We tortured Jake by taking him to Sam's Club. He's such a good sport, though, he acted as if he was having a good time. Turned out he worked at his new job on Saturday, so he was right ready for some R&R with the 'rents. Jake now has his own cubicle--how American! Lives in a frat and works at a trucking company, which is not exactly what we envisioned when we sent him off to college. Well, we're downright proud of the boy, and, as you can see, he is devilishly handsome.

Jake recommended this little Indian restaurant. Food was delicious and the perfect end to a fun-filled day.

A day we started with a walk at the Orono Bog. The boardwalk you see behind Cara is a loop of almost two miles. As I've mentioned before, this natural splendor is only a couple of minutes from the mall. It's the perfect place to stretch your legs before you get your shopping on.

Thanks to Richard and Matt for the comments. Hard not to be touched by the Tillman story. I've read every one of Krakauer's books, except for the first one he wrote, Eiger Dreams, which is the book that was in Tillman's rucksack. When the movie rights for Into the Wild were purchased Krakauer gave 75% of the proceeds to the McCandless family. Sean Penn (who directed the movie) is also interested in filming Where Men Win Glory. Krakauer has promised Tillman's widow 75% of the money for the movie rights as well as final say as to whether a movie is made. Obviously, like Tillman, he has his own high standard of honor.

Stop the presses! The S.O.S. Plan (actually an accidental by-product of the empty nest experience) has, according to my painfully accurate bathroom scale, led to weight gain. I guess I'll have to write a novel instead. Homebody: The Story of a Man Who Sits Around All Day with Nary a Thought In His Head. Oops, that's me, and a rather boring autobiography.

But if you're looking for a good read, I highly recommend Where Men Win Glory by Jon Krakauer. It's the story of former NFL player Pat Tillman who joined the Army after 9/11. He walked away from an offer of $9.6 million to be a grunt for $1200 a month. Who does that? What unfolds is tragic and disturbing, but inspiring as well.

A bit of back story that's not in the book: when Krakauer came up with the idea for writing about Tillman he was told that Tillman's widow was extremely private and would not cooperate. Krakauer called her anyway and she said, "Pat had one of your books in his rucksack when he died." Holy. She ended up turning over all of Tillman's journals to Krakauer and they are beyond compelling.

The next best thing to winning the lottery is writing a successful diet book. You basically come up with a simpleton idea that can be summarized in a sentence, then bloat it out to a couple hundred pages of rah-rah self-help drivel. Right up my alley--so what am I waiting for? A few years ago I had an idea for a diet book for men called Gut-be-Gone (you know, something for the git-r-done crowd). Never did anything with the idea, obviously, but that didn't stop me from dreaming a new scheme. This one is based on my actual own eating habits of late. It's the S.O.S. Plan, where you subsist on salad, oatmeal and smoothies. Anybody want to do the actual work of putting this bad boy together while I sit around plotting the next big thing? No point in me getting my hands dirty; after all, I'm just an idea man.

These aren't just trees, Brother Max, these are Appalacian Trail trees. So why's it look like all the boring pictures I take behind my house? Well, you gotta put the birch in Birch Wisdom, am I right? Do you know that hospital patients with windows facing woods heal quicker and with less complications and that kids who spend time outdoors do better in school? Nature--we need it.

I'm so proud of Jake. Got himself a j-o-b in the accounting department of a logistics company in Bangor. He's really putting it all together--and he's handsome to boot.

Hopefully we'll see Jake this weekend, and if we do I'll be sure to take some shots in case anybody doubts how good-looking the chip-off-the-old-block is--plus my beloved brother will get off my case about my propensity to avoid the human element when taking pictures for this world-famous blog.

This tree was blocking our path. Seeing as how I'd left my chainsaw at home, I had to manhandle it to the side of the trail with my bare hands. Guess that's why they call me "The Grappler."

Mother and daughter re-united after two long weeks of separation. I know, it's hard to believe they're not sisters, but that's what country living can do for a gal.

All kidding aside, the Colby Girl really does get more beautiful by the day.

Happy, happy day. Cara came with me to Caratunk and we hiked toward Pleasant Pond to collect the fossil I found a couple of moons ago. Ernie had warned me about the possibility of the stream rising and carrying it away, but I thought I'd placed it far enough up the bank to have no trouble. Of course, the stream was in fact up a few feet and the fossil was completely submerged. I had a moment of despair, fearing it was lost to the gods, but when I spotted it: pure jubilation.

Weekends just don't come any better than this. We had dinner with Jake in Bangor on Friday night (after which he was off to a bonfire), then lunch with Jessie at Colby on Saturday (following the fossil mission)--both so content and courteous and thoughtful makes me want to shed the tears of joy.

But this is no time for the waterworks; I'll just bask in the moment. Tomorrow I'll post some more photos. For now (look at the time: it's 9:47 P.M. !!!), it's lights out.

I pride myself on leading a boring life, so what's with the blog? I mean, I don't really have all that much to say, certainly not much in the wisdom department. But here we are, scant energy to keep it going, an odd feeling of guilt about letting it drop. So I guess we're in "we'll see" mode.

Today I had my economics class with the kids at school. I was telling them about how a few years ago when I used to ask my 8th grade class what their ambitions were, there was one kid who said he wanted "to live in a van down by the river." I think that's a quote/joke from some television show or something, but he seemed serious about it. (He ended up moving down South). At any rate, this past weekend I read a book called Moneyless Man by a guy who lives in a camper down by the river (in Bristol, England). He uses no cash, but barters and grows food and does some dumpster diving to round out the fun. I wouldn't want to go that far, but, conceptually, it is kind of cool to think about living without money.

It's a love/hate thing, to be sure, but am I alone in wondering how the heck I ended up with so much stuff?