hero

Kids and ducks in winter.

That's funny.

Griff, like his running phenom father, Tom Graves of CSHS and Auburn heritage, is a force to deal with on running shoes.

Our hike to camp is what I refer to as the "death march".  We carry external frame packs loaded down with camping gear and a week's worth of food up a serious mountain trail.  I took one look at Griff's slight frame and decided that I needed to carry the bulk of the load up the mountain.  His pack carried about 1/3 of our load on the way up, mine the remaining 2/3s.

When we arrived at the overlook, above the line of alpine brush, I noticed that Griff had not yet broken a sweat.  I, on the other hand, was spent.  I rectified this situation on the return trip by making sure that Griff lugged half of the load, which included half of a bear.

It was refreshing to see the kid sweat! 

That's correct!  Winter hunting on snowshoes can be done with a shotgun, flushing the birds, or with a 22, plinking them like rabbits.

Occasionally we encounter them across a ravine, requiring a shot of 100 yards or more.  That makes for challenging shooting, adjusting for wind, bullet drop, etc.

Although I bowhunt I have not done this.  I have however seen the flying carp while boating near Chillicothe, IL on the Illinois River.  Thought the girlfriend was going to get cracked in the head.

Using .22 rifles , I'm guessing these birds aren't flushing when you locate them.

Short hunt, nice bear!!  Tom Graves form way back at CSHS or a different one?

I recently purchased an Asus EPC1000HE 10.0 inch Netbook computer.

This computer is excellent for most every task.  It has built in Wireless N as well as built in Bluetooth.

The computer is powered by an "all-day" battery.  This computer can run all the way on a cross-country flight. 

The built in Bluetooth is great.  I purchased a MS "Bluetooth" Notebook Mouse 5000 and now I don't need to use the touch pad.

The computer was purchased from Newegg.com for about $429, including second day air shipping.

Newegg information:

http://promotions.newegg.com/ASUS/022609/index.html?cm_sp=Subcat_Netbooks-_-ASUS/022209-_-http%3a%2f%2fpromotions.newegg.com%2fASUS%2f022609%2f478x88.jpg

Asus website information:

http://promos.asus.com/US/Spotlight/Feb2009/1000HE_Story.html

I was messing around with my Netbook, doing nerd things (specifically I was trying to merge the two large partitions and change the cluster size with PartitionMagic 8.0).  In the process I trashed the computer.  It would NOT boot up.  I received a message that said something like "Disk error, hit control, alt, delete to restart". 

Unfortunately, the computer was seriously trashed.  I couldn't do anything with it.  So I took the recovery DVD that came with the computer and ran it. 

The recovery DVD worked like a champ.  I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I could undo the damage that I caused.

Sweet.

Here's some information (see the attached) that I recovered from the Internet.  It suggests an alternate spelling for Shemaitis (Shemaites).

It also suggests that Uncle Tom (nee Dominick Alexander Shemaitis) may have been recorded as Dominick John Shemaites.

I am too cheap to pay for a membership to Ancestry.com but I suspect that any variations in the census records can be traced back to poor transcription by the census worker coupled with "English as a second language" for Grandpa Dominick.