I have a boat! It’s a 40 year old 13.5 foot long Boston Whaler with a 40 year old 25HP two stroke gas engine. I love it. It’s not very fast but it’s small enough to tow around and get in and out of the water easily and it’s maneuverable and fun to drive.
My family owns a Summer cottage on the shore of Lake Champlain. It’s part of an over 100 year old organization of cottages a bit like a condominium. Each cottage is owned by a family but some extended families own more than one cottage. My great-great Aunt bought my family’s cottage in 1926. Nearly everyone who goes to the cottages is related, however distantly. I’m related to nearly everyone because that’s where my parents met.
30 years ago the men of the cottage organization decided to start an annual men-only fishing weekend. We’re still doing it although the number of men attending has dwindled over the years and the next generation has shown no interest. A few years into it I commissioned a batch of enamel pins to dignify our fishing weekend baseball caps. That reminds me of something…
My brother and another guy were the prime founders of the fishing weekend but my brother made a small miscalculation. For the first weekend we didn’t have a boat and were reduced to begging for lake time from men of the other cottages. How embarrassing! We decided we had to get a boat. Fortunately one of the other cottage owners, a cousin of course, had this Boston Whaler that was too small for his taste. The number of fishing weekend attendees may be going down but the size of the boats is going up. He sold me the Boston Whaler for $1000.
I knew what I was buying. The boat had three previous owners within the cottage organization each having it for just a few years. The original owner named it “CHAMP” after the totally non-mythical Lake Champlain monster but as soon as the letter decals went on some wag (It wasn’t me, honest!) peeled off the “C” and “P”. The boat has been known as the “HAM” ever since. I offer the following photographic evidence as proof. Taken last year:
When I moved to my small town in the late 1980’s my cabin’s mailbox had a Rural Free Delivery address. I forget what the numbers were but the address was something like “RFD 123 Box 456”. My road didn’t have an official name. Unofficially it was known as “Dump Road” because the dump used to be on it. Some maps actually had it labeled as “Dump Road”. A few years later the 911 edict came down and all roads had to have an official name and all lots had to have an address.
The job of doing this fell to the Town Clerk of the time. Despite the fact that in the late 1800’s my road had a fledgling copper mine on it he didn’t think of “Copper Mine Road” but the name of a family that once had a large farm on the road. Call it ‘McDonald Road”. This would have been fine had there not been a long-established “McDonald Heights” in the village and apparently no-one told the Post Office about the change. Mail delivery was screwed up for weeks.
When I heard about the 911 change I went to the Town Hall and asked the Town Clerk what my new number was. He said “31” so I notified my friends and relatives and mailed a bunch of change-of-address forms. A week later I ran across the Town Clerk again and he said he revised the numbers and I was now “62”. Despite a second round of notifications and changes it took about a year before I stopped receiving mail addressed to “31”. Fortunately the town is small enough and my last name is unique enough the Post Office doesn’t need a street address to know where to deliver my mail.
“McDonald Road” is one of the town’s oldest and crosses the border to Canada. When I built my cabin the last half mile of the road was an unmaintained tractor trail and there was a token unlocked gate indicating the border. Passing the gate put you in the no man’s land between the U.S. and Canadian border stations but back then it didn’t matter much. You just explained what you were up to at the U.S. station. It was an interesting way to get to an out-in-the-boonies convenience store that had cheap ammo. Now the gate is substantial and locked and just getting near it triggers alarms summoning caravans of Border Patrol SUVs filled with excited agents.
Most people thought of the turnaround at the end of the maintained road as the End of the Road and the Town Clerk was one of them because he had the idea of assigning the 911 numbers from the end instead of the beginning. I calculate the original “31” scheme was in units of 1/10 of a mile from the end and the subsequent “62” scheme was in units of 1/20 of a mile from the end. The problems with this are:
(1) It assumed there would be no development past the End of the Road. There are now two houses past the End of the Road.
(2) One of the reasons for 911 numbering was so emergency vehicles would have an idea how far down a road to go to get to an address. I heard of a case of an ambulance turning around on my road because they thought they’d gone too far.
