It's Thursday and back to reality

I had it all worked out ...

A new car, a castle-like mansion imported from England, a 60-foot yacht, a summer home in the south of France, the chance to support my extended family in the style to which they'd like to become accustomed, but once again, the lottery winner of the $340 million ended up being from one of the country's coastlines.

Now I'm back to reality with the rest of you -- sitting at my desk at work, writing out the checks to pay the bills that will keep our electricity, cable, water, sewer and phone connected for one more month.

The extra money would have come in handy -- especially with Brad's passion for hunting reaching fever pitch.

We started our annual hunting adventures with doves. We had three guns, my dad's 12-gauge -- which we borrowed three years ago and never returned (he's taking the fact very well), Jer's 12-gauge and his .410.

On our first day out, I decided the single-shot .410 wasn't going to work for me since it took me about 5 minutes to load it between shots.

We were making our way back into town when I made the decision.

"We're going to buy a shotgun today," I announced.

Brad and Jer sat in stunned silence -- never once arguing against the plan.

It was a Sunday. We decided to look in North Platte since the gun we were eyeing at the local retail store was out of stock.

From the time I made the decision to purchase the gun till the time we were back in McCook took about three hours, still plenty of time to do a little more dove hunting.

We got to our location and I went to grab the new gun I had purchased to replace the .410 I had been using. Brad beat me to it.

"This is one of the better shotguns I've ever owned," he told me after taking the first few shots.

Brad and I have gotten into the habit of saving all our change, sticking it in a jar and calling it our fun money.

Brad really likes saving change. I don't dare leave any laying around the house or it will be scooped up and placed in our change jar, never to be seen again.

He was really obsessive last year during the hunting season after I told him he could purchase a .270 Ruger from a family friend once he saved enough money in the change jar to get it.

I think he was actually taking $20 bills and getting quarters to multiply the money in that jar.

He had his Ruger by the end of the 2004 deer season.

This year, we've bought a new scope for the rifle -- and of course a laser site to make sure the scope is perfectly aligned.

I've managed to keep him in check for the last two weekends as we made our way to Kimball, via Sidney. We've stopped at Cabella's both times, and have kept our purchases to a minimum.

We have one more weekend to go before antelope season ends.

If I can get him through that, rifle season for deer and then the muzzleloader season without breaking the bank, I'm thinking the next batch of change is going toward that summer home in the south of France.