Tree Climber

This is a video of my dog. I taught him to climb the tree out by the bunkhouse. He has had a complete recovery from the Snakebite. I think that he is ready for Goose and Duck season.

Shout out to my Bros.

I want to give a shout out to my little bro Gregg and his wife Lisa. Gregg got Lisa all pregnanted up so now they are going to have a baby in May I think. So anyways Gregg, good job, you are finally a proven sire. Now to further prove your manhood the real test is if you can have a boy. There are only a few of us out here that have so much manhood that they can only produce boys. I guess we will have to see.
All joking aside, I am happy as heck for the both of you. You will make excellent parents, and give the baby a fantastic home. What a lucky baby.
On another note; to my brother Dan, I imagine I should be expecting some announcement on baby number 4 any time soon. This year and a half is about as long as I remember without getting a baby announcement from you guys.
To Douggie, I think you should hold off on the announcement until you get married.

King for a Day in Clearmont Wyoming

Yesterday, I was out of the office for most of the day. I had to do some work in a little town called Clearmont, Wyoming. The drive was spectacular. Clearmont is about 45 miles east of Sheridan. The population is about 115. There is a general store, a bar, and a post office. When I arrived there they almost gave me a parade. They don't have visitors very often so they gathered all of the school children together and sang patriotic songs to me. The mayor let me wear his hat and gave me the keys to the city. The women from the Clearmont cattlewoman's association gave me a quilt that had been passed down through 5 generations. The volunteer fire department took me for a ride in their new 1972 firetruck, and the ladies of the senior center baked me a delicious apple pie.
OK, maybe none of that happened, but I did take a picture of this sweet redneck truck. Check out the exhaust pipes. I think I will make an offer.

My little man.

I haven't posted pics of my little boy for a while so I thought that I would post a couple of recents. This is Zachhy boy in his cowboy jammies. He loves his rocking chair.

Fighting the fight.

It's Monday morning and I am fighting the Monday battle of trying to get into a positive focus. I think that I am winning the battle. And it has been a battle. My alarm went off at 4:30 this morning and I swear, I just wanted to be sick and sleep the rest of the day, but I got up, got dressed and went to the gym. I was secretly hoping that my buddy wouldn't show up so I could just go jump in the shower and go to work, but he showed up. We lifted and I got feeling a little better this song came on and I hadn't heard it for a long long time and it kind of put me in a little better mood, and so after I got my blood pumping at the gym I decided in my mind that I would live to see another Friday, and hey by 7:00 I was feeling much better about life and ready to tackle it. I had a good weekend. Cindy, Zach, and I went to Green River for the funeral. It was good, except for the pastor that they hired, he was horrible. But hey what do you expect for a priest craft?? J/K. OK maybe not J/K. We had a good time though. We took the back way home and I really enjoyed the ride. Cindy and I never run out of things to talk about, and Zach was a good boy. I'm glad that after all of this time that we still enjoy each others company. I don't know what it is, but it seems like we can even find ways to enjoy funerals.

Kind of a Friday

Happy Friday.
I guess it's kind of a Friday. I'm taking tomorrow off to travel down to Green River for my friends funeral. Sorry to all for depressing posts. I will be a little more upbeat. I sometimes wonder what kind of a picture I paint of myself to those who don't know me. I wonder if, I would be dressed in a clown suit or dressed in black. Speaking of Green River, man I don't want to go there. If you have ever been to G.R. you know what I mean. The drive is horrible. That stretch between Rawlins and Green River is the most desolate windy hell that I have ever driven through. Maybe I can stop off and get some fireworks, yeah some fireworks. I think That I will leave tonight after work, stay the night and come home as soon as the funeral is over Friday morning. I can't think of any reason to spend time in G.R. My friend was too young to die. He was only 56. There I go again, writing all depressing stuff.

For every worry
under the sun.
There is a remedy
Or there is None.