My cabin was “62” on my road for 20 years when the 911 edict came down again with instructions to get it right this time. I was then assigned “2777” which I calculate is units of 1/1000 of a mile from the beginning of the road. Do you know how many mailbox number decal kits you have to buy to get six sevens?
So that’s the story of how I’ve had four different addresses without moving once.
So, how many boating accidents has Ham been in?
None that I’ve heard about. Certainly none since I’ve owned it.
Maybe 20 years ago my brother was out fishing alone and the boat drifted over a pointy rock that was just under the surface. It gouged a small hole through the bottom exposing the foam core. We never did anything about it.
So, you lost your guns from a different boat?
😝
(Slaps self on the head for missing the joke.)
One of the reasons I don’t like this site’s main page layout is the article’s excerpt isn’t rendered until the article ages out to the third tier. The excerpt for this article is, “Don’t ask me about the other boat.”
I would have come up with a different joke had I seen that.
Soon there will be drone delivery to your map co-ordinates.
Vermont doesn’t even have Amazon delivery. Last year Amazon proposed a small, by their standards, warehouse outside of Burlington and it was shot down by the locals because it might increase road traffic. My small town was right on the edge of the announced possible Amazon delivery distance. It’s going to be a long time before there’s drone delivery.
I thought Amazon delivered anywhere. That would seriously cramp my style if I had no access to Amazon.
Post office or UPS handles my Amazon stuff.
Yeah I wasn’t sure if Richard meant those Amazon trucks or just delivery from them at all.
Yep, I was not being clear. UPS delivers for Amazon here. The first time I saw an Amazon truck was two years ago when visiting a relative on Long Island.
Ah OK. I’ve seen the Amazon trucks but I don’t know if I have seen one since I moved to Ithaca a few years ago.
Well you sure wouldn’t want to increase traffic for the druggies in Burlington. Some of them might even find a job, and that would be terrible.
I thought the numbers were some sort of map coordinates. We have a 5 digit fire number.
Society is changing too fast.
I wonder if the Boston Whaler is considered to be the precursor of the modern bass boat. They were very popular on Lake George when I was in high school.
Boston Whalers are unique, supposed to be unsinkable. The pointed up nose keeps rough water out and the hull is twin layer with foam filling.
I remember my old man sinking our bass boat right on the ramp when I was about 13. The ass end swamped while backing it in.
They are unsinkable (even if you cut them in half). but the down side is that any nick in the fiberglass coating (which is very thin) will allow water inside of the foam core… It won’t sink, but you are now hauling around lots of water and it wallows. The only solution is to cut open the entire hull and replace the foam core every couple of decades..
My friend has a 25′ Boston Whaler center console.. we have been keeping it going for the past few years. We tried hooking up a vacuum source to “remove the water”.. it didn’t seem to help.. perhaps if it ran over months.
https://continuouswave.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7059
Indeed:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ThingsCutInHalfPorn/comments/hqklfi/boston_whaler_boat_unsinkable_add_620x412/
We had a Rt.# Box# address as well until 1989 when the 911 edict came. I think it was house numbers incrementing ever 50 feet.
Here, however, it was the county that was responsible, making certain that roads in different towns with the same name had different number ranges such that there could only be one 123 Main Street.
The other advantage of incrementing numbers is when you build a new house between two existing places, it already has a predetermined address. No worrying about a fractional address or 123-B.
Our street, however, did have a name. Confusingly, sort of two names because it used to be a turn off of the other road back in the 19th century or so, but the extension is no longer a road.
What a great idea! They should do that for highway exit numbers, too!
Oh, wait – they already do that in Ohio! 😉
And it sucks. I can never make heads or tails of it.
“Okay, Garmin – speak up.”
That’s how it works in Iowa too. I thought it worked that way everywhere, but apparently not.
I thought it worked that way everywhere, but apparently not.
NH is still sequential.
PA only uses exit numbers on interstates or the turnpike. Other limited access roads don’t use exit numbers.
I think the NJ Turnpike is still sequential.
When I was growing up, the nearby city had a naming schema for its streets, as did the suburb in which I lived. For the same streets I mean. Both localities put both names/numbers on the street signs, though the big one was based on the actual government in charge at that particular location.
