Fishing Report

Spent the morning in the Wilson Bridge area. My partner caught 3 dinks and 1 barely 15" on Caronlina Rig in the spoils and off the barges out front. I caught 2 keepers (including one in the 2.5-3 lb range) from Ft. Washington Marina in the afternoon.

The weather was kinda nasty first thing in the morning -- nothing like rain in your face at 60mph to wake you up. Apart from that it was a pretty good day.

Well, it was good except for all of the ignorant peckerwoods who think that it's okay to just motor right on into your spot. And then do their best to block you out of it. I was fishing the barges out in front of the spoils. I was the only boat there and had been for at least 1/2 an hour, probably longer. My partner caught a fish and as I was helping him land it and retie (he doesn't fish much) a couple of peckerwoods came roaring into my spot and proceeded to catch my fish. Bastards. And when I started trying to move back into it they kept casting right between me and the place I had been fishing. There is no way in hell that they could have failed to know that I was fishing that spot. I guess in Peckerwoodia that's how you fish. Assholes.

I don't mind sharing, really. I'm perfectly willing to allow someone else access to whatever I'm fishing, provided they don't try to hog it. There are plenty of peckerwoods out there that don't feel that way though. When you're fishing a community hole (and are there any other kind on the Potomac?) you don't own it just because you got there first. When another boat comes in and gives you ample room to keep fishing don't start getting snippy with them. The next peckerwood that starts casting between me and my target is likely to take a rattle trap to the head.

Another set of morons did something else that I really hate. Have you ever been trolling or motoring towards a particular spot -- one you've been waiting on to open up -- and have somebody see you heading for it, pull up their trolling motor and go racing into it? That burns me up. You couldn't have gone before? You had to wait until I was heading for it? Ass nuggets.

Ignorant peckerwoods aside it was a pretty good day. My partner had fun and caught some fish. And after executing poorly all morning I was still able to stick a couple good ones before the day was over. It's just too bad there's not a minimum IQ requirement to be allowed on the water.

What is it up in the air for?

You might recall from an earlier entry that the roof of my truck had developed a leak. Up until about a week ago I didn't know why. Now I do.

There's a problem, feathers iron

Let's suppose for a minute that you were the owner of a fairly new pickup truck. Just for the sake of argument let's say that it's a 2002 Chevy Silverado 1500 LT Extended Cab that you've had for, oh, 8 months. Leather interior, CD player, etc.

Now let's say that it suddenly develops a leak. You're just driving one day and water begins to drip from the ceiling. What would you do? If you're like me you'd get out and take a look at the roof. And then you'd discover a hole. A nice round one. Not too big around. A little rust. And very obviously the source of the leak.

So then you'd take it to the body shop to find out what it was going to cost, right? So what do you think would be the first question the estimator at the body shop asked you after looking at the hole? How about this: "Where do you live???"

Bargain buildings, weights and pullies

Mike (he of the interest in where I live) poked and prodded at the hole for a while and took some pictures with a pretty cool digital camera. He measured the angle and scanned the rest of the truck for additional damage. Then he dropped a bombshell on me: "Looks like a bullet. .45 ACP from the size of it."

Feathers hit the ground before the weight can leave the air

So how does one get a .45 ACP dent in their roof without knowing it? Good question. Mike assured me that nobody had tried to pop a cap in my truck. It didn't really make me feel that much better as he also assured me that if they had it would have gone right through.

Most likely it was a shot fired in the air. It would have lost a great deal of velocity to friction by the time it came crashing back down to earth. (Well, crashing down onto my roof.) It still managed to have enough force to put a hole in my roof. And probably enough to kill anyone unlucky enough to have it fall on their head.

Buy the sky and sell the sky

So what the hell happened here? Not sure. I live in a pretty good neighborhood. My next door neighbor is a cop. We had some car breakins a couple of years ago (4 years? 5?) but nothing since then. Very peaceful neighborhood. Lots of grade school and high school children. Good kids.

I do remember one night about a month or so ago, sitting in the living room. Heard something that sounded like a gunshot. No police came, no ambulance, so I had to conclude that my other neighbor (not the cop) hadn't snapped and finally offed his wife. Though I could have sworn I heard a wood chipper running this past weekend. Odd...

And tell the sky and tell the sky

There's a problem, feathers iron
Bargain buildings, weights and pullies
Feathers hit the ground before the weight can leave the air
Buy the sky and sell the sky and tell the sky and tell the sky
Don't Fall On Me
-- REM, "Fall on Me"

Topic Icons, 1.2.0

I'm just about finished with the latest release of my topicon plugin for Moveable Type. I've gotten several bits of feedback from users over the past month or so and incorporated them as well as some changes I'd been mulling over for awhile.

