LDKBox

The start of my day consists of looking at the dog as I sit in my chair thinking about making the first cup of coffee for the day.   I manage to start the computer.  I reach over and release the dog from his little dog home and send him outside for the first of  many trips in and out during the day.  I don’t mind doing it but sometimes Ellen does get a little put out.  I laugh when she talks to the dog and she tells him how much she dislikes him.  Through it all the little dog is affable and completely unaware of any one in this house disliking him.  Poor little dog if he only new…?

With the dog in the backyard the house is mine to do with as I please.  Coffee will be ready soon.  The computer is up and running.  The words of the pages that I review fill my brain with images of the world.  I read much and feel smaller in the eye’s of the world each time.  Feeling insignificant yet knowing that I am important for some reason.  Ok, don’t  press me on this one….  I do feel important.  But in an insignificant way…?  Ya, there you go… that is better.

It appears that my  moods are getting better each day.  I surely feel stronger everyday.  I unpacked my truck yesterday from the Boy Scout’s weekend.    I completed it in one day.  I wasted most of the day procrastinating and still completed the project before Kellen returned from school.  It is three days in a row that I have made a post.  It is a record if my recent past is any barometer.  With better moods hopefully… will be better posts…?  I am thinking that the world will be a little more upbeat for me this year.  I know I like breaking records and with continued posting I could break a record every day.  See… something positive is already coming out of this.

Today I will repack for the next weekend of camping.  I will re-season the cast iron cookware.  Re-pack all the sleeping bags.  Wipe down all the camping chairs and place them in their individual canvas bags.  When I get done with each of these tasks it will be near a record.   Now that I am typing on my blog I am near a record.  When my life is one day  longer  I am near a record.  I am such a lucky fellow to be near a record.

Comments (0) Oct 12 2010

Since my son and I had such a wonderful weekend it was nice when I was informed by my wife that there would not be any school Monday.  It was a good time in the old house that night.  Kellen and his big talk about staying up all night because there isn’t any school tomorrow because of the Columbus Day holiday.  I was looking forward to spending the morning with my son unpacking our pickup truck of the camping materials from the latest Webelos weekend.  It would have been fun to go slow and discuss what happen when we used the items that we took along. Besides,  I could really use the help!!! Who likes to work alone?

Once all the camping gear had been unpacked,  cleaned,  and repacked Kellen was going to experience the planning stages of his first over night as a Webelo .  In two weeks my young son gets to over night with a Webelos partner.  Parents are invited to attend but are not discourage to choose to sleep at home.  It will be a good experience for my young independent son.  He wants to break out so badly from the clutches of his parents yet his actions actually show a timidity that is normal and healthy yet hehas a reticent  protective approach to all that is new.

So the next the next campout I get to attend the festivities but I will be sleeping in my own bed.  Returning to camp to over see Kellen pack up his gear from his recent over night.  Then I get to listen to his tales of the animals that they heard at night. Hopefully,  he will have frightened them as much as he was frightened.  He is growing so fast.  Why it was only three years ago that we started all of this with the Boy Scouts.  Lots of items have gone over the damn by now.  Some of it is retained and practiced.  Most of the moments are remembered , and some will be remember when reminded.  No matter how the memory forms the best thing that can happen is to have positive memories.  I see Kellen proud of his abilities among the other children.  It breaks my heart as much when it fails to meet his own standards as it does when he thinks that he has failed to live up to my standard.  I keep telling him to do what a willing and reasonable man would do.  Kellen does not do well with reason of the mind.  His reason needs a cause and effect.  If it does not “cause” him any down time of any sort he will disregard all reason.  IF his freedoms seem to be more regulated with less outside time and more reading and study time it slowly sinks in that his actions have caused him to lose his freedom and that “effects” him immediately.  That is when he understands reason.  Only after the effect has affected him.

Ya, that story was a good thought in my mind’s eye.  When everyone in the family slept in today because we all thought the school would be closed because of Columbus Day.   Well,  I guess I can chalk up our almost embarrassing tardy moment to my quitting cigarettes.  Because I do not smoke any longer my wife volunteered to smoke out side the house and not in the car when traveling. As she was standing in the backyard this morning she happened to hear the children walking by and she realized that Kellen needed to be informed  of school was not closed and advised to get up from his bed.  Poor Kellen… he has never been one to move to quickly in the morning… but this morning it appeared as if he was frozen in time.  Even as I signed him into school he was still walking in a fog.  I will endeavor to not allow that to happen to him to many more times while under my watch.  I felt terrible as he walked out of sight down the hallway towards his classroom to the teacher that already thinks that Kellen’s father is not playing with a full deck.  Yet, there was not a thing that I could do.  My little man is growing up despite my failings.  I think he will make it.

