MLK Jr.

Where would we be without great men like him?

Happy MLK Jr. day.

Davenism's

Last week I wrote one of my yearly review pieces. It was a shorter review piece but highlighted the important parts of the year. However many of you have commented to one glaring shortcoming in that piece:

"What about Daven?"

To which I reply:

"Have you met this kid?! And if so, do you really think one could forget him?!"

Daven is going to be 4 come next March. So we will soon be leaving the 3 year behind.

Thank god.

This year has been a challenge. Dav has discovered more and more independence and as such has started ramping up the whole challenging authority bit. I have described him as "frustratingly adorable", in that one second he is a sweet little boy saying "please" and "thank you":

Oh, you want me to sit here for a picture? Ok. I sure do love you guys!

But the next second he can be one or all of the 6 demons that supposedly possessed Emily Rose and he must be destroyed:

Want PEANUT BUTTER SANDWICH!!!!

Parenting is hard, and he hasn't made it easy at times.

However, most of the time we coexist just fine, and he is at that stage where he is really picking up language and correct use of grammar. As such, for today's post I'd like to give you a sampling of some of our favorite quotes from Dav during his 3rd year. Enjoy!!

"I get dressed when I done running around naked."

"Daddy, do you want dessert? Let's be done with chicken and have dessert."

"Daddy you fit in my bed...you sleep there and I'll sleep in here." ("here" being Elli and my bed)

"These are my face cheeks. And these are my butt cheeks."

While recovering the next morning from the HHH and having waffles down in the common room with a bunch of older citizens around us, Dav utters this gem completely out of the blue:

"My penis is really long."

"S'mores are made of marshmallows, chocolate, and fire."

"I wanna get my buuuuuttt wet."

I can't remember why, but we asked him to stop talking. His reply to that one: "Don't say that to me. I like talking!"

And quite possibly our favorite conversation Dav had didn't even take place with us. It took place with our friend Jeanette:

Jeanette: "Look, it's the Hungry Caterpillar."

Daven: "I know. It lives in a raccoon."

Jeanette: "I think you mean cocoon."

Daven: "No, it's a raccoon."

Jeanette: "Well, technically it's a chrysalis."

Daven: "I can't say that word. It's a raccoon."

Then there's the whole "why?" and "because" exchange. Any parent knows how that goes, so I don't need to get into that. Let's just say whenever one of those begins, it turns into a contest as to who walks away first. Elli and I normally win but not because Dav gets frustrated with us. He just gets bored or assumes we're too stupid to answer all of this questions and walks away to go play with something else.

2011 Year in Review

Panic not loyal followers! I have returned. After a all too common overly busy holiday season that started with Thanksgiving and ended with the New Years, and then having to replace a computer that all but blew up, I decided it was time to come back to you all and provide the occasional update into what goes on over here. As such, what better way to do it than one of my favorite posts to write: the yearly review.

2011 was another year of change. Almost right of the bat, we welcomed offspring #2. Hannah May was born January 17th, and right from the beginning having a daughter ruined me. I found myself cooing too much, saying "cute" and "adorable" in shocking amounts, and even shooting down clothing options because they revealed "too much neckline for my daughter". I vowed she will start dating when she turns 30, but I'm thinking that is even too soon. Watching the 2 of my children play together and laughing is possibly the greatest thing I have witnessed. I talked about life having peaks before, and I definitely am on one of those right now. And it's thanks to my family.

Elli got a job this year! No, I mean a real one. No, it has nothing to do with Scandinavian Studies. No, for the 1,237,983rd time do I have ANY idea what you do with that. Ask her. Anyhow, a mere 8 weeks after she fired out Hannah, she started work as an RN down at Fairview University Medical Center here in MN, and despite some of her stories, she really does seem to enjoy it and has apparently found her calling in the professional world. Although I think Dav is gonna miss her textbooks and what not. He has a fairly solid understanding of human anatomy thanks to Elli's studies.

And finally, what would a year be like in the Taylor household without a visit to St. John's ER. In July I was brought in via ambulance with a dislocated knee. It was a softball injury, and yes I realize how ridiculous that sounds but it's the way of things. It has been somewhat discouraging to realize that I no longer bounce back from injury as quick as I used to, but have recently started ramping things up again and seem no worse for wear. Perhaps this is my body telling me something, although as history has taught us, I'll just ignore it.

Happy New Year to all! I hope this finds you all well and I look forward to what 2012 brings!!

Where you can say "Nice Rack!" and not get smacked for it...

