Nightmares

Before retiring, I wondered how I'd define myself, when I could no longer define myself as "Senior Environmental Scientist" for the U.S. Government.  And all those people who said that after being retired for a while, instead of being bored, they wondered how they ever had time for work ... they were right.  I certainly don't seem to lack for things to do.

This month I'm scheduled to give 3 presentations I've never done before: 16th Century Navigation; Pirates in History (with Dan); and Blogging for Cruisers.  The research for all of them has been a lot of fun, and I have never had any fear of public speaking at all.  I do stress, however, about doing a good job and getting the details right and making the presentations both fun and informative.  So I knew I'd be plenty busy in April, and wondered why I'd voluntarily agreed to do anything that had a (*gasp*) deadline attached to it, even a somewhat fun one.

Two days before the first presentation, I dreamed that I was on stage, totally flustered as I tried to explain how the pirates in the 16th century accessed the internet with their laptops while at sea.  Yeah.  I don't remember my dreams often, but when I do, they are usually disjointed fragments.  No dream interpretation needed here - it's obvious that my subconscious was processing my huge to-do list!

Pirates playing with plundered modern technology - text messaging

PS: The navigation and pirates presentations were first given for a school coop in West Virginia and were well-received.  The school has a blog where they summarized our classes, and there are more photos along with some funny captions on their Facebook page.  The pirate presentation will be given again at the Eastport library on April 18, and the blogging one at the Cruiser's University in conjunction with the Annapolis Spring Sailboat show.  Sorry, but if you attend that one, I will not be telling you how the 16th century navigators accessed the internet!