Snowed In

The wife and I were on our weekly trip to the grocery store yesterday. All week they had been calling for snow flurries Saturday afternoon, and then Friday they delayed the forecast until Saturday night. Now I'm not one to pay too much attention to the weather, network news, or much of anything else on TV except sports or movies. That was a mistake.

We woke up early to a cloudy rainy morning, and started doing chores. We've either had visitors from out of town or have gone somewhere for what seems like a million weekends in a row. Needless to say there were a lot of chores that had been pushed off until later. This was our day to begin catching up. I did tons of laundry, cleaned up all my hunting gear, cleaned up and got my tools straightened back out in the garage, and a whole mess of other boring, random things. By lunch, it was time for a break. We were headed to grab a bite to eat when on the way we decided to make a fun beer lunch out of it. We stopped at our favorite beer joint and sat down to a couple of brews. By then it was sleeting, but not too bad.

After lunch we headed back to the grocery store. It was still sleeting. We spent nearly $200, but since we had a list it only took about 45 minutes or so. The place was a mad house. I figured it was just because it was Saturday afternoon. We had no idea it was getting ready to snow.

By the time we got to standing in line, a quick peek outside revealed why the place was so crowded. A big darned ol' blizzard had decided to come and hang around for a while. Getting groceries across a big parking lot with the snow coming down so hard you can hardly see in crazy snow-scared people traffic is a real treat. We finally got everything loaded into the truck, swiped off the inch or so of snow that had already accumulated on the windshield, and headed back to the house.

It ended up being a perfect snowed in afternoon. The wife fired up the crock pot with some chili, and I brought in a whole mess of firewood. Before too long, we were playing cards and drinking stout beer beside the fire. The snow kept coming. By the time it was getting dark the yard was covered and the streets were too. We ended up falling asleep to a movie on TV, and after all the stouts I'd drank I believe it was about midnight before I woke up out of the big brown chair and took my wool blanket to bed.

This morning is a bluebird snow day. Bright sunshine is still working on the snow, the streets are cleared (in our neighborhood anyway) and we're still watching movies.

Catch Up. Again.

So I'm playing catch up, sue me.

There's been a lot going on lately so I'll have to summarize several different things. Let's see, the last time I posted was about a trip in August, so where are we now?

I just brewed another batch of beer. This one is a chocolate stout, and if things go well I'll have them bottled tomorrow and ready for drinking in about two weeks. I'm stoked. I was at the brew shop chatting with Mike, and he suggested I graduate to kegging my beer, so that once it is fermented I can force-carbonate it and be drinking it in a couple of days at most. Apparently, if you put enough pressure on the beer (CO2) and shake the hell out if it, and as long as it is cold at the time, you can get it ready to drink in about twenty minutes. I SO want to try that. Then, when I have a keg, I'm going to get a little refrigerator, put the kegs in it, drill holes in the door, run lines out the front of it and attach them to taps. MMMmmm...beer on draft....in my kitchen. How cool is that?

I'm going to San Francisco next week. Sounds fun, but I'm kind of dreading the work part of it. I'm taking a class with work, and man, there's been more homework and deliverables for this two and half day class than several of my college classes. No UT jokes please. On the flip side, I can't wait to eat at my favorite sushi place in the world - a little dig called Ryoko. it's down a few steps, in a little place that opens up to a big downstairs basement-type room. From the first time I ate there, I haven't been able to eat sushi here in Memphis. I just can't bring myself to enjoy it. I guess that's a double-edged sword. SF is a weird place. I love the city itself. You can't beat the climate. There's tons of fun stuff to do. There's lots of great restaurants, food, beers, views, etc......The Golden Gate Bridge is an amazing piece of architecture, people there are just crazy, and the whole environment can be refreshing. For a while. After about three or four days though, I'm ready to be back in the Southland. There's only so many glass fronted yoga studios filled with men in tighty whities helping each other 'stretch' a good ol' boy from Tennessee can handle at one time. Come on.

I FINALLY hooked up my Sirius radio this morning. I've had it for a few years, and for the first year or so it was great. Then I switched vehicles, lost the damn antenna and power cord, and haven't used it since. Ashley said I was acting like a kid at Christmas. When did they get an ALL AC/DC channel? Rock ON!

