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Saturday Afternoon Live!

What do we have here?A picture named Brown_Trout.jpg

This, my friend, is called a “brown trout”.  I’ve never caught one myself, but I’m told that they’re abundant in Horn Pond, Woburn, MA.  In my last post I think may have suggested that I was going to go fishing and get me one of these guys.

I didn’t go.  The weather was gorgeous!  It was 70 degrees and not a cloud in the sky.  So I spent the whole morning and some of the afternoon moving the last one-and-a-half yards of mulch to its final destinations:

  1. The tiger lillies behind the house received  liberal amounts of dark brown mulch around their stems.  This took a long time because I had to be careful not to hurt them.
  2. The barrel out front sits on its own patch of grass.  Well, it used to be grass.  Now its a barrel and four inches of mulch! MUahahahahah!!
  3. There’s a small strip of grass between my driveway and my neighbors nice white picket fence.  Now there’s four inches of rich-looking mulch lining the driveway instead of wayward grass and weeds.
  4. The remainder was spread liberally under the swingset.

It was quite a busy day for moving mulch.  After I moved the mulch I turned over all the dirt that used to be under the mulch and spread grass seed with fertilizer.

Whew!  Sounds an awful lot like nap-time, doesn’t it?  Well, part of the grass needed to be mowed and part could hold out.  So the whole thing looked awful.  I mowed the grass in the back and in the front.

Then I decided to try the Mr. Clean car-washing system I received recently for my birthday.  It worked out ok.  Part of the benefit is supposed to be this Jet Dry stuff that gets sprayed on and prevents dirt from clinging to the surface of the car.  I’ll let you know how it goes.  it looks good — like it was just washed, which is the minimum I would expect.  Also, the sponge I used with it was shockingly filthy.  So I guess that’s a good sign.

I think we’re supposed to watch “Calendar Girls” tonight.  Liz is a lucky woman.  I don’t think it looks like a very entertaining movie but I’m going to watch it anyway.  I suspect Liz thinks it will be like “The Full Monty” but with old british women instead of middle aged british men.

The good news is that I think I’m going fishing tomorrow before we go to Plymouth.  But if I catch any fish, what will I do with them?  I guess I’ll have to freeze them or something.  It feels wrong to freeze fresh fish, though, doesn’t it?  I suppose I could grill them up right away and eat them for lunch(?)

I’ll let you know how it works out.

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Horn Pond in Woburn, MA

Tomorrow morning I’m planning to go fishing and Horn Pond in Woburn, MA. Based on this web site from the state of Mass. (http://www.mass.gov/dfwele/dfw/dfwtrout.htm) it looks like it was just stocked with trout last week! How exciting! I hadn’t realized that the pond would be stocked so soon! I understand it gets stocked twice a year with trout and that it has lots of other fish in it. I’m thinking I’ll bring Ben. Right now I only want to bring one young ‘un at a time until everyone gets more comfortable with the equipment and with what’s expected. I’m afraid I won’t be able to keep track of everyone who wants to go and a fishhook will land somewhere uncomfortable. So I think I’ll start with the most responsible kid and take him tomorrow morning. I understand trout like corn and grubs. Any other suggestions?

On Sunday we’re planning on going down to Plymouth Plantation (http://www.plimoth.org/). Its peaceful and pretty there and we really do like visiting this “living” museum of life from the 17th century. The day before they will have been having a small party for the people who were on “Colonial House” (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/colonialhouse/). I know that the Voorhees family will be there. I’m supposed to be on call on Saturday so I can’t get too far away from home/office.

But afterwards we’re planning on staying at the John Carver Inn (http://www.johncarverinn.com/) in Plymouth. Its a tiny vacation! Last winter, in the midst of all the snow and terrible weather we went to a hotel with an indoor pool for a 24-hour get-away that really did us a lot of good. That’s the idea here. Since we have Monday off, we thought we would spend all of Sunday and some of Monday being tourists in Plymouth. I want to see Plymouth Rock and the Mayflower replica. There’s also supposed to be some nice beaches down there. Naturally, you can’t really go swimming, but its nice to play on the shore anyway.

So I think we have a pretty full weekend planned. I was also hoping to get a bunch of work done around the house. I may have to do that on Saturday afternoon.

I’ll be serving FISH for lunch!

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[UUA-L] Texas Tax Dispute Against UU Congregation Resolved

—–Original Message—–

From: uua-l-bounces@lists.uua.org

[mailto:uua-l-bounces@lists.uua.org]

On Behalf Of Deborah Weiner

Sent: Thursday, May 27, 2004 8:51 PM

To: uua-l@lists.uua.org

Subject: [UUA-L] Texas Tax Dispute Against UU Congregation Resolved

(Boston, MA - May 26, 2004) The Comptroller’s office of the state of Texas has reversed a September, 2003, ruling that denied tax exempt status to the Dension, TX (Red River) UU church. At the time, the Comptroller of Public Accounts for the state, Carole Keeton Strayhorn, determined that the church was not eligible for exemption from taxes, citing her finding that the congregation “does not have one system of belief.”

In his May 24 letter to congregational president Dan Althoff, Jesse Ancira Jr., General Counsel for the Tax Policy Division of the State of Texas stated, “After reviewing the submitted application, file material, as well as correspondence between yourself and staff from our Tax Policy Division, it is my opinion that the Red River Unitarian Universalist Church is an organization created for religious purposes and should be granted the requested tax exemption.”

Complete information on the ruling and background material is available on the Southwest UUA District website, at http://www.swuuc.org/events/taxexempt2.html.

