Damor

Indeed, but 1) he's cheap 2) I need something for him for Christmas 3) it will further cement his popularity on the dorm floor, even beyond the coveted bounties of his illegal air fryer.

Hi Surly Snowsports Mafia, I'd like to get my son a setup to wax the ol' board, if you know what I mean, since he's up in CO for college and thus on the mountain all the time. I'm a summer mountains kind of guy, so totally lost here -- anyone have a recommended kit or manufacturer to look at? Thanks, obviously I'm not a golfer.

He's pretty fantastic, learned about him from my son. His (really long) album is impressive, esp The Devil and Billy, IMO. He's in Austin in December opening for Koe Wetzel who I don't know, but we're going just to see him.

I would be good fodder. Generally terrible fly fisherman. Never fly fished salt (and sucked at it as a kid with red rubber worms). Would be more interested in watching my son catch something than hauling in hardheads myself. Would contribute to the beer fund. This sounds suspiciously like the department golf tournaments I always get suckered into gracious invitations for.

Toyota Innovative Driving Development Import/Export Series, imo

That setup was my first nice rig, and a way nicer reel than I'll ever need, but I knew it had to be mine for sentimental reasons. Which is why they love me at Living Waters. The older one doesn't know it yet, but he's getting this for his 21st: Thinking about pairing it with a Scott fiberglass 4wt to keep the Montrose gang together.

Haha, before we left I thought, "Damn, I gotta trim those nails." Then I thought, "No, I'm gonna need them to tie delicate high quality fishing knots pick apart my horrifying 'wind knot' disasters."

My younger son just had his fall break and wanted to go visit his brother at school in Colorado, so I gladly obliged. We missed the peak of the aspens, but it was still gorgeous and, like most trips up there, left me questioning the life decisions that keep me in Texas. Numerous gratuitous trout pics are in the fishing thread.

I haven't fished for guads a ton, either, but they're a lot of fun and seem to fish a little more like trout in moving water. LMB don't seem to fight a lot for their size and serve as a good origin for the "dead fish" expression IMO. Sunnies are just pure stupid anger and aggression and are fun after a bad day at work. As for me, my younger son just had his fall break and wanted to go visit his older brother at school in Colorado. Didn't take much arm twisting for me. I was surprised that the water temperature was still just fine for wading boots with neoprene socks, no waders needed. Things have been kind of shit lately, so I really needed this day, and therefore I'm going to make you scroll through all the fish pics: Nature pics in the post a pic you took thread.

Whenever a natural disaster occurs, Brent Venables can be depended upon to pull into town with a horse trailer loaded with expired groceries and baby formula to sell for a 2000% markup.

Brent Venables will eagerly steal signs from another team or the pen with the big plastic flower attached to it from the checkout counter, but doesn't want a poke badly enough to cheat for one.

A niche comment, but for those with kids interested in Colorado schools, if they happen to be a registered member of a Native American tribe with historical ties to Colorado, they qualify for in-state tuition. We heard about that from CSU when the older one visited, but did not realize that it applies to all state institutions in Colorado until later. Would have saved me some last year, but better late than never. Here's a list of the eligible tribes: I expect this will further inspire the younger one to look hard at CU/CSU.

Select/tournament teams? Just tell him you're putting up a giant QR code at the field so all the daddyball parents can post Google reviews of his turf business.

Oof. I haven't brewed anything since last year, but I know family will be disappointed if I don't have the usuals available for Thanksgiving. Went to the Austin Homebrew site to order stuff and it's gone to complete shit, including the prices. I've started saving the PDFs of their good recipes while they're still available (though you can't order the kits anymore). I guess Great Fermentations or MoreBeer are supposed to be good to order from, any thoughts?

My wife went to State, so I've always kept an eye on them and pulled for them, which was all the more fun with Leach there. I was disgusted that they hired that piece of shit, and I wish him such spectacular and gratuitously horrific failure that he's fired on the field after their last game, if not earlier.

Now figure out how to overlay the radio broadcast instead of Lowell and watch the monies pour in.

When you get the web version all ironed out the way you like it, this would make a really awesome phone/tablet widget.

Osteogenesis imperfecta (Lobstein syndrome), hemophilia (Christmas disease), and Hereditary Hemorrhagic Vaginal Friability (Liucci complex)

1) I rarely get to go to games these days, but I responded to the survey that I thought it was a vast improvement that Bob Cole was relegated to the band only, but that the band didn't deserve that kind of punishment. They responded, "We have shared your feedback regarding Stadium PA with our gameday staff, we have identified our challenges and we are committed to working to improve the fan experience for all of our guests," so at least they have chatGPT composing email followups. 2) All this talk about stadium exit and re-entry reminds me of the very old days where you got a "pass out check" to show with your stub when you came back in. When I was but a wee lad, it was just me and my grandfather suffering through Fred Akers together in Sec 105. The only time I ever remember leaving a game early was sometime at the nadir of the Jackie Sherrill era when we were getting drubbed in the 4th. Whilst we were walking past the LBJ fountain from the stadium, a couple of blonde girls walked up and asked him if they could have our ticket stubs and pass out checks to get in. He handed them off, and as we walked away I scolded in a hushed tone, "Gramp, how could you do that? Didn't you see their shirts? Those were Aggies!" He looked at me and responded, "Hell, I wasn't lookin' at what was on their shirts, I was lookin' at what was under 'em." Right then and there I had my first Wonder Years needle drop moment. First thing I remember Was asking Papa, "Why?" For there were many things I didn't know And Daddy always smiled Took me by the hand Saying, "Someday you'll understand"

Wonder what happened there? I guess we could find a place for it on the wall next to final SWC champs/first Big 12 champs and the moldering scalp of Nebraska's relevance. Now I am become Texas, the destroyer of conferences.

