Memorial Day Long Weekend

I had a very enjoyable long weekend that included the Memorial Day holiday.  I drove over to the corny state late Thursday night and drove back late Monday night.  You might notice a certain theme to most of the pictures from the weekend.

Other than kayaking, we did some yoga, cooking, mending, meeting, and we watched Napoleon Dynamite.  It was the first time I had seen it.  But somehow a lot of the lines in that movie sure sound familiar - almost like I hear some people quote that one a lot.

I'm thankful for fellowship and a few days of non-working time.  I think I'll do my "bullet points" in pictures this time.

Bex's friend CeeCee went kayaking with us on Friday down the Iowa River.  This was our lunch stop.  We may have had a conversation that involved clubbing baby seals in the woods.

We didn't like Bex bringing up clubbing baby seals, so we gave her a time-out in the kayak.

On Saturday, we met Jax in the northeast part of the state for some river time.  Can you see the mature bald eagle and the immature bald eagle in this picture?

Jax and Bex at the lunch stop on Saturday.

Bex and Jax ride the rapids on the Volga River.  Who knew Russia was so close to the corny state?

Good looking bridge.

Good looking bridge with some vertical sparrow mud huts.  We even got to see some sparrows playing in the mud picking up more mud for their huts.

Scenery on the Volga River.

Girls will be girls.  You can tell how much fun it was by how much my braid is flying.

On Sunday I was falling apart at the seams, so I did some mending work with Bex's sewing machine.  She made me do my own mending, can you believe that?  After mending three shirts I tried to lobby Bex to promote me to journeywoman seamstress, but I think her silence on the subject seemed to indicate that she thought I was still at apprentice level.  *sigh*  It rained most of Sunday, so mostly we spent the day chilling out and getting on Mother Mary's nerves.  We did play Small World with Father Dan.

The woikas arrived to the Shmerty abode on Sunday evening, and two of the three of them went kayaking with Bex and I on Monday.  We sat on that log in the middle of the picture and ate our lunch in a little meadow area in the lake.

We took a detour down this narrow area through some really green water.  In a pond at the end of this track we encountered a bunch of carp that would make quite a bit of splashing in the water.

The woikas on Lake Odessa.  Bex and one of the woikas had an encounter with "Odessie" the lake monster - apparently she bumped their paddles when they got too close.  We also saw turtles of various sizes and lots of blue herons flying.

 Now I'm going to go find my ChapStick.  My lips hurt real bad.  ;-)

Summer Contemplation

Upon reviewing the calendar, I believe this year is one of the years that has the maximum number of days between Memorial Day and Labor Day.  How cool is that?  Be sure to maximize your already maximized time this summer!  Unfortunately, I've spent a lot of it working so far.

Mother nature seems to know exactly when we have league softball games.  Every Tuesday now for 3 weeks it's been really cold (like in the 40's) or threatening rain.  But there is hope of getting better - that's the good news.

Here's a nice little thought from BS this evening.  After Peter walked on the water and then started to sink and was saved by Jesus, the end result was Peter's faith was increased and those who were looking on saw a clearer picture of Jesus.

That's all I have for today.  Maybe tomorrow I will post about my lovely long weekend that just passed by.  Peace out, folks.

First 2015 Kayaking Weekend

Last weekend Uncle Bex and Weeds came to visit for the weekend.  It was kind of a short trip for Weeds, but we tried to make the most of it.  Some highlights:

1. I nearly took a drink when I was out of my kayak at an optional portage and tried to step on a log that wasn't nearly as stable as it originally looked.
2. At a tricky log navigation spot, Weeds ditched her paddle and hung on tight to make sure she stayed dry.
3. We did a stretch of river that was an estimated 4 hour paddle.  The first 2 hours were pretty decent because some kayak outfitters had cleared that part of the river.  The second two hours took a big longer.  We found 1 mandatory portage spot, 4 optional portage spots, and 1 very technical paddling spot.  But....that's what keeps things interesting.
4. Having company is always a good excuse to be a tourist in your own town.
5. We ate at a place that had "Crack Fries".  Fries lightly battered and deep fried with a sprinkling of parmesan cheese and cracked black pepper.  I don't mind if I do.....
6. Good conversations about travel and life philosophy.
7. It was the weekend of the raccoon.  We observed one live one and 4 or 5 dead ones.
8. A beautiful day paddling on the river - that's always good for the psyche.
9. I saw a muskrat while kayaking.  That reminds me of a song....
10. First time grilling on my new grill, and things turned out well.  Potato packs, asparagus, bratwurst, flank steak, and grilled pretzel buns.  Mmmm...mmmm....mmmmm.

