September kiddies...

French toast, bacon, OJ and a quick run to Willowbrook makes for my favorite way to spend a Saturday morning...













Elle stayed home and doesn't look happy about it.

Work status...

I'm still at the pub. I really do love the social aspect of meeting people, chatting it up and facilitating a nice experience for them.
I don't like the time away from home or being on my feet for 8 to 9 hours at a time. I have pulled a few doubles...13 hours no sitting.
I dig the concept and the tastes achieved in mixology. I don't like seeing people tasting too much. Steve B forwarded a job posting from my church of all places. I read it over and it seems like a good fit for me, Technical Arts Director...
I had a 2 hour interview yesterday and I think it went well but you never know.
I'm not holding my breath on this one. Things just don't seem to be going my way as of late. A project based tech job....perfect.

Well? I'll be in touch.

That thing she does...

Kim has many talents but one of the areas that she shines in is teaching.
I guess I will rant a little to say shame on Brookfield Zoo for making things so
miserable with their policies and "new style" teaching methods that good teachers like Kim just give up. The zoo has lost many talented people.

So here's Kim doing what she does best, teaching little kids about critters.
Today's critters? Her Chickens of course.

Norway...

I've had a few people ask me where my Norway post was and I have to admit. I have been confused on what to write because the trip didn't go quite how I wanted it to. So I'll just throw it out there.
The fight over was uneventful but across the isle from me was a member of the H.E.double sticks Angels and half way through the flight he whips out some hand lotion and proceeds to soften his hands. Why do you need soft hands if you're in that club? I was confused.
I arrive in Oslo and after a short wait for Wayne and his crew we checked into the hotel to spend the first night. Arve is the guy who invented the fly rod we were there to film and fish with. He picked us up and took us to a local sport store to see the Zpey display.


We then had dinner in an American pub...actually good food but I almost did a spit take when I learned that my simple beer was about 13 dollars...too spendy to spit out.
After a good nights sleep, we headed back to the airport to catch a plane up to Bodo (Buddah), again, a good flight. A two hour bus ride after landing and we arrived at camp Arctic.
The fly fishing store that sells Zpey gear has a few guys that are amazing fishermen and they set up the camp for us. Sleeping tents, a kitchen tent, eating tent and such made for a very comfortable camping experience.



They even had a bar set up for us.


The toilet dubbed "Thunder Log" was an engineering masterpiece.


On to the people...
Wayne is putting a deal together with Zpey to represent to gear here in America.
So having the owner of Spey, a few investors and some of the best guides around pretty much made this not your average fishing trip. Much at stake here.
The guides were two Norwegians and a Swede that really knew their business, amazing guys. I tried to stay out of the way and just do my job but dang that's hard especially when it rained most of the time AND I come to find out that the main quarry we were after starts biting around 9pm and goes until 1am, not very conducive to taping. My main lens on my video camera started fogging up internally....crap. I had to leave it by the propane stove in our tent to dry and dry out.
The other obstacle is that the still water "pools" that the fish were holding in were spread out over 4 miles. I didn't know which of the pools to go to. I stuck with Wayne and Arve to try and capture something but these were tough fish to catch. Eight high end fishermen only caught 5 fish over the 4 days. It was a crap shoot on where I was supposed to be, frustrating.
I shot as many stills as I could and will try and get some previously filmed footage to put together some kiosk videos for Wayne to use on the road.
For each meal there were always crackers laid out and nearby a big toothpaste tube of some condiment. I finally got up the nerve to ask what it was, caviar in a tube. I was urged to try it and not wanting to offend my hosts I did. It's a combination of Cod eggs and mayo. Think of fishy tasting Cheeze Whiz and you'll be in the ballpark. It was pretty good. I liked it enough that they sent me home with an unopened tube. My only Norwegian souvenir. I'm sure my brother in law will help me eat it.


Here's a Norwegian breakfast, eggs, bacon, lunch meat, swiss cheese, sausages, cigars and beer...
MAN UP!!


Four days of tough fishing were over in a flash and I don't have much to show for it but I will put some things together for Wayne out of old and new footage. Here are a few shots from the gig...









Wayne with the inventor and owner of the Zpey rod Arve







Thank goodness I got one fish on tape...problem, it wasn't on a Zpey rod

To answer a couple of questions,
1. No, I didn't get to fish.
2. The jury is out, if I would do this trip again (I need better weather and fishing conditions, a tough shoot)

A great trip but glad I'm home, as my sister Paula put it "At least I wasn't at the bar for a week"