Fishin' in the Dark

Pictures as promised...I know you've been holding your breath.


First off is Little E at New Hogan Lake, notice the tiny trees, the abundance of sun, heat, and dirt. This photo was taken before all the injuries were sustained.















And here we are enjoying BBQ'd burgers, all except Little E, who is enjoying a ketchup sandwich.

















And T finally got to go fishing, after throwing rocks into the lake for a bit, whatever fish may have been there were long gone. And since there was some algae there that was getting caught on the lure, he ended up happily casting his rod with nothing more than a weight and a bobber. If you noticed the sandals, we brought shoes for him on this trip, but they were the one pair that didn't fit him well anymore, so he wore those flippers the whole trip. His feet were pretty filthy by the end of the day, but it's all worth the fun of cleaning when you get to go camping. He's been asking to go back almost every day.

And I'll leave you with this picture from Big Trees, and boy are they. The tallest living things on the earth. Really makes you appreciate the ants crawling around underneath. Well, maybe not appreciate, but notice in a different way. This is of the kids in the middle of a tree that had this hole cut in it so cars could drive through about 80 years ago. It's one of the smaller trees at only around 200 feet.


Don't forget to listen to your music. Ashokan Farewell, by Mark O'Connor

Camp a Little While in the Wilderness

We made it back from a lot of traveling on our camping trip. We started off at New Hogan Lake on Saturday, in the 95 degree heat, with the small semi-shade trees, and sloping campsite. And if that was New Hogan Lake, I'd hate to see what Old Hogan was like. Really, though, if you don't have a boat, it's not a great place to be. We couldn't check into our site until 2, so we ate at the local Round Table, then after we set up our trailer, we took a drive to get the kids to sleep and ended up driving all the way up to Big Trees. We found out that they had spots available for the next night, so we left as early as we could on Sunday, threw everything back into the trailer, and took our time getting up to Big Trees, stopping for a couple hours at a really nice park in Angel's Camp, which they constantly remind you is the home of the Jumping Frog of Calaveras County so the kids could run around without falling onto rocks for a bit. There were frogs everywhere, I think each store had their own frog dressed in the uniform of that particular establishment. The fire department had two.

Little E discovered that she's a little clumsy around campsites, she left without a scratch on her. She came back with skinned knees from constant falling, a scratch above her right eye from falling into a picnic table at Hogan Lake, and a slight redness from when she was leaning against the trailer door when her big brother opened it from the other side. She went from the inside of the trailer headfirst onto the step and tumbled onto the ground. It all happened so fast, and yet seemed like slow motion to me. But such is life.

They did get to see a lot of tall trees and some taxidermied animals in the Visitor's Center at Big Trees, which Little E loved, she was just as giggly as could be staring at a 5 foot high black bear. Big T also got to go fishing at Hogan Lake. It was his first time, and he spent the first five minutes or so throwing rocks into the water where we were going to fish, so he didn't catch anything. But he had fun casting and reeling in his line.

Some pictures will appear next time with a little more detail. Big T, though, loved the trip and is inviting everybody he meets to go camping with us. A morning hasn't passed yet, that he's asked if we're going back.

Talkin' Baseball

I'm not doing as well as I should be right now as the A's have lost 9 in a row and seem to be on their way to their first meaningless September since 1998. With the way things are going, August might be meaningless. So bring together your friends, light a candle and remember the good times and hope for the best next year.

Also, after 2 out of my 3 softball teams made playoffs last year, which ended up forcing me to pick between them when they played each other in the second round, none of my teams are going this year. I don't really understand why, as we're really the same teams without any major changes. One of the teams is even in a weaker division this year than we were last year. Of course all this means is that I'll get more golf weekdays in this year...I hope. So to cheer myself up and since T-Ball is over now, here's something fun:


Yup, that's my boy. Next year he's going to play in a league where they actually pitch to him instead of just putting the ball on a T and letting them whack at it. If you look at the picture you'll notice a bigger guy in the same red shirt of the Lansing Lugnuts. That's the coach, who didn't really do much. His wife made a snack schedule and at the top she put a picture of a football field, goalposts and a football. The first game out, the coach wore spikes. The last two games, they didn't even come. I don't know how they picked a coach, but it wasn't the best way to go.

Also something that I just noticed: There are two electrician/data cable guys here right now pulling and setting up the data lines in the building in which I work (not that I'm doing this at work) and they're looking for "black tape." I call the same thing "electrician's tape" but apparently when you actually are an electrican, you call it black tape. Why not just "job tape" or "my adhesive"?

And here's today's session of "What You Should Listen To"
It's a song that I'm sure most of you have heard, and if you haven't, you should be ashamed. Hang your head right now and feel pity for yourself that you haven't heard this tune that I'm about to mention. Go have a listen to a little tune called 'Helena' by Nickel Creek, it's on the album "Why Should the Fire Die?" and it's spectacular. There's such a painstaking plea and pure rage. I loves it myself. And yes, Nickel Creek is the greatest band ever.

