In the News, the comments hurt the most...

Alright, so I just got home from yoga no less... and clicked open sfgate.com to check out the latest news. I came across this article all about a new houseboat design. Yes, it is interesting and the concept of Tafoni is not off base of what Ben and I discuss. Well sort of... maybe it goes against it. Our thought is buy one of these "Dwell" prefab homes and slap it on a barge and boom amazing floating home. This article focuses on interesting design for houseboats, which I am not sure if this has ever been addressed.

Reading the Chronicle is always an interesting task. Sometimes they take themselves seriously and sometimes they don't. The best part of any sfgate.com article is the comment section. Oh man it is amazing. It totally increases the enjoyment level of reading anything online, until now.

Alright, yes my feelings are hurt and I am not going to vent them on the Chron's website, that seems a bit more public than I am willing to go (yes, I know I have a blog, but that is different).

James58 had this to say "Just the OPPOSITE. Smelly environs. Too close to your neighbors. What about a sewer system? A muddy parking lot for 4 mos. of the year?

Maybe for the dreamland vista of aging late 50s and 60-year old hippies... otherwise it's a nightmare to live on a houseboat surrounded by freaks and swales." James58, you have never been here! Shut up! This is a wonderful place to live, we have a sewer, the parking lot isn't muddy and the last time I checked I am not a 50-60 year old hippie and NOT A FREAK! I realize this kind of living isn't for everyone, but come on. I don't make fun of the places you live, unless it is really strange or something. Ah, now I am just annoyed.

Living here has been a wonderful experience. We love all of our neighbors! It is not smelly. Whatever. And interesting home design should be open to all spaces and people.

Christmas Tree

Yes, I know this is really late, but we lost the power cord to our camera... but here is a video of how we took our tree out of the house...

The Girl with One Rollerblade (Sad.)

Yes, there are children that live on our dock. In fact there are probably about 10 of them, which for a place with no backyard or setting like that is a bit surprising. Also for some reason people have it in their head that a houseboat would be a dangerous place to raise a child. I really don't see that but then again people can believe whatever they want, right, right.

Each morning a young girl around 9 years old walks down the dock with her mom or dad. I would imagine she is of course on the way to school and not work. The funny thing is that she wears 1 rollerblade, not two, but one. So the foot with the rollerblade is higher than the other one, which you think would throw her off, it doesn't. She then also scoots down the dock as if she was on a skateboard. I am not sure why she only wears 1 rollerblade. I am curious if this is about safety but honestly it is pretty hard to fall into the water or mud (depending on where you are in the tides). I think it would be easier for her to wear both rollerblades than just 1 of them. Then again maybe she only has 1, I have not checked out if it is always on her right or left, which would help answer that question. I also don't want to stop and ask since she is usually with a parent and that seems like a bad idea from all sides!

You have to wonder what they say about us?

GUS. . .

As you may have guessed there are many types of interesting people living on the dock. We have met many of our neighbors as we have lived there. And yes when we walk down the dock there is always someone to say "Hi" to or something new to look at. I have no idea why I have brought this up before, but I should probably talk about Gus, since he is a cat.

It hit me that this should be a blog topic on Friday as I was walking home around 5 and noticed Gus and the dude who owns them cruising down the dock. Each night (and possibly morning, not sure) Gus goes for a walk. He lives in the middle of our dock. Well I have seen him in the windows and I know where his owner lives. Gus and said owner head out around 4-5 and just take a stroll down the to the end of the dock. Apparently, Gus is 15 year old and has been doing this for year. He is a orange and white long haired mix. He jumps up on planters, sniffs around and just sort of saunters down the dock, much like a cat would. His owner is never more than 3 steps behind him. If you pass him he only sort of looks at you and them keeps moving. There is never a point where Gus stops and lets you pet him. It just isn't his thing. This is his time to cruise around and take his walk.

I think I have gotten used to this deal, but all of a sudden it did strike me as a bit odd since this is only time I have seen anyone take their cat for a walk. (Ok that isn't really true, a young girl I grew up with did tie a jump rope around her cat's neck and took it for a walk, granted the cat never stood up. Therefore it might not count since in theory she really dragged her cat around. Not a walk then, right, just a drag?)

Rain

I have not seen the sun for more than like 5 mins since December. It has been cloudy and overcast, and now the forecast is calling for more rain. Rain, it is different here. Well the sound is different, also the walking down the dock in the rain . . .

When it rains, the raindrops do not hit the ground like in other places, instead it hits water. This creates a noise that is quiet loud and shocking. It sounds as if maybe the rain is actually coming into our house and possibly getting our things wet. It sounds like rain that you might hear in a tent while camping. Ben thinks this is great and really relaxing. It has taken me several months to get used to this noise.

So as the forecast brings rain it also brings noise, but after several months, I am not as alarmed as I once was.

"My First Blog" a Guest Spot

Hi! I’m Ann’s dad and am visiting the land of houseboat living. It is most interesting, beginning with the fact the whole arrangement is a larger community than you might imagine, with a number of docks stretching out from the parking lot. Some docks have sailboat dockage and a large number have these houseboats, all on cement hulls of one kind or another.

The docks are longer than you might think; Ann’s dock has forty homes on it, twenty on each side, with an average width between mooring pilings of about thirty feet between boats. The dock carries the electricity and water and gas hook-ups and it also has the hook-ups with the city for fire hydrants. The dock has plants all up and down the docks and people have added additional touches as well, now with lots of Christmas decorations. The whole area was at one time plated by the city in preparation for filing in the bay and making home sites and such. As a result, there are open spaces along the dock and these represent the spaces where streets were to have been, giving a sense of openness to the whole community.

The thing that makes this whole thing go, of course, is the fact that each floating home is hooked to city sewage treatment. That fact is also the reason why people generally can’t live on the sailboats moored here, until they can show that they are responsibly dealing with sewage. Each floating home has a holding tank which holds waste and waste water, which is then pumped out into the city system from time to time. This is done by a connection over the edge of the hull; the hull is not broken into to allow this access.

The variety of homes and home types is surprising, as is the fact that few of them seem of have a nautical theme of any kind, with the exception of the one that is built to look like a little tugboat on top of a dock. The height restriction is twenty feet above the water line, generally enforced except for some larger grandfathered floating homes…just as in your neighborhood!! Some are a single story, but most are two. Designs are compact and generally open, with economical use of space, as you would have in a condo or other tight space construction. Many also have a floating deck or something on the waterside to accommodate boat docking, canoes and kayaks.

Vary interesting and fun!

Frost!

In the last two days it has been quite cold in the Bay Area. In fact it has even snowed in some locations! (Someone even skiied a mountain here) But alas no snow at our house!

For the past two mornings there has been a visible sign that it is cold here, frost. We wake up to the dock frosted over with a beautiful white covering that is yet a bit dangerous. Ben took a bad fall/slip on Tuesday morning. In that fall he managed to spill his coffee all over the place and by the time I left for work a little bit later all of the spilled coffee had become frozen. Yesterday, I had to use a credit card to scrap off the frost on my car, because why would I have an ice scrapper? I no longer live in the middle where I have to deal with these things. (Tahoe is different; I know we go there…) That was sort of exciting.

This morning greet us again with frost but this time our dock people had put some salt down so it wouldn't be so icky....

How do I feel about this frost? Um, yea, I am not sure.... After moving away from the middle we haven't had to deal with any of this in awhile.... so yea, I am not sure...