Jamison, where is thy sting...

I was rolling through one of those "Amazing photos" collections and came across these and wondered where my old Pal Jamison might fit into the scene.

Brother you've got to get out there and fish some more. That little pond you mentioned where all the first hang out in the middle because it's so popular, get a boat because these dudes are waiting on you.

Lost

Last night I skipped church due to feeling rather lousy. My 6 month cold has begun this year, and my head was thus full, I was coughing like crazy, and generally just wanted to lay down. So, I vegged out in front of the TV.

Normally I don't watch much television. I watch movies on IFC and TCM, and occasionally flip for awhile, but I don't have any shows that I turn to each week.

In the vegetable phase I watched the first two episodes of this seasons Lost. Holy crap! That was good television. I had no real idea about what the show was about before I began watching other than it was about a bunch of people trapped on an island. And I was a little confused at first about what was going on, but I was quickly hooked.

For a show that could easily be some crap Survivor remake, or cheesy like Gilligan's Island, or even something like Lord of the Flies, Lost does a great job of making its own drama.

While some of it is a little overly sentimental, especially the flash back sequences, it creates enough plot twists to hook you early on.

A great example of this was in the first episode, where several of the survivors sail out on a raft to find help. They think they see another boat and send up a signal flare. When they reach the other boat they are greeted by rednecks who demand that the survivors give them the 12 year old boy with them!

Gripping stuff that kept me watching both episodes back to back.

I hate to admit it, but I'll be tuning in next week to see what happens.

Luke Dream

I wouldn't post something like this if I remembered my dreams every night like most folks do. But, I rarely remember my dreams, so I wanted to post it.

My Dad and Luke and I are all in this big city. It seems like we're in New York and in a very crowded, large structure. I think it's Grand Central Station. Dad is holding Luke and Luke wants to get down and walk around.

Dad sets Luke down and he runs away, disappearing into the crowd! I scream for him and Dad and I immediately start the search.

Awful things go through my mind. He has been kidnapped and will be sold into white slavery. He ran out into the street and was run over. He fell down and was trampled by pedestrians.

We look and look, I scream and cry till my throat is raw and I spray blood from my mouth. Finally, we get to this park area where no one is around. I think it's Central Park.

Dad sits down, exhausted. I continue the search.

I run out into the street and it's deserted. It's like everyone in NYC has disappeared.

I run down the middle of the street, trying to scream for Luke. Then, I see a little figure silhouetted against the light of a store window that glows in the approaching dusk. I run so fast I think my feet leave the ground.

I pick up my little boy and hug him so hard I have to check to make sure he's ok. He smiles at me and I awake, sobbing.

A Solution (or Two) to the Fuel Problem

Don't ask me why but, I was just thinking that if everyone who passed away was cremated, we could use that energy for running power plants.

So, I searched the web for burning dead bodies for fuel and came up with this article. It makes sense to me!

There is so much stuff that can be used for fuel. Why aren't we using it?

Webzine Plans

1. go ahead and make a banner, if you would, please, sir! make something that looks "professional". Brew's is nice, but we need something simple, streamlined , and magazine-like for this.

2. we need web space on which to host this. any ideas, guys? we might need to all front a little cash ($5 max).

3. The site is not interactive, so we can't just go to it like the blog and type stuff in and post it ourselves. but, it's a start. What we can do is just email all our articles to me or whoever decides to be the Webmaster. Or post all articles to the blog (after spell check and editions have been made!!!) and it's a simple matter of copy/paste to the site and saving it to the server (quite simple).

4. I labeled the pages just to have something on them. So, these are all subject to change. For instance, we can change "Entertainment" to "Music" or whatever. Y'all just let me know.

Let's work this out. We already have the product. Now, we just need to put all the info into it. Let's decide who wants to do what and go from there. We also need deadlines. Do y'all want this to be bimonthly, monthly, weekly? Let's do something we can definitely handle at first. Then go from there.

Comes A Time

On September 24 a large gathering congregated at the Greek Theatre in Berkely, California to pay tribute to the late, great Jerry Garcia who died 10 years ago.

By all accounts it was a momentous occassion. In traditional Dead style, the celebration consisted of some funky jam sessions. Some of the jam scenes greatest players strapped on their instruments and laid it all out before a sold out crowd.

Nugs.net is streaming the entire show for free. I believe you have to be a registered user, but it's free and painless to register.

