For his Fall 2023 semester, Alex took advantage of a study-abroad program and spent the term in the Netherlands. Aside from him letting us know he successfully arrived at his destination, Leiden, we didn’t hear a whole lot from him for the first month. Then he sent an email saying that he had a problem—the university asked him if he would move out of his single room into a shared room so a new ...

Marta declared it the best summer ever. It was a pretty good one. Noting a few of the highlights for our records. 

Anfer 
Tony attended something called Boys State. It is an eight day experience where a few kids from just about every high school in the state attend. During the week they establish a complete community and government system (I think). Attendees are recommended via teacher referrals so it was a pretty high-caliber collection of young people. Anthony had a lot of fun. What he did not have was a lot of sleep. His first day back, he dropped his bags in the foyer, walked to his bedroom, and slept for fourteen hours. 

Aleo 
Alex was invited to help teach at a weeklong summer program at his university. There were two students from his Film School recommended by faculty. The experience ended up being significantly more challenging than he, or anyone else, expected it to be. Marty and I were both stunned at some some of the situations he found himself in. We were equally surprised by the grace in which he responded to each of them. This poise under duress is an ability he has repeatedly demonstrated in his young life.

Baya 
Bella is working on starting a non-profit (more on that later). While getting things organized, she has been doing a lot of social media work so when she's ready to open the doors, she has a ready group of people to invite inside. The other day, while shopping, someone yelled at her from across a store, “Hey! Yo! Kindness girl!”. She got recognized in the wild! AND she got called Kindness-Girl! It is hard to know which of those two milestones made her beam more.

Marta 
Marty and I took our first trip together without kids since having kids. And it was kinda great. The only bad thing to come of it was when I called my best friend, Bookpimp, to ask if it was ok for Marty to join me on this year’s visit, he replied, “The question is if Marty’s coming, why would we need you?”. In our travels, in addition to doing a record amount of kayaking (in her origami kayak), she did a few new things, namely trail bike riding (through a Michigan forest on dirt pack) and taking up tennis (she has even gotten a coach).

Troy
I’ve been going tent-camping in Michigan every July for the last ten years. Every year, I seemingly go a bit longer. For the last few years, I’ve gone for a month. This year was supposed to be five weeks, but an unexpected Secret Cajun Band concert caused me to delay my departure. When in Michigan I do a good bit of reading, play a lot of tennis, bike a lot of miles, and paddleboard just about every day (that's where I get my baths). Next year I will be adding snorkeling and open water swimming to the list of activities. This year I concluded my Michigan Julys are the summer camps I never got as a kid. I’ve been going to this same place for so long, I now know more people there (other summertime regulars as well as locals) than I do in my home’s neighborhood.

Those are the tippy-top highlights from the Marty-branded best summer ever.

Part 1 of this story is here

The new girl and the question were unexpected, so it took me a moment to realize what she was asking about, but when I did, I had a moment of panic. 

TROY
Oh. That over there? You saw that?

CAR GIRL
Yes. I was driving home from work and saw the two of you on the corner. I couldn’t figure out what was ...

It feels like a minute since I've had the opportunity to share a good story, so let's make the first post-restoration entry about one of the more unusual things to happen to me since being away. 

In 2021, I spent a week in my hometown, Fort Collins, Colorado. Midway through the week, I had to switch to a new Airbnb spot, so I found myself in a new neighborhood. I quickly noticed it was n...

A friend of mine wrote a musical. I knew he'd been working on it for a few years. I mainly knew because he asked me to go to some recording studio and scream into a microphone for a demo reel. After a few takes, they thanked me for my time and sent me home. Not a soul was surprised. I'm a writer, not a yeller.

Then one day years later, he mentioned, in passing, that his musical was being...

Marty turned 50 last year. Her main gift was passports for the entire family. I know that to your average person, that seems like a pretty lame present, but those who know Marty realize it is spot-on. First, she has been talking about getting passports for the kids (and renewing our own) for many years. Second, this has never happened because of the hassle and the expense.

