Election 2016 .. Hillary or Donald ... doesn't matter, LOVE must prevale!!

Hate is NEVER an answer!!!

OHHH WOW good morning my friends and faithful readers. before I begin I just want to say I LOVE you all. I do not categorize my friends by their political leanings or religious beliefs. I do not categorize my friends... if you are my friend (FB or otherwise) it is because I believe I have seen something in your character (or FB posts) that lead me to believe that at your core, your heart, you desire to be the best person you can be and not just for yourself but those around you as well.

For those reading this (because you are my friends and I know your character), this election season has been the most difficult in our lifetimes. We have had to bare the nastiest political ads, the most uninformative debates and the most divisive candidates in our countries history. ALL of us are either completely stunned and broken that our candidate didn't win or we are excited to see an upset in the election that could never have been seen by anyone watching the "polls" on the mainstream media. I sat up last night until 2am watching to see if they would call the election. I watched FOX news, CBS and CNN and one thing was true throughout... NOONE actually saw this coming. Now I understand that if your candidate won you are saying to yourself "well I saw it, I knew he'd win" but I am talking about the general media understanding throughout the country. I heard M. Kelly loosing her mind trying to understand "how this happened" even though she is a Rep. supporter. I watched as the Clinton crowd fell silent and defeated during the later part of the evening. I think this election really showed us that the mainstream media can do all the predicting and polls they like but as one commentator stated "the only poll that counts is the one on Nov. 8th".

Just so that you all understand that I am not a hypocrite I said the same thing when President Obama was elected. I made it clear then that even if you do not agree with his politics or him as a person it is the duty of EVERY American to honor their elected officials (just look back at my FB posts you'll find it).

We all need to keep in mind that this election was NEVER about who would be the best president of the 2 candidates. This election was never about picking the savior of the free world. It was about choose who we believed would screw the country up the least.

To the President of the United States -
"Mr. president, thank you for serving your country the best you knew how and trying to govern a multitude of peoples that did and did not agree with you. every job has it's challenges and you may just have the greatest in all of our great nation. Many of us may not have agreed with you on many of the things you chose to do while in office but there are many that did agree with you and I can respect that. I can respect their point of view even if I do agree with them. Even though I may not personally agree with your politics and the choices you have made, as you vacate the White House I pray that you are able to look back at your brief time as the leader of the free world and be proud of your accomplishments even if others are not. I pray you can find peace after having the highest job in the nation. but Mr. President please know that this is not the end of your time, know that this may not have been the greatest accomplishment of your lifetime. Seek out God, the lord Jesus Christ STILL stands at the door and knocks. Do you hear him? He loves you and wants to abide with you in eternity. Turn to him and he will forgive your sins and save your soul. You see Mr. President, that office is not the greatest thing you could ever achieve, salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ is far more important. I wish you the very best in your remaining days thank you again for your service."

To Secretary Clinton,
Mrs. Clinton, I know how frustrated you must feel right now and I "feel your pain", all jokes aside I truly can't imagine to have come this far and been so sure of something all to have the rug pulled out from underneath you. I am sure you feel heart broken and betrayed. Rest in the knowledge that your fight has been an inspiration to all the little girls out there who now can believe that it is possible for a woman to be President. I do not believe you lost because "The country is not ready for a woman President." I believe you lost because our country needs something different. I am not sure I am able to properly articulate what that is right now but we need to shake up things in our political system and we believe Mr. Trump will do just that. As an American I would like to ask you to hold your head up and stand before our governing body and give an account for why you chose to act so callously with confidential documents all the while knowing that there are currently men and woman in prison for doing the exact same thing that you did. I pray that as you have been an example to little girls out there of what a woman can truly achieve in America, that you will continue to be an example to the men and woman of our armed force and our gov.t that know full well the consequences of their actions regarding national security.
Mrs. Clinton I know fully how difficult your life has been, I have watched on national television as your husband confessed to being unfaithful to you and your family, I watched (as did all Americans) as you stood by him and supported him after that day. I watched as you rose to Secretary of State. I believe you have the best intentions for our country but many do not agree with how that must be achieved. As you watch the media try to explain to you and the rest of the country why you did not win, please reach out to the only one who can give you peace and understand, repent and turn your heart to God. Jesus stands at the door and knocks, will you open that door and allow him to change your heart. I and many Americans wish you the best as you make sense of this election and the coming days and years. Thank you for your service to our country.

