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Jack at home, where the fish are still biting

sinkfishHi folks. Another update on Jack.

After an initial week-long treatment of chemo and radiation Jack has been discharged from the hospital and is back home. Chemo seriously compromises your immune system and in its immediate aftermath the greatest risk is that of an infection, virus, pneumonia, or other transmittable bug hitting you at a time when your system can’t fight it. Turns out that hospitals are actually high risk environments for communicable nasties. All those sick people, I guess.

So Jack is at home. He has responded well to the initial round of treatment. “Miraculous” is the very word his doctors used. His next round of treatment is scheduled for December 1. Until then the plan is he’ll be at home. Right now he’s just resting, glad to be back in familiar surroundings. The treatment has sapped him so he’s snoozing a lot. Generally he’s been free of many of the negative side effects of chemo. He hasn’t grown a set of horns or a tail (or, cuz it’s Jack, I should say he hasn’t grown a second set of horns and a second tail). A few local friends have been helping out with meals and running errands and they’ve been just great. Continue reading “Jack at home, where the fish are still biting”

Important: about Jack

jack_pickerel_10-08_vA few of you may know (though most probably don’t) that Jack was hospitalized last week. The diagnosis is small-cell lung cancer. Not something you want to have. Right now he’s undergoing an aggressive course of chemotherapy and radiation.

When you hear a friend has cancer the ground drops from under your feet. You picture your friend diminished by disease, a whisper of his or her former self. You feel helpless, kicked in the gut (at least, that’s how I felt).

All I can say is that cancer has never butted heads with the irresistible force that is Jack Gartside before.

He’s in amazing spirits–laughing and joking. His second day in, as doctors entered the room, serious, conferring,  they burst out laughing at the site of Jack and all his visitors all wearing these goofy coke bottle eyeglasses Katie Lavelle had brought over. With an unfamiliar stretch of the Charles River flowing by his hospital window, Jack convinced Dale Linder and Dave Skok to bring their rods and fish it on their next visit so he can know what’s in there. Continue reading “Important: about Jack”

What did you catch him on?

smalltarpon.jpgMost fishing web sites are full of pictures of people holding up large fish that they caught. After awhile the fish in these pictures all look the same.

The anglers in these pictures all look the same too, in part because, depending on the type of fish, they’re all wearing pretty much the same stuff. If the fish is a steelhead or trout, the angler is wearing earth-tone waders and a bulgy vest or chest pack thingy with lots of small, clanky things hanging off it. If the fish is a marlin, the angler is wearing topsiders, shorts, a pastel-colored polo shirt, and probably a self-satisfied expression. Tarpon and bonefishermen opt for tan pants, puffy shirts, and stupid hats. The shirts all have rear ventilation flaps, a feature you’d think would actually be more useful on the pants. If it’s a striped bass, the angler could wearing any combination of these things, or even all of them at once. He’s probably also half in the bag.

Compared to those other pictures, this one’s a lot more interesting–Dale Linder holding the smallest tarpon I’ve ever seen. And how impressive is the catch? Lots of people have caught hundred pound tarpon, but how many have caught a six-incher? I didn’t even know tarpon came that small. I thought they all started life at around ten pounds. But unless Dale smuggled a can of sardines out onto the flats that day, I guess I was wrong. The rod, he says, was a ten weight with a floating, sink-tip line. He won’t say what fly he was using. Bastard.

Yes but I photograph well

old_fisherman.jpgOur friend and neighbor Dave Skok just returned from a trip to Costa Rica where, in additional to catching a few fishies, he also took some amazing photographs. A short selection of them is posted on Moldy Chum (which, coincidentally, is probably also a fair description of Dave after several weeks in the jungle). Take a look at the brilliant reds on the Costa Rican rainbows–their flanks look like sunrise in a Turner watercolor.

All tied up

tied_up.jpgIn the current Pointless Poll (see the Home Page) it’s a dead heat for favorite knot between the improved clinch and the loop knot. Which is surprising to me. I like loop knots, don’t get me wrong, I just never realized how many people use them on a regular basis. The clinch knot was the first fishing knot I ever learned. When the improved clinch came out I switched over to it because it was, well, improved. And that’s pretty much where I’ve been ever since.

There’s an odd tendency for certain knots to stick in your brain, while others don’t. I have this theory that once a knot takes possession of your mind it gets territorial and uses its knotty powers to prevent other knots from gaining a place. For example, the trilene is a great knot. But somehow, even though it’s not that complicated, I can’t seem to tie one unless I have a diagram in front of me. The improved clinch just refuses to let it reside in my grey matter. Conversely, I have no problem remembering how to tie blood knots, nail knots, snells, bowlines, and sheepshanks. It’s as if the improved clinch realizes that these knots are not direct competition.

