Rough Week

Well this week sure hasn’t been a good one that’s for sure. It all started on Saturday night before bed. I had thrown a birthday get together for my girlfriend that afternoon and we had a bonfire and played cornhole and just hung out with friends. After everyone had left I went inside and my throat was getting a little sore. I looked around the medicine cabinet and found a prescription of septra antibiotic that I had been taking about a month ago for a cold. I took the pill and went to bed. Well Sunday morning when I woke up, my tongue was swollen up so bad I couldn’t even talk. This wasn’t a new thing for me, this was the third time since November that it had happened. It swells up the first two days and then the third it turns into a very painful ulcer. It has popped up in the same place every time. The first two times it happened I was out of town on hunting trips, so I was pretty much miserable the whole time. All along we thought that I could possibly be allergic to sage in sausage because I had ate sausage balls on both hunting trips and that is the only thing we could narrow it down to. Now that my tongue swelled up right after I took one of the septra pills we started thinking about it more. As we looked back, I was taking septra both times when it happened before. This time has been by far the worst. I haven’t been able to eat anything the last two days. I finally went to the doctor today and they had to do blood work and run some tests to try and find out what was causing all of this. I have been very light headed all day and have felt terrible. I nearly passed out twice at the doctor’s office. But finally all the tests were ran and he prescribed me with a medicine to kill the virus and some mouth wash to knock down the pain a little. On top of this I had to take my English midterm tonight. I have been out of it all afternoon and haven’t felt good whatsoever, so who knows how I did on the test tonight! Either way I know I can make up for it if I happened to do bad!

Indian Rain Dance

As I look at the picture that is posted in class, the first thing that pops in my mind is a tribal Indian dancer. I honestly do not know what the person is doing, but the picture really stands out because of the bright yellow costume the person is wearing.  The yellow really stands out against the side of the old barn or old house. I am thinking the Indian could possibly be doing the tribal rain dance. The place where the person is could be in a serious drought, and a tribal rain dance sent up to the rain gods could bring rain. It almost seems as if the person is holding an umbrella over their right shoulder also.  I see the person being a chief of a tribe, only because of all of the patches of different objects on his outfit.  The outfit really stands out just because it is so huge. The background behind the person stands out to be really run down. If the person was really doing the rain dance and the rain gods happened to send rain, they might be in bad shape if that is their home considering there are holes in the wall and the windows are falling out. It almost seems like the person is reaching up to the skies with the poles they are holding in each hand. It looks like it is dark out because there isn’t much light shining. The only skin showing is the persons face. They seem to really be shouting out to try and get a point across. The person is older so I see them having a lot of wisdom. The feathered costume had to take a really long time to make and it more than likely symbolizes something, such as a bird flying high in the sky to bring the rain from the clouds. I could be completely wrong about all of this, but that was just the first thing that popped in my head.

My Hunting Buddy

          I have always been a big duck hunter.  Over the years my friends and I have chased waterfowl all over the southeast.  It is one of my favorite kinds of hunting there is.  We always have pretty good luck, but the only thing is, our swamps around here are full of really thick mud. The thick mud makes it hard to get around in, and sometimes when you shoot ducks the fall far from where you are sitting. We’ll I finally came up with a solution to this problem, I needed me a retriever. I started calling around and talking to some guys I knew and finally got some good news. Two of my friends from high school had bred their labs and were going to be having pups. I told them immediately that I wanted a male out of the bunch.  A few months later I got a phone call while I was in school, it was my friend Josh letting me know that I could come pick up my puppy.  So as soon as I got out of class my girlfriend and I went straight to his house to pick up my new little guy. When we pulled up and walked down to the pen where the pups were, I fell in love as soon as I saw him. He was six weeks old and fit in the palm of my hand. He was a solid black lab with very high blood lines. His name was going to be Ace.  I knew the training process would have to begin immediately. I decided to train him myself just because it can get very expensive to send dogs off to trainers, and I also knew I could build a better bond with him. During the first week I had him fetching a pair of balled up socks. He would go get the socks and bring them back to me immediately, I knew then it was in his blood to be a retriever. I worked with him hard every single day, doing obedience training, blind training, commands, etc. He caught on very quick. I finally got him trained enough to where I thought it was time to take him hunting. He was a little under a year and a half old when this past duck season opened. The season started out wonderful as we shot seven ducks on opening morning and he retrieved every one of them, it seemed as if he had been doing it for years. The whole season was a success with very few miscues and I am very proud of my little hunting buddy. I can’t wait for another hunting season with him.

