Westmoreland Asays

I took the older boys to a free party at the Rose Garden to watch the Blazers play in their first playoff game of the season. We took the bus, of course, which brought a happy cheer out of Aaron. Unfortunately, the highlight was at half-time watching Eddie break-dance in the aisles. I normally won't blame the refs for my team playing poorly, but even Aaron could tell that they weren't blowing the whistle fairly on both ends of the floor. Aaron also spent most of the game sitting quietly in his chair, commenting about how he thought the crowd was funny for cheering on the Blazers and doing the normal game chants even though the Blazers couldn't hear them (I had the exact same thought, too). I apologize for the poor visuals; they are from my cell phone.

Some of Meg's friends invited her to go roller skating with them at Oaks Park; her sister Nichole kindly volunteered to babysit the boys, so I tagged along (just to make the following video, of course). I thought it funny that her friends said I was a good skater. I started roller skating around the time I was in  kindergarten (before it was required at public schools), since our school took trips to Salem's Skate Palace every-other-month. I even had my own pair of skates and used to pretend to be a member of the US Olympic hockey team from 1980 and would frequently reenact their victory over the USSR at make-believe matches in our garage using my great-grandpa's cane as a hockey stick, a wiffle ball for a puck, and laundry baskets for goals. But I can't do much of anything other than go forward at a rapid pace without falling. But it's a decent workout, I enjoy it, and Meg put up with my antics and had a good time despite me.

I occasionally label my three children as the following, based on their stereotypical eating habits: Aaron the granarian (Aaron subsists almost entirely on cereal, bread, pasta, and rice) Edward the vegetarian (the kid loves carrots and broccoli and once devoured peas from my hand ) Ian the carnivore (he now only eats dinner from my plate, and it almost always involves just my meat) You might be surprised how much those cheeks can hold . . . We had a chicken curry concoction last night, and Ian kept asking for more and more chicken. I obliged, of course, but failed to see that he was chewing it only briefly before packing it away in his cheeks. After only a few minutes, his mouth was completely full of partially chewed chicken, which he stubbornly refused to swallow or spit out. Come bedtime, Ian had not appeared to make any progress on dinner, and that's how he fell asleep. Ian woke up just before 7 the next morning, and I prepared a bowl of cereal for his breakfast, whi...

The gravel here makes for a funner gardening experience. When we bought our house a few months ago, the yard was probably the last thing on our minds. Now that the sun has returned (somewhat) and the days are longer, we've spent some time improving the outside of the house. And the gravel here will keep our feet free from mud when we need to make a late night run for Pepsi in the backup fridge in the garage. Today we had a cubic yard of pea gravel delivered, and the whole family happily shoveled and wheel-barrowed and spread it throughout a few pre-planned points: in between the garden boxes in front; along a path that I prepared on Saturday (removing some sod and moss, and framing it with some scrap wood that a neighbor let me have), as we needed a better, cleaner way to get to the garage from the house; and the leftovers went to the side of the house, which was enough for another path to get to the back porch from the front yard. The gravel has made a huge visual differ...

It seems like at each house we've had less and less outdoor space to grow our own food; this house is no exception. Fortunately, the previous owner ripped out a bunch of densely-planted shrubbery (which one of the neighborhood boys said used to always eat his baseballs) before we moved in. The sun shines nearly all day in this spot, so it's a great place for vegetables to grow. Working together, Meg and I put together a couple of raised garden beds in a day. It cost about $10 for the frame (recycled products), $30-40 for the organic bedding material, and a few bucks for the starter plants. I still have lots of seeds that I have saved from previous seasons, so we'll have lots of different options (just not much space) this spring. We plan to lay down some pea gravel in between the beds, which should improve the drainage of paths, make it a nicer place to work, provide a more aesthetic-looking garden, and create a place for the young-lings to play with their cars and trucks. ...

Aaron and Edward's school holds an auction every year to raise money for things that the school district doesn't/can't afford to fund. I'm not sure what these things are, but I believe in the cause. Last year, even though we'd been in the neighborhood only for two weeks, Meg volunteered us to help with some minor tasks (I don't even remember what we did); this year she volunteered me to set up and manage the computer network necessary for registering the attendees and for processing all of the auction purchases. Oh dear. Even though I earned my CCNA once upon a time , my confidence wasn't brimming at the prospect of setting everything up from scratch. It took a little work and research, but I was able to patch together all of the borrowed equipment and confirmed it was working a few hours before the auction began. We processed hundreds of people and over $47k in transactions for the evening--all without a hitch. I think my CCNA instructor would be pleased;...

Eric Do you remember the first time you saw your name printed in the newspaper? Or what about that time you were the tenth caller and won two tickets to a Depeche Mode concert (and it wasn't about the tickets--it was all about hearing yourself go wild on the air, for all your friends to hear)? And you'll never forget the pride that swelled within as you watched a local television reporter interview you for the 6:00 news , right? Yeah, me too. But none of that compares to the nirvana-like experience of  being a regular contributor to the Movie BS with Bayer and Snider Internet radio program . And there's no reason you too can't have this same transcending experience. Jeff If you watch movies--and I know everyone does--you need to listen to Jeff and Eric, as they will guide you to the movies you should see, and help you avoid wasting your time and money on the rest of the crap out there.  But these two men don't just review movies for a living; they have begu...