Pictures From Mary's Rome Trip...

Slow weekend around here, working, cold windy weather, just as well. Let's post vacation pictures.

I'd like to have a vacation right now and I would pick some where warm. You know how you get all set for summer when that spring sun begins to shine. When you got the flip flops and shorts out then you get a little cool front and it seems a set back in progress.
Yeah, I'd like to sit in the warm sun somewhere.
I won't lose my head over working this weekend though.

My New Cell Phone Camera...

May get me in trouble sooner or later.

At the lake the other day the boat ramp was very crowded with a waiting line to load and unload, an unheard of event in these parts, but I am sure much more common closer to the big city.

I spotted this dude waiting in line ahead of me and I snapped his photo. He did not notice or at least he did not protest so I did not have to kick his butt. The picture really does not capture the moment of all 265lbs of him, wife beater tats, barefoot in ragged blue jeans with gimmie cap waiting to launch on this fine day of 65 degree waters and 15-25 mile an hour winds.

A slow day in line at the boat ramp. I was thinking about stone heads in Rome and he was thinking about, well I guess jet skiing, R.E.D. Neck business, or something.

More Rome Pictures...

I think these might be from the Vatican. I am not sure but without Mary to navigate I'll just kind of make stuff up about these pictures as I post them. As usual I will draw from daily experiences to heighten your enjoyment.

I came upon a guy today, a little older than me. He was sitting at a computer Facebooking some web site connected to a college he attended and he showed me a picture of him and his buds from the mid 70s.

Here is a picture of buds I went to college with in the mid to late 70s. Even though they appear to be ancient stone heads, they were really a lot of fun and I can't really blame them if they were so much fun that I had to take a big ugly nap and it took me till the next century to finally finish a degree.


This guy lived across the hall from me in the dorm. Very gentle and soft spoken. Spent his week nights in study and weekends quietly crying for his mom. Married a former Mrs. Texas.
This girl was in a basket weaving class I took. One of those Earth Mommas, she was caught totally off guard by the comprehensive final.

I get big fish today...

Here I am on a windy day with a 5lb 2oz blue cat caught in about 2 ft of water under a slip cork with shad for bait. Cathy usually beats me on the big fish honors so I am really proud of this one.
Final total was 22. All caught fishing shallow under slip corks.
Our old friend the otter checked us out.He's had his picture on these pages a couple of times. No, he's not swimming in my belly.

Mary Returns From Italy...

Mary spent Spring Break with an English class tour of Rome, Florence and Venice. There was also a slight stop over in Paris, but they never left the airport. She had a great time, saw lots of stuff, 230 odd pictures will keep the blog busy when things get slow for me. That's a thing I wish for, slow for me.

Here's a Rome street.
I'll show how dumb I am, without her, I won't be able to tell what any of this is. I'll just have to make stuff up.
Eurotrash babe with the Coliseum in the background. I do know the Coliseum is what some people did in the days before big screens.

Good Cats Today...

The usual places did not pay off today. These cats, 16 of them with the fillets weighting in at almost 6# were caught using slip corks in about 3 feet of water.

Here's Cathy with the biggest one. Lake is up a bit after the rain, a few of the deep water stumps we have been tying to are under water.
Couple of good ones at the cleaning table.

One thing to note is the boat ramp was more crowded than I have ever see. I was the third in line to launch and the seventh to load. More were steadily pulling up in line all the time.
New blog character, Mary's dog, Sandrix. Hope they allow animals in the SFA dorms next fall.

Your Complete Attention Please...

Used to when all else failed there was always the cleaners. When you could not do it yourself, they were the professionals. Take it to them. That's why I was surprised to find this sticker on my black suit jacket and trousers on their return from an institution I had previously held so sacred.

"Stains and discolorations...have been carefully examined." They like to do that, don't let them fool you.

..."matter has received our attention..." Wait a minute, first it was stains, now they have matter?

"...consistent with safety." Brings to mind hard hats, escape capsules and floation suits.

More BoxMasters...

Billiy Bob Thornton had a great backing band when we saw him the other night. Lots of old school western guitar playing with the axes, Telecasters and Gretsches to get that old school sound. Here's a shot of one of the players with a White Falcon.
This player, shown here with Billy Bob was hot. In the guitar department only.
Boxmasters!
This guy could scream.

Billy Bob...