To the President elect -
Dear Mr. Trump, WOW what an amazing upset you achieved last night. It has been stated on almost ever mainstream media outlet as being one of (if not THE) greatest upset in American history, I do not personally know how true that is and I am not sure it really matters. what I do know is that you have a VERY long and hard road ahead of you. I have studied your life and you have had great success in your business' and personal life but you have not had to govern the masses. You have not had to listen to many people tell you no and this may prove to be very difficult for you. I and many other throughout this great country will be pray for you. You must be strong and hold your head up as you admit that you may not like doing a particular thing but you and your administration believe it is what is best for our country. You may have entered this race as a dare or a joke, never believing you could actually win but Mr. Trump there are millions of Americans that are counting on you now. you said "let's make America great again" and we are expecting to see you do just that. you have promised to repeal "Obamacare" and many of us need that but as you do so please do not forget to consider the hundreds of thousands of men, woman and children that were unable to even secure healthcare for themselves (or their babies) before "Obamacare" came to be. I pray you seek God for your answers as he is the only one that can foresee the results of the decision we make. The Lord Jesus Christ stands at the door and knocks sir, do you hear him? He desires to know you and have himself known in and through you. will you answer his call? being President may be the brass ring of our human world but it would be a tragedy to have achieved all this and leave this world for an eternity apart for God. I, in concert with the rest of our country, wish you very best and we WILL be praying for you.

To the next set of candidates -
Thank you for being willing to stand in the public forum and be tried in the court of public opinion. This is going to be a very difficult time for you and your family and we know that. hold strong to your convictions as those belief that brought you to this decision. Please keep in mind that you are electing to be a representative of something greater than yourself. Tell the truth at all times we are tired of the lies. Do not concern yourself with the trash talk of your opponent and do not stoop to that level. Tell us how you plan to make our lives better. Tell us how you plan to change the wrongs within the system. Do not fight with your opponent we already know you don't agree with each other we do not need to waste 2 hours watching you in a debate all to walk away with no more understanding of your political policies that we had when it started. Tell us who YOU are. Tell us why you are the best option for leadership not why your opponent is not. Admit your failures and hold your head high to show us your are strong and take responsibility for you actions. LEAD our country, LEAD our gov.t. and be beyond reproach. understand that we the people know that we all make mistakes and we are willing to forgive them so long as you don't keep repeating them. show us respect and strength of conscience and of character and we will follow you. Let the Lord guide your campaign and you office if you are elected. We will be praying for you.

and finally....

To the American people -
Dear brothers and sisters, I know that as you watched the election you were surprised, even stunned. you watched with breathless anticipation that your candidate was dominating the election or watched in absolute horror as you candidate was loosing more and more ground they counted on for the win. Today many of you are elated that you will most likely not be required to pay the hefty fines imposed on you for not having health ins. at tax season while others are scarred to their core that they or their children will loose the heath care they have counted on for the last 2 years. Many of you believe that Mr. Trump will single handed stop the "slaughter of millions of unborn humans" while others feel he will take away the rights of woman to make the choice (no matter when she decides to start making choices). I cannot list all the issues we are facing but 1 thing is clear, good or bad, Mr. Trump is NOT a career politician. this may be a good thing or it may be horrible but we were never voting for who would be the best president in this election we voted for the person we believed would screw up the country the least. I do not care if you are black, white, yellow, tan....purple whatever you are a fellow human being and my door will be open to you. I will show you the love my King requests/requires of his children to show others. I will feed you, I will clothes you and I will tell you the truth. I will not turn my back on you. I do not care if you are a man or a woman, I will not talk in any way to humiliate, emasculate or dehumanize you, your gender does not and should not by definition make you are target.
We live in a time where many (if not most) act as though they believe that if someone does not agree with them then they must be the enemy. THIS IS NOT TRUE. I have many friends that are homosexual and they know how I believe but this does not mean I love them any less or would treat them as less. There is no place in our society for racism, there is no place in our society for chauvinism/sexism, there is no place in our society for classism <if that is a word>. We are ALL fighting a battle whether it is financial, mental or simply trying to find our place. We cannot look down on anyone else. I dare say if you are looking down on someone else then reach down and help them up. In the current state of our country it is easy to allow hate to infect our state of mind. As a good friend of mine stated this morning on FB:

"America, you will wake up tomorrow and you will do good things. YOU can make a difference in your communities. You have more power than you realize. Don't relinquish it because of one vote. Go raise some awesome kids. Do something that makes you happy. Go make the world better. It needs us. Find your African-American friends, your immigrant friends, your female friends, your LGBTQ friends who are also hurting. If you don't have friends in those demographics, get some and show them that Jesus loves them and died for them too. Let's bridge this divide. Love each other. We can do that. You know why? Because America is great."

Thank you everyone for reading and until next time

Cast a big net and keep tight lines

For my WIFE.... I'm sorry!!

I don't normally do this... if I have something to say to my wife I sit down with her and talk with her. I am posting this publicly so that maybe if there are young men reading this they may learn something and those that are old and your marriage is long in the tooth that you read this and breathe some life somewhere. And NO there is nothing wrong in our marriage and I am not apologizing for something that is about to break our family.

