Keep tabs on Nancy Jo and Marti’s moves for Campbell Outdoor Challenge

Nancy Jo Adams journals daily about her experiences in the Campbell Outdoor Challenge, that provides a competitive sporting event format for professional hunter and cameramen teams to match their skills in filming hunts. The Campbell Outdoor Challenge consists of a professional video circuit of fifteen cameramen teams with the ultimate champion determined by the team accumulating the most video points throughout the events that form the circuit. Nancy Jo and WOMA member Marti Davis make Team Artemis. You can read her blog here.

Melita Ellington’s son deploys to Afghanistan

Please keep Melita Ellington and family in your thoughts and prayers as their son, Sgt. Corey A. Sims, deploys this week to Afghanistan. He’s in the 2-2 Weapons Division, USMC, from Camp LeJeune, NC. He told his mom, “No waterworks!” and she says she’s a proud combat mom. We’re behind you, lady. And, Corey … thank  you.

 

MUDDY—And proud of it!

Where I was born and lived until age 56, you might be able to tell where someone lived by their quality of tan—until the tanning booth came into being. When I was a child, if someone was wearing sandals, they had either come from or were headed to the pool or the beach. Then suddenly, everyone was wearing sandals, high heeled and rubber soled, out to dinner at a five-star restaurant and in airports and hotels all over the country, come rain or shine. In short, geographical identity has become more and more difficult to decipher. We are generic—all the same.

Automobiles in Southern California betrayed status, but seldom one’s residential address. At least, there was no clear-cut line in the thick of suburbia. There, a car is a car is a car—and everyone has one that is sparkling clean, maintained that way due to perennial sunny skies that dictate perfection. Under such unforgiving solar illumination, every spot or smudge is evident. So the car wash is a weekly destination, complete with coffee bar, greeting card shop, and trendy automobile paraphernalia.

Then I moved to Montana—Missoula to be exact. Well, 30 miles west of Missoula to be accurate. Actually, five miles off the main highway on dirt roads.  And the townspeople of Missoula, the city folk who meander asphalt—they know my name—by my car and the muddy or dusty stripe on my pants, about three inches above my ankle.

“It’s the running board,” announced my new friend, also a former Californian who is frustrated by the fact that she can never arrive at any destination without first wiping down her pant legs with towelettes. When push comes to shove, a little spittle on the palm of your hand works too.

We could live at the car wash, all of us ladies who strive to look our best, even in jeans, but here they are self-serve affairs. No coffee, no swarm of workers wiping and spraying windows until they sparkle and shine. Here, I throw on a rain poncho and use the pressure washer. My new fitness routine is to crouch while holding in my abdominals, to squat while bending at the knees in order to spray the entire undercarriage of my car. A river of thick mud washes down the industrial drain. For the morning, my running board is clean. I can open my hatchback without washing my hands. Until I drive back home to Huson, only to begin all over again.

So I’ve surrendered. Now I wait until the mud has covered every inch of automobile exterior and I can no longer see out any of the windows. I officially join the ranks of the other cars I pass in town like mine—the folks who have wiped clean a small circle of sight. When even that is impossible to maintain, then I head for the hoses.

And my wardrobe? I’ve decided not to wear my stripe like a badge of glory. I am brandishing the “Ninemile Valley Tattoo,” or the “Petty Creek Scar,” as my friend who lives up a neighboring dirt road calls her mark of mud-ness.

We wear our color proudly—and the money we save at the car wash or at the dry cleaners, we spend on a brand new pair of jeans.

Kathleen Clary Miller is the author of 300 essays and stories that have appeared in such publications as Newsweek, The Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun, The Hartford Courant, The Los Angeles Times, The Orange County Register, Orange Coast magazine, Missoula Living magazine, Flathead Living, The Johns Hopkins Memory Bulletin, and The Christian Science Monitor. She was a regular columnist for The Missoulian, Western Montana’s Daily Newspaper for the last two years. Her current monthly column “Peaks and Valleys” appears in Montana Woman magazine. She has contributed to National Public Radio’s On Point.

She lives in Huson, Montana.

