Current reading: The Big Book of Basketball by Bill Simmons

Recent listening: Frank Zappa, Pink Floyd, Jane Siberry, Sam Cooke, Donovan, Nanci Griffith, John Frusciante, Deadmau5, Florence & the Machine, Earth, Wind & Fire

Recent viewing: Dexter, Twin Peaks, Anvil: The Story of Anvil, Winnebago Man, NFL Playoffs

Recent playing: DropZap, Words with Friends, Temple Run

Recently accomplished: Mowed lawn to remove most leaves, taxi service, Christmas tree recyling

Imperative To Do: Finish Neil Young “liner notes”, finish 2011 FY for Troop 820, clean office, pay bills, call DirecTV, Troop 820 can recycling

For the second year Troop 820 (Thomas’ Boy Scout troop) held an unofficial “family camp” in June. If you recall, last year we went to Idaho for three days of biking. This year we drove to La Pine, OR, where we camped in the “high desert” at 4100 feet. I was huffing and puffing there for two days before I realized that the altitude was the problem. During a bike ride to the shower I figured out that deep breaths counteract the lack of oxygen. Once I knew that, I no longer dreaded getting off my ass and walking to the next campsite. While we were there, the boys enjoyed a long bike ride and floating down the Deschutes River. It wasn’t really that warm but I think the altitude made it feel warm.

In July, Thomas got to attend his first real rock concert – at least the first one that he will remember. Thomas, Tina, his friend, Ziad, and his mom went to see Coldplay at the Clarke County Ampitheatre. Coldplay is a favorite band for both of them so they really enjoyed it and talked about it for days after.

A week later Thomas was off to Camp Meriwether on the Oregon coast for a weeklong stay at Boy Scout camp. Tina and Graham were close by at Adventure Cove where they spent the week at Cub Scout camp. I stayed home with the cats and work. My company is suffering from the economic situation much like everyone else and one of the ways that they have tried to minimize the impact on their bottom line is to have employees take days off each month. As a result of that policy I don’t have many vacation days in the bank. Happily, they changed the policy recently to exclude people like me with low vacation balances.

At the end of July, Portland saw a heat wave unlike any I’ve seen since I’ve been here. We broke the record for most consecutive days of 90º or higher with 10 days. We peaked in the mid-100′s for three days and had several nights where it didn’t get below 75º. This was very unusual for Portland where it seldom get’s over 80, much less 90. For years Tina and I have had an ongoing argument about whether we should have central air conditioning in the house. My position has always been that it’s only hot (although usually that’s 90′s not 100′s) for one or two weeks a year which doesn’t justify the cost. Of course, for all those years I’ve been working in an air conditioned office while she’s stuck at home with a couple of window units and a whole lotta fans. I made it through the ordeal with no complaints, though, and we still don’t have central air.

When we started to cool off, Thomas and a group of the older boys in Troop 820 embarked on a “high adventure trek” up one of the Three Sisters mountains. Last year they had hiked partially around Mount Jefferson but that was quite a bit easier than what they hoped to accomplish this year: 50+ miles in 5 days. All was well after the first day of hiking 10 miles. The boys were swimming and goofing around in a lake when Thomas says he tripped over something. He continued to play for awhile but noticed that his foot hurt a little. When he look at it, there was a large laceration on the ball of his foot from his big toe to about the third toe. Luckily, one of the adult hikers was a doctor and they cleaned and bandaged it, but Thomas was unable to continue the trek. The assistant Scoutmaster called me that night and we agreed to meet in Sisters the next morning.

