"My Crazy Kids"

Me and my wife at the tri-state marker in the northeast corner of New Mexico on February 22. I was standing in Colorado, she was in New Mexico and behind us was Oklahoma. By Allan Olson The biggest question I have after taking a vacation with my wife of nearly 19 years is, “Why did it take so long for us to do this?” We have both always had a hard time of putting the responsibility of caring for our children on someone else. We’ve always felt that they are our responsibility, and never felt that we could just leave them to someone else. We have always found a reason of some sort to put off taking a vacation. Spending more than 10 days outside of this state found us crossing the Mississippi River countless times and traveling to its end at the Gulf of Mexico. We then headed west toward Texas and enjoyed the best dining experience of our lives in Alexandria, LA, and then one almost as good in Texas.  The number one thing we learned in that time is that...

Me with the first geocache of the day, found only about 500 feet from our hotel at a travel center next to our hotel in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on Sunday morning. By Allan Olson The last week has flown by, and in that time so have many miles. My week last week was a blur; the weekend was all work, but it blended into some time off and over 1,800 miles of traveling in the course of four days. The work week, while short in practicality, left me feeling panicked with all I had to do and wanted to do to get a paper out this week. It involved the carefully-crafted art of getting things planned in advance and getting as much completed prior to departure in order to avoid work while on the road as much as possible. Of course, I was not able to complete it all before leaving, as I figured would happen. I do have sleep requirements and other things to tend to. My wife and I have been talking about a trip for just the two of us for probably close to two years, and no...

Me and my great nephew. It’s fun to have a little one around again to spoil – but it’s even more fun to hand that little one back to their parents when they get fussy or smelly! By Allan Olson It’s not too often during the course of the year that I find myself working on a Saturday, and even then typically not the whole day, but occasionally it does happen, and I make the best of it. Last Saturday was one of those days. I was on the road and out of the house by 8 a.m., with my destination the big city of Onigum, east of Walker. I made it in plenty of time for the grand opening of the new community center. From there it was back to Cass Lake. I headed to the office to put more winter gear on to prepare for the next three hours of walking around on the ice, taking photos and visiting with people fishing the tournament. Thankfully the temperatures weren’t so bad that I had to bundle up too much. In fact at one point, I almost tossed my heavy coat back in the veh...

Nikolai, my now-15-year-old as of the publication date, looked very dirty after spending some time sandblasting on Saturday, February 3. By Allan Olson Yup, it was Super Bowl weekend, and that mattered little to me. It would have only made marginal difference if the home state team had actually managed to make it to the big game. Honestly, even though I turned the cable back on just for the intention of watching the upcoming Olympics, it’s highly unlikely we would have tuned in to watch the football game. Perhaps just a moment or three, but not likely much longer than that. I was planning to turn on the Puppy Bowl for Abigail, but since she was taking her sweet time doing her homework, I left the screen off, although the show was recording. I spent some time both Friday and Saturday pretending I could help make things in the robotics lab – at one point I even broke out laughing when one of the mentors asked if I wanted to draw up a plan to make something. Wh...