yeah that's right it's me, coleman

the family

we bought harley a brand new dirt bike down in alberty

Beckers and charlie brown build a gingerbread house

Coleman was grabbing these red balls on the sly and stashing them all in one place on the tree-til mom barked at him. We had a cold snap, I shot this pic at three in the afternoon, temp -44. My new trainees are on station now and when they came it was -14 and they were all like "this is'nt so bad" then wham! -40's for a week. but they are still here, so they're game.

We went down to peace river in alberty to do some shopping last week. 11 hours down, freezing drizzle, deer all over the GD highway-it was awesome! we bought a special someone something very special. It was the whole purpose of our trip, I would elaborate but who knows if this person might BLOG snoop looking for hints. I 'll fill yall in after christmas.

I got myself this wicked telescope back in october and it just came in now, this thing is so powerful I should be able to see human artifacts on the moon. And way up top the coolman coleman.

Merry Christmas to you too Mike, and sis I will endeavor to update more often, sadly no hope at all for me to start facebooking, i am way too conspiracy theory freak for that. but I will post on christmas and show how much we love jesus and the economy by how much we spent, we must love them both an awful lot. Frank and Cathy thank you for the card and merry christmas to you both from all of us.

Two of the most popular shows on TV right now are shot in the Nortwest Territories. I think everyone has probably heard of Ice Road Truckers on Discovery and History channels, the new one is called Ice Pilots NWT. I made a non-speaking cameo appearance on Ice Pilots on wednesday night. Charlene was quite impressed to see dad on TV. I think they re-show it on history channel on sunday, if anyone wants to see me standing quietly in my office. This episode wasn't as exciting as the first two but still pretty good, (better than ice road truckers) maybe i'm biased as the truckers never put me on TV. Always thot my first national TV appearance would be on COPS or America's Most Wanted. I'll tell everyone in blogville the same thing I've told everyone here, "Don't be embarassed to ask, of course you can have my autograph!"

well what a surprise, a blizzard for hallowe'en. At least this year there was room in charlie's costume for her parka. -19.0 out side this morning, so no reprieve from winter. The ferries are due to stop running today, so we'll be taking out a second mortgage on the house to buy a jug of milk. Steven (of the burnt legs) phoned from CFB Borden the other day-basic is going well for him. Well that's all for now, got a day off, got the kiddos...maybe go chicken hunting(charlene loves it).

Frank, yuppers, geese flying after legal dark-and although there are no published IFR approaches into Willow River, because it's class "C" airspace they can get away with it. In all fairness to the geese tho, the weather was VFR at the time. We've been aggressively squeezing the last drops of summer out of '09 but alas winter arrived right on schedule. Every year everyone says the same thing "maybe the kids won't have snow for hallowe'en'

yeah right, the globe ain't that warm yet. It doesn't matter what costume you buy...the kids all end up dressing up as arctic explorers, with parkas and all the rest.

The willow river was starting to freeze over when we went down last weekend, by the end of the weekend she was froze. We pulled our boat in and pulled miranda's mom's boat in as well.

We have a 1000 liter water tank on our deck and we drained it before it froze solid, it made some neat ice sculptures under the deck.

Charlie Brown makes another trip to the wood pile. Gotta go, gonna grab some lunch and head down to willow. Solo trip this time. just me......WOO HOO!!

Well it's been awhile (more blog posts are started with those four words than any other four)

What have we been up to? the usual, working and weekends at willow river.

Steven of the burnt legs has left and gone off to the military- I haven't heard from him yet but his aunt told me he was having a bit of trouble adjusting to his new way of life. So lots of overtime at work(like I need more of that) but we have two people at school that are doing well

so looking forward to being fully staffed. When I reach that holy day, I'm considering just working eight hours a day mon to fri 8 to 4... AAAAaaahh aaah(that's angels singing)

the pics are all pretty much what ya see is what ya get. Although it was pretty cool that Charlie Brown made and cooked her own hamburger on the fire for the first time. That's my girl!

Another first was me Coleman and Charlie all going for a ride on Quadzilla.

Any guesses on the first pic?