My hunting career started much later than most peoples. I grew up a fisherman, and my old man did hunt before I came along, but it wasn't until I was in my early 20's that I got certified in firearms safety. Sure I walked plenty of hunting trails and even helped gut deer before that time, but I actually didn't start pulling the trigger until after many of my fellow hunters were well seasoned.

In 2004 I made the great plunge into deer hunting. I was working for a DNA sequencing plant up in Becida, MN (yes really!) and the owner built the lab along with his house on 40 acres of land. So when deer season came along, he told me to buy a tag and borrow his rifle and go sit in one of the 2 stands on the property. That first weekend was a rather cold one, and a few days before Ron (the owner of said property) told me there was indeed a rather large buck roaming the area and if I see it by all means shoot it. So with visions of large racks in my head, away to the stand I go. The first weekend I saw 4 does and didn't shoot. It was only after conversing with Ron again at work the following Monday that I learned this was an "Intensive Harvest Area", in which you can shoot up to 5 deer. You don't go through a lottery, you just buy additional permits. So, the following weekend with my new found knowledge that I wasn't limited to just bucks, I went on the premise of "brown it's down". As one could guess, I didnt' see a single deer.

And with that, do to a number of factors, I didn't deer hunt again until last year. That time I went up to a friends cabin up in Hackensack, MN. However I didn't realize I was gonna hunt until later on in Oct, well after the lottery deadline. So I was truly limited to bucks that time. It was extremely hot for deer hunting (flirting with 70 degrees), and although I saw plenty signs of deer activity, I actually didn't see any deer. So I struck out for another year.



You kind of suck at this Taylor.

But I was not to be deterred. Besides, after that first experience I was kind of hooked on deer hunting. Much like most of my hunting experiences I wasn't successful, but as I've pointed out in the past that's not why I hunt. I'm most comfortable in an outdoors setting and jump on any chance to partake in one. So I was all set to go back to the woods of Hackensack, this time armed with the fact that the area was in the new "Hunter's Choice" area. This meant although only one deer per hunter, you could take a deer of either sex. No lottery needed. But then I got a text out of the blue about 3 weeks before the deer opener from my cousin Bill.

"Come hunt with us", it basically said.

"OK", I basically answered.

So instead of going to a one deer per hunter area, I was going back to an "Intensive Harvest" area, although rarely did they each shoot more than 1 deer up there I was told, but nonetheless, the hunting wasn't difficult in that the stands were already set out, and they were easily accessible by numerous cut trails up on the 40 some acres of property. We'd all be spread out nicely and if a deer wandered by it was in trouble. I jumped on the chance not only to hang out with family I rarely get to see anymore, but also to partake in an actual "Deer Camp". Plus it gave Elli piece of mind knowing I wasn't going out hunting solo.



You're in trouble now fu*kers!

After a few more texts exchanges and phone calls, and what seemed like an eternity of days, Friday finally came and we were on our way. My Aunt and Uncle live up in Hibbing, a 3 hour drive, but the miles clicked by rather quickly due to good conversation and before long we were pulling into the local watering hole of the area about 10 minutes out from our destination. We sat down and ordered drinks and talked about the upcoming weekend.

"I think we'll put you in John's stand. He shoots a deer every year. It's probably the most productive stand out there", says Bill.

"I don't want to take the best stand. Really wherever will be fine. I don't want to butt right in and take someone else's spot or deer," I reply.

"Don't worry about it," he says, "it's a great stand. You should hunt it."

This was the type of reception I got and attitude that was up there. I was given the royal treatment by family, and had some of the most fun I've had in the outdoor setting. But that would be later. Friday I was introduced to the true meaning of a "Deer Camp", and it started at that watering hole.

"These are really going down well," Bill says.

"Sure are," I respond.

We pull into the property, meet my Uncle Gary as he comes home from work, and start setting up camp. Our campsite would be out in their large garage heated comfortably to 70 degrees (we backed it down to the low 60's when Gary wasn't looking). We'd sleep on air mattresses over on one side, and live it up at the poker table watching satellite TV and drinking bottled beer dispensed from our own bottle machine on the other side. The other member of our group, my cousin Greg, wandered on in an hour or so later. The crew was set, and eventually my Aunt Marilynn, Greg's wife Shelly, her son Chaez (sp?) and his girlfriend Danika joined us as well. We through some money into a pot, sat at the card table, ate some frozen pizza, walked over to the bottle dispenser very frequently, and had a great time. But then a mysterious bottle showed up, and I was told it was a drink called "Apple Pie". Indeed it tasted exactly like pie, and went down very very smoothly. While working on one of my several pulls from the bottle, I commented to my cousin Greg that that rifle was going to be awfully loud the following morning.