Click here to start streaming. I'm currently grooving to a nice rendition of Eyes of the World. It has a nice mellow groove that's perfect for the end of a work day.

The setlist consists of classic Dead tunes, sure to make everyone happy (or at least Mullins, who will probably be the only person to listen anyway).

Enjoy!

Lineup:

Bob Weir - guitar, vocals
Billy Kreutzmann - drums
Mickey Hart - percussion
Donna Jean Godchaux-MacKay - backup vocals
Bruce Hornsby - keyboards, vocals
Trey Anastasio - guitar, vocals
Warren Haynes - guitar, vocals
Jimmy Herring - guitar
Michael Kang - mandolin, fiddle (String Cheese Incident)
Jay Lane - drums (Ratdog)
Jeff Chimenti - keyboards (Ratdog)
Mark Karan - guitar (Ratdog)
Robin Sylvester - bass (Ratdog)
Kenny Brooks - saxophone (Ratdog)
Gloria Jones - backup vocals (JGB)
Jackie LaBranch - backup vocals (JGB)

Setlist:

Ollin Arageed
Help on the Way
Slipknot!
Sugaree
Loser
Brown Eyed Women
Dark Star
Bertha
Eyes Of The World
Standing on the Moon
Scarlet Begonias
Fire on the Mountain
Stella Blue
The Wheel
Uncle John's Band
He's Gone
Franklin's Tower
ENCORE
Brokedown Palace
Dark Star
Touch of Grey

Click here for a streaming
broadcast of the show.

Astute commentary

I figured I would end my day of actually only doing one reformat, one meeting and on 20 minutes session helping someone format a spreadsheet to Excel from a poorly constructed Word doc with a bit of controversy. I think this guy with the sign has a wonderful point.

An Example -- Archeological Expedition

Four hundred years ago, Native Americans ruled what we now know as America. They lived by the land and died by the land. They made beautiful art with such skill that even our modern day artisans cannot exactly reproduce it. They are priceless treasures, made by people who understood and cherished this place perhaps more than we ever could.

But, did you know that it's entirely possible, and even likely, that you could unearth some of these ancient works of skill within merely miles from your own home?

In fact, an increasing number of people are discovering such items as ancient pottery, stone axe heads (or celts), spear heads, and arrowheads on their own or adjoining property!

Alabama native and Cherokee descendent Charles Sipper has discovered over one hundred artifacts ranging from basic grinding stones and arrowheads to fine spearheads and celts withing walking distance of his rural Alabama farm.

"My family has hunted those fields for five generations," says Sipper.

But, how does one go about finding arrowheads? One might ask. It's much simpler than you might imagine!

"Our system has worked for over a hundred years," Sipper says.

"All you need is a four foot stick, a good bucket, and a plowed field."

As we stolled across the field, located in a low area near a local creek, Sipper explains the perfect conditions for hunting arrowheads.

"Prime condiitons include having and field that has recently been bottom-plowed and has been drenched by a good, hard rain. The bottom-plow turns the earth over well and the rain washes the dirt form the rocks, allowing you to pick them out. Then, you use your stick to check out whether you've found a rock or a leaf before you bend down to pick it up and place it in your bucket."

Mr. Sipper adds that a sunny day is best, too, since the rock will usually showw up better in the sun.

But, what about people living in towns and cities?

"Consider how much earth is turned during the building of houses in towns and cities," says Sipper. "You can find more artifacts after a good rain there that you might out here."

Since most cities would be located on old Indian camp sites, due to prime location factors, this proves to be true!

"It makes me sad that so much of those old artifacts are being covered by parking lots, though. I hope more people find them before they're all paved over," cites Sipper.

Finding these priceless artifacts is within your reach. All you have to do, is look!

Light Bulb

OK! Here's an idea for a site:

What are we all good at? Telling stories, getting into trouble, having fun...stuff like that, right?

So, how about we formulate a cool site based on adventure fun you can sort of create yourself.

An example might be spelunking in your city's drianage system or fishing your county river (tips) or any number of other crazy things we've done or thought of before!

I have at least three ideas already!

It doesn't have to be limited to outdoor stuff, either. We could give ideas/reviews of movies, indoor adventure games (rock walls, lazer tag type things, etc.), and whatever else we could come up with.

Can you see where I'm going with this? Yes, it's all about fun, entertainment, and adventure!

What do y'all think?

Blog This

There was a lot of discussion about this yesterday, and I wanted to bring it back to the top.

