Four Months

My youngest grandson, Owen, is four months old today. One third of a year already.

He has only warmed up to me in the last couple of weeks. Before that, every time his mother or grandmother handed him to me he would just scream at me. Maybe I didn't smell right? Maybe I had forgotten how to hold a small baby right? In any case, his two older siblings usually wanted some attention from their granddad and I found it easier to amuse a 2-year-old and a 4-year-old than to quiet a squalling baby.

But lately he seems quite happy snuggling up in my arms. He is much more responsive too. When I hold him so he can see my face he will smile and laugh and gurgle at me. I guess my face is pretty funny looking. Even a 4-month-old can see that.

This week I passed two further tests with young Owen. He let me feed him for the first time and he let me change his diaper for the first time. Oh joy! But that is what granddads do in 2010.

When Owen's mother is out of earshot, I have started to explain sailing to him, and make wild promises about sailing adventures we will have together when he is old enough. His brother Aidan (2) is definitely an outdoors type; yesterday he was playing toy boats with me in freezing water in a wheelbarrow in their garden. And their sister Emily (4) loves swimming and playing in the water too.

Life is good.

Friends: What's the Point?

As part of today's CSN $75 Giveaway I made it a requirement that anyone entering the draw for the giveaway must first sign up as a "Follower" of this blog in that Google Friend Connect widget at the top of my sidebar. I'm not sure why I did that.

In fact, I have no idea at all what the point of being a "Follower" in this sense is. I have 64 of them at the last count. What good are they?

And I am actually a "Follower" myself of a couple of other blogs. I guess I signed up because the writers of those blogs asked me to do it. I see no benefit to me in being a "Follower" of these blogs either. It makes no difference to how often I read those blogs. I do no use the fact that those blogs show up in my Blogger Dashboard to link to those blogs. I find their latest posts by other means. So what good is it being a "Follower"?

So why did I bribe you $75 to do something which is of no benefit to you and of no benefit to me? I guess I was just imitating - and maybe mocking a little - other bloggers who use bribes like this in their quest for global bloggery domination. For example, here is an example of how one over-ambitious blogger set the rules for her CSN Giveaway draw...

Earn 1 entry for every comment you leave on this blog post from now until 07/26. Leave a comment for each entry completed.

Go to CSN stores and let me know about your experience. (2 Entries)

Post about this giveaway on your blog and link back to me. Leave me your link to show the post. (2 entries)

Grab my Blog Button and post it in your sidebar. (1 Entry)

Follow me on Google Friend Connect, which is located on the right side bar. (1 Entry)

Subscribe to my feed via RSS or email. (1 Entry)

Follow me on Twitter, and tweet about this giveaway. (1 Entry)

Click to vote for me at Top Mommy Blogs. Just click the banner on the right sidebar (Top Mommy Blogs) and tell me you clicked. (1 Entry)

Geeze. Life is too short to count so many entries.

If you want to read this blog, do.

If you don't want to, don't.

If you want $75, enter the draw.

If you don't, don't.

In the meantime, can someone (perhaps one of my 64 Google "Friends") explain to me the point of Google Friend Connect and "Following" blogs?

PS. If you go and vote for me at Top Mommy Blogs, I will kill you.

Kitchen Table Boat

Thanks to Chris N. for bringing to my attention this excellent example of furniture turned into a sailboat. Note the navigation lights on the legs, wave guards at the aft gunwale, and even a registration number!

Furniture and Sailing: $75 Prize

For the first time ever on Proper Course there is something of real value here. To thank all of my loyal readers for their tremendous support of and participation in our topic of the week, Furniture and Sailing, today I am announcing a giveaway of a gift certificate worth $75... and YOU could win it.

But first let me suggest to anyone who is having difficulty finding a suitable table to try out the ideas in yesterday's post on How to Learn to Sail on Your Dining Table that you should seriously consider buying a drop leaf table. When you are not using it for learning to sail you can fold down the leaves and it will take up hardly any space. And if you do decide at some future date to convert your table into a sailing vessel, I think a drop leaf table would provide some interesting design opportunities. Did someone say "twin canting keels"?