I just want/need my wife to know how deeply in love with her I am.

To my wife:
first I want to say that I am truly sorry.
I am sorry that I have not become a millionaire so that I can give you all the things I think you want.
I am sorry that I have not always been the husband you needed me to be.
I am sorry that I have not always been the father to our children that you needed me to be.
I am sorry that I have not always followed Jesus the way he commands me to that you can follow.
I am sorry I have not always made it clear that I do love you more than you think I do.
you are my best friend and my partner.

I know that we could not be more opposite if we tried. I can think of only 1 or 2 things that we have in common and they are .

My desire is always to:
- Remember that my words can shower down pain and destruction but they can also bring joy and life.

- Continue to court you, to chase after you and express my desire to be with you, physically and mentally/emotionally.

- I will never say "I would die for you". How hard is life after you have died?.... "I will LIVE my life for you." I will give away any of my desires for you because you are my deepest desire. (The Lord not withstanding).

- Put your needs and desires before mine; to not be selfish but to offer to you first, then I will take the left overs (as you have always done for me).

- To learn your love language and remember to speak to you in that language, to make sure I am loving you the way you need to be loved and not the way I THINK you need to be loved or that I need to be loved.

- To remember when we have an argument, that we ARE NOT enemies and I do not need to win "whatever means necessary". I will try to calm myself and discuss until we come to an agreement for the needs of our family.

- Whenever I have been hurt or feel I have been wronged or degraded I should remember that you love me and it is not your desire to emasculate me but to lift me up and love me, I will reach out and explain why I feel hurt and listen to your side of what I misunderstood.

- I want you to know that I do see you are an equal and not one to be lorded over or to be worshipped, that you are my partner and we are both trying to do our best for our family and for our King.

- I will not ask you to go fishing with me (and you will not ask me to read a book) because I know you want to be with me out there but aren't able to be and I know this hurts you.

- I will not ask you questions that I know are to set you up so that I can prove how I am more right than you are and make you feel small.

- I always want to lift you up in the hopes that one day you will look in the mirror and see what all the rest of us see, how amazing you really are.

- You are NOT the reason for every bad thing that happens in our family or friends lives. Most of the time you are the encouragement we all lean on when things go south.

- You still make my heart skip when you smile at me or compliment me, you make me feel like a super hero.

- Your love and compassion are the very blood in my veins that give me the strength to keep fighting when the big boss music starts (video game reference). I fear NOTHING when you are by my side.

Keep this truth in your heart always; I love you beyond my understanding!!

Thank you everyone for reading.

Until next time:
Cast a big net and keep tight lines.

Let's all just be good to one another, I didn't say get trampled on!

Good morning, afternoon or evening faithful readers.
I must say the hardest part of any good weekly blog is deciding what to talk about. I love fishing. I love video games and I enjoy an intelligent politically charged discussion. But more than all those things I love a good, vivid story. If I read your story, book, post etc. I want your words to actually put me there next to you as you are reliving the event/s. This is the main reason why I have not posted in a while there is plenty to talk about but no one wants to listen to rambling. so let's begin.

First let's get the "Colin Kapernick" discussion out of the way. First I have never understood why people get so frustrated with things like this when we (the general public) have all the control. I am a soldier, a sailor (an airman in fact). I served during Desert Storm and would serve today if needed. I did 6 years active and 2 years inactive (I was a reservist) and I am proud of my service. I fought and had friends/brothers who died in that service. But .... and you may not like this but it is a fact.... we did so for the freedom to sit, as protest, during the national anthem. Colin Kapernick (and others who follow) has/have a right to sit during the national anthem. He is not a soldier, he's a football player. I think it was despicable and it disgusts me to think of anyone doing this however he has that right. But see here is the thing. I earn my own paycheck and guess what, I have a right too...... The right to NOT watch any games that include any player that would do this. The right to not buy any merch. that those organizations produce.....see if enough people choose this path then the teams will have no choice but to cut these guys. It's all about the money and if these guys cost the owners money they will get removed from the team. I will not comment on the fact that this was incredibly hypocritical, here sits a man that makes literally millions of dollars a year to play a game and he wants to pro....... I said I wasn't going to comment. Point is the best way to make your voice heard if you disagree with someone is with your money. ok ok enough of that :)

