The purpose of this NFASSADA section is to publish on the web articles, writings, scribbling’s, blogs, photographs etc, that are more personal in nature and not really suitable for open web access. All the photographs are down loadable unlike the right click denied on the main website. Due to design contraints we have to move to the next page for the list of contents etc

This section is designed to provide a platform for my various scribbling’s from the past present and future, stuff that can’t have a general audience Pintal has generally been my conduit for writings for the press. Starting off back in the 1970's, when I took over Clinker in 1980 Pintal was formalised. Writing in those days meant I wrote long hand (a bit like navigating before GPS, we can’t do that now), my then dear wife Anne typed up the scribbling’s. These were on the large size computer print out from CIE’s IBM 360 (pre DOS). The major piece of work in those years was my MSc thesis, the beauty of writing on that media was that there was a full page alongside for corrections and rewrites resulting from editing by Nigel and James Killen. When I left Ireland in 1986 I retained the nombre de plume Pintal. In the IOW (Isle of Wight) I wrote a few bits and pieces because in the IOWCC where I was transport officer I had my first PC, I went through my divorce in the first year in the IOW. I replaced Anne with technology, the computer made up for my inability with a type writer and the answer machine collected messages when I wasn’t at home. Remember this was the age before the cell phone. Most of my writings from this period have gone by the wayside, as a result of not having a computer storage system that survived the technology changes of the 80's and 90's. Remember we started with floppy discs, then 3.5 hard discs and tape drives, in my storage unit in Hamilton I have all this stuff in a box somewhere but I haven’t seen it since 1992, and I do miss it. Also in that box is my first cheque from a publishing house Reed International I never cashed it, the article about Dangerous goods and cargo was ghost written by me, but published under a NUJ members name.

Having moved again to Canada, I had a further reason to write because now I was a few thousand miles from my friends in Ireland, England and France. So the annual reviews started intermittently, the big problem with writing is finding the time to write, and of course publish! Which in those days meant printing and posting. In 1996 I signed up for email and started to use the web. My younger Canadian wiz kid friends were already into it and I didn’t really think it was the way to go until its novelty and unreliability factors were eliminated.(How wrong can you be) At this time I acquired my first computer second hand from TEMS, who I was working for at the time. In 1998 I bought my first laptop a Fujitsu lifebook great little machine, using zip files I was able to transfer my musings from the desktop which had a reasonable record of my stuff since 1992. Most of you still didn’t have email, and by 1998 I had broadband ie DSL. When I moved to Annapolis in 2000 broadband wasn’t available until 2003-4.

Some of you will remember that in 1990, Mark taught me how to develop spreadsheets using supercalc in Cowes Express, throughout my five years in TEMS I developed costing sheets and associated rail simulation programs using Excel. In 1998 I developed a spreadsheet to assess the load line surveys I was doing on lake freighters. I then got into the yachting delivery business and now had loads of time to write. I was also writing on a regular basis for the Hamilton Examiner a local broadsheet published up the road from Herkimer Street. The first major stream of consciousness writing was the updated ‘blog’ form the voyage of Rogue from Annapolis to St Croix “The Rogue Saga”. There have been various other scribbling’s which if uncontroversial have been posted on the Pintal page of this website. After my visit to the Dominican Republic and marriage to Yoanna (pronounced Joanna) I wrote a few open letters. These are now published on these pages and also some of the reports I wrote re voyages undertaken, ie the formal report as opposed to any stories I may have written about the same instances.

So in a long winded way (why use five words when 500 will do) this is now the site for writings, scribbling’s, blogs, photographs etc. A note on photographs please feel free to download and use, BUT please acknowledge ownership to me or Pintalphoto .

Enjoy!

Dermot
9th February 2009