Reading: Kurt Vonnegut
Music: Stan Hugill
TV/Movie: Connections 2
Link o' the Day: Shanties and Sea Songs



The weather is getting warmer. Fish are rumored to be coming up the bay now and then. I've got a new tacklebox. Put one plus one plus one together and you get me getting into the start of fishing season. I went out for the first time last Saturday--not expecting to catch anything. I just needed to get into the swing of things. The cheap pole I bought for bait fishing turned out to be very cheap and I ended up just leaving it in the trash as I left the dock. And I've learned just how messy clam belly is. And it has a tendency to fly off the hook during casting. I think I'll go back to clam tongue. And get a better pole for the bait fishing. Plus I need to set up the heavier pole for bait casting. Oh, and I now recall why it's not a good idea to cast into the wind. And I'm starting to remember some of the tricks to knowing where the fish are.

It's all a learning experience. I think this year I'm going to try some freshwater fishing. More learning. I'm still the world's worst fisherman. Still, it's relaxing and I like being out there in the morning. Hooking a fish or three is nice, but I have nearly as good a time as when I don't. Plus the time on the dock give me time to think and reflect. And every now and then I'll use the time to suss out a story idea.

So not a loss by any stretch.

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I had a pretty productive day yesterday and am hoping to duplicate that today. No reason why I won't. Everything is more or less on schedule. I work on the second half of the Design Integration book, then work on the graphics. Doris Day is nearly done as far as the text edits go. then I have new photos to put in and some re-wrapping. Oz Squad is even closer to being done. The revised edition of TumbleTap Presents: 2009 are being printed as I type and I should get a nice big box of those soon. The medical journal is just about ready to hit the printer. I'm waiting on some last minute ads, then that's good to go. This month's cover image, shown here, is "I Wonder" by Frank Robertson.



It's all good.

the only thing I'm behind on is some writing, both fiction and nonfiction stuff. I think today I'm going to work on some posts for The Charge of the Write Brigade of which I'll speak more of anon. I'm tempted to cover the topic of collaborations--not because I've done a lot of collaborative work, but I've been reading other people's horror stories. Sometimes it works real well, but when it doesn't--itcan be a disaster.

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Today's link takes you to a good page chock full of Shanties and Sea Songs lyrics. No musical notation, but loads of lyrics. The best feature is the listing of varying versions of most of the shanties. Like most folk music, there's no one "correct" version, but rather countless variations. Give it a look and you'll see what I mean.

Cheers!