I'm sure our winter guests don't realize fishing is so much better in the parts of the year they are not here. Jerry put together this collage of past successes on the bulletin board in the office to show what sometimes happens. Walmart charges only 29 cents each to print these 4x6 photos from my thumb drive.
Rockport WiFi threw me a curve this morning when they called at 8:15 to say they had a time slot to wire a building this morning. I suggested the 100 building since only two condos are occupied. Besides that before they work on the 400 building on Friday, Jerry will have to find a way to get power to the building. All their power is controlled from the 300 building. He may have to run a conduit from the 500 building to get uncontrolled power, but even that will have to be under a sidewalk. Jerry will figure something out.
The 100 building did present a small problem. Two owners have chosen not to supply our HOA with keys to their units. This means the job could not be completed and will have to be done at a later time unless those owners choose not to have WiFi, which I doubt. I'm not sure that this extra work at a later time should be an additional HOA expense. Even next week the pest control company will be here to treat for inside insects and those two condos as well as others on the property, for whom we do not have keys, will not get treated. Maybe they will be doing their own pest control.

 Greg continues to get his daily limit of trout at Aransas Pass. These are from today.

Pete(710) got this limit of Rainbow Trout last weekend. About 5,000 of these were stocked in Pecan Valley Lake in San Antonio. My house there is in the Pecan Valley Subdivision and this is our subdivision lake. The sad part is this is a catch them or they die situation. When the water warms with summer temperatures, the trout go belly up.

The best that I could do was this sixteen inch trout on Sunday evening before the front blew in. Notice the trout had very little girth as is the case with most male trout. It was so late and he was so skinny I just released him. I was trying out a new lure George was giving out. It has a double 'C' tail and causes quite a flutter when reeled in. I had witnessed Joe(603) catch two from our marina a few days ago using this lure while my reliable DOA did nothing. For some reason, late in the evening, the most reliable fishing light on the complex is the one in the channel by the cabana at 308. Most every evening I can catch at least one there, but never more than two. Strangely, the new bright light shining in the channel just a 200 feet east of this light has never produced even a single bite for me. That just doesn't make sense.
Kevin will be here on Friday morning to begin work on hard wiring the WiFi for our 400 building. He will then proceed to do all the other buildings. He has a new phone number that is easy to remember 790-wifi.
TWC has completed all our paper work except putting our billing information into their system. When that is done we are good to go with the new HD boxes.
Many have asked why we are down on the number of winter Texans this year. I have no idea except maybe the price increases were to blame. I don't know the numerical difference from last year, but our water bill for January went from $3,217 last year to $1,936 this year. Our inside water bill most closely correlates with occupancy. We finished January $4,000 below budgeted costs. We will have to see what happens with February. That will include foundation work and the massive late night plumbing problem. That bill was not as bad as I had feared. It came to $1,861.

Our newest signage is doing its job in deterring extraneous traffic down our road. The old sign just announced no exit and walkers, golf carts, and other traffic just came down for visits to our pier and the HEB beach. Now we are seeing the traffic stop to read the sign and maybe look for the security camera before they decide to turn around. The camera appears as a dot on the side of the utility pole to the left of the sign.

I believe I had some success with Time Warner last week. Lucy didn't pull the football away at the last second and now I have to see if the ball goes through the uprights. I met the TWC rep in San Antonio to sign the contract for the upgraded services. We had to find a bank to have it notarized. Now we have to wait for that contract to go through all their channels. At that point our owners will be able to go to any Time Warner store to pick up a cable box for their condo.

Greg continues to find trout available in the Aransas Pass area. He says he is able to find live shrimp there most every day. I did hear of a keeper trout caught from our pier several nights ago, but I've seen no catches.

 Greg Pejka, former phase II owner, is spending this winter in Aransas Pass. He is finding the fishing there to be much better than where we are in Aransas Bay.  Does this big drum make his hands look small?
Below is a throwback photo of my youngest from 21 years ago. I think even though his hands were indeed small, this trout makes them look even smaller! (Notice the size of the palm tree in the background.)

I did get some promising news from TWC  today. I've been talking to a rep in SA since November 5th about getting HD boxes. Yesterday, I called again and she answered. She even sent me an email later asking for more info about our complex. I though we were on a roll until she asked me again, "What is you first name again?" However I am encouraged. We may not be too far away from a deal. According to her, she will put in all the units and link them to our master account. When we have signed off on the deal. Owners may go to any TWC service center in their city to pick up their cable box. The serial number will be linked to that owner and  should the box walk off, that owner would be held responsible.
One of the holdups was that we have never had a contract with TWC. I don't even remember the provider with whom we had the last contract. Charter bought out that provider and then TWC bought them out and the contract was just passed on without any changes or increased cost. I was concerned that when they looked into this and found we are paying only $12 per month per condo, they may want to up our fees. She said that indeed this is an extremely good price and with the $8 for the upgrade we would be at only $20 with a five year contract. I asked if the price could  be increased during the five years and she replied all their contracts now have a 5% increase built in after the second year. My confidence in TWC has been misplaced before, but this time I do feel better. This reminds me of Charlie Brown trying to kick the football and Lucy always pulls it away at the last moment after swearing to never do that again.

