We're there, or we're here, or whatever

It's an interesting phenomenon. Even though every day is 24 hours, some days seem soooooo long. Two long days in a row, packing the truck, driving it, and unloading, makes me wish for a short day. Even so, it all went really well.

I'd like to thank Don Dolezalek for his help in loading the truck. Without him I might still be there loading, LOL. Thanks also to Jason Dempsey for his help in that department.

I was a bit scared of the truck, since it was all rusty on the outside and had 190K miles. The truck we used to move from Canadian was a piece, only making 60 mph downhill and overheating constantly, so I wasn't too hopeful when I saw this one. Fortunately it worked well. I was able to keep it at about 68 the whole way with no trouble from alternators or radiators or anything like that.

We arrived at the house about 4:15, within minutes of the Millers and Travis and Cara. We started work almost immediately and had the entire truck unloaded by about 7:30. The house is a bit small, as I knew it would be, but not too bad. The freezer's in our bedroom, but that's the only thing so far that has to be some place weird. We were so beat last night that we didn't spend much time unpacking boxes, so I anticipate that's what we'll spend most of our time doing today. I also have to build some shelves and closets, since there are not but two closets in the entire house, and none in the bedrooms.

Guess that's it. I should probably be unpacking instead of blogging, but I figured that some folks would want to hear that we made it safely.
Jason

Final Preparations

Well, it's getting down to the wire. We pick up the truck in the morning, load it tomorrow, and pull out some time Friday. The last big question remaining is what time the closing will be for the house.

If you want to help us load the truck, we'll be starting right after lunch on Thursday.

Derrick and I fished our last Tuesday tournament last night. We didn't catch a single fish! Figures. We got beat to the spot we were heading to, and the guy that got there ended up winning second. Also figures. And in a semi-symbolic moment, the Walnut softball hat that I've been wearing for three years now that was coming close to being a good fishing hat (if you remember my sermon a couple years ago about how to build a fishing hat) BLEW IN THE LAKE! Last fishing day of the last tourney of the last week in Texarkana, and the Walnut hat takes a dive. I was kind of sad, because it was well on its way to being a good hat.

Jonathan invented a new game called "Climb on Top." Whatever he can find, the game is that he climbs on top of it. Since the house is full of packed boxes, he can get pretty high sometimes. He also likes the top of the piano. One of these days we're not going to catch him and he'll probably bite it. Part of growing up I guess.

We're headed to Walnut tonight for the last time in the near future. I suppose we'll visit some times, but for now, this is "it." I think it's singing night, which has always been my favorite.

May not get to blog for a few days while I rearrange all my stuff.
Jason

Go Horns!

I'm not exactly an obsessed Longhorn baseball fan who cares about the result of every game throughout the season. I am, however, a life long fan. I can remember being at Disch Falk for quite a few games as a kid. I remember guys like Scott Coolbaugh, Calvin Murray, Kirk Dressendorfer and Brooks Keischnick. I remember seeing the one armed pitcher from Michigan... can't remember his name, but he went pro for a while... oh yeah, Jim Abbott. Roger Clemens was a bit before my time, but not too much, and I remember seeing his name on the outfield fence. Even though I haven't been to a game in probably 12 years, I still keep up with the Horns come playoffs, especially during the College World Series. The Horns won again today, beating Tulane in the winner's bracket. They play next on Wednesday against the winner of tomorrow's Baylor-Tulane elimination game. Good thing is, since Texas has already beaten both of those teams, the winner of the B-T game will have to beat Texas twice in a row to win the championship.

Here's a link to ESPN's report of today's game:

Horns Win!

Darwin Award Candidate?

On the 10 p.m. news tonight was a report about a tractor accident. Seems as if one of the city's mowing crew members got his tractor too close to the edge of a creek bank. The tractor tipped off of the bank, fell down about a fifteen foot bluff, and ended up upside down in the water. The driver had his seatbelt on and was trapped under water, and so his co worker drove over on his tractor to help. Up until this point, all we have is an accident. But then... The second guy somehow managed to flip his tractor into the creek as well! Now we've got two guys and two tractors in the creek. Fortunately the second guy wasn't injured and was able to get out and help the first guy. The first guy is in the hospital this evening but is doing well. They didn't report what the city's going to do about all of the tractors upside down in the creek.

And in other news, which unlike the previous wasn't actually on THE news, my parents are flying to Little Rock on Saturday. Jason Dempsey was going to be in LR anyway and graciously agreed to pick them up. The deal is that we have two cars and a moving truck, but only two drivers. My parents are going to take my truck and the boat and drive them back to Austin. That way Shana can drive the car, I can drive the moving truck, and we won't have to have an extra driver.

We're having some kind of going away thingy after church on Sunday night. I'm not sure exactly what the plan is, as it's pretty much against the rules to plan your own going away party. When we left the church in Canadian, they gave us all kinds of gifts. It was a nice touch, but we had to pack them all and move them. This time we're moving into a smaller place than we have now. Shana and I request no gifts please, so we don't have to pack them or find a place to put them. Thanks.

