Who Wink - The Pricescope Gentleman

[cflutist]

Wink: come out from wherever you are.

We already know you have a fan club - the Friends of Wink fan club thread can be found here.

We know you love to kayak, you meditate to cleanse your soul, you have BBQs to clean out your freezer,
and you sell beautiful diamond tennis bracelets.

Please tell us more ...

 

[WinkHPD]

So, this trouble maker starts a thread about me, then tells me to come see it and talk a little. I get here and stop to read about John Quixote, then about Cflutist and websailor, there''s some fine reading and a couple of hiours gone and now I am much too intimidated to say much, but heck, I have made a career out of failing to be properly intimidated, so I figure to give it a shot.

I grew up in Boise, Idaho, camping, swimming and fishing in the summers, hunting in the Falls, Skiing in the Winters, and wishing summer would get here in the Springs. Oh yeah, I collected rocks and butterflies. I actually raised butterflies and moths as a hobby, and I was about to turn loose a couple hundred dwarph polyphemus moth catepillars that I had raised after fortuitiously seeing the female dwarf, the only one I ever saw, lay her eggs; when my little brother fed them for me when I was out of twon one day with leaves that had been sprayed with pesticide. I am not sure Idaho or the world needed that many dwarph polyphemus moths set loose on the world, so that was probably a good thing...

(Hmmm, where the heck did that come from, I haven''t thought about that in over twenty years, odd. Must be something dredged up to counter websailors snake in the garage story, after all, I had the catapillar box in the garage. Not quite in the same scary thrill a minute catagory though. Oh and just for the record, rattlesnakes do NOT taste like chicken, the sailor is correct in that. They are good for breakfast though, especially on camping trips with the kids, they LOVED gong to school in the fall and sharing that with the class. One of my friend''s son told his class about some of the things we ate while camping and she got a call from the teacher about her son having a problem with reality. The teacher was so upset when told that yes, he really did eat the things he said that she got a call from the principal who was concerned about child endangerment... Dang city dwellers!)

My love of sparklies began early, and my mom has a whole big box of fake jewelry that I bought her for birthdays and Christmases. There must be a hundred pieces that she now lets the grandkids play with.

Sometime after Vietnam, who''s stories I will leave untold, I was stationed in Hawaii where I learned to fly and continued my love of swimming and learned to body surf and then through a fortuitous turn of events I ended up stationed as a Marine Security Guard at the U.S. Embassy in Rio de Janeiro, Brasil.

It was here that I got into the jewelry trade. I had a girl friend who wanted a ring. I quickly told her that we were never going to get married, that I had told her that before blah blah blah. She said, not that kind of ring, dummy, just one that I can wear and enjoy. She introduced me to a guy that sold stones and we picked out a nice amethyst for about $0.25 per carat. Then she introduced me to a guy who made rings and hammered him on the price mercilessly until he agreed to make the ring for about $35.00. (This was in the $35 per ounce gold days.) She got a nice looking, but lightweight ring. The night before I gave it to her I showed it to one of the other Marines and he said he wanted one like it. I told him that I had seen one very similar in a store on Ipanema beach for about $135 but that I new a guy....

I went to see the stone guy the next day and told him I needed another stone. He asked me why and before I knew what hit me I left with several thousand dollars worth of gems on memo to show the Marines and a borrowed scale with which to weigh them. I sold a bunch of stones, went back to the vendor, paid for what I had sold and bought a scale of my own with my profits. I was now a colored gem vendor. The garimpeiros (either miners or guys who bought stones from the miners and brought them to Rio to sell) would show up at the Embassy or the Marine residence on a Friday night needing money for a place to stay, some whiskey or what ever and I would always pretend to be broke. We would haggle for hours and I would buy enough of their gems to fill their financial requirements for the weekend, and on Mondays, after keeping the one or two best pieces from each parcel, I would go to area jewelers and dump the remainder of the parcel at ridiculas prices, ususally enough to cover the good pieces that I had kept. I also sold gems to my friends at the embassy.

