No longer a fantasy hunter

wondering on the net

2011-12-10T09:26:00.001-06:00

Been looking on tumblr.com for Shnannon, mom said she was there now and not on blogger.com. story time for shannon on blogger is only showing me posts that are over a year old. something is not right with that. i tried to open my own tumblr account. i did it but i really don't know what to do with it. so I guess I'll just go run on the treadmill for a while.

2011-09-29T13:27:00.000-05:00

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

After a long day at work, finishinginspection reports late and then an excellent meal that Vicki prepared, I spentthe rest of the evening packing for Colorado.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Left the house about 4:00 am. Droveall day to Durango, CO where I bought my elk tag at wall mart, along with a fewsupplies from a list I made on the road. As I drove and was thinking abouthunting and camping, it would occur to me that I needed this or that and Iwould jot it down.

I arrived in camp about 5:45Colorado time and began immediately setting up camp. I camped in Ironton Park,in the Saratoga site, the same site Jeff and I camped in last year. I wasalmost done when I heard a bull elk bugle. It sounded like he was less than 100yards to the north of me, just across the creek. A few minutes later he buglesa short scream again. I picked up my bugle call and let loose a soft, highpitched scream and he immediately screamed back a long, aggressive bugle,followed by several growling chuckles. My heart started racing, and I made acow call and he came right back with a short, scream, like saying, "getover here babe".

I was dressed in shorts and at-shirt, but I pulled on a camo hoody and picked up my bow, strapped on myrelease and headed for the creek. By the time I got to where the bugling wascoming from, he was gone. I made a couple of cow calls, but never heard backfrom the bull. But I had a renewed excitement for this trip. The next afternoonI was talking to a guy from Ohio and I told him my story and he said that aboutthat time, a bull and his cows crossed the highway just north of thecampground, stopping traffic on 550 for several minutes.

I got into my sleeping bag about9:00 pm and even though I was sleeping on the ground, I slept pretty good aftera super long day.

Friday, September 16, 2011

I had set my alarm for 5:30 and woketo a pretty nice morning, about 44 degrees and calm. I at some yogurt and aGoLean granola bar and dressed for hiking. The sky was clear, but I packed myrain gear anyway, which turned out to be an excellent idea. I drove up to thefirst abandoned mine and parked the truck, grabbed my backpack, strapped on myrelease, picked up my bow and started walking uphill. The road is very steep,and it was just starting to get light. I hiked up to the south upper meadowwith full intent of going to the north end of the north upper meadow, but itwas 10:30, I'd heard only one faint, far away bugle earlier, but not seen anyelk. I stopped to rest, ate some elk sticks and a Cliff bar while the rainsubsided for a few minutes. I sat there, watching the meadow for about an hour,and it continued to rain off and on the whole time. I was very fatigued fromthe steep ascent, and it was now 11:30, so I decided to walk back down.

Once back in camp, I ate my tuna andspinach wrap Vicki made for me and took a nap in the truck. When I awoke, itwas still raining and very cold. I tried to call home with OnStar, but theysaid I didn't have enough minutes. Couldn't connect with OnStar to get moreminutes, so I drove out to the highway to glass the meadows up top. That iswhere I met the guy from Ohio, who also told me that the elk I'd heard thatmorning came from the west side of the highway with tree branches stuck in hisantlers and ran across the highway south of tailings pond and into the forest,screaming ever so often.

I got back into camp about 4:00 pmand gathered my stuff for an evening hunt. It had stopped raining and the sunpopped out for a bit to warm me up. I walked from camp, across the creek to thenorth and up the bank where the bull and his cows had come through the eveningbefore. I sat on a rock in good cover and waited till dark, but they did notuse the same route that night.

Back in camp, I boiled some waterfor a meal of chicken curie and rice, drove down toward Ouray, and called mywife. After dinner, I crawled into my sleeping bag for a rough night on theground. It rained all night long. I got up at least six times to step outsideand it was getting colder.

Saturday, September 17, 2011

When my alarm went off at 5:30, itwas still raining so I decided to stay in the sack, rather than dress in therain and go mountain climbing. I finally got out of the sleeping bag about 7:30and it was still raining. I ate cold chicken and risotto for breakfast and thenclimbed into the truck to get warm. It was 38 degrees. I watched X-MEN FirstClass. By noon it had warmed up to 39 degrees and the rain had turned to a mixof snow and rain. As I am writing this, the snowflakes are big and fall hardonto the truck. Kind of like snow, rain, hail. I think I'll climb into the backseat and take a little nap. Crazy, but I'm truly thinking of packing it all upand heading back home!

Well, the sun came out and themountain tops were white with snow. In camp, everything was wet and white witha "dusting" of heavy wet snow. I drove up to the pond (Jeff will knowwhere that is) to look around. The ground at that elevation (just under 12,000feet) was covered with 4 to 6 inches of snow and it was about 34 degrees upthere. There were a couple of deer grazing above the pond and I sat and watchedthe does. 2 fawns appeared and then their mother and another doe. Theymeandered up and over a little ridge. In the mean time, I walked a bit, sat abit, took a few pictures and blew on my elk bugle call a couple of times. Aftera bit, all of the deer came running back into the valley of the pond and stoodalert with ears and eyes turned from whence they'd come. My thinking was thatmy elk calling had interested a bull and he was on his way to our sanctuary. Ihustled to a stand of brush, bow in hand and ready to cow call him over for ashot. One hour later, nothing. The deer had returned to grazing and only occasionallyglancing back over the ridge. Eventually, they even returned to the high pointand lost their urgency to flight. The sun began to creep toward the westernhorizon, so I climbed back into the truck and made my way back down themountain.

That evening I feasted onfreeze-dried lasagna. It was amazingly good and I ate the whole bag, while Iwatched a Dirty Harry movie in the truck. I decided that the back seat of thetruck was much more comfortable, so I grabbed my pillow from the tent andpulled a blanket over me in the back seat for the night, rather than sleep onthe ground in the tent. It was warmer in the truck, and I turned the truck onwith the heater on low for short periods of time during the night. But my kneesbegan to ache because you cannot stretch out and I tossed and turned most ofthe night. The sky cleared though and the stars and the moon lit up the woodsas the temperature dropped into the 20's that night.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Finally, it was morning, and I wasso sleepy from the rough night that I didn't really want to get up and gohunting ... but I did. I went back to the road I started on Friday morning andstarted walking. The only problem was that my stomach was torn up, rolling andaching. I didn't get far before I had to stop for relief. In fact, my walking wasinterrupted 4 times that morning. Freeze dried meals may be convenient, becauseof the light weight, and they may be delicious, but they run through you like... well ... after a couple of hours I decided to head back to camp. I'd plannedon hunting all day Sunday, sleeping in the woods that night and heading backhome on Monday morning, but after thinking on that a bit, I decided that I'drather sleep in a bed that night. By noon I had everything loaded in the truckand was on the highway, headed north.

