The Calvin List: Music of 2007

It's New Year's Eve!!! It's party time! It's time to.... well.. sit on my couch, watch football (Go Ducks!) and EAT crappy food (before my "eat healthier" new years resolution kicks in tomorrow). And what am I doing for my big celebration tonight? Watch movies with Little Calvin. Tonight he's allowed to "try" to stay up until midnight, the only night of the year he can go anywhere near that idea. And since I let him pick the movies that will keep us up until the ball drops, he has picked "Surf's Up" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark".. My have I trained him well!!!

But the point of my post today isn't about our partying tonight (or lack thereof). Nope. On the last day of the year, I try to come up with my "lists". You know, just like everyone else does.. The Best this of 2007, the Best that of 2007.. blah blah blah. But my lists are a bit different. Here's why:

Sure, alot of good music has come out this year. But just because it came out this year, doesn't make it memorable in my mind. What I try to pick are the songs that meant the most to me this year. You know how music works.. You'll listen to the radio and suddenly hear a song that will flash you back to some point in your life. For instance "Land of Confusion" by Genesis... It has nothing to do with running in its lyrics, but every time I hear it... EVERY TIME, I flash back to the cross country state championships my freshman year in high school. I can suddenly remember the event as if it were yesterday. Those are the songs I am talking about.

So for me... which songs will remind me of 2007.. Will immediately flash me back to this point in time? It doesn't matter if the song came out this year or not... It just depends on what mental meaning my brain gives it. So that said... here is my music list (in no particular order) for the year and a little of why the song made the list.

Presenting...

The Calvin List: Music of 2007

Dance Tonight - Paul McCartney
The catchy drum beat that starts this song off, the simple tune and the happy-go-lucky lyrics have allowed me to use this song for several things this past year. Just a good old-fashioned fun song. As an added bonus, both Mackenzie Crook (Ragetti from the Pirates of the Caribbean films) and Natalie Portman star in the video...

Hey Now! - Oasis
I have no idea how I missed this song back in 1995. For some reason when I heard it this last year, I immediately loved it and it has been a top played song on my ipod ever since.

Instant Karma - U2
I just can't have an annual list without a U2 song on it, and since the band didn't release much this year, this will have to do. But considering they played this song at their last Portland show and this is the first real recoding of it that I could get without having to pull audio from a YouTube file.. I was excited to get it.

Lay Your Hands On Me -Bon Jovi
Definitely NOT a song from 2007!!! I stumbled across it listening to someone else's networked itunes collection at the office one afternoon and was immediately hooked. This became my unofficial theme song for my whole Volleyball film project, being cranked out of my car speakers at high volume levels on my way to and from each game, and I'd listen to it's opening drum section whenever I need some inspiration for some quick edits. As my filming schedule became exhausting.. this was my pick-me-up song. I think this song more than any will remind me of 2007.

Little Wonders - Rob Thomas
Used as the theme for Disney's "Meet The Robinsons" I was intrigued by the song, both as it served as the background for a tribute to Walt Disney in the film, and as it has a very "U2's the Edge" guitar sound that I love.

Wake Up Call - Maroon 5
This song will forever remind of my poor daughter's concert struggles of 2007. Last June, Amanda's favorite singer, Kelly Clarkson, announced she'd be coming to Portland for a concert. Knowing how cool this would be for her, I immediately bought her and I tickets, and even rearranged a business trip so I could take her to the show. This was her big birthday present for her 13th birthday. In early July, I had to break the news to her that the show had been canceled and she was devastated to say the least. To make it up to her, another favorite band announced a Portland show: Maroon 5, to which we purchased tickets.. this time floor tickets a few rows from the stage. We bought the new album, listened to it everywhere we went and counted down the weeks to November 1st. It about broke my heart when I got the dreaded e-mail announcing that shows cancellation, knowing I would have to tell her. We're still waiting to find her that birthday present concert... Come on Bon Jovi... play a Portland show.. Make a 13 year old happy!!! But heartbreak aside, the song is still a fun one to listen to and still manages to get played more than most.

Rockstar - Nickelback
Yup... I'll get mocked for this one incessantly at work now... but what can I say... It's a guilty pleasure.

Shambala - Three Dog Night
The oldest song on my list, I have to say I had never heard this little gem prior to hearing it on a episode of my favorite show: Lost. The show seemed particularly heavy for awhile this last season, then along came a really fun more light hearted episode where Hurley finds an old VW van in the jungle and solicits help to restart the thing. It was a total break from the heaviness, a lot of fun to watch and is actually one of my favorite episodes from last season (Although nothing will be quite like watching the end of the season finale for the first time.. I thought my head would explode when I caught on to what was really happening) This song served as a background for key parts of the episode, was purchased from the iTunes store, all of 2 minutes after the episode aired, and is one of my most listened to titles of the year.

Stronger - Kanye West
Rap is not my typical style, but this one was hard to ignore. At first the song comes across as a sporting anthem. Which explains why the song seemed to be on almost every team in our league's warm up mix. I don't think most people actually listened to the lyrics past the introduction to realize the song has absolutely nothing to do with sports. Yes, it is about "extra-curricular activities".. just not those that the schools would want to promote. So it always cracked me up to hear it blaring out the loud speakers in each gym.

The Sweet Escape - Gwen Stefani
Another guilty pleasure of the year. I first heard the song while trying to find a radio station while driving through the Notre Dame campus in Indiana. Upon arriving at my hotel, I immediately downloaded it, and after returning home introduced it to my 13 year old daughter. Needless to say.. now I get to hear it repeated over and over and as such will be a constant reminder of all things 2007.

So there's the list... the songs that will immediately flash me back to 2007 when I hear them 10 years from now. And with 2008 looking like some tripped out flashback with new albums by U2, Duran Duran, REM, Van Halen and possibly Led Zeppelin.. 2008's list could be really interesting!

Happy New Year!

Santa, Stereos and Sickos.. Yup, it's Christmas!

On behalf of the Calvin Clan.... Merry Christmas everyone! First... in response to my Christmas break excitement several days ago.. the break went MOSTLY on schedule. Friday we did spend the afternoon playing video games at Chuck E. Cheese (apparently I misspelled the name in my last post.. it's not Chucky Cheese, as my daughter has been giving me grief). But Tyler continuously complained of a sore throat that just wouldn't stop hurting, forcing us to keep a more watchful eye on him.

By Saturday afternoon as we were getting ready to head to Splash (our indoor water slide, wave pool, aquatic center) it still hadn't let up. We peeked down his throat and were shocked to see his tonsils the size of bowling balls in the back of his throat. No wonder he was uncomfortable... So rather than swimming, he got to head to the always fun doctors office with Dawn while I took Amanda and Little Calvin to the pool. Turns out, he had Strep throat. Ug. Poor kid. That put an end to our boy's late night movie watching fun, as suddenly he had to be sleeping.

But health issues aside, the rest of the break was nice... We celebrated my wife's birthday by going out to eat and seeing Enchanted (very entertaining movie, by the way... if you have grown up watching Disney animated movies, you'll enjoy it) and by gearing up for Santa's big visit on Christmas Eve with some friends joining us for dinner.

That leads us up to today.. Christmas Day! Awaking to the sounds of jingle bells.. watching excited, yet groggy kids stumble out of bed in the early morning darkness, and having it be the one day out of the year I can get away with Cheesecake being a breakfast food. Why my Dad taught me that.. I have no clue.. but it's a great Christmas morning tradition as the rest of the family looks at me with a shudder.

Then on to presents.. first from Santa. I started out thinking I had been very bad this year as I opened a dashboard car stereo install kit.. with nothing inside it. Luckily the actual stereo came later (now I can finally stop having to wear my ipod headphones when I drive!!). For the kids... it was their typical assortment of whatever they have been collecting and obsessing over this past year... Ben 10, magic tricks, High School Musical, etc. So they were all happy.

