Bathroom Repair

In addition to fixing the drywall, we also fixed the bathroom floor.

We could see the above water damage and decided to rip of the floor and replace the vinyl. Like any project where you do this, you ALWAYS find something bigger wrong. It turns out there was some sub-floor damage from and earlier leak. So, the saws-all & Jessi went under the house to cut out the rotten wood. Doesn't Jessi look awesome?!

Yeah, I have a pretty fantastic wife.

The really tricky part was cutting the wood under part of the bathtub. Once that part was cut out, we added new support beams and replaced that section of sub-flooring. Yeah, the project was much bigger than we thought.

Before we laid the vinyl down we took left-over wrapping paper and created a template of the floor. It's much easier to work with small pieces taped together than trying to cut one big piece down to size.

Here's the template laid out on top of the vinyl. We used a straight edge and razor blade to cut the vinyl. When we got it in the bathroom, it fit perfectly. Awesome!

That's me holding up the vinyl while Jessi spreads the glue all over the floor. I feel sorry for the next person who has to rip up this floor. I really hope it's not us...

There's Jessi doing the final wipe-down to make sure everything is smooth. That tool in the front is pretty neat. You roll it around on the vinyl to spread and squeeze the glue. We then added caulk EVERYWHERE. I'm fairly certain water won't be getting under this floor. Again, I don't want to be the person who has to replace this floor.

Here's what it looked like when we finished. It's a pretty nice bathroom.

Dry Wall Repair

Jessi & I recently completed a couple fixes on our duplex. I wanted to share one of them. But first, what do you think of my drawing? Not bad, right? ha ha. It's using Paper for the iPad (iTunes link).

We discovered that our tenants accidentally pulled a little too far into the garage one day. Oops.

So we took the drywall off to fix it, and make sure the studs were still in place.

They weren't. Thankfully they weren't out of place by much. So we went to the other side of the wall, removed some trim and literally banged them back into place with a hammer.

Then we put braces on the studs to make sure they don't move again on their own.

After watching numerous Youtube videos I learned how to drywall. Thankfully it's not too complicated. We bought the materials and I got to work. Here's what the patch looked liked. I'll admit that it took a couple tries to get the drywall to fit perfectly, but it was less than an hour total. I'd detail how to do this, but there are literally THOUSANDS of videos on Youtube that do a great job explaining the art of drywalling.

Here it is with some primer. The goal is to make it so you can't see any seams. What do you think? Can you tell where I did it? There is a slight horizontal bump which only I will always notice, but I'm pretty happy with the end result.

Fireworks Show

This post is for Jessi who is currently visiting her family in Colorado. Due to all the fire problems there the governor issued a ban on all non-professional fireworks. They must be pretty serious since fines could go up to $1,000!

So, she asked me to record some of the magic here in Oregon so she could enjoy some fireworks too. My favorite one is at the very end.

The Student Loan Forgiveness Act

It's been a while since I've written anything, which as a general rule, means I'm up to some pretty cool things. MUCH more detail to come later about that. For now, my softball game has been cancelled due to Oregon rain, so it's a prefect time to sit down and write.

I got into my first mini-Twitter discussion this week about the Student Loan Forgiveness Act. Thanks @eliwaite for the awesome discussion! He supports it. I'm less enthusiastic. One of the downsides of Twitter though, is that it's hard to form comprehensive thoughts. So prepare for some comprehensive thoughts!

