I played hockey all my life. I write a maritime blog that is rapidly approaching 1,000 posts. How did I miss this?
Even more incredible is that this is an avenue to a US green card at the same time that this isn’t. “Exceptional ability?”
Here’s a video from the US Women’s National Team which provides a little more info about the sport.
This week Peter invited his old maritime podcast partner, Captain John Konrad of gCaptain.com to talk about his life as a drill rig captain and the BP oil spill. Also, Wally Bock’s look at the best leadership on the independent business blogs and some podsafe music.
Social Media Minute/Website of the Week
by Trance Blackman (Music Alley)
by Radio Orphans(Music Alley)
by The Public Good
Last week, Tom Beer of Newsday quizzed actor Alec Baldwin on his love for Moby-Dick…and then the paper stowed the interview behind a paywall, more’s the pity. Here’s a (hopefully) fair-use excerpt:
Q: What does Moby-Dick have to say to us today?
A: We still live in a world where men are led by other men. And those men, the followers, have trouble distinguishing the membrane between the leader’s passion and his neurosis. You’re onboard that ship and you know that Ahab’s your man and you want to go get this whale, and then you find out the hard way that maybe it wasn’t the best idea. Well, isn’t that [Enron’s] Jeffrey Skilling? Wasn’t it a white whale he was after?
Margaret Guroff is editor and publisher of Power Moby-Dick.
You’ve probably heard about the Moby-Dick impersonator that tried to board a yacht in South Africa but this is not an isolated incident. Here’s a CNN video about that incident and some other animals crazy about boating.
It’s so difficult today to find good waterfront property, especially the kind that can withstand the most severe hurricances imaginable. Well, the US government has a deal for you on a fixer upper with 360° waterviews!
The Coast Guard is trying to give away Cleveland’s Ledge Lighthouse in Buzzard Bay, MA. Heather Wysocki wrote a story in the Cape Cod Times recently.
The lighthouse was built 1940-43 and then automated in 1978. As a high school student, I can remember sailing out and around Cleveland’s Ledge and seeing the light’s residents go about their business. More recently we rounded the mark onboard the schooner Sarah Abbott which is owned by my friend and author Randy Peffer who wrote Logs of the Dead Pirates Society: A Schooner Adventure Around Buzzards Bay
If you have ever sailed in Buzzards Bay, you’re sure to know this National Historic Landmark. Imagine the possibilities.
This is a poster that we found a few week’s ago during a trip to the Mattapoisett Historical Society’s Museum and Carriage House. It reminded me that Herman Melville’s whaleship, the Acushnet was built in our backyard where 150 years ago six shipyards stood . Melville once referred to the Acushnet as “my Yale College and my Harvard.” Somethings never change; sailing a tall ship is still a valuable education.
One of my absolute favorite podcasts is WNYC’s RadioLab. This week they tell the story of The Luckiest Lobster. It’s a good one; take 15 minutes and give it a listen.
This really is not an isolated incident. Lots of people rescue lobsters and many tell their unique stories over at Maine Lobster Rescue. Here’s the “moving” story of Arizona Larry.
Once upon what seems like a very long time ago, I was the executive director of the American Sail Training Association. During my tenure we launched a spectacular annual event called the TALL SHIPS CHALLENGE, which was series of tall ships races that connected a series of maritime port festivals that attracted millions of people down to see the ships. We claimed that hosting the event could transform a city, especially one that had neglected waterfront. I can hardly think of a more dramatic transformative effect than what’s planned for Tacoma.
American practice Olson Kundig Architects are renovating a historic dock building in the port city of Tacoma, reinforcing the existing structure and suspending boats from a newly added roof.
The Foss Waterway Seaport is also the home to the fun Working Waterfront Museum.
Of course, the TALL SHIPS CHALLENGE can’t take all of the credit for what’s currently underway on Tacoma’s waterfront but it definitely can take some. Hundreds of thousands of people came down to the see the tall ships and the vast majority of them had probably never ventured into this neighborhood before. Events like these raise awareness of the importance of protecting and preserving our maritime heritage while creating better access to the waterfront for all.
I can’t wait to go back to Tacoma and visit the Foss Waterway Seaport!
Jeremy Wood is a multidiscipline artist and map maker whose diverse work offers people and places a playground of space and time. In October 2000 he began to explore GPS satellite technology as a tool for digital mark making on water, over land, and in the air. He makes drawings and maps of his movements by recording all his daily journeys with GPS to create a personal cartography. (from the artist’s website)
One of Wood’s projects included a walk though London along the quote: “It is not down in any map; true places never are.” Herman Melville, Moby Dick.
Also from the artist’s website.
The text was written over a period of three months from January 2005. The length of the line recorded on foot for the drawing was 44.2 miles, and the total distance traveled to make the drawing was 458.6 miles. I had two bicycle punctures with reinforced puncture resistant tires, the first of which happened 20 miles into a journey looking for locations that ended in having to push the bike home for 9 miles. After closing the body of the last letter, I headed as far north as the land allowed to a small pier on which the Greenwich Meridian is marked, and finished the drawing by circling around on the footpath at the edge of the River Thames for a full stop.
Via PowerMobyDick where you can find lots of other interesting Moby-Dick digital ephemera.
Sea-Fever blog 