Some folks have offered to help us load the truck. We're planning on loading on Thursday of next week, probably in the afternoon and evening. We're going to try to pull out Friday morning. That way we'll have all day Saturday to unpack. I'll post a specific time for helpers to come, but for now, be thinking about Thursday afternoon.

Guess that's it for today. Going fishing in the morning. It'll probably be the last time I get to take my boat out here.
Jason

Real Live Preacher

I found a blog called Real Live Preacher. The guy's nuts, admittedly on anti-depressants, doesn't bother to symbolically bleep his cusswords, and he's the pastor at some church in Dallas. I used to think I was about an 8 on the 1 to 10 scale of cynicism, but this guy's at least an 11. You can probably find his blog if you hunt for it, but because it's a bit... rough... I'll not link to it. He did say one thing that really caught me, especially in light of what's going on in my life right now.

"People who doubt can have great faith because faith is something you do, not something you think. In fact, the greater your doubt the more heroic your faith."

The greater your doubt, the more heroic your faith. Makes sense, because if you're faithful ANYWAY, in spite of the doubt, the more doubt you have, then the more faith you must have to keep being faithful. Kind of like the guy in Mark (I'll have to look up the reference later) who said, "I believe, help my unbelief!" as Jesus was on the way to heal his daughter.

Any comments about faith and doubt?

Garage Sales

Garage sales are an interesting phenomenon. Who would ever guess that there would be a culturally acceptable way to get other people to haul off your junk and pay you for it?

Shana and I went to a few garage sales yesterday, something we used to do alot on Saturdays BC (That's Before Children). At a BIG house in Pleasant Grove, I found something out of place: A Victor #4 longspring. The lady said that it was her father's or grandfather's, I don't remember which. Five bucks and it was mine. I'll admit that I'm mostly telling this story so that I can put the pic on my blog, so that it will be on the 'net, so that I can post it on Trapperman.com and find out more about it. A #4 is a good beaver or coyote trap, and usually worth 10 dollars or so, but some are more collectable than others. Here's the pic:

We missed Bible class this morning. Jonathan's getting a new molar or two and was up all night, Jared's stopped up again, and I had a few bathroom issues of my own. We thought about staying home altogether since 3/4 of us were under the weather a bit, but we made it to worship after all.

Guess that's it for today.
Jason

Who said no free lunch?

I went to CiCi's pizza on State Line today with my family for lunch. When we got there, we went in, ordered, got rung up on the register, and then figured out that they don't take cards (debit/credit) anymore. Oh, but they have a convenient ATM, so I went to get some cash since I was $1.60 short, having planned to debit the whole meal. Come to find out, the ATM was out of order. Feeling somewhat embarrassed about the whole thing, we picked up the kids and turned to leave when Vincent the manager (who coincidentally went to high school with Mitch Crawford's brother) chased us out the door. He asked what the story was and why we were leaving. We told him, and he gave us our lunch for free, because he's a nice guy, and because he'd forgotten to put more money in the ATM. So who says there's no free lunch? There was today!

What's my deal?

Sometimes I wonder if the mess "out there" isn't really "in here." I'm not schizophrenic or anything like that, but sometimes I do things that just don't make any sense. I'm smart, but I act dumb.

For some reason that's beyond reasonability, I've been using this blog as a venting place. Apparently I didn't learn my lesson in January. Hopefully it's sunk in this time before any major damage is done.

I need a break from myself, because I don't like who I've become. I've always been cynical, but the bitterness is new. I apologise for putting the dark side of myself out in public for everyone to see. I don't fully understand why I feel compelled to write so much stuff down at a time when my thoughts and feelings aren't worth repeating. I don't know why. Like I said, I'm smart, but I sometimes don't act like it.

I allow comments on this site. Right now my personal judgment is not a trustworthy editor. If I post something stupid, hurtful, easily misinterpreted, or otherwise inappropriate, leave a comment saying so. It's highly likely that whatever I said just wasn't as well thought out as it needed to be.

I'm going to try to back off of this blogging thing a bit. That whole "if you can't say something nice" thing is a good idea. Wish I'd have remembered it earlier.
Jason

Sweetwater, bitter pill?

Pun intended. Found out yesterday that the church in Sweetwater is more interested in another candiate. I'm pretty disappointed, since that job answered most of the questions I still have about supporting my family, about where to live, about whether or not to pursue full time ministry again. I called to check on the house I found on my last trip, but haven't heard back from the realtor yet. I figure I'll probably have to make another trip out to Abilene Wednesday through Friday or Saturday to find a place.

Jason

Pig Hunt

As promised, a pig hunting report...

David and I met at about 3 p.m. to go out to his place in the Pond Creek bottoms. I think we picked the hottest day in the past two weeks! We saw some pigs on the road on the way in... a good sign?

I sat in a tall metal tower stand, the first one north of the camp for those familiar. My friend George had killed a sow there on Monday and I was hoping the piglets would come back.