What is the Student Loan Forgiveness Act?
Representative Hansen Clarke put together a nice summary which I'm going to borrow from:

• The plan is called the "10/10 standard": if you make payments equal to 10% of your discretionary income for 10 years, your remaining federal student loan debt would be forgiven. Discretionary is thrown in there to account for the poverty line. I.E. if you make less than 150% of the poverty line given the size of your family, you have no discretionary income.
• So, if you don't have a job, you're payments would be $0 until you get one. No more compounding fees, no more rising interest rates. No more frantic job searching & crying at night in your parent's home.
• The bill will also shorten the Public Service Loan Forgiveness requirement to 5 years instead of the current 10. People will also be more willing and able to go into public service because they won't have to make large student loan payments.
• Current borrowers are eligible for full forgiveness, future borrows will be capped at $45,520 (with no mention of future inflation adjustments)
• Since the money has to be paid from somewhere, it will be funded by projected savings from Iraq and Afghanistan Overseas Contingency Operations; the bill will NOT affect funding for existing student aid programs.
• The bill will increase millions of American's purchasing power because their debt will be forgiven. This will free them up to invest, buy homes, and start a business. Or go into public service, remember?
• The bill will create jobs since consumer demand will be going up due to the lowering of student loan payment.

You can wade through the whole thing if you dare.


Is Student Debt Actually A Problem?
I'm a data person. I like to see facts and figures before I make a decision (a blessing & a curse). So, when I'm told that student debt is reaching ONE TRILLION DOLLARS, I have all sorts of questions:

• What is the per-person debt? Perhaps we just have more people going to school?
• How much is undergrad verse grad school? This would need to be split into "just grad" categories too.
• How much is principal vs interest vs fees? I want to know what's actually crushing people.
• Of the people "struggling" what are their degrees in? Perhaps the loan isn't the issue. :)
• Can I see the data grouped by year, school, state, degree, etc?
• One fun fact: student debt is now larger than credit card debt. Why? If it's because people are being more responsible and paying off their credit cards, shouldn't we be celebrating!? I don't know, and I'm willing to bet nobody really knows.

Depending on these answers, the solution will be very different. Perhaps the real problem is with people who go to a private school which costs $45,000 per year to get a teaching degree. Perhaps those people need to find a different method of paying for school (or better yet, finding a different school).

So is it actually a problem? I honestly don't know. If you have the data, share it with me because at this point it just sounds like a bunch of people whining about a bad choice they made. The bad choice being: going to a school they couldn't afford.

Let's Make It Personal

The average student loan debt is $25,000. Jessi and I happen to have $50,000 left after paying for 5 years (Wow! Time flies!). Jessi and I would be able to participate in this program since we're right there with all these other people. So I'm not just some old curmudgeon complaining. Quite the opposite: we're proactively paying it down fast. I guess we're part of the reason the economy stinks... We recently re-financed our mortgage, and that difference is going to student loans. When I get a raise, that amount goes to student loans. If I get a bonus, or tax refund, that goes to student loans. We're also starting up a business which will help to... wait for it... pay student loans. The bill uses absolute terms like "no choice" and "forced to" a lot, which I'm not a fan of. People do have a choice, they made not like all the options, but they DO have a choice (believe me, I want an iPad, but choose to pay off my student loans).

In retrospect, we should not have gone to Willamette because they charged too much for what we got. Setting aside the whole "found your wife" thing, we would have been much better to have gone to local state schools, live at home and work part of the time. Let's contrast this with a friend who said he started out at an expensive private school. But after the first year did the math and decided his future job as a pastor didn't justify the high expense. He changed to a local state school. He graduated debt free, got to travel, and now has a awesome job doing what he loves. He just had a kid and his wife (woah, he still found an awesome wife!) is able to stay at home with the baby. Jessi and I don't even have children and there's no way we could afford to not let Jessi work. We made a poor decision. We are now making better decisions to take care of our loans.

Where's The Money?

The bill makes it a point to say the financing for this program will come from projected war savings. Great. Except for the fact, and this is what really gets me, the government itself is being crushed by debt. Do we not remember the whole debt-ceiling debate? In personal finances we're taught to spend less than we earn. The same thing applies to the government. Now, I'm not an advocate of a balance budget - that actually compounds any economic fluctuations. Instead, like personal finances, the government should save money when times are good, so it can spend that saved money when the economy goes down, to help level it out. I know, crazy concept - the same crazy concept each of us should be doing in our personal lives with emergency funds.

