Tag: lake (Page 3 of 4)

June???

June 1, 2015 / DB

Jeez. Another month that just flew by.

Games, practices, birthdays, the first couple lake weekends of the year. And the winding down of the school year. Cram it all into a 31-day stretch and we’re turning the calendar seemingly moments after we last did so.

L. wrapped up soccer yesterday. She enjoyed this season, but also developed some bad habits that were inevitable when she was, at times, playing against four-year-olds. Both she and we are glad that she’ll be moving up to U8 in the fall.

Her coach also coaches a U8 team and had her play with them in their final game of the season a week ago. She hung right in there, showing no fear against one kid that was much bigger than her.[1] When he had the ball, she dove in and tried to steal it. When he tried to stop her, she moved her body and tried to work around him. This was her first time playing against a goalie, so the couple times she got near the goal, she often shot from too-far out and the balls either went wide or were easily collected. She also made some great passes to space where other teammates could collect them. Late in her second quarter, she got the ball just inside midfield and took a mighty kick. It wasn’t a terrible shot as there was no one between her and the goal. And the goalie just happened to be staring at his belly-button.[2] Unfortunately the ball slid just wide of the goal. There was a gasp among the parents as they realized the tiniest kid on the field might kick it in from 40 feet away. In her final period, she got to play goalie, which she’s never done before. She came charging out when the best player on the other team had the ball and he whistled a shot over her shoulder and into the goal. But she handled a couple other loose balls well and made quick throws downfield that got her offense going. She had a lot of fun that night.

C. still has at least five softball games left. We’ve been rained out two of the last three weekends, plus did not play over Memorial Day weekend. So she got a bit rusty. After going through a five game stretch where she reached base 19-straight times, she took the collar and struck out in all three at bats last Tuesday. She was very upset after the game. We worked a lot over the weekend and she was back to smacking the ball over my head. Knock-on-wood she’s able to do that again tomorrow night.

I believe I mentioned a week or so back that M. has declared that she wants to run cross country in the fall. We pulled out good, old Google Maps over the weekend and plotted a couple courses through the neighborhood that she can begin run/walking with us. Her aunt and uncle just happen to live exactly a half mile away. So if we can get her able to run there-and-back she should be in good shape to begin practice in August and work up to the 1.8 miles she’ll need to be able to run in September. Of course, this is all theoretical at this point. She may hate it once we’re forcing her to run and yelling at her when she whines about being tired.

Memorial Day weekend was our first, full lake weekend. Gorgeous weather, good friends joining us, and a generally successful start to the summer season.

Now we’re in the final countdown of the school year. The girls get out at 11:00 am Wednesday. Today is desk cleaning day, tomorrow is field day, and I think there is a lot of movie watching in between. The girls keep asking why they get out a week after just about everybody else, both public and Catholic schools, around us. It’s those damn random Mondays we get off throughout the year, plus the mini-break that’s built into February to make up snow days before spring break. While the other kids on their swim team are in the pool this morning at the first practice, they will have to wait either until tonight’s session or Thursday morning. It all depends what the weather is like this evening.

Anyway, it’s June. Which is freaking hard to believe. We’ve been working on a list of things to do over the summer to keep us busy. The girls have been calling it their Summer Bucket List, which makes me laugh a little bit. I guess they are things we want to do before the summer dies, so that name seems appropriate.

This kid was a normal-sized 8-year-old. When our coach told a couple of his smaller kids to “stay close to the tall kid,” he turned and said, “Hey! I’m not tall!” I think we just taught him a valuable lesson about perspective! ↩

Literally. He had his jersey pulled up and was picking at his navel. ↩

End Of The Boating Season

October 14, 2014 / DB

One last (brief) boat ride for the year. Which was preceded by one last boating adventure for the year.

Saturday we planned on getting the boat out of the water for the year. We actually went down Friday night so we could get an early start and have everything wrapped up before I covered a sectional soccer game in the afternoon.

Bright and early we got up, got the trailer hooked up, the girls in life jackets, and headed down for the quick jaunt over to the marina. Except, when I turned the key, nothing happened. It had been in the back of my mind all week that the battery might be low since we A) hadn’t started it in six weeks and B) it’s been rather chilly for several weeks. Now, did I borrow, or even buy, a battery charger to protect against these thoughts? No, I did not. And I had even borrowed an air compressor to fill the tires on the trailer, so I had the chance to grab a charger as well.

