Over the weekend I learned a dear old friend of mine, Josh Erichsen, passed away earlier this year. Josh and I met back in high school. We both had Commodore computers, we both liked rock and heavy metal music, we both liked Star Wars and Monty Python, and we both were into electronics and car stereos. It’s getting harder to remember exactly how all my friends met, or who met whom first. All I can really remember is that one day all of my friends were friends with Josh, because everybody who ever met Josh immediately became Josh’s friend. Back… (read more)

It is not only the season for garage sales, but neighborhood garage sales as well. Many times on this blog I have written about the neighborhood sales I used to attend in Sun Valley, the neighborhood I grew up in, and in most of those posts I have opined how the sales they hold today pale in comparison. When I was a kid, it seemed like some years nearly half the residents in our neighborhood participated in garage sale day. A couple of years ago when we attended, there were only four sales in all. This year I’d guess there… (read more)

Saturday evening, Morgan, her boyfriend, and a few of her friends attended their senior prom. I’m not sure how excited Morgan originally was in attending the prom. Like many kids, as dresses were purchased and nails were fancied, her interest level appeared to increase. Susan, on the other hand, as been looking forward to this moment for years. Decades, maybe. Susan was very excited about dress shopping, shoe shopping, and all the other prom-related activities. Back when I was in high school guys typically wore tuxedos to the prom, and the tradition was to eat at a formal restaurant before… (read more)

On my last post about the Broken Bow cabin, I teased showing the outside of the cabin as well. I lost track of time and it no longer seemed relevant, but two separate people have asked to see them so, here they are. The picture above was taken during our drive to Broken Bow. For about four hours, that’s what it looks like. Trees, sky, road. This was my first view of the cabin, and this picture doesn’t even show the whole thing. For example, the left hand side of the cabin wraps around and is blocked in this picture.… (read more)

“You’re supposed to have a sleep study performed every five years,” the lab technician told me last night after I mentioned it had been “at least a decade” since my last sleep study. I had my first sleep study back in 2002, and a follow-up study in 2006. As far as I was concerned, the study had been performed and we were done. I got my CPAP machine, and every three months a box full of supplies arrived on my front porch. All things considered, it was a perfect system. To maintain this system I was required to visit a… (read more)

Last week during spring break, Susan, the kids and I took a short vacation to Broken Bow, Oklahoma. A few weeks ago I had mentioned to Susan that I would like to rent a cabin down in that area again. I was envisioning a cabin that slept 4 people. What we ended up with was one that could easily sleep 20. After a four hour drive it’s nice to be able to enter a cozy cabin, kick your shoes off, and stretch your legs. Stretching our legs in this place was not a problem. What I thought was going to… (read more)

A coworker once told me he would never own a pair of sunglasses that cost less than $100. I, on the other hand, don’t know that I have ever paid more than five bucks for a pair. I’m sure $100 sunglasses are very nice; unfortunately for me, I tend to leave them behind in restaurants, or sit on them, or drop them, or break them. I once had a pair literally fly off the top of my head while riding a motorcycle. I could never handle the responsibility of keeping up with a $100 pair of sunglasses. I own lots… (read more)

I’ve been sitting on a wooden stool in my cold workshop for three hours now, separating nuts, bolts, and other random bits into piles. I’m pretty sure this is what OCD feels like. When we bought a house after moving back from Spokane in 1998, the former order left behind a one-gallon bucket full of screws, nails, and bolts out in the garage. Because the bucket is so densely packed it is impossible to find anything specific, and digging in the bucket with bare hands is a recipe for tetanus. Because of this I rarely use any of the screws… (read more)