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The Redwalls - "de nova" (2005 - Capitol Records) A group of young guys, playing music like that made before they were born... My Photographs You like photos? I love taking them. Click here, if you wanna see some of my work
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Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2006 - 8:57 p.m. Just been too busy and/or tired to take the time to update recently. Not because of snow. Haven�t had any of that since early December. It just seems like there aren�t enough hours in a day. Spent the last hour and a half or so watching Wisconsin beat Minnesota in a college basketball game. Fell asleep on the couch doing so. I don�t do that very often�. Yesterday evening was spent fixing a fuel leak on the Hillbilly truck. When I pulled into the parking lot at work that morning, I could smell gasoline. This had happened once before, back a few years. Since the brilliant engineers at Dodge decided to mount the in-line filter on the bottom cab rail, it is exposed to all of the salt and grime that laps at the undersides of the truck. It looked to me like the filter was rusted through, causing the dripping. I stopped at a local parts store, picked up a filter ($13.50) and a package of hose clamps ($1.99), and headed back home. I fought trying to remove the filter for a while before I figured out that wasn�t the problem- the fuel line had sprung a leak right at the filter. The screwdriver had only made one turn before the clamp popped of onto my chest. It had rusted completely apart. This, of course, gave me a quick bath of gasoline. I had changed into an old coat in case that happened. It is now in our garbage can, awaiting pickup tomorrow morning. I decided to cut about �� off of the end of the hose (plenty extra there, so no prob), and reattached the hose to the old filter. The filter wasn�t rusted through after all, and the mounting bracket for the old one was rusted tight to the frame anyway. Now I have a spare for a later date, when I can get the truck up in the air on a lift and have better access to the tight area). One last thing to check before I rolled out from underneath the truick- the other clamp on the fuel filter. I grabbed it with my bare hand and gave it a light twist. It broke in two into my hand. I replaced it, making sure that both were tight enough (no drips when wiggling the hose ends). So the Hillbilly truck should be OK (for at least a few days, anyway) Grandniece Riley spent a few days late last week in the hospital with some sort of infection that puzzled the doctors. They tried a couple of things before her lymph nodes finally reduced in size and sent her home (Saturday). Plenty of worrisome moments for both mom and dad, not to mention Great aunt and uncle. I had the camera with me (took a bunch of photos at nephew Gus� game earlier that day, and really didn�t want to leave it in the Vibe while we were in the hospital). She was feeling better, so I shot a few photos of her (with Dad�s permission, of course):
No the stuffed monkey wasn�t attacking her- it fell over right when I hit the shutter button. Speaking of Gus:
I shot all of the photos at the game with the camera on manual, adjusting the �film speed� between 400 and 1600. I was worried the 1600 would be too grainy, but they turned out decent. The gym was well lit, so I was getting my shutter speed up around 1/11 to 1/160. Using my tripod mainly as a brace as I swiveled the camera back and forth (we were sitting at least 50 feet from the court, meaning every shot was at least 75 -200 feet from the action. Thanks to my 70-300mm lens, that wasn�t too much of a problem). 6th grade basketball is about learning. The final score isn�t that important. Yeah sure- try telling that to the parents who take this kind of thing far too seriously. Believe me, I had to deal with way too many of them while coaching Codeman in baseball (and the couple of years I coached him in YMCA basketball, too). That said, Gus� coach played around with his lineup, making sure everyone got plenty of court time. The score was very low and close against a team that didn�t have nearly as many talented players. Close until the third period, that is. His team started the period with both Gus and the other boy that could handle the ball good (point guards, in basketball terminology) on the floor for the first 5 minutes. With both of them trading off passes and shooting, with a few nice feeds inside, the score went from something like 12-10 to 24-12. If the coach was worried about winning big, he would have left them on the floor together longer. But he didn�t. For that, I give him much respect. He even played one kid who has pretty bad trouble with diabetes for the last few minutes of the game. His teammates kept feeding him the ball, and he kept shooting and missing. Then he was fouled. He missed the first free throw. When he made the second one, you would have thought they had just won the state championship. He could hardly run down the court, he was jumping up and down and smiling so big. His teammates celebrated along with him, forgetting to guard their man as the clocked ticked down. I have to admit, it was a great moment in a meaningless youth basketball game. That, folks, is what I think organized sports should be about until you are receiving a letter for your efforts. After the game ended, the traditional handshake, and then two of the still smiling kids teammates picked him up and carried him to the bench:
Just great moments for all that were lucky enough to witness the last minutes of this grade school game�
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