Biking in the rain

The check engine light prompted us to get an oxygen sensor replaced.  Seems like a racket- a small part that seems programed to fail and cost $250 to replace even after shopping around, getting a discount, and hiring a neighbor to do the dirty-work.  Anyway, this left us with one fewer car than drivers for a day.  How did we ever survive?

I knew the weather was going to be wet, so I planned ahead, wore clothes that would dry quickly, put fenders on my bike, and wore my best rain coat.

I felt I was getting back to my ecologically sound Oregonian core.  I was thinking about how I was going to brag to my office partner.  But then I saw his bike as I went to park mine.

Dr Brandon Hull, all weather cyclist

Future time trialist?

The other car is now fixed, I'm back to driving my favorite little old Accord.  The son of one of my other partners, Matt Robinson, is back from his mission to Minnesota- that's some difficult weather for bike riding.  We rode together several times before his mission, me on my noisy steel bike with Campagnola components, but it fit me poorly, suffered from intractable derailleur noise, and the back breaks haven't worked since I ran over the tire with the car.  Matt took pity on me and gave me a Cannondale Aluminum bike that he had put together.  It's old, but hardly used- I love it.

Fruit

I really like fruit. I love food in general, especially good, wholesome food but fruit has a special place in my heart.

Summer is a beautiful season because then I get to dive into watermelons, eat blueberries by the handful and have fingers perpetually stained purple from blackberries. It's a beautiful thing.

I am pretty picky though; I don't like it cooked or dried. Fresh off the tree is the way to go for me. There are exceptions, like bananas are ok in bread, pumpkins in muffins, peaches in cobbler, apples in pie and my personal favorite blueberry pancakes smothered in marion-berry jam.

The trek started this week and since Grandpa is helping shuttle cars and what not he's been gone. Grandpa is the household supplier of food. Since his departure our stores have gone low, particularly on fruit. I was lamenting the loss of bananas (of which I eat 1-2 a day) to Grandma when she realized we were out of lettuce (salad is Grandma's favorite food).

So guess what I found when I got home from work the other day:





Bushels of bananas, bananas for me!!

Thanks G-ma :)

Killer Deer Attack

17 miles from nowhere, a deer jumped right in front of the car as Pam and the kids were headed to Pocatello for a regional CAR conference.

A couple from Utah (in an Odyssey) gave them a ride to a hotel in Burns.  A tow shop moved the car there, and offered to have us give it to them.  After consideration, limited by distance and what I felt was a paucity of help from the local body shop, we felt the decision we would be least likely to regret would be to retrieve and fix the car.  That will also give Esther the opportunity to do "grease therapy" to limit the post-traumatic stress.  That decision having been made, Pam and the kids proceeded on their merry way after being rescued by Emily with help from the Dodges.  I had a very long day today, but Polar is now in our garage.
The 2 pronged buck was not so lucky- he was taken by the sheriff to the local Indian reservation.

Kudos to Esther for not swerving. Kudos to Emily for dropping everything and coming to the rescue- she left a message on my answering machine Thursday night not to worry, she had it covered.

Kudos to the Dodges for use of their van and treating our problem as if it were theirs.
Kudos to mom and dad for loaning a car so Pam and my kids can make it home from Corvallis.
Kudos to my home teacher for use of his truck- his attitude of "what's mine is yours--it's there to be used, make good use of it" is and example of an abundance mentality, which is a step towards the law of consecration.   Another example of selflessness is the patient (and friend from church) that I was late seeing because I had been on the phone about this, so as explanation I told about the situation and he immediately offered to make the drive with me.

Annual crazy tradition

We welcomed Emily home from school with a hike up McLaughlin.  It's over 10 miles round trip with 4000' of elevation gain.  But we don't always wait for the best conditions.  We high-centered the car on a snow drift on the way in, which took some digging to get out.  Fortunately, we were only a 1/4 mile from the trail-head.  The weather was good, but it made for soft snow, and much of the time I sunk in deeper when I went to step off.  Pam lost a shoe in one post hole, and had to dig it out.  Most of the way up the kids broke trail and packed the snow somewhat, but 50 extra lbs of Gideon on my back effected more than my balance.

