Thread: Summertime

Like those colors

Yes Sir

Not sure what I am doing wrong. Dr Nip says Solarez Diamond UV provides a beautiful top coat. Well it does the same thing as all the other UV coatings provide. Hazy eyes. Now his jigs look incredible, mine look like an old dog with cataracts. Fish ain’t gonna bite that.

I am going to try something else in the hopes that I can get a good clean overcoat. Ordered something the other week and it still has not arrived.

My new mold got shipped. Finally gentlemen. It better be as good as it is slow to arrive. I want to make up a pile of heads with 3D eyes with nothing but a clear coat of powder paint and a top coat dressing. Shiny silver. I hear that adding some tin makes them even shinier. Hmmmm……


Today my wife’s best friend will be visiting and spending the night. She wants to bake brownies and learn how to shoot a gun. So….. I have to clean out the refrigerator real good, clean out the stove and hide all my pots and pans that live in there. Then go to Sam’s Club for groceries to put right back in that very same refrigerator.

A local apartment complex recently was purchased and the new owner wanted all new appliances installed. 395 units worth of appliances. The ones being replaced are only two years old. They were donated to our local Habitat for Humanity, which is now completely overwhelmed and ready to make a deal. I am getting a fridge for the garage, a new stove for the kitchen and a new microwave to hang above the stove.

$110

Picking up two more refrigerators for my brothers. Always nice to have something like that on hand at at these fabulous prices…..well I can’t help myself. Probably have to make two trips. Maybe I can talk one of my brothers into picking up theirs.

My stove has the glass top surface and I absolutely HATE the stupid thing. Got talked into buying it and have regretted it ever since. The stove I am getting has the coils. Glass tops heat up, then cool off as they go. Impossible to get the right amount of heat. Either too hot or too cold. Plus the glass broke when I was canning some chicken soup. Now cleaning the top sucks. Give me that old fashioned stuff. I prefer gas but do not wish to be cheated by my local gas suppliers. Yes, I mean cheated.


I visited the Habitat store and measured and inspected and inquired. They will test each to ensure they work and clean them up if needed. I will probably pick them up on Monday afternoon…..after I give them the evil eye looking for ……wait for it….wait…..cockroaches. That’s right. I ain’t bringing somebody’s immune to poison cockroaches into my dump. Surprise is the key to spotting them if you didn’t already know that. AHA……

I also have to make the trip to the fireworks store to get some supplies. I would buy earlier, off season, from the local supply house if they were discounted, but they never are so might as well let them store them. Fountains and crackers and rockets oh my. I consider these things to be safe for the most part. A man only has to experience one really bad scene to discover his limitations when it comes to explosives. I met mine and ain’t going back.

I plan to take the boat for a ride on the local lake at some point. Two girls and me. Lots of cold water with plenty of ice and some speed and we will do just fine. Spot some alligators hopefully. Girls love to spot alligators you know. I can tell you a way to get a girl to squeal if you ain’t guessed yet.

Speaking of ice. I bought a countertop ice maker for $100, new on Amazone. It makes what are called Nuggets, not cubes. These are shaped like bells that ring. It says it makes 40 pounds a day but I am in serious doubt of that at this point. Started yesterday evening and today I might have four pounds. Wife wants it off the counter but I think it is way too cool to be hidden away. Besides it is hot and I need ice. Purchased ice can be very expensive, and it just melts anyways. Waste of money if you ask me.

My wife had been bragging about her abilities with a gun, so her buddy thinks she too can manage that. I have a Ruger 10/22 with a RedDot scope and it does OK. She is able to make head shots consistently at 30 yards with it. She swears she would never shoot another human being. I told her that I have seen what her other human beings are capable of. That if one comes around the home looking for trouble, that it will be her responsibility and her duty to her family to put him down. I told her, don’t rely on me being able to win a fist fight. I mean I might win I might not. What then ?

