Month: April 2005

nature’s riddle

In my last post, a comment suggested that the topic of the weight guidelines was not of sufficient depth to be categorized as a deep thought. Let me try again for a deeper thought as I tackle a subject that we have all pondered.

This past weekend George and Barbara attended an old car show in Savannah and I had Chink duty. That means making sure his food and water are adequate and to take him for a short morning walk to accomplish all those things that are accomplished with a morning dog walk. I walk him; no – rather he walks me; no, to be totally accurate, he pulls me from their house to 17 and back. It was reminiscent of being walked by Bruce with bursts of strong yanks when a particularly sniffable bush or post appears. Saturday was uneventful other than just missing stepping on a coral snake – sniff, pee, pull; sniff, pee, pull. At the end of the pull, I pondered on just how often he peed and decided to pay more attention on Sunday. I did and he stopped to whizz 17 times. The first was a major whizz as you expect but after that he still managed a sizable stream at each way point. Which brings me to my deep thought – I understand that dogs mark spots but how is it that they never seem to run dry? Does their kidney/bladder system generate on demand? Do they have a regular tank and a reserve tank from which calibrated squirts can be called up? Or is the whole bladder compartmentalized in some fashion, depleted in a sequential fashion, and then refilled on an as emptied basis? How far could he go without a water input or is the system so good that it will just eat up all the fluid in his body fulfilling the mission so that his dying declaration is a squirt? Inquiring minds want to know.

Fat rules

Finally a win for the good guys and a big “suspicions confirmed” moment. Go back a few months and recall the major news that obesity was the number two cause of premature deaths and that we are in the clutches of an epidemic of fatness. Oh crap, we’re going to die sooner than the skinny guys. Yeah but so what, at least we’ll have been happy all that time. Fast forward to earlier this week when the CDC released the report which said they had made a “calculation” error which took the number of deaths related to weight down considerably – in fact from 2nd place to 7th place. It didn’t say but I think pit bull attacks was number 6. It then went on to say that the number of deaths had dropped from an earlier forecast of 400,000 down to 34,000. Hmmmm interesting but still this was for the obese not for us “over weights”. In fact the next paragraph said that the number of deaths in the overweight range – that would be from the “ideal” weight up to the obese weight – was zero. Repeat zero. Then the stunner – 1000 deaths from people at the ideal weight or less. So the report concludes that it was actually better to be overweight and the “ideal” will be adjusted upward in the future. Personally, I think all this grief that us over weights have suffered has been a great hoax perpetrated by the skinny. That’s believable since we know that skinny people are not as happy because their bones are not as well covered, they are colder or hotter, and they have an empty place deep inside – from a lack of food. So they are envious which makes them nasty and resentful and so have all these years attacked us happy, healthy, pleasingly plumpers. For me personally the irony is that I started a diet 3 weeks ago. Since it was not a weight driven diet but rather an economic driven diet – don’t want to buy new clothes that fit – I’ve decided to continue for a few more weeks but………………………

And you know it makes sense. I’ve always thought that carrying a few extra pounds was the same as carrying some spare parts. You have some room to survive a downturn that deprives you of sustenance. Maybe an illness that kills the appetite or worse yet, ejects any food. Maybe getting stranded somewhere with no food. But we all know that when you get old, old you lose your appetite. Someone (in the family) once told me that you never see any old, old fat people which this person took as proof that skinny people live longer. Now we know that the reason is that these old, old skinny people started out as old over weights who have gradually come down to skinny while those old skinny people died of malnourishment years before. No spare capacity; no nutritional reserves.