I was home alone because Tina and Graham were at the Bike MS ride in Stayton, OR. Tina raised over $1000 for the cause and was planning on riding 35-50 miles the first day of the ride. I had to work the Friday that they setup camp in Stayton but I had planned to join them on Saturday. Since it was possible to pass through Stayton on our way home from Sisters, I still held out hope of that happening. To prepare for that possibility, I stopped at the Plaid Pantry (Oregon’s answer to 7-11) and filled our cooler with ice and beverages, including a few bottles of Viso to keep my awake on the road. The trip to Sisters took over three hours but I enjoyed listening to NPR’s Saturday morning lineup including “Car Talk” and “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me.” When I got to Sisters, Thomas was in good spirits and was anxious to get home. He had to hike 6 miles back down the mountain to a spot where one of the adult hikers picked up he and the assistant Scoutmaster. The assistant Scoutmaster advised that I should take the route to I-5 on the way home as it was faster. It also passed right through Stayton but Thomas wanted to get home rather than stop and see Tina and Graham. Besides that, I was anxious to consult a doctor about Thomas’ foot so we did not stop in Stayton. We did, however, pass through just as Tina sent me a text message telling me she had crossed the finish line after riding 35 miles. I cheered silently for her as Thomas continued to sleep. We stopped for drive thru lunch a short time later and were home by three or four o’clock.

Tina really enjoyed herself on the ride but really had to push herself, at times even getting sick from the effort and heat. Graham enjoyed volunteering for the riders but they were both glad to come home early the next day. Thomas’ doctor told us to just watch for infection since it was too late for stitches. He limped around for only a few days before the pain started to go away. He’s still got it bandaged but it has healed very quickly. The wound was deep, perhaps a quarter inch, but was at an angle and mostly cut the thick layer of skin Thomas has on the balls of his feet.

This week is supposed to bring another heat wave but this one will be of the 90º variety which should be very tolerable. Tina’s dad is going to visit in a couple of weeks and then summer will almost be gone.

My mother, who was sitting beside me, told me Graham had stepped backwards off of the stage, which is three to four feet high. Later, Graham would tell us that his foot had been caught in the four inch gap between the stage proper and the curtain rod that extends all around the stage. After watching a few people walk down to the scene with medically-trained purpose, I decided I better investigate myself. Graham was still laying on his back, holding his head and crying a little. Someone was checking his eyes for dilation and asking him questions related to head concussions. He was sweating but it was sort of humid in the auditorium. I suggested to him that we go sit outside and get some fresh air. After a bit, he agreed and Tina took him outside while one of the medical people took me aside and told me about concussion symptoms we should watch for during the next 24 hours.

I returned to my seat next to my mom and watched Thomas play with the fifth grade orchestra (to help them keep the beat). Tina and Graham came back in after awhile and Graham reported that his side hurt. After some discussion, we decided that Tina would take Graham to the doctor or the emergency room after consulting with his doctor. The doctor recommended that she take him to the Emanuel ER because they have a pediatric ward. Four hours later the ER doctor told them that he had bruised ribs, some soft tissue damage to his ankle and a slight concussion. Graham is staying home for a couple of days and has a vicodin(!!) prescription for the pain. He still has a headache today and his ribs are sore. Also, he tells me he is bored.

Thomas’ portions of the concert went off much better and nobody was injured. Grandma Ring especially enjoyed Serenade for Strings by Mozart while I really liked hearing the Halo theme again. They finished with “Shrek’s Nightmare” which was really fun and involved screaming. Thomas played in both the Advanced 7th & 8th Grade Orchestra and in the prestigious Chamber Orchestra, for which he arrives an hour early to school every day.

Thomas has also been playing music at home quite a bit recently since we helped him buy an electric bass and amplifier. He picked the Epiphone Thunderbird and we got a 10 watt Acoustic amplifier. We should have waited until school was out because he’s been spending almost every waking moment downloading tablature from the internet and playing it on his bass. He’s helping to pay for the bass by mowing our lawn this summer, a task I’m very glad to delegate to him. Thomas continues to be active with Boy Scout Troop 820. For the second year in a row his troop captured the Top Troop award at the annual Camporee competition. We’re very glad for his participation and the great influence that the older boys have on him and his friends.

As I mentioned earlier, I invited my mother to visit so that she could see the boys play and the timing was also right for her to be here for Graham’s 10th birthday. After mulling his options, he chose to get a new bed for his birthday. He also shocked his Grandma by insisting that we eat at Sushiville for his birthday lunch. Grandma is not very fond of sushi but she was a good sport and even took us all (including Uncle Buddy) to see Up, the latest Pixar film, at Cinetopia. It was tremendous and one of the best stories I have ever seen with no dialog or narration for the first part of the movie. We’ve also been to see Terminator: Salvation and the new Star Trek movie in recent weeks. We don’t go to the movies very often so this will likely signal an upcoming drought of movies in the very near future.

