Amateur Extra

Many of you know that I enjoy amateur Radio. Well the above image shows that I have achieved the highest nerdhood possible in ham radio. I took my Amateur Extra class exam this morning and passed, only missing 2 questions. For those of you that do not know how this works, there is a question pool of 750 questions that they could possibly ask you. You are given a test with 50 of those questions and you have to get a 73% to pass. I never thought that I would be able to do this but I have. It was hard but worth it. I passed my 5 words per minute Morse code test back in 2003 and I have to say that this test today was more anxiety ridden than that.

I wanted to share this movie preview with you guys. Hopefully I can get a copy of the entire film sometime.

The "I miss my Logan Man Post"

Logan and Kris have been away for a couple of days now and I have been missing both of them. I was looking through some pictures that we haven't filed yet and i saw this one. I love this little man and I think you can see why. His smile ALWAYS makes me smile!

My First Confirmed Country

As many of you know I enjoy Amateur radio. As a short explanation you use a radio wave to contact others in far away places. It is kind of like an internet chat room but over the radio. I enjoy talking with others and seeing how far I can get my signal to go. The other day I was on seeing who I could talk to and a station right below me started to call for someone as well. So I moved down and it was a man by the name of Ken. His call sign was JO7CVU and he was in JAPAN! This is not very far and pretty easy for most people to get but I had only ever talked with someone in Japan 1 other time. We exchanged information and I sent off a card confirming our contact. He replied yesterday with his card confirming our conversation and I have included it here for you to see. It may not look like much to you but I am very proud of this contact!

My Hero: "Lucky"

Many people have hero's in their lives like Michael Jordon, Abe Lincoln, President Hinckley and many others. One of my hero's since I was a child is Larry "Lucky" Chesley. WHO?!?!?!?!? Well, Larry Chesley. There is not much on the internet on him and it is hard to find the details of his heroics. One of the coolest things about my relationship with Larry is that I actually got to meet my hero. Many people never do. Larry was a top gun F-4 Fantom fighter pilot in the Vietnam War. He was a good pilot and flew many successful missions. On one particular mission he was shot down and taken prisoner. He spent the next Seven years in various POW camps and has wonderful and inspiring stories of his time there.
I am writing about my experience meeting him because it was a life changing experience to meet one of the people that you look up to. While talking with one of my friends, who is a Chaplin, she mentioned that she knew Larry and that he should come speak to the students at The school where I work. The plans were made and he was to come. I had the opportunity to introduce him to the student body and also to go to dinner with him and his wife. He is as engaging in person as he is in his book or tapes. If you would like to read more about his experiences you can check out his book here. While talking with him it is evident that he is a man of integrity and values. He also gave me a copy of his book and wrote a special dedication to me. I hope everyone has a hero and can meet them one day. Who is your Hero and why?

What if you combined Fishing and Biking?

I was looking for a cool image that I could put onto the blog of a biker and I came up with this! Please submit your ideas of funny captions.

I know it has been too long!

The time has come and gone for me to make a new post. I have been working on a project but it is top secret so I will not be able to post until it is completed. In the meantime I want to share a Haiku with you. Over the fourth of July we spent some time with the Nelsons and it was Kaye's ideas to write Haiku's about the 4th and have a contest to see who could write the best. Most of you know that I am not great at writing if you have read my blog at all but I attempted it anyway. Here it is:

When I ride my bike
The smooth road beneath my wheels
Hurts when I fall down.

As you can tell I did not follow the rules of the game and it is not about independence day, but I liked it anyway. Try writing one of your own. It needs to have 5 syllables in the first line 7 in the second and 5 again in the third. Have fun and share some with me. They can be about anything.

The Finished Product

So I have been working on my rod for a few weeks now and I put the varnish on last night. It took some time to dry so I waited until today to put it together and throw some line. It is a pretty nice rod and it loads a 5 weight line well. It is heavy so it would not be a rod that I would want to fish all day but would be fun for a short day on a small stream.

Disco Hare

This is the fly that produced most of the action for me while we were in Idaho. It is a variation of a Hare's Ear Nymph. I added a little crystal flash wing emerging from the wing case and I think it adds a little sparkle to the fly. The pictures are of a Disco Hare with read rib and then another with copper rib. They both work well. Tie one up and give it go!