So over the past 2 to 3 weeks I have purchased several items off of FB groups (many of which my readers are a part of) at incredibly good prices. Further, I have been helped or given things when I really needed them and this blog is in honor of those folks. First a gentleman GAVE me a fish finder and GPS unit back a few months ago, I believe it was. Although I have not used it as it does not fit well with my boat (no room to install it yet) this was an awesome thing and I want to say thank to him, however, I cannot find our messages and I don't remember his name. I then purchased a FF and GPS unit all in one from a gentleman locally and it was awesome unfortunately the GPS head unit did seem to work for me, now here's the big deal with this, when I reached out to him and explained my problem he very graciously agreed to give me my money back. THAT IS HUGE TO ME and I just want everyone to know what a great guy this man is. Say howdy to Mr. Joe Witherow he is a good man and I am honored to say I know him. I also received a set of boat seats this last weekend and they will work great on our catfish boat from Mr. Rick Peters who stayed up late on Saturday evening so that I could come get them.
I regularly receive minnows or bait while on the water from folks that are done fishing and don't want to waste the bait. I (and my father and a friend) have been towed back into the marina several times when our outboard was malfunctioning. When dropping my boat solo I almost always have someone offer to assist me. All these things I have listed are to show that there are great people out there that are willing to help out others with no concern for personal gain. I have heard a saying that "the true character of a man can be told by what he is willing to do for others when he knows he will gain nothing for himself". I believe we have a responsibility to those in need (no matter the circumstances) but I believe that we also have a responsibility as those who are in need, to be gracious and understanding of the position we put these folks in while they are assisting us. For this I say thank you to all of you who are reading this for any help you have ever provide not only to me but to anyone, knowing they could not pay you for your time and/or trouble. I promise to reach out to anyone who needs my assistance knowing that I too will not gain anything beyond the knowledge that I helped someone when they needed it.

If you would be interested to read a series of interviews featuring local guides on Truman Lake and Smithville lake please vote on the survey above.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, until next time:
Cast a big net and keep tight lines.

Our BEST and Worst day ever... and i've had a motor go out on me

I have always found it interesting that it is virtually impossible to wake up on time for work or church without somewhat rushing to catch up (although this has gotten significantly easier since I have aged, now I can't sleep in even when I want too.) but let it be the morning of a fishing trip and you have to leave the house by 4:30am you will wake up bright eyed and bushy tailed as though some mystical force has awoken you for the epic battle for the human race itself.

So there I was at 4:30am sitting on the side of my bed shaking out the sleep from my brain and getting dressed in the dark, all while trying not to wake my wife and the baby. Suddenly my phone notifies me that my dad is on his way. I rush up the stairs to wake my son (who ABSOLUTELY HATES getting up early, fishing or not). I wake him with the promise of coffee and we wait on the deck for our passage, to the mighty Truman lake, to arrive.

Approximately an hour and a half later we pull up to the Bucksaw Marina and load the boat to go hunting crappie and catfish for the day. The temperature was perfect. Not to hot, not to cold, just right. So we pull out of the no wake zone and my son has us pull around to the other side of a small jetty right there at the drop point (if you know this marina you know what I am talking about) the water had to be low because the jetty is usually covered by water except for the point itself, this time you could walk the entire length of it if you so desired. So we get around to the south east side of the jetty and he begins to cast the throw net. The first 2 tries where wildly unsuccessful with nary a shad to show for it. On the 3rd cast, however, he pulls in 7 nice size shad and to be honest we could have been done with the shad at this point. So we decide to pitch or dip the stumps on the west bank, just across the channel. The first couple of casts went fruitless but on the next cast I hooked into a fish I thought could have been a small catfish or a small bass (I should note here that I use a 4.4 ft. micro lite pole and reel for crappie fishing, it gives a greater sense of fight with smaller fish). I pull it into the boat and it's a fat 13 1/2 inch crappie. I was more than excited. My day could have ended here this was my record to date and I was thrilled. Nothing could go wrong now (hahahaha whatever). while I am dipping these stumps my son decided it would be a good time to catch a few more shad, you know just for good measure. On his first cast out he caught ... I cannot tell you the number as it was so many that it would be impossible to count by sight. They were small though in fact many were caught between the netting itself but I personally like the small ones, you can hook 3 or 4 on your hook and you know something will try to run your line. He does this one more time and the live well was chuck full of bait. I am still stunned as to how many shad he caught in those 5 minutes.