At the start of April, my employer decided that they would finally close the Vancouver office at the end of the month. If you recall, they laid nearly everyone in the office last August but held on to a couple of engineers to work from home. I was lucky enough to be one of those engineers. After the layoffs were finished, they kept my old boss on to work on a “short project” and continue providing support for our previously released products. Well, the short project went on for several months longer than projected and my boss continued working by himself in the Vancouver office. Once the project was finished and they decided to finally close the office, my VP called to tell me that I would be working in Vancouver until the office was closed. You see, part of my job description includes supporting our previously released products much like my old boss had been doing. During the month of April, he and I worked on current issues and he performed what is often described in the software business as a “knowledge dump” to me. I took pages and pages of notes and eventually transferred them to an internal wiki (I love wikis!).

Although I didn’t necessarily enjoy commuting to Vancouver every day again, the extended training session signaled that my employer is committed to my continued employment far into the future. I am now the only person in the company with the knowledge to support these older products and that is very reassuring to me, especially in the face of recent cost cutting measures that have been undertaken at the company. In addition, I’m also enjoying working as a Mac programmer again after having been away from “real” Mac programming since last fall. Management would like if I were able to spend a small portion of my time with these support issues but I don’t see that happening in the very near future.

I hurt my back while at our neighbor’s BBQ over the weekend and spend all day Sunday laying flat on my back hoping for the best. It no longer hurt to stand up on Monday morning but it still feels a little “tight” at times. I have to be careful not to strain it any further. As I’ve mentioned before I heal much more slowly since I turned forty.

After the BBQ on Saturday, we drove downtown to see the annual Sand in the City sand sculpture contest at Pioneer Courthouse Square. Last year we arrived as they were cleaning up and Graham got to drop the bucket from a large skidloader onto one of the sculptures. This year was considerably less exciting but we enjoyed walking around looking at all the sculptures. After we had seen them all, the boys wanted to try their hand at a sandbox that had been set up nearby with some simple molds and wet sand. Tina and I sat on the steps nearby, talked and enjoyed the ambiance of “Portland’s living room.” We were only there a few minutes before Tina jumped up and yelled excitedly, “Grammy!” She had spotted some friends in the crowd whom she hadn’t seen for quite some time. They came over and talked for awhile and their daughter, who is almost exactly the same age as Thomas, joined the boys in their molding endeavors. After they left a little girl came over and said “Graham?” She recognized him from school and also tried her hand with the sand for a little while.

As the sun started to set, Tina and I convinced the boys to leave by promising them a Hawaiian ice. Although the sign promised “real Hawaiian shaved ice”, the vendor could only offer finely ground ice. We ate them on the steps while we soaked in a few more minutes of quintessential Portland before departing for home. It was a good day.

On Tuesday, we left Portland and drove up the Gorge into Washington, headed north to Spokane and then on through Coeur d’Alene. Although we weren’t able to use our new bike rack because of unexpected clearance issues with the Scion, another Scout family had plenty of room for our bikes in their gigantic flatbed trailer. We spent the first two nights at the Blue Anchor RV Park in Osburn.

On Wednesday, we took the long car journey to the head of the Route of the Hiawatha rail trail. Along the way, one of our vehicles suffered a flat tire and one of the boys found a .38 revolver on the side of the road while we waited for the tire change. Eventually we found our way to the trailhead and embarked on the most magical bike ride I’ve ever had in my life. The route is only 15 miles long and entirely downhill. We rode down at a leisurely pace and made many stops to read about the history and enjoy the spectacular views. I can’t recommend this trail enough. It takes very little effort and the payoff is unbelievable.

On Thursday we dropped off the bikers and a few of us drove all the equipment here (to the Wolf Lodge) where we settled in for the rest of the trip. The bikers (including Tina and Thomas) rode another 30 miles on another rail trail from Mullan to Cataldo. That night we celebrated one of the Scout mother’s birthday with chocolate cake, ice cream and homemade dutch oven cobblers. It was a sublime moment of comraderie and fellowship.