Eventually we got the the biggie presents... A new high tech sewing machine for Dawn, iPods for the kids (thank you Craig's List!!!) and the latest seasons of my favorite shows Lost and the Office. One gift that really got my attention was a quilt made by my wife. She took a bunch of t-shirts I had from my old college debate team days, from my church mission, and from my old Calvin and Hobbes t-shirt collection and put them together into a nice quilt. It both looks really cool and is a heck of a lot more practical than having a bunch of too small t-shirts taking up my closet space that I refuse to give away for sentimental reasons. All in all.. very cool.

So now we get to take our wrapping paper filled house and return it to normal, take our sugar filled kiddos bouncing off the walls from Christmas candy and new toys and try to wind them down, and then finally relax to some peace and quiet. It's been a fun break.. very busy and I will have lots of fun memories from Christmas this year, but at the same time exhausting. I'm ready for some quiet time! Maybe getting to go back to my office tomorrow isn't such a bad thing... And far away from the crazy stores!!!

Merry Christmas!

Give Me a Break! A Christmas One

Tonight I begin something that I haven't had in ages... an actual Christmas break! Now sure... it's nothing like the 2 weeks that the kids get from school, or the THREE weeks that Dawn gets as paid time off from her job (wrong.. just wrong I say... lucky girl!!) but I really can't complain. Let me explain:

For whatever reason, in a normal year, my company actually gives us less time of for Christmas than for Thanksgiving. For that holiday, we get both Thanksgiving and the following day off, giving us a lovely 4 day weekend. Then for Christmas... one day off. That's it. So let's say that Christmas falls on a Wednesday. We'll work Monday and Tuesday.. then have Christmas day off, then back to work for the rest of the week. Don't get me wrong.. I love my job and don't have any issues with the policy.. it's always just seemed a little odd when you step back and think about it!

Luckily this year, Christmas happens to fall on a Tuesday. The company, realizing that if anyone actually worked on Monday probably wouldn't be very focused, decide to give us an extra day off. Woo-hoo! One more vacation day. Plus, now that I have past my company 10 year anniversary, I get an extra week of paid vacation time. Soooo, I am taking any extra day off. That gives me Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday off!!! I realize that for most, this isn't that big of a deal... but suddenly I am faced with an actual Christmas break... something I haven't had in years. And I like it!!

So what are my biggie plans for all this time off? Stay home.. play with my kiddos, and have a good time leading up to Christmas day. I'll take the kids to Chucky Cheese, swimming, and to the movies. We'll celebrate Dawn's birthday, watch our list of traditional Christmas movies, see some Christmas lights, play some games, and finally catch up on some DVDs piling up to watch. There's cooking Christmas cookies and my annual Christmas cheesecake (ahhhhhh... cheesecake....) I better go get started... vacationing.. Turns out, there's a lot to do!

Done Done Done Done DONE!

Finally!! After 3 months of work... an insane amount of miles, 30 plus hours of footage shot and several all-nighters during the "final edit" stage... I'm DONE with my latest film. I'm exhausted... I'm ready to fall down.. At the moment, I never want to look at a computer again.. But the DVD's are done done DONE!!

Overall, I am pleased. I mean, I don't do this for the money.. ha... I wish... I do it for the over all creative challenge and because I really do think that, for the girls, these DVDs will be something unique that they'll never get anywhere else, or in any other activity. I mean, how many times has someone crafted a documentary style film about one of your activities? Either that or I am just plain bonkers... My wife actually found a quote by Dave Barry that has become my theme this year: "There is a fine line between hobby and mental illness." That so sums up this project! I even added that quote at the end of my end credits on the film.

All in all, while some things got a little out of hand, the film turned out as I had hoped and the DVDs... grew. Out of the two that I do each fall, one ended up having so much content, I had to turn it into a 2 DVD set, causing a last minute trek around the city, looking for the double disk DVD cases and disks. All together, between the three disks, I ended up with 5 hours of edited content. Ug. I am just getting more tired thinking of it...

But rather than dwelling on the exhausting aspect... Here are some of the highlights:

• It is easy to take for granted that everyone involved with these projects know me and what I do. This year, I discovered this is not always the case as new people join the teams. Early in the season, during a break in the first tournament, I followed the team out into the hallway to film their meeting in between games. By this time, I had been filming each day at practice and now, the first game of this tournament. One of the new players to the team, finally had enough. Just as the team discussion had begun, she said "Wait... ok... Who the heck is this guy, and why is he always following us around with a camera?!" thus causing the rest of the squad to fall down laughing. Having never experienced something like this, she assumed I was some kind of stalker and it freaked her out. Throughout the season this became our little joke, getting plenty of milage.

• Beating Junction City, one of our key rivals and an unbeaten team.. in their gym in front of packed stands... Always enjoyable...

• During the warmups for one game I was filming the team warming up out in the hallway just outside the gym. Some of the girls started to.. overdo their hitting, one accidently hitting a ball a little too hard, into the ceiling, breaking a light fixture, causing all the various pieces to rain down all over the floor, making a huge noise. Oops. Sadly, I was facing the opposite direction and only flipped around when I heard the huge crash, only getting the aftermath on film, instead of the actual hit. We got a lot of dirty looks from school officials that night.

• During interviews with the players, I asked the question "What inspires you as a volleyball player?" There was one answer I honestly didn't expect to get from a high school aged girl. She said "what really inspire me are my parents" and went on to talk about how much she enjoys doing well for them.. to make them proud, and the strength that pride gave to her. WAIT.. these are HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS... what happened to "my parents are stupid".. "I hate my family.." or DJ Jazzy Jeff aka Will Smith's "There's no need to argue.. parents just don't understand" comments. That comment took me by surprise, and just surmised why I enjoy working with this particular group of girls. And yes... I did pop that clip onto my video iPod to show her parents at the next game.. Some things are just good to hear.

• Towards the end of the season, as my editing time began to grow by leaps and bounds, I knew that my editing schedule would prevent me from spending as much time with Little Calvin as I would like. So I came up with an interesting idea, as he has his own laptop and is learning Apple's iMovie. I gave him one of my little cameras and the instructions to film a game.. not like I would, but to film whatever he found interesting. Then he would take the footage, edit it himself and create one of the DVD bonus features: Volleyball.. from a 7 year-olds perspective. This way, when I got stuck having to edit while he was still awake, he could just edit his own project and we could work on them together.

The night he was to film his game, by pure coincidence, we ended up in matching clothes... Jeans and our black volleyball team shirts. So there we were running around together.. me with the big camera and him with the little camera, filming the game in matching shirts.. We got a lot of smiles that night. And his little bonus feature turned out great.. even with his little tour of the concession stand and almost filming in the bathroom..

• Finally, I must admit, after imagining a film, working out each sequence, filming, editing, etc.. it is a very surreal experience to actually watch the film with an audience and see their reaction. What I discovered this year is that it is even more surreal to not only watch, but closely listen to people's reactions as it is discussed. Once the main film was done, I set up two recording sessions to record two audio commentary tracks for the DVD, one with the 4 seniors, and one with the coaches. The seniors thought this was great, being able to see the film before the rest of the team as well, as "force everyone to listen to our crazy stories". For me... it was just wacky to both watch and listen to each comment, each reaction to some of my favorite shots. While it was a lot of work to get the film to the point of recording those commentaries, it was very rewarding being able to do it.

There are so many more fun memories: long bus rides, our trip to State in Klamath Falls, and many gray hairs thanks to close games. But again.. it is now done, done DONE!! It's time to take some time off... finally watch my Netflix movie that has been sitting on my TV since the third week of August, and actually try to get back to normal sleep again. Then, once January hits.. my camera will start to roll again, with another film on tap to shoot.

That fine line between hobby and mental illness? I think I am waaaaay over into the mental illness side. I swear... I must be nuts...

And Thus... The 36th Year Begins

It happened a mere 36 years ago: I entered the world with a loud wail, and thus.. Big Calvin's wacky life began. I guess that means.. today is my birthday. Yikes. I must be getting old. How else can I explain all the grey hair. And no, I can't keep blaming the ladies beginners motorhome driving classes. I'm just plain getting older.

