'Dog Days' of Summer?

Lucy and I went over to the North Clackamas Aquatic Center the day after Labor Day for their annual 'Dog Daze' promotion. Dogs are allowed to swim in all of their indoor pools, one very deep, one olympic size, and one wave pool. The proceeds from the admission fee went to a local dog shelter so we stopped by and Lucy went swimming (she's the little black head in the bottom left).

It's hard to believe it's finally the off-season, with both the Beavers and the Timbers missing the playoffs this year. The Timbers were last to finish their season, and they did so on Thursday night. Which means, scarily enough, that I'm actually going to have some free time on nights and weekends for the rest of the year! I have to admit, it has felt pretty good sleeping in these last two mornings and knowing that I don't have any work responsibilities that day.

This weekend I'm heading over to Bloomington to spend some time with my wife, whom I haven't seen since the day after the honeymoon. I'll be there for four or five days before I come back to Portland and get into the swing of off-season life. My supervisor and I are going to be launching new websites for www.portlandbeavers.com and www.portlandtimbers.com, so be checking those in the next month or two for brand new websites, content courtesy of yours truly.

On the English side, Southend are 2-3-1 so far in the new season, in a league just one below the giants of the Premiership. That record puts them in a respectable tie for 13th out of 24 teams, which is great for a little team like them. I promise you that their manager would be thrilled at where they are already and if they ended up there at the end of the season. For new clubs in a higher league, the biggest challenge is not getting promoted, but avoiding getting sent down to the league you came from, so they'd be very happy to just stay up.

I thought as a neat, albeit different hobby, I'd take up model shipbuilding for the offseason, although it has turned out to be more complex than I even imagined. I think I understand how to do things alright, but I just don't have enough tools to do it right. I may have to shelve the shipbuilding for now until someday in the future when I can afford to buy all the tools I need.

I've been looking for a new hobby to spend my new-found free time on, and I liked the idea that Marty had of improving my golf game, but unfortunately I left my clubs in Perrysburg and won't be able to get them out here until Michelle moves out in December. I think that's a worthy thing to improve on, though, so I'll probably work on it next spring and fall. In the meantime, for this fall, I've decided that I'm going to work on improving my poker game. I'm registered at pokerstars.net, and my username is 'uptheblues' if anyone ever wants to join me! Hopefully I'll be on most nights. Best part is, it's free to use (I don't consider myself good enough to play for real money yet, so play money is fine with me while I learn the ropes again).

Well, that's about all that's new in this neck of the woods, hope everyone is doing well.