Random Thoughts

Many of our friends and relatives have called us to make sure we are OK since the floods this week have been on the national news. It's been nice to hear from everyone. In summary, we're well out of the flood plain here so we've not had any major problems.

We had some concerns last Thursday night as we had water coming up in our sump pump pit. We had so much rain that day and the day prior that I think the ground was over saturated and the water had no where to go. Since we bought our house in '94, one of the biggest criteria we had on our minds in selecting a house was the major floods the year before. We only considered houses that were well above the flood levels that year. Our house was built with a sump pump pit, but no pump was ever installed or needed. So I was caught a little by surprise when I opened it just to check and saw several feet of water in the pit. The pit is a little over 3 feet deep, and the water got up to about 1 foot below the top. At one point it was rising 3-4 inches per hour. However, by Friday morning it had almost completely drained again.

The biggest problems have been the City wide issues. We're on restricted water usage, so we can only take quick showers and essential laundry every other day until further notice. Many roads have been closed, and for most of the last week the only way for us to cross the river has been the interstate. This has made a longer commute for Michelle, who normally has to drive 60 miles north to get to work. The extra detours have added about 5 more miles to her drive each way. Traffic has also been much worse as a result.

Of course the dogs won't be going to the dog park for a while either. The Cedar Rapids dog park had only been open for about 2 weeks since the fences were down from a flood in early May. The water was much higher this time around so who knows how much damage they have had this time. We're hoping the Iowa City Park will be open sooner, but we'll have to wait and see.

Here's a few facts to help people understand why this flood caught so many people unprepared:

• Normal river levels in downtown Cedar Rapids are around 6 feet deep.
• In 1993 the water level reached 19.27 feet and this was considered a 100 year flood event.
• Most of the downtown and surrounding area is built up or has flood dikes between 22-24 feet minimum.
• The highest record, set way back in 1929, was 20 feet.
• This year the water reached over 31 feet!

So you can see why this event was not only unprecedented, but nearly unimaginable. I fear the cost and long term impact on this community, which was already struggling financially, will take months or years to fully appreciate.

Randy

Lessons I learned from a house dog

My name is Couda. For the first three years of my life I lived the great sled dog dream. I lived outside in a Northern Minnesota kennel with over 50 sled dogs. It was great being around so many athletes, all bred for and eager to do one thing. I had the best I dog care and had one of the best teachers in the business. I spent two years learning that trade, and while I enjoyed it immensely, my feet didn't prove tough enough for the long distance runs. I failed to make the team.

A few months later the kennel was visited by a strange couple from a far away place (Iowa). I didn't know it at the time, but they were looking for a sled dog to pull them on some two
wheeled contraption called a scooter. It was obvious to every dog in the yard that these were a couple of complete greenhorns. John tried to talk them into the reasonable approach; taking home one of his older, more experienced, and calmer dogs. But they didn't listen and opted instead to take me. I was pretty unsure about this; I didn't know these people and I was supposed to go home with them?

Boy was I in for a shock! Instead of a kennel of 50 dogs, they only had one dog. And while this dog was a husky, and had come from another sled dog kennel, she was no sled dog. She was older and bossy, and a couch potato to boot. But the biggest change of all was living inside their house. There's a lot more rules than I'm used to, here's a few lessons I learned along the way.

1. Marking territory inside the house is NOT OK, but I can mark to my heart's content outside. Strangely though, they also get annoyed when I mark my water bowl even when it IS outside. Go figure.

2. Some things are OK to play with, while other things are not, and they look and smell exactly the same. I'm starting to figure out that if they give it to me, it's probably OK. Socks smell great, and "Beanie Babies" are cool, but are NOT OK to play with. The same rules apply for for chewing. There's lots of interesting things to chew on, but most get me in trouble. It all seems so arbitrary! I do really like my big fluffy chicken thing though, and even sleep with it.

3. You haven't really taken a nap until you've done it on a dog pillow. Wow, probably one of the best advantages to indoor life. I rarely sleep on anything else now. Call me spoiled, but oh yeah!