An update on the fly rod

I have done a lot of work on the rod. I have stripped all of the old spar varnish off and I have reset the ferrules. I also taped the new snake guides and hook keeper in the right places ready to be wrapped. I was going to start wrapping tonight but I got carried away tying some flies. Here are the updated pictures.

It Was Another Beautiful Day in Southeast Idaho

Without consulting Kris, my brother in-law Nick and I decided to go to Idaho this weekend for the Eastern Idaho Fly Tying Expo. From the time I took the fly tying class in college I have tied all my own flies and have fished with them with much success. The expo gave us both lots of new ideas and techniques to improve the flies we tie. We left on Thursday night after work and attended the expo both Friday and Saturday morning. On Friday afternoon we decided to pick up Nate Barker in Rexburg and go fish the Henry's Fork of the Snake river. We wont divulge the exact spot because of the giant fish that we took on teeny tiny flies. I am proud to say that the second largest fish, 19 inches, of the trip was taken, by myself, on a fly of my own design. I will post a picture of it soon but I call it the 'Disco Hare'. The largest fish was taken by Nick and it measured 20 inches. Unfortunately one member of our party who shall remain anonymous forgot the camera on the first day so we missed getting pictures of those two fish. You will have to take the word of two fisherman that these fish were beasts. Here are some photos of the second day of fishing.
Here is a different shot of the same fish to make it look bigger!

Bamboo Rod

Last year my parents found a bamboo fly rod at a flea market in Denver. The price was right and it came with an old automatic reel (South Bend). The rod was in horrible shape and it was not going to be functioning as a fly rod any time soon. They gave it to me for Christmas and it has been sitting on the shelf since then. The other day I decided it was time to start rebuilding it and so before I started I decided to take some pictures. The only thing that I did before I started was to sand the grip down so it looks new. Here are the before photos of the rod. I will be posting the updates as I work and progress on it.

An Amazing Little Video

I found this tonight and I was really impressed with this guy. I have always wanted to learn to play the mandolin and this makes me want to even more. Most everyone will recognize this as Led Zeppelin. I guess if I do learn to play the mandolin it will be one more interest to add to my blog!!

Our Abby Dog

Here are some recent pictures of our lazy Husky. She loves to come in and be with us and she pretty much just tolerates Logan (He loves to pull her hair, and you now how much she has). Enjoy!

My New Racing Machine

Over the past few months I have been collecting and swapping some of my old components on my bike to upgrade and have a lighter and more efficient racing machine. With the thoughtful donations of a few family members I was able to get a set of racing wheels for my birthday and I say thank you for that. When you ride on stock wheels for a couple of years you really appreciate the fluid motion of fine racing wheels! Here are the new wheels and an updated photo of the "Red Racing Machine"!

Keeping Busy

Last Friday night I was a little more than anxious because Saturday I had to take a "Praxis" exam to upgrade my teaching license and become a highly qualified teacher. While this is a major accomplishment for me I was nervous for the test and had to do something to keep my mind off of the impending 2 hour test on a minuscule lecture desk. The following picture shows the results of my Friday night diversion in woodworking. I had some brown cedar that was given to me and it was just laying around. A ward member let me borrow a belt sander and I was off and running. It took me longer than I had expected but it also turned out nicer too. For me working with my hands takes my mind of of the thoughts that bog me down. Try it sometime, you may find it relaxing too!!

Bike Racing

One of my favorite things to do is ride my bike. For some reason I got a late start learning how to ride a bike but since then I have had so much fun riding and in so many different ways. When my brother and I were little we loved to ride down to the creek or by the old burned down house. We would pretend to be BMX racers and loved every minute of it.

Recently My friend Dave talked me into riding a mountain bike race with him. Since I spend most of my time on a road bike and I have mountain biked a little I figured it would be a fun experience. Well it was fun but it was also brutal. The race took place in Alpine Utah and is called "The Frozen Hog". It was the beginning of February and there was a few feet of snow on the ground. There were more than a few people there and it was a warm day. Needless to say it took over 2 hours to ride 7 miles. I felt defeated by the snow and ice but enjoyed the whole thing! It will probably become one of those morbid yearly traditions that we love to hate!

Intro

As many of my friends know my interests are continually changing and as my wife says I have a hobby for every season of the year. I though that I would start a blog on my many interests and you may be able to see the pattern as time goes on. With all of the posts about me I will probably be adding posts about Logan and Kris as well so that you can all see what else is going on in my life. I hope you enjoy and are not too confused by the randomness of my likes and dislikes!