I had mentioned earlier that Jeanette Dyer was going to make a donation to our pool decor. The pieces have arrived and were put in place this week. This is a large planter that we plan to put a plant into.
There are two new concrete benches that really look nice.
Here is a picture of one of the original benches that has seen better days. I think this one belongs in the dumpster and we might want to purchase another new one to match the two she donated. Thank you Jeanette.

While Larry Skelton finishes up the bayside deck rail painting, Larry Rabe has started work on the AC enclosures. The rotten wood is being removed or replaced and the lattice work is being reinforced with 1x2 boards. Notice the zip ties that are holding together a lot of the enclosures at this point.

Steve Wright(702) and cousin, Chuck Ayers, went into Copano this morning and brought back five nice reds.(They had already filleted two before I took this picture) They fished the shoreline near Holiday Beach and used cut mullet. Conditions were ideal this morning.

This photo from last weekend shows a pretty good crowd for a weekend in September. Nearly every condo in the 200 and 300 buildings was occupied. Of course with the crowds come some problems. My bait bucket full of perch disappeared off the crossbridge Friday evening. I found it Saturday morning near the end of the big pier, minus the perch. Pretty much that is why I fish during the week. On Saturday I saw a group with beer bottles inside the pool area. I asked them to please take them outside the fenced area. They refused, but said they would be careful. We just installed three new signs on the inside of the pool fence asking that glass containers not be taken into the pool area. Part of the problem is that for years no one has ever attempted to enforce any rules of the HOA.
Winter Texans will have a surprise when they travel down this year. The Eagle Ford Shale frenzy has drawn world wide attention and the influx of men and materials is everywhere from Karnes City to Pettus. There are oil field rigs and crews working all over the area. There are news items in the San Antonio newspaper business section almost every day. They say restaurants cannot keep enough food in stock. RV parks are going up everywhere. Billboards plead for land owners to lease their mineral rights. Motels are being built near the highways. Roads are being built into the pastures, but most annoying is the glut of truck traffic on the smaller highways.
I have a friend who purchased 900 acres in the area three years ago. He has been paid more than his purchase price for a three year lease of mineral rights. This must have been how the California gold rush developed.
Last Sunday I saw a white Aurora being loaded onto at tow truck on the bypass. There are so few of these cars in Rockport, I think I have met all the owners at one time or another. The only white one I know of belongs to Rose Marie, a waitress at Alice Faye's. I'll have to ask her what happened.
One of our long time owners who used to live here, but moved into a Rockport home, has moved back into their condo. It will be good to have them here again.

Just before leaving last Sunday Jesse, Paul(505), and Jordan caught this 23 inch red off the crossbridge on mullet. They also caught and released an 18 red. Fishing has remained good off the crossbridge.
On Saturday I saw a guy catch a large red and a keeper flounder by the pier. He wasn't staying here, but he said he had stayed one time in the past. I guess that makes it alright.
On Saturday also the guests in 303 went halfway up Cedar Bayou and came back with their limit of nice reds.
David Schneider(205) waded off the HEB shore and caught a keeper trout. Keeper trout have been so rare this year even one is news worthy.

Recently, there have a number of problems with the lighting on the pier. The conduit was placed under the pier and water has gotten into the junction boxes and caused shorted circuits. At this point the fishing lights have been fixed for the time being, but the lights that light the pier deck itself, will not work. The boards of Phase I and Phase II have decided to replace the entire wiring system to put an end to all the repairs and avoid any safety hazards. Last week the walk lights had shorted to the 220 wiring and even the outlet at the fish cleaning stand had 220 volts to it. That is not a good thing for fillet knives.
The cost for Phase I will be about $10,000. Work will begin just after the Columbus Day holiday to allow as much fishing from the pier as possible during the long weekend. The first four condos in the 100 building will have to have the house power off for most of the day on the 18th to allow the final connections to be made to the main power supply line.
Scott had a good idea to put up the caution sign at the start of the pier to warn of the lack of lights on the deck area. The caution tape should draw attention to the sign.

All thirteen bayside walk lights have now been replaced. I was able to save over $100 by buying them on line. Of course, I had to use my credit card. Last week I got a call from a California number and it turned out to be the company I purchased the lights from. The caller was very polite and said he had released the lights for delivery before the credit card cleared. He had put my zip code in incorrectly. I think he was afraid he may not get paid. He was pretty happy when I gave him the correct number and it cleared.

