ApexerER

Sounds good, good luck to your daughter as well!!!

Anytime I strap into a 5pt harness I know I am going to have a good time!

I have never used a fixed broadhead. Not necessarily against them. I guess I just fell for all the marketing. I had Rage Heads but never shot a deer with them and I felt like every time I looked at my broadhead a blade would be hanging. I bought some NAP Killzones, have never had a blade fall and they have left some nasty holes in the deer I have shot with them. I don't see any reason to change what is working....

This country is at a tipping point.....The election of Trump saved us from tipping over for 4 years. That is all it has done. People on this site seem far to confident that the Trump train is going to continue.

She is at Hamilton right now. I have to leave work early to go pick her up. My daughter is a good soccer player...not phenomenal. I really don't think a soccer scholarship is in her future. Maybe a small school if she decides she really wants to go that route. They have played in a couple showcase tournaments. They won the one out in Boston this spring. We will see what the future brings....

Cool pic bionic.....Thanks for sharing...

I just want my daughter to enjoy herself. If she continues to love it, awesome. If she starts feeling like it is a job then I hope she backs off. That is why I am a little nervous about pushing her harder. I think she is kinda at a crossroads now that she is in a U16 bracket. She can either continue being a good soccer player and enjoying herself or decide this is truly important to her, buckle down, and stop relying on her athletic ability and put in the extra work that a lot of these kids already do. I am not really sure what path is the correct one. I have no idea if my daughter will get a scholarship for soccer. Maybe for a lower division school if she decides she wants to go for it. She is an excellent student as well. This is the first year she was not able to maintain a 95 average but she was taking 10th grade level math and science this year in 8th grade. She struggled a little bit in both those classes and by struggled I mean had high 80 averages and did well on the regents exams. She would be upset when we left track practice/meets and it made her later for soccer practice. I am not sure there is a D1 soccer scholarship in her future. In the league she played in this year, she got a first hand look at what a phenomenal 12-13 year old soccer player looks like and they are truly amazing. My daughter is not one of those kids. I assume those are the kids that will be getting D1 scholarship offers for their athletic talents.

No Hijacking here.....I am happy to hear similar stories and thoughts..... I am not really sure how to feel about all of this to be honest. My daughter has been playing soccer since she was 5 almost year round. We dropped her off yesterday at Hamilton College for a soccer camp. She has no interest in trying another sport, although she did run track this spring as well as playing soccer. Watching her track meets/practice and then immediately run her off to soccer practice the second it was over was a lot. My feelings are all over the place. For those of you that keep talking about School ball (JV and Varsity) this travel league is way more competitive and interesting to her than school ball. School soccer is almost too easy as the school teams have two maybe 3 good players like my daughter per team. These competitive "select" teams are made up from those two or three good players from surrounding schools and they all play together. So it is way more important to her than JV or Varsity. She won't play on the varsity team at her school until most likely 11 and 12 grade no matter how good she is just because of the number of kids that play soccer and the size of the school. As a Dad, I don't know if I push her too hard, I don't know if push her hard enough....She is very athletic. To tell you how she is, she ran the falling leaves 5k last fall for the heck of it and won the race that a coupe hundred people had entered....mostly adults. I have no idea where she gets her athletic ability from, I played some sports when I was young but was never any good at any of them and dropped out of sports at the HS level and my wife never did any sports and isn't athletic at all. I don't know if I should push her harder, let her be, let her push herself. When you talk to the coaches, all they want you to say to your kids is, "I enjoyed watching you play today, what would you like for dinner". She wants to no part of that....she wants to know how she did, what she should have done better, the plays she screwed up on and if I don't tell her she knows I am full of crap. So I always start with you did this and that and it was awesome. You probably should have done this instead of that etc....and she takes it all in. In my opinion she needs too either decide this is just fun....and treat it as fun or she needs to decide this is super important and really go for it as Grampys grandson sounds like he is doing. I will support her either way. I am just glad she is out on the soccerfield and socializing with friends face to face because when she is home the only interest she seems to have is her damn phone and that drives me crazy....

She started every game last year at U14 She was crushed (lots of tears) at first but as the girls reached out to eachother and it became clear that it wasn't just her she seems to be feeling better about it. When I first broke the news to her I told her, real life isn't everyone deserves a trophy and neither of these teams are everyone deserves a trophy teams. She has 3 choices and only she can decide what she is going to do. I told her, You can quit, and I hope I am not raising a quitter, you can play, hang out with your friends, not care what team you are and just enjoy playing, or you can work your ass off, prove the coaches wrong, and show them they are wrong for not having you on the team. My guess though is not matter what she chooses, (other than quitting) she will be on the select team when she is on the old side of the division and developmental team when she is on the young age of the division.

Well, she didn't make the "select" team. They want her on what they call the competitive team. My daughter was crushed but as the kids reached out to each other my daughter was realizing that nobody she spoke too so far that was on the team last year made the team this year. So now I am wondering if this is going to be an every other year even with this team. The girls make it when they are on the "older" side of the division and play down when they are younger. So far not one girl my daughter has spoken too that had to move up into the U16 age bracket has made the team. The coach called me, with all the "how great your daughter is at soccer" "I think being on this team for a developmental year will be the right thing for her" etc. These girls tied for first place in EDP which is the best teams in the East Coast region and all these girls contributed to that success. Kinda stinks that they just throw them on a lower team for a year until they are older.

Always enjoy seeing your pics and work....Thanks for sharing....great job as always!

They do....at least mine does...….I still don't get 24 MPG....I also don't drive like a grandmother.

I have never been a ford guy but that is a nice looking truck. Congrats....

