ness

Thank you, sensai. More in the works for sure, gotta make a trip to Cabela's though because I'm a little low on materials. Now I've got to get my butt out and fish them. This cool down is pretty welcome, and the three-day weekend helps. I've had a hankerin' for doing some crankbaits too....

Sa-weet! That's on the bucket list for sure. Where did you fish? How about access? I've always heard it was pretty tricky. Did you hire a ghillie, wear tweed?

Alright, I got some tails on. I have really been enjoying this. I've always kinda liked doing hand work. Did a lot of models as a kid, tie flies, make rods, whatever. Just haven't gotten into the groove lately. But BilletHead and Flysmallie have inspired me, and I've been fiddling around with cork, balsa and foam. All of these were done with acrylic craft paints or model paint, stippled with whatever (darning needles, drill bits) and coated with an epoxy finish. I'm pretty happy with the results, but I've already got some improvements in mind. Plain old cork: Foam pencil popper: More cork: Foam popper tied diver-style: Teeny popper Cork again: Ho! Nothin fancy. Turning motor lower right -- balsa zip tied on, foam tape to stick 'em into.

Gotcha

Niiice. That's what I think of when I think of gooseberries -- greenish. Looks great! I told you a while back I've got Pixwell. Here's what mine look like: But, I'm not 100% sure that's what they are. I planted 3-4 varieties and only this one survived. I THINK it's Pixwel... Anyhoo, I love 'em. We took our smallish crop and made strawberry/gooseberry jam with them.

That's quite a variety there, Jones.

One of the reasons I couldn't get through The Earth is Enough is that the descriptions of Starlight just didn't square with the area. That, and 25 pages devoted to the bus ride to -- hell, I can't remember where. It was a struggle. I may pick it back up when I'm incapacitated. I have heard good things about the book mentioned in the article though, and it's on mt Amazon wish list (with about 50 others), to be purchased and read after I catch up on my backlog of already purchased books here at the house. If anybody's read it and wants to give an opinion, the reading list is always changing. I want it to be good --

Oh man, I may have built this up a leetle too much..... Tails on tonight or in the AM.

Originally I said Corps of Discovery -- it's actually Undaunted Courage. I think the Ken Burns thing was Corps of Discovery.

BilletHead pointed me to an article about stippling that is worth a read http://www.flytier.com/stippled.pdf. There are some concepts outlined there that are real helpful.

Good perspective. Thanks for that.

Hey, Mitch -- print me off a Browning Superposed, ok? I'll send the money in advance.

Never heard anything but good about them. I've also heard their used equipment ratings are conservative at a minimum. So, you buy a 'like new' you're gonna get that or better.

I guess I was thinking you meant chipotle-type chiles -- dried. Hmmmm. I gotta rethink this.

I don't, but want to throw out this website for you to look at. I don't have personal experience, but have talked to people who have. They have an excellent reputation in the photography community: keh.com

Great book. I loved it the first time I read it, and did some other reading on the whole situation which led me to read it again. Capote took quite a lot of poetic license that many people have had issues with over the years. The remaining sister and some friends have spoken up in recent years about not only the inaccuracies, but how the book has been a bit of a curse due to the continued attention they get. Just finished Steven Ambrose's "Undaunted Courage" about Lewis and Clark. A really good read, but Ambrose seems to inject a lot of judgement, speculation, and also has a bit of a 'fan-boy' infatuation with Lewis at times, kinda like he did in Band of Brothers and Eisenhower. It was very interesting how close L&C were to complete disaster on many occasions, but ultimately only lost one man on the journey -- due to an apparent appendicitis. The description of the last couple years of Lewis' life were really interesting, and sad. Next up "Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage" about an expedition to Antarctica that went bad.

I've got one thing on the list. So am I elite? In the interest of full disclosure, I don't even know what more than half the stuff is.

I dunno, BilletHead. I guess I'm more of a date guy. That fig looks a little like an inside-out intestine or something left over from surgery. Seriously, I like the idea of perennial fruits like that. I've got a hot spot on the west side of the house that needs something...

BTW, Mrs. BilletHead, did you know Marty spent, like, 500 bucks on a little teeny cooler? I just thought you'd want to know. A dang COOLER! Mine was 8 bucks at the grocery store. That other 482 could have been spent on better stuff. But, perhaps, I'm speaking out of turn.

All I can say is I'm laughing so hard I can't get through this post. Billet and Mrs. Billet, we need to meet up sometime. Marty -- we need to talk about password protection!

LOL.

Yep -- lookin' good, Jason. I see you're of the Stipple School of popperology, like BilletHead. You guys keep raising the bar on me....

50 Feather stainless blades -- a years supply $15 Merkur razor $40 amortized over expected life of 100 years $0.40 per year.

Lesson 1. Mother Nature can kill you real bad. Lesson 2. Don't pay attention to polls.

That's the cooler I was talking about. I trust your opinion more than a bunch of ticked-off anonymous folks on the web though. The most valid sounding gripes were about the latch and hinges. What's your opinion on that beauty?