On our last day of biking, we drove out to Harrison for an “out and back” ride to Plummer along Lake Coeur d’Alene. Graham only wanted to go 12 miles so we turned around after 6 miles, but Tina and Thomas rode the full 32 miles, giving them a total of about 79 miles for the three days. Because of our slower pace, however, Graham and I were able to observe the local flora and fauna better than the hardcore bikers.

Today is probably the highlight for all the kids as they ride the rafts and rollercoasters. I volunteered to watch over the bicycles and the dog. I’m enjoying the solitude, though, and have been wanting to write about our trip since the second day. Tomorrow we pack it all up and drive home. We’ve been on many scouting campouts before but I think this one has been the best for getting to know the other parents. I’m very glad that we came and I’m quite certain that we’ll be back.

Here is what he is missing:
Greek Gods Packet (in folder)
Greek Gods Note sheet (from book)
Nature Myths Note sheet (from book)
Cupid and Psyche Summary
Cupid and Psyche Analysis
Packet #1 East
Packet #2 East
WORKING ON TO TURN IN TUESDAY
Packet #3 East

To say we were surprised would be a vast understatement. We ask him nearly every day if he has homework and he never gave us the impression that he was behind. This is not the first time this has happened, though, as we have continued to struggle with him to keep up on his homework. This particular class has been the main thorn in his side so I guess it shouldn’t have been a surprise, but it was. After we got the email, we informed Thomas that he would not be able to attend a Scouting function this weekend unless he caught up on his homework. He agreed to this and worked out a plan to do enough homework each night so that he would have it all done by Friday morning.

The Scouting function this weekend is called Camporee and only happens once a year. Thomas’ troop takes it very seriously and even holds a practice camput a few weeks prior each year. Because he was elected Patrol Leader by his patrol, it was very important for him to attend. When he fell behind on homework before, we made him stay home one weekend when his troop was camping. That time he got sick, though, and apparently did not learn his lesson because he would have had to stay home anyway.

In addition to other factors, his poor sleep habits have proven to be his biggest obstacle. Like me, he is what my mother calls a “night owl.” It’s difficult enough getting him to go to sleep at night but he has been prone to falling asleep after he gets home from school or shortly after we finish dinner. If we let him sleep, he will wake up before midnight and won’t be able to get back to sleep. Waking him up, however, is incredibly hard. Either way, it screws up his sleep for that night and he is equally hard to wake the next morning. Of course, it also makes him more likely to fall asleep after school the next day. It’s a vicious circle that we have been trying very hard to break.

Despite our efforts, twice this week we were faced with this problem of him falling asleep early. After I arrived home from work one evening, I was faced with trying to wake him once again. I went to his room and told him that he had to get up and warned him that I was going to “get the water” if he didn’t wake soon. He grunted his acknowledgement but made no movement to waking. I went to the kitchen and filled a glass about half full of water and returned to his room. I gave him two more warnings to no avail and then delivered on my threat by throwing the half full glass (less than a cup I would estimate) across his chest and face. He immediately reacted hysterically and continued to be hysterical for at least the next 30 minutes. Once the deed was done, I nearly immediately regretted it. Although it did wake him, he was so upset that he was mostly useless for at least an hour after.

The other problem, as I have mentioned before, is getting him to stay focused on the task at hand. He rewards himself with breaks that sometimes stretch past an hour long despite our nagging that he really should be getting back to his homework. In the past we’ve micro-managed his time to some degree by nagging him every few minutes until he starts on his homework again. Clearly, that’s not working very well so we have lately tried hard to let him learn how to manage his time on his own. We continued that this week only telling him occasionally that he would miss out on Camporee. Each night, though, he would tell us that he was on track to have it all done and we reluctantly went along.

Sure enough, when Thursday night arrived, Thomas was hardly within striking distance of finishing. I went to bed at midnight and he was blearily continuing to believe that he would finish. Neither Tina or I believed him, so before I went to bed I advised him that if he couldn’t do a good job, he should just go to bed because his teacher wouldn’t accept it if it was poorly done. Evidently he continued to work well into the night, reading over 80 pages and doing the related work.

