News from 2003

Merry belated Christmas to everyone!

Actually, Christmas is slowly winding down here in the Ring house in Portland. The boys made a pretty good haul this year and Tina and I did pretty well, too. Although Tina and I had an agreement to not spend money on this year, we both figured out how to give gifts to each other anyway. Her hair looks better short anyway and I'm sure I can find some use for that watch fob.

Thomas and Graham have been saving for several months and they both bought Game Boys for Christmas. Thomas sold Graham his old Game Boy Color that he bought two years ago and used the proceeds and his savings to buy a new Game Boy Advance SP. Tina found one at Target that came in limited edition green and included a game. She saved him $30 which allowed him and I to go shopping with his leftover Christmas money yesterday. He bought another game and a cable for connecting two Gameboys together to play multi-player games.

As you may have read on Tina's blog, I recently found this excellent article on introverts. Although the article is somewhat inflammatory, the personality traits it describes are very much mine. It was a revelation to read and so I found a few other sites about introverts including An Introvert's Lexicon and The Introvert Advantage.

This is the week that I begin to work part-time for Extensis/ProDX. It's not entirely unwelcome (see previous entry below) but I'll probably think otherwise when get the paycheck in January. However, ProDX is currently in negotiation for further work with Extensis. If they are successful, I would be employed for several more months at least. Keep your fingers crossed!

I continue to converse several times a week with my counterpart in Vietnam, Su. Today is "Sorry Day" (his translation) in Vietnam. This is a day that everyone tells each other they are sorry for things that they might have done, even if you think you're right. I did a Google search and found that the practice is pretty widespread around the world. It's a good idea but I don't think it would ever catch on in America. We are too self-assured and stubborn for that kind of thing.

A few weeks ago our conversation turned to cuisine and I asked Su if he had ever eaten dog. H replied that he had and that one eats dog (and duck) for luck. Further inquiry revealed that they distinguish between dogs as house pets and dogs as food - i.e. they don't ever kill Fido for Sunday dinner. In fact, Su was unaware of which specific breeds he has consumed and told me that dogs are raised on farms just like cattle, pigs and chickens are here. Makes complete sense once you think about it.

His remark about pets vs. meat reminded me of my own pet consumption years ago. When I was a little kid, we used to visit my Uncle Johnny. Johnny raised rabbits and one spring I asked if I could have one to take home. The powers that be (Johnny, parents, etc.) agreed to this and we took "Smokey" home in a little cage. Soon after, my dad built or acquired a five sided cage that gave Smokey more room to move around. There was no bottom on the cage and we just moved it around the yard so Smokey would have fresh grass. I was responsible for feeding and watering him and occasionally chasing him around the yard when he would dig his way out.

When the weather changed in the fall, the writing was on the wall for Smokey. Soon, Uncle Johnny came to visit and we all convened in the basement: me, Smokey, Johnny and my dad. Johnny borrowed a hammer from my dad and finished Smokey off with two sharp blows to the head. He probably squealed that annoying rabbit squeal after the first shot, but it was not for long. Johnny then skinned and dressed him. I kept the pelt for tanning, but eventually threw it away the next summer when almost all the hair had fallen off. That night my mother fried up Smokey and we all remarked how he "tasted like chicken."

True story. But maybe not as weird as it seems in retrospect.

Since returning to work in September, I've found that I seem to have lost my ability to manage my personal time. I think having all that time off to do personal projects ruined my ability to budget my time appropriately. And perhaps I spread myself too thin while I was unemployed. I volunteered at Thomas' school and with MacRenewal. Since I have been working I have had very little time to volunteer with either organization. For the first couple of months I thought I would just wait until I had more time again (i.e. no work). Now I need to figure out how to do all these things while working a full-time job.

Probably my biggest problem right now is my schedule. I get up at 4:30 or 5:00 in the morning and then when I get home at night, I'm totally wiped out and fall asleep by 8 or 9 in the evening. But, for some reason, I forget about that on the weekend and tell myself I'll do that on Monday. I have a very short memory!

My work at Extensis/ProDX has continued unabated. Various unforeseen challenges have arisen during the project that have required me to stay on full-time (as opposed to part-time). At this point it looks like I will continue working until the project is completed at the end of December or during the first two weeks of January. I have been very lucky that this temporary job has been extended past the original 30 day contract it was supposed to be. However, I have gotten many compliments from both ProDX and Extensis staff as well as from the offshore development team members. Now if only I can figure out how to turn all this goodwill into permanent employment.

We've had miserable weather for bike riders here recently. We live in a particularly windy part of Portland because we're at the base of the Columbia River Gorge. Riding home the other night, I found myself struggling mightily with a severe wind that was blowing freezing cold rain out of the east. The rain drops felt solid against my face and I could not muster more than 12 MPH. I thought it was just the wind, but as I waited near home for a traffic light to change green, I noticed that my front tire was a little mushy. Further examination revealed that it was almost completely flat. Luckily, I only had a half mile left and was able to ride (and not push) the rest of the way home. Second flat with that tire in three days. I bought a new tire (with Kevlar) the next day.

Yesterday we had a somewhat pleasant and totally unexpected surprise: snow! I woke up around 9:00 to giant snowflakes falling from the sky at an amazing rate. I took pictures with my digital camera and considered whether I should ride my bike or drive that day. It looked so gentle and didn't feel too cold so I decided to ride. I bundled up in my warm-weather gear (short sleeve shirt, long sleeve shirt, shorts, sweat pants, rain coat, bike cap, full-finger gloves) and packed shoes in one of my bags just in case. As I rode on to the street, I was confident that I was going to have a spectacular and beautiful ride in the snow. Two blocks later I started having second thoughts as the giant snow flakes landed on my glasses and completely obliterated my visibility. Nevertheless, I wiped them off and pedaled on. I reminisced about my childhood when I rode my bike in the snow delivering papers.

After I got out of our little neighborhood and on to the first main thoroughfare, I observed that the snow was not soft and powdery everywhere. In fact, it was quite slushy underneath and passing cars could potentially spray me with a bit of it. The first car happened to pass me in a wide area of the road so I veered away from him and successfully avoided the spray. The next I was not so lucky but it was going pretty slow and only hit my legs. A few blocks later a truck whizzed by me and sprayed me from head to toe with icy, cold slush! That is, I assume it was head to toe because all I really felt was the cold mass that hit me in the side of the head. I let out a yelp and laughed. I was more than halfway to my destination and it was too late to turn around.

I did, however, decide to take the shortest route possible which normally only takes about 15 minutes. The hill that I usually avoid was hardly noticeable since I was preoccupied with the general soaking that I was receiving from passing cars and snow melting on me. Sweat pants do not shed water. At all. When I got to the Max station there was one more hurdle to clear: a giant puddle of water backed up from a clogged storm drain. Since I was soaked already, I went right through the middle and found that the water was just as cold as I had imagined.

After I got on the Max, I stayed onboard for as long as possible. The last half mile to work was uneventful but still chilly. The office was partially empty since our city becomes mostly paralyzed in snow situations. Last week, I mailed a CD that I had made for my Vietnamese counterpart, Su. Su's lifelong dream is to eat snow and is always asking me about snow so I included a Trip Shakespeare song called "Snow Day" about taking a day off for the weather. I had to explain it all to him because he has never experienced a snow day and wouldn't understand the various references ("it's coming down" and "there's a blessing on the ground", for example).

Before I woke up to snow, I had the most bizarre dream about my brother, Kim. In the dream, I was with my family (immediate and siblings) and Kim was there. Only it wasn't really Kim - it was a clone of Kim. For some reason, this clone was not a fully functioning version of Kim and everyone knew it. Nobody treated him like Kim because he was broken. He didn't have Kim's personality and only looked like Kim.

I sometimes have similar dreams about my father, although less frequently than in the immediate years after he died in 1989. In those dreams, my father has come back from the dead as a zombie. Again, he is not a fully functioning version of my father but more so than in the clone dream. In this dream, my zombie dad is in a general stupor and not really capable of interaction. Sometimes, he shows phsyical signs of zombie-ism, too, like rotting flesh and the like.

Dreams are wishes but my mind can't escape reality, I guess.

Part of my job with ProDX/Extensis involves interacting with the ProDX offshore development center in Hanoi, Vietnam. Earlier, I was arriving at work at 6:00 AM everyday to "chat" online with a programmer named Su in Vietnam. He's very interesting to chat with and we often veer from work subjects to cultural discussions. He's very interested in our culture and I am often surprised at how little he knows about us. Now I only have to be in early two mornings of the week so I don't get to chat with him as often but I got this nice picture of him last week.