Only one lake neighbor was home, and he did have a charger that he warned did not work very well. I gave it a shot, but after half an hour there still wasn’t enough charge to turn the engine over. Time was running short so we abandoned the task for the day.

Sunday we borrowed a better charger and I went and bought a new battery, just in case ours was completely dead. Then yesterday, after the kids got dropped at St. P’s, we hustled back down to try to get everything done. It was pouring for our entire 75 minute drive. I was not looking forward to standing out in the rain while attempting to charge, and potentially change, a battery and then drive a boat through it. But just as we arrived, the rain stopped and it slowly began to clear.

I hooked the charger up and let it run while we again hooked up the trailer and got everything ready to go. After half an hour, I turned the key, and the engine at least tried to start. A pause, another twist of the key, and the engine sputtered to life. Whew!

By now the sun was out, it was in the mid–70s, and it was a thoroughly glorious day. As I slowly navigated our cove toward the main channel, it became an absolutely perfect day to be on the lake. And I was the only boat out there. I really should have taken a lap around at high speed one last time, but instead I went straight to the marina, pulled up onto the trailer, and our first summer as boaters was officially over.

Next was the really fun part: driving the trailer all the way back to Indy (about 45 minutes) to drop it off at the place where it would be winterized and stored until May. Keep in mind, I’ve never pulled an empty trailer before, let alone one with 3000 pounds of boat on top of it. And the first 20 minutes of the drive are through winding, narrow, country roads with lots of hills, blind turns, and crazy locals who drive much faster than the speed limit while straddling the center line. There’s not much room for error.

Fortunately, since it was a Monday, there was hardly any traffic. I kept it out of the ditch and away from on-coming traffic. I gave myself plenty of space to slow down once we hit the busier highway back to the city. And we made it to the boat center without incident.

We learned a lot in our first five months as boat owners. And I’m sure we still have a lot more to learn. We know not to trust the gas gauge. How to get it in and out of the water. By the end of the summer I had figured out how to drive the boat pretty well, if I may brag a bit. Each of our last two big weekends with friends we had guests who have boats of their own, and daredevil boys who are used to acting crazy behind them. Both times I whipped those kids around enough on the tube that they were screaming with joy and shouting how awesome the ride was when their turns were over. I think I came a long way from the first half of the summer when I just went straight and fast.

We hope those of you who visited this summer will come again, and those of you who didn’t make it accept our invitation to share a weekend with us next summer.

Rookie Mistakes

June 2, 2014 / DB

When we jumped into this owning a pleasure craft thing, we knew there would be a significant learning curve involved. Neither of us had spent more than a few seconds steering a powered craft on water. Neither of us is mechanically minded, meaning we can’t quickly diagnose and then fix problems. Then there’s the matter of educating ourselves while making sure everyone on board stays safe. Kind of takes the pleasure out of pleasure craft if you dwell on it.

This past weekend we had a couple rookie mistakes.

When we took the p.c. out for the first time Saturday, our plan was to head straight to the marina to fuel-up. The fuel gauge showed that a quarter tank remained, but gauges on the water are notoriously unreliable. Still, we figured there was plenty of fuel for the quick jaunt across to the pump.

Wrong!

Our engine died inside our cove, just before we left the no wake area. It was a quiet day on the lake, but luckily some folks on a pontoon nearby were nice enough to tow us over to the marina. We filled the tank up, I cranked the key, the engine caught, sputtered for a few seconds, and then died. I tried again, same thing. I let it sit for a moment, then tried a third time, same result. We called the lake patrol over and got a tow back to our dock. The girls were not pleased. They expected to be tubing by now.

When we arrived home the engine did catch and hold and we were able to dock safely. Apparently we weren’t just out of gas, we were really out of gas, and it took awhile for the new fuel to cycle through the system. We made it out for a tentative run later in the day, but I’ll admit I was a little spooked. It’s one thing to run out of gas in your car on the side of the road. It’s another to do so in a boat on the water. Even on a small lake like ours, you are kind of helpless.

