I have officially been cleared of all charges and the lawsuit against me has been “Dismissed with predjudice”

Having never been a defendant(besides for one traffic violation as a wee lad), or been sued for that matter I was unsure what that actually meant.  First thought, the charges were dropped and they’re not happy about it.  What it actually means… When a case is dismissed for good reason and the plaintiff is barred from bringing an action on the same claim.  Hoooray, no more silly law suits.

And if you have no idea what i’m talking about, I got dragged into a law suit for my accident that happened 2+ years ago (lawsuit was filed 1 day before the statute of limitations was met, convenient ehh).  The plaintiff said that I caused injury to her by hitting her car from behind after the Mini van had hit her head on.  Except by that time her car had already left the highway, crossed the ditch and ended up in a field. The only vehicle I hit was the dust buster-esque mini van that was careening towards me in my lane after hitting the plaintiffs car.

Justice was serverd!! (at least in my side of the case)

Yeah it’s been a long while, but I’m still here… I’m a busy boy

• I got a new job!  I’m no longer Full Time DBA at CBE.  I’ve moved on to Veridian.  What’s that mean?  Lots of things, new faces, new skill sets, new problems, AND a new wardrobe.  Anybody want some heavily worn polo’s?
• My house is a mess. (Surprise Surprise)  I’m currently redoing my kitchen cabinets.  Just kind of a spur of the moment deal.  Why didn’t anyone tell me how hard to was to remove 4 layers of polyurethane and nasty orange stain.   Before, During and After pictures will be posted when I finish (in 6 months)
• I got a new toy!  1999 CR250.  I haven’t had the chance to ride it more than just the test drive and down the road and back (ok and once around the back yard but that made a BIG mess so I wont be doing that again) but it’s one scary machine.  And if you’re not sure what a 1999 CR250 is it’s a big mean dirt bike.
• The ice has melted!  It’s time to get out and do some open water fishing!

Technorati Tags: Bits and Pieces, Refinish Cabinets, 1999 CR250, open water fishing, DBA

So, as we’ve all seen, the sparrows felt the need to turn my truck into a bird mansion of sorts. I quickly thwarted their plans, and removed them from my truck just as gently as possible and released them into their natural habitat. Since then I’ve made sure to keep my windows up when I park in my driveway.
Well, apparently the sparrows weren’t all to happy with me. Keep in mind that I’ve been living at my house for almost 2 years now. There are no tree’s that overhang my driveway, and no nests around (except for that robbin’s nest that i tore down in my garage early this spring) I have never noticed an abnormal amount of bird doody (keeping it PG for the younger readers) on my truck. Until a couple of days ago that is…..

You may not be able to tell from the smaller pictures (click to see larger versions) but apparently the sparrows were not happy, and now neither am I.  Perhaps it’s time I invest in a Red Ryder.

Technorati Tags: Bird Poop, Sparrows

No good information or breaking news for you.  Just thought I’d let you know I posted a few pictures I took while sandbagging downtown Cedar Falls, Iowa yesterday.

Flooding/Sandbagging Photos

Technorati Tags: flood, sandbagging, Cedar Falls

Well I’m almost a full month behind but I’ve been swamped with other things…

So, without delay here are the fantastic pictures from No Shave November.

The first one is pre-shave the second is the sweet pedostache or molestache that I wore to work on friday (the last day or the month) and shaved later that evening.

Technorati Tags: No Shave November, pedostache, molestache

Yes 2 holidays in a row.  Can you believe it?!  Yes today was World Kindness Day.  What does that mean to you and me?  I have no idea, I’m just using this post to draw your attention away from the previous post which didn’t go over very well (and I can’t say I expected it to)  Not interested in World Kindness Day?  Well you’re in luck.  Today is also Indian Pudding Day.  Yeah you heard right, it’s Indian Pudding Day.  Not interested in indian pudding?  Well it is also Whoopi Goldbergs birthday.  That’s practically a holiday right?
Change of subjet.  You may have noticed a lot of errors on my page lately, comments not posting properly, or the page not even loading.  I’ve been working on some back end things, and corrected most of the probems.  You can now go on enjoying my site for what it is.  Pure unadulterated bull plop.

I recently received a piece of spam in my Gmail account which is actually quite rare. Generally gmail filters out about 99.8% of the spam I receive before it hits my inbox, and if by chance it does get through then Mail.app steps up and throws it into my junk mail folder. Well apparently both google and Mail.app decided that I needed a good chuckle, so they collaborated and let this little gem slip through. (only giving you a taste of the full email)

Dear Friend,
Greetings in the name of God,Pls let this not sound strange to you for my only surviving lawyer who would have done this died early this year.i prayed and got you email id from your countrys chambers of commerce which i have been with my late husband and liked to visit once more if God will in his infinite mercies.
I am Mrs Hellin,I am 51 years old,i am deaf and suffering from a long time cancer of the breast which also affected my brain,from all indication my conditions is really deteriorating and it is quite obvious that, according to my doctors they have advised me that i may not live for the next two months,this is because the cancer stage has
gotten to very bad stage.

