Wow, what a great summer we had.  The main theme was busy, busy, busy.  Between home projects, vacation, work and the kids summer camps we were always busy.  Teri has been working as a contract Pharmacist this summer and that has worked out pretty well other than she has to fill in for what's open.  She's been working at the hospital in Kirkland and she's enjoyed it.

Projects.  What did I do on my summer vacation?  I did several home projects this summer starting after the kids finished softball and baseball in June.  I put in a larger retaining wall behind our home and filled it with crushed rock to make a great patio.  I also covered the front gardens with bark dust and installed an in ground basketball hoop.  Pictures below.

Back yard retaining wall.  I spent the 4th of July weekend working on this to build the wall and weekend after that to fill in the gravel.  You can't see it but under the gravel are several drain lines.  When it rained in the past this area was always wet.  Now that we have the drains we should have a much drier area even after heavy rains.

Basketball Hoop.  I spent a weekend digging the hole and another weekend pouring the concrete for the base.  I'm still trying to get the hoop mounted.  It's heavy and takes 3 people to lift it and secure it to the pole.

Camps:  Danielle and Ryan have been attending a local Taekwondo camp that teaches them the sport and has daily field trips.  Danielle also attended a weeklong overnight horse camp at Warm Beach Resort.  Ryan participated in a golf camp so he's slugging away.  Both kids attended the local VBS camp where Danielle participated in Basketball and Ryan in mixed sports.

Vacations: Danielle and I attended the annual Father/Daughter camp in June and we took our annual trip to the property in the Columbia River Gorge at the end of June.  Teri and I took the whole family to Silverwood theme park in Idaho in early August for 3 days and we had a blast.  The first day was cold and overcast but we made the most of it by hanging out all day by the wave pool until later in the day and then hitting the amusement rides.  I took the kids one at a time on the Tremor roller coaster.  Ryan and Danielle both enjoyed it.  Teri hates roller coasters so she waited for us.  The second day at Silverwood was much warmer although much more crowded.  Ryan and I are getting ready for our Father/Son weekend getaway in a couple of weeks and we're planning on going to Great Wolf Lodge at the end of Sept so Teri can attend a scrap booking conference while I take the kids to an indoor water park at the lodge.

It's been a while since I've updated my blog.  It's been close to a year since I've made a post.  A lot has happened in that time.  To make a long story short I've had it with working at Microsoft.  I left to join a local Search company.  Microsoft is a great place for people to work who have never worked anywhere else.  If you've worked in the industry a while it's quick to tell that Microsoft doesn't have it's act together.  I'm still a share holder so I hope they can turn things around; otherwise I'll be divesting my holdings in them. 

My new life allows me to spend more time with my family and friends.  I'm thinking of picking up a new hobby with my free time or dusting off one of my old ones.  I've had a chance to read some books lately and I've found a new author that I like.  His name is Vince Flynn and he writes espionage and political thrillers.  I'll put some of his books up on my space list.

That's all for now.  I'll try to keep things updated here more often.

Yes, the Gears of War Seriously achievement update.  It's been a month or so since my last update.  At the end of January I had around 3250 kills in Warzone.  It's now the end of February and I have 6600 kills but the rate of movement has slowed considerably.  Due to a variety of reasons... new games coming out, better weather, no new content for Gears... participation in Gears has gone down significantly.  I hope that Epic releases some new content so I can do another push in March and get this achievement.  If things don't pick up I'm going to invest time in some other games.  I'll probably try to bump up my achievement points by playing some easy sports games.  I haven't really earned any points at all this month since I've been so focused on the Seriously achievement.  I still have one other achievement, acquire all COG tags.  I have 28 of 30 so I probably have to go back and play all the way through focusing on locating the 2 missing tags.

If you don't know what Gears of War is check this http://gearsofwar.com/.  Here's a link to the achievements: http://www.xbox.com/en-AU/games/g/gearsofwar/20061201-gow-challengingachievements.htm .

Last Saturday the family and I went up to the Summit for a day of skiing fun.  When we left the house it was raining heavily and by the time we were on I-90 near North Bend the snow was coming down heavily.  The traffic slowed to a crawl just before we got to the West Summit exit. 

I had purchased a couple of sets of used skis and boots for Teri and I a couple of weeks ago.  The equipment was in okay shape.  Since I mainly snowboard I didn't need anything fancy.  For ~ $200 we got two sets of skis, bindings, boots.

Ryan had a private lesson at 9am so we had to hurry and get his gear on after renting it at the West Summit base ski school.  His teacher took him out and headed for the chair lift.  Teri, Danielle and I got our gear on and took a couple of runs on the magic carpet ride.  Funny thing about the magic carpet, it's super easy to use when it's dry but when it's wet from heavy falling snow it's almost impossible to stay on it.  Teri hasn't skied in a few years (Okay since before Danielle was born, so at least 8 years ) and had trouble staying on the carpet without falling.  After a couple of falls she decided that she had enough and wanted to go up on the chair lift.