"Yes it will be," he replies.

"What's in this?", I ask.



When "Goo Gone" just won't cut it.

We whooped it up until 2:30 Saturday morning. Needless to say, when I got up a few hours later I was hurting. But I did manage to drag myself out to the stand and sit for a while. The gentle rocking of the stand caused by the tree billowing in the wind did not help settle my stomach, and after a deerless morning I went back to my air mattress seeking relief. After breakfast, another attempt at napping, and wandering around in the fresh air for a while with little results, I figured it was time to back to the stand. It was around 2pm Saturday. Finally, after about an hour or so of sitting up in the tree, my stomach stopped it's mutiny and we reached a truce. Good thing too, because about 10 minutes after that I heard a slightly different noise coming from behind me and to the left. I was told that all of the deer taken from this stand had come in from behind it, and so very very slowly I started turning my head in the direction of the noise, and then froze.

15 yards behind me a rather nice doe was foraging around and slowly walking in my direction. The wind was in my favor and it had no idea I was there. For the next 45 minutes I patiently watched as it made it's way farther into the woods. But it was hanging out right on the other side of brush and trees, not giving me any shot. However it was making it's way painfully slowly to a trail directly to the left of me with no obstructions whatsoever. So I sat there waiting, hoping and willing that it would continue on it's way. Sure enough, it came right where I wanted it too. When it was about 5 yards from coming out onto the trail, I brought the rifle up and lined up the cross hairs. The head came onto the trail first, and I clicked off the safety.

"Gotch'ya." I said out load, albeit in a very faint whisper.

As if following my thought perfectly, it continued out perfectly broadside onto the trail and when the scope settled on the vitals, it popped it's head up. I squeezed off the round. The .44 mag carbine kicked into my shoulder and the telltale sign and sound of impact was both seen and heard. The deer went to run, but only went about 15 yards and fell down stone dead. I tilted the hat back and breathed out a sigh of relief. Adrenaline surged and a smile lit up my face.

I finally got my first deer. And it was a hunt I will not soon forget.

When we field dressed it, I was even more delighted. The deer did not suffer, it was basically dead when it was hit. It was a perfect shot right behind the shoulder. My Uncle Gary helped me gut it out, since my knife failed about half way through the opening (always always ALWAYS sharpen your knives before the hunt) and I was amazed at how fast he did it. Just another way they took care of me.

Back at camp that night there were high fives all around and cocktails to be had, although everyone had their fill the night before so we took it fairly easy this time. We hung my deer out to dry in the cool night air and fried up it's tenderloins in a mixture of butter and onions.

The next morning I was content to hang out at the garage and wait to help the others if they got deer, but my Uncle told me to go out in the stand and if a deer wandered by shoot it and he'll tag it. Party hunting if you will. I didn't see anything but Bill ended up shooting one towards the end of the day. So our camp took 2 deer. We'll call that a definite success.

The Deer Opener of 2011 will not be one I'll soon forget, if ever. Huge thanks to my hosts which included my cousin's Bill and Greg, my Uncle Gary, and my Aunt Marilyn. Thanks to all of you for having me up at your awesome property, and thanks for making this deer season my first successful one. I had barrels of fun and hope to be able to make it back up there again sometime.

Something tells me the venison is gonna taste even better knowing that I was responsible for getting it.

The right reason for hunting...

I've been asked many times now: "Jake, why do you hunt?"

The answer? Because nature is a beautiful thing and everyone should take time to truly appreciate it.

No, I'm not some hippy who follows a vegan diet and says that we are robbing resources from our great great great great greatgreatgreatgreat granchildren.

One of the great things about hunting is that you get to enjoy meat that you normally wouldn't dine on. But if that was the only reason for hunting, why go through all the trouble of scouting and setting up and sitting for hours on end when you could simply find a quality butcher shop and buy whatever you desire? The actual harvest of game is only the tip of the iceberg. There's so much more.

Hunters are not killers. People who shoot game and thoroughly enjoy the actual killing of the animal need help and should be committed immediately. While I personally don't take issue with pulling the trigger and ending another animals life, I don't take unnecessary satisfaction in it. It is what happens doing what I do, nothing more to me. I take time to appreciate the animal I took and, in a nonreligious way, give thanks of sorts to it for providing a good meal.

