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Intro 1998 1999 2000 2001

Another long gap, but this time with a reason. I decided that it was time to start making use of the DreamWeaver web page tool that I acquired, and so started the mammoth task of bringing the complete web-site in. This required setting up some templates and converting every page to the correct template. I also had a minor re-arrange, so you'll now find the journal on it's own page, and there are new pages for soccer and for various people who's web-sites I check out on a frequent (daily) basis. Mostly other journal web-sites, but they are all worth visiting for other reasons. Anyway, this is now all complete and it's all back working again. Let me know what you think - better/worse?

So, what's been happening? I had my first refereeing assignments a couple of weeks back - 24/25-Apr-99, two games Saturday morning (U13 boys, then U13 girls) and two games Sunday afternoon (both U13 girls). They all went off ssmoothly, and I later heard from the PYSA administrator that she'd received a comment from one of the coaches that I was '...the best PYSA referee he has ever had'. Not too shabby! Almost imediately after the Sunday refereeing I was playing for the co-ed team, and I went to take a free-kick. Tiredness must have been catching up with me, because I went to kick the ball but got the timing horribly wrong and kicked the ground well behind the ball. Man, did that hurt! I hobbled off, but returned to play the entire second half.

By the end of the evening my foot was well sore, and the next day was murder. I couldn't put any pressure on the foot, so I couldn't drive and had to work from home. I took a quick trip down to the doctor and had it x-rayed, but the verdict was nothing broken. Anyway, we got some crutches (would you believe that you can rent them at larger pharmacies here?) so I could at least try to keep the weight off it, but by Wednesday it was miles better, and I was back to work on Thursday.

I didn't play last Sunday, to give it time to settle itself, but played this past weekend. As well as refereed on the Saturday, and assisted on the Sunday at the game following our own. I'll either be fit or dead...

As far as the soccer goes, a bit of a mixed bag. We managed to win the game where I got injured, lost the following week when I wasn't playing, and again this past week in a narrow squeak. It's good fun, and I'm enjoying it.

The two boys are still playing their indoor soccer, and Colin has his try-outs for Classic in the next week or so. Both are doing well, although Colin's team were beaten for the first time last week. I'll get a chance to see them both tomorow.

Catriona has started her art class and seems to be enjoying it. We'll see the results in a couple of weeks when it ends. Not far to the end of school for summer.

Cathy's busy in the usual places, and has been spending a lot of time looking for houses on realtor.com. We've pretty much decided that we're going to move out to the Beaverton area, as we can actually get a reasonable house in our price range. We've looked at a couple already, and are due to look at more. A couple we are interested in are MLS # 110482 and 98659. The first one is in a nice, quiet area, and is really interesting inside - big, vaulted ceiling in the living room, overlooked by the balcony leading to the bedrooms. My favorite of all the houses we've looked at so far. We've plenty of time, as we're not really looking to move until August time.

What else has been happening? Another big step forward on the credit front is that we now have credit cards! We've been receiving a whole load of credit card applications in the mail recently, about 4 or 5 per week. I don't know what has been going on, but it has been crazy the pastmonth or so. Anyway, we decided to fill in a couple of the forms and see what happens. We got turned down by CitiBank, but when I phoned them to enquire on what we could do to improve our credit history, they said they'd put it to their international branch and look at it again. However, the wonderful people at Chase Manhattan have had no such problems and gave us a $3k credit line. Fabby! I went out immediately and christened the card by buying a lawn mower.

Hah! I bet you were expecting me to say a new computer, eh? Well, it turned out that CostCo don't take credit cards so I had to use the normal debit card for the new computer! This is a new one for the kids, seeing as how their existing one is still sans sound. As CostCo were offering a 336Mhz Celeron processor machine, with 4.3Gb disk, 32Mb memory and a 5x DVD player, complete with 15in. monitor, for less than $700 after rebate, it was just too good to miss. The kids were dead happy about it, and rewarded us by playing with their friends on the roofs of _both_ cars, leaving them dished in. Fortunately they've just pushed out, but there are plenty of scuff marks over the trunk, roof and hood of both cars. They are all so banned from the new PC...

I also went and bought a few new DVDs over the weekend : Little Women, Sophie's Choice and Amadeus. The collection is slowly growing, and I really must put up a page for them at some point. We finally watched Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (the Kevin Costner one) on Sunday. It's been sitting around for quite a while. Not a bad movie at all, quite entertaining, and that's what it's all about. I can put up with all sorts of holes in the plot and general silliness as long as the damned thing is entertaining. I also think that a lot of film critics have something against Kevin Costner; Waterworld and The Postman were both panned, but I enjoyed both of them. Anyway, we've now just the four waiting to be watched, the three above plus JFK, and I've got a list of DVDs I want to buy over the coming months.

This past week saw the elections for the devolved Scottish Parliament, and what a damp squib it was in the most part. The really surprising thing was the really small turn out. Given that this was the first election for a Scottish Parliament in 200 years, the 60% turnout was quite shocking. The result was pretty much as expected, Labour being the largest single party, but without an overall majority; SNP the main opposition; with the Conservatives and Liberals trailing behind. It was good to see the Socialists and Greens get a seat each, and it was most satisfying to see Dennis Canavan win the Falkirk seat. Even though he has been a Labour MP at Westminster for Falkirk for the past 25 years, he was deemed 'not good enough' in the Scottish Labour Party selection process. He decided to stand as an independent, for which he was summarily ejected from the Labour party, and gained over 50% of the vote last week. The official Labour candidate polled a lowly 19%. What I can't understand is who were the 19% stupid enough to vote for a party who wouldn't select the sitting MP? Anyway, now the fun starts...

Well, I think that's enough to catch up with. I hope you like the new format of the web-site. Drop me a line and let me know what you think.