On to Sunday. We had some family down for their first ride. We cruised around a bit, stopping in the bigger coves to show them the sights. The girls complained of being hot, so we found a quiet spot and let them jump in to get wet. As they climbed back in and dried off, I decided to take a quick dip, too. In the two years we’ve had the LVS, I’ve never jumped into the water as I would off the side of a swimming pool. Reason? I don’t want my sunglasses to go flying. I’ve always eased into the water backwards off a ladder to keep the specs safe. For some reason I lost my mind and decided to jump straight into the water.

Guess what happened? My glasses flew off and quickly sunk out of my limited sight.

Fan-freaking-tastic. I have very expensive glasses. Not because I’m trendy or a slave to high-end brands. Rather, because I have fucked up eyes. A plane ticket to Kansas City or a new iPad just disappeared into 17 feet of water.

This was not the best moment of my weekend, as you might imagine.

It did turn out to be a learning moment, though. It reinforced my choice to never jump into the lake again. I’ll stick to the old man, cautious entry from now on. And it also gave S. the chance to learn how to drive the p.c. because we were about as far away from our dock as we could be and I everything beyond the bow of the boat was a blur to me.

Fortunately, she did just fine. When it came time to dock, I took the wheel and somehow managed to get us in without incident.

So it wasn’t the best of weekends. But no one got hurt, we learned to never let the fuel gauge get to the 1/4 mark, and my optometrist made some money to boot. Better to get these things out of the way on quiet weekends rather than when we have the house full of visitors.

Summer Kickoff

May 27, 2014 / DB

How did your summer 2014 start off? Ours had highs and lows. Breakdown? You betcha!

I’m hoping the way our weekend began was not an omen for the rest of the summer. L. and M. both woke up with stomach aches Friday. It was L.’s last day of school, with her big bike parade on the agenda, so I did not want to be stuck at home with one or two sick kids. I’ll admit I told M. to suck it up so she didn’t ruin L.’s last day.1

We got M. and C. to school without incident, but on the way home L. puked in the bowl she had brought along. Moments after we got home, St. P’s calls asking me to pick M. up because she was throwing up.

I’ve said it many time and I’ll say it again: Father of the Year!

We had a couple hours of puking on the couch before a quick trip to the pediatrician’s office to check for strep (negative). There was puking in the exam room and in the car again as well. We left with a prescription to ease the nausea and once that kicked in, both girls were able to rest for a bit.

C. made it home feeling ok, but eventually began feeling bad and, you guessed it, puked before bed time. Three girls all puking in one day! A new family record, I believe.

This was concerning not just because everyone was sick, not just because L. missed her last day of pre-K, but because we had big Memorial Day weekend plans. We were not only opening up the LVS.2 We were not only hosting friends and some family for the weekend. But we were also going to take a new (to us at least) pleasure craft out for the first time. If the girls were sick they would likely not be eager to go out on the water.

M. and C. both rebounded and felt decent most of the weekend. L. never really shook it, though, and even got sick again Sunday night. She’s not going to look back on this weekend fondly.

Other than all that ugliness, it was a fine weekend. Gorgeous weather the entire time. Mostly good behavior by the girls, who had their buddies from next door along for the fun. Some really good times with friends and family. Cookouts. Swimming. S’Mores and campfires, with a bonus visit from a curious raccoon. Tubing, for the girls. And our first-ever weekend owning a pleasure craft. Other than someone else asking me to keep it straight for a minute or two, I had never driven3 a pleasure craft before. It was a learning experience, but certainly an enjoyable one.

So it was all kinds of good. The first of many fun weekends for the next three months. With, hopefully, less puking, of course.

I’m off shortly to spend a day with C.’s class on their last, big field trip of the year. It’s supposed to be warm and muggy. And my stomach has felt better. It could be an interesting day…

In my defense, C. complained about an upset stomach Thursday morning and ended up being fine. And the last time I let M. stay home, she miraculously felt fine the moment we dropped L. off at school. ↩
Local Vacation Spot, if your memory has slipped. ↩
Piloted? Run? Can I get a ruling here? ↩

Late Wrap

November 19, 2013 / DB

The belated weekend wrap up.

