Resources and Links
Sailing websites
Some of my favorite sailing related websites:
J/4X Owner's Group. I'm the moderator for this discussion group of the "40 something" J/Boats.
Cruising World Bulletin Board. This used to be the place to post if you were an active cruiser, but because of a disastrous decision to have the parent company of Cruising World host the site, it has fallen on hard times. Now the cool people hang out at CSBB (below).
Cruising Sailor's Bulletin Board (CSBB). Since the summer of 2005, this has now grown to be the hot place for cruiser postings.
SSCA. The Seven Seas Cruising Association is an awesome resource. Many SSCA members have "been there, done that." Their discussion board is a great place to get questions patiently answered.
Sailing Anarchy. The owner of this site, Scot Tempestra, is very full of himself, but I always find something interesting, particularly about racing. They also have a number of discussion boards. Unfortunately, everyone hides behind anonymity and so the discussions frequently degenerate into the predictable volleys of f*** this and f*** that — anyone who thinks "anarchy" is a better social system should visit. Still, there are a few gems amongst the crap.
Weather websites
Successful cruising is all about predicting weather. Here are a few of my favorite sites:
NWS Marine weatherfax charts. Weatherfax charts available through the Internet.
NOAA's ftp mail server. Allows you to receive the same weatherfaxes you can get over HF radio, but via email. This will be most helpful if you have already downloaded the master index of possible products.
http://www.saildocs.com: A free service that allows GRIB files to be downloaded via email.
Political sites
All right, I admit it. I'm a political junkie. Some of my favorite sites:
The Economist. Very British, very stuffy, very smart and often, very, very wrong! For example, in 1999 they predicted oil prices might well fall to $5 a barrel!
Al Jazeera. Yes, that one. If you're expecting some rabid, wild-eyed Yankee baiting, you may be in for a surprise. Read it, then decide. For the full effect, be sure to take a look at Fox News immediately afterwards.
The Atlantic. Excellent writing; editors know no fear.
Huffington Post. A little too shrill for my tastes, but she's attracted a lot of great writers.
BlueOregon. Nothing is ever too "progressive" for these posters, but the writing is usually good.
Favorite Quotes
Some quotes that I've collected through the years.
"A fallible being will fail somewhere" - Boswell's Life of Dr. Johnson
"A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on" --- Winston Churchill
"Al cabo de cien años, todos seremos calvos" --- After a hundred years, we all will be bald. Spanish proverb.
"All things be ready if our minds be so." - Shakespeare
"At every crossway on the road that leads to the future, tradition is placed against us --- 10,000 men to guard the past." - Belgian philosopher Maeterlinck
"But for the cry of the pheasant it would not get shot" - Japanese proverb
"Each religion...necessarily contradicts every other religion, and probably contradicts itself...Religions, like languages, are necessary rivals. What religion a man shall have is a historical accident, quite as much as what language he shall speak" --- George Santayana
"Eighty percent of success is showing up." - Woody Allen
"Free societies are hopeful societies. And free societies will be allies against these hateful few who have no conscience, who kill at the whim of a hat."— George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Sept. 17, 2004
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." --- Opening line to Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
"If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Letter from Isaac Newton to Robert Hooke.
"If you push anything hard enough, it will fall over." - Firesign Theatre's Fudd's Law
"In the history of the world, no one has ever washed a rented car." --- Larry Summers, Harvard University president
"Man is the only 150 pound non-linear servo mechanism that can be wholly reproduced by unskilled labor." - Ashley Montagu
"More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly." - Woody Allen
"Never answer an anonymous letter." -- Yogi Berra
"Nullum Gratuitum Prandium" - There is no such thing as a free lunch
"One accurate measurement is worth a thousand expert opinions." --- Admiral Grace Hopper
"Religion is the natural reaction of the imagination when confronted by the difficulties in a truculent world" --- George Santayana
"Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditonis habes" --- If you can read this, you are overeducated.
"The Bible is literature, not dogma." - George Santayana
"The future belongs to those who can manipulate entropy; those who understand but energy will be only accountants." --- Frederic Keffer
"The idea is to die young as late as possible." -Ashley Montagu
"The lion and the calf shall lie down together, but the calf won't get much sleep." --- Woody Allen
"The map is not the territory" -- Alfred Korzybski