One day I was offered a 2ct diamond for $700 by a guy who really needed the money. I turned it down. That was just stupid money for a gem and I knew that no one would spend that kind of money when you could have a ten carat aquamarine that was prettier for a couple of hundred dollars, three hundred for a spectacular one. Whata ya take me for, a fool? $700 indeed. Many years later when I attended GIA I would realize that the stone could have been an I3 and been worth way more than $700. Since it was actually pretty, I know I left a LOT of money on the table that day. As I like to say, if you think education is expensive, try ignorance! (I learned that from one of my mentors many years later.)

I met my wife of over thirty years there at the Embassy. She came to work there as a replacement for one of the ladies who left to go back to the States when I had been there for about a year and a half. She had graduated from Kansas University with a major in Spanish and a minor in Portuguese. Her bosses needed someone in Brasil who spoke Portuguese We started dating about four months later and when I left, she came with me. Actually she came with me and stayed in Boise while I was stationed for a VERY LONG year in Okinawa, but I did come home for ten days in August and we were married, then I had to return for five months to finish my tour.

Having figured out that I could not handle the separations, I started trying to figure out what to do with my life. When we got the jewelry that I had made for her appraised, I realized that there was some excellence in working with beautiful things that brought people joy, and that I could actually make money doing it. I used my GI bill money to go to GIA and Resa came with me.

She was pregnant with our son, Wink III and by the time final exams came around she was huge. She had to sit sideways at the table and twist to look into the microscope as she could no longer sit at the table. She just put her plate on top of her baby to eat. Tiny little lady with a ten pound baby. Oh how she suffered!

During the six hour essay exam, three hours in the morning, three in the afternoon, you practically had to have a note from the Almighty to leave the room and had to be escorted to the bathroom so as to make sure you were not trying to cheat, recover notes from the paper dispensor or what ever. Not Resa. The instructors would come over every few minutes and inquire if she was okay, and did she want to go lie down or ... She finally had to ask them to let her think and write. I don''t remember if she got a 97 or a 98% on her final, but she was the top grade in the class. I was not too far behind her, two or three points and she was furious, she had studied every waking minute for two weeks, I had hit the books for a couple of hours in between trips to Hill Street to buy and sell jewelry, I litterally worked my way through GIA, often buying from guests who came in to show us things at class. We would go to the coffee shop next door to avoid getting them in trouble with GIA for selling to their students.

I had somehow gotten involved with the local Lions Club, and they were my best clients since I did not have a store. It was a lesson I have always remembered and honored. To get you must first give, and the more you give the more you get, but you must give because you want to, not to get. It is only when you give freely of yourself that you begin to get until eventually you get more than you give, but as a side effect of your giving. When you quit giving, you will very quickly cease getting. I am now a Rotarian and I always tell prospective members that if you are just coming in to the club to get to sell to us, you will not be here long as you will not enjoy the results that you are looking for. If you are here to give freely of yourself and to benefit the club, then you will also benefit not only the community, but yourself in the long run. I know this to be true since when I first came back to Boise I joined the local Lions Club expecting them to be as good a source of clients as my club in Culver City. When that failed to happen I lost interest and dropped out. I had not yet fully learned the lesson that had been offered.

A few years later I joined the Rotary club and became active in some of their projects. For the first couple of years I did hardly any business with them and really did not seek to do business with them, I was just enjoying being in the club. One day I was doing my year end books and realized that I had done tens of thousands of dollars worth of business with the club that year and thinking back, I realised that after a couple of years a few Rotarians came in to see me, and that every year after a few more would come in.

I think this is a good place to stop for now, my wife is now awake and it is time for breakfast. Besides by now many of you are probably tiring of the "I was born in a log cabin in the woods..." story. I have been incredibly blessed in my life. My parents were loving and very caring people, I lived through the war with no serious injury, I met and married the love of my live and have two wonderful children, now grown and enjoying their lives and I have worked among giants. After the long journey to finding my passion, gems, I have worked with and known many of the greats in my industry. To list them would just make me another name dropper, but to know them has been a true blessing in my life. Many of them contribute here occassionally and some of those who contribute here now are destined to be some of the giants of the future so in that way many of you are also blessed to be walking with giants. Perhaps more later, but this is enough for now. God Bless and good weekend to you all.

