Staying Home

This weekend we are staying home.  We have stayed home 1 other weekend since we moved in with Todd and Cherish.  They will be gone all weekend like they were last time.  I guess it was a good weekend to choose.

Next weekend I will be leaving the wife and kids here while I go to the Decatur county fair with my cousin.  The following weekend I will not be going on the float trip.  My wife and I are about to live humbly for a while why we save up some money and pay off some debt we racked up on my Ford Explorer I got after I moved back.

It's too hot to drive the blazer with no AC in Kansas so I found a good deal on a 4 wheel drive with third row seats.  I bought it off ebay.  At first I really wanted a Tahoe.  Then I found the Explorer, Eddie Bauer Mike Shanahan Edition for 11500.00 on ebay with 40,300 miles.  I made him an offer of 10750.00 and he accepted.

My plans are to sell the van and the car now and get a little better car for Christina to drive back and forth to work. 

We have quite a few of the nieces and nephews this weekend so I probably won't be doing much more than cooking, and playing Gran Turismo on the PSP.

Growing Gripes

There are a few things that have been bothering me the last week.  Not major life decisions, just small things that keep running through my mind.

We live in Kansas now and I want to see everybody that I haven't seen in a long time.  I have spent time with quite a few people multiple times now. 

My cousin Bug is one that I haven't seen yet.  She had asked me to go to a music festival that Eminem is going to be at in KC.  I told her I would go.  Then, she said it costs too much.  I suggested we use the same weekend to go to the Decatur County Fair.  I hadn't been to it in years and her and I used to go there every year as kids.

I told my wife about it and she wants to go with the boys.  I called my cousin and she wanted it just to be the 2 of us.  I am torn on this because I really want to take my boys to the fair.  It has rides for their size and lots of games and food. 

I called my cousin and told her.  She said that with it being hot, her Mom doesn't have use of the upstairs to sleep everyone.  Come to find out later, my cousin had set up a surprise party for me.  She still wants to hang out with just me so we can do our own thing and not have to worry about kids. 

I'm torn.  I want to take my family.  I don't want to tell them they can't go.  On the other hand, if there aren't any accommodations in the area I can't take them and I want to go see my cousin and some old friends.

Another issue I have on my mind is that the week after that Mizike and Kimmers are going on a canoe trip and have asked us to go.  With it being the week after my trip North for the fair, it's a little too soon for another long trip due to financial reasons.  Christina's Mom is going to be in town and Christina doesn't want to go.  I won't go without her for a canoe trip with 2 other people.

We have friends and family close but almost all of them are 3 hours or more away.  I told myself I wouldn't complain about the drive since I will be a ton closer than Ohio.  It's not the drive that's getting old.  It's the cost of gas to get there. 

I will probably go to the fair alone, depending on what Christina says.  I will tell Mizike I won't be able to go canoeing.  We will start staying home more to save money.  We had been leaving every weekend to give Todd and Cherish their house on the weekends, but we have blown through our savings and cannot do that anymore.  I hope we get our house soon so I quit feeling like a burden on them.  If we don't get a house soon I will start looking to get something outside of town.  I really don't want the cost of another moving truck. 

The last thing that is bothering me is work.  I have been given several more responsibilities this last week.  One of them is for billing.  I had a couple hours of training for a 4 day process that has to be started today.  I had training on our systems on the same day this week.  The next day I had to put a desk together.  Now my office is filled with boxes from items that have came in that I haven't gotten to check in, label and get to their locations.  I have lists of items that need to be ordered as it's the end of the month and everything that is outdated next month needs replaced.

I am happy to have work, I just don't like being overwhelmed with it and most likely having to work on the weekend to get it done.  If I can get overtime approved.

Buried Treasure

There are some moments from earlier in life that come back to put a smile on your face.  This weekend I had a reminder of one of those moments.

At one point growing up I was staying the night at Brother Gonzales' house.  We decided to do some treasure hunting to see if anybody had left any treasures in the rafters of the basement.  As we were looking there was something tucked way back in the rafters.  We reached in and drug out a Ditch Witch hat.  It looked old.  Jokingly we decided that had to have been somebody's treasure for them to hide it there.

Now it was our treasure.  We decided to bury it in the tree break behind the house.  We drew up a map of our paces from the house, past several landmarks, to the treasure which was buried under an X made out of sticks.  We vowed not to come back for it until we were older.  We then hid the map under the rug in his room so someday we would come across it again.

Years went by and a joke or two would come up about the infamous Ditch Witch hat.  Finally, in high school we decided it had been long enough and the Ditch Witch hat needed to be recovered.  We couldn't find the map.  We tried to retrace our steps from memory but too much had changed.  There was not an X on the ground.  The Ditch Witch hat treasure remains to be found.

