off to LiFest, and then the Upper Peninsula

Hey y'all. It's tough to get out of town, especially with two little kids. Dawn and I have been packing, doing dishes, folding laundry, and assembling a diaper bag all day. Tomorrow afternoon we embark on a road trip: part music tour, part family vacation. Here's a pic from about 20 minutes ago of my girl hauling a metric ton of clean laundry up the steps. I'm helping out by documenting the event with the digital camera. Big help, eh?

Let's see, what else as been going on lately? Hmmm...

Well, I jumped off the wagon. I gave up the drinking of soda pop back on New Years Eve of 2002. It's been over 4 years since I've had Coca-Cola. But today I had a Coke. There was Coke in our fridge, left over from a party we had last Thursday, and it was just sitting there doing nothing in that 2 liter bottle. So I had a glass of it. With ice. Ehh...it was okay. Kinda fun to drink Coke again, but it was enough. I'm going back to soda abstinence.

What else? Oh yeah...I'm using MSN/Qwest as my email/internet provider. A couple weeks ago my email program Entourage just stopped working. I no longer could pull my email off the MSN/Qwest server. Now the only way I can check email is via web-based email, by using a web browser. LAME. So these past few days I've spent a grand total of about FOUR HOURS on the phone (mostly on hold) with the MSN, Qwest, and Microsoft Entourage support folks (all who seem to be people at some giant phone bank in India, pretending to have American accents). After all this dinking around, I'm back to where I started...unable to use my email program. To summarize their advice to me: "Uhhh...well, we don't know what happened, but I guess you're out of luck. Sorry. I guess you'll just be a web-mail email guy from now on." How's that for customer service!
For Independence Day last week we enjoyed the Edina parade. Paavo got to meet Batman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Superman, and Batgirl. He was impressed, as was I. Later in the evening we sat down at the table with our guests for the traditional meal of cheeseburgers and corn on the cob. Dawn's work as a faith-development expert and developmental psychologist affects much of our daily life, and here's a good example: Before the meal, Dawn instituted a Fourth of July ritual, where she read the beginning of the Declaration of Independence. Here's a pic of Svea (in pigtails for the first time! cute!) learning about the founding of this great nation.

Why on earth am I blogging at 1:36AM when I should be packing, taking a shower, etc? Oh well. I've gotta grab this introvert time whenever I can get it. In a few hours we'll roll on down the highway to Wisconsin, so I can perform at LiFest, a big "Christian Rock" festival in OshKosh. I haven't been there in a couple years...last time I was there I mentioned on stage that I intended to vote for John Kerry in the upcoming election, and after my set I got lambasted by a senior citizen veteran of WWII. I only mentioned my voting plans as an attempt to provide a weak balance to the giant "George W Bush for president" banners hanging in the festival parking lot. Oh well. They're having me back, so I guess they don't really mind my non-Pat-Robertson worldview. We'll see what kind of Christian-Right subculture I observe this time, as I schmooze at the veggie tray backstage with the dudes from Jars of Clay.

And one week from now we'll be back in our homeland of Michigan's Upper Peninsula: relaxing, swimming, saunaing, hitting the beach, catching a movie or two, celebrating our wedding anniversary and my birthday. Don't know if I'll have time to blog...but we're bringing the laptop, so maybe I'll post some stuff as we go.