I spent some time last night working on my fish finder/depth gauge, hoping to get them working properly for today's trip. I built a platform for the display so I can mount it in my little boat. I also worked on my spinning reels, hoping to not have to buy another pair. I disassembled them, found nothing wrong, and put them back together, and they seemed to work OK.

I got up early as Doug would be here at 06:15. I had time to make coffee today, at least. I had properly set the alarm clocks, but had to depend on Karen to get me out of bed. Like everyone else, I have a love/hate relationship with snooze alarms...

I had eaten a bowl of cereal, but we stopped by McDonalds & Doug got a egg & cheese breakfast burger. It sounded good, so I got one too. Lotsa fat & grease & clorestorol. Wonderful...

We got to Betsy's pond, and it was very muddy. Usually it is very clear, but the recent rains had dumped a ton of silt into it. We fished until about 08:30, and Doug had hooked one fish and I had none. We usually have 15-20 fish altogether by this time. They just didn't like the muddy water. They decided to not eat in protest.

It was a cold, windy day anyway, and we were planning on just staying 'til noon since we both had lots of stuff that needed to get done at home; so we decided to quit early and get a good start on our projects.

As we were heading out, Doug noticed that the smaller pond to the south was clear. We stopped the truck & went down to investigate. It was very clear and had filled up almost to normal level. We had taken our rods, of course, and Doug got a bass to hit a buzzbait almost immediately. We stayed another 1.5 hours catching small bass (the largest was only about a pound) before we called it a day. Doug had 14 and I had 26. A pretty good day, considering how it started out!

One big problem: my spinning reels started malfunctioning again. I guess I need to take them to someone who knows what they're doing...

I came home and decided to eat the leftover steak from the North Star as I watched the Headline news and drank a large glass of Bosco. It was very good, and when I finished that I thought I would take a short nap, then get my chores done. I woke up about 19:00. The chores didn't get done, but I will have a very full day tomorrow. I have a cardiologist appointment at 14:15, then I need to get auto tags, then go to work at Med-assist, then on to my first nights' work on this rotation. Seven days on, and the pond will be cleared up by then. Back after that Monster Bass!

I had only had a total of eight hours sleep between Sunday AM and today at noon. I guess I needed it...

I'll probably stay up most of the night tonight on the computer. I might get ambitious and start working on cleaning the garage out. It is a shambles, to be generous. I have never really adequately organized my fishing stuff since my old tackle box got stolen, and that's at least a two-or-three-hour job. Then all of the accumulated junk from Karen's folks house when they moved. And the freezer that they gave us that is still not hooked up and running. It's about 15 years old, and I don't know whether to trust it or not. That, and the fact that we don't really have anyplace in the house to put it, and the fact that I'm lazy, has contributed to the lack of a decision. So there it sits. Right now, it's covered with fishing tackle. A good table.

A little follow-up on the alcohol situation. I haven't been drinking, of course, but it really bothers me that I did. Like I let myself down. I do that enough by continuing to smoke. So now I'm feeling depressed. That will pass with the days, and I hope, remind me of how tenuous my grip on sobriety is, and my grip on life itself. Every sober moment is real-time, and the moments are each a precious part of my life. I don't have enough left to do everything I want to do, or to enjoy the people that I love; wasting any of them with drinking is sinful.