Tennessee fired Phil Fulmer. The guy has been with us for seventeen years, and the only respect we can muster giving him, after firing him like a dog in the middle of the season, is a 'Phil Fulmer Appreciation Day' the last home game of the year. Give me a break. The guy has orange in his bones, would die for the Vols, and is a great example of what it means to be a part of the Tennessee Tradition. That should have been handled much, much better, and the one getting the boot should be Mike Hamilton, the AD.

The Braves had their worst season since 1990.

The Titans are 9-0. Enough said.

What else? I ate lunch with the wife today, and I also brought her home flowers one night this week. Put the points on my tab; odds are I'll need them later.

That's probably about it. At any rate I'm beginning to ramble, and the few non-existent readers I don't have are probably getting sick of these long posts catching up about nothing. Hopefully the next post will be in a few days and will be telling all about the trip to San Fran. Maybe I'll feel perky and get some pictures on here. Yeah, I doubt it too.

'til then.

Nobody Knew Our Names

So a lot has happened over the last few weeks, and I have neglected to post about any of it. What a shame. I'll try to do the best I can to get you up to date. First - the Boston Trip.

Boston - it is a wonderful city. Mom, the wife, and I all went up for Ashley's work. It was a blast. We headed up on airplanes from all parts of the country on Wednesday. Wife and I flew in Wednesday afternoon. We checked in to the hotel, relaxed a bit, met up with mom, and then started walking around the back bay. We got off to a great start by eating at this really neat restaurant on the side of the street. It was in a popular area, of which I don't remember the street. It was where all the great shopping is, and there's a 'mall' (the grassy kind) one street over. Thursday morning we walked around even more - this time on the Freedom Trail. Being such a lover of history, I absolutely loved the entire thing. I had so much fun looking around and taking my time that we only made it through half of the trail the first day. That night we ate at a seafood place and I had Bahhhstan Lahhbstah - as they say. Mmmm. The next day Mom and I finished the trail while the wife worked. Friday night was a dream come true. I got to go to a Red Sox game. Sort of. The darn thing got rained out, and I was shat out of luck. The umps waited for an hour and a half or so before postponing it though, so we got to 'soak it all in' before we left. Although I didn't see the game, I did get to hang out in the corridors and drink beers, chat it up with other Bosox fans, and eat peanuts. It was better than nothing, but I still have to get up there for a game. Saturday morning we just kind of took it easy.

Unfortunately, my story is getting all jumbled up at this point - and I don't quite remember what the heck we did on Saturday. I know one night we took a freakin' Duck Tour though, and it was pretty hilarious. I didn't initially want to go, but I admit I had a good time. Sunday morning EARLY mom had to head to the airport, and the wife and I went to the part of the Freedom Trail she missed out on from being at work. We ended up in the 'Little Italy" area of the city, and we at cannolis from a wonderful pastry place. It was a great last day of our trip.

So Long Skip Caray..

"The Jones boys are up next and the Braves are down to their final out, as a fan from Rome, Ga catches that last foul tip."

Skip Caray uttered words similar to those above countless times as I watched the Turners battle it out with other MLB teams as a kid and now as an adult. The familiar voice which always welcomes back our summers, has left us. His funny wit which always told us where that fan sitting in the seats was from, his cynicism, his now faux pas personable opinion comments, and that un-mistakable voice are now gone.

It was in his blood. His dad was the famous Harry Caray who famously sang 'Take Me Out to the Ballgame" at Wrigley Field for as far back as I can remember. His son is now the Fox Sports broadcaster for baseball, and was for a couple of years working along side his father broadcasting the Braves for TBS. It was in his blood and he was the best there was.

Skip was a baseball man. I was having a dinner for work in a really fancy restaurant in San Francisco last week. The conversation somehow turned to baseball, as it seems so many do. Of course, nowadays when one speaks of baseball the conversation sadly turns to steroids, and at present, Roger Clemens. I listened, as I like to listen more than I do talk in these matters, and I realized everyone was taking the position of "Everybody was doing it. You can't blame the guys for cheating." Now why I have digressed I will explain. At that point I stopped listening and started talking. It's baseball, people. It stands for everything that's good about an honest day's work. It is working hard and setting a good example for kids that don't have any good examples around them. It's brutally honest with its un-relenting statistics. It's innocent - or at least it should be. It's why we all can somehow personally relate to and love Bull Durham. It's American, and damn it, I'm tired of people making excuses. Skip Caray was a baseball man, and it was guys like him and countless others that made baseball stand for all those great things you can't get a glimmer of in the NBA or the NFL. You'd never hear Skip making excuses for unacceptable behavior. We all need such an example - regardless of how you feel about baseball or even the steroid issue. And he was a baseball man.