So the kids an...

The above two photos, from a 2018 ski trip, were taken moments apart. And when I say moments, I'm talking like less than a 180 seconds from one to the other. I imagine Anfer and I were laughing from trying to match Baya and Aleo's runway stares.

Question is which side of the table would you rather be sitting on (or looking at)? ...

Leading up to all this Corona-mayhem sat our annual family ski trip out west. We saw the dominos stacking up as our departure date approached. Three days prior, I touched base with our Utah hosts. They said everything was good, and we should bring appetites for Sunday dinner. Two days out, our ski resort affirmed they were open and had thousands of nature-filled acres for folks to spread out on. And, on the morning of, the resort sent more assurances that all was well and the snow was deep. So we saddled up and headed west.

The two and a half day drive was smooth and uneventful. By the time we arrived in Utah, all of their resorts had closed. So instead of spending the afternoon renting ski gear, we spent it around our friends' kitchen table. During this lunch, dinner, and dessert campaign, their youngest son returned from a week in Banff Canada. Then their middle son returned from a week at Moab. We all caught up and watched the news feeds roll through. Our first fallback plan was to take advantage of the many hiking trails in Salt Lake and Park City. We thought we'd spend a few days doing that and then head back. But when the talk of stopping interstate travel began, I got a touch nervous. I'm usually the first to ignore such alarmism, but per my accounting, every measure floated up to that point had come to fruition, so that travel lock-down spooked me a bit. Granted, there are worse states to get trapped in than Utah (including the one I live in). However, I did not want to be an imposition to our friends, even though I believe they would have been thrilled to have us (the few that didn't have to give up beds at least).

To be on the safe side, we opted to head back in the morning. For those keeping score, that would be a full day of driving on Friday and Saturday. The first half of Sunday was on the road, and the second half we visited our friends. Then back in the car first thing Monday morning, where we drove twenty straight hours to get home at 5:30 Tuesday morning. I wanted to be in our state before midnight—we crossed the line at 11:55. I reckon few people have made that sort of trek for what turned out to be dinner with friends.

For the rest of the week, our family experienced our first staycation. This is something that has been on everyone's wish list but never punched. To see how each person fell into their own easy routine, you'd think they had already done this a dozen times. It wasn't skiing, but it was memorable.

TOMORROW: Part 2 - Homebound

we were driving home from our michigan camping trip. marty had bella and anthony in the van and alex was with me in my car. alex and i had just eaten dinner and were about 60 miles west of indianapolis.

as we were driving and talking i noticed a car had pulled up on my left and was driving steady with me. after a few moments, i looked their way. there was a college-aged guy in the passen...

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. the universal language

four years ago i received word that they were going to replace the college football stadium that was near my childhood home. while i wasn't a season ticket holder, i did have a respectable number of memories in the place, most notably sneaking in on weekend nights with my friends to play hide in seek in the sprawling facility under a moonlit sky, well, play hide and seek until we were chased out by security which was admittedly part of the sport and appeal. upon hearing the news, i made immediate plans to see one last game there in the last year the CSU Rams would play in the storied Hughes Stadium which butted right up against my Fort Collins foothills.

so i made a proper trip of it, and bookguy joined me, and we met up with boyhood pal snake and had some great laughs and panhandler's pizza and bookguy, and i biked a century up through estes park and into rocky mountain national park. in short, it was a lovely and memorable weekend.

then the next year i returned to fort collins to take in a game at the new stadium. no bookguy this time as he was out of the country but snake and i shared time, and i made the estes ride up the big thompson canyon solo. it was again a lovely and memorable weekend.

then this year snake reached out and asked if i would be coming out for another CSU game. i countered saying i thought those couldn't be very exciting for him since they were in his backyard and suggested he pick a game somewhere in the country he would like to see and we could meet there. he said he would get back to me. a few weeks later he sent a note outlining the following weekend. a few days of golf followed by a historic SEC matchup, Tennesee @ Auburn. then on sunday we would travel an hour north and take in some nascar at Talledegha. right away i could tell i should have put snake in charge of planning our weekends years ago.

