Spaulding Smails

@Okie State thanks for the compliments on the house. Still need to finish landscaping this spring, but I'll try to remember to post a few pics next week.

Good! So that's two votes for those chairs (me and you). We only need about 500 more votes in favor of them to override my wife's one vote for two steel + teak benches to match.

Only took about three months of on-again / off-again work, but finally finished up this outdoor table. Still need to figure out what we're going to do for benches / chairs, so we're using some cheap ones from Home Depot in the meantime. I may get roped into building some benches to match the table. If so, those should be ready in the spring... of 2025. Construction was pretty easy. Welded up some 3x3 square tube for the base. 4/4 Teak for the top. Fastened with dominoes and left a dime gap between the slats for water to drain. Had to go back and weld some additional supports for the perpendicular middle piece since I couldn't find any Teak longer than 10'. Turned out nicer than I expected, but the Teak was waaaaay more expensive than I originally thought.

We were there in August. Went out of Tamarindo. Booked via CR Fishing Charters. He's essentially a broker and coordinates with local captains, so lots of options. Honest guys, easy to communicate with. Everything went very smoothly. We fished on Fish Tale II. 44' Hatteras. Good captain and crew. Seas were very rough the day we went out, but we raised 4 sails. My kids loved it. Great experience. https://www.crfishingcharters.com/

Speaking of culls, I forgot about this until a few months ago when I went back to Corpus. Shot 20+ years ago by one of my best buds from our old lease in Live Oak County. Sunbleached and needs a new cape now. We saw him a few times and called him "Mr. Horndangles". When he turned his head, the antler would literally sway back and forth. Just held together by skin. Evidently, the skull fractured or the antler came loose. No clue. You could wriggle it around under the skin when we loaded him in the truck. Taxidermist did a pretty good job of keeping it intact. Probably my favorite unique deer ever.

What does he want to do after college? If he wants to get a graduate degree or go work for a big engineering firm, then I think the conversation around UT-D, etc is warranted. If he's leaning more towards doing his own thing, then why upset the apple cart? Graduating with an engineering degree and minimal debt sounds pretty sweet, regardless of where the degree is from. I own a blue collar business, so my perspective is absolutely biased. But, a kid that is obviously disciplined and a self-starter, has some technical skills like welding and graduates with an engineering degree from anywhere sounds like he's going to kill it. Throw in some business basics and some experience after college, and that's a recipe for a killer career with an opportunity to own your own company doing something he really enjoys.

I haven't talked to him in a few years, but I'm pretty sure he's out of that game and moved onto other bigger, better ventures. Though I'd bet my first born he'll be there January 8 if the Horns make it.

I've got a couple of buddies who outsource everything. I mean everything. Lawn work. House cleaning. Pool cleaning. Groceries. Laundry. You name it. Their theory makes sense, and it's that their time is worth way more than wasting it on those tasks. Whether that time is "billable" or spent with friends and family. So, they pay others to do it. I get it. On the other hand, I've been notoriously hardheaded and have always tried to do everything myself. Partly because I like it and partly because I'm stubborn. I truly enjoy working outside with my hands. Even the seemingly mundane stuff. But, over the last year, I tried to put these types of tasks in three buckets. A) Pay someone to do it because they're better or more efficient than me. Moving is the PERFECT example. Same with bigger house projects that I used to tackle myself. I have guys at my house today pouring a new concrete step. Five years ago, I would have done that myself and spent half a Saturday doing so. B) I'll mostly do it myself because the cost doesn't seem worth it and I can do it on my own schedule. Like trimming my trees annually. I can't do the high stuff, but I'll spend a day meticulously trimming the Oaks. Find some nice weather on a winter day, save a thousand bucks, break a little sweat and do it my way. C) I just like to do it. Like cleaning my pool. I kind of look forward to emptying the skimmers, tinkering with the chemicals and making sure everything's running smoothly. Cost doesn't matter, but I genuinely enjoy cracking open a cold beer after work and cooling off in the dead of summer while being "busy".

I'll pile on the quail hunting stories. Good family friend growing up in Corpus raised GSPs. So, my dad and I had a chance to quail hunt some pretty cool ranches in South Texas once a year or so. As a teen, I down at a place outside of Falfurrias with him. This ranch leased one section to deer hunters, but most was to quail hunters. I asked the rancher why not lease more to deer hunters. He said, "Son... my deer hunters show up in nice trucks. My quail hunters show up in private jets and helicopters." CSB: One of those pointers he raised was with Cheney when he shot that other dude on the Armstrong Ranch a few decades ago.

That was my philosophy. Bit the bullet today and bought two tickets. They had already jumped $200/ea since I glanced Sunday afternoon. The fees are ridiculous. I missed 2005 due to a work commitment and 2009 due to a newborn. And passed on free tickets to G5 of the 2017 WS. Since that day, I made a pact with myself to never miss another once-a-decade opportunity. I figured I'm saving on a flight and hotel since we're traveling from the Austin area and my in-laws live in Houston. At least that's my football fan math that offsets $1,000 or so of the total. Add into the equation that the day of the championship is my son's 16th birthday. So, if the Horns are there, it's one hell of a birthday surprise and a bucket-list checked off for both of us. And, if they don't make it past the Sugar Bowl, I may lose some coin on the resale market, but I'm thinking it's worth the insurance of having them in-hand at this point. Go ahead and blame me for jinxing everything. See y'all in Houston.

