Sunny and clear, but windy and fairly cold. A few days ago, the temperature was in the 80's; today it was in the 50's.
I took the day off from varnishing to do some other things that needed doing. For some time, I've been wanting to go to a store called Marine Electronics to see what I could find out about getting a weatherfax system. Since we already have a shortwave radio, a PC compatible computer, and a printer, I figured we shouldn't need anything but an interface between the radio and the computer plus a program to interpret the data.
Rode the bus downtown and turned in my business license at City Hall. I spent about $430 to try to start a business and didn't make one cent. Oh well, at least I tried. And I've still got the Quick-
Basic compiler to play with. Also the pager. And I've learned there is absolutely no demand any more for applications programmers, at least in this part of the world. There are so many top-notch commercial programs available that businesses can buy just about anything they want off the shelf for a few hundred dollars, instead of spending tens of thousands for custom programming. And now there are even relatively simple do-it-yourself programming programs, such as dBASE and FoxPro. For that matter, database managers take care of all the input, output, changes, deletions, etc., so the only programming needed is for processing, and that's just a small percentage. In another ten years, you'll probably be able to just talk to your computer and tell it what you want it to do, and it will figure out for itself how to do it. So the high-demand career of the 70's and 80's is now in the trashcan, except for systems programmers and games programmers.
Went to Waldenbooks at Waterside. They had sent me a $5 coupon that would have expired April 30th, so I wanted to use it. Wanted to buy some foreign language textbooks, but they didn't have any, so I got a little teach-yourself Italian tape and booklet, just in case we get to Italy. Wanted to get one for Portuguese, too, but they didn't have it. With luck, we won't need one in England. Maybe.
Went by the post office and got the mail, which consisted mainly of the Italian translation of our insurance policy that I requested the other day. That was very fast service.
Stopped at a bank and then rode the bus to Military Circle Shopping Center, where I transferred to another bus that went to Military Highway and Northampton Road. I had never been in that area before, except passing through the intersection on a bus, but the street sign said 5700 Northampton. The address of Marine Electronics was 5760 Northampton, so I figured it must be within a block. Hah! After I wandered around a while and then phoned the store, I realized I was at 5700 Northampton in Norfolk. The store is at 5760 Northampton in Virginia Beach, a totally different numbering system. No bus runs on Northampton, so I had to walk. Must have been about two miles, but I finally found the place. The guy I talked with agreed that all I needed was an interface and a program, but they didn't sell parts of systems; they only sold entire systems for two or three thousand dollars. He suggested I try a radio store or Heathkit. (Heathkit went out of business years ago.)
When I checked the map, I saw I was closer to Shore Drive than to Military Highway, so I figured I might as well walk back to the boat. It was a lovely day for a walk, and I saw some new scenery. Even found a little park with a lake where you can fish. There was a ramp for launching small boats, or you could rent a boat.
Stopped at the little shopping center at Shore Drive and Little Creek. Found strawberry jam at a bargain price, so I bought two jars.
Roy put the finish coat on the area between the rubrail and the toerail on the starboard side. He also continued figuring out ways to make a straight line along the curved hull for a new waterline. The old one was too low when the boat was loaded.
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