I'm a Total Slacker

Yikes! I mean- Happy New Year.

Yes, OK, so I'm a total, 100% slacker for not updating this blog for TWO MONTHS. Damn, time flies. I can't believe it's a whole 'nother year.

New Year's Resolution #8 - I'll see if I can be better about getting something up here - at least once a week.

The last quarter of the year is typically the busiest time - not only in terms of Holiday preparations, but business-wise as well. Thanks to our terrific developers, partners and community - Servoy finished yet another banner year!

I wanted to take a quick minute to thank all of you that have helped to contribute to Servoy's on-going success. We couldn't have done it without you.

Speaking of being a slacker - during the (woefully short!) Christmas break - I had a chance to do all the default things - get together with family, spend too much, eat too much, drink too much... and... go sport fishing.

Really. Me. On a boat. At 5:00am.

It was my son's "big" Christmas present - he's a hard-core outdoors guy (loves hunting, fishing, etc.). I mean really hard core. My buddy Aaron Archer (a fellow Servoyian) calls him "Davey Crockett."

It was actually Aaron's idea to go on this "adventure" in the first place. I thought - "Hey, it's Christmas - Brennan will LOVE it. How bad could it be?"

And with that - I sent wheels in motions that I knew nothing about. We booked the trip - and even though I did my best to conceal the trip from my son - a well-intentioned, blabber-mouth relative let it slip and he found out about it early.

From that point on - he was officially counting down the days. He would wake up in the morning and say "Just 14 more days!" You would think he'd be referring to Christmas. Nope. He was referring to the fishing trip (set for December 27th).

Needless to say, he was excited.

Well, the day finally arrived - and just by the way it started, I should have suspected that something was up. Because Aaron and his friend and brother were going to meet at my house at 3:30am - I slept downstairs, fully dressed, ready to go. I told my son not to worry, that I would wake him up and get him dressed in his 87 layers of clothes (it was 38 degrees the day before and the winds were howling like crazy).

At about 3:25 he wakes ME up "Hey Dad, time to wake up - it's almost time to go!"

I grab some food out of the fridge, get my outer layer of clothes together and we depart with Aaron and crew in tow right on time.

We meet my brother-in-law (Jim), his 20 year old son (Wes) and my father-in-law (Don) at the dock, rent the poles, get the gear - and off we go... into Hell.

It's about 39 degrees, and there are 3-4 foot swells that toss our 42 foot boat like a cork in a bathtub. After about an hour, the wind isn't the only thing blowing.... Brennan is puking in the galley, Jim is puking on deck, and I feel like I have the black whirlies while still wide awake.

It's all I could do to not join the puke party - lucky there was nothing in my stomach that wanted to leave in a hurry.

Don't get me wrong, I love holding my now-limp, 75 pound, dead weight, puking son up on the deck of the SS Minnow while inhaling diesel fumes on our 2 HOUR ride out to the Channel Islands.

I figured IF I lived - and once the sun came up the winds would die down and we could fish. Well, the sun came up, and so did another round of yellow bile from poor little Brennan's stomach. We were sitting there rocking and rolling (Don was puking WHILE fishing - NOT kidding!) - but Aaron and crew were having beers!

I just wanted to go home and die and in peace.

The boat was rocking so much from side-to-side that the water almost breached the gun whale (the little wall on the sides of the boat). After about an hour and a half of this - I told the captain that we had one more hour and we're D-O-N-E, done.

He explained that he would take us to a calmer spot - but my reaction was (literally) - "I don't give a crap what you do - you've got an hour, and we're done."

On the way to calmer waters - we spotted a whole pod of dolphins that were racing the boat, we saw several sea otters and even a grey whale! (that was the best part of the trip)

Well, we did get to calmer waters, the sun was bright, and the winds calmed down. Aaron and crew were fishing like there was no tomorrow - along with Don (the Super Angler) - while Brennan and I and Jim were dozing in the sun.

In the end - everyone was really kind to Brennan and let him reel in some fish (which he was thrilled at - and later took full credit for). I even plopped a line in the water and reeled it in - just to prove that I'm not a total pussy. Jim even fished for awhile - and did pretty well (while he wasn't STILL puking).

When it was all said and done - we (they) caught over 100 fish.

I drove us home and slept for a day and a half.

The next day when Brenda (my wife) asked Brennan how the trip was - he replied "It was the best fishing trip ever! I caught a ton of fish - and I even threw up!"

Maybe I'm not a TOTAL slacker...