On a Walk-About

The cold months have always been my favorite time to be at the marina. Very few people and I'm a good fit with the sort you mostly run into then. I enjoy working in the cold too... I'm broken. On the "selling effort" side, the most interested and serious people start to come around in the spring, so I should have been checking in here and doing certain usual things.. re-engaging and communicating.. for the last ~8-10 weeks.

An attempt to be useful is a privilege of the opportunity to build up specialized knowledge and experience. You have a responsibility to help others understand some element of something where that specialized experience/training might indeed be useful... Conversation with people who think carefully and communicate respectfully? That's good all day... high probability of success... Unfortunately not who I'll be talking about here. The guardrail for this philosophy, which has existed for decades prior to becoming a boat-owner was: NO IDIOTS.. (Zero depth AND with an excess of confidence). Consider that legal maxim that it's better to let 10 guilty people go free than to convict one innocent person. My rule is structurally similar... one IDIOT drags you down vastly further than 10 high-hours high-performers will elevate you. But finally, hugely important point... most of the people I've met thru this site are not of whom I'm speaking. I've made too many friends here.

Unfortunately, last fall, an effort to distill the disadvantages of pointless complexity to others who don't possess any sort of a background in systems thinking (vast majority) began to attract a new kind of respondent.. one that for some reason doesn't want to simply register their (obviously from the hip, or really, extracted from a position mostly between their hips) disagreement with an axiomatic position that can be found cited all over this site.. and in related conversation, and all the way back to the mid-80's when I was giving a semester-long, by-invitation-only, grad class on design-focused engineering decision.... specifically, that system complexity is a first-order determinant/threat to reliability.. if it's not there, it can't fail, and therefore, can't fck up the mission... and put your ass up on the rocks, or worse. 

It is no huge pushup to determine instantly each of these guys just don't belong in conversations about design, or systems thinking, or... thinking. Let alone initiating an argument with a 50 f'ing year practitioner they've never met... while managing to instill a creepy bit of deja vu with the moisture-meter fanboys. I could not be more used to dialectically arriving at a point of logical mutual understanding with experienced system designers. It's the bungling, inept way they carry themselves and all the red flags they send up. And.... why in hell do they care in the first place?? The Gaussian is a cruel enemy.

So I just haven't paid any attention to the selling process because I'm lucky and don't need to. I've sat down to write this note half a dozen times since March whereupon I will instantly think of something more useful to be working on... because, just F stupid. You can't fix it and I'm not going to risk blowing any of my remaining heartbeats wading though their known stomping grounds... a lifelong personal rule. BTW.. # 2 choice for the boat name after Clock Work was Heartbeats. 

Will this cost me $? Might, but I mostly doubt it. Even if it does, I'll be fine. Most of my skin-in-the-game business owner friends radiate an informed confidence as well. Apart from raw business, I've watched other marketplaces for important toys/tools escalate steadily and at times meteorically when they stop making them, or screw up the design. I watched the inventory of Nordic Tug 42's with the good engine like a hawk for a very long time right up to last fall and... they only get more rare and they only get more hours on them. I haven't sworn any oaths to what my specific plans are going forward, other they will include F stupid as a prime directive. The data says people still visit and I just wanted to clear up why I haven't been reading any new email.