Ho Humm...

Not much too exciting happening here in DaHo. Its cooled off a little which is good and might even rain some today.

Saturday, Pam made up a delivered dinner to brother Bobby's family with the new baby and all. We delivered it to their local shoe store and ended up buying 5 pairs of new shoes, since they give us very good prices.

Pool was pretty sucky this week. My TEP was leaking at the Wednesday night 8-ball tournament, which always does me in, and I got beat bad. Then, in our Thursday night 9-ball league, we did pretty good. We won 14 out of 18 games. Steve and I both won 5 out of 6 and Storm won 4. That was the last regular night of league, and there hasn't been any current statistics for a couple of weeks, but I am sure we came in first place as a team. I don't know whether Steve and I, being tied up, will share first place in individual standings or not yet. This Saturday, there is an end of league tournament which should be big fun.

We ordered a new granite slab counter top for the upstairs guest suite, and a new tile floor for the downstairs hall bathroom from Steve's store and it should be installed later this week. Those should both be nice additions to DaHouse.

I went down to a new fishing tackle store in town and checked out what they had. They have some 'serious' Sturgeon fishing rigs there. They had some spinning rods that were 15 feet long and had handles almost as large as my wrist - I have never seen anything like those things before.

Grandson Oliver is due to arrive sometime soon and we will probably have to get some of that BIG tackle, since we will be going after the BIG Sturgeons here in DaHo...

The Ho is HOT and so is the Fishing...

Its been really HOT here in DaHo. It's been over 100 deg every day for more than a week. Luckily, the air conditioner has been working great and the DaHouse is cool. But, the lawn is looking pretty ragged in places. The $ 1,000 garden is looking great with lots of stuff getting ready to eat. We are going to have enough tomatoes to the whole area and all at about the same time, so if you get a get a slightly mushy package from us in the next couple of weeks, enjoy...

Jaz wanted to see my home made pool ball polisher, so here is a picture of it. Its built out of a bucked with lots of foam inserts and a car type buffer is placed on top and turned on for about 15 min...



Yesterday, it was too hot to ride the BMW, so I went fishing for the big ones again. I went to the same place that Aaron and I went a couple of weeks ago. I ended up catching 4 sturgeon and loosing two more. The two I lost, straightened out the hook and got off. Below is a picture of one of the larger ones.



It's hard to hold the pole and take pictures at the same time, but this shows the first half of the fish up to the dorsal fin. The tail goes back to the left edge of the picture, but is hard to make out very well. It was about 4 feet long and did lots of jumping and fighting. It took about 15 min to get it in to shore. When I did get it to shore, I was unhooking it and also found two other hooks in its mouth, so I took them out also. So, its probably a happier fish for it all.

While I was fighting it, these two teenage boys, visiting from Kalifornia, happened to see me and came over to check it out. When then saw the fish they about crapped their pants. They had never seen a sturgeon before. They really look like some type of weird shark with black eyes and really rough, prehistoric skin and bumps on their backs. When grandson Oliver gets here in a week or so, we are going to go for the really big ones in the deep river holes. They can get up to 9 feet long, but average in the 6-7 foot range and weigh 100 lbs or so.

Pam's brother, Bobbie, and his wife just had a new baby boy. He was over 8lbs and 21" tall and will be a welcomed addition to the family. Kids are popping out all over here in DaHo...

S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y NIGHT!!!

First off -- I should let everyone know this is Pam posting. OMG, it is so blazing hot here -- I can only stand to go out-side for a couple minutes. Yesterday was a very bad day for me. It was like someone gave me an eye-drop cocktail. You can just imagine....

So, lot's of good stuff has been happening and it seems like it is up to me to fill you all in on the really important stuff (you know, that doesn't involve fishsing or pool).

#1. We finally found someone to manicure the estate. Well -- at least do the hillside. The weeds were just about to overtake us -- and Voila! We were blessed with a strapping young man needing to earn money. He even has his own tools. (OKAY, NO PHUCKING ASSUMPTIONS ALLLOWED)!

#2. Our friends Storm and Jenny had a beautiful baby girl. Lanny may have mentioned this, but it's worth mentioning again. I'm so happy for them.

#3. My job at Dell just seems to get better and better every day. I'm asked to apply for upper positions all the time, but I love what I do! I have my own path that I want to go -- and I don't wan't anyone else putting into a position that will make my life stressful. I've had enough of that crap -- I call the shots now!

#4. Lastly, I want to share a very nice picture of Lanny and I at my Birthday at Jakers with Aaron, Tara and Grandbaby Alana.

Love to all from DA-HO (AGAIN! NO PHUCKING ASSUMPTIONS ALLLOWED!)

Fried Ho...

Its really HOT here in DaHo - and suppose to get hotter this weekend...

