In Orlando

Sunrise on a 737

I am in Orlando at out fall TTA meeting at  the Hard Rock Hotel at Univesal Studios.  I flew in on Wednesday morning, had to get up at 4:00AM and  catch a 7:00 flight and fortunately I got my first class  upgrade and picked a seat on the left side of the airplane knowing I have to fly down the Mississippi River near my home town of Eleva, therefore I love being able to visualize this area from the air.  Unfortunately it was cloudy right away, once we hit 10,00 feet and all I got to see was the cloud cover and did get an opening around fountain City, otherwise the only interesting thing wa to watch the sunrise over a cloud covered Wisconsin.  I arrive in Orlando at about 11;30 Easten Stanmdard time and headed to the Hard Rock hotel at Universal Studio's.  Coming into Orlando Airport there is a considerable amount of small lakes and canals we have already made interconnecting those lakes and I noticed a lot of boats traveling between these lakes , I am sure most are fishing bass.  Normally when I am in an area like this I try to arrange a fishing trip and my friends who have vacation homes in the area are going however I need to be back for the weekend, to attend the ice fishing show in St. Paul and I have a Taylor family event on Sunday that I need to attend. One friend, Tim Smith has a house and a boat in Naples Florida and I am invited to join them for Grouper fishing this weekend, we have decided to come back to this area for our meeting next year and have already made significant commitments for fishing next year.  Besides I am getting anxious to go ice fishing and trying to take it easy after my situation of 3 weeks ago.  The forecast for ice hasn't been very good but it's bound to get colder!  the highlight of my trip was to see everyone in my industry as well we did catch a preformance of the Blue Man Group which was very good.

Heather and Jared with her nice 10 pointer

My wife and I did get back to Wisconsin to see her Uncle Bernie and my At Bernie and Nellie's we had a nice meal including Bearmeat from the bear Bernie shot with his bow a few weeks ago near his farm South of Eleva.  It was excellent as I don't recall having bear perpared like this. What we had was ground bear mixd with mustard seed, it was amazingly good.  Thank goodness They shared some and we brought home a few pounds of ground bear meat.  We also stopped at Ben Aiona's house to visit with him and hopefully see my friend Kevin.  I suspect they were out deer hunting but Ben and his wife, Heather was there, they were canning venison.  Ben had sent me a picture of his wife's 10 point Buck she shot on Saturday, Wisconsin deer opener.  It was very nice. Ben shared some venison with us, I cetainly had enough for the coming year with the nice doe we tagged 4 weeks ago, the bear meat we got from Bernie and the extra meat from Ben.  A stop up to Lyn's uncle Andrew resulted in a few more packages of venison and we should be set.

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My friend Rick

One of the things we got to do while at mom's was to visit with a old friend and classmate of mine Rick Semingson. Rick went to college and onto working for the National Forest Service in North Carolina and settled in a town called Mycaysville, Georgia.  Rick's dad Dunk and my dad were best of friends so it was natural that we hung together in school.  Rick and I graduated in the top ten of our class and we both agree that he was probably number 6 or 7 and I was number 7 or 8.  We definitely have different hobbies however when we were in high school definitely drinking Walter's Beer was something we both enjoyed.  Beyond that we stay good friends even though we don't get to see each other very often.  One time, maybe 15 years ago I had a conference in Charlotte North Carolina and Rick picked me up at the Atlanta airport and we spent the weekend together, it was nice traveling through the area, up around his house, up over the blue ridge mountains and down into Charlotte.  It was a trip I'll never forget and one I'd love to return and visit again. I went to the St. Paul Ice fishing show on Saturday with Mark Applen and Lory Brasel and met a few other friends down there, I did buy a few things and had an opportunity to talk to the resorts on both Mille Lacs and Lake of the Woods, and Red Lake an it probably will no be until after  Christmas before we get out with the wheel house and maybe next week we can find a smaller lake to try for some crappies.