Catch Up Sort Of

So I have been away for a while. Not really sure why because I do have things to say. I guess I just haven’t had the desire to say them. A lot has been going on since we last chatted. I have done a lot of fly fishing, been to Colorado, been laid off due to a government shutdown, booked another couple trips and watched a lot of baseball.

I have been doing a lot of fly fishing this year, and it has been great. I have always enjoyed fishing of all kinds whether on spinning gear or on spinning gear, but this year it has been all flies. I have fished locally on the Rush and the Kinni, the Poplar River in Lutsen and in a couple spots in Cordillera Colorado. All have produced fish in some fashion and all have been really fun times.
In early July Melissa and I went out to Cordillera Colorado and stayed at the Lodge and Spa at Cordillera, let me just say that when we arrived home, within 24 hours I had flights booked and reservations for a return trip later in the summer. Everything about that place was perfect and we are looking forward to the return trip here in 17 days.

I had 19 days off due to a government shutdown in early July as well. Even though it sucked not having a job for the time, it was pretty fricking awesome to not have a job and not have to work for 19 days. I felt like a kid on summer vacation again. It was a nice chance to unwind, relax and do work on my summer classes. I now have officially two classes left, they start August 22nd and I graduate on December 16th I can’t wait to be done. I have worked LONG and hard to get this done, so I am excited to have finally accomplished this school thing. I am proud of myself for sticking with it over a few trying years.

The Minnesota Twins are having a terrible season, they are horrible. It is a bummer because they “should” be better than this. Oh Well, maybe next year they will be better. At least I hope. Melissa and I are still enjoying going to the games, but of course it is better when the team is winning.

I have started playing racquetball with my friend Scott at LA Fitness and we are having a blast. I love racquetball, I played a bit when I was younger and am enjoying get back into it now. Scott and I play at least twice a week for about 2 hours or so at a time. I am also going to join the racquetball league at LA Fitness which starts in early September. I am really looking forward to it. It is great exercise, but it is also have which exercise sometimes isn’t, so win-win I guess.

Summer is disappearing quickly, which is bittersweet. It has been mostly a crappy summer, it has either been a million degrees and super humid or it has been raining. We haven’t had very many nice days. So that is bummer I guess, but I am looking forward to fall and winter. I am planning on learning to be better on my snowboard this year. Melissa and I have season passes to Welch Village again this year. So I am hoping for good weather and lots of snow.

There are so many thoughts going around in my head today. So many that I really don’t know what to type. More random thoughts as usual.

Melissa and I are also returning to Washington DC at the end of September. We loved it there and I can’t wait to get back. I am planning on bringing a photo of my dad to the World War II memorial. I think that he would be proud of that monument, so I think it is important for me to do that. I was thinking I would make up a little thing with a photo and a little information about him. So others can know he was proud to have served his country. I am also looking forward to another trip to Arlington, I loved that place. It was amazing. I could have easily spent all day there; I look forward to going back.

Life is good, lots going on.

Washington DC

Melissa and I returned from Washington DC last Monday evening and here is a short recap of our trip. DC was amazing in every way. We were incredibly impressed with the city we were both pleasantly surprised.

Our flight out of here was good, no major delays or anything; we arrived at Reagan International at about 11pm, hopped in a cab and were at our hotel about 15 minutes later, it was very easy. We got a good night sleep and woke up the next morning ready for some sightseeing. We headed down to the Metro and bought our passes and headed down to the Holocaust Museum. The DC subway was very clean and easy to use. We got in line for our tickets to the Museum and headed in, The Holocaust Museum was amazing, it was beautiful and sad, probably not the best way to start a vacation. But it was a must see and we were both glad that we went. The thing that sticks out the most for me was the room of shoes. If I think about it I can still smell that old leather smell that was heavy in that room it was very sad and made the whole thing seem more real, pictures are one thing being seeing all of the shoes that were left behind from Majdanek was something else.

