Hey gang! I know the caper page is getting static but the boating fun gets slow in Michigan during the winter. I did get out on a boat related caper last weekend though! I reserved a room at the radical Radisson Inn in Cleveland Ohio and stormed the largest indoor boat show in the country, the MidAmerican Sail and Powerboat Show. The hotel was only 5 minutes away from the I-X Center where the show was held and surrounded by great restaurants, which is a good thing since the wait staff and the food at the hotel restaurant sucked. A slow, over priced, not served what you ordered type of place. Apparently in Ohio bowtie pasta is the same thing we call linguini in Michigan. The story the waitress shared with use while we were eating about the blood squirting out all over the hotel kitchen from her cut the day before, requiring many stitches was meant to add to the dinning experience I guess. I didn’t mind but a couple of my female travel companions aren’t as hardy as I am. The water in the indoor pool was just above freezing but the Jacuzzi and the sauna was plenty warm. The Jacuzzi gave me great entertainment. With the pool being too cold for anyone over 12yrs old the Jacuzzi was the hot spot. It’s a large round affair with a hand railing leading into the water. This was the fun part, on the right side of the railing are stairs into the churning water, on the left side is a straight drop to the bottom. A travel mug of peach schnapps on ice and a chair across the room made for great viewing as people fell in on the left side one after another, most people being right handed and preferring the left side to get in on. Hey, in Ohio you have to take your fun when you find it. We also got to watch a hotel employee stealing stuff at night in the trash hopper hidden in garbage bags and putting them in the trunk of his silver car when he was sure no one was looking. Lesson here is check the windows before you steal a trunk full of property! hehe. Being the only male on this caper I was a shoe in to win the “write your name in the snow” contest from the room’s 5th story window. Not an easy feat without a balcony mind you! The 19 degree temps didn’t help either. It made dotting the "i" difficult. The optional 3:00 checkout time made for a nice afternoon in the Jacuzzi although the ice on the pool wasn’t thick enough yet to skate on :-). All in all it was a nice hotel barring some management problems.
The boat show proved to be a lot of fun. There were literally thousands of boats to see and tour. I was there to tour the sailboats and found about two dozen to look at, which is two dozen more than the Detroit boat show has to see anymore. The show’s bill talked of catamarans but there were none. In fact the only sailboat larger than mine was a 40ft Catalina. Nice boat but for $190,000 it better be. If your into large white, no character cookie cutter power yachts, they were there in force. Up to 70fters. And people watching galore! My large Pepsi doctored with a half pint of Jim Beam also helped. We ran into a black family, from the islands I think from their accent, who ran on about there massive 50ft yacht with all the trimmings while touring the Catalina but later saw them at the food court where one of the guys accidentally dropped his $3.50 pizza face down onto the carpeted walkway. I took a bet that he wouldn’t scrape it up and eat it but lost watching him chew it up, floor lint and all. One of the highlights of the evening was the Ferris wheel that runs right out through the roof into a glassed atrium overhead. Well worth the $2 ticket to ride. Another cool display was the big pool with large fans blowing across it for the radio control sailboats that you could sail for free. Now I gotta have one! One of those things that you have to try to understand. I’ll go to the show again next year. The lack of boating input during the winter months make the two hour drive worth it. I may have to fill the
van up with a bunch of my rowdy pirate buddies and pillage Ohio clean next year!

My next ziggy caper is already in the planning stage. A full frontal assault on New England in Feb. I’ve got my hands on a VW trike out there and need to go on a sortie and pluck it outta there. Sounds like a job for my z-warrior buddy Kevin and me! Well gotta set up my telescope and prepare for the lunar eclipse, see you later