Betty Brackle(103) came in for a couple of weeks. It was good to see her and her friend Nita. Betty had not been here since her condo was remodeled several years ago. She had not changed a bit, just as jovial as ever. She is our most senior owner as she will turn 86 on the 26th of next month, but she is only three months older than Murlin(506).
Murlin and Pat's guest this weekend was former owner of 208, Bradley Phair. Bradley brought his son, Randy his brother and his brother's son. They went out with guide Tim Redden on Friday and did little until after noon and then found a lot of drum near the ranch house at Mud Island.

I could probably pass off this morning catch in the marina as a keeper, but alas it too was a bit short. The same has been true for the pier for the entire year. Larry Rabe salvaged a whole cup of Gulp from the dumpster this morning. I'll try that tomorrow. I think I have heard that insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results. At least I'm changing baits.
Today all cell phones in Rockport were out. It's frustrating when you get so use to carrying one with you and then there is no service.
A crew came by today to survey for an elevation certificate. I thought we had one on file for new owners, but maybe not.
I did talk to Veronica at Cirro Energy last week. She said that Cirro has sent us a letter saying that they have waived the nearly $6k early termination fee they had asked for when we had the lights not on our property removed from our billing.
Carolyn Morris, a contractor for Trident Insurance Services, came by today to collect information for insurance purposes for our new carrier of our umbrella policy. She had all kinds of questions, but seemed satisfied with my answers.
Last weekend, Maghsoud(407), could not get reception on his television for the UT game. Today I met with a representative from Cobridge and they will come back later this week or early next week to check the signal strength on all of our incoming connections. When that is completed, they will supply most of the materials for us to replace the connector ends in each condo. They will work with Larry Rabe on just how to do this efficiently. I'm still missing keys for 13 condos and those will have to wait for the service. Those condos also do not receive pest control services.
Work is continuing on the deck railing painting. Almost all of the 100 and 200 buildings are completed and the work on the upper decks of the 300 building will start tomorrow. At this time there are no rentals in the 300 building.

Workers were here on Friday to put some final touches on the roof project. They should totally finish this week.

The sharp eye of Scott found one rotted fascia board that was not noticed when the others were replaced. I asked a contractor and he wanted $100 to replace the board without even painting it. Larry Rabe got after it on Friday afternoon and got it done so the roofers could replace the drip edge and wrap it up.

Doug and Janet(306)were here for a few days and got after their attic. Most of the two bedroom units had their attic access closed up when they were remodeled. They reopened this one and installed a lot of new insulation. They found problems where the old insulation had fallen and blocked some of the AC ducts. They corrected some other problems in the attic while they were at it.

Kim(305), on the right, and her friend went with a guide this morning and did well on reds.

Congratulations to Alicia, office manager at Coastal Bend Management, as her daughter, Nikki, was named as duchess of the Homecoming Court for the Rockport Pirates.(She is the girl on the right) The competition was tough as Superintendent Patek's daughter was chosen as Homecoming queen. Everyone at Kontiki who contracts with Coastal for their property management has talked to Alicia many times. She, as well as their cleaning staff, has been with Roxanna as long as I can remember.
They are always so friendly. When I went by yesterday to pick up my rent check for last month, I ended up talking for an hour. Of course, I have been known to talk a bit at times myself anyway.

David and Shadra(204) are a pretty happy bunch right now. Congratulations!


David sent this note with the pictures.
Just wanted to send some pictures of our new bundle of joy. Hope you can post these on your blog. He was born at 8:37am on 9/11/11, weighing 8lbs. 1oz. and 19 inches long. His name is Bransen James Pastucha. Maybe everyone will get to see him when we attend the owner's meeting in November. Grandma and Grandpa have already agreed to come with us and babysit. Grandpa is even giving up a chance at fishing. Thanks.