Its too hot to go fishing.
Its too hot to ride the bike.
Its too hot to do anything outside.
Well, you get the idea...

The other day, the high temps all around the area were in the mid 90ies, except in Buhl, where Pam's mother lives. There it was 107. Someone must have left their heater on in Buhl that day.

Yesterday, I spent the afternoon building a pool ball polisher. I got the design ideas from a friend at the Wednesday pool tournament. After some design rework and a trip to home depot, I now have the 'Shiniest' balls in town... Its amazing how much better english transfers to a clean, polished cue ball. I use to polish them by hand and it was a real job. Now, in about 1/2 hr, they are perfect.

Speaking of the Wendesday night tournament, I got beat yet again. But, this time, it was by the two best shooters in the area - and by a small amount. If I would have not missed a couple of shots, I could, and should, have beat them both. I played our local Superhero, Spiderman, again and beat him this time. He went up in handicap after placing in the money last week and that was the difference. I beat him by 2 points.

Then, last night we had our weekly 9-ball league. As a team, we won 12 games to the loosers 6 games. Storm did real good, wining 5 of his games. I won 4 of my games and Steve only won 3 of his. So, the good news is that Steve and I are finally equal. The bad news is that we have both been sucking and are probably both equally down in the individual standings. The stats are a couple of weeks old, so there is no way to tell who is really on top at this point. It was so hot that my glasses kept fogging over when I was trying to shoot.

There is only a couple of weeks left on the 9-ball league, so its time to play well and get this one in the bag, as they say here in DaHo...

Hot Weekend of Events...

It has been a mostly bad weekend all the way around… Friday, the maids came and did the house. When Pam got home she noticed that the water in the corner tub was running and wouldn’t shut off. This is the second time that the maids have done this. Its one of those thermostatic controlled valves where you turn on the water source, and set the temp and the valve controls how much of which water comes out to be at the right temperature. So, when you turn on the water, there is this gear complex that turns on both the hot and cold valves. Anyway, due to the plumbing and the length of pipe from the valve to the waterfall tub drain, it takes a while for the water to stop after being shut off. So, the maids keep twisting the valve off tighter to make it stop. The first time, she totally ruined one of the two water valves and we called in a plumber and he had to put in two shutoff valves under the house and order a new valve and it ended up taking about 3 weeks and cost almost $300 to get resolved. But, being resourceful and observant, I decided I could resolve this problem and did something I had never done and swore I would never do, crawl under the house. The one in Moss Beach was awful under there and you can only have sooooo much fun… Anyway, I went under the house and had to crawl to the other end of the house to turn off the valves. This is a big house and I had to crawl through/around/over all sorts of pipes and vents and such. The good news is that is was all plastic lined under there and there were very few varmints or insects, I regress… So, I found the valves and turned them off. I then came back up and took the tub valve assembly all apart and found that the two water valves seemed to work ok and was figuring that the plastic gears must have slipped causing the problem. With my Cell phone and Pam’s help, I set it all up and crawled back down under the house and had her check my theory and it was good. So, I turned the valves back on and came up from down under, after finding my screwdriver I lost the fist time. To make a long story shorter, I reassembled the whole mess and it all works great – saving at least a couple of hundred dollars and weeks of hassle in the process.

Then on Saturday, I took Pam on her first Ho ride on the BMW motorcycle. We went around the area and had breakfast and did some light shopping. When we got home, the air conditioner had froze up again. This happened last year also and again I watched and learned from the HVAC guys. I had to power off and disassemble the main blower/cooler assembly and sure enough the whole AC coil thing was frozen solid. So, I had to setup heaters and fans to melt all the ice and reassemble it all. It had been a real heat spell, well over 100 deg and I guess had a old filter or something that made it freeze up, but nothing was coming out of the vents in the house and it was about 90 inside the house and frying. The last time that happened, it took two guys and about $ 200 to fix.

Then, yesterday morning we were awakened by a Storm’s phone call that is Jenny was in labor in the hospital, so we jumped up and ran down there from a dead sleep, stopping for flowers and dognuts along the way. The baby girl is good sized and all is good. Jenny did it all without any drugs - way to go girl...

We then came home to our annual flying ant invasion of the front/family room fireplace and, and, and… This time I think they have won. In the past two annual invasions, we would just start up the gas fireplace and fry them every few hours, but this time they seem to have taken it a step further and have blocked the air flow so when we start up the gas it only burns about 1 min and goes out – from lack of oxygen or stacks of fried ants, I assume… They are on the roof all around the chimney to the fireplace, and at both ends of the roof ridge vent is mass… Big fricken masses… So, I got out the latter and tried various bug sprays and water sprayers to get them down. It was too far up to do much except give them a nice mist bath from the big power washer. I destroyed the little power washer - that can distribute soap, or in this case, bug spray, by dropping it off the latter onto the concrete when trying to talk to Pam who was yelling about something. I had to use the hand I was holding the power washer with, to talk to her – a neckbreathers dilemma…

So, all and all, I figure I saved about $400 in service fees this weekend. That should probably be just about enough to get rid of these *(^^%&*@#*)%&%* flying ants…

Beat by a Super Hero...

