Thanksgiving

Once again, it's getting to be that time of year!

This year, Mom and Dad are coming out from Chicago and are bringing my nephews Jason and Chuck. It will be nice seeing everyone again.

The boys are excited to see their grandparents and cousins. They should have a fun filled week together.

Not only is it Thanksgiving, but Mom's birthday is the 25th. It'll be nice to be able to celebrate her birthday with her for a change. Kind of sucks being 2500 miles away from each other.

We plan to see the next Harry Potter movie and the new Narnia movie while they're out too.

Mom

I talked to my Mom last night and she told me she has been diagnosed with Diabetes. It's been 3 weeks and she is working with her doctor to get it figured out and under control.

This really bums me out.

Hopefully, having this diagnosed will help her start feeling better and less fatigued.

Mom had been talking about retiring sometime within the next year or so. I was getting excited for her, but now she's talking about having to work another 3 years or so. I just hope her health holds up so that she and Dad can enjoy themselves once she does get to retire.

Whoa!

Man! It's been a long while since I last posted...

Well, AutoX season is over. It has been a busy, busy fall. Jules is taking her Admin classes and doing a lot of extra work for practicum credit. The boys all have school stuff going on. Phillip has started Orchestra this year and is playing the Cello. Morgan had to upgrade from the 1/4 size Base to the 1/2 size as he keeps growing like a weed!

Well, rather than rambling forever on multiple subjects, I'll split things into multiple posts.

Sick

Well, got a call from my brother Justin this morning to tell me my Dad is in the Hospital with pneumonia. I guess he's been sick for a while. Last I talked to him was the 21st.

Talked to Mom this afternoon and she says he's doing fine. They want him to stay overnight and have him on antibiotics. His fever has come down and he's hungry :) .

It really sucks being 2500 miles from Mom and Dad. Especially when something like this happens. It'd be nice to be able to just drive up there and see them.

Well, enough for now.

Vacation

Well, it's only 1 more day until VACATION! Yay!!

Jules and the kids are off for the summer, and I have vacation from June 29 - July 10. It's been a long time since we've had a vacation.

The plan so far is to spend 5 or 6 days at the Oregon/Northern California Coast. We haven't fully decided exactly what we're doing yet, but visiting the Redwoods is definitely one of them. I've wanted to see the Redwoods since I was about 10 yrs old.

Hopefully I'll take some time to post some updates while I'm off.

Day with the boys...

Morgan borrowed the game "Age of Empires II" from a friend last week and has been playing it when he gets some computer time. I poked around with it and discovered it has a multi-player mode. "Hmmm" I think... Installed on 2 computers last night and we played a short game.

This morning, I got us up and running on 3 computers and the boys and I had a lot of fun playing head to head. This was their first taste of playing head to head with someone other than an AI opponent. They loved it!

The biggest problem was keeping them from sneaking in and peeking at each other's screens. Every 5 minutes or so you'd hear someone yell "Hey, No looking!". Maybe tomorrow we can find the other wireless card and get 4 of us playing at once.

Nothing in particular...

Well, it's Memorial day weekend. There is absolutely nothing going on for us this weekend for a change, so we've decided to hang out at home and just relax, sleep in, eat whatever, whenever, etc...

After the last few months, between work, baseball, orchestra, school stuff, etc... It's a welcome change of pace.

Today Jules got to take a few hours away from us boys and relax down at Starbucks. I think she was grateful for the respite.

Watched "Racing Stripes", the movie with the boys this evening. Very fun movie. The boys enjoyed it immensely.

Well, tomorrow will be one more day of absolutely nothing before we all jump back into our exciting fun filled lives again.

Commuting

I live in Salem, OR and work in downtown Portland, OR. Door to door, it's 53 miles from my house to where I park. Since I'm also a cheap bastard, I park in the free parking area, which is 26 blocks from my office. So.. On a good day, my commute is an hour and a half including the walk.

So... What do I do for 3 hours a day? Well, the drive is nice for winding down after a long day. I usually either think about what I have going on around the house, what we're doing with the boys, or find a good radio station to listen to.