Jack likes to laugh and say, “I know two knots, and one of them is a wind knot.” We’ve fished together for over ten years and he still won’t tell me what that second knot is. It can’t be all that great because, as fine a fisherman as he is, he does snap off quite a few fish. Or maybe it’s the knot itself asserting its will, coming undone on purpose to get even with him for not giving knots their due respect.

A few years ago Jack and I were into some fast and heavy striper action when a nice bass snapped off his fly. So he tied on another one and the next fish snapped off his entire leader. Unperturbed, he tied a fly directly to the fly line and in short time hooked a really big fish which ran him into his backing–before breaking that off and swimming away with the fly line. After that he was reduced to flailing away with a fly tied to nothing but backing. Even then he caught a few more fish until finally the current died and the bass moved off.

Yet again: More new stuff on the web site

maid_2.jpgAs a follow-up to Jack’s post about credit cards, here are a few other new additions to the web site. Hopefully this will be the last post of this type for awhile–we need to stop coding and get to fishing! But if nothing else it gives us a chance to post another picture of a sexy girl in a French maid outfit. 🙂

RSS Feed: We now have an RSS feed for the site. Actually, we have two: one for articles and one for the blog. What’s an RSS feed? We’re not 100% sure, but one of Jack’s readers (MarkS) suggested it and since it was raining that day and we were tipsy on drambuie we said, oh well, what the hell. Actually, an RSS feed is a kind of “live” bookmark you can add to the bookmarks in your web browser. Whenever new content is added to the site, the bookmark displays it automatically, saving you the trouble of visiting the site to see if there’s anything new.

New Mailer: We upgraded the software that runs the mailing list for Jack’s newsletter. Jack used to just enter email addresses manually in the address book on his computer which made subscribing and/or unsubscribing from the list a bit of a process. Now you can do it all yourself. There are also security safeguards in place so that you, and only you, can add or remove yourself from the list.

New Pointless Poll: The old software we used to publish the Pointless Poll was limited to five poll choices. We’ve now got a new one that allows up to ten. It also allows you to leave comments (a feature we haven’t turned on yet but will in the near future).

Language Translator: We’ve added a Google gadget that translates the entire site into any one of a dozen languages at a single click. It’s located in the sidebar on each page. The translations are not 100% perfect, but hopefully are good enough so that non-English speakers can understand the gist of the pages they’re reading. Several caveats about the translator: 1) whenever you use the pull-down menu (located at the top of each page) it reloads the whole site as English again. Of course, you could run the translator again, but you might be better served to navigate using the text links that appear at the bottom of each page; 2) for those making a purchase, the shopping cart and checkout pages are not translatable. Sorry, but there’s nothing we can do about that.

Old Pages and New Pages: We’ve upgraded the content on a lot of existing pages and added three new ones: a page about JackGartside.com, a page for the downloadable order form (for those who prefer to order by check or through the mail), and a page describing Jack’s security and privacy policies. You’ll find all three on the Contact & Ordering menu.

Spring cleaning on the web site

maid3.jpgAh Spring. The ice is melting, the winds are howling, the streams are streaming. Jack and I have been hard at work making some fundamental changes to the site. Hopefully most of these changes will be transparent to you (because they’re supposed to be). One thing we did was switch hosting companies. Goodbye Earthlink after seven years, hello Lunar Pages. Earthlink was an OK host–but just OK (lately their servers had gotten really slow). We also upgraded a lot of software that runs things on the site, from the mailing list to the pointless poll. Should you care about any of this? Well….probably, nah.

But there is one big change that won’t be transparent: Starting in April Jack will begin accepting credit cards. Folks have been asking for this for a long time (the old “just send me a check” doesn’t really cut it in the Internet age). It’s something Jack has wanted to do for awhile. The big obstacle was finding a web host and shopping cart that wouldn’t require us to redo the site using one of their boring, cookie-cutter page templates (if you’ve ever shopped at a Yahoo store you know what I mean). After months of researching, viewing demos, and making comparisons, we finally found a solution we like–foxycart. It’s the bomb–easy to use, 100% secure, and it lets us keep the look and feel of the Web site exactly as it is. Right now we’re just doing some final customization and testing and expect to go live in a couple of weeks. So we’re pretty psyched. I’m even wondering if (haven’t told Jack this) we should offer a prize or something to the first person who places a credit card order on the site.

