Stuff Archives

I just spent somewhere in the region of $8m on a new camera and some lenses. I was in the process of setting it up and trying to figure out how it worked and in walked my son from swimming and then proceeded to strip. Here's the first picture with my new camera.

As most people will have read, I've posted a few vote questions about Fish-O-Mania a few weeks back. More along the lines of the fact that I was thinking about trying to enter next year. Hopefully ... I have it recorded so can watch it when I come back to the UK in a couple of weeks, but knowing my old fellow's technical abilities, I'm sure something will have gone wrong and I'll have 6 hours of Coronation Street instead.

Anyway, that's not the reason for this post. I've been following a Dan Blackwell online. I try to watch a few YouTube videos during the week so I can learn different methods and maximize the time I get on the bank when I come back home and get the chance to go out. I started watching videos of Steve Ringer, Tommy Pickering and Bob Nudd as well as many others that have some great stuff out there where you can learn so much. I came across a video by Dan and have to say when I started to watch it, I nearly turned it off thinking “what's this kid going to tell me.” I ended up watching the video and thought “hold on a minute, this kid knows his stuff and the video's pretty well put together.” I watched a few of his videos and have now watched all of them I'm sure. They're published under minnowmaster209 and well worth watching.

As much as I was hoping to watch the Fish-O-Mania competition when I came back home without knowing the results, I saw a post from Dan that he'd won the junior competition. Really need to take my hat off to this kid for doing such a great job of the fishing videos and working to get this thoroughly deserved win. Also think his dad (or whoever shoots the videos) needs a big shout out for the patience and doing a great job of that.

Here's the short video of Dan picking up his trophy:



Probably not the most interesting video, so here's on of him catching carp on the pole and feeder. If you're interested in that sort of thing.

So .... a few weeks back, William came home with a school project to grow a sunflower. In the typical interest of a child, his attention lasted about a day and half before he got completely bored with it, however, Karen picked this up as a mission. I'd like to say this was to be her crowning glory to prove that she could indeed look after flowers.

Now, I will admit that my talents in this area are severely limited, but I do have 100% record with flowers. I've never tried to grow any and therefore have never failed. Simples!

Anyway, there were two of these sunflowers and they seemed to be doing really well. One of them had grown quite thick and had several flowers. The second one had grown taller and was looking like it was just about to flower. I can't remember exactly when I last saw them, but I thought all was well as I headed to Seattle on Monday.

I came back from Seattle late Wednesday afternoon and when I went into the kitchen, was quite surprised as to what had happened to these monuments of Karen's horticultural abilities. Clearly what happened is my fault. I know that, but I'm really not sure what I did to them and haven't asked as am not really sure I want to find out. I'm still maintaining plausible deniability on account of the fact that I was in a different State. And no, not just a state of denial, but physically in a different State.

The first image shows the two plants together and then the next two images are close ups of the one that had started to bloom.


My best guess on this one is that the plan changed from becoming a gardener into focusing more on expression art. I believe this now to be some kind of post modern representation of our marriage. I'm not sure it really needs any further commentary.

As for the second one ....


The mind boggles a bit here. I do know that I may have upset her a little in the week as we are finalizing a point in the divorce, but I didn't think it was that bad. When I look at the poor plant, it seems as if she went outside and bit its head off in some crazed Alan Titchmarsh meets Ozzy Osbourne kind of way.

I'm sure there's another explanation, but I kind of like mine. Visions of Karen losing her mind and running down the street believing that she's chasing Triffids and biting the heads off the neighbors plants.

It's hard to believe that you can say something without realizing what it is you're saying, but this is an actual broadcast from KTVU Fox 2 in San Francisco reporting on the Asiana plane crash.



Apparently they called the NTSB to confirm the names and these were confirmed by a summer intern working there. But still .... seriously!

If you missed it, the names are:

• Captain Sum Ting Wong
• Wi To Lo
• Ho Le Fuk
• Bang Ding Ow

*************

So, I've updated the link as these videos keep getting taken down from YouTube ... not surprisingly. The bullet list above at least gives you the context of what happened. Go to YouTube and search for KTVU Asiana if you want to find it. Seems as soon as they take one copy down another 10 go up. This one may stay given it's from another TV show.

I'm not 100% sure I heard this right so this may need some follow up. I took three flights this week with an airline I don't normally use. (All three flights were delayed .... go figure why I don't normally use them). Anyway, on the last flight I was actually awake for the safety briefing. I normally fall asleep as soon as I get on the plane. Anyway this airline's instructions to inflate the life vest were “put finger in ring and pull towards front.” I'm pretty sure I got this right as it normally says to pull the tab sharply downwards. Never anything about a ring or pulling towards the front.

The trouble is I spent the rest of the flight trying to figure out who's ring you're supposed to put your finger into. Does one put one's finger in one's own ring or do you share the love? It did occur to me that perhaps the adopted crash position held the answer to the question and you were supposed to poke the person in front of you like some weird kind of conga line. Thankfully we didn't crash so it didn't matter.

As many of you that read this site know, I've got myself a van so that I can go fishing back in the UK. Now it's painted up, I'm ready to go!

Can you spot the punchline coming

So I was on a trip this week where I had to fly out to Houston on Wednesday for a meeting there on Thursday before heading back to Portland before going home. Well, the first leg of the journey, I ended up on a flight sat next to a guy that flew all over the country judging dairy cows.

Telegraphing the punchline

I have to say, he was quite interesting to talk to. Certainly different from the normal silence or someone in a similar consulting position as yourself. Anyway, he had to do some work, so he pulled up pictures of cows on his laptop and was walking through them. Each time one of the flight attendants walked up the isle, he would show them funny pictures to make them laugh - some of them were quite funny - I should have probably got them mailed to me, but there you go.

