Beach Trip at Holden Beach NC 2008

We just got back from our annual beach trip at Holden Beach yesterday. It seems these trips are just too short, over before they start, but that's what happens when your having a lot of fun I guess. If I had the ability to hand-pick the weather for the week, the conditions could not have been chosen any better than what Mother Earth gave our family.

We left on Sat morning and checked in around 2 pm. The weather was cool, windy and a little rainy Saturday, so we left the boat on the trailer and fishing rods in the truck and enjoyed the fact that we were on vacation and had no responsibilities except to enjoy life and each other.

The weather improved Sunday as the sun and warmth returned, although it remained a little windy. I put the boat in the water early while Cecilia worked on waking. We did a little flounder fishing with no luck. A friend from work came down Sunday evening through Monday afternoon, so we fished quite a bit and although we caught 3-4 flounder and a few other assorted fish, nothing was large enough to keep for dinner.

We had several other friends make short visits, so there was not a whole lot of alone time, but we did get a few more fishing trips together. The highlight was on Wednesday when Cecilia hooked what I'm positive was the largest flounder we've ever caught. The tell sign is when you pull up on the rod tip and cannot budge the fish. Unfortunately the fish had half the finger mullet in it's mouth, but not the hook, so as it's shadow came in sight the fish released the mullet. Cecilia did get excited when she pulled a flounder in the boat later in the day, but the fish as a little short to keep at 13 inches.

I fished each morning early. It was nice to have the company of Cody and Cady. They make great boat dogs. For the first time, although the weather, moon and time of the year considerations pointed to one of the best weeks of fishing of the year, I did not catch a single keeper flounder all week, only a few bluefish and lizard fish. The two keeper flounder were hooked in quick succession Thursday morning from the pier. I found out that day that the flounder action was hot Sun-Thu in the morning at high tide. The flounder lady I made friends with caught 4-5 good sized fish each morning. Nonetheless, the trip is mainly about having fun and not neccessarily catching fish the whole time. Cecilia and I had a nice fried flounder dinner on Friday night before we left.


Cady in the Captain chair


Cody and Cady on our Dock


Oh, Cecilia did not spend much time at the beach, but I got a little saltwater therapy almost every day, mostly in the afternoon. The surf was not good enough most of the week, so I swam or just floated in the ocean in the afternoon and some evenings. A few good waves were caught on the Saturday we arrived.

My main regret as I sit here Sunday morning is that I did not take more pictures of us, but I did take some of the dogs.

This is a picture of a place we call Bailey's beach, which is the spot we started taking Bailey our first dog that died last November. We take the dogs here to let them play and swim. Cecilia and I wrote some words about Bailey and read them on Wed afternoon in memory of her.



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Politics 2008

As I write my blog this morning Colin Powell just endorsed the judgment and leadership style of Barack Obama. Any non-biased person over the last month would agree that Obama presents a more calm, collective and intellegent approach to problems. McCain has not only shown that he had poor judgment in his pick of Palin, but has proven an erratic leadership style by the fact that his campaign jumps back and forth its focus. Powell just stated a similar opinion and talked about the jumping from Ayres to tax/wealth redistribution.

The Ayres issues is just silly. It was the Annanburg Foundation, a Republican group that was started by one of Reagan's ambassadors, who funded Ayres proposal for an education program for intercity schools. That is right, if you want to tag Obama as a radical supporter of a terrorist then you need to also agree that the Republican Annanburg Foundation funds terrrorist. Again it's silly to say that because a group of Republicans and Democratic civic and buisness leaders in Chicago serve on a board that focuses on educational issues and one of the members did some bad things 30 years ago that all the people somehow are tied to those past transgressions. I just recieved a flyer from the NC RNC regarding this and shot back an email that describes my Republican roots including the scouting merit badge that orginally had me register as an NC Republican. I told them Bush lost me and I'm now an Independent, and a large part of that transition are the Rovian political strategies that this Ayres issue fall within.

They also sent another flyer that further illustrates how behind the times Rovian politics is now. It tries to link Obama to Hollywood. I know this is a good dogwhistle with the base of the Republican party, but come on, send me something on how John McCain's policies are better than Obama's. Again, don't treat me like I'm stupid Republicans. When your only telling me how bad the other person is and not telling me how great you are, there must be something your hiding.

