After a four year run at Essex County College my time is just about done. It was a good run, but things went a little sideways at the end. Like we see in sports all the time sometimes the coach just has to go. Coaching a team of 78, without any assistants, is overwhelming, sometimes out of control, and in the end difficult to ensure that everyone gets a participation trophy. So I chose to step aside and allow people better than me meet the college's expectations going forward. I'll always be a proud graduate of Essex County College and lucky to have been able to circle back to give back.
One things for sure this semester has definitely interfered with what every other spring has been, which has been some work, a lot of fishing, and taking care of things around the house. I have put everything and everyone aside this spring just concentrating on the students, and I have paid the price. While fishing is off to a way slow start this spring I still have the fire inside to go and get it done. I've been out a bunch of times and have yet to turn a fish. For me, it's about a month later than usual. This past weekend I did catch up around the house, mowed the lawn, seeded it, and went around picking up twigs which could be listed as a hobby in my hobby list. I have one of those grabbers and it's just relaxing covering the acre-plus yard just doing non-thinking stuff. I also got a new, well almost new, set of skins for the 2002 Silverado.
I spotted these on Facebook about 10 minutes after they were posted and Theresa And I took the ride to Wilmington, Delaware, last Friday to pick them up. On the way home we stopped at 9th Street in Philly and spent the afternoon walking around and getting food at the Italian
Market. We ended the day at the famous Isgro Pastries shop on Christian Street. It was a Good Friday mob scene, no pun intended, but it was worth the wait and the $40 bucks.
On Saturday I had them put on and I can say I just love good tires on a truck. At 285,000 miles will these be the last tires that she'll need? I'm not sure but I'll try and keep her purring with the occasional sniffle here and there. New trucks, and the payments, are something I just can't have around these days. Plus, it looks like we're going ahead with the sale and the move, maybe next May the house will go on the market.
Things have broken open on the Raritan Bay, well really the line between the bay and the river. Those pre-spawn fish are out in force and chewing on just about anything they get thrown to them. What is crazy is the boat traffic. I saw this quick video taken from the shore in Perth Amboy and counted 37 boats in and around the bridges. That is so not my scene.
What is interesting is that when there's fish all kinds of folks come from far and wide to get in on the action. with the Chesapeake now closed charter operations have come
north and now make the Raritan there new home for the season. Just more pressure on an already pressurized fishery. But that's what the ASMFC wants I guess.
Social media is abuzz with the images of fine catches these days. I still shutter when I see treble hooks down the gullets of these catch and release anyway fish. I just don't get it. And there's plenty of sand-breaded fish being caught and held up from shore as well.
And kudos to Cody Silver who caught a monster 9 pound rainbow while shad fishing the past week out on the Delaware. That is a dandy of a fish and must have given him a good tug and run.
And lastly but not last today Pope Francis passed away. The leader of the Catholic Church and a job that couldn't have been easy. These days it seems that religions and churches pop up all over the place venturing away from the big ones. I liken it to travel baseball for the kids. When you think your kid is better than rec ball, you go out for a travel team, when he doesn't make it you go and start your own.