So why hunt then? Why not just go and buy that meat like I mentioned above?

Because like I said above, nature is beautiful.

I am a member of Ducks Unlimited. As such, one of the perks of membership is a every other month delivery of their magazine. One of their columnists, E. Donnall Thomas Jr., is probably one of my favorite columnists of all time. He has lived an obviously storied life and has seemingly lived and hunted everywhere in this great country of ours. A while ago he wrote a column about "Goose Day". This is not a day that is recognized on the same day each year. It is merely a day that a few are lucky enough to witness each year. Goose Day is the day that all the geese in your area seem to take off for the migration, and the sky is filled with literally thousands of birds moving. I was fortunate one year to actually be out at the duck swamp when this happened. I heard them first, and then over the tree line came "V" upon "V" of migrating geese. For about 25 minutes, the sky was alive with the sounds of honking and vibrations of huge wings flapping in earnest for the South. It was truly a spectacle. Beautiful in it's own way.

That's what hunting is about. Getting away. Plopping yourself in the middle of nature and watching how the world works without cell phones, computers, traffic, or social networks.

However you do it, whether it be watching an early morning sunrise from the deer stand, walking through the forest on your favorite grouse trail, or being fortunate to be out at the edge of the pond during "Goose Day", hunting is merely a vessel for doing what everyone should do from time to time:

Slow down, and get away for a little bit.

Good start...

Two weekends ago the duck hunting season got underway.

YIPEEEEE!!!

I'll calm down in a second.

Ok I'm good.

Nope, too excited to type again.

Ok now I'm good.

Anyhow, I ventured on up North to the Hackensack MN area where a good friend of mine works at a nature center. He recently moved into a palace of a place smack in the middle of nowhere and invited me and another friend on up for a weekend of bird hunting. We would pursue grouse in the woods and ducks from the waters. I requested time off from my household duties as follows:

Jake: "I'm going hunting with some of the boys this weekend."

{points to calendar at dates in September with this being middle August}

Elli: {rolling eyes, sighs heavily} "Well are you actually gonna shoot something this time?"

Jake: {lips quivering, voice cracks} "Why you gotta cut so deep?"

The weekend finally came and the truck was loaded with excessive hunting paraphernalia, beer, junk food, soda pop (There! I pleased everyone with referring to POP with both the correct term and the hillbilly inbred reference), more beer, and headed up North.

Our plan was simple: We would hunt grouse during the day, and shoot ducks in the morning. Duck shooting ended at 4pm, so we would mostly go during the day. However one of the members of our gang didn't buy his duck stamps, so instead all of Saturday was devoted to grousing. We had good luck, in that we saw and heard plenty of birds. But Mother Nature has yet to signal to the trees to drop there leaves, and as such most of the cover was so dense that you couldn't see the other guy, decked out in blaze orange, more than 10 feet away from you. So we didn't get a whole lot of shooting but we did get a few shots off and I managed to pull a very lucky shot off and bag one bird.

Sunday after the one guy left, my friend KC and I loaded up the duck hunting gear and proceeded to canoe over to a river running off of a lake. KC knew there were ducks holding up in there, and as it was warm and bluebird skies, we both agreed setting up shop somewhere was gonna prove pointless as nothing was flying. This plan with the canoe allowed us to flush birds holding tight in the backwaters. It produced nicely:

There should be two more there (two more wood ducks) but we spent about 20 minutes on each of them looking for them where they dropped only to never find them. I truly hate leaving wounded birds but we literally scoured every inch of the area that they went down for about a 30 yard radius. One was probably my best shot of my career too. Such is hunting. On the plus side KC shot a wall quality wood duck:

KC's woodie. Ha, I couldn't resist!

It was a great way to kick off the season. And the above harvest was only in a little over 2.5 hours (that's including the 40 minutes or so looking for downed birds on top of retrieving all the other ones). Kind of a spoil type of day in that lots of rewards for little work. But we've all earned those from time to time right?

Happy hunting all!

Man down!! Call everyone!!!!

"Elli is gonna be really pissed when she gets the phone call that I'm in the ER."

"Oh man! Elli is gonna be REALLY pissed that they are gonna cut off my softball pants. These things weren't cheap."

The above were the first two thoughts that popped into my head when I was laying on the softball field with an injured knee

Back in July, I hurt my knee. Pretty bad actually. "Severe patellar dislocation of the left knee" was the official diagnosis. I've never done this before (to this magnitude) and I don't recommend you try it. It hurts. A lot. I don't want to do it again but thanks to the mechanism that is the human body, I've now increased my likelyhood of another dislocation by 50%.