The weather has been nasty cold for the last two weeks. I don't quite dread my morning and evening bike rides ahead of time, but when that wind blasts out of the east, I definitely wish for better weather. What makes it difficult is that in order to stay warm, you have to bundle up, but, if you bundle up, you work up a sweat. When I stop to ride the Max, I dread the second part of my ride because I know I'm going to be cold and wet. It's supposed to warm up and rain this week, so that will be better, I think. Of course, if it rains and that wind doesn't die down, then my life will really suck.

Today Tina celebrates her 34th birthday. You can wish her happy birthday via email or by leaving a comment on her website.

Saturday night Uncle Buddy, Jan and Tom came over and we carved up pumpkins. I took pictures. On Friday we're having a little Halloween party where we'll watch a few scary movies.

I've been helping out at Thomas' school in their computer lab. They just received a bunch of new eMac computers and I have been helping the librarian configure them for student use. As a reward for my help, I get first dibs on any old equipment or software they are throwing out. On Friday, Thomas and Graham helped me carry out a couple of Apple IIe computers that are close to three times older than Thomas. I don't know what I'm going to do with them yet, but it's cool having them!

I did a little bit more work on my essay on riding my bike to work and have finished the third part. Next week, I'll finish it up.

I have mixed news on the work front. Other opportunities have fallen through so I only have one that has potential. I won't know more about it for at least a couple of weeks. However, my contract job with ProDX/Extensis has continued beyond the length that anybody expected. Terms have to be worked out, but I'll probably continue with this job until some time in December. At some point, my hours may be cut to less than full-time, but I think that will be advantageous for me. Right now it is difficult to give the job search the time it deserves so that problem will be solved when I'm working less.

Last weekend we went on our annual trek to the Pumpkin Patch on Sauvie's Island. Tradition demands that our friends, Carroll and Allen, join us and they did as we wondered among the pumpkins looking for the perfect specimen. "Carry your own" is our mantra, but we had to violate it slightly because Graham got stung on the hand by a bee as we waited for the hayride. Luckily, we were not far from an onion, which Allen sliced open and Graham held on his hand for the rest of the day. As usual, we visited the farmer's market there and filled our grocery cart for $25. We always have to get the "peaches and cream" corn-on-the cob and then pick a variety of squash that we have not tried before (they have about 15 each year). I forgot my camera this year but Tina brought hers. I'll try to scan the pictures after they have been developed. I hate old and slow technology!

Inspired by this page and my niece, Tiffany's website, Tina has been asking for help in putting up a weblog (or 'blog as those of us in the know call it) of her own. A former collegue directed me to a server package called MovableType which automates the process of posting entries, lets readers add comments as well as supporting all the typical blog features. It took me one evening to do the initial setup and another hour or so the next night fixing mistakes I'd made the night before. It went relatively smoothly, though, and I'm proud to say that Tina now has a blog. The link on the left side of the window will take you there. Her address is similar to mine: www.rynosoft.com/tina. If you leave her a comment, she'll be your friend forever!

After my fourth week on this contract job, it looks like I've got at least another week or two. I'll find out tomorrow when my end date is. That's important so that I can pursue other opportunities that need me immediatly. One of the opportunities I had mentioned earlier here fell through this week. I've still got a couple of others that I'm pursuing and my boss at CPS continues to be optimistic about my chances of coming back.

Thomas joined the Cub Scouts recently and has been having lots of fun with that. I had misgivings because of the Scouts' policies with regards to gays and atheists, but Thomas wanted to do it and that's the most important thing, I think. If there was an alternative, I would take it but there isn't right now.

I took some time to write about the second stage of my daily bike commute. Next week, I'll finish it up.

Earlier this year I started to write a description of my daily bike commute. I stopped working on it in June when it was no longer relevant. However, now that I'm riding the same route every day, I've decided to put it here for you all to read. Keep in mind that it was written when I was at my old job. It's only half done. I'm working on the illustration for the second half and will write the description after that's done. Watch this space for an update.

A neighbor of ours died this morning or last night. He was an old guy that I didn't know very well but when Tina told me this morning, the first thing I thought was, "I just talked to him a few days ago!" That's the part of death that is so hard to understand: one minute somebody is alive with a whole history that has touched many lives and created even more memories; the next minute they're dead but everything else remains. Trying to comprehend the existence of one without the other seems unnatural.

Happy Birthday to me!

Good news continues on the work front. Although my current contracting gig is only supposed to last a month, I feel pretty certain that they are going to need me longer than that. I also had an interview for another job that could be permanent or could be a 3-6 month contract. I expect that I'll at least get a second interview from that one. I still have some other leads that I'm waiting to hear on, so I'm very positive right now.

I drove to work the first day and it cost me $12 to park. The next day I took the Max and then I rode my bike yesterday and today. It felt so good to ride to work in the morning again. Today was some kind of biking celebration day or something so there were a lot of amateurs out there this morning. One buy biffed right in front of me, but I think he was alright. I also saw someone shooting up as I rode along the waterfront this morning. I do not believe the substance in the syringe was legal.

Work ended early again today, so I took the opportunity to take the long way home. There is a bike trail in south east Portland that I used to ride quite a lot called Springwater Corridor. Today I had the pleasure of riding it about 15 miles from downtown to a few miles from our house. It was a great ride but I was dragging during the last few miles. It took me almost two hours and was probably over 20 miles long.

Tina discovered that in addition to the first 25 channels, we also get E! and AMC. Consequently, we've become quite versed in True Hollywood Stories and old movies. Surprisingly, the boys have hardly missed Disney, Nick and Cartoon Network.

In June, I stumbled upon some unique pedals on the clearance shelf in a local bike store. Ever since I took up biking again over a year ago, I've been looking for some pedals that would allow me to shed my shoes when riding. Most pedals, including the ones that came with my bike, have small metal spikes on them to increase traction. Although not outright painful with bare feet, these spikes are uncomfortable. Also, the toe clips I have are really shaped for shoes, not feet au natural. Yesterday, I finally got around to putting on the new pedals and boy, do I love them! Today I rode 16 miles with no shoes and it was totally awesome. Usually after ten miles or so, I start to get numbing on the outside of my feet. Nothing like that today.

Tina threw out her back last week so she's been laid up a bit since then. Today it moved up her back into her neck and eventually became a migraine headache. Luckily, I didn't have to start work today. Hopefully, she'll be better tomorrow because I don't know what my hours are going to be yet.

My new, temporary employer is a consulting firm called ProDX. They provide IT services, including programming, to clients who don't want the overhead of their own staff. The client for whom I'll be working is called Extensis. They are fairly well-known in the graphic arts arena but your mileage may vary. They are located in downtown Portland about a mile from my old job. I'm driving tomorrow but will be investigating other commuting options, including biking, as soon as I can.

On Friday the world lost a cultural icon, a great man and a genius musician. Johnny Cash appealed to generations starting in the 50's right up until his death. Earlier this year, his latest album stayed in my CD player for at least two months. His video for "Hurt", which showed on VH1 more than CMT, brought tears to my eyes. The album sounds likes his farewell to the world with many sad songs such as "Danny Boy" and "The Streets of Laredo". It ends with a song called "We'll Meet Again" which hints that he is not long for this world but that he'll see us all on the other side. When his wife, June, died in May, I had a strong feeling that he wouldn't last much longer. And he didn't. Rest in Peace, Johnny Cash. You will be missed.

One of my leads that I mentioned before turned out well. On Monday, I found a listing on Dice.com for a contract job that fit me perfectly. I sent my resume and followed up with a call on Tuesday morning. I interviewed on Tuesday afternoon and they called me today to tell me that the job was mine. It starts on Monday or Tuesday of next week and lasts for a month. It was exactly what I was looking for right now! It gives us a little financial buffer so I can have more time to look for a full-time job.

It also solves a problem with some other work that I was doing for a friend for deferred compensation. I'll be under contract for this friend to do some work but he can't pay me until the product makes some money. Regardless of whether I receive pay or not, being under contract with my friend will make me ineligible for unemployment. Now I don't have to worry about it since I'll be making real money at the same time I'm working for future money.

I'm getting more action from recruiters but nothing concrete yet. I've also got a lead on another cool job, but also nothing concrete yet. Hopefully, I'll have more positive news soon.

Today the cable guy came to downgrade our cable package. We used to have the "standard" package but now we have the "basic" package, which only includes the first 25 channels. The boys are going to miss Cartoon Network and Nickelodean but we still have Discovery and all the network channels (that's about eight channels in Portland). The rest are public access and government channels.

I had originally planned to have the cable TV disconnected entirely, but found that it would only cost a few dollars a month to have the basic package. The reason for this is that we also have our Internet access through Comcast (the cable company) and we're not disconnecting that. Comcast offers a monthly $10 discount for customers who have cable TV and Internet access through Comcast. Since basic cable TV only costs $13 a month, the net cost for those of us who have Comcast Internet is $3 a month.

But it's not all bad news today. I found a couple of good leads that I will be pursuing intently this week. Hopefully, I will have some good news by the end of the week.

