Year in Review: Looking back at 11 for 11

Time/Date: 2020, 07-Jan-12
Location: My semi-organized tying bench/workshop

Note: this is a really long post. I'm not apologizing for it, though; 2011 was sort of a watershed year for my personal little movement, so there's a lot to go over.  Grab a coffee or a ginger ale or whatever suits your fancy, put some good background music on, and have at 'er. Sorry, no pictures, videos, music or anything in this one. 

Back in December of 2010, I wrote a post based on Thoughtwrestling's 11 for 11.

The idea was to do more (or less) of eleven (semi-)meaningful things to improve my quality of life. As everyone in the blogosphere has been pumping out year in review-type posts for the past 2 or so weeks, I figure I'd weigh in as well.

My 11 for 11 (actually, it was Fish More (& 10 other things for 2011)) were:
1. Fish more
2. Travel more
3. Walk more. Drive less.
4. Train myself to eat more fruit & veggies
5. Train Awesome to be an off-leash dog
6. Less bullshit
7. Read more meaningful material
8. Fish even more (i.e. and fish smarter)
9. Get my financial house in order
10. See more (local) live music
11. Help more.
11.a) Learn to say 'no' more

So...how do I grade myself?

1. Fish more & 8. Fish smarter
Seeing this is almost a pure fly fishing blog now, I'll be pretty detailed in this one.

Positives: On a pure 'time fishing' quantitative measure, I think I might have fished more hours but maybe a few less days.

Days where I used to work the night before at the bar, grab my gear, fish the dawn patrol & call it a day around lunchtime became a thing of the past. I started fishing bankers' hours in September: I would drop my gf off at school for 08:30, be on the water from 9:30-1530, then pick her up at school for 1630. I did that 16 outta 21 days.

Tournament fishing was introduced to me this year (once); planning on doing more of that. I even bought a boat for it!

I also managed to fish at least thrice in each month from April to December.

I definitely fished in more places: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Maine, Idaho, Mexico and Guatemala.

As for fishing smarter: yes, I'd concur I did that. I spent countless nights reading & researching numerous fisheries & techniques for almost all of the locations in fished. I still do that; I have two more fly-rodding-for-bass books in transit that I can't wait to dive into...

I'd say it paid off, as well: I landed 11 new species of fish in 2011. See? 11 for 11! Smallmouth bass, chinook salmon, bull trout, striped bass, northern pike, Atlantic salmon, northern pikeminnow, rainbow trout, (baby) tarpon, Indo-Pacific sailfish, and dorado (mahi-mahi) all came to hand in 2011.

Neutral: I've started fly tying, and am becoming somewhat comfortable with sitting at the vice, though I require more practice & a little more dedication to get off my ass & away from reading books, magazines, blogs, etc. and sit my ass down in front of my vise. And I have lots to learn.

Negatives: I skunked out on barracuda & snook (Mexico), largemouth bass (Guatemala), muskie (New Brunswick), striped bass (Maine), and the striper I did catch on a three-day trip to Nova Scotia that saw over 30 hours of fishing was only fourteen inches.
Overall grade: A


2. Travel more
Let's see:
4+ weeks in Senegal working with 4 days of touristy stuff tacked on after in London, UK;
3+ weeks working in Mexico;
2 stints of 4 weeks each working in Saskatchewan;
2+ weeks working in Northern British Columbia with 1 day fishing in Smithers & 2 days of fun in Vancouver;
4+ weeks working in Idaho, with fishing both during and an afternoon on the way outta Boise at the end;
1 week in Mexico for good friends' wedding, including a day offshore fishing & a morning sight-fishing for baby tarpon in the mangroves;
1 week in Guatemala fishing for sailfish and being a tourist.

Yeah, I'd say 'travel more' was covered.
Overall grade: A+

3. Walk more. Drive less.
Walk more: miserable fail.

But on the bright side, I did get a kick-ass new-to-me commuter bike right before Christmas that I WILL be riding in 2012.

Drive less: You could say that I did accomplish this, considering how much I was outta town traveling (refer to #2 Travel More above).
Overall grade: D

4. Train myself to eat more fruit & veggies.
Well, if fruit & veggies meant V8 juice, Vitamin Water & beef jerky...

...ah, f**k it...
(Though I am eating an apple right now, btw)
Overall grade: D

5. Train Awesome to be an off-leash dog
Jeebus, don't get me started on this. That fast little f**ker almost brought me to tears.