Man, was it a crazy weekend. First off, we were lucky that the awful storms that blew through Indiana split before they made it to our house. We had some heavy winds, but nothing like the 80 MPH gusts they had downtown, or the tornadoes that were just to the north of us. The sirens did go off, and we hustled the girls to the basement for a bit. But, amazingly, other than the usual small limbs down and leaves blown around, we hardly felt the full wrath here.

That’s not to say we weren’t effected by the storms. We got a call Monday morning that a tree had fallen down at our LVS and hit a neighbor’s home. We went down in the afternoon, and the tree had already been cut and moved, but it was an impressive site. Our tree, which the crew said weighed 8700 lbs, hit another tree before it landed on the neighbor’s roof. The crew said had it not been in the way, ours would have sliced right through her house. Or, had it fallen towards our LVS, we’d be prepping for a major repair project.

Fortunately no one was hurt, it doesn’t look like there was significant damage to her home, and the insurance companies will make sure everything is repaired. And I guess we need a new tree.

On our drive back we were behind a pickup truck that had a deer thrown in the back bed. The antlers and nose were sticking out over the tailgate. We were either following hunters or roadkill gatherers, I guess. C. and L. a long discussion about whether it was dead or not. I’m not sure why they thought a deer would just be lying in the back of a pickup on the interstate, but they don’t have a lot of experience with deer, either. At one point L. got a good look at it when a tractor trailer passed. “Oh yeah,” she said. “That deer is definitely dead.” I’m glad they got that figured out.

OK, weekend sports blurbs.

Colts dig their way out of another hole Thursday. They really need to stop doing this shit. Seems like they’re more likely to be the 4 seed than the 2 or 3 at this point. Which would likely mean Denver or Kansas City comes to Indy for the Wildcard round. Regardless of what happens between now and then, I have a hard time seeing the Colts winning a playoff game with as many significant injuries as they’ve had. Of course, if Denver comes to town and Peyton can’t move, or KC loses a couple key defensive guys, that changes things. And it’s still nearly two months away. A lot can happen.

First high school basketball game of the year Friday. A nice night for my girls, as they won by 30. Stats were a little shaky, but they always are the first couple games. Everything added up, which is the important thing.

KU gets a Big 12 win! Funny how it took putting a very non-Charlie Weis quarterback in, and a freshman who was supposed to be redshirting at that, while the two most hyped KU football recruits ever, Dayne Crist and Jake Heaps, had been utter failures.

I have a grad school friend who is a WVU alum. I owed him beer for a bet on last year’s KU-WVU games, and after months of trying, finally found a service that would ship beer to him. A week later we break the losing streak against his Mountaineers. Sometimes karma is a beautiful thing.

Speaking of Denver and KC, I stayed up and watched their entire game Sunday. For all the pre-game hype, that was a big letdown. I either wanted Peyton in full video game QB mode, or the KC defense just destroying the Broncos’ offense. At least the Denver-Indy game was exciting. Not sure how Robert Mathis could be on Peyton all night and KC couldn’t get to him with a much better D-line.

Finally, the Pacers got hammered in Chicago Saturday, ending their nine-game winning streak. One game out of 82, so nothing to get concerned about.

Fall Break Notes

October 28, 2013 / DB

Wrapping up our break of fall while watching Game Four of the World Series.

Lots of fun crammed into the past four days. We headed down to the LVS Thursday afternoon. It was cold, rainy¹, and the LVS lacks cable and internet. This was our first time trying such an outing. I’ll admit, I was a little worried. But everything worked out pretty well. The girls played and read and watched movies and, yes, fought and annoyed us on occasion. But for the most part they were pretty good.

Friday we headed over to Bloomington, which despite being only about 20 miles away as the crow flies, ends up being an hour trip because of the hilly terrain of Brown County, Indiana. But if you have to drive through Brown County, this is the time of the year to do it. Lots of good fall foL.ge to look at as we headed to B-town.

Surprisingly, this was the girls’ first trip to Bloomington. S. picked one of her favorite spots for lunch, which turned out to be the place I ate lunch two days after C. was born. That made her kind of happy. After lunch we walked over to campus and I tried to get the obligatory picture of the girls in front of the Sample Gates. They weren’t having it, so we headed into the main campus. S. led the way with C. and L. and I was just behind. I noticed M. wasn’t with me. I turned around and she was hanging back, and inching away from campus.

