Me read good

So I completely blew my vow to write at least once a month. I completely skipped November and damn near December. To be honest I haven't had much to write about. I haven't been working on any lures, at all. I am still making beer regularly (mmmmmmmmmmmmm beeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr). School work and kids are taking up my time. The kids I like, the school......you fill in the blank. 

When I do have some downtime, I try to fill it with learning, but not school enforced learning. I read. Let's get this out of the way right now, Listening to an audio book is reading. I don't want to here the bullshit that it is not. If listening to a book isn't reading than nor is feeling a book, in the case of the blind using brail. Now that we got that out of the way......

I am very proud of myself to digesting theses. I never was much of a reader. Hell I probably went years in-between reading a book. With my growing interest in science based reading materials and some friends that gave some great recommendations, I got into it. The audio format I think was the key. I take the bus to and from school, that makes about 1 hour or more of do nothing time. I get car sick if I try to read or play a game on my phone, so audio books are perfect. Plus when I was running daily, I typically would listen to a book. I also listen when driving alone, grocery shopping, washing dishes, cooking, pretty much when ever someone isn't talking to me or when I am in the shower. 

Here are the books I have read in the past couple of years. Some I really enjoyed and some were a bit of a slog. Regardless I would recommend them all. These aren't in any order, just as I remembered them or looked them up in i-tunes. The Hyperion series was my first real dive in to Sci-Fi and I really enjoyed them, tip of the cap to AJ for that. Never thought I would be a sci-fi reader, but hell, shit happens. There are plenty of science based stuff on there and some biographies. The Shackleton story is utterly amazing. 

A life too short: The tragedy of Robert Enke. Ronald Reng
Th Black hole war. Leonard Susskind
13 things that don't make sense. Michael Brooks
Quantum: Einstein, Bohr and  the great debate about the nature of reality. Manjit kumar
The Hidden Reality. Brian Greene
Hyperion, The fall of Hyperion, Endymion, The rise of Endymion. Dan Simmons
Food politics. Marion Nestle
Horizons of Cosmology: Exploring worlds seen and unseen. Joseph Silk
Medium raw, Kitchen confidential. Anthony Bourdain
Hitch-22:a memoir. Christopher Hitchens
Orphans of the Sky. Robert Heinlein
Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars. Kim Stanley Robinson
Ring world. Larry Niven
Quantum Man: Richard Feynman's life in science. Lawrence Krauss
A universe from nothing: Why there is something rather than nothing. Lawrence Krauss
Wizard, Tesla biography. Marc Seifer
A brief History of Time. Stephen Hawking
The God delusion. Richard Dawkins
Death by black hole and other cosmic quandaries. Neil deGrasse Tyson
Just play ball. Joe Garagiola
Tony la Russa, man on a mission. Rob Rains
The Quantum world. Kenneth Ford
Thinking outside the box. Brad Friedel
How to Brew. John Palmer
South: The story of Shackleton's 1914-1917 expedition. Ernest H Shackleton

So if you want to read some books, have a look at the above. 
I have three more books queued up to read; Abundance, The Rational Optimist and The better angels of our nature. 
I will let you know how those go. All recommendations by Brian Brushwood. If you don't know who he is, google him, He does Scam School, NSFW show <>, Weird things, and a million other projects. 



I hope you all enjoy your holidays and wish you a successful and a kick ass 2013.

For me, it is family time, and I guess I will get around to working on my thesis. 


Peace and Chicken Grease

Opps I lost a month

Well I fucked that up. I managed to piss through October with zero posts. I knew the idea of writing a new post at least once a month was never going to work. Oh well, what ya going to do.

Not too much going on. School blows, mindless dribble dotted with barely edible lunches punctuated with mad scrambles to get a report done, because although you had 4 weeks to do it, you really couldn’t be bothered.

Beer production is working itself into a nice pipeline. May I never run out of beer! I am really happy with a beer I made from a kit then dry hopped with some Fuggles. I changed the yeast from what ever shit it came with to a SAFALE US-05, even though the beer I was brewing was a lager. Really, really pleased with it.

