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Post by Bill on Sept 24, 2006 8:07:18 GMT -5
Well its getting closer and closer to hunting time and I'm working my butt off trying to get the popup ready for hunting this fall. Got a new Gel-filled battery at work. Added in a inline waterpump so I now have presurized water in the sink rather than pumping the dang thing. Getting all the propane lines replaced. (Didn't want to blow anyone up you know) Plus getting all the cooking and eating utensil's organized. Found a 12 cup Stainless Steel coffee perkulator and a toaster that goes on the stove burner. Enameled plates and such but its all going together pretty good. Now If I can just get the propane lines finished it will be ready to go. ;D Can't be having Dep-Don and Donnie poping up in the middle of the Nicolette forrest and comming down in a whole nother state you know. ;D
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Post by dakota on Sept 24, 2006 8:27:52 GMT -5
Getting prepared for the hunt is exciting even for us old farts, huh. When I first was stationed in KC, MO I got so excited about going deer hunting that I did not sleep the night before. I had not been hunting for a couple of years, until then the local wasn't good for hunting deer. Ended up falling asleep on a hillside then a deer ran up to me. The noise of his hooves woke me up. I sat up looked around and there he was looking the other way. The 30-06 I had in my hands would only shoot 220 grain round noses accurately for some reason. Well the ballistic co-efficient didn't come into play on that shot. 4x4 The deer meat was great also. Preparing for the hunt, and remembering the hunt, they somehow are both quite enjoyable.
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Post by deputydon on Sept 24, 2006 11:07:07 GMT -5
By the time Bill's done we won't even be roughing it............................
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Post by Bill on Sept 24, 2006 23:17:30 GMT -5
Your probably right Dep-Don. The wife is planing on going with me and doing some pheasant hunting herself with Molly when we get her back and she sure don't want to rough it anymore. ;D She is getting a bit soft in her old age.
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Post by Bill on Sept 27, 2006 7:06:28 GMT -5
GRRRRRRRRRRrr I checked at the camper place thats SUPOSED to be working on the propane lines and the dam thing hasn't been touched. When I asked them about it the coment was "We thought you said you weren't leaving till Oct. Holly Cow, do they think I'm going to wait till the last minute to load everything else into the camper. Heck I still have to get tires for it too. I think after yesterday though it might get done a bit sooner though.
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Post by dakota on Sept 27, 2006 8:52:44 GMT -5
Did you have a meaningful discussion where everyone felt a part of the meeting and every peron had the feelings understood?
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Post by bullseye on Sept 27, 2006 10:23:01 GMT -5
Copper tubing isn't really that hard to work on Bill. You need the tubing, a tubing cutter, a flaring tool and most likely you could use the fittings already on the camper.
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donnie
Grand Member
Posts: 584
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Post by donnie on Sept 27, 2006 13:49:07 GMT -5
This kinda reminds me of a story written by Patrick McMannis called "POOF No eyebrows" ;D
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Post by deputydon on Sept 27, 2006 18:59:18 GMT -5
This kinda reminds me of a story written by Patrick McMannis called "POOF No eyebrows" ;D Oh my GOD!!! "Patrick McMannis" Bill's hero!!!!! ;D
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Post by Bill on Sept 27, 2006 20:19:00 GMT -5
I love that guys books and YES he is my hero. He could take a perfectly normal situation and turn it into a total disaster. ;D Always reminded me of someone I know and won't mention.
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Post by Bill on Sept 28, 2006 21:02:07 GMT -5
Ok I got the camper back from the camper sales place today. The stove top is running and the furnace is running and the regulator is working just fine. First off the new regulator I had bought was defective and then the copper tubing under the camper got a split in it. Thats all repaired. Then we went to light the stove top and it still burned back. We put the gauge on it and the gas preasure was down to about 8 lbs preasure. It needed to be about 11. something or other. Well we adjusted the regulator and got the preasure up to a working preasure and the stove top works awsomely now. We then tried to light the furnace. Again problems. Wouldn't keep the pilot going and was just a total pain in the ass. We got to looking at the inside of the furnace and right next to the pilot light was a mud dobber wasp nest. Knocked that out and tried again. Still nothing. Finally got pissed and took the whole furnace out and got to looking. Well when we got finished knocking out the mud dobber nests and paper wasp nests it filled a 3 lb coffee can. No wonder it didn't work right. It was just about plugged up. So Now I have it back and the only thing left is to make sure the lights are all working and replace the tires and that gets done next thursday. Keep your fingers crossed that they will come in. ;D ;D ;D ;D
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Post by klsm54 on Sept 28, 2006 23:20:58 GMT -5
Oh Pat McManus... ;D I lauged when I read his name.
