August 30, 2002

 
Joe came down from Battle Ground, and we resumed our attack on the upstairs bathroom. We got a lot of good work done, and the new tub is in place. There's a substantial set of tasks remaining to be tackled, but at least a couple of the big chores we'll be farming out. The new light and fan over the bath, for example, I'll be calling in an electrician to install. Probably get a pro to do the tile work too. I'll be caulking and painting the outside tomorrow, which is about my home repair competency level right now.

One thing that's pretty clear is we will ultimately be remodeling the entirety of the bathroom, not just converting the bath to a bath with shower. The pink fixtures' days are numbered, and for those of us without a 1950s asthetic sensibility (which is to say, me), the sooner they're gone, the better. I think the whole project will be completed by sometime in October, but that's just a guess.

 August 26, 2002

 
Bernard and Liz headed back to California this morning after an extended weekend of helping us through various house projects. As always, the place is looking better and improved as a result of their help, and we appreciate their efforts.

The Sleater-Kinney CD I mentioned a few days ago arrived in the mail today, and I'm already pronouncing it a winner. The One Beat album is very good; my favorite tunes: One Beat, Far Away, Light-Rail Coyote, Step Aside, Oxygen, Hollywood Ending, and Sympathy. Sleater-Kinney plays the Crystal Ballroom in Portland on September 27.

 August 25, 2002

 
We tackled a few house projects prior to heading up the street for a neighborhood party in the late afternoon. We have lots of neat new neighbors and plenty of fantastic longer-term ones, and that's just a receipe for good times. I'm looking forward to getting to know our neighbors even better in the months and years ahead.

As a bonus, after the party we had the opportunity to walk through several of our neighbors' homes where we discovered that the homes' layout is exactly like ours. It was an eerie, intriguing and thought-provoking tour since we're in the midst of a remodeling project of our own. Very inspiring!

Spent the evening playing a whole bunch of darts downstairs. It's a pretty addictive little pasttime, and Bernard and I stayed up until about midnight chucking them at the board. I've got the soft-tipped kind of darts with the electronic board, and though that's hardly a pro setup, it's more than good enough for me. I especially like that the electronic board keeps score. The less thinking I have to do when I'm hucking darts around midnight, the better.

 August 24, 2002

 
I rolled up I-5 and out to Hillsboro this morning to help Dennis move to a house in SE Portland. Matt, Ginger, and Maria also participated in this filling and unloading of the U-Haul truck, and fueled by some yummy donuts we made pretty good time in getting stuff packed into the vehicle.

The unloading of materials at the new place was similarly lickity-split, but I had to bail before we had all the remaining items carted into a nearby storage facility. Dennis tells me that all went well, and, since this type of moving event is destined to be repeated again a few months hence, I feel a little less guilt about having to take off early.

Speaking of Dennis telling me things, he's turned me on to a Portland-based all-women trio called Sleater-Kinney and their remarkably good album, One Beat. You can currently listen to the whole thing as a Quicktime stream. I've already ordered the CD.

Bernard, Liz, Erin and I jetted down I-5 to Eugene to help Terri celebrate her 30th birthday. We met a lot of Terri and Jim's friends, took pictures (including the latest addition to Erin and Terri's famous kitchen series), admired their remodeling work, ate lots of great food, and just generally had a great time. Happy birthday, Terri!

 August 23, 2002

 
Joe came down yesterday to help us remodel our upstairs bathroom, and you'll forgive me if I'm unrestrained in my thanks and praise for the work he's done. In short, he's accomplished brilliant stuff. My own contributions are more marginal since I have little clue about most tools or remodeling techniques, but the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step as they say, and it's great to be traveling with somebody who's been there before. A big thank you to Joe for all his efforts!

Despite two days of work, we're not done, so we'll be at it again next week. At the end of everything, the goal is to have a shower in the upstairs bathroom, with maybe some new fixtures and such if time and budget allow. (Yes, this will spell the end of the pink tub, toilet, and sink.) The upstairs shower is important since it will shave at least a couple minutes a day off of Erin's morning rush to get ready for school in addition to being more modern and convenient.