With a live well full of shad and a record crappie we decided to head down the channel and try our luck at a few spots we were given from a friend. I let everyone know we are heading out and to get settled and everyone agrees. I throw the throttle all the way forward and off we go. We had not gotten to the first turn when my dad screams "hey I lost my hat" so I pull back on the throttle and we spin around and see it floating on top of the water, so we head back to grab it. With hat in hand, we turn back around and head out full force. Once again, before we get to the first turn my dad hollers "crap my pole" I shut down and he explains the his pole just went into the water. We searched for about 5-10 minutes with no luck. The suck about this is that he just bought the reel at BPS less then 3 mo. ago. Dad decides that we need to get on fishing and we head out again at full force. This time we make it all the way to our crappie spot. All in all the crappie fishing was poor (our skill not the bite, still working on this but there was a storm coming in so that may have had something to do with it and that is what I will blame it on). So here we are trying to crappie fish when my dad hollers "son of a gun" and I feel him leaning on my back hard. My son (who runs the trolling motor from the bow) turns and looks and starts laughing. He jumps up and sits next to me and reaches under my father's seat, which has completely broken and is now resting on my sons arm and my back. So we get dad standing up and pull the seat out and get it stowed. My dad decides it might be ok to place the blue painters bucket, we carry, over the seat post and sit on this. Now for many of us this would probably have been a feasible solution for the remainder of the trip but dad (as you know, If you read my blogs) has seen many moons and his stability isn't what it use to be. We all get settled a bit and my boy starts the trolling motor up and boom dad and bucket to the ground or should I say deck of the boat, now this probably would have been a bit more humorous except that he cut his arm or tore his skin pretty good. But even he was laughing at this point. So my son jumps back and helps him up. while my son returns to his position in the boat he trips over the oar (a hand made oar my dad made at the beginning of this fishing season) and snaps it in half. At this point the entire boat erupts in laughter. We were crying, it was so funny.

We are all settled and decided "well heck we've gone through all this, we might as well head to our known good catfish spot and chill for a little while." so off we go without incident. As we are sitting in our spot which happens to be right out off the channel itself in the middle of the lake my son notices HUGE storm clouds coming in from the northeast and more importantly we can see the wall of rain coming right at us. Now I don't have to tell you that at this point we barely cared we had fought to be here right now and DANGIT WE AREN'T MOVING!! My son has the brilliant idea (no sarcasm) to take off his shirt so the when the rain does pass we have dry shirts to put on soooo... off come the shirts. Now it's plenty warm outside but can I tell you that rain coming from 3 thousand ft. up is COLD. it was much unpleasant but I was in the military and I have dealt with much colder and much hotter conditions but we weren't moving. I caught a small cat and after the rain died we realized we had been at this spot far to long so we decided to go grab some lunch and head back out. and that is what we did. score Jeff: 1 record crappie and 1 eater blue cat; dad and cubs: nothing.

Dad decided he would buy a new chair at Walmart and we had some Mexican for lunch. we hit the water around 1:30 and headed to a spot that has yet to fail us. I tried a bit of crappie fishing but this spot really isn't a spot to catch sizable crappie so back to good ole catfishing. This was amazing my dad pulled in the biggest of the day and probably the last couple of years. but the real story at this point was my son. Cubs caught one or 2 decent catfish but he was tired and threw his line out and expected to lay down in the boat and chill (this would not be the case). We were chatting about something when WHAMMM the tip of the rod bent over as though it was pointing at the fish that clearly had been hooked. My son jumped up and grabbed his rod, set the hook and started reeling.... the fight was on. when he pulled this beautiful monster into the boat we were all giddy at how beautiful this thing was, the light blue and pink shading and the sheer size was awesome. He gets the hook out of the fishes lip and he is hold her up in mighty glory when.... the lid to the live well was closed and the fish decided she was going to have one last ditch wiggle to break free, my son looses his grip and the fish ...no kidding... bounces off the live well and yes, into the water. Have you ever seen confusion, anger and acceptance all come over the face of a young person at the same moment? He was FURIOUS and went dead silent. In an effort to console my boy I looked at him and smiled and said "alright look get that pole rigged up we know there are more just like that in here and we can't catch them if we spend our time being upset about that, besides you still won, you caught the big fish." but it hurt me almost as much as it did him.

We spent about another hour fishing then headed to the state park marina to clean our fish. We took home about 5 lb.'s or more of fillets so it was a great day but man we earned them fish.... for shore.

Thank you for reading and have a great weekend!!!

Until next time cast a big net and keep tight lines

Scam... where's the scam?

What a crazy 2 weeks it has been I literally have so much to talk about that I will be posting 2 blogs this week (if I find the time). In the last 2 weeks I have had myself and my bank account succumb to a scam and had to deal with the bank and all my finances (2 days before my direct deposit hit my acct.), my son, father and I had both THE BEST and WORST day fishing (in the same day) we have had ...ever, my Daughter got married (I was the officiant), my mother-in-law decided to try to break her spine... yes break her spine, my son, daughter (another one) and I volunteered at the KC Comic Con and I received my official ordination. This may seem like a lot in 2 weeks and it really was but it doesn't feel like it and I am still alive and look forward to more. With 7 kids and a grandbaby there is always fun to be had right around the corner.
In this blog post I want to talk about the scam and my bank acct. I am quite embarrassed as to my naivety and how easily I was duped but I believe this is good to share as it may help one of you or a loved one, in the future, to understand what I went through and how this scam actually works.