The drive home was pretty un-eventful.Apart from having to stop quite often during the first leg of the trip. I madeit to Raton, NM where I got a pizza from Pizza Hut and an excellent night'ssleep at the Holiday Inn. In bed by 10:00, I slept nearly 10 hours! Got a cupof coffee and headed home. The only elk I saw on this trip was on the way home,500 yards off the highway in southeastern Colorado. They had buffalo too.Still, that was kind of cool, but it would have been so much nicer if the elkhad walked into my hunting area while I was sitting, waiting and watching. Oh,well, I'll never tier of seeing the mountains, breathing the thin mountain airand seeing those star-lit skies. The rock formations, waterfalls, snow on thepeaks ... it is all so amazing.

I thank the Lord for allowing me to enjoy that part of Hiscreation one more time.

Da Gym (per Amanda's request)

2011-09-03T11:50:00.002-05:00

I have been going to Fit Together for the past, I don't know, 6 years? When I first started, I was over 255 lb. and always feeling wore out, achy, sluggish ... I lost about 50lbs. in 8 months or so, was doing my cardio regularly, got up to running for an hour on the treadmill. When I started I was walking for about 20 minutes at a time. I actually won the cardio challenge and won a new pair of tennis shoes. I bought all new clothes, even some new hunting clothes, and went to the mountains elk hunting. That was my goal, to get in shape for the "elk hunt of a lifetime". So, after the elk hunt, I let the diet slide, stopped the cardio, but still did my 5:15am work outs every MWF. Gained a little weight back, but called it "lean mass". I built back up to 3 to 5 miles 3 or 4 times a week on the treadmill and ran in a 5k that spring, 30:52. I was 50 years old. The cardio thing is what really gets hard to keep up. The next February, at 51, I ran another 5K with Ange, and finished in 36:21. Lost a little endurance I guess. Last year, I tried to get in shape for a half marathon. In August I ran a quarter marathon in like an hour and 6 minutes. I was at 235lbs, still not where I wanted to be, but my foot started hurting all the time. Plantar Fasciitis I guess. Really, I had to stop running. I still went elk hunting with Jeff and when we got back from the mountain hiking trip, I was down to 225 and feeling pretty good. Late fall is the hardest time to stick with the program. Since then, I have slowly crept back up into the 240's and have been as heavy as 250. I've been riding my bike since the late spring, up to 20+ miles, no problem. But running still seems to be a problem for me. I've tried swimming laps in the pool, but have a hard time staying consistent with that work out. Tyler asked me if I wanted to do a triathlon with him on Oct 2, and I've been trying to get into condition to do the 500 meter swim, 21 mile bike ride and 5 mile run but I'm not sure that I'm going to be ready.

My trainer at the gym has had me doing cross fit workouts, lots of core and cardio stuff. One day, at the end of my circuit he put the weighted vest on me an I got on the treadmill. He set the incline at 15 and I started walking at a 3.2 ... 3.5 ... 4.0 (jog) ... and then 4.5 and then up to 5.0. Running up hill with a weighted vest on for 2 minutes had me sucking air so hard, I sounded like I was an asthmatic. I tried to grip the handles and get a heart rate reading, but I was sweating so profusely that it wouldn't register. When It finally did, my heart rate had slowed a bit, down to 161 bpm. 55 year old hearts aren't supposed to beat much faster than that.

I had my blood work done the other day and my cholesterol is too high (220) and my triglycerides are above normal, which means I have too much fat in my blood. Everything else was OK, blood sugar, Billy Reuben (I know that's spelled wrong, but that's what it sounds like) was OK, liver functioning OK. But how do you get the fat out of your blood? and how do you get your cholesterol down? Diet and exercise.

So, you might say, it sounds like your exercise is going OK, but you still need to do cardio 3 or 4 times per week, 20 to 30 minutes of jogging or fast walking ... OK, but 1 hour of bike riding 3 times a week is what I've been doing pretty regularly. So, what about the diet?

Well, it is hard to generalize the diet. I mean, we eat healthy. We seldom eat red meat. Mostly fish and chicken, and more fish than chicken. We eat salad almost every evening. Vegies are steamed or raw, maybe grilled, never (hardly ever) fried, and then stir-fried with very little oil. Only EVO or grape seed oil when we use oil. I have to admit, we have had ice cream as an evening desert snack several evenings this summer, and we got on a popcorn kick earlier this summer, but have recently cut both of those out ... for the most part.

This next week I am going to keep a food journal (again) as that seems to help in reminding me where I'm messing up as far as caloric intake.

I have found that after age 50, it is very hard to loose weight. I'd really like to be going to St. Louis next month to participate in the triathlon with Tyler, weighing in at under 200 pounds. To paraphrase the lyrics from an old Eagles song, 'we haven't seen that since 1969'. Well, anyway, it's been a long time. My thought is to starve it off, but everybody keeps telling me you have to keep the calories up to keep the metabolism up. If you starve your body, the metabolism shuts down and you gain weight just by thinking of food. So I say, what the heck, I need the calories, so I eat it or eat a little more, and then I get on the scales and you guessed it, the weight is the same or a pound more than last time.

I'll keep the journal and see how it goes in the next few weeks.

The Next Karate Kid

2010-11-28T17:41:00.001-06:00

The next karate kid is Hillary Swank! 1994. I only remembered that it was a girl instead of Daniel-son (Ralph Machio) it is Julie-son, Hillary Swank.

How forgiveness works

2010-09-18T12:41:00.002-05:00

Vicki kinda snapped at me this afternoon, and I barked back at her and she got her feelings hurt and I kinda bit at her and told her she snapped before I barked. We were both a little cranky, I'd just finished about 4 hours of weed eating and was pushing myself the last hour to finish and not quit, like a long distance run or something like that. She'd been cleaning all morning and was doing something on the computer that she thought I should have done already.

Anyway, after a few minutes she said, I'm sorry you barked at me and I forgive you. I appologized to her for her snapping at me and forgave her back. Now we are all happy and luvy-duvy.

Rules Y’all

2010-09-18T03:53:00.001-05:00

Rules Y’all

There are rules and then there are rules. If I told you baseball bats were bad, you’d probably laugh at me, especially if you played the game. You may not know what I know about baseball bats. I may have seen someone beaten to death with a baseball bat or I may have been hit and injured severely as a kid. As a RULE, however, if you get hit hard enough in the nose with a baseball bat, your nose will be broken. Now here is a more broad spread RULE, Blunt-force trauma can kill you. You should protect yourself from blunt-force trauma.

