Westmoreland Asays

Aaron and Edward both enjoy playing the many Zelda video games we have, and they have even more fun acting out their own Zelda-themed stories. And now they want to share them with you. Aaron recently voiced his desire to make a movie. He thought to just borrow my flip video camera and make something with no planning. But I told him to write a story first, and then we could shoot some footage. I don't think he realized how much work goes into making what he wanted: writing the story, shooting the footage, creating the soundtrack and narration, and then putting it all together. But he faithfully sat by my side and consulted with me on most decisions. Meg usually shakes her head at the boys when they go into Zelda mode, but she fully supported their efforts, hoping that they "get it out of their system" now, so they don't grow up to be like these goobers .

My brother-in-law returned home from his mission to Ghana late tonight, where he spent the last two years proselyting and serving the people there--all on his own dime. Meg joined much of her family in welcoming him home at PDX (read her take here ), while we-three-boys spent most of the weekend on our own in Capital City.

Click To Play There seems to be a tradition forming: I made my third annual trip to Autzen to watch a Ducks' football game. I took my oldest son, Aaron, with tickets (reserved seating) that I purchased from someone on craigslist for only $25/ticket; we could follow the action of the game just fine, but we were about as high as the stadium goes. The Ducks happened to be playing Utah State (one of my alma maters), so that was an added bonus. Both Aaron and I had a great time cheering and watching the Ducks destroy the Aggies. But I think Aaron's most joyful moment came after the game when he got to run around on the actual football field with thousands of other fans.

I recently implemented a gadget that shows me how visitors are finding my blog; most are from people I know and expect, but every week or so someone reads my blog after searching Google. In other words, if you search Google by any of these key word groupings below, my blog scores high on the list, and these persons actually took the time to visit the Bizan Bandit. So here is the list: (I'll keep this updated as I find new entries) #1 : " HT Biking " Hmm, no comment. The visitor was someone in Austria. #2 : " children hurt playing football " Sandwiched between two popular medical web sites--I've got more credentials than Doogie Howser. #1 : " how easy is it to get hurt in football " Better than Wikipedia, more relevant than the NFL. #2 : " People Playing Football " I'm slowly becoming the expert on all things football . . . #1 : " how people get hurt from football " This is funny because people will learn how NOT to get hurt ...

Only Aaron and I ended up running at Trophy Night. Meg's pregnancy has made her feel sick almost every day of late, and Edward had no real interest in running. Aaron ran a good race; I clocked him at 2:39 for the 500 meters, which was almost 20 seconds faster than he ran last year. I thought he had finished in sixth place--one shy of winning a trophy. He was quite disappointed upon learning his predicament--and the awards ceremony confirmed Aaron's fate; however, after my race Meg learned that Aaron truly had placed fifth in his age group, so he was all smiles again after receiving his medal for the night. I started my race slow and relaxed, although I still passed many people who scampered out of the starting line like a rabbit being hotly pursued. At times during the race, I thought to myself: "Why am I still doing this? I can't run very fast anymore, and it doesn't feel very good." But I ran hard through the finish line in 19:40 for the 5000 meters race (I ...

I was a race official this weekend at the Hood-to-Coast relay (and I have the t-shirt to prove it). I've run this relay twice before , but since I had the opportunity to participate in the event from a different perspective, I took the opportunity. My friend Brian (I've known him since at least middle school; we also worked together at Schreiner's, ran Cross Country together, walked together at high school graduation, etc. etc.) owns/runs/manages the company that acts as the official race photographer , and he needed some extra help this year. At slow times when there were several minutes between runners, I took a few short video clips of my adventure. While my documentary is pretty lame, it acted more like a notepad because it would have taken too long to write anything down. I ran into the real documentary team a few times; they even stopped where I was taking pictures, took some video at the same spot and complimented me on my choice location (not that I decided the spo...

Our garden is starting to put out the later summer crops: corn, tomatoes, zucchini, soy beans (almost). And Meg, in her directorial debut, captured this fine interview with one of Capital City's most outspoken and snobbish farmers. After watching this clip, you can find the answer to the question in this video (the quote is at the 5:30 mark, but it's better to watch the whole clip to appreciate the reference).