Good day driving today. Left at around 6:30 - and had a good day driving on down the road. In Oregon, I drove down the old part of the highway, where all the waterfalls are. Horsetail, Multnoma Falls and a couple other (though I didn’t stop at all of them.)
At Multnoma, this was the first time I was there when the trail to the top was open, so I had to go up. I got up the first section before I realized that I didn’t have my water bottle with me - but I figured it was ok and continued the hike. Part of the reason for not going back to get it was that there are old ladies, even pregnant ladies climbing this trail, so no problem! It wasn’t the easiest hike, but made it ok.  Some photos from up there for you all.
Next I decided which way to get to where I was going, and ended up deciding to go through Portland, then up 26 to 101, then south to the campground. This was to give me more time on the coast, and was a good trip.
I did stop at the Air Museum, which was closed, but was a neat stop - at least I was able to see Darryll’s new plane.
Made it down in good time, roughly 6:30 at the campground, glad to get out of the car.
Watched the sun go down over the Pacific ocean.

I did spend the day in the office today. Good thing too, because it hit 101 today. 102 for tomorrow. Working on my website a little, then on the newest project going with the DVD video. I wanted to get the first 5 chapters done, but didn’t quite make it.
Over lunch I ran down to Best Buy to buy the best, though it wasn’t even offered. Sooo I went to Radio Shack, then DQ for 2 for $2.22. On the way home, picked up the inverter out of my truck for the trip to Oregon.
Yes, you heard me right. Oregon. Tomorrow. For a couple days. I might not be online for a few days, but hope to have some photos for you on the return trip.
The afternoon was spent building files and XL spreadsheet to organize this project. Then got my climing gear out of the truck to take with. In the process, I figured I would wash the beast - because it’s needed it ever since I got the topper for it months ago.
Went for a quick ride in the neighborhood, just looking at all the new construction going up - in the 4-5000 square footage range. The amount of money it takes for all that is just staggering to me. No worries - I’ve a better home coming.

Office work again today. Better get used to this, eh?
On the phone today w/ KW, RS, JC - trying to figure out what I’m going to be working on for the next while. I knew there was a lot to do, but in the course of events, we came up with some more things. Some is just re-mastering the DVD series to include the new logo (which is fun - I like DVD authoring.) Other things include another DVD made from this one, audio books, photography and some DTP (Desk Top Publishing.) So, later today I went and bought coffee and Coke.
RS just got a new camper, but I’ve not seen it yet. Possibilities…
Went over to BI’s and had a look at his power steering (he’s away for a couple weeks.) Hoses look like they are shot, so will take it to Mike’s tomorrow.

Spent the morning here in the office today, working on this, that, and the other. Finished off some product photography—getting it ready for Jim.
After lunch, I went to help out at the church, in the form of mudding, sanding and some drywall. I only stayed about 3 hours today.
So, back in the office again, stayed tonight to plan a new menu for the Stranger DVD. There’s more to this than I can put here, but let’s just say, I’ve plenty of work to do!
Oh, about the angels. We received 10 Angel Awards (Excellence in Media) today (2 copies of each) for the videos that we worked on back in NTM. The titles are: EE-TAOW!, EE-TAOW! The Next Chapter, When Things Seem Impossible, The Taliabo Story, and Delivered from the Power of Darkness. One set will be for the office here, the other going North to our Canadian office.
I just looked at the 2006 winners for the Silver Angel - and there’s only 11 in the Video/DVD category, one of which is the Stranger DVD series. I thought there would be a lot more!

Interesting day, so it was. Fist of all, we had an office meeting where we got to view the new logo that we will be implementing sometime soon. Very nice indeed.
Then, with my Toyota Ticket in hand, I drove Torri (sp?) as Tom drove Lina and Lori drove Matty and Noby to Silverwood park. I get a free pass when I drive my Toyota in, and being the generous fellow that I am, gave my ticket away. The lady at the gate (trying to get $4 for parking) had a hard time with my conversation skills. But in the end it worked out just fine.
Spent the rest of the daylight in the day helping mud some wall board (commonly known as Sheetrock.) Spent about 6 hours there before going home for dinner.
Back to the office tonight to work on cutting some photos I had taken a while back (new products for the web.)

