August 1999

[July]

August 1999

July 29 - August 4
Over the weekend my parents and my brother and his family came up to the lake house to spend the night. Also Kate and Alfred came up and spent the night. We had a great time. We spent hours in the water, and we went water skiing behind the boat (not me - I just kind of dragged behind the boat, trying to stand up on skiis). Jeff has been shooting his bow and his pellet gun quite a bit this week. Chris is the whiffle ball king of the lake house. He plays from sun up to sun down, oftentimes by himself. The big news this week though, is that I am going crazy, and taking everyone with me. On Wednesday I will be turning 30. I know, I know, to everyone else this is no big deal, but to me IT IS!!!! I don’t know exactly what part of being 30 is bothering me, but there is definitely something. I have been moody and irritable for a week, and everyone can’t wait until Wednesday has come and gone.

WEDNESDAY: Well, its official… I am now 30 years old!!! I had the best day today. It started with Dan and the kids taking me out to breakfast at 8:00 am. From there we went to play golf. Jeff was my golf caddie. Chris was my door man, and opened my car door for me throughout the entire day. We had dinner with all of my family at my moms house, and they got me lobsters!!! I got to open presents, and we ended the day by going to the movies and returning home at 1:00 am. It was a great day! That’s all for this week. We love to hear from our readers. Write us with your comments at daniel_keyes@msn.com.

August 5-August 11
Dan went fishing for a day this week with his old bass club friends Roger and Fred. They went to a little lake that we drive by all the time, Lake Wickwas. It’s always looked real good, but we’ve never stopped to fish it. It turned out to be a good choice for today, as they all caught fish and had a good time. While they were there, a float plane came down and landed on the water, then took off again. It returned a number of times throughout the day, but the significance of it was not to be learned until later in the week. On Saturday Chris & Kate played in the annual town tennis tournament. We are extremely proud of them. Kate came in 1st place for the junior girls, and Chris (12) came in 2nd place for the junior boys, losing only to a 17 year old! As for Jeff, he will be a freshman in high school this year, and he wants to play football. Practices started this week, and they are double sessions, which means twice a day, so is going to be kept quite busy for a while now. Also, this week marked the passing of our 2 year anniversary. We spent the day in Portsmouth, the town where Dan proposed. We rode down on the Harley (about 2 hours), and poked around in the stores and the coffee shops, and later we had dinner at the same restaurant we were in two years ago. It was a great day, but it was also a long ride back. By the time we got home the temperature was down to 47 degrees, and we had to turn the heat on in the camper as soon as we got in! Finally, we are having a new garage built this summer at the lake house. Andy, the fellow who’s building it, said to Dan a few days ago "So how was fishing at Lake Wickwas? Did you see a plane buzzing over your head throughout the day?" Well, it turns out it was Andy flying the plane - he had heard Dan talking about where he was going fishing, so he flew over the next day to see if he could see him. Since then, Dan has taken Andy and his 10 year old boy out fishing, and yesterday Andy took both me and Dan up for a plane ride. Dan got to fly it a little bit, and we flew over the lake houseand the camper, and we got a great look at all the lakes and mountains around here. It was fantastic, and we’d love to do it again. If any of you readers fly a plane, and want to take us up to scout out fishing spots when we come to your area in return for a day of fishing, drop us a line and let’s go! That’s all for this week. We love to hear from our readers. Write us with your comments at daniel_keyes@msn.com.

