All is Returning to Normal - again...

We have the house straightened up again and again. Tommy has the ability to mess it us pretty well in a very short amount of time. We have all his toys in this basket that is about 25"X20"X3" and his toys are piled on it. He will stick his head in and dig around and always comes out with something that he wants to play with. He loves anything that he can squeak, or it makes noise someway. After he gets it out and plays with it for a few minutes, he is back in the toy bin again for another one. And, anything he can tear up, are his favorites...

Now that Felix the cat is going out side with Tommy in the afternoons, they have become even better friends. They have a great time out on the lawn and around the berm with all the stuff there is out there to play on.

As I eluded to last post, the business has been going very well. We are attracting some of the large 'fish' now and they are coming to us to partner with them in their sales efforts. Before they only wanted to buy our needles and put their name on them. But, after turning them down a few times, and hearing all of the good things about our products, they are a lot more interested in working together. I have been preaching that to them in letters for some months now and I think they are finally getting the point...

I guess a couple of the booths at I-CAST, the Comdex for fishing industry, were showing our products as the tools they used to do projects on their lines or other products. A day or so ago, we received a phone call from New Zealand, from a distributor that saw our needles at I-CAST and wanted to sell them down there.

And, our Australian distributor is having a big show down there in a couple of weeks to announce our, well our needles under their name, to all the anglers there. They, have our only exclusive and it is only for that country. Since they mostly use Dacron instead of Spectra lines, we didn't want to have their customers calling us to deal with Dacron problems.

We are now branching out in our product offerings. We have been the "Hollow Spectra Needle Tools Company" up to now, but we are expanding our scope to become the "Hollow Spectra Tools Company" and will be offering other products to use hollow spectra lines beyond just needles. It is needed to complete some of the larger deals that we are getting into these days.

I have yet to go fishing one time this year. I heard that there is another avid sturgeon fisherman in the neighborhood now and I have to meet him soon. Now that I am feeling better most of the time, I need to get out and 'test' our products more...

We have been debating about putting in a dog/cat door in the house to either go outdoors or into the garage. We have been around all the options 2-3 times now. None of the plans resolve all problem that they cause and need to fix. Luckily, yet again, the pictures I took during the various phases of this house being built are coming in handy so we can tell here all the electrical is installed and what type of things are behind almost every wall.

So, hopefully, we can get something done soon. Tommy is getting much better with his potty habits, but is still not to the carpet cleaning phase to get rid of all the spots they have these days.

My pool playing is about like my fishing. I hardly ever practice any more and go to the tournaments every week or three. I have been working on the business most of the time lately...

Well, that is about all there is going on there in DaHo...

Crazy Time here in DaHo...

First, I am very sorry that I have not posted to this blog for two weeks. It has been a very crazy time here and I am finally getting back up to the surface again.

When we last spoke, we were in the process of grieving through Matt's funeral preparations, and all of the details that went along with that tragedy. Then, during the next week, we were preparing for Pam's 50th Birthday party. It was a crazy time from all sides.

We did have the birthday party on July 4th as planned and it was a great one, as far as parties here have gone before. We had lots of friends and neighbors over with their families and a good time was had by all. This time I held off on cooking too much food and we ran short of the best stuff - mainly my ribs. I did them a new way and they were the best ever, but I most always say that...

Then, after finishing the party and recovering from it, we had to clean up the house for the events to come.

Then, on Monday evening was Matt's viewing. There were a lot of folks that attended the viewing from California, where he as lived lately, and from all over Idaho, from all the places that he had lived or had friends.

The grave side service was given by Roberta's Pastor Mike and he did a great job as always. It was attended by a lot of folks and was a great affair for as much as such an event can go.

After the service, everybody came over to our house for a last opportunity to be together and remember Matt. We had some food left over from the party, and Pam was up most of the night preparing food. And, when the other guests arrived, there was a ton of food brought from Roberta's church folks that was added to the mix. We covered the pool table and it was completely filled with food from all sides. It was another great event for Matt.

After everybody left, we spent the next couple of days cleaning up the house and getting everything back into order again.

