Before I begin, a word on night fishing and why anyone would want to. What ends up happening is that you create a small ecosystem, kind of like a late-night minnow bar for insomniac sufferers of the aquatic persuasion. You put out lanterns, we were using 5 Coleman Double-mantel propane lanterns, and you wait.

Now, the waiting part is the key. Any look at Sunday afternoon TV will leave you with the impression that fishing is all about nancing around a lake in a $38,000 bass boat trying to out-guess the fish and find out where they are. Not always. The key to this particular method, and there are many, is to setup and let the fish come to you.

Zane’s condensed theory of night fishing:

• The light attracts the bugs


• The bugs die in the water


• They attract the minnows and smaller bait fish


• The larger bait fish come and set up a ruckus


• The combination of that and the tempting pool of lights bring in the big ones like first semester freshmen to a keg party…even if it IS Milwaukee’s Best or Shaffer.

Well, that’s the theory we’re working with anyway….so suspend disbelief for a bit if you must, and stick with me.

Day Two: Bugs, bugs, and Bugs!

For most of us,  bugs and flying insects are a damn nuisance, they get in your hair, on your skin, in your ears, nose, mouth…generally give you the willies, and are NOT considered a food group. It is important to note that one stage of night fishing is probably the most uncomfortable ordeal anyone has been through, particularly first-timers. This is stage where the *bugs* begin to show up. They swarm around the lights and above the water in a cloud of silent chaos only broken up by the occasional fly-by which can be reduced by a heavy coat of skeeter repellent, and by sitting in the middle of the boat away from the lights. This will put you just on the edge of the cloud, but it still makes you a rest stop..kind of the first wet bar foot rail closest to the dance floor, if you will. What may keep you going and not just erupt in a fit of cuss words and flailing appendages is the fact that it will, at most, only last about 2 hours…and usually a light breeze brings relief from time to time during that wait. After a bit, most of the bugs within the attraction radius of the lamps will be in the water or stuck to the lanterns and the night will be as quiet and still as a church on Super Bowl Sunday…broken occasionally by a well-timed belch and the fit of shouted scores by the judges that follows. 

The key word here, and for the rest of the night, is waiting. Never pull up anchor and untie to move just because you’ve been there for 2 hours and not gotten a bite. If for no other reason, you’ll have to go through the bug-letting again, and that’s only slightly less fun than shaving yourself with a vegetable peeler soaked in Tabasco.

On day one, there were NO bugs because a constant wind was blowing across the lake. I was wet and a bit cold, so every once it a while I’d squint into the breeze as if to say “That’s enough, I get the point already!”. Well on this day, I got payback. On our way out to the cove, the lake was a Teflon-flat mirror. I kind of felt like a fly trapped in a bathroom, stuck to the mirror…lost in an actual-size painting of…everything. Of course it wasn’t until we got set up and the insects started to show up that I realized what that meant. The swarm of bugs around the boat about 20 min after the sun dropped was….if you’ll pardon a double Haigism…Spielbergically Hitchcockian in it’s size, density, and duration. The only thing missing was a sound track with a repeating violin note and a camera shot from inside one of the lanterns looking up through a cloud of bugs seemingly intent on sucking the oxygen out of the air and dousing the ever-evil Colemans and their siren-call glow.

Now, before this trip out, and this happens on just about every vacation, we had to make a trip to Wal-Mart. Is it just me or does day one of every vacation, particularly ones where you have to bring supplies (camping, boating, fishing, skiing…gambling, etc.) result in an immediate reassessment of the supplies list? It seems like very time I head out, after the first day, my neat little list of checkmarks on a legal pad seems to laugh back at me in defiance as if to say, “Think again, wake-board boy.” So, we’re at WallyWorld picking up all the stuff we forgot to put on the list and buy before we left. And well, there’s just something not right; I realized that it felt just like when I visited Oklahoma. I was driving around for about 2 hours, my subconscious pestering me the whole time, but I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it. Something was off ever since I crossed the boarder, but I didn’t know what it was…couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Finally the magnetic field in the car aligned, or a blood clot came loose, or that last bit of undigested Taco Bell slipped through my duodenum, or whatever and a couple of synapses closed in my brain and I realized it was the fact that none of the cars had front license plates. Not only that, but there was no ugly ‘bracket’ in the front for them either. That was it, these cars are PRETTIER than the Texas cars…because let’s face it, a big ole plate bracket on the front of a Dodge Viper is NOT a beauty mark…it’s a cold sore. Well the same thing happened here…but I recognized the feeling so I figured it was something visual and different. This time it didn’t take two hours, all the packages had French translations on them. It was too cool…like a shop and learn sort of thing, only I’m not that fast a learner so I can’t remember the French words for stool, diarrhea or condom even though I thought to check those items at the time…so it was lost on me as a learning tool, surprise. We had gone to the other side of the lake and were in Louisiana at a Wal-Mart…thus the extra wording on everything. Simple.