I'll always remember Skip, and I'll always have those memories of his voice - which without doubt cannot be separated in my mind from baseball, summer, staying up late to watch the end of a game, Sid Bream's galloping dive into home plate, hot weather, peanuts, and everything good that's left about baseball.

We'll miss ya Skip.

...................................................

“Swung, line drive, left field! One run is in! Here comes Bream! Here’s the throw to the plate! He is...SAFE! BRAVES WIN! BRAVES WIN! BRAVES WIN! BRAVES WIN! Braves win! They may have to hospitalize Sid Bream. He’s down at the bottom of a huge pile at the plate! They help him to his feet. Francisco Cabrera got the game-winner! The Atlanta Braves are National League Champions again! This crowd has gone berserk!”

Boats, Bocce, and Fireworks, Happy Fourth of July!

The fourth of July, which I still have not posted about, was awesome. It went something like this.

Thursday I left work around 2 or 3 pm, and came back to the house to get ready for the festivities. I packed pretty quickly, loaded up the JJ's and the wife's stuff, put everything else you could possibly imagine in the rest of the free room in the truck, and we headed out. We left around 5 pm.

We were headed to Ray Ray's parents' house. They live on a lake, have a boat, play bocce, make great margaritas, and are just great people. Before arriving we stopped in town to have dinner at a Mellow Mushroom. It was wonderful. After the pizza we headed to a bar and met up with Art and Ray. Art and I played pool while the girls ooogled at a guy with the best mullet you've ever seen. Good times. From there, we headed out to the lake and called it a night.

We woke up around 8 am on Friday morning - Happy 4th! After breakfast it was time for morning bocce with me, Art, and Ray's dad. Of course, we sipped on 'breakfast drinks' amongst the bocce tossing. Somewhere in the middle of all this bocce playing, Ray and the wife took off on a jet ski. Shortly after that they came back all in a fluster. Apparently they'd been pulled over by the lake police for making a wake in a no wake zone. Heh heh, they didn't get a ticket, and Ray swears there was no wake being made. I figured it was all because the police were trying to get the word out on the lake that they were out and ready to rock somebody for anything - probably a good idea on such a big boating holiday. At any rate, the bocce continued until all the girls woke up, and then we all got in the boat and headed for some swimming fun. We rode around a bit, swam a bit, had fun. We got back to the house, and it was time for lunch. MMMmmmm. We had some awesome food. That afternoon we continued the lazy holiday activities. We played a game called "Apples to Apples" which was super fun. More bocce followed, and more drinking. I guess at this point we didn't call them 'breakfast' drinks.

That night we had some of the best ribs I think I've ever had. Apparently they were grilled for an entire day, and by the time we ate them the meat was literally falling off the bone when you picked one up to eat it. It was soooooo good. I wish I had more. After dinner of course, we jumped on the boat and headed towards the annual fireworks show over the lake. There were tons of boats on the water, and the fireworks were grand. It was a perfect ending to a perfect day. After the show we sort of rode around the lake looking at all the huge lake houses and the big ol' parties they were throwing. It was like something out of the movies. At any rate, after that we called it a night, because all the breakfast drinks were starting to kick in.

Saturday morning we awoke a bit later than on Friday for obvious reasons. Around noon we headed in to town, met up with the wife's parents and chatted a while. After that we drove about an hour to see Art and Ray's new house. It was totally cool, but the freakin' neighborhood was a maze. Art said it took him a week to memorize how to get home - after he was in his own neighborhood. Pretty funny stuff. So Saturday afternoon we just kind of relaxed and recovered from the previous day. We watched movies, Art mowed the yard. Saturday night we went out to a Mexican restaurant and gorged ourselves before refusing to pay $7 cover to get into a mediocre bar. Instead of the bar, we decided to go back to the house. We hung out a little more after that and we all crashed.

Sunday morning everyone except me slept forever. I was up early, and hungry, and in desperate need of coffee. I showered, threw some clothes on and headed out for an adventure. I put "Starbucks" in the Garmin, and it led me to a shopping center with no Starbucks. Instead, I found a Panera. I ended up buying six bagels (for everyone else, not all mine) and a bucket of coffee. We all ate breakfast and hung out a little longer before packing up and getting on the road. It was time to come back home.

