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This page contains miscellaneous writings, opinions, and other things that we want to put up on our web page. Since we own Wizard Textware, these writings do reflect the opinions of management.
The newest things added to the page are listed here, as well as in their own sections.
(2008) A day that we'll remember until at least next week sometime. It snows on Mercer Island (Washington, right near Seattle). And it snows. And it snows. Yikes! We get some pictures in the early part of the snowstorm, before our cameras froze and we were reduced to eating Cheetos. Be sure to compare with Our new place for the full impact.
(2008) Robert heads down to New Orleans (by himself) with his kitchen knives and a suitcase full of filé gumbo. His plans? Whomp up a mess of vittles for the crew from Diocese of Olympia helping with the reconstruction, and maybe get a little reconstructing of his own in. Can somebody from Seattle actually cook a decent gumbo? Find out!
We started e-mailing trip logs back in the dark ages, when we sometimes had to disassemble the phone system to hook up our ancient dial-up modems. Now, we just ask for a room with high speed Internet and hook up our laptops to it.
However we send it, we follow the same basic formula: every day we send out a text report on what we've done. It started as a way to avoid sending postcards, and now has reached a point where our friends encourage us to go on vacations (at least we think that's why they want us to leave…)
When we get back, we add in the pictures that we took, so that it becomes a photo album of our trip. And, as much as we might want to, we don't change the text.
Our new place
(2008) We score a cool place to live on Mercer Island. Great view, great amenities, and it used to be Esther Williams summer house! (Or at least that's the story told by the neighbors.)
Square States Tour
(2007) We visit a bunch of the square states in the middle on our way to visit Robert's sisters. We see shoe trees, cadillacs buried in the ground and walk on air over the Grand Canyon. And we get too many kicks from Route 66.
Mid-Life Crisis Trip
(2006-2008) Our mid-life crisis: instead of a blonde and a convertible, we decide to quit our jobs and get VISTA jobs at AmeriCorp for a year. Will we survive? Will we enjoy helping poor people? Or will we cry "I want my La-Z-Boy back!!!"
Mexico Housebuilding Trip
(2006) Juarzez, Mexico, where we help build an entire damn house in three days (!) and then give it away. Along the way our crew suffers illness, injury and rat-bastard chicken wire nails—will anyone make it out alive? (Spoiler Alert: We all do.)
Newfoundland and Labrador trip
(2005) We head up to Northeastern Canada, where we get on a little bitty boat (only 200 people total) and zip around to various outports and discover poutine (the fabulous heart-stopping dish that will soon be sweeping the US!). We also discover what "rough seas" mean and go from seasoned salts to green salts overnight.
Cheap Geek Tour--Part 2
(2004) The second half of our Cheap Geek Tour--visiting Boston where we take in the Ig Noble prizes, tour the Car Talk offices, and hang out at both MIT and Harvard! Also, we see a lot of very historical stuff.
Cheap Geek Tour--Part 1
(2004) We were broke after our trip to the Meditteranean, but our wanderlust would not be stilled. So, geeks that we are, we decided to visit a comic book convention, see the Peanuts museum, and be on the Screen Savers TV show. All in San Francisco. All for cheap.
Third Time's a Charm Trip
(2003) We attempt to break a 20 year-old hex and take a cruise all the way across the Mediterranean without sinking. It's sort of a whirlwind tour through a lot of really old stuff.
World's Largest Trip
(2002) On our way to the World's Largest Comic Convention, we decide we need to see the World's Largest Clam, the World's Largest Wooden Airplane, and many (many) more large things. About 25 large things, actually.
Our trip to states that begin with "I"
(2000) We endeavor to visit every state that begins with "I" (except Idaho, because we've already been there). We rent a massive RV, and visit with the fine folks from Mystery Science Theater 3000 along the way.
Our trip to Canada
(1996) We take a trip to Canada (mostly to see the dinosaurs at the Royal Tyrell Museum, but also to try and meet an actual Mountie). Technology is so crude at this point that we have to scan in pictures taken on film. Ick.
As required by international law, here is a web page about our cat, Mooch. Who is much cooler than your cat.
Robert mostly writes short humor pieces (when he's not writing long User's Guides). Here are some of the pieces he's written. If you have any comments, or better yet--suggestions about places that would pay good green dollars for the right to publish these, let him know.
All these pieces are copyrighted, so don't try to sell them yourself.
Although Laura doesn't try to get published, she has had several things in print.