Take me fishing

Great weekend at the beach this week -- Today we took the boys out on the San Luis Pass fishing pier and they caught their first fish -- and a few of them, in fact. In all, they pulled in a Mahi Mahi, angel fish, and a few piggy perch. I spent most of the time tending to rods and baiting hooks, and Katie made sure that they were fishing in the right place and getting fish on the lines for them to reel in. Porter caught his own, too!

We got up this morning about 8 and had breakfast, then hit the pier by 9. We didn't have much luck the first hour -- probably since we were fishing on the left side of the pier, and turned out that all the fish were on the right, just like Katie thought! By the time noon rolled around, though, the boys were beat and we were all ready to head to the beach house for a break.

The rest of the weekend was just normal beach stuff -- riding waves on the boogie boards, swimming in the pool, catching crabs. Great weekend -- one the boys will always remember, and Mom/Dad, too. Their first fish!

Punk Me, Baby!

I guess it started while we were in Vegas hanging around the Hard Rock pool -- the song came over the air: "Rock, rock, rock -- Rock n' Roll Beach..." I was jamming out with everyone else at the pool and I asked the guys next to us, "Hey, who is this?"

The Ramones

So of course, that was all I needed to get into checking out the back catalog of one of our premire rock bands. I mainly knew them from 'Rock n' Roll High School' and 'I Wanna Be Sedated' but I picked up the recent 'Loud and Fast' compilation, and I got hooked. Interestingly enough, the same day, I picked up the latest White Stripes disc, and the new one by Jack Johnson (not a punker, but a surfer).

So that led me to dig up my Darkness CD, and pull down some NY Dolls from iTunes, and when you add that to my Sex Pistols and Clash, we've got a pretty good little Punk section going on. I'll round it out this week with some more Green Day, and I think I'll be running on adrenaline for as long as the iPod battery lasts....

I've been a punker since high school -- just forgot what the music was all about. Glad to have it back again.

Catching back up

Long time since last update -- looking back over the weeks I can clearly see I had a lot going on, but didn't really feel that I had much to 'say' about it, I guess.

The weekend after Father's Day, Katie and I took off to Las Vegas for a little one-on-one time away from it all. The idea was to just spend time relaxing and pampering -- mostly my way of saying THANKS to Katie for all the hard work and support she gives me and the boys. We stayed at the Hard Rock and really had a nice time hanging out at the pool and enjoying good food. Katie had a spa morning when we got there, and we treated ourselves to shows each night (Penn and Teller on Sunday; We Will Rock You on Monday).

Beyond that, I've just been working hard and trying to watch baseball when I can. At work, I've been playing a lead role in our IBM content management practice, and that has kept me busy in front of clients and prospects -- and writing lots of proposals -- for the past few weeks. As for travel, I spoke at an event we hosted in Austin, but that was just a quick up and back road trip. I spent some time in Tulsa and Arkansas one week, Dallas for a few days here and there. Spending much more time in Houston, though, and that's a blessing.

This weekend, Katie and the boys are up in Nacadogches visiting her sister and to see our niece Jennifer in a play. I'm hanging around the house for the most part. I've got a ticket to the Astros game tomorrow afternoon, so I'll spend some time there at the ball park. Otherwise, just messing around is all I have on the weekend schedule.