The walk is nice as well.. It's basically my only exercise I get during the week, so it's good for me. Since I'm a car nut, I scope out the cool cars to see between my office and my car. There's the regulars. 1 Ferrari 308, 1 Lotus Elise, a handfull of Minis.. Today I saw 5 Minis on my walk. I guess that's because I work about 8 blocks from the only Mini dealer between Seattle and San Fransisco. Saw a nice Infinity G35 Coupe too. One of my co-workers has one of those and they are pretty cool cars. Saw a guy in an older Alfa Romeo spider. Usually see him a couple times a month. Saw a dark red Fiat Spider as well..

Tonight's commute was nice as there was minimal traffic since I left work after 6:30. The sun was out and it went by quickly. It's those days when I have 20 miles of stop/go traffic in the pouring rain that is annoying.

People look at me like I'm nuts when the find out I commute so far. They tell me I should move to Portland. Well. I like living in Salem. I'm not a big city kind of guy, and the cost of living down here is so much less than in the Portland area. Plus, Julie's got a good job working here in Salem and the boys are in a good school.

Enough rambling for now.

Shaving the dog...

Tonight I got home from a long day at work and Jules and the boys were just sitting down to Pizza. Yum.. Was a nice dinner.

After dinner, did a load of dishes, a load of laundry, and decided the dog was due for a haircut. Man, she was bad... Pepper is a border collie, spaniel mix. We usually let her hair grow during the winter months so she's warm when she's outside.

Well.. Her hair was pretty matted and she had poop stuck in it because of that. I spent a good hour trimming her with the electric trimmer in the back yard. She demanded a number of breaks to go bark at other dogs in the park. Crazy dog! Finally got her trimmed to a managable state and Jules gave her a bath. Now she's cute and smells good again! She seems happier as well. I'm sure she'll be more comfortable since the temps lately have been in the 70s.

Mother's Day at the coast

Saturday morning I headed up to Astoria. It was a pleasant drive. Slight drizzle going over the mountains, but otherwise dry. I arrived just in time for things to start for the Driver's school.

Our site was the Astoria Coast Guard air station. Nice site for a driver's school. The decommissioned runway was long and wide enough to have 2 things going on at a time. Got off to a bit of a slow start, but things picked up and the sun came out. The kids really seemed to enjoy themselves. My student was very excited and enthusiastic. She started off tentatively, but once we got going, she did great. Once again, the Astoria club put together a very nice school for the kids.

Saturday evening, Julie and the boys came over after a day of baseball practice and a game. We met up with some friends for dinner and proceeded up to Long Beach, WA for some fun at the go-cart track. There were around 30 of us that showed up, and the racing was a blast. I noticed that they had a 'jr' track around back and took the boys over there for a run. They are 11, 9, and soon to be 7, and had so much fun I didn't think I'd get them out of there.

Each of the adults got to take 3 5 minute sessions in the faster carts. Wow, but that is a blast. 15 of us going head to head. Quite a bit of bumping going on there.

Sunday, we all slept in and had a liesurely morning hanging out at the hotel, watching cartoons, eating breakfast, and playing in the pool. Around 11 we checked out and headed up to Ilwaco for the Autocross. Weather was beautiful, 70's and sunny. The boys had fun playing and taking pictures with the digital camera. Morgan helped get the cars ready to race and helped me swap race tires onto the Fiat. He's really growing up and can't wait until he's 16 and can get his license and participate. We were in the last run group and started just as the rain came in. It was a great course, and we had a lot of fun.. Slicker than snot makes for an interesting race. Julie was the fastest Mom, won her class, and got the fastest Mom award and a dozen roses!

Afterwards, we caravaned back to with 7 of our fellow club members and stopped at Camp 18 for dinner. WOW, but that was a lot of food!

Ended up getting home around 11pm and hitting the bed hard.

All in all, a great weekend.

Driving

Tomorrow morning, I head northwest to Astoria in the early AM. I am one of the instructors for their 2nd annual Driver's School. This will be my second year volunteering. We are hoping to teach young drivers responsible driving and give them some experience finding the limits of their vehicles and how to get things back under control in a controlled environment, before it happens to them on the road.

Last year's inaugural event was a lot of fun. The kids were great to work with and they seemed genuinely interested in learning.

Hopefully, this year's event will be greeted with the enthusiasm it was last year.

To top it off, there will be an Autocross Sunday open to the public and where the kids can try some of their new skills on the track.

So.. I'll be heading out between 5 and 6 am (whee!) for a 2.5 hr drive up. Hopefully it's not raining and I can have the top off on the X.