We can expect to see later reports refuting all this good news as the skinny’s regroup and plot their next move but from this point on, I’m shutting off the tube or putting down the paper at this first hint of “new” findings. As a parting comment, I’ve observed that democrats are skinnier that republicans – which now makes sense.

torpedo time

Well it sounds like it’s time to put the remote Mark 48 Torpedo program into full action mode. I was talking to George this morning and he advised that he had met the guy buying Frank’s house. I saw the guy Saturday but thought it was one of George’s biker buddies. The guy was a mid 50 hippy looking guy with a pony tail. Turns out he is a Berkley CA guy, so we’re talking 60’s style California hippy – probably complete with peace sign medallions, and tattooed on Anti -war/anti-bush signage. But the really good news is the guy is into water skiing. Not just regular people kind of skiing but something called sky skiing. To the best of my recollection that’s the ski’s that have aluminum hydrofoils that pop the skier way up. You know that requires a double ski nautique type boat -hence my need to kick off the torpedo project in earnest. That couples with the fact that there is a new ski ramp now, a super state of the art model, and I see them out there laying out what I think is a new slalom run. George said that years ago they had set up bleachers on the beach with loud speakers etc and held competitions. This could get really ugly.

I might try something a little different first – alert the red necks with the ski ramp that there’s a major pony tail kind of lefty moving in and that he plans to be king of the lake.

dark side of paradise

Paradise has a darker side right now. It starts at AM when the cardinals start dive bombing the bathroom window. We really screwed up when we cleaned those windows. There was a nice film of dirt that eliminated the mirror affect. No good deed goes unpunished. It wasn’t so bad when I assumed it was a message regarding the Louisville Cardinals in the NCAA tournament but either that was a dirty trick or not the correct interpretation. Could it have something to do with this college of cardinals conclave in Rome? Am I part of a bigger process than even the NCAA finals?

But the real downside are the gnats. Our dry season wasn’t and the gnats have taken over. These are barely visible (noseeums) but swarm and bite with the ferocity of any mosquitoes I’ve encountered, ever. They get in your hair, your ears, nose, eyes and bite deeply enough to bring welts and even blood. An Off soaking helps – so instead of an instant attack it takes them maybe 10 minutes to penetrate. They even track me down in the middle of the lake. How is that possible? Are they already there waiting or are they actually tracking me? And the water’s too cool to escape by drowning them. I can’t imagine what they would do to Simon!!!!!!!!! So stay away until further notice. I’m thinking about a change in venue – maybe a week at the beach or something.

hacienda pawnee

Don’t know whether I mentioned it earlier but sounds like Hacienda Pawnee will soon be on the block. Got a call Sunday from one of Audrey’s sons with a message to call another son, Tim. Tim lives over in Tampa/St. Pete. Tim said that they were planning to move Audrey up to Ohio soon, like maybe this month, dispose of all the furnishings, do any needed repairs, painting, cleanup etc and then put it on the market. Eileen was here and we agreed that was fine with us so I’m guessing that put it all in motion.

Basically the kids all felt having to maintain two homes was just too much for her and I guess having to get a roof job as a result of the hurricane was over the top mentally for her. It also sounded like Tim was over fairly often putting out fires and mowing the lawn. That would get old fast. Her home at the lake is still a few hours away from her daughter in Akron so the longer term plan was to move her from the lake to Akron but that part of the plan was off in the future – after she got past this first move.

There were no specific dates given but Tim sounded like it was near term. I don’t think it had all been worked out with Audrey so not sure whether she would go first and then Tim/Jeff handle the disposal and cleanup or if she would be there till the end. My guess is that they will move her out ASAP and then work on the project without her supervision. He said he’d get me a schedule with all the details soon. Very professional, project manager kind of guy. I expect to hear from him again as soon as Audrey is off to Ohio.

critter report

George came over this morning and asked me to ride with him in the golf cart. He wanted to show me something. On the way he explained that Chink had gotten off his rope last night and he noticed he was licking his paws – something he does if he has injured them. We rode up his driveway toward the top house and there was a dead fox – chewed up pretty good and obviously the victim of something bigger. I didn’t take pictures because they were a little gruesome. Chink is certainly a no nonsense dog when it comes to other critters even though I’ve seen a couple of rabbits sitting right beside him several times. Maybe he reserves his attitude for fellow canines and felines, although I’ve seen no evidence that he’s depopulating Grover’s colony. Grover asked me the other day if I wanted a cat or two. I told him that anytime I needed one I was just borrowing his, if he didn’t mind.

