Great Last Week!

First of all I apologize to anyone out there who noticed how long it has been since I wrote last time. I'll take it as a compliment if anyone did. Since last time I've have had many good times. The weather was great last weekend so I took my daughter on a hike up to the Columbia River Gorge. I figured it had been a while, so we went on a smaller hike to help insure her first time out in a while wasn't to painful. I set this goal with her to hike all the trails on a map of the gorge with her before the end of the year. This map only had the physical description of each trail in distance and by name. I learned that I do not know what a loop is according to the Horsetail Falls Trail. It stated it as a 2.7 mile loop so I figured that would be a perfect start. We started at the Horsetail Falls parking lot and continued up a marked trail. We passed two beautiful waterfalls and came to a mile marker of 1.3 miles. It pointed left to Horsetail Falls trail, and right to another seperate trail. My false sense of logic told me that the trail would LOOP around back the parking lot. WRONG. We kept going up and up and up and up with no more markers for quite a while. I now decided we were racing the sun so we better turn around and head back, not to mention the temperature was dropping fast. We made it back by retracing the trail, but I was still dumbfounded as to where the darn loop was. All in all, our 2.7 mile hike ended up being almost 7 miles. Madison toughed it out but was really tired. The good news was when I researched where we had gone I found out we actually went on three different planned trails. I decided a new way to hike all the gorge trails this year. We printed out a great map of all the trails and highlighted where we went. Once we finish that map, we are going to do the Washington side as well.
My tennis team had our first of seven matches of the season. We beat Mint Valley out of Washington 5-0. We all won in straight sets except for our #1 doubles team. The matches were all closer than the score sounds. My partner and I won at #2 doubles 7-5,6-4. We were actaully down 5-4 in the first set before finally breaking the other guy serve. One down six to go. I just can't say how much I enjoy playing with my doubles partner. Not only is he a really good player, but a really nice guy with a warped sense of humor. I think I understand him as well as he understands me. I know I can be both relaxed and uptight out there and he does a good job of keeping me in check. I wish I could find a mixed doubles partner I enjoyed playing with as much.
My daughters school had another bomb threat, that is two this year, doubling the amount I had in my whole educational experience. However, she gets two thumbs up for making it to the final round of the schools spelling bee. She was the last kid knocked out, on the word WHELK. Silent H's sure are tough if you have never seen the word before. So far about 1 out of fifteen people I have asked have spelled it correctly, so we are all real comfortable on how tough a word it was. Madison did say the kid who won it spelled it immediately without hesitation as if spelling the word DOG. Kudos to him, that is one sharp little cookie. He definitely deserved it.
Today was one of the coldest days we have had in a long time. The winds are just nasty. A customer brought back my Camel sign that blew off my fence at the store and gone almost three blocks down the street. No hiking tomorrow. I think I'll just continue to pack my endless piles of junk. Sure is fun packing. I did it for about four hours yesterday and mentally fought myself half the time. Should I keep this or not? I came the age old conclusion if I have to ask I must still have a need for it somewhere deep down inside. Besides shouldn't everyone have six pocket knives even though I only use them once or twice a year. They sure are neat though. Besides, I occasionally play tennis with Tim Leatherman, the creator and majority owner in Leathermans Tools so I would feel real guilty getting rid of it every time we played. Then again he doesn't shop at my store so should I really care. I digress. Okay I'm back on track. Kind of felt like I was hiking again. I can't think of anything else right now so I think I'll head down. I'm feeling kind of squirrelly(not sure if it is actually a word so if it isn't I'm proclaiming that as the correct spelling) if it is a word I'm too lazy to go find a dictionary right now t spell it correctly. GOOD NIGHT!!!!!!!!

This weeks Ramblings!

