Sunday.

Well I don't have much to say, but I can't concentrate on my work and I thought I would write a little. This is my last week of paying to teach. After Friday, I will be payed for teaching! Now that is exciting. I have a lot of work to do, so TTYL.

Not quite goodbye.

Emotionally, I am screwed tomorrow. It will be a great time to see this man cry. "Why" you may ask... Because after three long and fantastic years of being the Music Director for the Corvallis Community Choir, we will be having our final performance together. I feel that this choir is my adopted child. I found it tired, starved, and confused. With much love, sometimes "tough love", and hard work, the choir grew. It grew in numbers, musically, and most importantly in joy. There is nothing like seeing people walk away from a rehearsal with a smile on their face knowing that they worked hard and loved it.

And what makes this hard also is how much i have been changed from this relationship. No matter how much this choir changed and molded to what it is today, I was transformed more. One can not overstate they transforming power of music and surrounding yourself with people to care and love you. i will never forget the the music, the love, and especially the people that have been so close to me in the last few years.

Thank you CCC. I will cherish this last time to make music with you.

Last video.

Part 5

Next 2 videos.

Part 3.


Part 4

First two videos. (Out of 5)

Part 1



Part 2

in the saddle again....

Crap.

Well it's only been about 3 months. that sucks.

So this weather is just awesome - by the way, no comics today but soon - it's mother's day and we are supposed to be planting our garden. This year we might be waiting until the first week of June. Want to know something else that is crazy. My father and I were thinking about Diamond lake all winter! He is a principal so Memorial day was going to be are first chance. Well.... The lake is still covered with a ton of ice and it most likely won't be free. That is crazy!

RAIN PORVERTY AND WIND ... YIKES!!!!

Rain, Poverty and Wind have teamed up against the fly fishing superhero today. It was a new, bold, and daring move on the part of the villains. This was truly something to be feared. They created a trifecta (somebody help me with spelling) that was able to surround the fly fisherman but as they approached him he was not wearing his outfit. Nor was he yielding his weapons. So what was he doing you ask yourself. He was cleaning.

This confounded the team of villains. They circled, ready to pounce as soon as the fly fisherman took a step outside, but he never did. Were they to late? Could another villain have already attacked. Surely not. They knew that no one villain has ever defeated the fly fisherman and surely they would have known if there was another villainous team that had formed. So they stood there guard. Waiting at the ready. Continually anticipating, but only getting more confused.

Meanwhile, inside his warm, cozy home the superhero-fly fisherman had already defeated Apathy. Its funny. No matter how many times Apathy is defeated, she is always there the next morning to attack again. But, yet again, she had failed. The fly fisherman had seen the Rain, Wind, and Poverty coming and had already come up with a plan. Knowing that they would be outside, and already tired from his battle with apathy, the fly fisherman resorted to his cunning. He would spend the day cleaning and doing work around the house. He would not even acknowledge that the villains were outside for the whole day. He knew this would confuse them and make them question each other. He would continue to do this for the rest of the weekend. Letting the villains roam unchecked for a couple of days. He knew that this would build frustration after time and eventually the three villains would be weakened and then he would be able to attack.

So you are getting to see his plan on action. Be ready for Monday - when the now simple house cleaning, wife obeying, mere mortal of a man transforms into the well known and well anticipated fly fisherman superhero. He will beat the villains with a rod, some flies, and his cunning. And when he catches that trout, he will watch the villains run away in fear and agony as he lets it go to be caught another day.

