COULDN'T HAVE SAID IT BETTER MYSELF

SUMMER COMES EARLY

While it's cold and rainy now, we had a few days where the mercury hit the 90s, so it was time to go outside and enjoy the heat.

So they lost the pants...

And the shirts, too...

And started playing in the backyard...

And this is actually where my narration will have to stop. It seems blogger's photo editor thingie won't let me move pictures around anymore, and I've spent hours trying to figure out what's wrong. So the remainder of the pictures aren't in order or anything like that. But if you're keeping score, Nate is topless, and Will has the green shirt on. Nate's diaper and sneakers look is a new favorite of mine. Hopefully we'll have this problem resolved soon. Until then, enjoy the pics.

Hey tech nerds, is anyone else having problems moving pictures around their posts after they upload them?

BEA ARTHUR, R.I.P.

Bea Arthur, star of stage and screen died this weekend. While she's probably best known for "Maude" or the "Golden Girls," I'll always remember her for inspiring the following Beastie Boys lyric from "Boomin' Granny":

"You're a golden girl/ just like Bea Arthur/ now turn down the lights/ so we can go farther."

In honor of the late Ms. Arthur, I bring you "Boomin' Granny"...

FAROE FRIDAY: FLAG DAY

Ok, so it's not Friday anymore, but Saturday the 25th is Flag Day on the Faroe Islands, and that's reason enough to have a Faroe themed post.

From what I've learned on the internet, the Faroese flag, the Merkið, was created by some Faroese students studying in Denmark in the early 1900s. Flag Day celebrates the moment in 1940 when British authorities took to the BBC to ask Faroese ships to fly the Merkið rather than the flag of Denmark. Denmark was occupied by the Nazis at the time, but the Faroes were not.

From then on, the Merkið has been the official flag of the Faroe Islands. The original is housed in a church on the Faroes.

The photo at the top of this post comes from a collection by Arne List. It shows the Merkið flying near the village of Tvøroyri on the southern island of Sudroy. As nice as the flag is, it does obscure the village a bit in that photo (indeed, that is what makes the picture so cool). But you may want a clearer view of the town, so we'll also provide this:

The church you see was constructed as a building set in Norway, then taken apart, shipped, to the island, and reassembled in 1907. The previous church that stood on that spot was moved to another village (stories like this are not uncommon on the Faroes). Tvøroyri has a population of about 1,100 people, which makes it one of the larger villages on the Faroes.

So to the people of Tvøroyri and everyone else on the Faroe Islands, happy Flag Day.

AT LAST, THE STATE!

After years of delays, they've finally got a release date for The State's 5 DVD set. July 14th. I can't wait!

TOPLESS TODDLERS

Still photography remains unable to capture the destructive fury of our two little guys, so we'll try a short video. This is a pretty typical afternoon at our home: Nate is doing something, Will is narrating it, they both get on each other's nerves, and then Will tries to break a camera (he's like Sean Penn that way).

And now, our feature presentation...

THIS IS JUST TOO COOL

Radiohead sings the Smith's "Headmaster's Ritual." Simply amazing...

FAROE FRIDAY: FIRST LADY FEVER

So this guy named Rasmussen was the Prime Minister of Denmark but he left to become the head of NATO, so this other guy named Rasmussen became Prime Minister and now Denmark has a Faroese First Lady.*

Sólrun Løkke Rasmussen, is the first Faroese woman to be the First Lady of Denmark. She has three children who all have Faroese names and she's reportedly related to the man who wrote the Faroese National Anthem.

(*There has been some debate online over the title of "first lady" and whether it applies to Ms. Løkke Rasmussen. But for purposes of this blog post, I think you all know what I mean.)

This week's Faroe Photo is from Sumba and was taken by Oda Andreasen. Sumba is on the island of Suduroy and is the southernmost village on the Faroes. Suduroy is considered to have the most gentle landscape of in all of the Faroes, but as you can see, it's still pretty dramatic.

