True and Believable: Part II

Click on the photo. Once you get past the deadness and the tongue, you can see the beauty of this deer's 9 inch drop tine.

I would like to begin by telling you that my partner in crime is a 17 year old. As I stated last time, what could possibly go wrong with the plan we developed. Well here is the plan of all plans. A plan that makes Operation Overlord look like a trip to the local grocery store.

We had two issues to overcome, the first was the down payment. I couldn't possibly ask Emily for several hundred dollars for a down payment on something that she absolutely was against. The second was final payment, pickup and delivery. This was less of an issue.

Here is the solution to problem number one. Luke just got a job and he has been saving up. He and I discussed a loan. I know what you are thinking, "Brent, you are a captain with eight years in the U.S. Army, he is 17 and bags groceries at the store. For minimum wage." Well I have two comments for that, the first is that he just got a twenty cent per hour raise. The second is the key to the plan, how could Emily deny a 17 year-old-who-works-for-minimum-wage-plus-twenty-cents the repayment of the money.

This was the genius of the plan. The remainder of the money will not be a problem since I am about to deploy and I will be making what I like to refer to as insanity money. I call it that because not that it is an insane amount, but putting your life on the line for an extra $250 a month and no taxes is insane.

Delivery is easy, although he does not have a drivers license yet, I am hoping he does by the time time the deer is mounted in 10 months. Ok, maybe we didn't think that one through all the way. But it would benefit the both of us if he would get a license.

Like I said, what could possibly go wrong with this plan. Well one night when Emily and I were out with our friend Jessica, who is also the mother of my 17 year old accomplice. Well, I decided to come clean, I could no longer live a lie.

I would like to say that my wife is a wonderful, beautiful, and patient person. I was basically informed that the deer would go in the basement and what was I thinking.

I would like to say that our plan was essentially fool proof. The only problem is that I am a fool. I will also have a mount in the basement. So I guess it worked. I am a genius.

Did I mention my wife is beautiful?

True and Believable! Even for a hunting story

Unlike yesterdays post, this story is both true and believable. It is also a two part post. I don't want to bore you all at once. A couple of years ago I began hunting again. Hunting in Virginia is different then what I have done in the past. To begin with, the area I live in is highly populated so only shotguns with buckshot is legal. The second is that you don't walk very far, once again there is a subdivision or private property. So you either use a tree stand or my personal favorite, my five dollar folding chair from Wal-mart. The next thing I had to get used to was that people use dogs for hunting, if you are going to sit in a chair, something needs to push the deer around.

So there I sat in my five dollar chair with my trusty shotgun. As you can imagine, this can be quite boring so I pulled out a bicycling magazine. Then I ate a sandwich. Then I fell asleep. Then I woke up. Then I ate another sandwich. Then I fell asleep. Then I drank a couple of Mountain Dews. Then I fell asleep again. Then I heard a noise, it was a squirrel so I went back to sleep. So the morning went.

Then I heard some dogs, as they got closer their menacing bark told me to get ready. They were pushing something, maybe to me. So I stood up and streched a little, after all a five dollar chair from Wal-Mart does not offer much on the side of lumbar support. Then I brushed the crumbs from my sandwiches off of my old Army BDUs. The beasts were getting closer, I began to fear for my life too, what if they abandon the deer they were chasing and came after me. I had eaten my lunch so I would have no sandwiches to throw to them as a distraction. What if I had to run and abandon my five dollar chair. What if I had to run with the kink in my back. So I put down my shotgun and strectched a little more. Then it hit me, I had a shotgun to fight off ravaging dogs.

So I watched for the deer, hoping it would be in range, then out of the dense oak trees came a deer. All I saw was antlers. I had to quickly pick a lane to shoot down, the vegetation is very thick and I fired my first shot, then I shifted to my next lane and fired again. I stopped to listen, then out of nowhere came the beasts in hot persuit of this deer. This is a problem becuase an injured deer will get up and run from them.

