Fishing: A great activity

I love going fishing it is a great outdoor activity, relaxing, gives you time to think, it is a fun way to explore an area and there is lots of planning involved.

I say it is a great outdoor activity for a couple of reasons:

1. You get exercise. Some of you might be saying what kind of exercise could you possibly get  from fishing? There are a few ways: One way is in the form of hiking. If you aren't somewhere that is accessible by boat then you probably had to hike to the place your fishing. A second would  be aerobics once you hook into the fish and struggle trying to land it. A third way is weight training. I know your thinking what does weight training have to do with fishing. If you do use a boat then you will need to launch it off of the trailer and you need to hold on to a rope attached to the boat so it does go off too fast or fall over. If you are going to anchor your boat that means lifting the anchor twice, one putting it in the water and once taking it out. Then when you are done with your trip there is putting boat back on the trailer and that usually involves hand cracking a wench to bring the boat out of the water. 
2. It is a social activity. Most of the time when you go fishing it is with a friend(s) or family member(s) and even if you are alone you usually meet other people out fishing that you end up talking with. 

It is relaxing because there is usually enough time when your not catching fight to talk, have a snack or just sit back and enjoy the day until the next strike.  

It is a fun way exploring an area for the simple reason that just about anywhere you go there are bound be plenty of lakes, rivers, streams, creeks and on the coasts the oceans. There is no better way to get to know an area then by fishing all those bodies of water. Besides think about all the explores through history and almost every one involved fishing or atleast sailing.

Planning comes in a couple of times when a fishing trip is involved. First before you go on the trip you must plan on what you will need for fishing and for the weather conditions. That means you will need to know where your fishing, the conditions you be in and then means not only the weather but the water conditions. Then you will need to decide on the type of fishing: trolling, wading in the river or stream, deep or shallow. Then when you are on the trip you might need to change your technique and that will take more planning. I bet you never though fishing involved so much thinking.

The debt ceiling

Recently there has been quite a bit of talk about the 14th amendment and whether it gives the President the power to override congress and raise the debt ceiling on his own. The main focus of this talk has been section 4 that does talk about debt that has been incurred from wars and other insurrections. The debate is that since this section was specifically about the Civil war and making a distinction between the obligations to repay union soldiers vs. repayment of confederate soldiers is it a valid argument for today?

Here is section 4 of the 14th amendment and you can see that it can be interpreted in a few different ways.  "The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any state shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void."

Here is what Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) had to say on the matter as report in the Huffington Post on July 7 "So people are looking at the fact that maybe the debt ceiling bill that Congress presumably has to pass for the government to borrow more maybe is contrary to that constitutional provision, and that the administration may take out [loans] on their own -- just to borrow money -- and say that they can ignore the law," he said.

Can our congress agree on anything?

Today I am going to go on a little rant about something that concern all of us and that is the mess going on over our debt.

Now, I am not an economist but I do know a little about budgets and credit. Many of us wish that we could just wave a wand and give ourselves a new cap on our credit cards when they are getting close to being maxed out but unless your the federal government you can't do that. The sad thing is when our credit cards are maxed it only affects our family but when the federal government maxes out it affect everyone in the country.

Some of you might think it doesn't concern me but you would be wrong. If the congress doesn't come up with a solution it could mean that some people that depend on the government for their pay might not get it and in turn that can affect business that depend on those people to buy their merchandise and just keeps us in a downward spiral.

I am not going to claim there is an easy solution but they need to find a common starting place. This arguing about spending cuts, raising taxes and who is to blame for this mess in the first place has to stop. The truth about who is to blame is all of us and I don't mean just the people in congress. So, there is plenty of blame what we need is some positive thoughts and I am not sure if we have enough people in congress that know how to do that.

I heard some talk one time suggesting that the people in congress shouldn't get paid until they come up with a solution and that might just be a good start. I would say if there are cuts to be made they should start with cutting out all the perks they get and then go after the items that shouldn't be there in the first place, such as, subsides and close tax loop holes. Contrary to popular belief closing a loop hole isn't raising taxes no matter how many times we are told different. 