Birthday number 36 began quite uneventfully. It was a "work day", as my birthday can't seem to fall on a weekend every year. Oh well... must make a living. As I chronicled last year, my coworkers and I have a lot of fun.. decorating each other's work space for each others birthday. Last year, my team chose to really surprise me, not do anything for my birthday and wait for several weeks, just until I figured they forgot. Then Blam... they nuked my office with glitter. So this year, I entered with great trepidation, fearful of what I may find. (As it so happened, I took yesterday afternoon off to film volleyball and so my office was left, unguarded). I peeked around the corner into my department, and.. from a distance. It appeared all was well. No decorating. No hoopla. I assumed I was free and clear, let out a sigh of relief, continued towards my door, and that's when I saw.... her..

It was Hilary Clinton... And she was everywhere. Oh Joy...

Yup. My lovely co-workers had plastered my office walls with giant print outs of (oh please no..) Mrs. Power wannabe herself... Hilary. And what better way to start my birthday. When these two came in, I just had to shake my head. Creative? Yes! Annoying to look at all day, until I had time to pull it down? YES!!!! I think I need therapy after having to stare at her smiling face all day. Ug.

After work, it was time for the family celebration. With as much is going on right now as the volleyball season starts up, it is usually difficult to do too much to celebrate my birthday, but this year my day fell on a non-game night, so it was a bit easier to plan. I assumed we'd be spending a quiet evening at home. My wife had spent a frustrating day dealing with irritating car mechanics and claimed to "not have time to get my birthday dinner cooked, so we'd just have to go out to eat". I was fine with that and we headed out.

Ironically enough.. we went to the same place I threw my wife's surprise birthday party last year, a local restaurant owned by a friend of ours. And, as I suddenly figured out as we pulled up.. this wasn't a "oh let's just go to dinner" this was a planned event. She had pulled off a birthday surprise.

And so for the next 2 hours, we ate a nice (and delicious) Italian dinner with some of our close friends from the area. Being that it was the middle of the week, it was a small group, but very fun.. with some friends using excuses like.. oh.... PHD dissertation deadlines.. and bible study classes (Priorities.. people!!! Sheesh!!). Our friend Pam cooked us a great, multiple coarse meal. Little Calvin and some of his friends dressed as waiters and served the meal, doing a great job (and were even tipped).

In all, a very nice time and a great surprise... even with the Oregon Duck with a Beaver colored noose around it's neck gift... (You'll PAY for that.. you know who you are!!!)

By the time we got home, I had just enough time to open gifts (New Oregon Ducks shirt, Casino Royale, Star Wars Risk and new Pirate toys for my office) and then get Little Calvin off to bed.

Sooo, Happy Birthday to me. Lets see what year 36 holds...

Production Prep

It is that time of year again... Time to begin another film project as the fall sports season gears up. What does that mean for me? A few things:

First, life is about to get VERY hectic. In a few short weeks, the volleyball game schedule will kick in, putting us out of the house and on the road (whether its a home game or away, it's still a lot of driving time!) almost every other night. One night well be here in Eugene, two nights later over the pass in Bend, or Cottage Grove, or over to the coast... Let's just say that we'll easily log several thousand miles during the course of the season. If it wasn't for my video involvement with the team, heck, I would barely see my wife between now and mid-November.

Second, I will get to spend much of the next few months in my "happy place", with a large camera firmly attached to my shoulder, chasing around the action of the team both on and off the court. While the shooting times are fairly straight forward, its the times away from the court that make for a very busy lifestyle. Take the last two weeks (and on-going for the next several) for example... Although shooting doesn't officially begin until Tuesday, I had to:

• Pull out last years video backdrop and repaint it to reflect this years production style. (Little Calvin eagerly helped with this one..)
• Begin to establish music lists of songs we have collected over the last year for possible use.
• Storyboard the scenes I have mentally put together over the last year and begin penciling these onto the calendar so there is time to get everything shot
• Pull all the video gear (spread out amongst many storage boxes) to make sure everything works
• Establish and practice new lighting designs to get this year's desired effects done correctly
• Begin graphic design for the team's t-shirts, sweatshirts, and eventually the DVD covers (although that will be much later in the season before those are finalized)
• Practice set ups and take downs of the gear to get back into the flow of doing this quickly. Many days, I leave the office for lunch break, drive to the campus, set up my gear, do an interview, take everything back down and get back to work.. all in under an hour, so as not to get busted at my regular job. This requires speed, coordination and great timing, all of which has to be practiced.
• Coordinate space on campus to shoot all this stuff including the ideas new to this year's production
• Play with the new "toys", to learn their tricks. For instance this year, I am adding a dolly track system to my gear that I'll be using for shooting some of the "more-specialized" sequences. The tracks and dolly system are all currently being custom built for me so I can begin shooting with them in the next week, but getting their set up down and actually filming with them will take some work!

This last weekend was the "final prep" weekend. This was my chance to get everything out, lighting and sound tested and the newly painted backdrop in place. I am sure my wife loves this, as I turn our living room into a studio... lights here.. backdrop there.. wires all over the floors, computers and software boxes strewn about.

Finally, it all came together in my test run. And who better to put in front of the camera for this first trial but Little Calvin. There's nothing like attempting to keep a 6 year old (7 on Wednesday.. yikes) occupied and holding still while sitting on a stool in front of lights, microphones and T.V. monitors (as he makes funny faces to himself in the monitors as I fix a focusing issue). But eventually I got everything worked out.. and a rather bizarre interview done with my son, as he filled me in on his favorite movies, the challenges of designing a theme park, along with cameos from his two pet gerbils. (Click below to see the results, or, if the video doesn't come up, click here to access it directly)

But, I think it is all coming together. As I have attempted to analyze in past blogs..this is the most crazy, hectic and insane time of year.. and yet I thrive on this.. loving every minute.

The season is beginning.. so for the first time this season, I can now say.. Go Spartans!

Vacation Report: 2007

It is time to sleep! It is time to recover! It is time for a vacation!! Oh wait.. that's right I am just getting back from my vacation. Ok, so I need a vacation... to recover from my vacation!

In case you are wondering about my absence from the blog, well, I have been on our annual family vacation to the Oregon Coast. This is the trip where my folks come out from Colorado and we all rent a beach house somewhere on the Oregon Coast to relax and have fun in. This year, after several years in the Pacific City area, we did something different and headed to the south coast, a place where none of us have been (and that includes me, an Oregon Coast lover who has lived here for 13 years... pathetic).

So this year, Bandon was our home base, with a great, two-story ocean front beach house overlooking the rocky beaches of the area. Highlights from this years vacation included:

A speed boat trip up the Rogue River. Beginning in Gold Beach Oregon we boarded Jerry's River Jets and headed east up the river. For those of you who have never had the opportunity to take one of these trips.. I highly recommend them! The speed boats do go quite fast, rocketing their way up river, in some places appearing only inches deep. In some stretches of water, the captain will actually spin the boat in circles, making for a fun (and wet) quick thrill!

The captains also know the rivers very well and provide area history and ample wildlife sightings. In our trip we saw deer, ducks, beavers (notice I say ducks BEFORE beavers...), a bald eagle actually pulling a fish from the water, and even a bear munching on some berries.

As we reach the midpoint of the journey, the boat stops for dinner as we picked from several restaurants. We chose the all you can eat, home cooked buffet. The food was outstanding and at the end of the meal, we all had to almost be rolled back down to the docks in wheel barrows from our over eating, and dessert bar trips.

Finally, as the sun dropped below the coast line in a spectacular sunset, we arrived back at the coast, a little sun burned, wind blown, wet and still full of dinner.

The other major trip of the week was down south to the California Redwoods. This was a first for the family, all of us having wanted to visit, but never taking the opportunity. After spending several hours in the van, we eagerly got out at a sign pointing to a "Big Tree". This made me smile... like they have to point out the big trees in this forest. Yeah.. Ok.

Well, they actually had a point here. This was one BIIIIIIGGGGG tree, my kids looked like tiny smurfs standing in front of the beast.

Also in the Redwoods was the "Lady Bird Johnson" trail, where the park was dedicated years ago. This was close to filming locations for "Return of the Jedi" thus dooming my kids to all my stories and comments and trivia about the little planet of Endor and its Ewok inhabitants.