That avoided the issue that exists in Bryan and College Station in which the same road is named (going north to south) North Texas Avenue, South Texas Avenue, Texas Avenue, Texas Avenue South.
Then there’s the LDS street naming convention…
After I submitted this article I got the HAM’s registration renewal. It says the boat was built in 1979 making it closer to 50 years old than 40.
At least’s not the Good Ship SPAM.
Nor the Good Ship Venus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CU7NE-eh82I
Lyrics NSFW, but hilarious.
Richard, I can see the local politicians passing an ordinance about long grass. It’s people like you…
I’m practicing my front yard in hopes of renting it to a farmer for haying.
That will come in handy a few subdivisions of the land from now and the street is lined with apartments and row-houses.
I was the only house on the road when I built here, now there are five and I see fire numbers and roads going into the woods.
I was looking at Google Earth of southern Florida not long ago and there are just dozens of square miles of empty land with ghost streets and house numbers just waiting to spring into existence someday. It was spooky.
“If you number it they will come.”
When I built my cabin there was no zoning or regulation whatsoever. My town’s central village had zoning but the town didn’t and because I had more than 10 acres there was no state regulation. Alas, I couldn’t afford to build the nuclear pile heating system I’d devised.
Things are quite a lot different now. Rural pushback recently encouraged the legislature to repeal an enhancement to the state zoning law that would have made any kind of development of rural forest land prohibitively difficult. It’s still very difficult.
I ran into similar problems, had three run-ins with the county zoning board and had to pay for changes. Now it way worse with inspections, mandates, etc.
We bought our current house about 7-8 years ago. It was built back in the early ’80’s on an ordinary county road that ran between 2 main roads that ran to neighboring towns. So for a few decades it was (say) 199 Wall Rd. A few years before we bought it, they built a bypass around town and took in part of Wall Rd., including this site. The rest of Wall Rd. stayed as a dead-end off of one of the other main roads. So now this house was at (say) 490 South Jefferson Rd., and that was the address when we moved in.
Up until about a year ago, all the intertoob maps that FedEx, UPS, etc. used could NOT find our house unless they used the OLD address in their system. So if you typed in the wrong number on the wrong road, it’d work. We left the old number on the mailbox beside the new one.
Local hardware store sells numbers individually. Much better than a full kit.
A stencil and spray paint can print as many numbers as you’ll need.
These vignettes are always fun. Gotta finish lunch and get back to scoring, but I’ll scope it out in full when I can.
‘ppresh.
Nearly everyone who goes to the cottages is related, however distantly.
Probably not a whole lot else to do around there when you ain’t fishin’.
He wants to heat with a nuclear pile. I think you meant “fission”.
I remember going to South Hero, VT, maybe around 1990, to help a Libertarian candidate for Congress named Jim Hedbor. I took the kids down to the Lake to “spot Nessie.” Didn’t see her, but the lake shore was littered with shale pieces which, when split, frequently displayed fossilized tribolites. The kids got a real kick out of finding fossils. As I recall, Bernie Sanders was the commie mayor of Burlington at the time.
Today, in entrepreneurial litigation
A Texas couple whose son died of an overdose in 2025 after using OpenAI’s ChatGPT tool to get information about drugs sued the technology company on Tuesday, blaming the AI platform for his death.
Leila Turner-Scott and her husband, Angus Scott, are seeking to hold OpenAI and its creators accountable after their son, Sam Nelson, who was 19 when he died, turned to ChatGPT to advise him on using drugs. The AI platform provided advice it was not qualified to dispense, they alleged in the lawsuit, claiming that Sam would still be alive if not for ChatGPT’s flawed programming.
Specifically, the platform advised the couple’s son that it was safe to take kratom, a supplement used in drinks, pills and other products, in combination with Xanax, a widely used anti-anxiety medication, according to the suit, filed in California state court.
Party on.
*takes notes*
And now I can sue the Glibs Foundation for supplying this information.
STEVE SMITH, PROMINENT FOREST LAWYER, REPRESENTS GLIBERTARIANS FOUNDATION. WILL SETTLE WITH PLAINTIFFS. BY “SETTLE WITH”, MEAN . . . .
