A group of members have now purchased three RC (remote control) One Design Laser sailboats and there are two more to be ordered (this week, hopefully) and a couple of other people considering the purchase. Shortly, we’ll be joining the North American RC Laser Class Association and forming an official fleet on Canandaigua Lake and racing at CYC. The current leading name is the Canandaigua Yacht Club Remote Control Sailing Fleet (if the club will have us).

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On Sunday, July 18, three sailors from Canandaigua Yacht Club competed in a “first of its kind” (for CYC) Remote Control Regatta.

Sailing RC Lasers at Canandaigua Yacht Club

I raced in Canandaigua Yacht Club’s 75th Anniversary History Regatta a few weeks ago, sailing my 2.4 Meter. The race was pretty neat. It took the fleet from the starting line in front of the club, down Canandaigua Lake and around marks that were set in front of all of the old locations of the yacht club in years past.

View while sailing down Canandaigua Lake in my 2.4 Meter during the CYC 75th Anniversary Race.

Before the race, I reviewed the racing instructions. The document stated that we would have a windward start.

The morning of the race, I attended the skipper’s meeting. At the end of the meeting I asked the question about the starting line and if we were doing a typical start to windward. I was told, “Yes” we’ll be starting to windward with the first rounding mark “off of the mooring field in front of the club”.

Once I was out to the course, I watched the marks get set, the RC flags to go up, and then I noticed that most boats were tacking back and forth OCS (on course side) of the line.

I sailed around behind the committee boat, approaching on a starboard tack, hailed the PRO and asked about the starting line and if we were still going to windward at the gun.

“Windward start, round the pin and take a sharp left,” was the reply from the PRO or  ”Principle Race Officer”.

Cool.

With a minute to go to the start, I made my way on down towards the pin on a close starboard reach and waited. With 30 seconds to go, I was STILL the only boat behind the starting line and everyone else was on the course side coming right at me!

I’m not sure how many times I could have asked for clarification and in what other form I needed to check, so when the gun went off, I pinched up to a close-hauled course, crossed the line just after the signal, then reached off a hair and jibed around the pin end of the line, barely missing a couple of larger boats coming towards me in the opposite direction. At that point, I headed on down the lake behind everyone else.

No other boats started the race to windward, in the same direction as I did.

Everyone else reached across the line starting line in the OTHER direction, sailing on down the lake when the gun went off.

The rest of the race was uneventful. I managed to stay in about the middle of the pack of boats, not bad considering I probably have one of the slowest boats on the water and three legs of reaching isn’t my strongest point of sail.

I crossed the finish line between a couple of other cruisers and Ensigns and then decided – just to be safe – that I should round the committee boat and cross the line in the direction I started the race. After the technicalities were taken care of, I headed on in to shore for the after-race awards and party.

When I got to the clubhouse, I questioned the President of the club, who was on the committee boat for the start of the race, about the start. She said, “You were the only person who technically started the race.”

No one else had crossed the start line in the proper direction!

Awards were given out for all of the fleets. I was awarded the first in fleet for the cruisers. Then, surprisingly, my little 2.4 Mr had been calculated to be the first place boat overall – kewl!

Last night, (six weeks after the race) I got a call from the Vice Commodore. He let me know that the results had been disputed and I was being moved to 4th overall after the revision.

How can the only boat that started a race end up in forth place?

“Literacy has traditionally been described as the ability to read and write. New literacies generally refer to new forms of literacy made possible by digital technologies, such as blogging, uploading photos or sharing videos. According to new literacies, media is collaborative, distributed, and participatory nature.”

It is quite a long post, but I think every dog owner should read this article. Here the gist in one sentence from the author:

“My experience has been that it is owners of breeds considered non-aggressive that cause the most problems in dog-to-dog interactions simply by being unaware that their dog is rude.”

Canadice Lake, originally uploaded by sailorbill.

Pre-season bass fishing from my Native Watercraft Multisport 14.5 Propel kayak last weekend on Canadice Lake in Western New York out on a day-trip with several guys who are in the WNYKFA – Western New York Kayak Fishing Association.

Pike, Deep Pond at Mendon Ponds Park, originally uploaded by sailorbill.

I went fishing with a bunch of guys who fish together in a group called the Western New York Kayak Fishing Association (WNYKFA) today. I caught one nice pike on a crank bait in Deep Pond. It wasn’t very cold but it was windy. No bass in my boat today. One other guy we were fishing with landed a smallmouth out in the middle of Hundred Acre Pond.

My new Native Watercraft Ultimate 14.5 Propel Kayak (or is it a canoe?). It is supposed to be in the 60′s this weekend. I can’t wait to wet a fly line from this boat!

I fixed the blue line problem on my LG Plasma HGTV today after replacing a circuit board, but now Dale Earnhardt Jr’s car is orange!

After removing all of the screws holding on the back cover of the set, It took a while to figure out the easiest way to get the to board I needed to replace and remove the fewest wires and other components as possible. I ended up removing all of the wires on the rear-most panel except for the power connector lines that were located on the bottom right.

The board swung freely so that I could get my tools and hands behind the left side.

Replacing the board wasn’t a big deal except for the little swing connectors on the two wire harnesses at the bottom. After I figured out how they worked, it was easy, but I did break both of the ones on the old board trying to figure out how to get the wires out. Basically, it the locks are on a hinge and swing up and down. When down, they pinch the wires in the correct place.

I put the whole thing together and the sound was great, but no picture. After sitting there a while thinking about all of the wires I unhooked, I remembered one that I forgot to put back in place. After removing the back of the TV again and connecting the wire, everything worked great.

NOTE: Dale Earnhardt Jr. is driving an orange car this weekend.

Grace, originally uploaded by sailorbill.

]]> http://www.billblevins.com/2010/02/grace-2/feed/ 0 http://www.billblevins.com/2010/02/the-mostly-persistent-thin-blue-line-on-my-5-yr-old-lg-plasma-tv/ http://www.billblevins.com/2010/02/the-mostly-persistent-thin-blue-line-on-my-5-yr-old-lg-plasma-tv/#comments Sat, 13 Feb 2010 15:31:46 +0000 Bill Blevins http://www.billblevins.com/2010/02/the-mostly-persistent-thin-blue-line-on-my-5-yr-old-lg-plasma-tv/

The mostly persistent thin blue line on my 5-yr-old LG plasma TV.

Well, I’m going to try and repair my LG Plasma HGTV. The model number of my LG Plasma is DU-42PX12X.

Here’s the story…

A few weeks ago, my 42″ LG Plasma HGTV began to occasionally display a thin blue line on the right side of the screen. It would appear for a while, then disappear for a while. We are now going on about 5 weeks and it is always on the screen now. It is about 1 inch wide and is about 6 inches from the right side of the screen.

Of course, the first thing one does these days when something like this happens is to hit Google.

Apparently, after reading only a few blogs, I have been lucky. Many LG TV’s purchased in 2004-2005 had this problem after only a couple of years and most of the blog posts are from a couple of years ago.

I got away without the problem for 5 years.

After checking out only a few Google results, I landed on a blog post that had very detailed instructions on how to fix the problem. The comments on the post were lengthy and most people who followed the instructions sucessfully fixed their TVs.

So, this morning, I ordered a LG Electronics / Zenith “Hand Insert PCB Assembly” – part number 6871QCH038C from partstore.com. The part should be here by next weekend.

I’ll update this post when it arrives and let everyone know the outcome.

UPDATE: Transplant surgery on the 42″ LG Plasma HGTV was a success, fixing the 1″ blue line running down the right side of the screen.

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