I am not a blog Nazi. Really, I'm not.

Zeig Heil.


Oops, that just slipped out. I don't know what it mean, really, its just part of….a song…yeah… a folk song.

The question comes down to what we want to do with this blog. What is its purpose? I created the blog after much discussion of us, as a group, pulling our creative energies into something tangible. We talked about creating a webzine of some sort, but were unsure if we could ever pull it off.

The blog, then, was started as a sort of stepping stone. It was a trial, if you will, to see if we could all actually post to something other than e-mail. To see if we were able to come up with creative stories, reviews, discussions and post them regularly.

To me, this has always been the purpose of the blog. I have tried to shape it into something resembling a webzine, or at least the more professional type blogs. Going with this idea there is a certain type of style, and content that belongs in the blog, and certain things that do not. We should spell our words correctly, and use a fair amount of proper grammar. Spacing out paragraphs makes the blog easier to read.

Creating content that is interesting is also a key factor. The discussion about not adding personal content isn't a matter of security. Certainly no one should include their social security number, home phone line, and the like to the blog. There are plenty of weirdos out there who would abuse this information.

But, what I am talking about has to do with the more mundane tid bits of information that, as friends, we pass along to each other. Posts that briefly discuss our weekend plans, or only pass along information about how we are doing, in my opinion, don't belong on the blog.

That's not to say personal stories are a total no no. I think the key is making it interesting. There is no reason to post that you bought some new socks over the weekend. However, if transvestite midget tried to steal those socks on the way out of the store, that should get posted.

Jamison was correct in that a good picture, makes a boring blog much more interesting.

I'm not griping at anyone in particular. We have all posted things, that under these guidelines, shouldn't be posted. What I am saying, is that in the future, I would prefer us to make the blog move more towards a webzine, than just clearing out our inboxes.

Look, I'm not a nazi. I'm not going to take anyone's posting privileges away if they post boring junk. I'm not going to send nasty e-mails when you post something about your weekend, even if it is boring. I'll even back down completely if we decide, as a group, that we don't care to make this "professional" and continue to add "personal" stuff.

Dirty Little Secrets

I was just thinking about how we all view the world and the psychology behind our actions and feelings. I have an aversion to entertainment because I've seen it literally grow over people I love like kudzu. I disdain sports for the most part because the jocks picked on me when I was a kid.

So, I shut both out of my life to a point. I set definite boundaries to keep myself from being consumed by the things I dislike.

It's a sort of hedging lifestyle akin to Pharisaism. I say to myself, "That's going too far, so I'll only allow myself to go THIS far" and I draw the proverbial line in the sand.

I think the tricky part is not binding this on anyone else. The Pharisees did and totally ruined Judaism. But, don't we all draw lines for ourselves?

I guess the most important thing to do is tell people that I set boundaries and why I set set them for myself in my own personal life. But, at the same time explain that I don't expect the same from them or look down on them if they don't live exactly like I do.

Having life more abundantly is the goal. How that abundance is attained is a different journey for everyone!

A toast then

Di applaud you for standing your ground on not drinking. It can be dangerous on multiple levels relative to the amount of consumption and can also make one very silly.

What’s the hang up with drinking? Not speaking for myself we’re all relatively mature and capable of handling ourselves in respective fashion.

I know we’ve trod down this path several times but I would like some of Di’s input because she is younger than the rest of us and also a young Christian. So Diana, with out BCV form the peanuts, do you not enjoy drinking at all, didn’t feel like it, didn’t like or trust the situation, didn’t want to appear as a Christian and someone who may take a couple of sips of a libation or what?

It’s known that I’m pretty liberal on the subject the ingestion of alcohol, the subject of not the consumption of, mind you. Chuck and I stashed booze at FU sometimes and I usually have a couple of Corona’s at the house, though a six will tend to last much longer in our fridge than in other folks. I will sometimes get a beer when out with my family, Mexican food is a weakness usually opting for a “grande dos equis.” When Jules and I are out with just each other we’ll get a stronger drink or two sometimes.
When Jules goes out with her work friends I trust her to be responsible.

I’ve seen everybody (sans wives, except Jules b/c she was part of the core) in this group have drinks and they could each give to take their beverage no worries.

The other night I gathered a bit of a surprise party for Jules at a local karaoke place, being a BYOL establishment I did. We mixed a few drinks for the table and had a really good time. No one was near trashed but we all felt good and were all good enough to drive. Everyone there knows that we are parents and have an active belief in God and there wasn’t any judgment on the subject. We were just having some fun.

