On Schedule

Congratulations to our employee Mark and his wife Val who welcomed their girl into the world Friday evening. 9 pounds 8 ounces 23 inches long. The amazing thing is the fact that months ago we scribbled Val's name on the work calendar with a question mark on Friday, May 26.

Breathing Trees

Forgotten Song

It'll take a little time
But you'll grow to love me.
Uncertain at first
You'll dive below the surface.
See the hidden meanings.
Read between the lines.
Revisit what you once looked over.
Your passing years
Bring new appreciation.
Where have I been
All your life?

Playing in the Dirt

Joy got her rocks Saturday as planned and I spread them around the area randomly to prepare for the red rock that will fall between them. That rock is being delivered this morning. We have to get Casoron and weed barrier cloth in place. We're taking the full three Memorial weekend days off from work (Hallelujah!) to get this thing done rain or shine. You can't tell by the picture but a couple of these slabs had to be 300 pounds or more easy. Joy bought a bubbling rock yesterday to go closer to the windows and I cast my vote for getting one less puny. She'll also throw a maple in the mix under the windows. This should look like an American version of a Japanese garden when we're done. No lawn to mow, crunchy under foot unless you hop from stone to stone as a neighbor kid has already demonstrated.
Sunday, good neighbor Don got his long blade chainsaw out and fell three trees along the north side of our property that were waiting for death anyway. These big, scraggly things have been a target for eradication for a few years and their absence has, believe it or not, improved the peripheral view.
The new neighbors to our south broke ground yesterday. A little deja vu crept in seeing the carved up dirt. They claim they'll be through in about six months and it's entirely possible since they have a regular builder guiding the project. It only took us 14 months with our house.

Random Stuff

Gilford's Floor Covering is buzzing right along. Our June calendar is full. One of our main employees, Mark, will be off for a while as his wife, Val, is expecting their first baby any day now. With Derek still at about half-speed with a healing ankle, our back-up plan is limited to subcontractors and their schedules. Complicating the schedule are a couple good-sized jobs in which the carpet mills sent us defective goods. We're having to reschedule those jobs and get those customers back into normal living again since they basically pulled up their own carpet and moved furniture around in advance of the installations. It's quite a mess for the customers and us, but we do what we can to get things resolved.


Joy has rocks on the brain as she's planning some sort of landscaping on the north side of the house. Sunday we'll be making a couple trips to the local rock yard to get some large flat paver-like stones that will sit in a field of smaller rock right off our driveway and around to the side of the walkway going to our front door.


After work today we're having our two nearest neighbors over for pizza at 5pm. We have done more entertaining and showing off of the house in the past few weekends than we ever did at our other houses. I think we're trying to be a little more sociable, totally unlike us, but worth doing. We value our time away from the public life at work but realize that this house and view are special and need to be shared.

Volunteer

What do you do if you're the type of person that spends an inordinate amount of time in front of the computer at work, as a hobby, or for any reason that comes to mind? Well, you volunteer at the local library teaching 55-year-old and older folks how to use these silly things of course. The program is called Cyber Seniors through the Multnomah County Library system. It's a three-week course on the first three Saturdays of the month. We can have up to six students. This morning I filled in for Susan at the library in Fairview 8am to 10am. I haven't been doing the volunteering much lately since we reopened our store on Saturdays and I miss it. Susan, Teresa and I were the group that helped inquisitive seniors figure out email, the online library catalog, basic surfing, a lot of stuff the seasoned user takes for granted. Imagine showing a 75-year-old first-timer how to use a mouse. Your perspective is renewed instantly. You should see a person's eyes light up when they figure out how to Google a topic. It's like a hidden world opens up to them. Wow! 712,345 results for Abraham Lincoln.

Picky, Picky...

Movie chairs I had been waiting for since March 24th came in finally. I set them in place last night and didn't notice until this morning that the first chair to the left in the photo is different than the other three. It's wider for bigger butts, shorter in back, doesn't have the burlwood cupholders and has a different foot rest design. Home Video Library wasn't too happy with their supplier from Tennessee. It'll be another six weeks 'til things are corrected. Even so, it is now possible to have you all over for movies (or at least three of you besides me with skinnier butts). Should I have lived with the different chair?

Hood Site Link

Pictures and an extensive account of our adventure up and down Mt. Hood are on their own page here.

45 Years and Counting

Happy anniversary to my parents, Will and Sue, celebrating 45 years. An inspiration to me and Joy, they have always set the standard and remain a constant example of how to live life to the fullest. We love them very much. With Derek, Deanna and Sadie, we took them to Multnomah Falls Lodge for an excellent dinner last night.

Ankle Update

Derek is back to work after severely spraining his ankle. It's very tender as of May 15th and gets sore if he doesn't where the proper brace. He taking it slow and easy.

Bittersweet

We were successful early Wednesday morning in our summit of Mt. Hood. The weather was perfect except for a constant cool wind. The ice couldn't have been better for clawing into with our crampons. We had great views of the surrounding mountains: Three Sisters, Jefferson, Adams, Ranier and St. Helens.
Derek and I were pooped. Bob didn't show any signs of wear and he's 51, ten years older than me. He's been to the top at least 40 times. Five years have passed since Derek and I had been up with him. The biggest difference apparent to both of us was the difficulty involved in coming down. A different set of muscles is used and if your knees are a little overworked, it can be very painful in the easiest declines. So you resort to glissading whenever possible. That's where you sit on your butt and slide down trails made by butts before yours. I couldn't do it this year because my pants gathered up too much and made my private life scream for mercy. Derek had moderate success until about a third of the way down when his crampon got caught and wrenched his foot into an awkward position. He described a healthy pop or snap in his ankle and he was done for the day. Mountain rescue had to be called in to get him off the mountain, a three hour ordeal involving snowcats transporting medical techs up to him to assess his condition and organizing hauling him down to the Timberline Lodge parking area where paramedics looked at him a little more. His wife Deanna drove up from Gresham and took him from there to the hospital last night. I haven't heard how bad his ankle is yet, but I'm sure it's going to have an impact on the business for a while. Despite the sad ending, it was a great day. I'll be putting the rest of the photos into its own page and link you to it in a future post.

More the Merrier

This just in:
Brother Derek is joining Bob and myself for the trek tonight.
Fears of avalanches have magically melted away.

Back On

Well, it looks like tomorrow night and Wednesday morning is our new climbing target. I'm shuffling my schedule around to accomodate it. Bob agrees that a 11 p.m. start will be OK, and I think it will be just the two of us. So wish us well.