M/V Paul Tobin renamed

Sometimes the important things in life get in the way of secondary things. Yesterday the family and I were driving up Route 2 along the Ohio River so my older son, Joey, could visit his mamaw one last time before he leaves for Parris Island. In the distance we saw a new AEP boat. For some reason I felt the strong desire to take a side trip and get a photo, but our visitation time was limited, so we didn't. And we didn't see the boat on the trip back down the river, either, so I never got the shot.

While we were at my wife's mother's house, I looked on the Corps lock reports but was unable to find the name of any AEP boat that was upbound in the area at that time. Odd, I thought.

This morning I got the bright idea -- that I should have had yesterday -- to look at the registry numbers of the boats that went through R.C. Byrd yesterday afternoon and evening. There was the Dan Elder, No. 1234601. I checked a hunch, and sure enough that was the Paul Tobin's number. As I understand things, and I could be wrong, so please be gentle, Tobin was an AEP exec who left the company for ACL shortly after the M/V Paul Tobin was launched. I figured the boat would be renamed eventually, and apparently it has been.

This was the M/V Paul Tobin as seen from Burlington, Ohio, with the lower end of Huntington, W.Va., in the background, the evening of Jan. 15, 2012. The boat is probably too far away for Adam and me to get a picture of it today with its new name board, but we'll try to keep a lookout for it.