After that we headed to Arlington National Cemetery. I loved Arlington it was amazing. The grounds are incredibly beautiful and I found it peaceful. We walked up to JFK’s grave site. It was very impressive seeing the black stone with his name on it and the eternal flame burning was a sight that I will remember. After JFK we headed to the Tomb of the Unknowns. This was by far the most amazing thing I have ever seen. Watching the Tomb guard do his walk of 21 steps turn, wait and repeat was incredible. We saw the changing of the guard. I luckily got down to the front row and had a great view, Melissa stayed back a few feet so she could stay in the shade. It was hot outside. Anyway the changing of the guard was easily one of the most impressive things I have ever seen. Everything was perfect, I wish I had an ounce of the discipline these soldiers have. I loved watching the changing of the guard. Looking back on our trip, it was easily my favorite thing I saw while in DC. After watching the changing we continued looking around Arlington, we saw Audie Murphy’s grave, the War Nurses memorial, and the memorials for both shuttle disasters. Arlington was amazing, I could have easily spent all day walking around there.

After Arlington walked across the Memorial Bridge and went to the Lincoln Memorial and the Vietnam War Memorial, the Wall was stunning. To gaze upon those 58,000 names was a sight to behold. It was sad there. Quite a few veterans were there and many of them were sad. It was hard to be there, but incredible to see. After the Wall we headed back to our room to relax and rest. We headed out for a nice dinner and back to our room to hit the rack. It was a long hot day of walking and we were both beat.

Sunday we got up and headed out on the subway, we went down to the White House to check that out, very neat to see it in person, it is quite the spot. The grounds were beautiful and I kept thinking how fun it would be to get a game of baseball going on that lawn. We were lucky enough to see Marine-1 leave the White House with President Obama aboard. That was quite the sight. After the white house we headed over to the World War II Memorial. As we walked up on the World War II Memorial I was instantly struck by sadness and a feeling of great loss. I felt my father’s presence there and it made me both sad and very proud. My dad was a WWII vet and it was great to see the Memorial built for his service. Walking into the oval, I had a hard time. I was incredibly overwhelmed with loss and I tried to hide my watery eyes. I felt close to my father there and didn’t want to leave. We sat down by the oval pool and I just remembered. It was a very emotional experience for me. When we return to DC I plan on bringing a photo of my dad to the WWII Memorial and placing it at the Minnesota pillar in his memory. After that we headed up to Hard Rock Café for lunch. Once again it was really hot outside and we both wanted some where cool we could sit, eat and relax. The FBI building was right across the street from Hard Rock so that was pretty cool for us. Melissa more than I is a huge X-Files fan, so I think it was pretty neat for her to see the FBI building. I got a picture of her standing in front of the building. It was fun. We looked for Scully and Mulder but didn’t see them. After lunch we headed to the National Archives and looked at the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence. It was neat to see them and to think that everything his country stands for is written on those pieces of paper. We both enjoyed the National Archives. After the archives we headed to the Smithsonian Museum of American History. One of the things that I really want to see was Mr. Rogers’s sweater, Kermit the Frog and Archie Bunkers chair in the Smithsonian. I got to see 2 of the 3, sadly Mr. Rogers sweater was not on display that day, but Kermit and Archie’s chair were there so that was really cool. After a bit more walking around and taking in the experience of DC we headed back to our hotel and had a nice dinner at a little Chinese place that we found. Another awesome day. Monday we woke to another hot and humid day. We had a short day since our flight out was in the late afternoon. We headed down to the Marine Memorial that was really cool to see. It was way bigger than I thought it was be, the statues of the men raising the American Flag are huge. It was a cool memorial and I am glad we saw it. After that we headed back to the National Mall area, went to the Air and Space Museum and had a nice lunch. After lunch we walked around a bit more and then it was time to head for the airport for our flight home, which went off without a hitch. We got home at 8pm, and had time to unwind and relax before bed, and work the next day.