The drive back wasn't bad. There wasn't as much traffic as I'd have thought, and the weather cooperated for most of the way. And, this time, I was able to avoid the diesel pumps so the truck did great too.

...hope your Fourth was as good as mine!

Dumb

Man, I've been pretty busy lately. This entire past week I was in Atlanta for work. We were learning about some new software. I'm such a nerd that I'm kind of excited about using it at my work when I get back. I got back home Thursday afternoon, and some friends of ours came in for a visit Thursday night.

Now, at this point, I've got a story to tell. It involves me doing the dumbest damn thing I think I've ever done. This is the kind of stuff you make fun of people for doing. The kind of stuff I make fun of people for doing. It's amazing really. At the last exit on the interstate my gas light popped on. I thought it was perfect timing because it went off as I was exiting and was in front of a gas station. I pulled in, and started to get gas. Now, for about the previous 30 or 45 minutes I was talking on the phone to a friend from my home town. I hadn't talked to this guy in probably a year or so, and I'd found out he's living back at home for a few months with his wife, is working with his dad on a great big project, and is expecting his second child in January. What great news. I was elated to know a good friend was doing excellent. BAM! It hits me. While I'd been yapping I'd started to pump the gas. Only, it wasn't really gas, it was freakin' diesel. The way I caught it was I realized I'd only got 16 gallons for 75 bucks. I was pissed, then I realized what I'd done, and I was livid. A day later, $720 poorer, I had my truck back. So after this long drive I'd been on, and a week of really tiring work, I was exhausted by the time I got home, and then we had to clean up the house for our friends. It was a great night, really.

I woke up early Friday morning, and it was a whirlwind work day. I was in meetings from literally 8 am to 11:30, then we ate lunch, came back, jumped in another meeting until 2:30. At that point, after not sleeping well for obvious reasons, I was exhausted. I think I left work at about 3:30 or 4 to go pick up the truck. The wife met me at the dealership and we traded rides as I was driving hers.

I can't believe what I did. I thought the nozzles wouldn't fit in regular gas tanks anyway? Well, take it from me, they do, and it's an expensive mistake. Pay attention, and throw away all your cell phones. It's cheaper.

Friday night we grilled out and I went to bed, because yes, I had to go in to work this morning for a few hours. Our office is working today in order to have Friday off for the 4th - which will be cool.

This afternoon has been quite nice, on the contrary. The wife and I have vegged, watched movies, and relaxed all afternoon. I think we're headed to our spot for a couple of beers here in a few minutes. That'll be a nice end to the day.

Geez, you ought to hear all the crap I'm getting from work, friends, and the wife for this one. I deserve it.

Reelfoot Lake....Perfect

Reelfoot Lake is about as perfect a place in West Tennessee as any sportsman can find. It's just great. And, it's packed with some cool history to boot! So, you can catch fish, kill ducks, learn about earthquakes, and hear an old indian legend all in one place! I'll refrain from the details of all that and let you find out for yourself, but here's a little summary of my time there last weekend.

Mom came in town Thursday night and spent the night with us at the house in preparation for our big trip north the following day. After work Friday, I came home and packed, loaded mom, the beagle, and the wife in the truck, and we started driving. It wasn't a bad drive at all - most of it was highway and it went by rather quickly. There are lots of pretty farms along the way. We got there around 6 or 6:30 and found the hotel, or Reelfoot Lake Inn, as it were. As you would suspect, it's right across the street from Reelfoot Lake. What a surprise eh?

The hotel wasn't too bad. Most (or all) of the places in the area aren't meant to be fancy bancy places like vacationers heading to the beaches crave. That's a good thing in my mind. This place is just a great little spot on the lake with five or six buildings around a pool. The rooms are nice, but nothing spectacular. There are only a handful of channels on TV, and there's really nothing to do after dark - except maybe eat dinner, and that depends on what time of year it is. Speaking of dinner, we ate at a place called Boyette's and dined on some wonderful catfish during a summer squall that looked like a 10-minute hurricane.

Perfect.

