Live From Sportsmen’s Camp…

Its Friday night!

We made it back to camp without major mishap. I am slowly bring the camp back on line. I haven’t been out fishing yet but I think that will happen in the next few days. The power and water is on and I’ve repaired a couple of roofs damaged by the wind in the last couple weeks. The weather is for the most part warm and the season has begun early. The black flies are out and very friendly. My next big job is to get the docks setup. The large spruce near the drive directly to the south west of the west horseshoe pit also came down so I have been burning tree limbs and clearing the area. The lower part of the tree trunk took on some internal rot in the past few years and weakened the tree making it vulnerable to the last wind storm. The rot was evidenced by the large “scrambled egg” like fungus that appeared near its roots the last few years. It snapped off about 7 feet up. I piled some of the branches around the standing trunk – so I think we’ll have and interesting fire there some night. The broad-leaf trees are still not leafed out and over all water levels don’t seem too far off of normal. However if there is a drier spring and summer the water levels could get low. I don’t have any water temps yet but will report them as soon as I get them. Janet has suggested that I toss the thermometer out with my fishing rod – but if I take the fishing pole down to the lake I’ll probably have a mepps on it! This weekend is the opening of walleye season so I’ll have an idea of how the fish are biting soon. There is still a hell of a lot to do here. I did get my bonsai collection back up today while I was running around so that little bit of eye candy is good for me too. The two new roses on the east and west sides of the sign out front made it through the winter and the long shot – Chinese tree peony also made it though the winter! That’s about all I have to report – I’ll be back to blogging regularly so stay tuned.

Here We Go Again!

And I can’t wait!!!

Yes dear reader the time has come once again for our translation to – the north – home – not heaven, just Sportsmen’s Camp.

Trout season weekend at the Flying Wuubbbuyu with the guys was fun even though the weather sucked. I missed Sloucho but hopefully he will be in attendance next year. I caught a shit load of fish on the Thursday that I went up to camp but after that it was rough sledding with the nights in mid 20′s causing a precipitous drop in water temps. I did get into a stream I had not seen before and plan on completing the job next year. So it was great fun even with the shitty weather and sparse fishing. I bid all my friends at Iron Mountain adieu on Friday and traveled north to the Allegheny National Forest. The Evil Janeeto (of the Planet Janetron) and I spent Cinco de Mayo with Pat and Carol and had a great margarita party. The Evil One approximated the Margarita recipe of the infamous “Tree Bar” on Duval street in Key West and they were absolutely delicious! We had great food and then a camp fire along a babbling brook in the back yard. I also got to hit a new native brook trout stream as well as an old friend – both with great success.

But that is all behind me now – the focus has been directed at getting the yard in shape, securing my fish collection, packing and getting ready to get the fuck outta here. Needless to say we are all chafing at the bit to get back. The ice is obviously off the lake and preliminary reports are that the camp weathered the winter in fine fettle. Of course you all will be waiting on baited tender hooks for the first of many blogs emanating for fabulous Sportsmen’s Camp. This will likely be my last blog from Starbase Bryson and I have much to do so… Auf Wiedersehen – for now!

Trout Season is Here.

Yes much to report here. Getting ready to head north, fishing, working, cutting grass, cutting up tree limbs, pruning, playing pool, going to my sister’s retirement party etc. First of all we did a good Friday fish fry (actually it was an excellent Friday) Sportsmen’s Night Out at a local VFD and set up a small booth and passed out some brochures. The fish was good and they also had beer too – all for 12$!!! We’ve gotten the starter and the fuel injection pump for the Perkins diesel rebuilt and I am starting to accumulate things that are going north. Joan has retired and has decided to inflict herself on us up north all summer and I am looking forward to all the help and she has volunteered to snake all the plugged septic lines!! Its gotta be better than working every day!! Seriously though, as I need to build two new boats this spring an extra set of hands will be very very appreciated especially when setting side panels. Joan did have the temerity to schedule her retirement party for the first day of trout season – but I did get out that morn-er noon for about an hour. The stream is lower than I’ve ever seen it for this time of year but the stupid stocked trout were still willing – I caught 3 before Joan’s party at at Sprague brewery in Venango. (Great place great beer)

Here’s a shot of the Sunday catch. Well I have much to do so I bid you all adieu.

These are a few of…

My Favorite Things.

Janet was spending saturday at one of her friends down in Pittsburgh having some vodka tonics and watching the Pens game – so what was I to do? As any methodical person I listed some of my favorite things so that I could incorporate them into my prospective days activities.