A few pictures:

They are red-eye to paddle

Bex chilling on the river

Weeds leading the way

The Wild Life Around Here

Warning!  Graphic pictures!  Continue reading at your own risk!

When Bex was here last weekend, she spotted a raccoon that seems to like to hang out in a tree in my back yard.  I thought raccoons were mostly nocturnal animals, but he seems to be awake quite a bit of the time in the morning and evening when I'm home and have time to observe.

Raccoon chilling out spot.

Is anybody out there an expert on mice?  Can they be carnivores of their own kind similar to pigs?  I'm wondering because I caught a mouse in a sticky trap in the past week or two and didn't happen to check it very often.  It appears in the time that the dead mouse lay in the sticky trap that something ate his head.  I found some mouse skull remnants scattered around, but all the flesh was gone.  Another mouse, or do I need to worry about other critters in my house?  I also caught a mouse in my basement recently using a snap trap.  It seems like it kind of caught him on the ear possibly.  So there is a little bit of blood to clean up from that.  Things are gory around here!  Earlier in the spring I was catching field mice, but the last 2 or 3 weeks I've been catching the gray house mice.

Mouse head carnage.

Word Pictures

My brain is attracted to word pictures.  Sometimes Uncle Bex asks me how I can remember some stuff so well, and quite often it's because it's a good word picture that I can envision in my mind or "feel" with my heart.

In the process of reading Proverbs recently, I realized that Proverbs 25 almost has a different word picture in every verse.  You should check it out.

Here are a couple good ones:

"Confidence in an unfaithful man in time of trouble is like a broken tooth, and a foot out of joint."

"As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country."

"He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls."

"As an earring of gold, and an ornament of fine gold, so is a wise reprover upon an obedient ear."

This one isn't in that chapter, but it was one that amused me and gave me food for thought from Proverbs 11:22.  "As a jewel of gold in a swine's snout, so is a fair woman which is without discretion."

Do you have a favorite proverb?

Moving On

Remember how I said I might move cubicles about three months ago?

Well, that day finally came last Friday.  I moved out of my window seat.  Surprisingly, I didn't feel all that sad about moving.  Yeah, it was hard to give up the window.  But over the last three months I had sort of become isolated because people were trying to learn to do their jobs without me.  So it's good to move into the area where the rest of my new group is sitting.  I was the first one into the area on Monday morning, so I turned all the lights on when I came in.  When the other guys came in, they were complaining about how bright it was.  They compromised by taking out some of the light bulbs above their desks if they wanted it to be darker.  One guy told me that shows how much they love me - that they would modify their work area so I could have a lot of light in my cube area.  It's good to be loved, right?

It was striking how much more wall space my new cube has.  I moved all the stuff I had hanging on my walls in my window cube, and it filled up less than half the wall space in my new cube.  Now I can collect more junk!

I sit in the same building on the same floor - I just moved from the north wing to the south wing.  The south wing hasn't been renovated like the north wing was.  Here's my new cube setup.

The cinder cave cube.

Random Interests

Apparently there was an earthquake near here on Sunday.  I was gone for the weekend, so I didn't feel it.  Some people at work said they felt it - mostly people who were inside.  Others at work said they didn't feel it at all.  It was only a 4.0 or 4.2 or something, so it was minor.  Speaking of earthquakes, a guy I sit next to at work is from Nepal.  His family is all safe, but I'm sure that hits home pretty hard, especially when you're halfway around the globe and can't see or touch your relatives back home.

Here are a couple interesting things I found on facebook today.  I hate to be unoriginal and promote a competitor, but I thought this was really interesting on how people view and treat new ideas.  Thanks Jax for the link!

I also found this article on lasting relationships interesting.  It's focused on married couples and is maybe common sense, but it's kind of related to something I was thinking about work.  It seems like my motivation level at work has been variable lately.  Part of it is due to "normal" organizational changes.  But I was also wondering if I needed to be concerned that I was focusing on the negative and not making an effort to see the positive.  One of my mentors mentioned yesterday that we need to take time to celebrate successes.  As an engineer, it can be too easy to get stuck in the engineering dungeon crushing rocks, and when we finish one load of rocks, another load of rocks gets dumped on us.  If we don't lift our head up once in a while to look at things and celebrate a load of rocks being finished, it's easy to become discouraged.

Related to work, I was also thinking that we need to have patience with others sometimes when mistakes are repeated and lessons aren't learned.  God has patience with our shortcomings every day, right?  Why shouldn't we be doing the same for others?

That's all I have for now.