I just think it’s funny that I’ve had conversations in this circle where we’ve mentioned that we’ll drink; wine, beer or other choices and that’s ok but there is still a stigma placed on ”having a drink.”

I know all the arguments to “appearing and acting like a Christian for the sake of others” and I believe that’s correct along with “drunkenness” being sinful.

On a side note Jules and her friends have gone to a place called “Cotton Eyed Joe’s” for a girls night or what ever and each time Jules has gone she’s seen a lady named Cathy Hensley. Cathy goes to this place every Friday night and is a solid and active member of our congregation. One night Jules told her that she was surprised to see Cathy there. Cathy’s response was that she did enjoy a beer or two and enjoyed hanging out with her friends there. She followed that statement with the fact that she sort of considers CEJ’s her mission field having successfully invited several of her friends to church with her the next Sunday.

I think the subject of dancing could fall into the same discussion because for as scary as I am dancing I do love to shake a tail feather. Though I’m sure my Deadhead undulations are far from Di’s coordinated two-stepping.

I'm officially a Myrlte Beach College Student

I had a great weekend. For some reason it did me absolutly NO good, though, because I'm still really tense. I guess it's just one thing after another.

Friday night after work I went to my first dance club.... *gasp* I must say, I love to dance, so I had fun. Thankfully I went there with a friend of mine who's probably the most beautiful girl I've ever known, so there were no " no thank you I'm married" situations. It was a pretty positive experience, aside from the peer pressure to drink, which I did not do. "Come one Diana, try it, it just has a little alcohol." "Would Casey have just a little hamburger?" People under stand my position now. Casey's the PETA member I've mentioned. But I had fun, it was a good learning experience, and I"m proud of my good behavior. Next time I'll go to the '70's club.

Saturday I had off all day long!!! So I spent it with my hubby. We went to the Greek Festival, yay for Diana's heritage, no yay for not having any money to buy Gyros with. Then we went to the other mall in town that I don't work at, which was cool. We splurged a little and he got a book and I got a new shirt I can wear to teach in.

Sunday, Church, lunch at Sticky Fingers (MMMMM), nap, went to meeting at work, came home and watched a movie.

Good weekend, but I'm still stressed out. This weekend will be cool too because I have another Saurday off after my boss realized how run down I am....and we get paid on Friday!!!

Love you much!

For the Sake of Argument

I posted this to the Writer's Digest forum on which I'm registered:

Want a fun, social, and easy way to keep your writing exercised? Set up a blog with some of your closest friends, or a Flog! After my five male friends and I graduated from college, we all went our separate ways, went into the military, got jobs, got out of the military, went to grad school, etc. We emailed each other for a while, since it was cheap, easy, and readily available to most of us. Then one of our more extemporaneous and adventurous group members discovered that he and his wife, who is finishing her doctorate in French, had the opportunity to live in France for a year. Rather than simply write a journal of their adventures in Europe, he decided to set up a blog (http://www.midnitcafe.blogspot.com/). The vicarious adventures he took us all on eventually led to us starting a group blog (http://midnightcafediscussions.blogspot.com/). Ever since, we have posted everything from vacation updates to personal failures, struggles, and triumphs on our blog. I exhort you, dear writers, to form up your little community and Flog your friends. You'll find out more than you ever knew (sometimes more than you want to know) about them and have daily, even hourly opportunities to spread those writing wings!

Maybe we'll all get more traffic. Maybe not. I do encourage the writerly members here to register on the Writer's Digest forum, though. You can writer, read, and discuss there. I go there daily and I love it!

You can pick your mandolin, but dont pick your friends mandolin...

Sorry to knock the two best blogs I've seen in a while down a bit, but I thought the group would enjoy this...
Also, I hate emailing pictures, so this is one of my favorite aspects of the blog... I also hate posting pics to the blog because it only works properly 45% of the time. So I will refer you to my webshots page ...

Friday night me and Sip had another performance for some group of old folks at our church. I must say that our duet was tighter than ussual. I don't know if this had something to do with the fact that we took about 60 seconds to go over a part I had trouble with or if the $400 microphone we sang into has been blessed. But it sounded good.

Then on saturday night, we headed down to Josh's folks place. See webshots page for an outside shot of the house we did the music making in (music making = something his family has done since 1967 where many family members show up in the house that Josh's dad grew up in, which is now his workshop, and people from all over town come to listen... it is so 'real').

