The Universe
All it's horrors notwithstandingIs a strange and marvelous place
That love is the law
The pull and the push of all we do
That choosing the hard road
Over the easy route
Will allow us to realize
The possibilities implicit in our existence! - Shriekback [1988]
"I am made from the dust of the stars
And the oceans flow in my veins"
—Neil Elwood Peart September 12, 1952 – January 7, 2020
"The only thing really wrong with building your own boat is you don't have a previous owner on which to blame for all the stupid mistakes you've made!" - Rick Laporte 2015
"Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder." - Cracker Larry 2014
"It is every mans inalienable right to follow his own misguided intuition no matter how many times the Wife says: 'I told you so but you never listen to me!'" - Rick Laporte 2014
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so” - (Mark Twain?)
“It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.” - Earl Weaver
“It’s what you don’t know you don’t know that gets you into trouble.” - Unknown
"Building this boat is a dream, a dream taking form and what it costs me in money or time or effort is of absolutely no consequence." - Rick Laporte (2014)
"Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs.” ― Farrah Gray
“Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.” ― George Carlin
"Take the risk of thinking for yourself, much more happiness, truth, beauty, and wisdom will come to you that way." - Christopher Hitchens 1949-2011
"If you dont stink, you aint working hard enough." Matt Sachs 2013
" Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." TS Eliot
"Sometimes you eat the bear, and sometimes, well, he eats you." The Stranger
“You can't cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.” - Tagore
"I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it." - Abraham Lincoln
"When you're hanging on by your fingernails, you can't go waving your arms around." - Virgil 'Bud' Brigman
"Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks." - Warren Buffet
"Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing." - Warren Buffet
"I can calculate the movement of the stars, but not the madness of men." - Sir Isaac Newton
"Outside of the military a belt sander with a 40 grit belt is as close to a Weapon of Mass Destruction most of us will ever get!" - Rick Laporte 2011
"Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world." - Archimedes, Greek Mathematician, 287 - 212 BC
"Give me enough clamps and ratchet straps which to place on it, and I shall stop the world from moving." - Rick Laporte, Amateur Boat Builder, 1960 -
"He who works with his hands is a laborer. He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman. He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist." - St. Francis of Assis (1181-1226)
“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.” - T.E. Lawrence
“Age is my alarm clock,” the old man said. “Why do old men wake so early? Is it to have one longer day?”“I don’t know,” the boy said. “All I know is that young boys sleep late and hard.” - OLD MAN AND THE SEA - Ernest Hemingway
"If it breaks, make it stronger, if it isn't broken, try harder!" - Author Unknown
"Whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting over." - Samuel Clemens
"The trouble with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money." - Margaret Thatcher
"You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on." - Dean Martin
"Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of intelligent effort...The bitterness of poor quality lingers long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten." - John Ruskin (attributed)
"I keep hitting my head against the wall and it keeps getting harder! Not the wall silly, my head! Sheez!" - Rick Laporte 2011
"If God had meant for us to have fiberglass boats, he would have planted fiberglass trees."
— L. Francis Herreshoff
"It looks like frozen snot." -L. Francis Herreshoff, looking at a Herreshoff Bullseye built of fiberglass.
"The cabin of a small yacht is truly a wonderful thing; not only will it shelter you from a tempest, but from the other troubles in life, it is a safe retreat." -L. Francist Herreshoff
"Life hangs on a very thin thread and the cancer of time is complacency. If you are going to do something, do it now. Tomorrow is too late." - Pete Goss
"It's not the boat "you built" until you've sworn at it, bled on it, sweated over it, cried beside it and threatened to toss the POS outside and burn it!" - Rick Laporte 2011 (and a little help from my friends too!)
