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Sunday, Feb. 02, 2003 - 7:56 p.m.

In a foul mood all day, but I won�t take it out on you (photos from yesterday�s fishing included)

(Another long entry today. You have been warned)

Yeah, for some reason I was in a bad mood most of the day.

Why, you ask?

It might be due to the fact that I did a rough draft of our income tax return last night. We made (combined) about $1000 less than we did the year before. That is due to lack of winter weather last year, and the accompanying overtime I didn�t receive.

Last year, we had to cut a check for around $200 to the IRS. That is the way I want it, btw. I am NOT a proponent of getting a huge check back every spring. I don�t want the government to have MY money all year, so I can receive a big check every year. IO would rather have the money all year.

I have been close to break-even for the last 10 years. One year, a small refund. The next? A small check for the Government to add to the rest they take away from us all year.

This year?

Even though we made less, and even though we actually owe about $1500 less on the same income as last year, I will have to write a check for OVER $1000!

Why? Because the IRS sent out new tax tables early last year. This was so we (the taxpayers) could have more money to spend, supposedly to stimulate the anemic economy.

Yes, we had the extra money all year. But I DON�T want to end up writing a big check every April 15th.

I have until then to scrape the extra cash up to pay this bill. I will change my deductions on Monday to take an extra $50 a pay period out, so I won�t have this wonderful surprise again next year.

I just wonder how many of you will have the same results after YOU figure up your 1040 form��


Tow more bitches about today, and then it�s off to happy pictures of fishies and such:

1. The Illini lost a basketball game today by 3 points. The referees missed the last shot of the first half, taken by Michigan State, that was released about 1/2 second after the clock had expired. Hell, the light was on behind the basket. Three officials missed the call. This game was the national college �Game of the week� on CBS, and the announcers showed the replay, over and over. They even showed it one more time with about 30 seconds to go in the game, just so I could see again how the officials blew the call.

Yes, it�s just a game.

Still put me into a deeper funk.

2. After the game ended, Lease and I went for a walk. With Tony Bonehead. It was almost 60� here today, so we really needed to get out and enjoy the warm weather.

Unfortunately for me, Tony got a little excited when we were almost home. He decided to try to get home as quickly as possible, and I paid the cost. He is lousy on a leash anyway, but when he decided that I wasn�t moving fast enough while we were walking in a small area where there wasn�t any sidewalk, I lost my footing and fell face first into the mud under my feet. yes, this is the second time I have ended up falling to the ground in less than two weeks. Must be an old-age thing, eh?

I ended up splitting open a cut on my left hand (originally cut while cleaning fisah yesterday), causing blood to run down my arm in dramatic fashion. It looked worse than it felt. Ever since then, Tony has been acting like a condemned prisoner, looking and running away from me as quickly as possible.

No, I didn�t raise my voice or yell at him. He just knows that he fucked up, and since he is a dog, he don�t know how to make it up to me. I even rubbed his head once we got home, to show him I wasn't mad with him. It doesn�t matter. He is sure I will get even with him, in that little pit bull brain of his.

I won�t. But it will be a long time before I take him out for a walk on a wet, muddy day again�..


Ok, here is the fishing story I promised you:

I arrived at the nuclear power plant lake at 8:30 am. By 9:30, I had completely ran out of wax worms, the bait I took with me to aid in catching a mess of bluegill. The fish were hitting very aggressively, sometimes being caught on the bare jig of the pair I was using as bait. When they are this easy to catch, I usually only put bait on one lure.

Even with that, I ran out of bait in that single hour. I had about 15 nice bluegills in my plastic bucket, and had thrown back about 50 more that were smaller than I wanted to clean.

Here is one of the bigger fish, cradled in my red, numb fingers:

I wasn�t wearing gloves for two reasons: it was relatively warm (40�), and the fish were hitting on every cast. To take a fish off of the hook, you need your fingers free. I have tried those �fingertip-less� gloves, and the scuba gear poly gloves, and nothing works as well as bare hands. After you fingers become comfortable numb (as Pink Floyd put it), you don�t feel the cold or pain anymore. Since I was only planning on being there for a couple of hours anyway, I just toughed it out.

The next shot is of the radioactive foam that is always lining the rocks the shoreline of this lake. It is a nuclear power plant, after all:

O.K., the foam isn�t really radioactive. I played with the �saturation� settings on my photo edit program. I just had to throw that in there, since many people are afraid of this form of power. It hasn�t had any effect on me, except it cause my writing to occasionally AJvdB VkRJGn mYpn cOPq eiUHjc amKaq mlDWclp qTjfDQ�..


Geese, flying overhead:

These photos were taken with my old digital camera, so the quality isn�t the best. I didn�t want to take the good camera to the lake, with the chance of dropping it in the water, or , more likely the way I have been lately, falling down and breaking the lens or something�..


It was very foggy yesterday, too. There is always a little fog coming off of the superheated water there in the winter, but it was more so yesterday than usual:


The next shot is of a Green Sunfish, a very common species around here that lives among the rocks lining the shoreline of our local lakes. They are worthless as a game fish, because they never get large enough to eat.

Lease did hook the largest Greenie I have ever seen back in the early 1980�s at the large lake south of town. It was about 14� long, and must have weighed at least a pound.

Even at that large size, it had less meat on it than an 8� bluegill. We threw it back, and then later learned it might have been a lake record for its species.

Hey, I saw her catch it, so that is good enough for me.

Anyway�..

Here is one greenie that managed to grab my bait about 8� from the bank while I was untangling a mess inside of my fishing reel:

If I had another bucket, I might have tried to put this little guy into my aquarium in the living room�


One more shot? O.k.

I�ll leave you with this last photo. It is of what I think was a Striped/Sunny bass. These fish get up to 20-lbs. locally. This one was about 16� long, and might have been 2 � pounds:

For years, the Department of Natural Resources decided there were any white bass in the lake. They said they hadn�t stocked them in there, and that any fish looking like a white bass was a Striper/Sunny. They had a strict 3 fish / 17� limit, too.

Then, about 3 years ago, they finally admitted that the smaller cousins to the Stripers had somehow got into the lake. They had to change the rules, because none of the Whites reached the 17� limit, and they were starting to overpopulate the lake.

The new rules are unlimited White bass species fish, with only a 3 fish over 17� limit per day. They figured that would encourage fishermen to keep a bunch of the little White bass, and take some of the pressure off of the Striper/Sunnies.

I don�t know for sure, but I think the fish in the photo above was a Sunny. I would have had to count the spines on its back fins, and I didn�t feel like doing that. It was a legal fish either way, so it ended up in my bucket.

Regardless of what species it was, it WAS tasty. I poached its filets in a skillet that also contained a reduction of tomatoes, green peppers, mushrooms, garlic, onions, and Cajun spices.

Very tasty��

Antique - Futuristic


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