Gone Fishing

In October of 2007 I was hooked. My in-laws took me to Erie, PA to go fishing for Steelhead. I went because I was bored. I missed getting outside and it was a good opportunity to s[end time with my Father-in-law and 2 brothers in law. I enjoy spending time with them and they had golfed with me, I think just to spend time with me. We have known each other for about 14 years, they have been doing this trip together and other trips for a few years and this time they asked me, I had nothing else so I said yes.

It was great. I did not catch much in the beginning but by the end of the trip I was holding my own. I realized why they liked it, why my Dad fished all those years and why I would continue to like fishing after that trip. It was quiet, it was fun, there were no kids running through your feet and asking questions all the time, no chores... I could go on but basically it was peaceful, something I needed. I have fished a bit since then. We went after stripers later that year at the shore, I tried for trout in some streams around the house, I have taken the boy numerous times to catch little Bream and catfish at the park, we spent a week at the lake during our family vacation with my wife's family fishing every day.

Last weekend we went to Salmon River in Pulaski, NY for Salmon. All of the same things were there and I had a great time, even though they were not jumping into the boats as they claimed happened last year. I did not catch anything Friday, Saturday or Sunday. On Monday I had to leave by 1000hrs. I went to bed early Sunday night and started fishing around 0730hrs Monday morning. About 0930hrs, after retying my line numerous times thanks to hanging up in rocks in the river I made my last cast. I knew I had to go home and said to myself, "you got 10 minutes". As the line made its way downstream I finally felt what had been eluding me all weekend. That bump, tug then the whine of my drag as the fish began its race up stream to get that hook out of its mouth. I didn't even yell "fish on!". I think my brother in law yelled it after he noticed. I had never felt a fish fight like this one and I was not ready for exactly what everyone had told me it was like. I think it took about 10 minutes of fighting, it may have been longer but I am sure it was not less. Some one ran up to the trucks for the net and people stopped fishing to let mine go where it needed to while I tired it out. The advice was flying through the air like a swarm of mosquitoes swirling above my head. Luckily though, because I needed it. My first up close view of the fish sank my heart. I saw a hook in its back, shit, snagged. Then I realized that I had not used green bait. After my father in law turned circles in the water with the net, the fish accidentally jumped in it. He had 2 hooks in its back, and mine in its mouth. 25 pounds, I could barely lift him up after the fight. He was heavier than my one year old and almost as tall as my 3 year old. I took him to the filet station (its the law), paid my 3 bucks and took home two huge King Salmon Filets. I have about 16 servings and after all costs that fish cost me about $13 per pound (pre filet). Of course if you price it out after paying for the fun, the fish was free.

Erie is about 3 weeks away, here we go again.

OMG, How RU!

So its' been quite a while, hey I'm a busy dad and have a short attention span. I joined facebook the other day and I have a question. When I make friends that I have not seen in years, how often do I have to talk to them? Its' pretty easy to catch up with them just by looking at profiles and pictures, so do I really need to write all over their wall and send them messages until we are all caught up? Not trying to be cynical, just curious. Don't get me wrong, I want to talk to them but part of the reason that we fell out of touch is that I am really bad at calling and e-mailing friends. I am not a real big chatter. I guess that's one of the reasons I like the detached nature of forums and posting on facebook or MySpace. There is no "talk to you later" you just stop posting when your done. My sister and I chatted via Facebook IM last night. First time for both of us I think. It was neat but when we were ready to stop I do not think either of us really knew how to hang-up. She said "gotta go 2 bed", I said "me 2", she said "see ya", I said"ok"... Eventually we logged off but it never really felt like the idle chatter was finished. See you later. Bye. I'll post again soon. See what I mean.

Cre8ing Buzz about Cre8Buzz

It's easy to feel like a small fish in a large sea of blogs, MySpace pages and personal websites. Cre8Buzz puts up the walls and opens up the doors to communities that let you get noticed. Right now there are about 2600 people who have joined the buzz, maybe half of them are participating and maybe half of them are really into it. The thing is, it needs to grow. There are currently 24 different communities that you can join on Cre8Buzz (the Dad community is the 6th largest with 91 members). This is a great time for new members to come in and really grow their community into what they want. The administrators of the buzz are active in communicating with community members and designing what we want the Buzz to be. If you are really looking for a place to network, share your interests and build your community around what your community needs, head over to www.cre8buzz.com and get started.
I am a member of cre8buzz but nothing more, I just like it and want more people to join.

NJ is not that bad

I have to admit that I have never really been a fan of New Jersey. But after having lived here over three years maybe my mind has finally been changed. Someone on a forum I belong to asked what it was like where you lived. I used my standard response, Jersey sucks, traffic, taxes, blah, blah, blah... Last weekend I think I had a change of heart.
On Saturday's I generally take a nice long run in the park. This past Saturday I found a new place, Baldpate Mountain in Hopewell NJ, about 10 minutes from my house. I saw three other people that day as I ran up and down and back again for nine miles. It was wonderful and totally unexpected. To find that much space with that few people in such a populous state as NJ. On Sunday I went back with the family for a little hike, we went about two miles. The baby cried in the front pack (it was hot and she was tired), the boy loved it and the wife was incredulous as she saw the steep climb up the rocks I had led them to. The trip back down was much easier than the trip up and we saw quite a few more people than we had the day before.
It was on our way home, while we passed the Delaware River, the open fields, Washington Crossing State Park, the farms, the beautiful historic houses, that my wife pointed out that we really are in a pretty good place to live. That is of course if you can get past the traffic, taxes, crowds, cold and all the other crap. I guess you just have to look for what you want out of a place and you can probably find it.

