Ferris has always been a great traveler. But he hasn’t always been a great hiker. For a Boston Terrier, his back legs are a bit too long. Walking downhill and then stopping quickly to smell something usually results in a hilarious barrel role. As with all dogs though, perseverance is the key to success–both for training and for clumsiness.

The difference for this dog though is that is wasn’t him that needed to be trained. It was us. We used to panic every time he tumbled forward or thrashed violently as he panicked and tried to get his feet under him again. On this 5-and-a-half mile hike, Ferris gradually trained us to simply laugh at him, and eventually ignore him. He ignored the fact that he was wallowing in the dirt far too often too.

I’m not sure how we’ve been hiking in this area for three decades and had never climbed to the top of Donner Peak- or Mt. Judah for that matter. (We’ve skied there, but taking a ski lift to the top isn’t quite the same.)

Our hike in the northern Sierras maxed out 8200 feet elevation and was pretty technical at the beginning and end with a lot of deep sharp granite rocks. Ferris had set a record distance hike for him, so in the backpack he went for the last half mile. He has trained us well.

Emily had to recreate a scene from a movie for her film class. During the Corona virus pandemic it was impossible to follow the assignment since she couldn’t check out equipment from school or edit on their computers. Enter the iPhone and iMovie. We think she did a fantastic job anyway.

A man tells his stories so many times that he becomes the stories. They live on after him, and in that way he becomes immortal.
 -Will Bloom in Big Fish

Every so often, a company changes its API or Application Programming Interface. That’s what allows one application to play nice with another. When a company changes it, it essentially breaks a lot of functionality for another program.

I was asked to introduce my dad for his presentation to a local veterans group. I took advantage of the opportunity to shoot video of the speech, but neglect to capture vid of my intro. Regardless, the humorous and witty history of his time in the US Army was eye-opening for me. I had heard some of the stories growing up, but this speech filled in a lot of gaps.

After a particularly stressful week, we took a well-deserved vacation and decided to make a quick trip to Glory Hole Recreation Area in nearby Angels Camp. We packed up our teardrop, Green Bean and headed out of town for a two-night trip. We were joined at the last minute by Lisa’s sister and bro-in-law, Beth and Robert and our niece, Sara, her husband, Wes, and their three chitlens, Wyatt, Hunter and Allie.

Including my first stint on this cycling team, this is my 11th team photo in 19 years of racing bikes. It’s also one of my favorites. Team photo credit goes to my teammate and good friend, Derek (Images by Derek Novaes,) who sadly never gets to be in the photo.

I’ve been playing around with some new video editing software and thought I’d take advantage of the opportunity to restore some old VHS footage of our family reunion in Lennox Missouri in 1995. While the video is faded and degraded, the memories are vivid and glorious.

Lisa’s family has made a tradition lately of camping for a week each year. This year’s adventure was to Westport Beach near Fort Bragg, California. With us were the Rusts, Normans and Wassermanns. We took our Vistabule teardrop, Green Bean and each of the other families had their trailers. Emily and Patrick slept in a tent beside us.