Earlier in the month I wrote about Sammy, our blue jay of happiness. Sammy is the semi-tame jay who loves Kris. (Well, he loves her peanuts, anyhow.) Last weekend, I set out my camera and filmed ten minutes while Toto and I sat at the picnic table, eating fresh strawberries and feeding the jays. I’ve …
We had dinner last night at Pok Pok with Lisa and Craig. Warm summer evening. Good friends. Good food. Yum. The only thing that would have made it better? If I could have eaten more chicken wings for dessert. During our conversation, we discussed the present state of foldedspace. I’m trying to put stuff up …
Kris Gates, my wife, partner, and best friend, turns 38 today. She’s not as old as I am, but she’s catching up! To celebrate, Simon decided to play games this morning with a toy mouse. He’s managed to ignore this toy mouse for lo these many years, but today its doom had come. And the …
Here’s a little story demonstrating two ways in which I am getting old… I biked to the gym this morning to do my upper-body lifting. Because the aerobics floor was vacant, I started by doing my stretching there. I touched my toes. I crossed my legs and touched my toes. I crossed my legs the …
Yesterday morning a crew from KGW (Portland’s channel 8 ) stopped by Rosings Park to interview me about my personal finance blog, Get Rich Slowly. Both Amy Troy (the reporter) and Rod Stevens (the cameraman) were awesome. They were interesting and fun to talk to. Most of all, they were very understanding when I explained …
Sometimes when I was a boy, my father would hear a song on the radio and go all crazy on me. “I remember this song,” he’d say. “I used to love it.” When the movie Stand By Me came out in 1985, the soundtrack threw him into a nostalgic reverie. It never really made much …
As you know, I don’t do a great job of keeping up with the news. Kris often shakes her head and mutters to herself when I reveal my ignorance about current events. This has especially been apparent during the primary election season. Fortunately, Slate has produced a great nine minute video that summarzies the events …
As a birthday present to myself, I bought the complete DVD set of Upstairs, Downstairs, an award-winning British drama from the early seventies. Kris and I have been digesting episodes slowly ever since. “You know who would like this?” I said after tonight’s episode. “Not Lisa,” she said. “Buh. Buh,” I said. “How did you …
Making your own jam doesn’t have to be a big production. While it’s sometimes most efficient to do things in bulk with all the right gear, the small-scale option can be better if you’re just starting out and want to make jam without much initial investment. Also, for the home gardener it’s common to have …
It is June 6th, just two weeks from the start of summer. Here are the current weather conditions: The temperature is 10 degrees centigrade (or 50 degrees fahrenheit for those of you in Oregon City). The wind is from the south at 18 miles per hour, with gusts up to 28 miles per hour. The …