Let me start off about the 8-ball tournament by saying $(%@^&%^*&*$(#. This bartender at the Pocket, where the tournaments are held, wears a Spiderman pool glove and shirts and stuff. So, we call him Spiderman. He can make a shot, but is not bothered by the usual 'Details', such as what his next shot might be. He had never placed in the money and therefore was the minimum handicap of 8. Being the highest handicap of 14, I had to spot him 18 points in a 30 point game. I played him twice and lost both times by a couple of points - Gerrrrrr. The other matches I played went well, and I was playing well, but Spiderman turned his 'SuperHero' stuff on both times I played him and won.

So, today, I went fishing and didn't catch much - Only one trout about 14" long. But, I did see this family of black ferrets where I was fishing. They were playing all around and checking out the car and generally having good ferret type fun. They are so cute to watch. I wish I could get the image of watching another ferret family devour a fish last year out of my mind. That was really nasty...

The base jumpers are back in force at the bridge and all is hot, but normal, here in DaHo...

Attack of the Giant Tumbleweeds and Heavy Gagging...

Yesterday, I took the bike up to Boise to get serviced and fixed up. I had to leave at 6:30 am to get there by 8:30. It was a good ride up there. It wasn't too hot and all went well. It was the first time I had ridden over 10 miles in a couple of years, but the yoga keeps my in pretty good shape and all went well. I got in touch with an old friend, Dennis, from the Boise area an he picked me up and we hung out and played pool until about 4 pm when the bike was done. We had big fun and it really saved me from having to sit at the bike dealership for hours. Thanks Dennis!

The ride home was MUCH less fun. It was well over 100 degrees and was way too hot. Then, as I got closer to home, there were gusts of wind in the 30 mph range that were really blowing the bike around. I was 'attacked' by many 'giant' tumbleweeds blowing into and in front of me on the freeway. I had to get behind a truck to keep out of the nasty side winds. Being behind a truck is always really windy and 'bouncy', but it is a constant pressure and keeps the gusts at bay. By the time I got home I was 'done' and it was a very long, but good day, all in all...

Then, this morning I had to go to the hospital and get a Barium Swallow test. I have had one before and they are gaggy. Basically, they put you infront of and on a table/x-ray unit and have you swallow big gulps of Barium and film it going down. It was really concentrated stuff. The nurse handed me an 8oz doubled paper cup of the thick, white, chalky stuff and said it was heavy. I took it from her and almost dropped it from the weight. It must have weighed 2 lbs or more. If it was a fish, it would probably have been in the 5 lb range...

I was able to watch the first part of the test when I was standing up and it was weird. I have this 2-3 inch 'pouch' that extends down from the back of my tongue. When I would swallow the Barium, the pouch would fill up and enlarge to probably 2 inches around and then get cleared out by the swallowing action. It sorta looked like the red 'snouts' on a large tom turkey, when it was empty. I wonder is this is some type of family turkey 'curse', or something I picked up from the ranch when young... It was pretty weird to say the least.

Tonight is the weekly 8-ball tournament and I am still the highest handicap and will have to spot most everybody lots of points, no matter how good they are. So, wish me luck as I will probably need it...

Lots of Happenings...

We finally figured out what was happening with the lack of base jumpers on the Perrine Bridge last week. There was this guy that was going for a record number of jumps in a 24 hr period for charity this weekend, and they and stopped jumping last week because of it for some reason. They closed off a lane on the bridge and put in a crane and had lots of support and news vehicles. He ended up doing 201 jumps in 22 hrs and got the new record.

In the 9-ball league last Thursday, we won 12 to 6 and both Steve and I won 4 of 6 games. So he is still one game ahead of me overall. We are in first place now as a team and Steve and I are 1st and 2nd in individual standings. So, all goes well - but not great, yet...

I had an ultrasound scan today to check the status of my aortic aneurysm and Wednesday I am having a Barium Swallow to check what is happening with my swallowing issues. I had one of them before and it is pretty gaggy. You have to swallow a couple of large cups of this very thick nasty white chalky stuff and they x-ray how it goes down. I have a hard time swallowing anyway and this stuff is really hard to get down. Not Big Fun.

Then, tomorrow, I am riding the BMW bike to Boise early in the morning to get it serviced and get new fork seals installed. Its a 120 mile ride there and I will have to wait for about 4 hours for them to get it done before riding back. It should be another 'fun' day. I really wish a local mechanic could be found that could spell BMW...