We went down to willow river for the weekend. This time we didn't have any guests, and Miranda's mother and Robert weren't there either. So it was just the four of us down there. We took the kids out in the boat and had a visit from a pair of otters, usually I deal with

twin otters, today it was otter twins. we also saw a bear on the river bank. The weather was perfect although a little hot, it got up to 29c this afternoon. It was pretty hot yesterday too, so we filled up the kiddie pool and we all went in and sat down in it. Coleman fell asleep on the coffee table and miranda took a pic.

wet willow weekend

It rained from the moment we left to go down to willow river friday evening, until about an hour before we left to come home. We still had a lot of fun though. We took Quadzilla out to these sand dunes on the side of the road and had a blast. On Saturday morning I went out fishing by myself in the rain for a couple of hours. Miranda and her mom decided to fix up the tipi- it was leaking in a few places and the fire pit was not centered yada yada yada. Despite the rain, it was a good weekend. I made what is fast becoming a tradition, my big ass pot of chili on the fire. mmmm. Those matching shirts I got us say "Rum Runners" on them, and I wanted to write it on the sand dune, but we had it all carved up before i thought of it. So the kids wrote it out with woodchips, and called me over to see it and I thought it was cute.

well, that's all for now. we're going down to willow river again this weekend so probably have some pics next week.

weekends

Some pics from various weekends over the summer. Miranda reaches in to grab me by the pickerel. One of Miranda holding up one of my pickerel, and the good wife filleting one of my pickerel. I usually buy a mid-level quality fising rod and reel, right off the rack, knowing that I'm going to wear it out or wreck it. But this year I treated myself to a very nice Quantum tour edition precision tuned reel. It was awesome catching those nice pickerel on my kick ass rod and reel. And for sis, here's the Coolman and Charlie Brown and one of Beckers and Charlie Brown

modelling their matching t-shirts. I needed clean clothes when I was in yellowknife after my Medevac and release from the hospitol. So I was in Wal-Mart in a morphine daze and ended up buying each of us the same t-shirt.

What a day

well been awhile now, hmmm, let's see what's been going on. Well I turned forty-three, the truck is great. been going down to willowriver every weekend. And today I went on a six hour floatplane trip up into Nahanni National Park did a two hour hike there and saw Virginia Falls.
Spectacular doesn't even begin to describe it...twice as high as Niagara Falls. From there we flew to Little Doctor Lake and visited Nahanni Mountain Lodge. Ted Grant, owner/operator of Simpson Air also owns and operates the lodge there as well. The good folks at Simpson Air gave me the trip for free to say thanks for all my hard work at the airport over the years.
The funny thing, I took my camera. But forgot my battery in the charger at home. Well not that funny, i guess, if you wanted to see pics.

the next time you see me...

I'LL BE DRIVING THIS BAD BOY!!!!

I will attempt to keep it rightside up.

my fifteen minutes of fame...hmm, or infamy?

Well, my story got printed in our regional newspaper last thursday. On monday it got picked up in the territorial newspaper, and finally, this week in the Drum again as the above cartoon.

the funny thing about it is that the guy who draws the cartoons lives in yellowknife, and has no idea that I work at an airport, so the idea of an aircraft wheel falling out of the sky on me is pretty funny.

Healing, slow but sure.

I'm starting to feel better, I have about 80% movement in my arm, which drops to about 50% if there is any weight or resistance(or if I'm not wearing my brace). I think I broke a rib too, as I now have a large nob of bone on the end of one where it meets my sternum, and the pain i feel is more associated with that than my shoulder, I have to go back in for follow up, next week.
The lady from the newspaper heard thru the grapevine about the wreck and called to ask if I would tell her about it for the paper. I said yes, as it might mean that I can stop correcting all the rumours one at a time. I've heard that the whole family was in the truck, miranda broke her arm, miranda got a black eye, miranda was in there but didn't get hurt, just about every possible combination. One lady in town was just about to start arguing with me about who was in the truck(based on what she heard). Miranda laughed at that, the "moccasin telegraph" at it's finest. In this town, if you don't hear a rumour by noon, apparently you are supposed to start one.

Well to answer a couple of questions, No Mike, No alcohol involved. Mr.Mickey was long gone 2 weekends ago. And Sis, the accident was caused by road conditions in combination with the weather. That road at any given time is a combination of little round rocks like marbles, razor sharp chips of shale, clay, and field stone. I hit a clay section after a moderte to heavy rain shower and the surface of the road was like oatmeal.

That same section of road a half hour before was fine. The coppers said it was due to road conditions.

The truck looks like Dr.Jekyll And Mr.Hyde. Funny about the passenger side. One of the cops said it was a half gainer with a twist.

just took this about 10 minutes ago. doesn't look too bad now. Relatively speaking of course.
at least the blood isn't weeping out of the skin anymore. That's gotta be good, right?
Silver lining...Miranda is picking out our new truck. hopefully this one has side airbags. My left ear looks like one of them ultimate fighters. At first they thot it was swollen and purple from the bug bites but it was actually from my head going thru the drivers side window. oddly enough, no head injury. Hey Frank, Batter up!

wrecked 'er on the Wrigley road.