And here it is

Given that he was showing photos, I showed him a picture of Karen .... apparently she would have placed fourth!

Ever since I started fishing I’ve had my sights set on hitting the magic ton (100lb of fish in a day). It used to be that I thought I was going to do it in Ireland. There are many an angling tale of people tonning up on the Emerald Isle .... but most of them are fabrications of the truth. The best I achieved was 56lb, but also had another day of 50lb. I’ve actually done that back in England in a few places here and there. That said, I’ve not really thought about it in a while, just go out and try to catch what I can and see where it goes.

I had a reasonable start to the holiday, catching a few fish at the local lakes. The best being a 10lb mirror carp from Fulbeck. We were staying away at Westwood Lakes in Boston for the weekend. I fished on Friday afternoon and had what I believed to be about 90lb of fish until I snapped my landing net handle bringing in a 12lb ghost carp. (No harm done to the fish – it came in safe and sound, but it did mean more kit). I fished a match on Saturday and didn’t do that great (40lb which is normally a good day, but nowhere near what I needed). On the Sunday, the lake was almost full, but I got back on the peg I fished the first day. Spent the whole day working the nearside margins on both sides of me. Fished a pole with 12 elastic – 8lb main to a 7lb. My conservative estimate is that I did 137lb of fish, but it may have been over 150lb. I weighed the heavier fish as I caught them and then applied an average to what was left. Here's the breakdown of the 60 fish:

Barbel (22)
(Average 2.5lb - fish from 0.75 to 5lb)
20 x 2.5 = 50lb
 1 x   8 =  8lb
 1 x  10 = 10lb

Bream (10)
(Average 3lb - fish from 2lb to 4lb)
 8 x   3 = 24lb
 2 x   7 = 14lb

Carp (6)
(Average 2lb - fish from 0.25lb to 4lb)
 3 x   2 =  6lb
 1 x   5 =  5lb (Ghost)
 1 x   5 =  5lb (Common)
 1 x   5 =  5lb (Mirror)

Tench (1)
 1 x   5 =  5lb

Roach and Skimmers (21)
(Average 0.25lb - fish from 2oz to 1lb)
21 x .25 =  5lb (rounded down)

Total
60 fish for 137lb

The stand outs in that lot are obviously the two big barbel and the bream, although I'm rather pleased with the lonely tench. Just something about them I like even if they do cover your line in slime. Also interesting that the carp family paid a visit as I seemed to manage to get quite a variety in. The tally of fish was actually kept by my mum who sat and read a book whilst my dad and brother played golf. Pretty good day in all.

There were a couple of noteworthy's from the previous session, namely a 7lb barbel and a 12lb ghost carp. (I did actually catch a 7lb barbel in the match as well - seemed they liked me).

And just to finish up, the mirror carp from Fulbeck.

I've been pondering the decision as to whether to buy a GoPro or not and have finally succumbed to their mass marketing and got one. It arrived a couple of days ago and I thought I'd try it out yesterday. If anyone doesn't know, a GoPro is a very small video camera that is used to record high speed sports. They come in waterproof containers so they can do surf boarding, wind surfing, mountain biking ... you get the picture. They're often used in cars or on motorbikes which is why you get to see all those crash videos on YouTube. I bought mine for a multitude of reasons, not least of which is fishing, particularly given the small size etc.

Anyway, so I figured I'd give it a spin as I was working down in San Jose so used a suction cup to mount it to my car. Figure out the suction cup doesn't work on the dash, but great on the winDSCreen. Remembered to go into the setup and change the camera to operate upside down and away you go. Now, these are small functional cameras build with size and portability in mind, so the camera itself doesn't come with a screen. You can connect with a mobile phone (which I did) that will show you what the camera sees and you can turn it on off and change settings etc.

Off I popped down San Jose and was quite surprised as to how much was going on around me. I had a random driver holding his dog out the window with sunglasses on, a car come screaming by me closely followed by one belonging to the California Highway Patrol. The patrol car won ... something about flashing lights must make the car go faster ....

On the way back, changed battery and set off again. Very boring drive back, nothing happened, but you can't win them all.

Suffice it to say that when I pulled the files off the camera I found an excellent video of the drive back, but only a photograph of my garage door before leaving. Somehow I had taken a picture on the way down instead of starting the video and ended up missing anything of any interest whatsoever.

Better luck next time ... assuming I don't just put it in a drawer and end up not using it. Time will tell.

So, I find myself alone with William as Karen is traveling for work and I thought I'd try my hand at shopping at the supermarket. Now, I've done this before several times and I do remember strange things happening. Memories of gibbering in the corner due to not understanding some seemingly unwritten rules on how to shop and what to do with trolley etc.

This time was no exception.

I will actually say that the whole shopping experience went quite smoothly, but then again, I only got 5 items. So I went to pay. First thing I noticed is that there aren't any people on the checkout. I knew this existed in the express lane, but not in the others. Even though I only had 5 items I decided to go to a full lane as I had a trolley. Beeped everything through, paid for it fine, bagged it and popped it back into the trolley and off I went.

I noticed this odd rustling behind me as I made my way to the car. What appears to have happened is that I had bagged my goods and not fully detached the bag from the others and had created a plastic bag chain sort of thing. Ever seen those picture of women that have toilet paper stuck down their nickers and have left a trail behind them. Well, kind of the same thing.

Looking on the bright side, we now have a lot of bin/trash liners.