August 22, 2008
Went to the sweetest place on earth this week; Hershey, PA. If you've never been there, the picture below is an actual street lamp in downtown Hershey. The town smells like chocolate, very nice, and a beautiful location.
I went to Hershey to participate in a customer's annual exposition. There have been dramatic events which have occurred during the APR Supply show; Jackson was hospitalized with salmonella 5 years ago, Cooper was born 2 years ago; this year the Old Paratrooper was hospitalized with a gall bladder attack. He's scheduled for surgery this afternoon.
The people at APR (www.aprsuppply.com) are first class and I plan to be there every year they'll have me.
In the lower deck of the Hershey Lodge there were a few Porsches, 39 to be exact, all of which had the semi-automatic shifters and the attached sticker. PCNA=Porsche Club North America (I think); list prices started at $109K. And, there was a big pile of low profile mounted tires at the end of the lot.
Enjoy the $4,000,000.00 views

In town next week

August 15, 2008
What the heck is this?
For those readers who have been in the boat shed beside Pop's shop; OK, that's stall number one, you know, the one that doesn't have the roof caving in (too badly), this net frame was mounted on the ceiling. It was our grandfather's; Pop said it was at least 80+ years old and thinks it's made of cedar. I can assure you it's got about 50 years of dust on it, that might be what is holding it together.
The kayak paddle is 7'6"; the net frame is 9'2"
They used these in the Tar and Roanoke Rivers and tributaries to literally scoop up shad and herring; many, many years ago they were so plentiful this is all you needed. No angling skills, just a bunch of sore muscles.

I remember having this all of my life and never saw the net which goes inside the frame, so it's pretty old. I contacted the NC Maritime Museum to see if they want it.

Off to my high school reunion tonight and Saturday night; thank goodness for name badges and good wine(stolen line). No don't worry, I won't take any pictures of those old people.

Cooper's birthday week
August 3-10, 2008
We started the celebration week on Saturday in Sanford at the Pattersons. We had great hamburgers and hot dogs, ice cream and a fun birthday party. Cooper (and his Mommy) blew out the homemade birthday cake candles. Cooper entertained us with an impromptu concert at the piano, a video appears later in this blog.
Then Cooper and a very brave Nana set out for Morehead City. They arrived just as Cappy was shutting his eyes for a nice nap, something I learned I wouldn't be doing much during my vacation week; OK, I "remembered" to sneak one in when Cooper was napping. It's hard remembering these tricks after so many years, but those of you who know me also know I'm not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer. Nana bought a pool in which Cooper played

This shot is kinda dark, but shows how much Cooper is growing

A really nice shot of Cooper and Nana

On Thursday we went to the Orient, all right, Oriental. Here Nana tries to keep Cooper from stepping on everyone's toes.................while something glides by on our port side.

After all of this fun we went to Beaufort Friday afternoon for the Pyrate invasion. It wasn't very farrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrghhhhhhhhto go. Cooper met lots of pyrates, and had a lot of fun talking with a parrot. Sorry no shots, we forgot to bring a cameraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaghhhhhhhhh

OK, enough pyrate jokes, for now anyway.

As promised, here is a video of Cooper singing VeggieTales songs. He looks around as he finishes, and would point to anyone who didn't clap. Sorry I didn't catch that on film, but I was filming and he was pointing at me. I think an Elton John duck suit might be a good Halloween costume for him, wonder where we can find those goofy glasses?

And the last video shows Cooper playing in the pool. I turned the camera off just as he looked at me and said "cheese"

In town one more week and then I'm on the road quite a bit until Christmas

Championship! July 31, 2008
Well my trophy from the Ocean Club/ARI tennis tournament last fall finally got here; received it this afternoon from UPS.....kind of thought there would be more pomp and circumstance surrounding the presentation; as long as I waited I thought Prince Ranier or Queen Elizabeth would show up to present it; but, it was just me and the UPS driver. Even though its really hot today he was not amused by the champagne shower.
Hey what kind of contest was this anyway? This picture is a little better
At last, a place on my trophy shelf right next to my coin jar, always thought I saved this place for something special like this. The player looks more like JFK Jr than me

I would like to thank the Academy, all the guys back at the shop, my buddies in the engine shop, all the sponsors, aw gee I'm afraid if I start listing them I'll forget someone............
Tune in next week for pictures of Cooper's second birthday!