While we were working, Erin's parents returned from the Portland stage of their Oregon trip, and Dave stopped by for a quick overnight visit. I don't recall ever being so lucky in having this many friends drop by in such a short time frame. It makes me want to throw a slumber party.

 August 21, 2002

 
Aquila closed up today at $3.95 so it looks like Monday's $2.65/$2.68 bet may pay off. I didn't have as much money to throw at the stock as I would have liked (I still don't—I continue to find even $3.88 an absolute steal of deal), and given all the purchasing we've done in the past year we'll continue to be underwater on the average cost per share until it hits $6.40. Oh well, we were at $12-something until Monday's purchase. An investor can only do so much.

Speaking of which, my latest picks for stock market success are Teco Energy (TE-NYSE) and Pfizer (PFE-NYSE), two of Dad's long-time favorites. I don't have any money to put into them right now since we'll be remodeling the bathroom this month, but if I had any excess cash, that's were it would go. Feel free to get rich off my advice. No charge. (Similarly, I expect no criminal charge against me if you're so crazy as to take the financial advice posted on some Internet dude's web site. Surely there must be better sources of information than what I think.)

My friend Jenny passed this along to me:

If you had purchased $1,000 worth of Nortel stock one year ago, it would now be worth $49. With Enron, you would have $16.50 of the original $1,000. With Worldcom, you would have less than $5 left. If you had bought $1,000 worth of Budweiser (the beer, not the stock) one year ago, drank all the beer, then turned in the cans for the 10 cent deposit, you would have $214. Based on the above, my current investment advice is to drink heavily and recycle.

 August 19, 2002

 
With Bernard and Liz riding with us, we returned to Salem yesterday to find our house still standing. By the grace and goodwill of Dad and our neighbor Fred, Erin's garden looks to have pulled through the 100 degree days the area experienced in our absence. Thanks to them both.

Bernard and I went out to play a little more tennis, both of us I think enjoying immensely after not playing the game in years. We remain pretty close to awful, but we're improving and the quality in all aspects of our play is up dramatically from our match six days ago. If possible, I'd like to keep playing, though that might prove tricky given Oregon's fall and winter climate.

True to form, I bought a bunch of Aquila stock today. It closed Friday at $2.05, and I started this morning with a limit order of $2.40 a share, but trading hopped right over my limit and in the end I was forced to buy in at $2.65 and $2.68. That meant I pretty well missed the day's run up. That's annoying, but it won't matter long-term. Now either I'm going to make good money on Aquila or I'm probably going lose most everything I've put into it (which, I'd like to stress again, is not all that much in the context of our portfolio—don't you slamming all your retirement savings into this because you read somewhere that Ty thought it was a good deal). If I had the money, I'd buy more Aquila stock than I did, but I don't, and we're looking at a lot of house expenses in the next few months as we remodel the upstairs bathroom and insulate the walls. Anyway, I've bought what I can and put my money were my mouth is. We'll see how it goes.

 August 17, 2002—Los Altos, California

 
Erin and I lunched with our friends Brian and Debbie and their daughter Erin at their home in Campbell. Little Erin is entering second grade this year, a milestone which seems almost unthinkable. Wasn't she an infant just last month? Time is moving more rapidly in my subjective world view, probably having to do with each moment constituting a lower percentage of my time lived. A minute of my life isn't a long as it was when I was 10. Strange thought, that.

Anyway, we had a wonderful time chatting with Brian and Debbie, and as an unexpected bonus I even got to update their Rev. D iMac. It took a couple hours of tinkering, but Debbie and I used it as chat time, and in the end we'd doubled the Internet speed, fixed the web browser so it could play Flash movies/games, eliminated an extension conflict, and changed a few other things for the better. Thanks to Brian and Debbie for the great conversation, the yummy lunch, and for allowing me to be helpful.

The Lillys (Bernard and Liz), the Petersons (Mark, Christine, and Jared) and the Davisons (Erin and I) all headed down to San Jose to watch the San Jose Giants brutalize the visiting High Desert Mavericks 6-2. Major League Baseball? Heck, I'm probably one of the few guys who hopes they do go on strike just so we can get other, more entertaining professional sports on TV. But minor league baseball? I hope it lasts forever. Example: A foul ball was hit down the third base line where some guy in the BBQ area caught it. He hands it to his toddler, and he's all stoked like "look what Daddy got for his little boy." The kid, undoubtedly trained to play catch ("come on, through the ball back to Daddy"), immediately hucks the thing back onto the baseball field while the rest of us in the stands laugh ourselves silly. They gave the ball back to the kid, of course, but it was all amusingly and touchingly human, and something you'd never see at a major league game. MLB owners v. players? I don't care. Give me the purity and joy of the minor leagues every time.

