Westmoreland Asays

WARNING: The following language might offend the technically-challenged, fiscally-unconservative, and people who think I am a snob and write entries that are waaay to long; proceed at your own risk. I sincerely believed I would be the last man on the planet to own a cell phone. There's nothing inherently evil about cell phones; I just could not justify owning one because 95% of my time is spent near a landline or my mistress's cell phone, and there is no way I could find value in paying a monthly fee for something I wouldn't use that much. I follow a pretty routine schedule every day of the week, so the people that need to find me can find me. But then I thought there are going to be a number of days in August where I will be away from my calling safety net--I truly would be inaccessible. Perhaps it was time to concede. I first thought about getting a simple, cheap phone that I could use on a prepaid basis. But the tipping point in my decision was that at work we have begu...

Every two years, Meg's family--34 people now--meets in Oregon for a reunion. I don't have many pictures or videos yet, so check back later to see what might be new. July 15, Wednesday We arrived in Sherwood around noon, just in time to see the bounce house, super slide, and jousting arena being blown up. They also set up a slip-and-slide on the side of the house, which Aaron and Eddie both enjoyed. Near the end of the day, some of the older "boys" (myself included) began doing flips and somersaults down the slide. No one went over the side of the slide, but John and Paul both came pretty close; I just experienced lots of wedgies. After dinner, many of headed across the street to Sunset Park (best city park ever?) to play kickball and soccer. Aaron tagged along with me and enjoyed both games, and Nichole was kind to bring and watch Eddie, although he spilled his little box of Nerds and wouldn't calm down until he led me to the spill site, where I helped him pick u...

The summer cross country season is approaching, so I thought that I should start including some speed workouts into my training. I run my speed workouts at Duniway Track , about a minute from my office, but I like to run through the Lair Hill Neighborhood first as a warm-up. Since I haven't run fast in about a year, I took it relatively easy, running 1-mile (6:00), 800 meters (2:57), and 2x400 meters (1:27, 1:26)--walking and slowly running 400 meters between each interval--but still finishing tired. As I was running, I noticed a guy stretching out on the track in a most unusual manner--he was able to contort his body in ways I didn't think possible. Eventually I caught a glimpse of his face, and I recognized him: Galen Rupp . And it wasn't long before I realized I should be looking for his coach, and sure enough, he was there too: Alberto Salazar . I'm not sure why they left the happy confines of the Nike campus (where I often ran when I lived in Beaverton), but it wa...

I had Friday off from work, so I took Aaron and Edward on a hike around Silver Falls State Park (25 miles and 35 minutes away from our house); Meg declined in favor of staying home with Ian and away from the 90-degree heat. Hiking on Independence Day (or any part of the time I have away from my job) is a long-standing tradition--one which I have been doing every year since 1999 ( see here for the chronology ). We arrived at the park around 9:30 a.m. before the crowds had arrived--and more importantly, before the shade-covered parking spots were taken. We set out intent on hiking the entire 7-mile loop around the park. Meg had commented before we left that I was setting my expectations too high for the kids, and I probably did, but at the same time I wanted to challenge the boys to do more than they ever had before. The hike went pretty smoothly, although Edward fell a couple of times, scraping his knee and covering his legs in mud--but we were hiking along Silver Creek, so I dipped him...