I highlight this as I know this a huge thing right now and to be honest I would never have believed I could've fallen for such a stupid scam. We never seem to believe it could happen to us ... until it does.
So on a bright and sunny Tuesday I received a call from a company claiming they had found my application for an online loan. I have used this avenue (online loans) many times in the past couple years to help get over rough spots in our finances, so this seemed perfectly natural, mind you this is where the "perfectly natural" ends everything after this set off sirens and bells in my head that something just didn't seem right. They had ALL of my information and I mean ALL of my information including the last 4 of my social. Now I know you can buy lists of info from companies all over the internet, with peoples information but rarely can you get such a comprehensive list (or so I thought). The person on the other end of the line stated that they had received my loan application from a group called OLA. This is a real organization and ironically they were set up to fight or more prevent this type of thing from happening.
The guy on the line said they could secure me a loan of $5000 to be paid back at $154 a month for the next 36 months. With my daughter about to be married and a slew of other things I could use this kind of money for, I continued to talk with the guy. He said they simply needed to deposit $2k into my account today and that I was to immediately send the money back via wire transfer the next morning. Now as I said I am familiar with online loans and online bill pays and all of them go through what is called ACH. I do not know what that exactly stands for but it is a secured way for companies to send you money and for you to setup the auto bill pay for each month. the guy on the other end of the line stated that they did not use ACH and that this was just a different way to send and receive money.
Ok let me stop right here and explain a few things;
1. I am not in the banking industry and I don't know how everything works (but this did set off an alarm in my head...which I ignored) so this seemed reasonable.
2. I could not understand, if they were going to put money into my acct. and all I was doing was sending it back, how anyone would get hurt or "burned"
3. As a father of 6, $5000 is a lot of money that I could use and I wanted to surprise my wife with the ability to get herself a vehicle and some new clothes (or whatever she needed).

So needless to say I ignored that little voice in my head that said "dude, I can't put my finger on it, but something just isn't right here". So I agreed to let them put the money into my account. Oddly enough they had all of my acct. information (including my routing number and all). They were adamant about making sure I was at Walmart to transfer the money back the next morning first thing. This seemed odd but later I figured out why. For those of you in the financial industry you already understand what is going on here but I did not. The next morning I wake up and I see 2 checks had been deposited into my acct. both in excess of $900. One had been "cleared" the other was on hold for what was approximate a week. So I got up and left the house to transfer the money back to them. When I got to the money gram place I called the guy from the "loan" place as instructed and he walked me through filling out the transfer form. I have filled these out before to help friends but this seemed odd as I only had a name and the city and state to fill out. The guy told me to send the $1800 back and explained that only the 900 and change had cleared, so he asked me exactly how much was in the acct., when I tried to log into my acct. it had been locked. These 2 things (the weird sending instructions and the locked out acct.) set of alarms in my head that I could no longer ignore. I told the guy on the phone I would transfer the money and call him back. As I walked out the Walmart doors I immediately called the fraud line for my bank. As I was on hold to speak to someone, I received a phone call from my bank, it was the fraud dept. and they needed to talk with me right away and they left a number to reach them at. I hung up my call and called the number they left. It was immediate explained that I had been a victim of fraud and not to attempt to do anything with my acct. until we got it all sorted out. At this point I am still trying to figure out how anyone could get hurt as I still did not understand how, if they put money in my acct. and I was just giving back, that anyone was going to be deceived/hurt/burned etc. The woman from the bank explained that this group was under investigation and they had several counterfeit checks from them and that the check they had put into my acct. were in fact "bad" checks. After speaking with her in the parking lot for what seemed like an hour, she instructed me to go to my branch office and had me open a second acct. and that this acct. would be closed once the Direct deposit had gone through and they could transfer that money to the new acct. but they wanted to hold my "old" acct. for the investigation. long story short they were able to clear everything up and get me taken care of but if I had transferred the money with money gram I would have been liable for all the money I had transferred.
On the way from the Walmart to the bank it dawned on me (like a brick to the head) here is how this works. Now pay attention, when you deposit a check into your acct. your bank clears a certain amount for you to use so that you are not stuck without any money while that check is being processed. This is a fabulous service the bank provides and is needed (I remember when this wasn't true and you HAD to wait for the check to clear) any money you spend, of that cleared amount is taken against the check once it completes processing. Now if the check does not clear you have to pay back the money you spent (and some additional fees) in this case if I had transferred the money via MoneyGram I would have been liable for the entire $900.
In my case everything turned out fairly ok and I was reasonable unscathed but the bank told me that people get hit with this everyday that don't figure out what happened until it is too late.