“M., what are you doing? Come on,” I yelled at her.

“Are we allowed in there?” she asked.

I laughed out loud and said, “Sure, anyone can walk in.” I loved that her understanding of schools is that strangers can’t just walk in, and she thought the same rules that apply to St. P’s applied to setting foot on a college campus.

We made a big circuit of campus, showing off some of the buildings where S. took classes, the home of the J-school where I took classes, and some of the other landmarks. We walked all the way to S.’s old sorority house and showed the girls the brick with S.’s name on it.

M.’s favorite building was the Union. She told us at least three times that she loved it because it was “a hallway, then it turned into a coffee shop, then there was a place to eat, then there was a toy store (the gift side of the bookstore), then it turned into a bookstore, then another hallway, then another coffee shop…” She will happily tell you this with a gleam in her eye like it’s the greatest thing in the world, cramming all this stuff into one building. And we didn’t show her the bowling alley, which might have made her head explode. She also didn’t understand how S. didn’t know who the principal of IU was when she was in school. There’s just no easy way to explain to a nine-year-old how 40,000 people attend one school.

It was a clear, crisp day, and, being a Friday afternoon, campus was kind of deserted. We had to explain why so many people were just walking around (“College isn’t like your school. You might have a class in the morning, a couple hours off, then another class after lunch.”) I liked the kid on a campus tour who was wearing a Louisville shirt. Nothing like trolling while checking out colleges.

Back to the LVS for a campfire, yard work, and putting the watercraft away for the winter.

Saturday we headed south to Louisville. We have friends who have a family member on the management team of a casino just on the Indiana side of the Ohio River. They brought their boys, so the kids used the pool, played games together, and otherwise had fun. It had been a long time since I had been to a casino, especially a Midwestern one. I forgot the joys of walking through rooms full of smokers and all the terrific people watching you can do in a casino. Man, there are some pieces of work down there.

My buddy is a Cardinals fan, so we retired to the bar after dinner to watch Game Three, which ended up being a great, crazy, nutjob of a game. It was fun to watch it with a nervous Cards fan. More fun was the idiot Sox fan a few empty chairs away from me who only got part of the final play of the game. “HOW CAN THEY CALL HIM SAFE? HE NEVER EVEN TOUCHED HOMEPLATE! THAT’S HOW THEY JUST ENDED A WORLD SERIES GAME!” she kept screaming to her friends. I kind of wanted to tell her why the runner was safe, but figured it was more fun to let her rant like a loon.

The big bummer of our time at the casino was that we missed ZZ Top by two nights! Apparently the concert hall was totally packed on Thursday night when they rolled through. Kind of a shame they’ve been reduced to the casino circuit, but I bet they’re appreciated by the crowds there.

Sunday we got up bright and early and hightailed it north to get home in time for soccer. This was supposed to be the last week of games, but all our rainouts mean we’ll play again next week. L., after being shut-out in the humiliating 857-1 loss last week, scored three quick goals and finished with five for the day, her second five-goal game of the season. C. played at the same time and also scored a goal as well. As L. and I walked over after our game finished, C. came running at me screaming that she had scored. M. again had the late game and played pretty solid, including a pretty nifty save while she was in goal. One more week and we’ll finally have our weeknights and Sundays back.

Man, another crazy end to a World Series game. This has been a super entertaining series. It’s a shame every game is ending at approximately midnight Eastern, which cuts the already small audience further. You really have to make a decision whether you’re going to stick with it and be miserable in the morning or just catch up on the craziness in the morning.

We actually drove through mixed snow and rain on the way down. ↩

Summer 2013

September 3, 2013 / DB

Man, those four day weekends fly by. And now, as of about 30 minutes ago, all three girls are in school.

L. was wound-up and ready to go this morning, coming into our room before my alarm went off. Which was a good thing. She got waylaid by a stomach bug Sunday night and into Monday, which had us concerned that she might not be able to make her first day of Pre-K. But she rallied just before bedtime last night and seemed fine this morning. Hopefully we’re not infecting the entire school on day one.

