koori no tsuri 氷の釣り
"Ice fishing." Man oh man, do I have a lot to write about, lol. I'll try to be detailed but as short as possible so I'm not longwinded like I tend to be. Oh crap, I'm already doing it...
So, around the 20th of January, I got convinced into joining a fishing tournament with Brandon, Logan, Jason and Scotty. Keep in mind I had yet to actually catch a fish at that time. Well, we got registered for it (it was an alumni tourney sponsored by Northland's AFS - a fisheries club, basically) and the weekend it was scheduled, Brandon and Logan and I drove up together that Friday. Simply put, the 3 of us + a truck + 6 hours = chaos, lol. As per tradition (or Carolann and mine, at least), we stopped at Taco Bell in Steven's Point for lunch. Turns out, boys plus tacos is a bad combination. There were some smelly repercussions. I'm actually surprised I still have my eyebrows, haha. We stopped again at a gas station somewhere in the middle of WI, and as soon as we got out, our noses curled at the smell outside. It took us a bit to realize that a grain bin was on fire. The locals said it had been on fire for about a week already, lol. So we finally got to Ashland, met with the guys, checked into the hotel and went to the Deepwater for dinner. We headed back to the hotel afterwards and just chilled for a bit. Scotty went back to his room on campus and Logan, Jason, Brandon and I shared the hotel room. Logan didn't want to share a bed with Jason (kinda works out since both guys are kinda bulky) so he took the floor. We gave him a pillow but didn't have any spare blankets, so he made makeshift ones. He used some of his clothes as bedding and wore a coat as a blanket and a hoodie for pants. We were amused by the ingenuity, but even more so by the next morning.
We had decided that we were going to go out early early in the morning for fishing, so at 4:30am Logan's alarm went off. We all start waking up and see/hear Logan attempt to put up a knee and fall down due to his hoodie pants. Several fall downs later, the alarm is off, we get ready and drive out onto the lake. It's about 5am, it's negative degrees out there and we're drilling holes in the ice, putting up shelters and trying not to be popsicles. Had Scotty not had his power auger, we would've most likely just given up. The ice was so dense and was nearly 2 feet thick, so hand augering it was out of the question. We got the shelters up, got in and started fishing. Brandon and I were in his shelter, Logan and Scotty were in Scotty's shelter and Jason had his own little box shelter. It was still very early and very cold, so cold that the holes were constantly freezing over. We had to use the ice scoop constantly, and eventually even the scoop had a layer of ice. We even had a small catalytic heater in there that was supposed to work, but it did diddly squat. We eventually moved it as close to us as possible but we couldn't feel its heat until about 3" away from it. The fishing wasn't all that great either. Aside from a nibble or two on Brandon's end, we got nothing for the first 3 hours or so. It got to the point that I was so cold that I quit fishing in order to keep warm. About the same time I threw in the towel, Brandon called it quits for a bit, so we gathered a frozen Logan and the 3 of us headed back to the hotel to warm up. Both Logan and I had frozen toes, him more so. His old boots had a crack in them and some water got in, so he was really feeling the cold. We shed some layers and went to continental breakfast at the hotel, then went back to the room to grab some more layers. Brandon lent me some of his wool socks to put on, and Logan came up with the brilliant idea to use a pair of my socks to hold some hand warmers on my toes, over the wool ones. I grabbed another jacket layer, bundled up and we headed back out on the lake. By that time (~9:30ish), the sun had come out so it was starting to warm up a bit - that made it so much more tolerable. The frost on the shelter and the ice on the scoop melted off, and the holes stopped freezing over. We could actually take our gloves off and be perfectly fine. We got back to fishing, and about an hour later, after switching to some of Jason's handmade smaller lures, Brandon started catching fish. I still had nothing. I was using a hard pole that's designed for pike instead of panfish, but Scotty added a modifier to allow it to catch smaller fish. Unfortunately my novice self had no idea what to look for, so I was getting a little frustrated. Brandon was nice and switched poles with me, since he had a panfish