Nearly 40 years old...

Well, the clock broke. Probably because I turned 40 on July 19th, 2007. *Sniff*

I WIN! I WIN!!

Ok, I got up at Oh-dark-thirty on Sunday (and what does the Oh stand for? OH MY GOD IT'S EARLY -- for you movie geeks). I assembled my implements, 4 Diet Dr. Peppers in a cooler, and my mosquito repellent and made for the lake.

It was a fine day, well, not really. It was dark. It wasn't even quite a day yet. Met up with my friend at a local distilled petroleum distributor, and went up to the lake for an orgy of fish catching. Well, not so much of an orgy as an "adolescent clumsy try" at fish catching.

As it turned out the weather was crappy, and I caught the only fish of the day - maybe 15 minutes after arriving and getting all rigged up. The funniest moment was 2 grown men, trying to thread fishing line through the guides on their fishing rods, and very much looking like two old blue hairs trying to jam thread through the wrong end of a sewing needle. Hey! It was fracking dark out there! Note to self: next time park closer to the street light in the parking lot.

My monster fish was as I describe it, a "cute" bass. Not a keeper, I've seen bigger fish in aquariums in normal sized homes. It went back into the lake, to tell it's brethren to avoid the chartreuse glittery worms that look like something Elton John would go fishing with. Still, as I stated above, I caught the only fish of the day, ergo, I win.

Skunked

My main rememberance of the term skunk involved an illegal substance that some of my counterparts in high-school utilized on their off-time. Mine involves something that occurs in my off-time - but nothing illegal. Just depressing.

Since I started back to fishing, I have caught a total of zero fish. Zip, zilch, nada. Nothing to write home about. Nothing at all to write about, yet here, I sit, writing about it. Odd. I have successfully purchased about 3 to the power of 7 different categories of lures, spoons, spinners, crank-baits, buzz-baits, torpedoes, plastic worms, plastic salamanders, weights, hooks, line, poppers, doodads, geehaws and so on.

I know people can catch fish. I've seen it done. I saw a 8 year old boy catch 3 last week. I know he did because he yelled loud enough for half of the county to know. Hell, for that matter, I think I once or twice caught a fish in my innocent youth. I know that Opie from Mayberry used to catch fish on a cane pole with string, a safety pin and a hunk of bread. It CAN be done. I wonder if the IRS will allow me to list my fishing equipment as a loss if I don't catch a fish in 2007? Maybe the government will give me a subsidy for not catching fish the way they pay farmers not to grow crops?

Damn, I'm going to be rich... then I can buy more plastic worms.

Alone along with my thoughts

Nobody else is here in the office - it's Friday afternoon and they have all gone. I'm sitting here, about to explode because of the chore I have to do - enumerate all privileged users on about 130 servers. Yech. I did finally write a macro in Excel to convert "domain admins" into a list of users and insert that into the sheet.

I'm looking forward to this weekend - many things are planned: basketball and gymnastics for my little guy, fishing early on Sunday with a buddy, and then a birthday party for one of Mini-me's peer group at Charles E. Cheese's Pizza Emporium. Maybe I can fit in some domestic chores, it seems that I probably need a front end loader to clean out the garage, and I'll of course need to do laundry, dishes, etc... etc... Man, that stuff really cuts into fishing time.

Obsessive Complusivity

I don't wash my hands 300 times a day, and I don't check the door 34 times to see if it's locked... but I do have an OCD issue that I am aware of: not remembering if I closed the garage door. It's SO annoying. I've been sitting at my desk in the morning at work, and just had a gnawing uncertainty whether I closed the door or not.

Today I was about 1/4 of the way to work, and turned back to go check. I do this usually once or twice a week. Every time, so far, it's been closed.

I think I'm going to install a webcam in my garage - so I can check it and see if the door is indeed closed. Maybe I can do it such that I can check it from the internet access on my cell phone as I'm driving to work fretting about somebody getting into the house and letting my cat escape... the cat who hasn't been outside since I brought her in about 9 years ago.

AHHHHH!!! Did I unplug the iron this morning?!??!???!!?!?

Holy Frijoles

It's been a long long time since I've posted. I'm using a larger font so it appears that there is more content than there actually is.

Nothing much new in the way of news - other than my new hobby - fishing. I've been spending as much of my tax refund on buying stuff as possible. I have a bit to go, but I'm sure I can burn through the rest of it before long. Too bad I can't afford a boat.