Bridgett

Bridgett is the most fascinating person I've every met. It usually sounds cheesy to say "it was love at first sight," and in our case - it certainly wasn't. She looked like some 16 year old tramp and I was just a stoner bum and we really didn't hit it off initially. But after about 30 minutes - I fell in love. It might have taken longer to get past the charming silent thug that was me.

Bridgett is one of those strong willed and powerful women that would have been at home in the frontier - beating back the elements, surviving starvation, and shooting anyone that pissed her off. I often tease her that if I irritate her enough she won't divorce me - there are a lot of places in the wilds of the Oregon Coast to hide a body. Of course she just smiles and says - "yes dear - I know." Should I worry?

Anyway - I love her dearly and take photographs of her any opportunity I can. Sometimes they are planned, sometimes they are not, sometimes they are good, sometimes they are really really bad. So I'm going to take a moment to pick on her some more.

One of Bridgett's more interesting traits is that she can't stay warm. While the Oregon Coast stays a mild 60 some degrees all summer - she can't stand the cool. At least in the winter she doesn't have to worry about snow. We went to Idaho last year and rode our ATVs in the mountains with my parents and came across some snow in the high pass (in June) - she was less than thrilled.

Bridgett is very fond of animals. She was raised on a farm (I'm a city dude - well small townville city dude...) This makes her very interested in any animal -especially when they come to visit her. We have 3 cats and a dog. She would have more if I let her - but there are rules living in the city after all.

Squirrels in particular are the most intriguing of animals for her. She will slam on the breaks, bolt out of the car, and flag people around to keep one of these cute little critters out of harms way. As you can imagine, when she gets near one all things stop. She is utterly ffascinated by them.

From a portrait standpoint - Bridgett is very photogenic - she has a strength about her but she can be very sensual and feminine. She has a playful style of modeling and secretly - I think she likes to be the center of attention for a time.

She is my primary model - I have trouble recruiting others - I'm too shy. So I have a veritable gallery of images of Bridgett. Some of them quite humorous. I will refrain posting any of these (except the one above) for fear that she will break out the shovel. Anyway - I love you Bridgett!

Recovery & Geocaching

So Bridge has surgery a few weeks ago and has been slowly returning to normal. It is always amazing to me how depleted a body can become during the healing process. Her surgeon put it a good way prior to her surgery - "you only have so much metabolic energy each day - most of it is taken up by the healing process." Regardless - she was starting to go stir crazy and I was starting to worry about our general health unless we got out of the house (I get concerned when she smiles and snickers to herself while looking in my general direction).

So - we grabbed a few easy to access geocaches on Sunday afternoon and headed out. Geocaching is a weird sport/hobby. There is very little in the way of investment past the cost of a decent GPS receiver, fuel, and time. One of our favorite types of geocaching locations are in cemeteries. We usually run across one cache each trip in a cemetery or at least near one. Sunday was no exception. Having come from Idaho, the cemeteries are relatively newer and more manicured. We love the old cemeteries in Oregon and marvel at the old headstones and overgrown burial plots.

Other caches can be found down old logging roads and are tucked away neatly in stumps or old fallen tree trunks. Its starting to look like spring again on the coast and the green is really starting to return. Old growth forests and old cemeteries on a relatively sunny/warm day - what more could you ask for.

We had a great day and Bridge was feeling the effects of cabin fever much less by the end of the day. Unfortunately the weekends always end far to quickly.

Finished Project - a little early!

So He did a great job and finished up earlier than I thought (aside from oil change and some minor tuning). Morgan spent the better part of Saturday and Sunday working on his Quad and completed things superbly.

We did some painting, cleaning, waxing, and adjusting so that he could have a little more Bling for his bike this coming spring and summer. If he can pull decent grades his 3rd and 4th quarter he can get a couple more performance upgrades. Here are some photos of the completed bike.

Every year we do some deep cleaning with the ATVs and this year Morgan's new 350 needed some bling added. Soooo.... we bought some new graphics, some paint, and cleaning stuff and got to work. Bridgett has been under the weather the last couple of weekends - so doing the graphics was a good project for her.

Morgan calls his bike "skull" - and the graphics will match that moniker quite well. Here are a few pics of the work-in-progress. Will post some more of the final project as we get near to completion (maybe next weekend). We have a deadline to get all the bikes serviced and cleaned up prior to our April Winchester Bay Camping trip with the whole group of friends.

So the plan is to clean all parts, service, tune, paint the hubs, touch up paint the rust on the A-arms and swing arm, polish up the plastic and add some cool graphics. Then reassemble. Morgan is doing well with this project - its nice that he's old enough to really get what working on something like this is about and how to do it well.


I'm proud of our 13 year old and his ability to really dig and do the work.... well - I guess as well as most 13 year old's do!

Hobbies

Well to start this out - lets just say that we have a great many hobbies. Like the old saying "Jack of all trades - master of none," we are have more hobbies than we have time or money. That's not to say that we don't enjoy our hobbies, but we have very eclectic interests that sometimes compete for our attention.

First up is our ATV obsession. We moved from Idaho in 2001 and spent some time living right next door to a virtual playhouse for Off-road fun. Of course, I work at the local hospital and quite often see the results of such funtastic adventures. However, we got hooked when some friends of ours (Roberta and Steve) invited us along. It was all uphill from there! Our parents in Idaho got hooked, first with a sand rail and then ATV's themselves. We've made several friends over the years and really enjoy our times on the sand, in the dirt, on the mountains and even in the snow (yes snow - it really did suck as much as it sounds!)

Next up is Geocaching. This is one of those weird hobbies that starts out as something subtly interesting and ends up becoming a full time obsession. Fortunately we've managed to temper that most of the time and avoid marathon Geocaching sessions that go on for days. However, we introduced some friends of ours in Grant's Pass to this outdoor "sport" and they promptly became addicted to the point where we thought an intervention might be in order. For those that don't know about Geocaching, its an activity where someone hides something in the woods, parks, or even in urban areas; posts GPS coordinates and some hints online and others try and find it. Although on the outside that doesn't appear too addicting - it is. The nice thing is that after purchasing a good GPS receiver the cost of this particular hobby is pretty nil... except for travel bugs... and fuel... and well.... For more info you can visit http://www.geocaching.com/

Our third hobby around camping, hiking and the like is very much tied to our first (ATV) and second (Geocaching) hobbies. We started off with the dinky rickety trailer pictured above and moved on through to a large bumper pull toy hauler. This makes trips much more comfortable and relaxing (except set-up and tear down and bike maintenance and mornings after too much tequila or rum). We've been mostly to ATV related destinations, but have ventured out a few times without the bikes.

Photography is pretty much my hobby. I play around and attempt to create some professional images from time to time and think I do OK for the most part. I haven't made dime on it - but I have fun. Out of the hobbies so far this one could cost the most. The price of some digital photography equipment is unbelievable depending on how serious one would like to be. For more on this one go to my pseudo professional website http://www.tripmoon.com/. Our son is also into photography and does a really nice job - his website is http://www.morganklingler.smugmug.com/.

Old Cars - I started off restoring a 1968 camaro with my dad when I was 12 or 13 years old. I drove the car though high-school until my senior year when some twit ran a stop sign and collided with me (OK - I collided with her - but she ran the stop sign). My dad managed to re-re-restore the car and I have it once again. Bridgett has her moms 1971 Z-28 that is a work in progress that will probably take a zillion dollars and at least that long to restore at our current pace. However, it will happen given some time and resources as they come along.

I've missed a few of our other hobbies of course, but these touch on the most costly (in both time and money). I guess its time to buy another lottery ticket!