pole. Even then he was getting hits and I wasn't, so I was really starting to get annoyed. Eventually I decided to do a bait check, so I reeled it up to see if I missed a hit and Brandon watched me. When I reeled it up, he looked at me and said, "You're not on the bottom. There's 30 feet of water here and it takes a lot longer than that to reel up a line here." He then told me to drop the line, move it as it sinks to make sure it actually does sink, and pull the line from the rod and wait for it to lay on the water as a test. I did what he said, reeled it up to just above the bottom, and within a minute I got a nibble. I started to reel it up but I thought I missed my opportunity so I stopped. I started jigging (moving the rod up and down) again to attract fish, but I hesitated, saying, "Wait, I think there's resistance on here." I reeled it up all the way and found a perch on the end of the hook. I was ecstatic, saying, "Holy crap, there's a fish on here!" and all the while, Brandon was broadcasting to the guys, "Lauren caught her first fish!" We got a picture of me holding it, took it off the line and put it in the bait bucket with Brandon's fish. I baited my hook again and dropped the line down. Within about 3 minutes, I caught another fish, a smelt this time. For a while it was the record smelt in our group, too. A while later I caught another smelt, and then the jackpot stopped. It got really quiet for a while, and then a little before 1, Brandon caught another smelt, which happened to be the new record. Also around that time, the sun went in and the wind picked up so it got cold again. Since it got cold and we weren't having any more luck, Brandon and I packed up and headed to shore. We got our fish measured and called the guys in, since they were the last guys in the tourney out on the ice. Once they came back and got their fish measured, we all went back to campus for prizes and hot dogs. I didn't win a fishing category but I got a raffled hat. By the time we're done with everything, it was about 3:30. We got back to the hotel and got changed. I contacted Jenn, and Brandon and I went to the hockey game to see her. We talked and watched the game, while avoiding this random guy that wasn't all there. We stayed to watch the Jacks win (!), I promised Jenn I'd come back and see her son Timmy (my nephew!) and then Brandon and I headed to the Loon Saloon to meet up with the guys again. We got to see Melissa again, which was nice. Since it was the Packers vs Bears playing the next day, there were a lot of Packers fans in there. There was one guy there that was like, "You guys rooting for the Pack tomorrow?" and we were like, "Yeah except for him" and all point to Logan. He eventually won the guy over. :P We headed back after a while, and Brandon and I stopped to see Jenn, Keith and Timmy. I got to hold him a bit, and I got a few pictures with him. He wasn't sure what to make of me though. He'd smile and then cry a bit. Definitely a parents boy. They were playing Rock Band while we were there, so we got to try that out too. Around 11 we headed back to the hotel, grabbed showers and crashed, lol.
The next day, we had to head back home. The guys had to work. So, we woke up around 9ish, got packed up and checked out. Brandon, Logan and I drove down to Minocqua and detoured east for a bit to see Suzi. We ended up staying at the coffee shop she works at for a couple hours, just talking. I wasn't all that close with her, but I was still close enough that she was happy to see me, which was cool. It was nice to see her. After we had coffee and spent too much time talking, we hit the road. We started driving down the roads back to Minocqua and all of a sudden Logan's like, "Dude, pull over, I gotta pee," and for a while we thought he was kidding but he kept insisting. So we ended up eventually pulling over in the middle of the woods. He didn't even wait for the truck to stop completely. He came back, we got on the road, again noticed the burning grain bin, and stopped in the same place for tacos. Bad mistake. Again, boys plus tacos is a bad combination. Brandon let one rip at one point. One second we're fine, the next he's quietly apologizing and we're going, "OMG MY EYES!" Logan attempted to roll down the window and he looked to Brandon, saying, "You bastard! You locked us out!" Luckily in the back there were pop out windows so I popped mine open and saved us, lol. We eventually made it back to my house safe, sound and smell-free. The boys left soon after that, and an hour later I heard that they were back at his house.