   

4. The dog park: Lots of messed up people who think their dogs are small people. Get real. Many of the dogs actually believe it. Not me, I know I'm a dog, and I wouldn't have it any other way. No leashes means that I can run full blast without being jerked to a sudden stop. Playing with other dogs, even messed up ones, is cool.

5. In the sled dog kennel, I had my own house with a tether pole. It was my own space and I would enjoy running in circles for hours on end. Humans, however, are not tether poles. They get very annoyed when I run circles around them when on leash.

6. Running with the scooter is mostly just like training with the 4 wheeler. The commands are pretty much the same. The biggest difference is the the new command, “oh shit”, which almost always comes right before “whoa”. I'm still not sure exactly what it means, so I usually just pull harder.

Well that's pretty much it. There's other things I've learned too, but I don't want to bore you. The humans are talking about getting another sled dog to run with me. That will be cool, and I'll have a lot to teach it!

Couda

I posted last fall about getting another dog, and you've probably heard a little about what I'm up to. A little over two years ago I went to a mushing seminar put on by Redpaw about dryland mushing. After years of resisting getting more involved with mushing, I finally got the bug. I figured I could handle dryland because I could essentially do it for at least half the year even in Iowa.

So what am I doing exactly? Well I bought what is called a mountain scooter (www.diggler.com). These were designed to ride down mountains (yeah, if you think what I'm doing is crazy...) like a mountain bike, but to handle more like a snowboard. The big ski resorts rent these out in the summer as a way to keep people coming all year round. Well they also got noticed by dog lovers, and are becoming increasingly popular that way too.

I bought a dog from a friend's racing kennel last fall. Alex is getting too old to pull and we never taught her to when she was young. I needed a young dog with both the drive and a little experience while I learned a new sport. Couda has been great and we've been having fun. Last fall we went to two races.

The first race was the "Dirty Dog Dryland Derby". They only offered a two dog scooter class, so Eric lent me one of his dogs, Lindsey, to race with us. We did pretty well for our first ever race, and finished 5th out of 10 teams.

A few weeks later we went to the "East Meets West Dryland Challenge". They offered a one dog scooter class there so I entered that. We won! Mind you, the competition was not nearly as fierce as the two dog class, but I was pretty happy anyway.

I'm currently looking for another dog to match with Couda. It's taking some time because I need a dog that is fast enough to keep up with him, but not out of my price range either.

Here's some pictures Michelle took of us training in the last couple of weeks:

Randy

Do we really have a government "by the people, for the people"? The answer is decidedly NO. Citizens of the USA have only one real power, that of electing people to do the work of governance for us. We assume that they will act in our best interest, not their own, nor for the large and wealthy special interest groups.

The real power of government is in then making of laws, and those powers have been given by the people to our legislative branch. Human nature is to act in one's own best interest, not necessarily in the greater good, so what we have is a government that, time and time again, goes against the wishes of the masses (take a look at polls on stem cell research as an example).

A new National Initiative seeks to change all of this, by giving citizens the power to create, vote on, and enact laws. If a majority of our voting citizens decide to enact these changes, it will give us a real say in how our government is run. Our legislators will be forced to work with the people on legislation that the majority want, because the people can overrule them if they do not, and then throw them out of office when their term expires.

So check out the National Initiative for Democracy for more information and cast your vote at the Philadelphia II website.

Randy

Michelle and I made another trip to Duluth this past weekend, to take Couda up to John Stetson's place. John is going to give Couda a " refresher course" in being a sled dog to help prepare him for scootering with me. He'll stay there for a few weeks and then I'll hopefully come up and do some training with him.

While there we decided to do more of the sight seeing we started to do on our trip in July. Here's some pics:

An evening fog rolls in and partially obscures the lift bridge.

The sun sets behind the bluffs overlooking Duluth.

Along the beach near Canal Street, looking towards the north.

A sailboat under engine power enters the canal leading to Duluth Harbor. It will have to wait until the bridge is raised to be able to pass.

Looking north from the canal across the bay towards part of Duluth.