Brought back names like Rancid Crabtree, Retch Sweeney and Crazy Eddie Muldoon... ;D
I have a couple of his books, and he kept me subscribing to Outdoor Life long after there was anything else worth reading in its pages. I always went straight to McManus' column, easy to find in the back.
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Post by klsm54 on Sept 28, 2006 23:25:01 GMT -5
For those of you who never read Pat McManus, here is a sample....
What's in a Name from the book The Bear in the Attic"
For years my fishing associates and I had gone by the casual but descriptive title of The Blight County Irregulars, meeting by chance at Kelly's Bar & Grill, where the topics of conversation would invariably turn to fishing and in particular to fly-fishing. Then one evening Bart Fleegle, the chiropractor, blurted out, "You know what? I think we should turn the Irregulars into an actual club." "Good idea!" shouted Rosy McQuire, the beautician. "That might bring a little sense and order to this motley mob."
Everyone present agreed that a club was a good idea.
I quickly added my two cents' worth. "I don't like calling it a club. We need something with a little more class. How about calling it a society?"
"Yes, indeed," contributed Father Jimmy O'Brien, the Catholic priest. "I like that-The Blight County Fly-Fishing Society. We could have regular meetings, rules of order, collect dues, and even do good works, those sorts of things."
Several of the potential members questioned the need for good works. Bob Perkins, the car salesman, mentioned the possible threat of good works cutting into our fishing time.
"Good gosh, what was I thinking?" the priest responded. "I must have been carried away by the excitement of the moment."
Kelly walked out from behind the bar, wiping his hands on a towel. "Fly-Fishing Society! " he sneered. "You guys spend far more time shooting the bull than you do fly-fishing. You should call it The Blight County Bull Society-BS for short."
"Naw," I said. "That has too much of an agricultural ring to it. Besides, what we do is philosophize. Maybe we should call it The Blight County Fly-Fishing and Philosophical Society."
Shouts of approval went up from around the room, because there was general agreement among the Irregulars, myself included, that our discussions often attained the intellectual level of philosophical discourse. Here is just one actual example that I overheard this past weekend.
Voice One: "I was out fishing for Kokanee yesterday and caught quite a few, but danged if half the fish I hooked didn't get off."
Voice Two: "That's because their mouths are so soft the hooks pull loose. You'd think that is we can send a man to the moon we'd be able to come up with a better way to hook fish with soft mouths."
Voice three: "I got an idea. How about a spring-loaded clamp? When the fish grabs the bait, the clamp snaps shut around its head!"
Voice One: "Might work. But you'd have to set the spring just right. Otherwise, you'd be seeing a lot of pictures of fishermen standing there holding up a string of fish heads!"
I don't mean to imply that all our conversations attain that high a level of intellectual brilliance. Such a thing is actually quite rare.
Fred Smithers, the high school vice principal, had a complaint. "I don't think we should name our society after the dumb county, or more specifically, the robber baron the county was named after. We should name it after a famous fisherman, someone like, say, Izaac Walton.
"Izaac's been taken already," I said. "But maybe we could name it after one of our own truly great Blight County fishermen. Any suggestions?"
The Irregulars to a man stared modestly down at the floor, each thinking he was the greatest fisherman ever to wet a fly in Blight County and mentally preparing his acceptance speech for the moment he received the nomination. When no nomination was forthcoming, the Irregulars took their eyes off the floor and shot one another irritable looks.
"Well," I said, "obviously no one here is going to get the nomination. So maybe we should select someone from the past. I happen to have a candidate in mind."
"You bet!" cried out Retch Sweeney, one step ahead of me. "Old Rancid Crabtree! We can call our club The Rancid Crabtree Fly-Fishing and Philosophical Society!"
Several of the more recent arrivals to Blight looked puzzled. "Who's this Rancid Crabtree?" Bart Fleegle asked.