Saturday morning I woke up at about 5 or 5:30, took the beagle for a walk and morning pee (the beagle, not me), and loaded up my fishing gear in the back of the truck. The weather was much cooler from the previous night's rain. The Keystone recreational area is just a few minutes drive from Reelfoot Lake Inn. There's a hiking trail, a boat ramp, and a wooden dock jutting out into the lake there. Saturday morning it was beaming through the fog coming off the lake amidst the jumping minnows. Again, perfect. I made sure I was tied good to a lure, and started casting. I had a couple of hours before I had to be back at the inn to wake up wifey, take a shower, and get over to the State Park for a three hour pontoon boat cruise with a park ranger. I didn't have much luck fishing, but damn I had a lot of fun just being there. The pontoon cruise was awesome too.

I learned the lake was NOT created by the Mississippi river flowing north - that's a myth. It flowed sideways. Apparently the area Reelfoot covers today is a big sink hole that sank in 1811-1812 during a series of about 2000 earthquakes. Three of those were really big, and would have registered on today's Richter Scale somewhere around the low 8s. At any rate, since the sink hole sank, and the land under the river rose, water flowed sideways to low ground, and Reelfoot as we know it today was formed at a length of 14 miles long and at its widest point 5 miles wide. It's a big lake made up of four major basins. The kicker is that the average depth is just over five feet deep. Just imagine a lake that big, but only a few feet deep, with the deepest part being only 18 feet deep, filled with cypress trees and stumps. Two words...fish heaven. Speaking of cypress trees, the little things coming up out of the lake we know have to be at least four hundred years old. They're not even that big! It's amazing. Of note, a warning to boaters: people don't take fancy bancy fiber glass-bottomed boats (just like the hotel rooms) because of said stumps. The ones that do can be spotted by yes, even other tourists, as being jackassed tourists. In short, the whole place has amazing little nuances about it, and if you love the outdoors - ducks, fish, birds, hikes, whatever - Reelfoot is a place you'll enjoy.

Saturday afternoon the wife and mom took naps and relaxed at the Inn. I got back to Keystone and caught a little bass before coming back in. At about six I headed back and later that night we ate dinner at a place called Lakeview. The catfish was great. Do I have to say it was a perfect day again?

If Saturday was perfect Sunday was better except for the fact we had to leave that afternoon. Nonetheless, I made a full day of it before noon. The wife and I both woke up early Sunday, and I repeated the walk and pee routine from Saturday. This time it was even better. It was really, really foggy, and I was out early enough to see the sun rise up out of the general direction of the lake. After the walk we headed straight over to a nearby Cypress Point Resort, which is actually on the lake, and we rented a Jon Boat with an 18 hp motor on the back of it. We jumped in and headed up the shoreline to catch some fish and take great pictures. I fished. The wife took pictures, mostly. I have to say though, when she was fishing she got the hang of it very quickly. I had to take the rod and reel away from her before she caught more than I had - which wouldn't have been very many at all. Ok, one. So what. So that was how we spent the morning, casting, reeling, snapping pictures. All on a backdrop of cypress trees, sunrise, and fog over Reelfoot. Yep, put that one on the 'things I can check off the list" list. And of course, it was perfect. I ended up catching a Drum early on in the morning and later on I caught a catfish. Sweet. The catfish barked at me. They look like cats, but they bark like dogs. What a funny twist of irony the evolution of a fish has played on Garfield and Otis.

We headed back to Cypress Point at around eleven because we needed to get on the road to head back home. The weekend was, as they always are, too short indeed, but we'd had a good one. Mom has wanted to see Reelfoot for years, I didn't know what I was missing, and A took some of the best pics she's ever taken. We learned a lot about the area, got to relax a little, and just had a plane ol' good time.

Now there's a lot more to this place than even this drawn out post has mentioned. I haven't even brought up the two families of Ospreys we saw - with their elaborate scheme to woo away would-be predators - or us. I made no reference to Donaldson's Ditch, what the locals call 'Cottonmouth Alley,' a strikingly appropriate label. I'll leave that one to your imagination. Nor did I elaborate upon the Bald Eagles, Great Blue Herons, Catfish Hunter, Lotus blooms, "Beer, Bait, & Tackle One-Stop Shop" gas stations (yes, plural), eight mile pizza delivery radius, Barn Owls, the snakes in the visitor's center, or even Tecumseh's eerily delivered after-death promise of retribution.

By the time Monday morning rolled around and I was in the office, I'd caught 12 Largemouth Bass, 4 Crappie, 6 Catfish, and a damned ol' Gar. Hell, I had so many I threw them all back, and after the first Catfish the camera stopped working.

Perfect.