On Labor Day, we drove up the North Shore to the Split Rock Lighthouse State Park. We had toured the lighthouse grounds on a previous trip, so this time we decided to do some hiking and enjoy some of the other scenery the park offers.

Michelle and Alex posing at lake level with the Split Rock Lighthouse in the background. The lighthouse is no longer in service but is open for touring.

Looking west at the shoreline as a storm rolls in.

A view of the lighthouse from the top of a lookout we hiked up to.

Another view from the same location looking southwest over the lake.

An out-of-place structure on top of the same vantage point as the previous 2 photos.

Randy

Michelle and I went to Duluth, MN this past week to pick up a new addition to our household. We've been looking for another dog for a while, and a friend said he had a few of his sled dogs for sale. I wanted a dog that I could go scootering with, so off to Duluth we went.

We chose a 3 year old male called Doodah. He's an excellent dog with a very good disposition, but his feet just don't hold up to the long distance runs that John Stetson makes in races and arctic expeditions. I think that with some training (for both he and I) we'll make a good team.

On the drive home Michelle and I decided that yelling "Doodah, Doodah!" in the neighborhood and at the dog park would be silly, so we decided to rename him Couda, which sounds enough alike that we think he'll still understand.

Couda (foreground) and Alexa (background) enjoying a nice afternoon in the back yard.

We've been through Duluth many times on the way to the North Shore of Lake Superior, or to Eric's place in Northern Wisconsin, but there were a lot of things we wanted to do there. We decided to spend some time and do a few of them this time. Here's some pictures:

A view of the canal district before sunset. The famous lift bridge over the canal is on the right.

This was taken from the stern if the USS William Irving (an ore ship we toured). The retired US Coast Guard vessel, Sundew, is on the left.

An ore ship leaves Duluth harbor at dusk.

Michelle and Alex playing in Lake Superior.

Randy

I found a neat time-wasting website the other day, HowManyOfMe.com, that tells you how many people in the U.S. share a given name.

In knew that there aren't many people with my last name (906 according to this website) and that my first name is not one of the most common (161st in popularity), but I was surprised to learn that I'm the only one with both.

Apparently there are there are two of my wife running around, or 17 if you also include the name on her birth certificate. She's still pretty unique I guess, but maybe I should be careful with all those clones running around. :)

Randy

I'm sure that this has been said more eloquently somewhere else, but I find that the speed of life is relative to the observer. We're told that time moves at a constant rate, but our perception of time changes.

I think life moves at a pace relative to the observer's perspective. When you look at the relativity in moving objects we see a similar shift in perspective. If you are on or in an object that is traveling at a high velocity, your perspective on the passage of time is different than to a slower moving observer. So a person traveling at the speed of light, time would be normal, while outside time would be much faster. Go look up the theory of relativity if you don't follow me.

I think the Speed of Life is the opposite. From my perspective time is going by very rapidly. There's simply too many things I want to do and too little time to do them all. I'd even argue that this effect is accelerating as I get older.

However, to the outside observer, I'm sure that I seem to be moving at a snail's pace. The lives of other people never seem to change very fast, while mine seems to be zipping along. I'm sure it's the same for everyone, at least those that I know.

Why do I bring this somewhat obvious viewpoint up? Well you could call it a long-winded excuse if yo want. It's the reason I don't post here as much as I should, call friends as often as I should, etc.

To me life is moving at non-escape velocity. I just don't have enough time do get done everything I want to do. Days fly by in a blur. So finding the time to call or write is difficult, even though it is important to me.

On the other hand, when I try to observe my life from the outside looking in, it doesn't seem to me that a lot of interesting things are happening, so who would want to hear about me? I realize that's silly of course, but it's still hard to escape the feeling irregardless.

So please don't feel bad if I don't write here very often, or give you a call as frequently as you'd like. It is a two way street, after all, and I'll always make time for my friends.

