Monday, May 11, 2009

Financial Mismanagement and meltdown.

Saturday

Saturday was shit.

Sunday

Sunday was shit and cold. I think it rained and hailed. The hail piled up on my tarpaulin suspended by inefficient and crap warehouse hooks. Eventually they got bent out of shape and filled my nice dry, clean boat with loads of cold hail, which had reached the consistency of snow. I had to go out outside where it was a bit colder than inside and re-bend them properly so it wouldn't happen again.

I was also feeling rather effeminate so I went hardware shopping with Jamie. We bought some sweet manly shit like a hammer drill ($20) a jigsaw ($20) a pack of screw bit ($20), a builders square ($20), one of those packs of drill screwy bits ($20) and 4 screws (also $20)

Unfortunately the empowering feeling of masculinity that only the handling of power tools made me completely disregard the need for plywood, so I could make my boat awesome.

Monday

Monday was a dreary day of longing to nail/drill/sand the boat. I felt that soon my boat would leave me, if it wasn't for the generosity of a passing stranger...

Jerzei gently opened the door,
"Hello, everybody! Hello, John, my little Thunderbird Puppet!"
He ruffled my hair
"Thunderbirds are go, yes? Come on let's twist again, like we did last summer! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Let's twist again... Like we didn't do in Moscow, because I've never been there of you see, you know. I am English person! Hi, I am Jerzei, yeah! Crazy wacky landlord. You know, I like very much your punk rock stars. You know, your Lulu! Your Dave Clark Five! Oh yes! I think they are F-A-B! That's English for 'stupid', yeah! Okay! Fantastic! Hey, Fionn. Look! Here, I have some Coca-Cola here, yes? We have party, yes? Okay, let's dance! Let's do the 'fog', yes? You know, I am liking very much your Harold MacMillan. Thanks to him, I am never having-"

Jerzei froze as he processed the beauty and potential of the boat.
He slowly stepped back as he gave it a long and loving stare and slowly started to lustily caress the incredible piece of maritine machinery. He felt honoured to have such a fine vessel in his dry dock come 5 to 6 bedroom property.

--------------------------------------------

It's too cold for a picture and the flash will make it look shit. All the grey paint washed off so it just needs to be sanded.

I'll leave you with some words

Sweeter than the flesh of sour apples to children,
The green water penetrated my pinewood hull
And washed me clean of the bluish wine-stains and the splashes of vomit,
Carring away both rudder and anchor.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Boat

So I purchased a 15ft Boat. It's pretty cool. It's got nothing on top, but it's a study hull. We bought it off a man called Jamie who works at a tire factory. Two weeks ago it was in the Buy Sell Exchange for $500. Last week I saw it again and decided to take a look. I went with Matt and Jamie and Matt kicked it and stuff and we decided that it was a good boat because it didn't get holes when kicked and it was wide and it's name is Shianne (which is crap) I went to the bank and got my overdraft extended and went to studylink to get some (seemingly free) money too. So technically, I do not own this boat.

Shianne arrived last night and we put it in the garden while there was no rain. Unfortunately today/last night it started raining so I went to my top secret emergency bank and took out $50 so I could buy supplies.

The Warehouse was pretty cool for selling tarpaulins. I Managed to get a 12x19ft one in blue for $25. Camoflag was an extra $5 and heavy duty was also and extra $5. I also got a sweet pack of hooks for another $7. On my way to the checkout I found outdated stock of easter eggs so i also bought those for $2 and then once i got to the checkout i saw a can of drink that I wanted and that cost $3.50 and a bit of yellow rope. All in all, I spent all my emergency money except for $3.90.

We put the hooks into the fence while the rain hammered down, while boss Jamie waved his smoking pistol around. I think the hooks will be good in a moist fence, since the wood will expand, and then when it dries they'll be in super tight. (will this work?)

Once that was done we went inside to get warm again. While writing the blog, three things have happened - 1) two of the hooks got bent and the rope slipped off (The Warehouse, it's shit) and 3) I fixed them all.

Hopefully this weekend I can buy some things so I can sand the boat, before hand we will need to clean out all the shit which may rot out the bottom of the boat- which reminds me I have been reading about paint, it's one of the most interesting things I've been thinking about lately. I want to paint it high gloss red, because thats a cool colour. I'm sure when I paint it, people will be 100% more convinced that it is more sea worthy. Resene has some nice paints. I think I'll use house paint, I'm sure that its a misconception that you actually need proper boat paint. Resene has a recycled paint yard if I remember correctly. I'm even going to underpaint it, and sand between layers for a professional finish.

Fran also advised me that there is a man in Kaiapoi who homebrews and repairs boats. That's cool. But he lives in Kaiapoi.

So the To-Do list this weekend is something along the lines of;

- Build a stand for the boat
- Clean boat
- Sand boat
- Buy paint


I will leave you with some pictures and a poem. I also don't know what to call the boat and I need to find a place to get yachtsmans caps. Like the captain ones, Not the weird sailor ones.

"There was an old man from Peru,
Who fell asleep in his canoe.
While dreaming of Venus,
He played with his penis,
and awoke in a boat full of goo."