If there is a remedy
hurry and find it
It there isn't
Nevermind it.

I think there are some things that we can fix and something that we can't. I think that we waste a lot of time worrying about things that we can't fix instead of using that time to fix the things that we can.

The day I snapped.

As a boy I lived in a fairly close nit neighborhood. I think that I knew everyone and I think that everyone knew me. There were a lot of kids around my age and we always had a lot of fun things going on. It didn't matter if we were out in the nearby fields building huts, or building dams on the irrigation ditches, we were all fairly active. Video games were just coming out and they just weren't as important to kids as they are now. In the bustle of all of the fun activities there was a black cloud about three houses down from mine. There lived, what I thought, and what all of the neighbor kids thought was the meanest man alive. Ever since I could remember, I remember tails of the evil of this man. Stories ranging from him stabbing his daughters with nails to punching little kids. Needless to say, I was a little scared of him. As I grew up, incident after incident confirmed my suspicions. There many occasions that I got yelled at. Sometimes for good reasons and sometimes for no reason at all. When riding my bike past his house, I always double timed my peddling to avoid any confrontation. He was just mean. He wasn't prejudice, he was mean to everyone, even his own kids. He had a son a few years younger than me, and I remember the famous church bathroom incident. On Sunday at church my younger brother and I walked into the bathroom and there he was. He was taking his son to the bathroom, and as some little kids do, as they take a wizz, his son had his pants dropped around his ankles. As our mean neighbor saw us, he said in a gruff voice to his son. "My hell Allen, Ive never seen a grown boy pee with his pants down." My little brother's jaw dropped as he looked at me speechless, he didn't know weather to laugh or just ignore it until he left. His son finished his business and they walked off. That further confirmed to us that he was the meanest man alive. He was even mean in church and he wasn't afraid to swear at kids at church. I think that my brother and I used and reused the famous bathroom quote over a million times. "My hell Gregg, I've never seen a grown boy pee with his pants down". Though comical, it was again a reaffirmation that he was the meanest man alive. My mean neighbor had a really neat 55 Chevy that was his pride and joy. If you looked at it wrong, you were yelled at. We usually steered clear of it for personal protection.
Then one day, the tables turned, the right stars aligned and It happened. I snapped.
One summer evening, my friend Dale and I were walking up the street. The mood was set. I was 11 or 12 years old, the testosterone had just started flowing in my body, girls were starting to become interesting to me, I was as smart as I ever remember feeling, and that particular night I was feeling extraordinarily tough, I felt good, I felt confident, most important, I felt like a man. As we walked up the street to my house our path fell unavoidably past his house and past his beloved cherry red 55 Chevy. I noticed something different about the car. It had new rims, and naturally I had to stop to take it in. I stopped and pointed out the new rims to my friend. My friend nudged me and pointed out that our mean neighbor was on the porch watching his new rims. It was too late, I had stopped too long and there it came:"You two get your @$$es away from my car." Expecting us to run, he stood up, my friend Dale assumed starting block position. There was a noise in my brain that sounded like a rubber band getting pulled to a breaking point, and I snapped. I said NO! As I walked towards him, And then came a flood of words that would have made Perry Mason silent. He stood there in shock as I let him have it. He hung on every word. When I finished, I stood there waiting for a punch or something and I didn't get it. He just looked down at the ground and apologised. In fact it was probably the most sincere apology that I had ever heard. He talked to me and explained previous events in his life that caused him to be the mean man that he was. That night we stood out in front of his house even past dark and talked. We talked like men. I went home that night, stunned at the reality of what had taken place. From that time forward he never yelled at me again. I would pass his house, he would wave and I would wave back. Some days we even had conversations. He respected me and I knew it. I never had any trouble from that time forward.
I learned something that day. I learned that if you are right, and that is if you are right. (Very important.) You have to stand up for that. Sometimes you have to stand up for that aggressively. It's easy to be passive and just let things slip, and I believe turning the other cheek is important, but you can only turn the other cheek for so long. Some times you have to fix it.