And speaking of movie locations, we also visited locations from Jurassic Park: The Lost World. Most interesting was the "Fern Canyon", a thin yet deep canyon where both sides of the canyon are totally covered in ferns.

It is a strange, yet pretty site to hike through. (Movie fans will remember watching some poor hiker get chased and eaten by the Packies in the Lost World, filmed in this spot) After a day of hiking, it was time to head North again, back to the beach house.

The rest of the time was spent doing the simple things the family loves: building with sand on the beach, hiking, exploring light houses, roasting marshmallows on a beach fire, and card games lasting way too late in the evening. And after all were in bed, I finally had my few free minutes each night to finish getting through the final Harry Potter book.

And thus concluded yet another family trip. Now it's time to get back to work and all the realities of life. Now.. is it nap time. I have to recover from my vacation!

Seattle Nose Following

This week, I have been in Seattle for another round of Web Design World, learning all about all the latest in web design, multimedia, digital video, podcasting, blogging technology and other geeky catch phrases. While I didn't manage to run into an acoustic Foo Fighters concert like I did last year, I did still manage a few adventures. Heck, it just wouldn't be a business trip without some, right?

It seems most of my adventures take place during my "wandering time". Trips like this really promote my wandering. What I mean is that in order to save money from my budget, instead of renting a car and driving all over creation, I take a cab from the airport to my hotel in downtown and call it good. The conference is in the hotel so I have a totally self-contained environment: My meetings.. my room.. my food, all in one convenient building. But staying in that building... well, that just gets boring. And so I go out and just explore.

It helps that I enjoy the art of "people watching". There are so many personalities out there.. Heck I could just walk and walk for hours just to see what I could find, and to see what kinds of people there are in the city. It gets so diverse, it becomes fun to just explore and watch. "Where does this street go? Not sure... Let's find out". "What's down this path?” It's amazing what you can find when you take the time to look. It is this habit of wandering, both during lunch breaks and after the conference is over each night that seems to provide adventures.

But here's the key... when leaving the room.. DON'T have a plan. Just go. (This is why I don't do this while at home with my wife.. it would drive her nuts). As I leave my hotel each night I have no clue where I am going... what kind of entertainment I'll find, or where to eat dinner. I just see what I can find and what plays out. So with that in mind, here are the Seattle adventures for my annual trip:

• Night one: Tonight's wandering was fairly short. After landing at the airport and enduring a meandering cab ride to my hotel, I had a nice (and warm!) 5 mile run through the waterfront parks of downtown Seattle. This is one of the reasons I just love visiting this city. I can be in a very crowded, typical city environment, and within a block I can get to the water, parks, recreation and beautiful Puget Sound scenery. It's just a great mix. By the time I was cooled down and showered, it was getting late. So I headed out and happened to bump into a restaurant that I loved from previous trips.. The Icon Grill, with its fried Mac and Cheese. Delicious! I wasn't planning on eating there, I just happened to walk by, not realizing I was in that neighborhood. The benefits of wandering. From there I headed a few blocks south only to bump into a downtown movie theater. Anything starting soon? Actually.. Ratatouille was about to start. Heck.. let's go. (Mini review: Awesome movie.. one of my favorite Pixar films. Amazing animation that had a unique, creative story with real heart put into the characters. I highly recommend it for all ages!)

• Night two: After finishing the conference for the day, I had an hour to kill before I had to be at the Seattle Aquarium for our conference reception. Rather than being smart and walking towards the aquarium, I headed the opposite direction as I hadn’t walked that way yet. After a few minutes.. I found a line... a long line.. wrapping all the way around a city block. I followed it to the end, at the Seattle Cinerama theater, that just happened to be showing a press screening of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. From the size of the line, I figured there was no way all these people could squeeze into one theater. I asked one of the people waiting about their tickets, which only people in the right place at the right time could get. It even said on the ticket that seats were on a first come first serve basis, having a pass didn't guarantee a seat. So, the sicko inside me decided to stick around. This could be fun: watching the people pour into the theater, then see the rejected look on the first person's face who had to stand in line, but didn't get a seat. So I hung out at the front of the line, just watching.

Soon, they began letting people in. With huge signs and people walking back into the line yelling announcements that there were NO CELL PHONES OR CAMERAS ALLOWED and that all bags would be searched prior to entrance (and it even stated this in big letters on the tickets) I found it fascinating how many people just ignored it, only to get booted out of line, them leaving in a big angry huff. See, watching this all unfold.. quality entertainment! Much to my surprise, every person in line (except those kicked out for phones) got into the screening. That must be one BIG theater. The big kicker for me.. had I taken a chance when I first discovered this was a Harry Potter screening, run back to my hotel to deposit my phone and camera (I had both), and returned, I could have gotten in. The manager was ready to let me in the door, even without a ticket as they had a couple of extra seats. Oh well. I'd see it soon enough.

Time to head back down to the aquarium. As I headed down the street from the theater, I passed a guy.. typical downtown stereotype.. scraggy, frayed and looking a little out of it. As I walked past, he said something to me under his breath. Ol' naive me, who tries to be nice to people, thought he asked me a legitimate question and didn't want to be rude, turned and said, "I'm sorry, what was that? I didn't understand". That's when I learned the valuable lesson, note to self... "DON'T DO THAT!.. just keep walking!!" The guy spun around spitting venom "Oh you heard what I said!!" A little confused, I continued to try my polite approach: "Oh sorry, I thought you were asking me a question. My mistake. Have a nice day." That's when he came after me. "OH YOU HEARD ME LOUD AND CLEAR YOU @$@#%%. GET BACK HERE YOU LITTLE #$%#%." He began charging towards me, fists drawn.. and that's when I quickly abandoned the "polite approach" and just got the heck out of there. I don't know what it is about us big guys that riles up the small and obviously drugged, small folk... But it proved to be an interesting encounter none the less.

Interesting side note: fast forward a few hours. I was walking down on the waterfront, heading back to my hotel having just come from a nice dinner overlooking the water. Up ahead of me, and coming towards me was the same guy. Mentally I went "oh great..." and continued to walk in the hopes that he just didn't recognize me. He did almost immediately. Only this time, his greeting to me was different. "Hey, Man! How's it going? So good to see you!!" He bellowed as I passed. A little surprised at his sudden friendliness and change, I instinctively, and in the same tone, yelled back. "Great! Nice to see you to! Enjoying your evening? Nice! Take care, man, good to see ya!". I continued to head back to the hotel.. grateful that he hadn't gutted me like a fish, and shaking my head at the whole surreal thing. Again... people watching.. quality, and free entertainment!

• Night three: No real adventures here, just more wandering. The conference ended around 6 PM after which I immediately headed out for another waterfront run. It did seem a bit warm as I was running, but since I usually run at night, when the temperatures are lower, since I was running at 6:30, in the hottest part of the day, I assumed it was normal. Turns out it was the hottest day in Seattle in the last 10 years. Yikes. But since I had spent the day in a hotel conference room, I was oblivious to the weather.

After finally cooling down, I headed out for a late dinner. Again, just walking in a random direction I eventually ended up at the Cheesecake Factory. No, I didn't eat cheesecake (although it looked tasty), I had a fantastic pasta dish. Across the street, more people were lining up for something. Curiosity killed the cat again and I had to find out what was going on. This time, it was the midnight, first showing of Harry Potter. I inquired as to if there were tickets left, and there were a few. Needless to say, I suddenly had a very late night out! (Also an excellent film.. a wonderful addition to the Potter series!) And even walking back to my hotel in the quiet city streets at 2:30 in the morning, it was outrageously hot. The heat just wouldn't go away.

The next day, the conference ended, and I flew home.. back in time for Little Calvin's evening swimming lessons. No adventures. Just normal travel. Which, when dealing with travel and airplanes.. a boring, uneventful, no adventures day is a great thing!

But the next time you are out in some strange city that you may be unfamiliar with, don't be intimidated by it.. savor that unfamiliar territory. Follow your nose. Walk. And just see what you can find. I'm always surprised and pleased with that adventure of walking into the unknown. And amazed as to what kind of fun I can find.