Ready for Turkey Season

Well the past few days I have been at home sick with a stomach virus.  I hate being sick more than anything, especially with a virus.  I haven’t been able to work and I missed both of my classes tonight.  It sucks but I am finally starting to feel better. But while I have been at home, other than making trips back and forth to the restroom, all I have done is watch turkey hunting videos. Turkey hunting is one of my favorites.  The season opens up on March 24^th this year. I am looking very forward to it. My friends and I have been preparing for the season for the last two weeks. We have been feeding the turkeys and had our trail cameras out.  The first week we had our cameras out with had over two thousand pictures on two different cameras. We had a lot of turkeys and a pretty good bit of deer.  It’s funny how the deer pretty much know when deer season is over with, because that’s when all of them start coming out of hiding. We refilled our feeders and changed out the memory cards in the cameras and the second week we got just as many pictures.  Needless to say, were going to have a bunch of big gobblers to hunt this season. So far we have identified thirteen different gobblers, but they also have a lot of girlfriends with them.  The turkeys are eating about 150 pounds of feed every week. So come this weekend we will probably be filling up feeders again, that is if I am feeling up to par. It is one of my favorite times to hunt because it is in the spring. The warm weather and pretty blue sky days are just great. Hopefully it will be a successful season!

My Little Gas Saver

In today’s blog I am going to talk about these ridiculous gas prices and just how much it is breaking the bank! Gas prices have went sky high and they say that prices will reach 4 dollars a gallon by the month of May. I drive a 2005 Ford F-150 four door that’s lifted and has 35x12.50 mud tires that happen to weigh 78 pounds apiece. All of that adds up and gives me all of about 10 miles to the gallon. Lol.  I guess it’s the price you pay to have a bad truck.  I live in Calhoun and have to drive to Cartersville twice a week for school.  Another thing is I have 2 bad ignition coils in my truck that hurts fuel mileage also.  I have to get those fixed soon. But I think I have came up with a solution to my problem. My papaw has a 1973 4 speed, straight shift, Nissan Datsun truck that has been sitting in his garage for about the last six or eight years.  I got the bright idea to fix the little truck up and then I would have me a gas saver. So I called my papaw and asked if he cared if I fixed the truck up to drive to school. He told me he didn’t mind so my buddy and I dove right in. We started out by draining all the fluids and the old gas and oil out and put a new set of tires on it. We changed the oil and oil filter next. We then started narrowing down the engine troubles. First we realized there wasn’t any fuel getting in the carburetor so we had to put a new fuel pump on it.  After changing out spark plugs and cleaning the carburetor we finally got it running great.  Next we moved to the clutch and brakes. We were afraid we were going to have to replace the clutch but luckily the hydraulic clutch pumped right up and so did the brakes! All we like now is changing out the universal joint in the rear end and getting insurance and a tag and it will be ready to drive! Hopefully it will save me some money on fuel because this 10 MPG with gas at $3.50 is making me go broke!

Life Goal

As of right now, I work for my granddad.  He owns a plumbing and electrical company in Calhoun.  My dad is a master’s licensed plumber.  I have been working with them since I was in the eighth grade off and on, so about a total of 7 years.  I don’t like plumbing all that much. It is definitely a whole lot nastier than electrical.  Electrical is what I love.  It can be very dangerous working with high voltage and big access panels.  I also worked for MME Inc doing commercial electrical work for a little over a year.  We actually wired the new state patrol post in Cartersville just down the road from the school.   We also did some dentist offices, warehouses, and the gem theatre in down town Calhoun.  It’s a very dangerous job to have and you have to be very cautious at all times.  I’m going to Georgia Highlands to get some of my core classes out of the way, and then I am going to transfer to Southern Poly and major in electrical engineering.  My goal is to obtain the engineering degree, and then eventually take over the family business and expand.  My best friend is also majoring in electrical engineering and we have talked about partnering up in business and expanding throughout the southeast.  Everyone has to start somewhere and if you ask me, we have got off to a pretty good start. It just seems like school is going to last an eternity, but I just keep telling myself, “It will all pay off in the end.”