I don’t know if this is funny because of the sheer lack of grammar, or because I’m a horrible person and I find the never ending list of things that has happened to this women utterly hilarious. “Mrs Hellin”, you should think about changing your name to Job.
Oh and sorry about the lack of updates as of late, I’d love to say that I’ve been busy but well, I dont think i have been.

So last night Nate and myself decided to head out fishing, mostly so I could test out my new fish finder… Well surprisingly we were getting bites, nothing huge Bluegill, Crappie, Yellow Bass. Then he ends up pulling out a decent large mouth. So I think to myself, hmmm there are bigger fish in this here lake. Time to switch from the ol’ Jig and Twister to something a little bigger and flashier. Something that will annoy the crap out of those fish. The Buzzbait! I decided on a cheapo walmart Chartreuse and Brown buzzbait that I hadn’t used before. I usually throw smaller ones, and this was kind of the one available size at wally world, I liked the colors so I decided it was time to put this one to the test for the first time. So I’m actually kind of new to the world of top water baits and last time I had a strike I did the instinctual thing and tried to set the hook once I saw that puppy splashing around on the water. Basically the fish came up to attack the lure, and I yanked it away from him before he could really get ahold of it. I wasn’t going to make that mistake again. So, I was working the shore to the boat in my normal manner when there it was, the swirl and splash. I had one, but didn’t freak out this time and let it actually take the bait until i could feel the weight of the fish. I then set the hook and about a second or two later i see the fish at the top of the water and actually see the lure fly out of it’s mouth. Maybe I didn’t wait long enough, maybe he spit it out, I didnt know but I cast back about 5-10 more times and nothing…. Well I continued to fish the buzz for the next 10-15 minutes with no action on it. It was getting dark so we decided to head in. On the way into shore I was hooking my lure and what not to my rod so I wouldn’t get hooked in the face when i realized that I had left the little plastic protector on the hook!! You know that little plastic tubing that they put on the end of the hook/barb so idiots in walmart don’t jab themselves in the fingers, legs, mouth…. what have you.
So here is what I have learned about fishing w/ a buzzbait
1. After the splash, wait for a second until you can feel the weight of the fish, then set the hook.
2. REMOVE THE PLASTIC SHEATH FROM THE DAMN HOOK BEFORE YOU FISH IT!!!!

Technorati Tags: fishing, buzzbait, bass

Ok, so this is a multi part post with the title only having to do with one small portion, so follow along with me here.

First things first. Today is a half day of work. Unfortunately I’m not taking it off so I can go out fishing. I am going to Iowa City (or Coralville, or North Liberty i don’t really know) to be in my older brother Scott’s Wedding. Well actually it’s more Jess’s wedding, the groom just has to show up, pay the bill’s and tell the bride how beautiful she looks. I’d give more details about where and when the wedding events are but 1. I don’t exactly know. I have it in an email somewhere, and 2. I don’t want all of my faithful readers to crash it.

Next on the list of events is fishing. Not normal fishing, but Night Fishing! I’ve never been, but sunday evening about 8:30 I’m going to give it a whirl. I don’t know exactly how long I plan on fishing, but it should be a good time assuming i don’t drown out in the darkness. So, on a slightly related topic I’ve been looking as to what people suggest for night fishing. And you’ve got your normal list of stuff, flashlights, LED Headlamps, Dark Colored / Noisy lures, and LOTS of bug spray. Well one of the things that some people had mentioned brining was a light for the water. Most people suggest a green light that goes into or on the water as they attract smaller bait fish and minnows which in turn attract the larger fish who want to devour them. Well me being the electrical engineer that I am came up with an idea to put together my own green underwater light. I wont go into details but it involved an old Cold Cathode Florescent Light that i had for a computer project that i never did anything with, some alligator clips, solder, a empty one and a half liter bottle of reunite, a 12v battery, and some hot glue and duct tape. Well, as of last night at 1:30 AM that idea fell through shortly after I connected my newly created device to the 12v marine battery. I must of done a lot more rewiring than i thought because i turned a simple CCFL light into a loud pop making exploding light (that doesn’t light). So I took back the glue gun and sticks and some of the other random parts i bought this morning before work. Maybe with the money i got off of returning some of my needed supplies I’ll just buy one

And last but not least, I may not be getting crazy on the dance floor this weekend at the wedding mentioned above. Tuesday night I went out fishing on my own later in the evening then normal so I didn’t bother taking the boat. Well I was walking under a bridge that had broken up concrete slabs all around when one of the rocks I was standing on shifted and I slamed my (bare) foot into another large piece about a foot down. Needless to say it hurt REALLY bad. 3 days later my smallest toe on my left foot is still slighty swollen and has a nice shade of purple to it. The odd thing is that the toe next to it the bottom inch or so is numb. It doesn’t hurt, it’s just kinda tingly and numb. I think it’ll probably be fine. I just need to rub a little dirt on it.

Technorati Tags: Wedding, Night Fishing, Swollen Toe

title says it all (digg)