My wife's grandfather was a Justice of the Peace in deep East Texas from the early 60s through the mid 90s. He and my wife's grandmother had tickets to a Democratic fundraiser event in Austin the night of November 22, 1963 where JFK was speaking. They drove up the day before and spent that morning in Austin. My wife got two things when her grandfather passed. His gavel and the two admission tickets to that event that were never used. https://shapell.org/manuscript/jfk-texas-november-22-1963-ticket/

The first year we had our place, I took my son (who was about 9 at the time) out for a sit a week or two before deer season. We had just filled the brand new feeders a few weeks prior. Atascosa stand-and-feed feeders. So, this was the maiden voyage hunting in the blind. I had him bring his 223 in case we saw pigs. Not 30 minutes after climbing in the blind, a sounder of about 4-5 pigs walked out. He'd shot a few doe prior to that, so I felt good about him behind the scope. The shot was about 80 yds. We waited a few minutes as they were milling around, and I gave him the green light to shoot a little brown sow that was camped out to the right of the feeder. Well, I should have been more specific because evidently he was locked in on a slightly larger sow that was brown with black spots. His sow had now moved directly behind the feeder. Oops. He shot straight through the feeder motor box. Somehow, it missed the cage, the motor and the battery. And obviously the pig. I got down and checked the feeder. No issues. Threw some duct tape over the entry hole and the exit hole. Still works like a champ. I had a buddy fab a little mini feeder out of some scrap sheet metal that we mounted to a plaque and gave to him as his mount for the first "kill" of the new ranch.

And the trailers are probably 1.5-2X the correct size in proportion to the trucks. With the 5th wheel hookup visible and not connected. Bizarre what people spend their time putting on the interwebs.

There was the typical responses of "I don't think you sent the right file" and "you may want to delete that" to a few baseball related jokes. They took it in stride. Lots of the same parents from the previous year, so most of us just laughed it off.

I'd known them both for a few years, and always suspected they were part of "the lifestyle". Which is why I'm not 100% convinced it was an accident. Not the 300-lb variety prevalent in the select baseball world, but not someone you'd get excited about either. Plus, the cinematography sucked.

A few years ago, about two weeks into baseball season, one of the dads sent a video of him banging his wife to the group chat on GroupMe. I'm still unsure if it was a complete accident or not.

Drove through it last night right before dusk on the way to the ranch. It was coming down in buckets. 6+" in the rain gauge when I got here last night. The ground is as saturated as I've seen it here in years. Any additional rain will do wonders for the Highland Lakes.

My buddy shot a decent (but not great) 5x5 last fall during our NM hunt. He ended up getting a Euro mount, and it turned out pretty slick. His motivation was a low ceiling height, but the significantly cheaper cost didn't hurt either. Plus, we didn't have to really cape it out in the field. Which was nice.

We did an outdoor conversation pit at our last house that abutted the pool. I'm a big fan of defining spaces with elevation changes and leveraging natural topography to your advantage in architecture. It was a cool idea, but I'm not sure the cost was worth it. Excavation, drainage, concrete stem walls, etc. The intent was to let people sit at eye level with the pool. It was great a few months out of the year, but sitting down just a few feet removed any breeze. We rarely used it. It was almost always super hot down there during the summer (even at night) and became a magnet for leaves, etc. The view back towards the house was pretty epic, though.

Bingo. Love it there. Having 27 holes is a real plus. GH is a fun course. Great group of members too. I've played in the Gold Rush the last few years. Always a blast.

I walk every chance I get, especially when playing with my usual group or going solo. Even in the heat this summer. But, my club is very walker-friendly. A few hills, but most tees are close to greens and with one configuration exception, you finish 9 or 18 back at the clubhouse. I play probably 3-4 shots better when walking due in large part to more focusness and less distractions. No push cart. Just carry. When I do ride, it's usually when I have a guest or drinking takes priority over golf. @dieucla98 based on your description, I'm guessing Great Hills?

Where are you flying from? If Austin or Houston, I'd absolutely consider Vonlane. I've flown Frontier, but I draw the line with Spirit.

How was the course? My folks just bought a lot there. I'm thinking about going out there in two weeks to play. Haven't been out there in 2+ years.

Yep. That entire experience was one kick in the nuts after another. I got invited to play with a buddy that was staying out there. Guy at the front desk was a dick. Overpriced even if it was in pristine shape, but course was tired, worn and unkempt. 5+ hour round with no marshal to be found and beverage cart was MIA on the entire back 9. The $15 to leave the parking lot was salt in the wound.

I heard the same about Plum from one of my employees. Haven't played Delaware in ages! Not on the list, and a bit of a drive, but Vaaler Creek in Blanco is a fun, affordable track that's usually in pretty good shape.