Leech Lake Fishing Update, Part Two

After finding good amounts a fish the night before, yesterday was a tough one. We put in significant time on the lake, but had very little to show for it.

Here’s a prime example of team morale based on the fishing action:

Despite the slow progress, we did boat a couple of fish, all above the slot. Here’s JP’s 24 ½” beauty, caught before he left in the afternoon:

Not to be outdone, JT also landed one the exact same size. Note that he’s holding it up closer to the camera to exaggerate its size. Don’t be fooled:

Personally, I boated a nice 22”, and had on a really good fish that would have likely been mid-20s, but lost him before a got a look. Regardless, I didn’t get skunked.

Speaking of skunked, here’s Web, who came up yesterday. He landed a wimpy perch for his day. There are grave doubts about the boy’s jigging skills, but we hope today he’ll be redeemed. He did end up with this fabulous hair style, combined with wearing much of his gin and tonic. Ah, the dangers of sitting in the front seat of a boat going 45 mph.

Day Two Payday

NW winds of up to 35 mph and a four hour owner’s meeting kept the team off the field for a good chunk of the day today, but the late rally made up for things.

We first started at the hole “about 75 yards” from the harbor opening, but ended up at Marshal point, where the wind had been blowing the bait fish all day. JP found a “convergence” on the map, and once boat control was wrested from JT, we got on the fish.

Bottom line for the team was 7 slot walleyes, at least that many that were small and thrown back, and one nice 25 ½# that was boated by yours truly at Club 21. We also boated two nice keeper perch to augment the stringer.

Great rally by the team, and we’ve set ourselves up well for our evening fish fry tonight.

One Dollar Two Foot Long

You’re looking at the first fish of the day (and, subsequently, the first fish of 2009). This, ladies and gentlemen, is 24 inches of prime Minnesota walleye. As is the custom of the Gang of Four, first fish of the day wins $1 from those in the boat. Alas, the fish was too big (the slot on Leech Lake is anything less than 18” is returned to the water) but it still was fun to catch and still got me paid.

Mixed weather kept the boys from making big strides today. JT had to work and was only able to fish for an hour or so. JP and yours truly put our time in on the water – we started at 9 and finished up around 4. We got off the lake just in time before the big winds and rain came up. By the time we finished, we had boated two keepers – not a lot of fish for as long as we were out. But a good day nonetheless.

Pepsi Thinks Things are AWESOME!

Every day on my one-hour commute to work, this is the last billboard that I see before I arrive. It is at the top of the highway exit, about a quarter mile from the office.

Usually I spend my commute thinking about the state of our business, my team, our market, the overall economy, and eventually build to the weight of the entire world. By the time I approach the office, I'm in the process of steeling myself and swallowing these negative thoughts. My job is to bury these worries, regardless of their magnitude, and lead my team and my company. I cannot disclose my own personal fears; cannot betray any appearance of any kind of lack of confidence.

In the final stages of gulping all of this down at the end of the commute, I run into this sign every day. Pepsi launched this campaign with the Obama election, and is a thinly veiled attempt to align their brand with his (a POTUS with a brand - great).

What the hell does Pepsi think is so AWESOME!? Seriously. Is it just the election? It sure can't be the economy, job market, taxes, health care, the state of Somali piracy, a potential Farve signing or the Twins' start.

Every day I interface with this thing. And every day it is like a visual fingernail across the chalkboard of the start of my day.

Anyone for a Coke?

Minnesota Mother's Day

While other guys were taking their Moms to a brunch or something more boring, mine asked to be taken golfing. Who am I to deny such a request?

Things were cold up here in Minnesota, with temps not getting out of the 50's. A stiff NW wind kept things chilly, but the conversation and the company offered plenty of warmth.

While Mom's game was not its usual, I'm blaming it on the temps. Seriously, who can golf when you're dressed up like this?

She shot in the 100s, I was in the 90s, and both of us held out hope for warmer temps and hotter scores later in the season.

I can't speak for her, but from my perspective, I had a great Mother's Day. We don't get much one-on-one time, and I really enjoyed my day with her.

I'm lucky to have had an incredible Mom like her to help mold me into the man that I am, and of all of the wonderful blessings that I have in my life, she's perhaps the greatest. My life would be quite different had she not played all of those important roles through these growing decades.

Thanks for everything Mom. I love you.

Nancy Pelosi is a Liar

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Speaker of the House of the United States is a liar.

