Well, I was bad last night and forgot to put in my blog entry.  To make up for
it, I am going to start early enough today to make sure I get the entry done. 
I ended up having a pretty good weekend.  Here in Iowa, the first weekend in
June is a "free fishing weekend".  This means that Iowa residents get to fish
without a license for the weekend.  Well, for once, my family got the
opportunity to take advantage of the freebie.  Growing up, my siblings, my
Mom, and my grandmothers went fishing, a lot.  We had several places wewould
rotate through.  It isn't an exaggeration to say that we would average 2 or 3
days a week of fishing during the summer time.  However, after my grandmother
on my mother's side died, and I went off to college, fishing trips pretty much
stopped as everyone got too busy to take a day away for fishing.  This year,
we planned ahead for this weekend.

But before we get to fishing, let me back up and chat about Friday night.  My
brother races on Friday night down at the Farley race track.  My parents and I
headed out to watch.  A lovely, warm early June evening was our companion. 
With all of the area graduations, the crowd was pretty light.  Luck was with
us, as my brother's car class the B-modifieds would be up early in the feature
races.  At 6:30, they ran hot laps, think of them as warm up laps for anyone
who wanted to test their cars, for each of the classes.  At 7, the heat laps
were run which would help determine positions for the feature race of each
class.  My brother didn't have a strong run in the feature race.  Some racers
race for positions, others like my brother keep trying to find the track lines
they want to use later on.  So on to the feature, and my brother is placed in
6th position out of 7 cars.  The feature race is 10 laps, so there isn't a lot
of time to waste.  On the 2nd lap, my brother hit the loose powder on the
upper side of the track and slid, and lost a lot of position and distance to
the pack.  However, he caught a break as a small accident brought out the
caution in that lap to bring him back up with the pack.  Then he proceeded to
come from last position to the final lap that he finally caught the lead car
and passed him on the last turn.  By less than a foot, he took first place! 
My Mom and I raced down to the centerfield to get out pics taken with my
brother, his car, and his trophy.  I'm hoping one turns out well enough that I
can post.  Well, we ended up staying till almost 11 to watch the rest of the
races and chat with brother afterwards.

Which leads to 6 am the next morning as we get up to get ready to go fishing. 
My brother, his girlfriend, and her son came up to meet us in Guttenburg at 7
am to go fishing along the Mississippi River.  Unfortunately, the river was
way up due to a recent bout of rains and someone had already camped out in our
favorite spot.  Instead, we went to another place nearby.  Let's see, my Dad
just sat behind us and watched the boats with his binoculars.  Mom had the
most luck, hooking several bluegill and a red horse.  I managed a small turtle
and a bluegill that I tossed back.  My brother caught a couple bluegill that
he tossed back.  My brother's girlfriend, Chrissy, didn't catch a thing and
her son Trent just had a lot of fun running around between us all.  By 11 am,
we were ready to head out and find some lunch.  My parents and I went to a
park down by the lock and dam in Guttenburg as my brother headed home to get
ready for racing on Sun. 
  We enjoyed our convenience store pizza by the slice as we watched a barge
get lined up for entry through the locks.  By noon, everyone was wiped and we
headed home for an afternoon nap and later evening mass.  After supper, my
sister brought over her 2 youngest children for a night over at the
grandparents.

On Sunday, we packed up and headed out to go fishing again.  This time, my Mom
and I were going to take my sister's kids out along with my brother-in-law. 
Dad wussed out as he wanted to get some odd jobs done around the farm.  By 10
am, we were fishing along the Turkey River over by the old salebarn in
Elkader.  By 10:10 am, the eldest girls were done fishing due to seeing snakes
along the river bank.  Fortunately, my brother-in-law Tim got a call from his
parents that the fish were biting on a farm pond and we should head over.  By
10:15, we were packed up and heading outside of town.  By the time we got to
the pond, the bluegill had mostly stopped biting.  I got one, but threw it
back, and Mom got a few bites is all.  At least the nieces and nephews were
fishing again, their snake fears forgotten.  Eventually, I got bored using a
bobber for the pan fish, and switched to putting my bait on the bottom. 
Within 10 min., I got a nice tug and set the hook.  For the next 5 minutes, I
had the thrill of fighting a fish that didn't want to be landed.  Eventually I
was able to tire down the beast and with Mom's assist, net a 12 pound catfish!
 I was pretty pumped!  I had not caught anything that big in over 10 years of
fishing.  Tim said he didn't even know there was catfish in that pond since no
one had ever caught one before.  While I was showing my fish, my eldest niece
Alicia went to my spot and dropped a line.  Sure enough, she hooks another
catfish.  Unfortunately, her line didn't hold and broke before she could land
it, but I caught a glimpse of the fish, and it was just as big as mine.  She
was a little bummed, but was still pretty happy.  After that, the biting
stopped, and by 1pm, we were ready to go.  

Dad is a big catfish fan, and he was already skinning it before Mom and I
could finish unpacking.  So after cleaning fish, and a nap, we had an
excellent supper of fried fresh fish.  Now me, I'm a pan fish guy, so I loved
all of the bluegill fillets we had.  Sunday evening I rolled back to Cedar
Rapids to mow the yard before the rains would come in this week.

Monday, pretty uneventful, except that my weigh in was around 182.5, as I
hoped.  Still, put on a half a pound, so I wasn't too happy with myself.  But
I knew I'd be eating poorly and not moving much, so I had to expect some side
effects.  Today on 6/6/06, my PC decided to go tits up again.  I have to
backup a coworker on vacation, and sure enough, the customer calls for
support.  I went to install the software package that was in question, and it
caused my PC to blue screen of death, pop an error, the reboot again.  So,
another call, another wipe and re-install of the OS.  Bleah.  Yeah, I think my
PC is possessed.
  So now I get to recover, again (#3 for those counting at home).  Maybe
tomorrow will be a better day.  I hope.  Tonight's blog brought to you by "My
Song" Jerry Cantrell.