LDKBox

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

When I started this post I had to think back as to when I had last posted.  It was a few days before I went into heart surgery and although I have not re-read the post(yet…I will after I complete this blog post) I think I was very tired when I wrote it.  Of that I am almost positive because it seems to have been the subject of most of my complaints the last year or so at the very least and almost three years if we count the cancer treatments.

Boy,  what a turn of events.  I have five days of my life that I cannot account for.  Five days of rather life changing experiences of which I will never know.  I don’t get to experience the pain of the saw cutting into my  chest.   Not unlike the moose hunts of Alaska’s interior on the banks of the Koyukuk river in years past.  The doctors used an electric saw.  I used a hatchet and a hammer.  Both were quite effective.  I am glad my doctors choose the electric saw.  Hammer and hatchet would be a little messy.

Before I had surgery I was planning on attending my 40 year high school re-union.  After my heart operation I knew that I had to attend my forty year  re-union.  I had been given a second chance and I must  take advantage of this opportunity to relive past times and past friends.  Well,  I can say that the re-union was a wonderful evening of conversation, hugs, and laughter.  I shook hands with every one.  I was happy to see every one.  I think every one attending had a wonderful time.  I am sorry that many were unable to attend because of previous commitments.  Class of 1970 mark your calendar in the year 2015 same time and same place.  It was voted on and approved.  I look forward to it and I confess I most likely will have a little hand in it because my life long friend, Ruth Johnson,  volunteer to help coordinate the next reunion.  Hopefully she will do it all on her own but I am stating now that I am willing to help.  All you have to do is assign me a task.

I think … after I had a lot of time to consider the evening of the reunion the item that I lamented on the longest were the people that were not there.  I thought of the people who had made previous commitments.  I thought of the people that could not attend because of work commitments.  I thought of the people that had more important things to do.  Some of those important things would be living and making it.

Then there are those that attended despite the fact that life had not been kind.  We all have our stories.  I was saddened to hear of Arnie Van Voorst and his wife and the flood damage that they had sustained recently.  Not one mention came out of Arnie.  He was all smiles and laughs.  He always did have my respect because he was smarter than me.  I knew the first year that they moved to Inwood that Arnie was smart.  IT would appear that he is a hard worker as well.  He looked so healthy and happy.  I am glad for I would want it no other way.

I could go on and on about everyone I talked with on our forty year high school re-union.  I could possibly return to this subject again and again for my blog purposes.  One thing I do know is that the longer I wait the better the story will become.  I have always been one for a good story.

Comments (0) Sep 17 2010

2010 is looming as December 2009 draws its last breath and things I have to look forward to have come to the fore.  Memories are the first thing that come to mind.  As in what lays a head?  Will they be life enhancing or will it be detrimental?  Memories of the past often are signs of the future.  So is it against the law to begin a memory before it starts?  Well,  if that it is wrong I am going to try and change that law.  Why can’t events in my life have a planned purpose?  It would seem that taking an active part in my future prior to experiencing it would be a good thing?  Indeed it would!  Good idea…eh?

Hey,  I have had a lot of good ideas.  I remember back in 1983 having a need for a cover ( this is before tonneau covers that are ubiquitous now)on my truck bed to protect boxes which contained milk meters that I used to test milk production of area dairy herds for DHIA(Dairy Herd Improvement Association).  I used some plywood which I painted, a piano hinge, a few 2×4′s, and some wood screws that I had at the farm.  Simple and rudimentary,  yet it did serve my purpose.  It was a prototype.  All of my friends laughed at me when I placed it on my brand new truck.   Especially after I ran into a ditch during a snow storm in January 1984 on an Iowa farm road where it remained in the ditch.  Essentially becoming firewood and not to be resurrected again.  OK… I said it was a good idea.  So what if it was a bad prototype.

That memory is something that I can use for the future.  I need to go about building a prototype of my future.  (OK, readers this is not a new idea… of that I am fully aware)    Visualize it and it can become a reality.  Like the prototype afore mentioned memory of a future can be built but it is built from need and not experience.  Many years did I dream of the future.  Each season I made the trek to the union hall to  find the job that would supply me and my family with the needs of the upcoming year.  I knew my limits so my expectations became real the more experienced that I became in the construction trade.  I had tangible experiences to make reference to how life could be for me and my family.

As a cancer survivor my future tends to be more immediate.  Much to my detriment, unfortunately.  It is hard to visualize a future with out the tangible experience.  I remember trying to get over the anxiety created when I had to wait for a friend who was on an airplane that was delayed.  Nothing I could do about it but I still obsessed over it  I also remember being asked a question and coming apart at the seams while having no understanding as to why it was bothering me.  I remember being so happy completing my treatments and heading home.  A week later I remember collapsing in my home for no apparent reason other than weakness.  Non of these are good for future dreams others than to have to worry about any of these maladies coming to a head again some time in the future.  I must add one last note…I did make it.  That is a good thing!!

Which brings me to the point of today’s little blog.  On the 12th of January I go to  San Antonio, Texas to have a Pet/CT scan to find out if I am still cancer free.  I likened  this trip to my seasonable trip to Alaska.  It is an experience that has been a positive for me.  The journey that cancer has given me has few bad memories.  There was pain, fear, and trepidation.  Although none of them a good thing.  Now as a memory it gives me strength in knowing that I have had a good run so far.  I can use the positive memories the many Pet/CT sans that I have had in the past and make it a tangible good experience. Although the physical pain is gone now I can still have fear and trepidation just like I had done so many years when I would trek to Alaska. I know my limits.  I need to maintain my faith in God.  My expectations have become real.  So it is my expectation that the tests will remain positive.

The last thing to mention in this blog is the fact that no matter the outcome I have faith that God will lead me through the needs and the experiences and be better for it.

Comments (0) Dec 28 2009