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

A friend of mine had an uncomfortable day recently.  At least that is the import of a recent post on a popular Internet site.  Making a decision to leave a job has ramifications to your economy, health, and emotional state.  I completely stand behind my friend in her decision to leave her job.   Although I have not had a personal conversation with her nor have I had any other communication other than the Internet site already mentioned,  it would be my best guess that this decision was not made without some considered thought prior to her action to leave her job. 

Of  course that brings to mind the comment that I made to her about leaving her job.   I told her that she made the right decision in so many words.  I also told her that until I married my wife Ellen I had quit every job that I ever had.  Very few of them took a lot of thought when I made the decision to quit.  I remember telling one boss from years ago that I would stay until it was not fun any more.  Considering that the job was as a hired man on a farm really does place me in a rare bunch.  I enjoyed working on a farm.  I did not mind the smells, dust,  or bugs.   I do draw the line on critters but if I left them alone they left me alone.   As I look back on it there was a whole lot of work.  Physical demanding work.  The kind that makes a man of my age cringe as to the energy that it took to do all of the things that were required of me.  I still managed to sow a few wild oats and I do not think that I was ever late or quit early because of those wild oats days either. 

That brings to mind my thought that the right decision does not necessarily need to be made after considered thought.  I spent 18 months working my tail off and had a good time everyday.  Sure there were things that I did not like to do.  Doesn’t every job have those individual quirks?  I went ahead and did them because they needed to be done.  One has to make a decision as to what is fun and what is not.  That last statement is the way that I judged practically every job that I quit.  When it is not fun….Stop!! 

I wonder how much different my life would be if I had employed good judgement in my life instead of the fun doctrine?  Did good judgement lead me to Alaska after I quit a job in Minnesota?  No… I had $1000 dollars, a wife, and my Dad’s car(I left the car in Iowa).    So we decided to move l to my sister’s house in Alaska and get a job.  I did not have a job..mind you… just that I would get a job(OH,  how I love the positiveness of youth).  How about the time that I did not take a job.  Now that was some good reasoning.  A fellow that knew my sister thought that I would be a good candidate as an apprentice plumber.  With the idea that after apprenticeship… I would be able to handle the plumber’s retail store while this individual would concentrate more on his mechanical contracts with other building contractors.  I remember telling my wife that I did not see myself as the guy that wants to go and clean out someones toilet.  It turns out that this plumber became a major mechanical contractor in Southeast Alaska and he wanted me on his team to build his little empire.  I turned him down and ended up being a dirt head in  building site excavation  and road construction.  Bouncing on iron in inclement weather for weeks at a time in a construction camp often north of the arctic circle away from friends, home, and family.  Yaaa buddy…I sure was having some fun.  ?!!! 

Now that I have retired from all of that fun I must admit that most everything would have been different in my life had I used good judgement in making those life changing decisions.   Sure I could have applied myself in high school and actually learned Algebra, Geometry, and Calculus.  I could have beat both Bill Gates and Al Gore in designing a computer and the way of the Internet.  But that did not happen.  Good judgement or not it is what it is.  I certainly have made a lot of mistakes along the way.  Those mistakes are the moral fiber of which I support my life as I live it now.  Those mistakes got me to this point. 

Now don’t go thinking that I am all that…please consider  this…had I done all the right things what would be different?  Let us look at what wouldn’t be… if I had done all the right things and made good judgements.  Well…? I wouldn’t be writing on my blog.(readers, quit applauding!!) I guess I could live with that.  Hmmm..let me think…I wouldn’t have a son named Kellen.  OK..that it!!  I wouldn’t change a thing in my life if it means that I would not have Kellen.  That would mean that I would not have Ellen.  That would mean…well… it would mean that it would be different.  For every bad decision in my life there are a multitude of decisions that were good.  I cannot in good conscience conceive the thought of changing all of the blessings from the present because a bad decision made in my past was changed.

Comments (0) Aug 16 2009

I guess I spend a lot of time in my blog giving the story as to how I come up with topics for the day soooo…. Today as I was reading the headlines of the news on my Yahoo page.   I clicked on an article about the man behind the Bernie Madoff stock scandal.  From what I garnered the individual was very helpful to the FBI when the bubble burst.  He was very helpful in securing a long sentence for his boss.  When he went into court the other day he expressed his remorse in his connection with the swindle and plead guilty.  All is going well for everyone at this point.  All according to plan.  Everything nice and tidy. ” I got the big fish and I will soon be free. ” At least that is what I think he would think?

From the article the import was that the defendant was a little put off when the judge ordered him remanded into custody of the jail instead of being released with bail or his own recognisance.  The judge thought that in spite of his testimony and guilty plea that the defendant needed to be incarcerated until sentencing.  It may be until 2010 and he is looking at 125 years total.  What amount he gets will most likely be substantially less than that number though. 

I guess that I am surprised that the judge kept him incarcerated.  Why is this judge no longer in the “good ol’ boys club ?”  It would seem that this was a cookie cutter case for every one but the judge.   Because this defendant had money(any part of a billion is big in my book …much less 65 billion) the defendant had a high profile attorney or attorney’s.  The attorney’s are well connected in the whole scheme of things.   Most likely  his lawyers regularly have martini’s with the judicial hierarchy.   It appeared to be all cut and dried.  Then the hammer fell.  No freedom.  Immediate incarceration.  Looking at a 125 years for his guilty plea.  The judge got it right.  It is time to pay.  From the top down. 

I spend a great deal of time considering the way I treat my son.  I am the judge.  I am the defense attorney, and the district attorney when it comes to dealing with his actions.  I have a few axioms “We always share” , “If it ain’t yours don’t touch it”, “Look but don’t touch”, “IF your not early you are late”, “Say what you do and do what you say”, “if you feel the need to lie about something than you should not have been doing it”. IF Mama is not happy no one is happy” ,   I am sure that there are more.   I have not made them up just yet.  

When dealing with my son I need to see that his actions speak the same as his words.  I mention this because the judge in the court case must have seen something in the man’s attitude that deserved the deviation from the “good ol’boy’s club”.  IT is obvious that the defendant in the case mentioned failed according to US law and he failed miserably in Kirk’s court as well.  When I meat out justice in Kirk’s court it is contingent upon the defendant to show appropriate remorse and contrition.  In other words getting mad at me for handing out a fair sentence not only does not curry favor with the judge it actually makes the sentence even worse.  The designed effect of this lesson is to show that if one is truly sorry for what one has done one must be willing to accept the punishment no matter what is handed out.   In Kirk’s court it has been eight years and counting and Kellen is still not able to grasp what his judge(Father) is trying to instill in him.  I have faith that Kellen will eventually come to the fore but I do not think that the defendant in the Madoff scandal did.  Hopefully, his incarceration will open his eyes to the laws of the US which he must adhere.   He has almost a year to think about it before he will be sentenced.  It is to bad that this defendant did not have Kirk’s axiom’s engrained  into his phychie like Kellen will/does.  If he had all of this would have stopped a long time ago!!

Comments (0) Aug 12 2009