and mixtures.  Basically just flour and water is all

that's needed, I've experimented with adding a little mayonnaise to make it release from the cooker easier, any type of oil or grease will do, that's what I

had easily available at the time.

When I got back, My inflatable dingy had been left on the dock, I noticed there were ants there so I figured I would clean them out, they had chewed huge

holes in the boat, so I need to find some Hypalon and hypalon glue and make some repairs to that item. 

I know there are plenty of other things I've done since I last wrote, but to be honest I can't even remember how long ago that was.  I have to go back and

check my old sent emails to do that, it's time to clean them up and store them for permanent safe keeping anyway.

=========

 8/28/2008 1:45 PM 

>>> I looks like I will be in Corpus Christie, TX with my old 38 foot boat the last week of  Sept.  A lady there is buying it for her husbands birthday, a surprise present.  He has  looked at boats and identified mine as  

one to get but has not contacted me and doesn't  know about this.  I will get $5000, non refundable, week after next and take the boat  there and wait for the birthday.  If the husband decides he doesn't want it, I keep the  boat and the money.  If he does want it I get $17,000 more.  I've been talking to a  contractor in Iraq that was planning on buying the boat on time, store the boat in a  yard, $1-2000 a month, then he gets it after it's paid for.  He pays storage and he was  planning on flying me to Little Rock in three weeks where he lives, to talk about the  deal and meet in person.  He is coming home on R&R.  If the Texas people don't want it we  will store the boat someplace down there and sell it on time to the other guy and get  even more money.  I would like to find crew to help me get the boat to TX and then need to figure out a way  to get to Ark, or KS after that.  

==================== 

11-9-08 

I'm at my brothers in Arkansas, I've been here for the last 6 weeks.  We've been  working on the new house he is building.  I volunteered to help him thinking it would be  a couple weeks of work, maybe a month. 

After I tied 25,000 wire ties (15 seconds each is  fast), helped place probably 15 tons of reinforcing steel, that what I was tieing, and 6  weeks of work later we poured the concrete for the roof.  It's a 2 story earth sheltered  (mostly underground) house the day before yesterday.  The work has been 7 days a week and   8+ hours a day, week after week.  For those not in the know, a wire tie is a 6 inch piece   of wire that you wrap around two rebars to hold them in place and then twist it tight.   Anything like this that has numbers in the many thousands means lots of repetitive work.    After getting the rebar tied in, then I worked on building walkways around the outside,  mostly I could install the stuff as fast as he could cut it and get it to me, so I did  nearly 80% of the installation, wire ties, rebar, lumber, bolts and screws, while my  brother was busy keeping me supplied with the stuff to install.  The important thing is  that the house now has value instead of being an unfinished pile of concrete.  Sort of  like when I got my steel boat to float.  Now my 

brother can seal the place up and do the  interior work, rain or shine, warm weather or cold.  During the construction the afternoons were often warm and the work was in the sun and  therefore I was often sweaty.  Since the house is right on Beaver lake, I got in the  habit of going for a swim when the work was done.  The water was rather cool but very  refreshing.  It would reinvigorate the body and soul.  Even though the weather continued  to cool, we still went for the swim, even on days when the temperature dropped below  freezing at night, we still went for a swim after work.  The temperature of the water was   near 60 degrees, maybe a little below that today and the swims became shorter, but it  still felt very good.  The day of the pour the air temperature was in the 50's but I  still went for a swim and it still felt good.  Even better to get out and dry off  quickly.  I have said "if the shock of entering the cold water doesn't kill you it's   good for your heart."  Not working for the last couple days, I have not felt like  swimming and haven't.  Nov 7th is late enough in the season for the last swim in NW  Arkansas waters.   When I last wrote, I was in Florida with my boats, and was waiting for a down payment  check to arrive on the surprize birthday present sale of the 38, so that I could deliver  it to Galveston in time for the birthday.  I was scheduled to arrive right about the time   that the hurricane got there.  The check never came, so it was time for plan B, which was to meet a new friend in the Little Rock area that was considering buying the boat over  the next year in a time sale.  Over the next month the details were worked out, money is  now coming in monthly so that boat is finally in the process of being sold.  I've had a heck of a time getting this letter sent.  My laptop died about a month ago, I  bought a USB hard drive converter, that let me get to my old files.  My brother gave me  his old laptop, it's a windows 95 vintage device with no USB port, so I couldn't read my  old files from that.  I typed the letter in the old laptop and then went through all  kinds of contortions trying to get it onto the desktop to sent it.  It would have been  easy if we could have found the cable to connect the old laptops modem to the phone, no  luck.  Next was try the floppy, I could format a floppy in the old laptop, but it would  not read it in the desktop.  My brothers new laptop came with a USB floppy, it wouldn't  read it but if I formated a floppy in it the old laptop could read the files, but as soon   as you wrote a file to it, then it showwed up as unformated on the USB drive that it  worked fine in and just formatted it a couple minutes ago.  Aren't computers fun?   Finally when we tried an old diskette, deleted a file from it to make room, add this  letter to it, the USB drive read it.  Once, afraid to try it a second time.  I'm heading home to Kansas in the next day or two and will be working on my house.  I learned about a month ago that the house had been broken into and stuff had been stolen.    I know my saddle and all of my brass musical instruments have been taken, I suspect much  more but it will be years before I really know the extent of the loss.  One instrument  