We will have a football season

The last couple of days have been rather bitter sweet for any Seahawk fan. First the NFL lockout is finally over meaning that we will get to watch our favorite team but with the new season also comes the realization that it will be without Matt Hasselbeck.  In his place we have three would be starting quarterbacks that we really don't know that much about.

Before I write about the new guys I would like to say a few things a our former quarterback Matt Hasselbeck. Over the last ten years you have been the best quarterback this franchise has ever seen. Even though you have stumbled a few times in recent years you have given us more thrilling moments then bad. You have play under some hard condition and gone through some injuries that might have ended the careers of some and you managed to come back. You might have lost a step but your grit makes up for that and I hope you do well in Tennessee except when you play Seattle.

We brought in Charlie Whitehurst last season to be a backup and possible replacement. The few times he has had an opportunity to play it has been for mixed results. He actually did better though than most of remember even though it wasn't anything spectacular. He is still fairly young in his career and hasn't played enough to show total worth to the team.

According to a report Matt Leinart will be going to Texas instead of signing with Seattle.

Yesterday the Seahawks sign Tarvaris Jackson to compete for the starting job. Just like Whitehurst, Jackson is a big unknown and has even less playing time under his belt. He is a about the same age as Whitehurst, play 6 seasons and only played in a handful of games for the Vikings.  

bringing back the 'made in America' label

There has been a segment running on the radio late at night where one house is selected in a typical American neighborhood and a team goes through the house looking for products with the 'made in America' label. Sadly the team usually only finds one or two items and remove the rest. They then try and local replacement items for the ones that were removed.

On one particular episode one of the items they were try to find was a coffee maker and it took two hours to locate one that had the 'made in America' label. By the end of that episode they did find replacements for everything except a few electronic items.

At the end of each episode they close by telling us how many jobs we would create here if we all just looked at what we had in our house and just replace one item. It would make such a difference if we would actually follow this example.

It is hard to imagine it but at one time just about everything we bought was made here in America. Now, it is hard to find a coffee maker and we don't have anyone that makes televisions.

My first computer

The year was 1986 and I had worked (at a Christmas tree farm) during the winter to get money for a computer. I didn't quite have enough (since at time they were very expensive) but my parents said they would pay the difference. They ended up paying almost half but it was what I wanted and since it was almost Christmas we bought it.Soon we were going home and I was pleased that I had a computer.

It had no hard drive (those came later), one 3-1/2" floppy (they had just came out) and 2 5-1/4" floppies. As soon as we arrived home I took it out of the box and read up on how to hook it up. Soon I was learning how to use DOS (no Windows yet), what the inner workings looked like and how to change out the drives.

A few days later I bought a book on DOS and start teaching myself the commands and how to write programs. Then it was on to games such as hack and adventure, which where text only games. I then started going through the library and taught myself how do graphics, which at the time where extremely crude. 

Not long after I had bought my computer a family friend bought a new model of the same computer that had a big 20MB hard drive and Windows 1.0. I later was given that computer since both of our computers had problems but I was able to combine the two into one unit. So now I had a hard drive, which was about 400 times small then the average today, and Windows 1.0, which wasn't much better then DOS.

Is this the end of books as we know them?

Thursday I received an e-mail from the people at Borders bookstore announcing the closing of their stores. It had been in the papers that Borders was in financial troubles for a long time and even that they had closed some of the stores. But it was never one of the store around here so the announcements never seemed that real to me. That all changed when I went to check my e-mail and saw that final notice saying they were beginning their final closing sale.

I have grown up in a family where books have always been around. We were constantly added more bookcases and would fill them up as soon as we built or bought one. There would be all kinds of book from biographies to mysteries to cookbooks. I personally read quite often and enjoyed quite a variety of books. Some of my favorites over the years have been "The cat who..." series, the Stephine Plum books, the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy and the list goes on.

One of the reason that is most often given for Borders going under is that they should have put more effort into the e-reader revolution. That is probably a big part of why they went bankrupt but I think it is a shame that so much is put into going away from the traditional book. I don't see anything wrong with e-readers and e-books, in fact I might get one some day, but I like being able to hold a paperback in my hand and actually turn the pages. One nice thing I will say is that it would be that an e-read would have been handy on those particularly thing books that are hard to hold.