Running MY Race

Today was the day... Independence Day.... A nice midweek break.. and my first official 10k road race in years. It was about 2 months ago that my friend Zak contacted me, issuing the challenge that we run Eugene's Butte to Butte run on the fourth of July. After being "running slacker" for the past several months after the let down of not being able to run my marathon (thanks to my funky knees,) I figured this would be a good motivating factor to get my butt out the door and back on the roads to train. So for the last two months, I have been back at it.. working to get back in shape while not over-straining my knees.

After putting quite a few miles on my shoes in an attempt to get ready and with a few nerves, today.. race day.. finally arrived. What I didn't know before hand is that this simple race day would become one of life's little surprise lessons in integrity, that I could never see coming. It's funny how life can work sometimes. That said.. here's the whole crazy story:

Zak and I had met yesterday for lunch to put our whole plan together for the race. Neither of us had run this race previously, so the particulars and course were new to us. The race was to start at 8 AM. As can be guessed from the name of the race, the course isn't a loop. It starts on the butte on the south end of town, and ends on the butte on the north end of town. This is also a big race for our little city with about 4,000 runners.. a Fourth of July tradition for many. Thanks to its one-way course, and the huge number of participants, most people must be bussed from the finish line to the starting line. As Zak and I prepared our race plan, we figured that by arriving at the bus at 7:15, we'd have ample amounts of time to get ready, stretch, warm-up etc. prior to the race start. That was probably our biggest mistake.

We arrived at the bus stop, right on time and saw what appeared to be a small line stretching back from where the buses pulled up to load passengers. To our horror, we actually followed that line however, as it rounded on block corner.. then another block.. then another block.. then winding through an empty downtown parking lot. It took one look at this massive line, and the buses arriving every 5 minutes to realize... there were way to many people that still needed to get to the starting line, and that we could be in trouble.

That trouble confirmed itself as we finally got on a bus... at 8:03 AM. The race was supposed to start at 8:00 and there were still lots of people waiting in line. As we rode up to the starting line, many people around us were making calls to friends at the starting line and we began to hear varying reports. Some said that they had started the race on time.. some said they were holding the race until a majority of the runners could get there. All we knew is that we had no clue what we'd face when coming off the bus.

Finally, we arrived and darted off the bus. The starting line was just over a small hill. We followed the flow to the top, heading quickly towards the line. Zak began to get a little anxious in fear that the race had in fact started since we couldn't see the expected starting crowd. He asked if I minded him running ahead to see what was going on. I agreed and off he went. Besides, I still had to throw on my iPod and knee braces. (So much for pre-race stretching..). Once I was ready, I headed down the hill, still following the mass crowd, heading around the corner to find... the giant mass of the starting line. I was shocked... They had actually held the race. I immediately began sorting through the large crowd, in an attempt to try to catch up with Zak prior to the race actually starting. But there were just too may people all piled in together. And within 60 seconds of my arrival, the race began anyway with a loud cheer from the runners. We were finally off.

Now, anyone that has run in a large scale road race knows.. you don't just sprint off the starting line. In fact, you don't actually run for a few minutes until everyone starts getting some space to move. The same held true here. Sure, a few brave souls darted for the sidewalks in an attempt to get around the masses, but otherwise, everyone stayed in the group. And since I was stuck in the middle, I just followed the crowd.

It wasn't long before I started to get the feeling, that something just wasn't right in the universe. For one, all we had heard about is a GIANT hill in the first mile of the race. So far, there were no signs of a hill. Second, the crowd finally started opening up, but even with the added space, few people were actually running. After a minute of my brain going "what the...?!" I asked the runner next to me "Isn't this the 10k race?!" To which he smiled, laughed and said "Nooooo, this is the 4 mile Mayor's fitness walk.. The 10k started about 10 minutes before this race and went the opposite direction." WHAAAT?! THERE WAS A FITNESS WALK?! I'd never even heard about that as part of the race (Note to self.. look at the race t-shirt better.. it's actually listed on there.. DOH!)

Just as the revelation hit me that I had started the wrong race.. we got the point where the Fitness Walk merged in with the 10k. The guy next me laid out my options. "At this point, there is no way you can go back.. it's just too far and we're about 3/4 mile into this, so you might as well just merge into the 10 k and start running. Besides.. you missed the hill and the first two miles.. lucky you!".

So there I was, faced with a choice... do I just continue on, merge in and cut my losses? After all.. I missed the hill that I was a bit concerned about.. and think about what my time would be.. WOW! Or I could turn around... go back to the start and begin again, thus creating a mile and a half warm up.. and a guaranteed last place.. in a race where everyone's time is printed in the local paper. After a split second of trying to sort this out.. I immediately knew what I had to do. I realized.. I didn't do all the training for a real 10k to skip the first 2 miles, even if it was by unfortunate accident. I don't run races for everyone else, I don't run for places.. I run races for me. And running a 10k was a very personal experience, one that I would not be able to look back at with fond memories if I knew inside that I had skipped 1/3 of the real race. And so.. I turned around, and finally began running.. to the starting line. Sure, I had to endure all the "YOU'RE GOING THE WRONG WAY!!!!" comments, but again, it wasn't about them.. it wasn't their race.

About 25 minutes after the gun went off, I finally arrived at the starting line.. the real one and then began my race. By the time I had gotten there, the officials were taking the starting line down and cleaning up, the clock long since shut off, so I really had no idea how far back I was starting. It was obvious I was in last place.. I was being followed by the motorcycle cop up the hill as he was heading up to reopen the road to traffic.

So.. how was the race? It was actually very... quiet. Not the mass of people that I was expecting, but just my own race... running for pride, and not time. The hill wasn't too bad. Yes, it is steep at the end, but once it is done, there is a lovely 2 miles of steady down hill as a reward. (You can see the elevation chart below)

As I finally passed the "merge", I had to smile and wonder how I would have felt if that is where my race had begun. I also had a few moments of surprise and elation in those quiet middle miles as I actually passed a few runners. Sure.. they were elderly.. but still on the 10k course, so I could confirm they were not fitness walkers.. and bet of all: I wasn't in last place!

There were a few "issues" that concerned me after realizing the reality of my situation... It was a very HOT day, and with my late start, the water stops had been packed up by the time I arrived, causing fears of dehydration as I ran. Also in my late state, things like... course markers had already been taken down making things a little confusing for me and the traffic as I worked to figure out where I was supposed to be.

Luckily, my mental plan, concocted as I frantically ran back to the start, worked. By mile 5, I had caught up with the back of the pack of fitness walkers, so I didn't have to finish the race by myself. I also caught up to the water stops and was able to get a nice drink. The lady handing out drinks could tell I desperately needed some water, so rather than handing me a drink, she threw one in my face and as I looked surprised, she dumped another on top of my head. It was a wonderful thing.. just a little paranoid due to the iPod strapped to my arm..

In the end... I finally finished. Sure my "official" time was over an hour and a half, but under the circumstances.. I was a proud runner. It wasn't anyone else's race, it was MY race. And I finished MY race without regret, and without remorse. Despite the wacky start, it was a great way to begin my Fourth of July holiday and I look forward to running the race again next year.. with other actual racers.. And believe me: I'll be the first person on that starting line bus this time!!!

Coasting Through

Just returning from a weekend of "Coasting Through" as I like to call it. This means that the family is taking advantage of the nearby Pacific Ocean and beautiful Oregon Coast. This weekend's trip was a rain-check trip so to speak. We had originally scheduled a coast trip with the family over spring break, but.. due to Dawn's broken arm a few days before leaving, we had to reschedule the trip. Thanks to our hectic and busy schedules, the soonest weekend we could squeeze in was this weekend.

We left after work on Thursday night, heading this time to the beach cottage we typically stay in near Waldport Oregon. This gave us all day Friday and Saturday and half the day on Sunday to just lounge around and enjoy the coast. It was a fairly normal coast weekend: Lots of digging in sand and building large sand objects (only to have them completely washed away hours later..), kite flying with the kids new kites, water fights with the family arsenal of Super Soaker water guns, (each person has their own, so the family wars can get fairly violent) and brutal Phase 10 card games going waaaay too late in the evening. Tyler is still gloating for beating us all... Lucky boy..