So the other big thing… In early February, after seeing an article in the newspaper, I sent in an application for a position at Weather Central, in Madison. The position I applied for was a Data Processing and Quality Control Operator. It sounded like something fun and I had almost all the qualifications for it. So, the day after I sent my application in, I got an email from the guy spearheading that search, saying, “We want to phone interview you, can we talk at 3?” Of course, the email was sent a couple hours beforehand and I didn’t see it until after the fact. I sent an apologetic email back, asking for another opportunity, and I got a response back the next day, scheduling a phone interview for that Friday at 3. I spent a good half hour to 45 minutes on the phone for the interview. The guy I was talking to was really nice about everything. I answered his questions and felt it went pretty well, considering it was my first phone interview. He told me that I should expect to hear something (yes or no) end of the next week or that next Monday. Monday morning I got a call saying, “We would like you to come in for an interview sometime early this week.” I got it scheduled for that Wednesday. Mom and I went out shopping for interview clothes beforehand, since I didn’t have much in that area at the time. I suited up (hehe) for the interview and once I found it, I went in going, “This is it, you can do it.” I followed 3 buff-ish looking guys in and the one held the doors for me. I thanked him and he said, “These assholes may not be gentlemen but I am.” I laughed and thought, “I think I’ll be just fine.” We rode the elevator up to the Weather Central office, and I let the receptionist know who I was there to see. I was there a good 20 minutes early, but within 5 minutes one of the guys, Mr. Wendt, came out to see me. He led me back to the office of the other guy I was interviewing with, Mr. Harry, and we all sat down. I told them I was a bit nervous, and they were understanding and started joking back and forth. Their behavior let me relax and I enjoyed myself while I was there. I answered all their questions, and then Mr. Wendt took me on a tour of the offices. He showed me the area that I would be potentially working in, and it was a sweet setup. Two stations of 3 giant monitors each, plus 5 even larger monitors mounted on the wall. It was all so impressive… While we were doing that, Mr. Harry went to find another guy that apparently wanted to talk to me while I was there. He didn’t find him but I gave him a copy of my resume for him to take to him, and thanked him. Mr. Wendt then took me to see the VP of Operations, Mr. Blankenship, who also wanted to see me. It was mentioned that while they were interviewing me, I was interviewing them at the same time, and that was certainly true. They wanted to impress me just as much as I did them. I met with Mr. Blankenship, and he was a really nice guy for being one of the bigwigs. While he didn’t have any meteorological experience, he enjoyed watching storms and had an interest in astronomy, which made our talk interesting. He also said he was impressed by my cover letter, which mentioned my capstone and the Dynamic II project from last year, and asked about the latter. (I never thought that evil project would ever come in handy! :D) I told him about it and we had a nice chat. I thanked him for his time and he sent me on my way. On the way home, since it was nice out at the time, I put my sunglasses on, rolled down the window and sang to my music with the best attitude ever: “Oh yeah.” About a week later, I got a call saying, “We’re still making our decision. If you don’t hear from us by Monday, give us a call.” Since I didn’t hear anything, I gave a call as soon as Mom and I got back from a bit of quick shopping. Turns out, Mr. Wendt emailed me while we were out, so he told me that they were still deciding and would let me know the next week. Well, that didn’t happen. I sent an email about a week later asking how the process was going and found out that basically the entire decision process is on hold. I guess they had a meeting to discuss certain things and they put it on hiatus. The good news is, when they know more, Mr. Wendt said he would give me a call or send me an email, because they still want to fill the position eventually. So, there’s hope in the future, in essence. Now to find something to fill the job spot in the meantime… but that could be interesting…
I say interesting because I found out a while back that Brandon might be going to grad school. Cool right? It is, it’s almost a free ride for him and he was recommended by one of the professors there who used to be at Northland. It would be horribly stupid for him not to take it. The catch is, he would have to move to Maine and during the summer, he would be doing bird research in northern Alaska. That means that for a couple years I would be without my boyfriend, except possibly for the rare vacation… that is, if I decide to stay in Wisconsin. I know that he’d enjoy having me out there with him, but the problem is, I would have to find a job right away in order to support myself, since he said that he can’t support both of us on his own. (Of course, finding a job is on my list anyway, but that’s beside the point.) Would I consider moving to be with him? Yes, actually. It’s just a lot to think about. I can’t afford to move currently, and if I do go, I’d go in August or later since he won’t be in Maine until around then. I guess it’s all a matter of if I can, when I can… or something like that. Like I said, a lot of thinking to do.
