JUST IN: New photos from our spear fishing adventure

Spearfishing July 3, 2009

I am fortunate to have found another new way to add excitement to my life. It's not that I am bored or need to blow more time and money, it's that if something sounds fun and Diane does not tie me down I will probably give it a go.

At 6 AM Friday morning Ablert, Steve, George (George has a boat) and I launched from Dickinson Bayou to dive some offshore platforms and do some spearfishing. 2-1/2 hours and 50 miles offshore we reach the BP platform we were looking for but there were all ready 4 other boats there. We could see another platform about 8 miles further south so we took off again. About half way to our second choice we decided our fuel was to low so we turned around and went back to the first platform to find all but 1 boat had left so we tied off to the platform structure, jumped in and headed to the deep.

The surface temperature was in the high 80's. Visibility was fair on top yet below 50 foot deep visibility was not much more than 10-15 feet which made me nervous since we had seen one small shark get caught and barracuda were hanging out looking for an easy meal.

My first catch with a spear gun. This big boy broke my rented spear gun so I was done. I did dive again to watch and see what kind of trouble my crazy friends would get into. I also fished with rod and reel from the boat some.

Steve with a 45 lb ling.

Albert shot some snapper and caught a king mackerel on a rod during a rest break. Albert had the king 3 feet from the boat just ready to gaff him when a big barracuda hit slicing the king in half and scaring the "fish bait" out of Albert. We got the top half of the king on the boat and marvelled at how neatly the barracuda has sliced off his portion. Albert still got a good 10#'s of meat off the king.

Steve with a nice string of snapper

The snapper were all in the 15-25 lbs range. It was a great day in the Gulf of Mexico.

Valentine's Day 2009

Valentine's Day 2009 may be the best one yet for Diane and I. We went out with Albert & Laurie Davis. Following dinner at the Spaghetti Warehouse we drove over to the Aquarium and had a horse drawn carriage ride through downtown Houston in the rain. The carriage was not covered but we had one small umbrella to share between the four of us. The only effective strategy was laughter. All wet yet still having fun we decided to go to the Big Easy and listen to the JT Coldfire band. This blues band from Austin is very good and loud. I would like to see them again sometime after Diane gets her hearing back. The pictures are from my cell phone and not to high quality. Some might say the photo subjects weren't high quality either but they sure had a great Valentine's Day 2009.

Five Fabulous Things

OK this will most likely make me sound OOOOLD yet these are the things I think of most often.

• My Wife Diane of course
• My Kids: Kim, Mark & Josh
• U.S. of A.: wouldn't want to live anywhere else!
• Sunrises and Sunsets: can't have one without the other.
• A good rum drink on a quiet beach anywhere

What Really Scares Me

My world is changing at a rapid pace these days. The U.S. economy is whacked. Barack is an unproven player facing more serious challenges (in my opinion) than any president before. The global economy, banking system reforms, nuclear programs in third world countries, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Illinois governor auctioning a Senate seat, government bailouts, the lack of a U.S. Energy Policy (which was a hot issue when gasoline was at $140/bbl) are some of the issues headlining lately.

Despite all these news headlines, which could cause anyone to think our world was collapsing, there are only a few things that really scare me.

• Ignorant People

These people can ruin the lives of Innocent bystanders. They kill people. They are the ones you see weaving in and out of traffic at high speeds because they are in a hurry and your in their way. They vote without knowing why. They blame others for their troubles. "Ignorance is Bliss". I don't necessarily agree. If you are ignorant, hopefully; you will receive enough criticism and negative feedback so that eventually you will begin to feel like crap no matter how ignorant you are. Ignorance is a condition or a state which can be corrected. The difficulty is that most people choose to be ignorant probably because being ignorant is expedient and less trouble than understanding facts or they are just plain selfish.

• Politicians

What motivates a politician? Usually it's power. How does a politician gain power? Often by giving someone else what they want. Is a politician likely to act in the long term best interest of the nation? Not if they have an option that will provide them with more power in the short term. That is exactly why the U.S. does not have an energy policy.

There are some very good leaders in Washington yet I am afraid there are not enough.

• Flying Monkeys

Those guys are completely out of control.

It Doesn't Make Sense

I was listening to the O'Reilly Factor which I don't often do. I thought he was a reasonable thinking pundit yet I was wrong again. A pundit by definition has some level of expertise on which to base their statements. I looked it up. The premise he stated which set me off was the OPEC nations hate the U.S. and their goal is to destroy the America economy with high crude oil prices. Today it was something over $130/barrel.

"That's what America needs"; he said sarcastically, "another talking head spouting off stupid theories that will be reiterated by others who are to lazy to ask themselves if what they are hearing is reasonable".

To qoute Marisa Tomei from the movie My Cousin Vinny,

"No...No..., it doesn't, that statement dosen't hold wata"

True, many of the OPEC nations do not love or even like the U.S. yet they do need us as much as we need them. All the other factors that affect the price of oil on the open market aside, they are not dumb. We need their oil and they need our money. Why would any oil producer want to destroy their largest market? How or who would replace us as a customer, China? Not even China can replace our demand.

You may be surprised to see diversity and ranking of the U.S. crude oil import sources for March of 2008 (thousands of barrels/day)

1. CANADA...............2,542
2. SAUDI ARABIA ...1,542
3. MEXICO ..............1,358
4. NIGERIA..............1,174
5. VENEZUELA .......1,033
6. IRAQ .....................773
7. ALGERIA ..............441
8. RUSSIA .................402
9. ANGOLA ................388
10. VIRGIN ISLANDS......290
11. ECUADOR...................238
12. UNITED KINGDOM...218
13. KUWAIT.....................203
14. BRAZIL.......................191
15. COLOMBIA................165
    

Planning on a New Home

We've been planning on making a change and if everything works out we will close on the sale of our current home 5/30/2008 and close on the purchase of a new home in League City, Texas on 7/7/2008. It doesn't really matter where we live but this location is 20 closer to my office and only 25 minutes to the fishing on Galveston. Best of all it is 0.8 miles to the golf course. We are excited. Here are a few pics.