So she learned how to check the gun, load the gun, inject a cartridge and discharge all by herself. I mean I wouldn’t want her plunking away at me I tell you that. Might hit me. What then ?

A buddy told me I made a huge mistake teaching her, cause she might just shoot me one day. Yeah yeah….big deal. So she shoots me.

The dog was standing on the deck the other evening. I was enjoying a cold brew and listening to her who must be paid attention to when she uttereth musings. I spotted a swarm of nasty little skeeters all around the pup, almost like a cloud. Next morning I broke out the fogger and went to town. Did it again this morning and no more skeeters. I purchase my stuff off the internet. I mix the pesticide “ShockWave” with diesel fuel and it is death to bugs. I read about harmful effects to birds and such but there are none.

After I fog I hang outside like a census taker to see, and when they land on you and start whirling in circles instead of biting, you know you bought the good stuff. HAH

Anyways big doings this weekend. I will avoid driving at night for fear of the amateur drunks trying to steer with one eye open. Sad but true folks. Lots of good people have died because they just happened to be out at the same time these drunks are trying to lear to drive drunk. I am certain that the local game wardens will be out in their boats looking for….wait for it…wait…..drunks in boats. Usually they just visit the boat ramp and sit and watch people backing down their trailers in hopes of extracting their boats. Pretty easy pickins there, but during holidays they want to be seen more than anything else. Slow Daddy down on that lager a little bit.

My safety tip for the holiday is as simple as it is special. Do not get liquored up and look into the mortar tube trying to figure out why it didn’t go off. Instead ask your liquored up buddy to do all that for you.

Hey, I need a stove for the old house, gonna send you a PM.

Some folks don't realize this will be their last weekend with all 10 fingers

Sometimes I get motivated to try new things.









Here I am combining a plastic bait with a marabou feathering. Not very good but definitely interesting. I imagine stored for a period of time the plastic would foul the feather. Exude stuff. I will play around with this idea some more and see where it leads me.


Then there is this.





Same concept, different materials.



The main issue I had forming these up was the head. There is a slippery neck in there and that makes it tough to wind thread. It wants to slip off and down onto the hook shank. These are the last of my ready made jig heads. All out.


The good news is they say the new mold will arrive today. YEAH.


I have a fan in my garage to keep me somewhat cool, so I can pour away. I cannot wait to see what kind of head I will be getting. See what eyes fit and such, too. Make me up a bunch and try the new clear coat liquid that is also said to be delivered today.

I really like marabou feathers and ordered some new colors. Somehow I lost my purple string. Not sure where it went. Kind of hard to make purple and chartreuse and purple and pink when I ain’t got no purple. Purple and pink seems to be a local favorite amongst the local fish. Of course I really don’t catch that many to know much about what they want.

Went out yesterday, mostly to run the engine and cruise about. I did troll some and hooked a large one, but of course he……wait for it….wait….got away. Hook pulled. He was swirling underneath the surface and finally came to the surface, but he didn’t want to water ski in and thrashed. The hook must have ripped free when he dived back down and did his best to resist.

I did notice that there were lots of shoals of shad. Swimming along busily eating. As I motor boated past I saw crappie leaping out of the water due to fear of me passing close by. So they are following these large schools of baitfish around. There really is no structure for them to relate to, so why not. My baits must not have interested them when there was so much good stuff to be had. I did not see the schools in a panic, so maybe they had been eating all night, and that is why I didn’t catch more fish.

I also saw that in certain spots there was a lot of lake fly activity. There were areas that had floating debris, like leaves and such. Not really sure how that happens to be. Why isn’t it spread out across the lake ?

