Bowling With the Big Girls

I spent yesterday in Benton bowling in a women's scratch tournament. There were 16 ladies and I can easily say it was some of the best women bowlers in the state (don't laugh cause I was bowling).

I will start off by saying that I did not check to see if all of my equipment got loaded in the car. I got to Woodlawn and called Jason to see if he put my shoe bag in the trunk. He did not. This is not the first time I've left my shoes at home. When I had a 6-ball bag I had enough room for EVERYTHING. With going to a 4-ball bag I do not have room for everything. I know, I know.....leaving your bowling shoes is worse than a softball player leaving their cleats at home.

Upon arrival at the bowling center I paid my entry fee and then went looking to see if the pro shop was open so I could hopefully buy some shoes. Well the pro shop was not open and the guy at the counter offered me a pair of the house shoes. I told him that I did not mind paying for a good pair of shoes. Well he had a key and got me in. After searching for about 5 minutes I found a pair...actually in my size but white. I don't wear white shoes. I wear dark/black/fire shoes, but they fit, were comfortable and didn't need any breaking in.

With being out of state last week I got no practice and I've not bowl this summer. I got to bowl on the lanes with Rachael Perez. When there was a professional women's Rachael bowled on the tour full time. The first game I actually beat Rachael 247 - 215. The next game she bowled 300. She finished the last game with 279.

After the first game I was actually #1. After the qualifying 4 games I was seated 3rd (not too bad with no practice & not my own shoes). The field of 16 was then cut to the top 8 (double elimination). My being 3rd I bowled the 6th person. Well the game was not good for me. I kept sticking on one lane and (hindsight being 20/20) I really should have stopped and had them clean the approach. I got my a-- handed to me to the tune of 181-235. This put me into the loser's bracket. My next match I was able to slide and I started off with 6 in a row. Frame 7 I ended up with a split & opened. I had another spare and a strike in the ninth. I knew going into the 10th I had to have 3 strikes to shut my opponent out. Well I left the 10-pin, spared and struck. My opponent had to throw 2 strikes in the 10th to shut me out. Well she threw 3. I ended up (with one open) with a 226 and my opponent had a 243. Her two games after that was a 180 something & a 170 something (damn why couldn't she bowl that against me.) The first opponent that beat me ended up 4th and my second opponent ended up 3rd.

I hated to be the first person to get put out....how do you go from 3rd to 8th in two games? I guess that is why they call it bowling and not striking & sparing.

All in all I am very pleased. Rachael complimented me on my bowling (I've taken bowling lessons from her before) and that made me feel real good.

SO, my new pair of WHITE shoes will forever stay in my car (just in case) and I look forward to our next stop. We will be bowling once a quarter and might even have a stop here in Monticello. If so I will let everyone know and maybe you can stop by and not only support the tournament as a whole but even show a little support on my behalf....I won't pay you though!

San Diego

Back in September at our company sales meeting the president of the company said that I could travel to visit customers. Well along with attending MACC in Norfolk, VA the beginning of June I am currently in San Diego, CA. The furthest west I've been has been Las Vegas and that was for about 7 hours.

Where do I start? The weather....I am not lying when I saw the temperature is in the mid to upper 70's and absolutely NO humidity. I am staying at the Holiday Inn On The Bay and am on the 12th floor and I have a wonderful view of the bay. The USS Midway (decomissioned) is stationed over to the left of the hotel and is currently a museum. Just in front of the balcony is the sailship The Star of India, which you can also go on. Just to the right of the balcony there is a Russian submarine that is also a museum.

Today was kind of slow. We (Mike Caldwell, no relation) went to the naval base to work on getting me a pass to get on the various bases here in San Diego. After about a 2 hour wait all of the necessary paperwork was filled out and my pass is actually valid until January 2009. We got to meet with a few guys today briefly (we will have our official meeting with that group on Thursday) and couldn't make arrangements for any more meetings. We had lunch in the GasLamp district, rode over to Imperial Beach, drove through Coronado and saw the Hotel De Coronado, drove over the Coronado bridge (very, very tall bridge) and finished the day by eating dinner at Anthony's Fish Grotto. I chose the Pacif Red Snapper and must say that I was not impressed. It is a very dry fish so I guess we will have to come up with some "wet" recipe to cook our snapper.

Tomorrow's day will start around 9:30 a.m. (11:30 a.m. back home) with one of two visits. I will be meeting military customers that I talk with alot and have had the opportunity to meet at the International Workboat Show in New Orleans a few years back.

