Grace officially became a cyclist this week. This summer she had tried rolling sans training wheels, but kept chickening out. With the boys I put on roller blades so I could keep up with them as they picked up speed and give them a nudge if they started to to fall. Grace didn’t like the idea of falling on the street, so we went to a field with a gentle slope. She got frustrated and gave up. Lately she has been talking about wanting to try again, so on Monday we went back to the field to try again. She got it on the first try, then freaked out when she saw that she was doing it. Second try she went further. The sidewalk was next, then our street to show mom. We video taped it so OLN can show it during the broadcast when she wins the 2020 NORBA women’s downhill competition.

“I Walk The Line” is a great movie!! Joachim channels Johnny Cash. Several times during the show I forgot that he was an actor and not the real thing.

Things are looking up at work. The competition is totally bailing us out with the “juice” to keep running. We should be in great shape until our production line is back up. I just got the official word this morning and I am definitely THANKFUL.

Work has been in crisis mode for several days. Late Thursday afternoon we were notified that the main ingredient in 90% of what we do was being recalled. This followed a cryptic voice message at noon that said our production line that makes this “juice” would be down for 4 weeks. I was sure they meant 4 DAYS, not weeks. In the 15 years I’ve been in the business there has never been an interruption in service of more than a day or two. This is like Starbucks running out of coffee or Chevron running out of gas. Our company supplies 55% of the national market of this “juice”. Our main competitor gets its “juice” from us. We were told to call our customers and tell them that we couldn’t dispense anything the next day. For legal reasons we couldn’t tell them details or even call it a recall. The customers then had to call all their patients and tell them not to come in the next day. All this made for a stressful 24 hours: would they close our pharmacy, would we have to take unpaid leave, would all our customer leave us for the competition, etc.

The next day we were informed that we would probably have access to some “juice” from a competitor by Wednesday of the following week. By the end of the day they confirmed that we would get a shipment Tuesday afternoon. We did get it in today and we are back in business. We went from Thursday evening thru 10 AM this morning without this key product. Most customers handled the news well, others not so well. Tomorrow we find out how much “juice” we will have access to next week and beyond.

There is a great article in the WSJ today that rates the top 15 college rivalries:
1. Florida v. Florida State: “an embarassment of riches”
2. Georgia v. Georgia Tech: “Clean, Old Fashioned Hate”
3. Alabama v. Auburn: “Iron Bowl”
4. Michigan v. Ohio State: “may be college football’s best rivalry”
4. BYU v. Utah: “Holy War” produced an unprecedented five thrillers in a row ending in 2001. 7 of the last 9 games decided by a touchdown or less.
6. Nebraska v. Colorado
7. Arizona v. Arizona State: “The Big Game”
8. Virginia v. Virginia Tech
8. Washington v. Washington State: “Apple Cup”
10. Oklahoma v. Oklahoma State
10. Oregon v. Oregon State: “The Civil War”
12. USC v. UCLA: “They’re both good, again!”
13. Pittsburgh v. West Virginia: “The Backyard Brawl”
14. Arkansas v. LSU
15. California V. Stanford

They list the 2005 average ticket price and rate the game quality and rivalry quality for the last 8 years.

Morgenstern (wsj) LOVED “I Walk The Line” and “Harry Potter”. The boys are annoyed that HP-4 is PG-13.

Dylan’s boat rocked last night! It didn’t seem fair. He would be finishing as the other boats were 1/2 way. There was one other boat catamaran style like Dylan’s that went undefeated. Of the 20 boats it came down to a showdown of the “Cub Cats”. Dylan had Hunter by a foot and 1/2, but let up a bit right at the end. Hunter won by a nose. 2nd place ain’t bad.

Tonight is the cub scout “Raingutter Regatta”. They give you a little kit to build a sailboat and then you blow them along a raingutter filled with water. We googled it and got some cool plans to cut what they give you in half and make a catamaran. We did that and it turned out pretty good. Dylan was testing it out in the bathtub this morning. I just hoped it would 1) float and 2) go straight. This is Dylan’s 3rd race. We bombed on the space derby: our rocket didn’t even make it all the way down the track. We redeemed ourselves with the pinewood derby: Dylan’s car won a few heats and did well in the others.

Costco has some killer uncooked tortillas near the refrigerated salsas. I don’t know if it is just a regional thing, but check your local store. You just cook them for a few minutes in a non-stick frying pan and they are WAY better than regular, ready to eat tortillas.

There are some funny Napoleon Dynamite video clips out there on the internet. My dad sent a clip of Jon Heder, the guy who plays ND, hosting SNL. In the opening monologue someone asks him if he got the idea for ND from a real person, he says no and the next questions are from guys who look just like ND, Pedro and Kip. The last MTV Movie Awards had a Batman parody as the opening act that is hysterical.