It wasnt the most crowded music making ive been to, but it was fun. It was me, Josh, Josh's cousin (who can play guitar wonderfully.. and owns a $3,500 guitar), josh's uncle who plays a dobro/resonator guitar, and josh's cousins boss, who plays the guitar... oh, and me. Alof of family (4th cousins) and towns folk like to sink songs while the band people play... it is fun and worth the trip.

Again, ill refer you to my webshots page... album titles "blueGrass"

Response Ability

Yes, I know the word is actually "responsibility". My ability to respond to situations that I have some measure of interest or control over is of concern to me. As I have mentioned previously, my level of work responsibility now is not even close to what it used to be.

While I used to be somewhere toward the top of the work "food chain" in my last couple of jobs, I am now in a situation where I'm learning things from scratch. As a result, folks don't expect too much of me. I'm not really used to this, but I like it in many ways.

When I was in the Air Force, I supervised and trained pretty much everyone in my job field. So, I made sure that over 20 adults were taken care of work-wise. I liked it because I had it organized down to a science and everything flowed pretty well.

Then, I got out of the military and started in with Lockheed Martin. My whole level of responsibility shifted from being in charge of people to being in charge of systems and computers and software. I hated it at first because I prefer to be with people and computers can be more baffling to me that human beings sometimes.

While I wasn't in charge of anyone, I did still work with some young military folks. The people who came through my shop were vastly different. I saw single mothers, homosexuals, 30-something recovering alcoholics/dug-users. They all had issues and problems. The one that caught my attention was a young, married Navy guy. He was barely 19 and married to his high school sweetheart. They were from a small town in Ohio and apparently he wnet into the Navy to provide for them and also give them a sense of adventure and escape from small town life.

He asked me questions about God and religion. He wasn't from a particularly religious background from what I could tell, but he was very curious. He told me once that he was a twin, but his twim brother was stillborn. He seemed sad and lonely. Then his wife left.

She said she was tired of being alone. He worked a schedule even weirder than mine and his wife didn't know anyone in Augusta, Georgia. She went back to small town life and an ex-boyfriend there.

He went back to the small town on two weeks of leave soon after and was scheduled to come into work immediately afterward. Whe he didn't arrive, his Navy supervisor and a guy in the Air Force went to his apartment. The Air Force guy had a key to his apartment since he was house-sitting while he ws on leave. After banging on the door and yelling for a while, they entered using the key.

He used a hunting rifle to shoot himself in the head. He had lost hope. It was sad and shocking to us all. At first, I felt responsible. I wished that I had given him more hope when we talked about God. Then I realized that I did what I could with the knowledge I had of him. In retrospect, I realized that he had chronic depression. I didn't recognize it at first because I only saw and talked to the guy at work. But, it hurt to see him go that way.

I suppose I say all this to get back to the point that responsibility is a word we sometimes use to refer to others rather than ourselves. I try to live by the term "personal responsibility". You are responsible for your own actions and you must live in such a way as to try to show others how abundant life can be. You can only do and say so much and then it's up to others to make a decision for themselves whether or not they want to live an abundant life full of contentment. The parable of "soils" comes to mind.

Maybe other people's soil can be affected by ours. Sometimes, there are just too many thorns and you come too late to help weed them out. Life and death happen, often.

The Problem With Pumpkins

So, Amy and I are planning on having a pumpkin carving party in a couple of weeks. When it comes down to who to invite, we are at a loss.

The problem is, that most of our friends, the people we used to invite over, are no longer here. Some have graduated and moved on, others are doing like we did last year, and spending this year in France. Amy is at the point in her academic life, that she does not spend a lot of time on campus, and thus does not know a lot of the new people.

This has led me to contemplate inviting a few folks from work. Now my co-supervisors (or at least the ones I like) are no problem. I can invite them with no strings attached. The issues come when I think of inviting some of the reps.

The first problem is that I, in no way, want all of the reps to come to my house. I don't have the room, for one thing. But mainly, I just don't particularly care for some of them, and have no desire to spend any of my non work time with them. But can I invite some of them without inviting the whole lot?

I could do it fairly secretively; therefore those who aren't invited won't even know the party is happening. They can't be offended by a non invite, if they don't know they weren't invited. This is slightly risky considering our office layout is cubicles which puts everyone in very close quarters.

