We have been doing some cleaning out over the summer. There are a few things (more than a few things) that we don't use or have never used. Those that are gently used we've accumulated into thrift-shop bags. Those go once in a while back to Wilmington, NY. The church there has a thrift shop we're familiar with, so we feel better about sending things there.

There were also a couple summer dresses that just don't fit. They still have the tags on them. We decided to give those a try on Ebay. Brooke bought them for a pretty penny, but after looking at similar items, it seemed that the going rate f...

That's the word of the week.

On Tuesday the movers came to take our friend Deb, the Presbyterian, to New Jersey. They arrived late. Apparently, they left some furnature and clothing at her house here. Maybe someday they'll deliver it.

Also, on Tuesday, we decided it was time to get Brooke a new car. We'd been on the fence about it for a while. We looked at some cars online. We decided a Toyota Yaris iA would be about right. I went to the Toyota dealer down the street. The website said it was $15,000 and change. Turns out, that's if you can find one with a standard transmission. Automatic is $1...

I had not planned on going to the Plattsburgh Comicon this year. Silas and I went last year and that was plenty of upstate NY Comicon for me. They are planning Comicons here in Potsdam, in Messina just down the road, and yet another in Canton, also not far, this fall. I figured a couple hours at one of those would be sufficient.

But early last week, 2 of the his old friends from Jay and Wilmington asked if we could meet them there. He rounded up 2 of his new friends from here, and yesterday we went.

They had 2 main attractions yesterday. The first was one of the sets from Stranger Things: the...

Our mattress was 18 years old. Brooke bought it when she moved to Hamilton, before we met. When we moved into our shoebox-sized apartment in Washington DC, we only had room for 1 mattress, and hers was smaller, so that's the one that followed us.

18 years later, it was starting to sag. We could tell it was sagging. We'd wake up in the morning and, over our coffee, say to one another, "We need a new mattress." For the past year, whenever we've seen mattress ads, we'd say to one another, "Ooohhhh! New mattress!"

But shopping for a new mattress is hard. It's like TV. There used to be 3 stations. ...

Last weekend, with Summerfest in full swing, I missed posting.

Here, a week late, is the video of the kid on the Summerfest main stage with his guitar teacher, Mark Lyon, on vocals, doing Blitzkrieg Bop.

Two weeks later, this weekend is Colton Days. Brooke was at the Colton church on Thursday scooping ice cream while the Sweet Adelines sang the opener for that occasion on the church lawn. Saturday morning, we'll all go back for the church pancake breakfast.

This week the kid has his dress rehearsal for his music school's "Showcase Performance", that happens at the end of the month.

That same ...

The kid and I spent the 3rd of July in South Burlington at my cousin's house. It's big enough to qualify as a mansion. Bigger than our house. He could sleep 8 guests the night we were there without breaking a sweat. We were there for his 4ht of July party. It was huge. At least a couple hundred people. Complete with a bouncy castle for the kids, open bar for the grown-ups, all-you-can-eat barbeque, strawberry shortcake (or chocolate birthday cake for the weirdos who don't like strawberry shortcake), and culminating in fireworks.

The kid was impressed with the vast display of wealth on parade. ...

Summer finally arrived in the North Country this week, just in time for the first full week of school vacation. The kid celebrated by sleeping in most days until nearly noon.

I, on the other hand, tend to wake up with the sun, which rises between 5 and 5:30. If only it rose that early in the winter when we are required to be up for an obscenely early school start time, life would be so much easier. Instead, getting up early in mid-winter when sunrise isn't until 9 leaves me dog tired.

On these summer mornings I get up and look at the news feeds, start the coffee, walk the dog around the block ...

We took this picture of Silas in April 2006. He was 3. This week, at 14, he "graduated" from 8th grade. Brooke got him a new sport coat and pants for the occasion. Now he looks all grown up:

He finished school with his hightest grades ever and made the high honor roll. Friday night we celebrated with dinner out at Maxfield's. He got his favorite: lobster ravioli.

I spent a lot of the week programming a customized wish list for a client website. I learned a lot in doing it; I got some practice in with JavaScript -- something I need to do more of, but don't often get to do. Next week I'll be s...

Somehow or another, probably because I've been a pastor and have a degree in "divinity", I've been assigned the chairperson's seat on the Ethics Committee of our county Hospice. It happened, and I was informed of it in May. Last Monday was the first meeting of the committee since.

There were a lot of new committee members. So the first order of business was bringing the non-initiated up to speed with various ethical frameworks. That took most of the hour.

On Tuesday my friend and mentor, Tonya Mork, gave a talk for the WPSessions webinar series for WordPress Developers. I attended. She did gre...

I launched a new website this week. Sandstone Family Dentistry went live on Tuesday. The Potsdam Chamber of Commerce had also tentatively scheduled the launch of their new site last week, but the launch was contingent on having an intern who could continue to update it. The plans for the intern fell through, so the launch for that site is again delayed for at least another couple weeks.

Another project I've been working on (with a small team of others) over the past few months is nearing completion: The Beans Theme Framework for WordPress is getting close to a new release. I've written softwar...