Politics is a hot topic right now, and to be honest, I couldn’t be less bothered. US politics I am finding harder and harder to side for anyone. To me they all sound like a bunch of idiots. Republicans with their anti-science rhetoric and Democrats, well just being democrats and too much liberalism for my taste. I no longer side with one side. I am no longer that Right wing Republican, and by no stretch do I lie on the other side. I am a hodgepodge of ideas. Socialism is good to a point, but yeah Capitalism. Everyone has a right to a firearm in return everyone has a right to health care. Government should be small but caring. Wow doesn’t that sound like a load of shit. It is what it is and that is me. Fuck em if they can’t take a joke.

Otherwise life is good, kids are good and the wife is good. My big brother tied the knot a few weeks back so that is kick ass, just wish I could have made it back. Still have yet to meet my new sister-in-law. Hell she is younger than my little brother and she married my older brother. Way to go Bro.

The kids and I had a good time keeping up with our American traditions and carved up a pumpkin for Halloween. I make them do the dirty work. Unfortunately for Caroline she was helped off the top of the slide the quick way and landed on her face, I told that it is perfect and she can go as a zombie, she didn’t find that as funny as I did.

Peace and Chicken Grease 

Down to the wire

I vowed to write a post once a month. So here it is.

I haven't been fishing all month and haven't made a lure. I know I am a slacker. Life always gets in the way fishing. I have thought about it and have ideas in my head but haven't transferred those to wood.

School is in full swing and I am back to writing meaningless reports. I swear that if this is all these kids are going to learn in school, they will be screwed when it comes to working in the real world. I have plenty of management experience. I have hired and fired my fair share of people. I have looked at budget numbers till I went cross-eyed and thought about the abuse I was going to catch from my boss's boss when he sees the 150K worth of right offs I have coming in the next quarter. I learned all this by doing, usually the hard way. My school was the old cliche, "school of hard Knox" or the school of "pull yourself up by the boot straps". I realize now how valuable all these experiences are. How you can't learn this stuff from a book. I want to pass this on to my classmates but I don't want to sound smug  or pretentious. So to be honest I don't know how to tell them that the theory we just covered in class is worth dick in real life. Sounds great on paper but in the real world......... I don't know. At the same time my professional experiance is limited to a specific field and company. So maybe I don't have the as much knowledge as I think I do.
Holly shit I am rambling again. Oh well its my blog I can do it if I want.

Back to hobby related stuff. I have beer! I bottled a few cases yesterday and have another 20 liters to bottle very soon. I am telling you folks, making your own beer is where its at.
Outdoor football is over for the year. My division 6 team finished 3rd in our group and just missed out on the promotion playoffs. I good season for me, I conceded just 13 goals in 15 games. My best goals against average in the 4 years of playing division football. My hobby league team finished 1st in our group, only conceding 10 goals in 13 game. We did not do well in the championship playoffs. We won our first playoff match handily but the next two were no bueno. We lost our next 4-0, went into to halftime 0-0. Their first goal came from their completely unmarked un-pressured striker who curled one into the top corner. I got a finger tip to it but could not change its course. Probably the biggest save I tried to make all season. I had time to think about how much it is going to hurt when I hit the ground, I was in the air for awhile. The second goal was a penalty, my penalty record was horrible this year. Didn't save a one. The third goal was completely my fault and the fourth was a wonder goal. The next match for the bronze I had a howler. Nothing I did was right. Worst game of the year for me. Hurts to finish the season with such a piss poor performance. We finished 4th out of 45 teams, so I guess not that bad in the long run.

Shit, more rambling.

Anyway folks, hope all is well in your worlds.


Peace and Chicken grease

Loss of focus

This year I haven't spent the amount of time on the water that I would have liked. With school starting back up soon I don't think I will be fishing much, maybe the odd weekend here and there. I will defiantly try to hit the hard water this winter to make up for my lack of fishing on open water.  This year I really haven't caught much. I don't know if it's me, my presentation, my lures, the fish or the weather but I am boating nothing.