Wink

 

[Patty]

Wink, thank you for posting your story! I''ve always been a "fan of Wink" since I joined this board and the other one. It''s good to see you posting over here and it was great to read your story!

 

[Jennifer5973]

What a great read! I can''t wait for the next installment! You are such an interesting gentleman.

And I will never forget that great advice you gave me (do you remember--it was stone frenzy)....I have had such peace since then--ask cflutist!

I still owe you one.

 

[sevens one]

What a sweet love story between you and Resa.
Thank you for letting us in. Your life sounds fascinating.

 

[websailor]

Wink,

What a neat story of your life! If I''m ever in Idaho we''ll have to meet and toss back a few brewskis!

How do you like that trouble-maker

, topic-starter, that I live with??? He, he!

You have to be careful with her - she has been known to call up my co-workers and organize suprise B-day parties and other suprise celebrations without my knowledge. Nothing like getting the call over the building PA system "Websailor report to the Directors office" and walk out the door to find the whole building staff waiting for you!!!

And she knows about your assistant, so she already probably has a co-conspirator!!! They''re probably already planning how to ignite 40+ candles at once!

 

[cflutist]

Me trouble maker

Nah, I just thought PS members would enjoy learning more about one of my favorite PS posters.

Wink, what a fascinating life story

... we want to hear more

Its so cool to have Mr & Mrs GGs together. Maybe you can get Resa to post too !!!!
How about a picture of the two of you? Of course we want to see the bling too.

p.s. Strmrdr, Websailor and you should trade rattlesnake recipes ... lets see ... rattlesnake omelet with red/green peppers

 

[Colored Gemstone Nut]

Wink:

Well, Well, Well, I am glad to see you posting here more frequently. You are much loved around here and I remember a time when I was emailing you trying to get you to post on PS more often and your profile on Who''s Who. Recall This:

Original Message from Colored Gemstone Nut:
-----------------------------

Hi Wink,

It''s great to see you posting here. I know between business and DiamondTalk, stretching your time is probably hard at times...

I was wondering if you would post your information in the who''s who section of the forum, credentials..interests..etc...

Most of the forum regulars know who you are, but those that don''t would get great insight. Not too mention the personal approach of getting to know the different people on this board..


I am glad to see you balanced your schedule in a way which allows you to share your time and expertise with us. You have led an interesting life and look forward to you sharing more stories with all of us.

 

[Kaleigh]

Wink,
I have enjoyed reading your life story, it''s facinating. Also want to thank you for sharing your expertise with us, you always have a great insight on things. It''s been a pleasure to learn from you. Thanks for letting us in and keep telling us more of your stories!!

Lisa

 

[JohnQuixote]

Wink, your story is paragraph after paragraph of the reason you are such a delight to people.

You have an affinity for dealing with others in an honest and gracious way. The cornerstone of service to customers is trust, and your foundations are strong due to the wholesome and enthusiastic way you approach each chapter in your life. Our converstations are further proof to me. I find myself excited about what we discuss because of your genuine enthusiasm.

Growing up in Washington State - and attending school at WSU - I studied with a jazz drum instructor named Dan Bukvich at the U of I. Through him I got to meet Ella Fitzgerald, George Shearing, Lionel Hampton, Michael Brecker, Peter Erskine, Mike Manieri and others at the annual University of Idaho Jazz Festival... Great memories from Idaho!

Thank you for taking the time to share this. Best to you and yours.

 

[WinkHPD]

RE: And she knows about your assistant, so she already probably has a co-conspirator!!! They''re probably already planning how to ignite 40+ candles at once!
-----------------------------

Oh how I wish it was only 40. I am 58 and the frosting is always ruined if they light the candles now...

Josh, I remembered that someone had asked me to do this some time ago, but not who. I always ment to do it, but CFlutist did not give me much of a chance to not do it today...