"How'd you do that?" you may be wondering. Well no one knows for sure but there is a theory. I was playing first base in a softball game. The ball was hit to third somewhat slowly so it was going to be a close play. Knowing this, when the ball was thrown I stretched out to my absolute max. I'm 6'5" tall with a 36" inseam. It was an impressive stretch. However, with that long of a stretch, it puts tremendous pressure on the knee joint. So at full stretch, the doctor believes that my knee starting buckling inwards down towards the ground. At that point, all it takes is for your to engage your quad muscle, which I did to keep from falling over, and in doing that it will throw your knee cap out of the joint.

Look down at your left knee. Now imagine the kneecap over on the left side of said knee. That's where my kneecap ended up.

I buckled and went down in a heap. I'm pretty sure I cried out and swore very loudly. Play was halted and everyone rushed over. I wasn't exactly sure what happened myself but when I went to grab my knee it wasn't there anymore. I then felt the cap off to the side and that's when those two thoughts at the beginning of this post occurred.

Someones wife on the other team was a paramedic and knew enough to do two things. One, she shouted to everyone not to lift me or move my leg too much. And two, she called 911. As a tip to others, if you're around someone that dislocates their knee, and it's the first time they've done so, leave them the hell alone! Call the paramedics and let them bring them to an ER to have it set. There could be major damage with a first time dislocation.

Back to me. I managed to keep myself relatively calm. Others were surrounding me to block out the sun as it was one of those uber hot days and the temp was around 93 or so. They managed to get ice on my knee rather quickly and then we all just waited for the ambulance to show. Which it eventually did, however so did a fire truck and 2 sheriff deputies. Everyone must've been bored that night.

I was loaded up into the ambulance and away I went. I never noticed how many looping on and off ramps there were between that field in Arden Hills and St. Johns over in Maplewood, but that ride brought all of them to my attention. Any movement of my foot in either direction sent a whole lot of pain to my brain and I reacted with grimacing. After what seemed like hours, I was being wheeled into the ER bay.

It's a weird thing to look down at your leg and seeing only a quad with no knee attached to it. Other people must've thought the same thing because the looks I got from some of the non-medical staff as I was pushed by were one's of "My God! Did you see that?!"

Once situated in the room, I was hooked up to the heart monitor and blood pressure cuff. My heartrate was in the 90's and my BP was 160 or so over 83. It was safe to say I was having some pain. As the nurses recorded what they needed, I was chastised numerous times about playing softball "out in this heat."

Then the ER doc came on in. I don't remember his name but he's one of my favorite people in the world now. He was younger (I'd guess mid early to mid 40's) and was completely unfazed by what he saw. He had a constant smirk on his face the whole time I dealt with him. He explained to me what he was going to do, which was he needed to lift and straighten my leg and then the cap should just get pulled back into place by the quad tendon. "What if that doesn't happen?" I asked. He replied with, "Well let's just start with this and go from there."

He told me to try and relax, and once he started to straighten and lift my leg I was gearing up mentally for what surely would be a long and painful process. But as I was about to begin slowly exhaling in an attempt to deal with pain, I felt the kneecap pop back into place.

And I started laughing. The relief was exquisite.

He explained to me that next time I do it (NEXT TIME?!!--See above), that I can just do what he did and then follow up with my doctor the next day. Since he was done with his part, I thanked him profusely and away he went. The nursing aid came in and put my leg into a knee immobilizer and shortly after that my nurse came back in. She explained that the immobilizer would be on for one week continuously, even while sleeping, and the second week I could take it off only to sleep. She then offered me 800mg of Ibuprofen and 2 tabs of Vicodin. I honestly wasn't in that much pain anymore and asked if I could just take the Ibuprofen. She did a very noticeable twitch when I said that, and with shock in her voice stated that I could indeed just take the Ibuprofen. She then made the comment that no one ever turns down Vicodin in the ER. The Doctor even made a short reappearance after this to say the same thing. I guess I'm just weary of hardcore pain meds.

So I walked on out of the ER with cut up softball pants and a leg immobilizer on. I was inactive for a little over 3 weeks before I got back on my bike for very short rides. And then just this past Tuesday I made my comeback to the softball diamond. The knee is holding up well but I'm once again wearing a kneebrace on what was once my "good knee", the right one being the one I hurt years ago playing baseball.

Elli has pointed out that they have made great advances in knee replacement surgery. Thanks sweetie.