Ed Icionsub

Nice to hear from my buddy, Claude. He is putting together a little fishing trip next weekend and called to see if I wanted to come along. It is always good to have a friend with a boat. Of course I accepted the invitation. The hard part will be getting up at 3:00 am to get ready and meet him at the marina on Percy Priest Lake.

Three o’clock doesn’t give me much sleep, but I can catch up with a nap on Sunday if the football game gets boring.

Back in the Day, a special treat for the kids was a drive over to the little farm with pony rides. They had three different kinds of rides so kids of any age and any riding ability could enjoy being on a small horse and riding around a circle for 10 minutes or so.

The youngest kids would sit on tiny Shetland ponies that were tied to a large revolving wheels with spokes, a little like a huge wagon wheel. Parents were allowed to walk alongside the pony carrying their tot, just to be safe.

Older children were allowed to ride freestyle around a small ring with low fencing. They walked around the inner ring unaided.

The experienced riders were allowed to ride around the outer ring unaided on the larger ponies. Sometimes those ponies would break into a short trot – much to the delight of the young riders.

Riding ponies is one of my favorite memories of childhood.

Hard to believe that summer vacation is over for all the kids around here. A lot of school systems went back to school last week and the rest of them are returning this week coming up. So, I appreciate the warm weather, the sunshine, and the chance to go to the lake and swim or just chill out with a good book.

I like the people watching at the lake, too. The kids are running around, swimming and splashing, playing games and having fun. There is nothing like the laughter of a little kid to put a smile on your face.

Watching the Stanly Cup finals, I can always tell where the teams are playing by looking at the ads on the boards surrounding the ice rink. There are a lot of companies who have a strong presence in both the U.S. and Canadian markets, but there are some noticeable ones who are only in one country or the other. For example, there is an ad for Esso on the boards in Vancouver. That is obviously an Canadian ad, as the Esso company was bought out and changed to Exxon over 40 years ago in the U.S. According to Wikipedia, Exxon formally replaced the Esso, Enco, and Humble brands in the United States on January 1, 1973, but the Esso brand continues to operate outside of the U.S.

One of the extras that we noticed when shopping for our new home was that this house had a basketball hoop installed in the backyard, at the bottom of the driveway. In the back of the house was a large rectangle of level surface, which made me think that we could actually have some quality guy time shooting hoops back there. It was one of those emotional things that sell the house – putting the idea in someone’s head that appeals to them emotionally.

Of course, after we bought it and moved in, we quickly realized that the aggregate surface made bouncing a basketball almost impossible. We would have to pay for Basketball Court Resurfacing if we were serious about shooting hoops at home.

Of course, the home in the nicer neighborhoods, like Brentwood and Bellevue, have swimming pools and tennis courts in their backyards. One of their routine maintenance problems is Tennis Court Resurfacing and pool cleaning.

It’s not just the McMansion owners who have to deal with Tennis Court Resurfacing, there are plenty of country clubs, schools and apartment complexes who offer tennis as a recreational activity. When your sport requires a smooth surface for bouncing a ball, you can’t afford to have pits and patches that misdirect the ball’s bounce.