A Little Something for Shawn

My son-in-law Shawn is a police officer on one of the local departments.  He's got an interest in history and all things law enforcement, so I figure he'll enjoy this:

LAPD Police Academy - 1955

These guys all look like cast extras from that great old TV show Adam-12.  Clean cut young American boys, white, black, hispanic.  This was back when LAPD was a force to be reckoned with and the officer was the physical manifestation of the power and authority the LAPD carried and carefully wielded.  Back when the police officer was someone you knew, trusted and looked up to (and I still do).

Good stuff!

Who Knew Bill Clinton Was Advising Venezuelan Politicians?

Politician holds breast implant raffle to fund campaign

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

The Genius and Beauty of J.S. Bach

In my troglodytic knuckle dragging opinion this is the best piece of
classical music.  Ever.

Is This a Great Picture, or What?

Grayling fishing party on the River Trent

If I was working as a casting director for a movie about fishing I couldn't put together a better cast of characters than are seen here, and I could not have composed the picture any better.

Click on the photo to see it full resolution.

This is a picture of a real fishing party - a Grayling fishing party on the River Trent in England.  The picture was posted on the Classic Fly Rod Forum by Stuart Tod, who is fourth from the left in the picture.  The forum topic was 'Favorite Fishing Hats', and Stuart's comment was, "take your pick!"

This is a shot of English fishing tradition at it's finest - lots of tweed, waxed cotton, sweaters & mufflers, 'Wellies' (knee boots), salmon nets, two handed rods and even a bowler!

An absolute classic.  My thanks to Stuart for posting it and reminding us that tradition still lives on in the land of Issac Walton.

iPad vs. Kindle, Round 2

It has been a few weeks since my first posting - iPad vs. Kindle, Round 1. Today I'll focus on the Kindle. While there are no earth shattering revelations I do have some philosophical musings.

Both devices get used almost daily.  Roberta spends a lot of time, particularly around bed time, with the iPad in her lap playing Sudoku or Farmville, unwinding from a day of doing battle with 5th graders and school admin staff that act like 5th graders. Similarly, I'll find an hour or two at the end of the day to just grab the Kindle and go up and sit with her and read (I'm currently finishing up John Gierach's Sex, Death and Fly Fishing).  I will also toss the Kindle (clothed in it's protective neoprene case) into my briefcase and take it to work for lunchtime reading.

I think the best way to describe the Kindle is that it is a handy device, easy to carry, easy to hold and easy to use.  In form and function it does precisely what Amazon intended; it makes electronic reading a pleasurable experience by removing many of the barriers people experience with other electronic devices. Without getting ahead of myself with future comparisons, the Kindle is by far the better reading device. It is an elegantly designed and executed dedicated electronic reading platform, and for that I love it.

The Kindle has also has triggered a conflict in my soul.

You see, I love books. I love reading books. I love the feel of books, the smell of books. I love to collect books. I love hunting for books in used book stores and antique shops. I love building a library and having something physical that I can point to and refer to.  I love the book in its physical form and over the years have built up a respectable collection focused mainly on history, military and science topics.

A conflict came to light a few weeks ago when I was listening to an on-line review of Charles Hill's new book Grand Strategies. The reviewer gave it extremely high marks and called it a modern classic and a book that should be required reading for every employee in the US State Department.  I was fascinated by the book's premise that classic literature, and the lessons contained in the content and study of that literature, form the basis of modern statecraft.

I pulled up the Amazon.com website and was one or two mouse clicks away from buying the Kindle edition of Grand Strategies, but paused.  If this book is as important as the reviewer indicated then it deserves a place in my library.  Not as an ethereal digital file toted around on a perishable device like the Kindle, but in its original and intended form - the physical book.  I then went back through my Amazon.com account and took a look at all the books I either bought or put into my wish list over the years with a serious intent to buy 'sometime in the future'.  Virtually all of them, from history to science to military topics to classic literature, were books I selected specifically because they fit well into my physical library. They cover subjects I have a long and deep interest in, and I view their place in my library as an important contribution to my long term understanding of each particular topic.

So this describes the nature of my conflict with the Kindle.  It is a great device and certainly has a place in the modern world. However, when I buy the Kindle edition of a book I am getting nothing more than a digital file that can only be used on a Kindle device.  The history of technology teaches us that within a very short span of time the physical device and the digital format will be obsolete, and that book will effectively disappear from my library.

The physical book, however, is a relatively imperishable format.  Keep it away from flood and fire and it will last almost indefinitely.