I've donated a couple older vehicles which weren't worth the expense of fixing or the hassle of selling. It's been a few years, but my experience was pretty simple. The FMV thing got changed a few years ago, and you'll now get a deduction only for what it sells for at auction. So the days of donating a total POS for an cushy $5k deduction are gone, unless you just want to avoid the hassle (it really is simple). Mine both brought well less than that at auction, but I was fine with getting them out of my driveway and at least a meager donation to something I love (KUTX in this instance). I'm pretty sure, BTW, that most of the donation programs just contract the process out to a handful of companies that do the actual pickup and auction process, so just pick a decent cause. Maybe @immamac should sign up for this and offer you a free mousepad or koozie on top of it. I didn't look into finding anyone who would fix it and donate it to someone in need, but I would guess that if you're not enthusiastic about the hassle of repairs, it's going to be hard to find any organization that is either. If that's important to you, I wonder if you could find an auto shop program at a disadvantaged high school that would be interested in taking it on as a student project, although I have no idea if that would come with a tax deduction. Maybe you could talk Southlake into naming an athletics ice bath after your family, or you could get your practice logo on a metal detector at Carter. I think the obvious answer here is to sell it to the service writer's buddy for tree-fiddy, then add another level to your next fusion and make up the difference. 😜

It Just Means More™... to them.

Damn. Sucks to try to follow that, but I did promise follow-up on our first-time trip to the Smokies. We didn't have a whole lot of luck, but neither of my boys nor I cared. It was phenomenally beautiful and just felt like we were blessed to be wading those streams, whether we caught anything or not (factor in that I suck at fly fishing). Gratuitous photos to follow: The place we stayed was on the Nantahala river, which was beautiful and away from all the tourist garbage. Recommended. They let water out of the dam throughout the day, so the better wade fishing is in the morning or later evening. Only on the way out did we drive by the upstream section of the river below the dam, which looks like it might have been better fishing. Oh well, next time. We did catch a few browns here, not huge but tons of fun, especially since we caught them on some of my earlier (and uglier) attempts at tying some elk hair caddis and brassie nymphs: We spent one morning fishing Noland Creek in the park just outside of Bryson City: Had a great time despite not catching anything. I know there's fish in there, though, because as we were leaving one of our guides from earlier on the trip was pulling up. I told him he was welcome for us leaving him all the fish. I didn't (and honestly still don't) know a ton about the GSMNP, but it's basically bisected by Hwy 441, which runs along a branch of the Pigeon River on the TN side and the Oconaluftee on the NC side. We thought it was weird that we only saw three other fishermen out there the whole time. Found out from our guide later that most people stick to the larger stocked rivers instead of chasing tiny brook trout in little pools with overhanging branches. Don't care, fished it anyway and wouldn't trade it for big fat stockers. This was my best effort, and I was plenty proud of it: My younger son caught this wild brookie as the last fish of the trip (his brother yelled at him for lipping it, but he didn't have his net): So now about our guide. Based on a local recommendation rather than the Google algorithm, we went out with Mac Brown. Holy shit, this guy was phenomenal. At this point we've been out with a good number of guides, and fortunately never had a bad one, but Mac set a new standard. We learned more in one day with him than in all our other instruction combined (and a lot of it quite contrary to previous teaching). The guy is a complete madman genius and a total blast to hang around with, knows everybody in or adjacent to the industry, and is one of those folks who you suspect might be mostly full of shit -- until he starts talking about something more in your wheelhouse, and you realize he actually knows a fuckton about everything (he was describing to my younger one how to do a better hookset in the context of the evolution of the mammalian brain and myelination pathways of the limbic system). We've never had more fun catching so few fish, and this experience will make every day of fishing afterwards better because of what we learned. I cannot say how much I loved this guy. When we met him and were unpacking our gear, I knew we were in for a fun day when he about shit himself that we brought fiberglass rods (we usually fish smaller stuff here at home). My prized rod is a custom Epic 4wt from New Zealand my wife got me for our anniversary, that I know I've mentioned on this site before. When I put it together, he said, "Aw hell, I know the guy who started that company! Let's take a picture of it with us and I'll send it to him!" He proceeded to regale us throughout the day with tales of multiple insane escapades including helping with the manhunt for the 1996 Olympic Bomber. It was like getting fly fishing lessons from Bill Brasky. Anyway, this post has been waaaaaay too long, but suffice it to say it was a fantastic experience despite the few fish we caught. Each one was a treasure. This was a particularly emotional trip for me, as my older one is in college now and my younger is a HS Jr, so this is the age where they are growing into men, and I feel so blessed that we can share these experiences and a common interest in being terrible fly fishermen, both now and over the years to come when they will become competent and I will still suck. It was also particularly meaningful to me since, as I know I've mentioned on other Cormac McCarthy threads, that his book The Road holds a special place for me and my relationship with my boys. I know I've also mentioned that my aforementioned prized rod bears an inscription taken from the book. Part of that story was set in this region, particularly that highway alongside which we caught wild brook trout, and it was in the back of my mind for the entirety of the trip, in particular the closing paragraph, which reads: "Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery."

Took my boys on a guys trip to the Smokies, had never been. Some selections, more in the fishing thread with inane commentary. This feels worlds away from Hwy 441 despite it being 20 yards uphill. Nantahala River Noland Creek Proprietor of Tommy's Paradise Mixology and Restaurant, featuring the swan song of $0.25 wings that night. Far out, man.