I managed to roll my truck several times friday night. I broke my collar bone and shoulder blade. The evening was capped off with a 30km walk that lasted six hours in drizzle and rain, with the worst mosquitoes I've ever seen, while being stalked and eventually charged by a bear. Thank your favorite deity that Miranda and the kids weren't in the truck. I was medevaced to yellowknife and just got back this evening, miranda and the kids got home from Willow river about the same time I got back from YK. I have some pretty nasty pics of the bone trying to come thru the skin but, Beckers has done something to the computer and I can't find them.

I had a cut on my ankle and my shoe and sock was full of blood, I guess that's why blackie was following me. Pretty scary shit I tell you, that bear shadowed me for over an hour just off in the bushes snuffing and grunting(working up his nerve I guess) And me the whole time yelling at it, " Come on you F*****R!!" in a loud deep voice, well eventually he did, he came right out of the bush with his ears down swinging his head back and forth snorting. He was close enough I could smell him and see the mosquitoes all buzzing around his head. Funny the things you notice, eh? i had a good sized rock in my good hand and I raised my arm up and screamed and ran right at him. When I was about ten feet away from him he turned and ran back into the bush. I stood there yelling for a couple of minutes screaming that the bear was a pussy and a fag (not that ther's anything wrong with that) Seinfeldian reference there. I started walkinagain and was walking for about ten minutes when I heard the best thing I've ever heard in my life, Beckers and Miranda's uncle Tony coming on Quadzilla. I literally collapsed in the road.

Hope everyone elses fathers day weekend was better than mine. I only sleep about fifteen minutes at a stretch since it happened. I can't sit still, and if I'm not distracted by something else I just sit there playing it over and over in my head. truck crashing and that bear...jesus.

Maybe, I'll spend the rest of my life on the couch. I'm not sure what was worse, the crash, the walk, the mosquitoes(I was in shorts) or the bear. nope on second thought I'm sure the bear was the worst part.

I'm exhausted and in more than a little pain so I'm going to go now.

Willow river weekend

another awesome weekend at Willow, that had me tree a bear with Quadzilla, that was some action alright. I came around the first turn in the road to see what the dogs were barking about and there was a medium sized black right in the road like right in front of me and just to the left about 5 to 8 feet away, so i turned to the left slightly and accelerated, well mr. blackie turned off the road and ran right up a poplar and was about 12 feet up the tree...me? was right at the bottom of the tree. He tried to shinny down so I gunned 'er and he skipped up another 10 feet or so. I called for Robert (Miranda's mother's boyfriend) he came over with a rifle, and i backed off and Mr bear came down. Robert shot a couple of shots into the air and I took of in a spray of gravel straight at the bear, who wisely headed out of dodge at agood clip. I pursued him for about a mile out the road and came back.

Next night, different bear bigger different bear and a running gunbattle all over the property (lots of trees, bushes and skinny little paths)

We had a real hard time convincing that one he had to go.

Robert killed one there last week.

well 5 times trying is my limit for pics. (there weren`t any bear ones..your just not thinking picsno what i mean?)

So you have to settle for sisters sharing a moment.`

time machine, or fountain of youth?

well as usual the pics are in a random non-sensical sequence and as usual I ain't gonna shift em.

The truck was loaded to probably over the maximum, and was a little difficult once I got her up over one forty on that gravel road. just kidding.

But we got down there and had a blast for our first of several mini-vacations for the summer.

miranda and I are both going to work only tue. wed. thur. all summer which gives us the four day weekend all summer. more time off than working...

That is how life should be.

We took Charlene's quad and Rebecca's dirt bike down and then I came back and brought mine down. It was too awesome going out for a ride just me and beckers on our bikes down there. She's really coming along and is getting to be a good rider, not afraid to ride that's for sure.

I'm sad to report Big Texas is no longer with us, He'll live on in my memory, well the parts I'm able to remember anyways. The house that needs a chainsaw, heh heh, the wood stove. My old saw was, well old. So I bought a new one for the new house.

Coleman stove. check

Coleman lantern. check

Coleman Brown. check

Everyone in the tipi, and first but not least the fountain of youth, my Yamaha.

I haven't felt this good in a long time, and riding that bike is the reason, I've actually lost a waist size or two. There is no better way to head off to the weekly three day grind then on a motorcycle.