 August 16, 2002—Los Altos, California

 
Liz, Erin and I met Christine and Jared over at the Sunset magazine "Idea House" in Palo Alto so we could get remodeling ideas. The Craftsman style home was a large 4-story affair with lots to see. It was not what I would describe as perfect by any means—many concepts were either not thought through or were poorly implemented—but there was simply so much there that there were a lot of ideas which one could readily steal and modify for their own ends. I don't know yet what that will mean for our place, but I had my digital camera with me, so we'll see.

Afterward, Christine and Jared headed for home and Liz, Erin, and I lunched at Hobee's, a Bay Area restaurant chain of which I'm quite fond. Their breakfasts in particular are recommended for those looking for a place to eat in the South Bay.

After lunch we stopped at the Elizabeth F. Gamble Garden also in Palo Alto. This relaxing (and free) oasis of sorts is also a recommended visit for those who find themselves in the neighborhood.

Finally, we paid a visit to Mark, Christine, and Jared in Redwood City. They've opened up the windows in their front room by removing a lot of the window coverings and installing some new window shades and the resulting change in light is striking. Mark is, as many of you know, the prime mover and big cheese behind Peterson Remodeling, and over the next few years as he has the opportunity to work on their home I think he's really going to create something great.

We met our friends Shan and Heather for a late dinner at their home in Santa Clara. Heather prepared an outstanding Indian meal (another in a long line of culinary achievements as far as I'm concerned), and we caught up on all the news. Heather's getting ready for the school year where this year she'll be teaching second grade. She taught first grade last year and is excited about the prospect of having most—if not all—of the same students for a second year in a row. Shan is getting ready for a business trip to Japan and is rightfully excited about the prospect of extending his stay in the country by a few days and seeing the sights. I'm envious.

After dinner we headed out to Cold Stone Creamery, an ice cream shop I've recommended before. I wish they'd get one in Salem. ("Coming soon" is what it says on their web site.) We returned then to Shan and Heather's where, once again, we stayed up until the wee hours of the morning and became almost stumblingly sleep-deprived. Funny to what extremes a person will go in order to extend visits with people whom they enjoy seeing and don't see often enough. Thanks to Shan and Heather for the great evening!

 August 15, 2002—Los Altos, California

 
I finally got the chance to see an Apple store as we ventured to Palo Alto to see the University Avenue shop. (Additional comments on what I saw in the Mac section.) The store wasn't quite as big as I anticipated, but there was a lot of walk-in traffic and it's undoubtedly a good location. The layout is clean, and everything is open and easy to find. It's no trouble at all to hop on any type of machine that Apple offers and start fiddling. Lots of product got moved while I was there (on a mid-Thursday afternoon) so hopefully that bodes well for the financial success of these outlets. Now if only we could get a few in the Northwest.

Erin, Liz, and I visited the headquarters of Sunset magazine in Menlo Park where we toured their elaborate grounds and admired the gardens. They've developed their backyard in sections so that one area holds, say, only plants from the Northwest, another from Southern California, and so on. Helpfully they've labeled everything so aspiring gardeners can easily determine exactly what plants in which they're interested.

We met with our friend Jennie for dinner (at Armadillo Willy's—yum!) and caught up on life. Jennie's working for a Bay Area company and telecommuting from Washington D.C., in some ways getting the best of both coasts since she flies in to San Francisco frequently. Her significant other Jon—who we've unfortunately not met yet—is a major Mac guy at National Geographic and has his own web site in addition. Thanks to Jennie for the wonderful evening!

