I voted, in spite of myself

Man it's annoying having nothing but a bunch of sleazeballs to pick from. And these electronic voting machine problems - answer me this: How is it possible that the casino industry can make billions of dollars a year off video slot machines that are deftly operated 24/7 by people that aren't smart enough to understand the odds, and we can't make a simple electronic vote box work reliably for a single day, once every two years. Give me a break.

Cartoon links to/property of Daryl Cagle's Cartoon Index

The Johnny Appleseed Solo

Mia had a Fall music program at school tonight, and she was selected to sing a solo part of the Johnny Appleseed song. She did an excellent job! We had to sit way in the back so my picture has a funny perspective. Thank goodness for that long zoom...Click on the picture to see the movie (caution...15mb)

Boise State is now 9-0

Beat Fresno state last night 45-21 on ESPN. Would have looked even better if Fresno wasn't a 1-6 team. But Shanna says to stop griping about the soft schedule and start talking BCS. So here we go - if BSU wins out, they definitely deserve to be in the Fiesta Bowl. Only San Jose State(5-2), Utah State(1-7), and Nevada(5-3) to go......soft schedule.....

I might be partial, but....

..these are the cutest pictures of any kids I've ever seen.

Nicole babysat the kids on Monday night while Shanna and I went to Iron Chef Boise. She took a bunch of pictures of them and just did a fantastic job. I think she'll do fine in her new career!

Click on the photos to go to the album.
Shoot me an email if you want any full size ones (about 4meg each)

BOI Flight Info

Roger sent me this link to a live listing of all Boise Airport flights. Ya, I know, 'when there's only one flight a day, why have a website?'....and all of those other small town jokes.
BOI Flights via www.cityofboise.org

Shanna's surprise

Shanna is gone to Sun River for a relaxing extended weekend with her girlfamily. Keeping the kids bathed and fed is about all I'm usually good for, but those vitamins must have been kicking in because I decided to surprise Shanna with a rework of the downstairs bathroom. She had been wanting to repaint for a while, and had left some swatches laying around. So I picked one (Ralph Lauren Cameroon Green) and headed to Home Depot. Once I got the paint, I couldn't just stop there so I got a new towel rack, ring, toilet paper holder and faucet. Some wall patch, spray spackle, lag screws (for the boat trailer), spray adhesive, two chocolate bars and a case of free Coke rounded out the deal. What is it about that place?
That was Friday night, and by Saturday night the house looked like a yard/clothing/magazine/dirty dish sale in full swing. I started to become a little concerned that the remodel points were going to be negated by the bomb impact. Luckily Grandma Linda came over Sunday night to clean while I finished the bathroom, and lickety split it was done up real good. Check it out. I like it a lot.

Hey Sally, Mia bit her tongue

Gross pictures by request only. I guess it's a auntie-neice thing that I don't get.

The Middle-aged Men and the Sea, Part Three

About the time I had given up hope of ever becoming a real fisherman (or at least as good as my wife) and I was planning to finally come home, Steve called and said that they would be up at Bandon by noon on Friday to participate in the foolishness. Dave wanted to go goose hunting and Steve was undeterred by my claims of less-than-spectacular results.
So I called Shanna and before I even got a chance to tell her what was going on, she suggested that I not come home until I had something in the cooler. I couldn't tell at that point if she was just being nice or simply mocking me (come to find out, she is the coolest wife ever), but I went ahead and took advantage of the momentary lapse of reason and stayed the weekend.
By Friday afternoon we were back on the river, this time with two boats and four fishers. Kreg was the only one responsible enough to go to work for the day.
So picture this:

Jason and David in one boat, and Steve and I in the other. Sounds great except that the two guys that know what they're doing are both in the same boat - and it aint me!
Steve and I manage to get organized nonetheless, and wouldn't you know it, not 15 minutes up the river I hook into a nice heavy Chinook.

This is where the picture should be....BUT

After a very good fight and only minor choas as Steve tries to clear the junk off the deck and stay out of the way, the fish gave a funny wiggle and then took off in a straight line towards the bank. Was really confused until a seal popped his head up out of the water with a fish (my fish) in it's mouth. So we chased the dumb thing around with the boat, got it to let go of the fish, but then all I had hooked was the seal. Chased it some more and finally gave up and broke the line off. Aaaargh! Being the optimist that I am, I was really quite pleased that I had 1) caught a fish and 2)caught it on my own rigging. Things were looking up.

The next morning, Steve and I went out early early and started trolling.

And we trolled and we trolled and we trolled...and finally by 2p- a hookup! We had slowed down to work on the steering bracket for the motor, and right as we came to a stop, I noticed that my rod tip was bumping around. I thought I had a snag and didn't pay much attention to it. Then a few seconds later it dipped again and I knew something was going on. Ended up being a 13lb Chinook (or King). Kind of small, but it still fought real good for about 5 minutes before Steve kindly (deftly, expertly, professionally, etc) netted into the boat. Since it was a native, we had to dig out the regs to make SURE it was a Chinook and not a Coho since you can keep one and not the other. Now that's a good problem to have!!

