To Russia With Love

I published this on my fishing blog as well because it is one of those stories that deserves to be mentioned more than once.

Everybody has at least one unbelievable story to tell. I have a new one it might just be one of the most unbelievable stories I have ever heard.

About two months ago, Eric Hanson, a longtime friend, was traveling to Russia. He was flying on S7 airlines and during the flight decided to look at their inflight magazine.

He started flipping through the pages and since it was in Russian (which he doesn't speak), he was just really looking at the pictures. He opened to an article that was apparently about piranhas. Being an avid hunter and fisherman it piqued his interest. When he turned to page 114 he saw something completely unexpected.

That is really me in the bottom left hand corner holding a piranha. Eric was shocked to say the least. He mailed me a copy of it when he returned home.

Evidently S7 copied this picture from either our website or my Flickr page. Either way, they didn't ask permission but I figure Russia is probably a lot like Brazil and they could care less.

It would have been nice if they had mentioned our business or fishing in the Pantanal but they didn't. They didn't even mention my name or Brazil.

I've written S7 requesting they acknowledge what they did and at least mention our website.

I'm not holding my breath.

You can see more of our pictures at:

http://www.fishbigfish.com/

or

http://www.flickr.com/photos/westnashvillegringo/sets/72157600059492377/

AWOL or MIA?

OK, I haven't published anything for over two months and I sincerely apologize. My good friend Kerry Woo (the master blogger) told me this is a major no-no.

I do have an excuse. After my laser surgery, my vision in one eye came perfectly into focus. The other is perfectly out of focus. As you can imagine, this has caused me some difficulties. I can't drive well at night and I get disoriented when I do. I also have extreme difficulty reading.

These last two months may be the longest stretch of my life I have gone without reading a book. I have equal difficulty reading the computer screen.

It has gotten better as my mind has evidently compensated. I will have surgery on the other eye in a couple of weeks that will hopefully correct it.

I apologize for not posting. I will try to post as much as possible. After the surgery it should be more often.