Now some might make rules, teaching their children to stay away from baseball bats. “Don’t go near people with baseball bats”, they say. They may make them wear protective clothing or even stay in the house on pretty days when people might be outdoors playing with baseball bats. Others step out against such silliness and make their kids play baseball or softball when they are little, even buying them expensive bats to play with. The first think, “maybe these people don’t understand how dangerous the bats are”, so they write curriculum to teach the dangers of baseball bats. The folk who play the game look down on the legalists, thinking “Don’t they see how safe the game is and how foolish it is to make rules about bats. No one is getting hurt by a bat”. Yet the ‘legalists’ keep seeing the problem. One of them probably works or worked in the ER and saw blunt-force trauma injuries every day, many of which may have occurred with a baseball bat. But the folk who play baseball then make their own rules, such as wearing a helmet while playing baseball, and if you are on deck, you must stay in the on-deck circle, and if you are not batting or on deck, you must stay in the dugout. Even unwritten rules, such as “if you see someone close to you swinging a bat, duck or get away”

There are rules and then there are principles. I do not intend to research and document all of the rules, but like blunt-force trauma can kill you, water in your lungs makes it hard to breath. The acceleration of gravity can cause blunt-force trauma. There are laws of thermodynamics, so if you put your hand in boiling water, it will burn you. That doesn’t make boiling water bad, you just have to know the law and obey it. Don’t put your bare hand in boiling water. There are laws of physics, so don’t jump out of an airplane without a parachute. There are laws of mathematics … they must be understood and obeyed. They can make you rich or poor, like in the case of compounded interest on your savings account or on your credit card. There are dietary laws and principles that follow. I’m no nutritionist, but if you eat more calories than you burn, you will gain weight, I think. Kind of a mix of dietary and mathematical laws. Dental laws, or principles, such as if you eat a lot of sugar, your teeth will rot, (a mix of dental and dietary law). So, laws can be blended, I guess.

The Lord gave us laws; they are called the 10 commandments, or the ten words of the Lord God. The rest of His testaments are also His Words, as Jesus is called His Word. The word was, the word is, and the word will be. The rules are simple and simply stated, but they are far reaching in principles, as are the rules in physical life. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your might. Love your neighbor as much as you love yourself. Simple. Now, if you love God, you will obey him. Obedience is the evidence of your love of the Lord. OK, but what do you obey? His law? Which is summarized in Love God and Love Your Neighbor. So, really simply put, if you love God, you will obey him by loving your neighbor. Now here is where it gets complicated. Here is where man starts messing up and “keeping his kids away from baseball” or buying them baseball bats in excess.

The good news is that we have the good news, the Gospel of Christ to tell us the right way to deal with “baseball bats”. We have the entire Old Testament full of history, poetry, and prophesy to show us what was done right and wrong by the people. Better still it is a revelation of the Person of God whom we are bound legally to love. The New Testament then is also the history of Love in Christ, the poetry of Love and the prophesy of Love in Christ. It is, it was and it forever will be.

I had a dream this night, about my older kids disrespecting me. Oh, it was just a dream, so you don’t have to think it was about you, my child. Anyway, in my dream it was like we were about to play a game of some kind and there were many people involved. Besides my own kids, there were relatives, church members, movie stars and sports figures. It was like I was a coach, or maybe just a chaperone or something. I wanted to teach them a lesson, to communicate to them some principles that would help them in life and in the game and they walked away. I got some more insight and wanted them to come back to me and learn from my wisdom, but only three of the five of them came back, while the others stayed away. The ones who came back to hear what I had to say did so with reluctance and with arrogant disregard. I was crushed. In my dream, they looked down on me as a legalistic fool. They did not realize that I was just trying to teach them some principles that would save them from pain. It woke me up, so I have tried here to put it into words, but the thoughts I had when I first woke up did not make it to this little Blog. I don’t know what I have written, but it is not at all what woke me from sleep early this morning.

I think I would like to go back to sleep now, but not before saying, following rules and principles in physical life and in spiritual life is not always a bad thing. These laws are meant to be blended. One must test the rule against the base rules, the Ten Words of the Lord God and their ultimate purpose, to glorify the Lord God Almighty and All Gracious.

Praise Him for his Grace and Mercy, for otherwise… well wow. Otherwise, I have no idea what or where I’d be, but praise him for I find myself tonight ever blessed by his presence in my life. Praise him for His rules and regulations, but praise him for he took the blunt force trauma in my place, and in Him I am alive and breathing the fresh air of His Word, His Law.

My head got stuck

2010-09-14T23:58:00.002-05:00

I did an inspection at Mike and Waynette's house this afternoon. Waynette was taking care of Jackson. Their front porch has double columns with a space in between each column. April arrived and Jackson said "Look mom, I going to put my head between these posts" Then he looked at me and I told him I thought I could do that. I didn't think I could, but low and behold, my head fit perfectly between those posts. I went ahead and pushed it all the way through, so that it was sticking out on the other side and I looked at Jackson and made a funny face. April and Waynette just laughed but Jackson just went on about his little hyper-active way. My head was stuck. I pulled it back out, but my ears began to roll up and the harder i tried to pull, the tighter my head got wedged between the poles. I made a little joke about it so that I didn't panic in front of those ladies, but inside I was thinking somebody might just have to get some olive oil and grease my head in order for me to get loose. My ears still hurt a little, but I slowly wiggled my head back and forth and finally got out without them really knowing how close I was to a melt down.

Can't Sleep

2010-09-14T23:19:00.002-05:00

Crazy day, went to work at 5:00 and got sleepy, so I took a 1 hour nap. My first inspection was north of Skiatook and I almost fell asleep driving on Highway 75. I did fall asleep driving back to Tulsa! (not really). I got to my 1:00 inspection early, so I was done by 1:00, and had nearly an hour and a half to kill before my 2:30, so I parked at Drysdales parking lot and took another nap, about 45 minutes. I finished up in Owasso, got home about 5:20 so I laid down on the couch and dozed off for at least 30 minutes. After supper, Alyson came over and I walked and talked to Adelle, cause she was cranky. She finally fell asleep. I watched a little TV till 10:45, went to bed, but cannot fall asleep. My head just keeps buzzing with stuff. Like rapid day dreams, not calm night dreams. I try to slow them down, but the thoughts just come and change even faster. Fishing, gardening, landscaping, camping, 4-wheeling, hunting, gardening, landscaping, swimming, landscaping, fishing, boating, running, running, running. I really run fast and long in my dreams. I'm thinking I need to pass on the day time naps, but I get lethargic, with my head nodding and my eyes burning. I think my blood sugar or metabolism or something is just slightly out of whack.

I thought typing a blog would make me sleepy, but here it is 11:30 and I feel more like eating than sleeping. Discipline!!! I may not be able to make myself go to sleep, but I can make myself not fix a bowl of ice cream at midnight.

I'd read my Kindle, but it is gone forever. I have some books, but ... I'd rather read a fishing magazine. I should read my Bible. Maybe do a study in Ephesians or Philippians.

