Dead in the Water

Alas, another boating season has come and gone.

The boat came out last week, it's already been winterized and shrink wrapped, and all I have to do now is pull the batteries off and bring them home for the winter.

The perch fishing was dismal this year. It got too hot too fast, and the weather didn't cooperate most weekends. There were maybe 5 good weekends for fishing...when the weather was comfortable and the waves were less than 3 feet. That accounts for this year's small catch. We caught 212 perch this year, with nearly half of them coming in the last weekend (97 perch on October 1 and 2). That compares to 475 perch last year, and 574 in 2003.

My usual practice of taking perch to my local watering hole on OSU football Saturdays will be reduced to one game this year, most likely the Michigan game. I'm not sure why I do it, many people eat it that don't even say 'thank you.' Some do appreciate it, and they show it by buying me a beer. But when I think about what it costs, in both time and money, to get that perch into the deep fryer, I'm sure I'd be better off just buying my own beer. But, hey, I'm a sharing kind of guy.

As Maxwell Smart would say...

...missed it by "that" much.

I checked out the odds on the Bucks winning the national championship while in Las Vegas last month, and those tight SOBs would give me only 5 to 1 odds, so I passed. I thought about it, though, but some invisible imp on my shoulder urged me not to do it. Looks like I made the right call, I could get WAY better odds now that they lost to the Texas Longhorns. If I see one more of those people walking around Columbus with their index and little fingers raised in the Longhorn Salute, I'm going to puke. Now I can only hope for a rematch in the National Championship game.

My daugher Natalie joined me to watch part of the game Saturday, after she had traveled the campus-area bar circuit helping a friend sell t-shirts. It took me a while to figure out the shirts, but they made sense after a few more Bud Lights. Here's a link to the site. Go to the Texas link, she is Natalie, featured in several pictures.

http://www.donkeypunchshirts.com/

HOWEVER: the sports book at Harrah's gave me 50 to 1 against the Tribe winning the World Series and I took it. Seems like a reasonable bet, they are on fire. I could be wrong about this, but I think they have the best record in the Majors since June 1. It was April and May that were tough on them, but they sure have turned things around.

The Browns...well, let's just say we're going to have another "rebuilding" year.

Can't Wait For Summer To End

I love the outdoors. I started golfing again this month, about 7 1/2 months after the surgery, and about 2 months before my surgeon wants me to. No real pain, but I can't make a full turn when I swing, my back gets tight around the 9th hole, and I really can't control the clubs very well. I was playing to an 11 index this time last year, but right now I'm playing to about a 24.

Beside golf, I've managed to get out on Lake Erie to fish a few times, and I've also made several trips to the islands.

This week I'll be going to Dallas for a conference, then up to Put-in-Bay for 3 days the following week (Legislative Days at Put-in-Bay, followed by a fundraiser for the House Minority Leader). Then the week after that, I'm heading to Seattle for 5 days for another conference, and I'll be stopping in Las Vegas on the way back (for 4 days) to attend the wedding of one of my many nieces.

So why can't I wait for summer to end? I don't like heat and humidity, and we've had both in spades this summer. I'm never home on the weekends during the summer, so I always feel like I need to catch up on things at home. And although I like to travel, too much of it stresses me, and I'm certain I'll be stressed for the next 3 weeks.

But there's one more reason...The Ohio State Buckeyes. I am very optimistic about this season, and I plan to place a bet at a sports book in Vegas that the Bucks will win the national championship. Just to hedge, I'll probably also bet that they will win the Big Ten.

Any Michigan fan reading this post can kiss my butt.

Another Put-In-Bay Tale

It's been quite a while since I've posted, even though I meant to do so right after the annual Memorial Day trip to PIB.

The nephew and the friend (whose name I will not use here, for reasons which will become obvious) were my guests for a fun filled weekend on the island, their reward for cleaning and waxing my boat in April. The usual ground rules applied: be careful, if you run out of money you can drink on the boat, and I do not bring bail money, so stay out of trouble.

We hit the Roundhouse around 2 o'clock in the afternoon, just in time to see Mike "Mad Dog" Adams do his routine. Funny as usual, although Mad Dog could spruce up his act a little. I heard some of the same jokes last year.

After a few hours of Mad Dog, I told the boys that I was going to the boat to take a nap. I'm old enough and wise enough to know that I can't hang from 2 o'clock in the afternoon until the late hours. So I crashed for about an hour, then headed back to the bars.

We met up at Mr. Ed's, and it turns out an old friend of mine from Bellevue is running the joint. He was kind enough to send a few free beers my way, for which I was grateful (especially with Bud Light costing $4.50 a can), but it pretty much ruined me for the night. I went back to the boat around 10:00 or 10:30, popped open a can of beer, and reflected.

About a half hour later, the nephew hopped on the boat. "Uncle Sam, #$@%% just got thrown in jail!"

This was interesting news, although not totally unexpected.

I replied, "I hope he has bail money, because I told you guys I wasn't going to bail you out of jail."

"He doesn't need bail money, Uncle Sam, they're going to let him out when the bars close."

And so it went. He came back to the boat around 2 o'clock in the morning, and to this day I don't know what he did to get thrown in jail.

The next morning, after breakfast, I walked to the cop shop with the boys to see if there was something I could do to help. Would it be OK for him to sign a waiver and pay the fine so he wouldn't have to come back for a court appearance? No, he had to come back Thursday. In the end, it cost him a $200 fine, plus the cost of the ferry ride, and the rest is history.

I hope they'll still help me out next spring, so I can take them to Put-In-Bay for Memorial Day weekend, and I hope they are a little older and wiser, and they remember to bring bail money.