David & Shadra Pastucha (Unit#204)

Meaux,pronounced "Mo", waits while Jeanette and I discuss a donation she plans to make to our pool decor. Can you tell Meaux is a Louisiana pup? She did handle the mauling by Betty's dogs well even though she is twice as old and half as big. She didn't back down.
I was in San Antonio this weekend, but I heard that an owner caught a big drum in the mitigation site. I doubt it was the one I mentioned last week as that one was well over the 30inch limit to keep.
One resourceful owner had her AC unit go out last week. She didn't know who to call, but checked out the AC company's van that I pictured here earlier and called the number listed on the truck. He came out within 30 minutes and put in two pounds of freon and got the unit going again. Later he returned and cleaned the coils for only $350. That's not a bad price for that service. I would point out that I will never again use the cheaper fiberglass AC filters. I use two filters on my unit and after using a pleated filter this summer, the second filter inside the unit showed no lint at all. The pleated filters protect the coils so much better. In our environment the AC units run almost 24/7 this time of year.

Roger(602)sent these pictures of owners' kids having one last summer blast on Labor Day. His camera is much better than my camera phone. Here Elizabeth takes a plunge into the marina.The girls didn't give Patrick much help in getting into the raft and the picture below shows the result.

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One more photo of the roping party. I can't believe they had the patience and persistent of the indian tracker to stay at this until the "end" was reached.

Ray watches on Sunday as Paul and Scott tug on this sixty yard long conduit they pulled out of the channel. It was left over from the old pier and they used Scott's boat to tow it to the ramp and drug it from there. It's not obvious from my photo, but they had to put some serious effort into pulling it on shore.
I talked to Mandy at the Texas Public Utility Commission yesterday as well as Anthony at Cirro Energy about the $6,000 bill we received. They have trouble understanding why one of our board members would have signed a long term agreement for the electrical services on Richy's property. That is hard to explain. There may be some culpability on the part of that board member. I asked Anthony, he wouldn't let me reach a supervisor, to get with Hilda Olmeda at the AEP and she would confirm that we did not terminate any electrical services to our property. Likely we will hear nothing, but penalties and interest will be added to the $6,000. It was with great fanfare when Governor Perry deregulated electrical services in Texas and promised competition would bring better service and lower prices. Just the opposite has happened.
A 40+ drum has decided to make our mitigation site his personal HEB and he shops regularly. He is so large and the water so shallow, he looks like the Lochness Monster when he prowls the site with half his back exposed. Last evening, just for grins, I threw my tandem lures over his back as he was close to shore. I snagged him near the tail and pulled him around 90 degrees and parallel to my line. Fortunately, my hook slipped off and he continued to prowl without even acknowledging my hookup. I guess when you are that big you can't let the little things bother you. I do have two poles set out there right now baited with small perch. I hope those are not on his shopping list as I would have to restring those reels.
Yesterday for lunch I decided to visit K-Bob's as I had not been there in weeks. I waited until 2:30pm so it would not be too busy. I was seated in a corner in the bar area. After 20 minutes and no waitstaff to take my order, I rose and asked to be seated in an area with an active waitstaff member. I was, but soon realized that the adjective "active" did not mean the same to me as it did to them. I looked around and everyone in the place seemed to be impatiently waiting for service. Finally, a waitress took my order for a "Sirtender" steak. After another 45 minutes the manager brought out my order himself and apologized for the problems they were having. I thought at least the meal would be worth the wait. Wrong! I have never in my life been served a more grizzled piece of meat. I should have sent it back, but by this time I thought I could eat shoe leather. Wrong again. I have all 32 original teeth and despite my best efforts this steak was impossible. My jaw muscles became sore and I developed a headache.
My waitress made her second appearance at my table to bring me the check. I dutifully paid and started out the door when the manager, Lee Burden, caught up with me. Again he apologized and offered me a $15 gift certificate. While we were talking another waitress approached him and said a customer at table 32 wanted to speak to him. I think he had a really bad afternoon. I wasn't as unhappy as I was disappointed at "Sirtender" being "Sirtough". He did say he has to cook what corporate sends him, but to stay in business it better get better.
This week's blog stats show I had hits from 42 cities in Texas. Someone in Ballinger hits it nearly every, but I have no idea who that may be or where Ballinger is. There were hits from 25 states with the State of Virginia, or is that a commonwealth, leading the pack with 19 hits. I don't know who is in Virginia either.