Mystery solved, I bought two minnow buckets and an extra basket…oh yea, did I mention the aeration pump on the minnow cooler didn’t work either that first day? Heck, we were catching stuff with dead minnows anyway, but you can’t ‘hurry up and fish before the bait dies’, ya know? I also got bought one of those new blue led flashlights…these things are cool! I have some ideas for these LEDs as well, but I’ll share that later.

[to be continued]

So sorry for the delay folks! But I’ve been a bit preoccupied by things personal and just really have not had the desire for storytelling the past few days. Say, ya ever see something coming from a mile away and when it finally arrives, knowing it was coming doesn’t really seem to help much? It feels like I was staring down a set of tracks watching the light get brighter, hoping it would stop, or at least slow down but now the train is blowing past me in a hurricane of noise, sand, and scattered paper and I swear I can just make out the tinkling of champagne glasses in the club car as it thunders past. It’s funny, if you have had someone teach you about being honorable, why do they leave out the part where you lose? I suppose it’s because honor is its own victory; but if that’s the case, why do I feel like I need some sort of spiritual wheel and pottery kiln to fashion this wet lump of emptiness into something useful?

Ew, I’m waxing rhetoric…sorry about that. I think Orange Clean will get that out, for you people in the front row. Next up, Day Two and the story of bugs…the other, other, other white meat.

  I’m not going to try to censor myself here; this is about a bunch of guys on a boat. So if you’re sensitive about what is said and how, keep in mind:

·        We’re only taking showers to keep from being denied service for lunch

·        When describing the clothes we’re changing into, ‘dry’ is more important than ‘clean’

·        Burping and/or belching are an Olympic-Class event

·        Farting while sitting on the hull of a floating boat makes a really cool echoing sound

…well, you get the idea.

Day One: And for my next trick….

I’ll start with our arrival at the lake, since the events up to that point were rather mundane. This lake is big; Toledo Bend is on the boarder between Louisiana and Texas and could probably hold two of any other man-made lake in Texas. But, as in any profession, hobby, pyramid scheme, or even infomercial advertising…specialization is important. That being so, the spots we DO fish are few and specific lending a SETI/Contact atmosphere to the finding of a fishing spot in this lake. Hmmm, now that’s an odd comparison to come up with…well I’ll not bore you with interpretation of my own anecdotes. To continue:

Tips on gettin’ the boat wet:

1.      Don’t start drinking beforehand. This can cut a fishing trip short and finding a wench to put a grounded boat back on its trailer is not only embarrassing, it’s about as likely as finding a stale Twinkie.

2.      Know the weight capacity of your boat. Nuff said.

3.      Boat ramp pavement ends…usually out of sight from above the water. Know this and be prepared for sharp rocks and debris, particularly if barefoot, wearing sandals, or after violating rule #1.

4.      Be mindful of your goal, to get the boat in the water. This is not about being slick, or cool, or fast. Take your time, cuz swimming back to shore holding 5 fishing poles isn’t even on the same planet as ‘cool’.

5.      You may want to load the beer first, but don’t let this get in the way of stuff like fuel and other passengers, particularly if they helped buy the beer.

6.      Check to make sure the drain plug is back in its hole. I know, you checked it before you left. Check it again, Skippy.

7.      Check any critical equipment before putting the boat in the water. It may have worked for 12 years without a hitch, but when it breaks…emphasis on the word WHEN, it will do so when the boat in the water, away from shore, and it is very dark.