Danielle being the ski star that she is told her Mom that she would help her off the chair lift.  I wish I had pictures of this but it was snowing so hard we didn't want to get the camera all wet so we left it snug and dry in my backpack.

After a run down it was time to pick up Ryan from the ski school.  The instructor told me that Ryan had done a great job going down the hill from the ski lift but was missing his Daddy.  I took Ryan with me and we headed back to the chair lift.  We took the kids up and got ready to go down.  I had picked up a couple of kid teaching aids the week before.  One is a Ski-Wedgie; you use this by connecting it to the tips of the kids skis and it keeps the tips from crossing.  The second was a ski harness which allows me to harness Ryan and hold onto reins from behind so that he doesn't get out of control going down the hill.

I hooked Ryan up with the harness and Wedgies and we were ready to go.  Fortunately the new snow was heavy and slowed our decent because Ryan wanted to go fast.  Unfortunately that meant straight down the hill.  No Fear!  The hill was slightly angled to the right so Ryan and I ended up down on the right where we had to duck shuffle to get to a spot where we could ski down some more.  I hope his next lesson works on teaching him how to turn.  It's hard with a 4 year old when you keep telling him to turn left and he doesn't know his left from his right.

After a couple of runs we went in for some food.  We decided to buy some heart attack food at the lodge; Chicken strips and fries.  It wasn't healthy but it was filling and gave us some energy.  We ended up in the basement seating area of the lodge; this is the place where you can just grab a picnic table and sit down. 

For some unexplained reason people seem to think they can stake a claim to these public areas by simply parking a cooler on the table and when they decide they want to use it you had better move.  In the middle of our lunch the guy who left the cooler came by to tell us that we were at their table and they were going to have lunch and we needed to move.  After I explained briefly that this was a public area and we would be done in a few minutes he huffed off and I didn't see him again until we were done.  Now I'm not sure, but it seems very odd that people think they can simply drop some random gear in a public place and when they decide they want to come back and claim it they do.  I guess I could make the same argument about the parking lot... I drop some random things out of my car in the Summit parking lot and come back the following weekend at a peak time and demand that who ever is in that parking spot they move because I had already claimed that spot a week earlier.  It's highly unlikely I would get the parking spot.  Do you think I should have gotten up and moved?

After lunch we had a few more runs and then Ryan was tired out so Teri took him back to the Ski school to return his rental equipment.  Danielle and I took a few more runs and then met Teri at the Ski school.  On the way back the road was very slick and traffic was crawling.  I did spot a couple of cars who thought that physics didn't apply to them.  One such vehicle was in front of us and accelerating through a corner, which in the middle of he found out about the physics of acceleration and friction.  Needs to say after he had spun completely around 3 times he was a believer in that going fast on a corner without traction was a bad idea.  Luckily for other vehicles around him they understood physics and got out of his way before he started to spin.  He was able to get his car off to the side of the road without damage where I'm sure he probably had to change his under clothes.

When we got home the truck had about 2 ft of snow in the back so I parked in the driveway so it didn't fill up the garage with water when it melted. 

Looking forward to next weekend and more skiing with the family.

On Saturday I took the kids up to Snoqualmie Pass just off I-90 to do some snow skiing.  Danielle has skied several times before but for Ryan this was his first trip.  The weather was good, pretty clear, mild temperature and groomed snow.  All of the makings of a great day skiing. 

Snoqalmie requires that you make reservations ahead of time for the morning lessons.  Fortunately for us I had made our reservations 2 weeks ago for last weekend but the kids were sick so we moved the lessons to this weekend.  We got there early and found a great parking place only about 200 ft from the ski school.  After bundling up the kids in their gear we started off. 

After filling out all of the consent forms I left the kids in the capable hands of their instructors and set off to carve out a few runs with my snow board.  I had just gotten off at the top of the lift when I received a call on my cell phone telling me that Danielle was refusing to go with her class up the chair lift and would I come down and talk to her.  It was pretty foggy at the top so I picked my way down to the bottom and found Danielle near the magic carpet ride with an instructor.  Danielle was convinced that she didn't want to do the chair lift right then so I asked that she be put with a different class which they did.  Problem solved, on to more shredding! 

.... Or so I thought, I hadn't even gotten all the way back to the lift line when I received another phone call.  Ryan has a nose bleed and wanted his Daddy, and would I come and get him right away.  I found Ryan in the lodge watching TV.  He had a dribble of blood coming out of his nose and he was glad to see me.  I cleaned him and went about finding out if he could still ski with his class since he seemed to be just fine.  Since the class was already started and Ryan had missed out I was entitled to a refund which I received.  They were also nice enough to refund the lift ticket that I had purchased for the day.  Great folks, very helpful.

