Spaulding Smails

Hell yes! Rather be lucky than good. Nicely done, sir.

We're thinking about going there next year for our 20 year anniversary (June '23). We got married in Ambergris Caye in '03, and we haven't been there since, so it may be a good time to return. I'm thinking of renting a house on Ambergris Caye. Short of searching VRBO / AirBnB, any recommendations on cool beachfront houses to rent? We're 50/50 on whether or not to include the kids or go solo. If we do go solo, that opens up trying to get a really cool hotel suite. We stayed at Portofino when we got married, and most of the wedding party stayed at either Ramon's or Victoria House. Open to suggestions on high-end but boutique-ish hotels as well.

Wordle 250 2/6 ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Best for me so far. And, for that, I get nothing.

@fattyflattie great minds think alike indeed! I always gravitate towards shooting the tan ones for some reason. Psychologically, I tell myself they taste better. @BabaYaga I've done cabrito on the iron cross before but never a pig. I'm sure it would be excellent. We wanted to eat it that night, so we threw it straight over oak coals on the grill. @Lat22 same here. I even told my wife that I was gonna bust a piglet if they came out. First time that plan came together. Even got to clean it in broad daylight. @davidg it was outstanding. Even the hams were tender. Only downside is how small the tenderloins were. Pretty much two bites on each side and they were gone!

Made a quick trip to the ranch Saturday afternoon after my son's baseball games in Kerrville. We have just a bit of corn left in the feeders. Maybe a week's worth at this point, so they're still spinning. I bought two new boxes of 270 ammo last weekend, but left them at home. Didn't bring my AR either. So, I ended up using the old Marlin 30-30 with a 4x Tasco scope that I leave at the ranch. Climbed in the stand at 5:45, and at 5:57 a sow and three piglets crossed the sendero. I could see them in the brush behind the feeder looking up at it and waiting patiently for it to go off. They were under the feeder before it stopped spinning. I shot this little 30-lb sow through the left eye when she had her head down facing me. I forgot that I was shooting that 30-30 and not the 223. Oops. Serious gut shot on the exit wound. 30 min later, it was butterflied and on the grill. I just drag the big boars that we shoot off into the brush, but damn that little sow sure was tasty.

Holy shit. I had no idea they were that expensive.

I have not personally built one, but my buddy's Baffin Bay cabin has an outhouse with a composting toilet. I'm guessing they're a few hundred bucks new. No hole to dig. Works pretty damn efficiently. A few scoops of peat moss at the end of the weekend. Just build a little box around it.

Hahaha. Yep. You nailed it. Kind of less than ideal, right? I've only driven it a few times. Topped off with fuel twice. Based on my rough calculation, I think it gets about 10 MPG. Definitely drinks the petrol. Taking it to the shop in a few weeks to get all the little things fixed including the fuel situation and gas gauge.

Yep! Dual tank. One of the issues, though, is the dual fuel tank selector doesn't work. Windows need new seals, fuel gauge is broken, heater doesn't work and the carb throttle linkage needs adjustment. On the plus side, it's got a bad ass semi truck air horn that is LOUD. Fun truck for sure.

I'm not a truck nut per se. I'm certainly not a gear head. And, I'm not at all impulsive. But, I saw this truck on the side of the road two weeks ago, test drove it the next day, took it to my buddy's shop for a once over and had it sitting in the driveway later that week. '74 Ford Ranger 350 SuperCamper series with a big block 460. Rebuilt a few years ago and in really good shape. A few minor things need attention, but all in all, it's solid for an almost 50 year old truck. Going to be a fun weekend cruiser and may end up being my son's truck in a few years.

Bummer @crimsonlonghorn. Good lookin chicken. Hard to tell from the pictures, but are they Bantams? We've lost our fair share over the years. To your point, sometime's you understand it's just part of nature. Other times, it hits hard. My daughter was heartbroken when we forgot to close the coop and lost our two ducks to a fox. The other one that my wife was most upset about was a Bantam (Vanilli who's sister was Millie). We didn't realize she had started laying eggs down the hill. Didn't count chickens when we put them up one night, and she got whacked while sitting on her nest one night. Big pile of white feathers right next to a pile of eggs. Always a bummer.

I can't comment on the food plot, and to others' points, if cost is a concern, buying one used is the way to go. That being said, I've built several over the years. Two of which were pretty cool, but pre iPhone, so I don't have any pics. I built three on site and one in my driveway. For the site built ones, I did some horse trading with a mason of mine, and got three used sections of scaffolding to make three blind bases. Slapped some 2x12s on top with U-bolts. My uncle is a drywall contractor, so we built it out of metal studs. Bought some cheap sliding windows and clad them with plywood and slapped a corrugated metal roof on top. Years later, I built one in the driveway out of PT lumber. I used 12' 4x4s for the legs, so it sat about 6' off the ground. Simple framing and a plywood roof. Transportation was a bitch. I had to lay it on it's side on a 16' trailer, then winch it up when I got to the lease. It was HEAVY. The only advice I have is think ahead if you're building it on site. Nothing worse than coming up short on screws, etc. I remember that exact issue on the scaffold blinds. We were short self-tapping screws. I had to drive an hour each way. To this day, my uncle and I still kid about needing random shit at the ranch. Every time I head to his place, I ask him if I need to bring a box of reverse thread metric screws or some other oddball item.

You think it's related to the freeze? Either that, or they're moving into town to be closer to the creature comforts like indoor plumbing.