What is this? Well, the Luna, Schomburg, and Westburg, families took their boats for a trip to the Lydia Ann Channel. They did some beach combing and came across this massive, knotted pile of half inch nylon rope. They brought it back and Ray and Paul lit up cigars while they decided if it was worth the effort to disassemble this mess.
Scott, daughter Meg, and Scott's father Art joined in and the pulling and grabbing began.
After about four hours and with the help of Meredith and Jordan, the rope mass gave it up. The longest piece turned out to be about 160 feet long and the next one was 140 feet. There were about 1000 feet in all. Now I ask, what are they going to do with all this rope!

Lynne(206) and Helen show their newly rescued dog now named Phantom. Can you tell which one is Phantom? He is about five years old and was left beside the road. He is really lucky to have a home with the Porters.
Lynne's rescued greyhound Bentley has taken to Phantom quite well. Here he rests his head on Phantom while he endures our boring(to him) conversation.
As a side note, Helen is working to capture her UIL District championship for the eighth grade discus toss this year. Butch is coaching her well and is very proud of her progress.

Last Friday these two trucks from the AEP showed up and took down the light pole on Richy's(706,608)property.(notice his "For Sale" sign) They cut the pole in half and pulled it up and were gone in fifteen minutes. The same day we received a bill for $6,000 from Cirro Energy for early termination of the contract on the light. Past HOA boards that were investor controlled took great liberties with our treasury. At one point eleven security lights, including five in front of Phase II, were put on our account when we have only five if you count the one at the road. Of course I protested vigorously at the time, but to no avail.
I'll start working tomorrow to resolve this issue. The main point being that this light was never on our property although the bill was sent to us and a board member, without board approval, locked into a contract until April 2013 on that light. Richy was given the option to transfer this light to his account to avoid removal, but he declined. I'm sure he will decline the bill too.
I'll visit with the Texas Public Utility Commission to see what they have to say. Cirro Energy has, in the past, been difficult to deal with.

Scott, Ray, and Paul(505) worked both yesterday and today placing over 3000 pounds of cement in the slots of the breakwater where the sand is sneaking in and silting up our channel. One estimate we have is for a project of over $100k to stop the silting. We feel we can save most all of this by filling these gaps and hoping the newly built spillway will work as a deterrent to sand entering the channel from off our beach. They completed the north side of the wall, but will have to work on the south wall later.
What I see though is a few owners working so hard to do all the things to maintain our property and save money, but at what personal cost? Most owners purchased their condos with the expectation of enjoying their time here and not spending long weekends working. What I see here is not sustainable and I would have to include my work in that category too.
I can conceive of only one solution and that is to build a residence for a resident property manager/rental agent. I presented this plan at the last owners' meeting, but it was for informational purposes only. This year we need to take a serious look at doing this.

Larry Skelton cleaned up the grassy area in the mitigation site for us. He picked up three full five gallon buckets of trash. Much of the trash came from the roofing project. Few people will get into this grass to clean up because so many snakes have been seen in there.
Larry was late coming in Sunday morning this weekend so I called to see if he was going to make it in. He said he was delayed because he had two molars that were hurting and he didn't want to go to a dentist so he had his son yank them both out. Ouch! When he did come in about 10, we had a sewer backup to deal with. He took care of that in no time. Later that night Pop was too sick to come in for his security shift and I had to call Larry to come out to work security for us. He had a really long day and took today off and will resume painting the decks for us tomorrow.

The bulkhead along the mitigation site is starting to come apart. Soon it will encroach on our roadway and we could have damage to our concrete. I understand one of our owners owns the mitigation site, but has no plans to repair the wall. Again I guess we will have to foot the bill and maybe share it with Phase II. This repair could be costly. I have salvaged some of the posts from our old pier to use to reinforce the wall once new boards have been installed. The area will have to be dug out with a backhoe.

The old mitigation site signs were getting to show their age so I had some new ones made. The mitigation site does not belong to us, but who else is going to take care of it. I will suggest to Phase II that maybe we could share the cost of the new signs.
Larry Rabe put the new signs out in the water so they would have less chance of being removed or vandalized.
The north wind blew hard this weekend and blew the water out of the mitigation site and look at the difference in the signs.

These wildfires have turned us into the land of the midnight sun, or at least what I think it might look like.