July 2002

RAW's dad On June 6th (D-Day) RAW's dad had a cyst rupture which puffed him up huge and put too much strain on his heart. He suffered 2 heart attacks. The second one had him without oxygen for 12 minutes. If it would of been less then 5 minutes then he might of had a chance but his brain was without oxygen for too long, he suffered massive brain damage. A week later on June 13, he passed away. Bill was 81. Our new camper Here is our new toy, one that will keep us of the ground. I guess I am getting old cause the thought of camping in a tent didn't excite me and for the last few years I have been trying to avoid it. This model is a little bigger then we were originally looking at. Probably bit off more than we can chew when it comes to pulling it with one of our vehicles. Using the Subaru is definitely out of the question as this is one heavy pup. When RAW's dad died a month ago we were given his 1987 Chrysler 5th Avenue. It only has 57K miles on it and has fur carpet and plush seating. Not what most think for an outdoor car but it will work. It should pull the camper but still we are nervous. There is always the truck but the week were going to pick up this beast, the transmission went. This of course created a challenge getting the camper home. We had to get this camper to mom's for the 4th of July. There was no way I was squeezing in that house with 6 adults, 5 kids and 1 baby and no air-conditioning for the attic bedrooms! RAW had the bright idea of renting a U-Haul to take the camper home then to mom's then the next day take the U-Haul to his mom's to get the 5th Ave. Almost perfect except he didn't get the hitch put on the car so we couldn't get the camper back home from mom's! Well, the camper eventually got home. I have been playing house in it all weekend filling it up (and making it heavier no doubt). Annual Camp and Picnic Back in May we went camping in a tent for our annual camp and picnic. It practically snowed. This was the trip that made us run out to buy a camper. My mother-in-law Dorothy, my mom and dad are huddling around the campfire while the rest of the gang are sitting in this makeshift enclosure to sheild themselves from the wind chill.   Hollace's new room After 3 years, we finally got around to painting Hollace's room. We had bought her a big kid bed since she was still in her crib. I couldn't just get a conventional bed, I had to get a cool one. A junior loft bed with a a tent underneath. I will post a picture of it when we get it up. Just today we got the finally piece of it in what seems to be a mail mishap amongst other variables that had us waiting for almost 4 months when I was told it originally would take 3 weeks back in March! Anyway since the bed has a red tent, I wanted to paint the room accordingly. I was planning on taking the rest of my vacation (after the picnic) to paint. Since I hate painting (actually all the set up and clean up) it wasn't hard for RAW to use that to strike a deal for him to get out of going to Appleton that next weekend. I took him up on that in a heart beat. Here are the results.     The Race ...the movie I have edited my first feature film, well all 2.5 minutes of it. It is 3mbs as either a Quicktime or Windows Media movie or if you have a really fast connection, download the 9mb version. It is worth the download so go check it out. 3.4Mb QT or 3.4Mb WMV,