Went to church again this morning, this time I brough my camera (though I didn’t take too many photos) and ran the sound board. Looks as though I’ll have a position running sound whenever I’m around. The biggest thing has been not being here consistantly.
Tom and Lorie and fam came home before I got back, and spent the afternoon resting up for the next week (though many guys from the church are starting to prepare the new room for inhabitation.) I’ll be working with them in the evenings this next week I’m sure.
Well, after a nap, took the car and bike to the south side of the lake, and went for a ride. This time it was 40.9 miles in 2:43 - averaging 15 mph.

After driving to camp last night, (getting home past midnight) I headed north again at 7:30 for another 140. I stopped to see Dave and Katie (and Morgan) and was good to catch up with them again. I should have done this a long time ago, because they are only an hour’s drive away. But with a cup of Joe, we hung out for a bit, which was a good time.
I then went to camp to pick up Ryan and MJ, in Barney’s stead - so he could stay home and work. Fun trip, place was packed, and hit 2 McD on the way home. (One was just for sundaes.) But on the way, I got a pigeon from Dave, and we released it in CDA at 2:00 pm. We wanted to see how long it’ll take him to get back to Newport, WA. I’ll post it here when I find out.

Not a big production day - spent most of the time cleaning my hard drives, and organizing data on my 2 computers. With over 500gb of data floating around, this does need to be done from time to time.
Tom and Lorie took a camper up north for the weekend, so it’s just me and Mica at home.
After supper, Sadie wasn’t feeling well at camp, so I rode with Barney to go to pick her up. It was only about 140 miles there and back.

Another basic day in the office. Worked on finalizing the audio files for The Lamb Powerpoint presentation. Had some trouble finding some files, and in the end didn’t fix one little problem. That’s one of the drawbacks from being in 2 places at once. (Well, between 2 places, that is - the files I need are in Canada, and I’m not there. Trouble is, that I’m not sure where the files are there, exactly. Moved too many times in the past 6 years.) Which brings me to the next point—DAM software. Digital Asset Management. One needs to know where files are, and to this point, it’s been going rather well, considering. I do need to be more organized with the files I create, so this isn’t a big problem later on in life. And with over a TB of files, you know that can be a job.
I did call home to wish Mom a happy birthday. Come to find out, she spent at least part of the day at David’s house pulling weeds. That’s one of her favorite past-times.
This evening I did laundry and worked on Skip’s videos from Alaska - trying to edit them down to a managable size. I’m about 3/4 the way through the first hour. A link to photos from that trip…here.

If you want to watch a couple videos, you can! Just click on the link and away you go. You’ll need Quicktime to play…

The Meaning of a Name ~108mb, 1 hour long. (Watch this one first!)

Flying Truth in Formation ~108mb, 1 hour long.

Don’t get your hopes up yet, but there is a road trip in sight. More details to come later. (All that means if one doesn’t work out, I’ll pull another from the hat.)

Thought I would record some of the day’s events - answered phones today (took, processed many orders, as well as fielded a lot of questions,) helped get the forklift running (battery was stone dead), fixed the folding table I broke on Saturday, finished wrapping a pallet of books going to Korea, made MP3 files for Derek to go on The Lamb Powerpoint. Then I had lunch.
After lunch, I worked on 2 projects - finishing off the DVD’s I’ve been working on - “The Meaning of a Name” and “Flying Truth in Formatin.” Both were recorded in Houston, and seems like it’s taking forever to get them completed. The other project is “The Lamb” for DVBS - my job is to put the audio files together that will go with a Powerpoint presentation. Not sure of the release on this project either (and if you have worked with us for a while, you’ll know that projects are finsihed when they are finshed - because we have just a small group of people that many things come up in the way.)
Home to Legers for supper - Drew / Noreen / Micah / Noby and Tom and Lorie were there.
After which I came back to the office and worked on my website - this time in the geneology section. I have a bunch of photos and GPS coordinants for burial sites of many ancestors, so thought it would be a good time to put some up.