The job search continues to intensifty in effort if not in results. I spent most of the week calling recruiters (i.e. headhunters). The message from them is mixed since some think the job market is turning around while others think it's still bad. I'm interviewing with two recruiters on Monday and one on Tuesday. Of course, interviews with recruiters don't really mean much.

Tina also has an interview on Tuesday at a local scrapbooking/craft store. She's very excited so everyone should keep their fingers crossed for her. I'll post here as soon as she finds out the results.

Last week I began volunteering my free time to an organization called MacRenewal. They recycle donated Macintosh computers into usable systems for individuals and organizations that can't afford to buy computers. I'm helping out by putting the systems together, erasing hard drives, delivering systems and the like. I love old Macs (I have a small collection of them already) so this is a really cool thing for me to do.

Today Graham and Thomas both had their first day of school. It's going to be weird not having them around all the time but they were quite ready to go back. Here are a few pictures we took of the momentous occasion. They both came back with big smiles on their face so I think it went well!

Thomas finally got to see Blue Lake from his bike on Saturday. After several test runs to see how close we could get without actually getting there, Saturday the whole family pedaled to Blue Lake for a late afternoon picnic. After pedaling for seven miles, we arrived at an extremely busy park. We pedaled around for a few minutes before settling on a picnic table in the shade. We ate sandwiches and drank lots of water before the boys rushed off to the nearest play structure. Alas, we could not stay long since we didn't want to be on the road when the sun set. We took an easier route home (only six miles) and arrived in due time. Thomas was dragging a bit on the last hills going up to our house, but he still had enough energy to ride around another 15 minutes after we got back.

My compost bin became filled quite rapidly due to all the yard work I've been doing in my copious spare time. I've been watering it pretty regularly and turned it a few times. It was warm at the bottom, so I knew it was rapidly decomposing. After a few days of thought about what I should do with all this new dirt, I decided that I would re-landscape the strip that is between the sidewalk and the street. Three years ago we put down cedar chips and plants that were supposed to cover the whole area and keep away the weeds. The plants did not grow, the cedar chips faded and recently it looked pretty ugly. So one afternoon, I pulled up the landscaping fabric and scooped up all the cedar chips. The little plants had grown on top of the fabric, so they had tiny little root systems that I had completely disrupted when pulling the fabric out. They needed replanting and I figured that this would be the perfect opportunity to use some of that new compost soil. I scooped myself a wheelbarrow full and laid it around the plants only to discover that it was quite course and full of wood chips, small branches and other annoying non-aesthetic stuff. I finished the task at hand (replanting the little plants) and began thinking about how I would continue.

As I hovered between sleep and consciousness one morning, the answer came to me: compost sieve. That day, I broke out the Skilsaw and grabbed a couple of 2-by-4's that were laying around outside. I had one section left of the wire mesh that I wrapped around the outside of the compost bin and it was the perfect size for my sieve. I hammered it onto the 2-by-4's and it was ready for use. After a couple of tries of shaking and then sliding, I settled on mashing and stirring the compost on top of the sieve with a pitchfork. All the good stuff goes through the mesh and all the chunks stay behind. For the last few days I've been putting composted dirt around the little plants in the strip. I concluded that I would not have enough dirt to do the whole thing so I filled the bottom with cedar chips before piling the dirt on. Thomas helped me last night and we hope to finish it up tonight. I sieved the last wheelbarrow full this morning and we're just waiting for the weather to cool a bit before finishing. Perhaps there will be pictures here soon.

Here's some pictures from the compost bin painting incident:

• Compost Painting
• Compost Painting: Graham
• Compost Painting: Thomas

Our mechanic did several tests on the truck and found that the head gasket is not damaged. I'll be watching it over the next month or so, though, because sometimes symptoms appear later. The mechanic was able to fix the cooling system problem by flushing the system out several times. It did not require a new radiator, but I did have to get a new thermostat.

On Saturday I helped my friend, Don Fitzgerald, put a new roof on his parents' house. The old one came up pretty easily and we were able to put on half of the new one. Luckily, I brought leather gloves. Halfway through the day I noticed a hole in one of the glove fingers that had worn in just that day. It could have been the skin on my finger! I was only slightly sore which was good because I only had a day of recovery before we did some serious hiking.

Monday we drove to the south side of the base of Mt. St. Helens with Jan and Tom (Tina's parents). We visited:

• A Trail of Two Forests: The state has constructed a boardwalk over an ancient lava flow. Although this particular lava flow was unaffected by the 1980 eruption, it's still very cool. There are impressions left in the lava by the monstrous trees that stood at the time. We also had lunch here and everyone loved the very aggressive birds that ate our waste and stole Graham's lunch.
• Ape Cave: Named after the spelunking club that explored it in the 1950's, this cave is a lava tube that is thousands of years old. Lava no longer flows through the cave so it makes for a perfectly cool 3/4 mile walk on a hot summer day. You haven't experienced dark until you've been in a cave with all the lights out! The boys dug it but were ready to leave by the time we turned around at the end. Three of our flashlights died within 2 minutes of entering the cave. Luckily, we had many. Thomas quickly became very good at navigating the treachery of walking in near darkness.
• Lava Canyon: For centuries, this canyon was filled and hidden by mud, soil and silt. During the 1980 eruption, either mud or lava found its way into this crevice and pushed all the filler out. Now it's a beautiful canyon with a somewhat treacherous hike to a very scary suspension bridge. I spent much of my time looking away from the sheer walls (because I'm acrophobic).

Yesterday I traveled the longest 17.5 miles of my entire life. Something went wrong with the cooling system in my truck and I found myself stranded just off I-205 headed into Lake Oswego. The most obvious symptom was that the temp gauge was totally pegged. A quick call to my brother-in-law, Wade, assured me that I could let it cool down and then drive it until it got hot again.

I had already planned to deliver the truck to my mechanics house in Aloha the next day for some routine maintenance. Since our house was about the same distance as the mechanics house, I decided I would just drive to his house. Cooling down that first time took almost an hour and I was only able to drive 1.2 miles before the needle moved into the red again. Eventually, it would take me five hours to drive 17.5 miles. Luckily, I had a book with me so I was able to read until it got dark. After it got dark, the truck cooled down much faster (about 15 minutes each time) and I filled that time with games of FreeCell on my Newton.

The early prognosis is that the head gasket is not damaged. The cooling system was full of gunk which was probably the cause of the failure. I may have to replace the radiator, but my mechanic is trying to save the old one.

Tomorrow I'm helping my friend, Don Fitzgerald, pull a roof off and put a new one on. On Monday we're going for an adventure by Mt. St. Helens. However, I will be available on Sunday evening for commiseration over my recent troubles and other subjects during my weekly evening chat. Don't miss it. Details can be found here.

I added a new section to my website called "Rants." There is a link to it on the left side, but you can also check it out here. It's essentially a sounding board for me to voice all my pet peeves. I've only added a few, but I'm sure there will be more soon.

The job search is still hopeful. I'm still checking out all the contacts I've come to know over the years. That's good because the job listings in the Sunday Oregonian are pretty pitiful right now. This week I'm polling former employers for contracting work. Next week I'll be checking out head hunters.

Thomas and I have been biking by ourselves the past few nights because Tina hasn't been up to it. I took him down a stretch of the I-84 bike path that he had not previously ridden. Getting to it required crossing three lights in very busy traffic and he did very well. When we were aways down the path, he asked if we could go to the lake. After puzzling over this for a few minutes with him, I realized that he was talking about Blue Lake, which is several miles from the end of the bike path. I said this to him and also mentioned that I wasn't sure how to get there from the path. At this time we were level with I-84 and he pointed to a sign and said, "It's at the next right, Dad!" Sure enough, there was a sign on the freeway that said, "Blue Lake Next Right."

We didn't have time that night to continue on and we had already ridden about 6 miles with 4 miles to go home, so I convinced him to turn around with the promise that I would scout a route during my ride the next morning. Yesterday morning I discovered that after exiting the bike path, I had to ride several miles of bike lane on a busy road called Sandy Blvd. Thomas has not previously ridden in bike lanes. However, he really wanted to try it last night so we rode about 1.5 miles down Sandy until we got to the turn for Blue Lake. The bike path narrows tremendously on that road and there is a downhill stretch that goes on for about three quarters of a mile. We stopped there because the sun was already setting and I didn't want to be riding on the road in the dark with Thomas. I showed him where we had to go and explained how hard it would be and how dangerous it was and how we had to be very careful. I then explained how we would have to leave much earlier if we wanted to go all the way to the lake. He immediately suggested we start at 6:00 the next time since we had started at 7:30 that night. He really wants to see that lake!

We just got back from our last Zoo concert of the year. Tonight it was Cubanismo, a Latin band that was hot! It was even more fun watching all the people in the audience shaking their groove thang. Last week we saw Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks, which were also good, but the audience wasn't nearly as exciting.

