Mike Solberg is playing hockey for the 8th time this week and its only Friday!!!! 

Well I haven't updated my blog for a while but I "Have Not" rejected xanga. So here's what I've been doing for the last month or less. Jennifer and Dustin come out for Amy and Gage's wedding so that was lots of fun .We played v-ball and then had potluck the next day after church. Also lots of cool friends came out for the wedding wich was great. Some of Eddies friends, Benji, Jaloe, Eddie, Kendra, and I.went to the mountains after potluck and had alot of fun. We built a snowmoose lol, drank energie drinks, and took pictures. I started working for FOX BUILDINGS wich is great cuase I get to work with Larry and drink Tim Hortens at work! Plus I love putting up siding and other stuff like that. Melissa started dating Phil so I'm officially saying congradulations!( he's a cool guy Mel)
      We had are School field trip on Monday.
Larry, Kendra, Kenny, Alana, and I hung out the whole time. We went to Frank Slide and learned about the rock slide and why it happend. That was very intereseting. Then we went and toured a coal mine. At the end of the mine tour our guide told us all to turn off our headlights and see how dark it is in a mine. It was so dark that when you waved your hand in front of your face you couldn't see it, it was like you could feel the darkness. It reminded me to think of how terrible hell will be, and how I never want to go there. And I pray that none of my friends go there. I mean it terrified me to be in totall darkness for a few seconds, let alone being there eternaly. It also made me think of how important it is to make the right choices. Well I hope you all have a great day, and keep Christ #1.   

                              getting it in the ear                                                                                                                             One of the more interesting things that can happen to an angler is to get a barbed hook sunk in his hide. Such is the horror and fascination of the experiencing that many angler has contemplated giving up his regular work and hitting the lecture to entertain audiences around the nation with a dramatic rendering of this ordeal.

      Listening to someone tell of being hooked can be a trying experience. Often have I observed a group of my friends listening to a fellow angler relate the grisly details of the extraction of a barbed hook from a valued and sensitive part of his anatomy. I can testify to the looks of disbelief, horror, and revulsion, the grasps and groans. The listeners, on the other hand, are usually bored stiff.

        Sport fishing has now been in vogue for several hundred years, during which time the removal of barbed fishhooks from the hides of humans has acquired it’s own history. During the early days, when the lord of the manner hooked himself, he would select one of his serfs to remove the hook. Generally speaking, serfs did not look upon this as a plum assignment. The serf would grasp the shank of the hook, brace both feet on the lord, and pull for all he was worth. The method was simple and direct but raised the mortality rate of serfs significantly. Sometimes two or three serfs would be expended in the removal of a single hook.

          The 20^th century finally arrived with its advances in medicine and technology, and just in time, too, because the supply of serfs had been pretty well exhausted. Fishing partners could now remove hooks from each other right on the lake or stream, thanks to a new invention: rusty pliers. The technique consisted of grasping the shank of the hook with the pliers, bracing both feet against the hookee, and pulling. The pliers did away with much of the discomfort the extractor of the hook formerly suffered from finger cramps. The invention of earplugs also reduced the threat of hearing losses that formerly accompanied the hook-removal process.

             Then a man known only as Earl devised a procedure for removing  hooks that appeared promising. Earl advised twisting the hook is such a manner that the point and the barb were forced up through the skin of the angler. The barb could be clipped off and the rest of the hook easily removed. He demonstrated this technique on a burly young man by the name of Bubba, and narrowly escaped with his life. Earl now lives in a different town and under an assumed identity. His technique, however, became widely accepted among anglers. It can be safely applied with nothing more than a pair of rusty pliers, a stout chair, and, depending on the size of the hooked angler, ten to fifteen feet of good rope.

             Getting hooked invariably leads to an instant social occasion. The reason for this that one’s fishing partner feels that an audience for the hook removal will inhibit the hookee from extreme emotional outburst. Even when great chunks of his flesh are gouged out of him-“ great chunks “ meaning any the size of a pinhead or larger- the angler will stoically sit there telling jokes: “ then there was the one about the chicken and the turtle- OWWW-! And so anyway the rabbit is –OWWW! – Well the farmer comes home right then and and-OWWW! –” That is why as soon as someone is hooked, one of his companions must leap to his feet and announce to all the fishermen within a quarter mile, “hey we got a man hooked here!”

         It so happens that every fisherman ever born has developed his own theory for hook removal. Here, now, is his chance to test the theory on someone beside himself. Upon the announcement that a man has been hooked, all boats on the lake will immediately converge on the scene of the disaster. If the hooking occurs on a stream, men, women, and children will come running from all directions, some charging though boiling rapids in their efforts to arrive in time and foist off there theory on thee attending “surgeon,” usually a man known only as Earl.