So, it's not so much I hate this bill. In a bit I'll suggest some tweaks. I hate the idea of the government spending money it doesn't have. All it's doing here is shifting funds, again, funds it DOESN'T ACTUALLY HAVE. Until the government learns to control it's spending, I don't like any new program. I guess that means I won't like any new program for a while... This program might be good. I know buying myself a new iPad would be good, but I, and the government have more important obligations to take care of first.

No, But It Really Does Stink

I get it. It's a catch 22. The economy stinks because people paid too much for college. We could (and should!) figure out ways to reduce the cost of education. My current favorite is Kahn Academy. But that still doesn't solve all the poor decisions made previously. And since there were so many people who made the poor decision, there is clearly a structural issue.

I mean, why are we not all mad at our schools for not properly explaining what we're getting ourselves into? They claim to care about people and helping them become better citizens, right? I guess that doesn't include helping students make wise financial decisions (OK. I'm slightly bitter).

Some solutions

I don't want to be that guy who just knocks other people's ideas. It's only fair to come up with some of my own. You know, be part of the solution and stuff.

• 10% Solution: why cap it at 10 years? It sounds good? Why not just say, "pay 10% of your income until it's paid off. If you're unemployed, nothing is due." You can always chose to pay more, but you don't have to.
• Truth in Student Lending: Loans should be stated in their fully vested amount. Pick an interest rate & time frame for everyone. THAT'S the amount due. Paying off early doesn't reduce the amount, but losing your job doesn't increase it either. Plus, when a student takes out a $25,000 loan, they'll know that it's actually $40,000. Or, the government could not be greedy and charge a one-time 10% interest rate, $27,500 in this example, to cover the cost of servicing the debt. Students might actually consider getting a job while in school once they see the final amount.

That should help relieve current payment woes, it's pretty simple, and doesn't require the government to take on more debt by forgiving loans. Let's try to make it better future too by creating incentives to fix the real problem: school costs.

• If schools can reduce their tuition relative to their previous 5-year average, the government will share the interest earned from past student payments after expenses to service the debt.

An example

• I go to school and take out a $25,000 loan at 20% interest, or $30,000.
• I eventually get a job for $60,000 net per year. I pay $500 each month (60,000 / 12 * 10%). It'll take me 60 months, or 5 years to pay it back (30,000 total / 500 payments).

• If it only costs the government $5,000 to service this loan (I don't know the real amount, but someone does), there's $5,000, or $83 per month in this example of interest earned after the cost of servicing the debt.
• (30,000 total - 25,000 principal - 5000 service cost = 5000 earned; 5,000 earned / 30,000 total = .166 return * 500 payment = 83 earned per payment).
• $83 payments * 12 months = 1,000 per year the government can split with my school IF they reduce their tuition.

• Again, this $1,000 a year is money above and beyond the cost of the government to provide this "public good": the good of society to have me educated.
• So, if a school cuts their tuition by 10%, maybe they get 10% of the $1,000. FOR EVERY PREVIOUS STUDENT MAKING PAYMENTS. This could add up really fast for the school. Over time, past students will help the school fund future students, which is what giving to the school is all about. If the school can't reduce their tuition, no big deal, they just don't get the incentive.
• Our government could get really crazy & offer an additional amount for the number of classes taught online: 10% of classes are online? Here's another 10%! Again, money above & beyond the cost of the loan.
• Of course, that's assuming our wonderful government doesn't find another use for the money, like it's currently doing with the "war" money, and did with the social security money. Knowing that... I like this less. Shock: it all comes back to having a government that spends and saves wisely. If you don't spend less than you earn, doing great things is really hard!

Well Eli, thanks for prompting me to think deeply about this bill. It's been a while since I've stretched myself in this way. I think the bill has some good ideas, though I think it would be better with my tweaks (not including the lower tuition part, I like it much less.). I also think that until our government learns to spend more wisely, any plan is going to cause problems. Unfortunately, I don't see any evidence that any current leaders, or aspiring leaders, are that serious about our spending problem.

image: topcollegesonline.org

Fixing Electrical Problems & Feeling Like A Man

For some mysterious reason the light in our backroom when out a little while ago... and so did a single wall outlet... and changing the light bulb didn't help.