July 26-27 2008

Bobby came down Saturday afternoon and we motored through the ICW to the Neuse River. From there we found Garbacon Shoal and set up to try our hand at fishing for old drum. I hadn't heard of anyone catching any this year yet, so I thought maybe we'd be pioneers. Turns out there may have been another reason I hadn't heard of any successful reports.............

In this shot you can see how we're setting up, two heavy rods out the back with 2 oz. weights and a big cut of fresh mullet. We also set up a chum trap to get the bait scent out behind the boat

Here Bobby shows how to cast with a baitcaster reel (I was very impressed), and we get an immediate bump; but sorry, no fish; the bumps we were looking didn't happen this night. Most of you probably do not remember the Southern Sportsman Franc White, but that tune I'm trying to hum is from an old local hunting, fishing, and cooking show that was on for many years in eastern NC. I think most of the recipes I use today were learned from watching his show and reading his cookbooks. Happy Jack of Kinston NC was a sponsor, they made pet supplies and their slogan was "ask for it, {sound of a dog barking} your dog would!" Always thought that was rather clever

We had a little rain come in, the wind shifted as it got dark, and messed up our chum trail; we never got the big knockdown we were hoping to see. Oh well it was a good time. So now it was time to head home, my biggest concern was finding the Adams Creek entry, and then making it to the Highway 101 bridge; from there I have the markers in my GPS, just have to make sure not to hit the unlit ones. Of course as we headed South the bow nav lights petered out as they do sometimes. As there was a miltary supply ship in port with battle-ready gunnery positions, I had a good feeling we would get stopped, and we did. I had trouble finding some of my paperwork, the whistle wouldn't work, my flashlight played out; I think the Coasties had a good chuckle. They cited me for the light but not the whistle; after I couldn't find the extra whistle I thought about stomping on Bobby's foot and telling them that was my noisemaker, just as well I didn't.

Below is a video coming down the ICW by the Haystacks area, and going through the Radio Island bridge. The phosphate port is lit up on the starboard side, the front deck is illuminated when I use the spotlight to make sure I'm lined up correctly, you can see car lights as we approach the bridge, and as we go between the reds and under the greens you can hear an astute observation from the FishinOptishin:

We fished Sunday AM with only trash fish results. As one of the Coasties said "there is no bite on" No kidding

Off to Sanford this weekend for Cooper's 2nd birthday!

July 25, 2008

On Monday Jackson, Mark (or is it Patrick, you know he really looks like a Patrick, ok, Matt) and I went to take the cured stones into storage. I had some people ask how they looked after curing, here it is...........
Now Jackson needs to schedule a work day to plant them.

Then I went to Ohio where I got the opportunity to ride in the new Earlmobile, a Corvair from the mid-60's. If Corvette owners call their cars "vettes," do Corvair owners call their's "vairs?"

Anyway, I didn't know that car had a flat 6 cylinder engine with one barrel carburators on the right and left.

Three cylinders per side, Chevy designed this for great fuel mileage.Nice looking ride, sitting in downtown Marietta

Earl at the keyboards, "unsafe at any speed." And ironically that is what Ralph Nader said about the car too!

In the Skuttle parking lot

Bobby is coming down Saturday, we're going after old drums in the lower Neuse tomorrow night. Hope I can leave enough bread crumbs to find my home after dark, maybe we'll have some pictures from our adventure next week

Jackson's Eagle Project
July 20, 2008
Jackson got a lot of work done with his BSA Eagle project yesterday
His project involves making concrete footstones for a meditation walk on the Arendell Street side of our church. He used tbe first night of the Vacation Bible School to individually decorate the stones. He had lots of help and instruction for the kids; it was really needed with the little ones.
We used lots of items to decorate with symbols. Shells, buttons, colored glass
A rainbow was seen at the end of the day
About 40 stones were produced. We were fortunate that tropical storm Christobal didn't rain on the project
The next step is to plant the stones at ground level. Who is ready to help?