I've Moved to The Cotton Gin

Come visit me at http://john-conti.com/gin!

Conrad

A friend reminded me that many great books, including sea stories by the likes of Joseph Conrad, are available for free on the Internet. A neat feature of the latest downloads from free sites like Project Gutenberg is that they have versions of the downloads for smart phones. For those of us not sailing around the world, armchair sea stories are a nice diversion. More recent stories and photos with a good online community are at Yacht Pals.

KenIchi Horie

While Zac Sunderland starts today on his circumnavigation. (Go Zac go!) Ken'Ichi Horie is working on an interesting attempt of his own. He is crossing the pacific in a wave-powered boat. Horie-san crossed the Pacific when he was not much older than Zac. However, age is not the measure of that voyage. Wikipedia has some tidbits, but I really want to read his book. His career is so long and varied, I think it is going to take several posts to highlight some of his amazing achievements. You can get the latest on his current voyage at the Suntory Mermaid II website.

Zac Sunderland

Tomorrow, with any luck, Zac Sunderland will leave Marina Del Rey, California to circle the globe on his sailboat. His quest is a great thing from my perspective. When I was his age, I read books like Dove and Gipsy Moth Circles the World. I dreamed of eating flying fish for breakfast, and working a trusty boat in a routine of solitude and adventure. Single handed sailing topped my interest, with circumnavigators the highest of the high. After my teens I didn't pay much attention to that wonderful community of hardy souls who circumnavigate alone. I hadn't thought of my own dreams until I heard the NPR story on Zac. His quest is near and dear to my heart. Go Zac go!

The Egg Crate

Good ideas are often subtle...sometimes barely distinguishable from their predecessors. This can make new ideas delicate, i.e. easy to ignore. When ranting to my friends in the late 80's about how the Internet would change everything, I really didn't know how true that was. I didn't realize how much the Internet would change the way we think, not just the information we got. In some ways, with just simple text, blogging is the best example of the profound influence the Internet has had on the exchange of ideas...and therefore on us.

No news here, of course. However, it is very cool that great ideas no longer only circulate in great places. They can circle in any place. Ideas can get friends in low and high places. With these pages I'd like to help some ideas along I think are interesting, worthwhile or fun. I will add a few gems of my own here and there. Please don't hesitate to jump in and let me know about the new ideas you're playing with.