The photo was taken during Oda's Easter travels. So "Happy Easter" to all my friends in the Faroes.

BLOGS UNITED

During my too-short* trip to Portland last Friday, I was able to meet up with two people who I know mostly through their blogs.

First up was Ellen "Flushed Face" Compton...

We can be seen here activating our wonder twin powers to further strengthen our respective blogs. Ellen and I met in passing while at BYU in the early 1990s, but really got to know each other through blogging and eventually Facebook. Now that we have truly met in person, I have moved her blog into the "Daves I know" category on my sidebar.

Late that day I headed out to the Scandinavian Heritage Foundation, where I met up with Allen "Faroese American" Boggs.

Allen's expression can be explained by the fact that I was sticking a knife into his ribs when this photo was taken.

Allen is half Faroese and we were both in Portland to see two Faroese women speak about their experience growing up on the islands. I learned about this event through a Facebook friend I had never previously met in person.

And when the weekend was over, I thought about the people who say that social networking tools like Facebook and Twitter isolate people and keep them from making real friends in the real world. But everyone I met with last weekend were all friends I met using those supposedly isolating tools.

Take that, technophobes.

(*The trip was too short in that it was not sufficiently long. It was not a trip I took in the persona of Oakland/Atlanta-based gangsta rapper Too $hort, also know as Short Dawg and Shorty the Pimp.)

FAROE FRIDAY: NATIONAL COSTUME

Behold the Faroese national costume as viewed in Portland Friday...I'm on the road so I can't write much, but we'll have more on the costume in an upcoming podcast.

TO ALL MY DEAD HOMIES

This one's for Shannon Young. A bright and talented journalist who signed off the air tonight. She's going into financial management.

This one's for Melissa Enfield, perhaps the most passionate sports reporter I've ever met and by far the best sportscaster Southern Oregon had.

This one's for Curtis Bartlett, a great weather reporter, a great technical director, and a great person.

This one's for Matt Montgomery, new father and sleep deprived. His voice is what my voice wants to be when it grows up.

This one's for Jason Clark. He reported in the crappy little town of Texarkana and could dig up stories like nobody's business. He also taught me how to be a journalist.

This one's for Chad Hooker. A teenager and photographer who could take video of a stop sign that looked so beautiful it would make you weep. (He has since ceased to be a teenager.)

This one's for Jake Corbell. An executive producer. That's often a job for hotheads. But Jake could be cool as a cucumber even if the house was burning down. I've never seen a person handle a crisis better.

This one's for Darrel Rebouche. He was managing editor? I think? I'll be honest, I never had much idea what Darrell did when he worked at the same station as me. When he was gone, I finally understood. He did everything. When he was gone, nothing worked the way it was supposed to. (Oddly enough, I'm much better friends with him now than I ever was when we worked together. Strange how that works.)

This one's for Rich DeMuro, a "troubleshooter" for a local TV station turned top-notch tech reporter. (He's doing a great daily video podcast called the Synched Up Show, you should all watch it and shower him with money.)

They all worked in TV news. None of them do anymore. Some got out on their own terms, while others were shown the door. But they were all excellent. If there's no room for these people in the news business, or if the industry can't retain people like this, then the news business has some big problems.

But I guess we already knew that.

(and this is the part where I pour a portion of my "40" onto the lawn)

SOME PEOPLE NEVER LEARN

In 2005, a moment of passion had lifelong consequences, and we have two little boys to prove it. In the aftermath, we conducted an investigation to determine just how such a thing could have happened. We thought we had figured it all out, but, well…

It has happened again.

I started puking a few weeks ago and went to the doctor and they told Julie she was pregnant. At least that’s how I remember it.

To answer your first question, there is only one kid growing inside Julie. This is great news because twins… well… so here’s the thing with twins… we love Nate and Will and are so happy that they are in our lives. But having two newborns in the house is the most awful thing in the entire world, except for having three newborns in the house.

The due date is October 14th, and we don’t know the gender. Julie is fine. I’m the only one puking.

This means we have to buy a minivan.