We may have missed some messages on the answering machine lately. We have this old phone system/answering machine upstairs that we stopped using because we couldn't hear the messages very well, and it got turned on and was taking messages over the past couple of weeks or so. There were 11 messages and we couldn't hear most of them. So, if you did leave a message lately, we are sorry and please call back and try it again.

Well, I hope everybody is doing well and that's about all the happenings here in DaHo...

DaVisit and DaFourth were Great!!

Aaron, Tara and Alana arrived at Boise on Saturday. I understand that Alana didn't like the first leg of the flight to Portland too much and the flight attendants were passing out ear plugs to the neighbors before it was over. Next time they are going to start out from LAX instead of Orange County and make it a one leg trip, reducing the flight time by many hours.

Once they got here, we got all packed and installed in the Lincoln LS and filled it up pretty good. On the way back home, since we had a little bit of room left in the trunk, we stopped by the fireworks factory and picked up a bunch of 'Big Boy' fireworks for the Fourth celebration.

After we got home, Aaron and I went out and picked up food for Pam's birthday diner request. We had fillets and salad and great bread. Pam opened her presents and we all had a great time. Later in the week, Pam made her famous homemade fetticni noodles and I cooked Veal Marsala, and Aaron and Tara did salad, bread and all the fixings. We had lots of great food...

Then, on the Fourth, we had some friends and Pam's mother, Flora, over for dinner and fireworks. It was another great meal. I BBQed beef and pork ribs, Tri-Tip roast and bratwurst. Flora brought some great potato salad and two pies and T&A made the sides. After the feast, we waited until dark and watched the Twin Falls Firework show. During the 3rd and 4th, there had been three fires around DaHouse from fireworks and lightning so we had decided to not shoot off any fireworks we had, but, then all the neighbors were doing them, and all the kids wanted to do them, and... Well, all I can say is that they were great - Just like the big time ones in the shows...

Alana is sooooo cute and was great fun her entire trip here. She loved the new peas that were growing in the garden and spent much time searching for and eating them. Pam got her a little lawn pool and we filled it up with water a couple of times and she loved that also. I think she loved watering the plants and the adults more than the pool, but that was hard to tell. Pam had gathered all sorts of toys for her to play with and she had fun with them all, including Cali the Cat. Cali spent a lot of time hiding around, but Alana would usually find her and they would play until she hid again. Alana was quite impressed with all the stuffed game at Sportsman's Warehouse and she loved all the farm animals that abound here in DaHo.

We went to the local NASCAR race track and watched the 'Trailer Race of Destruction'. It was totally amazing as usual. They also had a new 'event' which involved a school bus filled with guys loaded with eggs, water balloons and paint ball guns, trying to fight off five cars that were trying to flip it over - always some type of big fun here in DaHo... I got free tickets from my local ENT for the event. The 'Girls' left early as it was pretty late for Alana, but Aaron and I stayed until the 'bitter end' and had a great time.

Aaron and I went fishing three times. The first two times, we went for trout and caught a few, but none that were large enough to keep - 20" or bigger. We went where you can see hundreds of them swimming around and they just were not biting much - a very frustrating situation...

Then on Wednesday, we went down to fish for some sturgeon. We ended up catching 4 smaller sturgeon, but a small sturgeon is a BIG fish. They were three to four feet long and I am guessing weighed in the high 20 to 30 pound range. But, since you cannot pick them up, and we don't have any real accurate pictures (there was so much happening at the time),they could have been MUCH bigger... The first one Aaron had on, was the biggest. He was using 'regular' sized tackle and after a long fight, the fish just said later and was gone. He did get close enough for us to see and he was way too big for that tackle... I had fished for them before a couple of times, but had never caught one. You have to have two people to fish for them, because you have to have one hold onto the pole and the other one get down into the water and release them - They are catch and release only and way too big to do by yourself. They put up quite a fight and jump and all that cool stuff. They look much like a shark, but have a mouth like a catfish and no big teeth.

We toured a lot of the local sites throughout the trip. The only real bummer about the whole thing was that we had built up all the crazies that base jump off of the bridge here in Twin Falls. And, thoughout the trip, we didn't see one jumper. I am totally perplexed at why there were not hundreds of them every day during the holidays. We did see one guy packing his equipment down at the river park, but that was it. I guess the deaths and maiming that has occurred recently must have influenced them, but I find that hard to believe. I thought they were much crazier than that.

Then, on the way back to the Boise Airport yesterday, we passed a burning wreck of a truck that had the freeway stopped and backed up for miles. I took them on to the airport, waited until they left and went shopping at the local outlet stores and still had to wait on the freeway when returning for the wreck to get all cleaned up. The freeway was closed for about 4 hours. I heard that the truck blew a tire and ended up catching on fire and was filled with Kodak film. It all burned to the ground - It was one of biggest 'Kodak Moments' ever seen here in DaHo...