One last piece of information is Obama's latest fund raising. This is the definition of grass roots organization and contributions.

Over 632,000 new donors.

3.1 million total donors.

More than $150 MILLION.

Average contribution for the month was under $100.

Average contribution for the entire campaign is around $86.

As a proud American, I'm even more proud that I have been a part of what could be a historic election. Each time I see an Obama ad in NC I see my small contributions put to good use.

Fall/Winter Garden

Family: The garden as a whole did well this summer. This was our second summer garden, which was expanded from last year. My goal was to can/freeze enough that it could be eaten on all winter; this did not neccessarily happen, but we did improve from the first year and learned a lot that will push us closer to that goal next year. The best vegtable of the summer award goes to the heirloom Brandywine tomatoes that according to Mother Earth News are considered the most tasty variety; our tastebuds certainly agree on that ranking. These were grown from seed and while they don't bear a huge amount of fruit, what they lack in quanity they make up for in taste and size. BLT sandwitches are a staple in our house when toms are ripe. Runner-up had to be the bananna peppers that were pickled. These are so tasty on sandwiches and salads; the crop was large enough that this was the only vegtable that was plentiful enough to last all winter. Third place goes to the basil crop. If you have not made or tasted pesto, you need to. I'm able to make batches or pesto throughout the summer and freeze for winter use. Last year we had pesto on pasta through early spring. Last place goes to the squash; we had very little because of a vine boaring worm. I may have to use chemicals next year to get a squash harvest because none of the organic methods worked.

I don't recall the Gilliam's in the late 70's or 80's ever putting in a fall or spring garden, so this was something new last fall and this spring and again in a more expanded form this fall. Many different cool season crop were planted over the past month including collards, broccoli, leaf lettuce, radishes, brussel sprouts, cabbage and arugala. I was amazed last year that the collards, brussel sprouts and broccoli kept producing throughout the winter even after temps dropped into the teens a few times. We never ate collards when young, but I've found these are delicous winter time greens. The vegetable has been a staple of eastern NC culture since colonial days because it was practially the only fresh vegtable people had for certain vitamins in the winter. Collards tast best once they are exposed to a good frost, so I'm hoping to bring a pot to the table when we visit for Thanksgiving this year. I would post some pictures of the fall garden, but my camara battaries are dead. Will do next time.



Politics:

Wow, I re-read my last blog and it occurred to me that the passion of the moment was a little harsh. I hope no one was too offended. I also have to do a bit of a mea culpa on assigning blame only too Phil Gramm and the republican party. I've used factcheck.org in the past to knock down unfair allagations against Obama, so there's a need to remain consistant. FactCheck.org just did a write up on the core reasons for the economic mess were in now, and while 2/3 of the blame probably does lie with the Bush and his oversight of the economy via Treasury Sec and his influence on market regulation and Federal reserve, as well as the Republican lead congress from 1996-2006, and especially the period 2001-2006 when all of the bad morgages were made; the democrates and the Clinton Administration do hold some blame. Here is a list of causes:

a partial list of those alleged to be at fault:

• The Federal Reserve, which slashed interest rates after the dot-com bubble burst, making credit cheap.
  
  
• Home buyers, who took advantage of easy credit to bid up the prices of homes excessively.
  
  
• Congress, which continues to support a mortgage tax deduction that gives consumers a tax incentive to buy more expensive houses.
  
  
• Real estate agents, most of whom work for the sellers rather than the buyers and who earned higher commissions from selling more expensive homes.
  
  
• The Clinton administration, which pushed for less stringent credit and downpayment requirements for working- and middle-class families.
  
  
• Mortgage brokers, who offered less-credit-worthy home buyers subprime, adjustable rate loans with low initial payments, but exploding interest rates.
  
  
• Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, who in 2004, near the peak of the housing bubble, encouraged Americans to take out adjustable rate mortgages.
  
  
• Wall Street firms, who paid too little attention to the quality of the risky loans that they bundled into Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS), and issued bonds using those securities as collateral.
  
  
• The Bush administration, which failed to provide needed government oversight of the increasingly dicey mortgage-backed securities market.
  
  
• An obscure accounting rule called mark-to-market, which can have the paradoxical result of making assets be worth less on paper than they are in reality during times of panic.
  
  
• Collective delusion, or a belief on the part of all parties that home prices would keep rising forever, no matter how high or how fast they had already gone up.