Spring Break Photos

Attached are my photos from my shark expedition off the coast of Madagascar a few weeks back. The great beast took a nibble from my leg but I managed to fight him off and claim victory....

Yeah, fake news, I got a new hip from years of stopping and starting the hips that support this large melon atop my head during sports activities and here is the post x-ray. More gruesome than having a shark bite is when the physical therapist tells you what they do during the hip replacement process. A lot of hammering and forcing of that white/pointy object you see to the left.

Trail Head

Drugs

You know you have reached old age status when you are on a first name basis with the local pharmacy's cashier. Five pills were added to my collection this past week as a byproduct of a new hip I received. One pill to help with swelling, one for bleeding, one for blood clot prevention, one to help poop and one for pain. This added to my current pill to help me from having to pee eight times a night and we have quite a collection. I'm still amazed that each pill knows exactly what to do. I'm also amazed at how many stupid drug commercials and drug names are out there. I had to experience a wealth of them this week while laid up.  Who are the wackos coming up with these names?

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Just a game for some, others?

While watching the Michigan State game last weekend, a line of thunderstorms rolled through Michigan, resulting in some warnings in the area; one of which had a suspected tornado in the middle of the state (but was never confirmed). Rather than have the warning text run across the bottom of the screen like most stations do, the local network cut entirely from the game for about 20 minutes. The weather guy even brazenly said the network would not cut back to the game until the warning expired. A minor nuisance for me as I pulled out my laptop and watched it on there but others were not so forgiving and took to the Internet to let the local station know their feelings.

Vinnie does not look happy.

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Man's Best Friend Destroying Home Base

Chalk up blue jeans for the items my best friend Bird has now destroyed (behind a handful of bushes, boat trailer wires, two stools, a hamper, one coffee table and various items I have not recognized as destroyed yet).

Good dog...

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Mock

While digging through some old boxes recently, I stumbled upon the attached mock election from my senior year of high school. The copy is in about as good of shape as some of my classmates from 40 years ago. Forty years. Holy shit.

Class jock and funniest walk award winner, signing off for today.

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All Nurses Go To Heaven

All nurses (and dogs) go to heaven. Well, the nurse ward upstairs received a new member yesterday as my mom passed on. She wasn't a very religious person besides the 'love' portion as she had a lot of that to give. With that, there won't be a service/eulogy so I'm throwing mine out here; easier written than said sometimes.

A full time nurse while a mother of three, one child being a diabetic pretty much since birth, she came home from caring for the sick to taking care of her own sick. A wife to a husband who enjoyed a good real estate deal so the family moved a handful of times. A new hospital for her with each move, sometimes working the midnight shift. 

She had so much love to give that she thought the cell phone tag 'lol' referenced "lot's of love" so your text string with her would be:

Me: That is sad about Grandpa, eh?

Mom: It is, LOL.

Another example of love is her last pet, Cosmo. Cosmo was a rescue dog who I believe was with a handful of other families (and returned) before my mom got him. A cute, lap dog that LOVED my mom but had issues with everyone else and proved it via some very sharp, fang teeth being pressed into your feet if you weren't paying attention. My mom was not going to be denied though and tried everything, including a dog psychiatrist, to help but it was not to be. She never returned Cosmo, we just learned to work around his craziness when visiting.

I don't recall my mom getting mad mad too much but when she did, look out. She would shake her finger at you. It wouldn't last though. 

It did last a little longer one time, however, when my mom was hoping for a new refrigerator and my dad brought home a crappy, used one. She was not happy.

During the salad days of the 1970's, my mom delivered phone books for a few extra bucks. She was driving a smaller car as I recall and that back bumper pretty much touched the ground while we threw these behemoth books onto porches.

One Easter, my mom threw a curve to us kids and advised that costs were tight and that there wouldn't be any celebration that year. That Sunday morning, we awoke to a fireplace adorned with three easter baskets and kites. 

Another surprise came about a decade later as I was getting ready to leave for Spring Break and my mom, making crappy nurse wages, slips me an envelope and advises not to tell your father. It ended up being one of the funnest experiences of my life.

Not the athletic type, that didn't stop my mom from rebounding for me while I searched for my shot on the side basketball hoop.

Thank you mom.

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Return of Super Bowl Ice Fishing

While it wasn't the same as Super Bowl Sunday morning ice fishing days of the past with my fellow downstate brethren sipping Old Crow, telling bad jokes, watching house dogs run for the hills, doing snow angels, ice grilling, arranging prop bets, hanging and hurling before noon, but it was ice fishing still the same as there was no ice to speak of the past two Super Bowls. 

I stayed north and was the lone party on Betsie Bay after quite a bit of activity out there on previous weekends. Walking on top of a 10 inch snow base was a workout but got through it. My fishing story is you should have seen the perch I caught last weekend as nothing to speak of today. My downstate peeps advise of a few pike on Dunham but none worthy of the cameras.

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