Welcome to summer project #1: Fixing the back room's electrical

Now, I have been very blessed to not have to deal with many electrical problems. And when I did, I was at home and let my dad handle the situation. Ah... growing up... I may not have been at home, but that didn't stop me from having multiple video conferences with my dad, including one where I literally propped up my phone so he could watch me test fixtures.

The light fixture. There are 3 sets of wires running into it.

Since I'm an electrical newbie, I couldn't figure it out and ending up calling an electrician for help. I learned from him that the trick is to figure out the logic of the wiring. Once you know the logic, you often find where the problem occurred. He also looks for clues: First, the age of the house will suggest wiring conventions of the time. Also, he looks for signs of repairs or "non-original" items. Apparently repair work is often done by a general contractor, who isn't an expert in electrical wiring, which is genuinely confusing, and therefore mistakes are often made.

It took him 45 minutes figure out what was going on. Which I felt good about how long it took since I gave him a head start by undoing everything and pointing out what worked and what didn't head of time. He assured me that it wasn't easy to figure out. He then spent 15 more minutes explaining to me how to fix the issue and providing me the necessary materials (wiring, boxes, nuts, etc) to complete the project.

I had 4 reasons for wanting to do it myself.

• He charges $78 per hour. He estimated it would take him an hour to do it. Do you know how much Yogurt Extreme I can get for $78? Going out for "something sweet" is how Jessi & I reward ourselves for accomplishments.
• Also, he also wanted to add another hole to my wall so he could do it easier. No thanks!
• Furthermore, he wasn't 100% that's where the issues was. What if it was different once he started? Another hour or two?
• Finally, this was something I wanted to learn how to do so I didn't need to call for help in the future.

So, off I went to fix the electrical.

The problem

Our back room is wired like a daisy chain. So one wall socket leads to the light fixture, which leads to another wall socket. The point of failure was where the wall socket went up the wall to the attic and over to the light fixture. The wire looked fine in the attic, which means it failed in the wall... right next to where a door had been added... A "non-original" item.

My guess is the cause of the mysterious failure is our treadmill. It's in this room, and when we run it tends to shake that part of the building. Being that it failed shortly after we started running on it for our half-marathon training, my guess is that we jiggled apart an already lose connection in the wall. 

The solution

Since the existing wiring is stapled in along the entire length it's impossible to pull it out. So the next best thing is to abandon it buy cutting off the two ends and installing a new wire parallel to it.

So, I headed up to the attic and drilled a new hole down to the wall. Then I used a new toy: a steel fish tape. I pushed that down the hole. Then I went back into the room and grabbed the tape out of the hole. I hooked the wire to the tape, went back into the attic and pulled the tape back up (along with the wire).

Cost at Home Depot: $10. Value to me: $100

The wire I used was strong enough to hold itself

Let's pause a talk about the attic for a little bit.

First, I put on a long-sleeve sweatshirt, safety glasses, and a mask.

Then I head up into a hole just barely big enough for me.

Then I enter into a HOT, dark, fluffy, short space.

I first had to find the fixtures, which was buried under all that fluff, which is insulation blown in. Oh yeah, and I did that while balancing on the beams so I didn't go through the drywall (aka. the ceiling).

This is the top of the light fixture. That white cord is the new wire.

It's hard to tell in this next picture, but roof is slanted, and the fixtures are near the end. Which means the spot where I actually pulled the tape through and re-strung the wire was not very tall. I literally only had enough room to crawl around on my belly. Swimming around in insulation, all covered up, got very, very hot.

So that's the attic. Now back to our story.