Surprisingly, after some last minute drama that I won’t go into here, he did finally catch up literally minutes before his Scout troop departed for Camporee. I would be willing to bet that he fell asleep during the 45 minute drive there and also fell asleep early Friday night. His troop finished in first place among all the troops that were there this weekend and he contributed quite positively to several of the competitions. Nevertheless, the Scoutmaster made sure to take him aside and tell him that if he was going to miss Scouting events because of school, he would no longer be in the troop. I hope he takes it seriously.

I’ll be glad when this school year is done.

Thomas rode Tina’s mountain bike, Tina borrowed a friend’s single-speed “cruiser bike“, Graham rode his single-speed 20″ dirt bike and I rode my trusty commuter/mountain bike. My achilles tendon had loosened up since my excursions from and to work earlier in the week but my butt was still plenty sore. It didn’t matter much, though, because I spent more time walking my bike than riding it. At least it seemed that way.

I had expected the path to be relatively flat but I was very wrong. Tina and I hung back with Graham and Zack, one of the Boy Scouts. They both had a lot of trouble with the hills and had to resort to walking fairly often. After we finally reached the summit, we were all glad to tear effortlessly down the path. Graham pulled out ahead of us and I noticed that his steering was rather unsteady. Fearing the worst, I caught up with him to give him some tips on what to do when going fast. The first thing I told him was, “Keep your eyes straight ahead. Don’t look at me. Look straight ahead.”

He did look at me when I said that but I had expected that. I didn’t expect that his attention would be drawn by an island in the middle of the Columbia that we had been looking at from the top of the hill a few minutes earlier. He said something about the island and then noticed that in turning his head, he had also turned his handlebars. He quickly turned them back the other way, but predictably overcompensated and steered right off the path. There was a slight drop from the paved path to the dirt and rock shoulder and I think that’s what started him into his tumble. He soon met with one of the head-sized volcanic rocks that were all over the side of the path and came to a sudden stop.

All of this happened about 4 feet away from me as we rolled down the hill at about 18 mph. I was able to stop about 6 feet down the path and hurried back to him. Tina was further up the hill but had seen what had happened and was racing toward us. He was quiet when I first got to him but he soon began wailing. I made him lie down and I asked him where it hurt. He said his stomach hurt and his knees hurt. His knees were both road-burned even though he had on jeans and I think he got the wind knocked out of him. I felt for broken bones but he had none. His right leg had gotten wrapped inside the bike frame and the odd angle had pulled off his shoe. The look in his eyes was one of abject fear. Graham is a brave little boy and I have never seen him that scared.

He cried for awhile and then started to calm down. I went ahead to see what the rest of the party was doing and found them lunching. Much to my surprise, Graham came over the horizon a short time later and began describing his crash in the most grandiose and impressive terms possible. I took the opportunity to reiterate that he needed to keep his eyes pointed forward and he chimed in that he had been riding too close to the edge. He also said that he needed to “focus” more. On the way back, I rode behind him on the downhill and he did very well. He’s still a little wobbly with the steering but he maintained focus and kept the perfect distance from the edge.

It turned into a good learning experience with only slight injuries. The next day I adjusted the pedals, handlebars and seat on Thomas’ “old” mountain bike and Graham enthusiastically hopped aboard to learn about shifting and hand-braking. He’s looking forward to our next ride so we’re going to try to get out this week some evening. I don’t think we have to worry about him giving up on biking anymore.

Unfortunately, after using it for just a couple of days, the boys turned it on and it had the Red Ring of Death again. We tried to have it serviced by Microsoft ourselves, but the serial number is already registered to our friend so he had to apply for the repair. The good news is that he has already received the box for shipping and all we have to do is pick it up sometime.

We have been trying for several years to get Graham to embrace the idea of bike riding, but every time he crashes, he swears it off forever. The last time he tried it, he swerved off the sidewalk and knocked over our mailbox. I don’t think he would hurt himself during these falls as much as he would be frustrated that he wasn’t very good at it. We’ve been trying to “sell” him on the idea for a long time but it really became a sore point with him. Finally, last night Tina convinced him to try again and he finally “got it.” He fell down numerous times, usually when he was turning, but each time he got up and went again. When it started to get dark and was near his bedtime, we practically had to drag him into the house. The first thing he asked me this morning was whether he could ride some more tonight. I think he only needs a little practice before we switch him from the little 20″ BMX he’s riding now to Thomas’ 24″ mountain bike. Thomas has taken possession of Tina’s old 26″ mountain bike and we need to find a new bike for Tina soon.