part of the itinerary was influenced by snake's brother tommy and their long-time friend paul (who was the nascar guy). they have been golf buddies for lots of years. since i'm not a golfer, i said i would meet up with them on friday for the saturday game and sunday race. so i had a lovely drive down to alabama on friday. i imagine it has been said before, but i love driving. part of it is i love my car, a 91 bmw 318i (or an E30 for those in the know). i became its second owner in 1998, and it has brought me an unreasonable amount of joy since then. a slight problem i have is i have not driven to work for more than twelve years AND i live in a community where i can walk to nearly everything i need which means i can go long stretches without ever rolling it out of the garage. but another thing i love about driving, distance driving particularly, is the simple act of unplugging from the daily firehose (simple to do, hard to make happen). these cross-country treks are highly therapeutic and meditative for me. on these day-long drives, i cover lots of desolate mentalscape that rarely sees travelers pass through.

a quick aside to address the number one question people ask when they see my nearly 30-year-old car, how many miles does it have? i can't really tell you because the odometer broke about six years ago. when it stopped merrily rolling along, the dial read 130k miles. i reckon since i don't drive a whole lot locally, i could count up the trips i've taken and get you a respectable ball-park number, but those sorts of things don't really tickle me like some. it's like the price of gas. whatever it is isn't going to keep me from buying some, so i don't bother giving it any of my precious neurons.

back to our story. i put myself fully in their hands and was told just to show up as they would take care of all of the arrangements, right down to our lodging. marty will attest to my excellence on being able to follow that sort of plan and my travel day went off without a hitch, and i pulled into the hotel parking lot five minutes before the fellas returned from their double round of golf and the weekend was off and running.

tommy got us the football tickets and had us in the second row of the end zone facing their mega screen and just to the right of the visiting band. it there was a better seat in the house, i'm not sure where it might have been. tommy and i struck an immediate over/under bet on how many times the tennessee band would play Rocky-Top (not as many as he wagered by far more than i would have ever imagined). it was an excellent day with lots of blue skies and belly laughs. and i didn't learn/recall until after the day began that it was snake's 50th birthday. by my math, it would have been challenging to dial up a better celebration than what we were in the midst of.

paul was in charge of the nascar tickets as he had family in the south who were regular patrons. shortly after meeting paul i said i heard he was a nascar guy. he said nothing but held up a finger instructing me to hold that thought, went to his bag, rummaged a second and then turned, holding to his chest his very own ricky bobby wonder bread race suit. with my mouth still agape, he turned to his bag again, this time announcing that if you didn't want to be ricky bobby you could always wear his race team partner cal naughton's old spice suit which he held before him with equal flourish. yeah, i guess he'd fall into the nascar guy column.

but, it turns out snake had some nascar connections of his own and was able to get us passes into pit row. this is the racing equivalent of scoring backstage passes to your favorite band. while the race was going on and paul was texting with friends telling them where he was right now, his phone almost caught fire from all the envy and hate being sent in reply.

the only downside to this mega-weekend is what in the heck could we ever do to follow it up. and/because it will be followed up as i'm hoping to make this trek to some college rivalry/experience a new annual tradition. too many interesting places and cultures in this country to not stick your head in the room at least once and soak it up.


hughes staudium (2016)



new stadium (2017)



auburn game (2018)



talledegha 500 (2018)

as mentioned yesterday, i recently took a road trip. it is an annual trip east i have been taking since the kids got old enough they did not require a full-time staff of two. on this trek i visit friends and family and since starting the company, i mix a work stop or two along the way. the time for me is restorative and joyful and one of my favorite annual traditions (amidst many).

this year i got ambitious and over-planned the week, seeking to milk every day and hit every drivable connection. after getting home-sick i decided to trim a bit off the end and head home a full day early. in thinking on it further i thought i had a neat opportunity to surprise my family with a premature return (because we do like surprises: New Car Story).