     There’s usually a great deal of pushing and shoving as assembled anglers struggle with each other to get there hands on the offending hook and test their particular theory. Everyone is shouting opinions and recommending techniques: “best way to do that…twist and pull real hard …take a sharp knife and…tie a string between the hook and the anchor and …

     After a while the anglers begin swapping tales about the times they got hooked and how much worse hookings they were than the one here being witnessed. Beverages and sandwiches are broken out, and a full-scale party is soon under way. Hookings are to fishermen what barn-raisings were to the pioneers, an opportunity for socializing in otherwise solitary enterprise. I myself have been hooked only twice in my life. On the first occasion, Retch Sweeney and I were fishing from a bass boat. Our motor had conked out, and we were faced with the prospect of having to paddle the boat all the way across the lake to the launch area. The wind had come up, and as I was making my final cast, a gust of wind whipped my line around me and I buried the hook in the flab of my left side. Retch new took charge, delighted to have this opportunity to test one of his many theories for hook removal.

        As soon as he had shouted out the requisite, “Hey, we have a man hooked here!” (Even though we were the only ones on the lake), he cut away my shirt, pleased with his chance to use his new knife, grabbed a pair of rusty pliers, and began worrying the hook, although a good deal less than me. Frustrated in his efforts, he fell back to the traditional tactic of bracing both feet on the hookee and pulling, thereby stretching my flab out in the vague shape of a sail. The wind caught my flan like a jib and began moving us in the general direction of the launch ramp. Retch was all for maintaining this arrangement, because if the wind held and he could take to the starboard, it would save us a good deal of paddling. I argued against it. The maneuver, however, had loosened the hook, and it just dropped out on its own accord. Nevertheless, I do not favor this method and cannot in good faith recommend it. On the plus side, the mishap improved my casting fourfold, and fifteen years passed before I hooked myself again.

       The second and most recent hooking occurred while I was fishing with my irascible neighbor. Alphonse P. Finley. Finley was winding up for a cast when I suddenly had the sensation that one of my ears had turned into live bait. Apparently unaware that he had hooked me, Finley attempted to cast my ear into a patch of lily pads and might well have succeeded if my ear had been less firmly attached to my head. I immediately called Finley’s attention to the problem. Startled, he looked around. “ Cripes!” he said.” I thought jaws 3 had taken a bite out of you! And all it is, you’ve got a set of treble hooks dangling from your ear. Where’s my rusty plier? I’ve got a surefire technique for removing hooks from ears. But first, let me say this.”

     “What?”

     “Hey we’ve got a man hooked over here!” he shouted.

Once again I was saved the ordeal of an audience, Finley and I being the only anglers on the lake. “Forget you technique,” I said. “I’m having a doctor remove this hook! Now just get you clippers and snip your line from the hook.”

      Always one for taking a bad situation and making it worse, Finley looked around for his clippers, backed up, and bumped into my head-sinking one of the treble hooks all the way through his sweatshirt! My ear was now firmly attached to Finley’s back just above his beltline. “ You’ll have to take your sweatshirt off,” I said. “I can’t,” Finley said. “ The hook went through my long underwear too.”

“ Well if you can’t pull the sweatshirt over your head, see if you can’t wiggle out through the neck.” Finley wiggled and squirmed, grunted and groaned. “ No, I can’t make it,” he said, in a strangled voice. “ Now I’ve got my arm stuck strait up through the neck of the sweatshirt and I can’t get it back in!”

      “This was the worst predicament I’ve ever been in,” I said. “Somehow we’ve got to get this boat back to shore get into your car, drive to that gas station down the road and have the attendant cut us loose.”

      “ I have some more bad news for you,” Finley said.

      “ What?”

      “ I’ve got to go to the bathroom,”

         An hour later, we pulled into the gas station. Carefully, we eased out of the car, with me cheek to cheek with Finley’s backside, and Finley with his arm, sticking strait up out the neck of his sweatshirt. Three old codgers, tilted back in their chair watched us curiously, apparently unaccustomed to seeing strangers in those parts.

      Finley, no doubt directing a strained smile at them, croaked, “ would one of you gentlemen be kind enough to direct me to the men’s restroom, or the ladies’, for that matter, whichever is unoccupied at the moment?”

       “Wait! Stop!” I shouted. “Someone cut us loose first!” The codgers came over for a closer look. “ Dad gum, I see the problem,” one of them said. “ They’s hooked together with fish hooks. At first I thought you fellers was just from New York City. Hey, Ben, bring me them wire snippers.”

     In a few seconds, we were snipped apart and none to soon, for Finley homed in on the Mens' room like a heat-seeking missile. While I stared after Al, contemplating the peril I’d narrowly escaped, the old codger that snipped us apart tugged at the lure dangling from my ear.                                                                                                                                                                     “ Let me have a go at the hook in your ear,” he said. “I got a special technique for getting hooks out of ears.” “ Why not,” I said. “ Ok have at it, Mr……..Mr…….” The old gent smiled and pulled a rusty pair of pliers from his hip pocket. “ Just call me Earl,” he said.

                              Author- Patrick F. Mcmanus

                           This is one of my Favorite stories by Pat! hope you enjoyed this as much as I did