So, around the 20th of January, I got convinced into joining a fishing tournament with Brandon, Logan, Jason and Scotty. Keep in mind I had yet to actually catch a fish at that time. Well, we got registered for it (it was an alumni tourney sponsored by Northland's AFS - a fisheries club, basically) and the weekend it was scheduled, Brandon and Logan and I drove up together that Friday. Simply put, the 3 of us + a truck + 6 hours = chaos, lol. As per tradition (or Carolann and mine, at least), we stopped at Taco Bell in Steven's Point for lunch. Turns out, boys plus tacos is a bad combination. There were some smelly repercussions. I'm actually surprised I still have my eyebrows, haha. We stopped again at a gas station somewhere in the middle of WI, and as soon as we got out, our noses curled at the smell outside. It took us a bit to realize that a grain bin was on fire. The locals said it had been on fire for about a week already, lol. So we finally got to Ashland, met with the guys, checked into the hotel and went to the Deepwater for dinner. We headed back to the hotel afterwards and just chilled for a bit. Scotty went back to his room on campus and Logan, Jason, Brandon and I shared the hotel room. Logan didn't want to share a bed with Jason (kinda works out since both guys are kinda bulky) so he took the floor. We gave him a pillow but didn't have any spare blankets, so he made makeshift ones. He used some of his clothes as bedding and wore a coat as a blanket and a hoodie for pants. We were amused by the ingenuity, but even more so by the next morning.
We had decided that we were going to go out early early in the morning for fishing, so at 4:30am Logan's alarm went off. We all start waking up and see/hear Logan attempt to put up a knee and fall down due to his hoodie pants. Several fall downs later, the alarm is off, we get ready and drive out onto the lake. It's about 5am, it's negative degrees out there and we're drilling holes in the ice, putting up shelters and trying not to be popsicles. Had Scotty not had his power auger, we would've most likely just given up. The ice was so dense and was nearly 2 feet thick, so hand augering it was out of the question. We got the shelters up, got in and started fishing. Brandon and I were in his shelter, Logan and Scotty were in Scotty's shelter and Jason had his own little box shelter. It was still very early and very cold, so cold that the holes were constantly freezing over. We had to use the ice scoop constantly, and eventually even the scoop had a layer of ice. We even had a small catalytic heater in there that was supposed to work, but it did diddly squat. We eventually moved it as close to us as possible but we couldn't feel its heat until about 3" away from it. The fishing wasn't all that great either. Aside from a nibble or two on Brandon's end, we got nothing for the first 3 hours or so. It got to the point that I was so cold that I quit fishing in order to keep warm. About the same time I threw in the towel, Brandon called it quits for a bit, so we gathered a frozen Logan and the 3 of us headed back to the hotel to warm up. Both Logan and I had frozen toes, him more so. His old boots had a crack in them and some water got in, so he was really feeling the cold. We shed some layers and went to continental breakfast at the hotel, then went back to the room to grab some more layers. Brandon lent me some of his wool socks to put on, and Logan came up with the brilliant idea to use a pair of my socks to hold some hand warmers on my toes, over the wool ones. I grabbed another jacket layer, bundled up and we headed back out on the lake. By that time (~9:30ish), the sun had come out so it was starting to warm up a bit - that made it so much more tolerable. The frost on the shelter and the ice on the scoop melted off, and the holes stopped freezing over. We could actually take our gloves off and be perfectly fine. We got back to fishing, and about an hour later, after switching to some of Jason's handmade smaller lures, Brandon started catching fish. I still had nothing. I was using a hard pole that's designed for pike instead of panfish, but Scotty added a modifier to allow it to catch smaller fish. Unfortunately my novice self had no idea what to look for, so I was getting a little frustrated. Brandon was nice and switched poles with me, since he had a panfish pole. Even then he was getting hits and I wasn't, so I was really starting to get annoyed. Eventually I