A Bigger Boat

Vero Beach
27 39.51 N 080 22.27

There's an old saw that says, "There's always a bigger boat."   It applies to people who like to think that they have the biggest, fanciest boat around.  I heard that it applied to Paul Allen and Larry Ellison.  Word was that Ellison was having a 380 foot mega yacht built when he heard that Allen was going to build a 400 footer.  Ellison reportedly called his architect and directed him to change the design to 420 feet.

Today, I think I heard of the ultimate (for now) big boat. "Time Magazine reports that just in time for the holidays, the British Navy has put the aircraft carrier HMS Invincible up for sale on an eBay-like website. The proud 690-foot warship sailed Her Majesty's seas from 1980 to 2005, and took part in the Falklands, Balkans and Iraq campaigns."

Wow! Suppose we traded in Tarwathie for HMS Invincible.   Not only would we have the ultimate bitter boat, but there are many other advantages.

1. I'd be compelled to rename her USS Big Dick (uh oh, Libby will be mad when she finds out I wrote that on the blog:)
2. We could invite friends to visit by flying in on their private jets and landing them on our deck.
3. We wouldn't have to worry about per foot charges at marinas either; no marina has a 690 foot slip.  
4. Instead of a dinghy, we would use a helicopter.  
5. I presume that the Invicible is nuclear powered, and that there's enough remaining energy to last my lifetime without refueling.
6. I just happen to have an excellent background in nuclear reactor operations, so I could crew her single handed.
7. If we got low in cash, we could charter her out to countries or cartels looking for a means to project might.

I think I'll log into Ebay right now and place my bid.

p.s. Best Buy has agreed to let me exchange the netbook for a like model.   The old one runs the Chrome web browser fine, but it won't run any Windows utilities (including the System Recovery Utility that I could have used to fix it.)