Posted on May 8, 2016
Weekly wrap-up
Summaries and bullet points, people. That’s what we have time for over here…
- Trips to the boat this week yielded a miasma of fiberglass dust, as Michu glassed in new backing plates for the new through-hulls. We are missing our old marina in Oconto; there’s no place at the yard in Milwaukee to wash off all that itchiness, and no old guys drinking coffee around the office who’ll listen to your complaints.
Fiberglass dust source: new backing plates for through-hulls in the head - Everyone has finally finished with their typhoid oral vaccine. We trained the kids extensively: first, with cut-up mini-marshmallows; next, moving on to Nerds candy; finally, swallowing halved Skittles (if you go this route, be sure to roll the Skittle around a bit to break up the jagged edges of the candy shell). Success all around, although tummies have been under duress for the past few days. Francesca and I have one more vaccination appointment–Hep A and B for me, Gardasil for her–and we’ll be checking off the vaccination box.
- Speaking of expensive American heath care: after spending an hour on the phone with an ACA navigator, we think we’ve found an insurance plan through the marketplace that will keep our premiums at zero dollars and zero cents. We’ll be looking at at $1000 deductible, a $200 co-pay for an ER visit, and a network of care that we will not have any real access to; but we’ll be covered in the case of disaster, and not be fined for being without insurance. Even if we max out the fees, we’ll be paying much less than the international plan we were considering, and we won’t be risking our financial future while we’re cruising in the US.
- More on the insurance front: we’re switching our homeowner’s insurance to a commercial plan. Smart people are working on it for us, and we should be all set up by the end of next week.
- We sold a car! In a very weird case of the universe working out in everyone’s favor, the first person to whom I mentioned our Impreza wanted to buy it. No Craigslist, no worries about timing–the buyer’s happy to let us use it right up to departure, if we want; things could not have worked out better for us. So, thank you, cosmos!!
- Michu’s working his final weekend hours as I type. He has three more shifts next week, and he’s done. Bravely facing the abyss of no paycheck…and saying goodbye to co-workers and a job he loves. But we know they’ll be following along; Michu send out an email to all staff with a link to the blog, and traffic doubled immediately. Hi, CCH people!
- Packing, cleaning and purging continues. It’s really not interesting.
- In our waning days of unlimited high-speed internet, we’re cramming on understanding digital compression and offline apps. We’ve successfully downloaded Wikipedia and Crash Course with Kiwix, which makes the inclusion of the World Book Encyclopedia less likely in our boat library. Next up: Wikivoyage and Khan Academy Lite. Still researching the best way to write up blog posts offline–anyone have favorites?
Mother’s Day present: a wringer for bucket laundry. Jealous, ladies?
This site is amazing and you haven’t even left yet! I’m so excited for you guys. (Deb, I am not jealous of your laundry ringer though)
xxoo, Alex