DC was amazing. We both loved it there. In fact we liked it so much we have plans to go back at the end of September. I can’t wait. There are a few more things that we both want to see and I really want to go back to the WWII Memorial and Arlington.
If you haven’t been I highly recommend DC it was very impressive.

Death, The Dalai Lama and Fly Fishing

Yesterday was the anniversary of my mother’s death. I cannot believe that she has been gone for 11 years. Man time flies. I was thinking about her yesterday and how much I miss her. She was a great lady and I had so much fun hanging out with her. I miss our times together, but I have great memories of her and I am glad for that. I wish with all of my heart that Melissa would have gotten to meet her, they would have really hit it off. Bummer.

Lots of stuff has been going on. Melissa and I went to hear His Holiness the Dalai Lama speak last weekend at the U of M. It was amazing. It was an incredible feeling for me to be in the same room with him, even if that room was a hockey arena. It still was a special time for me. He has a great sense of humor and it was just so thrilling to hear him speak and hear his laugh. You can tell that he is just a gifted speaker and such an intelligent person. It was truly an honor for me to be there and it is
something that I will never forget.

Classes are done for spring! I am so happy. My two classes were tough this semester. Lots of papers to write. Over the 8 weeks I wrote 9 papers. Ugh, by the end I was ready for a serious break. I have 4 classes left and then I will be done. At that point I will need to decide if I want to continue on or hang it up for a while. I am not sure what I am going to do. I would like to go on but it might be nice to just take
a break from school for a while and concentrate on some other things.

Melissa and I are going to Washington DC over the Memorial Day weekend. I am really excited about it and I think she is too. Neither of us have ever been there and I know for me it is somewhere that I have always wanted to go. I think it will be amazing to see all of the monuments and the history that goes along with all of that. We are only going to be there for 3 full days so it is going to be a whirl wind tour of DC. I am hoping that we get a good taste of the city and get to see some of the important things. I am hoping that if we both like it well enough that we will return another time to spend more time looking around. But either way it will be a nice chance to get out of town for a while and be together.

I finally got out fly fishing the other day with my buddy Bill. I met him over at a spot on the Kinnikinnick River in the River Falls area. It was a perfect day. We got to the spot and the trout were rising all around us. We both found spots in the river and went to work. I was fishing a little foam ant along the bank. Four casts in I had my first fish. The way he hit the ant I thought for sure it was going to be about a 15lb fish, but alias it turned out to be about a 4 inch Brown trout. Either way he was fun to catch and my first fish of the year so it was a great start. I moved around a bit on the river, sadly missed about 4 or 5 strikes before I had #2 fish on. I had made the switch to a small Elk Hair Caddis and caught the #2 fish almost right away. Again he was about the same size as the first fish, but again so much fun, man for a
little fish they can sure fight. After moving around some more I found what looked like the perfect spot. I got my caddis fly into what I hope would be the perfect sport and boom, nice huge strike! I knew I had a bigger fish on. When I finally got a look at him he was indeed a bigger fish. I got him in and he was pretty, about a 13” Brown with some spunk, he put up a great little fight. He was not interested at all in being landed. But I assured him that I would simply get a photo and set him free. I finally got him in and took my photo and set him free. It was exciting! Fished for 3 hours, caught 3 really fun fish, missed about 9 strikes and had a blast. I can’t wait to get back out there and try again.

Out of Retirement and Quickly Back into Retirement

I think we all know that I am not an athlete. I enjoy sports but I am not very good at anything sports wise. I did a brief stint a few years ago in the running world and did a few races. The pinnacle of my running career was the completion of the Afton 25k trail race. After I ran that race I ran maybe 4-5 more times, but never in the form of a race and never more than a few miles. Last Saturday I came out of retirement to run the Goldy’s 5k at the U of M. It was for a good cause, most of the money went to the Amplatz Children’s Hospital and the entry fee was pretty inexpensive so I thought what the hell, I will give it a try. The one cool thing about the race was the finish was the 50 yard line at TCF Bank Stadium, basically you ran down the same tunnel that the Gopher football team does and run out on to the field. It was really a next way to finish. They even had a live feed running on the huge scoreboard screen so you could see yourself finish. I really enjoyed the race and was really glad I signed up. The course was great, nice and flat. It meandered through the U’s campus and finally worked its way back to the stadium for the big finish. I was really happy with my time. I finished in 34:10 which was great considering that I basically had forgotten about the race until a few days before so I really didn’t get out a run much at all. (read none) I am definitely going to try and do this race every year.

