Wilderness Blues- Ramblings from the Great Land

  I took my oldest daughter Jennifer out fishing with me a week ago. She enjoys being outside when the weather is sunny, even if it's kind of cold. As you can see from the top picture, it was chilly that morning when we started out. I asked her why she just didn't come inside if she was cold, but she wanted to experience the outdoors first hand, cold or not. She spends all week inside, which is fine when it's rainy or snowy, but when the weather starts to turn she chomps at the bit to get out. It was my second time dropping some lines this year. We had gotten a late start and the wind was blowing a bit,so I opted to just go to Point Sophia and troll around. There wasn't much sign of feed or fish, but we had to try anyway.  I heard from a few people the other day that there were some fish out in Cross Sound, but I'm not going to go out there right now. There's a relatively small area to fish in and I don't feel like being in with a ...

  Jan and I celebrated our forty- second anniversary last month. It was fairly uneventful for the most part. There was only one restaurant open in town and I don't like the owner so we didn't go out to eat. We have to go to Juneau soon, so we'll do something there. She wants to have breakfast at the Sandpiper restaurant downtown. She has her heart set on having the french toast with marscapone or some such thing. I've eaten there a few times and I can attest to the fact that they put out a darn tasty breakfast. Anyway, when my daughter Autumn called to wish us a happy anniversary,she said to keep a lookout for a box. She has somewhat strange tastes in gifts at times, and her sense of humor sometimes drives her gift buying, so I wasn't sure what to expect.She once sent a card that showed a guy in some kind of strange contraption like a diving suit with a hose connected between his backside and his face. The caption was -so and so liked the smell of his own farts...

  I went fishing last Friday. It was my first trip for the season and actually, the first time in years when the boat was ready to leave the dock so soon. It seems that normally I'm waiting on something to be fixed or finished or some such thing and never make it out this early. Last year I was waiting on the mast to be done. The year before I was hauled out for months while the bow stem and some planks were replaced. I can't remember what the problem was in other years, but it's always something. I was speaking to my friend and fellow fisherman, Fagan Skafelstad. He had gone up into Port Frederick the day before and reported seeing a lot of feed and whales and fish on the screen, but he didn't catch anything. If he didn't get a fish, I was quite certain I wouldn't, but I needed to try out the gear anyway, so I ran on up. Always, in the back of my mind there is that fantasy that somehow, against all odds I'll do what countless other...

  I was very angry last night. I was watching The Kelly Files on the Fox news channel. I know, I know, some people will say " Well no wonder, you're watching Fox news." Unfortunately the regular news channels don't bother to give the news as it is. If any news is given, it's bathed in whatever liberal light can be shed upon it. So much of what passes as news nowadays is nothing more than a feel good story. I'm all for feeling good. I wish the whole world was full of feel good stories. I'm not saying that there is nothing good happening in the world, there is, and it's nice to bring it to light, but unfortunately, there's an awful lot of crap going on out there too and it also needs to be reported on. The story that got me so upset last night was the CEO of Mozilla being fired for supporting an amendment a number of years ago in California banning gay marriage. As was pointed out, when Barrack Obama was running for president he was opposed to g...