My Friend and My Regrets.

When I moved to Wyoming, I kind of came here with faith and a prayer. With a combination of some answered prayers, spiritual guidance, and a heck of a job offer, I packed my bags and moved blindly to Sheridan, Wyoming. I had never been there in my life. I was worried as I traveled through that rough Hell they call southern Wyoming, that I was possibly making the biggest mistake of my life, but as I traveled northward and began getting into the Northern Heaven of Wyoming, I realized just how lucky I had become. I came to work for a man named John Dolinar. A man of whom I had only talked to on the phone, but a man who either was a very generous man, or a dang good con-artist. I worked for John for around two months before I met him in person. We met at a CPR training. His presence was something unexplainable. He was a very large man. I noticed him immediately as I climbed out of my work truck. He looked like some mob boss out of a movie. He stood there smoking a Camel. As I approached him he gave me a little smile stuck out his hand and I shook it. I said " I guess your my boss huh" and he said yep. John kept a closed circle, and earning his respect and trust was a pretty big accomplishment. Through the two years that I worked for him, I spent at least half of that time earning his trust and respect. As time went on John and I started doing a lot of work together. and while working we became very good friends. There were days that we would spend the last two hours of the day just talking about life. Some days he would just call my office and we would just talk. Nothing ever specific just life in general. John and I had two separate systems of beliefs, but I learned a lot about life in general from him. John was a smart man. John went from being the guy that didn't have a pot to pee in, to being the guy that handed out the pots to pee in. He was happy to bring others along with him. As I became closer to him, I became close to his family, and they became my family away from my family. About a year ago a couple of opportunities arose for me to make a career change. Even though I wasn't looking for a change, I prayed about what to do and felt a strong feeling to make the move. One of the hardest days of my life was telling my friend John that I was leaving the company. It was hard for me and hard for my wife, she had grown to love John too. That day as I climbed into my SUV to make the 1.5 hour drive to Gillette, my wife just stood there with tears in her eyes. I knew what I had to do, and I knew what God wanted me to do. So I went and did it. I felt horrible that day as I walked into John's suite. I knocked on the door, he opened the door and said: "Well Dave, what are you doing here, do you want to go and grab some dinner". I looked down at the floor and said that I wasn't hungry and that I needed to talk to him. I told him of my decision, he tried to bribe me out of my decision, and understandably accepted my resignation. About a couple of months later he was diagnosed with lung and liver cancer. We met up about a month after that at a Wyoming Engineering Society's meeting and we sat down at the bar. He had quit drinking and I didn't drink so we drank diet Cokes and talked about his sickness. He had quit smoking that week, but it was a little too late. That night at the formal banquet, my wife and I sat down and ate dinner with he and his family, we still felt like a part of his family even after we left it. Time passed. I made a couple of phone calls, wrote a few emails, and last week I made the attempt to visit him. He was gone. Now here I am.
I titled my blog, "My Friend and My Regrets" because I have regrets. I have a lot of them. I don't have regrets for John, because he was a good man. I know God loved him and I understand that he has been taken back to that God who gave him life. I have regrets for the kind of friend that I was. There were so many times that I thought that I should go and visit, and so many times that I thought that I should call, but I blew them off because I was so focused on other things. I never changed the way I felt about my friend, I just got so busy with my other agendas that I put him on the back burner. I don't know why I am like that. I don't have a lot of regrets, but the way I have tossed old friends on the back burner is a regret that I will have to live with the rest of my life. I can look back on my life and see a lot of friends that really meant a lot to me that, as our lives took different courses, I tossed on the back burner until I eventually had nothing to do with them. Not that I didn't think the world of them, but I was so focused on the course that I was taking, that I didn't take the time to keep in touch, or just let them know that I still thought they were great and that they still meant a lot to me. And for that I have a hollow regret. I wish I would have not done that with my friend John, because now it's too late. I guess I have never been good at walking and chewing gum at the same time. I think that I probably should start to learn.