On Wednesday we are meeting with MESG-1. I've dealt with 2 gentlemen from the group for about 2 1/2 years now and I am so excited about getting to put a face to the name. Both guys are great to work with, easy to get along with and not to mention one of my biggest customers (presently speaking). We will be meeting with their boss also and taking them out to lunch. Even though I am excited to meet them I am very anxious. Now THEY will have a face to a name when they go to fuss about me :).

Also tomorrow my brother is having an arterialgram done at Baptist in LR. After the little heart scare last Saturday he was able to immediatley see a cardiologist who decided (due to our family history) it would be best to skip all of the "little" test and go ahead and do the one that will actually immediatley show what is going on. This is very hard for me not to be there BUT my trip has been planned since June and whatever will happen is going to happen if I am there or not.

Hopefully I will have more pictures to post before I leave!

Offshore Trip

Well I just typed my complete blog and managed to erase it. So here is a quick preview...

We caught our limit of 6 tuna within 2 hours and our limit of 4 red snapper within 30 minutes. It was a great "CATCHING" offshore adventure. We made it home with plenty of fish and 40# of 10-15 count shrimp.

All in all it was another great fishing adventure!

Ugh

I need to post about our offshore trip but I can't seem to find time. Work today was sooo hectic. It usually is when I take vacation. I am the only person who handles the after-market parts sales so what comes in while I am gone stays there until I can get to it. My hope is to be caught up by the end of September. July 20th I am flying out to San Diego, CA for a week of visiting customers. I fly back on the 25th then on the 27th there is a Women's Scratch Bowling Tournament that I will be bowling in Benton. The first weekend in August there is a state youth bowling meeting in Cabot (may try to get excused from) and the second weekend we are having our annual state bowling board meeting (cannot get excused from). In the mean time I really think Nora Claire is going to decide to show up the week I am in San Diego. I may be wrong but I am sure feeling it.

Anyway, hopefully tomorrow night I will have time to post about our offshore trip.

Inshore Fishing

Well this is a day late but yesterday was.......HOT!

The morning started off by running into a few sprinkles. I will be the first to say that when it comes to fishing I do not mind fishing in the rain. We went to a new area that we've never been to but Darryl (our guide) is the export at where to go. That is why we hire him.

We ran for a few minutes and stopped to see what the water looked like. If the water is muddy the specks (speckled trout) will not bite. When we stopped we found muddy water. We headed to another spot. One thing you look for when you inshore fish is birds. Whever the birds are the bait fish are. Wherever the bait fish are the fish are. Well we found birds and we even found bait fish running. We caught 3 specks right away and then the bite just stopped.

We've been coming down here at least once a year (the past two years twice a year) since July 2004. I can honestly say that in all of our summer fishing trips it has NEVER been as hot as it was yesterday. The sun was out with no shade and there was no wind. We fished for specks for about 6 hours and we caught 30 specks. Some may think this is good but you can keep 25 specks per preson. We also caught 4 red fish (what we really like the best), 2 sheephead and 4 black drum. We did not catch our limit on any inshore species but all in all the day was okay.

I will say that we've become really spoiled with our inshore fishing, well I will go ahead and say inshore catching. You have to have days like yesterday to make you fully appreciate the hard days like today.

Here is a picture of a sheephead that Jason caught. YES those are teeth in that fishes mouth. It is the weirdest thing I've seen.

Trips of our offshore trip today will be posted tomorrow

2008 Summer Fishing

We left Monticello this morning at 6:30 a.m. and headed to New Orleans to have lunch at The Court of Two Sisters. The buffet LOOKED good on the internet. We had the Jazz Brunch Buffet. I was not overly impressed BUT the Bananas Foster desert was excellent. I would only go back to eat dinner there, but the restaurant was featured on the food network.

After eating lunch we stopped by the Southern Candy Maker.....their pralines and fresh made turtles are to die for. We also got some white chocolate macademia nut and toffe mix. OH MY GOSH!!! That is all I can say.

Upon arriving at our cabin our guide "uncle" Daryl was there. We visited a few minutes and it was decided he would be here in the morning at 5:30 a.m. As you can see by the time of this posting I am not going to get much sleep. There is ONE thing I can get up early for and fishing is it.

After Daryl left we unpacked and headed to the marina. We look forward to going to the marina so we can see how much has happened since last year. (NOTE: We were originally supposed to go fishing September 3 &4 2005 but Katrina changed our plan. We ended up coming down in December and had one heck of a CATCHING TRIP). While we can see progress I still say that it will be a minimum of 5 - 10 years before it finally gets back to "normal".

Well on our way from leaving the marina we noticed 3 gators in the slew. Jason stopped and I got a couple of pictures. The picture attached is of the biggest gator. It was about 6' long.

Well it is time to go to bed so check back tomorrow night for pictures of the day's catch...if we catch anything!

Happy 4th of July!!!