Randy

I've been frustrated with the U.S. energy policies (or more appropriately, the lack thereof) for many years. In my mind it is probably one of the top 2 or 3 issues facing the near and long term success of this country. We need to make energy security a national priority much like we did with the Apollo program, in order to ensure that the US does not continue to be on the losing end of the energy equation, and to do our part to reduce greenhouse gas output.

I recently came across a blueprint for doing exactly that. At least it's the first comprehensive one that is actually very realistic. Here's a few of the major points from the website:

Energize America - A Blueprint for U.S. Energy Security

Increase energy diversity to strengthen our national security and economic stability Energize America will provide 20% of electricity from renewable sources.

Replace current energy policies that leave America vulnerable
Energize America will reduce imported oil and gas by 20%.

Promote energy efficiency and conservation to protect Americans and the environment
Energize America will reduce carbon emissions by 20%.

Invest in renewable energy to create jobs and enhance America's technological leadership
Energize America will make America the global leader in renewable energy technology, equipment and production.

By 2020, Energize America will:

• make the nation safer from unstable regions of the world - where most of the global oil supply is located;
• insulate the U.S. economy from energy supply disruptions - both natural and human-made;
• create several hundred thousand new American jobs in high-value manufacturing and service industries;
• preserve the environment for future generations by shifting from fossil fuels to clean and safe renewable energies;
• enhance U.S. political power and expand U.S. military options;
• reestablish America as the world leader in renewable technologies and economic growth;
• significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution

While I think we will need to do even more to further reduce greenhouse gasses, this is certainly a step in the right direction. One that is economically doable too.

You can read the whole plan here or visit the Energize America website to download the PDF and Powerpoint presentation.

Link: http://alexaco.com/blogs/index.php/b/2006/11/05/adventures_in_dryland_mushing_1

Read about our recent trip North for the 2006 Apostle Islands Sled Dog Symposium. I've put up lots of photos and video clips, so check it out here!

I recently finished Michael Pollan's new book, “The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals”, and it was a real eye-opener to say the least. As the title suggests, Pollan traces the path of four types of meals to discover where they come from and what is involved in bringing them to the table (or in one case, an automobile). His style of writing is very engaging and entertaining, making this the best non-fiction title I have “read” (I listened to the audio book) in a long while.

The book reveals often shocking details of what makes up our food system. Pointing out the inadequacies and strengths of each supply chain. It's clear that we need to change our ways, but how?

The fist meal he embarks on is the meal that, for the majority of us, occurs much too frequently in our diets. Through this fast food experience we learn about the industrial food system that supplies the overwhelming majority of our consumption in this country. Virtually everything we get from our mega grocery stores shares this system, even the foods we normally think of as “healthy”. I was shocked to learn that this system of growing food has as big an impact on our dependency on foreign oil as our automobiles do. It is not the sun that drives this food system, but rather oil and natural gas. It was also surprising to learn how much of our foods are made from just two plant species, corn and soybeans. These mono-cultures go a long way in explaining why our diets are so nutritionally deficient. Lastly, it went a long way to explain why our farmers cannot make a living on the farm any more.

The second meal explores the “organic” food movement. While the intentions are sound, the growing demand for these products has forced this food system to adopt many of the same industrialization techniques used by the traditional food market. Pollan describes the use of “supermarket pastoral”, the flowery and wholesome-sounding descriptions used by organic producers to market their products. More often than not these descriptions are a stretch to say the least. Find out the real stories behind the wonderful prose. Still, there are pluses to be found in this food supply chain, and Pollan points them out as well.

The third meal I found the most engaging. It described an operation in Virginia called Pollyface Farm. It is a totally self-contained ecosystem that is as close to the "holy grail" of food production as anything I have heard of. Their system actually improves the land, grows “happy” animals, and produces a better tasting and nutritionally complete product as well. This farm is a higher tech (or more accurately, smarter) version of the farms my grandparents ran until the 70's. These farms raised as many as a dozen different crops that all supported each other. Learn why not all eggs are the same.

