Sign Thieves are Pansies!!!!

We've all heard of other people having political signs stolen from their lawns. I think we can all agree, no matter what your political views, that stealing lawn signs is childish and lame... Well, last night, we were over at our friends' house carving pumpkins. When we drove home, we noticed that my lawn signs were in disarray. I had two signs... one for McCain, and one for a Senatorial candidate here, Bob Schaffer. This particular night, there was only a McCain sign left standing, and it was ripped up, and leaning over.
I assessed the damage, and found the Schaffer bent and laying on the ground up by our front porch. The McCain sign was ripped down one side, but still standing. I simply put them back up, and as I was doing so, realized that the only reason the McCain sign was still standing is that it was anchored pretty securely in the dirt... pansies... quitters... can't pull a little sign out, so you run off in shame???
So, I'm not really attached to the signs. It just bugs me that people felt the need to step into my yard to destroy my property... especially that they just left the signs there as litter.
I've tried to think of how I should address the situation. Following are my options, as I see them. Please feel free to add your own!
1) Completely forget about it. Election Day is only 7 days from now, so it's not really a big deal.
2) Next election, if I decide to have yard signs, I will keep a live electrical current running through the wire frame of the sign. That way, if someone decides to grab it, they'll get a little surprise... I will make sure that the current is not deadly, just make them think a bit.
3) I was told that you can get a system to keep dogs from deficating on your lawn. It has a beam around the perimeter of your lawn that, if broken, activates the sprinkler system. I'm thinking I may get such a system that will both turn the sprinklers on, and snap a few pictures! Then, I could embarrass the jerks by sending them into the local paper or something...

Anyway, somebody destroyed my signs... No big deal, but it still makes me want to punch them in the face about 18 times...

Elk Hunting

I haven’t blogged recently, because I’ve been a little preoccupied with my elk hunt. I’ve decided to tell you all about it, because I had tons of fun! I went hunting with some friends, Bill and Broc in Western Colorado, near Rifle. Broc had access to some private land, and we were able to stay in a rustic little cabin (propane lighting, no running water, and a wood stove for heat). I won’t spoil the results be telling you now, so read on…

Elk Hunting... Day 1

Day One (Saturday, 11/11/08)
We arrived at our hunting area Friday night late. We met up with a hunting “outfitter” or guide who also has hunting rights to the land. He had been talking about working as a team (with him and his hunters) to get our elk. We figured, since he’s a guide, and knows where the elk are, we might as well team up with him. So, when we got there Friday night, he told us that he had seen a “pile” of elk right near our cabin just that evening, so we decided to hunt just up the hill from our cabin the next morning (Saturday). We woke up early and had hiked up the hill before the sun came up. We didn’t find a great place to sit and “glass” for elk, so we ended up hiking around all morning, and seeing absolutely no fresh sign of elk the entire time. Broc and I saw no mammals that morning other than two other hunters, and a porcupine… That’s when I came to realize that the guide who supposedly was “helping” us was actually getting us out of his way so we wouldn’t disturb his hunt.
Around noon, we decided to drive around another part of our hunting area to see what it was like. We couldn’t find the right road, so we stopped at a house. It turned out to be the house of another hunting outfitter who also had hunting rights to our land… He and the other guide had been having somewhat of a feud, so he told us exactly where the huge herd of elk had been, and told us where and when to go there. This place also happened to be the place we were trying to find on the map, so it confirmed where we were going to hunt that afternoon.
We headed for the cabin, and decided to go hunting around 2:30. So, that afternoon, we arrived at our hunting spot, and sat in various locations to “glass” the meadow, pond, and ridge that were in our view. It was raining, and hailing, and very cold. I was about ready to give up and go back to the cabin, when I looked about 700-800 yards away on the ridge, and saw 15 elk grazing, and slowly working their way down the hill towards us. My buddy, Broc, had an elk call, and was calling to them, and they were answering, but from his vantage point, he couldn’t see them… Anyway, I had watched them for almost an hour, when he and I stalked up to a closer vantage point, but still not close enough to shoot, and the elk were still hidden above a small grove of aspen trees. It was close to getting dark, and the elk were still not down to the meadow, so we decided to go up after them. The brush was much thicker than it appeared from our previous vantage point, and locating the elk was somewhat difficult. We took a course toward the right, which happened to be the thicker brush. Our friend Bill, who was still sitting on another hill, and was watching us, could see the elk to the left, but we didn’t have our radios turned on, so he couldn’t relay the information.
Anyway, we found some elk, but they were in a really brushy area. I took 1 shot at a cow elk, who was only about 50 yards away, but was behind a bunch of brush. She didn’t jump, of flinch, or anything… she just stood there for a few seconds, and then bolted off. I didn’t think I had hit her, but I tried to find a blood trail just in case. It was impossible since the ground was so wet with the rain that had been falling. We continued to stalk the elk, and Broc would call to them, and they would call back. We had bulls bugling on both sides of us, and cows all around as well. We saw a few more elk up the side of the hill about 200 yards, but never got a good shot at them. It started to get dark, and we had left out lights down at the bottom of the hill, so we hurried down before it got dark, knowing that we would come back there the next day.
While all of this was happening, by the way, the unfriendly guide, and all of his men were hanging around trying to pick up our scraps, and they were not pleased at all, that we had invaded their prime hunting territory. This only added to the euphoria I felt at having stalked my first elk!

