campfire anthems

like i said. dude can run. here he is breaking the world record for the 200 meter event. this time he runs the whole distance without any premature celebration. watch how far ahead he finishes over second place.

i was watching the olympics the other day and had the question “what if its rigged?” i mean, chances are its not, but i was watching diving and this canadian dude was diving the same exact dives as another diver and wasn’t getting the score. their form was the same. there rotations were the same. everything was just about identical. that’s why i don’t like watching events like that. i mean, someone only wins because somebody else says they do. how fair is that? i prefer watching the sports in which someone wins because they score more points, or they swim faster, or maybe they can server and spike the ball better. in this guy’s case…well, dude’s just fast.

i’m back guys and what a weekend i had. it was a pretty good trip all in all, but i’ll just fill you in on the really cool stuff and spare you the monotonous details. the drive up to tennessee was not as bad as i thought it was going to be. the tour bus is quite comfortable, and if you have to drive, that’s just about the best way to do it. with plush leather seats, full bathroom, stocked refrigerator and a satellite television with bose® theater system, it was almost an enjoyable 10 hour trip. that night for dinner, we stopped just south of atlanta and ate at joe’s crab shack. i must have eaten about a pound and a half of shrimp (coconut, parmesan crusted, and fried) and french fries. for an appetizer we got the great balls of fire, which were pretty amazing. they were crab cake balls stuffed with jalapenos, which were then battered and deep fried. back on the road, we turned on the tv and watched the longest yard. i liked it a lot, mainly because it helped pass the time on the road. we got in to our hotel in cleveland, tn about 10:45 that night. i crashed from our long drive and in preparation for the next morning.

i woke up saturday morning to the sound of my wake up call ringing through on the hotel room phone. 6:15 am. the plan was to meet in the lobby to grab breakfast at 7, and then head up the mountain to go white water rafting the ocoee river. i haven’t rafter in many years, so when i found out that the ocoee was the river of the 96 or 97 summer olympics, i got a little nervous. i figured if this was an olympic river, it must be pretty intense. after breakfast and a relatively short bus trip, we arrived at wild water rafting, where we geared up and hit the water. i had a blast. it was one of the most incredible 2 hours i have ever spent in nature. i can’t really even describe the rush you get while speeding through raging waters, inches away from being capsized. the 50 degree water aided the adrenaline too. here are a couple of pictures i took of the river with my camera phone.

below is a picture i took of the lower section of the river, which looks great for trout and bass fishing. its not the best picture because it was taken out of the bus window while driving back to the hotel.

when we got back to our hotel we had to get ready for the sale, the real reason i went on the trip to begin with. this is the first time i saw our surroundings in daylight. it was a great view, situated in the mountains. i snapped a couple of pictures and headed into the conference room to set up.

after the sale we packed up and drove several hours to nashville. once again, we checked into the hotel and crashed. i had a very early morning ahead of me.

sunday morning the phone in the hotel rang. another wake up call.

4

o’clock

a.m.

ouch. that’s a bit early for me guys, but we had to catch a 6am flight back into tampa. aside from multiple thunder storms we encountered in flight, the airplane ride was pretty painless. i think i slept for about a half an hour before the captain came over the intercom to let us know there might be some turbulence ahead.  we weaved our was between two thunderstorms and landed on the runway.  when i got back to my house i slept for about 5 hours.

all in all i had a pretty good trip.  i’m really looking forward to the next time i get to go to a new place for work, but at the same time i’m really glad to be back.  i’m also ready for a vacation.

i’m alive. that is the most important sentence of this whole post. now to the story. i had a pretty fun adventure with travis and jack on friday night down in the englewood area. we left my apartment at 6:00 pm, right after work. travis said that we had to go some bass ackwards way through brandon to get to i-75, apparently there is only one bait shop to purchase live shrimp between home and our destination. i don’t buy it. after some shuffled tunes from the ipod, a quick bite from chic-fil-a, and a stop in gibsonton to get our live bait, we headed toward port charlotte and our sporting adventure.

jack and i told travis that we wouldn’t be on the water by sun down. travis informed us that we would be on the water by 8:30 pm, just as the sun tucked behind the horizon. * note: remember 8:30 * we got off one exit too early. not a big deal, we could still get to the public boat ramp from here. we made a detour and finally hit river road, where we initially wanted to be. take a left on indiana and a right by the checkers and we can almost smell the fish we were going to catch. the boat is finally in the water and we set off at 9:30 pm.

