I've been working up in Portland all week, and rather than spend 2.5 hours in a car every day, Joe and Carol have been kind enough to allow me to stay at their five star Hotel Kann in Battle Ground for three nights this week. I'm very appreciative of all the hours of driving they've saved me since, on the whole, I dislike commuting to work.

And of course in terms of staying with them it's understatement to say that I've had a good time. We've had great talks, fun computer games (notably some very late night Carmageddon), and delicious meals. I am so lucky to have such friends.

I've been visiting Ma and Pa for the last couple nights, slowly updating their B&W G3, Tacaño, to Mac OS X 10.2.3 and dropping in various updates to this program or that. In particular, I think they're going to dig Safari since it will let them browse considerably faster than before (they're on a dial-up) and iCal. I introduced Mom to iCal. I'll be interested to see what she thinks of it.

Talked with Joe for a couple hours yesterday, and we had quite the great time catching up. They had a marvellous Christmas in New York. They've add cable modem service and an Airport base station. (Now that's just fun waiting to happen.) They've been enjoying their birthday week. (Their birthdays are only 7 days apart.) I'm looking forward to catching up with them some more—in person—before too long.

I was chatting with Dennis as we caught the Internet feed of Kasparov v. Deep Junior and watched the Super Bowl. Kasparov destroyed Deep Junior in a Queen's Gambit Declined game where he applied relentless pressure until Deep Junior's programming team finally resigned on its behalf. Kasparov got a standing ovation in New York for his efforts, and it was well-earned.

The Super Bowl game was less interesting. Indeed, the only items worth mentioning are (1) I picked a Bucs v. Raiders Super Bowl months ago and (2) I picked the Bucs to win. Why, oh, why am I not a betting man? I'd be rich right about now. Anyway, props to me.

Dave came over last night which buoyed my spirits considerably. As some of you may know, a couple weeks ago he hit some black ice on a trip to Sisters, Oregon and rolled his big red Jeep Cherokee several times. Other than a stiff neck, he was fine, but the Jeep was totaled. I talked with Dave that day, since he sent me cryptic email alluding to catastrophe, and I called him up directly from California, unwilling to be denied the knowledge that he was perfectly OK. Nope, he was just as nuts as he was college. That rollover did him no good at all. =)

One thing it did do, though, was put him in the market for a new car, and he showed up last night driving a very sporty Subaru Impreza WRX. This is a very slick-looking, very powerful turbo-charged vehicle. At 227 HP and 217 lbs of torque, the manual version apparently does zero to 60 faster than a Corvette. It's also an all-wheel drive car with dual airbags and anti-lock brakes. He drove us around in it a bit last night, and it's quite the ride. So that was cool.

After dinner, Dave and I settled down for a little Macintosh work. He brought over his parents iMac, and we had a good time moving it from Mac OS 8.5.1 to Mac OS 10.2.3. It took a little bit of time (as we had to also install Mac OS 9.2.2 for Classic compatibility and update the firmware), but the process was as painless as any I've ever done. Also pretty cool.

Baby continues to grow bigger. At this point, Erin's bellybutton "inny" is nearly an "outie" (leading Erin to say what she really wanted was a BMW or a Lexus). If one gauge of fetal health is number of kicks (and it is), then I don't think we have any worries. This kid is kicking up a storm, and we're only in week 24.

The time is right for marching in the streets, but I find myself terribly reluctant to travel that path again. Today, anti-war activists around the world are issuing their pleas for peace to a Bush administration that seems bent on attacking Iraq regardless of what UN inspectors find.

For me, it is a disheartening echo of my college years when George Bush senior pushed the Gulf War upon us. Those who can't see the linkage between American Middle East intervention (particularly as it relates to both Israel and the Gulf War) and the 911 attacks on the US really aren't looking hard enough. Militants who are willing to throw away their lives in the cause of death and destruction aren't doing so because they're bored. We've provoked them in any number of ways, and our on-going complicity in this will be our undoing.

So today, as thousands march to people the streets, there are a great many good reasons why I should be with them. Certainly, I'm with them in spirit: I fervently protest this unprovoked and unwarranted arms build-up on the Iraqi border. I believe absolutely that another war with Iraq is another long-term disaster for the US (like I continue to believe that the last one was).

But I'm not in the streets today for a reason: If I have a chapter to my life I'd rather not revisit, the Gulf War years are it. The experience took a huge psychological toll, and even now I have to very carefully monitor my thoughts about that time because I carry a deep frustration from it. I don't carry many regrets in life, but one that heavily weighs upon me is this: When push came to shove during the Gulf War, the "Christian" university I chose to attend opted to support war despite hundreds of years of philosophical and moral teachings to the contrary. I've never forgiven them for that hypocrisy, but given that nothing's changed this time around (and that they still have ROTC on campus), I doubt I ever will.