1 – Baxter and Bart

2 – fish/fishing

3 – cigars

4 – beer

5 – single malt scotch

6 – seafood

7 – sailing

I could go on and on but that was all I needed to list. My first choice for my days activities was to blast out onto Firth in the Piscarious with Baxter and Bart a few cold 50′s on ice to stalk the 22″ small mouth bass with some french hardware and my new graphite flyrod. But alas the lake is frozen and the Piscarious is not an ice breaker/snow machine. Got to next plan.

This was to be known as the Other Plan – Baxter and Bart and I would jump into my VW panzer head to Pittsburgh with first stop at The Smoker Friendly shop in Cranberry. They have been saving the loose tobacco that many cigar makers pack their cigars in for me. They didn’t have any saved this time but I bought a couple nice cigars from their well stocked humidor. Moving right along to Pittsburgh – next stop Penn Brewery. The boys got out for a little walk then onto the bier-hall – and a nice big draft of the vunderbar, Kaiser Pils! MMMMMMM good! Truly the breakfast of champions! Then across the Allegheny river to the strip district. I parked and walked to Wholeys fish market. Step one get 6 lightly breaded fried fresh oysters. Next step walk around and look over all the fish whilst eating said oysters.. Every type of whole fish for sale and many types swimming in tanks! Bluegills, largemouth bass, tilapia, brown trout, brook trout, rainbow trout, carp … really cool stuff. I got some Amish block butter and American cheese, on the cheap, after I had downed my oysters. Next stop Sam Bok market – where I purchased a gallon of god awful good Kim Chi! Then off to the Macaroni company for sharp ass good provolone cheese – 1 pound 7$ and several tastes of other cheeses before I got what I went there for. He He! The Stilton was great and the sharp Asiago tempted me – well maybe next run. It was beginning to spit snow but I was still on my fun mission. Back to the car and the boys sleeping – we next crossed the Monongahela to the south side and Bloom cigars on 12th street off of Carson, near Jacks Bars no less. I picked up a couple cigars (excellent price for hand rolled natural wrapper 50 ring gauge!!! Best stocked humidor in Pa and truly nice people) and nice fat bag of loose tobacco for 6$!!!!! With my looted booty in hand I jumped back into the Panzer and assessed the sit. The snow was coming down like crazy! And the boys were oh so lazy. My next stop was to be the Hofbrau Haus in south side – but after assessing the weather/time/ etc I opted for the skip and headed for my final stop – Elmer’s Aquarium in Monroeville. So off we went snow or no snow – damn the torpedos full speed ahead. We got to Elmer’s in fine fettle in no time. I spent about a half hour looking over the vast array of tropical exotic fish there and as ever was impressed. But I was also impressed with the prices – you pay for the great multiplicity of fish species here – fish that were available in small shops and say Petsmart for 3$ were running at 6 to 8$ here!!!!! But as I said there were uncountable numbers of fish that were not to be had anywhere else nearby. Discretion being the better part of valor – I opted for no purchases. I stole away before I made any rash decisions and started home in the heavy snow. On passing a Petsmart I was sucked into the parking lot! I purchased a couple of great little iridescent shark (catfish) and then proceeded for home. What a great day! Driving home in the blowing snow with Bart sleeping warmly on my lap and Baxter riding shotgun. Life is sweet!

It is an interesting dichotomy!

We pummel the hell out of our elected representatives for flip flopping and or changing their position to match that of the prevailing opinion but we want them to be responsive to our political thoughts! What is this shit?????

A few years back, my good friend Jim Palmer (pragmatic fiscal conservative – social liberal) and I were talking politics over a couple bottles of wine – beer or whatever and he was telling me that his dad had a very good theory as to how to run for congress. The candidate should put forth directly that his core beliefs will be put on hold completely and that he would be a “vessel of public opinion”. That is to say that if elected he would assiduously track public opinion on every side of every vote that he would be called on to make and then vote in alignment with the majority of his constituents. He would be released from constantly making boring speeches to change public opinion and raising money from special interests and could devote all of his political time to helping his individual constituents and tracking the opinions of his constituents. Any speech that he made could be started with the words, “I am “so and so” and my thoughts and opinions are meaningless – I am here to represent the opinions and agenda of the majority of my constituents. So I will now sit back and listen to the people. I am your representative.”

How do you think that would fly? I realize that a president is expected to be a leader but I honestly think this would be a good approach for congress.

On a similar note of reflecting the mood and attitude of your constituents my good friend Joe Conrad ran successfully for two years as the dorm president at Penn State on the “Do Nothing” platform. “I pledge to – do nothing – I will not hold office hours, I will not participate, condone or endorse activities or charitable events. I pledge to do nothing.” He would win in a near landslide because his message resonated with the constituency! But the established student government rules did eventually force him to have office hours. In that case he would generally sit in the office and chat up cute girls or take care of school work. He is now a math professor at a school out in California – but I think he missed his calling. Hmmm Senator Joe Conrad.