we maneuvered between the markers, under the bridge, and to the old, worn down, deteriorating bridge. while holding the boat in place, the current was very strong, travis lit the propane lantern and hung it from a rope. it was then jack’s job to jump from the boat onto a submerged platform, protruding roughly 5 feet above the water’s surface. he navigated the top of the broken bridge until he finally lowered the lantern and tied it off just above the water. once we had jack secured back in the boat, we pulled back around and dropped anchor. time to fish.

honestly, the whole night was pretty slow. we were on the hunt for snook and red fish. i was mainly looking for reds, because snook are out of season and i really wanted to fire up my grill. my grill will stay unlit. after about half an hour, i pulled in the first fish of the night. it was a pretty small snook, maybe 20 inches. after the release, i put another shrimp on my hook and cast again. almost immediately i hooked another snook. this one ended up being closer to the mid 20 inch range. jack also caught 2 snook here, while travis caught 4. not only did travis catch 4 snook in this spot, he caught the off consecutive casts. how impressive.

when we decided to move on, jack had to climb back up and get the lantern. it was my job to hold onto the platform and keep the boat in place while travis did whatever it was he was doing. once again with jack on board, we set off to fish the bridge. there was another boat there when we arrived and it seemed as though they were catching catfish. passing under the bridge we saw our spot. we idled and cut the engine. the snook were popping all over the place. travis got a hold of the trolling motor, only to find it didn’t work…turns out neither did anything else on the boat. it wouldn’t restart, and we we drifting. once again i held on, this time to a concrete wall we almost slammed into at the base of the bridge. somehow, 10 minutes later we were motoring along again. we decided to check out some of the residential docks since we missed our chance with the snook at the bridge. we debated for quite some time whether or not to actually stop at the docks and fish, since we had no way of knowing if the boat would start again or not and then we saw it.

there it was. this glorious light on the tip of one of the docks. in the light you could see fish swarming at the shrimp fluttering at the surface. there was maybe 50 snook in all. we cut the motor. i swear, no matter what we did or tried, or where we cast, these snook were not interested one bit. we spent roughly an hour here and didn’t catch one snook between us. jack caught 2 trout, as did myself, and travis had lost his previous luck. it was time to head home.

after we packed up the boat we got back on the highway. we went the back way so we could hit hwy 17 through arcadia and head back in through bartow. it would be an understated if i said we hit some fog on the way home. it was about 2:30 am, pitch black, and only about 10 feet of visibility ahead of the truck. it was bad. the windshied wipers and defrost in no way made the situation better. the wipers merely spread the water to the edge of the windshield on their first pass and right back into its original spot on the return pass. brilliant. at this point i feared for my life - travis slammed on his breaks at nearly every intersecting road, i don’t know why. things cleared up in arcadia, and when we hit wachula jack took over driving duties so travis (not a hanger-outer) could sleep in the back seat.

i got back to my place at 4:30 am and hit the shower. it felt nice to have the hot water pour over me. i had a great adventure with 2 pretty awesome guys friday night. i can’t wait until i can risk my life again in search for snook and red fish. maybe next time we will have more luck.

hooray! i’m going fishing tonight with travis and jack jarret. it should be pretty sweet. men being as men. just 3 guys, a boat, open water and lots of red fish and snook. pray for me though, travis is apparently dangerous when he gets around his boat. i don’t want to die. check back monday for my life status and fishing report.  if all goes well, hopefully i won’t be seeing this tonight.

recently, and i don’t know where it came from, i have been a huge fan of the ufc. you know, the thing where a couple of shirtless guys get in an octagonal caged ring and beat the doo doo out of each other. there is a show on spike tv called the ultimate fighter. its basically like a combination of mtv’s real world and vh1’s america’s next top model. they put 16 guys in a house to live together, train together, and ultimately fight together. two teams of eight. living in one house. filled with testosterone. *i can’t stress enough my the joy i get from watching this show* anyways, i was watching last week’s episode when america, even the world, may have seen the greatest, most gruesome knock out punch this sport has even faced. in case you missed the action i have decided to post a short video clip of the jaw cracking punch. i use that adjective because, in fact, the dude broke his jaw. that has got to hurt, physically and maybe even the ego too. do you think he’ll get back in the ring again? i don’t think this example of being able to overcome is on the same plane as getting back on the horse. enjoy.