Skiddles and sandwiches helped, but the biggest boost to morale was the girls leading us in songs.  I'm not necessarily recommending you try mountain climbing at home, but for us, doing something dangerous hard together draws us together.  Near the top, as our energy was failing, I gathered the kids for an important family decision, and this year after some discussion they settled on pizza.  Little Caesar's was closed by the time we got to it,  so I baked some frozen pizza.  But by the time it came out of the oven everyone had crashed for the night, so we had it for lunch today.

I took the kids on a little side-spur to Frey lake, and Zachary showed that he's not always one to take good counsel and wants to test the edge of the ice himself.  Fortunately it wasn't deep water and we quickly got him to safety.


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My Life With the g-parents...

What I found sitting on the counter this evening. Apparently they wanted me to do something about it.

In case you were ever wondering what living with Grandparents is like here is a brief summary:

1) You will become surprisingly good at Scrabble, in so much that all your friends will be amazed at your word knowledge.

2) Free food. No explanation needed.

3) Peaceful nights - your roommates/neighbors will not keep you up all night due to their drunken partying

4) Confidence will be gained when discussing such topics as Microsoft Excel because you will have finally found somebody who knows less than you

5) Social Life - you can meet and learn about tons of cool people like Andreas Fugal or Rebekah White. They're like my new best friends! =)

In short, it's a blast. You'll have the best time of your life living with them.

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings

9 of us climbed Mt Adams the 5th of July. Zachary, Esther, Emily, the Campbells and our friends from Yakima the Capawanas.

We ran low on water, but learned about the virtues of Oregon Freeze Dry's Rasberry crumble, made in Albany. Its a great glacier hike that doesn't require ropes. Pam wants to do it again.

8 days later Esther, Pam, a friend from Medford Kelly Anderson, his daughter and I climbed Rainier. (here's additional pictures from Kelly's Facebook page). This is the most difficult mountain I've climbed. It is high, long, relatively dangerous, and requires carying lots of gear. The logistics of getting permits for campsites and to climb was a challenge to start with.

We got rained on driving there, were in the clouds the first day, endured mild winds the 2nd, then had good weather for our summit. Esther didn't want to jinx us, so we kept saying things like "I expected the wind to be much stronger than this." We sang various songs and I got to hear about Esther's time at EFY on the way.

I fit in a 2 person tent with Pam and Esther. It was so tight that when 1 person rolled over the others about had to follow suit.

I got fatigued and short of breath at 13,000', but the rest of the group stayed strong. There were a couple of interesting crossings of creavasses on snow bridges.

Summer Buzz

I'm too cheep to pay for haircuts (as well as oil changes-see below). Dad was my only barber until mom took over in middleschool. I think the first time I ever paid for one was on my mission. I remember my first haircut in Denmark was from a sister missionary who was kind enough to teach me I didn't have to comb my hair straight down in front. Sister Fife gave me my last haircut in Denmark. I think the last time I paid for one was at Mtn Home AFB. I took clippers with when I was deployed because I learned from Ken that you can cut your own hair if you aren't took fussy. The Staff Seagant I deployed with wasn't that great of a corpsman, but he was pretty good with those clippers keeping the squadron trim.

Wahl was one of our first purchases as newlyweds. We went to a workshop where one of the Merten's told about how he even had his own barberchair and paid his tuition with hair clippings. I don't even have a cape, and I hate the way the clippings get in your shirt. Emily made as much cutting my hair as she did mowing the lawn when she was doing fundraisers for school trips. Esther is picking up on the trade. Getting Erik to hold still is tricky. But Gideon looks like he's ready for business in this picture.