I would be remiss if I didn't make some comments on a day that saw Aquila's share price drop by 55 percent to close at $2.40 a share. I vainly searched the Internet looking for news of why the shares saw such significant and worrying price drop, and, finding almost nothing, I can only assume they are being tainted by association with Dynegy who yesterday said that they may declare bankruptcy. So far as I know Aquila's liquidity is fine, their earnings more than cover their reduced dividend, and a Dynegy bankruptcy would not have an impact on their business. If the market is punishing them for once being an energy trader, an activity they've since stopped, $2.40 is an insane buying price. That's a dividend yield of something like 25 percent.

I am keenly aware, however, that maybe somebody knows something I don't know (despite my research), because a 55 percent drop in a single day usually has a precipitating event, and in this case I'd say that if it's the Dynegy thing, great, time to buy more stock. If it's something else, maybe Aquila's been the wrong horse. Right now, I think it's time to buy more stock, but again, this is not a core holding. This is a flyer I think will do very well in the 3- to 5-year time span.

 August 14, 2002—Los Altos, California

 
Bernard and I went out and played a little tennis, the first time either of us had do so in years. We were, in short, mediocre, but it was still quite fun to get out and hit the ball around. Neither of us could serve consistently, but by the end of the three sets we played, our serves had improved considerably and at least every once in a while we'd hit a really good one. It made me feel like the possibility of being a decent player still exists if I'm willing to practice. I don't know if it's true anymore, but if not, it's a nice delusion to which I'll probably cling regardless.

This tennis match was also the first opportunity I've had to try out a new Wilson graphite/titanium composite racket I bought on a shopping trip with Dave I don't know how long ago. Very impressive piece of equipment. Extraordinarily light compared to the 1970s era rackets I'm used to, it also features an oversized head. That's a crucial feature for iffy players like me. Anyway, a successful test and one I'd be happy to repeat in Salem should any enterprising tennis players out there want to call me up and to achieve a blow-out victory. I really need to work on my serve.

We watched The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring on DVD this evening. This second viewing (I saw it once in the theatres) proved very helpful in figuring out various minor details, relationships, and motivations. The DVD is unquestionably a glorious achievement, but it suffers—how could it not?—dropping from the big screen to the small. Nonetheless, it remains a classic tale well-told, and I plan on buying the extended version DVD when it becomes available in November.

 August 13, 2002—Los Altos, California

 
After cleaning the cabin, we packed up and made the short trip to Donner Lake for one last swim. The water was much warmer than the first day we were here, and the group of us had a fun time splashing about. In particular there was this one big log we kept trying to stand on only to be thrown off when it rolled.

We stopped in Auburn along I-80 at Akieda's, a grocery store/restaurant whose name I might be slightly misspelling, and picked up some milkshakes. Highly recommended, but I also don't remember the last time I didn't recommend a milkshake. The place started as a fruit stand and just kept expanding over the years. They now have tour buses pulling into the parking lot so passengers can disembark and chow down. Seems like a good stop to me.

In Fairfield, we arrived just in time for the last tour of the day at the Jelly Belly plant. They've an amazing 50 flavors of Jelly Bellys (some of which are so accurate as to be scary) in addition to some Harry Potter flavors like earwax, vomit, booger, and so on which are manufactured there but licensed to Warner Bros. (I think) so they couldn't talk about them in detail. I'm not a huge candy fan in general, but I found the free tour interesting and I had a good time taste testing the various Jelly Belly flavors. The bargain conscious shopper will want to check out packages of Belly Flops, Jelly Bellys which are misshapen but still perfectly yummy.

 August 11, 2002—Donner/Tahoe development, Truckee, California

 
I don't know if it's the elevation, being on vacation, or some other factor, but we seem to be sleeping a good deal more than normal. I, for one, have been taking long afternoon naps, and my total sleep hours per day must be easily in double digits. That's an observation not a complaint. I love my sleep time.

We headed into Reno this evening, a return to Circus Circus so that we could eat dinner out and so that some of the folks could gamble a bit. For several reasons which I shan't go into here, I'm not a gambler, so for me the evening was sociological research and fairly interesting sociological research at that.

The first and most obvious thing to report is that for an activity that's supposed to be fun, there don't seem to be many happy gamblers. Our party excluded, I never saw a person at slot machine who even remotely looked to be having a good time. I was able to find several folks both at craps and blackjack tables who were enjoying themselves, so one could say on that basis alone it might be worth recommending those games if you're going to plunk down cash in Nevada. I don't know if there's a correlation, but I seem to recall craps and blackjack as having the best odds for winning money as well. (Ultimately all games favor the house, which is why most people lose money.)