My personal 2008 spring cleaning of fishing gear I just started today. So far it mostly amounts to returning a lot of stuff I bought last year that turned out to be junk. 😉

Gator Bait

lastknownpic1.jpgJack took off for Florida yesterday on a float trip of the Everglades, traveling with Dale Linder, Jamie Boyle, and Dave Skok. I almost went too (though in the end I just couldn’t leave the lovely ice and snow that’s mantled our fair city of Boston this year). Before leaving Jack emailed me this photo, asking that I put it up on the blog. Sure thing, buddy.

Alligators and/or crocodiles are a constant in the tropics, along with rough roads, mangrove swamps, and mosquitoes. Over the years I’ve gone on about half a dozen trips with Jack to the tropics and except for one croc that got a little too close in Isla Holbox last year we pretty much ignored them. The Holbox croc presented a dilemma…Jack, Dale and I were wading a salt creek about the size of the Yellow Breeches picking up small tarpon, snook, and seatrout when it went cruising by at rod’s length, maybe 12 feet long. Funny as the oh-so-cool flailing retreat to the shoreline might have been to an observer, the conversation that followed was probably better. I think it went something like:

“I think it’s gone.”
“OK, so go in.”
“I’m just going to have a cigarette first. But you go ahead.”
“Actually I needed to rest my shoulder anyway. I’ll wait for you.”

After a few minutes of casual back and forth someone suggested that anyway it was almost dinner time and if we didn’t get a move on all the good tables at the restaurants would be full by the time we got there. So logic prevailed. The croc, lying motionless under a mangrove canopy on the opposite bank, watched us go.

Katie Lavelle emailed me a list of Florida gator fatalities since the 1970s and what’s surprising about it (other than how short the list is–18 fatalities in 35 years) is that the victims and gators you’d expect to see (big reptiles + very young or old victims) actually make up less than half of the tally. The rest of the victims are adults in the prime of life and the gators involved range in size from 7-12 feet long.

Anyway, for this particular trip I think Jack stands a pretty good chance of coming out alive. Given their relative age, weight, risk-taking potential, and which would look tastiest to a hungry gator I put the gator kibble odds at:

Dave: 9-1
Dale: 12-1
Jack: 14-1
Jamie: 20-1

Curt Schilling’s Last Call?

Curt SchillingWe take our Red Sox baseball seriously at jackgartside.com, so it was big news when reports surfaced on Friday that Curt Schilling (Jack’s favorite pitcher) has a serious injury to his rotator cuff that could cause him to miss part or all of the 2008 season. These reports set off a round of speculation as to the significance of the injury and whether #38’s career is over.

Sports Illustrated reported that Schilling’s doctor insists surgery is required if Schilling is to ever pitch again, although it added that the Sox team physician disagrees and recommends a period of rehabilitation. In his blog Schilling acknowledged the issue but disputed current reports, saying he himself isn’t sure what the story is and that his doctor has not recommended surgery. On Saturday the Boston Globe reported that Schilling had just received a cortisone shot in his shoulder, the first step in a rehabilitation strategy that could aim to have him back in the lineup by the All-Star break.

After that the picture only gets murkier. In a Sports Illustrated article Schilling’s physician asserts “I think his chance of coming back to pitching with rehab or a conservative approach is zero. He might not come back after surgery, either. However, if the surgery is successful, he should be fully rehabbed by about All-Star break.” Conversely, David Altcheck, a Mets team physician consulted by the Sox and who performed rotator cuff surgery on Pedro Martinez after the 2006 season casts doubt on that assessment. In a Boston Herald article Altcheck is sourced as saying it takes a year to bounce back from rotator cuff surgery. Part of the equation is what would happen money-wise if Schilling were to miss the entire 2008 season. Most likely in that event the Red Sox would seek to void his contract.

I hope this isn’t the end for one of the greatest pitchers in the game today, although even without this injury most Sox fans probably assumed that, at age 41, this was Schilling’s last season. Certainly the Sox front office believed it, thus the one year 2008 extension deal at a much reduced salary.

Curt Schilling’s Red Sox career:

Regular Season:

Year IP W L SO ERA
2004 226 21 6 203 3.26
2005 93 8 8 87 5.69
2006 204 15 7 183 3.97
2007 151 9 8 101 3.87

Post Season:

Year IP W L SO ERA
2004 22.2 3 1 13 3.65
2007 24 3 0 16 3.00