I’ve been rearranging my home office today while watching various YouTube videos on the state of the American economy. Most financial people think it’s pretty bad and going to get worse.
We went out of Gold Beach today where the big fish are! Had to make our way out through a sea of tourists in river guide boats going after salmon in the lower Rogue.
Robby caught a big black right away.
We fished the Gold Beach Reef, a pregnant area because it is not fished often, being frequently hazardous to get to it when crossing the Gold Beach Bar, a small patch of water (200 yards long) that can yield freaky waves and currents that claims about two unsuspecting fishermen a year. (Shhh! It’s one of GB’s best kept secrets that we have a bar that kills two people a year.)
We were careful, and the Bar was calm. Lenie insisted we call her before we crossed the Bar, after we got across, when we caught a big fish, then when we were about to recross the Bar coming back, and after we had successfully crossed it. We spent a lot of time on the phone.
I’ll go out here more often. Lots of current and it’s too deep to anchor, but it was fun! Robby is a totally independent fisherman. He understands his gear, the art of experimentation, and he never asks me what he should do next because he’s already figured it out. I have three very smart sons, but Robby is brilliant and it comes out especially when he is fishing. He understands the primordial battle of man versus fish.
Quosatana Creek Campground 15 miles up the Rogue River is a relaxing and serene place to camp. No internet or cell phone service, which is just fine. For five days, we swam, fished, bicycled, and relaxed by the fire.
The magazine’s most popular writer, Jackie Clay, will be sidelined for a while after fracturing her sternum and compressing three vertebrae when she fell off a barn roof. She was released from the hospital Thursday after a three-day stay.
I talked to Jackie this morning. She’s in a lot of discomfort, but her spirits are upbeat and she’s hoping to get back to blogging Monday. Right now she has difficulty even sitting up and is doing a lot of sleeping to allow time to help with the healing process.
Here’s what Jackie told me this morning: Will was putting metal roofing on their new storage barn. It was threatening to both rain and blow so she wanted to help him get the roof fastened down. Over Will’s objections, she went up on the roof to help him.
It then started to sprinkle and Will began to slide off the roof. Jackie reached out and grabbed his shins in an effort to stop his slide, but both fell off and hit the ground eight-feet below. Jackie landed on her feet “like a cat” she said, but the impact broke her sternum and compressed the three vertebrae. Will was bruised but broke nothing, and he is back out haying today. Jackie said he just missed landing on a metal trash can, which could have injured him seriously.
Jackie was ambulanced to a local hospital, then helicoptered to St. Mary’s Hospital in Duluth when her oxygen numbers went too low and doctors feared her sternum was bleeding into a lung. A CAT scan revealed it was just fluid from lying down, not blood.
They sent Jackie home yesterday wearing a medical corset and told her to rest until she sees the orthopedic surgeon again in about a week. She said she can take a few steps but is otherwise not able to sit up for very long, so she is doing a lot of sleeping. Luckily, she said, Will is a good cook.
Jackie said there is a moral in this story: “Don’t be in too big a hurry to use a safety rope. We give advice to others about how to do things, but then we sometimes neglect to take precautions ourselves.”
Being a publisher, I have to keep up with new technology to determine if it may serve the magazine well. So the other week I bought myself a Droid X and a new laptop computer. The Droid and similar devices such as the iPhone are probably the future for magazines and newspapers. The laptop contains Windows 7 as the operating system, so I needed to see what BHM will be converting to once Microsoft stops supporting Windows XP, which we use at the office.
I’m not a computer geek so I must assimilate new technology bit by bit, with geeks holding my hand every step of the way. The Droid was no problem, as I bought Annie and my three sons Droids so they could quickly learn it and teach me. The laptop I had to learn on my own, and it took me only a few days before I decided I did not want to learn Windows 7 with all its unnecessary changes. So I gave the laptop to John Silveira, since he had an older-than-dirt one, so he could learn Windows 7 and teach us in a year or so when I convert the company to it.
I’m typing this blog post on my two-year-old Toshiba running the Windows XP I’ve grown so very comfortable with. At my side is the Droid X playing oldies on the Pandora radio station that is one of the many free downloads for it. It plugs into my old Bose radio so plays concert-quality sound. I really like this Droid X, and my sons are there to solve any problems I have learning its nuances.
I’ve already downloaded the free Google Sky Map so I can observe the planets and stars above my head or below my feet. It’s also got a calendar, note pad, camera, video recorder, and a bunch of other useful things. It also serves as a “hot spot” for internet access for my laptop with a two-gigabyte limit which is plenty for my needs. Internet use is unlimited if I’m using just the Droid to browse, send email, text, talk, etc. The quality is superb. The BHM website shows up well, as does everything else. Quite a remarkable tool, and I’m certain it will give me new ideas to make BHM more accessible to more people.
Now I’ll use the Droid X as a “hotspot” to upload this post to my blog. Technology is marvelous, as long as I learn it a little at a time.
By the way, here’s the tooth I got yanked a few hours ago. I took it with the Droid:
I’m going to get a tooth pulled (extracted) tomorrow morning. I’ve been taking antibiotics for an infection that set in to its root for nine days. It’s one of those old-guy things — the tooth simply wore out, got filled a long time ago, and is now dead.
It’s not like getting heart bypass surgery, but I’m a weenie. I hate pain! It’s the needle I’m afraid of.