Still time to bid on Julie G’s pink gun to raise funds for breast cancer awareness

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month! I am very proud to be a part of a movement within the shooting community to promote breast cancer awareness. Through Smith & Wesson the M&PJG has helped raised thousands of dollars to support the cause. Shooter’s Supply in Louisville, KY, is also offering unique opportunities to support cancer awareness this month. From their “Aiming for a Cure” website:

SILENT AUCTION

In addition to monetary donations, Smith & Wesson has provided a special edition Julie Goloski M&P JG 9mm pistol for a silent auction. The auction package includes the JG Pistol with grips and a photograph personally signed by Julie, a Streamlight Pink Nano Flashlight, and a Pink MACE pepper spray unit. All proceeds from the silent auction will be donated at the end of the month to Cancer Awareness Charities. Contact Shooter’s Supply if you would like to submit a bid.

Opening day deer season kudos for Julie

My experience with deer hunting has roots in hunting with my dad in upstate New York well over a decade ago. Hunting and shooting were two of the things we did together as a father/daughter team when I was growing up. Now that I have a career as a competitive shooter and am a parent too, it has been a challenge to get out into the woods.

As the saying goes, “When in Rome …” Well, when in Montana you take the opportunity to hunt! Living in this beautiful state I was able to get a shot on opening day of deer season. Thanks to my husband and his .308, I had the chance to set the cross hairs on a beautiful 8-point whitetail (or 4×4 as they call them here in the West). It was a successful shot at around 230 yards — right behind the buck’s shoulder. My first big buck! The first thing I did after we found him just 30 yards from where he was shot was call my dad and share the experience, just like old times. Now, I just need to get my own rifle!

~Julie Goloski Golob

Hiding in plain sight

Yukon Tracks Elite Enforcer ground blind concealed me from two whitetail deer only 10 yards away. How is that different than any other blind? It’s tall enough to accommodate shots while seated with a recurve bow. Actually, I can shoot from it standing up, but I’m only 5 feet tall—probably a few inches shy of the average hunter. My 6-feet-tall husband, Mike, who shoots a 66-inch-long recurve, can shoot out of the blind, also.

We hunted from the blind during a north-central South Dakota whitetail hunt. This area, well east of the Black Hills, is known for pheasants, not its woodlots. Trees can be a mile or more apart, with those suitable for tree stands even more rare. The blind got us close to the deer near the brushy areas where the deer hide.

The Enforcer Elite folds up into a package not much bigger than a cloth folding chair you might take to a concert in the park, weighing about 14 pounds. One person can set it up.

Unseasonably cold weather hit South Dakota during our early October hunt, with high temperatures 20 to 30 degrees below normal. Add chilling winds often reaching 20 to 25 miles per hour with gusts up to 30 miles per hour and you have times of too-cold-to-hunt conditions. We didn’t miss much, though. The deer hunkered down during the worst of the weather.

The blind withstood the wind and protected me from wind chill, while Mike shivered in a tree stand. Due to the weather, I only got one shot, but we’ll be buying another Yukon Tracks Enforcer Elite blind. Mike has had enough of turning into an icicle.

Use the store locator on the website or order directly from the company.

1-800-345-6007

Yukon Tracks Elite Enforcer blind: $219

Radio 110: Sound bytes, short pitches, etc., etc.

When Deb Ferns, author of Babes with Bullets ™, released her book in early 2006 she wasn’t prepared for the numerous requests for radio interviews she received. Now, 500 + radio interviews later, she shares with members of The WOMA the ingredients for a giving a good radio interview. And stay tuned for more tips down the line on how to host your own radio show as for the last two years Deb has co-hosted a weekly show in Tucson called Business & Banter. FYI – if you joined in after Radio 101 began, just check the archives in “Business to Business” at The WOMA to catch up! Read more

Steve Felgenhauer – Member of The WOMA

Steve Felgenhauer is an outdoor writer and gunsmith. His credits include Missouri Game & Fish, Trophy Whitetail World magazine, the Bass Pro Shops OutdoorSite Library, Family Fish & Game, Missouri Deer Hunter, River Hills Traveler and other publications.

Hate to say I tolled you sew . . .

“English is a totally illogical language.”

So said a longtime friend of the family, who is from Japan and now lives in New York City. I couldn’t very well dispute her statement. First of all, she’s fluent in English as well as Japanese (and a few other languages to boot), and I don’t know Japanese, or the others. And second, she’s right–English is illogical.

Here are a couple of examples our friend Sonoko (don’t pronounce it like the name of the oil company–accent on the first syllable–SO-no-ko; her name means flower garden) cited.

Why is the plural of mouse mice, but the plural of house is houses? Why isn’t it mouses, or hice?

Why is “o-u-g-h” pronounced in five different ways? Bough rhymes with how. Rough rhymes with buff. Though rhymes with throw. Bought rhymes with not. Through rhymes with threw.

