07/28/06 Locks of Love July 28, 2006

I did it! I have been waiting for a year to be able to cut my hair. I’ve been growing it out for just this purpose. Earlier in the week I checked out the Locks of Love website and they have a thing you can print out to take to your local hair cutter so you can save your hair for them. I was going to do it in August. But I was reading the going’s on for the Relay for Life (which is going on right now) and a local hair cutting place was cutting hair for free to give it to Locks of Love. SCORE!!! It started at 5pm and I was there at 5:05pm! I think it’s about an inch below my ears now. It looks very cute, if I do say so myself 🙂 I’ll get someone to take a picture and I’ll upload it.

So anyway Relay for Life is going on right now. I was there from noon until about 7:15pm and I’ll go back in the morning. Christopher was very cranky (no afternoon nap) and he really needed to come home and go to bed. Thomas and the boys are staying the night. I am officially still on Peterson’s team, but since Thomas is the team captain for the Country Coach team, I hang out there. I walked for both teams though. I raised $280! I am going to try to get my new company to sponsor a team for next year. The people on the Relay committee want Thomas to be on the committee for next year.

My feet are tan. I thought my walking shoes were in my trunk. They weren’t. My MIL brought them for me, but she was 4 hours late getting to the Relay. So I walked in my sandals and now I have tan feet. I like tan feet 🙂

07/21/06 Baboo’s Birthday July 21, 2006

Yesterday was Christopher’s first birthday. We celebrated it by taking him to the doctor for his 12 month well baby visit. He got three shots. He was not happy. We made up for it by letting him smear cream cheese frosting all over his face before he went to bed (yes, we cleaned him up). I let him pick white cake with white frosting or carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. He chose the carrot cake. I think he preferred the pretty frosting  carrot on the top, rather than the non-descript flower on the white cake. He really digs cream cheese frosting though. We managed to shove some carrot cake in his mouth too. And we got it all on video (thanks mom!)

Let’s see, he’s 31+ inches long, 23+lbs, and his head is 19+ inches in circumference. I think his head is in the 90th percentile. His weight is between the 50th and 75th percentile (it’s hard to tell on those stupid charts) and his height is between the 75th and 90th percentile. So, yes, he’s a fat head 🙂

Christopher is at the whiny stage. He wants another cheerio, he whines. He wants milk, he whines. He wants dadoo, he whines.

So I got a B+ in my last class, Advanced Accounting. That class was damn hard! I don’t know how I managed to only get 70% on the final and still wind up with a B+. But I’m not complaining! I’m now in an income tax class. Since I had the H&R Block class (well, most of it anyway) I think I’ll do ok in this class.

Have I mentioned I need bifocals? It is a bitch having to wear two pairs of glasses at the same time. I cannot wait for August 1st! That’s when my new benefits (flexible spending) kick in and I can use pre-tax dollars for glasses. See this is why I’ll do ok in the tax class, I understand about pre-tax dollars. So in the mean time I have two or three weeks of looking like a dork.

07/06/06 Eugene: We love it … most days anyway July 6, 2006

Eugene: We love it … most days anyway

By Bob Welch

Columnist, The Register-Guard

Published: Thursday, July 6, 2006

 

Why do we love Eugene, a place that, though not as quirky as some believe it is, has enough at-bats to at least qualify for the national quirky title?

I was asked to speak to the Eugene Chamber of Commerce recently about this place – and that’s the question I raised.

Sure, we love it because of the usual stuff: trees and water and buttes and bike paths and the Hult Center and the University of Oregon and people. But mainly we love it for another reason:

Because it’s ours.

It’s the place 143,000 of us call home. The place we feel compelled to defend when we’re on a plane and someone says: “So, where ya’ll from?”

The place that defines us. That we’ve invested in. That we believe in, even if, at times, it isn’t easy.

I love Eugene the way parents love their teenage children. We’re not always thrilled about their behavior and attitudes. But, darn it, they’re ours and we wouldn’t trade them for the world. On most days.

Like other places, Eugene isn’t perfect. We’ve yet to learn the art of compromise. We need a downtown revival. And we think too small. But at times Eugene is perfect.

DisplayAds(“x96″,”300″,”250”); It’s perfect in late August, when you get up early to get the paper and the air has that slight “back-to-school” chill and a lone goose flies overhead, honking a hello. And when you hear the first rain of autumn tattering the roof. And, five months later, when you hear it finally stop.

Here’s what I love about Eugene: that it’s big enough to have an internationally known music festival and an airport, but small enough so – as happened last month – the guy across the aisle from you on the plane is your across-the-street neighbor back home.

I love that we get free samples of other places without actually having to buy the whole product. You want California? Sit out on the Oakway Center’s courtyard on a warm summer night, listening to jazz. It’s California without the smog and crime and Botox. You want Arizona? Once or twice a year we get a heat wave, but it comes and goes like a good visit from a relative.

I love that people care passionately about this place. Our challenge is to find compromise between those who would – if I can dip back to a couple of ’70s songs – pave paradise to put up a parking lot and those who would let it be.

I love that it’s not pretentious. We aren’t distinguished by loud, power-hungry politicians or in-your-face wealth. At the Butte to Butte race, there’s Andy Vobora, one of LTD’s head honchos, happily helping load buses. At Humble Bagel, there’s Mayor Kitty Piercy holding one of her monthly one-on-one sessions with whoever shows up.

I love Eugene for its convenience. And for how quickly you can get to other places from it: 75 minutes to the coast, an hour to the mountains, 15 minutes to Fern Ridge.

But, finally, I love the idea that though Eugene isn’t as weird as some people think – run through most neighborhoods and you could be in Anywhere USA – it’s still spiced with quirkiness.

We’re Ducks. Our football uniforms look like the lids of pickup tool-chests. And every Saturday we offer a market that promotes time-travel to the ’60s, some obviously making the trip so often they qualify for frequent-flier miles.

One of the city’s notable historical moments involved a waffle iron. A fire department crew runs the Butte to Butte in full gear each year. And we’re named after our founder’s first name. (Thankfully Skinner’s name wasn’t Bob.)

Yeah, we’re quirky. Recently, when I bought my Register-Guard at the airport newsstand, the clerk asked me right on the spot: “Are there sections you don’t want that we can recycle?”

Wow. I’ve never experienced point-of-sale recycling come-ons before – but it made sense. I gave her a couple of sections I wouldn’t be reading and walked off, thinking: only in Eugene.

Sometimes we say that phrase with wonder, sometimes with despair. But, in either case, this place is ours – until we pass it on to those who follow.