The last meal pays tribute to our pre-agricultural history: explorering hunting and gathering in a modern world. While completely impractical for a method of feeding our masses, it nevertheless makes for an interesting and though-provoking journey. Pollan tackles the conscientious meat-eater's struggle with the idea of vegetarianism. We learn about gathering mushrooms and hunting wild boar. Each requires one to be in touch with nature in a strangely similar way for success.

In all the book provides plenty of thought provoking questions about our food supply without being overly preachy. Pollan encouraged us to come to our own conclusions, while sharing his own journeys in deciding “what's for dinner”.

I'm taking a few minutes today warn you about possibly the most dangerous computer hack I've run across in the last few years. This is extremely serious and is already affecting millions of Windows users.

Sony BMG has recently been installing XCP copy protection software on their audio CD's. It DOES NOT affect stand-alone CD players such as stereo systems in homes, cars, or portable players. However, if you attempt to play the CD on your Windows computer, it will ask you to agree to an End-User License Agreement. Saying yes to this will install very damaging software that at best could make your system unstable, and possibly make you computer vulnerable to attack and hijack by even the most rookie hackers!

The software actually uses advanced hacker techniques to make itself invisible to Windows (called a rootkit), then modifies key components of the Windows operating system. This means you can't find it without very specialized tools designed to look for it. There are currently no virus detection or spyware detection tools than can detect or prevent this from installing. Even tools that CAN detect it cannot remove it without making your computer unusable!

Even worse, the software they used (licensed from another company) is poorly written and is bug-ridden. It can cause random crashes (blue screens) on Windows computers. The most evil of all is that the software allows anyone to take advantage of this cloaking technology to easily install and hide anything they want on your computer. This means that anyone who learns about this vulnerability can install their own virus, spyware, or worse, on your computer and completely hide it. Current detection tools would be nearly powerless to stop it.

This is not a scam. This is all over the net from very reliable sources, and Sony has admitted using the software on it's CD's. So far it has issued a weak apology and is offering to replace affected CD's and recall CD's in the distribution channels. Do a search on Google for "sony DRM" if you want to verify this information.

So here's my advice: If any music CD asks permission to install software on your computer, especially if it's from Sony BMG, just SAY NO!. Your computer does not need any special software to play audio CD's. If you own one of these CD's, you can exchange it with Sony for the same title without the copy protection. Here's the link to do so: http://www.upsrow.com/sonybmg/. It also contains a list of affected CD's.

If you've already had this happen to your computer, you can supposedly remove it using their update tool. I've not used this myself (It's not affecting my computer). From what I hear, installing this update will give you the option to remove the software from your computer. Here's the link: http://updates.xcp-aurora.com/.

Here's a couple of other links on the topic:
Sony's site addressing the problem: http://cp.sonybmg.com/xcp/
Transcripts of Security Now podcast about the problem: http://www.grc.com/sn/SN-012.htm

Please take this seriously. I never send out warnings like this unless I can verify the information and I believe the threat serious enough to warrant immediate action.

Randy

Michelle and I went up to Bayfield Wisconsin this past weekend. It was another "working vacation" for me. The main reason for the trip was to help with the second annual Apostle Islands Sled Dog Symposium. This is the workshop that Eric works very hard to put together with the help of the Northern Wisconsin Dog Musher’s Association. This event is to raise money for trail improvement and upkeep.

On the way into the area we decided to stop and find a few Geocaches on the way to Eric’s house. We successfully found three before stopping in at Eric’s. His place is along the Iron River and is totally out in the middle of nowhere. We really enjoy it for the total solitude it provides. After a brief visit we headed on to Bayfield.

Bayfield is a very nice little port town on Lake Superior. During the summer months it thrives on tourism, offering easy access to the Apostle Islands. During this time of year it’s pretty quiet, but it still has a lot of charm.

The symposium made for a long, but fun, Saturday. The speakers Eric lined up were great, ranging from super-informative to very entertaining. I learned a lot and got to meet or catch up with many great people. The evening speaker was Paul Schurke, who shared with us his experiences with expeditions to the North Pole and Northern Greenland.

