The Underground at Dialup Speeds: Still Cranky, But Slower

I seems my close, personal friends at AT&T mucked up our phone switching order twice — so I’m on slow, slow dialup access (a 21st century guy living at 20th Century speeds). But at least I’m back online (for a while, that didn’t look like a sure thing).

I’m back, but sadly, I’m not doing any heavy online lifting; even though we hired some young backs to sling around the heavier bits during last weekend’s move (and smellslikefish foolishly showed up to help), my lower vertebrae still hover on the brink of chaos, unwilling to maintain any semblance of order.

That may be the price of old age, but with the house finally emerging from chaos — and decent BWO weather still ahead of us — I’m hoping my backbone pulls together enough to find me out on the river Thursday afternoon, happily casting tiny flies to rising trout.

After all, one of the recommended cures for a bad back is icing, which pretty accurately describes standing in a freezing river.

So there we are: four out of five doctors recommend I go fishing.

Coming Up

Still coming are a whole list of stories that I might actually get written now that my life is back in order.

Then again, I look at that list and sigh; the need to avoid starvation mandates I spend some time writing things people pay me to write (then there’s the need to sneak in a little fishing so I’ll have something to write about).

Redband recovery? Fiberglass fly rods? The Starter’s guide to bamboo fly rods? A pair of essays on fishing — and leaving — new water?

It’s all sitting there, and at times it seems what little energy is left is diverted to writing about the latest plot to steal our water, our salmon, our right to fish (coming up in about an hour), or… you get the drift.

Still, that’s the price you pay nowadays for having a passion requiring a little clean water and some undisturbed country. Unlike celebrity gossip, there’s a limited supply of both, and sometimes that means sitting down and doing what it takes to make sure a little escapes the grinder that is civilization.

See you on the river (hopefully), Tom Chandler.

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