so i planned my eleven hour drive out so i would arrive just before sunday dinner, fifteen minutes before to be precise. once home, i parked a few houses down the street to walk the last bit (so no one accidentally spied my car out front). using my cell, i called our home line and got marty. we exchanged hellos and then i said that i might not be home on monday night. there was a long pause. i knew her mind had already started thinking through the implications of me being a day late since the kids were to start school on tuesday. as she processed the news, i walked through the front door. i found bella knitting on the living room couch. on seeing me she dropped her needles shot her arms into the air and bellowed, "dad's home!!!".

i walked into the breakfast room in time to see marty hanging up the phone. she turned and gave me a wry smile. after separating from our hug i asked if i was going to find a shirtless college boy or two jumping out of our bedroom window. she said i would not, they left earlier in the day.

i recently took my annual friends and family tour back east. this is a solo trip i've been making the last few years, or put differently, since the kids have been old enough to not overwhelm a single parent. i am fortunate that a few of my closest friends and a portion of my family are clustered in a remarkably small area, an area i did not grow up in (but did finish college in) which makes it all ...

i'm a regimented person. so much so that people mock and ridicule me for the amount of structure in my life. i have talked to many people who say that sort of daily rigor is not for them--even if we have just discussed some challenge in their life where a routine is the exact answer to a problem they might be battling. this is most certainly my family's position on this matter. dad's schedules are...

a few years back our car broke down in sidney nebraska. we were en route to utah for our spring break holiday. we left sidney with a surprising number of good memories and warm feelings having made the most of our two days in the small town.

a perfect example. one day while out for a walk (to the original Cabelas superstore), we saw this statue honoring the pony express. as the family read the related plaques that circled the impressive monument, bella climbed onto the horse and then called to me to take her picture. as i set up, marty snuck into the background and photo-bombed the shoot. then the boys joined in. and then, well it is just how things tend to unfold around here ...






























in the end, we were able to pull out a decent family photo but those never seem to come at a simple trajectory.

and this episode reminds me of a story that marty tells of when she was a young girl. she grew up in a house with three older brothers. the few times she would bounce downstairs wearing any sort of makeup she would get mercilessly taunted by her brothers. a popular one was for them to ask who beat her up and if she would just give them their name they would go give them a good pounding. this constant jibing kept marty from ever drifting too far into the it-girl lane (it-girl/it-guy being what my family calls the fashion-governed, opinion-driven in-crowd). i'm thankful for this because i share marty's brothers sentiments about makeup on marty (but probably for different reasons)--for me it is not just that it doesn't look right on her, but i think it makes her look less beautiful, or rather, she is always more fetching without the 'enhancements', however minimal she claims they are. marty has no prayer with me because there has never been a day where i haven't thought marty looked her best in the first moments of the day where she is minutes out of bed, wonky hair and all. she hates my position on that but i stand by my claim. this is the life of a natural beauty.

but back to my other natural beauty, bella. i've seen some moments where bella has begun the slide into the it-girl world but each and every time our family tugs her back to the ground and keeps her from ever taking that part of the game too seriously.

we are soon to go on a trip and will be staying with friends. we have stayed with these friends, like a good number of times. they seem open to having us. eager to having us even. but every time we pull into their drive and five humans, who all seem much larger than the last time we were in their drive, spill out of the car the same thought runs through my mind--oh these nice, poor people. marty never thinks this way. neither does our hostess. but then when the first driveway-exchange anthony has with them is:

ANTHONY (9)
do you still have the popcorn machine?

MICHAEL
uhhh. yes, we do.

ANTHONY
is there already popcorn in it or do i have to make some?

MICHAEL
uhhm. ya know, i think it has some in there, possibly from the last time you were here.