Baseball season is here once again. The Twins are starting out a bit slow and I am starting to get worried but it is a long season and I think they will come around. Melissa and I went to the home opener last Friday which of course was a blast, and the Twins had a nice come from behind victory and those are always fun. I also saw and old friend at the game which was pretty cool. In fact she was sitting right behind Melissa and I so we got a chance to chat a bit during the game. We have tickets to tonight’s game and I am looking forward to being back in our season ticket seats. I am interested to see if the same people will be in the seats ahead of us. Either way I am looking forward to a nice season of baseball at Target Field.

I am a little over half way done with my spring semester classes. I am taking two 8 week classes. They are going well. I really like one class, I am a little disappointed with the other, but it will be fine. I will be glad to be done with spring classes and have a few weeks off before summer classes start. I have 2 more classes set up for summer. Right now I am signed up for microbiology and pathophysiology. I am not sure if I am going to stick with both or change. I keep going back and forth on the pathophysiology class. It sounds really interesting but it might be a little much for summer. We’ll see what I end up with.

I am looking forward to starting up the fly fishing season. I was hoping to go this Thursday but it looks like the weather is not going to hold. Oh well soon!

Spring has Sprung

Classes are well underway and so far so good. I am going to be busy with classes this semester, after reading the syllabi for my 2 classes they are going to be jammed packed with work. But it just brings me closer to being done. I have to take a review class this summer to prep for some math classes but after the prep class I will have 3 classes left. I am looking forward to being done. After that I have another decision to make, whether or not I want to continue on or if that will be good enough. I am guessing that after a short break I will continue on but as of today I am not sure. I love “college” and am bummed I waited so long to go back. I would have done things very differently if I could do it all over again, but that is OK. I am glad that I discovered a love of learning in this late in the game. The educational march continues on!

Baseball season starts on Friday. I am looking forward to another fun year. Melissa and I have home opener tickets again this year and we are both looking forward to the Twins first game at home, which is April 8th. Our first season ticket game is April 12th. Once again we have a 20 game package in the same seats we were in last year. I love our seats and we plan on keeping them for the foreseeable future. Hopefully the weather will be decent this year and the Twins will have a great year!
I started tying flies last week. I have wanted to give it a try for a long while. I bought a few books and watched a few “how to “videos on the internet and decided to give it a try. I bought some basic tools and supplies and started with a couple “easy” flies. After a small learning curve mostly with technique and working with something so small, I actually figured it out and tied a few simple nymphs. It is super fun and incredibly relaxing. I also learned how to tie a Brassie and a Wolly Worm. Both turned out well and I am very happy with the outcomes. I am so excited to learn more about the hobby and actually catch some fish with my flies. I am making some plans to possibly fish with a buddy a little this year; I am hoping that it works out!

I saw my first robin this morning and although this pains me to say, I am ready for spring and summer. It has been an awesome winter, but I am ready for some warmer temps. *sigh* my favorite resorts out west are just getting crushed with snow. So that makes it hard, because I would really like to be there skiing powder and enjoying the mountains. But it is all good. I smile when I think of all of the skiers and riders having fun in all of that fresh snow. Ride on fellow snow riders, ride on!