Let me share a few things I learned from this:
1. Always speak with your partner about your financial decisions. If I had talked to my wife she would probably have seen the scam before it happened. I knew I should speak with her but I ignored this thought because I wanted to surprise her (and I did :))
2. NEVER NEVER NEVER ignore the sirens that go off in your head that tell you something is wrong. There is a reason those are there. I am told (no research mind you) that the fraud prevention folks for the United States Treasury Dept. study the real bills that are printed, so carefully that even the slightest misprint in a forgery can easily be detected... the point? they do not study all the counterfeits that would be impossible but when they see something isn't right they know that something isn't right, they may not know exactly what right away but they just know that it's not right. We do the same thing everyday and don't realize it. If you walked into a store and thought you had walked into a Target but you saw that everything had a blue border or décor and the telltale yellow smiley face you would quickly realize you were in a Walmart.
DO NOT IGNORE YOUR BRAIN TELLING YOU SOMETHING IS NOT RIGHT HERE.
3. If in doubt about how banking works (or anything else) pick up the phone. I know most of the folks reading this blog do so on cell phones or tablets. It is easy to dial your banks number and just talk to them, they will guide you. Believe me, they don't want to get screwed over any more than you do.
It is my deepest desire that this helps at least 1 or 2 of you. Things are tough out there for most us financially and it is easy to see how the idea of a reasonable loan or quick money is a very big temptation to put logic aside and take a chance. I always encourage my children to take risks but there is a right way to take risks and a wrong way. Ignoring all the signs of a bad risk is the most sure way of come out the bad side of that risk.

Until next time cast a big net and keep tight lines

What I hate the most about Pokemon GO.

One of the biggest challenges that I face in life (other than the fact that I have six children), is that I am an extreme extrovert.
I love to listen to other people's stories.
I love to share my stories with other people.
This is one of my biggest rules:
Rule #1. Always be safe or take the safest option.
Rule #2. As long as you're being safe about it, always choose the option that will ultimately have the best story.
I don't know if this was a choice that I made early in life, to be an extrovert, but I do know that most of my life this has pretty much been thrust on me. What I mean by that is; I'm always the guy in the DMV office or any large public groupings (concerts, the mall, a line for ANYTHING) that everybody ends up talking to. I always seem to be the guy that people just flock to and they tell me about what a horrible day they are having or share a great experience they just had and I enjoyed this very much. I see it as an incredible honor that people are willing to share these things with me.

Now with that said, here's the problem; most of the things that I enjoy doing in my spare time and as a profession are designed or centered around the introverted lifestyle. for instance I love creating programs writing code or writing apps or creating databases etc.. But you have to do this sitting alone in a dark room most of the time concentrating on the couch trying to not sit in a social environment and be able to be productive as a programmer.

I also love fishing. Fishing seems to relax me, there's something about the pull of the line letting you know you have a fish on and the fight is has begun. But even if you are out with your buddies this experience is very much a personal one YOU are reeling in the fish, YOU fight the fish and YOU caught the fish. they may watch but this is not a social event <as it were>.

I am also a lover of video games. I have been playing video games since they FIRST came out. but again most video games are designed for one person to achieve such and such or beat a certain boss. now I do play World Of Warcraft (an MMORPG or Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) and although you do get to interact with other players in the game you are still behind a keyboard and inside and stuck to your computer.

All of the things I have chosen as hobbies or my profession try to guide or even push me to an exclusive and often lonely environment.

Then 2 days ago my son (a burly, 6.5, 250lb monster of a man) came into my front room and said "Hey dad, have you checked out that new Pokémon GO? I totally thought it would suck, but I am addicted. you gotta check this out" he then proceeded to install it on my phone. I didn't really do anything with it until yesterday while I was waiting around for something or other and I opened it up to see what all the fuss was.

Basically the idea is there are all these cute little "Pokemonsters" around you that you can not see without the app and you have to catch them. You can then level them up and once they (or you) are a high enough level, you can meet up with other people and battle your little monsters against others.
Ok I have to admit this thing is a lot of fun. For me the greatest draw is that it is deigned to interact with others IN PERSON. this is a huge game changer (excuse the pun) for those of us use to being stuck in our homes or on a mobile game (game on a tablet or on cell phone). We now HAVE to talk to each other to play.

You run around town and try to catch thee little guys, but you MUST be safe and aware of what's going on around you. it would not be difficult for instance to chase one of these things into oncoming traffic if you are not paying attention.

But isn't safety and awareness always important? I mean there are more then a hundred ways to hurt or kill yourself just going out fishing, if you aren't paying attention or acting irresponsibly and as a parent I have to monitor my kids online video game play for a myriad of dangers there. So to those who might safe the game is unsafe I say it's not the game teach yourself and/or you children to BE AWARE OF THEIR ENVIRONMENT.