Patty and Sevens One, thank you for your nice comments too.

Jennifer, yes I remember very well our conversations, and I was glad to have been of some little assistance, I only said what you were ready to hear, otherwise it would have fallen on deaf ears.

Next installment, then it will be time to go home and do dinner for my lovely lady, and no, she will not post, she is a wonderful lady but very private and does not enjoy this public sharing the way that I do.

I came from GIA to Boise to work for a wonderful man, Joe Robinson of Sexty''s jewelers in Boise. I stayed there a year but wanted my own store, so I left and went back to Boise State get my degree in marketing while honoring my three year non-compete clause. Totally worthless degree unless you want to be a cog in a corporate machine, it did not prepare me for the world of owning my own business.

I opened Winfield''s in 1979 and lost every thing by 1986. The best thing that happened to me was that when I was opening the store I went to GIA to hire one new employee. I ended up with two, one who left after a short time, last I heard she has her own place down South somewhere, I hope she is doing well. She was a nice lady, but we did not work well together. The other was Richard Homer, who in addition to becoming one of the premier cutters in the world has been a wonderful friend. I had the pleasure of introducing him to the man who taught him to facet, and to buying his first faceting machine. He went on to fame and fortune all on his own. Within a few months his teacher would tell all who would listen that Richard was now the master, and Richard would insist that no, he was still only the student. It would have been positively disgusting to listen to the two of them try to out humble each other had they not both been utterly sincere.

The first time I sent Richard to the Tucson Gem show he called and had found a kilo of rough blue topaz for only a dollar a gram and would I please send him $5000 to buy it with. I did, then paid him some ridicules price, twenty to forty dollars a stone to cut it, and within months the blue topaz craze had ordinary junk selling for $40 per carat. We sold our custom cut stuff for $40 to $50 per carat, even when the junk went to $80 per carat for a short time before crashing down to the few cents to a few dollars per carat that it now sells for. By then we had sold the whole kilo and had fortunately declined to buy a kilo at ten dollars per gram during the crazy time. I had seen the top blow off gold and silver and diamonds, and did not trust that we were not seeing the same mini phenominum in blue topaz. Richard''s stones were so incredible that the few pieces we had left after the crash still sold easily for the $40 per carat that we were asking. we yielded about 30% so out of 1000 grams or one kilo or 5,000 carats, we yielded about 1,500 carats, probably a little less as some of the pieces had hidden inclusions that would not cut clean stones so I did not want to pay to cut them, lets say I got a minimum return of 1,000 carats from the kilo (a gram is 5 carats). It was and will be the only time I ever made such outrageous profits on anything and I was selling something at less than its fair market value while I did so. Even after paying Richard what was then an absurd price for his cutting, we did very well, and so did our clients. It was a true win win!

Now of course I would LOVE to only pay $25 to $40 for Richard to cut a stone! Sigh, some things about the good old days really were good! I have told the story elsewhere here about the Adiel Topaz that Richard and I partnered up on, a 17 pound boulder of Topaz from which we cut a stone of over nine pounds. The weight in carats was, I believe, 20,769cts, but I am not going to go look it up to be sure. From the time we bought the rough it took us, mostly Richard, four years to build the machine to cut it with, there was nothing commercially available that was even close to being large enough to cut it on. It then took Richard a solid year to cut it, working weekends, evenings and his entire vacation to cut the stone. In exchange for this he was given a pittance as part of the expenses prior to the distribution of profits. For a while it was the second largest faceted gemstone in the world, and was certainly the only large stone not to be of poor finish because of being faceted on too small laps. (Polishing wheels are called laps.) I believe that Richard still owns the only machine large enough to polish a truly large stone proplerly, that was also part of the deal, he got to keep the machine, like I would have had any use for it... I believe that the total cost to build the machine and pay Richard his pittance for doing the work was something like $20,000, one HECK of a lot of money to me back in those days. It took us another year to market the stone and it went to a Japanese investor. I was telling this story to a friend in Thailand and he told me the name of the Investor and told me he had recently been to his house in Japan and had seen the stone, this gemology world is indeed a small one!