Above the casino at Circus Circus there's a midway with various carnival games and the occasional circus-style performance. We watched a couple trapeze acts and a balancing act in which tables and chairs and such were piled high. The carnival games were varied, though all shared the consistent themes of being harder than they look and of offering prizes which look much more expensive than they really are. Joe won a cute little stuffed animal for Helen which they called their "$10 bear," an accurate description of just how much money they had to plop down to finally win the thing. Like on the casino level, flashing lights and loud sounds are everywhere. For the occasional visitor the cranked up atmosphere charges the area with excitement. I would think it would be a headache-inducing place of employment, however.

Erin, Liz, Jared, and I headed back in the first car. Tired trooper that Jared was, he made his displeasure at leaving Christine at the casino well-known. Even Erin's continual efforts—and Erin and Jared got along otherwise like peas in a pod—were unable to calm Jared's fears. As most every parent knows, a big part of the Terrible Twos is baby learning that he or she is not in control of the universe. That's a hard lesson to grasp when fully rested. When tired, it's darn near impossible. So the Jared siren just gradually wore himself out on the ride home. The upside is that he slept well having expended so much energy, and of course when he awoke yelling the next morning, Christine was right there again, so he was instantly back to his old happy self.

 August 10, 2002—Donner/Tahoe development, Truckee, California

 
We hiked along the one of the ridges overlooking Donner Lake this afternoon, going about a mile to the Negro Canyon overlook. We saw a young buck deer near the trailhead and lots of birds along the way. At a 7,300+ foot elevation one might have expected a tougher hike, but this was more a casual stroll along a pretty and dusty trail than anything strenuous. Looking down on Donner Lake, the highway, and railway line turned my thoughts to the nature of human progress, a reverie I stayed in until we headed back toward the car and talk turned to politics, a topic about which for better or for worse I'm rarely without an opinion.

In the evening we watched Roman Polanski's The Nineth Gate starring Johnny Depp as David Corso. Although a little slow-moving, it's also an intellectually engaging and deeply engrossing film about a rare "book detective" who is hired to authenticate a book purported to be written by the devil himself in the 16th century. On this level, Depp is good, Polanski is his usual visually expressive self, and the film succeeds by-and-large despite being a touch ponderous.

Where it gets fascinating, however, is in its sub-text regarding knowledge and evil. My initial thought is that the gates of Hell that the protagonist passes through are stages of knowledge, and indeed, ultimately we see his motivation shift from obviously evils such as money or wanton sex to forbidden knowledge for its own sake. The parallel in this respect to Adam and Eve's fall from grace after eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge could not be more clear it seems to me. Many of the "gates" toward Hell are similarly interesting on an intellectual plane, though I confess that I need to go back and see the movie again to insure that my thesis here actually works. Silence being necessary for evil to flourish fits, and temptation is a no-brainer, but I can't remember all the gates so I don't know if my theory holds up. If so, I will say that I thought that Carnal Knowledge, one of the final gates to Hell, was an interesting choice by Polanski, especially since it's the very thing that got him in trouble with law enforcement in the United States. I wonder if it's at all a statement about the life of exile he's had to lead because of the choices he made.

This is a brilliant work by an excellent director, but if you're expecting Hollywood-style action, you'll be disappointed. The Nineth Gate is a European intellectual tour de force, not the mindless eye candy of typical formulaic flicks. I suspect it will easily sustain repeated viewing for those who wish to plumb its depths, and I know I need to see it again before making a more definitive statement. For now, I'll leave it at this: The Nineth Gate may be one of the best movies I've seen, and the fact that I need to see it again to tell only endorses its quality. Highly recommended.

 August 9, 2002—Donner/Tahoe development, Truckee, California

 
The cabin we're staying at is part of the Donner/Tahoe development, an area of rapid growth on the Donner Lake, meaning California, side of the resort areas. (The Donner Party, as some of you may know, was a group of 1800's era westward-venturing pioneers who, through stubbornness and incredibly bad choices, ended up in dire straits of a cannibalistic nature. So the powers that be apparently named a lake and resort area after them. My own thought is that there must be an easier way to achieve immortality.)