I've begun collecting unemployment and my prospects at my job do not look good right now. I'm working on a project for a friend right now, but it won't bring in any money for quite awhile. I've been casually looking for work since we got back from Iowa, but I'll need to step it up now. Ideally, I'm looking for a contract job that won't involve a long-term commitment, but I'd probably take almost anything that came along now. The job market in the high tech field is very soft right now.

I've finally finished all the pictures from Iowa. For the sake of convenience, here are links to all the pictures from our vacation this year in reverse chronological order:

• Iowa: Nora Springs
• Iowa: Racing*
• Iowa: Riceville*
• Iowa: Forest City
• Iowa: Lake Hendricks
• Corrales
• Graham: Chocolate Face
• The Road To New Mexico: Mesa Verde
• The Road To New Mexico: Rest Stops

My new compost bin arrived with some assembly still required. In particular, it:

• Still needed to have the wired mesh attached to the sides and back.
• Needed to have the plywood painted since it is not the pressure-treated kind.

On Sunday I hammered the wire mesh onto the boards and put the whole bin into a little hole I had dug near our woodpile to make it stationary. The boys helped me load it up with yard debris that we had gathered in the preceding days and all seemed to be going well.

On Tuesday, I realized that I couldn't put off painting the plywood any longer as it was getting dirtier and dirtier with use. I had already gathered a bunch of our old paint together for recycling, so it was easy to look through those cans for something I could use. After all, it doesn't matter what it looks like, it just needs to protect the wood from the elements. Most of the paint cans were nearly empty or had indoor paint in them, but I did find a few that met my requirements.

First, I found a small can of Hunter Green which I set aside in case I could not find a better color. Then I put aside a large and very full can of powder blue (our house is trimmed in this color) that the previous owners had left behind. Finally, I found an almost full can of white, also from the previous owners. I left the green and blue behind and began painting my bin.

It did not take long to discover that I had made a couple of very inconvenient mistakes in my ordering of tasks. First, painting the undersides of the plywood was very difficult since I could no longer move the bin and it was half full on one side. Secondly, it is nearly impossible to brush on paint through wire mesh. I got around the second problem with a couple of cans of black spray paint that I happened to have.

While I was painting and not worrying about these other problems, I hatched a plan for using the green and blue paint that I had discovered. Today, I carried it out. I set up the three cans of paint with three different brushes, stripped the boys down to their underwear and let them each paint half of the compost bin. The only limitations was that they had to use the appropriate brush with the appropriate can (to avoid mixing all the paint together) and that they could not take the paint out of the paint area (a rule which only got broken once and resulted in a nice blue trail on our sidewalk). They both shared the colors very nicely and quite enjoyed the whole experience. Thomas is meticuluous and neat about his painting, while Graham slops it on thick and chaotically. Graham even painted parts of the wire mesh! When it was all over, they both had gray soles on their feet from all the paint and dirt that collected there.

Here's some more pictures from New Mexico:

• Corrales
• Graham: Chocolate Face

And a few from Iowa:

• Iowa: Nora Springs
• Iowa: Forest City
• Iowa: Lake Hendricks

Yesterday Thomas got a new, used computer again. This one is a used G3 that a friend scavenged from an old employer. It had been giving them problems, but I reseated the interface cards and it seems to run like a charm. When installing software on it, I discovered that the CD-ROM drive seemed to have problems. Luckily, this weekend we found a replacement for ten dollars after rebates. As a bonus, the replacement is a CD-RW drive so now Thomas can burn CDs on his computer, which he is very excited about.

Thomas also got a "new" bike the week after we got back from Iowa. A couple of years ago, our friends, Bruce and Janice Reiter, gave Thomas a dirt bike that had belonged to their boys. The bike had been kept at Jan and Tom's house since Thomas already had a smaller bike at home. Alas, Thomas got much too big for that little bike so Tom brought the dirt bike over last week, put new tubes in the tires and fixed a few minor things to make it road-ready for Thomas. Not surprisingly, Thomas is loving his new bike. For the last week or so we've been taking evening bike rides. The last two have been over eight miles long. After we get back, Thomas rides a circuit on our sidewalk and yard until it gets dark. He's getting much better every day.

I put the training wheels back on the little bike for Graham, but his first venture on it was unsuccessful. He tipped over and didn't want to ride it anymore. That's OK since he still needs to completely master the pedals on his other toys before he attempts to ride a bike. Graham rides in a little bike trailer behind Tina when we got for our evening ride. He sits back there reading books and playing games or, more often, falling asleep.

Yesterday I got my long-awaited compost bin from Don Fitzgerald, a good friend that built it for me. This morning the boys and I dug a little hole for it and we load a bunch of dirt and yard debris into it. I'm so glad I won't have to haul grass around in the back of my truck anymore. Here's a few pictures.

By request, here's also a few pictures of my sister Mindy's Durango, which she so generously let us use while we were in Iowa. These pictures are meant to show off the "ghost flames" that her husband, Wade, painted on the front.

I've begun the task to sifting through the thousands of photos that I took during our month of vacation. Here's some from our trip to New Mexico:

• The Road To New Mexico: Rest Stops
• The Road To New Mexico: Mesa Verde

For those of curious about such things, my leave from work has been extended a bit. I'm working on some personal projects as well as an exciting project with a friend. The weeds continue to fall beneath the strength of my hoe and the edges of the yard have never looked better. This weekend I'll be hopefully receiving my new compost bin which I'm very excited about. I'll post pictures when I get it.

Sunday night I was late again for the weekly chat. However, I did catch four or five late stragglers and had interesting conversations with each. I even got to help someone try out the audio chat feature of Apple's iChat AV. I swear I'll be on time next week so please join me then. It's at 6:00 PM Pacific, 8:00 PM Central. My chat information is available from the Contact link on the left.

As you might imagine, I thought of my brother, Kim, many times while I was visiting our little hometown of Riceville, IA. While looking through several boxes of his books, I came upon a copy of "The Red Badge of Courage" and immediately said out loud, "I'll be damned!" You see, when I was in high school, this book became a great source of controversy in my sophomore literature class. My teacher wanted us all to read the book, but I had a conversation with Kim prior to the class in which he essentially called it a piece of crap. We were at my Grandma Ring's house and I think the conversation was about classic literature in general and Kim's view was that it all sucked. In particular, he brought up "The Red Badge of Courage" as a particularly egregious example of bad literature that everyone is forced to read.

If I recall correctly, this was during the period when he was rolling his own cigarettes. He called it an attempt to cut back on smoking. His theory was that if he had to go to the trouble of rolling a cigarette each time he wanted one, he would smoke less because of the work involved. Eventually, he just got very good and very fast at rolling cigarettes. When he began rolling several at a time, I knew his theory had crumbled. But I digress.

Cut to the middle of my sophomore year when we are in the midst of reading all the great American literature. Dan Lauters, our teacher, announces that we'll be reading "Badge" next. I raise my hand and say, "I've got it from a reliable source that this book sucks." Needless to say all hell broke loose but I did not back down and I don't think I read that damn book, either. I eventually was called to the mat in that class for acting up.

So, when I found that book in amongst Kim's treasured books, I was shocked to say the least and all of the above came back to me. However, this particular copy was a "classic illustrated" edition with very large print. I also found a book on dinosaur jokes and some other kids stuff. It all leads me to believe that perhaps this was not Kim's book at all, but maybe belonged to one of his sons when they were in school.

Still, it was nice remembering all of that.

Thursday we returned from two weeks in Iowa where we visited my family and some childhood friends. We had great fun while we were there, but we were also glad to return to our own home after so long. Even so, the boys are already missing their cousins. Thomas cried himself to sleep the other night saying he "missed Bubby and Taran". Yesterday morning, Graham told me he missed "my cousins."

While I was in Iowa, I was lucky enough to browse through Kim's book collection and take a boxful home. This collection is very special to me since it not only represents some of the most influential works that I've read, these particular books are the actual books that I read. Here's a few notables:

• Rocket Ship Galileo by Robert A. Heinlein: This was the first Heinlein I ever read and probably the first book that Kim gave to me to read. I was in third grade.
• Stranger In A Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein: Read this when I was in fourth grade. Kim probably gave it to me as a joke, but I read all 400+ pages.
• Time Enough for Love by Robert A. Heinlein: The quintessential Heinlein book. It also featured Kim's favorite Heinlein character, Lazarus Long.
• Dune by Frank Herbert: All six volumes of the "trilogy" in hard cover.
• Illusions by Richard Bach: Bach's tremendous follow-up to Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

While we were in Iowa we were lucky enough to see my sister's husband, Wade Eastman, race his stock car three separate nights. He got fourth the first time, second the next and then led from start to finish in the final race. His mother was there visiting when he won so it was very touching and everybody was happy. We also went to a demolition derby in Charles City and had a lot of fun watching all the crashes. The boys really enjoyed all of it, especially Thomas, who really liked listening to the "official" action on my brother, Kent's scanner.

