It was another D and D day at our house last Sunday. The picture at the right is one person making chain maille. Yes, in some houses people sit around and knit. Here they make armor.

Disney has an illuminated Tinkerbell for the top of your Christmas tree. That strikes me as truly a secular Christmas — taking even the angel from the tree. Now, the tree itself is a pagen symbol but making it the center of the family with the angel looking over adds a little of the true Christmas spirit. But, adding Tinkerbell is going over to the commercial side much too far. Don’t you think?

I can tell Christmas is quickly approaching. The tension is rising as preparations for the extended family being here on Christmas Eve (that’s around 20 people) with Wagilia dinner for the immediate family at sundown before. That will mean serious logistics. But, in the mean time, we went shopping today and made sure we got to the store early to miss the crush. There’s a lot of shopping going on out there.

People from places where it doesn’t rain just can’t understand a forecast like this. One day rain. One day showers. One day rain. Yes, there will be water from the sky every day.

If you check out the LivingroomCam page this Sunday evening, you’ll see many teenagers busy playing D and D. All the teenagers at my son’s school have been interning somewhere or going to summer school or working somewhere and, since it’s August, they finally have time to get together and play. I do my best to give them chances to just be kids and play with each other. Kid’s activities are so organized and scheduled these days. Modern children wouldn’t know what to do with a warm afternoon and a field — something that I had to learn about when I was younger.

Anyway, we have playing kids until 10 tonight. They are even planning to cook their own dinner of manicotti. There’s no school tomorrow. Ahhh, youth.

This is that time of year. Yes, the time when a walk around the neighborhood means purple fingers and seeds between the teeth. The blue berries are ripening along the roadways and paths. A walk requires stopping and sampling. People with buckets collect berries for pies and breakfast.

What a yummy time of year

Oregon is participating in the heat wave that is spread across the nation. We had over 104 here and have, like most of the states of the nation, broken records with heat. The only thing that saves us a little is that the humidity is only 23% when it gets to 100F. There are a lot of places where head plus humidity makes for an unbearable situation.

This global warming is a problem. It’s never been this hot like this in Oregon. I wish people would stop arguing whether it is a “natural cycle” or caused by green house gases. It seems clear to me that it’s a natural cycle that’s been goosed by man’s activities. Now, no matter who’s to blame, we have to get busy with some terraforming before the planet becomes uninhabitable for several billion people who are already trying to live here. Doesn’t matter the orgin, the question is what we do next. Humans are not the sit-around-and-do-nothing type. So, let’s change thiings.

As a team building exercise, we went to a ball game.
Real baseball in a small, downtown, old fashioned ball park.
And the tickets were even affordable (although the food wasn’t).

I recently planted a clemantis in my front planter. A General Sikorski clemantis as a matter of fact. Now I need to run to the local nursery because it’s wilting with dark leaves. It needs something but I don’t know what it is.

I remember telling someone at work that I never had a problem with clover in my lawn.

It looks like it I need to change that tune — it’s sneaking into the yard.

So, take teen age boys, Mentos and various carbonated drinks and what do you get?
Fountains, of course.

It’s time to get back to this blogging thing.
But first, I will upgrade my server and blogging sofware to the latest version of everything.
The main aggrevation of maintaining one’s own server is the continual upgrading required as new exploits are discovered.

Anyway, I’ll be back in a few days with shiny new everything.
And even some more blog entries.

I haven’t been around for a while… taking a ‘computer holiday’.
But, while I was away from my computer, real life was going on.
One of the major events was the birth of my first grandson.
I already have a wonderful grand daughter, but now I have one of each.

Congratulations to the new and happy and sleepless parents.

It’s a sunday night and I’m sitting here doing computer work, but when I take off my headphones I can hear the night birds calling. It’s spring and the animals are calling to each other. It’s different than the media message or the jets flying into the airport. There is life in the air. The call of the owls puntuates a dark night. My heart, which is not truely filled by the latest pop hit, smiles at the sound of an owl calling.

Spring is here. Turn off your streaming radio feed and listen to the night.
Your true self is there.

I’ve been playing with other blog sites.
Keeping my own site up is becoming a drag — always updating because of bugs and exploits, sigh.
I’ve checked out MySpace and Yahoo but I’m not totally happy with anything.
I wouldn’t mind letting someone else handle the administration so I can just worry about content.
I wonder what I’ll decide.

Happy New Year to everyone!

Here, we had my son’s friends over for an all night, teenager party. Little sleep was had and much caffeine was consumed. There was also the request for a shop vac at 12:30am after the
Silly String
got everywhere. They’re good kids and vac’ed up their own mess.

The big project for New Years Day is repacking all the Christmas stuff.
There have been several large boxes that are carted in and out of the garage
every year and dug through for the new things we use.
It is finally time to sort through them all, keep what we should be keeping
and repack everything into new Christmas themed tubs from Lowes.

Tonight is Family Fun Night so you’ll see us playing some game
on LivingroomCam.

Hope everyone has a great new year.

Mary is crying again.
What could possibly be causing the Mother of Man to cry?

A little thought will bring you to something that you can do to make the world better.

Every Thanksgiving, people rave about my mashed potatoes and “could you please make them again this year?”.

Well, I know my mashed potatoes are not THAT good.
It’s like there is a thing that mothers and wifes do so “the dad” can feel like
an important part of the dinner preparations.
The dad has a “special dish” that they are known for and all the ladies
support his fragile male ego my asking for the special preparation.
It could be BBQ’ing. It could be pecan pie. It could be mashed potatoes.
Should I be taken in my this ruse?

I’ve come to feel that it’s like believing in Santa Claus:
in your logical brain you know the truth, but
believing makes the world a better place.
So, I accept the accolades and mash the potatoes.
And my ego is better for it.

The evening before Thanksgiving dinner means peeling potatoes.
At least for me.
Somehow I am the “mashed potato expert” who has the job of bringing
pounds of mashed potatoes to the family gathering.

One of the potatoes in the 20 pound bag (how does a 20 pound bag
of potatoes cost less than a latte?) was wet.
I thought that was a bit odd since the bag has been sitting on a dry
porch.
Peeling the potato revealed that it had no center — just a home for
white grubs chewing away.

Needless to say, that potato did not make it into the mashed potatoes.

Last night we went to
Ice Cream Rennaissance up in Vancouver, Washington.
It’s not a chain, the owner is there to help you and it’s linked into the community with local artists on the wall and
local musicians playing in the background.
This is one of those small businesses that increasing rent drives out.

And the ice cream is wonderful. It’s not just that the ice cream is made there. The presentation is something
you won’t find anywhere else.
I had the “Dr. Chocolate” which was a scoop of milk chocolate ice cream and a scoop of dark chocolate ice
cream both rolled in cocoa and sitting in a perfect amount of fudge and chocolate chips.
Heaven for a chocolate lover and a proper mixture of flavors.
The other servings were also not just scoops if ice cream in a bowl.

I recommend the place whenever you’re in the area. They are open late nearly every evening, too.
We were there at 9pm on a Sunday evening.