With a 14 year old daughter that is very heavily into soccer we watched all the world cup matches together. I was never into soccer until my daughter started playing it. Now I find myself watching it on TV even when it isn't the world cup. My daughter has been to a Megan Rapinoe soccer camp and has done drills with her. Now she hates her....When she scored last night my daughter was wishing it was anyone but her. We were rooting for the team and USA but I used Rapinoe and her big mouth as a learning tool. Actually, that isn't totally true, my daughter has heard enough from me over the years that she vowed dislike for Rapinoe before I even heard any of the stuff because she saw it on Instagram or someplace. My daughter was telling me all the BS she was spouting and how disappointing it was to hear all that from her and that turned into a discussion. I hope my daughter keeps the views I have instilled in her through college....

Happy belated Birthday Paula!

I got pretty lost when I was 16 or 17. One of my first years deer hunting. Would have been 1989 or 1990 so way before smart phones. I couldn't sit still when I was young so my deer hunting was basically walking through the woods spooking deer. My plan was to head out what we called the East ridge, cut down into what we called the gully, cut up the west ridge and circle back to camp. Well I walked so far out the east ridge that when I cut down, I never ran into the west ridge. I just kept going down. I kept telling myself it didn't make sense. I finally came to an old logging trail that has a stream running along side it that I was sure I was familiar with. The stream was on the opposite side of the trail than it should have been though which made me walk the wrong direction. ( I can't believe I was this stupid ) I followed the logging trail/stream all the way down the mountain until I hit a dirt road. I didn't realize I had gone the wrong direction until that point. I turned around and walked the logging trail all the way back up, (by now it was getting dark) found where the stream crossed the logging trail, probably a 1/4 mile from there I knew exactly where I was but still had a pretty good hike to get back to camp. I took the logging trail all the way back to the dirt road that camp was on and walked down the dirt road to camp. I am not sure what time it was but I thought my father was going to kill me. I was shocked to find the old timers (and my Dad) drinking and playing cards, apparently they weren't worried about me. They did save me some dinner which I ate while being picked on for getting lost. I did pretty much everything wrong, made choices because of terrain etc but I never really panicked. I know when it got dark I was damn glad to have my 12 ga with me....It was a good learning experience. I would love to know how many miles I walked that day....I wouldn't make it today....lol

I wanted to go to the lake for the day but Grandma put the pressure on. So off to my parents house with the family for pool and BBQ instead of toes in the sand and bikini watching out on Sand Island....

My old boy (a golden) that passed 5 years ago hated them too. He would try and squeeze behind the toilet for whatever reason and just shake. Our new golden could care less.....Like he doesn't even hear them...

I love watching my daughter play. I am going to miss it when it is all over.....I also only have one child. There is no way I could do this with more than one....

In the long run it probably really means very little. The stress for my daughter would come from not making the team. She loves practice and the games etc.

I drive more than 10k a year or I would lease for sure. I am right around 15k. I don't want to be constantly worried about how many miles I am putting on....My truck is a little over 6 years old and I think it has 93k miles on it. Might be a little more, I know it hasn't turned 100k yet. That is actually a little more than 15000 miles a year. I only live 8 miles from work...but running my 14 year old daughter to soccer practice 4 days a week, traveling for all her games, not to mention taking the boat to the lake, going snowmobiling or to my hunting lease and my truck doesn't sit around much.

Is silt bad for the pond? I only ask cause plenty of fish survive in ponds and streams that get runoff when it rains. I would guess that all streams and most ponds get some type of runoff....

Funny how things work out....My daughter has lived and breathed soccer since she was 5. When she was 5 she was out there on the Rec team scoring goals almost at will which was easy because half the other kids were just picking dandilions. I have tried talking her into trying something else, just for the experience, but she is all about soccer. I thought she would have a hard time going from being the best player on her school team and club travel team to this "select" program where I am not sure she would have made the top 5 players on her team but it has only made her love it more playing with kids that have her ability.

I really need to start thinking about my next truck. I am driving a 13 Silverado Extended Cab LTZ. It has 93k on it. Trucks have gotten so ridiculously expensive I might have to forgo some options. I love the full center console instead of the bench, which I am pretty sure you only get that in the LTZ. Remote start, heated/cooled seats, bose stereo, I don't care about the leather but those other options are nice. To get that stuff now you are talking 60k. My truck is probably worth somewhere around 17-18k trade in. I can't afford a car payment owing $40,000.00 plus....I need to start looking at whats out there.....

My daughter has been playing soccer since she was 5. She started out playing Rec, then quickly moved to a club travel team. This past year she wanted even more so last summer she tried out for a "select" program and made their U14 team. They played in what is called the EDP league so instead of just playing teams in the capital district we played the best U14 teams in the East, from out to Rochester, VT, CT, RI, NJ, down to LI. They had a tremendous season and came in second place, not because of their record, their record was tied but because of goal differential. My daughter loved every second of being on this team, had coaches that played D1 ball, and improved overall as a player. So now she turned 14 so she has to try out for the U16 team. They held tryouts Monday and Wednesday and there were 48 kids trying out for this team. They will keep 16. My daughter is very good at soccer but not outstanding. Out of those 48 kids I could pick out 5 or 6 tops that looked like they were out matched and were not going to make the team. There were also 3 or 4 outstanding players that looked like they were ringers. I don't know what the coaches see out there that make their decisions for them. The couple outstanding kids were no brainers, the 6 or 8 not very good kids were easy to check off. Other than that it looked like there were about 35 or so kids out there that are very good at soccer just like my daughter. She is going to be heartbroken if she doesn't make this team. I keep checking my email, hoping there is an answer in my inbox.