I had an experience at Walmart today. My battery would barely start my car so after dinner at Panjo's, (Thanks Paul and Christine), I went to Walmart at two minutes before closing. I had called earlier to be sure they had a battery Group 79 in stock.
As I arrived, they were closing the doors. Service person Joe said he would take care of it quickly. He opened my hood to check the battery and looked puzzled. I said there is no battery under there. He said he had never done one like this and asked where it was. I told him it was under the back seat. So he opened the back door and I had my bowling ball and bag somewhat wedged between the back seat and back of the front seat. He was in a hurry and and when brute force didn't work he got a bigger hammer and jerked the handles off the bag. When he fell backward he broke the lens on the courtesy light on the door. Oh well. I left him to take out the battery and went in to talk to Rachel who I had had the phone conversation with earlier. She said that will be $148 plus tax and fees. I told her she had quoted me only $104 on the phone. She said she had looked over at the battery rack instead of walking over six steps to look more closely at the Group 79 batteries. She wanted to go home too and could not have been more abrasive. I told her this battery receipt showed it was only three years old and it was warranted for five years. She said yes, but the battery I now had was adjusted from a battery three years before that so I did not have a full warranty on this battery. I asked when did that change. She said it was recent change. I told her that meant that Walmart had changed my warranty since I purchased the battery. She said that was true.  I told her to just forget the deal since I had checked with O"Reilly's and I would just go there. She was not too happy. Since my old battery was not entirely gone, I could still drive away. She went out to tell Joe to put my old battery back in. He looked puzzled, but not too upset.
I drove around to the front and went in to ask for the manager, Tammy. She was on vacation. The assistant manager was unloading a truck. The girl asked if she could help, I told her it was likely a guy thing about automotive, but I would give her the short version. She immediately took me over to another staff person and told her, "It's about Rachel again" and they both smiled. Jessica called someone on the phone and  related my story  word for word. She turned to me and said to come back tomorrow after 10:30 when she comes to work and they will sell me a battery for the quoted $104. Should I push my luck and ask about my broken lens and bowling bag handle? (to be continued)

Signs of old age. Yesterday Jerry sent me a text that said, "I found it". We have, for the last six months, been trying to find a water leak.  Our monthly bills have, at time, exceeded $4,000.
He found the leak to be underground on our main water supply and leaking into the mitigation site all this time. He dug up the area near the boat wash only to find the water line here had been covered with concrete. You can see above where it goes under the concrete. He felt he could do it before dark as it was only about 1pm. He tried to turn off the old brass valve in the circular sleeve at the bottom of the picture. It would not close completely and this made it next to impossible to repair the the leak.

The leak was just as the line came out from under the concrete. This line feeds the 4, 5, 6, and 700 buildings. At that point he tried to turn off the water to the whole complex out by the fire hydrant. That old valve didn't work very well either. He then called for help and had Greg come out to help do some more digging. By 5 pm he knew we were in trouble. We called about every plumber in Rockport.  No one could come out until the next day. At 6:30 Jerry gave it up. He had arrived at 6am as that was the only time he could get a ride here that morning. He fished a bit until time to punch in so he was tired by 6:30. Just as he was leaving, Timm's plumbing called back that they could be here in 15 minutes. They had done work here in the past so I trusted them, but did not ask for a price. Just get here and get it done. Roger got here at 7pm so I sent Jerry home and let Roger direct action from then on. Roger called me and Jerry to give us updates as work progressed.

Nothing could be done until the city came out to turn off the valve on their side of the meter. They came out about 6:45 only to find their valve did not work either. Jerry had done the repair we needed earlier, but the our old gate valve refused to open. It was broken inside so we had to wait for the city to get their new valve and replace the old one. By about midnight all seemed to be repaired and they turned the water on. Of course, being that kind of day, or should I say next day, Jerry's earlier repair blew apart because he never could stop the flow of water long enough to get a good glue hold. He also had to use some older parts and they blew apart too. So Timm's took out his earlier repair and put a new line above the old concrete as seen above. They also put in a new PVC ball valve to replace the old brass gate valve in two places.
About 3:10  we were back on line. Roger stayed the whole time to oversee for us. The plumbers suggested we not drink the water unless boiled for the next day or so since a lot of mud got into the system during the work. Jerry notified owners and guests this morning.

