i think its great that the media showcased levi Johnston and bristol palin as the faces of “national teen pregnancy awareness day”, because it would be hard to come up with two stronger arguments for not having children…

i’m taking some online training this week and yesterday the instructor and i shared our enthusiasm for getting out of the city and hiking.

he told a story where a few years back he put a bunch of money in to a fancy hiking gps that included topographic maps and details on lots of trails in his region. he got up on his first hike, calibrated the unit and then spent the rest of the walk in the woods concentrating on the silly little electronic device. he hadn’t enjoyed the outdoors at all.

the next day, the store he bought the unit from had one more fancy gps in stock.

one morning a certain young, enthusiastic graphic designer came to work and found a message in his inbox from the public relations department that wrote for the web site that was contrary to advice he had given them repeatedly in the past.

believing he was forwarding the message to me, he spared no insult in detailing how ridiculous their request was and he wasted no time sending it along. the punchline, he didn’t forward the message to me, he responded to the author.

as sincere as he was enthusiastic, he came to me panicked and asked what he should do next. i suggested he run to her office and try to get to there ahead of the offending email but if he were too late, groveling was probably a reasonable place to start.

he didn’t even step away from his desk before her response to his ridicule arrived. she exhibited all her jedi public relations skills with the most professional and scathing email message i have ever seen. the moral, never hurry off an email when you’re upset.

most nights, like tonight, one of the last things i do before going to bed is spin up the tivo and watch an episode of the daily show, colbert report, or real time with bill maher. afterwards, when i sat down to write my post, none of the variety of interesting things that happened today came to mind, but i was all itching to rant about the hysteria over the flu formerly known as swine flu. the moral, i need to post early in the day before allowing one or more of these political satirists to wind me up.

she’s the second child and not nearly as attention hungry as her older brother but i still try to keep the balance of images somewhat even. so to catch you up to the half way point of our month in the northwest and to match the feature i did on ethan a few days back, here’s lola:

tolmie state park (1 of 2)

tolmie state park (2 of 2)

multnomah falls

woodburn tulip festival

one day in junior high during “passing time” i went out to the bike rack and fetched my bmx bicycle. i fitted smoke bombs in each end of my handlebars, set a lighter to their fuses and then rode through the crowded school halls with smoke billowing out all around and behind me.

yesterday i went by the school where this event took place and it looks as much like a penitentiary as it did when i was sentenced there nearly thirty years ago. coincidentally i shared this story with a friend a few weeks before coming out here and he asked “where you been keeping that jewel?”

passing by the school with my five and three year old in the car i realized there were a lot of stories i could recall from this time in my life but wasn’t about to share with my kids in the backseat.

i guess the answer to my friends question is that i treat this web site as if it were a curious kid in the backseat of a car and you’ll just have to come visit, stay up past tucking the kids to bed, and we can tell war stories by star light.