Cats are natural enterainers: Part 3

Mister, the hunter

Mister was a big, white cat that we had when I was growing up. He had multiple talents but by far his best was hunting. He was always good at catching mice, gophers or just about any small game. His hunting though didn't stop at outdoor fields or catch any stray mouse that ventured inside. He also hunting the dangerous cooked asparagus. Something that wasn't attempted by many cats.

Mister didn't really like asparagus and never ate any of it but did taste the first one. I think it just seemed like a challenge to him when he saw those green spears in the boiling water. I am not quite sure how he figured out that his claws could be used as fish hooks but by golly he did.

When ever my mom would cooked asparagus, which was often, that cat would get up on the counter to watch. after the asparagus had been boiling for a few minutes he would go into his fishing routine. He would sit up, raise a paw, extend a claw, and fish out a single spear. He always managed to do this with such expertise that he never burned his paw. As I mentioned earlier he didn't like to eat it but once seemed to take pride in the fact that he caught that green spear.

Cats are natural enterainers: Part 2

Frisky, the biped.

One cat that we had when I was in high-school was a calico cat we named Frisky and her talent was walking. You might think that isn't a talent and normally I would say your right but it was the way she walked. You see Frisky liked walking on her hind legs the same way a bear does when it is defending its territory.

She would of course walk on all fours much of the time especially if she was outside. It was mainly when she would walk down the hall or into someone's bedroom that she would stand up and walk. It always made for quite a sight to see her walking down the hall on her hind feet with her front paws in the air with what could best be described as a gunslinger gate.


Morris, the feline alarm clock and hoarder.

After Frisky we had a yellow tabby named Morris, he looked like the cat on the commercials, and his talent was that he always seemed to know what time of day. I was still in high-school at the time and my dad would usually pick me up when school was over. My dad worked nights and slept during the day so he we normally set the alarm clock.

One day my dad set the alarm clock but neglected to pull the setting pin, this was before digital, and the alarm never went off. That day he found out that he had a back up alarm that he didn't know about and that was Morris. The cat seemed to realize that something wasn't right and jumped up on my dad's chest. He glare into my dad's eyes until he woke up after a few minutes. After that the cat took it upon himself to be my dad's alarm clock but there was one little flaw with the system. It seemed that even though Morris knew the time he didn't know the days of the week.

Morris grew up on the streets so he never knew when he would get a meal. My cousin found him and brought him to us when he was still a young cat. We took him in and not long after we feed him for the first time we notice the food would disappear quickly. We thought he just had a big appetite after being on his own. So, we just kept feeding him and he food kept disappearing.

About a month later my mom was cleaning the house. When moved the sofa she found a small pile of cat food. Then she moved a chair and behold another pile of cat food. We walked all through the house and looked under the furniture and sure enough little piles of cat food. That cat wasn't pigging out like we thought he was carefully scooping up some of his dry food and hiding it everywhere throughout the house. He wanted to make sure that every place he went there was a snack.

Cats are natural enterainers: Part 1

Cats are born showmen and they all have their own unique talent. Some of them their talent might be magic to make things disappear, with some it might be stuns and still others it could be as a clown. I have grown up with cats that fit in to all of those categories and  will relay some of their stories:

The acrobat and doughnut thief. I use to have a cat named Twinkie, yes we named her after the treat, and she had two talents. One was that she could always smell a doughnut that was about to be eaten and steal at least part of it before you could take a bite. The other was that she liked to jump out of a hole in our ceiling. The first one you might think isn't much of a talent and perhaps not but it is the second that is what made her unique.

Before I go any further I need to explain how the hole came to be in our ceiling. When we had Twinkie some of the vent covers on the outside of our roof where missing and some wasp flown in the attic and made a nest that weaken part of the ceiling. Once we found out about the nest we had it taken care of but there was still that weak spot. One day as Twinkie was outside she had climbed into the attic as she did often but this time she had hit that weak spot and fell through into the hallway. She was unharmed and in fact seemed to think it was quite fun. So after a few moments she wanted back outside and promptly went back in to the attic. A couple of minutes later we heard a thud and natural all ran to see what caused the noise. We were all shocked to see the cat sitting there in the hall cleaning herself . She stood and wanted right back outside and we let her out. All of us just sat down again and hear a thud and sure enough it was the cat again.

