Tons going on in terms of my non-blog life. Overwhelmed by work, family health concerns, Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da, so on and so forth. Patiently waiting to get the data cable for my phone so I can start pulling photos off of it. I got the thing over six months ago and promptly filled up the memory. Haven't taken a picture with it in months.

Going Ice fishing tomorrow. Don't expect to catch much but plan on having a blast in the warm 36-degree weather. Not taking the house, fishing old school in the open air.

Stopped by a local sporting good mart over my lunch hour and hit the clearance racks. I picked up a nice pair of convertible pants for $15 and an ice fishing rod & reel combo for $11. Score!

Labels: Fishing, Ice_Fishing, Life, Winter

Roy Scheider played the reluctant, aquaphobic police chief-turned shark hunter who killed Jaws (No, not THAT Jaws). Scheider has died at age 75.

Scheider's character Brody mouthed one of the most memorable movie lines of all time ("You're gonna need a bigger boat") which according to IMDB was improvised and not in the script.

I don't know how much if ever I will blog about the movie Jaws again so I will also mention in passing that this movie contains one of the best monologues of all time (Though performed by co-star Robert Shaw, not by Scheider).

Scheider was an accomplished actor who appeared in a lot of other stuff too, but I note his passing due to the formative effect that the movie Jaws had on me. I very much identified with Brody's fish out of water (No pun intended) sense of insecurity and misplacement on Quint's boat. The conflict between Quint and Hooper reminded me a lot of the conflict in my family between my two brother in-laws. In fact it was the Quint-like one who took me to see Jaws while it was running in the theater. That would have made me maybe 7 years old at the time. That's a pretty heavy movie for a second grader to try and process.

Around that same time my family had just put a temporary end to our gypsy approach to camping & fishing and had settled into a cabin on Leech lake. The cabin was owned by my sister and the Quint-like brother in-law, so much like the movie, we had the similar experience of trying to coexist in Quint's domain. And all the while I was confronted with Leech lake - this big, wonderful yet mysterious body of water, dangerous as any ocean and scary as heck to a seven year old. Local resorts and bars contained photos and mounts of enormous Muskellunge, which saturated my subconscious with fears of swimming, fishing and even boating in that lake. A bigger boat sure sounded like a good idea to me. Yet like Brody, some conflicting sense of duty and curiosity called me out on to the water to confront these hobgoblins of my mind.

Predictably, around that time I went through a brief shark craze, a lot like the kids nowadays are into dinosaurs. All my reading and attention went into studying and understanding this phantom limb of my subconsciousness, voraciously eating up books as often as I could get to a library. Then snap, the informational feeding frenzy was over and I was on to something else. It's amazing how there is always something available to personify whatever fears we are dealing with. In the movie Brody went through a shark craze too, and came out the other end alive. Thanks Roy, for helping me get through mine.

Labels: Family, Fishing, Lakes, Movies

In an egregious breach of protocol, I am going to blog about something work-related, although this could actually happen to anyone, anytime.

While waiting on hold for the customer support of a soon-to-be-former vendor, I was subjected to an endless loop of "Touch of Grey" by the Grateful Dead. The song never started and never ended. It was ENDLESS.

The worst part was that I was subjected to multiple transfers in the hunt for the elusive "Right guy" to talk to, and Jerry Garcia was still waiting for me, like he had never stopped singing, because in reality he hadn't.

Perhaps they were overconfident in their ability to get a rep assigned to me in four minutes or less. If so, they failed miserably. I suspect that it was all part of a master plan to break my will, which if so it was orchestrated with astonishing effectiveness. Eventually I was babbling incoherently, waving a lighter over my head and begging them to play Free Bird or Wayward Son. My brain was short-circuited. I cannot remember what I called them about or if they even helped me.

What was I blogging about again?

Labels: Life, Music

I saw this story on the news the other night, about a heartbroken individual who left their $15,000 Elvis painting at the end of their driveway and were shocked, SHOCKED I tell you, to go outside later and find t he painting gone! I looked at the wife in disbelief and asked what these morons expected. Rescuing junk from the curb is a pretty common practice in my region; A lot of people pride themselves on what they scrounge out of other people's garbage. There's even a TV show based on this time-honored tradition. But the reporter explained that no, the 'thief' simply could not have mistaken it for cast off trash because the owners had set the painting on an easel.

Had I been that passing motorist I probably would have set the painting aside and took the easel. I always wanted an easel, but could never bring myself to pay full price for one. What the heck - free easel!

Now today this:

http://www.startribune.com/local/15353291.html

Missing Elvis painting valued at $15,000 is returned
Passing motorist thought painting was being thrown out

By TIM HARLOW, Star Tribune
Last update: February 6, 2008 - 10:56 AM

(Article content removed out of respect for Star Tribune's Copyright policy)

It turns out it was a sawhorse, not an easel. I hope they kept it.

Labels: Minnesota, The_News

The "It won't ever happen to me" attitude is a prevelant concern with modern 'Outdoorsmen.' Too many people go into the woods with a false sense of security, dependant on gizmos and overconfident regarding their own skills. A majority of the time these people come out fine, and the dependency and the overconfidence grows. You can't help but ask yourself what would happen to these people if they were dumped in the middle of the woods, deprived of both.

Lost in the Wild: Danger and Survival in the North Woods by Cary J Griffith addresses both scenarios.
A moderately skilled hiker takes a series of wrong turns and is not only lost but seperated from his gear as an early autumn snowstorm and freezing temperatures pummel the area. An experienced Boundary waters guide bushwacks in search of a portage with no gear and inadequate clothing, bumps his head, becomes disoriented and wanders for hours before regaining his senses.

Each story is revealed a chapter at a time in alternating chapters. Many online reviews that I have read criticized the book format for this, but personally I enjoyed the alternating breaks from one story to resume the other, as at times each was like watching a slow motion train crash. You say that you can't watch and put your hands over your face and end up peeking through your fingers. Because you know that there but for the grace of God go you.

The book largely is just telling the story of what happened to each person, as well as providing the perspective of the respective families and S&R teams involved in each incident. What each individual did wrong to get into their predicaments is revealed and what they could have done to avoid them is alluded to. But don't read this book thinking that you are going to improve on your woodsmanship skills. No, this book reads as the 'black box' of two failed wilderness excursions and reminds us that even the best laid plans can go sideways in a hurry when you're out in the woods.

For those of us who like to travel in the woods on foot, instead of saying that emergencies like these could never happen to us, we should be asking ourselves, given our equipment and skills, how could it happen to us anyway and what would we do then? The misfortune of these two people serves as a reminder to the woodsman to continuously prioritize the three unspoken primary objectives of any wilderness experience: Stay Found, Stay Dry and Stay Warm.

Lost in the Wild may not teach you how to do that, but it will get you in the mood to want to.

Labels: Book_Reviews, BWCAW, Camping, Canoeing, Minnesota, Nature, Outside, The_Woods