decided to do a bait check, so I reeled it up to see if I missed a hit and Brandon watched me. When I reeled it up, he looked at me and said, "You're not on the bottom. There's 30 feet of water here and it takes a lot longer than that to reel up a line here." He then told me to drop the line, move it as it sinks to make sure it actually does sink, and pull the line from the rod and wait for it to lay on the water as a test. I did what he said, reeled it up to just above the bottom, and within a minute I got a nibble. I started to reel it up but I thought I missed my opportunity so I stopped. I started jigging (moving the rod up and down) again to attract fish, but I hesitated, saying, "Wait, I think there's resistance on here." I reeled it up all the way and found a perch on the end of the hook. I was ecstatic, saying, "Holy crap, there's a fish on here!" and all the while, Brandon was broadcasting to the guys, "Lauren caught her first fish!" We got a picture of me holding it, took it off the line and put it in the bait bucket with Brandon's fish. I baited my hook again and dropped the line down. Within about 3 minutes, I caught another fish, a smelt this time. For a while it was the record smelt in our group, too. A while later I caught another smelt, and then the jackpot stopped. It got really quiet for a while, and then a little before 1, Brandon caught another smelt, which happened to be the new record. Also around that time, the sun went in and the wind picked up so it got cold again. Since it got cold and we weren't having any more luck, Brandon and I packed up and headed to shore. We got our fish measured and called the guys in, since they were the last guys in the tourney out on the ice. Once they came back and got their fish measured, we all went back to campus for prizes and hot dogs. I didn't win a fishing category but I got a raffled hat. By the time we're done with everything, it was about 3:30. We got back to the hotel and got changed. I contacted Jenn, and Brandon and I went to the hockey game to see her. We talked and watched the game, while avoiding this random guy that wasn't all there. We stayed to watch the Jacks win (!), I promised Jenn I'd come back and see her son Timmy (my nephew!) and then Brandon and I headed to the Loon Saloon to meet up with the guys again. We got to see Melissa again, which was nice. Since it was the Packers vs Bears playing the next day, there were a lot of Packers fans in there. There was one guy there that was like, "You guys rooting for the Pack tomorrow?" and we were like, "Yeah except for him" and all point to Logan. He eventually won the guy over. :P We headed back after a while, and Brandon and I stopped to see Jenn, Keith and Timmy. I got to hold him a bit, and I got a few pictures with him. He wasn't sure what to make of me though. He'd smile and then cry a bit. Definitely a parents boy. They were playing Rock Band while we were there, so we got to try that out too. Around 11 we headed back to the hotel, grabbed showers and crashed, lol.
The next day, we had to head back home. The guys had to work. So, we woke up around 9ish, got packed up and checked out. Brandon, Logan and I drove down to Minocqua and detoured east for a bit to see Suzi. We ended up staying at the coffee shop she works at for a couple hours, just talking. I wasn't all that close with her, but I was still close enough that she was happy to see me, which was cool. It was nice to see her. After we had coffee and spent too much time talking, we hit the road. We started driving down the roads back to Minocqua and all of a sudden Logan's like, "Dude, pull over, I gotta pee," and for a while we thought he was kidding but he kept insisting. So we ended up eventually pulling over in the middle of the woods. He didn't even wait for the truck to stop completely. He came back, we got on the road, again noticed the burning grain bin, and stopped in the same place for tacos. Bad mistake. Again, boys plus tacos is a bad combination. Brandon let one rip at one point. One second we're fine, the next he's quietly apologizing and we're going, "OMG MY EYES!" Logan attempted to roll down the window and he looked to Brandon, saying, "You bastard! You locked us out!" Luckily in the back there were pop out windows so I popped mine open and saved us, lol. We eventually made it back to my house safe, sound and smell-free. The boys left soon after that, and an hour later I heard that they were back at his house.