Went to church this morning - we studied Acts 2:41, where 3,000 people believed under Peter’s teaching.
Back at home, I received a phone call from the Snyders, who are traveling across crountry to CT - and were at Post Falls. Well, that’s only 12 miles away. We were going to meet at iHop, but it was quite busy, so we just came back to the Smyth’s for a few minutes. They only stayed a half hour or so, as they wanted to get to Butte, MT today if possible.
Then, at 1:15 (before the world cup finished) I went over to Mike and Michele’s for some steak. Phil and his family were there and we just relaxed, shooting the breeze, chewing the fat for a few hours.
Was able to get a half-hours nap today - and played around on the computer for bit.
This evening, Derek and Chantal, as well as a couple other couples came over, and the whole gang sat out front and visited till about 11:00.

(I’m at Russ and Karyn’s place this weekend - Tom and Lorie have a full house, and because they needed the space I moved out for the weekend.)
Russ made French Toast, and then we started on the porch roof. Ryan had taken down the old roofing there (plastic, and it leaked very well) so we had a clean slate to work with. Russ had the tin already, and so we got started.
After looking at things, I noticed that we would have needed just a few inches of one sheet to make ends meet. So I suggested making the roof a little bigger, enabling us to not have to cut a sheet, as well as giving us more shelter in the time of storm.Having agreed, we went to Home Despot to get some more supplies.

We were able to finish off things well in good time - by 12:30 or so. Karyn made lunch, and I had a shower, to make it to Drew and Noreen’s wedding reception for us folks here in Idaho. It was a cloudless sky, warm but not too hot in the shade - very nice. Many folks came out to congratulate them and celebrate the occation. Lots of water and drinks and food to go around! It was a nice time to relax for a few hours.
Not feeling 100%, I came back to the office here and worked a bit on learning how to run my software a bit better (instead of going home and relaxing yet some more.) Trying to get the Photo Module up and running, but I need Barney to set my permissions on the server for me.
Well Barney did, but there’s another thing that I need to address to make things work properly. So - not tonight.

Barney helped me get sorted out a little on the Expression Engine thing, becauses I have my old site with thousands of pages on my old site, it makes things a little difficult. So, he set me up with another domain, so I can experiment and learn before letting the world know. But, hey, if you are reading this, then you already have the low-down on what’s going on, because you are where I am working.

Earlier today, I made some video files for Gaetan, so he could watch what John did in Houston. It’s only 108mb for 1 hour long video - which was a little much, but do-able.
Also, you know, extra text is hard to find.

I think you all realize that needless to say, my sleep last night was wanting. A Toyota Corolla is not made for anything longer than six feet, and so to try and maximize my sleeping potential by staying up late. But still, I got up early. Looking at the plan for the day, it seemed natural to drive back through the park and find Hidden Lake, since I had plenty of time. So that’s what I did.

Up top, I parked, now it was 8:00 am.  (Took 1.75 hours to get here from the campground - 45 miles.) Not too many people around, which was nice - because I am trying to experience the great outdoors, and that just helps if there’s not thousands of people trying to do the same thing right next to you. But the longer I hiked, the fewer the people. All in all I hiked down to the lake, crossing the continential divide twice (once on the way back.) The hike to the bottom and back was 5.6 miles, and took me 4 hours. Granted I wasn’t just trying to run it as fast as I could. Had to take pictures from time to time. It’s a 482’ vertical climb, then down 820’ to the lake, which of course gets reversed on the way back.
Parking was at a premium, and probably could have sold my parking spot. One fellow (on behalf of his family) asked if he could follow me to my car and take my spot. Easy for him, I was #2 down the row. Even then I had to ward off one other trying to get my (now his) spot. But in the wilderness, we are all friends, and there was no hard feelings.
Eating my last 2 hot dogs on the way down (noon by now) to St. Mary, I didn’t stop for anything else this day. My goal was to drive around the south side and head home before the fireworks.
Drive was good, but long. 385 miles to get home, at about 7:00 hours. I did take the long way, could have been around 4, but I figured I would take advantage of the time and high mileage and see something extra.
Made it home by 5:30 PST, and Derek called. Good thing too, because I would have forgotten to pick he and Chantal up at the airport. But I had time for a shower, supper, nap, some TV, fireworks, before arriving at the airport at 12:30 AM.
Good to see them again, but it was getting late!