We discovered that Iowa is overrun with mosquitoes and deer. In the first three days the mosquito bites were so dense on my legs that it looked like I had chicken pox. My mistake is that I kept listening to advice from the locals, who are evidently naturally repulsive to mosquitoes. After two weeks of bite recovery, I'm down to a few measly "bleeders" which don't really itch anymore.

The deer were not as bad as the mosquitoes, but we still saw a lot of them. Apparently they hide during the day and jump out of the ditches in front of your car at night. Whenever I saw the deer signs on the road at night, I became very paranoid and slowed down to 40 mph while I scanned the ditches. I saw seven deer one night when we drove home from my brother's house, which is about 1.5 hours from my hometown of Riceville, IA. I'm proud to say that I hit no deer the entire time we were in Iowa. Perhaps the attraction for mosquitoes is a repellant for deer.

There were many good things about Iowa that I have missed since moving away. Among those that we got to enjoy this time were fireflies and lightning storms. The ditches are full of fireflies every night and it was a delight to watch Graham chase them in my mom's backyard one night. We were treated to two different lightning displays while we were there. Thomas and I watched from my mom's driveway while the locals cowered inside. I don't think Thomas had seen lightning before that - at least not when he was old enough to remember.

On one of our last days in Iowa, I met my old friend, Troy Munn, for a round of golf at the Riceville Country Club. Unfortunately, it was ladies night there so we had to drive to nearby Elma for a round of nine holes. We didn't keep score but I bogied at least two holes, which is good for me. It was also great to talk to Troy for a few hours. He was my best friend when we were in high school.

Last night we got back from our trip to Corrales, NM. It was a long drive but well worth it. Highlights included:

• Meeting Will, the latest addition to our extended family and the son of Tina's sister, Michelle Powell
• Attending an Albuquerque Isotopes minor league baseball game (Thomas really loved this one)
• Eddie's Cafe in Green River, UT
• Visiting Mesa Verde, site of some of the oldest existing dwellings in the U.S. including the world-famous cliff-dwellings
• Discovering that my iPod battery will last over 14 hours (our longest drive)
• Krispy Kremes for breakfast every morning in Corrales
• The quest for Navajo Tacos
• Favorite technologies: Big screen TV and swamp cooler
• The hotel suite in Layton
• Eating up the miles to get home in two days

Here's a summary of our travel days:

• June 28: Departed Portland at about 15:00. Arrived in Boise, ID, that night.
• June 29: Departed Boise at noon. Arrived in Green River, UT, that night.
• June 30: Departed Green River in the morning. Visited Mesa Verde in the afternoon. Arrived in Corrales, NM, around midnight.
• July 6: Departed Corrales around 9:00. Arrived in Layton, UT, after dark.
• July 7: Departed Layton around 9:00. Arrived in Portland after dark.

There are lots of Native American Reservations surrounding Albuquerque which makes it easy to buy really cool (and otherwise illegal) fireworks. Unfortunately, the area was under warning for fire and all fireworks were forbidden. We had to settle for a few firecrackers and watching several of the local displays from far away.

On Thursday the adventure continues but the venue changes to Iowa. We may do some camping while there but mostly we'll be visiting friends and family and the boys will get to play with their cousins again.

Since both of the past two Sundays have been travel days, I was unable to get online for the weekly chat. Hopefully, this weekend I'll have internet access and will be able to chat with anybody that stops in. For chat info, click on the Contact Info link on the left.

I've been keeping busy with yard work, cleaning out the garage, cleaning my office and fixing up a few things around the house. You would not believe the volume of weeds that I have pulled out of our property in the last two weeks!

On Saturday, we depart for Corrales, NM, with Tina's parents. Tom and Jan had already planned on driving there to visit their new grandchild and they graciously asked us to ride along. We're departing Portland in the afternoon and hope to be there in three days. We'll be gone about 10 days before we have to return to Portland in preparation for our trip to Iowa. Here's a brief schedule:

June 22	June 23	June 24	June 25	June 26	June 27	June 28 Depart Portland
June 29	June 30 Arrive New Mexico	July 1	July 2	July 3	July 4	July 5
July 6 Depart New Mexico	July 7	July 8 Arrive Portland	July 9	July 10 Fly to Iowa	July 11	July 12
July 13	July 14	July 15	July 16	July 17	July 18	July 19
July 20	July 21	July 22	July 23	July 24 Fly Home	July 25	July 26

Happy Father's Day to me! And happy Father's Day to all the fathers out there.

Starting on Tuesday, I begin a month-long leave from CPS. In mid-July, we'll be visiting family in Iowa. We're exploring the possibility of a road trip to New Mexico to see our new nephew, William Powell. While we're home, I'm hoping to take the opportunity to complete a lot of unfinished personal projects both virtual and physical.

After only a year of ownership, our JVC DVD player stopped working when it was two weeks out of warrantee. I explored various options and then on a whim I called Costco, where we had bought it, and asked if I could return it. They would not commit to anything over the phone but they said I should bring it in and they might let me return it. With that glimmer of hope, I retrieved the receipt, wiped all the dust off the player and packed it back into the original box with all the original packing. I'm borderline obsessive about keeping such things so I still had all the cables and such unopened in their little bags. After waiting for several minutes at Costco, they refunded our money and took the thing back! We took the $180 and spent $80 of it on a new, better DVD player made by Toshiba. I couldn't be happier about the way it turned out. Let's hope this one lasts more than a year.

Tonight's weekly chat went off pretty well. Tina, Thomas and I chatted with a few people who dropped by. We're hoping for a better turnout next week. For chat info, click on the Contact Info link on the left.

The Portland Rose Festival kicked into gear last week so Portland is all abuzz in the annual ritual. We did our part by going to the Grand Floral parade yesterday. My office is right on the route so we watched from the comfort of air conditioning and root beer floats. The boys had a great time and I got to hear The One-More-Time-Around Marching Band play "Louie Louie" again. They were the first band in the parade this year and they made all the others look bad by comparison.

Summer has arrived in Portland and we had several 85+ degree days this week with it even getting up to 96 one day. It was enough for Tina to hint that maybe I should get the air conditioner out of the garage and put it in the window.

My thoughts still turn to Kim occasionally, especially when I don't have anything else to occupy my mind, but I can listen to sad songs again without crying. I remembered a long-running argument that I had with him today and realized that I would not be able to continue it. While regret did cross my mind, it seemed more of a curiousity. "Oh, there's another thing I can't do now." Seems kind of heartless or cold, but it's better than being sad all the time.

Does anyone else out there use AOL Instant Messenger (AIM)? I'm a big fan of IM's from way back when I was a paying AOL customer, so I like the way that AIM works. I've been thinking about having a weekly chat where anyone could show up if they liked. The software is free and does not require an AOL account. It is available for download here. This summer, I'll be logged on from 6:00 pm until 8:00 pm on Sunday evenings. Those times are PST so adjust for your time zone as necessary. Email me if you need help setting up the software.

I added a new section to this web site called Family Tree. I started working on it while we were on our Big Road Trip in 2001, but stalled on it shortly after we got home that summer. While back in Iowa two weeks ago, we had a conversation about cousins, double-cousins, cousins once-removed and the like. Somebody generated a list of all the cousins and I remembered this family tree project I started. I pulled all the information that was in the list and solicited some more from others.

You can see the results by clicking on the "Family Tree" link on the left or by clicking here. It's still a work in progress but if you have any corrections and/or additions, please click the "email me" link. It's over 90% done now but much of the inlaw information is still unknown. I'm working on it, though. (Actually, Sue's working on it. :)

Tomorrow is Graham's fourth birthday! It seems so long ago that he was a tiny little baby curled up under the bilirubin lights on the kitchen table. Today I presented him with a new (for him) computer. He got tired of his old black-and-white computer a long time ago and it's been in the garage for months. He likes playing on everybody else's color computers, so I set one up for him. All the parts were free from a variety of sources. See my entry from March 9 for details of my recent computer windfalls.

Thomas got a new desk a few weeks ago and now Graham has his old desk. I did have to buy a power strip and, of course, all the hours I put in to install the software and get it ready for him. Luckily, I got it ready right before Kim died so I didn't have to stress about that after I got back from Iowa. I wanted to give it to him sooner, but Tina made me wait for his birthday. Today was his last day of school, so I snuck it in his room while he was at school. He was upset when he got home because I wasn't there to show him how to use it. After I got home, though, he played with it all night until we went outside to play basketball while the sun went down.

