The ocean.

As I return from a wonderful few days in San Diego California I can’t help but wish I was still there. There is something about the cool ocean breeze, the warm sunshine, and the sunlight dancing in the reflection of the ocean. I visit San Diego about once every year, and for some reason I always find myself wishing I was there longer. There is just something about the sights and the smells that reminds me of my childhood vacations. Each time I return I have an almost identical sunburn within the first two days, the taste of saltwater in my mouth, and a longing to be by the ocean. There is something special that keeps me coming back and I am not completely sure why. I always spend a majority of my vacations in the ocean either swimming, boogey boarding, kayaking, surfing, playing Frisbee, or anything else I can think of doing. Even now as I write about it I can almost smell the salt on the breeze. I know if I try to find why the ocean draws me back I will not find it. It has become something more than a memory for me. This connection influences many decisions I have made and many decisions I will make. It is but one of many mysteries of my life which I may never solve. I believe every person has a similar passion and weather they know it or not, it is a fundamental part of who they are and who they will become. They silently guide us through life and shape our decisions. In the end, it is but a dream. 

Free?!

After reading Predictably Irrational, I have become fascinated with the concept of FREE. I often find myself being caught by the trap and was very interested in the possible reasons I can’t help but take nearly every free thing I lay my eyes on. I realize I am not alone in this practice but it still fascinates me how much impact something free really does have. I have seen people wait in lines for hours for “Free” things. There is something special about getting something and giving nothing in return. We are so used to having to pay for everything that when we see a small gadget that we will never use with a free sign we simply have to have it. All these free things pile up somewhere in a closet and eventually we throw them away without ever using almost all of them. Most of us even recognize this before we take it but in the end we wind up with the free things anyway. Is all this stuff truly free? At the last career fair I decided at the beginning to only take one specific item. I was not there to get free things to fill up a shelf in my closet; I was there to try to find an internship. So while I was walking around looking for employers that caught my attention, I found the item I was after. As a photographer I am constantly transferring photos from one computer to another and again to another. During this process many of my flash drives have managed to vanish into thin air. Add to that the others that have somehow managed to stop working, and I find myself replacing them more than I should be. For some reason over the past few semesters the number of companies with free flash drives at their booths has greatly increased. At the end of the spring career fair I found myself with 5 new flash drives! I could have purchased 5 of them of similar quality and size for probably less than $5, but because they were free I feel I gained more value than I would have if I had paid for them. I often wonder how much benefit comes from me taking a flash drive with some random company’s logo on it. The career fair is supposed to attract people looking for opportunities, not for trinkets. It seems odd that the companies have to spend money on these little items to give away at a booth when they have lines several people long begging to get a chance to interview with them. Take Boeing for example, they hire from MSU every year, have a strong reputation in the community, are very well known, and still give away free things. I wonder how many people have ended up finding a job because they saw something cool on a table and went to grab it and ended up starting a conversation with the person at the booth. In the future I plan to create some sort of experiment to test this thought. Free things are never free for everyone. 

Does cost=quality? fishing reels

The first time I looked at all the shiny reels in the case at Troutfitters two things caught my attention. The quality of these reels seemed to be much higher than the $25 one I had previously purchased. I took a few out to play with and immediately was impressed with how smooth they spun. The perfect clicks they made sounded like precision. I was so amazed at the difference in visual quality I hardly noticed what the employee was saying about sealed drag systems and durability. The next thing I noticed was the price. $300 for a reel! That’s ridiculous, who would pay that much. Well as it turns out two years later, I did. I purchased a Ross evolution lt to pair with my Winston boron IIt. The difference the reel makes was immediately noticeable not in the ability to catch fish, but in the balance of the rod. I noticed it felt better in my hand; the whole thing seemed to be lighter and hardly felt like I was holding anything. I didn't plan to use this reel for catching huge 20lb salmon or anything, just the average 10-16 inch trout in some of the small rivers and streams in Montana. While in California over the summer I had the opportunity to try to catch some salmon. For this I purchased a new setup from Cabelas. The reel cost about $80. With this reel and its non-sealed drag system I managed to hook 9 salmon ranging from about 10-20lbs. I didn't land a single one not because I wasn't using a $300 reel with a more powerful waterproof drag system, but because even on this reel the drag system was stronger than the line I was using. With the drag fully engaged the fish would simply snap the line. Over the days of salmon fishing I managed to hold a king on the line for about an hour and the reel survived flowing down rapids being completely submerged and much more abuse than I imagined I would put it through. In the end I did not even clean it and it still worked perfectly. Recently I found a company that has the benefits of a $300 reel but costs only $150. I immediately jumped on this deal and found myself with a new Allen Trout II reel. Immediately I noticed a weight difference between it and the Ross, however, it balanced the rod perfectly so the lighter reel would have been worse in this case. After a few months of fishing all I can conclude is that it preforms just as well as the $300 reel for half the price! It still has the flashy color options, lifetime warranty, and fully sealed drag system. The difference is in the reputation. Allen is a small company trying to build its name while Ross is in nearly every fly shop. So when it comes to buying a new reel, price has little to do with quality. Many of today’s reels have tons of excess stopping power which you will never use. There are so many reel options out there today it is easy to find an affordable reel that will balance your rod and perform well for the rest of your life. They may not be in the fly shops around town, but someday they will be. The choice is yours, either wait for them, buy them online, or spend around double the price for similar quality.