My cousin Laura, visiting from Kentucky with her boyfriend Chris are staying at my parents' house in Alamo through Friday, and I went out to see what was all going on today, Sunday, July 2.

Well, what was going on was, per usual, Steve acting like a nut. Mom was preparing a big dinner. There were some barbecued steaks (barbecued by Dad, I should point out as it is the only instance I can think of of him "cooking"), corn on the cob (which turned out to be outstanding!), sourdough bread (a family favorite), some kind of pie with almond paste, prunes, something -- it was better than it sounds. What else? Oh, Laura had brought out some Hussman's barbecued potato chips and some cans of Dixie Chili. I love these things. They don't have them out here. The chips are really well flavored, there's some sugar, paprika, some stuff that you wouldn't maybe think would make for good chips, but it does! Also, I had a bowl of chili instead of the steak.

Then I was trying to figure out what was wrong with their iMac, and explaining the benefits of DSL over a 28.8 modem. Then it was time to go. I had left the light on and the battery was dead. It was dark out. So, Dad tied the bike to the golf cart and rode me to the top of the driveway, and I tried to get it to started by jamming it into second gear while it was moving down the driveway. Didn't work, so we called AAA. But then me and Dad figured out where the battery was and jumped it. We unscrewed a couple things and took the seat off, and we fixed it. It was pretty cool, because I was planning on learning how to do that stuff this summer, and as I did that, and it worked out, it seems like more of an incentive to learn more about the bike.