I've been listening to old John Wayne movies in my truck while driving from inspection to inspection. It's weird, because there is more crazy sound effects in those old movies than there is dialect. They always have to have 2 or three songs, where some dude plays the guitar and serenades the cows, or a bunch of cowhands sit around the campfire at night singing in 4 part harmony. In one, there is a high pitched black girl who works around the ranch house, and she breaks out in song. The sound effects are horrible too. You have to remember, though, they just started adding sound to the films when these were made. One guy says, "We have to stop them, Tom, they are headed for the falls" then, suddenly you hear the roar of the falls, then silence except for the sound of the oars in the water, then the roar of the falls again, then silence and a little more dialect, then the roar of the falls again. I hope they didn't go over, but since I'm driving, I never know. the movie does not show up on my screen unless I'm in park. Anyway, I'm on like my 5th John Wayne movie. I don't know how many there are. the box has 5 discs and I'm only on Disc 2. I intended on watching a little of the movie when I pulled into Drysdales parking lot, but the movie couldn't hold my attention and I drifted off.

Today my Adobe 9 Standard program messed up. I could not convert my reports and invoices to PDF, so I couldn't send them out. I tried everything, and finally just uninstalled the program and downloaded it again. The website wouldn't offer me my previous download, tried to make me buy a new one for $449. I clicked on the little "chat with a technician" button and Chris came on and helped me. I was able to upgrade to Adobe 9 Pro and get LifeCycle Design, all for $159. I got it downloaded between my 2:30 and 4:00, but don't know if it will be working when

I get in the office tomorrow or not. I will be taking Vicki in for her 5 decade colon inspection in the morning. She can't drive after the procedure, so I will bring her home and get her cozy. I had it done a few months ago, and it was really no big deal. I slept most of the day after the procedure, but what else is new. I do that almost every day here lately. I am going to try to get a little cardio in in the morning before we have to leave. I won't have time to do my regular workout, but I forgot to let them know at the gym, so somebody will be there at 5:15 to put me through the paces. I guess I'll ride my bike over there, tell them I can't stay, cause I have to leave the house at 6:00 to take Vick in, and then ride back home, take a shower and head to the hospital. I won't be getting my inspection reports done again. They will start to back-up on me and then I'll be stuck, doing an all evening in front of the computer.

Well, I've already blogged about 10 times the volume I intended to write, so I'll call it quits for now. Sleep tight y'all.

2010-09-13T21:18:00.002-05:00

I ran for months leading up to my 8 day elk hunt, training for a half-marathon. I climbed mountain trails twice a day every day in colorado. Since I got home I haven't run over a mile at at time and I've only done that twice. I have to get motivated again.

Weather Forecast

2010-05-01T22:19:00.003-05:00

I was supposed to go fishing this morning with the Marnatha Bass Club on Birch Lake, which is in Osage County near Barnsdall. We met Thursday night and decided that the weather forecast was calling for thunderstorms all day, 70% chance of precipitation with wind gusts like 25 mph. We decided to move this tourney to May 15. I was really relieved, because I was able to get my reports done and go car shopping with Angela. It was really disheartening though, because the weather was calm all day, until late evening and we could have ... should have fished. I'm thinking the weather men should stick to telling us what happened and quit trying to tell us what to expect in the next couple of days. That way we do what we plan and don't base our plans on the most believable witch doctor weather forecast. I mean, Vortex 2 is the latest magic word used by these mystical TV weather men. Before it was Doppler 6 and Viper 3D. I wish it had rained and the wind blown, and hail fallen. At least then I could say, "Boy, I'm sure glad we didn't go fishing today." I am glad we moved the tournament to May 15, but I can't say it because the weather was really good for fishing.

Chevy traverse

2010-02-25T21:10:00.000-06:00

Just watched a commercial for chevy traverse, mid-sized suv. Anyway, the dad says to the little girl in the back seat, "Did I ever tell you about growing up with 4 sisters?" She say's, "Sounds like fun." He chuckled and said, "Yeah, for them!"

Made me think about Zach and his 4 sisters.

We had dinner with Warren and Nina Lehr this evening. booked a flight to Denver where we are going to rent a car and drive up to Steamboat Springs or Vail or somewhere. Warren has time-share points. Flying out on Mar. 11, ski 3 days, fly back on the 15th. Cool, huh.

Sweetheart 5K

2010-02-13T18:12:00.004-06:00

This morning I ran my first race of the year. My thinking was that if I ran in a race each month, 5K's, 10K's 15K's trail runs, track runs, duo's and maybe even triathlons, that by this fall I might be confident enough to tackle a marathon. I figured if the folks on Biggest Looser could run a marathon, that I should be able to do it too.

In the movie, Open Range, Kevin Costner and Robert DuVaul were getting ready to ride into town to get Mo out of jail. The kid was holding the dog back and told Costner that the dog wanted to go with them. Kevin said, "He's got the heart but he don't have the legs." After running 3.1 miles this morning, my legs were saying the same thing to me. We'll see. I'd like to take Vicki to Maine in October where the Desert Island Marathon is run in Bar Harbor. Supposed to be the most scenic marathon in the country, (but really cold.)

Angela ran with me this morning and I hung with her through the first 2 kilometers. I was going to say I walked allot, but really, I ran allot. I did walk a little though. I finished the race in 38:06. Not exactly a speedy time, but not bad for an old fat guy. I ran the Maple Ridge 5K a couple of years ago in like 30:52. Ange finished about 3 minutes ahead of me at 34:54. IT WAS FUN. Love running with my daughter. Thanks Ange for running with me.

Without Cable ...

2010-02-08T22:29:00.000-06:00

Wow, today was kinda crazy. It was supposed to drop 8 feet of snow, which turned out to be nothing by evening but wetness. I went to the gym at 5, did a marathon workout in 45 mins. push/pull/lunge ... abs, stretch go home. Trash day, so curb the can. Hair cut, shower, breakfast of champions (protein shake and a cup of coffee). My lovely wife is my stylist. She is very meticulous with the No. 2 guard.

Once at work, I had 1 hour to get my reports done from last Friday, visit with all my people, and get everything lined out before I had to go to north Tulsa and crawl under a house in the wet snow. Sam wanted to tell me about his Focus on the Family Bible study. Troy had to tell me about the Saints winning the super bowl, waving his Saints flag. Randy brought me a gun to check out -- cute little .380 semi.

It didn't start snowing until I got to the first house at 9:00. The flakes were as big as silver dollars. (You have to be over 50 to know how big a silver dollar is. It is smaller than a tennis ball, but bigger than a golf ball.) I had time to go back to the office and enjoy a bowl of Josh Langlias soup for lunch. Josh made it for me and Zach when we went to his place in Denver a few weeks ago to go skiing. He sent Vicki the recipe and she made it over the weekend, but was not happy with how it turned out, so she let me take it to work. Nobody there liked it either. I thought it was awsome. Kinda Tia ... had coconut milk and curry with all kinds of veggies and hot pepper. Back to inspecting with a full tummy, finished up in Sapulpa.