My friend John

I found out about a half hour ago, that a good friend of mine had died. He was diagnosed with lung and liver cancer about a 9 months ago. They gave him three months to live. He made it 6 more. He worked his job up until Friday. It wasn't in him to just give up and die. I really don't know what to think. I guess I will just sit here and feel bad. I think I will write about him a little later today.

A little Superstitious

When I lived in Cedar City, I rented a house from a friend of mine, his name was Bud. The longer I rented from him the better friends we became. Bud was and is probably one of the nicest guys I know. He was just a good person. Bud was about 65 at the time, and he and I would spend hours just talking. I didn't do a lot of talking (which is hard to believe), with Bud I did a lot of listening. Bud was a good enough person that I found myself wanting to be a good person the more I was around him. Bud at one time was my principal, and on one occasion, I got into some trouble and was sent to his office and instead of getting mad at me he pulled out his guitar and sang to me. That was just the kind of man he was. One day Bud and I were driving out to his farm to build some shelves and he told me something. He said: "Dave, in all the years that I have been driving this route to the farm I've noticed something. I have noticed that I can generally judge how my day is going to be, by the stoplights." I looked at him with a smirk and said: "Come on, I didn't know you were superstitious". He said:"no, I'm not superstitious but in the last 40 or so years, I have noticed that if when I come to the intersections, if the stoplights are all green as I pass, I usually tend to have a better day. If the stoplights are red when I get there, I usually have a bad day. If I get a mixture, I usually have an average day." I kind of laughed it off.
I thought it was funny, there was Bud, a religious man, but superstitious. I didn't think you could mix and match them. It has given me something to think about.
Now that I am kind of getting into a routine, I have found my own superstition. I guess it sounds dumb but I am starting to believe it. I have found that in the morning If I see a deer I usually have a good day, if I see a buck I have a better day, and If I see a big buck I have an excellent day. If, on the way to the gym in the morning, there is a train in the intersection I usually have a bad day. If I am stopped for a long time, it is a really bad day, if I am stopped for a short period of time it is a so so day. I know that sounds nuts but I am a believer. Take for instance today. As I drove up my lane I saw no deer. As I drove into town sure enough it was the train. Luckily I only had to wait for about 30 seconds, so I knew the day would be so so. Probably not good but not bad either. Well today has been that way. My day started off with some old guy taking my towel at the YMCA shower and leaving me with a dishrag that who knows where had been. No big deal, I made it through it. Work has been so so, my high dollar computer crashed once, and I lost a design that I was working on. No big deal, I redid it. I went home for lunch, got busy playing with my little boy that I took a little longer than needed so in my hurry to get back to work, I pass a Wyoming Highway Patrolman who of course pulls me over. I have no licence with me and no seat belt on, luckily I found my proof of insurance. Well, he is a little hot under the collar, so I start pulling out my bag of "get out of a ticket" tricks. He goes back into his SUV, comes out a little later. Says "well our system is down so I can't check your driving record. I will let you off with a warning. " I told him that if he didn't have a night stick and a can of mace I would give him a hug. He kind of laughed and let me on my way. So, bad luck that I got pulled over, not so bad that I talked my way out of a ticket. I got back to work, and one of the bosses called and asked me to do something for him on the weekend. Bad luck because Now I gotta do something on the weekend. Not so bad because I found out that I was a week ahead on a design that I thought was due on Monday.
Well, just a random thought. Try it for yourselves, I wasn't a believer but now I kind of am. I do think that sometimes we make our own luck but I also believe that sometimes we are going to get what we have coming.