I left the business for a few years, became a Realtor and made pretty good money. But... I discovered that I really hated being a Realtor and that not even other Realtors much liked Realtors and I missed selling rocks. I did it from my home for a short time, but was quickly discovering that my wife did not much care for unemployed Realtors laying around the house pretending to sell a rock or two a month and calling himself a jeweler so I opened a small office in downtown Boise, where except for having moved upstairs to a better view and a slightly larger 300 sq. ft. office I still am today. It took me a few years to figure it out, then the Internet came along and I started to do more business that I used to do with a staff of seven in the strip mall where I had my store.

During this time I went to Tucson almost every year, took all the continuing ed courses I could cram into a week, attended seminars for gemology and real life marketing and met and worked with some of the aformentioned giants of my world. Still not wanting to be just another name dropper, I will avoid crowing about who they are, but will repeat that my association with so many of them has been just another one of the blessings of a very blessed life. And yes, loosing all my money was another of those blessings as what it taught me has been priceless.

Along the way I have skied, hunted, hang glid, I had to give that one up when I wanted children, mom said she had no intention of being a single mom/widow and oh by the way I had to promise not to sky dive until the children were grown and gone. One of Resa''s main frustrations was my penchant for picking up a new sport or hobby every few years, like bridge or backgammon. I once won the intermediate division of a national backgammon tournament held in Reno, Nevada and between the prize money for the tournament and a guy teaching me to play craps I came home with over 6 or 7 grand from that weekend. I have no idea how to play craps any more as it was my first and only play with any real money, I started with a $50 stake and did what I was told, had a couple of incredible runs and walked away in about two hours with over $3,500. It was like something out of a movie, only I never felt the need to go back and give it all back, so I just didn''t. The last four or five times I have been to Vegas on business, I have never so much as pulled the handle on the slots, or played a hand of blackjack. I figure I am one of the few people in the world to be several thousand ahead of them, so hey, why ruin a perfect record...

My true passion of a sport however, is kayaking. I started when my son Wink III was a baby but quit when it was becomming apparent that mom needed me to be home on the weekends after she had taken care of the kids all week. I started up again when he was about 14 and while he quickly went on to become a world class expedition boater (If you google Wink Jones he will normally be the top entry) I have just become a pretty good class IV boater. Still, it is the most exhillarating sport I have ever done. The river is never the same twice and while you can get to be really great, there is always some little thing that you can work on to be better. In many ways to me kayaking is a mirror of my life. In it I find a deep spiritual connection of mind body and spirit all working together to bring me safely to my takeout. When I let them work together, the result is a thing of incredible joy and beauty, both in the locations where I am, and in the feelings that those places engender. The excitement of a class IV run, or even a low class V survived (I can turn most class V''s into class IV''s by skirting the meat of the run and most class III''s into hard class IV''s by making hard lines) is one of the most stimulating experiences I have ever had. When I am on a river, I am living in the moment. I am not thinking about what needs to be done at work, and by being in the moment on the river I have learned to be in the moment at work. (Although at this moment, as I am nearly ready to leave for the day, I am reveling in the phone call this morning telling me that one of the group of people I put in for a river permit with drew a permit for the Middle Fork of the Salmon river this summer. YEE HAW!)

That was a very important lesson! As we have become more and more successful the demands on my time have become greater and much harder to fulfil. Thus being in the moment at work is incredibly important. Some of you have already experienced some of the things that I have had to implement to keep me on task. A timer for my conversations, a strict schedule of what gets done when. It is not easy for me to be this organized and this present, and those of you who have enjoyed my work have much of what I learned on the river to thank for that. For those of you who were not pleased, I wish I had learned it sooner and better, but we are always striving to improve.

Since we are getting down to the philosophical here, I will just say that I am very devout in believing that the Almighty has put us here for a reason and that my reason may be totally different from your reason. I have followed my heart to become a jeweler, and I am still striving at 58 to become a better and better one. I hope you will follow your heart to become what is best for you, and whatever it is, it is none of my business to interfere with it. I meditate, usually daily, and pray. The Universe has always responded to my prayers and meditations, usually in ways that I did not ask for, but that were incredibly wonderful and better than what I was asking for.