Graham’s “conversion” came none too soon because we have several bike rides planned with Thomas’ Boy Scout troop this year. Next weekend we’re taking a short 10 mile ride in the Gorge and then a few weeks later we’ll be riding 14 miles out to Oxbow Park. This summer we’re going on a 4-day, 80 mile bike ride in Idaho. We’ll really looking forward to all of them. I need to get back in bike shape!

Aside from that, it’s been a very nice weekend here. The sun has been out and we even left our windows open last night. We spent this morning doing some yard work and then we let the kittens out but not for very long. It’s too hard tracking all three at the same time!

Thanks to Kathy Sue, we also have been enjoying a Starz Preview Weekend on DirecTV. My Tivo is overflowing with movies now and I’ve made most of them green (“Keep Until I Delete”) so we’ll need to watch some movies this week. We’ve already watched several including a really scary one with Luke Wilson called Vacancy. Tina kept squeezing my fingers when we were watching it and then claiming that I was squeezing hers!

I don’t think I explained before that my “new” job is actually the old job that I left to join CPS back in 1999. Back then I worked in a small office in Vancouver for a company called Splash which had grown successful developing a high quality RIP (raster image processor) that made it possible for computers to print to Xerox color copiers. Our little office was initially tasked with developing a similar product to drive Xerox’ line of wide format printers. Splash eventually attempted to diversify their product line and transferred the Macintosh-based product that had made them successful to the Vancouver office, thinking that it was on it’s last legs. Within a year after I left, Splash was bought by their primary competitor, Electronics for Imaging (EFI). Eventually all of the Splash offices were shut down except the little office in Vancouver, where the team I left continued to churn out high quality Splash-branded, Macintosh-based products for Xerox color copiers. That is the team that I joined this week. It was good to see some familiar faces and exciting to see new faces. I’m really looking forward to my future there.

Thomas is away on Mount Hood with the Boy Scouts this weekend. The BSA owns a snow lodge up there and Thomas’ troop goes up there once a year for inner-tubing fun. This week we celebrated Thomas’ 12th birthday. It’s hard to believe that we’ve had Thomas for that long and even harder to believe that he’ll be out of our hands in another six years. Last weekend he celebrated with his friends in a hotel suite for which a friend got a good deal for us. Tina described that shindig pretty well, so I won’t go into details here. Yesterday he used all the money he got from his birthday and some that he had been saving to buy an iPod Touch, which he has been dreaming about since the iPhone came out last summer.