Today

Today I'm not feeling smart, witty, or even full of crap. I'm not feeling bad. I'm not feeling good. My body aches all over but I am feeling healthy. I've had a good day at work, I designed a gravel access road and a borrow pit for my new bridge project. It was fun because I did a lot of that when I was working for big oil and gas. I used different software but it was the same concept. The leaves are starting to turn and fall is in the air. It is starting to get chilly, and I suppose the long cold winter is ahead of us. I am a little torn, I love this time of year because of hunting season, Deer, Elk,Goose, duck, pheasant, etc. But I always hate to see summer leave. I love the quite cold of winter. I don't know if I can explain it but there is something about 30 below weather that is, well I cant think of a word for it, you just get a feeling of something, but it's not bad. I guess you have to experience it.
I'm going on day five without caffeine. That's pretty good for me considering the amount of that stuff that I consume. I won't go into details of my level of consumption, but if you know me you know that I consumed way too much. I decided that probably wasn't healthy, and I am feeling a little better now because of it. I'm surprised that I am not going through any withdrawls from it. I guess I have been a little tired, but I have been getting up at 4:30 to go to the gym every morning. I think that warrants a little grogginess.
I guess that is that for the day. I think I will go home.

Baggage Resurfaced

When I first started my blog, I decided to use it as a tool to revisit old baggage that I had been carrying along with me. (See April archive) I found it quite therapeutic. I found that as I blogged about damaging things that happened to me as a young boy and man, that I felt better. Well some baggage has resurfaced as of late and I would like to talk about it. This baggage resurfaced as I walked past the feminine hygiene department at Walmart last night. As most men know, walking through the "feminine" isle not a comfortable thing. You get nervous, clam up and don't say a word. I don't know if it is just because that is a subject that we don't like to talk about or we don't understand it, or after enduring the aftermath of a monthly emotional cycle, despise it and wish it would go away. I don't know why, and maybe I am alone, I get an uncomfortable feeling in that isle, and I really don't enjoy the subject. It's kind of like when I go shopping with my wife and she asks me to hold her purse. That's fine and all, but while she is trying on clothes, I am stuck there in a women's clothing store holding a purse. No matter how masculine I hold the purse(I prefer the football method), I am still a dude standing alone in a women's clothing store holding a purse. You get my drift, Its all uncomfortable. I don't think women realise how uncomfortable it is. As a man, I really don't like stopping by the store on the way home from work to pick up feminine products. There is nothing like running into one of your friends carring a 100 pack of gentle scented super absorbency. I grew up with 3 brothers and no sisters. I don't understand all of it. I don't want to understand it. I remember stealing Tampax from my mom as a little boy thinking they were bombs because of the string. My friends thought they were bombs too. I liked it better when they were bombs. Anyways back to the baggage. I remember when I was a boy, I had a sharp fillet knife that I was using to cut a box. As I made a hard cut, the knife slipped and cut my finger. The cut was deep, and began to bleed profusely. My sweet mother that was nearby came to my rescue. She ran to the end hall closet and pulled out the biggest band aid that I had ever seen. It was about 8" long and about 3 inches wide. It was white and the sticky side was on the outside. I had never seen a band aid like this. She took this band aid and wrapped it around my finger. It absorbed and stopped the bleeding almost immediately. I was pleased. So I continued cutting on my box. All was well, until my older brother got home with one of his friends. I told him about the cut and he looked at the band aid and began to laugh and call me pad boy. I remember in detail, my brother looking up to my mom and saying, why would you use that? and she said it was the best way to stop blood. My brother continued to tease me, so I got a little suspicious about this giant band aid, and started asking questions. Well my mom didn't want to go there and I never knew what it was for until about two years later. When I found out that it was really not a giant bandaid I was furious. In fact, I believe that was the first time in my life that I ever said the F word. I said it to myself but I said it out loud. No one heard me that day, but after dropping the F bomb, I vowed to never tell a soul about my giant band aid.
Well, there it is. I have broken my vow of silence to ease the pain.
I want to tell my mother that I forgive her for wrapping a giant band aid around my cut finger causing deep emotional scars that lasted much longer that the scars from the actual cut. I hope she will forgive me for saying the F word. I love you Mom.