And now my intuition is telling me to go home, make dinner, and spend some time with my lovely lady. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and that your life will be even more blessed than mine has been.

Wink

 

[WinkHPD]

Kaleigh and John,

Thank you for your kind comments. The trouble with writing a long epistle is that others come in and post while you are doing so.

John, did you not get to meet Gene Harris? He is the one who started the whole thing, and he was still around for the third one, I think.

He was a delightful man. You would never know that he was famous to talk with him. He always had a great wonderful smile and an easy laugh and man, could he play the piano. He had great huge hands and wore some MONSTER rings that I always admired whenever we spoke.

The festival is still held every year in his honor, he is sorely missed by those who knew him, whether well or just a little.

Wink

 

[WinkHPD]

oops, you were talking about the U of I Jazz festival, I was talking about the Gene Harris Jazz festival held in Boise, I should pay more attention... LOL!

Wink

 

[strmrdr]

Wow Wink you have had an interesting life and have done a lot of stuff iv only dreamed of doing.

 

[JohnQuixote]

Wink,

Gene Harris came to U of I festival some years I was there. I never met the man, but I listened...Boy did I listen. I was wide-eyed, playing and learning in the shadows of giants. I remember when he passed in 2000 - there were write ups about him in trade magazines. Lionel Hampton passed in 2002.

Is it just me or does it seem like every major jazz guy of this stature (with the excepetion of Buddy Rich) was a jewel of a person as well as being a peerless player?

 

[hoorray]

Wow Wink, What a great read. Congratulations to a life well lived so far! Not too many people actually follow their hearts and take chances as you have. It is clearly paying off for you in the enjoyment you get our of life.

I took a raft trip down the middle fork of the Salmon a few years back and it was absolutely spectacular. By far the best water and most wonderful scenery we ever had in our years of rafting the different rivers of the west. I''m sure you''ll enjoy that. Idaho is a great place.

 

[belle]

wow. what can i say......wink you have followed your passions in life and it has paid off! it seems you have found a balance in your daily living that truly makes you happy. your story is an inspiration. thank you for taking the time to share a part of your life, i have enjoyed learning more about you!!
(what''s your time limit for phone conversations? i think i could learn something here!

)

 

[WinkHPD]

Date: 2/26/2005 8:39

6 PM
Author: strmrdr
Wow Wink you have had an interesting life and have done a lot of stuff iv only dreamed of doing.

I have been very blessed to try many things. I even took second place in my weight group and in the overall in the blue belt division of a Jiu Jitsu tournament in Rio de Janeiro when I lived there. My first match I fought a huge oponent who was much bigger and stronger than I, he raised up his arms like a big ape and grabbed me in a bear hug but I managed to stumble backward with him and when he threw me down it was outside the circle for no points. When we restarted he lifted his arms and I tackled him with a good old American football tackle, just inside the circle. He whipped a choke hold on me but I managed to get my hand in just enough to hold his arm back. I stayed there for the whole five minutes of the match, inching him back into the center of the circle so that he could not get free to use his superior skills and strength against me.

About fifteen seconds before the match was over I heard my instructor yelling NOW WINK, so I pulled my head out of his choke hold just about 5 seconds before the end of the match. Wink 1 for the fall, Big strong guy defeated by a stupid American trick. Whew!

I went on to lose to the first place winner in my fourth or fifth match and again to him at the end of the day in the open weight division. I lost fifteen puinds during the day having fought at least eight matches, but it has been so long ago that I really don''t remember how many matches it was.