Sunday was time to relax and enjoy the outdoors. We decided to head out early to do some cache hunting and hiking with Alex. The highlight was a nice hike back into the Chequamegon National Forest to Lost Falls. We got a little confused by which trail to take but eventually found the spot. What a beautiful little waterfall! We just had enough time to take a few pictures and find the cache in the area before it started to drizzle. We double-timed it back and by the time we reached the car it was raining.

We again stopped by Eric’s place and had a nice talk. I talk to Eric on the phone just about every day for business, but we rarely get the time to just talk about life. I also spent a little time doing some maintenance on his computer. Around dusk Michelle, Alex, and I headed by to Bayfield for a nice dinner out and then back to the hotel to collapse in exhaustion.

After hitting a few more caches in Superior we started off on the long drive home. We always have mixed feelings leaving this area. We really miss the comforts of home (especially our own bed) but hate to leave the tranquil beauty and slower pace of the south shore.

Randy

Since I needed to travel to Alaska for Redpaw, we decided to make it a working vacation and Michelle came along. My main reason for travelling was to attend the Alaska Dog Musher's Association annual symposium and trade fair in Fairbanks.

We flew up to Anchorage on Monday. Tuesday morning we set off to tackle Flat Top Mountain, the most popular mountain hike in Alaska. Thankfully, the traffic on the trail was light since tourist season is long over, yet it was just barely early enough to avoid the snow cover. Rated a medium to strenuous hike, the trail to the top is about 1.5 miles long and climbs just over 1200 feet in altitude. The last couple hundred feet must be climbed, though rope is not required. It was pretty hair-raising, though, and not for the faint of heart.

I was very proud of Michelle for sticking it out to make the climb to the top despite her asthma and the fact we were tired from the long flights the day before. It was definitely worth it for both of us, since the view (from 3500') of Anchorage and the surrounding mountain ranges was breathtaking. We lucked out and had clear weather in the direction of the Alaskan Range so we were able to see Denali (Mt. McKinley) well.

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It was another nice weekend here in Cedar Rapids. We spent time doing the usual things, mainly geocaching and disc golf. Our friends Jen, John, and Jacob Danzer topped by on their way out to Colorado. They left their dog, Eva, with us for the week. We call Eva the sister of Alexa because the spent a lot of time together as pups and treat each other differently than they do most other dogs.

James and Mason came over today to show me their latest project, a spud launcher! They like making all kinds of projects and found plans for this in a book. It's basically a 4 foot long cannon made of PVC pipe. You load a potato and push it down in the barrel. Then you spray any kind of aerosol, such as hair spray in the other end. Then you quickly screw on the end cap which has a peizo ignitor built into it. A press of the button causes and spark in the chamber to ignite the spray. It creates a fairly large bang and shoots the potato about 100 feet! I don't think I've ever had so much fun playing with food before.

Randy

Michelle, Alex, and Randy went camping down at Coralville Lake this weekend. We got a break in the weather with temps on Saturday just under 80 with cool evenings. It's been pretty dry so the bugs were hardly noticeable too!

We got down to the area early Friday afternoon to get a good spot. We prefer the seclusion of tent-only sites and there aren't as many to choose from. The campground we had chosen, Cottonwood, was hosting some kind of group and was full. Trying to avoid Sugarbottom, which is the largest campground, we chose a site at Linder Point. It turned out to be a pretty good location, near some of the trails we wanted to hike.

After setting up camp we went and played some disc golf at a course near by. Then we came back and made dinner and went for evening walk to find the first geocache of the weekend. We made a fire and roasted some marshmallows for s'mores. The campground wasn't full, but a very loud and large, both in numbers and girths, family set up near by. We must not have been the only upset campers, because two other sites cleared out at dawn. Later in the day the county Sherriff stopped by to ask us about it. They help the park rangers patrol. One of the other groups must have called to complain. They must have had a chat with the group because they were much quieter the next night.

We had a busy day on Saturday with lots of hiking and looking for geocaches. There are some really nice trails in the area. We ended up finding 5 caches for the weekend and got stumped by a sixth. We were too tired to play any more disc golf, so we headed back to camp a little early to clean up and spend another nice evening around the fire.

