Facilties Improvements: Know your limits.

I confess to being a DIY hack.  A mantra around my house is, "We don't hire work done!" When Wendy suggests we call a plumber or electrician, I make a show of how offended I am. 

From time to time, the DIY bug takes over in my profesional life in managing district facilities. Last summer, I did take matters into my own hand and install a grease trap, but that's a story for another blog post. 

However, I understand there are limits to the DIY mentality. 

This summer our district passed a bond issue and completed improvments ahead of schedule and under budget. This was only possible because I did not try to DIY the work. From getting the issue on the ballot, advertising for proffesionals, evaluating contracts, and completing the work, professionals were involved. Writing specifications for HVAC bids, understanding asbestos abatement, and writing ballot language are specific skills. Evaluating the difference between RFQ's, RFP's, and RFB's is a specific skill. Knowing if a project qualifies for design build or quarunteed energy savings contractors is a specific skill. 

Our district is more efficienct, safer, and more asthetically pleasing because of the experts who were involved in the work. Our community trusted the district to provide a great environment for students and teachers when they passed the bond issue. 

Their expectations were met because of the professionals who assisted us along the way. 

Fishing

Four days before my daughter's fifteenth birthday, and a year after a move, we loaded the canoe on top of the van and headed off to go fishing.

After a day fishing "the lake at the old house."
Fifteen seemed a long way off. 

It would be the first time in a year the two of us sat in the canoe together- something we did on an almost nightly basis before the move, when we lived on a twenty-five acre lake that offered a large mouth or crappie on almost every cast. We challenged ourselves at one point to see how many days we could fish in a row- even if it meant sneaking in a few casts in the morning before school. The move was a big adventure, and a successful one, but it didn't provide many opportunities for little adventures.

The canoe sat at the edge of a little farm pond, too small to hold much more than the tiniest sunfish. My son enjoys paddling around it with his Buzz Lightyear pole, but Savannah never took the bait- it wasn't the lake at the old house.

I was surprised and excited when she took interest in heading to the Grand River. When she was little, she enjoyed fishing. Mostly I enjoy catching. If they're not biting, I'm ready to head to the house. But Savannah was always stubborn. If the action was slow, she got frustrated, but she would not quit fishing. I wondered if she had outgrown all that.

The M Hwy Bridge at Bosworth

We paddled upriver from the access, taking the same route steam boats once took from the Missouri to Chillicothe. After stoping at a gravel bar, we began floating downstream, working the bank with a worm and a jig, the way we caught bass in the lake. Cast after cast- no bites. Carp jumped from the surface to mock us, and we were jealous of the fishermen we saw taking fish off trotlines. There was frustration, but there was also comfort in re-engaging in our bickering about who was rocking the canoe, or why it was obvious that casting there would get you snagged.

We didn't do any catching, but we were both glad we went fishing.

Red Snapper and Blind Fisherman

Great gifts are usually the result of great efforts, as was certainly the case when my wife sent me fishing in the gulf while she took three kids to the beach by herself.

Before the chartered boat pulled from the dock, laughter erupted when a fisherman in sun glasses continued to ask a kid, who was telling a "one that got away story" to tell him how big it was. The kid kept responding by holding his hands apart. The deck hand and the captain knew the man in glasses, a regular customer, was blind- and a prankster, but the kid didn't. Each time he was asked the question, he took the bait, at his own expense. Over the course of the eight hour trip, I found it hard to not be aware of the man. Of how he baited the hooks with cut squid on his own. Of how he talked Auburn football and trash on his brother when he was out fishing him. Of how he called out predictions of weight to the deck hand for each fish he caught. 

I also found it hard to not be aware of how he experienced the day. The texture of the line under my thumb as the bait dropped beneath the boat. The tension of the bent rod during the fight. Warmth of the sun, scent of the bait and snapper, the steady churn of the deisel and rush of water against the boat.

Later that night I took note of how fine my daughter's hair felt as she leaned against me, an act that happens with less frequency as she moves through middle school. We sat in lawn  chairs with the thick fillets cooking on a grill before us. The charcoal smoke, the melting butter, and softening onions. We tore off edges of fish as it crisped against the grill and commented on how all the flavors, salt, pepper, lemon, butter, and fish, combined. Our campsite was close enough to the Santa Rosa Sound to hear water against sand. A great moment.

I was grateful for the chance to spend a day out on the water catching fish. And a little perspective.

At The Confluence

Aside from a dog that rambled out of the brush, looked us over, and trotted off like he was expecting to find someone else, we had the river bank to ourselves.  My daughter, who threw a pole and tackle box in the car at the last minute, searched the rip rap for anything that would serve as bait. I stared at the river, considering the swirling eddies that quickly popped up and disappeared like frustrations and anxieties that make a morning spent in a canoe so appealing.

"Dad you won't believe it! Look at this!"

No one else I know has the luck of my daughter. When I turned around she was holding a white carton of night crawlers that had washed up or been abandoned.  We spent the morning watching her tight line and snacking on fruit and summer sausage on the dry bag that served as our table cloth.

The Missouri was at eleven feet that morning and we decided to briefly test our strength against the 72,000 cubic feet of water that flowed downstream each second. We paddled out and then looped back into the creek to begin the mile long trip back to the ramp where we parked.

A breeze at our back allowed us to fish and float back without paddling. Almost too quickly. As we loaded up, both of us wished we were still at the confluence of Perche Creek and the Missouri River.

First Salt Water Catch: Fishing Bay St. Louis

It wasn't long before my daughter felt the familiar tug and I heard, "Fish on, Daddy."

We walked through chest deep troughs carefully holding the rod and reel high. One hundred yards from shore we found a sand bar. There the water of Bay St. Louis gently lapped against us at our knees on its way to the beach where the rest of the family played.

My oldest daughter and I surveyed our surroundings. To our left the bridges carrying cars and trains to Pass Christian arched into the air. To our right the coastline worked its way toward New Orleans where we spent the morning shopping and dipping beignets in cafe au lait. Behind us the sun began to set over multicolored beach homes on South Beach Boulevard . All around us small fish made double leaps over the surface. Sea gulls and pelicans patrolled above.

A plastic crawfish on a .5 circle hook dangled on twenty four inches of leader below a large popping float. My daughter was excited, and though I tried to feign confidence as I assembled the rig, I was too. We grant ourselves expert status in our canoe at home where we bass fish, but this our first experience together fishing salt.

We began working the next trough out, and though our first few casts yielded no result, it wasn't long before my daughter felt the familiar tug and I heard, "fish on, Daddy."

As we waded back to shore to show off the catfish, all of ten inches, she had a smile and the confidence to ensure this wouldn't be her last catch from the bay.

Summer's First Fishing Trip

What started out with a question, ended with lunch. The fact that we hit for our version of the cycle and missed the afternoon storms made it even better.

Today was the first day of summer vacation that I was able to spend at home, and when I asked my oldest daughter if she she thought we should run to the store to buy worms to go fishing her reply was, "Can we?"

Soon we were dodging snags and rain clouds. We beat the rain back to shore with the perfect amount of fish for lunch. By the time we were finished, the basket held at least one of the lake's three tastiest species: bass, crappie, and my favorite, bluegill.

The picnic table, camp stove, and cast iron skillet served as our  backyard kitchen. Tortilla shells, which are perfect for checking to see if the oil is ready, were our side dish. Thin fillets crisped to a golden brown in the Andy's fry mix. The mullberry tree provided dessert.

We both agreed to do it again soon. Now we need a day without meetings on the schedule or rain in the forecast.