Elk Hunting... Day 2

Day Two (Sunday, 11/12/08)

This was Bill’s last day of hunting, so we decided to split up, and take two different courses up the same ridge that we had hunted the day before. Bill took his quad, and rode up the back-side of the ridge, while Broc and I went up the ridge in the same place we had seen them the day before. When we drove to our starting point, he other hunters were there, and were slightly pissed off that we would invade their territory again, but we weren’t too fond of them, so we didn’t care all that much…
Broc and I stalked up the hill where we had seen the elk the day before, and found them in essentially the same place. I saw a really nice sized bull about 200-250 yards up the hill, standing broadside to me, but we was walking. I decided to take the shot without trying to find a rest, so I wasn’t very stable, and missed him. He ran in one direction about 5 steps, then turned around and bolted into the thickest brush… I really need to practice shooting, especially with no rest, so I can actually hit the stupid thing next time.
Broc and I continued up the hill to where I thought there was a road… We never found the road, but instead found some of the steepest terrain around, which we decided to cross. We were in the middle of this adventure when we “jumped” several more elk out of the thick brush around us. As we were stalking them, Broc shot at a cow elk about 200 yards away. I watched the cow flinch as he shot, so we thought he hit her, but weren’t sure. We crossed some pretty rugged terrain to get to where she was, and Broc found a small amount of blood. We worked so hard to find the blood “trail”, but she wasn’t bleeding much at all. We found her blood trail, and followed her over three hours total, but never found her. The blood trail seemed to grow smaller, and since she had been moving for 3 hours without slowing down, we figured she must not be mortally wounded, and we gave up. It’s a really crappy feeling knowing that you’ve wounded an animal, but can’t find it… It really makes you feel upset, and you vow to take “better” shots next time. Really, there’s only so much you can do in a situation like that…
In the meantime, Bill had shot, and killed, a cow on his side of the ridge, so we hiked over to him. He had already gutted the elk, so we helped him load it onto his quad, and then I hiked back to the cabin alongside him to help him in some of the steeper areas, while Broc went back to his truck where we had started hunting that morning.
We had hiked easily over 7 miles that day over some really steep terrain, so when Bill left, Broc and I decided that we would not go back out hunting that night, but we would rest and go out the next morning.
We were sitting in the cabin eating our cups of soup, when, at about 6:55, I looked out the window and saw a lone cow elk standing only about 60 yards away eating some grass. I said, “Dude, elk!”, to which Broc replied, “Shut up!”, to which I replied, “Seriously, there’s an elk right there!”, to which he replied by jumping up and grabbing his gun, since he was closer to the gun rack. He quietly slipped out the door, and started to creep closer, where he could get a shot… I stood inside watching the whole thing with anxiety, because Broc was taking longer to shoot than I would have… The cow got spooked and bounded up the brushy hill, but was still in sight. I grabbed my gun, and headed out the door, but by the time I got out there, she was clear out of sight, and it was starting to get a little dark to shoot. We missed out gift-wrapped chance at an easy elk. She was seriously right on the side of the road when I first saw her. She would have been so easy to clean and load into the truck!!! Day two was full of excitement… and disappointment (other than Bill’s elk).