New Work Site

With the completion of my water tank, I have had to move onto a new Job. This is a picture of the completed tank. I went to my new work site yesterday to do a little recon, and the site is awesome. I will be supervising the construction of a Bridge that spans the Tongue River. It's a decent sized bridge and I imagine I will spend quite a bit of time out there. It is close to the Bighorns so the trout fishing should be nice. Perhaps, I will have to slip a pole into my work truck. The area is beautiful.

Wound Update

Well, I thought I would update everyone on my wound. I know that there has been a lot of lost sleep over it. My deer horn wound is looking really gross. everything around it is hard. Today I decided to squeeze it and all of this black nasty stuff oozed out of it. I think squeezing it helped, and a kid from my office thinks it is looking pretty cool. I think that tonight I will give myself a shot of cow penicillin, I'm not sure the best way to do it though, with cows and dogs you just lift a the skin up. But you cant do that with people. Does anyone know if it's OK to shoot it into the muscle? I know you shouldn't shoot it into veins. I'll have to ask the rancher down the road, he medicates himself all the time.

A good weekend.

I had a pretty good weekend this weekend. In fact it was I guess about as good as I have had. I didn't catch a big fish or shoot a big buck or Elk.
Friday after work I got home and Cindy had a church meeting to go to so It was just me and Zacchy boy. So we decided to go for a ride around the ranch in the truck. Zach stood on my lap while he held on to the steering wheel and we putted around the ranch at about 5 mph. We let Angus come along with us, he ran along with the truck looking for birds, snakes and rabbits. Zach sang along to the Chris Ledoux songs about as good as a 9 month old could sing. We drove down to the creek and threw rocks in the water for Angus to fetch. We looked at a couple of deer and honked the horn at the cows. Zach's eyes were as lit up as I had ever seen them. He was just taking everything in. After about 45 minutes his legs were a little tired from standing so he sat on my knee and watched out the window, pausing every couple of minutes to look up at me and smile. There was a fresh cut hay smell in the air as the sun sat in a big Wyoming sky. When we got back to the house, Angus was pooped so we fed him and put him to bed. By that time Cindy got home and we decided to go to the Sheridan High School football game. I don't think that I had been to a High School Football game since High School. When we arrived at the high school stadium the band was playing, the smell of hamburger was in the air, highschool kids were running around trying to impress each other, it was great. We walked into the stands and found some friends from church, Zach loved the band and all of the excitement. It took about 30 seconds before Zach was snatched up by one of the young women from church, so Cindy and I had a chance to enjoy the game together. Cindy looked stunning. I am still amazed that someone so perfect as Cindy would marry someone so imperfect as me, and get alongs as good as we do and still be madly in love.
I guess from one perspective, a person could say it was a normal night. But for me it was everything. I couldn't ever imagine ever being without my wife and little boy. I couldn't imagine being happy after I have what I have and if I lost what I have. I guess everything else is trivial. I hope that I can do what I need to do here so I can have there what matters most to me here. I think that is all that really matters.

Boob

So the other day when I was dragging my deer out, I wore shorts, (as you can see in the previous picture.) I don't hunt in shorts but I thought I would have to go swimming in the ditch to drag that deer out. Well, got lucky and didn't have to swim but while I was pulling this 200 lb deer over the ditch bank one of the horns stabbed my leg. I don't know if you have ever felt how sharp a horn is just after it has lost it's velvet but they are fricken sharp, well this bloody horn jabbed about 2 inches deep into my leg, so I pull it out and and try to bleed it out the best I can and keep going. Well I'm in a hurry that day so I can get to work so after I cut up my deer. (Which I did in 30 minutes, pretty fricken fast!), I got in the shower scrubbed it a little bit and went to work. I didn't do anything with it. Well now its three days later and all infected. I wonder if I can get a disease from a deer horn stab. The gross thing about it is the horn was bloody from freshly loosing it's velvet. Maybe I will give myself a shot of Cow penicillin when I get home (worked for my dog rattlesnake bite.) This is a picture, and I don't think it does it justice. I just thought I would wine about it. How is that for poetic justice, I stab the deer and the deer stabs me. I guess that is fair. And you have to listen to me boob. :) Yeah and no comments about the tan Rick. I live in Wyoming we don't have tan time every day.