This weekend is the BYU-UTAH showdown. Here the big game is Oregon vs. Oregon State. The “Civil War” they call it. Both should be great games.

Lois and Maria, Shannon’s mom and sister, came to town last weekend for Time out for Women, a lecture series put on by Deseret Book. Maria brought her 5 year old Jack. I took the kids camping to the Fort Stevens KOA. I knew that there were Lewis and Clark Bicentennial events going on, but I didn’t realize that some of the main events were going on while we were there. I picked up a Destination: The Pacific guide in the campground office and selected some events to check out. About 30 years ago a replica of Ft Clatsop was constructed. This is where the expedition spent a cold, wet, and miserable winter 200 years ago. Last month it burned to the ground. At first they suspected arson, but it looks like it was just an accident. They are rebuilding, but it took 18 months to build the last one, so it won’t be done anytime soon. Saturday we went to the Festival of the Pacific. It was more like a state fair with businesses sponsoring booths and hawking crafts, etc. There was a cool Birds of Prey show from the Oregon Zoo. They brought out hawks, owls, falcons, a vulture and a bald eagle. We were about 6 ft from the action. It was very cool. Most of the birds flew across the room as part of the show. A couple of the birds looked like they would have no problem grabbing Gracie and flying away.
Next we ate lunch on the beach and then went to Long Beach, WA to check out the Corp of Discovery II exhibits from the National Park Service. This was much more interesting. They had a replica of the keel boat they pulled up the Missouri, a teepee, a exhibit on how they carved canoes out of trees, artifacts from the actual expedition, etc. When they pulled the 55 ft keel boat, loaded with a semi-trailer’s worth of food and gear, up the river the were each eating 7-9 pounds of meat and still losing weight. There were lots of activities for the kids: crafts, stamp books, movies, commemorative coins and more.
It was November 7th, 1805 that the Lewis & Clark expedition caught their first glimpse of the Pacific ocean. Clark wrote in his journal: “Ocian in view! O! The joy”. Having spent 10 winters in the NW I feel for their trials and tribulations on the coast back then. It can be dark and wet for weeks on end. At times it feels like you are living in a carwash with water coming at you from all directions with no way to stay dry. Their buckskin pants mildewed from being wet for so long. But it is beautiful, even in winter. It doesn’t snow more than a day or two and the day time temp rarely drops below the 40s. Plus the summers make it all worth it.

Shannon stuck it to “the Man” at the neighborhood meeting last night. She stood up to the developer and asked what HE was going to do for the community. That is her big beef with all the development. Hundreds of new homes in our elementary boundaries with no visible plans to accomodate all those extra bodies. Plus the roads are at capacity already.

Her rant continued today on the Lars Larsen Show (750 AM KXL). It’s first amendment friday, so she got a chance to vent to thousands of listeners. She did well, spoke her mind coherently and mostly calmly. Lars’s take was you should be thankfull for all the property tax the new homes are bringing in and hold the school board accountable for how they are spending those $s.

I’m “camping” with the kids and cousin Jack. Calling this camping is a bit of a stretch. We are at the KOA in Astoria, about 2 miles from Ft Clatsop where Lewis and Clark spent the winter EXACTLY 200 years ago. This is a standby winter retreat. They have a great indoor pool, hot tub, game room, cable at the campsites, etc. There is even wi-fi. The towels are out of the dryer, so now I’ll go see if the connection works in the Campervan.

Kanye West is opening for U2 in Portland next month. Arcade Fire is opening a few shows for them this month. I would much rather see Arcade Fire, but Kanye will be entertaining. It is the last show on this Vertigo 2005 tour of North America…can’t wait.

Exxon made $9.2 BILLION in PROFIT last quarter. Its a new record. Over that 3 month period they were clearing $75,000 per MINUTE in profit. Guess we don’t have to worry about cousin Mikey’s kids college fund.

The series of storms this week and into the weekend is supposed to dump 4 feet of snow on Mt Hood. Last year we hardly got any. LET IT SNOW!!

You have to have a prescription for Pseudofed in Oregon. It is used to manufacture meth, so they are going to extreme measures. Overkill. One esteemed member of our state legislature was busted for meth.

Lance Armstrong was lame on SNL last week. He hosted and Sheryl Crow was the musical guest. He has NO talent for acting or comedy. Sheryl’s performances weren’t that great either. Big disappointment.

My favorite movie critic, Joe Morgenstern (WSJ), hated “Chicken Little” which was supposed to show that Disney is back in animation. “There’s a sense of filmmakers desperate to entertain, yet unsure how to go about it in a swiftly changing culture.” I took Grace on a daddy-daughter-date to see “Dreamer” last week. We both liked it. ” Batman Begins” is still my favorite movie of the year. The Johnny Cash movie looks interesting.