Frog and Goat

I’m trying to teach myself Flash so that I can create some cool movies for our website…which means that I’ll probably throw some god-awful movie out here on F&G for you to ridicule and shriek over. I am taking the Lessons that ship with Flash and I have to tell you they are BORING, HUMDRUM and LIFELESS. It seems to me that if Flash is used to make movies, couldn’t the Lessons use that technology? I ordered SAMS Teach Yourself Flash in 24 hours and am waiting for that to come in. Hopefully, that book will help me be more productive.

Another work-related topic: I’m going to be doing a project for VDSS starting in Jan and running through March. Yes, L.P, if you are reading that it must be true since it is in print now. 20 hours a week to help get the new release’s Help files in order. Maybe some work on training materials too. The odd and strange thing is this: they are moving into the building I once worked in when I worked for the bank. I’ll be back in the old haunts. At least I’ll know where all the bathrooms are.

The better-half and I finished building the new Joad (the canoe carrier) and we went canoeing yesterday for the first time in a couple of years. The Mattaponi river between Zoar and Aylett was high and brisk. We spent a lot of time just holding onto the paddles and not doing any work. The river carried us. Because it was about 80 yesterday we were in t-shirts and shorts so except for the leaves it felt like we were canoeing in May. There was a guy and his son on one of those evil jet skis–they were wearing bathing suits. There’s nothing more disgusting than having your peaceable journey interrupted by a jet ski. I don’t see the point.

We saw a couple of Great Blue Herons, a duck, tons of squirrels and heard a few owls. We’re pretty sure some turtles were out as well but we didn’t see them–only heard them slipping into the water as we went by.

We were able to eat our lunch without pulling over to the bank which is not something we usually do. But since the river was pulling us so much we really only had to make sure we didn’t get sideways while we ate our sandwiches.

There were lots of people taking advantage of the weather at the Aylett boat ramp. The fishing area was fairly populated but the parking lot was full of trucks and boat trailers. I guess folks figured fishing was a better idea than watching a game on TV. We didn’t see any power boats and we usually don’t…they tend to head towards Walkerton and the fatter water. I imagine though from Aylett to Walkerton there was plenty of water traffic. We don’t do that run very often because it takes longer and you have to pay attention to the tide or you end up exhausting yourself paddling.