Memorial Day Ski...

Pop and Geneva set up camp catfish, their travel trailer at San Augustine Park this weekend and we had a great time fishing and skiing.

Morgan shows the no hands technique.











Mudbelly shows the no feet technique.










Contrary to popular belief I can stay up right on a tube.

















Mary and Ali and a team performance.

Fish Fry...

Had out a bunch of folks, friends, family, co workers and musicians for a big Memorial Weekend fish fry party. The theme for the party was "meat without feet." That's not original, like most of my shtick. I saw it on a billboard.

Here's me at the cooker, my self appointed place. Estimates of attendance were 60-70 people.









Thanks to all the musicians who played, I have no pictures, maybe someone can send me some, but I had a really great time and a good feeling from the music and shared fun.

Thanks to all who brought side dishes, here's an example, stuffed peppers and deviled eggs. There were enough left over peppers for breakfast this morning.

Coraline Visits...

Coraline visits for a week while parents Rose and Juan vacation in Hotsprings, Memphis and so on. It's a good chance for Coraline to resume tuba lessons. She says, "Make a face like this Grandpa?"

In this photo she says, "Whoops, that was not the tuba you just heard."

Yea dad is home!

Old Traditional Sport Around Here...

Coraline is in for a visit and here you see her being schooled in the ancient sport of cat tail pulling. The unsuspecting sport in the forefront of the picture is Slim Shady.

This sport was developed by Rose and Katie when they were children with the object of the game being a cat with white socks on her feet named Chicago. Poor old Chicago who was actually a much younger cat at the inception of the game than old Slim here, was yanked out from under the car by the tail in the multiple times the game was played in the slow rural East Texas hot afternoons that she really became kind of stand offish when it came to socialization. I guess kind of a Republican cat, this did not like cause her to leave, I think she live to a ripe old age of 15 years kept healthy and shiny on a diet of catfish trimmings and drug through the sand baths.

Ok, do I need to explain the rules one more time? Cat is under the car. Player crouches on hands and knees. Cat is grasp by tail and pulled from under car. Repeat as necessary.

"The Line I Shoot Don't Never Miss.."

That's what the great blues singer Muddy Waters said. Here you seem Morgan working on a super secret project to develop a process that shoots a military grade of silly string out your finger and that the remote location on an unnamed body of water indicates the danger to the general public, the secrecy and the massive need for an unlimited cooling medium due to the huge amounts of heat generated by the semi-nuclear processes at work here.

Please stand by, further testing begins soon.

Used Records...

Visited a used record store in Austin this weekend and found this deal. Sealed sight unseen box of used records $5, miscellaneous genres. It gave me a idea for a game.

Several can play. You sit down around the turntable. First player selects a record, puts in on and all listen from beginning to end, proceeding in turns. First one that can't stand it anymore loses or you could play until only one player is left, winner takes a pot or something.

Actually out of 100 records that run the gamut from children's records to opera there are some fends. There are several Glen Campbells, George Jones, a few compilations of old country and Frank Sinatra/Dean Martin Rat Pack stuff and various big band recordings of pop hits/movie sound tracks and one old Roy Smeck.

Actually I just bought the budget box, a box labeled "rock" was $15 while a box labeled "jazz" was $20.

A Visit to Morgan and Lake Belton Fishing...

Cathy holds up a catfish from Lake Belton after a visit to Morgan this weekend in Temple. Pretty slow fishing with a nice little norther blowing in but we had a good time in the Temple
and Austin area.

You can See from this photo it's a bit of different scenery around Belton that we are used to in East Texas. I think it was 52 feet deep right off that rock wall in the background.

Ladies and Gentlemen the Mudbelly Box Bass...

I built this one string box bass this week and have slowly but surely refining it. It's an old Army surplus ammo box, cut down to sit a bit. Pine one by for a neck. Clothes line for a string with a turtle shell and crystal bridge.












Throw in a little scary southern Gothic art and we have a novelty item with a fair bass sound. Still adjusting the bass sound with bridge height and string tension. I am not so sure if inadequacies with the sound is due to construction or playing technique I'm still working on it. The bottom is open or ported as fine instrument makers might put it. My original vision was the painted hand would be a cut out sound hole.







Lower "leg" for want of a better word is a chair back slat.

For now I call it the box bass, anybody got a better name?

Happy Birthday Cathy...

Happy birthday Cathy. In this photo she and Coraline react with surprise when her birthday prize, a big lizard is unveiled.

Wouldn't you be surprised by a big lizard?

More Beach...

Grandma says "Go little one, fish hard, fish deep, fish well."














Coraline says "On my way..."

Cathy, Rose and Coraline go to the Beach...

Coraline says, "You know, after one or two bites of sand and sea weed I think I am done.











Soon as I get my sun shades on I'll be ready.















They did not get me a hat.

Fishing Lake Nac Again...

After playing a nice wedding yesterday afternoon we headed for Lake Nacogdoches stopping by to rendevous with Suzi and Charlie who have a place that happens to be right on the way. For just a few hours about 5pm-8pm fishing everyone scored a fish, again averaging larger than our usual Sam Rayburn average with the biggest weighing 5lbs.

Heres Suzi with her fish, which tharashed the water like a running bull red.


Here's the table shot. We cleaned them all at Charlie and Suzi's place were preparing to cook and the power went out. We bagged the fillets and adjourned to Tex Mex at Morales.

I have noted that on a Texas Internet fishing forum I frequent Lake Nacogdoches fishing often white out the back ground of their on the water fish photos to prevent landmark identification. Might have to keep that in mind as we keep learning spots on this lake.