So the other big thing… In early February, after seeing an article in the newspaper, I sent in an application for a position at Weather Central, in Madison. The position I applied for was a Data Processing and Quality Control Operator. It sounded like something fun and I had almost all the qualifications for it. So, the day after I sent my application in, I got an email from the guy spearheading that search, saying, “We want to phone interview you, can we talk at 3?” Of course, the email was sent a couple hours beforehand and I didn’t see it until after the fact. I sent an apologetic email back, asking for another opportunity, and I got a response back the next day, scheduling a phone interview for that Friday at 3. I spent a good half hour to 45 minutes on the phone for the interview. The guy I was talking to was really nice about everything. I answered his questions and felt it went pretty well, considering it was my first phone interview. He told me that I should expect to hear something (yes or no) end of the next week or that next Monday. Monday morning I got a call saying, “We would like you to come in for an interview sometime early this week.” I got it scheduled for that Wednesday. Mom and I went out shopping for interview clothes beforehand, since I didn’t have much in that area at the time. I suited up (hehe) for the interview and once I found it, I went in going, “This is it, you can do it.” I followed 3 buff-ish looking guys in and the one held the doors for me. I thanked him and he said, “These assholes may not be gentlemen but I am.” I laughed and thought, “I think I’ll be just fine.” We rode the elevator up to the Weather Central office, and I let the receptionist know who I was there to see. I was there a good 20 minutes early, but within 5 minutes one of the guys, Mr. Wendt, came out to see me. He led me back to the office of the other guy I was interviewing with, Mr. Harry, and we all sat down. I told them I was a bit nervous, and they were understanding and started joking back and forth. Their behavior let me relax and I enjoyed myself while I was there. I answered all their questions, and then Mr. Wendt took me on a tour of the offices. He showed me the area that I would be potentially working in, and it was a sweet setup. Two stations of 3 giant monitors each, plus 5 even larger monitors mounted on the wall. It was all so impressive… While we were doing that, Mr. Harry went to find another guy that apparently wanted to talk to me while I was there. He didn’t find him but I gave him a copy of my resume for him to take to him, and thanked him. Mr. Wendt then took me to see the VP of Operations, Mr. Blankenship, who also wanted to see me. It was mentioned that while they were interviewing me, I was interviewing them at the same time, and that was certainly true. They wanted to impress me just as much as I did them. I met with Mr. Blankenship, and he was a really nice guy for being one of the bigwigs. While he didn’t have any meteorological experience, he enjoyed watching storms and had an interest in astronomy, which made our talk interesting. He also said he was impressed by my cover letter, which mentioned my capstone and the Dynamic II project from last year, and asked about the latter. (I never thought that evil project would ever come in handy! :D) I told him about it and we had a nice chat. I thanked him for his time and he sent me on my way. On the way home, since it was nice out at the time, I put my sunglasses on, rolled down the window and sang to my music with the best attitude ever: “Oh yeah.” About a week later, I got a call saying, “We’re still making our decision. If you don’t hear from us by Monday, give us a call.” Since I didn’t hear anything, I gave a call as soon as Mom and I got back from a bit of quick shopping. Turns out, Mr. Wendt emailed me while we were out, so he told me that they were still deciding and would let me know the next week. Well, that didn’t happen. I sent an email about a week later asking how the process was going and found out that basically the entire decision process is on hold. I guess they had a meeting to discuss certain things and they put it on hiatus. The good news is, when they know more, Mr. Wendt said he would give me a call or send me an email, because they still want to fill the position eventually. So, there’s hope in the future, in essence. Now to find something to fill the job spot in the meantime… but that could be interesting…
I say interesting because I found out a while back that Brandon might be going to grad school. Cool right? It is, it’s almost a free ride for him and he was recommended by one of the professors there who used to be at Northland. It would be horribly stupid for him not to take it. The catch is, he would have to move to Maine and during the summer, he would be doing bird research in northern Alaska. That means that for a couple years I would be without my boyfriend, except possibly for the rare vacation… that is, if I decide to stay in Wisconsin. I know that he’d enjoy having me out there with him, but the problem is, I would have to find a job right away in order to support myself, since he said that he can’t support both of us on his own. (Of course, finding a job is on my list anyway, but that’s beside the point.) Would I consider moving to be with him? Yes, actually. It’s just a lot to think about. I can’t afford to move currently, and if I do go, I’d go in August or later since he won’t be in Maine until around then. I guess it’s all a matter of if I can, when I can… or something like that. Like I said, a lot of thinking to do.