I have donuts. Sweet sweet donuts. Jealous? You should be. And I am not sharing them with anyone.
Yesterday afternoon I took my little boat out on lake Monroe again. I had fixed the trolling motor and installed a couple of oarlocks
and I wanted to try them out.
When I first pulled up to the boat ramp there were a couple of Seminole county sheriffs sort of hanging out at the boat ramp. They came over to eyeball me as I was loading my boat into the water. I said to them 'I have the registration and the title if you want to see it!' but they just laughed.
The trolling motor seems to work good now. Oh
I don't roar along the water in record time
but it does move it and once it picks up a little momentum it zips along just fine. I did not have the balls to go all the way to the other side of the lake. I could see the battery cutting out halfway. So instead I just putted along the shoreline and made a few big circles out into the water. I was out for maybe an hour and the trolling motor did not cut out on me. Could I make it to the other side of the lake? Probably. Could I make it back? I do not know if I would risk it.
The boat still has a pinhole leak. Takes in a very tiny bit of water. Pisses me off because I cannot tell where it is coming from. It's not like I would be in any danger of sinking or anything
but neither would I be able to spend the night on it. That kind of writes off any long-term adventures I might have planned. Also
every now and then I would hit a patch of sea-grass and it would get tangled in the rudder and I would have to pull it out and clean it off.
I bought and installed some oar locks as well
but they worked like crap. The little pins that hold the oars in place kept popping off. I would be better off holding it in place with a twisty tie or something.
Nothing else exciting happened this weekend. My full plan was to just loaf around the house and I accomplished that just fine. Who knows what this week will bring.
2026 Update
Dialing the infernal calendar back to March 2006, where the big adventure is a leaky boat and a box of unshared donuts.
Ah, 2006: a simpler world, when a man could declare donut ownership as a personality, load a leaky scow into a lake, and be eyed by sheriff's deputies who laughed instead of pulling up his boat's data on a tablet. The trolling motor was a battery-draining mystery; now even my toaster wants a firmware update and a subscription, and boaters carry lithium batteries, GPS mapping, and a phone that can call a tow service from the middle of the water — assuming it survives the pinhole leak. Oar locks were held by pins that popped off; now everything is twist-lock or snap-fit plastic that cracks by design. And the sea-grass: still there, still tangled, but there's probably an app for it. What hasn't changed? The brave refusal to cross the lake, the grudging surrender to a leak you can't find, and the absolute hoarding of donuts. In 2026, we have solved the pinhole leak by simply not owning boats and ordering donuts delivered, then complaining they arrived warm.
“2006 Ed, why did you volunteer your registration and title to the sheriffs before they asked — were you hoping they'd be impressed, or just desperate for someone to witness your majestic arrival at the boat ramp?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2006 Ed: Well, Beelzebubba, I think it was a little of both, honestly. Mostly I figured if I acted all eager and law-abiding right off the bat, they wouldn’t have any reason to poke around my boat and find the half-empty soda can I’d tossed under the seat, or the suspicious-looking twist tie holding something together. Plus, yeah, maybe part of me wanted them to witness my majestic arrival — except my majestic arrival involved backing a plywood scow down a ramp with a trolling motor that sounds like a dying blender. I’m pretty sure they laughed because they knew exactly what I was: a guy who just wanted someone to see him launch his boat without it sinking. Did they seem impressed? No. Did they think I was a dork? Probably. But I got out on the lake fine, so I’m calling it a win. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have donuts to guard.