Modern English is a rich, simmering stew (why isn’t that spelled stough?) of the varied languages of the peoples who lived in Britain over the last few thousand years, plus what’s come from people in places that were once part of the British Empire: North America, Australia, India, swaths of Africa and the Middle East, and more.

Ancient Celtic peoples lived in Britain for thousands of years. The Romans came (and saw, and conquered) around the time of Christ, brought Latin, and ruled until about A.D. 450. Saxons came from mainland Europe starting in the 5th century. Later came Vikings from present-day Denmark, Sweden and Norway. William the Conqueror invaded from France in October 1066. (About half the words in English are either French words or derivatives thereof–justice, hospital, privilege, law, medicine, catastrophe, disaster, petty and restaurant are just a few examples.)

English is an alphabet soup of infinite complexity. Every day I thank my lucky stars that I grew up with it, unlike Sonoko, who started learning English as a teenager.

Here are this week’s editorial funnies to test yourself. See how many errors you can spot. Each example contains at least one.

5. The bad thing about a horse is they have a mind of their own, and no matter how hard you pull on those reigns a horse is a horse of coarse.

4. The executive offices housed on the fifth floor proudly display the many celebrities and superstars that have walked its halls.

3. Many sniper rifles are equipped with muzzle breaks and/or flash suppressors as well as high-quality optics.

2. There will be a private internment by invitation, with a public memorial service at the Whittington Center at a date to be announced. Our thoughts and prayers are with the family.

1. After pulling off two consecutive quarterly profits, spiraling consumer losses overwhelmed Citigroup’s strong trading results in the third quarter.

Here are the answers to last week’s editing follies:

5. Nuclear proliferation in the Middle East is a danger, and the Iranian regime’s foreign policy—which has involved support for militias and terrorist groups—make it a destabilizing force in the region.

Lack of agreement between subject and verb. The subject (that which performs the action of the verb) is “foreign policy,” which is singular, so the verb must also be singular, makes instead of make: The regime’s foreign policy makes it a destabilizing force.

4. Targets of this type were developed many years ago for the U.S. Army. While bulky at the time, the miniaturized electronic components of today make it possible to greatly reduce this mechanism in size.

Bulky is a dangling modifier. It modifies a word the writer did not intend, and in fact didn’t even write down: older electronic components, as opposed to the modern ones. As written, the sentence states that today’s electronic components were bulky in the past. (But that’s impossible–they didn’t exist in the past.) Rewritten thus: “While the electronic components of the time were bulky, their miniaturized modern counterparts make it possible . . .”

3. The Nielsen report said upscale retailers should consider stocking practical items because affluent households may forego jewelry and designer bags for the likes of generators, fireplace accessories, kitchen gadgets and family games.

Wrong word. Forego means to precede (literally go before), which in this context makes no sense. The correct verb is forgo, meaning to give up or to do without. Affluent households may pass up luxury items and choose more down-to-earth Christmas gifts instead.

2. In January 2005, via a simulcast meeting of the outdoor media attending the SHOT Show and SCI Convention, elected a panel of 10 outdoor journalists to serve as a steering committee to determine the viability of a communications organization focused wholly on the traditional outdoor sports.

The verb elected has no subject. (Who, exactly, elected the panel of outdoor journalists?) The writer doesn’t tell us. Rewritten thus: “. . . SCI Convention, the writers and broadcasters elected a panel . . .”

1. “Structure” is part of the typography of a lake, reservoir or river, and includes drop-offs, ledges and humps.

Wrong word. Typography is the arrangement of words on the printed page. The correct word is topography, the three-dimensional configuration of the landscape.

Managing Gen Y with a little personal responsibility

Leading  Gen Y can be challenging. So here are some of the ideas I’ve learned from top leaders. Conflict resolution will be easier, and you will set parameters to help the entire group take personal responsibility.
1. Keep the door open but don’t become a doormat.
2. Be easy to get along with–they are highly sociable.
3. Leave egos and arrogance at the door.
4. Be eager to help them achieve balance.
5. Give them “spot” reviews frequently.
6. Stay open to even the most radical thinking.
7. Good news? They think outside the box.
8. Walk your talk at all times.
9. Verify that they do want straight talk and no fluff . . . and #10?
10. Delegate to them appropriately and give positive feedback.

I would recommend Eric Chester’s blog too. What do you do that helps?  Marsha

PS: Just one week away. I am very excited about the release of my next book The Reactor Factor: How to deal with difficult situations at work without going nuclear!

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