I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to write about so I thought I would share a bunch of current thoughts from the last week or so. First of all it is sad when you you have to ration your daughters telephone time, not because she is talking too much but her mom is only going to be home for half an hour on break from work and it is very important that Madison sees her that whole time. I'm sorry to anyone who calls in that timeframe but hopefully you will understand. One of my favorite shirts is a long sleeve shirt for Blue Moon Ale. Fits perfect, great logo, and the price was right, however I never seem to want more than one of their beers at a time. I got my hair cut today and just want my stylist to know she is quite possibly the coolest person I ever met(that counts all the Black and Mild customers who seem to be pretty damn cool). I just might start shampooing with miracle grow. Possibly the worst thing about being a victim to a crime is everyone seems to think they are the next Sherlock Holmes. My men's tennis team has their first match this weekend. It is sad, but I am quite excited. We have an incredible team, but it creates more pressure to win because all I can think is how could we lose with this much talent on one team. I bought a new jacket at Goodwill and I really like it. My daughter got a certificate for being a top ten student in her school, not sure if they picked her name out of a hat or it's based on academic achievement, but either way I'm always so proud of her. She is in 7th grade and has already got more A's than I got in my life. I'm sorry to see the Seahawks lose, however, as always the fans had something to blame it on. Someday they will lose because they were outplayed by the other team. At least my prediction of no NW championship stays in tact.
Target got a great new brand of Trail Mix called Archer Farms. VERY HAPPY AM I. Much closer than Trader Joes. I just decided I am way too tired to write anymore, so good night Johnboy. Don't ask... One last thought Bud Light won the Superbowl commercials, but you still couldn't pay me to drink one....

MY FRIENDLY REMINDER

While this will appear as a blog its purpose is to remind everyone of my not so popular "rules". Most of my regulars know and respect these, however, many people have come along since signs have been removed. A printed copy of this will be available at the store for everyone.

#1 I do not take coupons, I hate coupons, and I do not appreciate the fact that I make two dollars off a carton of smokes yet the tobacco companies are willing to send you a ten dollar off a carton coupon knowing they don't have to pay me for 4-6 weeks.
#2 We close at 10pm. We were open for 15 hours during the day already, I apologize for you not having a spare five minutes in that window to make it down here, however 10 is 10 is 10 is 10.
#3 I so very greedily add 25cents to every credit card transaction because I want some of MY money back. I pay over 600dollars every month for card fees and get back almost $250.00 from charging this quarter. It is only a dent but it helps mentally.
#4 I do not take checks PERIOD............. I hate them, I got sued for being a nice guy and cashing them, the police don't arrest or look into bad check crimes, I break even if it clears yet I'm out everything if it doesn't and most of all I HATE CHECKS....
#5 If we ask to see your ID for something, we really don't care if you left it at home, or the police took it, or the other guy always sells to me, or the most sad excuse of all" I promise I won't tell anyone" please don't waste our time.
#6 No we can't sell beer through the window.. Why? the same reason we can't sell to minors,
drunks, before 7am or to people who we know are buying for children........because the STATE OF OREGON says so.... Talk to Ted he might make an exception for you.
Rules # 7--248 will follow if these aren't respected.. Thank You!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Life is full of circles!!!

One theme seemed to be stuck in my path this last week. While I'm really stretching a few of these, the thought entered my mind, so that's enough reason to make a entry for it. First of all, my daughters school had a bomb threat earlier this week. All the students were forced to stay in their respective classrooms while the whole situation was investigated. Three months shy of exactly 20 years ago I had a bomb scare at my school as well. All of us students were evacuated and had to stay on the football field for a real long time. It was both scary and exciting, and downright fun having all the kids together cracking their jokes. It sure isn't as funny when it's your childs life at stake however. The second sort of dejavu was playing in different tennis tournaments on back to back weekends. In the first one, I played and easily beat a guy 6-1,6-1 very quickly and without much challenge. The next weekend in a separate tournament in a separate state I somehow had to play him again in the first round. I felt so bad for him because it really hurts playing someone first round who you already know can and has beaten you very recently. This time I won 6-0,6-0 or infamously known as a double bagel, probably the most painful occurance in tennis. He was really down when he went to see his sister and girlfriend after the match. Unfortunately there is nothing anyone can say to make you feel better after an event like that. The only reason I tell this story is because when I played in tennis tournaments as a junior back in California, I constantly got stuck playing and losing to this same kid over and over again. One time I drove over 100 miles to a tournament and immediately felt my heart drop when I saw his name as my first round opponent. I remember there being over 100 kids in that draw and I got him FIRST ROUND. I have to say it feels a lot better being on the other side for once. The last one is sort of silly but oh well. The lease is up on my vehicle and I was just going to turn it in and look for a cheap old used SUV. As I started asking friends if they knew anyone selling theirs, only two people had any ideas. The first one was the EXACT color, year, make and model of a car I owned about ten years ago, and the other was a car I owned about 6 years ago however different color. I just wanted to say this planet is way too big to being repeating itself in this fashion.