Assateague Island

Took the first in a series of trips this summer to Assateague island. Fished with Charlotte for a few hours on Satuday and all day on Sunday. It was an amazing trip. Saw the usual wildlide like whitetails, sika deer, horses and dolphins but also saw a seal and a whale ( the whale sighting is still unconfirmed but I think it was a whale). Anyhow the hihglight of the trip was the amazing fishing. I bought a flat of fresh bunker to use as bait and it was a ton of fish.
We had three rods in the water at all times and put on frsh bait every half of an hour or so. Here is a pic of the first catch of the day.We caught a bunch of these and I would have been excited if this was all we caught. But as I was realing in another rod to change the bait char yells "fish" and I look over to see my other rod bent in half, falling on the ground and being drug out to sea. I got over to the rod in time and pulled out this monster.

My first ever keeper striper-37 inches. A few hours later we got another one at 29 inches.
Awesome trip. Here a few more pics of random images from the trip.


This may be the weekend by which all future birthday weekends are measured, awesome!!

you lost a what?

Well it been a busy couple of months. Charlotte has a few torn ligaments in her leg and her inability to walk has lead to an increase in my general home responsibilities. Add working 50+ hour weeks and taking a class and it has not been conducive atmosphere for updating the blog on a regular basis.

One interesting story. I was working with this UXO (un-exploded ordinance) guy in the field this week. It was an old bombing range and he was there to ensure that I did not blow up by stepping some bomb or artillery shell that didn't go off when it was supposed to and is waiting in the woods for somebody to step on. Anyway I was BS'ing with the guy about his training with nuclear, chemical, biological and all other sorts of bombs. I asked him why he had to be trained for nuclear bombs. One would assume theres not alot of nuclear bombs out there that had not exploeded and were a threat. Well as it turns out, the US has 'lost' a number of bombs. Kinda like "oops I lost my keys". Here is one article about a nuke that is still missing near Savannah.

Crazy to think about. You can read other sites that claim that claim that not only did it contain a nuclear capsule but also the detonating device.

My Fault..

I'm not a geologist, but i can appreciate a good rock when I see one. I was working the other day with a geologist from work. We were in an area where they were building a huge dam and they had excavated an entire hill down to bedrock. He said there was a fault in the area and I said that I wouldn't even know a fault if I saw one, the only fault I know anything about is of the plate tectonic variety. And then I looked down and there it was. Pretty Cool!!

Its kinda difficult to tell from the picture but its pretty cool to see in person.

Oh ya, and I'm gonna start blogging again on a regular basis in the near future.

Six Time World Champions.

Wow, what a game. At a party with 30 people you could here a pin drop. The first half was unbelievable. Cheering, Yelling, Drinking and general good times. But in the fourth quarter when the Cardinals went up by four points there was silence. We had never anticipated the Steelers actually loosing and that was what was about to happen. When we came back to win, you could not imagine the jubilation. I spent 3-4 hours partying on the streets of the South Side with 30,000 people and loving it, it was madness.

Rewind to the party just before the game. A fair amount of beer was consumed and among the chaos I here a tumble and look up to see Char on the ground holding her ankle. She had fallen and said that she was hurt but amongst the pre-game celebration it was quickly forgotten by everyone, including Char. When we won and were walking to Carson Street she said that she was having some trouble walking, I her compassionate husband, assured her that she was fine. She managed to celebrate on the street for a few hours and we walked back to the house. I estimate the total walk at just over 3 miles total. When we woke up the next day, her leg was purple and she is now on crutches and non-mobile with a huge boot contraption on her leg. Oops.

I'm going to spend a few days this week in rural Pennsylvania for work. Theres not much out there so I anticipate another blog post in the neat future.

What a Week!!

The Steelers are headed to their second Superbowl in four years and Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States.

First things first, wait which one is first? I cant decide?

OK, Steelers. I watched the Steeler game at a local Steeler bar with about 200 other fans dressed in head to toe Steeler gear. The bar is called the 'Outta the way Cafe' and is located in Derwood, MD. Apparently for playoff games you have to get there at 11am and get a ticket to get admitted into the area where they watch the game at 4pm. We got there at 10:30am and there were like 60 people ahead of us in line. The game was amazing, beer was drank, good food was consumed and hugs and high fives with random Steeler fans were exchanged after every good play.

The Superbowl festivities are already planned, here is an outline:

-Arrive in Pittsburgh on Saturday morning, make a stop at the parents.
-Meet with friends in early afternoon and head to bars
-Leave bars at 2am and become part of an impromptu Steeler parade in the streets of the South Side until 3am.
-Wake up around 9am and commence drinking beer,eating food and throwing a football in my friends backyard with about 30 people all day until game-time while Steelers songs play in the background.
-Watch the game on one of two Big Screen HDTV's (one of which is being imported for the event) with 30 people in a space that fits about a dozen.
-When the game is over, have a good celebration cry and grab a backpack filled with Beer and depart for Carson Street to celebrate with 20-30 thousand other intoxicated fans in the streets.
-There is an 'alternate ending' which also involves tears but we shall not even speak of it.
-Wake up on the floor of my friends house at 8am and drive back to MD.


I feel that I have to include a postscript that I am not an alcoholic, quite the contrary in fact. In my youth I could drink beer excessively 5 days in a row and never bat an eye. In my old age however I have lost my ability to drink excessively. In fact, I probably only drink in excess once every few months, but when the Steelers are in the Superbowl I pull out all the stops and am ready to pay the price for my actions in the form of decreased ability to function properly as a human being for the next two weeks. That's Life..

Now onto Obama. Not as much to say on this topic except for, WOW!!! How great is this? It gets me really excited to be proud of my country again. The video of Bush leaving Washington in the Helicopter and Obama raising his hand and taking the oath gives me goosebumps.

There is an amazing website that one of my co-workers turned me onto. Its run by the Boston Globe and simply publishes sets of high-quality photos on different topics every few days. The Set of the Inauguration is great and so is the set on "Earth, Observed" as well as the "Scenes from the Gaza Strip". I would advice you all to check it out on a regular basis. It provides a myriad of desktop background photos as well as some insight to the world. Its called the "The Big Picture" and can be found here. Let me know what you think.

Google

I occasionally Google myself and find it interesting that the first hit is of a cemetery in New York with my name in bold below the title. I was a pallbearer in my Granfathers brothers funeral and my name is listed as such. However, I cant help but think that someone at some point in time has googled me and been freaked out for a few moments. Perhaps I'm giving myself to much credit and nobody has ever googled me. However, I have been known to google people I have once known and lost contact with and would like to think that some people have reciprocated.

The Scoop

I started my on-line class last week and it is actually very difficult. My first assignment was to make a web site, Ha. I made a new page through Google sites and am going to intentionally not have any links to sontavas from that site (not sure I want people from the class to be able to read things I will/have posted here). I will post a link to the site from here but its not finished yet and don't want to put it up just yet.


The Steelers play in about six hours. I cant believe that the Ravens won last night and Im a bit pissed. If they do better than us in the playoffs I will be in trouble. We live in close proximetly to Baltimore and I have done a substrancial amount of s*#t talking over the last few weeks and may be forced to hole up in the house until the whole thing blows over.