Hyphenated last name. Lawsuit thrown out.
Nearly everyone who goes to the cottages is related, however distantly.
so not much hooking up for teenagers then or is it *that* part of rural America?
Boffa.
The cottage association is a Summer vacation thing. Hardly any of the people going there live in Vermont although some like me ended up moving to Vermont. A surprising number ended up wanting to be buried in the cemetery of the nearest (bigger) town.
Even the deepest darkest part of Vermont isn’t like *that* part of rural America. You hardly ever hear banjo music in the background.
ah just trombones then
There are now two houses past the End of the Road. – if it is the end of the road there can’t be any houses past it cause how can there be any houses past the end of the road?
One of the things that makes Vermont special is the landscape is non-Euclidean.
I do not mean offense but based on your descriptions of your town I get a feeling the wine bars and specialty coffee shops are subpar. Have you considered moving to San Fran?
I keep waiting for some of those wine bar and coffee shop operators to move to Vermont. Maybe the state is too liberal for them:
https://www.nhpr.org/2026-01-29/vermont-population-declines-again
Yesterday i linked something about a singer named nimrod. Today i learned this though no idea if true
One of my favorite pieces of etymology is that the name Nimrod is in the Bible and was a great hunter. In the 1940s, Bugs Bunny sarcastically called Elmer “Nimrod”, but many kids didn’t get the biblical reference so they assumed that Nimrod meant moron.
I learned the word/name Nimrod not from the bible but from the outdoor magazines my dad (and I) would read. Often hunters were associated with the word so I assumed nimrods were here hunters.
I’ve read that too.
I would assume that 1940’s kids did get the joke but maybe later generations wouldn’t have. I didn’t. I imagine what gets taught in Sunday School has changed over the decades but I have no idea how.
I knew of Nimrod as a “mighty hunter” from the bible.
Now the gate is substantial and locked and just getting near it triggers alarms summoning caravans of Border Patrol SUVs filled with excited agents.
The worst kind of agents.
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/05/12/makary-fda-resign-white-house-00916014
Marty Makary’s nine lives atop his agency are over.
The embattled Food and Drug Administration commissioner is resigning from his role Tuesday after 13 months leading the federal agency, according to an administration official granted anonymity to discuss the development.
Kyle Diamantas, who previously worked as the top food official at the agency, will lead the FDA in an acting capacity, the administration official said.
The decision to move on from Makary was months in the making, according to a senior administration official granted anonymity to discuss the Johns Hopkins surgeon’s tenure. His stint was marked by mass layoffs, persistent churn among senior leaders and policy fights with lawmakers, drugmakers and President Donald Trump.
The administration official said that while the White House had to sign off on the decision, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made the call.
“It was really Secretary Kennedy himself who made this decision,” the administration official said.
I’ve lost track. Was I supposed to like this guy? Or am I supposed to cheer that he’s gone?
He was busy exposing the misinformation about the killer covid in the Olden Days.
You’re supposed to like him.
Thank you.
Its been nearly a week and its still stuck in my head.
“Call the kitchen- I need something to fuck!”
I know! At the time I was serious when I said this should be a new Glibs catch phrase on T shirts. Might even supplant “STEVE SMITH SAY RELAX.”
Boats.
Fun when someone else owns them and takes you out.
I found out last night my father sold his boat some months ago. So much for taking your grandson fishing like you told me that was the reason you got it.
OT – Thanks for the kitten pictures in the dead thread.
I’ve been swamped today.
Looking healthier already! Have we seen a picture of dad?
My wife has one of their dad. I’ll get it from her.
The good news is I’m only out about $500 for the trucker training. Financial aid paid for the rest. Also, there are open slots in masonry and machine tooling right now. I’m not sure what to do.
Is it worth my time and money to learn a skill for a job I have little interest in?
If I lack enthusiasm in general, should I just take whatever job I can get and keep it?
I’m pretty burned out, but I want to work and make money.
Over the past two years, I’ve spent many days lying in bed for 12 hours or more. I just don’t feel like doing very much.
I appreciate the compliments on my story last night. I’ll try to have a new installment ready by next week. It gives me something to do.