I still love him regardless, but these attempts may or may not continue into 2012.
Overall grade: F

6.  Less bullshit.
This was a pretty proud but subtle accomplishment of mine:

• I cut down my RSS feed to about a dozen & a half feeds that I truly enjoy reading; 
• I'm far more selective who gets into my Twitter feed;
• I've hidden a substantial amount of people from appearing on my Facebook feed (if you fish & read this, you're probably safe from that culling);
• I cut pouring over news articles & related idiot-filled comment sections by almost 98% (that's not a pure scientific number, but pretty damn close to it).

In addition, I've cut back substantially on what some refer to as "the booze." I can count how many times I've had more than 2 drinks in a sitting on my fingers...with the wedding trip to Mexico being totally exempt from that statistic.

This wasn't an overly-conscious decision; it's honestly just sorta lost its luster with me. Traditional margaritas-on-the-rocks, poolside at 10AM in Mexico notwithstanding. Less booze = more cash, too.
Overall grade: B+

7. Read more meaningful material.
Mixed feelings on this one. I read a lot this year. A LOT.

To put it into perspective, I have 46 archived titles on my Kindle app on my iPod. Those were all read in 2011. Multiply that by roughly a factor of 1.5 for books in paper-form I read as well.

So probably about 115 books consumed in 2011.

As for meaningful...well, that's the issue...who's to say what is meaningful?

Nobel-prize winners? Yup. A few of them. And they were boring as shit. Non-fiction books by Seth Godin, Hugh MacLeod, Colin Wright, Steven Pressfield seemed meaningful to me, but as they're not as critically-acclaimed as, say, Mario Vargas Llosa, how do they measure up?

My original post stated, "but I want to read more classical and/or thoughtful literature."

Thing is, I find it hard to deal with "thoughtful" or "classical" literature back-to-back-to-back, all the time. That's why I break it up with historical fiction by Wilbur Smith, thoughtful but funny-as-hell stuff from Carl Hiaasen (my favourite) and non-fiction by anyone spouting anything useful and meaningful.

I read what I want, when I want. My list, my rules.
Overall grade: A

8. Fish even more.
Well-covered in the first section. Go read it again if you want. But I gave myself an A grade, in case you forgot.

9. Get my financial house in order.
This is another pretty proud accomplishment of mine:

• Reduced my debt load by well over $22,000 in 2011;
• Never missed a payment for anything, including my $660/month student loan payments;
• Was never more than a day or two late for any payments (mostly due to travel schedule);
• Killed one loan completely. It stood at ~$15,000 at the start of the year, including a final lump-sum payment of $9300 to put it to rest. This was a $596 monthly payment. Bonus: by paying it off early, I saved almost $250 in "insurance" fees (everybody at once, now: f**king banks);
• One credit card is at $0, another is pretty close to $0 (and one is maxed to the tits, but in my defense, my client still owes me $5300, most of which is out-of-pocket expenses);
• My half-assed attempts at travel hacking are working; the total cost of airfare for my Guatemala trip was under $400. And I still have 150K combined airline points to play with.
• I have money in the bank...and an invoice to be paid to me is still outstanding...
• My monthly expenses (rent, power, internet, mobile, student loans, insurance) now come in at under $1400. For a year, that's about $16,500 (once I kill off student loans, look the f**k out! FishBum4Life, yo!);
• I'm cooking more at home to reduce excess spending.

That being said: I have a fly fishing magazine addiction, a fly fishing gear addiction, a travel addiction, and I still eat out too much. 

Plus, my coffee addiction is epic enough to be heralded in song. 

I'll take coffee from home, made with my espresso maker (thanks again, Chris & Sarah!) or my new Aeropress (thanks again, mom & dad!) and still end up drinking one or two coffee from a coffee shop while I'm out & about tooling around. How's that for a latte factor?

Overall grade: B+ (very proud of myself but recognize there's still a lot of room for improvement)

10. See more (local) live music.

I missed FredRock 2011 due to working away (sorry Mike & Nick).

I was too busy trying to catch Atlantic salmon to really take part in Harvest Jazz & Blues Fest...though I had one super-fun night out on the Saturday, watching Ross Nielsen rip it up late-night then heading to the rugby club for a 5AM kickoff of Canada vs. Japan (?) in the Rugby World Cup, in which a former teammate was playing for Canada. I'm old-school: I brought sunglasses with me, knowing what was in store.

I did catch The Stanfields, Bedouin Soundclash, Big Sugar, Wide Mouth Mason and a few others this year. My 'like' (not so much 'love' but really strong 'like') of reggae was reignited at the resort in Mexico, too.

I'm hoping to improve on this a lot in 2012.

Overall grade: C

11. Help more.

I don't think anyone can ever say they've "done enough" to help others; there's always room for improvement in charity...somehow...

