Almost Skunked AGAIN

Saturday (1/23/10) was a beautiful day. The temperature where we were didn't get above 32F, but the sun was shining and there was a slight breeze. My friend Barry and I decided to go ice fishing. After I got off the air on Magic of course. We chose to go to Ford's Lake in Clarks Summit. A fairly big pond, but not too big that we had to walk 87 miles to a spot. We got there around noon and it appeared many others had the same idea.

No problem. No one was in the 'spot' Barry planned on. And out we went. The fishing trip started with Barry's gas auger NOT firing. He yanked that rope at least 50 times and the thing wouldn't even sputter. So I had to take the trek back to the truck to get the manual auger. It's OK, it was only about 1/2 mile walk, and the day was beautiful (I think I mentioned that already) Walking back to the spot, I decided to randomly click a pic with my phone. Here's what I saw.

We fished our area hard. 8 tip ups with decent bait and we were jigging numerous holes (well, I only jigged one, but Barry was all over). I caught 4....count `em....4 bluegill. And they were smaller than the bait we had on the tip-ups. I'm starting to sense this ice fishing season is awful, being that I've been out 5 times so far, and I've been skunked (not caught anything) almost all times we went. What is going on under that ice? Did the fish have a meeting in October and all move to Florida for the winter? Around 3:30, I begged Barry to go somewhere else. So we did. We packed up and went to a private pond that I KNOW is loaded with pickeral. I had a feeling I'd be chasing flags (tip-ups) on THIS body of water. I didn't care if they were tiny, I just wanted to chase flags and catch some fish!

We arrived at our new location, popped enough holes for our tip-ups, and waited. And waited. And waited. WHERE ARE THE PICKERAL? WHERE ARE THE FISH?
It was night time when we left there.
The sun is almost down in that picture..........still no fish. Yep, we walked off that lake in the dark without a single fish to show for it. I may retire my ice fishing career for this season if this keeps up. Ugh. Barry still had a good time though.


So on Sunday, I had an invite to go fishing again, this time I said "NO". You heard right, I declined to go fishing. Wow....the fishing must really stink for me to say no. Another friend Mike and I went GeoCaching instead. Nothing too intense (being that it was supposed to rain badly), just some cache's around the area. We found all but one we went searching for. And that ONE was on the 8th Street Bridge somewhere. Gorgeous views, but the traffic was awful. We did learn a lot though through our day. We learned about the Dennison House in Wyoming, we learned about the Bloody Rock in Wyoming too. I didn't even know that was there.

That was one angry woman!


And we TRIED to learn if we could park here. We weren't sure, so we didn't venture too far from the truck. Luckily the cache was within reach.

All in all, we had a good time. We found a park in Franklin Township that neither of us knew existed....we found hiking trails right off the Cross Valley that we didn't know were there.....and we found a TANK in Swoyersville. Yes, a full-blown tank!
The way I look at it......I may have almost gotten skunked on Saturday, I didn't give the fish a chance to skunk me on Sunday and I still got out and enjoyed the day with friends. Let's just hope I can get my son (when he's old enough....oh, and born first) into the same hobbies.

Enjoy your day! Thanks for reading...thanks for listening to Magic 93.


T

Stan, Sushi, Simon, Satisfaction

My apologies for not updating in a while. My apologies to all 4 of you who read this. :) I was sick for a bit (flu or something), and I was cranky (work or something) for a while too, so I didn't feel like it. ANYWAY.........

Every year, Stan Phillips and I go for a sushi lunch, and it's usually Stan's Christmas present to me. Today, Stan and I went for sushi, for my 2008 Christmas lunch. I enjoy it when we go to lunch, because we don't really get too much time to chat during the work day. He's super busy being the boss, I'm super busy slacking.....I mean......writing and producing commercials, so it's always a treat when we can sneak out for an hour or so. And today was the day.

We went to a local Japanese/Sushi restaurant that we have been to many times before, and today, for some reason, was even better than I remembered. Now, I'm not a HUGE sushi fan......but I really do enjoy it.....once a month maybe. Twice is rare.
We had to go at 2PM, because that's when Stan gets off the air, so by 1:55PM, I was STARVING. I skipped lunch knowing we would be shoveling raw fish down our throats. We belly-up to the Sushi bar, and I pretty much already know I don't want too much for lunch, but enough to be full. No prob.....I'll have the "Sushi Lunch" which includes a soup (Miso), salad (with yummy ginger dressing), 5 pieces of sushi (Tuna, Salmon, Yellowtail, Shrimp, and something I don't recognized but I ate it anyway), and a half of a California Roll. I substituted the California Roll with a Philly Roll. "That's a dollar more" the waitress said, with my response...."That's OK, he's paying." :)
This is what it looked like.
Now mind you, I did not take a picture of the salad or soup...you know what they look like. Also, this was my PLAN. This of course did NOT go the way I wanted. But this time, it's OK.

The waitress comes over, takes our drink order, and in 2.5 seconds has our drinks on the counter in front of us. How they do that, I have no idea. While we were waiting for our drinks, we were noticing the "Roll specials" on the wall, and I commented they all sounded good. I order my sushi lunch. Stan orders the Sashimi lunch. THEN he orders a "Volcano Roll" for us to split. OK, I'll try it. I'm game. Let me explain what's in a Volcano Roll. Avocado. Shrimp Tempura (lightly deep fried shrimp). Jalapeno pepper (no seeds). Spicy Salmon. All rolled together, topped with Roe (fish eggs), with a Cilantro dip on the side.
We chat a bit longer, eat our salad, eat our soup, and the Sushi chef hands us a little plate of some concoction he "whipped" up.
I have no idea what it was, but Stan and I ate the whole thing. It was DELICIOUS. That sushi chef is one heck of a nice guy.