Many years later I was hunting at a ranch in the Pasimeroi Valley near Challis Idaho. One of my hosts asked me if I had ever done any martial arts and I replied that I had studied with Carley Gracie when I lived in Brasil. He went nuts about me knowing the Gracie family. I could not figure out why he knew about a Brasilian family of fighters. He whipped out his credit card and called Pay Per View and arranged to see the world championship of an absurd form of fighting caslled Ultimate Fighting or something like that and one of my instructors young relatives won that evening... Small world department. Carley was the eleventh of twenty-two children. His grandfather had done a favor for a Japanese Count who sent one of his Samurai to live the rest of his life in Brasil to teach him Jiu Jitsu. The Grandfather had no interest but had him teach Carley''s father and Uncle, who have obviously passed it down through the family.

Storm my friend, if you dream of doing something, then do it. You may not do it well, but the learning of it will bless your life in ways that you can never imagine. When I dreamed of bowhunting, I learned and one day killed a record book bull elk at a distance of about 15 yards. I have passed up many shots at deer and even of elk because I was enjoying the hunt too much to ruin it with an animal early in the hunt. My best day ever of hunting I did not kill two deer, a coyote that I called in with a wounded rabbit call, and a cow elk at thirty yards, my self imposed limit was 25 yards. When I got to where the horses were I was wet from my chest down from walking through the forrest after three days of rain. Not a cloud in the sky so I stripped naked, made a fire using one match, a candy bar wrapper, twigs, and the inside of bark peeled in chunks from a dead tree.

It was the finest day I ever had in the mountains, and I have had many fine days. The joy of that day vastly exceeds my joy the day I took my record bool elk, and that was a pretty fine day!

When I dreamed of fly fishing, I learned, and one day took my son down the South Fork of the Boise when he was about twelve years old. As we drifted throug a particularly nice hole I told him where to put the line, he said he wanted to put it just a little out from where I said. He did, and caught a five pound wild rainbow trout, which we released, but his head was stuck on the roof of the car all the way home. It was incredible. Oh, and did I mention that I had to choose that afternoon between fishing with my son, or going to my twentieth high school reunion alone, my wife was out of town with her mom and dad and my daughter that week. I really wanted to go, buy my son asked if we could go fishing. I made the right choice for me, and on my thirtieth reunion my wife and I danced till we could hardly stand up, and wow! That was the right choice that year, it was so great to see so many of my old friends again.

If you can dream it, you can do it, if you dream it big enough. But it has to be YOUR dream. Never let me or any one else make our dreams yours.

Wink

 

[WinkHPD]

Date: 2/27/2005 10:57:13 AM
Author: lop
Wow Wink, What a great read. Congratulations to a life well lived so far! Not too many people actually follow their hearts and take chances as you have. It is clearly paying off for you in the enjoyment you get our of life.

I took a raft trip down the middle fork of the Salmon a few years back and it was absolutely spectacular. By far the best water and most wonderful scenery we ever had in our years of rafting the different rivers of the west. I''m sure you''ll enjoy that. Idaho is a great place.

Thank you. You are right, Idaho is a great place to live and to raise a family.

Wink

 

[WinkHPD]

Date: 2/28/2005 10:12:51 AM
Author: belle
wow. what can i say......wink you have followed your passions in life and it has paid off! it seems you have found a balance in your daily living that truly makes you happy. your story is an inspiration. thank you for taking the time to share a part of your life, i have enjoyed learning more about you!!
(what''s your time limit for phone conversations? i think i could learn something here!

)

I am allowed five minutes. In the old days I would sometimes enjoy a wonderful conversation for an hour, but my work suffers when I do that. It is amazing how much more intence the conversations can be when you know you only have five minutes!

Wink

 

[WinkHPD]

P.S. Sometimes I cheat. When John Quixote called I never even set the timer. Sheila chastised me seriously, but I didn''t care!

(Shhh, please don''t tell on me!)

Wink

 

[strmrdr]

Date: 3/1/2005 12:27:33 AM
Author: Wink

Date: 2/28/2005 10:12:51 AM

Author: belle

wow. what can i say......wink you have followed your passions in life and it has paid off! it seems you have found a balance in your daily living that truly makes you happy. your story is an inspiration. thank you for taking the time to share a part of your life, i have enjoyed learning more about you!!