From last weekend

I am sitting in a little cabin. The most amazing part of where I am is that my wife is right across from me. She is beautiful. Our two dogs our zonked out on the couch next to her. It’s a small cabin; maybe ten feet wide, less then 40 feet long, with 12 foot ceilings. Even with its lack of size, I could live here. There is nothing but a little bit of grass and 3-4 pine trees between my front door and the river. “What river?” you may be asking yourself. Well it is the majestic and mystic Metolius. My wife and I have spent a day relaxing in a very mild early February on the banks of the mighty and legendary Metolius. We started out the day with homemade biscuits and gravy, yes biscuits and gravy - it was wonderful, fulfilling, and you have a problem with that, get a life. Then we walked to the store to buy a few items we forgot. I then spent a few hours fishing, I’ll address this later, and my wife spent the day embroidering (by hand) Oscar and Aloha’s names into the dog’s seat cover that she sewed herself.

I love my wife. She is everything I could have ever hoped for and so much more. Her amazing abilities around the house are going to bless our family for many years. I have only fallen more and more in love with her over the last three years we have been together. I can’t believe the feats we had to overcome, and I can think of a few still ahead of us, but we have done it. We have stuck together and not taken the easy road. I love you, my love.

So…

Yes! I did fish the mighty Met. today. It was a hard day to say the least. I fished for about 4 ½ hours and only landed one fish. I had to have my wife pull off my hip boots for me – they were full of water. I did hook a couple other fish, but the triumph wasn’t in the fish today. I have caught fish here before. The triumph I had today was that the fish I landed was on a fly that I had tied. This was a wonderful and new experience for me. I started tying flies about six weeks ago and I have gotten better and better, the firsts were UG-LY. I was very proud today. In fact I am still smiling about it.

The weather was amazing this afternoon. After the morning clouds went away, the sun came out and it warm up very nicely.

I have had a day that I will remember for a long time.

Rain, Rain...

Go away.
Come again another day.

WAIT!

Actually don't. Go find a quiet place far, far away. And never return.

I am now proclaiming that the first moment I can move out of this depressing, horrid, mud-hole called the Willamette Valley I will do just that. I enjoy the rain until two weeks ago. Since then our relationship has progressively degraded. Now I hate it. Hate. Loathe. rain.

Sun, please come out to play.

Two new villains.

So today I am sitting on the couch having just cleaned the kitchen. I am looking out the window and noticing that it is not raining and there are some little specks of blue stuff in the sky. Why am I not wanting to be outside? well, number one is Apathy. Apathy is a unique and special villain it doesn't have a gender. Doesn't where a mask and costume and doesn't have a secret office where it thinks up its evil ideas of how it can take over the world. Apathy is like a mist. It's not a spirit or anything, it is tangible. But barely. Most people don't see it when it sneaks up on them. You have to have a trained eye. It's weapons are as unique and dangerous as anything you could imagine. Although it has an arsenal to choose from, it has two that are his always in his belt. "What are they," you are asking yourself, well they are Internet, and Television. Huge weapons that are incapable of being broke or dismantled. They are always positioned to fire, just waiting for you to walk into the trap. Once you have sprung the trap by sitting in your armchair and either grabbing the remote or opening your laptop the weapons fire. And you are caught around the neck and then the poison starts taking effect. You can't feel it but before you recognize what is going on you look at the clock and realize that you have just been kidnapped for two hours. Two hours you will never get back. 

*Side Note* the villain rain has just struck and I am putting up the white flag today. She wins.

The other new villain that has made his/her/its name very well known to the world in recent months is Poverty. Poverty is a shape shifter. No one knows if it has a gender or, for that matter, if it is even from this world. Along with shape-shifting, Poverty has one more horrid and powerful super-power; mind-reading. Yep. Poverty reads your mind and turns into the the cutest thing, or it can even be an intangible thing, that your heart will love and then slowly sucks your bank account dry. He has used the forms of puppies on me and my wife for years now. And the irony is, I know who the dogs really are but I can't stop loving them so I allow the draining of my bank account to happen. Poverty is a sly one. 

So today a horrible thing has happened. It is unprecedented and may very well mean that it could happen again in the future. Rain, Apathy, and Poverty have all teamed up and struck the fly fisher super hero all at once. He was caught off his guard and had to retreat. But he will return to fight another day.