The next day the cat was outside and I was walking down the hall. I heard a meow and naturally looked up and down the hall but no sign of a cat. Once again a meow and this time I looked up and sure enough there was Twinkie. She was telling me that I was in her way and could I move so she could jump down. So after that day we started warning people when they came over to watch out for our sky-diving cat. 

Why is my doctor playing halo?

When Redmond-based Microsoft came out with the kinect system last year they never thought that it would be the next medical break-through. That is what they did though as seen from all of the uses that doctors at the University of Washington along with other medical professionals have implemented that take the kinect into the classroom and even into the operating room.

Dr. Brain Ross, executive director of the Institute for Simulation and Inter-professional Studies (ISIS) at the UW, Has begun using xbox and kinect for teach medical students in the classrooms. He came up with the idea one day after watching his son using his xbox to play games with other players online. Using the technology he can now video-conference his classes to the various campuses and one day hopes to be able to work with game manufacturers to create a hospital simulation that would take full advantage of the kinect avatar technology.

"It's a really great product where there's a lot of opportunities to do a lot of things," says Howard Chizeck, an electrical engineering professor in the UW's Biorobotics Lab. "It's a very enabling device. It's the right thing at the right time."
Dr. Tom Lendvay, an assistant professor or urology at the University of Washington, came up with the idea of using the kinect as an alternative to the expensive simulators that hospitals normally use to help surgeons arm-up and keep sharp for surgery. The theory here is that using the xbox and kinect can help maintain your eye-hand coordination just as well as a surgical simulator and save thousands of dollars.
"If you can pay for a video game versus $100,000 for a simulator," Lendvay said, "that's all you need to know."
There is one hospital in Toronto, Canada that has started using the kinect to allow surgeons to view MRI scans without having leave the operating room. The idea behind this is that it means the surgeon can stay in the OR instead of spending time leaving to go pull up the scans, view them, re-scrub and then go back to the OR.
"Kinect gives us a really low-cost test bed for developing and testing the idea," Chizeck said.

Parents the next your son or daughter ask for an xbox with a kinect system you should keep in mind that it just might get them into medical school.

Mariner's lost mojo

Call it pride, mojo, chi, swagger, attitude or ego but whatever word you use the Seattle Mariners are trying to find theirs. The pitching staff seems to have it and the players when they in the field. Maybe it gets left in the gloves on in the grass. You just look at this 2011 team and when they get to the plate you can just tell that it is gone.

Tonight they had most of the 2001 team there for the 10th anniversary. Those guys had it all the time out in the field and when they came up to bat. You could just see it that look when Ichiro would square up his bat like an artist getting ready to paint a masterpiece, the look that Brett Boone would have just daring a pitcher to try and throw one past him, the gleam in Edgar's eyes telling a pitcher he knew what was coming and the grin of Mark Maclemore as if he knew something the pitcher didn't. Where is that for these players.

Ichiro is still there squaring up at the plate but he seems to lose tract of the canvas. The new kids look intimidated and just want to swing and get back to the dugout. Some of the other veteran players, when they do play, look as though they forgot what that bat is for when they stand at the plate.

Don't get me wrong I love the Mariners and think we have some great players both young and old. I just think that they need to find where they left that mojo, attitude, pride.

Should people that don't think be allowed to put up billboards?

Coming home today I saw a billboard with a question on it asking "Should people getting entitlements be allowed to vote?"

I would have to assume (even though you shouldn't assume) that the person or persons that posed this question meant people collecting social security, welfare, food stamps, medicare and medicaid. That would take out about half of the voting population and maybe they figured those were the uniformed voters and it would improve the system.

Now, let's think about what that question really means if we are to take it to the full meaning of entitlements. Not only would we eliminate the elderly, disabled, poor and injured. We would have to the right to vote from the businesses that get tax breaks, the farmer that gets a subsidy, the military vets that get VA care, all of the students that get grants or loans and let's not forget the politicians since they get government benefits. Now, whom is left to vote our leaders that can't run in the first place because they are no longer registered voters.

I don't imagine this is what the person or persons meant when they put that sign up but that is what happens when you don't think before you talk or in this case right.