Next up, getting that G3 from Don Fitzgerald prepped for Thomas. I'll need to transfer all the stuff he's got on his current computer and I'm not sure how I'll do that yet. Probably won't matter much, though. Thomas loves to tinker with new things. Whenever he sees something new I've acquired, like the Zip drive I picked up in March, he always wants it on his computer. He doesn't know what he can do with it, but he's pretty sure he can find something to do with it! He's a technophile like his father but luckily he's hooked on technology that's five years old (or more). He's looking forward to the new computer because he knows he'll be able to run OS X on it, just like Mom and Dad.

I'm doing much better now, I think. I went to the doctor a couple of days ago and he gave me a couple of prescriptions for my cough and a little something to help me sleep. I've slept very well the last couple of nights and find that my thoughts are less on Kim than they had been just a few days ago. I'm sure there's still lots of sorrow to come, but it feels like I've turned a corner. I can't wait to get rid of this wheezing so I can get back on my bike again. Maybe this weekend for a short ride.

Kim taught me how to drive. He was not the first to give me driving lessons but he certainly gave me more than anybody else. I think I was probably not getting along very well with my dad (I was 14 and rebellious) and Kim volunteered to teach me.

During one early lesson, I remember driving along a paved road and preparing for a left turn onto a gravel road. I was driving my parents' Ford Fiesta with a five speed stick shift. As we approached the left turn he instructed me, "Slow down, push the clutch in, shift down into 3rd, let the clutch out, start the turn, push the clutch in, shift into 2nd, let the clutch out, brake a little", etc. He didn't realize it but making a turn, downshifting and braking all at the same time was too complicated for my unhoned skills. We were heading into the turn way too fast and it looked like we would be figuring our way out of the ditch soon. He yelled for me to crank the wheel all the way and then he pulled the parking brake. We whipped around 180 degrees and came safely to a stop in the middle of the gravel road. I said, "Whew! That was lucky!" He said, "Luck? I had my hand on that brake the whole time." He was always so sure of himself and convincing back then.

Another time, maybe in Mason City, I was driving down my first onramp onto a divided highway. Kim kept yelling for me to speed up but I was too scared. There were all these cars to merge with and it seemed like speeding up would make it even harder. He made me pull over and explained how I needed to be driving the same speed as the other cars first and then I could either speed up or slow down to finish the merge. We tried again and it was much easier once I understood the strategy.

He was a very good driving teacher. Incredibly patient and able to communicate with me very easily. We were sympatico back then and understood each other very well. He wanted to be the wise old man and I was more than willing to be the eager student, especially for him. He seemed so infallible then. Like he knew all the answers to all the questions. We hung out all the time and he would pontificate on various subjects for hours on end. Books, girls, music, sex, TV, cars, parents. These were all the things that were most important to me in those years and he gave me an earful about all of them.

I think I'd give almost anything now to be treated to a few more minutes of good polemic from my brother. I wish I'd recorded something. Or caught him on video. I've got a bunch in my head but I know that will all be gone someday. So I'm writing down as much as I can remember here.

Tina wrote a beautiful poem for us today. You can hear the audio version here. Turn up the volume first.

I want so badly to be done with this. I think about Kim all the time. Occasionally, I can successfully divert myself for a few minutes, but it's not usually long before thoughts turn to Kim and his travails. Dain told me that he woke up the other morning and didn't think about it for the first 20 minutes. It usually takes me about two minutes before I remember what has happened.

Night time is the worst time, though. I've always had difficulty with insomnia. Once I drift off, I sleep very soundly, but sometimes I lay awake for hours. Now it's worse than ever. I think of all that happened and it upsets me. That increases my heart rate and I can't even do controlled breathing exercises to calm myself down and go to sleep. Instead I have to get out of bed and watch TV until I'm exhausted. Even then by the time I drag myself into bed, I've perked up enough that my mind starts going over everything again. It's making me weary of mind and body.

I've now picked up a bit of a rattle when I breathe, a scratchy throat, and an occasional cough. It doesn't bother me much during the day, but as you might imagine, it makes it even harder to get to sleep at night. What's really stressful is that I usually get over little bouts of sickness like this by overdosing on sleep. I think all the physical and mental stress has weakened my immune system. It looks like the beginning of a perfect little vicious circle.

When I was little, maybe even before I was in school, I used to love watching Saturday morning cartoons. Remember when Saturday morning was the only time you could watch cartoons? My favorite was either Underdog or Hong Kong Phooey. The problem was that my favorite cartoon came on very early in the morning. Perhaps 7:00 or maybe even 6:00. After I realized this, I would wake up before the sun rose, sneak downstairs to our living room, turn on the TV to static and promptly fall back asleep on the couch. My mother would discover me when the TV woke her and she would send me back to bed. It was probably 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning.

After a few weeks of this, she enlisted my brother, Kim, to put a stop to this. He had a talk with me and told me that all I had to do in order to wake up at 7:00 was to repeat to myself, "I will wake up at 7:00. I will wake up at 7:00." as I fell asleep. So I tried that and it worked. At least that's the way I remember it.

Last Monday I was scheduled to leave Iowa and return home to Portland. I had an evening flight, but my sister, Mardy, had an 11:00 am flight. Since it takes several hours to drive to Minneapolis and she wanted to be there an hour early, we figured we had to leave at 7:00. The night before I set my alarm for 6:00 so I would have time to shower and stuff. I woke up 2 minutes before the alarm went off the next morning. I mentioned it to Mardy but didn't really think about it after that.

As it turned out, my flight that evening was delayed enough that I would have missed my connecting flight in Phoenix. So I stayed over at a friend's place in Minneapolis after they rebooked me for an 8:00 flight the next morning. This time I set my alarm for 6:30 since I had no plans to shower but needed to be at the airport by 7:00. The next morning I woke up again 2 minutes before my alarm went off. On the long flight home, I thought of how odd that would happen two days in a row and then I remembered Kim and his advice for catching those early Saturday morning cartoons.

It still doesn't seem real at times. Or maybe it seems like it shouldn't be real. Several moments from the last few years now come into crystal-clear focus as turning points that, if the outcome were changed, everything that followed would have changed and my brother would still be alive. In each of these events, people made decisions that pushed Kim further down the road to his eventual demise. Employers, family, friends, enemies and health professionals all contributed in some way. Here's a few of the events that I have been thinking about:

• Kim lost his job after he was accused of being a "peeping tom" while on the job. Part of his job was to read water meters and this often involved going into people's basements. In this case, the basement also contained a shower which contained a naked teenage girl. The parents complained and Kim was dismissed after over 20 years of loyal service to the City of Riceville.
• Kim lost his wife after over 20 years of marriage. Infidelity was involved but was likely a symptom of a larger problem. Charges of domestic abuse were made and he was eventually barred from his own home. This was a bitter pill that he was never able to swallow.
• After his first suicide attempt, Kim was hospitalized in a mental hospital. Because he had been drinking, he was diagnosed and treated as a substance abuser. Everyone who was in the "loop" knew this to be a joke. He was out in three days.
• After the first attempt, I tried to talk with Kim on a regular basis and made special efforts to communicate with him on the phone and on the internet. At some point I just became mentally exhausted. He didn't seem at all willing or able to address problems constructively and I felt like I was ineffective. And in between suicide attempts, I would forget about Kim. I guess because I have my own life, my own family and my own concerns. He exceeded my capacity for concern. I couldn't handle any more. It sounds terrible and might sound like I feel terrible, but I truly was unable to continue trying to help him.
• Several times during this journey, Kim was given anti-depressant medication to help stem the black tide. He did not like how it made him feel and how it affected his sleeping patterns. It was also expensive and he did not have insurance or money to pay for it.
• A little over a year ago, he attempted suicide again. This time he drove to a secluded gravel road and hooked up his PVC apparatus. Somebody happened to drive by and called the cops, who came to rescue him. After that try, everyone started to take his attempts more seriously since it seemed clear that he really did not want to be saved. I talked with my mother and siblings and floated the idea of having him committed indefinitely since it seemed clear that somebody needed to be with him all the time. We were eventually talked out of that idea by Kim.
• Perhaps the biggest impediment to his getting over his depression was his own inability to move on and stop placing blame. I talked to him many times at various stages during his depression and everytime he was only interested in trying to get people to acknowledge how they had wronged him and to get them to atone. His last words on his computer were full of accusations and hatred and a longing for what had been before.

Kim was more than a brother to me. For a time when I was young, he was like a second father. He and his girlfriend (later wife), Dawn, would come and pick up my sisters and I and take us on little adventures around the area. Quarries, caves, rocks, swimming, picnics. I have nothing but great memories of those times.

But it was more than that. I have always seen my brothers as role models, each in their own way. My brother, Mark, is the oldest and is the classic Big Brother and a leader. Kent is the class clown and charmer. But Kim was the intellectual and music fan so I aspired to be like him more than the other two. I admired them all but I admired Kim most. Going into my teen years, I thought that he was infallible, almost perfect. I thought everything he said was right. He was what I wanted to be when I grew up.