8.      When the engine is in gear, make sure you can see the anchor rope. ALL of it.

Putting the boat in the water started..well..badly. A full five feet off the trailer, the bow line (see rule #8) got spun up in the prop so tight, it stalled the engine. So, after a puppetmaster display of trying to pull a lame boat by the remaining bow line from the loading peir to get it close enough to the fuel dock to get to the motor, we ended up shortening the brand new length rope by about 5 feet. This, we learned, did NOT keep the other ropes in the boat from getting an attitude. But you’ll be happy to know that the short lengths of rope that resulted from the prop surgery were salvaged by yours truly to tie off the minnow buckets later…but those weren’t bought until Day Two.

With the motor now enabled to do its job, we tried to lower it further into the water only to find the 150 bucks we spent to have the power tilt/trim fixed was evidently not enough to ensure it *stayed* fixed (see rule #7). This only proved my theory that the guy was a pansy to begin with and did not shed any blood while working on the motor, thus ensuring that the job did not stay done. (For those of you who don’t know this, if you’re working on something and you don’t have extra parts left over and a wound that needs tending to, it will not stay fixed. Period. Trust me.) Now the engine is running, but very rough…like a camel trying to cough up an 80 lb. hairball, and stalls again trying to get it into the slip. The wind is getting faster as the boat stalls yet again. The only thing missing at this point is the organ music, scratchy film, and a black and white image sped up about 1/8^th too fast. Well, this one was easy, the feed bulb on the gas line was sucked flat, I had forgotten to open the vent valve on the gas tank and the motor was doing that thing we all do when we get a chocolate shake from Sonic and the straw is too small. Turn, turn, pump, pump, crank, crank, cuss, cuss…the boat is now in the slip. And there was much rejoicing.

The bait is bought, the boat is loaded, the passengers aren’t, and we’re ready to go. Now luckily, the power lift won’t work, but the prop is in the water anyway and we don’t have far to go. So we head out across the lake, argue about which tree to tie to and finally select one. I’m taking a moment to mention that, when several hundred yards from a bush, it’s easy to say “Tie off to that tree”. But when you are floating in water and actually pull up in and amongst  the branches, this can be painful, bug and spider-ridden process that will truly test your resolve. It did mine. I would have been cleaning off spiders and bugs all night, had it not been for the next event.

We back off from the tree, feeding out rope until we get far enough away from the shore to drop anchor. Drop anchor….from the back…of the boat….yep, it happened again. Only this time, we are in the middle of a cove, the anchor is set and we can’t get the slack out of the bow line. Now my dad’s friend is leaning over the transom to try and untangle the thing, but Zane is taking of his shoes and socks because, well troubleshooting for a living, one has to know when to stop tweaking and when to start getting manual. I humored them for about fifteen minutes, but we were losing daylight setup time and the way the trip had started, it only seemed inevitable that someone was getting wet. Me being the young buck in the boat, I knew my place. My shirt was off and I had one foot in the water when the first ‘Damn it!’ came from the back of the boat. Once in the water, I got little comfort from the fact that I was sharing this job with a dead catfish floating near my head. And of course, I had to make mention of how worthless they both were and that this wasn’t all that bad of a knot and why couldn’t they get it untangled this easily (throwing the rope back in the boat). Now, this being a fishing boat, and me already taunting them, they had to taunt back with the question of how I was going to get back into the boat. There wasn’t landing on this boat, it wasn’t for skiing or water sports of any kind. But one foot on the back of the high-riding, unable to lower motor, and I’m back in the boat along with the portion of rope that should be, but with soaking wet underwear and not a dry towel in sight.

The rest of the night went like clockwork, me sticking to two poles so that I could keep track of my rigging, the older ones insistent that more is better when it comes to fishing for Crappie (yep, it’s spelled that way…it’s pronounced ‘Crah-Pee’..but yes, we were Crappie fishing. Fits, huh?) but never actually equating that with the fact that once every hour they would end up with a tangle of tackle that looked like a torture device out of Hellraiser. At about two o’clock in the am, I expressed my testicle’s desire to get into a dry pair of underwear before they leave me for another man and we head in with close to 50 keepers. The return was uneventful, though the anchor had to be muscled from the mud…my hands are still in protest over the rope burns from that.

Stay tuned for Day Two: Bugs, bugs, and Bugs!

Special Instructions:

Both cats Did not Board well they were very up set and stressed. They were very Difficult to move, clean cage, or feed. They did not recieve a complementary bath because they were unhandleable.

