A long shot.

I must say that I was disappointed by one of my last polls that I had posted on my blog. The outcome however I knew from the start was going to be disappointing. In the poll I asked my voters to chose their favorite bow. As I suspected the crossbow failed to get a single vote. However to my small surprise the compound bow received one vote, this I attribute to Jay East. And to my disappointment but no surprise my recurved bow received only my own vote. The longbow had won even before I posted the poll. My brother Calvin is one of the biggest fans of the longbow that I know. And my sister also are wrapped up in the romantic history of the slick weapon. I must also admit that I am a fan of the longbow, but use the recurved as my weapon of choice. So by their three votes alone the longbow cruised to the easy win. Maybe next time.

Robert L.

Six flags, five stars.

From the previous post you may have gathered that I and my three youngest siblings went to Dallas this past weekend. While we were there I had an opportunity to use two tickets that my boss had given me to Six Flags as a boniness. As for those of you who may not know what Six Flags is, it is a park much like, say... Disney World. (Or Disney Land. What ever it might be.) I had only been on roller coaster twice before, once up in Minnesota, and once again in California, so this was going to be good. But to say the least I had quite forgotten the joys of such rides. However there was still a few obstacles in our way before the fun could began at Six Flags. First I had to find the tickets before we left. That took almost 30 min. But I found them in the end and we set forth. The next obstacle was the waiting line. After about 10-15 min. waiting we were the next group in line to get on the ride. However it was canceled do to thunder storms in the area. It looked like it was going to be a short trip, when Mr.East (our host and a season ticket hold to Six Flags.) lead us to an indoor roller coaster. It was great! With one hitch, it was pitch black inside the indoor roller coaster. This as you might guess, was a good reason that I could not see the track in front of me. To make a short story shorter I thought that the first turn was to the left and set my self up for such a movement. It went right and I was jerked hard the wrong way. I aggravated a muscle strain on my right side, which had first accrued when working in an attic. When we got done with that ride and spent some time here and there doing other things the bigger rides reopened as the thunder storm had past, taking with it as it seemed most of the other people that had been there before. The rest of the group that I was with started running from ride to ride so that they would not have to wait in line as long. This however turned out not to be a problem as there was hardly anyone waiting for the rides. The only problem there was, turned out to be the one that I felt every time I took a step or drew a breath. The muscle strain had me far behind the group at all times. And after two rides on "Bat Man" one on "Mr.Freeze" and three (two of them back to back) on the "Titian" I learned to put mind over matter and forget about it for a time. It was however after the "Texas Giant" That I really felt bad. Matter won out in the end of mind. In the end we made that our last ride for the day and returned to less active hobbies such as X-Box.

Robert L.

P.S. I loved Six Flags...Thank you East for taking us, and thank you Joe for giving me the tickets!

The pitcher of recored?

Nope not me. The player of the game? Still nope.
The other day while up in Dallas visiting our friends the East, we (Calvin, their oldest boy Jay, their second oldest Daniel and myself) did so batting practise. I started and for the life of me I could not hit the ball. Maybe I did not swing when Calvin through a good pitch. Or maybe Calvin did not throw a pitch close enough for me to swing at it. Any how I did not do good. Then Jay came up and I took over pitching. I throw without winding up, which is the way that pitching coaches do it, so that the pitch is not to fast and more accurately thrown in the strike zone so it can be hit. This helped as Jay belted pitches left and right. Calvin went next and at first he was smoking them too. But then I got tired and started throwing them wide. And then Calvin had the same problem I did when I was batting. Daniel was next and that helped. I came in closer and found the middle of the plate for him a lot more then I did for Calvin. I had one more turn before we had to leave, Jay pitch and the first one was good. However I hit it straight back to the back stop. The next thirty pitches I either watched as they went wide, or I reached for the pitches, missing them more often then not. The only comfort that I could bring back in the end is that I was the best pitching coach. Oh, and that out of my five hits, three of them were bombs. Maybe not home runs in a big league park but in any little league park, they were long gone.

Funny?

My family is rather funny sometimes. If fact more often then not someone is saying something or doing something that is funny. Sometimes it is funny right then and there, other times it is something that we laugh at later. For instance the other week when my mother asked Rebecca (my youngest sister) why the kitchen had not been cleaned all the way, Calvin (my older brother) interjected teasingly that she had slept through kitchen clean up time. She tried to defend herself and made the profound statement "I have not slept since I woke up." We all found this very funny.
Then there was the time that Rebecca decided to do her school work up in my parents room. And she decided to open the window. This time it was not funny till it was over. She left the room for lunch and when she came back, a whole hive of Yellow jackets had found there way through the open window and were making themselves at home in my parents bedroom. Twenty or thirty of them if I recall. She called for help and I responded. The Yellow jacket problem was fixed finally when I turned on the fan and shut the door. Five minutes later all but two of them were gone. The air being disturbed made it hard for the Yellow jackets fly around at will and they high tailed it back to the outdoors. We then shut the window and killed the last two. At the time that it was happening it was not funny at all. The thought of battling twenty-five stinging insects for the rest of the day did not sound funny. But after the crisis was over...it seemed a lot easier to laugh about it.