August 12-18
Late last week, we stopped in and met Tom St. Laurent, who owns a fiberglass repair shop in town named "Unique Boat Restoration". Dan explained to him that he had an (almost) brand new boat, and that it was up for sale. He wanted someone to take it in and buff out all the minor scratches, and wax it up to a perfect shine. He also told Tom though that he wanted to be taught how to do all this himself - he wanted to be shown exactly what tools and materials he needed, and how to use them, in order to keep this boat in showroom condition. Tom said alright, put on your work clothes and be here at 8am, so Dan spent a day this week on the shop floor, working with Tom and making our boat look better than new. Now we’re not even sure we want to sell it any more, and we almost don’t want to put it back in the water, lest it get dirty again! The big news for this week though, is that we have announced the launching of our first web site: www.DanielKeyes.com. Dan has been getting up every day for the last two weeks at 4am, putting in 8 hours a day on this project. He has just completed designing, coding, testing and posting the first version of our new site, and he feels it is now ready for public consumption. Anyone who is interested can give it a look, and we welcome your comments and suggestions. We especially want to know two things: what either doesn’t work or doesn’t look good on your browser; and what would you like to see added to make the site better - in other words, what would make you want to come back? That’s all for this week. Don’t forget to check out the website at www.DanielKeyes.com, and write us with your comments at daniel_keyes@msn.com. We love to hear from you!

August 19-25
This week we took Chris (12) to have his braces put on. No big deal there, until later in the day when they started to hurt. They hurt for two days, and he had to be very careful with what he was eating. After that it was no problem, and we haven’t heard a word about them since. To help keep Chris occupied while this was going on we arranged to have a friend of his, Nate, come and stay with us at the lake. Nate was originally going to stay one night, and we’d play it by ear after that. He ended up staying six days. Jeff has been in football all week, so we didn’t see him until Friday. When we picked him up, he brought along two of his friends, so it was Dan and I, and five boys between the ages of 12 and 14, for the weekend. And it rained! Dan played football with them in the rain, we went to the movies (saw the Blair Witch Project - SCARY!!!), and went to the video arcade. By Sunday afternoon when the kids went home, we were beat! On Monday Dan got back to work on the website. He’s added lots of new stuff, including new photos, a new Pro Tips page, and a Question & Answer page where readers can pose questions to either Dan or myself, and both question and answer will be posted on the web page. We’ve also now got some new, more specific email addresses, so make note. If you want to comment on the journal, write to us at JournalComments@DanielKeyes.com. All other correspondence can go to either Dan@DanielKeyes.com or to Annie@DanielKeyes.com. That’s it for this week. One more week at home and then we’re off again. We’re leaving August 29th for about a month - to Kerr (NC) for an Everstart tournament and then to 1000 Islands (NY) for B.A.S.S.

August 26-31
This is our last week in NH, so we are trying to fit in as much as possible. Dan & Chris went to play golf early in the week. I spent a day shopping with my mom (very successful). We went to visit our friend Roger, and took the boys with us. Dan & Chris spent a day fishing. Jeff and I spent a lot of time in the car, shuttling around to the dentist and to football practice. We went out to eat with my mom & dad, Charlie & Debbie. We took Chris to the doctor for a shot he needed before the start of school. When Friday came, we had to drop the boys off for good. We said our goodbyes, and it was not easy, after the great summer we’d had. On Saturday afternoon we went to see the Beach Boys in concert - outdoors in the bright summer sunshine. It was the best. They are one of my favorite groups to see. Of course, when we had asked the kids earlier if they wanted to go, they said "Are they even still alive?" Well, yes, they are alive, and we had a great time. Saturday night there was a big party going on at my mom’s house. I got to see all my relatives, and there was a big town fireworks display that we could see from the front yard. I even stayed up until 1:00 am, something I rarely do anymore. KeyesJrnlLogo We finally left at 11:00 on Sunday morning. We drove 300 miles and spent the night at a WalMart in Pennsylvania. It seems both strange & exciting to be back on the road again On Monday we stopped in Fredericksburg, VA, after 400 miles. Here we shopped some and stayed in a mall parking lot (lucky me!). Tuesday we drove the last 150 miles, to Lake Gaston in NC - a letter from Operation Bass last week informed us that Kerr Lake is so low that the tournament may be moved to Gaston instead. We finished up the day checking launch ramps, finding a camp site, buying fishing licenses and settling in. That’s all for this week. Tomorrow we start fishing, and we’ll go back to writing daily journal entries. We love to hear from our readers. Write us at JournalComments@DanielKeyes.com.

Link to: September 1999