Now we are just working to recover... thank goodness it's a shortened week this week thanks to Wednesday's holiday! I'll need a vacation day to recover from my... vacation.

Indy In The Can

Just a quick note tonight to share my excitement and pure geeky joy! For the first time in almost 20 years... there is actually new footage shot.. "in the can" as they say.. of Indiana Jones. (Cue the classic John Williams theme in your head) Sure he did a brief cameo for the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles 14 years ago, but to me.. that hardly counts. Finally, a new feature film has officially started shooting, with all new shots of our favorite (and now much older..) archeologist back in action.

The film, which began shooting this last week, will continue to film throughout the summer in New Mexico, New Haven, Connecticut, near Hilo, Hawaii and other yet to be disclosed locations. Sadly, nothing here in Oregon.

But suffice it to say, that Harrison Ford was once again, wearing the old Fedora this week.. and my inner-geek is smiling ear to ear simply knowing that we're that much closer a whole new adventure to enjoy next Memorial Day!

Rest, Rafting and...Ryan

It's that time of year again..Time to reflect back and realize that my wife and I have been married 9 years!! That seems just amazing to me!! Boy, how time flies! This weekend it was really easy to reflect upon this fact as I was surprised by the announcement of our anniversary trip, something I was not expecting. To catch up on how we do our whole anniversary trip tradition, refer back to this post from last year. But this year, it was my wife's turn to plan, scheme, plot, and lie.. my turn to be surprised.

The adventure began Friday morning.. what I thought would be a regular day. I got up with the knowledge that, while it was indeed Friday, it was the Friday before one of our biggest shows of the year. This meant that the day would be filled with lots of last minute odds and ends to get ready, lots of e-mails and phone calls, and an overall zooey day. To drive this point home to me, my boss (in on the whole surprise) had been warning me all week about how important Friday would be to getting things done for the show. And so I got ready for work with the full intention of facing craziness at the office and it wasn't until I climbed into my car in the driveway that my phone rang with my wife announcing that I wouldn't really be going in.

SURPRISE DAY OFF! Cool! And even better knowing that I wasn't really missing anything, thanks to both my wife and bosses lies. But as my wife soon discovered, even the best laid plans can hit bumps. She got a call from our regular baby sitter, scheduled to watch Little Calvin overnight. Sadly, her adult son had been hospitalized that morning and was in the ICU for some unknown medical illness. In a panic and a rush of calls, she was able to put together plan B fairly quickly still giving Little Cal a great weekend. And then we were off to unknown destinations.

The day began with a nice driving trip up the McKenzie River into the mountains. What makes this a real treat is up in the hills... there are no hay fields.. which means I got a nice break from the height of allergy season... I could walk outside... and breathe! A miracle! We ended up at a resort called the Holiday Farm, a series of river front cabins just east of Blue River. There, we relaxed for the afternoon before going to dinner at the resort's restaurant. During our dinner out on the restaurant's large porch, a blues concert played on the other side of the resort enabling us to enjoy the music, while not losing out on the sounds of nature and the river at the same time. Just a perfect blend.

After dinner, it was off for a quick soak at Belknap Hot Springs, a nice, hot pool fed by a natural hot spring. As a fan of hot water, I was able to find that perfect spot where the hot water flows into the pool, and it becomes almost too hot to stand.. just awesome!

While the focus of Friday was relaxing and calm... Saturday was a bit hectic. (but also fun!). My wife surprised me with the announcement that we were booked on a river rafting trip down the McKenzie River. It has been since I was a junior in high school that I have been river rafting and I eagerly went along for the ride. And the McKenzie gave us quite a fun ride.

In all, we rafted over 12 miles of river with our guide and 5 others. The river got a bit wild in places with a few Category 3 rapids to experience. Luckily we all stayed in the boat, but boy did we get wet!!! Early in the ride I got blasted with a few tidal waves of water, as we hit the rapids in just the perfect place to cause me to get hit. But such is the fun of river rafting. And it's not like we weren't prepared in our wetsuits to make the 42 degree water bearable. I was actually quite toasty all afternoon.

Eventually we got to the end of the ride, and had just enough time to shower, grab some food and make the drive back to Eugene. There, I got another surprise. My wife took us to the Hult Center, Eugene's performing arts center, where from the size of the crowds, it was obvious that something was going on.. My wife just wouldn't say what. And she kept me away from any promotion posters for the event.

We walked into the theater, and to our seats only a few rows from the stage to find a simple setup: 4 bar stools and some musical equipment. I had no idea what this was. I finally concluded it was some kind of comedy show, but it wasn't until the cast hit the stage that I realized what I was in for. It turns out, one of my old favorite TV shows, Whose Line Is It Anyway, was on tour with "the whole TV show cast except for the Rich guy, the black guy and the bald guy". Any fans of the show will know who that refers to.

And so for the next 2 hours we were entertained by the world's best Improv comedy stars: Greg Proops, Chip Esten (he's in "The Office"!), Jefff Davis, and our favorite, Ryan Stiles. The show was outrageously funny as the group could sing, dance, and act out just about anything suggested. For instance, in their opening skit, they needed a profession to act out... they pointed to a guy in the audience and said "what's your job?" He replied "I fix chain saws bars." Needless to say, they had never gotten that one before, but did fine none the less. Then it was a song all about a lady on the front row who was a landscaper (and whose husband also happened to by the county's DA). And boy, Chip Esten can 80's dance, giving Wham a run for their money!!! In all the group was fantastic and seeing them all that up close and personal, was a great treat!

And so concluded the 2007 anniversary trip with a bang, a weekend that was a lot of fun, very restful and deeply exhausting all at the same time. Now the planning switches back over to me and I have a year or so to figure out next year's trip, a creative challenge that I thrive on. hmmmm. what to do.. what to do .

I'M NOT DEAD!

Bad blogger.. bad! I know, I know.. as many of my blog readers have so carefully pointed out in e-mails or phone calls.. "YOU HAVEN'T UPDATED YOUR BLOG FOR ALMOST 3 MONTHS!! ARE YOU STILL ALIVE?!"

I can definitely answer "Yes!" to that question.. that is.. unless everyone else that I deal with on a daily basis is also dead and no one has bothered to tell me. Hmmmmm. Nope.. not dead yet (I'm NOT DEEEAADD! I feel happy!) I have just had an extremely busy spring. Between constant work demands and working to take care of the family as my wife's arm recovers, life has been busier than normal and most of my typical blogging time just seems to get sucked away.

I have still been doing a lot of mental blogging, figuring out things to write about, mapping them out, normally while on my evening runs. But by the time I stumble through the door, the last thing I want to do is start typing. So I'll save those ideas for another time. Instead, I'll do a quick recap of various events of the last 3 months. That way I can still share the news, and then be caught up for my future blogging. So here's a quick summary of the highlights of the last few months.

Let's start... back in April. Dawn's arm now securely in a black snazzy brace, she began to return to normal life once again. And one of the first things on the agenda.. the girls weekend away to Utah for the NCAA Gymnastics Tournament. Blog readers may remember the origin of this trip, as described here. Suffice it to say, Dawn and Amanda won tickets to this years championship, while going to last years championship held near us, in Corvallis. The girls saved their extra pennies all year and finally bought their plane tickets to head East.

Joining then for the weekend tournament was my Mom, flying over from Colorado. I guess she just couldn't pass up a good "Girl's Weekend". Also joining then, at least for a morning of exploring downtown Salt Lake City was the girls of Dawn's family.

Needless to say, the girls had a ball. Their assigned seats at the event happened to be right in the middle of the Florida State fans section, and so to prevent them from cheering on other teams, the FSU crowd made them all "Honorary Gators", complete with t-shirts, pom poms, signs, pins.. the works. This just added to the excitement, although it was weird for me to watch my family, decked out in Florida gear, during the camera pans across their section during the CBS television coverage..

