A piece of my Asp

Prepare yourself for more really bad puns ! And perhaps some pretty crude ones too. I apologise in advance and am preparing to catch everything that's coming to kick my Asp.

(I did warn you - haha!)

I thought a little more about yesterday's post and how I was talking about being in that virtual spaceship wandering the galaxy. I think that may borrow from some real life urges.

A pic ? Here we go :

Does my Asp look big in this ?

In the virtual world, it's an Asp class explorer ship but it also makes for a perfect long range trader ship. It can shift its Asp all over the place pretty quick, the Asp is just the right size to hold what it needs, although more curves would be pretty awesome in an Asp.

Still in that virtual world, that Asp needs a better name. A name more befitting its current purpose as a trading ship. Profit Aspiration ? I like that one. Journey Aspect ? There's a few more potentials : Aspersions of Infinite Trade.

Definitely better names than Sleeper Shuttler. It's unlucky to change ship names unless it's for a very good reason, so the current ship is stuck with the unaspiring name for now. Until I lose it to especially determined pirates. I don't think that's going to happen any time soon, a few pirates have tried to kick my Asp and they've all ended up as gas.

A pun too far ? Time for a shift back to real life.

I think a sense of wanderlust is awaking in me. Perhaps that as I get closer to being fixed. I'm not there yet, there's still a fair bit of damage to repair. But it's getting closer and ravaged outsides are steadily getting reclaimed to healthy pasty white goodness.

(Cupid's Gift's gift of Aveeno moisturiser seems to be doing Very Nice Things there)

The idea of living on the barge is still with me.

That looks like some pretty amazing countryside doesn't it ? It's from Narrowboatinfo.co.uk. Check it out, lots of pretty pics and info there.

It's not just the great looking interiors and the potential for these things to be built better than modern houses. It's having the option to up sticks, leave the home marina and explore the canal system. You could lose yourself in them for years. I suspect you could spend a decade slowly cruising around the network. (One hidden advantage - where does the junkmail go ?)

As our lives become more electronic, we can disconnect from anchored physical locations. With me, the contact I have with the outside world (outside work) is dominated by texts, email, interweb browser, Facebook and Twitter. You can have all those on the move. I could have the telly coming in through satellite. I could unshackle myself from a set location and just cruise.

And it's not just the canals, it's offshore too. However ... the design of barge dictates where you can go :

Narrowboat - like the one in the picture above. Can go on all canals but wouldn't have the stability to go too far offshore where wind, currents and tides can batter it.
Dutch Barge - is twice as wide as the narrowboat and was originally intended to trading across Europe. (Hence the Dutch part!)

Here's a Dutch Barge :

That's from Dutch Barges.net and is the Katherine Class. Looks pretty doesn't it ? This class of boat is much wider for better living space (imagine a cinema deck by the galley ?), a proper wheelhouse and potential for a canopy deck behind the wheelhouse.

And being the techie/geeky person that I am, I'd look to fill it with lots of technology and mod cons. You can fill these boats with things like :
Hybrid propulsion - electric motors for the engines and big batteries.
Solar panels - ok, that might not be that useful in Blighty.
Underfloor heating - cosy.
Mobile data and telly through satellite - for a connected world.
And more.

Maybe a second career as a video making personality ? This could be perfect. Cruise during the day and when moored at night, work with the computers and upload the videos. You'd need that hybrid engine for that though, so you had power to work without generator noise in the background.

But ... and this is the big but. (See earlier Asp puns ? You see ! This was the perfect match of subjects !)

I still gotta work for a living. And I work in an office. I need certain amounts of mobility to support business trips. If I had one of these in a marina, I could keep the car nearby for getting to work and for longer trips. But if I were cruising, I'd need alternate means of getting to places like ... supermarket for food, pub for ... everything !, cinema for new movies and lots of other things. You can't really take a car with you on a narrowboat, although people have experimented with towing garages on the water for tiny cars.

Yeah - I think that wanderlust feeling is growing but it'll have to wait a while. I'm nowhere near a position where I could give up work. That might have to wait until I retire in ... many more years. And I'd want to find a suitable copilot / helmswoman to share the experience with.

I wonder if who I have in mind would agree ?

And on that mysterious note ... One last pic ?

I've been looking for an excuse to use that one :-) But before I go :

Knock knock !
Who's there ?
Asp.
Asp who ?

(I'm so sorry)