I took Ryan out to the magic carpet ride to watch Danielle ski down and try to teach Ryan myself for a while.  This worked pretty well expect that Ryan didn't want to do the "baby" ride, he wanted to go on the chair lift to the top of the Mt.  What an extreme between the two kids!  One is fully capable of riding the lift but won't and the other who has no business anywhere other than the bunny hill wanting to head for the double black diamond runs at the top of the Mt.  What to do...

I finally convinced Ryan that he had to ride the carpet which we did for a while until he got tired out.  Danielle was discovering how easy (boring in her words) it was to ride the magic carpet ride.  We left at about 2pm to head for home and the promise that we would come back next weekend so Ryan could get his ski lesson and Danielle can ride up the life.

I'm going to make Teri come with me this weekend so she can enjoy the fun.  :)

I've included a brief video of Danielle skiing.  Enjoy.

How many people out there have a huge pile of remotes, many of them belonging to things that aren't even plugged in any more.  My hand quickly goes up, what about yours? 

I recently made the plunge and picked a Harmony 880 for use in my media room.  A great unit that is pretty easy to configure using the online web site or local Java application.  I was able to go from having 10 different remotes to just one.  This remote controls my HDTV, receiver, Home Theatre PC, xbox 360, and lighting system.  It does it all at the touch of a button. 

It's a sweet looking unit.  It has a LCD display and backlit buttons which make it easy to use in a dark room.  I'm thinking of getting a second one for the family room so the wife and kids can get rid of the pile of remotes that we keep there.

I recently crossed the 4k threshold in marching towards the 10k kill achievement in Gears of War.  I also picked up Battlestations: Midway last weekend.  One of my online buddies has it and we spent some time flying airplanes, and fighting in war ships.  This game has a great combination of strategy and arcade like action.   

On the home front it was a difficult week as both of the kids were sick and home from school.  Teri managed to catch the bug too.  Being the trooper she is , she was still able to get up for work after nearly collapsing the night before from the flu.  The kids were still sick over the weekend so we didn't do much other than watch the super bowl and rest up.

After the Seahawks lost in the playoffs I didn't really care who won the Superbowl.  We ended up turning it off after the Bears last interception at the end of the 3rd quarter.

We're looking forward to going up to Snoqualmie pass this weekend for some skiing.  The kids were to sick last weekend so we had to cancel.  I'm hoping to get them out a few times so they can experience it.  I'll try to post some pictures.

The family and I spent a few hours out enjoying a break from the typical rain and cold of the Pacific Northwest on Sunday (1/28) when the sun came out and made it a pleasant day.

We made our way over to Soaring Eagle park in Sammamish to enjoy a hike in the woods.

Teri, the kids and Danner all managed to enjoy themselves as we trekked through the woods, jumping over mud puddles and stepping over downed trees.

Ryan and Danielle had a great time walking through the mud.  It's amazing how much fun you can have getting dirty when you're a kid.  Danner spent most of his chasing Mt. bikers who rode by or sniffing the bushes.

Here's a shout out to the Groundhog to hurry up and tell us it's only 6 more weeks of Winter! 

When I checked last night I'm almost a third of the way to 10k.  My kill count was around 3250 and climbing.  Most weeknights I only have time to play for a couple of hours.  On the weekends I go crazy and sometimes spend 4 hours playing.  Time goes fast and before I know it, it's 3am and the kids will be getting up in a couple of hours.  Thank goodness for strong coffee. 

What do you do when you get a "SMART" failure on your hard drive?  Last weekend my main PC's hard drive experienced a "SMART" failure.  According to what I could find by searching the Internet this indicates that a catastrophic disk failure is about to occur.  Of course this drive was also my WinXP boot disk so it would no longer boot up so I could copy my important files to another location.  This started me on a course of trying to find out where I had placed my FPP copy of WinXP so I could use a spare drive and install Windows on it and get the machine to boot up.  It's a long complicated story so I'll make it short.... I had to buy another copy of XP just days before Vista ships <groan> and another HD to replace the bad Western Digital 80g boot drive.  I found another Western Digital 160g for about $80 at the local Best Buy.  Okay, now the short part of the story.  I got the OS installed on the drive, copied the files from the bad drive and tossed it.  Now all I've got to do is re-install all of my important apps.  Fortunately Teri's been really patient about not having access to the computer from home.  I should have it all back up and ready to go this weekend.

The kids and I took our weekly trip to the club to go swimming.  Danielle swims like a fish and can easily swim all the way across the pool.  Ryan swims wearing a life vest since the water is over his head.  He's very comfortable in the water and often swims off by himself into the middle of the pool.  See the video below for more pool fun.

 I took this video with my Cingular 3125 smart phone running Windows Mobile 5.  This is the first time I've taken a video with the phone and I thought that it turned out pretty good.