My tooth hurts. It kind of reminds of me of this patient my friend had who got terrible whiplash by attempting to pull a tooth by tying a giant frying pan to it and throwing the pan as hard as he could (the tooth didn't budge).


Except I can't go the dentist, because Blue Cross Blue Shield and GEHA have been secretly conspiring SPEFICALLY AGAINST ME to make sure I pay all of the fees that GEHA is supposed to pay for my dental visits. Thanks a lot, Trump. So basically, I am equivocally being tortured with frying pans by BCBS and GEHA.


Eliana has been obsessed with playing outside recently, but it's very traumatic for us to allow it because every time we make her come back INSIDE she has a complete mental, physical, and emotional collapse and makes Stephanie and me feel like we are going to have an automatically-triggered CPS investigation launched against us.


Emerson hides every time I come in the room. I'm not sure if this should worry me or not.


Braeden is old enough that he could start working soon in a factory if we lived in China, mostly because he does a better job than I do when he cleans the house and follows instructions.


Stephanie is amazing, but it's really difficult for me to get anything done because all she wants to do is make out when I'm at home, and I'm like "Honey we can't just make out all the time like dolphins in the ocean" and she's like "But whyyyyyyyyyy" and then we fight about it.


That's all for today.

I Should Probably Be Embarrassed

So I peed in front of a trail camera. It wasn't on purpose, well, actually I did pee on purpose but I didn't realize the trail camera existed at the time, even though I was only about 3 feet in front of it (waist level, unfortunately for whomever reviews the footage). Hey, when you're on a country trail jog and you've gotta go, you've gotta go. On another note, I did a public service because now (3 months later) there is a brand-spanking-new porta-potty at the trail entrance.

There are lots of other stories in which I should be embarrassed, because I'm really good at that sort of thing. But I digress at this time.

Been a long while since I've written anything here, I'm thinking of restarting my old habit of entering stuff. I enjoyed my trail jog yesterday, with the expanse of my Oregon world stretching itself as far as I could see, the North Umpqua river snaking along its shiny pathway towards the ocean. It was near the place where I went for a jog with Dad not long before he had his second (disabling) stroke. The trail is so steep I keep saying that I should start jogging with an AED in my pack. I'll include a photo:

The jog was completely invigorating, and sorely needed after weeks of a lot of work and very little personal relaxation. 

In other news, I installed a new head unit on my truck with a rear-view camera, as well as finishing a bunch of other home projects. The head unit should have been simple, but like most first-timers I successfully made it a bit of a long and redundant process until I got it right. 

Also, my first brush with doing a brush-fire. It was exciting and burned for like 3 days. 

I still can't figure out why my front yard is completely soggy all the time. It's a mystery.

Our microwave finally has the fan hooked up, after only a year of me getting around to it. I deserve a medal. 

We love the beach and exploring Oregon together...that's how we do.