did ya miss me? :))

just askin (if ya missed me ) - or did ya even notice i was gone? the weekends around blogland do seem to pass without folks sayin much on their blogs , so it could go either way. i did have a MIA alert in my email tho -- so that was a bit refreshing. maybe refreshing isn't the right word, but at least someone noticed i wasn't around :)) i actually do sometimes worry that i'll end up one of those folks who's dead for days or weeks, and no one finds out til someone accidentally finds em. like a creditor, or a mailman, or somethin.

(*side note)

so anyhow folks-- it is at this time of day 6:33 on monday morning. i just spent over thirty minutes correcting the many 'sleep blogging typos, and continuing this blog entry for today. apparently, even tho i was prepared to be awake all nite last night- seems i wasn't. i remember soulman rescuing me from the sleep blog disaster at some crazy zero dark thirty ness in the night. can't blame me for tryin can ya? luckily the messy post was somehow saved to draft, so it wasn't a total waste. i salvaged it-- and here it is, just for you. have it with your coffee.

also - for some damn reason all my pix are givin me fits!
refusing to post.. maybe it will fix itself later-- but i have no idea what to do about it (right now. i see em here on the post page- but not after it's posted WTH?
i've spent an hour on it already . anyhow- i'm so done with it- i'll try later.)
AHA- after re-readin , i noticed a secret- where you think might be a pic ? put your cursor there- if the little hand shows up- CLICK, and the pic comes up. :)) some don't but some do - try it-- also don't forget - to enlarge any, just click em. :))

so anyhow-- wanna know where i been? or where we've been? we went out of town on a fishin excursion. yep we did. i told ya i fly by the seat of my pants. soulman got paid on friday -- so by - saturday afternoon we loaded up the boat, dropped off soulkid at a friends house for the night and off we went . to where? to fish at a nuclear power plant lake that - up until two or three weeks ago - hasn't been fished , at all, since 9-11- 2001. almost ten years, and no fishin pressure? (squaw creek power plant lake).





man, you know i was thinkin my ten pound bass is in that lake ! bring it on ! well, we were both excited and had big expectations. we got a motel room there, and were third in line at the gate this mornin.... to be one of one hundred boats to be allowed on the lake for the day. not bad eh. didn't bother me any. we ended up with a -- of course, non-smoking motel room, so as i usually wake up early, i was fine with the notion of sittin in the truck for my mornin "smoke-n-choke". (which, if you don't know by now, is in the morning when i drink a bunch of coffee and smoke about a pack of cigs in a couple hours. just to start my day out right :)) and in a non-smokin hotel ya can't really do that. so we grabbed coffee and off we went to wait in line.

so we sat in line there for an hour or so til they opened the gates and we launched the boat. well.. the way it works these days -- he launches the boat - then i park the truck and walk to the dock to get on the boat. back in the day, i was a whiz at either launchin, or backin the truck-- but now with such minimal range of motion in my neck etc... no more backin the truck on the ramp-- or launchin the boat. i've grown quite wimpy in my old age. but it works out fine the way we do it. well for the most part.


well ya see the thing about this lake.. ? -- because it is a nuclear power plant lake, the water temp is frickin HAWT. we were in water temps ranging from 92- 97 degrees. it made it really hard to fish with the outside temp nearing 100, and or decide where to fish in such hot water. we found a few good spots, we thought might hold fish... but only one place really did. that we found.

maybe it's here - or not

and finding that spot was purely accidental. and right about the time we were both ready to give in to the heat and exhaustion-- and boredom. we'd been up - and out since like 430 a.m. hadn't had a single bite- not to mention, any fish all day long. (it was maybe 1030 a.m. , we were both starvin. the wind was blowin like crazy - i was woried soulman would fall off the front of the boat - he'd lost his footing several times by the rocking boat.) we were just worn out, and ready to go.

then suddenly- soulman starts gettin excited, says he's got a fish-on! i can tell my his actions, and his rod tip-- well rod top half -- that is a big fish. as in BIG. so i start scramblin for the net. y'all know how graceful i am. yeh.. the bull in the china shop thing? someone wrote that line about me. :)) so after rippin the first layer of skin off one of my knees, and bruising the other -- on the windshield of my dash... i finally got the friggin net! go ahead - you can laugh-- i'm sure you have the image by now.
finally i get up to the front deck. i'm of course having trouble with the new 'telescoping net' - since when did technology enter the fishing net industry. it's a damn NET! eventually -- now remember- this all happens in a matter of seconds-- less than a minute-- I am a SLOTH. i don't make fast movements on a regular basis, so it is quite clumsy and comical --- to say the least. we finally see the fish begin to surface. it's a friggin monstah ! soulman is so excited, both in anticipation, and excitement of the size of his catch, but also the fear of losing it before we get it in the boat. and me? of course-- i'm excited and happy for him, it's a very nice fish, and the size i was expecting bot of us to be catchin all morning on a lake closed to the public for the last near ten years. also-- i was in near panic mode that i be responsible if it got off or not in the boat for some reason-- even if it wasn't my fault. but look y'all!
what a team we are. this baby weighed in right at 5 pounds.. my exact guess, when i saw him surface.











oh anyhow-- to change the subject. i was finally able to get the pic from soulkid from the night of the concert -- she was so happy to meet the guy from the band.. i couldn't spell , or even remember his name if ya paid me. but she jokes around and says she will marry him someday :)) ahhhh to be young, and dream again. my sparks have all but drowned, and i have no fantasies up in my frazzled mind. but i sure do love to listen to her and her friends talk of theirs.

he signed her ticket!

have happy days in your worlds-- i'll be seein ya-