Out of the dense vegetation came two dogs. To my disbelief and disappointment, they were not huge ravenous dogs, but tiny beagles yelping. I was almost embarrassed for the large buck for running from these dogs. A friend of mine called and said that he found the deer in the swamp by following the dogs barking. After wading out to my waist to pull it in we found that it was a special deer.

I was so excited that I called Emily and told her about my amazing whitetail buck. Her reply was far less excited and she asked what my plan was. I told her that there was only one thing to do with this deer, mount it and put it next to the bikes in the family room. As you have probably imagined, Emily was less than......excited about me mounting a deer and bringing it home.

At church the next day that was the talk of the ward. None of the men went to Sunday School, we all stood around and looked at pictures. We all agreed that the left facing shoulder mount would be the best option for the 9 inch drop tine. Although Emily and I agreed that mounting the deer was not in "my" best interest I succumbed to peer pressure in the halls of the church.

I wanted my deer mounted and it is at this point that this story becomes both really true and believable. A friend of mine and I devised a scheme so fool proof that I found myself laughing one of those diabolical laughs. Muah hahahahahaha. Stay tuned tomorrow for the rest of the story.
The story of the plan so simple and fool proof that nothing could go wrong. Really!!!!!

So Unbelievable It Has To Be True!

When Emily and I got married in 1998 we purchased a small T.V./VCR combo with a 13 inch screen. That was our t.v. for six years. For many years it sat on the dresser in our bedroom where we would watch videos since we didn't have cable. Our favorite was the romantic comedy You've Got Mail. Believe it or not, I am a sucker for a good romantic comedy. That is not the amazing part of this story though.

Emily and I have always despised the concept of the t.v. being the center piece of the main room of the house. People would always ask us where our t.v. was. Smugly we would explain that we only had a 13 inch television. Then in 2003 we moved to Fairbanks, Alaska. It was going to take 40 days for our stuff to arrive so we went to Sam's Club and bought a 27 incher. We had more then double our viewing capacity. We smugly put it upstairs out of the main family room. Friends and guests always asked if we had a t.v.

Don't worry, there is a point to this story. When we moved to Fort Lee, Virginia we got froggy. After 9 years of marital bliss, we decided to get cable. This was a big step. I was bragging at work about how we got cable, people looked at me as if I just crawled out of a hole from the 1950s. You guessed it, the t.v. was hidden upstairs in a spare bedroom. People would ask if we had a t.v. Our response was less smug now that we had cable.

Then we bought a house off post cancelled the cable and everything was great until Simon pushed the power button on our 27 incher until the button broke off. He found great joy in turning off our t.v. while the kids were watching Dora reruns on DVD. He would smile as they yelled. Then one day he pushed the button all the way in. Emily and I decided that our huge (in weight and girth) t.v. had to go. It had served us well but after 11 1/2 years it was time to upgrade.

Now all televisions are flat and big. We used to mock those whose televisions were the center piece of their house. We could not stand it when people left them run whether someone was watching or not. Useless noise and commotion.

This is where the story becomes somewhat unbelievable, but even I could not make up something like this. So gird up your loins and hold on!!!!!

My mother bought the kids a Wii, a machine created by the devil himself. I got so tired of hearing about the Wii that I moved the broken 27 inch t.v. and the Wii into our small cinder block basement. Although the Wii is amazingly small and light, the 27 incher was not. But in a most manly manner, I picked up the monster and the devil machine and down we went. Literally. I tweaked my back and could barely move for two days. I then moved a 13 inch t.v. I bought in Iraq into the family room and that became our main t.v.

Back to the glory days, but this would not last long. Emily made it clear that my smugness would not be tolerated. She suggested we by a flat screen and hang it on the wall out of the reach of Simon. Sounded good to me. So I suggested the 32 inch flat screen, just slightly larger then what we had before.

Emily and I walked into Best Buy and started shopping, I pointed out the 32 inch and she said "That is too small!" What had happened to the woman that I married. I thought back to a time before we were married when a friend of ours, the man who married us had sat us down for some pre-marital advice. He had warned us that people change over time and not be be surprised years down the road.