The above was a direct transcript (including typos…say, if it’s written by hand it’s a miss spelling, right?;)  from the note I left the vet with today when I went to pick up the boyz after going fishing the last three days. Ugh. I am a terrible human, I had a feeling this would happen and last time I put them up I promised them I wouldn’t do it again. But since this time I used the vet they go to, I think it was more traumatic instead of less, which was what I was hoping for. But the good news is, the high school girls that were looking after them were very sweet (probably talked a thick line of ‘that God!’s after I left), understanding, and still had all thier body parts intact, so that’s good. I half-expected at least one of them to be sporting a bloody stump or a random patch of reddening gauze on her body…but no. I even checked Fou’s claws, no sign of human tissue or long blonde hair pulled out by the roots. Looks like I avoided legal fees yet again.

Well, I.I.I. employees, your President, CEO, resident bottle washer and this year’s winner of the Hit Yourself In The Head With A Folding Office Chair Award is sunburned, tired, and probably has an ear infection, due to lake water. Ah, but that story will have to wait for tomorrow. I must get sleep; I have work tomorrow and it’d be a touch of Konrovian irony to loose my job the day after my 12th anniversary, wouldn’t it? Thought so.

Xanga Zane_T_Dark’s Weblog 4/25/2002 Thanks for the props folks! I just feel like we’ve force-fed some of the older citizens of our society a bit of the poison of the information age that they themselves should make the decision on. Drinking from the online chalice does have it’s price to extract from all of us; let those who are willing enter that with courage, determination, and the will to win…kinda like Gladiator without all the dirt, sweat, and body parts.

As a footnote to the previous log entry, will all of you who have grandparents AND kids please, please, please just mail them a HANDWRITTEN AND SIGNED letter with photographs of their very own and quit forcing them into the gaping corporate jaws of Microsoft/AOL/Prodigy just to get foto’s of the little ones? Hell, my company can build the most reliable computer in the world, but once WinVirus 98, Trojan 2000, or Nimda XP gets loaded on it it’s a technical battle of ‘Starship Trooper’ proportions.. and just plain EVIL! So please, I’m begging you…get up off your dufus, make extra prints, and mail them.

 I might be able to get a computer problem fixed for grandpa, but only because he’s sharp as a tack and has the patience of a saint:

1. His hearing might not be so good now, and with today’s cordless digital phones, his signal just cuts out altogether and I don’t even get static on my end.
   
2. He can’t type worth a flip anymore assuming he could in the first place; years of working on cars, construction, taking dangerous saltwater fish off of YOUR fishhook, you know, REAL work, means his hands are more suited for keeping the boogie man at bay and making sure the swing set is fixed when the grandkids come over, not tiptity-typing on a damn keyboard no matter HOW ‘ergonomic’ it is. If he’s a real veteran, he already hates cell phones, voice mail, and long distance charges…and I don’t blame him.
   
3. How in the flying rat crunchies is Mimi suppose to share JPEG’s with her friends over coffee, hmmm. And don’t give me any guano about them printing them out either; they won’t look right, the colors will be off, and you can’t fit them in an album. Give grandma a break will ya!
   
4. Grand-rents do NOT understand what all the computer lingo is, particularly a EULA (you know, the infamous End User License Agreement?), and that could get them in a heap of trouble. And don’t snicker, if publishing companies are riding after old ladies like the Nazgul when they share needlepoint files, imagine what a corporation with real money and influence like Microsoft would do. Not pretty is it? Didn’t think so.
   
5. Think of how many sharks are in the online shallows of the Internet just waiting for someone to send an email with personal information in it, put in a CC number to buy craft supplies from an online store…you get the picture. Now think of what could happen if the victim was on a fixed income. Kinda makes ya shudder don’t it? No? Well it should.

There are hundreds of other reasons, my point is, let THEM make the decision. Diving into computer userhood is not a dip in the kiddie pool if you have to learn EVERYTHING from the ground up. Once they are up for the challenge, they’ll be hell on wheels, but don’t make them feel like they HAVE to get online just to blessed keep in touch. You ain’t that damn busy, trust me. Again, this is not a rant to make anyone feel bad, I’m just beggin’ ya to look at it from the other side and ask yourself how you’d feel if your kids made you learn Morse code or Semaphore flagging to talk to YOUR grandkids, hmmm?