Deborah Weiner Director of Electronic Communication

Unitarian Universalist Association

25 Beacon Street

Boston, MA 02108

FAX: 617-742-7025

Voice: 617-948-6104

http://www.uua.org

_______________________________________________

UUA-L mailing list

UUA-L@lists.uua.org http://lists.uua.org/mailman/listinfo/uua-l

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New site

I’m going to see if I can get Blogrilla to start sending files via ftp to the new website at http://www.blogrilla.com

 

I got an update today…

I got an update today on the three-year old cancer victim who is also the child of an old and dear friend. Due to a terrible bacterial infection they’re going to remove a portion of her intestines. Can you believe this is good news?! She came down with this awful infection and they didn’t (don’t) know if she would survive it. I know that they gave her some inflatable pants and some blood pressure medication to decrease the blood flow to her extremeties in an effort to control the extent of the infection. I understand they also sedated her in to unconsciousness — for her own good.

How awful.

Liz and I have been talking about this poor little girl every day. If a day goes by and we don’t get some kind of news we’re never sure if its a good sign or a bad sign. We sent 1,000 minutes worth of phone cards to her mother a couple of days ago. I know that her father hasn’t been to work in the weeks since this tradgedy began. We’re eager to help, but aren’t sure how.

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First and foremost, I want…

First and foremost, I want to announce that we will be moving our base of blogging operations to new quarters forthwith and posthaste! I have made arrangements for shelter to be provided for this erstwhile journal in a new location. At your first opportunity feel free to come calling at:
http://www.blogrilla.com

Its really very exciting. I’m not sure how the transition will work out in moving from my current landlord’s abode ( Userland ), but I’m hoping it will be a simple redirection for a few months. It will be interesting to see what happens with Radio — it has a lot of identity related information that’s all tied back to my customer number. But is that customer number permanent? We’ll see.

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What’s left?

I put the fishing gear together last night. There wasn’t much assembly required. The Zebco’s I got for the kids weren’t little-kid fishing poles. They’re full-sized jobbies that are about six feet long! I didn’t realize this when I bought them, but they’re light enough that I don’t think any of the kids will have trouble with them. When I told the kids what I’d gotten they weren’t all that impressed. I could see that they noted it as something of interest, but they didn’t get very hyped up about it. I was puzzled, because I thought this was the sort of thing that would really get their engines revving.

When they SAW the rods and equipment they got VERY interested. Clearly the fact that they were able to see and touch the gear made a big difference. Now all the kids want to be the first one to go. I still think Chloe may be, overall, too young. Not because of the number of months she’s been alive, but because she doesn’t listen and pay attention. Maybe I’ll take Ben and Gabe individually first and see how they do.

It turns out you have to wind the fishing line around the spool! When I was a kid I always used someone else’s equipment and it never occurred to me that you’d have to wind your own line! I’ve been a little concerned that I would have trouble with it, but when I sat down to do it last night everything went well. I followed the directions on the box of 6lb line and after I got it threaded correctly it wound around the spool just fine! Actually it was pretty loose. So I had Liz hold the spool it was delivered on and provide some tension on the line while I reeled it in. That did the trick. It worked out really well. I can see how why a person might want spare spools of fishing line. I think 6lb test ought to be just fine for now, so I shouldn’t need to change it out.

Now I just need to figure out the right place to go! I have some equipment and some enthusiasm — all I need now is some fish!

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Broadway Babies

I tested this out on another computer and you should just have to click on the link to get it to start Windows Media Player.  But if that doesn’t work, open Windows Media Player and then choose File and select Open URL.  Then just enter this address in the field as prompted.
 
 
mms://members.verizon.net/~vze34zq8/BroadwayBabies.wmv
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Fisherman Bob!

I’ve done it. In addition to the fishing license I’ve purchased $113 worth of gear. Most of it, of course was the rod and reel. I also got some 6lb fishing line — I’ve already decided I want to go for freshwater fish. Someday I’m sure I won’t be able to resist the lure of the big saltwater fish, but for now I think it will be nice to just go after smaller fish.

I also got a kit that contained 2 additional fishing rods (Zebco 22 and a Zebco 33) for the short people. They’ll love fishing. I know they’re dying to go fishing. I won’t take more than one of them with me to start with though. With those hooks and my tiny kids I don’t think I can keep track of more than one at a time to start off.

I bought some miscellaneous hooks.

I bought an assortment of swivels.

I bought different kinds of sinkers.

I picked up a tackle box.

I got some little minnow and grub-like chunks of rubber. I don’t know if they’ll work or not. They had a lot of metal bits there that were advertised as lures, but they sure didn’t look appetizing. Someone walking by said that what works best is anything shiney and spinny. So, maybe the rigs COULD work. I saw some nice looking shiney fish that looked like something a fish might want to eat. I figure I’ll start with live bait — i.e. worms and bugs and whatnot. And see if that works.

I think that’s about all I got on this trip out. I’ve got some pliers at home that I plan to use on in the tackle box. I have to wind the fishing line around the spool — something I don’t remember ever having to do. I think that’s because I always relied on someone else to produce the fishing equipment.

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Tommy

I’ve seen The Who’s movie, Tommy several times but the sexual abuse and physical abuse was lost on me. I think the sexual abuse that’s present in the music is not represented at all in the movie, which the physical abuse is only hinted at. Heck, the whole way through the album it seems like Tommy is being assaulted by one lecherous or sadistic relative after another.

It makes all the music more distasteful, I guess. Maybe that’s shallow of me, but I liked the music better before I paid attention to it.

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