At the first of the year, the rate for priority mail overseas doubled. I will have to increase my shipping cost as soon as I get around to it. It still takes between a month and two months for most airmail priority to get anywhere overseas. I guess they are trying to force us all to stop mailing and go to Amazon.

I’m falling farther and farther behind on everybody’s work as both useless emergencies and important ones keep popping up. This week a guy who bought stock plans still underway demanded all his patterns immediately. He will not be building anytime soon. It’s triage here with those sorts of things as the office still costs more than it brings in. He mentioned the word refund if he doesn’t get all the patterns by tomorrow. He has also noted that he will change everything. I guess that means the patterns will be actually useless. Having to refund would wipe me out. At the same time, every step closer to getting the USCG certified updates done, seems to step back. Yesterday they stopped the process until the OCMI could certify the specific gravity of the seawater. Day before they stopped the process until I could prove and locate the watertight bulkhead. They have lost all drawings before 1990 so they don’t ask for help, they demand. This is really wearing on me.

Alex’s 45′ cat is out of the shed now and looking good.  Recall it will have an unstayed carbon Aeroesque mast.   Bellingham, WA.

Just saw my 65′ charter cat Teralani 3 on the Wednesday Today Show in a feature about budget vacations. www.teralani.net

Spectacular Adventure Cat photo from Lectronic Latitude. I think I designed that boat in 1988. CM plywood/epoxy. Still takes passengers out every day. That is Golden Gate.

I found these Earthwise links.  Stories and video.  And the amazing picture.  Look them up on Facebook too.

http://www.worldmag.com/2013/02/patient_for_profits

and

http://youtu.be/AKHczicfK2s

and
http://vc4africa.biz/blog/2013/01/22/fundraising-earthwise-ferries-uganda-limited-rebuilding-the-ferry-system-on-lake-victoria/

Outlook just went away here. I have the *.pst files, but they are not accessable any more. As soon as I get time, I will try the Inbox Repair Tool. For now, if you sent me an email in the last few days that I need to act on, please hit me again.

There is a nice new video of my 65′ charter catamaran Alii Nui that operates out of Maalaea, on Maui. OK it’s an ad. But a nice one. http://www.youtube.com/embed/0hquuDeWJqs

Welcome to the new millennium for design software. I have used Microstation by Bentley for some 20 years now for my design software. My original $5000 purchase is augmented every year by a $900 subscription. When the new version had defects, I could always also use the earlier version that I kept for that purpose. With Windows 7, apparently they were able to cripple the older version so I could only use the defect ridden new version. (or pay an additional $900 to access the old version also). I wanted them to fix some defects (in the old version, the dozen or so printing settings only need to be entered once.  They were then kept for the whole session.  The new version has total amnesia and every setting must be entered new for every print.  I consider that a defect of the highest order)  before I paid my $900 this year. Their response was basically “In your dreams.” As of Monday they were able to pull the plug on the new version also, until I paid up. I have had no CADD available so far this week. Having run out of choices, I paid up. To punish me for my perfidy, they are apparently slow walking the license code that I need. If I had a couple of weeks to practice maybe I could use Rhino and VCADD to replace it. Too many demands; I don’t have the two weeks to get up to speed. I am not happy and will be trying to replace Bentley by next year. And losing a what is it, $23,000 investment so far? Not happy and not productive this week.

Today is Friday now.  Still no codes from Bentley to let the program work.  A full week without a CADD program.

Just back from picking up the plans on the lunar lander project from the building department over in the Basin. This may be only the second house that I know of built from composite boatbuilding materials, to be permitted by a building department. I’m trying to drag them into the future.  They are resisting.  Without help from Howard Apollonio NA, I would have been stranded.  I was getting comments like “How do we know that epoxy won’t just evaporate in 5 years?”
Next week I can get back to everybody’s real work. http://www.themarsoutpost.com/