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.