Mud Season is here

So it appears as though winter is just going to go without a fight. It is surprising how fast the snow has disappeared. Grass is showing everywhere and the weather is getting warmer by the day. I am hoping that winter will give us one more blast before retreating to memory for yet another year. Our local ski resort closed yesterday. I was bummed. I feel like I didn’t ski every much this year. I had some awesome ski days this year, it just seems like there wasn’t enough of them. But I would probably feel that no matter how many days on the slopes I had. I guess now we have moved on to what we call mud season. Hopefully it will go fast; I have a few things that I am looking forward to getting going. I think I might be the only person that is sad to see winter go. I love the snow and have enjoyed this winter. I am hoping next year will be as good snow wise as this one has been.

I won a scholarship. That is kind of the big news. I applied for a few scholarships through my school and actually won one of them. It is exciting to me. It isn’t a huge amount of money but it will pay for a class and that is perfectly fine with me. I was really excited to read the email announcing the win. It really made me feel good. It is nice to be recognized for something that you have worked hard on. I am looking forward to using the money when I register for classes next time.

Speaking of school, my classes have once again started. So far so good. I think that I am going to enjoy both of them. They are short, only 8 weeks which means that a lot of reading and paper writing is going to be crammed into them, which is both bad and good. Good that they will be over quicker and bad that there is a lot of worked packed into those 8 weeks. Oh well, I am getting close to being done, I have a few classes left so it is going to be good!

I have begun looking at fly tying as way to enjoy my fly fishing a little more. The idea of catching a fish on something you made is pretty darn cool. Besides that the hobby fascinates me. I have been watching “how-to” videos online and it looks seriously fun. I am looking forward to looking into that a little more.

Life is good as always.

Bucket List

So lately I have become a little more into my “bucket list”, I have a list of 72 things that I would like to do before I die. A few of them I know that I will never do, like walk on the moon, own my own planet or meet an outer space alien, but there are a lot of them that are in reach and even a fair number of them that are done. I created this list 5 years ago officially, but I have been creating it in my head for decades. Anyway I wrote the list down in my secret Moleskine notebook while drinking tea with Melissa at the Tea Garden on Grand Ave in St Paul. I look at the list at least once or twice every few months and see if there is anything on it that I could achieve. I think everyone should have a bucket list. Sadly with the ski conditions at Big Sky this year I was unable to cross two things off the list, they were skiing both Marx and Lenin Bowls on the south face of Lone Mountain. I was pretty bummed that I was not able to cross those 2 goals of the list. Looking forward this year however I have a few things that are going to be taking off the list; at least as off right now it is looking that way.

The first thing is, Melissa and I are going to hear His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama speak at the U of M in May. I am really excited about this. I admire him a lot and am really looking forward to hearing him speak, which could very well be the last time he comes to Minnesota. It promises to be an amazing time. For my practice of Buddhism this is a very big deal for me and I am sure it will be something I will never forget.

I am taking an Orvis fly fishing class in July this summer. This is something that I have always wanted to do and it is finally going to happen. I have been fly fishing on and off for 20 years and I love it, I wish I could (read should) do it more. Whether or not I catch anything it is always relaxing for me to be out on the water trying. The class is going to take place in Edwards Colorado over 2 full days. I am hoping to learn a lot and apply what I learn to our summer trip to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons, which brings me to a couple other things in my bucket list and they are to catch a fish in the following rivers, The Madison, Henry’s Fork and the Snake River. All of which I am going to have the chance to fish this summer while we are on vacation. I am hoping to be successful in each of these rivers.
I also have a couple other things in the hopper for next summer already; there will be more on that later. I am not going to jinx my ideas for huge plans.

Classes start up on Monday, I dropped a class and am back down to doing 2 classes. The thought of 3 eight week classes was starting to get a little daunting. I want to do well in the classes I have left and just thought that might be too much packed into that short amount of time. It will be ok though, I am still on schedule. I might have to do an extra semester but that is OK with me. Like I said I want to do well.

I hate to say it but I think winter is over. Looks like the temperatures are starting to get warmer, and there is no prediction of snow over at least the next 10 days. That means that the snow we do have is going to get really crappy and that sucks for skiing. I might be down for the year. *sigh* Oh well bring on next winter!