(what''s your time limit for phone conversations? i think i could learn something here!

)

I am allowed five minutes. In the old days I would sometimes enjoy a wonderful conversation for an hour, but my work suffers when I do that. It is amazing how much more intence the conversations can be when you know you only have five minutes!


Wink

wow 5 min? when i called you were just barely getting warned up at the 5 minute point.
If my boss hadnt came in it would have went an hour or longer.

 

[strmrdr]

Fly fishing is something we have in common.
I havent done it in a while but for a couple years it was daily during the summer that the fly rod was in my hand.
Tied my own flies too.
There is just something special about it that makes even a small bluegill seem like a trophy.
The biggest fish I caught on a fly rod was a 6Lb largemouth bass.
Took over 45 min to land it on a 7 weight fly outfit with a 6 pound leader.
Talk about heart pounding.

 

[WinkHPD]

Date: 3/1/2005 8:11:27 AM
Author: strmrdr

Date: 3/1/2005 12:27:33 AM
Author: Wink

Date: 2/28/2005 10:12:51 AM

Author: belle

wow. what can i say......wink you have followed your passions in life and it has paid off! it seems you have found a balance in your daily living that truly makes you happy. your story is an inspiration. thank you for taking the time to share a part of your life, i have enjoyed learning more about you!!

(what''s your time limit for phone conversations? i think i could learn something here!

)

I am allowed five minutes. In the old days I would sometimes enjoy a wonderful conversation for an hour, but my work suffers when I do that. It is amazing how much more intence the conversations can be when you know you only have five minutes!


Wink

wow 5 min? when i called you were just barely getting warned up at the 5 minute point.
If my boss hadnt came in it would have went an hour or longer.

Yes, that was in the good old days, before Sheila put me on a time diet...

 

[WinkHPD]

Date: 3/1/2005 8:18:26 AM
Author: strmrdr
Fly fishing is something we have in common.
I havent done it in a while but for a couple years it was daily during the summer that the fly rod was in my hand.
Tied my own flies too.
There is just something special about it that makes even a small bluegill seem like a trophy.
The biggest fish I caught on a fly rod was a 6Lb largemouth bass.
Took over 45 min to land it on a 7 weight fly outfit with a 6 pound leader.
Talk about heart pounding.

Now there is a worthy memory! The sort of thing that warrants taking off the shelf and dusting off around the camp fire from time to time, sharing with a beer or a glass of wine with friends. I have never caught a fish that wondrous on a fly.

I too hardly fish any more, if I have time to go fishing I have time to go kayaking, and if the weather is good enough for fishing then it is even better for kayaking. I have become virtually addicted to kayaking. Even the thrill of hang gliding only lasted a year or so, but kayaking is becoming more and more a passion the longer I do it. My son was a top expedition kayaker for some time, but has stopped doing that hard core kayaking since he became a dad. Now he settles for more gentle class V runs, like the North Fork of the Payette, things that would do me in he does to relax...

Wink

 

[yellowfan]

Hi Wink:

Ive enjoyed reading about your life. Kayaking must be great! I''ve enjoyed the jewelry pieces that you made for me and I get a lot of compliments on them. Also, don''t you have a pizza shop? I thought I read something about it.


Best,

Lori-yellowfan

 

[WinkHPD]

No, we had a pizza system, I managed to loose a lot of money with it... Great pizza though.

Sometimes when you follow your heart/stomach you can loose your behind! Still it lead me to new places in my business and in my understanding of me.

Wink

 

[websailor]

Wink, its so great to read about your life. I knew I liked you from that very first phone call.

Oops, this is really cflutist here. See, this is what happens when websailor is to lazy to logon
to his own PC and hijacks mine instead, and then forgets to logout

 

[WinkHPD]

Mercy!

I was just thinking that I had never actually talked to the sailor, then you revealed the disguise...

Wink

 

[websailor]

No wonder I''m always getting into trouble on PS!!!! Cflutist hijacks my ID!!!!



LOL - ok, I''m guilty as charged! I did not properly log off cflutist PC this morning......