Once the wire was pulled through, I striped the plastic and hooked everything back up. With batted breath I turned the power back on and hoped for the best. Indeed, the light worked! I was 95% sure it would since I tested it earlier by temporarily connecting the wires in the room (thanks to Jessi's suggestion), but there's still that moment of doubt. :)

Here's a picture of the light fixture working, and a lamp plugged into the wall socket. A little clean-up, and the room was back to normal.

There's something very tricky about electricity. It reminds of my finance class in school. On the surface it seems pretty straightforward. Connect two wires and power flows. However, given how flexible electricity is, there are many creative ways to wire something up. There are also many safety precautions and principles you need to remember since electricity can be very dangerous. Combine these, and something that seems simple suddenly becomes very, very complicated.

So, being able to figure it out, along with working in the attic feels very manly. I'm also living off the high of completing my first summer project - which feels great!

Why Is My Dog Frisky?

I'm attempting to get some work done this morning, but my cute dog, Vinnie, has other plans. He's pulling at my shorts, my shirt, and on occasion attempting to hump my leg.

Thanks dude. You can stop now.

I wouldn't mind too much, but I really do have work to do and my legs are getting all scratched up. Maybe if I have a quick Zen-like moment and write about it I'll feel better. Maybe...

I just don't get it. I know that on occasion it means the dog is trying to dominate you. Other times he's genuinely frisky. I'm honestly not sure which one this is, but it's time to stop.

By the way, I did get him to sit long enough for me to take this picture, and then he jumped on me again. What a dog!

Apple's WWDC 2012 Keynote Too Hot Too Handle

On Monday morning Apple will be giving their 2012 WWDC Keynote to an audience packed with developers from the East Coast. Like all Apple events, there's only one thing guaranteed to come out of Monday: disappoint. You see, expectations are at an all time high for Apple this time round. If I didn't know any better, I'd think it is some massive conspiracy to set everyone's expectations way too high, only to be manically disappointed, so next year nobody will want to go.

Seriously, the list includes everything. It's a whole new Apple... as if they need to fix something... Here's what I remember just off the top of my head

• MacBooks
• A new Macbook Pro Redesign
• A revival of the MacBook brand
• New Intel Chips
• USB 3.0 on the MacBook Pro
• A Retina display MacBook
• An entirely new MacBook! (this could be filed under the "MacBook revival")
• A new Mac Pro design!
• Software
• iOS 6
• A new Maps App, with turn-by-turn navigation
• Facebook Integration
• Siri API, plus for iPad
• Another re-vamp of the Notification Center
• New skins to choose from (like for the Settings App)
• iCloud API
• OSX Mountain Lion released
• An Apple TV SDK, maybe even hardware!

Why is it that tech reporters feel the need to support every single rumor they hear? Sure, Apple probably is working on all of these, but they like to dole out information slowly. That way customers can absorb the changes a little bit at time. Plus, they're only human, it genuinely takes a while to create new products.

But that's not fun! I get that. It is more fun to dream of all the possibilities Apple has in store for us. Plus, no body remembers if you get it wrong, so there's no harm in guessing... err... predicting. As for me, as a current owner of an iMac and iPhone, I would love to only hear about updates to iOS and OSX (with free updates, please).

So, prepare to be utterly disappointed on Monday. Everything Apple comes out will either already be known, or a copy of something someone else already did. We'll all still buy it, and love it, but it'll be disappointing.

One More Thing!

Here are my predictions of what you won't see on Monday:

• Control your iPad using Apple TV's remote
• iWork coming to the upcoming Windows 8 tablet
• Deep LinkedIn integration with iOS
• Oprah Moment: all attendees get stock options ahead of Apple's dividend
• iOS gets a file system similar to OSX
• iAds rolling out to OSX apps & HTML5 websites
• A tribute video to Steve Jobs where everyone wears his outfit and says "Insanely Great!"

image: gamenguide.com

Thoughts On Building A Podcast

Back in December I shared that my brother and I started a tech podcast called Furlo Bros. We get together once a week, on Sunday at 8pm, to discuss the tech news. I have the business angle, and has the engineer angle, and we share the brotherly love. We just finished recording our 38th show (36 weekly, 2 specials), and I've learned a couple things about building a podcast.