We went down the shoreline park of Donner Lake in the late morning. The water was a bit chilly for my liking despite an increasingly rising temperature, but Jared and Erin spent a lot of time splashing about, and in the end I may have been the only one who found the high mountain lake too cold for my tastes. Everybody else in our group—Bernard, Liz, Mark, Christine, Jared, Joe and Helen—splashed around a little bit. I was content to sit and read (for the umpteenth time) Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August.

 August 8, 2002—Donner/Tahoe development, Truckee, California

 
Bret came down for the old chop-chop of his red locks, a free service Erin provides for him every month or so. We left a little late for the airport, though not necessarily as a result of the haircut, but even worse, we encountered terrible traffic along both I-5 and I-205. By the time we rolled into PDX for our Southwest flight we were only 30 minutes away from departure.

Then we were selected for the full "just making sure you're not a terrorist" treatment. They sent our bags through a high powered scanner, and apparently found neither bombs nor weaponry, which is good because there wasn't any to be found.

We got to the C14 departure gate with about 15 minutes to spare then got yanked out of line to be more thoroughly searched. It wasn't all that intrusive or difficult on us: they waved a detector wand around us, carefully examined our shoes, and rummaged through our carry-ons. We were headed on board in less than 5 minutes, though delay did mean that there were no two seats together available on the flight. We made the best of it and sat 1 row apart on the aisle.

Mood on the plane was buoyant, as is typical for Southwest flights. The passengers and crew sang Happy Birthday to a flight attendant before take-off, and upon landing in Reno we were treated to Kazoo renditions of TV theme songs over the intercom while taxiing. You almost wonder why "Strange, Funny, and Inexpensive" isn't Southwest's motto.

We were met in Reno by Erin's parents Bernard and Liz. We'd not eaten more than a pack of peanuts on the plane, so they treated us to dinner at Sweetwater restaurant in Circus Circus hotel in Reno. There we passed a flying trapeze act, a singing Elvis impersonator, and a whole lot of slot machines on the way to the meal. It was a fascinating glimpse into a world I know nothing about and have no desire to be any part of but really wouldn't mind studying. The chance to look closer will likely arise over the course of the next several days.

 August 7, 2002

 
Ape Cave photos are up in the Gallery.

Jen and her kids Ana and Lili came down to visit us this evening. The girls were very good at keep themselves entertained, though things got a little harder for them when we went out to Rock n Rogers for dinner. One of Jen's nifty tricks: Give them each a small solar-powered calculator to play with. Nothing like punching keys and seeing things happen on screen (as most of us computer geeks can attest).

While the girls watch Mulan, Jen and Erin—just returned from her fun rafting experience—talked some teacher stuff. (I have never known two or more teachers to get together and not, within about 5 minutes time, start talking teacher stuff.)

 August 6, 2002

 
Erin and I watched Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (or, Philosopher's Stone if you're in the UK—at least Philosopher's Stone makes sense historically). It wasn't dreadful, but it wasn't nearly so good as the book it pretty faithfully reproduced. I didn't think J.K. Rowling's literary effort was all that outstanding to begin with, so the film was kind of a weak rendition of an OK children's fantasy novel. That's sort of hard to recommend, though it could have been much worse. As is, it simply feels disjointed and lacks a sense of wonder and of fun. There are worse crimes, but I hope that future movies in the series are better.

Erin's off white water rafting on the Deschutes River as part of her Adventures in Education class. It's an overnight so she'll be doing some more rafting tomorrow. I'm sure some of this will improve her English and French classes, but I'm not quite clear on how. Three college credits is three college credits, I guess. No complaints there.

 August 4, 2002

 
I've published some of the images from last week's Siouxon Falls Trail hike and camp out on my .mac address. Specifically, you can find 31 of the shots with captions. There are many more images, of course, but I thought these captured the flavor of things fairly well. Hope you enjoy them.

In that same vein, I'll be publishing some Ape Caves shots too, though it will probably be on this site instead of mac.com. I'll announce it in this space though, so if you're even remotely interested, all you have to do is stay tuned.