Bittersweet

Well, yesterday was a little bittersweet. The bow hunt started on September 1st and I hadn't been out yet. All summer I practiced with my bow, well maybe not all summer, but I spent a little more time this year practicing with my bow, and got to where I could have pretty good placement at decent distances. Well yesterday I went out hunting for the first night. I had been watching a few bucks and noting the time that they came into the pasture. I had noticed one buck in particular. He was coming in fairly late but it seemed like clockwork that he would show at a certain place at a certain time. So I hunkered down in an irrigation ditch and waited. I would say that I waited for about 3 hours. Right at the time that I expected a buck appeared. It was late. I could see antlers and a very large body. So I began to stock. As I stocked up the irrigation ditch. I figured that if I could get within 50 yards I could make a competent shot. So when I got to the position that I guessed was 50 yards (I don't use a rangefinder) I slowly appeared, drew my bow, steadied on the 50 yard pin, and pulled the release. The arrow flew through the air as fast as a 70lb draw Matthews Switchback could throw it, and wham! a direct hit in the vitals. The buck kind of jumped but didn't know what was going on, walked about 25 yards and laid down. I waited for about 45 minutes and walked towards him, he jumped up, so I decided to let him bleed it out. I went home, and went to bed. I tossed and turned until 1:00Am got up and drove to the location that I had seen him last. He had gone and jumped into a ditch. Not feeling like getting wet I decided to get him in the morning. This morning I went to the ditch and there he was. Then the disappointment set in. He wasn't the buck that I thought I shot. Not the one that I had been watching. A different buck. Not near as big, but a good buck to shoot. He was old and had weaker horns for an older buck. I guess a good management buck. But crap. I really wanted to get a bigger buck. He would be alright for probably the average hunt, but who cares I live on a fricken premier hunting ranch. It was sweet because it was my first "official" buck shot with a bow and the shot placement was excellent. Right through the vitals at 50 yards. I think the shot was noteworthy. But the bitter part came when I looked at this small management buck. This is a picture of the buck. I know that I am opening myself up to a little ridicule by posting this picture but I deserve it. I guess the lesson learned was: No matter how sure you are that you are on the right path you better double check, its easy to be deceived and its easy to deceive yourself.

I guess I still have my Utah hunt, but crap, if you have ever seen the bucks on my place you would be fricken disappointed in me. I've let down myself. The Sweet thing is: If this is my biggest problem in life then maybe life isn't that bad.

I would like to give a shout out to my sponsors:

Matthews Bows, for giving me a bow that when in my hands is deadly accurate, and for costing enough that my kid will have to go to a junior college.

Easton Carbon Arrows that have a good composite layout but have crappy fletching that falls off.

Dave Riddle for re-fletching the arrow at the balance points with good glue. (fletching did not come off after traveling through the buck)

G4 broadheads for providing me with field point accuracy. Though the price should include gold plating.

Prairie Ghost Camo (even though they look like pj's.) (which I am not wearing in the picture)

My Mom and Dad (for superior hunting genetics)

My Wife and The Holy Ghost (for making me feel guilty enough that I didn't just leave that little buck in the ditch and going for a bigger one.)

My brothers, who even though this buck is bigger than anything that they will kill will give me an infinite amount of crap.

My wife again who is totally turned on by my hunting skills.

My little boy Zach that has helped me to be true to myself.

Jesus, for all of it.