Now, back to the $75 giveaway. Thanks to the generosity of CSN Stores who, just by coincidence, happen to be the vendor of those drop leaf tables at the link above, I have a $75 gift certificate to give away to one of my lucky readers. But you don't have to spend it on a drop leaf table. You can use it for any of the gazillion items available from the 200+ online CSN Stores. Check them out. You are sure to find something you need there. (Or failing that you could put your 75 bucks towards buying your significant other a waterbed for Xmas.)



Entering for the giveaway is simple. First, you have to be a follower of this blog. If you are not already a follower, go over there >>>>> to the top of the sidebar and sign up immediately. Once you are a follower, leave a one-word comment to this post that best describes what you think of this blog. Awesome? Brilliant? Grippy? Superstantial? Don't hold back. Tell me what you really think.

Helpful hint: you are not going to win if you leave an anonymous comment.

This contest is open to entrants in USA and Canada only. Sorry, CSN don't ship to other countries. Submit your comment by 10:00pm (EST) on Sunday, October 31, 2010. The winner will be drawn at random and announced shortly after that on this blog. Only one comment allowed per person.

This contest is now closed, and the post is closed to further comments. Winner will be announced shortly.

Guitar Boat

Thanks to BlueVark (via email) and bowsprite (in the comments to Furniture and Sailing) for bringing my attention to Josh Pyke's Guitar Boat. It's not exactly furniture but sorta kinda in the same genre. Have you seen any other musical instrument boats? (No. Before you ask, bass boats don't count.)

Dining Table

As part of my extensive research in the dark, dim recesses of my basement for material on this week's topic of Furniture and Sailing - making boats from furniture, making furniture from boats etc. etc. - I came across a fascinating article in the August 1938 issue of Popular Science Magazine on How to Learn to Sail on Your Dining Table. Aren't you glad that I'm the sort of anal-retentive person who never throws away any magazine that has an article about sailing in it?

The article is not actually about sailing the ocean on a dining table. It's about using your dining table as a learning aid. All you need is an electric fan to whip up some breeze and some bits and pieces to make a model boat, and you can master the fundamentals of sailing right on your dining table. At least that's what our intrepid table-top sailor E.W. Murtfeldt says.



E.W. explains how you can teach yourself about beating, reaching, running, tacking and jibing with this set-up. You can see what happens as you position the boat at various angle to the wind and what happens when you trim the sails. You can even try out such advanced maneuvers as picking up a mooring.



Wow! Who would have thunk it?

But what if the rest of your family objects to your using the dining table to "play" with your electric fan and little boat with its sail made out of "an old handkerchief or shirt tail"? What if your wife actually wants to use your dining table for dining?

Fear not, dear reader. I will have a solution to this problem in tomorrow's post...

Watch this space (if you can bear it.)

Optimist Bed

Continuing with our current theme of using furniture as boats, or boats as furniture, Agnes from Hungary writes...

My friend converted an old Optimist dinghy hull to a bed for his son. His son sails a new Opti and sleeps on an Opti while dreaming about helming the beautiful boat painted on the wall beside his bed. Here are the pictures - before and after resurrection.

Coffee Table

Talking of tables, as we were, Dustin sent me some pictures of a boat that he says he wanted to use as a coffee table. He didn't explain why. It looks to me as if coffee cups would slide off that deck.

Outboard on Table

Thanks to Chris Partridge of Rowing for Pleasure for sending in this picture in response to yesterday's question about Furniture and Sailing. It's not a sailboat but it is a boat... I guess.

Furniture and Sailing

I was wondering... could you make a boat out of a piece of furniture? A bookshelf? A chair? A table, for example?

If it's made of wood and it floats, could you jury rig a sail and some kind of steering oar and actually sail the thing?

Has anybody ever done this? To rescue themselves after a shipwreck, perhaps? Or as part of some crazy fun challenge at a sailing club?

Vice versa, can you convert a boat into a piece of furniture? An Optimist into a coffee table? A Sunfish into a settee?

Just wondering....

What do you think?