Coming on to the title of this entry. I got out on the water this past Sunday. The weather was cool and the sun was out. A great time to fish. I went out the night before with no luck so I switched up one of the lures I was pulling (trolling as usual). I was running a spoon on one rod and my go to lure, the Storm shallow Thunder 15 on the other. Was cruising north with the trolling motor on 3, in pretty flat water. I was in about 2-3 meters of water when the rod with the ST15 bent back. I dropped the spoon rod I was holding, killed the motor and picked up the other rod from the rod holder. I gave a quick set, which I know I probably don't have to do but it's a habit at this point and started to crank. At first it felt like a dead weight like I hooked a log, then it shook its head and I knew this was a good fish. I pumped a bit and was bringing him in, his pull the other way would yield me no line gain as he was big enough to pull a bit of drag. Let it be known, when I fish for pike I don't pussy foot around with light line. I typically troll with 20 to 30 kilo breaking strength line with 25 kilo wire leaders. I don't fuck around with light line or shit knots. Okay back to the fight. I am getting pretty excited at this point; one reason why is it feels like I haven't caught a fish in ages and two, I am entered in an online fishing tournament and this weeks fish is pike. The fish is about 5 yard from the boat, he is a good sized fish, has to be 4 kilos plus, I give a couple more cranks then bring the rod tip up. I turn to my left to move the rod with spoon on it to the rod holder so when I stand up I don't end up stepping on it. At this same time the fish shakes his head, at least I assume that he did as I wasn't looking at him, and low and behold he comes unbuttoned. I stare into the water in disbelief, what the hell, what the fuck just happened? Where is that big fish that was just fighting with me? Why is it not attached to the end of my line anymore? Tell me this isn't happening? At this point I start screaming a line of expletives that would make a sailor or truck driver blush in embarrassment. I am sure that most of the lake heard me, I didn't see anyone on the opposing shore but I am sure if anyway one was outside they heard the very loud American cursing anything and everything that I could think of. Might have even managed a Finnish curse word or two. At this same time I start to go Johnny Mac on my gear, throwing my rod down kicking the landing net, picking the rod back up and whipping it at the water, just going nuts in general. I manage to gain a bit of composure and stop beating my gear. Knowing, I can't afford to replace it. I sit for a few moments thinking of all the things I did wrong. I should have done this or that. I do this to myself a lot. I am a goalkeeper and every time a play happens and I am scored on or almost scored on I analyze it till there is nothing left and beat myself up about it for the next week, and more than not get bruised knuckles from taking it out on the post. Anyway, I check over my gear and make sure everything is good to go and put my lures back in the water and continue my fishing. Cursing and shaking my head for the next hour of fishing, without a bite.

That was it for my fishing this weekend. One good fish lost to poor focus and bad organization. It makes be think back to the military 7 P's; Prior Proper Planning, Prevent Piss Poor Performance.

There is always next time. Hopefully that time comes soon.


Peace and Chicken Grease.

Procrastination

.......................... I'll get to it eventually.

.......................... Never put off today what you can put off till tomorrow.

Summer happenings

Hello my friends,

Figured I would drop a line to you guys out there. So far it has been a good summer, aside from the fishing. I have managed to put some hours in on the home lake but have yielded just one fish, see below (I don't count the perch and roach off cane poles with the kids).

I really need to have my kids hold the fish, they would look much bigger.

I caught this guy while trolling (my preferred method these days). Just no joy as of late, not sure if it is the weather or me. I will have to figure it out before the summer ends. But as they say, "A bad day fishing.......you know the rest". I also have been informed that there are some good sized Zander in the lake. For my north American brethren, that is pretty much a Walleye, very close cousins. I trolled a few late nights for them, but it has been a very long time since I fished for them. That will be a work in progress. I have some lures in the works, slowly coming along as usual. They last batch I made up, there are 3 good ones and the rest do not swim like I want them to. So back to the drawing board. I still enjoy making them so until that little pleasure ends, I am sure I will have lots of crap lures that don't work.

But the kids still love to fish and I hope they always will.

Now to my other favorite hobby, BEER. I have 2 more batches bottled and aging. That is going very well. I even made some crates to keep them in. I saved a bottle for a mate from the first batch. After aging for 2 months, I was very impressed with it. It was a fine tasting beer. I have to get another batch going soon but the weather has to help me out with that. I need to keep the brew at specific temperatures for fermenting and aging. Tough to do in the summer but it's Finland summer should only last a few more......hours at best. I also have some apple wine ready for bottleing. Not sure how that will go, more of an experiment. Might make me go blind.