A Brilliant Plan…

To fix the government for everyone.

I was thinking the other day (don’t laugh it happens occasionally) about one of my favorite posts from a few years back. The Post was about Disconnection and it was on December 9th 2002 if anyone wishes to revisit it. Its still true today. But it occurred to me that the reason that congress has abysmal confidence levels from the electorate, that voting numbers are dwindling, that the tea baggers have been necromanced by fox network and the occupy movements have developed  is due to the fantastic inequity and the ability of the government to totally disregard the will of the people. I see this as a completely politically neutral thing – neither right nor left. Everyone is completely pissed off that congress or the government is doing nothing and that we have no control of our government or political system.

The policies and obfuscation on the issues are being used by special interest groups to polarize the electorate and keep them focused on their issues of passion. The special interest groups and government don’t want these issues to go away or be solved. They never want the electorate to focus on the real issue  – THE GOVERNMENT IS NO LONG UNDER OUR CONTROL. We live in a representative democracy! A government of the people, by the people, for the people promoting life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Wrong again yak breath!

Ok then what should be done?

- Only people are people. Corporations, foreign governments, organizations, unions, vegetables and minerals are not people – only people are people. Only people may donate to any politcal party.

- Stop the bribery and latent bribery in congress via lobbists and lobbying organizations. No member of congress or anyone in their employ may ever, repeat EVER, be employed by any organization seeking to promote any policy in congress. No congressman can accept anything (anything) from anyone – except through regular political donations from private citizens. Transgressions should be handled by the criminal justice system not congressional censure. There should be jail time and complete access to civil suits. These are recommendations from perhaps the most notorious lobbyist of all time Jack Abroamoff!

- Make all laws that apply to insider trading etc. applicable to anyone in the government. Make it manditory that government officials investments be handled by transparent blind trusts.

- No closed door sessions! Ok defense and national security issues may be closed but it must be justified.

- De-monopolize the media. No one person or corporate entity may own more than one media outlet in any market area. No more media propaganda moguls!

- Stop voter disenfranchisement. make elections on saturday. Everyone should have the time and ability to go to the polls.

- Eliminate all impediments to the construction of additional politcal parties.

- Congressional numbers should be increased so that all congressional representatives are closer to the constituency.

- Term limits. We shouldn’t have career politicians in congress.

- Campaign costs should be capped and campaigns should be handled in the public forum via publicly sponsored debates and a publicly sponsored website that allows all the candidates to express their view daily and a matrix of issue related questions applied to all the candidates. No shady funded political action committees.

- It should be much easier to recall any political figure – forcing a new election. They must be made to bend to the will of the governed. If the governed are piss off they should be able to act.

- I would also like to see the libel laws put back onto political campaigns.

That’s about all I’ve come up with to make government do our bidding. Once the people are in control of government I don’t see the need for big protests – we’ll get what we want collectively and we can’t complain, what ever the government ends up being its ours and we can change it next election.

If anyone has any other ideas about getting the government back into our hands lets hear it.

The Holidays…

Are over so now its trying to snow. Christmas was fun at my sisters as always. We had a zany go round of the auction gift thing and had lots of wine, beer, ham, potato salad, and oyster stew! Its was a great evening. We left the boys with Joan for the night to play with cousin Riley and journeyed to Pickering Ontario EH for Art Walker’s infamous Boxing Day Party. Well let me tell you…. it has reason to be infamous! The 50 and caesars and shots of liquor were there in abundance (a fantastic spread of food too) as well as some of the worst music I have ever heard! The only problem it was me behind the mike when that occurred. That is not to say that there weren’t numerous other attempts to see how badly a song could be butchered. Unfortunately due to time constraints we had to party and run. We would have loved to spent more time with our most gracious hosts Art and Jan Walker! But we had ~ 5 hours to drive and Bart was beginning to whine at my sisters door missing his daddy.

We are now into the teeth of winter. I went into the cellar and kicked on the vaunted antisnow generator and was immediately admonished by HAL for not waking him sooner so he could make wagers on the contest of the century – “A Test Of Titans” as he put it…. the republican primary. I told HAL that the reason that the republicans aren’t really fielding a candidate or looking for a competent one is that no one replaces a car that is paid off and running well. The Antisnow generator is in excellent condition but I will have to replace a gasket in the compressor. Its an integral part of the device actuating HAL’s eyebrows. He won’t video chat online until I get it fixed. He complains it makes him seem like Al Gore!