I have battened down all the hatches on the dock in anticipation of severe weather later today and tomorrow. I didn’t bother the last two times and had things blown all over the lake. Still missing a couple of noodles which I’ve found down the other end of the lake so deep in the bushes that I don’t think it’s worth the $1.50 to try to retrieve them. Cranked up the boat and pulled the plug; bongee’d (verb form) the adirondack chair. Bring it on!!!

grasshopper

Extended the poke boat excursion string to two with a trip to Grasshopper today. I guess I knew it was gator season but didn’t appreciate exactly what that meant from the perspective of a cruise across the pad field in a micro boat. I could hear any number of loud grunts and knew they were gators but until I saw a couple near that front island up close and personal, I didn’t consider that we (me and the boat) were approx equal in size to several of the locals. None of them did anything aggressive and for sure I didn’t do anything to piss them off so it all worked out just fine. As usual it proved a tough lake, made even tougher by strong east winds. It was like casting from a boat with the trolling motor running on full throttle. I managed to snag one about 4 pounds on a devil’s horse so it wasn’t a total loss. There was a guy from Kentucky fishing there with his son and they had one about the same size on shiners.

I read an article in the bassmasters written by a guy who scuba’d (verb form) lakes he fished to find spots. He mentioned that clear boats scared fish and suggested dark hulls were better. Maybe that was my problem so I’m thinking of doing a camo paint job on the bottom of the boat. I’m wondering if I painted pictures of fish on the bottom, would that attract them? would it be better to paint fake shiners so they gather for a feed or paint bass so they gather around for a meeting?

Lake Inez water temp 80. Another week should do it for me!

Tomoka trip

Made the first trip to the Tomoka River today. I thought it was too early for the Tarpon and Snook to make it up the river but wanted to try anyway. Nancy had a quilt happening at the house so I needed to be away and it so happened that the tide situation was perfect – high at noon. That meant I could put in the poke boat at the park off Airport blvd (where the electric motor fell off the boat last year) around 10AM and let the tide carry me up river for a couple of hours and then back to the park when it changed at noon. It worked perfectly and I fished almost to the upstream end of the big island where the tarpon were schooling strongly last year. That took about 2 hours. I alternated fishing both sides and pretty much stuck to top water since the river is really shallow on one bank and very stumpy on the other making rubber jigs difficult to work effectively. As suspected, no Tarpon. Not the first sign and very few mullet – so just too early in the season and maybe still too sweet from the recent rains. Caught a few small bass, a bream, and had a couple of major slams which were also probably bass but perhaps snook. Had a great time and will try again in a few weeks.

Cardinal Alert

a sign?

This is one of several cardinals that crash into the bathroom window starting at 6AM -my wake-up call. It started a week ago and while laying there wondering if one would crash all the way thru, I realized that perhaps this was a signal. I was aware that the Louisville Cardinals were still in the NCAA tournament and realized that someone could be sending me a signal to bet on the Cardinals to move into the final 4. It backed off after the Cardinal victory last weekend but started again yesterday. I’m passing this information along for you to act on as you see appropriate. It may be a stretch to say this means the cardinals win the whole show but no doubt, they win this weekend.

The only deceased gamblers I know are my father and Johnny Walker so without another clue to date, it could be either. I’m leaning just a bit toward my father since I think Walker would have found a way to actually break the window – maybe pitching rocks at it or something.

And please don’t think those blotches on the window are dirt spots. The window is so squeaky clean, those are reflections of leaves or something. I tried to capture an in-flight crash but the glare just wouldn’t let it happen so I settled on a bird that just perches and pecks away.

Finally, for those who care about such things, the lake temp is 76 as of yesterday. That’s impressive considering it was 68 on Sunday.