I was planning on running this evening. Even took my running clothes into the office to change before I went back to the gym to run on the treadmill. Something always happens. It was late, I was tired, so I took it straight home to see my hair stylist/personal chef.

Belinda Sears had been to our house all day with her son Mason, painting in the workout room (Shannon's old room) and in the girls bathroom. I don't know what they did to the cable (probably nothing) but it quit working after they left. I got home to a blank TV, so no news, no Entertainment Tonight. No stupid sitcoms. No movies. No sports. After our awesome supper, I spent the next hour on the phone with Cox trying to figure it out. We re-booted, ping-ed, unplugged and plugged everything back in to no avail. The technician is coming out tomorrow between 1 an 4.

The cool thing about having no TV for the evening is I got to set down and look at facebook and blogger. I watched a cool video of Lola ooh-ing and aah-ing (or of Amanda coxing Lola to ooh and aah). I didn't burn many calories, but found time to blog a little myself. Now I look up and it is 10:30 pm. Way past my bedtime. 4:30 comes early, and back to the report writing, invoicing and inspecting of 5 or 6 more houses tomorrow.

Larry Platt - Memorable auditions

2010-01-21T19:30:00.000-06:00

Larry Platt - Memorable auditions

No longer a fantasy hunter: Date Night

2009-10-31T14:32:00.000-05:00

No longer a fantasy hunter: Date Night

Date Night

2009-10-31T13:25:00.003-05:00

I took my true love out to dinner and a concert last night. We went to El Guapo's downtown and had some Mexican cuisine. I had Snapper Azul (it was not blue, so I looked it up later and found out it is a town in Argentina). It was grilled Snapper with green olives and capers over rice. We had ceviche, which is a kind of seafood salsa, but was more like a shrimp cocktail, as an appetizer. The meal was about $50, so I figured a $10 tip would be nice, but only had a $100 bill, 2 $20's and a $10. Vicki swapped me a 20 for the 10, so I left him 3 $20's and we dismissed ourselves. In swapping money I must have dropped the $100 bill, cause its gone and that's the only place I had my money out. Pretty great tip. We decided he must have needed the money worse than me.

After dinner we went to the Cains Ballroom to watch the Church Music Tour of the David Crowder Band. I thought since the tickets had section and seat numbers, that they must have set up chairs, in sections and rows, so when we saw the line outside of the door, we sat in the car and waited till the line dwindled down a bit, since it was a little chilly out last night. Wrong as usual. It was as usual at the Cains, open ballroom with stage up front and it was a sold out venue. No worries, though, we wedged ourselves to the front right of the stage (very close to the speakers). I looked around the ballroom all night to see if there was anyone anywhere that was close to our age. We were the only 50+ couple in the room. The first two bands on the tour were Seabird (a NickleBack wannabe, but really pretty descent). the second act was a duo. The lead singer was from San Diego, and he played the keyboards, guitar and sang. The other guy was a percussionist deluxe. This guy played with his bare hands at times, slapping the cymbals, standing up to bang a row of base drums like you might see in the symphony, and then turning around to shred the drum set. it was all we could do to occasionally look at the singer because the drummer kept you attention the whole time. Cool dude for sure.

Then, wow, David Crowder came out. This six man band was all dressed in suit and ties, possibly mocking "church music" but they really did look sharp. There music is some of the most worshipfull music of the modern day if you've never heard them, but they are also one of the most rocking bands in the contemporary music world. Lights, smoke, and very very fun. They rocked the house for almost 2 hours! Everybody was singing the music right along with the band. the kid behind me not only knew every word to every song, he even knew the little sounds David made between verses and was a pretty good singer too. Vicki and I sang right along with the band, even on songs were were not that familiar with, 'cause they had the words on a screen across the stage for us to read. The dance floor of the Cains has a little spring-i-ness to it so we bounced along with the young people all around us. I was sad because I forgot my camera, but I will say that it was without a doubt the funnest concert I have ever experienced.

No mas carne para this ambre

2009-10-31T13:22:00.001-05:00

Well, I sat in my ground blind for 4.5 hours, got up at 11 and started walking around in the woods, stalking for deer. At 11:40 I saw some gray color and stopped for a closer look. It was a deer but I couldn't see if it had antlers. I can only take a doe, since I got my buck last weekend. After a few seconds she turned her head and I saw that there were no antlers. She was standing between two trees at about 80 yards up a little rise to the west from where I stood, but I had what I thought was an open shot at her kill zone, so I squeezed the trigger on my muzzle loader and it leaped in my arms, white smoke filing the air in front of me. there was a stiff breeze, so the smoke cleared quickly to reveal that the deer was still standing in the same place. Not what I expected to see. She should have spun, stumbled and trotted off, only to fall and breath no more. She was looking around to see where the noise came from, so I began searching my pocket for a re-load. before I cold get the pre-loaded cartridge out of my pocket, she spotted me. I was cammo-ed out so she didn't know that I was not a strange looking bush, but any movement would give me away. I know from experience that she will not stand and stare for long, so I moved ever so slowly to re-load my gun. The impossible thing though is you have to pull the long ram-rod out of the stock and push with all your might to drive the bullet down the barrel. With that she bolted, and was gone. I walked the distance, following a straight line of site to where she was previously standing and saw a fat stick that was recently broken. I'm only guessing that was the stick that either disintegrated my bullet or caused it to ricochet off into outer space or somewhere. No mas carne para this ambre.

2009-06-16T20:22:00.002-05:00

Posting ... I'm not much of a journalizer. Tonight my wife gave me the first fist bump without me having to beg. She actually raised her fist to me. I don't even remember what it was about, but it was awesome.

2009-03-01T20:49:00.003-06:00

I am trying to embed a video from my recent ski trip. It's not very good, my mouth was covered by a neoprene face thing, but its all I got so check it out if you wish.

Travels in February

2009-02-23T13:21:00.004-06:00

Just got back from a traveling week-end to St. Charles where Vick, Ange, and I got to spend a little time and a lot of money with Shannon and Tyler Wheeler ... a cute young couple we know from that area. First time we've seen them since the wedding. We went to Ruth's Chris for dinner Saturday night. It is amazing when your meal costs more than the air fare for three to St. Louis and back. You can rent a small SUV for three days for half the price of your meal. But 'WOW' is an understatement. The only steak I have ever eaten that compared was a steak I got at another Ruth's Chris. And the steak I ate was a steak Shannon ordered but did not eat because it was a bit overcooked. She actually got another portion cooked to perfection. What's crazy about the week-end is I ate healthy ... grouper, tilapia, mahi mahi ... oatmeal for breakfast, and ran on the treadmill saturday and sunday mornings. But when we got home, I jumped on the scales and had gained 6 pounds since Friday morning. I think I must have dieter's amnesia, forgetting the 4 pieces of sausage and the biscuits and gravy, and the waffle with syrup. I did work up a pretty good sweat on the treadmill though.