If You Build It, They Will Come

In some sense, this is true. It's one of the magical things about the Internet: if you create something valuable, people find it and share it with others. That's how Google grew, how Facebook spread, and why Instagram got bought for $1 Billion. None of them spent money on "traditional" advertising (OK. OK. Google eventually did, but only after it was huge).

The only "advertising" I've done is post each shows on popular social sites: Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, Delicious, and Google+. We've seen consistent growth each week. We're not "huge" yet, but we'll get there. I realize I could do more in these spaces, but I honestly don't have the time. I would love to interact with people more and post stories more regularly with commentary. Time seems to be my limiting factor.

If You Build It, Build It Well

Having said that, building something valuable is NOT easy. Even in the age of Wordpress where anyone can start a blog, it requires a lot of work. We have 15 plug-ins working to create a seemingly simple website. Most are designed to speed up the site, which is still too slow for my tastes, but we'll get there.

We also played around with a bunch of recording options before landing on our current favorite. We're now to a point where we can record everything in real time (No more hour-long sessions to mash it all together. Yeah!). In order to accomplish that, I spent an entire weekend (no joke - like 15 hours) playing with different software to make it work. Our current solution requires 5 different programs. I'm not sure what we'll do when I travel.

If You Build It, Build It To Last

Much like cell phones, we all get distracted by the up front costs required to get set up, and then only realize later that it's the monthly recurring costs that require the most from us. The same is true of podcasting. To fill up a 2 hour show I come up with about half the content. To do that, I skim 1,000 - 2,000 articles each week. I actually read 30-50 articles. I bookmark 10, and dive deep into a couple, only mentioning the others. It's a lot of work distilling down to the what I think is the top 1% of tech news that week!

Before starting the podcast, I used to skim about 1,000 articles each week because I enjoyed it, but there were some weeks that I could "take off" because I was busy. That really isn't an option any more. I've learned how to cheat on those weeks by finding a couple sources that cover the top news of the week, but even then it's still work.

If You Build It, Prepare To Be Delighted
We started this podcast because we enjoy talking about tech together. We also believed we had insights that others would appreciate. At the very least, we wanted to have it on record when we said something before anyone else. We're only 38 shows in , and I'm already addicted to it for one really big reason:

It's an awesome feeling to gain a new super-fan. Being a marketer I constantly ask if we're doing something unique and valuable. We do have the hope of someday making money, and that can only be accomplished by creating something uniquely valuable. I love hearing from real people that, yes, we are doing something entertaining, something valuable. Being that these are fellow tech enthusiasts, it's super fun when I suddenly get followed by the same person on 10 different services. It's moments like these that make all the work worth it. OK. Getting to talk to my brother each week for a couple hours is pretty fun too. :)

---

So those are my thoughts on building a podcast so far. We're just getting started, and I'm really enjoying the process. I'm sure I'll have more thoughts in the future, but that's enough for now.

PS. I still think our logo is beyond awesome.

Garden Fence

Jessi & I sure had a productive holiday! Our final project was to create a fence around our garden. After long conversations about the best way to do it, we finally settled on this solution. It's a light PVC fence made of two parts. Those pieces then pivot vertically on the short ends of the garden. This way we can mow the lawn around the garden easily, and still get to all parts of the garden easily. Plus, when you watch the video, you'll see it has a semi-geek feel to it when it's opened. Always a bonus.

Who Kept The Dog Out?!

We didn't stop with just installing a new radio in our Jeep. The next day we cut out a piece of wood to go behind the back seat. You see, we discovered the hard way that Vinnie could get back there when he ate my turkey avocado bacon burger. That happened back in February, and it took until this weekend for us to make something to stop him.