Last night we saw Billy Bob Thornton and the Boxmasters at the Wild Horse Saloon right here and little old Lufkin Texas.
Pretty good set of old style Western music, great musicians, kind of a warn up show for their gig Wed. in Austin at SXSW.
What do you mean you haven't seen Bad Santa?
I enjoyed the show. They pretty much got up there and just cranked the tunes out. Billy Bob did not act, he just sang and turns out he's a drummer. We have one of his cds, seemed the songs were a little hopped up live, more so than on the cd. Good words, I think you kind of got to get into that to really enjoy. Worth keeping an eye on, kind of like a bad car wreck, hard to turn away. More pictures of the band later.

Art Again...

New stuff comes in, I open my eyes and see old stuff. I think I'm on to something here, wish I could just be a little quicker on the trigger to notice when the wife gets a new hair cut. There is something about life and how to live it here, I almost held it in my hand, but then I dropped it.

Here's a recent gift from Marg and Kevin, done by their friend Michael Key (won't he get a surprise when he Goggles his name) who also did the fish painting posted last month. It's a Picasso like scene of musicians singing and playing. Fits in well here.
Another Miguel. Done for Mary. Actually in red and white, I think I had the flash on the camera turned off or was looking through my third eye, using second sight, you know those things I do. This is quite an impressive work measuring 11' x 8' and weighting 39,000 pounds it was delivered by Denum Piano, the only local company with trucks and men big enough to handle such a heavy important work.
Here is a chalk pastel by Cathy's mother Linda. It dates from her teenage years.

Birds...

Here's a returning feature, pictures of birds this weekend at the lake. I think Cathy took them all.

Here's a couple of ospreys or fish eagles on their nest. Lots of these around the lake, they scoop big fish from the water to eat.
Are your feet cold? Water temp is about 65 degrees. These guys were on a little island about 15 yards long by 5 yards wide.
Let's fly!

Kurth Lake Fishing...

Kurth Lake is the old lake that served as the paper mill water supply. About 843 acres it was recently bought by the city of Lufkin, along with all the old mill water wells ensuring a great water supply for the city for years to come. Me and my dad spent many days fishing on this lake when I was a kid and I continued to fish it quite often till I moved closer to Sam Rayburn. It has been several years, maybe one of the last trips in the old pontoon boat since I fished it.

Entrance is by purchasing a yearly permit. We caught 3 nice bass and a large bream. Saw one bald eagle, many coots and a few ducks. Lake is loaded with gators but we saw none. We floated the noodles for cat fish but no bites. Very pretty water, you could see your lure 6' down.

Only draw back is the boat launch is a bit dicey. Easy to get in, hard to get out. Did you know a 50 horse power Yamaha will push a Mazda pickup out of a hole and up the bank? Don't ask how I thought of such, just the same old story, I am a veteran of several rodeos.

Fishing With Pop and Geneva...

There pictures are from yesterdays trip. Mary scored first with an unusual catch. She hung a rod and reel and pulled it up. This is in one of the river edge places we have caught a lot of fish at through the winter except with the south wind we are on the opposite side of the stump than usual. Stopped up with sand a little lavage with the water hose and a good soaking with Liquid Wrench (gratuitous product placement) and it casts just fine. Line is a bit tangled so some of my favorite brand (Cajun Line) and it should work well and be soon pressed into service. Reel was a Shakespeare spin cast, heavy duty, we have several like this that have held up well to the rigors of cat fishing.

Pop really pulled his share on the way to 23 keepers. Note Geneva's foot in the back ground. She wore hair protection for her new perm and I saw no reason to picture that apparatus here and possible embarrass my favorite mother in law unless she caught a real big catfish or lost her trousers in the lake or something like that.







Conditions were choppy and water levels low. Here's Captain Carl at the command center.

A disturbing development on the swimming in our bellies department is that I have been sneezing my head off while cooking fish lately. Started at the last big fish fry.Last night I had a frying skillet going, a blackened fish skillet and a pot boiling some gulf shrimp provided by Pop and Geneva. Lots of smoking spices. The sneezing stopped after I finished eating. Maybe next time I won't blacken fish to see how it goes, a science experiment, take away an event and see if the results are the same.

More Fish Fry Photos...

I guess I'm too busy. I keep going over the same old ground, weird dreams and fish fry. Wait a minute, I like fish fries and weird dreams and so do you.

From the last fish fry, here's a terrifying triple guitar line up, Runt looks over his shoulder to see the fire coming out of our butts, we jamming!


Miguel and Janet.
All excite. She has her tickets to the March 15th Billy Bob Thornton show at the Wild Horse Saloon.
Try out the drums for awhile.