Vicki and I are leaving in the morning for a little drive to Winter Park Colorado (12 hours). Warren and Nina Lehr are going with us. Warren and I are going to ski for 3 days, while Vick and Nina do other stuff. I'm excited. The only problem though is that Nina said, 'Finally, Warren is going to ski with someone who can keep up with him.' That is a little scary, because Warren is like in better shape than Lance Armstrong. I'm packing two knee braces and a large bottle of Alieve. I should knock off the 6 pounds and another 6 on top of that.

Xanga Xanga, what happened to Xanga?

2009-02-18T22:00:00.002-06:00

I just completely forgot about xanga. I seriously forgot the word. I tried to remember what it was, and could not remember anything about it at all. I typed www.xanga.com and entered my user name and password and low and behold, the internet took me to a site I haven't posted on since 2007, after claire's 2nd birthday. It blew me away. does anybody still xanga? I went to Amanda's xanga site and she posted something in september 2008. OK. Anyway.

bad dreams

2009-02-18T18:16:00.003-06:00

I had a dream last night that I went to St. Charles, MO to see Shannon on her 21st birthday. When we first saw her, we were shocked at how skinny she'd gotten, weighing only about 80 lbs! Her and Tyler were into the fad-diet of eating only raw food ... nothing cooked, so vegetarian raw food only kinda people. I really got in their faces and tried to convince them that they were going to die if they didn't start eating a balanced diet of protein and fat with their COOKED vegetable carbohydrates. They would not listen to me. I remembered the first time I fasted for 7 days ... water only. No vitamins, no pain relievers for my headache. My mom hastled me so bad ... she even cried, but I did not pay any attention to her. But I still was frantically trying to convince them to eat. I even tried to force feed Shannon with some peanut butter pie and ice cream but she would not open her mouth. I woke up panting. It was only a dream.

2009-02-16T18:23:00.003-06:00

Reading (listening to) The Edgar Sawtelle Story ... 566 pages if you actually read the book. Like 23 hours of audio. A mute boy and his dogs ... his Sawtelle dogs (like a special breed his grandfather made). Anyway, murder, ghosts, psychics, and dogs. lots and lots of dog stuff, training, comunication, devotion, and who knows what the last 8 hours have to hold my attention. It is a book that I can't wait to find out what happens next, but I don't want it to end. If you have a year or so to read a book, I suggest you experience The Edgar Sawtelle Story.

I thought that I'd surely heard of the Sawtelle breed, but I wasn't sure, so I googled it, and do my deep disapointment, it is a fictional breed. I wanted to get me one of those Sawtelle dogs, but there ain't no such thing. :(

2009-01-25T20:47:00.002-06:00

People have been giving

me a hard time about not putting

pictures on my blog spot. So, though these pictures

have been uploaded on Facebook, I put them on my blogspot too.
My grandaught, Kate Weber, Amanda and Nathan's youngest.
Tinkerbell, I took a picture of the TV screen, zoomed in on Tink. How cool is that?

This is my grandaughter, Alayna Frederick. Alyson and David's youngest child.
This is the most beautiful woman in the whole world ever, My wife Vicki.
Angela and Kate in front of the window. I just love them.

Why Do I ...

2009-01-24T10:16:00.000-06:00

Why Do I …

There are a lot of people who have a hard time with Christianity, and I can see why. In many ways, it is a paradoxical life. We sin, but the god who judges us also forgives us. We love him for that, yet we continue to sin. No one but Christ Jesus is perfect, but he makes us so, but yet we are not. If I were to base my devotion to God on the actions of people, I don’t think I’d want to be associated with Christianity either.

It is much more logical to do life dedicated to a cause than religion. “We are all on one journey, with one destination, one goal: to conquer cancer.” The “morality” of religion is excellent, and we should aim high, but Noah and the ark? Moses and the parting of the red sea? Adam and Eve in a garden? Jesus and all his miracles? He rose from the dead? Are you kidding me? Love is good. Peace is awesome, but don’t ask me to pray to some mystical creator.

On the other hand, how did the universe get into such synchronization? It looks kinda chaotic, but the moon orbits the earth, always facing the sun, while the earth rotates so perfectly and precisely, that you can set your watch by it. It oscillates so slightly so that we enjoy four seasons every time the earth goes around the sun. And all of the stars we see are pretty much right where they were 2000 years ago. Egyptian astronomers from 4000 years ago looked at the same sun and moon and planets and stars that we see today. God did that. It could not have just happened. He did it, and he recorded it and he gave it to us.

He made me too. He breathed and low and behold, here I am. Here you are. We didn’t just happen, any more than it just so happens that earth has one moon. And wow, my thoughts happen. I know they do. I tell my wife, or I type them out. Where did they come from? Sure, electric impulses surging through the brain, but my thoughts are not random, there is synchronization. Pictures, or words, sentences and paragraphs, outlined magically. Education or learning helps, but what’s that all about anyway? What made me think I needed education? I THINK because God made me. He made me into a thinking person. He gave me … and everybody else, the ability to think … to think on HIM, And then to tell someone. To write it down, type it out and communicate with him. He had to have a purpose. Maybe he made me so that we could communicate.

Ultimately, my thoughts are to be His thoughts. That is partly His purpose, I guess. For me to be like Him, which happens because I get to know Him. I experience Him through reading the testimony of Him … His word. The Bible is His word, Christ is His word … I guess then I am His Word. I am the testimony of HIM. His purpose is for me to be the testimony of Him. A living testament. Wow, I am to be the New Testament! Maybe that is why Paul said, not to be controlled by wine, but by the Spirit of God. To let the word of Christ richly dwell within me.

Why do I do what I do? Why do I get up in the morning, go to work, go and play, read, rest, eat, drink, love? Why did I raise a family, love my children, teach my kids all that stuff, and take them to church? I guess I do what I do to be a testament of God and His Glory. I don’t think I a very good picture of God, but getting better and better at it is what life is all about. It is why we live.

A kung fu master asked his student how he could climb out of a 10-foot deep hole. The student contemplated the question as they do in kung fu, but could not come up with the answer. The master told him, ‘you first dig a hole 3 feet deep, and try to jump out. Once you master that, you dig it a foot deeper and then try to jump out. You continue until the hole is 10 feet deep and keep on until you master that hole as well.’

Sanctification … the life of a believer is like that. We fail, over and over, but we keep trying until we succeed, and then dig a little deeper. Giving God the glory with every success. And, our success is measured in how we give god glory.