Next up.. Work. Been a busy few months having just inherited several new websites to manage with new products to learn. I am used to the luxury RV markets, but horse trailers, cargo trailers, and small towables are all a bit new to me. But challenges help us all to grow. I also got to help, as a "behind the scenes" photgrapher, on the production of a new video for one of my newer websites. And this wasn't just a basic "put camera on tripod and do some interviews" kind of shoot. This was a $50 grand, week long shoot, flying crew in from all over the country.... shoot.

It was educational to say the least, what with my fairly small sized films, to see the size of production this turned out to be. It was an insanely coordinated thing, much more than I was used to with gear, cameras, lighting all stung out as the crew slowly worked through the script.

The video all came together nicely, and premiered on one of my sites... well... this morning. You can watch it here..

Spring slowly began to turn to summer, beginning with Memorial Day. This year, there was just too much going on to justify a full weekend trip. And so we did a fun "mini-vacation". We headed up to Portland on a Sunday afternoon with the five of us, stayed in a family suites hotel, went out to dinner and then spent the evening playing in the hotel pool (an activity that just seems to get more and more violent the older the kids get). I have no idea why there seems to be such an obsession with "drowning dad".. who knows.. maybe they are just protecting themselves.. but things get pretty hairy. And then there is the "attempt to empty the pool cannon-ball style" contest. Yeah.. the hotel staff love our family... Best, most random line of the day came from Little Calvin with his "Dad, can I call you Larry?"

The next day, it was off to the zoo to see an assortment of animals. A few interesting sights.. Well, there was the large baboon that was.. ahem... let's just say... very HAPPY to be there that morning. There was the very large gorilla that threw a temper tantrum, swinging on his vine at a high rate of speed so that he could hit the cage glass feet first, making a huge noise and sending a dozen freaked out guests screaming in several directions. And then there was poor little Calvin complaining that his stomach hurt. We passed it off as just being tired from our previous night's exertions and eating too much breakfast buffet.

But after a busy day of zoo walking, he proved that he was serious, when were were just pulling on the freeway when he announced that he really was feeling bad, then .5 seconds later proceeded to throw up all over himself and the van. Needless to say... it was a long trip home.. and a long evening as he kept it up late into the night. Where does a kid HOLD that much stuff in that small of body? Yikes!

Next up.. Little Calvin got to finish his school year at camp. The entire school spends the second to last week at a day camp in the woods. It gives the kids a fun, new environment to learn new skills they just can't get in a classroom. It also helps them get to know kids in other grades that they may not have interacted with during the year. One of our biggest surprises of the week... Little Calvin actually had the guts to do a fairly tall and long zip line.

We worried he may be a little freaked out at the idea, as he typically has not been one for thrills like that. But not only did he do it, he was one of only 2 kids, who didn't sit down on the edge and scootch himself off the edge. Nope, he grabbed hold of the rope and just jumped for it. All week long he asked to go again, but sadly his group didn't have time to return to that station. But he still loved canoeing, archery, craft making and spent the weekend singing camp songs. (Pictured below are Little Calvin, his teacher and Abbie, on of his best friends)

One final event.. then I'm all caught up.. The Prefontaine Classic. For the track uninitiated, this is one of the premier professional track meets in the world, held each year here at Eugene's (Track Town) Hayward Field. This year, it was a good test run, as our little town will be hosting the track and field Olympic Trials next year, and this gave some of the elite runners more experience on our track before that meet.

What made this fun was the opportunity to meet several of the athletes the day before, shake their hands, and get their autographs. This year we got to meet "The World's Fastest Man", Asafa Powell, who is the current world record for the 100 meter dash, and Sanya Richards, the 400 Meter gold medalist from the last Olympics.

Having actually met the athletes and talked to them about their races for a few minutes made the meet all the more fun for the kids, as they rooted on their new favorites. All in all, a fun day watching a Kenyan runner Paul Koech, win the steeple chase by almost half a lap, Maria Mutola win the Woman's 800 meter for the 15th consecutive year, Matt Tegenkamp break the 2-mile American Record (while still coming in 3rd), and the 4 top one-mile runner's squaring of against each other in a brutal race.

And so.. there you are.. some of the big events of the last few months. Now I am finally caught up and have plans to continue to blog this summer. No more blog slacking for me. More to come... very soon!

OUCH!

If there is one thing I can say about my wife.. she doesn't like to do things halfway. If she is going to do something.. by golly, she is going to do it right. And this last weekend, she proved it.. the poor girl.

Friday morning, I casually (and sleepily) walked onto an airplane in Minneapolis, to take a long flight to Portland. While I was somewhere over Montana, my wife was just getting ready for the day. Having taken Little Calvin to school earlier, she was showering prior to picking him up and heading to the airport to pick me up. She stepped out of the shower to dry off, took a step onto the bathroom linoleum floor, and for some reason, felt both of her legs slipping out from under her on the wet floor. Down she went.. backwards. Instinct took over and she threw her left arm behind her to brace her fall. As she fell backwards, she looked down at her bracing hand, just in time to see her wrist snap and break as she hit the floor. Immediately she knew she had just broken her wrist.. and needed help.

Now, nothing against my wife, but when things don't go her way, she can get angry. And in this case, that sense of anger is what really helped her. She was angry that she could tell she just sustained a major injury, and as spring break was just beginning with lots of family plans coming up, as well as work demands, this was NOT the time for a major injury! But her anger helped her work her way out of the bathroom, to get dressed and call a friend to help get her to a doctors office, all while having her left hand lying uselessly on the bed. It was this drive that kept her mind thinking clearly, to use her first aid skills (she teaches first aid classes) to teach her friend how to make a splint out of magazines (while carefully sorting out the ones that she thought I may still be reading), and bandage herself up to get some medical attention.

By the time I got off the plane, my cell phone was ringing to tell me what was going on, that she wouldn't be picking me up at the airport, and that I need to get to the hospital ASAP. She had already been to the doctors, taken X-rays, and was then immediately sent to the ER for treatment. Every doctor that looked at her wrist, could immediately tell it was broken, as it was disfigured significantly. Luckily, the bone was not coming out, but it was tweaked enough to give people the shivers.

Soon after landing in Eugene, I got my car, and headed to the hospital. By the time I got there, the doctors had just finished setting the bone. She was (luckily) out cold, with her hand hanging from a raised hook, with her fingers stuck in some medieval looking torture device. With her fingers locked in place, the doctor could pull down on her arm to pop everything back where it should be. According to the Dr. it took all his strength to pull it all out, but as seen in the x-rays, he did a perfect job. While I was glad to be a the hospital with her, part of me wasn't upset that I missed that procedure.

After more x-rays, a cat scan, and a LOT of morphine (for her)... we finally left the hospital. And for the rest of the weekend she got to deal with a large cast almost up to her shoulder, being unable to move much, and in a great deal of pain.

Fast forward to today (Tuesday). Right now she is finishing up in surgery. The doctor just handed me the groovy X-ray of the plate that now supports her wrist bone, nicely screwed in place on the operating table with 8 screws (Click image below for larger view).

Her full arm cast will be replaced with a half arm brace that she will wear for the next few weeks. Sure, the next few days will have some painful recovery for her, but she soon should be back to normal. And who knows.. with that kind of hardware in her arm, she could become all powerful on the volleyball court next year. I am struggling to remove Star Wars references from my head ("She more machine now than.." wait.. never mind). But so far so good in the recovery process.

But, everyone who sees the original x-rays and her original injury can all agree.. she did a REAL good job in breaking this bone!! My dad would be proud.. There was no "Half-Assing" here!

My Psychic iPod

It started out a little weird... now it is just plain creepy. I swear, my iPod is psychic.

I must admit, the iPod in general is the greatest invention of the last 10 years. Forget the Walkman, capable of playing a cassette tape of 90 minutes of music, with its warping tapes that a small child (or dog) could pull out and ruin in .3 seconds. I remember being so excited when I got my first one.. "Wow! I can take my music with me!". And thus began the days of carrying the walkman with me, along with a large box of cassette tapes to hold my music. One backpack and I could take it all with me, where ever I went (assuming I had a good supply of batteries, unless I wanted to hear really sloooooow tunes).