I didn’t mean to step on you with my kitten pictures.
Hopefully you didn’t feel that I intended to do so.
A guy has to eat.
Swing a hammer, push a shopping cart if you have to.
I find it odd that they put you in a manual truck off the get go. Most fleets are automatic now. Deal with one item at time, break the training into small bites and take them one at a time. I wonder if they did that as to get the cash up front and then cull the students while still being paid?
Something outside in the sun would likely get you pepped up and motivated.
I learned on a manual and vowed I would never drive one by choice after stalling out numerous times before reaching the top of the hill leading out of my neighborhood.
My first car was a 69 Camaro with three on the floor. I have been driving manuals for 51 years now. And I prefer them over automatics (except in heavy stop-n-go traffic).
I bought a Versa 18 months ago because it was the only non-sports car still on the market that came with an option for a manual.
They put a three speed in the Camaro?!
What?
I’m a die hard automatic guy. They are stronger and unless a Ford just simply work.
It’s OK, I’m fine with anyone commenting anything anytime on my posts. I’m the off-topic king of this site.
There is a nearby landscaping company that is hiring. They have a funny name: The Lawn Rangers. It seems like a low-key place to work.
And there are some other warehouse and factory jobs close by. The big bakery is hiring, but I’d probably have to shave and cut my hair.
Yeah, obviously hellish on hills and in traffic.
Hills are easy.
I know you know that’s an excellent description of Clinical Depression.
I would think being a machinist would be an excellent fit with your welding, since then if it’s made out of metal, you could make it.
I took Wellbutrin in January, but it didn’t seem to help much. I’m open to other antidepressants, though I worry about the side effects.
The main problem, I think, is my prolonged unemployment. A job would do help me more than pills.
In the past 3 years, I’ve worked a grand total of 4 months in 9 different jobs and been fired 5 times.
But I suppose I have no choice but to try again. My money will run out in about a year and a half if I don’t.
Stay off scripts — no anti-depressants. They cause more problems than they solve.
Consider: St Johns Wort. Provides benefits similar to SSRIs with none of the known problems of SSRIs. Also consider: Dope Mucuna. A direct precursor to dopamine.
Start very low doses. Increase until you see benefits. Don’t take more than the recommended dose. If you think you need more than what the bottle says, then it’s just not working for you — so quit.
and another typo — this one matters.
Dopa Mucuna.
Many years ago, I worked out of Manpower Temps. I got sent out twice to different places. Once to unload a truck of antiques on a Saturday, the store owner asked me to come back on Sunday. By late Sunday I was hired permanently though I was a student and could only work odd hours. Good enough, he said.
Second time was to a company that made laminated top tables, I was an assembler, put the legs on. Same story, hired from Manpower.
“Whenever you’re not in class show up, punch in and go to work” I always had fun at work because I knew that was not my career calling.
I don’t know how things are today though
I got my current job through a temp agency in 1998. From filing forms to senior software engineer at various iterations of the same company. I guess I like stability.
I don’t think you wanna do masonry.
But then he could learn all the secret handshakes! 🤝
+33 degrees
I’d rather work than take more classes. The masonry course lasts a year and the machine tool one lasts 16 months.
I think I’ll go into that landscaping place tomorrow and see what I can get.
The job I’ve kept the longest since leaving the Army in 2021 was a year as an assembler in a golf cart factory. I guess when all else fails, something simple and physical is my best bet.
I’ve had 23 jobs in the past 25 years. The longest I kept the same one was 5.5 years in the Army followed by 2.5 years as a math teacher in the Peace Corps. My first engineering job is in 3rd place at 1.7 years. My second engineering job lasted a bit over a year. Then it fell over, burned down, and sank into the swamp.
Peter Gibbons has nothing on me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-81WdyD-8Ro
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lmW2tZP2kU
I work for a good company that’s quite generous. I’m well compensated for what I do.
Its just I hate doing it.
Find something else.
Get busy living or get busy dying.
How I imagine Tres on the job:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9L2bW-rg3lI
I love that a nuke plant has the stereotypical old masonry stacks with obligatory coal smoke.
Thanks for this, Richard!