But the thing I hate and I mean I HATE the MOST about this silly little game is..... I didn't think of it first. You can bet there will be following games that will require you to interact with others and run around outside and do ... something (and I will design one of them). Just be careful, watch out for dangerous situations and never... I mean NEVER EVER meet up with ANYONE without friends or parents with you.

Thank you for reading, cast a big net and keep tight lines.
Until next week.

To my babies (children)

Hey everyone, sorry I have not posted anything in a while I was really sick for 2 weeks. Never been sick like that, for that long but I guess age has caught up with me. For all you young people ... do not grow old. The older I get the more crap my body will no longer put up with. Then once I was feeling better I really had no time to write and before I knew it there were camping trips and holidays and well... again sorry it took so long.
I love camping!! I can not say it enough. If I could I would camp every weekend over the summer rain or shine. There is nothing like looking at a pristine campsite once you have the tents and kitchen setup. There is nothing like watching that flame grow up into what will be a sustainable fire and starting the first campfire of the weekend. There are few sounds on earth quite as relaxing as listening to the wood pop as it burns. The smell of the burning wood. and I don't know of anyone that would not agree with that feeling of pulling up to a campsite after a long day of fishing or playing in the water. I believe there is something primitive about the experience. The idea that out of very little you have created (albeit just for 2 days) a place to live, a place to cook your food and place to connect with your friends and family. This is your spot and you built this (just stop thinking about the fact that you too will have to take it all down).
 So 2 weekends before the 4th of July weekend I took my kids camping. My middle daughter has been almost more excited for this trip than I was. I am a preparation freak. So badly so that I am sure it drives my son crazy. I have a list for the kitchen/cooking/food stuff (each thing with a check box of course), I have a list of bedding, I have a list for the tent and awning (yes these have parts), I have a list of fishing gear and I have a list of all the lists I have. On Thursday we go down the list and place each thing in it's proper place or bin, then check it off. I drive my kids nuts but we have a great time because we have everything we need and nothing gets forgotten.
I have a friend down at the Talley Bend Campgrounds and I had never been there. He invited me and the kids down for the weekend. I really like the campgrounds and the spot he picked for us was beautiful. I am really picky about my camp spots but he really knocked the ball out of the park with the area. I highly recommend checking out the Tally Bend Campgrounds if you've never been there. (I will try to link a map spot for the campgrounds if I can figure it out but here are the GPS coord.'s:  38.136355,-93.614428) My only real complaint was that I like to fish the dam and some spots on the upper part of the lake and they are just too far to drive on a budget weekend. Had I planned for the drive this would not have been even an issue to bring up.
We decided to take the younger kids tubing and try out a new pair of water skis (which wouldn't fit my feet even though I got them for me). It turns out that a 40 HP Force outboard motor does have enough power to pull a few people (kids) around in a tube but not enough to pull a 200lb man out of the water on skis (hope the 80 will).
The weekend before the 4th of July weekend I took just my youngest son out fishing at a smaller lake here closer to me (Smithville Lake | Little Truman). We grabbed 2 doz. minnows and hit the water around 7am. I had not expected the wind we got and if the wind had not been so bad I think we would have caught a lot more fish but I do not do well in the wind. It was kinda funny because with my oldest son and my dad we don't usually go through 1 doz. minnows in a day but my youngest son and I went through 2 doz. in about 2 to 3 hours. Not really sure how that happened but maybe the boy was just really hungry for fish...
The point I want to get to here is that both of these trips almost got cancelled. As a matter of fact, the trip with just my son, I had to fight myself to go several time the day before. Neither were almost cancelled because of work or house stuff getting in the way but just me saying to myself "I don't want to hassle with this, I can sit in the AC all weekend and do what I do every weekend.... nothing." but then I would say to myself "Then you'll get the same thing out of this weekend that you always do... nothing." I would not have the memories of my daughters putting up their own tent for the first time. I would not have the memories of my youngest daughter teasing me because I forgot to close the air vent of their air mattress and losing air that night as they tried to sleep. I would not have the memory of my middle daughter get one part of her leg sunburned. I also would not have the memory of taking out my little man, just the 2 of us, out and fighting the wind. In the end I would have ended the weekends with nothing.

Sometimes as Dads/Moms, Uncles/Aunts, Brothers/Sisters or Grandparents we need to consider what we will gain from doing things that may not seem to be fun or comfortable on the surface, if they are done for the sake of the other people they will always turn out to be more fun or at least memories that both of you can share and build you relationships. I know I am glad I fought the "lazy me" because I had a blast and more importantly I KNOW my kids did.

Thank you for reading, cast a big net and keep tight lines.
Until next week