It was a fine holiday weekend. As I promised, we made one last trip to the pool on Friday. Although our girls didn’t have school, we couldn’t roll in until shortly after 3:00 because of a party C. attended. When we got to the pool, there were only two older women floating in the water and one lifeguard hanging out with them. But about five minutes after we began swimming, kids who had been in school started pouring in from all directions. By the time we left around 5:00, it looked like any day in the middle of the summer. I’m sure the pool was crowded all weekend, as kids got their last dose of outdoor chlorine for the year.

We headed to the LVS Saturday. Friends from Michigan came down and a couple local families were there as well. Since it was still part of the summer of 2013, big storms rolled through Saturday afternoon¹. But not until all three girls could go tubing, including L.’s first-ever effort. She had been soooo excited to try it. When she got on the tube, she laid flat, locked her arms in, and got a look of intense concentration on her face. She kept that look the entire time she was in the water. Same thing when she had a turn on Sunday. I don’t know that she loved it; I think it was a little more intense than she expected, even with our buddy Mr. K not going super fast and avoiding the big waves. But it was another big girl thing that her sisters had done that she finally got a crack at.

It was a fine ending to a fine summer. There were no trips this year – we obviously hit our quota of traveling earlier this year. But we spent a ton of time in water, we got to visit with family and friends, and had lots of fun. And, of course, it all went by way too fast.

Now the girls get a very short week with our trip to Boston coming up Thursday. So there will be no big routine for me until next week. For the next two days I’ll be doing laundry, getting my hair cut, the lawn mowed, the house cleaned up, and running a few errands during the four hours L. is in school. Thursday I have my first library shift of the year at St. P’s and bring M. and C. home when I’m done so we can head to airport for our afternoon flight.

Next week I’ll have a breather and a chance to figure out what to do with this time I now have.

First world problem alert: I think it rained or downright chilly every weekend we were at the LVS in May and June. In July it warmed up, but still rained the first two weekends. And then, when it was finally dry, we had unseasonably cool weather in late July. At least it wasn’t 105 every day like a year ago. ↩

Holiday Weekend

July 8, 2013 / DB

Our long holiday week went pretty well.

We had visitors from Denver, including the girls’ two cousins that they loved seeing. The cousins are three years and 15 months, and our girls think they’re the best things ever. M., C., and L. could not have been happier than they were playing with them, helping the little one up and down the stairs, and trying to teach them all the things they need to know that the B. girls have already figured out.

For the weekend, we took everyone down to our local vacation spot. Folks came and went all weekend, but we had as many as 14 spend the night one evening, and a few more than that for dinner a couple nights. The weather didn’t exactly cooperate – it was 25 degrees cooler than a year ago and we dodged rain all weekend – but we still had a good time. The kids jumped in the water for hours at a time, we took kayak and peddle boat rides, there were heated games of cornhole, and we had campfires each night.

My man Erick R. from KC joined us Friday on his way to Louisville. His arrival brought out the sun for the only extended period of the weekend, and we got about three solid hours of water time before dinner.

There were lots of tasty treats – both as main dishes and desserts – and the dads/uncles put away a lot of locally brewed craft beers.

Naturally, as everyone was clearing out on Sunday, the rain clouds and fog moved east and by the time we got home, the sun was shining brightly and it looks like we’re set to finally have an extended stretch of hot weather.

So it wasn’t a perfect weekend, thanks to Mother Nature, but it was pretty alright. Hopefully your holiday weekend was fun and safe as well.

I’ll get caught up on Brad Stevens, the Pacers’ moves, Wimbledon, and the Royals in the next day or so.

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Ain’t That America

May 28, 2013 / DB

We spent the long holiday weekend as most Indiana residents who don’t go to the Speedway did: sitting near a body of water, listening to the Indy 500 on the radio¹ while drinking beer with friends and waiting for some food that was slowly roasting on the grill to be ready. The weather was not ideal; it was unseasonably cool Saturday, overcast most of Sunday, and didn’t warm up until Monday afternoon. So there was no swimming or floating. But it was warm enough to enjoy the outdoors, light a fire early in the afternoon, and enjoy the pleasantness, knowing the oppressiveness of the Midwestern summer isn’t too far off.