"You know "that look" women get when they want sex? Me neither." - Steve Martin
The world always seems brighter when you've just made something that wasn't there before - Neil Gaiman
“Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.” - Benjamin Franklin
"Old boats are like teenage girlfriends: there is a certain urgency to their needs & one neglects them at one's peril" - Author unknown
"There are times when wolves are silent, and only the moon howls." - George Carlin
"Behind every great fortune there is a crime." - Honore de Balzac (1799 - 1850)
"Fanaticism consists in redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim." - George Santayana
"If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours." - Henry David Thoreau
"I love it when a plan comes together." - Colonel John "Hannibal" Smith - The A-Team
"Do what you want to.`You likely will anyway." - Author unknown
OMG! I slept in for an extra hour! I never sleep in! Oh, wait! F*ck! (change to daylight savings time) - Rick Laporte 2011
"The only difference between where I work and the TITANIC is... The TITANIC had a band." - Author Unknown
The Titanic was built by professions. The Ark was built by an amateur!" - Author unknown
"If you live life right, death is a joke as far as fear is concerned." - Chuck Phillips (RIP)
"If you are talking about me behind my back, you are in position to kiss my ass." Author Unknown
"Only crazy people imagine that bad ideas can suddenly become good ideas if you keep trying them." - Author unknown
My old chemistry professor used to say: "The three most dangerous elements on the earth are Tequila, hand guns and Redheads!"
"I'd have a longer attention span if so many cool things weren't so Shiny!" - Author Unknown
I've learned that pleasing everyone is impossible. But, pissing everyone off is a piece of cake! - Author unknown
"It is nice to know that the computer understands the problem. But I would like to understand it too." - Eugene Wigner (1902-1995) Hungarian-born US physicist
"Political Correctness is a doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical liberal minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end." - Author unknown
"A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you have." Thomas Jefferson
" If you think nobody cares, try missing a few payments " - Author unknown
"You can,if you want to badly enough,gather a few hand tools and shape from wood a thing of perfect beauty,a wooden boat.It will be your own boat,and you'll get from it a continuing emotional experience almost unique in this modern world." - Bud McIntosh
"Where ignorance is bliss,'tis folly to be wise" - Thomas Gray
"Simpler is better except when complicated looks really cool!" - Author unknown
"Money is not the only thing one has to spend; the other thing is life. The difference is that you never know how much is in the bank, or what your balance is. Your life is your inheritance. As soon as you realize this, you start trying to spend your life wisely." - From "Advice to the Sealorn" by Herb Payson.
"The two most common elements on Earth are oxygen and stupidity." - Cap'n Bill
"Information Technology: Successfully burying Canadian productivity under a burden of pointless administrative overhead." - Author unknown
"I used to rock and roll all night and party ev-er-y day. Then it was every other day. Now I'm lucky if I can find half an hour a week in which to get funky." - Homer Simpson
"You can't know how much longer you will have to live so make sure that you are working towards what you want to do." Author unknown
"A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing well." - Thudpucker
"Old boats are like teenage girlfriends: there is a certain urgency to their needs & one neglects them at one's peril" - Author unknown
"A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human history - with the possible exceptions of handguns and tequila and Redheads!" - author unknown
"I never have doubts. Ever. Occasionally, however, I have seen the need to revise expectation of outcome reflecting input of new anomalous data." - Author unknown
"Before marriage, a girl has to make love to a man to hold him. After marriage, she has to hold him to make love to him." - Author unknown
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” - Mark Twain
"Be who you are and say what you feel...
Because those that matter...don't mind...