For this reason I can not bring myself to purchase Kindle edition books that have a place in my physical library. This excludes an enormous swath of books on the topics I mention above.

Am I over-reacting?  I don't think so.  I regularly refer to books that have been in my personal library for over 25 years. Will the Kindle or the electronic version of the book I buy to read on the Kindle be around in 25 years?  Probably not.

Am I chucking the Kindle?  Certainly not.  For 'perishable' publications - books I'd like to read but have no long-term interest in - this is the perfect device.  There are also a number of books I want to add to my physical library but can no longer be found in print.  Books like Teddy Roosevelt's writings on hunting in the Dakotas or his classic tale of his Amazon River adventure (that came damned close to killing him). For publications like this the Kindle makes a valid contribution to my personal library.

I see a possible solution to this conundrum.  I'd love to see Amazon develop a pricing structure whereby if you purchase one form of a book you can get a discount on the other format any time in the future.  For example, let's say I buy the Kindle edition of Grand Strategies and like it so much that I want to buy the book for inclusion in my library.  Amazon then sells me the physical book for 25% off of the regular Amazon price.  That seems like a good compromise.

Making Up For Saturday

Thursday nights have become golfing nights for our local Trout Unlimited chapter; golfing in the sense that we go fishing on the ponds of a local golf course that is closed for maintenance on Thursdays.  These ponds hold healthy populations of good sized bluegill and bass, and the occasional crappie.  Since these ponds don't get much fishing pressure the fish are not wary.  A perfect combination - big fish that are not scared to bite anything tossed at them!

Our fishing outing last Saturday was a bust and I was feeling a little off my game.  Did I still have my fishing mojo?  Could I still convince big, dumb bluegill to take something that vaguely looked - from the proper angle and in the right light - like a grasshopper with malformed legs and a misshapen head?

I was really hoping to get back in the groove on Thursday night.

I also wanted to try out a new-used fly rod I picked up from a fellow member of the Warm Fly fly fishing forum.

Lots of variables to work through!

I need not have worried.  The bluegill were waiting and willing and my new 4 wt Lamiglas rod built by Prairie Drifter rods worked wonderfully.  Here's the proof:

If you recognize the turtle you'll know the location!

The golf course (which shall remain nameless) is in the south metro Atlanta area in a very tony neighborhood.  The turtle is a signature landmark on one of the ponds.  Any guesses?

Does this shoreline look fishy?

This is a fiberglass rod made on a Lamiglas e-glass blank
by Prairie Drifter Rods

While all the ponds produce, this pond, the most upstream in the chain, so far has yielded the biggest bluegill












First fish of the night - on the first cast of the night!

The fly being used is a foam grasshopper pattern
known as a 'clodhopper'

Second fish of the night - on the second cast.  Folks, I ain't making this up!

The Clodhopper

My all time champ for catching large bluegill, and the one I was using Thursday, is the 'Clodhopper', a simple foam grasshopper pattern tied using 2mm craft foam, some rubber legs and a little deer hair to simulate wings.  Tied on to a #14  2x hook, it is irresistible (to bluegill, that is).

The biggest, and most colorful, fish of the night!

The biggest fish of the night.  Although this fly rod is a 4wt, this fellow put quite a bend in the somewhat soft fiberglass stick

G'night!

Last fish of the night.














In an hour's time I landed 11 fish, and probably lost half as many to thrown hooks.

Yessiree, it was a good night!

It Was One Of Those Days

I should have figured that the "Swim at your own risk"
sign was a hint - big swimmin' hole here!

Fishing last Saturday (14 August) on the Flint River at Sprewell Bluff State Park.  Looking for smallmouth and shoal bass.  Never did find 'em, but I think I found the biggest hole.  My wallet is still drying out.

Sprewell Bluff State Park

Sprewell Bluff is the spot where the Flint River crosses the 'fall line' - it crosses from the Appalachian uplands and enters the Georgia piedmont.

Von with one of two smallies he got

I'm not sure what Von was throwing, but it worked better than anything anyone else was using.

Shawn working the pools

Shawn, beating the water to no avail...

Jim. Stylin'

If you are not catching anything at least you can look good while doing it.

You take your shelter where you can find it

Not long after lunch we heard a roar moving up the river from the south and realized it was rain!  Within moments a wall of water swept over us.














They say the worst day fishing is better than the best day at work.  I agree, but actually hooking a fish or two makes the experience a whole lot better.