ANTHONY
ok. i'll see if it's still eatable but if not i'll make some new stuff.

here michael will pat anthony on the head and smilingly say, "i see ole anthony hasn't changed". i smile in agreement and look around taking in the lovely scenery, certain this is the last time the dearmitt-walter clan will be invited to this zip code again.

but each year the invites and feelers go out. below is marty's email to the family this year.
the mention of sydney refers to a car breakdown we experienced during last year's road trip. this debacle led to the purchase of a new car (chronicled here). but ten days before our super-trip, there was a slight incident with the new van. it was bella's 16th birthday. she and marty were arriving home from school and had anthony and some friends in the back who were coming over to play. while marty was backing into her spot in front of the house, bella, excited to run in and check on the state of her steak dinner, threw her door open which, while the car was still moving backward, caught the edge of a largish tree trunk in our font lawn. before the sick bending of metal reached marty's ears and marty's brain was able to signal her to brake, the damage was done.

neighbor jeff, as i was out with aleo, helped marty bungee the door closed with the help of the headrest. marty threw a bike on the carrier and headed to the body shop her go-to mechanics referred her to so they could start assessing things as soon as possible so we had a hope of getting the van back in time for our trip. when bella told me what happened, as marty was off to the body shop, she said she had good news and bad news. always taking bad news first she told me about the van. when i asked what the good news was she meekishly said, it will make my 16th birthday more memorable in the future. i can't deny that as it is sure to go down in the growing list of dearmitt-walter family lore.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. comfort-what?

during last years trip to michigan, bella was heard to proclaim, loudly and exuberantly: I LOVE THIS PLACE. WHEN I"M HERE, I'M THE BEST VERSION OF MYSELF! during this year's travels, bella made similar proclamations, even anticipating them beforehand.

if you sat down and spent thirty focused minutes of your life on seriously contemplating what you want more than anything, wouldn't it be t ...

when alex was young, like before he could crawl-young, if something caught his eye he wanted, he would reach for it. if it was slightly out of his reach, he might stretch for it, a little bit, and by little bit i mean almost imperceptibly. if his fingers did not easily and cleanly grasp the bauble he would straighten back up, return his thumb to his mouth, assuming he ever took it out in the first ...

in both of the summer trips we just took we were invited to join families on their standing summer vacations. we've spent time with both of these families before so knew them well. for me, the truly special thing was getting to benefit from their experience and knowledge of the areas we would be visiting as that, in my opinion, tends to be the hardest part to figure out regarding new places. when ...

the above picture shows anthony sitting on the front of a slow moving house boat. the lapping waves occassionally slapping the tops of his feet. he's been sitting there almost twenty minutes and seems rather transfixed by it all. it is worth nothing that alex is the one driving the boat so both of our boys are making the most of this new experience. at some point during anthony's reverie a woman o ...

the short story is this:

• in mid-june i resigned my position of ten years at my most-recent employer, washington university in st. louis.
• i spent the next three weeks feverishly working to make my exit a clean and competent one. fwiw i spent the five weeks prior as well, starting my work after making the decision to leave. this effort was largely in the name of my staff who i didn't w ...
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we have had car trouble in our last two long-distance family vacations. the second instance left us stuck in sidney, nebraska for two days. technically we broke down on the highway twenty miles past sidney but it was the closest town with a aaa-recommended garage. as we were figuring out what to do, marty told me that there was a Cabelas there which is one of those big outdoor sporting stores like...

when bella first shriekingly announced to the house (and zip code) that her public speaking hero, shane kyozcan, was making his first american tour (he resides in canada) i sat down with her to look at the dates and locations. i'm not sure what you call the tone parents get when they have to tell their kids that they can't get them something they'd like to get them but it just isn't practical. wha ...

another family invited us to join them on their family's annual camping tradition, now fifteen years strong. while one of their kids was giving me a paddleboard tour up the coastline (me sitting in the front and her kneeling in back paddling) i asked what she thought of the place. she said she wasn't sure how to answer that--it was like a second home--she had been coming to this campsite and beach ...