So I still have yet to send off my plans to the hull people (probably do that this week) but after thinking about it and comparing to other aluminum hulls of smaller (albeit more complicated) design I think having this hull made out of aluminum is sadly unrealistic. Although there’s always the off chance that the price may just be right. Who knows?

Although contingency plans should be made and oddly enough the most likely of them is to revisit an idea I had several years ago when this obsession began. A European river barge. Back then most were priced very high and there was very little chance to get one over here but with the sagging economy, especially in the nautical world, boat costs are starting to bottom out. There are hulls available in Europe – more specifically Denmark, Britain, and France – that are under $50,000 CND and are larger than my design. Issue is what is the cost of moving a hull from Europe to Toronto? No idea really but there are people that do these things of which I have to find and contact them.

I’ve been meaning to write about this lady for a bit but there’s not much to really say. When I walk to my train station in the morning there’s this lady sitting in a mini-van praying like there’s no tomorrow. I’m fairly sure she gets on the train afterwards but I find this praying right before getting on the train a bit disconcerting. It’s like being on an airplane and sitting beside someone that’s praying for the plan to not crash. Nothing particularly wrong with it per say, but it’s a bit unnerving that it looks like someone thinks that maybe today will be the day the train derails and performs a double somersault into the highway. I suppose I could try talking to her and ask “For the love of GOD do you know something that we DON’T!?”

Just as a quick update here are some old renderings of the boat itself.

The name Tres Petite Hermine is only there as a name stub although I may stick with it. The idea came from the names of the 3 ships Jacques Cartier used to sail up the St.Lawrence which were called the Emerillon, the Grande Hermine, and the Petite Hermine. Since my ship is smaller than the “Small” Hermine mine is the Tres Petite Hermine or “Very Small” Hermine.

Another thing to note is that there are portholes in the final version so it’s not just a floating coffin and that the hull colours will be different as I’m probably going with Aluminum instead of Steel.

So as you can see my friend over at Scoop Media finished making the new theme for this blog. Pretty sexy eh? Basically I wanted a sort of 1940’s Speak Easy meets BioShock the game feel. Or say a Batman the Animated series but with blue instead of brown feel. Bang on wouldn’t you say?

Anyways works been kinda crazy so I don’t really have much in the way of updates or news for that matter. The boat plan is moderately stalled just because of work but I that should be getting done this week just to at least get an estimate. So ya. Fun stuff overall.

So as many people do I read quite a bit. Right now just rereading a favorite, Rendezvous With Rama by Arthur C Clarke. Of which I believe would make an excellent TV series if they were to tackle all the books. I’ve only read 2 out of the 4 books of the Rama series but according to a friend of mine the other 2 are even better. Not surprising since the first book basically leaves you with this sense of awe and mystery around what Rama is, the second begins to show you a bit more about it and the 3rd and 4th I simply have no idea about. However I think I’ll probably only read the first one this time and read some of the other books my sister gave me for Christmas including some of Terry Pratchets more recent work.

Another thing I like to do is write stories. I usually write short stories and most of which are totally unfinished (something I’m sure a number of people are cheesed about as a number of people have read my stuff and are often left at cliff hangers indefinitely). I’m working on a short story now as  a sort of space adventure with a focus on action. With any luck I’ll finish this one to completion and get my sister to edit it; which she’s done already to some extent usually in the form of horrendous spelling mistakes or what is apparently my favorite past time, switching the tense of the narrative (ie I wrote 1 sentence that included the past present and future of a current action. Essentially I tore space and time a new one with my literary skills. Suck it physics!). I may see about getting this published as an eBook when I’m done through a page similar too lulu.com or something (preferably Canadian based but I’m not picky). But in any case we’ll see. I’m also hoping that the world/universe I’ve created for this short story can be reused in other stories I have ideas for. I think I’ve written a unique enough world that it should be neat to play and travel in. But we’ll see.

So I ran into him on the way to work today. He actually was riding a bike around… It was lime green and the kind that is usually labeled as a “girls” bike (metal fenders, the different frame type etc). It also had the pole for a large bike warning flag out the back. Now I don’t want to cast aspersions at people that ride those sorts of bikes but it was most likely not the sort of bike he’d go out and get himself.

So just to kick off this category with some high level information I’m planning on living on a boat in Toronto, of which there are a few reasons for this.
1. Is that it’s cheaper than a condo (potentially)
2. There is no taxes on it
3. It’s a boat… Kinda cool to live on and might as well try that out while I’m still young.
Anyways I’m at the point now where I can start finding out how expensive this venture is going to be. I’ve contacted a company that specializes in aluminum boat building in Parry Sound. So they apparently want to review my plans first before they relay it to a naval architect which is a bit odd considering I want to know how much a 60′ hull is going to cost first (roughly) before I get really committed to this. Aluminum would be great and all (no rust, smooths out nicely, very light) but it is pricey.

In any case I’ll post the results.

So as some people know I tend to run into and have conversations with homeless or very weird people often. I’m beginning to think there’s a memo sent out to odd people saying “This person is too polite to totally ignore someone that’s talking to them” or something because they never seem to have issues finding me or striking up the most bizarre conversations.

Case in point last night when walking home.

Walking home at night I came across a rather… mmmm… toothy individual (missing teeth and the others mostly chipped). When I say came across I mean more smelled from a distance, looked up to find the source and saw him. Anyways this individual had with him a pair of bolt cutters and was about to test them out on a fence (he wasn’t trying to break in though as the fence is on a property line and he could easily just walk around it) when he caught sight of me. I was more than happy to just walk by so I could get home and warm up, but oh no. We couldn’t let that happen. We had to have a conversation. Roughly it went like this:

Him: “Heh heh… Bolt cutters like the guy with crack in the news paper!”
Me: “What? I was more curious why you had bolt cutters.”
H: “Oh! I’m here cuz I need to cut the bolt off of my bike. I’m not doing anything illegal. I mean hey! Bolt cutters the cops might not like that.”
M: “… Well as long as you’re not-”
H: “Like that guy with the crack and all the bikes in the news!”
M: “What guy?”
H: “You know the one that the cops found! He was stealing bikes and selling them for crack and pot! He had 2 BAGS of pot man!”
M: “Ya. Ok. I hadn’t read that. I don’t really read the news-”
H: “Imagine that much pot!”
M: “Ok.”
H: “I’m waiting for my friend to help me with my bike. I’m not stealing anything!”
M: “Great… Well… err… you have a good one then. Bye!”
H: “Ya have a good one buddy!”

How do they find me? That conversation is paraphrased a bit as I got more details of the drug/bike bust but that’s the essential just of the conversation and bang on for the style. Perhaps I should start listing out all the encounters I’ve had with these odd folk over the years. Oh well. Another adventure survived unscathed.

So my first post on my new blog. Quick story regarding the name. Originally I had thecyberbob.com as my own personal URL, thanks to whackiness in the form of retarded customer support I was unable to get control of an account I had WITH that URL back. So I went with the next best thing, thecyberbob.net.

The purpose of this blog is basically to be a place I can put down any of my muses, talk about the various projects I’m on, talk about movies, tell people about the adventures I have and the homeless people I end up talking to often with odd results.

My friend from scoopmedia.ca is doing up the template for this site for me so this place should start looking less terrible in the coming weeks.