This weekend Christina, the kids and I were driving to OKC.  We had plans to eat at Pizza Hut in Cherokee, OK.  That didn't work out due to my bad attitude and the kids falling asleep so we waited until later to eat.  I was hungry for McDonald's for the first time in many, many years.  We saw one in Perry, OK and stopped to eat.  While I was eating Leo pointed at the wall and said, "Look at That."  I looked up and saw this.  I had to snap a picture to send to Brother Gonzales.

Rogue Mocha Porter

I'm a fan of micro-breweries as well as good food.  Before Christina moved back to Kansas we went to The Rusty Bucket in Columbus.  It's not a micro-brewery, but it does sell some of the best fish-n-chips I've ever tasted. 

This trip I ordered a Rogue mocha porter.  I was an instant fan.  It had a dark porter flavor with a hint of mocha taste to it.  It complimented the fish extremely well.

At the time I thought it was the best beer in the world.  It is still close.  For my going away present Shawn, one of my good friends in Columbus bought me a beer that cost as much as some cases of beer.  I don't remember the name of it.  It was aged in an oak whiskey barrel which delivered a wonderful oaky taste.  I drank that one and could taste the oakyness the rest of the night when I drank my other beers. 

I would  buy a case of Rogue Mocha Porter over the other beer for a fish fry, but if I was trying my first fresh caught ocean fish, after all these years of wanting to do so, I would buy the oak barrel, the Lamborghini of beers.

Wormy Dog Saloon

Summer fun at the cousins.  Gavin took a break from swimming to see if he could fit into the cooler on the deck.

Last night the nieces and nephews had a swim meet out of town.  I thought about going but taking a third vehicle up there to sit in the hot sun to watch other people swim didn't really appeal to me.  What did appeal to me was having time to myself.

I had lived in Columbus for a couple months all alone, then moved into a house with 15 people.  It is fun, but I was ready for some alone time.  I cooked a good supper, did the dishes, then vegged out on the recliner watching 3 TV shows at once for a couple hours.  I was flipping between man vs. food, the egyption job, and deadliest catch.  It's been a long time since I've had control of the TV.  Usually I can't find anything I want to watch.  Last night I wanted to watch everything.

The night before last Christina and I stayed home to cook supper while Cherish and Todd took the kids swimming.  Leo learned to swim.  He has been able to jump off the diving board and sort-of dog paddle to the side.  Cherish said he took off swimming after he jumped off the last time.

At the beginning of the season Gavin was deathly scared of the water.  You couldn't even put his feet in the pool.  Now he is jumping into the big pool off the side.

They are learning so much from their cousin's and aunt and uncle.  It was really a good move coming back to be close to family.

Tonight we take off for OKC.  Mizike and Kimmers have made plans for us on Saturday already.  I was hoping to get some fishing in, or make a trip to the Wormy Dog Saloon, but with this heat it will probably be better to spend some time at a small waterpark and grill some burgers at Mizike's parents house.  Maybe we can all slip out for some evening fishing afterwards. 

El Dorado Lake

Hot off the press is an article about the fishing at El Dorado Lake just north of Wichita.  Here is a link to the article.  http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2011/07/20/2108911/all-clear-for-better-fishing-on.html

In the article it states that El Dorado is experiencing some of its better fishing and clear waters.  I have been wanting to fish El Dorado for a while now.  It has lots of standing timber in the water.  It also has rock banks and bridges separating different sections of water.  The article stated that the walleye fishing has been really good and the walleye are thick for their size.  It would be fun to go there and catch some walleye to eat and do some bass fishing.  El Dorado is one of Kansas's top notch bass lakes.  I have read several articles about it's large bass and population of bass.  There has been quite a few bass tournaments scheduled there this year.

El Dorado Lake is about 120 miles, 2.5 hours, from Kiowa by the time you drive through Wichita.

This weekend I will be going to Oklahoma City again.  Mizike is going to be starting a part time job on the weekends after this one.  There may be a little fishing in the mix when I get there.  With 50+ lakes in and around OKC it would be hard for me not to fish.

Columbus Ohio Bans Night Fishing In City Parks

Fox 19 news reported that Columbus Ohio is banning fishing at night in their city parks between 11 PM and 7 AM.  They say it is from troublemakers that thought they would be safe as long as they had a fishing pole.  Once again a law is enforced because a few bad eggs ruin it for everybody. 

Realistically those people had ruined it for night fisherman in the city prior to now.  Most fisherman wouldn't even go into those parks at night to fish anyway.  There is too much crime.  Your chances of being robbed, beaten, raped, or vandalized were just about as good as your chances to catch a fish.

One of the reason's I moved away from Columbus was to get away from the crime.  It is crazy how bad the crime has gotten there.  My boys weren't allowed to play outside for fear of what could happen and was happening almost every day there.