And you can cast a line into the water, which we did. Each of the girls caught fish, and M. caught two. L. got her first-ever fish while M. and C. had each caught one last summer. Hell, I even caught a fish, only the third of my life and first since 1981 if I remember correctly. Lest any of my old-school friends think I’ve become some kind of outdoorsman, the girls only fish when we have an expert around to help them get their gear in proper shape and then can help when they land a fish. I’m cool with getting bait on the hook, helping to cast, reeling the catch in, etc. But I don’t know how to tie a knot, attach sinkers and bobbers in the proper way, or how to get a hook out of a fish. I suppose I should learn so the girls can always fish even if one of our resident experts isn’t around.

We all caught bluegill, which are plentiful and breeding right now. L. caught a pretty solid looking one which shot its fins out in defiance when I pulled him in. “He’s an angry one, L.!” I told her. Turned out he damn near swallowed the hook, and we had some issues getting him unhooked. When we tossed him back, he just floated for awhile. L.’s a smart kid and despite our attempts to deflect her attention, she decided that Jake II² was dead. Moments later, he either shook it off, popped up, and swam away, or something bigger from the deeper water came up and claimed him. I just heard a splash and thought I saw the shadow of something bigger swimming away. But if I insisted that was true, I’d start to sound like a real fisherman, wouldn’t I?

When she was telling S. about her first catch later, L. kept it simple. “He was big and he was angry. He was bleeding and then he died.”

Well ok then.

I’d love to add that I was super-pumped about the Pacers after their big Game 2 win in the Eastern Conference Finals and spent Sunday evening in rapt attention in front of the TV, but that would only be partially correct. I was indeed pumped after the Pacers stole Game 2 Thursday. But I knew one win didn’t change the math and it was still LeBron’s series. And our get-away spot has no TV, so I couldn’t watch if I wanted to. I did sit by the fire and keep track of the score on my iPhone. But since Miami seemed in control the entire night, I only did that occasionally.

Anyway, that was the bulk of our Memorial Day weekend. We hung with friends, wished for warmer weather, but had a good time all around anyway. It’s the first weekend of what we hope is a great summer.

And now L. and I get four days of limbo. She ended school last week, but M. and C. had four more days of school: three scheduled and one to make up the first day after Spring Break when we were digging out of the biggest snowstorm of the year.

ↁ

Annual reminder to folks not from Indiana: the race is not on live TV in the Hoosier state. So to follow the race live you can either attend it or listen on the radio. Fortunately roughly 75% of the radio stations in Indiana carry the race, so it’s easy to tune-in. ↩
The girls were all naming the fish they caught after their Bettas at home. ↩

A Quickie

August 21, 2012 / DB

More firsts over the weekend. M. and C. each caught their first fish. Both snagged a blue gill off a dock with a little help from a friend of ours. I didn’t have my camera or phone with me, but I can assure you they were thiiiiiiiiis big! Actually, they were quite small but that didn’t make their joy any smaller. They were both about as excited as could be. L. had given up and headed back to the house, otherwise she might have caught one as well, since the two other girls that were with us each caught a fish, too.

How do people still not understand the difference between Reply and Reply To All? I’m signed up for library duty at St. P’s. There are a couple shifts that need to be covered this week, and a message went out from the volunteer coordinator asking for replacements. There have already been three replies to all letting us know that so-and-so would really like to help, but they have an appointment then, or will be out-of-town, or whatever. This is getting old fast, so expect more messages about it as the school year progresses.

Beer #2 is fermenting. I brewed a modified Octoberfest Monday. I say modified because traditional Octoberfests are lagers, which require a chilled fermentation process. One day I might have the proper equipment to pull that off, but in the meantime I used an ale yeast and will keep the fermenter in a larger bucket with a little cool water in it. My local brewing store said it should work like a charm.

The brewing process went off without a hitch. I used a friend’s turkey fryer and did my boil outside to save the house from the odors S. and the girls objected to last time. I wouldn’t say I’m an expert, but I did feel like I knew what I was doing this time. Hopefully it turns out as well as my first beer, or even better. Now I have three weeks to come up with a name for it.

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