Comments (0) Oct 11 2010

A reason for many of my smiles.  Both in the past and to the future of that I am sure!   I have been researching river boats lately and it has been fun.  I am not interested in the poly glass boats that they seem to push around here in Central Texas.  I just looked at a year old boat sitting in some one’s yard with a little dust accumulated from being on display.  It was a sad thing to see the glass fade from dust and wind of the central Texas area.    Aluminum boats seems to take the beating of intermittent use much better than the poly-glass boats.  Hey,  if I was going to be a three time a week boater plus heading to saltwater to fish three times a year I would consider a poly glass boats.   But then all the miles on a trailer would take its toll would it not?

I would like a 22 foot boat.  Small enough to trailer easily yet strong enough to handle rocky river bottoms as well as some time in a salt water bay.  Something like the Sea-Ark boat series.  It will have to be custom ordered through through a local dealer.  I may have to go to Arkansas to watch it as it is built at the factory.  At the very least I will have to have verbal and written communications with the engineers and the fabrication department.  There is another shop in Colorado that looks like a good boat but it is a bow rider center console and I want a  mid-cabin to be able to fish on both ends.  The kind of boat that I would like to purchase would be a aluminum sea runner of some sort but then I would not be able to trailer it.  The kind I would want would be 12 to 14 feet wide.  Of course I cannot afford a twelve to fourteen foot ocean going aluminum sea vessel in Texas.  I might as well sell the house and purchase a 42 foot Grand Banks then.  Well… that is just not going to happen… now is it?  If I had a picture of a sweet little devil I would insert it here…but I don’t.  So I won’t.

The river boat will cost around the price of a Corvette or Camaro ( I had both cars scoped and priced out prior to heart surgery in July 2010).  So I have will have a pretty good initial grub steak to finance this boat.    I have to purchase land and get a shop built before I purchase a boat,   It won’t take long to do any of these items once I decide to spend the money.  It is not like I have to go to the bank and borrow the money.

So I had to pay if I wanted to play.  With this new heart I have a feeling I am going to able handle a boat.  There are a lot of places to go with a boat and explore, fish and hunt.  I plan on going to a few of them in the upcoming years with my friends, brother’s, son or possibly by myself.  I remember when I would think nothing of loading up the old wooden boat in Galena and heading off to any village on the Yukon with fifty gallons of fuel and oil and not much else.  I made it through those times I think that I can make it through future times.   I will go well prepared with proper planning.  Are there any good rivers to fish, hunt or camp on in Indiana?   I would like to try west river fishing in South Dakota and the Missouri river.  Of course there is the Mississippi but for some reason I am reticent to float my boat on that river.  How about traveling the Erie Canal?  How much do you think it would cost in canal fees?  All things I need to know.  I am going to start researching how to do that very thing… using my computer on my satellite connection in my new boat on a lake near my property with the new shop that will be in Harker Heights while I get it all worked out.  It should be fun!!!  I might even rent moorage at the marina to make it all the easier to research these new trips.:)

I hope all have been feeling well these last few months.  I  will again apologize to all of you my faithful few followers  for my paltry postings for recent as well as long term posting on my blog.  My energy is developing.  I can see some strength coming back.   My zest for life seems to be rising at a steady but slow and controlled pace.   I am as excited as a cat in a room full of rockers to experience life again.  Things are really starting to perk up around here.  Ellen has had some bad days with pain in her hip and its accumulated wear and tear of 20 years of military life..  I feel so helpless with the hip pain that she experiences.  It is hard to remember pain when I do not  have any pain. Yet I would help her in any way if I were able.  In this case I am not.  It is frustrating.   How convenient…eh?

I figure I will be able to spend at least a month each year fishing,  hunting,  and camping.   Plus,  all the Boy Scout programs with and for my son, Kellen.   I have eight years to get ready for my last Alaska moose hunt with my son, Kellen,  a future Eagle Scout in the boat  with me.

To coin a phrase from the TV show the “A-TEAM” …. “I love it when a plan comes together.”  I see my former spiralling life coming into focus with clarity and control.  With faith and trust I seemed to have stayed the course.  It is a good time for me here in Texas.  I am blessed!

Maybe we could work a trip out by combining NASCAR and fishing?  No hurry but if you would be interested it would be my treat.  For the first one… I hope we all live long enough to have many.  Get in touch with me on the lake in the boat by the property I purchased.  I may just want to stay home.  How is that for a big spending fellar?  Goofy is a term that comes to my mind.  There are many others of which I will not mention.  I know I am pretty happy at home!!  What else matters?

I have said this before but I think I am going to be around a little more I have considerable energy and hopefully my enthusiasm does not wane.

Comments (0) Oct 11 2010