I know you miss me

O.k., I know that it has been like a month since I posted so if you keep coming back for more I am sorry. I read somewhere that one of the keys to starting a new blog is to create a few posts before you actually have the site up and running that you can use for a "dry spell" when you really can not bring yourself to write something new. Well I obviously did not do that and this is what happens. More than a month of re-reading the same old things. I could say that I was struggling to find time in my busy schedule but the reality is that I just did not get around to typing out what I was thinking. I had few ideas, like talking about all the idiots and a**holes I ran into around the Fourth. Then I realized that I had mainly ideas that proved that I was a curmudgeon and I do not want that to be the focus of my posts. Well I think the break is over and posts that may be of interest should start appearing. I hope to see you again soon.

Social Networking

So obviously I've taken the plunge into web 2.0 or whatever you want to call it. I think it is because I miss being tied to the computer all day. The Army adapted e-mail as it's only means of communication (unless you needed to call someone to tell them to read their e-mail) so somedays I did nothing but read and reply to e-mails. Anything that had to be done was via a website built for the Army by the lowest bidder. So for the last six years in the Army I was on the computer all day.

For the last year all I have received is junk mail, the occasional pictures, jokes or forward this now warnings that were totally untrue. I missed the excitement of opening and reading something that was truly important or exciting. While I do enjoy, and happily fix, the problems that my kids come to me with, I need adults that need me. So I joined a SAHD's forum. It's great and I heartily recommend it to everyone, except my wife (it's for me). Dads post a problem/funny story/cute picture/help with their computer... and they really, really want me to reply with my sage like knowledge in all topics. It is really set up like e-mail messages ought to be, seriously, look at a year old work e-mail that keeps getting dredged up and forwarded. Now, go to a forum (any forum) and you will find a thread that has been around for years. It has every comment ever made, the picture of the poster (avatar), and the date/time/order that it was made with quotes back to the comment that is being commented on. But that is not the point.

I have joined MySpace, Cre88tBuzz, Twitter, MyBlogLog, Linkedin and this blog. That is too much. I do not have time to keep up with them all. MySpace is working well to keep up with some friends and family around the country (except my cousin who will not answer my friend request) and share some pictures. Cre88Buzz is o.k although I am not sure how different from MySpace it really is, I think it is more of a “look at all the cool things I do on the web” place which is cool I guess. I will keep up with that for a while. The rankings are neat and kind of give you a goal to shoot for (especially since I will never be Major Dad). Twitter is just too damn much, “I just woke up, I am eating, watching t.v., typing in what I just did on twitter, the kids are crying, eating again, t.v. again, going to the park, eating, t.v., sleeping” if you Twitter and care what I am doing call (but I probably will not answer so leave a message).

I could go on but you probably came here from one of the sites I mentioned so go network, get back to work or get back to your family (and come back here soon).

Run

Last year when I started this SAHD gig it was about this time of year. It was just me and the boy, Savannah was on her way hanging out in mom's belly, but in the beginning it was just us guys. It was nice out side, warm and sunny most days. Sometimes it was down right hot and humid but that never stopped us from going outside to enjoy all the day had to offer. We would go to the park and slide or swing. Jake was and is great at making friends so I never really had to worry about him getting bored. I on the other hand was about the only guy at the playground (this is before we started hanging out with our neighbors). It turns out that most mom's do not care to make friends with the dads' at the park. I needed something else so I got a running stroller and off we went. The deal we had was that we would run then play at the playground. He was great, of course he normally fell asleep within the first few minutes of a run. Then along came my sweet, beautiful, perfect, best baby ever little girl. Then the cold hit. Then we stopped running.

Thursday morning I started running again. Someone in a forum I frequent mentioned the urbanathalon sponsored by Mens Health in NYC and it got me thinking. Something I have needed for a while is peace and quiet, time alone. I almost miss my 1 ½ - 3 hour commute each way everyday. I think my 6 a.m. runs will give me that time I need. Today I ran at Rosedale Park. It was a nice run, first time I had run there, although we have played at the playgrounds and fished there a number of times. The trails were wooded, unpaved and poorly marked but it is definitely a nice place to run. I am sure that I will run there again. Hopefully I can keep this up, I am not a morning person and every minute awake sucks more and more motivation out of me. I am posting my runs on the dads forum I am on so maybe a little peer pressure will help. If your interested Thur-Sat I ran 3.5, 4.5 and 5.5 miles. My legs hurt, tomorrow I rest.

Now I need a double running stroller.