Let’s see...what have we been up to this past quarter? A little more than last quarter mainly because our annual vacation to Texas happened at the end of June.

The past couple of years, along with my mother, we’ve taken a week before or after the Paul Family Reunion and visited a city in Texas. This year we picked Houston and had an incredibly fun time.

The highlight of the trip was probably the visit to the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center. Duncan loved it although he bitched during the facility tour portion.

We also visited several museums in Houston, Moody Gardens in Galveston and had a few hours of fun wading in the water along the beach there. We went to Galveston toward the end of the trip so Duncan didn’t get to swim in the ocean but there’ll be another time I’m sure since I wouldn’t mind going back there for vacation in the future.

The reunion was about the same as last year except it rained. That didn’t stop the kids from swimming in my cousin’s pool but it did stop me. The extreme humidity in Houston exacerbated a cough I had before vacation so I didn’t think swimming in the rain was such a good idea. Since the cough ended up sounding like I’d been a two pack a day smoker for the last twenty years I really wanted to get over it. Nasty stuff.

The fourth of July we went on our usual family outing to the carnival at a local park here in the city. We always take hot dogs, chips, brownies, watermelon and sodas to eat and basically sit around and visit while waiting for the fireworks to begin. It’s very relaxing and free. How can you beat that?

As I write this our heat wave is officially kaput. That means no more swimming in the pool. It’s definitely time for Mike to dismantle it until next year. I am enjoying the rain we’ve been getting, however. I had to start mowing the lawn again because of it but it’s nice to see green everywhere instead of brown.

Last quarter I mentioned one of our dogs had died. Well, we got another one. The, as I affectionately called them, “poor white trash” who rented the house across the street moved out suddenly and they left a puppy and a cat. Well, the puppy ended up being about five or six months old according to our vet and he’s very affectionate. Unfortunately he’s one big dog. He looks to be some kind of rottweiler/labrador mix but he doesn’t have a mean bone in his body. He’s a black dog so I named him Blackie. I know, I know, how original.

Duncan is back in school. He’s still at Coronado and in half day Kindergarten this year. He’s enjoying it but at first he was a little anxious about having a new teacher. A few of his buddies from the Pre-K class last year are also in his class this year so that was a bonus.

Duncan played t-ball this summer with the YMCA and he seemed to have a good time. However, his coaches ended up being a disappointment because the work schedule of the head coach changed so that we only saw him at the first game and the last game of the season. Practices were also not as frequent or as well organized as I would have liked. Oh well, there’s always next year.

Soccer will be starting in October and we decided to go with the Ione YWCA like last year. They ran an organized program and I liked the coaches he ended up with. They were really patient with the kids and the ten game schedule isn’t a grueling one.

Duncan’s other activity this year will be dance. His old buddy, Garrett, didn’t take it this year so it looks like Duncan will end up being the only boy in the class. Quite a bummer but after the recital in the summer Garrett came down with a case of stage fright severe enough for him to start having nightmares about going on stage whenever his parents mentioned going back to dance class in August. Certainly a good reason not to take dance but we’ll miss having another boy in the class.

What else? Oh, I broke down and got a better video card for my computer. We picked up this cheap game called Robot Arena in which you design a cheesy robot and either battle the game’s robots or battle other players through the internet or through a network connection. My video card was so lame it couldn’t handle the 3-d aspects of the game. When the robots start getting destroyed they throw out a lot of smoke which appeared on my screen as big, overlapping squares of white. I couldn’t see anything. Duncan’s computer is slower than mine but we put a better video card in it and the smoke showed up on his. The game on his computer plays waaay too slow though so it bugged me enough to upgrade the video card. As a result I’ve been playing a few of the computer games I have—mostly first person shooter/role-playing games. I’ll never be someone who spends a lot of money on computer games but they’re a nice diversion and it’s wonderful to be able to see through that freakin’ smoke!

Time for the obligatory Mike portion of the update. He is still at Integris and still likes his job. You can check in on what’s happening with Mike at any time by visiting his web log at www.flooby.com/weblog.htm. He hasn’t updated it in several months so please visit and nag him about that.

I guess that’s about it. I’ve got a few more reviews in this time. I pretty much took the summer off from reviewing comics but I’m back in the swing now. I’ve even found another site to help guilt me into writing one or two reviews every week. Check out www.popcultureshock.com for reviews of comics, movies, music and animation. Just about all of your time wasting pop culture needs are handled by this site.

Tamara J. Hodge
September, 2001