Ice Fishing

The past two weeks I mustered up the courage to do one of the most mannifying (the act of making one a man) things a person can do - ice fishing. I guess muster is a bad word to use because I really dig it. It's by far my favorite type of fishing. Ever since Mantua froze over I've been dreaming of the time I would go, despite my unsuccessful attempts two years ago. But the most mannifiying part of it all is that I actually asked my 7 month pregnant wife to go and she said YES! Quite a surpise. We went that Saturday the 17th and it was fun but we didn't catch anything. Mostly we were bored and ended up doing the following:



Which as you might imagine did not result in us catching a fish. However, I got a bite and that was enough to motivate me to celebrate Dr. King's Birthday bash by trying it again. I got my good buddy Frank Smith to go with me and lo and behold I actually caught one! A puny 9 inch or so trout, but it was fun nonetheless.



I was just ecstatic the whole day that I had actually conquered Mantua. The next Saturday the ice fishing desire was burning quite hot in my soul. I specifically wanted to go dipnet cisco at bear lake but it turns out all the ice got blown off by a storm and had even affected the cisco's movements and slowed things down. So I decided I would go to Mantua again. It was supposed to snow really bad but I still wanted to go. I tried to get some friends to come with me but they all had other things going on. So Friday night I got up the guts to ask Sara. Initially she said no way jose so I got her to come to walmart with me while I bought some gear with my wal-mart gift card. Little did she know that she was also being baited... I tried offering to buy her some new snowpants because her current ones don't fit. No Go. Then I tried offering to buy her a big poncho so she could stay dry. Nope. Then I think I offered to buy hand and feet warmers for her. Not even a nibble. After that try I was pretty disappointed and accepted my fate to go fishing alone.... until I walked past the candy isle. I slowly gazed over the candy whilst watching sara's eyes until they rested on a 6 pack of peanut butter cups. I got them and as we were checking out I informed her that they would only be eaten by those who chose to go ice fishing the next morning. And then I got a bite. It seemed to have changed the whole ball game. Within an hour she decided she would in fact be going fishing with me. When we got to Mantua it was a blizzard. The snow was deep, we got the car stuck and had to be pushed out, and ended up not even going out on the ice at all. But I still feel I had a successful fishing trip. I never knew peanut butter cups could be such good bait.....



Also, there have been a lot more non-engineering classes being held in the engineering building on campus. I can usually tell if the class before me was engineering or not simply by the number of girls. For example, 2 of my 5 classes this semester are all guys. The others have maybe one or two in them. So if I see 5 girls leave a classroom as I'm about to go in, or if it has any hint of perfume (as opposed to the pleasant scent of BO) then I know it is not an engineering class. The other day I was given another clue which I'll share with you below:



That's right, they are pistachios. Not only did someone have time to eat pistachios, they also took the time to draw faces on them. Sounds like someone has a little too much time on their hands.

Quotes, road testing

We ordered the carseat online from wally mart and got it Saturday. It went together a lot easier than the dang crib. Disappointment has been expressed over the lack of pictures of the actual crib so we are attempting to make up for it with these honeys. It also seemed pretty robust too so I did some off road testing... on the stairs. During the test I discovered that the little stops on the front shopping cart type wheels (that force the wheels to go straight) don't hold very well under mountain use. They just came loose and so the wheels went everywhere and made it really hard to hold. Someday I need to test it in a river to see how it does as a boat (or possibly a very expensive floating donut apparatus).




I discovered a lot of quotes either by chance or as a result of my mouth saying things without my brain giving it permission. These are from Sara's scriptures which I discovered in church. They're funny but still pretty good. "Not forgiving is like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies" "The best place to find a helping hand is at the end of your arm" "The church is not a museum for saints but a hospital for sinners" This next one deserves some background. We were playing rook with some friends - boys vs. girls and the boys were getting killed badly. Then we pulled some magic out of our hat and started winning. Then somebody said something about what should you do when you get bucked off a horse and then my mouth went into autopilot and I finished the sentence with " you just get back on until the quarter is through". Remember when you could go to wal mart and ride the horse for a quarter (and it was cool, not weird)? Yeah that's where that came from. Anyway, the full quote is thus: "When the horse bucks you off, you just get back on until the quarter is through" Now that I'm thinking about it, that may be one of those experiences where you just had to have been there. But I was there, and it was funny.

good times

We bought a crib and carseat the day after christmas but couldn't bring it home that day. Wouldn't quite fit in the car. We ended up coming back to get it later after Sara's parents picked it up with their truck from the store. Anyway, finally got it home and started putting it together. I didn't think I'd need instructions but wanted to have them anyway (in case the room got cold and I needed to start a fire of course). It didn't take long before I kinda woulda liked the instructions. If you've put one together you know there are these little threaded studs that go in a hole which you then have to stuff a long bolt into. Well that wasn't working very well. I ended up having to turn them over so they were totally upside down. A couple other things seemed a little goofy too but I just kept going. We were just going to put it together for the day and then take it apart til mid march or something. After about an hour I got the thing put together and was ready to put the spring in the bottom. I had just finished telling Sara how stupid it was that the directions weren't in the box. I even mentioned how stupider it would be if they were in the box with the spring - the last thing to go in the crib. Hopefully that will explain this picture. Stupid huh?

Sara has been making and fixing things with her new sewing machine. One is this apron. We were making spaghetti or something and she put her shiny new apron on so I threw one on too (not to be outdone).

On new years we went and saw sherlock holmes. Good movie. I have been thinking for weeks that school started back up again today but last week I was pleasantly surprised to learn that it doesn't start up til the 11th. I feel like a prisoner whose been given a week extension on his execution date! Yay.