Erin's started her Adventures in Education class at Western, and it's hard to believe she's getting college credit for this. It's a bunch of team-building and challenge courses—fun, basically—topped with a nice overnight rafting trip later this week. She was able to use a voucher she got at Sprague for it, so our cost is minimal, and hey, three credits is three credits.

If all goes well, this, a course she'll be taking in late August, and another she'll be doing in the fall will bump her over a column on the pay scale at work. That's roughly a $1500 annual raise, which isn't bad for doing the same stuff she's already doing at work. That'll put her in the penultimate pay column, but it's unlikely she'll get the 21 necessary credits to move over again for a few more years. All in good time, though.

 August 2, 2002

 
Having only donuts for breakfast might strike some as being a questionable nutritional start to a day of heavy hiking, but I had no complaints with either the maple bar or the glazed I wolfed down. I don't remember hearing any muttering from the hiking party of Joe, Carol, Dennis, Maria, and Erin either. Mmmm, donuts.

Today's adventure was a trip through the Ape Caves, a lava tube 12,810 feet long—the second longest intact lava tube in the world. After about an hour's ride from Battle Ground, we got our $5 pass, suited up, and marched into the cave.

We headed to the lower cave first. It's a relatively sandy ground and a comparatively easy 4,000+ foot descent with only the occasional large rock to climb over or around. Eventually the cave ceiling narrows and one can only crawl forward. After crawling around a bend, the passage opens up again, then you can climb into a hole in the wall (for lack of a better term) and enter the final small cavern. Then it's back the way you came and on to the more challenging upper cave.

Total hike time down and back to the entrance has been estimated by others as about an hour 15 minutes. I lost complete track of time while in the Ape Caves, so I have no clue. Indeed, one thing I think everyone in the group found at least moderately surprising (if not more so) was just how much time passed while we hiked the cave.

The 7,000+ foot upper cave is a gradual ascent which is in and of itself more challenging than the lower cave. It also holds numerous giant boulders to climb making the going much slower (and, to my thinking, more fun). The highlight was probably an 8 foot lava fall in the middle of the cave—something which required a certain degree of teamwork in order to traverse since it's basically like scaling an 8 foot wall of lava rock.

In re-reading what I've written it's clear that I've not adequately captured the feel of spelunking the largest intact lava tube in the United States. Scaling boulders and dodging brain-hemorrhage-inducing stalactites in the dark of an underground cavern illuminated only by flashlights and headlamps is not an everyday experience for the average 21st century man.

Ultimately, perhaps words can only hint at my sense of awe at walking through this wonder of nature and at my level of gratitude to Dennis, Maria, Joe, Carol, and Erin for helping make this such a fantastic experience.

Owing to our late morning donut breakfast and lack of any lunch whatsoever, we decided to eat at the Cougar Bar & Grill (16849 Lewis River Road, Cougar WA; 360-238-5252) on the way home. Let me highly recommend their Marble Mountain burger, a feast that I would happily order again given the chance. I should mention, I suppose, that I think everyone else was very pleased with their meal as well, though how much of this is owing to the quality of the food versus owing to our famished nature, I'll decline to speculate. Either way: Mmmm, burger.

After returning to Joe and Carol's in Battle Ground, the group of us recouped from our outing and chatted until the sunlight disappeared. Erin started class at Western the next day or we'd probably still be there talking. For now, we'll continue to bask in the afterglow of this day's camaraderie and adventure and to look forward to the next journey.

 August 1, 2002—Battle Ground, Washington

 
Hooked up with Joe, Carol, and Dennis at PGE Park to watch the woeful Portland Beavers take on Tucson. Almost immediately a pitch was fouled back right at us, and Joe out-scrambled several others to win the Rawlings baseball. (He passed it around the group before giving it to some kids seated nearby.)

The Beaver pitching was poor and the batting worse, but who cares, really? When was the last time anybody went to a minor league baseball game and gave a hoot about the outcome? This was $1 beer night and a chance to hang out with friends, and we all had a darn good time doing it. The baseball game was purely incidental. (Of course if this had been a Steelers game and loss, I would've killed somebody in the parking lot. Hehe.)