Future Blog Possibilities:

· Lonely out in space … no

· Make sense .. God does

· Pray …

Joy In the Morning

2009-01-20T20:45:00.003-06:00

I will exalt you, Lord, for you rescued me. You refused to let my enemies triumph over me. O Lord my God, I cried to you for help, and you restored my health. You brought me up from the grave, O Lord. You kept me from falling into the pit of death. Sing to the Lord, all you godly ones! Praise his holy name. For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime! Weeping may last trough the night, but joy comes with the morning.

When I was prosperous, I said, "Nothing can stop me now!" Your favor, O Lord, made me as secure as a mountain. Then you turned away from me, and I was shattered.I cried out to you, O Lord. I begged the Lord for mercy, saying, "What will you gain if I die, if I sink into the grave? Can my dust praise you? Can it tell of your faithfulness? Hear me, Lord, and have mercy on me. Help me, O Lord"

You have turned my mourning into joyful dancing. You have taken away my clothes of mourning and clothed me with joy, that I might sing praises to you and not be silent. O Lord, my God, I will give you thanks forever!

Psalm 30

Reading is Fundamental

2008-12-14T21:59:00.003-06:00

I took seven different videos of the boy's the other night when they came over with Alayna. They speak for themselves. The only problem is that one minute of video is about 100Mb and I think you can only upload about 10Mb at a time. I've tried over and over ... guess I'll have to put 'em up on FaceBook.

Started reading a book last year (a few months ago, I don't know). I've made it to page 143 (of 590 pages). Wow, at this rate I might finish it by 2016. The really sad thing is that it is a most excellent novel by George MacDonald, Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood. The dude is amazing, how he spins a tale. I can listen to a good book being read to me by an actor as I drive around town. I average about 15o miles every day, driving 3 to 4 hours. Most books on CD are about 26 hours of reading. So, 6 or 7 days of "reading" gets me through a book, so I can "read" 40 or 50 books a year! So, you see why it takes me so long to just set down and read a book. Oh, I love to read (for about 10 minutes at a time). To me its kinda like running (which is another good time to "read" an audio book). I can run for 30 minutes to an hour, but I am really ready to quit after about 10 minutes. Its a little different, because I usually want to quit running because my legs are tired and I'm out of breath. But the other day I ran slow for about 45 minutes, my legs weren't tired and I was hardly breathing. My heart rate barely got above 120 bpm, but still I was ready to stop after 10 minutes. I usually go for about 10 or 15 minutes and then do something different, like walk. Reading is similar, only after about 10 minutes, I'm ready to watch TV, take a nap or get something to eat.

How I came about reading George MacDonald is kind of a funny story. I did a little research on C.S. Lewis, and found that he really liked George MacDonald, so I looked him up and my search engine (way before yahoo or google) pointed me to a site where you could buy used books. I mean really used books. So I ordered one, and a book by John Owens, and low and behold, they were more than used. They were antiques! Ancient first addition manuscripts, probably from some old-guy's library and sold in an estate sale or something. The book I got by MacDonald was a sequel to the one I'm reading now. I read a few pages of it (over a period of several years) an thought one day that I'd like to read the story that inspired the sequel, so I looked on Amazon.com and found the book (used, but not an antique). Unless you've bought an antique book that you never heard of before and started reading it to find that it is awesome, then you've really never experienced real reading.

Anyway, reading is fundamental. You (and I mean alyson, amanda, or shannon, since I can't imagine anybody else reading this) should stop reading this and go get a George MacDonald novel and do some productive reading. You can borrow my copy when I get done.

Christmas time is here. Jesus Christ is Lord! You know, Christ is not His last name, it is his title...His position. In fact, Jesus is how we know him, but it is a fairly common name. I've got 2 or 3 guys working for me with the same name. No, that is not his name either. The name of the Christ, Jesus is ... you guessed it ... it is LORD! Oh, and you can know a lot of stuff about a lot of things ... like principles of Christian Life, or doctrines of grace. You can know the law and keep it (to the best of your ability). Or, you can be "free in Christ" and do anything you want. But if you don't know Jesus the Christ as LORD ... well all you know and all you do is in vain. It is vanity to be a Christian, talk like a Christian, act like a christian and celebrate the birth of Jesus if you don't have an intimate knowledge of the God/Man. If you have that knowledge, then guess what, He is LORD. How, you might ask, do you get this intimate knowledge?

According to Paul, you have to hear it. You know the passage ... Rom 10:13-15, "For whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved. How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard? and How shall they hear without a preacher?" So, the case for audio ... but it has been written and therefore, it must be read (preached). Oh, and the next part is interesting ... the reader (preacher) has to be sent. We need to put feet on the Gospel.

Now, I will refer to George MacDonald here, because he is the one that made me think. He wrote that Jesus IS the Gospel. To know Him is to know the Gospel. The Gospel is the GOOD NEWS ... about Christ. The good news is ... Jesus Christ is LORD. Oh, it is everything about HIM. It is an inexhaustible book. You can read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and you must, but keep reading. He reveals himself in the whole book. He is the WORD! He created it, he breathed it, he lived it. He even died it and resurrected it. He has given us His Spirit. The Holy Spirit lives in all who have called upon the Lord, an thus, he reveals himself in them (you an me). We are living testament to Christ, Jesus the LORD.

"How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, who bring glad tidings of good things!" (Rom 10:15)

Merry Christmas. Jesus Christ is Risen. He is Lord!

Two in one, Little Buck and Thanksgiving.

2008-11-23T14:25:00.000-06:00

I went deer hunting again on Saturday. I got into my ground blind on Saturday afternoon early and was amazed at how nice it was in the woods. Very little breeze, temp about 55, sun shiny day. Blue jay and crows occasionally breaking the silence. At about 2:30 or so, I noticed some movement back in the woods. Sure looked like a deer walking toward me. After he cleared a few trees and bushes, I cold see it was a buck. Antlers glistening in the sunlight as he raised his head to lick a branch. I raised my rifle slowly but could not see a clear shot in my scope. He disappeared behind some bushes and tree trunks, so I waited. It is common for deer to just stand in one place for several minutes. A bit later I saw movement again, a flick of the tail. I raised my rifle once more and scoped his hind quarters as he walked away. I'm guessing he was about 150 yards away, through a lot of trees and limbs on the ground. I tried a little rattle of the horns to draw him back in, but he did not turn. After a few minutes, I tried again, with a grunt call ... nothing. I waited, 5 minutes became 20 and nothing. Then I saw another deer, up hill to my right, I'm sure I saw it, but when I turned, nothing. It disappeared, like the buck I'd seen a few minutes earlier. So, i watched that patch of brush from where I thought I'd seen movement, but nothing. 5 minutes became 10, 20, 30, and then, I heard some leaf rustling behind and to the right. Slowly I turned and there he was. A baby buck with little button humps on his noggin. This guy grazed on acorns for the next 2 hours, till dark. I watched him, hoping he'd let me know that a bigger buck was approaching. He got alarmed when a herd of wild pigs ran through the forest in the valley below us, but he did not run away, just raised his tail high and watched the pigs until they were out of sight and we could hear them no more. He plopped himself down at the base of a tree and chewed his baby cud for at least 30 minutes. I made kissy sounds, bleating sounds, even buck-grunting sounds and he hardly even acknowledged me. I took 10 minutes of video, but it is all pretty boring, just watching a little baby buck browse. Anyway, it got dark, so I rattled my horns, which sent the little buck bounding off into the forest in escape of what he thought was a monster buck attack. Walked back to my 4-wheeler, spooking up the pigs again. Randy shot a pig by his stand earlier that evening.

