Texas 2007

Well, it's been almost a week now that I've been back from Texas. It was kind of a last minute deal, found the cheap(er) tickets and made the decisions to go. But like I said, I'm back. It was great fun. Only went for 8 days though, b/c of school and work. It was so gorgeous down there, everything was blooming. I got some great shots. We didn't do anything really crazy or random this trip, though we tried. We just couldn't think of anything cheap, legal, and OK with the parents, or legal. What we did though do, you guessed it, was play xbox. Really that's one of the few ways this trip was similar to the past trips. Past trips, for the most part, we had girls (last year excepted), music and Sophie (John's truck), and alot of money to burn. Well, this trip we had Katie. Just kidding (it's an inside thing). Anyway we didn't have Sophie except the last two or three days, b/c it had no insurance, and John didn't want to get it too dirty since he's selling it. That was, in fact, a blessing. I didn't have enough money to feed her. We drove his parents Saturn around instead, nice and cheap. So no Sophie. The Saturn had no CD player or radio, though. So basically no music. And I think I spent maybe a grand total of $200 with a really nice paintball setup. Not bad compared to the $400 or so I've always spent before.

We have God in our lives, that's enough. Not having those other things left us to search for original ways to have fun. (remember: sorta safe, legal, and ok with the Sloans). What we did do though was as fun as anything we've ever done before. We paintballed. We paintballed alot. we both got some pretty nice setups for paintballing. So we paintballed each other a bunch, then paintballed some other people. Then paintballed man-eating Nutria. We went out in his boat on Gilmer Lake. I had my camera (and of course my paintball gun). I got some great shot of pelicans thanks to John, who pretty much went wherever I pointed. It was on that lake that I saw, or thought I saw... Loch Ness! It was all right, the stench of moldy rotten wood and weeds. The murky water, the boat running onto a log... And then–Movement, bubbles beside our boat–we gunned it over the log, and it followed... bubbles, followed by glimpse of some foreboding creature, swimming right along side of us, just beneath the surface. I had my paintball gun at my shoulder, ready, waiting for the elusive legend to reveal itself. Suddenly, I was back to my childhood, in a nightmare were rats were all around, my life seemed to pass by me in a flurry until suddenly I heard John retort, "There it is!". Before I could decide whether to jump overboard or unload my paintball gun on it, I saw it too–a nutria! Sure enough, that was Nessy. Now, there may have been a few stretched points in that story, but I felt it was my duty to you as the reader to make it exiting. Anyway. That's all it was. So we went on our way. When we had gotten as far up the channel as we could, John stopped to relieve himself of a burden(there was a jetty of land we stepped onto . I took the opportunity to do some target practice. John did the same with the bb gun. When we had used up all our ammo, we turned around and went back out. About halfway out of the creepy channel we were in, John spotted a whole nest of our monsters. I took lots of pics, as we were both thinking they were beaver at they point. When we reached them, we realized that they were nutria. Knowing that these animals are a bane to the local ecology, we made up our mind to be their terminal bane (dat means we was gonna kill 'em). But we had used all of our ammo. So John grabbed the oar. I talked him out of bludgeoning the creature, but he had some fun pushing on a little baby. It sounded like a squeaky toy! lol. But then, out of the enclosing fog, rushed the creature, screaming threats and warnings. It charged us with bared teeth. John rushed into the boat and gunned it. But he was too slow. Before I knew it we were soaked. It had flipped the boat. I had landed about 40 feet away. John however, wasn't so fortunate, he had gotten thrown into a tree. The Nutrias rushed in-Wait a minute, maybe this is a little to much of a disclosure of my graphic imagination to disclose to you. Entertainment isn't worth it. What really happened is: the animal did charge us, but we made it out ok. Our resolve to rid the lake of this family of pest had not deteriorated so fast as our courage in the face of man-eating-nutria.
So we went to town and got a bow fishing arrow (John's idea). We didn't want to attract to much attention with noise b/c there was a house about 200 yards away, and you know how noise travels on water. We went back out that night at about 10 o'clock PM. I made sure I had a spare hopper of paintballs. We did rock paper scissors for who would get the first shot with the bow. He won. Fine with me. I wanted to paintball them. We found the nest again ok. and they weren't wise to us yet. We counted to three, on which number I would turn on the million candlepower spotlight, hit my tac-lite that was taped to the barrel, and john would loose the arrow. After he how fired and the arrow had bounced of I lit the nutria up with about 10 rounds. She didn't know what happened. So we did the same scenario a few more times until we lost the arrow. Then we took turn paintballing the animals. I spotted one out of the corner of my eye and immediately opened fire on it. After firing a 9 or 10 round burst, I stopped. It was just floating there. When I saw this my only sentiment was, "dude, I think I killed it". it twitched. I opened repressive fire as john got the boat closer. When the water settled. There it was. A baby Nessy, a.k.a. Nutria. I got a trophy shot shown below. So that just about ended the night. It was late. Anyway.

Funny thing, one of my co-workers told me (when discussing an unrelated story) that doing stuff like that in younger years is sign of a serial killer to be. And then I looked at my file at work and on the Orion personality test, it said I was a mild risk for drug abuse. Hmmm. lol. After reading the above story your probably thinking, "this guy is so weird." Yeah, that about hits it on the head.

cya.





Nutria

John's Cat, Daisy.


Sophie, John and Andy on Gilmer Square.

Trophy Shot