Current memberships I hold are: the Atlantic Salmon Federation, the Miramichi Salmon Association, the Miramichi Headwaters Salmon Federation, the Tarpon & Bonefish Trust, and the Nashwaak Watershed Association (I sit on the board of directors as vice-president for the Nashwaak Watershed Association).

I'm an online ambassador for Recycled Fish and on the mailing list for Stripers Forever, and I helped publicize the Atlantic Salmon Museum, including sponsoring a youngster for their summer camp.

Two-thirds of my wardrobe was donated to Community Living...though that was helping me reduce clutter more than it was an act of 'charity.'

In various auctions & fundraisers, I've spent almost $1000 in 2011, and donated over $700 to Kiva & Charity: Water

And I've picked up a metric shitload of garbage on riverbanks (that's a scientific measurement around these parts)

This isn't to brag. I've spent as much, or more space, detailing each of the other ten goals I had in 2011; that being said, do I feel good about it?

I'd say so...but there's always room for more...

Overall grade: B

11.a) Learn to say 'no' more.

In the original post, I wrote:

Some people don't understand "working for yourself" means I still have to work and it's not all fun times & lollipops. Whatever the reason, I won't be rude about it, and I'll probably provide alternative options & solutions, but I will have to say no. Yeah, I know, it sucks.

To be clear, this was not directed at anyone in particular.

But in 2010, I felt a lot of my time didn't feel like it was MY time (even though I did fish close to 70 days :p ).

To put it into perspective, the number of companies/clients/organizations that received time from me, either paid, unpaid, or rewarded with something awesome* was eleven. ELEVEN. I'm not talking a day here or there for them, either. Some of them included over 90 days out of town, others were 3 evenings or a couple afternoons a week a piece when in town, and so on & so forth.

* - rewarded with something awesome = like getting to see a lot of music...thanks again, Nick & Mike!!

My whole idea with this cutting clutter, expenses and unnecessary bullshit thing was, is, and always will be about time. My time. 

But what's the point of doing all that if I always had responsibilities to other people to give them my time?

So I cut things out:

• no longer on the executive committee & managing the bar at the rugby club anymore...but I'm still a huge fan of going to watch them kick ass in their games;
• not bartending at Lava anymore...but it still remains one of the best & favourite projects I've ever been involved with, and I wish nothing but the best of luck for them as they move forward. AND it's the only place I really like to go when I do go out;
• not at the beck & call of four companies in the geological field anymore...but I kept the best company, who I really enjoy consulting for, and as I've cleared out my "client list" considerably, I'm able to do more (& better) work for them.

Am I awesome at saying no now? Not a frigging chance. 

Am I using all this newfound time & freedom to do productive things? Not even close.

But I'm trying, and I do have the ability to either be productive...or sit on my ass & procrastinate or read or tool around town & spend money needlessly on coffee...or fish from 9:30AM to 3:30PM for 16 out of 21 days

Everyone should try this segment 11.a) sometime. Trust me. It feels good once you look back on it.

Overall grade: B

********

So this is it. My look back on my 11 for 11 year in review.  A damn good year, if I do say so myself.

I haven't thought too far into 2012 yet. Tell you one thing: I am NOT doing 12 for 12. No effin' way. Too much mind-clutter involved in that shite. Just as long as I fish, walk/bike, pay off more debt, it'll be all good in my books.

All for now, thanks for reading. Best of luck to you & yours in 2012.

Mat

The best little coffee shop in Guatemala or...

...anywhere else, for that matter.

I know, that's a bold claim.

Caffe Artigiano in Vancouver held the "Best Coffee Shop" title (as bestowed by myself) for a long, long time. In fact, I almost shed a tear of joy when I returned there this summer for the first time since leaving in December of '08. It just tasted so good when it touched my lips...and I proceeded to spend approximately $35 in 33 hours drinking their coffee.

Jonnie Java's in Fredericton is my go-to roaster in town, and pulls the best espresso I've had since leaving the left coast.

Read's is my day-to-day spot for grabbing a quick coffee, or where I suggest to meet people. It's good, quick, inexpensive, and the staff are friendly.

Starbucks is a necessary evil; my beautiful girlfriend likes it. But it's uptown, and, for the uptown crowd who knows I like 'good' coffee, Starbucks is what comes to their mind ("It's more expensive than a Timmy's, so he must think it's good"). To be truthful, I don't mind it...but in Fredericton I'd rather have Jonnie Java's or Read's.