On Sunday morning we packed up and headed home.

Randy

I spent nearly the whole weekend outside despite the heat. Friday night I went to play some disc golf. I haven't played for a week or two and my game was really showing it. It's amazing how fast you get out of form. Oddly enough, despite my overall poor showing, I did get my first-ever hole in one! Of course no one I know was around to witness it since I went to the course alone to practice. A bunch of guys waiting to play the next hole did see it though and they all wanted to sign my disc so I could prove that I had done it. That was pretty cool.

Saturday I got up early to get Alex to the dog park before it got too hot. She doesn't run much when it's this warm, but she still really enjoys going. She gets to sniff everything, leave lot of "notes" for other dogs, and gets to hang with some of her friends. Yes, she definitely has dogs she likes and some she doesn't. When she gets used to a dog and decides they are OK we say they have made it into the "cool club". A couple of the dogs have even figured out that she is not nearly as tough as she pretends to be and they get away with things she would never tolerate from others. One dog, called tucker, who belongs to a lady who works with me on the K9COLA board, loves to run up and nip at her hind legs. She always spins and growls at him but lets him keep doing it. Any other dog and she would be all over it. Most dogs are too intimidated by her to even think about doing that! She's really quite a pushover, but she can't let just anyone know that or she might loose her status as Queen of the Park. :)

That evening we had James over for dinner. Afterwards we went to hide a geocache. What am I talking about? Well it's a game we've been playing since February and are having a lot of fun with it. James usually brings his son along and he really gets a kick out of it. For me and James it's just a good excuse to get out and enjoy the outdoors. It also lets us discover lots of neat places we might have visited otherwise. You can learn more at www.geocaching.com. I go by the alias "Hike!" on that site.

After that we went to the disc golf course and played a round. I didn't do much better than the night before, but thankfully he was pretty rusty too. I was a pretty nice evening and did cool down nicely.

On Sunday morning I again got up early and took Alex for a hike at Palisades State Park. There is a trail through the woods that we like and the shade kept the temperature manageable. We also checked in on a geocache that James hid there earlier in the year.

I played more disc golf in the afternoon and did a little better. I managed a birdie on a hole that I've only been able to get par on before. In the evening I went hunting more geocaches. I nearly got eaten alive by mosquitoes on one though. I had on 25% DEET and it barely slowed them down. I made a hasty retreat after quickly signing the log book. I searched out several others and none of them were nearly so infested with the little vampires. I didn't get home until nearly dark and I was pretty exhausted. These high temps really take it out of me.

I all it was a pretty fun weekend. Next weekend James, his son Mason, and I are planning to go camping at Maquoketa Caves Park. Michelle has to work, so we figured it would be a good weekend to go since she doesn't really like caving.

Randy

This past weekend was pretty typical for us. Despite the temperatures in the 90's, I got some Disc Golf in. James and I played the Jones Park course on Saturday afternoon. I've been playing for almost a year now but am still pretty spotty. I have some great shots, and also my share of duds. James and I don't keep score, thankfully, because he would probably beat me every time. He has his moments too, so it would be close at least!

Afterwards we decided to clean up, get Michelle, and go out for dinner. The three of us went to Thai Moon, one of our favorite local restaurants. While there we were hit with a pretty good thunderstorm. We got about an inch of rain in less than an hour. All told, with more rain overnight and in the morning we got around 2 inches, which we sorely needed.

On Sunday I took Alex to the dog park, did housework, went to the gym, and played some more Disc Golf. Michelle didn't feel like going out in the heat so she stayed in.

Randy

Well, we finally joined the rest of the world and put up our own BLOG. Our intent here is not to blab off to the world at large, but rather, to give our friends and family a convenient way to keep in touch and see what we're up to. Since email is getting more and more unreliable due to spam and hacks, I'm hoping this provides a better alternative. Another nice thing is that we can make the same info available to everyone at once and you can even respond back with your comments.

It's an experiment, so we'll see how it goes...

Randy