I have to work today. Later I am supposed to be going to her parent’s home for dinner. He likes to cook inexpensive meals, even though they are well off. His burgers are brown on just the outside and glory warrior red everywhere inside. One bite and they go mush. I am kind of funny about meats. I like meats rare and middling, but anything that is ground I want cooked all the way. See bacteria alight upon the surface of meat and try to multiply. Refrigeration retards any uncontrolled growth, but does not kill the little devils. You take a steak and sear it and you killed all the micro organisms that were on the surface. Take some meat and grind it up and now those micros are spread throughout. Searing the outside of a burger kills those guys, but the ones inside not so much. Same same with sausage. It is one of the reasons why hotdogs come to us already precooked.

I mean I don’t remember feeling sick from eating his burgers, but…… a little more time on the grill would toughen them up and make them more enjoyable for me. Of course I don’t damn dare say nothing to him. He is crotchety and irascible. That means mean.

My buddy bought some fireworks for tomorrow night. I took the woman down and we got us some, too. She has big eyes for those packages, and I must admit they are enticing. The larger packages are $100+. I would walk along side her and go hmmmmmm…..and then try to steer her towards the more reasonable offerings. Which were damn hard to locate amongst the shelves of colorful stuff. We got some rolls of firecrackers, 500 and 1,000 sized. I like those. Then we got some roman candles and some fountains. She likes those. They really didn’t have any of the goofy kid type stuff like snakes and throw bangs. She likes that stuff too because it reminds her of her youth.

I go pickup my appliances today. Can’t fit everything on the truck. I will be buying three refrigerators, two ovens, and a microwave. I have a really nice dolly but still it is a trick for me to manage these things by myself. I used to just grab them and start walking around with stuff like this. Now I must think about how I can manage the lifting without injuring myself. The really good injuries last a lifetime you know. My wife is not able to help. She is kind of puny but mostly her issue is she is easily intimidated and doesn’t really want to try.

I yelled at her yesterday in front of her mama. She had a water pistol and kept shooting me in the face with it. Oh how she would laugh. I kept asking her to please stop shooting me in the face as I didn’t feel it was near as funny as she did. She just kept doing it until finally I got agitated and yelled out to stop. A few cuss works mixed in. Nothing too tame. She said her mother was horribly upset by that, but hey her husband yells at her over nothing type stuff. At least I felt that I had cause. I did have cause, didn’t I ?

That new counter top ice maker is a joke. I mean it does make ice but 9 small cubes every fifteen minutes doesn’t really make for a bag of ice. I been storing it in a container in the freezer but it is all stuck together. I look around wondering what that sound was every time it dumps a load. It would never supply enough for a party unless I ran it for a week or something.

Oh….and did I mention that she hates the stupid thing.

Her mama saw the wallpaper and said it looked nice. At that I challenged her immediately. I think she was just saying that to make my bride feel better about blowing a thousand dollars on the stuff. Then they started in talking about her mama’s walls and such and I just walked off disgusted.

I bet I will just be sitting around at work today. There will be nothing to do. Half day as I get off at 12:30. Not really sure why the boss wanted me in there, but they did. Leave there and get loaded with appliances, and then home for some cold refreshing beer. Yes, I said beer.

Budweiser been having a time, but they also make several other brands that I was not aware of. Corona is not Mexican beer, it is Budweiser beer. Lots of brands are actually Budweiser beers in disguise. I got to examining the selection of beers at the grocery store and spotted one that was cheap. Monte Carlo, and it is made in Guatemala. I tell you it isn’t half bad either. $12 a twelve pack and goes down like most any lager will. Lagers are lagers because they use a yeast that does well in colder environments. Cave environments is where it got started, then brought over here.

Saw a Budweiser stocking boy the other week. Man he looked mad. I decided that cracking a crude joke probably wasn’t going to amuse him much. The only good joke I knew to tell is inappropriate here.

Did I mention that my mold is supposed to arrive today ?

Maybe I will be sick and unable to go eat raw hamburgers tonight and instead stay home and pour jig heads. YES……sick I say. Oh dear……I am not feeling…….

You could have hosed her down with the water hose. She would have not thought that was funny

Shoulda just got your own water pistol, just sayin'.