After months of demagoguery, fake righteousness, indignation, and hate, the truth has finally caught up to Nancy Pelosi.

Here's the truth: She knew about waterboarding. She knew the whole deal. And she let it go on without raising one little peep. ABC has it all here in black and white http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2009/05/top-intel-repub.html

When September 11 was fresh in the American psyche, when we still didn't know the magnitude of threats that we were up against, and when we were still in the process of cleaning the rubble from the attacks, our leaders (including Pelosi) were willing to accept the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" to prevent future events that would leave our citizens dying in the streets.

But as time went on, fears faded, and feelings of safety and complacency set in, the Daily Kos, Keith Olbermann, and the fanatics in Ms. Speakers' home district stumbled upon a way to finally get Bush - war crimes. Calls for investigation, prosecution, impeachment, and a perp-walk out of the White House grew and became more and more popular.

Once elected, president Obama stoked the fire by releasing the exact details of what had been done, and indeed, that fire raged hotter. Unfortunately, his own party now stands burned. First, former Vice President Dick Cheney chimes in, demanding that the full details of the techniques be released, including the intelligence that was gathered. (Note these still have not been released. Memo to Obama - you may want to avoid playing poker with a guy like Cheney in the future.) Second, we now come to find that it wasn't just Bushco behind all of this. There are ample numbers of leaders on both sides that knew ostensibly everything and did absolutely nothing.

So how does the far left handle this cognitive dissonance? On one hand, there's furor over "torture." On the other, the #2 person in the Democratic party knew about it for years, could have said something, but never, ever did.

I'll tell you exactly how they're going to handle it - the same way they always do. Don't report it, don't talk about it, "move on." Until there are calls for Pelosi to join the orange jumpsuit brigade, this issue needs to be put to bed. For the Democrats' sake it better be, because every time it gets pushed they look more and more like the lying hypocrites that they are.

Right, Ms. Pelosi?

Chaska Minnesota Welcomes Our New Friends in Latino Gangs

In the StarTribune this week, there was an expose on the establishment of not one, but two rival Latino gangs to the suburban town. It used to be a town had made it when it got a new Dairy Queen or maybe a new Target store. Now you're a nobody unless you have a division of the Latin Kings selling drugs to your children.

You'd think this would inspire panic in the citizenry, but you'd be wrong. According to school leaders, this is no big deal:

Chaska School Board Member Diane Koban says parents are struggling to understand the extent of the problem. She, for one, believes there's some "overreaction" when it comes to gang symbols and colors. "It's extraordinary to say just because a kid has gang stuff in his room that he's a gang member. Isn't there such a thing as freedom of speech?"

So, peaceful citizens of not-so-peaceful-anymore Chaska, if little Johnny starts flashing signals, wearing colors, and addressing you by "homes," take pride that he's just expressing his sacred First Amendment rights, and sleep easy.

If you can...

Dire Times and Dandelions

Yesterday was a bad day.

Our business continues to suffer greatly in this recession, and we continue to fall further and further behind our extremely conservative 2009 budget. We currently have an $8MM profit gap that we need to try and fill, and this is on top of the massive cuts that we've already made over the past year.

The impacts of this on my company, my team, and me personally, will be significant.

As a senior leader of our company, this weighs very heavy on me. We've done all of the easy things. There are no longer any easy paths forward. I know that a definition of great leadership is the ability to create victories out of situations when they are at their most dire, and I feel like I am failing at the time when I need to be at my most clear, confident, and decisive.

I thought about this constantly as I was mowing my lawn yesterday - mulling over the situation again and again in my head. I found a really nice distraction in the emerging dandelions that were popping up. The reason I have them is because the lawn service we employed still had not been out to work on our yard yet.

The more I thought about the state of my lawn, the more it infuriated me. Given the recession, I have to believe that something like a lawn service is one of the first things to get kicked to the curb when the family budget get tight. They should have ample bandwidth to take care of my lawn. It is May 1, for cryin' in the beer. What are they waiting for?

I was now getting whipped up into a froth. In my current situation, I'm desperate for some sales right now! How dare they!

At the apex of my rage, and as if on cue, a competitive lawn service happened to drive into my neighborhood. In my furor I immediately flagged them down, and my inquiry about their interest in some incremental business was met with a shocked and smiling "YES!"

15 minutes later my lawn had been serviced, a contract for $300 of lawn service had been inked, a phone call had been placed severing the relationship with the old service, and the dandelions were on their way to the great green lawn in the sky.

If only all of my problems could be solved so expeditiously.