Tim Horton's tastes like it's filtered through dirty socks. And f**k their f**king drive-thrus. There's nothing I love to do more that to sit in traffic on one of several of our main streets behind twats blocking through-traffic while they're waiting to pull into the Tim's drive-thru. That's sarcasm, fyi...

But what of this best little coffee shop in Guatemala or anywhere else, for that matter?

It's called Crossroads Cafe.

It's in Panajachel, Guatemala.

Coffee Mike

It's owned by Coffee Mike and his family.

The coffee is delightful (it's actually award-winning).

Coffee Mike is extremely excitable.

In fact, you might even get concerned that a person as hyperactive as Coffee Mike is surrounded by several hundred pounds of coffee beans (roasted & unroasted).

The only thing better than the coffee is the atmosphere; if you don't have a smile on your face within 45 seconds of entering that place, have someone check your ABCs (not your alphabet...your airway, breathing & circulation, fools!).

Visiting Crossroads Cafe & meeting Coffee Mike was without a doubt one of my highlights of visiting Guatemala. I mean, it doesn't beat:
catching the sailfish on the fyrod...
or the sailfish on conventional tackle...
or the dorado...
or eating the dordao...
or eating pupusas...
or paying $30 USD for three nights at a hotel...
or getting my roommate the fridge magnet pictured on the left....

...but it was a definite highlight of my trip

To get to Crossroads Cafe, just fly to Guatemala, take a chicken bus to Panajachel, then use this map:

Conversely, once you get to Crossroads Cafe, this helpful sign on the outside wall will help you get anywhere else in the world:

Salty somehow brought out the reserved side of Coffee Mike in this photo:

I can't say the same for myself:

I brought a few pounds of beans back with me. It's was worth having Homeland Security break one of the bags open & jam a tag into the beans, then put the beans into a plastic bag that held dirty laundry...honest, it totally made my day when I finally received my bags two days after I got home and saw this in my coffee beans, mixed in with dirty laundry:

Anyway, long story short: it's worth visiting Coffee Mike & his family at Crossroads cafe in Panajachel, Guatemala.

Go for the coffee, stay for the entertainment.

Just don't ask Coffee Mike about fireworks...or go near him if he has any with him...

To see the archive of my Guatemala Chronicles, click here.

Fun times....

It's like the X-Files for fish.

I came across this way back in the day, when I used to work in Labrador. It's been on my Facebook profile for almost four years, but I just happened to stumble upon it again a few minutes ago.

I think it's worth sharing here. I find it humourous on so many levels...though one could argue against supplying funding to the CBC over this one...

Please note: This is an actual transcript. I did not modify it in any way to make it read like a Doctor Seuss story. I'm serious.

*********

GLOWING FISH IN RIGOLET:
Green glowing salmon and trout are being caught just outside of Rigolet in Labrador.

Wednesday, August 01, 2007 08:48AM Item # 17
CBC Radio St. John's

RAMONA DEERING: Green glowing salmon and trout being caught just outside of Rigolet. We're not kidding you. When fisher Fred Shiwak saw it he couldn't believe it and he told his story to reporter Rochelle Borlais.

ROCHELLE BORLAIS: Take me back to the beginning of, of the first fish you caught and how you found out it came to glow.

FRED SHIWAK: Yes, I caught the first salmon about two weeks ago and I had a drying, drying split and I had a couple of pieces out, on the split drying for like to eat so one night, the next night then, my wife got up around eleven thirty, I suppose, and she said, go get the water, or a glass of juice or something. And she looked alongside [inaudible] and she saw something glowing in the night, right. And she thought it was her phone, phone off the hook or something anyway, the cordless phone. Yes and she went out, I'm going to grab the phone, she grabbed the salmon instead.

ROCHELLE BORLAIS: Oh my.

FRED SHIWAK: And then she started bawling at me and getting everybody up, up and look at the fish, yes, it's glowing in the night it was.

ROCHELLE BORLAIS: Tell me exactly what it looked like.

FRED SHIWAK: It was like colored green and it's like, like a glow, it's, I don't know, it's like, it's like a light, like it's glowing, glowing in the night, right, like in them little things you has for kids and that, like glows in the night.

ROCHELLE BORLAIS: And so can you see like all the, do all the insides glow as well?

FRED SHIWAK: Yes, you could see right through, right? But there's about half of the salmon, I'd say, about half of the side of the salmon I had there, a piece of it, it's about ten pounds of salmon, yes, and it's glowing in the night and we didn't know what was going on, right.

ROCHELLE BORLAIS: Tell me about the next one you discovered.

