I'm in Stevenson, WA in a hotel right now. I'm going to a forest chainsaw instructor meeting tomorrow, which is why I'm here. If you'd like to hear more about my trip, I'll need you to choose between the 3 following topics: 1. The context of the fight the couple in the room next to me had from about 7 pm to 9 pm. 2. The sex the same couple had from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. or 3. The drugs the same couple dealt out of the hotel room next to me from 10 p.m. until now. I think they may have gone to sleep now. At least people aren't knocking on their door every 5 minutes, they're not screaming at each other, or making other noises at this point.
In sadder news, for those of you that have not heard, Oscar died last Wednesday. I let him and Arlo out at about 2 p.m., then at 2:30 p.m. I went to walk down to the bus stop to meet Simon. Arlo was waiting at the door, but Oscar wasn't there. I grabbed a couple of leashes, because sometimes Oscar runs up to the houses above us to see the dogs up there, and I figured I'd see him on the walk to the main road. I walked to the bus stop and never saw him, then on the walk back as I rounded the corner to our house I started hearing a dog howling. I got back to house and Faith and I figured out the howling was coming from the lake below our house. I ran down the hill and saw that Oscar had fallen through the ice on the lake about 300 feet from the shore and couldn't get out. As I was trying to figure out how I would get to him, I heard the sound of ice breaking and what I thought was a motor (at this point in the room next to me the people are smoking something, judging from the sounds of coughing) and I was reminded of the sound of ice breakers that some duck hunters have to break ice in front of boats or for putting out decoys. I'll admit I was greatly relieved to hear that sound, I thought somebody had seen him and was coming to rescue Oscar. A couple of seconds after that I heard a woman ask "Are you still in the boat?" Then I heard a man say "No, just a second." So I ran down the shore to see an old man had fallen throught the ice and his wife standing on shore. I guess the motor sound was wishful hearing on my part, but the sound of the ice breaking was this guy falling through. He was trying to walk a canoe out to Oscar, but fell through the ice. I asked the guy if he had any rope with him, or at his house I could run and grab, but he said no. Faith showed up seconds later (she had heard me asking for rope) and had about 50 feet of parachute cord with her. I sent her back to the house for some more rope, and set about trying to get the p-cord out to the guy in the water. He made back into his boat, then managed to get his canoe back up onto the ice. His wife helpfully brought about a 30' extension cord, asking me if it would help. I assured her it would, then sent her back home to call 911. She said she had, and they said they would send a police officer out to assess the situation (God I love Ferry County). The guy said that now he was back on the ice he would walk his boat back to his house (he lived right on the lake). I managed to convince him that the ice he walked across to that point could be weaker now and to come towards the shore to me, and he relunctantly agreed. He was starting to stumble and mumble a bit, so I convinced him to get in the boat, and I broke the ice near the shore enough to walk out and grab the boat and pull it into shore, then I helped him get up the hill to the old road that lead back to his house. His wife came back to help him get home, they refused my help getting home, and tried to convince me to walk the canoe out to Oscar, but I declined, based mostly on thinking about Simon and Dylan, and how stupid I'd feel if I fell in the lake and left them alone. I mentioned that it would be pretty stupid to fall through the ice to the guy and his wife and the guy agreed with me, vehemently enough that I was wondering what the heck he was doing out there in the first place. Anyway, they headed home, Faith came back down with the rope, and Oscar couldn't stay up any longer. He would have 10 this summer, and he had a pretty good life, I think. He got surgery twice, once for eating rocks, and once when he got hit by a car. He was great with the kids, he never snapped at them, or growled when they pulled on his ears or tried to ride him. Me and my friend Ronnie drove from Sisters to Yellowstone for a wedding one summer, and Ronnie bought this huge summer sausage that cost about $30. Our next stop after he bought it was Old Faithful, which Ronnie had never seen. As we left Ronnie's VW to go see the geyser, he asked if it would be alright leaving Oscar and the sausage together. I assured him Oscar had never gotten into food before, and it would be fine. We came back, and as soon as Oscar saw us he turned around and buried his head in the blankets and wouldn't look at either of us, no matter what we said to him. Then we noticed the chewed up summer sausage wrapper on the floor. That was the same trip he ate rocks on. Must have been hungry. He's been the kid's "night time protector" for about two years now, and Simon doesn't really want to sleep in his room anymore. We tried to convince him Arlo would protect him (Arlo almost bit me one night when I brought Dylan in to go pee when the boys and I were sleeping on the trampoline before he figured out it was me), but Simon said Arlo whines too much (true). Oscar was a great dog, and we'll never be able to replace him. We are planning on getting another dog later this summer, we're still talking about what to get. I want a lab, Faith wants a golden retriever. As I'm sure you all know, we'll end up with a golden retriever. We're both pretty upset still, but I think moving into a new house in a couple of weeks will help alot. I've decided the house we live in now is cursed. About 2 weeks before we moved into it, our dog Moses got hit by a car and killed at our friend Todd's house, now about 2 weeks before we were going to move out Oscar died. Anyway, sorry for the depressing post, but I guess wanted to write about it. I was just going to write about the couple in the next room, and it evolved. Oh great, they're having sex again. I love this hotel.

Cast away

Apparently the weight of a 6 year old can break a 4 year old's wrist.

When we were leaving the emergency room last night Dylan asked us to take his cast off. We told him it would be on for a while. When we got home I was taking him out of the car and he said "Dad, this thing is bothering me, can you take it off when we get inside?" He has to wear it for 3 weeks. The way it got broken was Dylan and Simon were playing on the trampoline,
Simon was dragging Dylan around by his arm, then Simon let go, Dylan fell, and Simon jumped on him. Simon felt pretty bad at the hospital.

We're moving at the end of the month into a house on the Forest Service compound. The house is pretty big, with a huge basement, a fenced yard, places for the kids to ride their bikes, plus I can walk to work everyday, and Faith won't have to drive as far to pick Dylan up from school. That's about it, hope everybody's doing well. I'll try to post later with some pictures of Simon from golfing today.