The rain keeps falling on Trout Underground World Headquarters, so the snow that blanketed the yard is almost gone and a lot of twitchy, chattering squirrels are hoovering the backyard for acorns and other goodies formerly buried out of reach.

Of course, all that snow had to *go* somewhere, which means the Upper Sacramento is yo-yoing up and down during what are typically the best BWO hatches of the year.

La Nina, it seems, has little respect for fly fishermen.

The weather’s not getting better until this weekend, so if your plans included a trip to the Upper Sacramento, then better reconsider (I hear the Klamath is fishing well).

If the weather moderates and flows settle down before too much time passes, I might still lay my hands on some hardcore fish-on-fly action, and because the big flows may have encouraged the lake fish (whom we suspect are remnant steelhead populations) to run up the river, the fish could be damned big.

It’s rare, but anything’s happened in the past could conceivably happen again – or at least that’s how fly fishermen see the world (through hopeful eyes).

On A Less Hopeful Note, Technology…

Meanwhile, at the failure-plagued Underground World Headquarters (Official Motto: “If We Own It And It’s Electronic, It’s Breaking”) I’m performing a kind of freelance alchemy (triage might be a better word), transforming late-night hours into a working desktop PC, a new wireless network (the old router suddenly began failing on us 2-3 times a day), a new phone system, and a new wireless printer.

(The first person who says “technology makes our lives easier” receives a package courtesy our ordinance department.)

Once the dust has settled, the L&T and I should be living in a virtual technological Valhalla, which sounds great except for the following: I’m pretty sure it doesn’t exist.

Simply put, I doubt we’ll find utopia wrapped in fancy electronic wrapping paper.

At the moment, I’d suggest just the opposite.

Such is modern life.

Life Intrudes

In addition to the usual work indignities, I’m teaching classes this week, and feeding hungry minds takes time, though my ability to finish and ship an essay for the upcoming “blogger issue” of the Blood Knot E-zine means I can still embrace my inner writer for at least short periods of time.

John Gierach told me he was trying to spend his summers fishing and his winters writing (sorta), an idea which – when I’m wrestling with a client’s sputtering ecommerce system and a half-dozen other “online presence” projects – sends shivers down my spine.

In the meantime, I’ll content myself with making a living, working as an unpaid IT staffer in my own house, and writing an interesting a short, informative piece about how to use point-and-shoot digital cameras. Who loves ya, baby?

See you buying lottery tickets, Tom Chandler.

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