So over the years I've distanced myself from the University of Portland. For those interested, here's why:

I used to thrill to watch their soccer teams, for example, and during my time there I saw virtually every home game played by both the men's and women's teams. I don't follow them any more, or at least not to the extent that a real sports fan follows a team. I'm glad the women won a national championship, but I didn't tune in for the game. I have no animus toward their sports teams other than it reminds my of the pain of my college experience. For the most part, that alone has proven enough to keep me at a distance.

I was forever beaten down by the Student Activities Committee which controlled most of the extracurriculars, failing to impress them at various points for positions in the newspaper staff, the radio station, and the yearbook. (I continue to believe they were wrong in at least two out of three of those cases.) Nonetheless, I enjoyed my time on the newspaper, at the radio station, and on the yearbook even if it was never in the capacity which I might have chosen. I don't harbor much in the way of disappointment or bitterness here, though I think its contributed somewhat to my feeling of being unsupported by the University during my time there.

Academically, the University was pretty weak. The vast majority of classes I skated by with little effort, though there were exceptions. There's no way I should have been able to emerge with a 3.5 GPA. While some classes took an incredible time commitment (welcome to video production), rarely were academic standards so high that I felt pushed toward achievement. It's hard to feel great about a place that doesn't help you actualize your potential.

UP's theological and philosophical course requirements were hampered only by the hit-or-miss nature of the instructors and, ultimately, the hypocritical actions of the institution itself. My worst professors were in philosophy and theology, but so was one of my best. (Sadly, they denied him tenure, and he left UP a few years after I graduated.) I now appreciate the spiritual formation I went through at UP, despite it being the at the core of my anguish: I have never been able to reconcile what I was taught about Christianity with the actions and attitudes of a University administration intent on supporting war.

There are, of course, any number of good memories. I had great dorm roommates (hi Dave! hi Bret!), I enjoyed the Honors Program a great deal, I made several very close friends in college, and, hey, I met Erin. Usually those happy thoughts are enough to keep the bad thoughts at bay. Maybe not, though, if Gulf War II is set upon us. For now, the spector of history is enough to keep me off the streets.

It's been a busy few days this week. I've been trying to get caught up from being away for so long, and it's slow going. Even after a few days straight of trying to get things put away, reading through my backlog of newspapers, and updating things in the wonderful online virtual world, I'd swear I could keep at it another week and still not be done.

Erin's had better luck of it, but then again, she also came back 10 days before I did. She's currently working like mad at school trying to get everything finished up for the end of the semester. (Finals are next week.) That's leading to some late nights.

On the brighter side, baby is doing great. The kid is kicking around quite a bit now in what has proven to be an endless source of entertainment for us. It is just a whole lot of fun to feel your child kick from inside the womb. I've taken to talking with baby as well—at this point baby can hear voices—and while it might seem a little silly to be talking to Erin's tummy, I don't think either of us minds particularly. God knows we've always been goofy, so what's one more thing?

After a very pleasant stay with the Lillys (thank you!), I left Los Altos this morning and endured the tedium of the 11.5 hour trip back to Salem. It was wholly uneventful, a phrase which only begins to suggest the level of boredom I faced. I was very happy to return home.

I'll be spending the weekend watching the NFL playoffs and trying to catch up with everything after being away for so long. Forgive me if I don't yet respond so readily to iChat invites, emails, or phone calls. I'll be caught up soon and back in the swing before you know it, and I'm eager to hear how everybody's doing. Except for being swamped with work and having a bit of a nagging cough, I'm doing great.

I was up late last night putting RAM into a Rev. B iMac for my friends Brian and Debbie, and I've spent all day walking the floor at MacWorld SF 2003, so I'm utterly exhausted. I'm planning to take tomorrow off from the show, so look for a show report in the Mac section coming soon.

I got Erin successfully off on her Southwest flight on Thursday morning. Kinda been doodling around since then. Played tennis with Bernard, researched Wills and Living Trusts, visited Fry's Electronics, did some genealogy work, watched the NFL playoffs (Go Steelers!), and tried to keep up with all the MacWorld predictions flying about.

I spent this evening with Mark, Christine, and Jared. Got to read a couple books with Jared (one on Noah's Ark, one on the numbers 1-10). Worked with Mark to create Mac-usable CD-ROMs from his home video/computer setup. (Success, by the way.) Watched Andy Richter, chatted, ate a yummy dinner. Good times, good times.

[Mac OS X sidenote: Mark and I needed to share files between Trinity and his PC, and the process of logging into a Windows server is a snap and perhaps even easier than logging into a Mac (because you don't have to remember your AppleTalk settings). Very slick what Apple's done in this respect, and kudos to them for doing it.]

As has been the case in the past, we had only a small window of opportunity to meet with our friends Shan and Heather, but we happily made the most of it, dining at their house this evening and chatting until midnight.

They received the full baby update tour de force, even getting to feel baby kicking, something s/he is doing with increasing strength and regularity. (I'd call being able to feel a baby kicking inside the womb an all-time great experience.)

Our gratitude to Shan and Heather for fitting us in to their busy schedule!