by Judy Handley | Aug 14, 2016 | Life After Windbird 2016 |
Life After Windbird, Day 2: An Unexpected Call
Date: Sunday, August 14, 2016
Weather: Hot, Hot, and Hotter; High 91 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Studio #8, Falmouth, MA
The big news of the day would have been the hot weather, but that was superseded by an unexpected phone call that made our day. The call was from good friends that we haven’t seen for way too many years. They are coming to Falmouth tomorrow and got in touch with Justin via Facebook to find out where exactly we live these days. They knew we were down here somewhere, but when they found out it was Falmouth, they just had to call. The friends are Jim and Teresa Speigel. Teresa was my student teacher the first year I taught in Concord, New Hampshire, and we formed a lasting friendship. In the intervening years, she and Jim got married, they had three children, and now the oldest, Zachary, is in college. Oh, how the years do fly by. But we will catch up tomorrow and Tuesday while the Speigels are in our in our neck of the woods. In fact, they have reservations at a motel that is less than a mile from us. They made Falmouth their destination for their two-day vacation because they want to see a Hyannis a cappella group that is performing here tomorrow night (one member is a former student of Jim’s), do a little biking on the Shining Sea Bike Path, and spend some time on the beach. Coincidentally, Heather and Jed have been trying to get to a Hyannis Sound performance all summer, so they invited us all over for an early dinner so we can visit and then afterwards everyone can head to the performance. Jim and Teresa will have their three children with them, Zachary, Benjamin, and Rose. We haven’t seen the kids since the oldest, Zachary, was entering kindergarten. We are really looking forward to this visit.
Unfortunately, Mark has been battling pain and feeling very weak this weekend. It could be the hot weather, but he swears he is not hot. So because he is not hot, we haven’t turned on the air conditioning. But if he is still struggling with weakness tomorrow, I think maybe we’ll cave in and give the AC a try.
And a last note—Justin called this afternoon and helped me figure out how to post photo albums on the website once again. I’ve used Picasa to do this since 2006, but Google has stopped supporting Picasa and I’ve got to learn to do things in Google+. Even Justin found it a bit challenging, but he worked through it while I was watching the screen via Skype. He made a video as he was working through things so I can watch that over and over until I get it. He is also going to redesign the homepage on the website. That will take a few days, but soon we’ll have it together. Thanks again to Justin for taking the time to walk me through these changes.
by Judy Handley | Aug 13, 2016 | Life After Windbird 2016 |
Life After Windbird, Day 1: Just an Average Day
Date: Saturday, August 13, 2016
Weather: Even Hotter than Yesterday, No Wind; High 90 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Studio #8, Falmouth, MA
Today was a calm day and a nice way to end this week. The new option for Mark’s cancer treatment and the final closing on the sale of Windbird made for an ‘exciting’ week and today’s calm was most welcome. I totally failed on my attempt to update the website, but hopefully I can get in touch with my web guru, son Justin, and see if he can help me out. In September of 2005, Justin introduced me to the concept of a blog and while visiting Windbird over Labor Day Weekend, he launched the site.
At the time it was inconceivable to me that I could write a daily diary on my computer and send it via HAM radio to a website that would then post it for anyone in the world to read. The memories saved in those logs and all of the posted photos are a treasure for us. And we could never have done it without Justin’s constant diligence in working out any problems we had. Thank you, Justin!
And once again, with Justin’s help, in the next few days the website will be updated. Actually I decided to make only small changes for now. The Voyage of Windbird will simply be changed to The Voyage of Windbird . . . and Beyond. We will leave the links for details on Windbird and the logs and photos from the past eleven years. We’ll update some photos and then I’ll just continue writing logs under title of Life After Windbird. But as I will state on the home page of the website, I encourage our sailing friends to continue to follow Windbird’s adventures on Sam and Dawn Weigel’s blog found by clicking on the following link:
http://wotwater.blogspot.com/
Here’s just a little of what Sam had to say in his post today entitled, “We’re Hers.”
“I was originally going to title this post “She’s Ours,” but I think the opposite is just as true if not moreso. Either way, Dawn and I and Windbird have officially tied the knot! Earlier this week the Handleys were able to get the USCG Satisfaction of Mortgage form from their bank, which was the last remaining obstacle; our bank released the funds on Thursday, we overnighted the check to Triton Yacht Sales, and as of yesterday we are Windbird’s official owners. It was an event that mostly passed without fanfare; Dawn packed for a weekend trip to visit high school girlfriends and I packed for my next work trip that reported at 1am this morning, and in between we refined our refit schedule and cruising budget. It didn’t really quite hit me until I read Judy Handley’s blog post last night, The End of a Chapter. I think the sale of Windbird is almost a bigger deal to the Handleys than it is to us because she took them around the world and has been their home for the last 13 years; they know exactly what they’re giving up, while we don’t know yet exactly what we’re gaining. I sure am excited to find out, though.”