The first thing I saw was a bobcat, about 5 p.m. It was a medium sized female with decent spots, and it came out about twenty yards away from me on my left. The picture is as it crossed in front of me about 30 yards away.


There were lots of cardinals, and some indigo buntings. I took a pic of the bunting but it didn't turn out. Here's a pic of one of the redbirds.


Next I was visited by a rabbit. He stayed around for probably an hour and a half.


After the rabbit,I saw three deer. Two of them looked like spikes in velvet. They stayed and ate for about 30 minutes. Here's a pic of two of them.


Finally there was a rustle in the bushes! Could it be the pigs? Nope, it was this armadillo.


The dilla and the rabbit were still hanging out when I saw a brown hump move across a gap up the road. A few minutes later, here come the pigs. There were about 6 piglets, some all black, some black and white like a hamp, and some brown like a duroc. After the piglets came two sows. The whole pig herd was working its way down the road toward me. I took the time to put in my ear plugs, but not to take pics. Unbeknownst to the pigs, I had left my #1 pig killing gun in Abilene with Travis. Unfortunately for the pigs, no good hunter only has one gun, and my #2 pig killing gun was ready to go. I pulled out the .270, with handloads of course, and let the lead sow have it in the neck. Pigs do have a neck, it's just a short one, lol. As the rest of the herd scrambled for cover, I reloaded just in time for the other sow to pause long enought to catch a bullet behind the shoulder.

The first sow was DRT (dead right there, a GGVG term), but the second made it into the brush. I went back to camp, got a brush knife, found the blood trail, and went in and got the second pig.

Here's a pic of the pigs back at camp. The first sow is the one hanging, the second's on the ground.


I took the backstraps and hams from the first one to grind with venison for hamburger, and David took the other one to give to Michael Cheatham's brother PeeWee.

David didn't see anything at all, but he did get stung on the eyelid by a wasp. Ouch!

That's about it for the pig hunting story. Hope you all enjoyed it.

Jason

Sweetwater Report

I promised an update on the Sweetwater situation, but blogger was acting goofy last night. Here's the scoop:

After the interview on Wednesday of last week, they called me back for a "meet the kids" meeting. We went to Sunday evening church, which was interesting because they had one of the ACU music professors out working with the congregation on improving the congregational singing. As a singing guy, that's something I appreciate. After that we went and hung out in their youth center (a really nice place, BTW), ate burgers, and then I gave a short talk. I used the principle of new wine and new wineskins to illustrate to them that regardless of who comes into thier youth ministry position, everyone is going to have to be flexible or both the wine and the skin will be ruined. It went pretty well, although I think I could have done better. After that we played sand volleyball in their court that's in the church parking lot. They seem to be a good bunch of kids, and they like hanging out with each other.

As we left, I got some interesting looks from some of the committee members. They were almost "attaboy" looks. Good stuff!

We stayed with one of the elders named Mr. Whittenberg. I met him on Wednesday night as he was preparing to teach the 2 year old class. He and his wife were very hospitable. They both worked in the schools, she as a librarian and he as a 5th grade teacher. He just retired last week after 41 years. They're great people, and he seems like a good elder.

I was the first one that they interviewed, and they have at least four other candidates. I'm not sure what kind of time table they'll be able to talk to their other guys in, so I may be waiting a while. I've got to move out of here some time around the 24th of June, so I may have to do some kind of interim housing. Not too fun with a couple of small kids.

I can't help but feel that God has prepared this job for me. On the other hand, my faith is small enough to be scared that I won't get it and the waiting will drive me nuts for nothing. Keep praying for my family and for this situation.

I'm going hog hunting this afternoon. I'll put a report up if anything interesting happens.

Jason

Prairie Dog Hunting Report

I'm having trouble making Hello do what I want, but I'm going to try to put a post with multiple pics throughout the story.

While on my recent trip to New Mexico, I got to do a little hunting. I went out kind of early on Friday morning. The country was exceptionally green due to all the rain they've been getting lately. As I passed through a crossroads I noticed a small coyote crossing the road to my right. I backed up and turned down the road it had just crossed, and the coyote stopped about 100 yards out on the left side of the road. Its hesitation gave me the opportunity I needed to send a bullet in its direction. Success! First shot of the day took this young female coyote.


The prairie dogging hasn't been great lately. There are four towns that we've historically shot, but three of them have been poisoned over the last couple of years. There's a dog here and there in the poisoned towns, but not the huge numbers that there used to be. Even so, I found a few dogs to shoot at. Highlights include a triple and the shot pictured below.

First, this is the view of the day's longest shot looking over the hood of the car. On the left you'll see my 788 in .223. I don't know if it will show up right, but there's a white 5 gallon bucket sitting next to a dead PD that was 270 steps away. No fancy-pants range finder, but that's about 270 yards or so.


The second pic is the view from the dog and bucket back toward the car. That's my 10/22 in the pic.


That's the all the hunt that's there to report. I'll post again later with the details of Sweetwater, Round Two.
Jason