The Middle-aged Men and the Sea, Part Two

On Monday I left the Bay Area and drove north to Bandon to do some salmon fishing in the Coquille River with Jason and Kreg. It was at this point in the journey that I realized something about the muffler has GOT to change. I got out of the car in Oregon to buy my license and when I spoke to the clerk it sounded (in my ears) like Darth Vader. You know, when you talk into a spinning fan to make that Darth Vader voice.....

Anyway, for the next three days we spent many hours trolling the Coquille in search of a salmon. It is a neat river with lots of wildlife around and not too many people. Not much to do because the boys have a little 14' camo boat that they use in the river, so you just sit back in the lawn chair and relax. Even catching no fish is a lot more fun than it seems, but you either get It or you don't, and I understand if you don't.



In non-fishing news, they also have a couple of new puppies - a yellow and a black lab. Just like having toddler twins around. Cuter than cute pie, always underfoot, waking Kreg up at night, pooping and peeing all over.... I put a couple of videos here and here if you want to see more of Tess and Sadie. Be warned that the files are huge (50&60 meg) because I'm too lazy to encode them into mpegs.

By Thursday, we had finally hooked some fish. Kreg landed two native Coho, which were promptly released. I hooked another salmon that, in a matter of 10 seconds, looped around an eye of my rod-and the motor-and Jason. The fish was racing back and forth, half out of the water while I am reeling wildly and taking nothing but drag because of my tangles. Don't need to mention that one got away. ....

Coming up in Part Three - Sam finally catches a fish worth eating...

Can this be October?

The weather this Saturday was just fantastic, for the middle of October, so we took the boat down to CJ Strike. For the first time ever, Mia cast to, hooked, and landed a bass all by herself. She worked that little bugger over with the mini-Ugly Stick until it finally gave up and she just hoisted it into the boat. Said she didn't want to lip it because 'that would be gross'.

It may be the last good weather trip of the year, as it is rainy today and supposed to get colder. Regardless of the weather, I will probably still take the boat out once a month or so until things freeze up just to keep it from drying out!

The future of BSU football

This demo shows some of the planned changes for Bronco stadium over the next few years. Pretty stinkin cool. Hello Big Time! Now if we could just work on that soft schedule - maybe a conference change to the Mountain West or PAC-10???
BroncoStadium

The Middle-aged Men and the Sea, Part One

Last week I decided to use up some vacation time and take a little road trip, so I drove in a big triangle from from Boise to San Francisco, San Francisco to Bandon, and Bandon back to Boise.
Steve and David are working in the SF area for a few months, and they have a boat and an apartment with lots of room, so I thought it might be a good time to drop in and see what wazzup.
I ended up driving the Honda to save on gas money (spent only $125 for 1600 miles!!), but I underestimated the small jet engine sound coming out of the exhaust pipe when the cruise was set on 85, and that got seriously annoying by the end of the trip.
Once my hearing recovered and the boys got off work for the weekend, we spent a lot of time on the water trying to figure out how to catch the local salmonoids and various other fishies. The weather was just OK, with some windy days and not much sun until the afternoons. I somehow managed to still burn my face even though I have very few pictures of when the sun was out. It is pretty neat boating around with so much scenery, both natural and man-made.

One day we fished for sturgeon near an old 'ghost fleet' where they park and decommission old military ships. There are almost a hundred huge ships anchored in a very small area - it was really quite eerie in the morning fog.

Overall we had a great time trying to learn the area and catch some fish in the process. I hooked my first striped bass, which put up a great fight on medium bass tackle, even though it was only 18" long.

Another day we went out into the open ocean 5 or 6 miles, which was pretty exciting considering the size of Steve's boat. I would have inserted the picture of Dave's salmon right here, but we lost it at the boat....grrrrr....after trolling for hours and hours....aaaaahhhh!!! Now don't get me wrong, it's not like I'm saying I'd rather be working or anything silly like that.

We did manage to find plenty of bottomfish, and I thought I'd throw in this picture of a cute little jack smelt (and the fish is kinda cool too) and a really spotted ling cod to finish things up. In the future we'd like all fish pictures to contain more fish and less fisherman. Oh well, hopefully there's a Next Time.

Get a new view

Finally got the lens adapter for the camera so now I can use the wide angle lens. I was home with Cooper while he was sick when I got the package, so here he is - Superman slippers and all.

Women's Fitness Celebration

The ladies participated in the Women's Fitness Celebration on Saturday morning. There were over 12,000 women in attendance- running, jogging and walking the 5k course. Shanna and Amber ran the 5k in 28 and 30 minutes respectively, then got spoiled at the end with lots of food and attention. I was late to the action (cardinal rule #1 - be there to cheer) so I don't have any cool running pictures, but I got some at the finish. I got a kitchen pass because I had all 3 kids and we had to walk about 6k just to get there....

Smoke that, dirty rat

The Honda had some exhaust issues (much like it's owner), so I took it to Boise Muffler to see what all the commotion was about. Something to do with the resonator, which is not that expensive, but for a small additional fee I could not only replace that, but get a hi-po muffler and larger pipe from the cat back. So of course I did. Now it makes a slightly different commotion, but one that's appealing to the potential 18 year old future owner anyway. I choose a Magnaflow muffler that was (again) a little more expensive than the Flowmaster but it takes the raspy tone out of the little four banger and leaves an amazingly good tone for a 1 liter bumblebee motor.