Then came the portable CD player. I can also remember the first time I listened to a song on a CD, standing at the electronics counter of Best, listening to "Time After Time" by Cyndi Lauper. Suddenly, I had to have one of these little gadgets with such high sound quality! And forget the box of tapes... now all I needed was a CD wallet and again, I could take my music with me.

But now, iPods rule the world. Beginning as a player that could hold an astonishing 1,000 songs (Like we'd ever take THAT many songs on the road with us at once), iPods continue to get larger and larger. Nowadays, they can store, what.. 25,000 songs, your entire lifetime worth of photos, plus an entire living room's worth of DVD movies, and tv shows.. and entire entertainment center, that fits right in your pocket. I never leave home without mine.

Gone are the days of waiting in boredom in lines or in doctors offices, when at any point, I can pull out "Lost" or "The Office" and catch my favorite episode. I could even tell when kind of shift was taking place this week, as I spent the week traveling to Indiana for my job. During an entire days worth of flying, I never once pulled my laptop out of my bag (where as it typically never leaves my hands). This trip, it was my iPod that kept me entertained, as I watched 2 episodes of the "Office", an episode of "Lost" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark" en-route to Cincinnati.

But what is really weird is, as I said, my iPod tends to be psychic. Somehow it "Knows" what is going on in my life and can play the appropriate music for almost any occasion.. without me doing anything.

During the work day, my iPod sits on my desk, attached to a speaker allowing me to have music playing quietly in my office as I work. Usually, when listening to music, I select "Songs" (which selects from all the tunes in my collection) and then it randomly pulls songs to play. It has thousands of songs to choose from, but what it chooses.. gets eerie.

Last year, I blogged about this phenomenon as I was intrigued that my iPod happened to pick Bill Cosby's "The Dentist" while sitting in the dentists chair. But lately, it has gotten way more than just coincidental in its "random" music picks, it must be psychic. Let me give you some examples:

• While helping a friend with some graphic design for his thesis, the iPod, happened to play 3 songs from an Album by Big Wreck, the same album that he and I used to listen to repeatedly while college room mates. It hasn't picked songs by that artist in years, or since. But it did right then.. and 3 of them. Weird.

• While talking to a friend about his upcoming trip to Disneyland, it began to play songs from my Disneyland Soundtrack.

• While boarding a plane, the iPod JUST HAPPENS to pick "Jet Airliner" by the Steve Miller Band.

• Upon reading that the new Harry Potter book will be out this summer, in the background, the Harry Potter theme begins to play.

• Even this week, while traveling for some meetings with my boss in Indiana, the iPod dipped into the Motown collection playing:

"Going Back to Indiana" by the Jackson 5

"Jimmy Mac" by Martha Reeves (that's my bosses name, by the way)

or even "Gary, Indiana" from the Music Man Soundtrack.

It's almost like my life is a movie, only the soundtrack plays out loud, the iPod queueing up the perfect tune for the situation, or the things that I am thinking about.. Guess I better watch my thoughts! It does provide for plenty of those slow looks, as my head turns sideways, the look of shock and surprise when the tune perfectly fits the situation. And there it sits, smiling back at me in its little iPod cradle on the desk.

I just must be careful... And if I start hearing "Fired" by Ben Folds or "Burn, Baby Burn (Disco Inferno) by the Trammps, I'm running for it!

Goodbye Mr. Incredible Car

It's gone... all gone.. goodbye Mr Incredible car! Most people may not understand this reference. It was invented by my friend Zak as he watched me drive my car down the street. Being that I am an.. eh... bigger guy, and I drive a smaller little sedan, I was told I looked like Mr Incredible driving down the street, me all hunched over at the wheel trying to maneuver the thing.

That thing was my 1998 Mitsubishi Mirage... the car I have owned for the last 7 years. Purchased with only 20,000 miles on it, I have obviously spent a lot of time in this little car over the years as I suddenly found it nearing 200,000 miles. My wife and I had talked for the last 6 months about the fact that a change needed to happen before the car would need some serious maintenance, the older it got and the more miles I racked up. But financing a new car, and making a whole new car payment, after having spent several years owning it free and clear, was just not appealing to us. And what kind of car could we afford to buy free and clear from the get-go? Well, probably a car with 200,000 miles. So what was the point of looking at options. There simply were none, but wait for the little beast to die.

Suddenly, an answer to our quandary came out of nowhere, hitting us like an unexpected brick to the head. My wife heard through someone at her work, of a car for sale. This one was just as old as our current car, a 1998 model year vehicle. But amazingly enough, it only had 48,000 miles on it. The car had one previous owner.. an elderly couple whose husband had been a mechanic. It didn't have a single scratch (something I certainly couldn't say for my Mirage that I had driven into the ground), not one flaw in the paint, as it had spent so much time in the garage. The interior was immaculate. And it's owners had done every bit of preventative maintenance you could imagine. When I went to look at the car, I was presented with a large file folder, filled with every receipt for every oil change, and every expense ever put into the car.

My only hesitation was really about pride. The car was an Oldsmobile.. a brand that I had always associated with elderly people. Me? An Oldsmobile driver? I don't think so.. No old lady car for me! After all, my next vehicle was supposed to be my big honkin S.U.V. or something fun.. certainly not an Oldsmobile...

But as I drove the car.. something happened. I discovered.. this was a nice, COMFORTABLE car!! My old Mirage... was a very base model car. No frills, no comforts. This car had leather seats, actual power windows and locks, a V6 engine. Things I certainly was not used to!! So while my Mirage was a baseline unit of 1998, this was a 1998 luxury car, filled with lots of driving perks that I had never had before. Suddenly the brand name didn't seem to be a very big deal. Driving down the road in comfort and a big, powerful engine under the hood, rather than my gutless 4 cylinder engine.. suddenly that was important.. desired.

And so I began to explore the potential.. of owning an "old lady car". And it didn't seem so bad. The biggest problem.. in order to be able to buy the car outright, I had to sell the Mirage.. something that I thought would be virtually impossible. Who would want a old, beat up, gutless, basic, boring car? My wife suddenly had a thought and called me at the office 5 minutes later with the news.. "I just sold your car." WHAT?!

As absolute fate would have it, she thought to call a friend. That friend had a daughter just finishing high school. A daughter who had just pulled money out of her bank account THAT DAY to go car shopping THAT AFTERNOON, as she need a car to take to college. As soon as she heard that our car was for sale, and that we'd sell it for a good deal, she bit. And it would be a perfectly fine car for a college student!

And so, in 2 days time, I went from not even looking for a car, to selling "the Mr. Incredible Car", to buying an "old lady car". It's amazing how things can change so quickly.

Now, we thought the story had ended there, but it turns out, it continued. 10 days after the "Mr Incredible Car" was purchased, the car turned out to be more incredible than we ever imagined it to be. It's new owner, all proud of owning her first car, and still a bit inexperienced behind the wheel, pulled into traffic not seeing a speeding car roaring down the inside lane of a 4 lane highway. She was side-swiped, being hit just behind the driver side door with enough force that the driver's seat was shoved into the passenger seat. The car was totaled.. the Mr. Incredible car now truly gone.

But what we found incredible was that the car, for as sick of driving it as I was, for as much as I couldn't wait to get rid of it, thinking of it as a piece of junk.. that car saved her life. According to authorities, had it been almost any other kind of car, she would have been killed in the accident. Instead, she walked away with a broken collar bone and some minor bruises. Yes, she had to be cut out of the car, but she made it. And the car is getting a lot of credit. When we heard of the accident.. that it was my old car destroyed on the highway, we feared the reaction that may come from her parents. But with tears in their eyes, they actually thanked us for selling her that car, as it has done what it needed to do. It had saved a life as it met its end. Had she been driving any of their other cars, she would no longer be with us.

Sure, it's weird seeing photos of the car that I spend so much time and put so many miles on, as nothing more than twisted metal. But it was a good car. And it wasn't until the end that I really appreciated it. Sounds silly, I know. It's a car. But it was a good car. I just have to hope that the new car can keep me just as safe if necessary. But it has too.. heck.. it's designed for old ladies!