The solution was pretty easy: We cut out a board to go just over the top of the back area. It balances itself on the two sidewalls. We used some left-over wood to make it. First we created a template using cardboard, then cut out the wood, and sanded it. It's not the prettiest thing ever, but that's OK. If it does work particularly well, we might upgrade to a nicer piece of wood.

We'll see, but it should keep Vinnie from getting down there. Now we can put items, like food, down there and it'll be safe.

Installing A New Radio

The Radio in our Jeep didn't work and we decided Memorial Weekend was the time to replace it. There are plenty of video tutorials on youtube that explain how to switch out a radio, so instead... here's what we did... in pictures!

Here's the stock radio. It doesn't work. :)

First we took all the shroud off. It was surprising simple. Jeeps are awesome like that.

The antenna plug

A bunch of speaker wires. Too bad colors are not standard. But there's the Internet to help!

The new radio used a new connector. Lots of crimping and double checking wires.

Oh yeah! Got them all, and they all work!

What the new radio looks like. That shroud piece is universal, you just cut off the tabs you don't need.

All done! The new radio works great. We took a ride to get ice cream to "test it".

Portland Timbers Army

I had the pleasure of joining the Portland Timbers Army last night as the Timbers took on Valencia, a spanish team, in an friendly international match. The Timbers ended up losing 1-0, but the match was still good. As Steven Smith, a Timbers player, tweeted:

#RCTID ->RT @Steven26Smith: I'd say we held our own.Now time to get ready for the big game on Saturday. Night all #tired
— Portland Timbers (@TimbersFC) May 24, 2012

Totally agree. You guys played great. Here are the highlights of the game:





Lots of close opportunities.

The field during warm-ups. It's a nice stadium.

This was my first Timbers match experience, and I must say that being in general admission with the Timbers Army looks way more fun than seats on the sidelines. We get to stand the whole time, and yell fun chants without people looking at us weird. Here's a small snippet of what cheering was like:






It was a blast and I'd like to go again. Thanks David for inviting me.

Here I am, enjoying myself. :)

Meat Retreat Twenty12

For the second time, I got to participate in my church's Meat Retreat for the High School Boys Youth Group. What is the Meat Retreat? Well... It's a retreat devoted to one primary activity: eating meat, plus some other things. Here are the highlights of this weekend. Thanks to Keith and Steve for letting me steal your photos.

We hold the retreat in Bend, Oregon. So we piled all the boys (19 of them) into the church's yellow bus and headed over.

But first we stop at A&W in Sweet Home and consume some meat... and lots of Root Beer.

We stay at Tumalo State Park in one of the group campsites. It's a semi-sucluded place where boys can be boys. By the time we get there, set up, and go shopping for meat, it's time for bed.

The next day we wake up and eat meat. Then we split into two groups. One goes mountain bike riding. The other goes Frisbee Golfing. Then we all come back, and eat more meat for lunch.

The afternoon is spent playing kickball / softball. It's a pretty fun time.

Here's a good picture of the group of boys:

And here's another picture of some guys... Boys will be boys.

We also played Buck Buck. According to Wikipedia, Buck Buck was started in Europe in the 1600s with one group of players jumping on the backs of another group of players with the goal of toppling the whole group. Yep. Bill Cosby even joked about it in his 1967 album Revenge where he introduced Fat Albert as "the baddest Buck Buck breaker in the world". Here's a visual of how it's played:

Group one locks waists to form a strong foundation.

Then players from the other team jump on top.

Eventually more players start to stack on top.

Finally, the supporting group tumbles under the weight. Hilarious.

OK. Back to what we did. That night, we headed over to Safeway to consume ice cream. America's Got Talent played on a near-by TV, which captured most of our attention. That guy with the earth harp? Amazing!

Then we headed back to the campground, started a fire, and chatted for a bit.

 The next morning we woke up and ate... more meat!

 We then headed over to Smith Rock and hiked to the top.

It's an amazing view.

 So there you go. That's the Meat Retreat. Lots of meat, lots of fun.