FRED SHIWAK: My first trout, too, I seen there last night. I came out, out the room there around twelve o'clock, so and so I go off for a drink of water, and goodness gracious, I looked at my trout, it was glowing too in the night. And it's right all over that trout was glowing, it was completely glowing, everything was bright right up, you know.

ROCHELLE BORLAIS: You said that you could, if you put your hand over it, it would make your hand glow too, that's how strong it was.

FRED SHIWAK: Oh yes, yes, the same as the salmon too. I touched the trout last night, see if get on my fingers, like tops of your fingers, like I touched it like that. And every finger on my hand was glowing too in the night.

ROCHELLE BORLAIS: So what, what did you think? I mean what did you think was the cause of this?

FRED SHIWAK: I don't know, I couldn't think of nothing. So the salmon I had I went to the older people, like the elders, right, like fishermen all their lives, like that, and so I asked them did they see a fish like that in their lives, they said no, that's the first time they heard tell of it.

ROCHELLE BORLAIS: And so and who did you contact next?

FRED SHIWAK: I contacted our rural fishery officer.

ROCHELLE BORLAIS: And so what have they done now? Where, where have, where's your salmon gone?

FRED SHIWAK: I don't know, he's gone out to the lab out in St. John's, I believe it is, that's where they're going to send it to anyway. But I never hear from them now since they sent it out. The fish lab is
here again now same two I gave them to their [inaudible] they're back here again now I'm going to find out now this afternoon I'm going to talk to them, you know, see if they hear anything about it.

ROCHELLE BORLAIS: So you're going to turn over your, your trout to them too?

FRED SHIWAK: No, not yet, I've already told them no, now today, hopefully today. I still got the trout here like put away there.

ROCHELLE BORLAIS: So tell me, tell me about where you do your fishing.

FRED SHIWAK: It's called, it's not out far, maybe a couple of kilometers out across the big island they calls, right, onto the big island there, big island we calls it all the time right.

ROCHELLE BORLAIS: And when you caught these, these fish, did they look
normal? I mean, did they seem the way they always are?

FRED SHIWAK: Oh yes, yes, you wouldn't of took notice of them, nobody would've took notice until you seen them in the night, right. They're normal like in the daytime, right.

ROCHELLE BORLAIS: And is there any signs of contamination or any industrial sites or anything near, near the body of water that you fish?

FRED SHIWAK: Not around there, no.

ROCHELLE BORLAIS: I mean, it's bizarre, have you heard any other fishermen with similar stories?

FRED SHIWAK: No, never heard nothing. I tried to find out now since I had my salmon, right, I went out to see four elders like they fished all their lives, no, they said, never heard tell of it, never saw it, never seen nothing like that.

ROCHELLE BORLAIS: It seems strange that two different fish now are starting to glow in your home and I'm wondering if there's anything maybe in your house that could be causing this. Are you cleaning the fish with anything different than you usually do?

FRED SHIWAK: Oh no, no, nothing at all, just the same, water and scrap
it off, let the blood and that out and all.

ROCHELLE BORLAIS: Oh wow. So I guess you haven't been eating these,
these fish then, have you.

FRED SHIWAK: Well, that salmon I had, I mean, the first salmon I caught, I had it split into a couple of pieces, right. I did eat part, like the rest of it, right and somebody else did too, a couple of my friends or something too right. I don't know if it was all over the salmon or not but it was like salmon it was like only but parts of it, right, like the half, half a salmon, right.

ROCHELLE BORLAIS: So you didn't get sick or anything.

FRED SHIWAK: No, no, I never got, we never got sick or nothing. But the trout I got here now it's really, really, really bad, that one. It's really all over, it's all over the, all over the trout right.

ROCHELLE BORLAIS: So are you going to lay off the fishing now for a bit until you find out what's going on?

FRED SHIWAK: No, no, I still got a net out.

ROCHELLE BORLAIS: Well, let us know, would you, if any more of your fish glow.

FRED SHIWAK: Okay then.

RAMONA DEERING: What a story that is. That was reporter Rochelle Borlais talking to Fred Shiwak in Rigolet.

Making your own fun on the graveyard shift

Step 1: Arrive onsite, have coworkers tell you about wolves in the area.
Step 2: Have coworkers see a big-ass wolf on the second night you're there.
Step 3: Switch over to night shifts, go to the drill site.
Step 4: At 2:30AM, read an internal health & safety document about a fatal wolf attack in Saskatchewan (link to news article here).
Step 5: Immediately after reading the document, you hear wolves howling not too far off in the distance.
Step 6: Realize you have to go outside to take a leak, 45 seconds after hearing the wolves howl.
Step 7: See how long you can hold it for...

Enjoy the tune...

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