Then last weekend, Pam had her 4 nieces over from her youngest brother Bobby. They range in age from 8 to 14. And, since that wasn't enough, Pam had her nephew, Roman, come over. He is about 9 I think. Anyway, we had a crowd of folks and had to use two cars to get anywhere we went for the weekend. We went down to this place that Pam had been before where you pick out raw ceramic figurines and decorate them however you want and then leave them there to be fired in their ovens to be picked up the next week. It was great fun - except for the bill...

All of Saturday, Pam and the girls, and Roman had a great time with a slipnSlide and Wii Games and clothes and all sorts of stuff. Pam and all the kids stayed in the living room over night on air mattresses and sleeping bags. We ended up going to restaurants a couple of times and it was none stop excitement until they all left on Sunday. Then, we had another house to be straightened up again.

Then a few hours later, I got a call from Pam Bissell that we knew from Moss Beach California for many, many years. She was frantic an told me that her and her husband, Lyle, had been here visiting his family in Pocatello, ID for the last week and on Sunday morning he was dead. He died in his sleep from a heart attack. He was discovered by his wife Pam when she was trying to get him up so they could get ready to leave for home. He was only 55 and very healthy. His only bad vice was smoking. It was a shock to all and he will be sorely missed by everybody.

His funeral was on this last Wednesday, so Pam took off of work and we went up to Pocatello for his funeral. It was very different as everybody was totally shocked by his passing and they have family all over Idaho and Utah. We were there for about 3 hours until it was over and we had a chance to spend some time with Pam Bissell. Pam took Tommy with us to the funeral and he was one of the only bright spots of the day. Everybody loved him and he was able to take a little of the shocked and stunned feelings away with his cute and loving ways.

Then, after the funeral, we continued to drive north about 35 miles to Lava Hot Springs. This is where Pam has a lot of family and use to go up there for summers when she was a kid. It is probably the most impressive water oriented place I have ever seen. There is a white water river, only about 25 feet wide, going through the town of about 8 blocks in length. Then there is this VERY LARGE swimming pool with Olympic sized diving platforms, over 30 feet high, and giant water slides. All over the town, there are places to rent the river rafting tubes and the whole little town is a tourist place for families to bring their kids for tons of water oriented fun.

And, now we are back home. We still need to finish cleaning up the house from the last weekend of 'fun' and I have been trying to catch up on all the business work that has been limited to only necessary things while all of this has been going on.

There is still a lot of great things to mention about the business, but that will have to come at a later date. That is about all I can type here in DaHo...

Very Sad in DaHo...

Last Saturday night, June 26th, Pam's 27 year old nephew, Matthew Hays was killed while riding in a car with a friend. They were out partying and his friend ended up sideswiping a large pine tree in Chico, CA. He was killed instantly. The driver is in jail for manslaughter.

We received the call about the death about 1:30am on Sunday morning. They couldn't get a hold of Roberta, his mother and Pam's sister, so we got it. So, needless to say, Saturday night was not a good sleep.

Then, early Sunday morning, Roberta called and had heard of the disaster. We gathered up our stuff and went up to Roberta's house shortly after the call. Pam ended up staying up there with her until Tuesday and I was driving back and forth as needed. On Monday, they came down to Twin Falls to meet with the Funeral home folks to get all the details of the funeral resolved. The owner of the funeral home is a friend after their work with him for their parents funerals in the past, and is a great and knowledgeable guy.

We also went to get Matt's final clothes and other various errands that needed to be done. after that, they went back up to Roberta's house and I stayed here at home.

For a while, Pam wanted to call off the birthday party for her 50th birthday, but it is back on as there was no way to tell everybody that had been told about it and after thinking about it, she thought that Matt would have wanted her to have it since he was always into parties. So, it is on, but will be 'different' than the usual 50 year old birthday party...

So, now Pam is back and we are working on getting the house ready and gathering all of the party supplies. We are going to hold down all the food that I usually prepare for a party, since the last few parties we had didn't have that many folks show up and we had tons of great food that we ended up giving away as door prizes toward the end. This time we will have good food, but not as much and it will probably be more low key than the delicacies we had before.

Matt's viewing is set for 5pm to 8pm on Monday and the service will be at grave side in Filer at 11am on Tuesday. We will be having all of the funeral attendees over here after the service to feed them left over party food and drink.

Lots of great things happening with the business but I will speak about them at a later date as things are pretty sad right now - here in DaHo...