**Blogger slacker, I am**

I don't really have excuses. I keep intending to update. I just don't seem to find the free time. I have been living almost half time along the coast.

I kayaked alot for a couple weeks, inbetween forays back into the valley to handle things at work. But then I realized my kayak had a crack in the gel coat. This prompted a call to the manufacturer who referred me to where I bought the kayak: REI. I could go on for some time, extolling the virtues of making purchases through REI - I would buy my house from them if I could - because they have the BEST return policy in the world. Returning the kayak for repair, in REI's eyes would keep me "out of the water" too long. So they took it back and ordered me a new one. Last I heard some of the employees were patching the kayak at the store and were wrangling over who was going to get it. So I am on kayak #2. I have not taken it out, however, because my kayak partner and increasingly, partner in all things, fell off a ladder at work and cracked some ribs. At least, that is what we suspect, While we await xrays verification, I hear a lot of.... "I am feeling much better..." Yeah, beer, ibuprophen and an intense desire to kayak again will keep one's mind off the reality that bones need time to fuse.

But added to the stress of a quickly diminishing summer is my increasing workload. Hey, doesn't anyone remember it is summer and the ONE benefit of this secular vow of poverty called teaching, is that I play for a couple months a year?!

I have been added to two committees involving summer work - all at the request of someone one does not turn down.

This weekend the PNW is due for a nasty heat wave, comparable to that experience around the rest of the country. I am headed for the coast (surprise, surprise) where the heat wave there means temperatures will hover in the 80's about 15 degrees above normal.

**Independence Day**

After all, it is for kids, isn't it? The west coast has a healthy disregard for rules, regs and the like and an enormous appetite for all things beach. This fireworks celebration bordered on mayhem with beach fires and significant explosives... everywhere....