But this, I was not prepared for this. I figured he was talking about weight gain, shifting political views, or heaven forbid....infidelity. But here we were at a serious cross roads. I was happy with 13 inches of bliss, I would settle for 32; but after 11 years of union she wanted a much bigger television. We debated for a while; my heart began to crack as we purchased a 42 inch t.v.

I know that this is hard to believe, most would think that it would be me who would want this, remember though, I couldn't make this up. It gets worse. I know you are thinking "how could it get worse?" Emily then stated that she wanted Directv. It felt as though Paul Bunyan himself had driven a giant wedge into my heart as Babe the Blue Ox pulled it apart. So I called the satellite people. Now there is a dish in my yard. It is like a perverted Sistine Chapel, the dish's one hand reaching to the heavens for life from the hand of Ted Turner.

Maybe I am a bit over dramatic, but as I hung this monstrosity on the wall I thought, well at least if I was going to hang the T.V. where I planned to hang my next bike, I would be able to watch bicycle racing on Versus, the only channel in the United States that offers it.

To add insult to injury, out of 250 channels, Directv does not offer Versus, and where will I hang my next bike; I have already had to move two bikes into the basement with the devil machine and the 27 incher.

The Egg Hunt

Spring is a glorious time of year. The grass is green, the trees are green, and the azaleas are in bloom. While many are enjoying time outside in their gardens or yards, I have found myself scouring post-Easter sales for the last of the season's Cadbury Creme Eggs. While far from being a low point in my life, it is certainly not the pinnacle. Every year, I eat them until I am sick, swearing that I will never eat them again. But of course by the time spring comes around I have forgotten how delightful they are.

That chocolate shell, creamy center, and well who knows how much fat/calories/wholesome goodness they have because they come wrapped in foil. Upon consulting the website, I found that these delicious morsels had no information listed.

Even though it is an egg, which are nutritious I am somewhat suspicious of large corporations. You never know, Hershey's Chocolate may not want us to know what we are eating. So I continued to search until I found the following:

Just as I suspected, it is fine for human consumption. I am not sure what I was worried about. Anyway, I was successful at Walgreen's the other day, they had three of the 12 pack mini-creme eggs. Although the chocolate to creme ratio is not exact, they do fine. They were half off so I bought them. I checked at three different locations today, no luck.

You may find yourself wondering when a person with a full time job, four kids, a dog, and a wife has time to search for the last of the eggs. I don't but it is a labor of love so I neglect them. After all, I will work for the rest of my life and I have my family all for the rest of time and eternity. I can only get creme eggs once a year.

The Journey Continues

I apologize to my 3 avid readers for my apparent laziness. The truth is, I am preparing to visit a far off land. A place that is exotic, hot in the summer, cool and rainy in the winter. Best of all it is full of people that don't like me, well not specifically me but people like me....and you. This particular deployment will be unique and has taken a lot of additional effort to prepare for.

I have been able to enjoy some of the finer things in life though. I have spent a fair amount of time with my wife and kids. Since I have them, I might as well enjoy them. I have also been able to spend some time with the few quality friends that I have. You may have guessed that both involved bikes and in some cases fish; although not both at the same time, I am trying to figure out how to work that out though.

One of the great pleasure I have is bicycling, as I have said a hundred times (+/- 5 times). I feel like a kid when I do it. I love that Olivia rides very well and has a competitive spirit that drives her. The other day she rode her bike eight miles, a feat that would cripple many adults. Vance likes to pedal but becomes frustrated on hills, so I put him on the half bike. Emily pulls the other two in the trailer. Olivia got a new Mountain bike for Christmas and she uses the brake levers and shifter like a pro.

I recently found out about a path that follows the Appomattox River above the fall line. It is beautiful and user friendly to a point (at which point it becomes both muddy and extremely challenging). I am researching the history of the area because it is quite fascinating. Bellow are two stone arches.

These have been here for at least 100 years. I don't care how many Sunday School lessons I have had about keystones and arches, my heart pounds when Olivia runs over them.

Although I am sure that is why she does it too, she has a dare devil spirit.

Take this for example notice all of the kids playing. Now take notice of the pink in the tree. She wanted to go higher. I was not comfortable with that.