Lunch With Teri, George, and Sandeep!

Agenda

• Sailing: Another Trip Report!
• Everest
• More Movies

Sailing: San Diego Cruise Report

One Design 35s

You may remember that George and Sandeep were invited by a member of the

Driving a rented a car from Phoenix, George and Sandeep arrived in L.A. on Tuesday evening. They slept on the boat, and set sail the next morning on the 35-foot racer. After 11 hours, they arrived in San Diego, flying home to Phoenix that night.

Upon their arrival, they were ferried around on a Duffy boat-- an electric-powered golf cart for the water which is perfect for the 5 mph speed limit in Newport harbor. I don't know about you, but they look like the boats on the Jungle Cruise at Disneyland to me!

Wednesday morning, they set out aboard Center of Gravity. Once they reached open water and had a good tail wind, the spinnaker was raised. Our newbie crew members were surprised to see it emblazoned with "Arthur Andersen"! It seems the Center of Gravity had been hired out (along

Separated at Birth?

with several other boats) to some corporate clients taking some of their employees on a dream team-builder-- a sailboat race. Each team flew a spinnaker displaying the name or logo of the company aboard each boat, and it just happened that Center of Gravity carried the Arthur Andersen bunch. At least they got to keep it!

Our boys managed to find work aboard ship. There wasn't a need to man the tiller, since the Captain brought Otto along to keep them on course. Otto is a mechanical helmsman! "He" is attached to the tiller, the desired heading is set, and Otto keeps them on course. Very cool!

Pandora's Box

Sandeep was amazed to discover there was only one rope on board, and even that was a part of the mast! The boat had plenty of lines, though. Sailors don't seem to like calling them ropes.

Along the way, they spotted dolphins and seals. George's old Hobie sunglasses came in handy-- thanks to their polarized lenses, he was able to follow the movements of the dolphins under the water when others couldn't.

In response to Sandeep's renewed passion for sailing, George lent him a copy of Cruising in Seraffyn, a book written by a married couple who set out to circumnavigate the globe in their sailboat, Seraffyn.

Teri talked about a week-long sailboat cruise which she took (twice) in the early '80s. She traveled with some co-workers to the Caribbean where they boarded a 65-foot sailboat! They all worked as crewmembers, learning a lot of the nuts and bolts of sailing. They visited the Bahamas, and also dropped anchor at some uninhabited islands where the captain led them ashore to relax and barbeque. Let's go!

George is pretty sure he's going to make an offer on Pandora's Box, the J/24 he first looked at in Los Angeles a few weeks ago. The seller found a photo of the boat in action, and George was kind enough to forward it on to me. He's not too keen on the name of the boat, though-- so if you have any ideas, please e-mail us! I suggested "C shell", since it refers both to the ocean and to George's chosen profession as a Unix guru.

I don't remember who brought it up, but pirates are still a problem in the Caribbean! It reminded me of the movie Captain Ron, which starred Kurt Russell in the title role as a down-and-out sailboat captain hired by Martin Short to sail an inherited sailboat home from Bermuda. It's pretty goofy, and you have to put up with Martin Short, but I really enjoyed Russell's portrayal of the eye-patched captain. One of the many plot complications, of course, is a group of modern-day pirates who steal the boat.

Everest Report III: Into Thin Air

I'm always a little irked when movies change facts from a book to make it "work better" in the film version, but even more so when it's coming from a true story. In essence, they're lying! The worst example I found was when Scott Fischer and Rob Hall bring their two teams together at Camp II or Camp III and tell them that they are combining into a single team to better help each other and successfully reach the summit. That never happened!

The scene depicting Rob Hall's last radio conversation (which included his 8-months-pregnant wife patched in from New Zealand) was pretty acurate, however, and had both of my daughters in tears (Hannah made me promise I would never climb Everest!).

If you think you'll never get around to reading the book but are interested enough to invest the 90 minutes it would take to watch this movie, then it's probably worth it. You'll get a good feel for the overall story, and see the extreme conditions under which all Everest climbers attempt to survive. I have a copy I'm willing to lend, and I'm in no hurry to get it back (I'd give it away as a prize in one of our contests, but who would want it?).

If you are going to read the book (or already have), I would recommend you stay away from the movie version, and consider renting or buying the IMAX Everest film, whose crew was on Everest at the time of the tragic events chronicled in Into Thin Air.

Movies

	ELECTION George rented this movie because it starred the girl from Legally Blonde-- Reese Witherspoon. It's about a high school girl running for student body president. An obnoxious teacher (played by Matthew Broderick) for his own amusement urges a dumb jock to run against her. George said it was funny.
	THE FULL MONTY This is movie which George recommends to me every month or so... "Didya see Full Monty yet?" (And no, not yet). George laughed out loud while relating a scene to me in which a fairly overweight guy, having heard that one could lose weight by wrapping themselves up in plastic food wrap, is seen eating a candy bar, encased in Saran Wrap, and wondering when the pounds are going to melt away. I guess I better rent this movie!
	SEXY BEAST In this film, Ben Kingsley plays a nasty mobster (good so far), but George couldn't understand a word anyone was saying! He decided to put it on his DVD Barn wish list and hope for english subtitles. We'll need to wait until then to find out if the film is any good.
	THE SHINING My daughters and I watched The Shining at my Mom's place a few weeks ago (she owns a copy). I didn't find the film to be that scary, but while watching the first half at night my youngest daughter ended up in a fetal position yelling for us to turn it off! Everything changed the next day, and after finishing the movie (in broad daylight), she proclaimed it her favorite movie. Even more absurd, my oldest daughter, who had laughed at Hannah for being a scaredy-cat, had trouble sleeping for the next week. Geez! The film seems dated to me, but I must admit Kubrick does a nice job of crafting a horror film. Emily pointed out that there is only music playing when something is going to happen-- otherwise, the soundtrack is very quiet (no doubt to convey the solitude of the place). Worst of all for me... I don't get it! Why is Jack in that picture on the wall from 1927? I guess I'll need to read the book. I thought George could help me (he read the book but never saw the film), but he only remembered it was toooo long. My sister was telling me about a trip she and her husband took to Canada, where they stayed in a ritzy hotel simiar to the one in the film. when they entered their room, they noticed it was in a slight state of disarray. Molly walked to the window (which was unexpectedly open), and opened the curtains to find REDRUM written across the glass! Todd called hotel security and made a big deal about it (saying it had really shook up my sister, who actually found it pretty amusing), and they were immediately moved to a vastly superior room with a dramatic view. Everywhere they went in the hotel that weekend, staff members would recognize them and apologize!
	PRINCESS BRIDE Boy, this one is a classic. I own a copy, and have watched it several times. George was remarking that someone told him that this was one of those movies which, when encountered while surfing channels, is INCONCEIVABLE to resist! I myself have been sucked into it on cable, even though I have a copy. I think I'll have a peanut!