I am having trouble with the format of this blog so it looks a bit like shit. Sorry folks, I don't have the patients to go back and edit the whole thing.  Hopefully to the right you are seeing the crates I made. Pretty easy construction and a little spray stencil that I cut out.






In other news around my hood. My timing belt is about to fail, so that means €2,000!!!! So that fucking blows. Looks like it's public transport and leg power for a bit.
Football season cranks back up in a couple of weeks. We have a 3 day tourney coming up next week that is usually a good time so looking forward to that. As far as league action goes, Arabia HC is currently 1 point of first place. We need to win the rest and get ourselves in the championship playoffs. Last time we finished 2nd in the table we went on to win the whole thing (around 48 teams in the league in 3 tables top 2 from each play off for the championship). On my division 6 team Ruisku 09 we are doing okay as well. Currently in 4th place. I would like us to compete for promotion but we need to score some goals. I am doing what I can, 4 clean sheets in 8 matches.



One more little shout out, we went just got back from Sweden on a day cruise. It was a good time and the kids enjoyed themselves. We also brought our niece along. We went the the Vasa Museum and the Royal Palace. The palace was okay but seeing the Vasa was excellent. I could spend days there looking at her.








Other than that, not much happening. I am going to try and put a post a month up from now on. I haven't been doing much on here and I enjoy sharing so stay tuned.







Peace and Chicken Grease

Some updates

Important news: The beer is ready!!! Very tasty. Plus I have some lures ready to go.

The beer came out nice. For the next batch I want something a little more bitter. But if any of you had any thought about home brewing and thought it might be expensive or difficult, it is not. Very simple these days. My only issue is not having enough bottles to continuously brew. You have to get a system together so you don't run out of beer before the next batch is ready. Timing is everything. I found the only home brew store, maybe in Finland, so that sets me up for a hobby that I will stick with for a very long time.
Here is my first brew.

In lure news: I finished up a few. Just letting the epoxy dry and then hopefully out next week to test them out. I know the paint jobs are horrible. My eldest daughter did paint one of them, can you guess which one?
These are more "proof of concept" models. Wait, wait, wait, what am I saying, all my lures are proof of concept. The reason for that is ZERO consistency. I take loads of pictures and loads of measurements and still can't get two lures to come out the same. I use the same templates but alas, I suck at replication.  The glider looking one is a new design along with the red and white one (should dive well), not pretty but we will see how they swims. (for a reference, the red and white lure is 19cm)

In less important news, I passed all my coarse work for this term.



Peace and chicken grease.

Fishing is close

Hi there fellow fishing fanatics.

I will give ya'll a quick update of my going ons. I got out for a couple of hours last week, but no fish. It was nice just to be on open water. Seemed like the ice would never go away. The plan is to get some fishing in next weekend. I still have lures in the works but have not picked them up in months. Been a bit busy. School for this term is coming to a close so plenty of studying for exams in my imediate future. Football season has started, and for those who don't know I play for 2 clubs and fill in for another 3 when schedules and my aching knee permits. Not to mention just hanging with the fam.

In the tradition of DIY, I started a new project. Making my own nectar of gods,BEER!!! So I will post some updates as it progresses. In the mean time good luck keeping tight lines.

Peace and chicken grease. 

and then there was silence...

To my two followers, thanks for following and sorry I haven't been writing anything.

It's the heart of winter here in the frozen tundra a.k.a. Finland. This really puts a damper on lure making as my wife is not a fan of me using sanders and grinders inside or paints for that matter. And it is a bit hard working with your hands outside when it's -30 (F or C, that is f'n cold). I have a few lures (one pictured below) that I have been working with ever so slowly. At the pace I am keeping it should be ready by October.

I was impatiently waiting for ice to get some ice fishing in. It came a bit later this year than last but due to my laziness and family and school (in that order) I haven't made it out. I was excited to ice fish but for some reason lost interest quickly. Depending on how long the ice hangs out I may make it at least once. Maybe even twice.
I hope to build a few lures before the open water season gets going. Stay tuned for that. Hope everyone has been more productive in the lure building and fishing than me.

Peace and chicken grease