Category: Clearing the Cache

It’s amazing that even a book launch could be an event. I guess the cynic in me says that our culture is caught up in the next big thing, but the optimist in me enjoys that people can celebrate everything and anything.

I feel like I’ve spent a ton of time behind my camera and post-processing on a computer all this week. Jenni and I worked on a photo job on Sunday and Tuesday, took photos at a going-away party on Friday, snapped shots at the Portland Swing Dance Club dance, and an engagement party today.

For the photo job, I ordered a new lens in preparations. I’m thankful to have a wife who encourages me to exercise the freedom (and the responsibility) with our finances and purchase a high-quality (and high price) lens. But the low-light shots I’m able to get now will pay for themselves in the long run.

Check out our photo section for our latest photo albums!

We did it. As the first step to buying our future home, we took the plunge and paid off all of Jenni’s remaining school loans. We were going to pay it off over the next year, but we’ve learned that it’s not how much we have that determines the house loan we can get, but how much we can pay out monthly. One more step closer to buying a house!

Oysterville is synonymous with fun. Lots of fun. It has always been a pleasant surprise and inspiration of creativity from my friends when given the right amount of time, props, accomplices, and weapons.

Shopping List on My Phone
We bought a big whiteboard from Costco for about $20. It was a great deal because it came with pens, an eraser, and it’s magnetic to boot.

We have three columns for stores we often frequent for shopping: WinCo, Freddies, and Costco. Whenever we think of something we need to buy, we just add on to the whiteboard. Ideally, I would use Outlook notes to do this, but Jenni and I find it easier to just write it on the whiteboard.

When it comes time to grocery shopping, I use the digital camera on my phone to take a snapshot of the list and reference it when we are shopping for groceries or household items.

My PDA Navigator
One of the best uses of the internet is getting directions. I’m glad that this technology came of age soon after I started driving. It’s very convenient and I can’t imagine finding places without it. MapQuest use to be the big one early on, and I use to print out directions through them. I would then fold them and tuck them away in the car after I reach my destination. I would have a collection of papers of directions to places, but unfortunately, I wouldn’t always label where they were to.

After I bought a PocketPC PDA, I used a better alternative, Yahoo Maps, to get directions. Then I would save the “Print-Friendly” version of the directions as a web page file on my PDA. The reason I use the “Print-Friendly” version is to remove all the ads and extra junk that’s on the web page.

Now I don’t have to print any directions, have the filename describe who I’m going to, and keep them saved on my PDA’s memory for future use.

Perhaps an over-spiritualization of the situation, but we got to bed around 1:30 AM after organizing and facilitating the Portland Swing Dance Club’s Spring Swing weekend. It had been a long day and we had no trouble falling asleep.

We woke up to a drum pattern rattling outside. Then it was a full on Mariachi band playing somewhere near the outside of our apartment at 5:30 in the morning. They played loud and proud. At an hour, possibly six hours from that point, we might have happily walked outside to enjoy the live music. At that hour of the morning, we were groaning at who would be so inconsiderate!

Jenni popped in her earplugs. They finished their song. The next drum beat started and we groaned. Then I prayed to God half-asleep, something along these lines:

Dear Lord,

Should I not be praying for the leaders in our congregation, our city, our country? Am I not to ask you to increase our faith? Why am I praying to you, oh God of the Universe, about silencing a Mariachi band outside our apartment? Please stop them from playing more music. We would like some sleep!

Thanks Lord. Amen.

After three lovely songs, I heard some shuffling from nearby apartments. The band stopped playing and we returned to sleep. I’m thankful that God answers prayers, and no prayer is too small—or too strange.

Coming up with my high school 10 year reunion, I wanted to see how the school has changed. The Benson Tech Show is a huge open house for the school. It’s an opportunity for the family and community see what makes Benson unique as a technical school.

The idea of going to my 10 year high school reunion seems foreign to me. While I’m excited to see where friends and classmates have gone since graduation, the idea that we’ve been out of high school for 10 years eclipses all that excitement.

On Saturday, Jenni, Jack, and I lugged computers over to Clark’s house for some video gaming to celebrate Clark’s and my birthdays. January 20th was a good midpoint between our birthdays.

I had recently put together a new computer and there’s no better way to ‘test out’ a new computer than playing video games. And the new computer was glorious to play games on.

Several of Clark’s groomsmen were present and they played Rune while Jack, Jenni, and I played Marvel Ultimate Alliance. Later, Jenni and Mary played Battle for Middle Earth 2 while Jack and I joined in on Rune. The amount of mouse clicking was insane as we played Rune for an hour.

We played a big game of Battle for Middle Earth 2 with five human players against three computer players toward the end of the gaming party. The computer team didn’t pose much of a challenge the first game, but they almost took me out in our second game. Fortunately, everyone came to bail me out, I recovered from my loss, and we had a very satisfying victory.

Sunday, we went to church and quickly got back to our apartment for a big family gathering celebrating Travis’ birthday. We had 13 people in our small apartment. There was great food and lots of laughs, but the best laugh came during the group picture:

There’s nothing like watching dance videos to get inspired about dancing. So I couldn’t think of any better way to celebrate but to have a birthday party for my friends and I to watch Mary’s new US Open 2005 DVDs.