Who caught the fish?

So here we are at our annual trip to Ocracoke. The weather has been pretty good, for the most part. I can somewhat understand the passion to fish - it is fun - when the fish are biting of course. But all these fish stories you hear make me wonder. And trust me, "the big one got away" has been said more than once. But a few questions have come to mind. Like, Who gets the credit for the catch? the owner of the pole? the one who baited the hook? the one who cast the line? the one who noticed it was being hit on? or the one who realed it in?So, if its my hubby's pole, my nephew baits the hook, my husband cast it into the ocean, I yell I have a bite and my brother reels it in...???
Normally, one person may do all of these things, then there is me. I hate to cut the bait , but if no one is around, I resign myself to the slimy, smelly things. I will bait my hooks, but depending on the bait, it may not stay. I can cast my own rod, but not if its got heavy weights on it that are needed on the surf side, it may not get very far out. I am not patient enough to just sit there and place my pole in the holder and wait for a fish to bite. It drives me crazy to just throw it out and just wait. However, this year, with an infant in tow, I am having to do as the "fishermen" do. In the few minutes Walker would nap, I would fish. I did catch three "Pompano" (pretty little fish, until they got cooked - yuk!) I also caught a flounder -too little to keep- and a couple of whiting. I hope someone else reading this wonders what those type of fish are too. Now, my little brother is here and he was giving me a hard time about catching only bait fish. But at least I caught something - so there is the question - if your competing, is it the number of fish? or the biggest fish gets the biggest braggin rights? Jerry wins both, unfortunately. He went and cast a net for some mullet and waala! He drags in tons. So, does that really count? And he did have a great challenge as he reeled in a sting raye of which had to be thrown back in. He was excited! So, as we enter our last day fishing, my questions remain. We'll see how the day evolves and who gets to tell what. :)

Hunter Understands

Click on Picture to make larger.

Fishing but not Catching

Our vacation has officially begun! We arrived on Ocracoke yesterday after a nice ride and an even nicer ferry ride. We arrived at on the island to find that Ray Green had prepared us a wonderful meal. And the house, fantastic! Very, very nice.
After a little catch up sleep today, we started later by going to the beach and fishing. Here you can see Joy, looking good as usual, Fishing but not Catching. The day is a little overcast and windy, kind of unsettled. Maybe better luck and weather tomorrow.
We have Joy's brother Jerry and his son Rowdy here, Chubby and Sallie, Ray and his son Dillon and Joy, Hunter, Walker and myself here. Next door, we have an all Green house with Jerry and Ruth, Steven, Katherine and Emma, Stewart and Sandra and Ray's brother Mike and his son Ryan.
Wish us good luck and good weather as the week progresses!

A Blogger Hard at Work

This is the look of creativity in action. Can you see the concentration, the dedication, the perspiration?

Joy and I enjoy going to the local Panera Bread, not only for the food, but also for the internet access :-) We usually take the kids and have had as many as three laptops between us. I am sure that some of the other patrons think that we are the geek family. It is surprising and somewhat amazing that so many people at Panera have computers. I guess in lieu of a nice coffee shop, Panera is our local internet hangout. On this last Saturday, Joy was busy blogging after Hunter's soccer game when I got this picture. She has to fit her online activities into the weirdest moments. So when you see a post from her, remember that it may have been over a warm cup of coffee and a bagel!

My Wife

I know, this is beginning to look like a series. I don't think it will turn into that, but you never know.  By the way, this is our picture, made in New Orleans before the flood.

I Love Joy.  This has always been true nearly from the time I met her.  She knows that I love her, and also that I stay extremely frustrated with her.  I think she likes it that way.  I wrote this about Joy in about 2000.  It is in the "about" page of our website.

"My family consist of my wife, Joy, who is one of the busiest people that I know. She is currently finishing up her BSN, so hopefully that part will soon be behind her. She also works full time as a nurse manager at FirstHealth of the Carolinas, which is a pretty hefty job in itself. On top of that, she is married to a very difficult and needy husband, almost more than she can bear at times. And finally, the mother to three children, each of them right now in their most difficult stage! She is an amazing women who both frustrates me and awes me at the same time. She would tell you that it is mostly frustration but I am telling you that it is nearly all admiration."

I find that this still sums up much of our relationship.  She is a most incredible and capable woman.  I am still a needy man.  She still works way too much which frustrates me.  I still find that mostly I am filled with Awe for her.  She still doesn't get that.

Joy is not just at the center of my life, she is the center.  I find that I depend on her way too much.  She is a wonderful mother (of 4 now) and a great wife and companion.  She not only puts up with my many hobbies and distractions, she actually encourages them.  I know that I live a certain part of my life through her.  I believe she may also live part of her's through me.

In a world full of weird and misunderstood reasons for being together, are these that bad?

My New MacIntosh

I am using this occasion to make my first post to Joy's "Texas at Heart" blog, which she has graciously given me access to, so that I can share in and add to when I am able, to make a post about my new MacBook!  Now I gave some serious consideration to making this post about my wonderful Joy, and how she makes my life so much richer, and thanking her for the nice things she has said about me to this point in her blog. But I have decided to wait until later to say all that.  Cause you know I am a man, and all the cool toys must come first.  Well, let me tell you about my newest cool toy!

As all of you know, even though it was not mentioned in the long list of hobbies and interests that I have gone through, computers have been a great interest to me and the black hole sucking in much of my time for the past 8 years.  Yes, it is hard to believe, but I got online over 8 years ago in 1998.  Almost all of the previous list of interests, although discrete, have involved much research, shopping, information gathering, etc. online.  So computers, and being online can completely occupy me for hours on end.  Like this morning, for instance. 

I have a new MacBook that I got last week that I have been trying to get some time to play with.  I bought it cause it was so cool, immediately liked what I saw, but was having a hard time learning how to use it properly, as all my previous experience has been with Windows and them Mac is very different. The Mac came with virtually no instructions, so the first thing I did was to order a book from Amazon called "Switching to the Mac(Tiger Edition), the Missing Manual".  It came in today, and I believe it is going to be very informative.   Anyhow, I got the Mac and immediately had to work for three nights in CVT.  So I saw very little of the Mac during that time.  And since then, for the past two days, Walker has kept me completely busy where I can only get little snippets of time on the Mac.  I have thought of giving him Benedryl, but so far, have thought better of it. :-) 

The Mac is going to be with me for a long time.  I am learning to love it.  Yes, it is frustrating to me because it is different from Windows and it has such poor instructions.  For instance, there is not even an entry for uninstalling programs in the help file.  It is as if they think that everyone has simply spent there whole lives on Macs and know them from their gut.  I am sure the book is going to be a great help, and I will let you know more in the future.

Anyway, back to this morning.  I saw while surfing, a Firefox extension called "Performancing for Firefox", which is a small program that runs as an add on to Firefox that allows you to make blog entries directly from the browser, obviating the need to go to the clumsy blogger editor online.  This has many advantages, including the ability to write a blog entry while not online, but more importantly, you can blog while browsing, getting links and url's from the web.  Mostly though, it just looks cool!  I downloaded it and had it up and running in a few moments, but ran into a snag.  I could not get it to log into my blogger account, so it would not be able to post any entries that I would write.  Well, I am proud to say that after 2 (interupted) hours of searching for answers to the problem, I have gotten it to work, and if you are reading this, it must have posted successfully.  And anyone interested, shoot me an email, and I will give you my further impressions at that time.  Right now, it seems way cool, kind of like my MacBook!

And Joy, I do love you!

powered by performancing firefox