In a nutshell, here's what's changed in version 1.2.0:

• Generates a correct <img/> tag so that the generated code is valid xhtml.
• An optional "deftext" parameter specifies what to return if no icon is found.
• All configuration data should now placed in a separate file. See the README for details.
• There is a new tag, <MTTopicIconURL> that returns only the URL for the icon -- not an entire <img/> tag.

For more info, see the topicon page.

The Ballad of the Boat Decals

I've not had good luck with boat decals. From the very beginning, no luck at all.

You've probably never thought about boat decals, unless you have a boat. Even though you've never thought about it, you're probably aware that boats have registration numbers -- sort of like a car has a license plate. In Maryland you renew them every two years, again, much like your car license plates.

Spring 2001: Decals #1

When I got my boat back in April of 2001 I got the standard temporary decal that was good for somewhere between 45 and 90 days. That normally gives the DNR plenty of time to process the new boat registration and send you out your decals. Except mine didn't come. Then, they didn't come some more. Eventually I got my dealer to talk to DNR and have them send me a second set. Those eventually came and all was well.

Spring 2003: Decals #2

Unlike renewing your license plates, boat decals all expire on Dec 31 of whatever year. Since I got mine in 2001 they expired at the end of 2002. I drove out to Annaoplis in March, paid my fees, and got my stickers. Piece of cake.

Because I live in a community with a homeowner's ASSociation -- and because they're butt-licking busy-bodies with too much time on their hands -- I can't keep my boat in my driveway. No, my brand new, $25K, bright and shiny bass boat is an eyeysore. (Yes, they sent me a nasty-gram that said that. Eyesore. I'm not going to go into what goes on in the rest of the neighborhood. We'll save that for another time.) Anyway... since my homeowner's ASSociation doesn't permit boats I have to pay $100/month for a parking space at the local EZ Storage. (And yes, my boat was broken into last spring -- to the tune of $3,000 worth of loss. Yet another story for another time.)

Where was I? Oh, yes. I got my decals at the beginning of March and didn't put them on the boat. There was no rush -- I wasn't planning on taking the boat out for a couple weeks. So I put the stickers and the associated paperwork above the visor in my truck and left it there. Seems like a safe place, right? I'm certainly not taking the boat anywhere without my truck -- and I'm not taking my truck anywhere without that visor.

Fast forward to a couple weekends ago. Finally managed to get halfway decent weather to arrive on a weekend, and I'm really pumped -- ready to get on the water. By 10:00 at night I was ready to go. It's actually pretty unusual for me to be this organized before I go fishing, especially for the first trip of the year. There's always something that has to get done -- reels to clean, strip, and spool, tackle boxes to clean and organize. This time, though, I had planned everything well. All my clothes were laid out and ready to go, fishing rods rigged up and at the ready, nothing to do in the morning except put some drinks in the cooler and hit the road. All systems were a go.

All systems except for the boat decals.

No problem, they're above the visor. I got in the truck, flipped the visor down. And the decals were gone. I mean, really gone. Not "tucked inside something" gone. Not "fallen under the seat" gone. Not "stuffed in the glovebox" gone. And not "accidentally moved somewhere else" gone, either. Gone gone. I spent well over an hour looking everywhere I could think of. I looked every place I could think of where they could possibly be and more than a few places they couldn't be.

Eventually I gave up. I started repairing the damge done in the search. I was on my way back in the house when something in the bed of my truck caught my eye. There was this white plastic trash bag there that I kept meaning to throw away. I can't think of a single good reason why I hadn't thrown it away the week before, when we were driving back from Pennsylvania. I would have just gone to bed if it weren't for this little Obi-wan voice in the back of my head telling me to use the force. (Or something like that.) Sure enough, the decals were way down inside that bag. In another plastic bag. In a Wendy's bag. How did they get there? Damned if I know. I can't answer that any more than tell you why I didn't throw the bag away in the first place. (When we left Pennsylvania I actually tied the bag down so it wouldn't blow out of the truck. Would've been way easier to just throw it away.)

Spring 2003: Decals #3

I did actually manage to go fishing the next day, in spite of the lack of sleep caused by looking for my lost decals. Anyone care to guess what happens next? Anyone? One of the decals came off. I don't know if it happened while I was driving the boat or while trailering it.

Luckily, the DNR is used to dealing with this. They've got a form for it, in fact. And, oddly enough, the fee for replacement decals is only $1.00. So now I've got a new set. I'll be going out sometime this week and super gluing them to the boat. Or something.

Props to the DNR

I have to give serious props to the DNR service center in Annapolis. The folks there are courteous, knowledgeable, and extremely efficient. If the rest of our state and local governments were 1/2 as good the world would be a much better place.

Fishing Report

Fished from 7am to noon today in Broad Creek and the Wilson Bridge area. Caught 5 fish total, 2 < 12" and the other 3 right around 15". 3 on carolina rig and 2 on a crankbait. All three of the 15" fish were very light in color, as if they'd just come up from deep water.