The old-timers in the room all remembered Rancid Crabtree, of course. He had been the mentor to many of them in all things outdoors, and some things indoors, and they immediately shouted out their approval for naming our new organization The Rancid Crabtree Fly-Fishing and Philosophical Society. For the newcomers, I went on to explain about Crabtree.
He lived in a little shack back up against the mountain a few miles north of town. He never worked a single day in his entire life, as least as far as anyone knew or that Rancid himself would admit to.
"Sounds like a man I could learn from," said Dale Peas, the plumber.
"Indeed," I said. "We could all learn from Rancid. He was quite the philosopher, too, which makes him even more appropriate as an individual to be honored by our affixing his name to the society." I immediately recollected some of Rancid's favorite sayings:
"Ah ain't never been lost in the woods, no sir. But Ah been places where Ah had a mighty strong hankerin' to git to where Ah wasn't."
"Don't never take baths. Soap and water will eat holes in your protective crust and allow the jarms to git in."
"If a man ain't fishin' or huntin', he's fritterin' away his life, with maybe a couple exceptions."
"The two best times to go fishin' is when it's rainin' and when it ain't." "Ah was born retired but Ah actually enjoy a bit of work from time to time, if it ain't too dull. Ah hear of a feller workin' at somethin' halfway entertainin', why Ah'll hop right up and go watch him do it."
After I had recited a few more of Rancid's favorite sayings, Father O'Brien glanced about the room. "Well, I can see that this Mr. Crabtree had a profound influence on the lads of Blight County. Do I assume correctly that he is no longer with us?"
"Only in spirit," I said. No sooner were those words out of my mouth than a strange sensation came over me, accompanied by a shudder. "Now that's eerie," I said. "I could almost sense Rancid's presence hovering here in this very room."
"Me, too," said Retch Sweeney. "Kind of lifted my neck hairs for a sec. But all it was, the breeze just shifted and put us downwind of the cattlemen's feed lot."
"So much for the poignant moment," I said.
Artie Arntson, the night manager at Blight City Supermarket ("We sell live bait"), then suggested that we have some patches made up to sew on our fishing vests to indicate that we are members of The Rancid Crabtree Fly-Fishing and Philosophical Society. Retch Sweeney, who is a pretty good artist, was assigned that task of designing the patch, with a likeness of the old woodsman in the center of it. Intent upon making his own creative contribution, Bart Fleege suggested that the words "Fly-Fishing" on the patch be spelled "Phly-Phishing."
Retch immediately objected. "We're going to spell it the right way or not at all," he told Bart. "I hate cutesy spelling."
I was a bit surprised to learn that Retch cared that much about spelling. It just goes to show that no matter how well you know a person, he can still surprise you. Father O'Brien then stated that we should have some standards for admitting persons to the society. He said he thought only persons of high principle should be allowed in.
An uneasy silence fell upon the room, at last broken by Shorty Vetch. "I had a principle once," Shorty said, "but I've forgot what it was. It should still count, though."
Father O'Brien contemplated the problem of the forgotten principle. Finally, he allowed that it was far better to have had a principle once than never to have had one at all. Shorty most certainly would qualify for membership on that basis, he said, and the fact that Shorty supplied him with exceptionally effective dry flies had nothing to do with the decision. A collective sigh was heaved by the other Irregulars. If Shorty Vetch could be admitted to the Society, surely no one could be refused, convicted ax murderers being a possible exception.
A week later, when Retch Sweeney showed up at my house with the completed design of the patch, he responded crossly to my suggestion for a slight change. "Just like I told Fleegle, we ain't using any cutesy spelling on the patch, and I don't want to hear no more about it."
You're probably right," I said. "Simple spelling is more appropriate, particularly considering our membership."
And that is how The Rancid Crabtree Fly-Fishing and Filosofical Society came into being.
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Post by deputydon on Sept 29, 2006 6:45:51 GMT -5
Good story choice 54
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Post by Bill on Sept 29, 2006 9:06:14 GMT -5
So does that mean that we should call our hunting group the The McManus Grouse Hunting and Fly Fishing Philisophical Socity. Next thing you know we will have to have patches on our coats and such. I have all the Patrick McManus books and have read every one of them numerous times and still do. I have laughed so hard at some of the storys that my gut hurt. I have read them in bed and laughed so hard that the wife woke up and that takes a lot to do that. She thought an earth quake was occuring. But if your life ever gets boring and you think you have it bad just pick up one of his books and it all goes away.
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