Like all things on pedestals, Kim eventually fell off of his. He disappointed me in his refusal to embrace or even try the new music that I was discovering. And after a time I realized that what I had earlier perceived as intellectualism was, in fact, an excellent ability to bullshit. There were many things that he knew about and he was well read, but there were also many things that he purported to know but clearly did not. This is, perhaps, the curse of the Ring boys. Or maybe it is a curse for all of humanity. In whatever gene pool the blame floated, it was disappointing and often upsetting when I came upon this trait with Kim.

Recent reflection tells me that my disappointment was more a result of my need to please him - to make him proud of me - than anything else. For so long we had such common interests, probably because his interests became my interests, that when I started to find my own and he didn't share them, I was taken aback and maybe felt that something was wrong with my choices. Maybe I had disappointed him in some way. At the time I just shrugged it off with a "He doesn't know what he's talking about."

But he was also incredibly negative in his reactions. It didn't seem like he had anything between "excellent" and "awful". When I got my first producer credit on a friend's recording, he panned the song and said it was terrible. It was crushing but I think he was unaware. He just didn't know the meaning of subtlety. Or the purpose. He felt that he did not require people to soften their criticism of him and he refused to do it for others. But I know that criticism hurt him deeply. He just would never admit it.

So as I read through his final words on his computer Sunday, I found myself searching for something that he had written to me. I found passages for his sons, his ex-wife, my mother and his Internet girlfriends. I wanted him to say something to me. I wanted to be significant in his last days. I wanted him to validate me by just recognizing my existence. But there was nothing. In the black fog of depression, one's attention does not wander far from oneself. In Kim's case, he thought of only those he cared for most and I am sad to say that I was not one those.

Yesterday I returned from a weeklong visit to my hometown - Riceville, IA. My brothers and sisters all were there with my mother. Many other friends and relatives came by to express their sympathy and condolences. Thank you all for your expresions and acts of kindness.

While in Riceville, I pieced together my brother's last few hours from a number of sources including some notes he left on his computer. Kim had tried killing himself at least three other times using the same method, asphyxiation via car fumes. In a note I found, he said he had learned a few lessons from those previous attempts. One was that it took a very long time to die by that method. The other was that turning on the car heater vented the car. What follows is an approximation based on various information. Some things may be out of order.

If he did as he said he would, he stayed up for several days without sleep so he would be tired enough to sleep when the time came. On Saturday, May 10, he went uptown in Riceville and got drunk. One of my uncles saw him early in the evening and said he was sociable. Later in the evening he was not. He got in shouting matches with his ex-wife's best friend, who he evidently blamed for the end of his marriage; and a former city council member who he thought was responsible for his being fired from his job with the City of Riceville. Both were relationships that had previously lasted over 20 years. When they ended he often told me his life had ended.

After the bars closed, Kim went home and chatted online with his Internet girlfriend in Canada. He played a song for her called "Say Goodnite, Not Goodbye" before ending the conversation around 5:30 am Sunday. He then carried a sleeping bag to his van parked in the garage. He hooked up one end of PVC pipe to his exhaust pipe and the other end into a window. He started the van, put in a mix tape, crawled into the back with the sleeping bag, shut the doors and windows and went to sleep.

My mother and Kim's friend, Dick, found him Monday evening. The van had run out of gas and the battery was probably dead. My mother stood in the doorway while Dick looked for him. When he didn't find him in the front seat, he thought maybe Kim wasn't there. But then he saw the sleeping bag in the back seat. He may have touched him to shake him awake as he yelled, "Kim! Kim! Wake up! Wake up!"

Seeing that it was over, they left him in there and called the authorities. Shortly after that is when I got the call from my little sister.

Evidently I was mistaken about Kim's time of death. My mother and a friend of his found Kim in his car in the garage, but he had been in there for quite awhile.

Tomorrow I depart Portland at 5:50 AM and arrive in Minneapolis in the afternoon. My sisters will join me there and we'll drive down to Riceville to be with our family. There is a memorial service at 2:30 on Thursday. I don't know what other arrangements have been made. Kim will be cremated and there will be no viewing.

We'll all miss him for a long, long time.

Today I explained to my boys that I was going to Grandma Ring's for a week. When they asked, "Why?", I told them that my brother had died. Graham asked how he died and I told them that he had been sick a long time and had died. Thank you for that, Mindy.

As you can note below, I'm currently reading a sci-fi/fantasy novel called Pthor. It's rather unremarkable except for the fact that it was my introduction to sex when I was in the 3rd or 5th grade. It is quite detailed about describing the act itself and after I read it the first time, I knew exactly how it worked. My peers at the time refused to believe it when I described the process. My friend, Jim Marley, uttered the memorable phrase, "But that would mean that my parents would have to do THAT seven times!"

During the last couple of weeks when I read on the Max, I kept thinking, "Why did Kim give me this book when I was so young?" and made a mental note to email him about it. Unfortunately, my mental notes are not very persistent and I never got around to it. I'll never know now and that's just weird to think about. At times it seems surreal and doesn't seem like it can be happening. Other times, it's too real and I break down weeping for a few minutes. I want to escape it but there's nowhere to go.

My brother Kim killed himself today. My little sister, Mindy, called to tell me about 10:00 tonight. It must have been midnight there. Kim has been deeply depressed for several years. In a short period of time, he lost his wife and his job, both of which had been part of his life for over 20 years and both of which he loved deeply. After those anchors were torn asunder from his life, I think he had a hard time trying to make sense of his life and to find further meaning or even possibility.

Here's some pictures from last Thanksgiving when Tina's sister, Michelle visited with her husband, Ric, and son, Xander:

• Thomas at Thanksgiving
• Graham at Thanksgiving

As an ongoing weekend project, I've been converting my large cassette collection into digital audio (CDs and MP3s). I try to do a couple of albums a week. At that rate I should be through all 500 cassettes in about 10 years. Actually, I don't intend to digitize them all, but there are irreplaceable gems in my collection that I just can't bear to leave behind. Right now I'm listening to a bootleg 1986 live performance by Nanci Griffith that is one of my favorites. She tells the best stories between songs! I made several extra CDs for any interested family and friends.

Last week I was sick with a sore throat for a few days. It was nice staying home with Tina and the boys but being sick really screws up my sleeping schedule. My strategy is to anticipate the sickness (like when my throat starts to get sore) and get lots of rest to keep it from getting worse. As part of that strategy, I sleep whenever I get tired which usually results in afternoon naps. Afternoon naps result in being up until 2 or 3 am the next morning. And so when it's time to return to work, sometimes I have very little sleep the night before. Friday was that day. When I got home I crashed for 10 hours.

Apple Computer unveiled their online music store this week and it's pretty cool. They also introduced a new version of their iTunes MP3 player that lets you shop in the store without leaving iTunes. At a dollar a song, they won't be replacing CDs any time soon, but in some cases who wants to buy a whole CD? Case in point, I've been looking for the song "Radar Love" for years but could not bring myself to purchase an entire Golden Earring CD for one song. "Radar Love" was the second song I bought at the iTunes Music Store Monday night. I bought Tina "Unchained Love", a song that she's been looking for awhile.

There are limitations on usage, but they are minor, at least for us. You can only play a purchased song on up to three computers but you can burn it to as many CDs as you like and you can put it on as many iPods as you like. We only have three computers that we play music on here and we only have one iPod, so it's not really a limitation for us. The selection is limited (only about 7000 songs now) but that will grow if they are successful. This could be a major turning point for the record industry if the service proves popular.

I've been negligent again in catching up on old pictures, but I've been distracted by a new web project. I'm creating an exhaustive description of my daily bicycle commute. I'll take a break from that soon in order to finish up pictures.

I've healed up pretty well from my bike accident from a couple of weeks ago. The chunk on my little pinky is still trying to grow back in but all the bruises are fading fast. My bike is also much better as I had all the accident-related repairs done as well as some others that have been nagging for awhile. It rides like a dream now!

I've got my own little radio station at work now. Kind of. Technically, I have one channel on a server that delivers streaming audio on the network in our office. It doesn't go outside of our network so the "broadcast" is to a small audience. Nevertheless, I enjoy doing it and have developed the following programming schedule:

• Album Monday: One album is featured continuously (and repeatedly) the whole day. This week I featured The Man Comes Around by Johnny Cash.
• Artist Tuesday: One artist is featured all day. This week it was "The Beatles From A to Z" with 10 hours of repeat-free Beatles.
• Concert Wednesday: This week was Pearl Jam's live album, Live on Two Legs and their performance from Unplugged.
• Chick Thursday: A compiled mix featuring only female artists.
• Covers Friday: A mix of artists performing songs that others have made famous.
• Mix Weekend: Lately featuring a mix I made called "War and Peace" whose theme is relevant to the current political climate.

