Big Fish

This morning I decided to go fishing.

I pulled my little 9 foot kayak on it's home built, lawnmower wheeled cart the short distance to our local lake.

The water was like glass when I stepped into the boat and tried to slide into the put-in spot. Usually I can slip right in, but unfortunately some idiot had rolled some big rocks in the groove I had cut through the water plants and I high centered. After a lot of struggling and cussing I got out and moved the kayak off of the rocks, getting my feet wet in the process.

It took fifteen minutes or so for me to paddle out to my favorite spot. The north wind had come up and was already starting to raise a little chop on the surface, but it wasn't too bad yet. I positioned the boat so the wind would blow me within casting distance of the sweet spot, which is an underground spring that I discovered several years ago.

The trout hang out there because it's the coolest spot in the lake, especially in the summer. I found it one day when I was checking the water temperature with a digital aquarium thermometer. One small area was about 10 degrees colder than the rest of the shallow lake, and not surprisingly it was the same spot where I have been catching fish for years.

While I was retrieving the 3^rd or 4^th cast of my little home made spinner, the lure just stopped dead in the water. Thinking it was hung up in some moss or water plants, I raised the rod tip and pulled harder. It was then that I noticed my line moving through the water. I set the hook, and a gigantic trout came blasting out of the lake right in front of the kayak. I got a good look at it before it snapped my 4 lb test line and it was huge. I've caught quite a few 2 and 3 pound Rainbows out of the lake and this fish was at least twice that size. As I sat there with my mouth hanging open, the fish started a series of acrobatic jumps trying to dislodge my tiny spinner, which was still hanging from it's jaw, like Gregory Peck hanging from the side of Moby Dick.

I retrieved my line, and with my hands shaking way more than usual, tried to tie on a new lure. The giant Rainbow made another jump, coming all the way out of the water and landing with a giant splash which caused me to drop the spinner into the bottom of the boat where I couldn't find it. Finally I just put my rod away and paddled back to the dock.

It was a fast and furious fishing trip.

Dueling Laptops

About a month ago my brother's grand daughter Amanda, brought over her Gateway laptop computer for him to fix again. JC had repaired it before, but this time it was really dead, and at first it looked pretty hopeless. He went online and looked up all of the information he could find on that particular Gateway model and discovered that evidently a lot of other people were having similar problems.

There were some broken ones for sale on E bay, so taking a chance, JC bid on them. He ended up with some that worked, but had been dropped and had a broken display screen or case, and several that were just as dead as Amanda's was. Soon his workbench was covered with torn apart computers and he began to see a common problem - overheating. He swapped bad parts for good parts and after buying a rebuilt mother board on the Internet, and several setbacks, he finally got one working.

Later, sitting on his deck sipping some wine, we looked at the cooling system on one that he'd disassembled and we talked about the poor air circulation and how it could be fixed. He finally decided to try cutting a 1-3/4” intake hole in the bottom of the case right under the cooling fan. I thought I could do it with a hole saw on my drill press, and suggested covering the opening with fine mesh hardware screen. We also discussed trying to fabricate some higher legs, to allow more air to be sucked in through the bottom.

In the meantime JC had picked up a few more of the same model in various states of disrepair, and he thought that with a couple more rebuilt motherboards, and if we could fix the overheating problem, he could end up with four or maybe even five nice, working laptops. He also found some glue-on fold up legs online and ordered four sets.

We drilled the intake holes in all four cases and JC began assembling all of the tiny laptop parts with the tinier, itsy-bitsy screws. He got to be an expert at tearing one completely apart and reassembling it in about twenty minutes, and he could almost do it blindfolded, (or at least without his magnifiers.)

After running into more problems getting Windows Vista running, a weird problem with cordless mouse drivers, and updating the seemingly endless Windows updates, he started turning out cool running, working laptops. I was very happy when he gave me the first one.

Now we set at the table on his deck, each with a laptop in front of us, playing with our toys. We can even email each other. Actually, as hard of hearing as JC's getting and as weak as my voice is becoming, email's not that ridiculous.

Shoe Guardian

In the evening when I relax on the couch to watch TV, I take my shoes off and set them on the floor by the coffee table. For some strange reason Taz thinks it's his job to watch over them. He lays down beside them, sometimes using them for a pillow, and goes on guard duty. If anyone reaches for them he growls and snarls at his fiercest, forcefully pushing their hand away with his head. The problem is, he won't even let me have them. Oh, I could take them away from him but after all, he's just doing what he thinks is his duty and I wouldn't want to hurt his feelings.

In the mornings after he growls me awake at four and we go outside to pee, he hurries back to my shoes and goes on guard duty again. I have to wear slippers until I can fool him or trick him away from the shoes long enough to grab them and put them on. One day he got back before I could put them both on, and I had to hobble around in one shoe until he finally relented.

I have no idea why he does it, or how he knows that it's four o'clock every morning and comes in to wake me up.

He's just being Taz and I wouldn't try to change him for the world.