• CPS moved across the street and I’ve been slowly adjusting to the new space. We now have showers so I smell better during the workday. Unfortunately, I no longer have a window office. My new project is very interesting but quite hectic and time consuming. Hopefully, it will slack off by August.
• I got new glasses for the first time in several years. I let them talk me into a pair with magnetically attachable sunglasses. New lenses (without scratches) are always so nice.
• The NBA Playoffs started off with promise and ended in disappointment. Ho-hum, Spurs win again. I didn’t even watch the last three games on my Tivo after I got back from WWDC.
• I was in San Francisco for a week at Apple’s annual World Wide Developer Conference learning about all the new technology they are introducing in the next version of Mac OS X.
• I also get a chance to meet up with my old friend, Rob, in San Francisco for dinner one night. As usual, it was awesome to see him again. Although we communicate several times a week electronically, there is no substitute for face-to-face.
• I missed most of Portland’s annual bike celebration, Pedalpalooza, but did get back in time to attend the Multnomah County Bike Fair with Tina and the boys.
• The Oregon Zoo kicked off their annual series of summer concerts this year with The Wailers. They started out with three or four obscure songs (which is great) but then finished in greatest hits mode (which is still good). Their new singer, The Young Lion, sounds very much like Bob Marley and quickly won over the receptive crowd. It was very near to a spiritual experience for Tina, who has been a Bob Marley fan since high school.
• You may have noticed something called the iPhone in the news. In my position, I was witness to about 20 times the hype that you saw. Three of my collegues purchased one the day it came out and Thomas desperately wants one. I have played around with a couple and they are really quite incredible. I can’t currently justify the $60/month cost for service, but I may later.
• The Trailblazers drafted Greg Oden, as expected, and I was present when he was introduced to the city at Pioneer Courthouse Square a few days later. People are very excited that the “Jailblazer” era appears to be over. I wanted to hold up a sign that said “Welcome to Portland, Sam Bowie” but several people (including Tina) advised against it.
• On Independence Day we escaped the heat by seeing the latest Pixar movie, Ratatouie, at Cinetopia. Wow. I know I said this about Cars last year, but this is the best Pixar movie yet.
• Rather than buy our own fireworks as we have in the last few years, I decided that the kids should go to a real fireworks show this year. Graham probably doesn’t remember ever going to a big fireworks display so that alone justified it, I think. We skipped the Waterfront and Fort Vancouver shows in favor of the Blue Lake show which is much closer to our house. It took a long time to get out of the park when it was all over but I think Graham really liked it.
• We did buy a few smaller fireworks in Oregon this year and lit them Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights. Oregon has stricter laws than Washington governing fireworks which led me to cross the border for the more exciting stuff in the past. None of that this year, though. Street cleanup was very easy outside our house this year.
• This weekend Tina and Graham are camping at Cub World with his Cub Scout den. Thomas and I will be dropping in tomorrow night for dinner and maybe again Sunday morning.
• Thomas biked the entire way to work with me this morning (around 11 miles) and seemed a bit surprised this evening as we pulled into the Max station with our bikes. “We’re taking the Max?” I think he was disappointed we weren’t biking the whole way home again. He spent most of the day in the Rec Room at work playing new games on the Wii while I worked.

Our calendar will be equally full for the rest of the summer, too:

• Thomas leaves for a week at Boy Scout camp starting next Sunday.
• More zoo concerts: Asleep at the Wheel, Los Lobos, Richie Furay, Charlie Hunter and The Holmes Brothers.
• A week-long trip to Iowa for a family reunion culminating in the annual Ring summer campout in Waterville, MN.
• Tina’s cousin Natians visiting for nearly two weeks in August. It’s her second time to Portland but we still have lots to show her including a few nights on the Oregon Coast.
• Body Worlds has come to OMSI and we’ve already made our reservations. All the reviews for this exhibit make it sound like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I can’t wait.
• A vast reorganization of the garage when I can fit it in.

• Friday morning: arrive at work, unload bike bags, drop off bike at Bike Gallery for repairs next week
• Friday: work, trip planning & preparation, Max ride to Gateway Transit Center (no bike)
• Friday evening: Tina and boys pick me up at Gateway TC, dinner at El Sombrero, shopping at Costco, strained right calf walking to checkout line
• Friday night: organized trip items at home, haircut, Tivo watching
• Saturday morning: woke up early to finish organizing trip items, discovered that I didn’t have my travel papers, emailed office admin and a co-worker to help retrieve it
• Saturday morning (continued): packing for camping (Tina had pre-organized) using our new roof rack, meet up with scouts for 9:30 am departure to Beacon Rock
• Saturday morning (later): Arrive at Beacon Rock @ one hour later, setup camp as rain begins, twisted right ankle stepping in mole hole, helped John setup portable canopy near our tent
• Saturday: huddled under canopy and cooked occasionally, skipped 1.5 mile hike up Beacon Rock because of rain, calf and ankle – Graham disappointed
• Saturday evening: enjoyed Boy Scout Campfire including two flag retirements
• Saturday night: retired early and muddily to bed, slept well despite the loud nearby campsites, awoke twice to urinate, wiped my muddy feet on my pants before getting back in bed
• Sunday morning: awoke @ 7:00 am, struck camp and packed for home
• Sunday morning (continued): Breakfast at Charbroil’s in Cascade Locks, drove home
• Sunday morning (continued): Arrived home, checked email and received missing travel info, showered (while Tina unpacked the car), packed my bags (using this list), cleaned cat box, put out recycling, drove to airport
• Sunday afternoon: waited at airport and started writing this