Face Forward

Face Forward
Photo-A-Day #1380

Big day today. Eva’s now facing forward in her car seat. She was a bit confused riding around seeing everything coming towards her instead of moving away from her.

Tonight I went out for dinner with my Dad, my Brother-in-Law Erik and Trooper Mike. Then we went and saw the new Clint Eastwood movie Gran Torino. That was one excellent movie. If you can get past the harsh language you will enjoy this movie. There was a very good story here and Eastwood was excellent as always. The acting of the entire cast was very spot on. No wonder this was number one last week.

Today was a Getting Things Done sort of day. While I not longer have the book Getting Things Done (I lent it to a friend who has a hard time being organized and he LOST it after 3 days, but it is all good he said he’d replace the book, Three years ago) I do pretty much hold to the precepts of it.

I cleared out my box of bills next to the computer, this is a regular occurrence where I match the bills to the receipts balance the accounts on Microsoft Money and then file the bills. I am usually very on top of this but things were getting backed up. I also installed an old copy of Microsoft Money on my Dad’s laptop.

After that I burned Brisingr into iTunes so that I could listen to it. I listened to the other two books on CD but actually read this book, I missed Gerard Doyle’s narration.

I also had to write a letter to the Fall River Superior Courthouse and the City of Fall River Traffic Department. Back in October I served as a juror for 4 days. The parking situation at the courthouse is terrible, spaces that you CAN park in are poorly marked. We were told by the court officers that we could park in the street at the meters and if we received a ticket then we should bring the ticket to the court officers and that ticket would be taken care of. I received a ticket on October 8, 2008. I brought that ticket to the court officers and that, I thought, was the end of things.

Fast forward a few weeks and I receive a notification of fine increase from $15. I contact the Courthouse, speak to a court officer and she tells me that I need to send that notification in to the courthouse and they will take care of things for me. I stupidly send it in and forget to make a copy or if I made a copy I filed it somewhere that I can’t find it. Fast forward a week later and I get another notification increase, this time the fine is $45.00. I figure that communication between the courthouse and traffic department is a bit slow so I don’t do anything about it. Then two days before Christmas I receive another notification of fine increase and this time if is for $60 and now instead of Overdue it says impending non-renewal.

I wrote a letter to both of the departments detailing the issue and on Tuesday I will be calling the courthouse again and this time getting names and numbers to add to the letters, I’m sending copies and not originals and I hope to heck that this finally gets cleared up.

Ann Dwyer, Recreational Kayak Inventor Dies at 83

The kayaking world owes a lot to Ann Dwyer, nicknamed Grannie Annie, who died from a stroke, this week. She was 83. I learned this information from the kayaking blog Paddling Instructor. I knew nothing about Grannie Annie until I started looking for information. She ran the company Kiwi Kayaks for a time. When I was a kayak instructor for Cape Cod Kayak we used Kiwi Kayaks, Kim at Cape Cod Kayak sell many of the Kiwi Kayaks on the Cape, too. In my search for info on Grannie Annie I cam across this nice recount of time spent paddling with her by Jim Thaxton.

Grannie Annie was also the founding member of the Marin Canoe & Kayak Club in California.

Ann also wrote Ann Dwyer’s Easy Waters of California-North.

by Ann Dwyer
Easy Waters of California” is likewise sure to become a classic reference book for paddlers of all disciplines.
Ann Dwyer has been paddling Northern California since the early 1960’s. No one knows it better.

She was a pioneer and she will be missed. Her legacy will be carried on by those of us who enjoy paddling the river ways and streams and oceans.