That Whaler fills me with nostalgia – a bunch of friends had them growing up and we’d be all over the bay during the summer.
A bit later, my father bought us a 17′ Whaler from the school he worked at – they had it for some program but it had just been sitting for years. The engine threw a rod almost instantly but the replacement 90HP was awesome. Much fun was had.
This looks almost exactly like what we had:
https://images.boatsgroup.com/resize/1/68/72/1973-boston-whaler-nauset-17-power-9606872-20241108062634725-1_XLARGE.jpg
Some years ago my brother, his wife, and I were out on the HAM and witnessed a light sailboat tip over. The guy sailing didn’t seem to know what to do so my brother donned a life jacket and jumped in the water to help. I brought the HAM over to the girl the guy was sailing with and picked her up. Shortly later someone in a big Boston Whaler came over and collected the girl. I said, “When my boat grows up I want it to be just like yours.”
Some of the newer models are seriously large, but I’m pleased to see the ol’ 17′ Montauk is still available
The replacement for yours is a bit more substantial these days:
https://www.bostonwhaler.com/boat-models/super-sport/130-super-sport.html
Our friends mostly just had the outboard and that was it – none of these fancy “steering wheels”
That’s a cool-looking tiny little Whaler but with prices starting at $23,138 I think I’ll keep mine limping along.
Holy crap. I was gonna seek a price but I assumed it was going to be an ordeal.
I think I’ll pass.
We referred to them affectionately as “pound and drowned” boats.
The bay I grew up boating on had lots of chop. Whalers just beat you up something fierce. Even as a young kid they beat you up. Everybody preferred something with a V-hull.
Funny thing is that a Whaler was more expensive than many similar sized boats too.
Our bay was usually pretty quiet but you didn’t want to try to sit down when you opened it up – you’d be bounced right over the side.
Nimrod
Nimrod
Potato-Chip Bags Are Going Black and White Because of the Iran War
https://www.wsj.com/world/asia/potato-chip-bags-are-going-black-and-white-because-of-the-iran-war-3f91c07e?st=pJbGFC&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
Major brand in Japan.
Dang. Richard writes a story and zi am swamped at work.
I will read it later, promise!
The good news is I’m only out about $500 for the trucker training. Financial aid paid for the rest.
Is there a penalty for premature withdrawal?
It’s easy for me to say, but my advice is to grit your teeth and finish the damn class. Just because.
Not an option.
Is there another school, Derp? Judging by Gord’s book the venture might not be worthwhile.
Motivational speaker
Our FedGov at work.
Twin brothers wipe 96 gov’t databases minutes after being fired
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/05/drop-database-what-not-to-do-after-losing-an-it-job/
After their stints in jail, the brothers worked their way back into the tech world. In 2023, Muneeb got a job with a Washington, DC, firm that sold software and services to 45 federal clients; Sohaib got a job at the same company a year later.
Also on the site.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/05/will-i-be-ok-teen-died-after-chatgpt-pushed-deadly-mix-of-drugs-lawsuit-says/
Naturally from the comments the problem is ChatGPT. Ars never disappoints.
How about not hiring people with criminal records to handle sensitive shit in the first place?
That’s crazy talk.
I wonder if they lied on their last job application. Or are we still pretending that prison is “rehab”.
Sohaib Akhter for the plaintext password of an individual
Why are pass words stored in plain text in a database… or ANYWHERE?
Did I correctly read that some FedGov agency was using a production Windows 2012 server?
I’m surprised to hear of the Feds running a server from this millennium.
To the powers that be. I submitted an article for review. This is my first time using the “new” system, so I probably screwed something up. Please correct. Thanks much.
I know I screwed up the cover photo every time I’ve posted. Oh well.
“A few years into it I commissioned a batch of enamel pins to dignify our fishing weekend baseball caps. ”
I sense a trend here…
I still have a fair number of those pins. There are still occasional new guys to whom I can give them. I’ve got lots of Glibs pins. If anyone wants to be a distributor like Fourscore and give out pins to those that visit them just let me know. Unfortunately the other forum:
https://glibertarians.us/
Has been down for awhile so there’s no private way to make contact if you haven’t done so already.