And those that mind.... don't matter." - Author unknown
"You can't do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth"... - Evan Esar
"This new ship here is fitted according to the reported increase of knowledge among mankind. Namely, she is cumbered end to end with bells and trumpets and clocks
and wires. It has been told to me she can call voices out of the air or the waters to con the ship while her crew sleep. But sleep though lightly. It has not yet been told to me that the sea has ceased to be the sea." -Rudyard Kipling
"Well I have a serious problem to attend to this after noon. I have to fit an old rear end into a new Recliner!" - Thudpucker
"Sometimes I feel as though God likes to reach down and thwack me with
his finger on the back of the head once in a while, just for kicks." - Rick Laporte 2010
“Too often a vast collection of possessions ends up possessing its owner. The asset I most value, aside from health, is interesting, diverse and long-standing friends.” - Warren Buffet
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away" - Philip K. Dick
“Thus the metric system did not really catch on in the States, unless you count the increasing popularity of the nine-millimeter bullet.” - Dave Barry
"Man is not complete until he's married. Then he's finished." - Author unknown
"You can say any foolish thing to a dog, and the dog will give you a look that says, 'My God, you're right! I never would've thought of that!" -- Dave Barry
"Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured." - Mark Twain
"A good wife always forgives her husband when she's wrong." - Rodney Dangerfield
"Behind every successful man is a woman, behind her is his wife." - Author unknown
"Move on be brave, don't weep at my grave, because I am no longer here... But please never let your memory of me disappear...." --- The Spirit Carries On
“The desire to build a house is the wish of a man content thenceforward with a single anchorage. The desire to build a boat is the desire of youth, unwilling yet to accept the idea of a final resting place.” - Arthur Ransome
"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." - Theodore Parker
After Monday and Tuesday.....even the calendar say....W T F! - Author unknown
My ole' Grandpa who used to tell me: "Never trust a man with a clean workshop, he's not busy 'nuff to be any good!"
Ancient proverb about women and cats: "don't never tangle with nuthin' that fights on its back."
"Don't expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong" Calvin Coolidge
"All my life I wanted to be someone else. Now I realize that I should have been more specific." - Author unknown
"If you're not the lead dog, the view never changes." - Author unknown
"Live so that when your children think of fairness, caring and integrity, they think of you." - Author unknown
"A journey of 1000 miles begins with just one step" - Confucius
"You ain't gonna learn what you don't want to know" - The Grateful Dead
"Ships are the nearest things to dreams that hands have ever made." - Robert N. Rose
“When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.” – Mark Twain
Confucius, a Chinese philosopher once said: "Street lights synchronized for 35 MPH also synchronized for 70!"
"The world belongs to those willing to get their hands dirty!" - Author unknown
"If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to lead a life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in ordinary dreams." - Thoreau
"All that is gold does not glitter; not all those that wander are lost." J.R.R. Tolkien
Bumblebee: [through his radio] "Message from Starfleet, Captain... Let's get to it!"
"Those who dream by day are aware of many things which escape those who dream only by night." - Edgar Allen Poe
"The more I learn,the more of danger to myself and others I've become!" - Author unknown but it certainly applies to me!
"When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained." – Mark Twain
"Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief even denied to prayer." -
Mark Twain
"The road of life twists and turns and no two directions are ever the same. Yet our lessons come from the journey, not the destination.” - Don Williams, Jr. (American Novelist and Poet, b.1968)
“Focus on the journey, not the destination. Joy is found not in finishing an activity but in doing it.” - Greg Anderson (American best-selling Author and founder of the American Wellness Project., b.1964)
"A secret to a good marriage is to have a quick mind and a slow mouth." - Author unknown (certainly wasn't me!)
"Money can't buy you happiness but it can buy you a yacht large enough to pull up right alongside it" - David Lee Roth
"You can watch things happen, you can make things happen, or you can sit around and wonder what the hell happened...I dont want to be number three!" - Captain Phil Harris (1956-2010), F/V Cornelia Marie, Kodiak, Alaska
"I chose the road less travelled. Now where the hell am I?" - author unknown
"Just because you`re a perfectionist doesn`t mean you`re perfect." - Jack Nicholson On Stanley Kubrick
"Here's something to remember when you're older Thomas - never pass up a bathroom, never waste a hard-on, and never trust a fart." - Edward Cole (Jack Nicholson in the Bucket List)
Although this speech is from a movie , it was written by a wise man long go.It really holds some strong words of wisdom about life.
“So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide.Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place. Show respect to all people and grovel to none.
When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself.
Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools
and robs the spirit of its vision. When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.”
