We’re just kicking back, mowing the lawn, and helping Erik and Annie get ready for their eventual move back to Oregon. Annie sorted through boxes of clothes she’ll give to the local Good Will store.

Although this climate is hot and humid, it’s better than the incredible 113-degree desert heat at the 29 Palms Marine Corps training area. You can at least go outside for a walk here.

Erik was home for two days and had to go right back out in the field for training for the remainder of our trip. These Marine Corps families sacrifice a lot for their country.

Have you noticed that the new issue (Sept/Oct 2007) went online at the website, www.backwoodshome.com, a week ago? I’ve been concentrating on the EVEN NEWER issue, namely, the Nov/Dec 2007 issue. We have gone into deadline mode at BHM for the Christmas issue. Kind of weird huh? We’re on deadline for the Nov/Dec issue, and the new issue, which was six weeks ago for me, just went online. Of course, paid subscribers have been enjoying the new issue for three weeks.

Got Jeff Yago’s article for the Nov/Dec issue in the other day. Superb! Another great writer with a lot of knowledge. This article is part of a two-part series about building a solar camper that can also substitute as an emergency backup power source.

I also talked with my daughter, Annie, yesterday at her new home in North Carolina. She is our key computer layout person for each issue, creating both article layouts and ads.

“Are you ready?” I said.

“Ready!” she said, adding “My sewing room is not set up yet, but my computer and cable are fine.” Annie is a sewing NUT and I’m thinking of taking a reader’s suggestion and having her blog about sewing, knitting, etc. at the website. Right now, we only link to her blog

Lisa had already sent Annie articles, and I immediately transferred Jackie Clay’s blog to her. Jackie is so popular that I wanted to transfer the technical aspects of uploading the “Ask Jackie” blog to Annie as soon as I could. I’m just too busy to continue handling it.

So here we are in two different worlds, thanks to the internet. Readers are enjoying the new issue, and I and my staff are working on the NEWER issue. How will we ever adjust?

Internet access, of course, is an important part of all this. Today I downgraded my HughesNet satellite internet connection to the “Home Plan” at a cost of $60 a month because my “Professional Plus Plan” at a cost of $110 a month, didn’t work very well. I’ll do all my heavy internet work at the office where we have a fast cable connection. I wish satellite internet would come of age. I used to have Dish Network for internet, and that service was good at first, then lousy, and finally downright terrible, so I cancelled it. Maybe the same thing will happen with HughesNet.

There’s always a catch when you change your internet service, no matter who you are using. The catch this time is they have to cut off my service first for an hour, then I have to go online and reactivate it using some sort of “web setup” program.

“How do I do that?” I asked their customer service person. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “Just call technical support if you need help.”

Ha, ha! That’s when I get to call someone in either India or the Philippines and try to get technical help through their broken English. Usually they only half understand what they are trying to tell you anyway. It’s all part of American companies finding a cheaper labor pool overseas to service their products. I wish they would just pay a little more and get Americans who speak English well and who “completely” understand the technical nuances of the internet problems people are trying to get solved.

So let’s see what happens with this HughesNet “change of service.” It is now 2:15 pm, Thursday, Aug. 30. I’m going out to play some golf with my son in a “men’s scramble” at the local golf course, then come back in three hours and see if I can get back online and upload this blog post. The moment I am online I’ll upload it. I’m betting I’m in for a tough time.

A golf win and a chinook (King salmon)

It is now 8:30 pm, Saturday, Sept. 1. I am finally back online. It wasn’t all HughesNet’s fault. I didn’t call until this afternoon because Robby and I won the golf scramble in a four-way playoff, then went out the next day fishing on the Rogue River and Robby caught a big king salmon. Nice week for that 14-year-old kid.

It only took a few hours and two calls to India to get back online. Now that I have successfully downgraded, I went out to the speakeasy website and did a speed test, and my download speed is faster with my now supposedly slower connection. Very weird!

I’ve posted several photos of Robby and his salmon, but I wish I had a photo of him on the final hole of the men’s scramble. It was a par 3. We had a six-person team, five men and Robby, and all five men missed the green. We needed a birdie to get into the playoff. Robby teed off and put it two feet from the pin, giving us an easy birdie. We, of course, went on to win the playoff with another birdie. It was the first time Robby had played with the men. He was one of two 14-year-olds.

Very proud Papa, am I!

A bottle of good merlot while camping is a wonderful thing. Luckily my son-in-law Erik’s Dad, Rocky Tuttle, is a wine guy, namely, he studies the stuff. While my family was visiting Annie and Erik a couple of months ago in 29 Palms, California, Rocky was also visiting from Arizona and provided the wine for a barbecue we had at our cabin at the 29 Palms Inn. He bought some inexpensive (about $10 a bottle) Columbia-Crest wine from the local grocery store. It was extremely good. I am a merlot guy, so I know. The wine was 2004 Columbia-Crest Merlot, but it must also say “Grand Estates” on the label. I brought along two bottles for this camping trip.

Unfortunately I couldn’t open the bottles. The cork was just too tight. Luckily, I have a 15-year-old son, Jake, who is immensely powerful, so he opened them after a bit of effort.

This has been a very relaxing camping trip. Lenie has taken to reading the boys Harry Potter’s 7th book during the day because they are within a hundred pages of the end of this 759-page book, so I’ve had lots of time to just think. I think J. K. Rowling will be remembered just like Shakespeare, who was also very popular in his own time. We know from the history that people flocked to Shakespeare’s plays, especially his comedies, and now we read him hundreds of years later.

Hopefully, the language won’t change as much in the future as it did between Shakespeare’s time and now. Shakespeare was at the beginning of modern English, inventing many of the words and phrases we now take for granted, but we can still understand him with the help of a good English teacher or a guide. But our modern English is evolving quickly, at least as quickly since Shakespeare’s time. Isn’t that weird? The language we speak today is changing so much that we probably will have difficulty understanding Harry Potter a few centuries from now. If we let some teachers from the inner cities have their way, we won’t be able to understand some of our citizens a few decades from now.

Rocky Tuttle, by the way, is much more than a wine officionado. He is Gold Beach High School’s greatest football star, prominently displayed in its Hall of Fame. He got a full football scholarship to Idaho State, then got an offer to try out for the Green Bay Packers in his senior year. He said ”no” and decided to pursue a career in banking. I asked him if he regrets that decision, and he said he didn’t. “I realized I was simply finished with football,” he told me. He ran a 4.4 forty in college. That’s fast!

We’re eating good while camping. One of my favorite snacks is a toastite made from apples we picked from our own trees at home and blackberries we picked while here. Sandwiched between two pieces of whole wheat bread, it’s very healthy, besides being delicious. I also sprinkle on a bit of cinnamon sugar. We spray the insides of the toastiter with Pam, but any oil will do. Otherwise the bread sticks to the toastiter. They also cook quick in the fire pit, so you have to check them often or they’ll burn.

The boys make a sour candy from the unripe blackberry kernels. They just break them out and carry them around in their pockets. I tried some: very good but very sour.