Any of you monkeys want a banana?

Pickford Schools brought home another trophy last night. We went to the U.P. Finals to watch Jon and his team compete. Damned if they didn't win the meet. They beat Rapid River by 2 points. It's been 12 years since the Pickford boys last won U.P. Finals, so they were pretty excited. The girls didn't fare quite so well, as Rapid River won by 99 points (is that a record?). Three of the four years Gabi and Rachel were in H.S. track, their main competition at finals was Rapid River. Pickford won those meets, with the combined point spread for the three years at 10 points: 2.5, 2.5, and 5. Well, Ronnie and company will be there next year and should help make the team more competitive. I wanted to stay for the whole meet, but the 3200M runs (3 divisions, boys and girls, 2 hours scheduled) were just starting, Jon was done with his events, and we had a 4 hour drive to get home, so we left. A stop in Escanaba, and also at Lindsey's house, and we were home by 10 pm or so.

The funniest thing yesterday I saw happen was during the 400M relay. On the second handoff, the baton was passed, and apparently Curt didn't have a good grip on it, because he dropped it. I saw him slow down and reach for something, and then take off running full speed again. He had somehow caught the baton when it bounced. I got it on tape, and we watched it 3 or 4 times because I couldn't quite believe it. The best part was they still placed in that event.

Beautiful weather, no rain, and I had my hat. Quite a day, all in all.

Gabi made it to Marin's. She left on Thursday evening and stopped at Nathan's house for the night. She was getting ready to leave when she called Friday morning at 9:30, so I expected her to call Lindsey sometime Friday night or Saturday morning (we weren't home) to report the successful completion of her trip. Well, by Saturday morning, we had left 3 messages on the cell phone, woke up Lindsey and Kevin, tried several times to call Marin's, and gotten slightly frantic because we hadn't heard from her. During the track meet, Rose went on a mission to find a phone and make some calls. She was gone for what seemed like hours, which gave me lots of time to invent numerous nightmare scenes. I mean, surely if she found out Gabi was ok, she'd come right back to tell me, right? So if she's gone a long time that means she's still trying to get hold of someone, or she found out that the car had been found abandoned, and the police were on their way to the track to get me because someone found my wife collapsed by a pay phone..........See what I mean? The longer I waited for her, the more nuts I became. She eventually showed up and mentioned that Lindsey had heard from Gabi around noon (it's now 2:30). I asked her why she didn't come back right away to tell me. 'I went shopping'. SHOPPING!!! I was pretty annoyed, but let it go. At least Gabi is safe.

As Gabi was leaving Thursday evening, Laini pleaded to go with her 'I won't run away, I PROMISE! Please let me come with you!!!' It just about broke my heart. On Friday, as we were getting ready for our trip to Kingsford, Laini kept repeating 'I want to go on THE TRIP. I want to go on THE TRIP' as if it were some sort of mantra. We would have gladly taken her, but it wasn't likely her mom and dad would agree. I doubt I would have either if she were my child.

I've finally begun building a links database. I'm tired of modifying pages just to update links, so this should help. I probably should just convert over to one of the CMS systems available for PHP, but I'd really rather build my own. I learn more and it's simpler to maintain. Now all I need to do is figure out what I want.......