The other issue is inviting any reps at all. I have a good work relationship with most of my reps. We get along well, I can joke and chat with all of them, without relinquishing any of my authority as a supervisor. But, if suddenly we are in a more social setting this could change. Will I lose my authority if they see me with a handful of pumpkin while carving out Spiderman? Will they think less of me because my mix tape includes Neil Diamond and Dolly Parton?

You see one of our supervisors parties with some of the reps. He even dated one of them. This causes him all kinds of problems. The ex-date is constantly complaining that he mistreats her and has to have sit downs with the big boss. A lot of the reps get unruly when he is the only supervisor on duty, because they feel he is a friend and not a supervisor.

I don't want any of this, of course, but I'm not sure a simply pumpkin party will cause any of it. Some of the reps are really nice people, and have personalities that I know would gel with mine outside of the office. It would also be nice to have a few friends in which Amy and I could hang out with.

So, should I try to invite a few reps, or just ditch the whole idea and only include my supervisors?

Another Day at the Office

Last Thursday, just about quitting time, I was walking the floor at work. I noticed that one of my co-supervisors was sitting next to one of the reps, DeLena, having a chat. At that moment I didn't notice anything unusual about this and kept walking.

"Mat" said DeLena, "Can you come here?"

As I turned around, I immediately noticed the tension between the two.

They both angrily tried to explain to me what they were arguing about. Their voices raised about a half notch and DeLena expressed her opinion that she was tired of talking about it, while Monique said there was more to discuss.

Noting the seething anger between them, I immediately asked them both to get off the floor, and out of earshot of the entire staff. We walked into the training room.

Immediately both of them began to shout at each other.

I got their attention as best I could and asked them both to explain, one at a time, what had happened.

Apparently this argument stemmed from a previous argument a few days back. On that occasion, Monique approached DeLena to work some manual accounts. DeLena, being on a call at that time, lifted her finger in a motion designed to ask Monique to hold on a second while she finished the call. Monique took offense to this action and angrily noted that she would not be back. De Lena then had to find another supervisor to get her manual assignment.

Now, on this day, Monique was approaching DeLena to explain that she had not meant her action to be rude. An argument then erupted.

While Monique explained her side, DeLena violently interrupted. I chastised her for doing so and then had to do the same to Monique, while DeLena explained her side.

All the while I'm trying to figure out what in the world I'm going to do. Had it been two reps I could have handled it easily. But since Monique is a supervisor I have no authority over her. I don't have the right to tell her what to do, much less belittle her in front of a rep. Both ladies were extremely angry, to the point that simple suggestions were going to do no good.

For a moment, I thought about leaving and getting our Human Resources lady involved, since she is trained for this sort of thing. But I felt that leaving the two ladies alone, even for a minute, would be disastrous. There was no way I was going to drag them both out onto the floor while we looked for HR.

After the two explanations, both ladies began shouting, SHOUTING, at each other. I asked them to calm down, and did my best to reiterate both sides, noting that each person felt the other person had been rude.

They both felt this was a reasonable explanation of events, right before they began shouting again.

Oh my gosh, I don't get paid enough for this.

After a couple more rounds of shouting and me asking for some professionalism and common courtesy, we all agreed that this was going nowhere and to split up and get back to work.

The door opened to the faces of every rep in the building staring at us with bemused smiles. I was later congratulated by a number of folks who thought it was a great show.

After contacting HR, she began having sit downs with everyone involved. I had to write a report over the whole thing.

I really don't get paid enough for this kind of crap.

Chops

Sorry to be a blog hog...
wanted you guys to see my latest look before it grew back and I changed it...
A college student at church refered to it as a "Joe Dirt" look without the mullet! HAHA!

All thumbs... and getting paid

I have managed to successfully not go to work all day yesterday and today. Well, actually I did go yesterday but aroun 5pm to reboot a server. Surprisingly, ive managed to get LOTS of work done having high speed at home and my laptop here.

Anyway, today I went fishing at 6AM (well, arrived at the pond at 6AM) at a pond all the guys at church love to get invited to... I was the lucky one this time.

I looked at my right thumb after all the bass I caught and realized their teeth sure can do a number on your thumb...

I wont bore anyone with bass pictures this time. We were catching them so fast we hardly had time to take photos...

Oops, how did that get here? Like the new facial hair design? "Joe Dirt" chops...

Getting up at 5AM has never been so easy...