I'm glad OU put it on Tech yesterday. It will make it that much better when OSU beats them next week.

Zach is home for the holiday. Shannon will be home wednesday. What a great time to have our two youngest children back home for a bit.

Thanksgiving is here. It is the season of thankfulness, introducing the season of giving. I think that giving of gifts is right. Some have decided that the gift giving is atrocious, making a commercialization of the birth of Christ. but if you are truly grateful, then what should you do? Give. Give back. Give to others. We bless because we are blessed! therefore, thanks ... giving!

We had a pastor when we first got married, who said all the time, "You can't out-give God" Only he said caint. I loved brother Al. Any way, that may be a bit redneck, but wow, how simple and true that is. If Jesus would have been born in a castle, and laid in a golden cradle, he still would have been humiliated, compared to the Glory he gave up in order to take on humanity. And then, he gave up his life. He gave up glory and traded his life for mine. How could I ever out-give God. I gave him my kids when they were born. I gave him my business. I gave him my voice, my mind, my everything. It's weird though, because even though all I have and all that I am is his, I still have it. It's kinda like it's borrowed, and someday I may have to give it all back, but not really like that. Its more like he gave me all that I have and said, now go and share it with everyone you know. share the wealth, so to speak. Only, not like Obama. He wants to take wealth from others and share it. God wants me to take what he has given me and be a good steward with it. Wow. I think i might be a little wastefull with what he has given me.

I was just thinking, some people give from their problems. I mean, like the sacrifice of the lame lamb, or the rotted grain. It's easy to say, when your child is bad, 'Lord, I dedicate this one to you'. It's like saying 'you can have him or her'. When you can't deal with a problem such as health or finance and you say finally, It's in the hands of the Lord now. Maybe we should have put it into his hands to begin with.

2008-11-14T10:49:00.000-06:00

The Eagles sang, "To Busy Being Fabulous". They have a video of the song on Youtube, but I can't find it on itunes. Oh well.
shannon's home for the weekend. Getting her wisdom teeth out. ouch.
I'm going bow-hunting. Should be peak-rut. Hope to finally see the monster buck of my dreams walk within a few yards so I can 'cut-a-lung'. In 25 years of bow-hunting, I've never killed a buck with my bow. I may have to stay in the woods the whole week-end. Hope not.
Anyway, Zach will be home next week-end. I'm pumped.

2008-11-13T09:31:00.001-06:00

What song did the eagles sing at the cma last night?

2008-11-10T22:23:00.000-06:00

Uploading pictures is not fun on this website. On facebook, I just click and boom, 60 pictures up. On webshots, click click and boom, like 300 pictures up. that is why my blogs are picture free for the most part. I'm not sure why my girls like blogger.com so much.

It rained all day, I started it out with an upper body workout, 2.5 mile interval run on the treadmill, a three egg omlet (egg-beaters, not real eggs ... too much colesteral) and my first inspection in Pryor, OK. Ange came over for dinner. Talked to Zach for over an hour on facebook IM. talked to Shannon on the phone. Pretty darn (DARN) good day. By the way, still waiting on a picture of a bunny to upload. What is up with that.

Thurday

2008-11-06T21:11:00.000-06:00

Went for a run this evening. 2.5 miles in 25 minutes, 5 minutes of cool-down. Then my lovely prepared a swordfish steak smothered in roasted peppers on a bed of romaine lettuce and drizzled with balsamic vinegar. Wow! now to settle down to an evening watching ER. Call me crazy, but I love ER. Can't believe it is the last season. I've been watching ER since George Clooney was a doctor.

2008-10-30T22:01:00.000-05:00

My cousin Robert Bruce Bacon and I once shot an alegator snapping turtle with a b-b gun. It took about 100 bb's to kill the monster. Then we drug it out of the woods, through the sandy bottom creek to his house. we were so proud.

In Batesville, AR we went on an exploration hike, down to the dam and came across a 'wild' tomatoe plant that had several large green tomatoes. We picked the tomatoes and some how, i don't remember how, but we carried the tomatoes over to the bridge across the White River, climbed the steel trusses of the bridge to the top, and out over the traffic below. We then dropped the tomatoes onto the cars and trucks. It is hard to judge, but we finally landed one tomatoes onto the windshield of a car, which stopped and looked all around for the source of the tomato bomb. She never looked up! We were again, quite proud, and after hearing all the stories of stuff our dads had done when they were kids, we went back to Grannies house and told on ourselves. They kinda yelled at us, but we really didn't get into bad trouble. Grannie gave us more grief than our parents did.

Uncle Bob, Robert's dad, took me, Robert and one of Robert's friends to some caves that we crawled through, waded through, and nearly swam through. We weaved ourselves through boulders that had fallen from the roof of the caves, nearly got lost several times but had the most fun as we explored the unknown of darkness under the earth. Crystal quartz, stalagmites and tites, and just downright cool stuff, we spelunked for hours before we finally found our way out of teh maze of tunnels and caverns.

Uncle Bob made one man sail boats that we took out to the lake of the pines and I got blown across the lake by a freak thunderstorm.

2008-10-30T20:37:00.000-05:00

Blogging is so hard for me. I have lots of things on my mind, but I cannot think of anything excellent to say when I sit down to the dashboard. I feel like a cello. There is deep rich tone, but when I draw my bow across the strings, all I get is irregular screechy tones.

Oh well, I'm taking the day off tomorrow to go hunting with my Thompson Center Omega muzzel loader. Wake up at 4:00, dress and drive 70 miles to the lease. load my weapon, jump on the 4-wheeler and ride into the woods, set down in my ground blind around 6:15, set till 6:45 in the dark, then set some more, at least till about 11:00, go eat lunch, then back in the woods, walk around till about 4:30, then set down till dark, walk out, ride back to the truck, drive home and shower about 9:00 pm. Sounds fun? What if I see the monster buck of the woods, shoot him, track him down, field dress him, load him on the 4-wheeler after a photo or two, and then head home. More fun?

OK, my cousin Robert Bruce lost his 15 year old son today. Joseph was bike riding with his brothers Samuel and Joel, turned left in front of a speeding car and was killed. I want to go out there to be with the family. They live in North Carolina. I haven't seen him since the twins were crawling.