Then the VOLCANO ROLL comes out. It was a masterpiece. A work-of-art. It was beautiful.

I didn't want to eat it. I wanted to look at it all day. It was right then and there I knew....I knew dinner was NOT an option tonight, and this afternoon was going to be an uncomfortable rest of the day. (Shhhh, don't tell anyone, but my pants are unbuttoned). The volcano roll not only looked fantastic....it is now officially my favorite sushi roll I have ever had the joy of eating. It was unbelievable. We finished the volcano roll, and I was satisfied. Then I remembered......MY LUNCH IS NOW COMING OUT. Oh boy.
Out comes the lunch, and for the first time, I did not finish all of it. I usually eat everything when it comes to sushi, but today, I left 2 pieces of my Philly Roll on the plate. I just could NOT eat anymore. It's not that I didn't want to, I just couldn't. As I sit here and type, I know I still can't finish it. Even if it was here.....staring at me....I couldn't finish it.

So let's see.....soup, salad, sushi chef concoction, volcano roll, 98% sushi lunch and 2 sodas. Yep, I'm gonna hurl. No, not really (I hope). But I am stuffed!!!! Overloaded. I just want to take a nap now. The worst part about this is that I want to do this once a month. The food was THAT good. I have eaten sushi in many different places in NEPA, and I have to say, that where we went today is the absolute best. To risk getting in trouble with our sales department, I won't say where we were...but it is my favorite. And by the looks of it, it's Stan's too.

I'd eat a mint for desert, but I don't think there's any room.


On a different note, as you well know, my wife and I will (God willing) be having a baby this June. We just found out.....I put the stem on the apple. :) I (my wife) am having a little boy. A little fishin' partner. A fellow motorcycle rider. And we have decided his name will be Simon. Not after that jerk on American Idol......just Simon because we like that name. Sorry, I don't have any pictures of Simon yet.....so here's our sushi chef from today.



Hope you have a great rest of your day. Find something to be grateful for. My list is too long to write at the moment, so I'll leave you with this: Look at your feet. You are RIGHT where you're supposed to be right now! Enjoy it!

Thanks for reading. Thanks for listening to Magic 93.


Tom

New Layout

Hope you like it. :)

And for fun...here's a picture of our child.

Text messages

It's Monday, and I thought I'd share my last three text messages I received.

These are my friends. These are the people I associate with. Take it as you will.


Text 1 Hey, left a can of beans on the floor in the studio. Could you put it in the fridge?

I did. :)

Text 2 Good call! Stay in and stay warm!

This is in reference to me not ice fishing yesterday. It was waay too cold and waaaay too windy for any fun on the ice.


Text 3 First Sunday off this week. Let's make swiss cheese out of some lake. I'll even do the Mexican Fish Dance.

This is for this coming weekend. A friend of mine (years ago) decided to 'dance' around the holes we drilled when the fishing was slow.......so now a bunch of us refer to it (and do it) as the Mexican Fish Dance. I actually have a picture.
That was from many years ago.

That's it for today. Thanks for reading, and for listening to Magic 93. Cya.

Happy New Year!!!!

First, let me wish you a very Happy New Year!!! Or as some say, Happy New Years.



Second......it's just past 6AM on January 1st and I'm on the air. Yes, I'm working. Yes, I watched the ball drop last night, so, yes, I'm running on only about 3 hours of sleep. That doesn't really bother me.....what really bothers me is that I made a HUGE mistake last night. And let me tell you, this is NOT a good way to start the new year.

A few years ago....I quit drinking. Why? That's an entirely other post at an entirely other time. Let's just say, I'm grateful that in a these few years I have NOT awakened in the morning with a hangover...feeling like I slept in cold mud with the flu. I have awakened feeling tired, but NOT hungover, and always within a few minutes, feeling great to tackle the day.
Well, before you jump to conclusions, I did NOT partake in the spirits last night. But I sure as heck FEEL like I did. WHY? Two words.

Chicken wings.


The human mind is an odd thing (OK, mine is). It's difficult for me to remember the bad consequences related to boozin'....but I do remember all the good times. Luckily, by the grace of God, he has provided me with chicken wings to remind me.
It's difficult for me to remember the bad consequences related to eating chicken wings, especially a whole dozen within 10 minutes. I remember the delicious, mouth-watering tang of the vinegar, the slight burn of the spices, and the oh-s0-yumbilee in my tumbilee combination of dipping the whole wing in bleu cheese dressing. And this morning.....I now remember why I don't eat chicken wings that often. I also remember another reason I quit drinking. The hangover. Thanks to the chicken wings.
My stomach is ON FIRE this morning. I have taken my Nexium pill, plus a Zantac, plus I'm swallowing antacids like candy, and I feel like I was out drinking all night long.
Now, mind you, I'm grateful I actually WASN'T drinking last night...and I am grateful that this chicken wing hangover will pass soon (I hope), but oh my goodness, I feel like I swallowed gasoline this morning, and I'm just waiting for someone to drop a match down there. I had to write about it, so I can hopefully come back to this post next time my mind says, "Go ahead Jenk......go on, you know you want chicken wings. You know you do! "

On a side note.....let's see if my fishing partner will be too hungover to go ice fishing today. Haha. I'll be able to empathize, but hey, if I can get up at 4AM to be here at work, WITH a chicken wing hangover, he can sure as heck get his drunk butt out of bed. I'm driving. Come to think of it.......could I get a DUI for operating a motor vehicle after a night of binge chicken wing consumption?

Happy New Year!!!! I hope each day gets better for you. And remember, do we REALLY need resolutions? Do we REALLY need a new day to change? No......just change now! :)

NOTHING CHANGES, WHEN NOTHING CHANGES.