Double Nickel

55.
Hippo birdy to me.
I happened to be in a good place to celebrate however, with the lovely (and likes her $ilver Jewelry) Southern Belle, and some of my kin.

Did you know that Mexico has a Nucular Program?

Wait.

Never mind that was sunrise the day we left.

About time!

Rain.
We've had an inch or two today. Well we'll see what the total is tomorrow. It's still raining. :)
This kind of rain totally freaks people in Phoenix out.  I've been delayed on flights out of Phoenix because of what we refer to as "Seattle rain" where it just pisses on you slowly. I mean really. If you notice, the rain is actually falling straight down, as in 90 degrees, also known as normal to a plane, to the ground.
OMG! it's a MONSOON!*
Srsly dude?
Down here, the reaction is, "Finally!"
We are way behind on August ball busting thunderstorms.**

Let's see.
The traffic map shows a bunch of construction zones and..
Oh! Look! anywhere from two to four morons managed to have an accident at 10:08 pm long after the "rush" hour traffic is gone.
-little red diamonds on the map.










I think I'm going to grab another brew from the fridge and go out on the front porch
and just watch it rain.



* I personally witnessed this conversation on a connection out of Phoenix.
** Yes, I"m aware it's September. I'm getting older, but I'm not that far gone.

What a nice day it was

Hooked up with an old friend to go shooting. Ran 150 rounds through my XDm this afternoon.
Won the annual company bowling tournament tonight.
I do not credit that to my bowling skills. I do, however, have a knack for picking team mates that can consistently break 100.
 This is the third time my team has taken first.  I consider it retribution. I've played in 22 company golf tournaments and have yet to be on a winning team.  I'm beginning to think I might be the weak link there.
Nah. That couldn't be it.  I just need to pick better team mates.

Stay tuned. The board members of the BAR have paid for some of the most expensive internet access on the planet.  Gotta love an expense account. Oh. shit, wait I'm paying for that.
-might be some pics of crystal clear blue water in the next few days.

There's a joke in there somewhere...

But I'm too sun baked and salt cured to bring the correct snark synapses into play just now.
From the Men's room last night at Stingray's:

So, I'll just leave that there as a teaser for our blogbud North to leave an appropriately blue innuendo.
We're on the water again with the youngest girl child and one of her school friends.
Stingray's sits on the inter-coastal water way at Sargent, TX. It's not Key West, but there's still something calming about having dinner on the deck outside at dusk watching the barges go by.
Fishing today didn't produce much, but we started late, so that's our bad. The fish are out there. We ran across a guy at Charlie's bait camp, that had been wade fishing the bay side of the barrier island at sunrise in East Matagorda. He limited out on Specs and caught a Red fish that just made me drool.
We met Charlie today.  I'd always thought it was the old grizzled guy that runs the shrimp boat. Turns out, it is his 4 year old granddaughter that's named "Charlie". She'd been on deck lending a hand since 5am this morning and she was still going strong when we drifted up for bait.
The water down here right now is as clean as it ever gets. It was worth the trip just to be able to see the bottom while floating in 24" of water.
What we refer to as "needle fish" were thick, and very hungry where we were fishing. We hooked up several of them, which is unusual given the bony snout. They must be really hungry. They were chasing bare hooks and bobbers on retrieval.
This was the only fish Bootsie caught today. (Needlefish)

Both the needle fish's lower and upper jaw articulate, and they are pissed off snappy little bastards when you are trying to remove the hook.
I caught one Spec an inch over minimum limit.  No pic since it wasn't that unusual. So the plan is to hit the bay at sunrise tomorrow.

Blog Fodder

We're at the crik with Dad, my older sister and her husband. Dinner is done and the TV is off (I am not making this up), and we are having a conversation. We're telling old family stories and laughing till our sides hurt. If I can do justice in written form, I have a lot of new ideas for posts.
Sometimes family is good, sometimes not. Right now, it's just right.