Camp Town Races

We're going camping soon and as it is going to be Little Lizzy's first trip, and as Big Guy Ty has gone a few times before, we felt that we were ready to try it tent style. The first time we went we took an overcab camper on the old brown truck (RIP), and have gone in Tent Trailers, and even stayed in a cabin once, but never have made it in just a tent. I know some of you feel that the only way to camp is to take a pup tent, a mummy bag, some dehydrated prunes and call it a great time out. I'm not inclined to feel that way. Yes I suppose that it gets you more in tune with nature, but after being in to many pit toilets, well, I don't like that music. So we bought our first tent at the greatest camping store ever, K-mart. Ok, so they're not the best store ever, but they had the tent on sale. It is not actually called a tent, it is known as a Family Vacation Cabin. And, boy is it ever.As you can see it is quite large, 16' x 14' to be exact with a 90" clearance in the middle. It has a port for electrical, comes with a remote tent light, there's a closet in the back, a doormat included, a screened front porch attached, three total rooms and sleeps ten. So of course, this is how I thought we were going to rough it in the wild. Then during our pre-trip attempt to assemble this tent, we discovered that it was going to be a little too rough to get this monster up and also watch two small people. And as I can't get it up all on my lonesome, it went back. We have since ordered a trailer hitch for the most awesome minivan and hope to have that on Tuesday. An attempt will be made to attach that without professional help on Wednesday or Thursday, and of course we'll have to hook up the electrical and then take the Trailer out to make sure everything works before our trip. So we'll see how that all goes. It's only supposed to take a half hour to actually attach the hitch to the van and as everything is pre-drilled, we're hoping that that's the case. I'm just glad that it stays late until 9:30 or so and we'll have enough daylight in case it doesn't quite work out as easily as I hope it does.

Big Guy Ty is excited to go and he's picked out his very own fishing pole, a Spiderman one. He's been practicing out in whatever yard he's in for the past couple weeks now, I think he's just trying to throw that little practice fish over the neighbors fence. I had to get a fishing license to take him fishing, and 37.50 later, I better catch a few whoppers. We're planning to have Miller's hot dogs our second night there, but if Ty and I can get our limit, we'll be having fish sticks instead.

I returned an air mattress that we bought when we thought we'd be in a tent and the lady said that we should rough it at least once. "Do it the hard way" she says. I say that going camping to a new place that's supposed to get up to 96 degrees with two kids under the age of 4, then that is rough, and as such, counts as roughing it. Tent or not, ready or not, look out wildlife, we're a-comin.

Working Class Hero?

Welcome to the biggest little show on this particular blog. I've been lurking and quasi-stalkerish on some blogs for a while now and so, by court order, it's now time for my mind to be unleashed on the world. It's fun for me to read others thoughts and so I am going to make myself believe that others now want to know what's happening in my wonderfully squishy and slightly forgetful mind. Not that it's being helped right now at work where I've been relocated and have a plastic sheet hanging from the celing to help keep the asbestos and sheetrock dust away from my delicate and virginal lungs. I don't know that it's being all that effective as the plastic only comes out halfway across my desk before stopping. I suppose that's as far as dust will travel. I need an Ionic Breeze something fierce right now.

But as my mind is squishy and forgetful and not brave due to the dust and also a fear of having fears, which I believe is called phobophobia, this will be a query about who today's biggest stars are. I pass by a banner on a lightpost everyday coming home from work that proclaims the Concord Pavilion (currently called SleepTrain Pavilion at Concord) to be the place to see, "Today's biggest stars, Under the stars." Then I pass by the pavilion, which is also on my way home...it's a long way home, and it let's me know that coming to the pavilion this year are Al Green, Lyle Lovett, k.d. lang (who doesn't know about capital letters yet), Rush, Styx, Foreigner, Journey (minus one Randy Jackson), Def Leppard, and even Alice Cooper. Now I'm not hip to the current music scene as much as I could be, but how many of these bands are really "Today's Stars"? I know that they're still known, but c'mon. Of course, to be fair, they will also feature Hilary Duff (awesome), Bianca Ryan (who I had to look up and it turns out that she won "America's Got Talent" last year, so I guess we'll see, eh?), and of course Marilyn Manson and Slayer, who I guess are stars. They're certainly a little nuts. But who knows, maybe they'll get some last minute big names.

The music I listen to, however, doesn't usually include many big names, although they're at least under 40. Most are still under 30, which means they're automatically current, right? They have Myspace pages and everything. And for those, mostly on the east coast now, who haven't seen Nickel Creek yet, do it now before they're gone. They're due to be gone as a band after the summer, just as a little FYI. There is nothing more than a fiddle, guitar, mandolin and upright bass, and yet it sounds like so much more. You never know who they'll cover when you see them live. I've heard songs from The Band, Radiohead, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, and even Britney Spears. If you've never heard it, google 'Toxic Nickel Creek' and be prepared for awesomeness beyond cooliocity.

And of course, that will be the first of many "Danny Recommends" musical bites for you to chew on with your audio recepticals. And since this is the first post and it's a mini-celebration worthy of corn dogs and a Nick Swisher home run celebration dance, I'll even give you another one to check out. Clear your mind and open your ears, then let your fingers do the walking to find yourself Luke Bulla's interpretation of Exit Music for a Film. I dare you not to remember Clare Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio trying to do Shakespeare. Ha! You have already failed.
"Hand me my longsword!"