Yep. He said the big one was extremely agitated and was raising a ruckus. He said he tried to coax them out with a 10' piece of unistrut to no avail. Thought about using his pistol, but he's in a commercial business park on a fairly busy street in the city limits. So, he let 'em be until they left. Though they did shit and piss everywhere. He said the smell was awful.

I figured this was as good of a thread as any to post this pic. My cousin had some interesting guests in his warehouse last week. Got his crews lined out. Nice day, so he left the bay door open while he worked in the office. Heard some noise, came out to find this trio milling around. They spooked and ran the wrong direction and cornered themselves in the shop bathroom. It took him an hour to get them out.

When my wife and I found out we were pregnant with our daughter, we were really struggling to find a name that fits. None of the family names on either side of the family felt right. We didn't want to choose a name that was too popular or trendy. We went round and round for months and still couldn't land on anything. She was 8 months pregnant at Christmas. My uncle was going to be there. He was absolutely nuts. Lived out in the middle of nowhere. My mom suggested we ask him if he had any suggestions since he was very artistic and sentimental. We asked him out of kindness, not expecting much. We replied with one word... "Denise". We loved it and that's what we named her. Fast forward two years, and my wife is pregnant with our son. As soon as we found out the sex, we drove to go see my uncle to see if he had a suggestion for this baby's name. When we asked him, he immediately replied "De Nephew".

You can count on plenty of questions and the occasional humble brag. Headed down to San Antonio in two weeks to visit Johnny Dury about a left-handed 300 Win Mag.

This is great info. I'll be following along. I received confirmation last week for an October elk hunt (rifle) in Northern New Mexico. It'll be my first elk hunt, and I have some SERIOUS preparation and gear purchases / upgrades on the horizon.

Check this out. Probably not a good option for a large walk-in or something that gets used frequently, but we installed this, and it's worked like a champ the last three years. https://www.storeitcold.com/ I got a small walk-in (8' x 6') from a demo job we did at a restaurant years ago. The remote condenser was shot, but the shell was in good shape. Before I had an HVAC guy on staff, I couldn't get anyone to come out and help me rig something up. My dad stumbled on this. We bought a window unit, cut a hole in the walk in, spray foamed the shit out of the opening, and installed the cool bot. Basically, it overrides the thermostat in the window unit. I hung two doe in the cooler over Christmas for three days. Hot and humid outside, and 38* with low humidity in the cooler. My fear would be leaving them to hang with me not there and having the unit seize up since it is kind of redneck engineered, so I've yet to let anything hang for longer than I'm at the ranch.

We moved from Corpus Christi to Houston in the mid-90s and still made frequent trips back to CC. My dad bitched about Refugio and Odem, but Kendleton was the worst. Made a lot more sense when this story came out several years later. https://www.myplainview.com/news/article/Ex-police-commissioner-captain-indicted-for-9097491.php

My son and I were sitting in the deer stand in Kimble County Sunday evening. Wind was whipping. He said, "Holy crap, Dad. Is that Cedar tree on fire? Looks like smoke coming off of it!" I just let out an uncomfortable chuckle as my eyes watered and I continued sneezing in the stand. It was out of control this weekend.

Great lookin' boat! I fished on damn near the same setup (without the T-top) with a guide out of St Augustine two years ago. Perfect for the intracoastal and back bays.

Yep. We'll be at the ranch in Kimble County where the forecasted high is 89 on Saturday. That means this year's Christmas pic will be in shorts, t-shirts and snake boots.

I had my first bout of altitude sickness in Telluride last year. I was OK the first few days but always felt a bit short of breath. Night four, I was up all night just feeling "off". Puked a bit that next morning and sat the next day out in prep for a HeliSki trip. Just chilled on the couch while the others skied and caught up on work. I nutted up and got after it Heliskiing, but damn, it hurt. It was all I could do to walk back to my truck after the helicopter dropped us off. My wife was finishing up a spa treatment at The Peaks and watched my sorry ass stop a half dozen times to catch my breath on the 100 yd walk back. Never been so tired in my entire life. Not sure why the altitude sickness got me that time. I was in as good of shape as ever, drank plenty of water, avoided alcohol and did all the right things, but it hit me like a ton of bricks.

@T’Boo Ted Marshall sorry to hear about your issues. Never a dull moment, I suppose. Do you think you need to stabilize the balance sheet and produce some consistent profitability before pulling the trigger on the PE decision? I'm curious if you think a year or two of solid results is A) achievable and B) can put you in a spot of added leverage when that time comes. Update on our end. We're six months in to the HVAC side and just over a year into the MEP endeavor as a whole. Definitely slower to achieve consistent profitability than I had hoped and costing WAY more on the front end than I had budgeted. Part of that is a byproduct of rapid growth (26 field guys now) and part is the fact that we're investing heavily in the infrastructure (full call center and three managers) to make it more scalable. We were optimistic that we could cash flow the expansion with our legacy business units, but that hasn't been the case. We signed a five year lease on a 15,000 SF space, so we should see some operational efficiency increases. Migrated to Service Titan for service dispatch. Just kicked off a big marketing / advertising initiative. But, all that being said, we're starting to achieve critical mass on the labor side and starting to achieve consistent margins that have put the MEP operation in the black the last two months. The trend is definitely in the right direction. As such, we're close to pushing out a mezzanine debt raise. After some pretty exhaustive conversations, it fits the bill the best for our business at this stage. More flexibility than institutional debt without sacrificing equity. We don't need a ton of cash, so this seems to be the logical next step. Then the question becomes the long-term goals. I have two silent partners, and my end game is dramatically different than theirs. So, that's a whole different conversation that keeps becoming more integral in the overall strategy.