was a trumpet with a solid sterling silver bell.  The work at home will start with  storing most of my stuff in a semi trailer and then fix the house up to be able to rent  it out to a friend that will take care of the place while I'm traveling.  In the evenings my brother and his wife go to bed early, his wife gets up early to go to  work, 3 AM comes real early.  I stay up later and try to sleep later till the sun rises.  I often watch public TV in the evening.  I saw one show in particular that everybody  should watch if they get a chance.  It's called "HEAT" and I think it was on  Frontline, is available to view online on the public TV website.  We as a world are  producing far too much carbon dioxide, burning much the carbon that has been stored in  fossil fuels for millennia and pumping it into the atmosphere in the last century.  This  process is continuing to accelerate with no signs of slowing down.  The excess C02 in the   atmosphere is trapping the suns warmth and is also entering the ocean waters, killing the sea life.  The temperature increase is melting the polar ice caps and glaciers, the sea  level is rising.  We, the USA, are much to blame, but China is now producing more C02  then we are and India is not far behind.  It is predicted that in 30 years the sea level  will rise enough so that most of Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama will be  underwater.   After watching the show, I believe they are right and this should be what  the politicians should be working on and worried about, the economy is small potatoes  compared to this problem.  Often things that are supposed to be "Green" when  looked at with this problem in mind are not very "Green."  For example, ethanol   production and it's use as an auto fuel substitute is really not, the energy needed for  the fertilizer production to grow the crops to produce the ethanol is actually worse than   burning fossil fuels in our cars.    http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/heat/  Basically each coal fired power plant in this country burns two unit train loads of coal  a day, and those trains are very, very, long and contain many thousands of tons of coal.    Near 80% of the rail traffic through Chicago is coal trains taking coal from Wyoming to  the east coast.  40% of the glaciers on Mt Everest have melted since 1922.  When the  glaciars are gone, the people below the mountains will have almost no water supply.  The  average household in the USA consumes 9 tons of coal a year, to produce it's power, and  all the other things that it consumes.  World War 3 (in my opinion, the end of  civilization as we know it) will 

most likely be caused by the effects of this problem  causing people lives to change so much that they will fight others to get what they no  longer have and need.   It's not a pretty picture.  We did just find water on Mars, maybe   there is hope for survival of some human life.  This is your wake up call.  Please try to   educate yourself on the subject and then help to wake up the rest of the world, before  it's too late.  10 years from now may be too late.  I have also seen many other public TV shows on Nature, learning about whales, white  wolves, sharks, elephants and tonight monkeys that use medicinal plants, think, scheme,  communicate, and even lie for personal gain.  This most people believe is only practiced  by humans, no longer can we think that.  There also was a show a couple weeks ago on  breeding dogs from wolves in a very short period of time, with selective breeding, they  selected for tameness, it was done in a couple decades instead of thousands of years.   The experiments were done in the Soviet Union in the 50's to produce better wolf fur bearing animals.  This is a major step in making evolution more believable and proving  that when the conditions are right it can happen very quickly.   A couple days ago the  show was about electronic devices that read and decode our brain and allow people to  control a computer with only thoughts.  Paraplegics will be able to regain motion and  control.  A monkey was shown operating a mechanical arm to feed itself that was connected  

 to it's motor control center of it's brain.  This will allow people with paralyzing neck  injuries to regain muscle control.  If we can survive as a race we will have much to live   for.  I did also get to see a pitcher hit a home run in the World Series, I think they  said that was his first ever home run, none in little league all the way to the majors.   And that pitchers have only hit 17 home runs since the start of professional baseball.   An email last week corncern Steve Fossett, said his next plans were to go to the bottom  of the ocean the Marinas Trench with submarine plane, it's built and they are trying to  find somebody else daring enough to pilot it.   That all for now, I/m now thinking I might fly down to Florida for a quick check on the boats sometime soon.   Jon 

=================