I send a daily email to potential listeners in the office each morning. I can monitor the number of listeners (but not identify individual listeners) from a web page. At first I checked it hourly, but now I just check it occasionally. I've had up to five listeners at one time, but usually there's only one or two. Often, one of the listeners is me.

After about a 1000 miles of accident-free biking since August, my luck ran out on Thursday. While negotiating the last corner of my nightly commute, I became distracted by a car that apparently had not seen me. I'm not sure what exactly happened next, but I probably I failed to slow down enough to make the left turn and my bike slid out from underneath me. I went down on my left side and slid for several feet before coming to a stop.

My first thought, after I got my bike out of the road was to let that driver have a piece of my mind. I had seen him stop at the stop sign. I was making a left in front of him and had no stop sign. After he stopped, I signalled my turn and started to slow down. At that instant, he started to roll forward. I had no idea what he was doing. After that, things happened very fast and the next thing I know I'm lying face down on the road, mad as hell at his apparent mistake.

By the time I rose, he had rolled down his window to see if I was OK and I proceeded to yell and scream at him for the next few minutes. I deal with bad drivers on almost a daily basis so I have quite a bit of suppressed "victim" rage built up and this guy got to be on the receiving end. After a couple of minutes ranting at him, I turned away to check my bike. He remained stopped and his wife asked if they could do anything to help. Still angry, I launched into a "you can learn to drive" rant for a bit longer. She asked again, this time asking if I was hurt. I waved them off and went back to my bike.

My first thought upon returning to my bike is that my Newton was in my left saddlebag and I had landed right on it. I pulled it out to check if the LCD had been cracked and was relieved to find it had not. I then proceeded to inspect the damage to my bike. I found that the bar ends had both been bent and that my front fender (which is made of a composite plastic) had been broken. The handlebars had been turned to ninety degrees of their normal position but I turned them back easily. I also discovered that my left hand was bleeding where the pinky meets the hand.

In the meantime, the offending car had pulled across the road into a nearby driveway. The wife had gotten out of the car and walked across the road to see if I needed help. By this time I had calmed down considerably and apologized for my earlier outburst. Both of them were elderly so that made it hard to stay mad at them. She waved off my apology and offered to help me get home. I was only 6 blocks from home and it appeared that I could drive it home. She gave me her phone number and names and offered to pay for the damage to my bike. I accepted and rode home.

While I relayed the story to Tina and the boys, Tina patched me up and inspected me for further damage. In addition to the severe roadburn on my pinky, I had roadburn on my legs and left elbow, despite the fact that I was wearing a long sleeve shirt, sweat pants and my rain jacket - all of which suffered no tears or rips. It looks like the front of my legs hit the handlebars while my thighs picked up some pretty severe bruising from the cross bar. I did not notice many of these bruises until a yesterday. My palms are also pretty sore, especially the right hand which has a bruise on the "meaty part" of the palm. I'm very glad that I had on my riding gloves which are padded and leather on the palms. I'm also glad I was wearing my helmet which may have saved my life.

I don't know exactly how fast I was going when I biffed, but that particular turn comes in the middle of a hill that goes faster than 25 mph. Normally, I slow down to 20 for the corner but don't think I made it this time. It was also wet from rain all day. I'm rethinking my whole strategy for that corner now.

Friday I skipped work to rest and see about getting the bike fixed. The shop informed me that the bar ends couldn't be bent back for fear of them breaking. They also discovered my front shifter had been ruined. Since nobody makes that shifter anymore, I had to go on a bit of a quest to find a used shifter but I was ultimately successful. I replaced the fender today and bent the bar ends to a position that at least allows me to ride. I'm going to have to schedule a slot to put the "new" shifter on and I need to find some replacement bar ends.

I called Don and Diane (the couple in the car) yesterday to let them know that I was OK, to apologize again and to offer to split the bike repair costs with them. Diane answered and was glad to hear from me. She again dismissed my apology and told me that it was understandable. She said Don couldn't sleep most of night Thursday. He had seen the whole thing and was pretty disturbed. I'd like to ask him what happened but maybe that's not a good idea. She agreed to split the costs of the repairs and I promised to call back when I got a total.

You know the scariest part of the whole story? This is not the worst bike accident of my life. But that's a whole other story...

Here's more pictures from our vacation last summer. This set is of the four-day arts and music festival commonly known as Bumbershoot:

• Some Sights at Bumbershoot
• Thomas at Bumbershoot
• Graham at Bumbershoot

I find myself getting continually sucked in to watching the war coverage for hours. There have been many compelling moments and many sad moments. I'm conflicted in a number of ways and wonder if other people are as ambivalent about the situation as I am.

The boys seem very unaffected by the war. Thomas occasionally asks questions but only in the simplest terms: who is fighting, who are the bad guys, who are the good guys. I asked if he wanted me to explain it to him but he doesn't seem that interested. Except when he knows that my interest level is high. He picks up on that and wants to contribute. For example, he'll tell me what he heard on the radio about the bombings.

As promised, I'm continuing to go through pictures from last year and get them up here for your viewing pleasure. Once again Graham's, Thomas' and my web sites have all been updated, but for your convenience you can find the new ones here. These are all from our summer vacation to Victoria, B.C.:

• Ferry from Victoria (8/02)
• Victoria (8/02)
• Camping outside Victoria (8/02)
• Ferry to Victoria (8/02)

When it rains, it pours. On Wednesday night, I found a message from one of the mailing lists I to which I am subscribed. It was from a guy who was giving away a bunch of Mac stuff in Portland. You could have anything that he was offering as long as you took everything. I called him immediately and set up an appointment to get the stuff that night. Thomas helped me load it into the back of my truck. There was some junk but there was good stuff, too, like a SCSI Zip drive, a laser printer and a number of monitors.

Friday afternoon, the Critical Path IS department made a bunch of unused equipment available to employees. I got some good stuff there, too, including a couple of mice which are hard to come by these days.

Last night we went to the 40th birthday party for my old friend, Don Fitzgerald. Low and behold, he has three G3 Macs that he had just scavenged from his employer. I slyly inquired, "What are you going to do with these?" He said, "I'm not sure. Do you want one?" It looks like Thomas and Graham will be getting new computers some time very soon.

I've finally gotten enough time on my hands to review, edit and compile pictures from last year. I've updated Graham's, Thomas' and my web sites, but you can find them all here:

• Thomas helps Graham with his computer
• Graham visits the Pumpkin Patch
• Thomas visits the Pumpkin Patch
• Pumpkin Carving

The flu is sweeping through our house again. Thomas stayed home from school on Monday and Tuesday with a fever of 102. I stayed home on Tuesday and Graham got the fever Tuesday night. It seemed like he had gotten over it but he's fever-ridden again today.

Sunday was smelt day. I spent the morning finding a smelt net (15 foot retractable handle, fine mesh net) and Thomas and I went for the smelt shortly after noon. A friend from work had tipped me off about a place in Washington which was about an hour north of Portland. We caught half our limit (limit = 20 lbs. per person) in about 15 minutes. Thomas loved it. I had to help him with the net so I couldn't get any pictures, but here's a few that my friend took of his experience.

When we were driving home, Thomas said he would cut the heads off and I could gut them, but he backed out once we got home. However, Graham was very much into helping and gutted quite a few himself. They're very easy to clean, BTW. We cleaned for about two hours and we still had lots left.

Unfortunately, I'm not a great cooker of fish and they turned out mushy. The oil in the fryer was also too old so they actually turned out pretty horrible. I was about to dismiss smelt entirely but my friend at work brought some smoked smelt for tea time yesterday and they were delicious! Next time I'm going to buy an electric smoker.

This weekend I also started planning the Ring family reunion this summer. I started a Yahoo group to manage the email and scheduling. It's a great tool and it's free. If you want to be involved in or informed about the reunion planning, you can join the group by clicking here.

Last year I made the decision to upgrade the OS on my main computer to OS X. While that upgrade has gone smoothly, my decision to upgrade to a version of Quicken that is optimized for X has turned out badly. What started out with random crashing eventually turned into corrupted data files. I eventually had to export all my old data to QIF text files before re-importing them into Quicken. I have been spending all my spare computer time in the last two months cleaning up that mess. It's been pretty maddening but I'm finally starting to catch up.

My mother visited us over the Christmas holiday. I took a couple of weeks off and we had a pretty good time. I got rain gear and bike accessories. Fortunately, I haven't had very many opportunities to use the rain gear this year. We're having a very dry winter again this year. It's nice now but we'll pay this summer when the water reserves are down.

I'm riding my bike more and more. I never drive my truck to the Max station and very rarely drive to work any more. I now ride to a different Max station which is farther away. I also get off earlier than before and ride across the river and along the waterfront. It's a beautiful morning ride. I'm averaging about 50 miles per week now. Unfortunately, because my Max ride is so much shorter, I've been reading quite a bit less than before.