This is the valve the city replaced on their side of the meter.

This was the culprit on our side of the meter. Notice the old  compression fitting that had been used years ago. These things have a limited life and this one had seen its day.
I have no idea on the cost, but we had no choice. I don't think anyone at Timm's would read this, but my guess is we are at about $2,500. Jerry is guessing half of that. I hope he is right on this one. Our owners and guests were very understanding during all of this. One even gave us some help. Most, like me, bought water from Walmart.

Many of our owners and guests have used the guide services of Tim Redden.

Timothy Redden

Obituary

March 10, 1965 - February 3, 2015
Timothy Schoen "Tim" Redden, 49, a long-time professional fishing and hunting guide of Rockport, Texas, passed away Tuesday, February 3, 2015, after a year-long courageous fight with kidney cancer.
Tim was born March 10, 1965 in Austin, Texas, and adopted at 3 days of age to loving parents, Elmer & Evalon Redden. Fishing was always a favorite past time for the Redden Family, and when Tim's father's health began to suffer, the family moved to Rockport, Texas in the late '60s where they could enjoy their favorite fishing spot full time.
Tim is preceded in death by his father, Elmer Redden; his mother, Evalon Redden; his brother, Ronald "Ronny" Redden; and one sister, Beverly "Bev" Aery.
Tim is survived by his wife of 27 years, Tammy (Wendland) Redden; his oldest son, Timothy Schoen Redden, Jr. of Houston, Texas; his youngest son, Tucker Blake Redden of Rockport, Texas; his sister, Kathy Redden, of Rockport, Texas; father-in-law Richard & mother-in-law Mary Helen Wendland of Rockport, Texas; his brother-in-law, Richard P. Wendland of Abilene, Texas; his brother-in-law, William P., III, "Willie" and sister-in-law Terra Wendland of Rockport, Texas; and uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, cousins & friends, as well as many baseball players he coached & clients he guided on hunting & fishing trips - all whose lives were deeply enriched and impacted by this wonderful man.
Visitation will be at Charlie Marshall Funeral Home in Rockport, Texas on Friday, February 6, 2015 from 10 am to 9 pm with a Vigil/Rosary Service starting at 7 pm. Funeral Mass will be celebrated by Monsignor Louis F. Kihneman, III at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Rockport, Texas on Saturday, February 7, 2015 at 11 am with Internment Prayer Service at Rockport Cemetery immediately thereafter. Pallbearers personally chosen by Tim include Jay Watkins; Jay Ray Watkins, Jr.; Eric Stoeber; Norm Charlton; Tim Clancey; Dominic Dominguez; Mike Netzel; and Ben Vigil.
Donations can be made to "Redden Strong," 1014 Patton Street, Rockport, TX, 78382.
Arrangements entrusted to:

Charlie Marshall Funeral Homes and Crematory, Inc.
814 E. Main
Rockport, Texas 78382
361-729-2451
www.charliemarshallfuneralhomes.

Work has resumed, after a short hiatus, on the foundation under the 700 building. Above is one of the removed pilings. It is incredible that 132 of these were identified and replaced four years and now we have found more. This is not the work of termites. The pilings were never properly treated and we won a lawsuit twenty years ago to get money to offset the cost of replacements. That money is long gone, but the replacements continue. I had lobbied for years to have these pilings inspected,  but investors who owned condos didn't want to discuss the topic. We have not had an engineer inspect them since the original lawsuit. Even then all the engineer did was to drill into the piling to see if a void existed. I don't think the problem is widespread at this time since we have replaced many of them, but going forward this will be something to keep an eye on. These recent piling repairs were precipitated by a building inspection for a pending sale. For the current project, the cost has been $550 for each piling. I recently talked to another condo HOA president who is having the same issue and they are paying four times that amount. Their contractor stabbed the piling with a screw driver and if it stuck, the piling was marked for replacement. That seems a bit conservative to me.
We will get this work inspected by an engineer to be able to get the repairs Texas Windstorm approved.
Trout did move back into the marina for a short time last Thursday. Only about five keepers were caught before the trout left.
I did extend my electrical contract today. I opted for three months at 7.5 cents per KWH from Infinite Electric. They are one of the few with an all inclusive rate. Others have a lot of fine print that drives the cost up each month. With the cost of oil down,  I expect natural gas to follow and in April I will go for a 36 month contract. On the first of this month, Infinite dropped its three year rate from 10.4 cents to 9.3 cents per KWH. I like that trend. The most important thing is to stay under a contract. Once it expires, it's Katy bar the door on  rates. My bill this month was $272, but I heard from one owner who had a bill more than that and did not have anyone in their condo for January! I'm guessing they were not under a contract.