First Night

The first night of fishing is over. The morning tide was passed up
due to a lightning storm that passed by. We opted for breakfast after
wandering around Freeport. It was a nice little place. Then we
wandered for far too long looking for Hannaford. First Ryan thought
it was south on rt 9 on the left. Then I thought it was north on the
left. Then we decided to go to the campground. But on the way we
wanted to try for hannaford again. I found one with a gps, but Ryan
drove right by and had to turn around. So now everything is 'on the
left'. We tried the evening tide but didn't even get a hit, let alone
a fish. We we're in good spirits though and now we are headed back to
the campground for some much needed sleep. More tomorrow.

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First Morning - Higgins Beach

I have arrived after a 5am alarm and 3 hour drive and it is fantastic.
Joel and Ryan came down last night but were not here when I arrived.
I used my phone to call and found them parked at LL bean's lot.
Apparently they went there after fishing the tide last night and fell
asleep in the parking lot. So I beat them here! But they have all
the gear so I'll have to wait. Otherwise I'd be in the surf right now
looking for stripers. More to come tonight after fishing.

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Fishing and a Water Heater

I'm gearing up for a 3 day weekend of fishing for striper.  I've got to get up at 5:00am to drive to Southern Maine and arrive by 8:30am to meet my brother and a friend at Higgins Beach.  We are going to be striper fishing, specifically, saltwater flyfishing for striper bass.  I've done this one before 2 years ago and it was a blast.  It can be a little brutal because you end up fishing by the tide.  Last time that meant getting up at 1am and fishing until about 5am.  *Phew*  But the striper are suppose to be top action this time of year.  So I'm quite excited.  And I almost didn't go...wait...what?  Yeah.  I almost didn't go. 

I'm at work today, nearly on another plane of existence thinking of pulling in large whale-size fish so I can ride them around like King Titan in the ocean seas, and I find out my water heater, an on demand propane water heater, so it doesn't have a tank, isn't working.  So I leave early to try and beat it home before the stores close in case I neat some parts.  I look at the water heater and I don't have a clue.  Looking online reveals it is a discontinued unit and tech. support for the thing is closed until Monday.  Hey, it is Friday after 5 by this time...who can blame them?  I talk with my wife and make a last minute decision to put in an electric water heater.  I've been wanting to anyway with the cost of propane.  But how am I going to manage purchasing one when the store closes in 15 minutes and I am not an expert plumber by any means?  The first thing I did right as I was driving home was to pray for some wisdom, because I was coming up pretty dry and not 100% sure what to do.  So God had some mercy while I was wondering whether my fishing trip was on or not.  I called a friend and he met me at the hardware store.  He got the plumbing parts, I got the electrical pieces, and a few hours later, *poof*, an electric water heater is in place.

So now I'm packed up, ready to go, and hitting the couch with a book for a few before I pass out and start the drive tomorrow.  Stay tuned for an evening post of the fishing fun tomorrow!

Free classes

I have found, for me, what is some of the most exciting sort of thing to find online. Free MIT courses. They've taken recorded lectures of all kinds and put them on their site. They have lecture notes if that interests you, and also tests with answer sheets. You won't get credit, but there is the potential to learn a bunch. I'm interested in physics myself. A number of other courses are available as well.

Get started here:
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Physics/index.htm

Ideas...

Here's an idea I had after reading about some companies taking advantage of SMS text messaging and providing coupons through phones.

Movie Gallery, to compete, should offer at the counter to take your cellphone and send you a reminder when the 5 day rental is due back.  Maybe the day before.  Also they could deliver text messages on new movies coming out, coupons for discounted rentals, and movies you may be interested in that others have rented in relation to a movie you rented...a lot like netflix does with their website.

Thought of the day

Multitasking is an ambiguous term that has varying levels of implementation.  One should employ this method of working in limited fashion as work quality exponentially decreases with greater use of this skill.  Although looked at as a skill one should put on their resume and sell as a personal plus they bring to any job, this is highly oversold and thought of as a wonderful thing.  However one must remember we are not multidimensional beings.  We occupy one area of space at a time and therefore multitasking is must be weighed out and balanced against this very real physical fact.

Speaking of multitasking...I've multitasked myself away from what I was originally working on...

Online Tools

Online tools are getting more and more powerful, so I wanted to mention a couple that I've enjoyed recently.

Google Reader (http://reader.google.com)
This is truly a fantastic invention. More and more I enjoy this site. If you visit a number of sites on a regular basis looking for updated articles, this is the site for you. It is a way to grab all those sites, and stick them into an inbox style list that lets you view a synopsis of the articles off a particular site, browse through quickly, marking read items so you know if a new post comes in, and allowing you to keep track of all the sites you like to visit. And no bookmarks! You can be on any machine anywhere and pick this up. It is truly more and more enjoyable as you use it over time and you wonder why someone didn't tell you about it sooner.

Del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us)
I started using this as a bookmark site because I got tired of again, going to a new machine, a new computer, and not having that bookmark. Well no more! With Delicious I can bookmark and go...and at that other computer pull up the same list of bookmarks.
There are a couple really excellent features with this that bookmarks don't offer. It is a site that other use and bookmark their sites, so you get to see how many others are bookmarking the site you bookmark. Second, you can network with others and share bookmarks. Third, you can search on tag words that you setup when you bookmarked a page. Fourth (running out of fingers) you can search on other peoples tag words, helping you find sites that google and other regular search engines really may not help you find as easily.
Digg is a similar site; I just haven't used it yet.

Google Docs (http://docs.google.com)
Store documents online for access anywhere. Word docs, spreadsheets, you name it. Basically comparable to an online microsoft word, google style! Whatever you might want to save here you can; and even share it with others. It is really quite a system and a treat especially since it is free.

Good enough for now; I had a moment and thought I'd do a dendrite dump.