Working is tough today.

My mind is elsewhere.

I'm feeling like a child on Christmas Eve. Yep, there will be no sleep tonight.

Call it, at 50, a midlife crisis. Call it a kid in a candy store. Call it what you will.

I call it a boat.

Yep, at 1 Thursday afternoon I am picking up my brand new boat. She's an extremely sweet ride, as you can tell by the picture (Courtesy of Tracker Boats). Nope, that's not me. I don't have a son. But that's the boat - a Tracker 175 Pro Team 175TXW. Fancy name for a basic bass boat, but it sure sounds good.

The folks at Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World in Hampton were magnificent during the purchasing process. Rick Lewis and Bob Wrenn of Tracker Boats were real pros. They made the process painless. It didn't hurt that they had two customers who were ready and set to buy.

Which gets us to just how Saturday morning resulted in the purchase of this boat. All that is a testiment to my beautiful and incredible wife, Ellen.

We had been watching a boat for a friend, but it just wasn't working out. So she decided that it was high time that the outdoor writer for the paper had his own fishing machine. After looking at several options, we had settled on the Tracker 170 - a smaller, but still perfect boat for the rivers of northeastern North Carolina where I fish.

But when we arrived at the show room, there was no 170 for us to look at. While we waited to speak to Rick, we were admiring the 175. Bob approached us to help out while we waited for Rick. Ellen told him that she had to see what we were going to buy - she's smart that way - and Bob said there was one in the shop being outfitted for a custumer who had just purchased it.

When Ellen saw the 170, she got this strange look on her face. "This is the boat you want?" she asked.

It is a beautiful craft, I told her, and said that it was fine for what I was going to be using it for. She asked what the price difference was and followed by figuring out what the payment difference would be.

"I want you to have that one out in the showroom," she said, stunning me as I drooled over the 170. "It's bigger and it looks a lot nicer. We're getting that one."

Dumbfounded, I stuttered my only possible reply: "Uh.......OK, if you say so, sweetheart."

Let's face it, I Am ONE LUCKY GUY. You know it. Most of my friends question whether or not I am worthy of such a magnificent woman. Sometimes I even wonder.

But with the initial shock gone, we started the paperwork with Rick and Bob and were outta there in about 30 minutes.

I pick her up at 1 Thursday.

Because Ellen and I are honorary Mexicans (we go to the Yucatan Peninsula at least twice a year) we have chosen a Spanish name for her.

Una Lanza Mas -- which loosely translates to One More Cast. You know, the thing all bass fishermen say right before they call it quits for the day. "One more cast and we're outta here."

And outta here I need to be. There's work to be done and I'm struggling with it because I know that in a little more than 24 hours, I will proudly be driving down the Interstate with my sleek new boat in tow.