When I got back in to the Marina (Ft. Washington) the water temp around the docks was 62, but the water on the main river wasn't quite as warm as I expected it would be. I guess that's due to all the rain from last week? There was enough wood on the main river to build a small town.

Fishing Report

Fished Mattawoman Creek in the 6mph zone from about 8am until around 12. Caught one fish (< 12") on a green pumpkin flipping tube. Had one very good bite on a Baby Brush Hog (junebug) but didn't get a good hookset.

Just about every boat in the world appeared to be in the creek on Sunday. There was some sort of Delaware and/or Eastern PA federation tournament. Both the main and the secondary parking lots were full. I had to park in the overflow lot for the secondary lot. Not a lot of fun maneuvering around that many other boats, but it was good to get a little time on the water.

More problems with my gator mount. I just got one of the retaining pins replaced last winter. Now the other one is broken. Don't really know why. On a good note, the outboard started up on the first try. (I was a bit nervous after the problems I had last fall. Guess it was just the battery.) I had to restart it a couple of times and give it a lot of gas for a while. After running it for a few minutes all the kinks seemed to be worked out.

I'm hoping to get out on a weekday this week and see if all those guides are telling the truth about the fishing up around the Wilson Bridge. Monday and Tuesday are bad so I'm shooting for Wednesday. Looks like a minor cold front will be coming through Wednesday evening so that should be good.

I Don't Like Mondays

And the silicone chip inside her head gets switched to overload

Have I mentioned that I really don't like Mondays? And this Monday was one of the all time Mondayest of the Mondays. And then Tuesday was a Monday. And today as well. Three Mondays in a row. Not cool.

Crappy weekend, crappy weather. Crappy job that I don't like going to on the best of days.

Then -- no new Strong Bad email! Sure, there was a new short on Tuesday, but that's not quite the same. Add to that no new Mega Tokyo until Wednesday -- can it get any crappier than this?

Those are the two things that manage to get me through a normal crappy Monday. Which leaves me wondering... how did we ever get through Monday mornings (or various other unsavory parts of the work week) without the Internet? It may be full of garbage most of the time but where would Mondays be without it?

And can anyone tell me why the crappy weather always seems to hit on Saturday and Sunday? Coz I'd really like to know. I'm considering switching my work schedule around to have, say, Thursday/Friday off instead but I'm sure that would just cause the weather to shift.

To be fair, this particular crappy weather pattern has persisted through to at least the middle of the week. I'd hope for a good weekend but I'm smarter than that.

Hail, Hail

Got stuck in a hail storm in Pennsylvania on Friday night. I hear what you're saying: "Bah!" you say. "Hail, schmail," you say. (Everyone in the room looks away nervously when you do.) But this was something else.

Things went well on Friday. I managed to get out of the office early for a change. Drove the 230+ miles to Pennsylvania by 6:30. Dinner was practically waiting for us and all was well. After dinner we headed off to the nearest sporting goods store (about 30 miles) so I could get a fishing license and some supplies. Things still going well.

On the way home all hell broke loose. We're driving on back country roads, about 9:00 at night. It's dark, raining lightly, about 59 degrees. Then came the hail. And we're not talking a little bit of hail either. We're talking machine-gun hail, for something like 7 minutes. (Please don't say "Hail, schmail," again. Please.)

I've been in some real storms before, including a few out on open water. (I spent 3 years on a ship in the Med.) I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like this. I know I can't even hope to try to convey the majesty of this storm, but here goes:

We pulled over to the side of the road because it was almost impossible to see. Pretty much every hail storm I'd ever seen started gradually -- Sort of ping, ping-ping, ping-ping-ping-ping-ping. Not this one. One test shot (whump! Yup. That'll do it.) Then it was like machine-gun fire -- wh-wh-wh-wh-wh-whump!!! Seven minutes of that. Nothing huge, no Texas-style softball-sized hail. Just lots and lots of small (say, marble sized?) ones coming really, really fast. The temperature dropped a whopping 9 degrees during that time. THAT, ladies and gentleman, is a cold front.

Fortunately for us none of the idiots who refused to pull over during the storm actually ran into us, though one guy did come close. What goes wrong in a person's head to make them think they can drive in that? Even after it stopped -- and five or ten miles down the road at that -- we were still seeing these little icy white ball bearings all over the road.

For your further amusement... try to imagine 3 adults and a 12 year old in an extended cab pickup screaming at the top of their lungs to be heard from the front seat to the back. Now imagine the 12 year old holding up a paper cup to catch the water that's dripping in around the hole in the roof. (Another story, another time.) And all the while, little icy marbles fall from the sky and pummel eveything into submission. Truly awesome.