Ah yes. Today, a word about customer service and things technical. Those of you who call customer support and do this, you know who you are. What I’m about to rant on does not apply to everyone.

1. 
   
   You called ME; don’t get this better than thou attitude just because you bought something. Big deal, I just bought a Snickers and you don’t see a new wing being added to the MM Mars building under MY name do ya? No.
    


2. 
   
   No, turbo-geek…I, in fact, do NOT care how many certifications you hold. I care how many acronyms are in your email tagline about as much as I care what Barry Manilow eats on his Grape Nuts…and trust me, you’d need a time machine for that one ¹. I know what I’m doing, you…do not. The quicker we get past this, the quicker I can solve your problem, capiche?
   


3. 
   
   I am SO tired of trying to convince people that I’m right before they’ll even CHECK my solution. Don’t they get that if someone is paying me really good money to do this that I might…just might…know what the hell I’m doing? That your problems are just a droplet in an ocean of problems I deal with every day What do they have to loose in the first place anyhow, it’ll STILL be broken if I’m wrong, not MORE broken, right?
   


4. 
   
   How stupid is it to lie to someone you are trying to get to diagnose a problem. I mean, if you went to the doctor because of chest pains, would you complain that your instep was sweating more than usual, your tongue itched, and your ears were getting hot flashes but leave out that you had a stabbing pain in your chest and passed out this afternoon while raking the yard?
   


5. 
   
   Just because you were the only one in the mailroom to know how to format a floppy disk, don’t cop ‘tude with me please. They may refer to you as the Network Administrator, but we both know the truth. Luckily, if you work with me, we’re the only ones who will.

Well, there are many more, but I don’t want to just go on…besides, I feel much better now

¹ In some cases, I would need a working time machine in order to travel far enough ahead in time to find technology advanced enough to make a device sensitive enough to measure how little I care.

Every once in a while, like standing in the eye of a hurricane, life will give you just a glimpse of something profound if you’re paying attention.

I just got back from the local Wal-Mart, it was close to midnight, which is really (in my humble opinion) the best time to hit up WallyWorld because the crowds are thinner. Be careful though, because if the store near you is like the one around here, they change cash drawers at around midnight, so keep that in mind and avoid a 15 minute wait in line listening to mom explain why the now-up-FAR-past-bedtime child mind cannot have this ring pop or that package of goop. You have been warned.

So I park the car and get out; I end up parking to the side, near some soda machines and lawn furniture displays. As I walk up, this profound feeling hits me…and at first I don’t understand what it was. Then I notice, there is NOBODY around. Sure, there are plenty of cars on a Saturday night, but imagine a scene void of people were there should be some.

No cars on the street, no people walking in and out, no PA announcements; only the sounds of the soda machines and the nearest AC unit on the roof. A light, very nice breeze stirring the parking lot trash amongst the furniture displays in a disturbing dance of freedom. As if all the humans were finally gone and what we’ve left behind is finally rid of us and can do as it likes. Traffic lights like maniacal druid sentinels of a long forgotten religion, regulating the imaginary passage of vehicles in silent gestures of light and rhythm whose meaning only they still know. Soda machines patiently waiting to be awakened by a small bit of change; change that is perhaps even lying mockingly on the ground just below the slot, a forever unrequited promise that would never be fulfilled. The steady thrum of giant air conditioners, guardians of temperature and humidity majestically perched atop a mountain of steel and glass, their constant mantra materializing itself like a force of will, to keep the elements at bay and bestow the strength of their belief on the food within.

Just as this hollow and desolate feeling is materializing in my brain, reminding me of several scenes in The Omega Man, I turned the corner, and a teenager riding one of the motorized carts in a circle almost hits me, a profound humility keeps me from asking him if he wants to HAVE to use that thing on his next visit, and I realize just how much I miss every day. I’ll have to watch that.

I just got through watching an episode of Bewitched last night and only just realized how much I absolutely adore Aunt Clara! I couldn’t stop laughing out loud; just something about her warms my heart.

Like this was a surprise…yeah , right. What can I say, the inner rubber duck thing facinated me.

All ducks aren’t sweet and innocent and you prove that. You have a nasty streak.

Find your inner rubber ducky.