Elk Hunting... Day 3

Day Three (Monday, 11/13/08)
Broc and I slept in a little, because our plan was to go up where Bill had shot his elk the day before, and wait for them to cross the ridge. It was obvious from the trails there that they crossed regularly. Bill had seen his elk around 8:00 am, well after sun rise, so we planned to be there just before sun rise, and wait.
We hiked up the steep hill, and got to the top of the ridge just in time to see about 10 elk crossing where Bill had harvested his the day before. Alas, we were just about 10 minutes to late. We spooked them, and most ran off. One bull waited behind some trees for about 10 minutes, but we waited too. Finally, he bolted from the trees, and through the clearing, but not long enough for us to get a shot off… We decided to sit and watch, in case another group tried to cross, but all we saw was a coyote, using the same trail as the elk, but headed the opposite direction. We hiked around, dejectedly all morning, without seeing another elk.
That afternoon, we went back to the pond, and sat to watch the hillside and the pond. We had thoroughly disturbed the elk in the last couple of days, and they decided they didn’t need to drink from that pond today, so we never saw a thing…

Elk Hunting... Day 4

Day Four (Tuesday, 11/14/08)
This was our last chance. Broc had to be to work on Wednesday, and we were both exhausted, so Tuesday morning was our last ditch effort. We hiked up to the place where Bill killed his elk again, this time arriving well before sun up. We sat in the spot, and never saw an elk the entire time. Our last effort was futile, so we headed back to the cabin and packed up. When we got home, we helped Bill butcher the back half of his elk, for which he shared some of the meat with us…
Even though I didn’t harvest an elk, the hunt was successful, in my eyes, because I had a ton of fun, and learned so much that will help me be more successful in future hunts. I learned that I need to practice shooting much more often to feel more comfortable with the shot when it really matters. I learned that I also need to practice climbing up steep hills before I go out to hunt elk… it nearly killed me! ;-) I learned that elk hunting is fun, whether you get an elk or not, if you’re with people who all get along with each other, and have good senses of humor. I learned better ways to stalk elk. I learned to never trust a hunting guide who you have not hired. I can’t list all the valuable things I learned, but I’ll just say it was an experience I won’t forget.

Random Musical

When Laurie and I were single and living in Mesa, AZ, we had friends who, every now and then, would put on what they called "random musical" in local malls. They would get together on a Saturday morning and work out some simple choreography, and a song... I think it was always the same song ("Sieze the Day", from Newsies) Anyway, then they would all go to a mall and go their separate ways. At a designated time, they would all be near the same area, and one of the "performers" would just start singing very dramatically... "Open the gates and sieze the day..." After a couple of lines, "random" people would join him until eventually there were a lot of people singing the song, and doing the choreography. When they were done singing, they would just stop and walk away as though nothing had happened, and they didn't know each other. Laurie and I wanted to do it, but were both busy when we got the chance...

Anyway, Laurie, Gracie and I were going through the McDonalds drive thru the other day, getting some McFlurries... The young man took my debit card, and processed the transaction. He then gave my card back to me, paused, then sang, "You've got the whole world, in your hands..." I couldn't figure out what he was talking about, and thought he was moronic, until Laurie realized that my debit card has an image of the earth on it... We drove away laughing hysterically! I've never been sung to in a McDonalds drive thru, or any other drive thru for that matter. What a great way to bring a smile to people's faces!