I’ve loved Elvis since I was a seven-year-old kid in Hawaii, where Elvis is still idolized to this day.  My parents had a mixed tape that included some of his more well-known early hits like “Teddy Bear” and “Jailhouse Rock,” and for some reason I was completely hooked the first time I listened to it.  My interest grew over the years, so much so that even my grandmother sprung for a trip to Memphis, Tennessee, as my high school graduation gift.  Needless to say, Elvis is very important in my life.

It shouldn’t surprise me that Meg has dared me to be Elvis for Halloween this year; she, in turn, is going to go as her idol Buddy Holly.  Much as I hate to admit it, she would be much better as Elvis given her thick dark hair, but he’s my idol and so it seems more appropriate for me to portray him.

In any case, I’ve been scouring eBay for gold lame jackets, trying to find an affordable one that doesn’t look like melted plastic, and I think I finally succeeded in my mission.  Now all I need is a fabulous wig that, again, isn’t plastic, and a skinny gold tie to match the one Elvis wore at that concert he did in Toronto back in ‘57.

Thanks to the wonders of Photoshop, I can get an idea of how I may look a month from now.

And I’m passing the pleasure on to you.  *laughs*

Some months ago, my mother changed her mind about having a family reunion in Sweden when she found that my aunt, who is Vietnamese and married to my mom’s brother, couldn’t get a visa to go over there with her kids. Instead, she booked five cabins at Douthat State Park in central Virginia, a place I’d never heard of but which has been rated (apparently) in the top ten of all state parks in the country.

Unfortunately, due to the nature of my work at the moment, I was only able to make it down there by midday on Friday - and the reservation was up Saturday at 10am. So I hightailed it down to northern Virginia Thursday night, woke up bright and early to a phone call from our CEO (thankfully my alarm was set to go off five minutes later - all part of the job, anyway), and grabbed my cousin for the 200-mile drive down to Millboro.

I spent all the rest of the day swimming, canoeing, and acquiring a rather painful sunburn on my back. We completed the evening with a campfire and s’mores, and you know what? It was perfect. Especially because absolutely no one there got cell reception.

I love stuff like this. It reminds me of my youth, when, every year for ten years, we would spend at least a month of the summer at our family house in Sweden. Even without indoor plumbing, it was an unbelievable experience with swimming, fishing, boating, eating crayfish, and playing guitar and singing late into the night - after all, it’s Sweden in the summertime. It doesn’t get dark, and that’s just cool.

Meg and I took a much-needed four-day weekend two weekends ago and got out of Dodge, driving four hours north to Lake George in New York. I had never heard of the place before, but our friend Melissa recommended it, saying that it was “beautiful and quiet and perfect,” and indeed, it proved to be just that.

We stayed at the Fort William Henry Resort, a hotel located next to the fort of the same name (now converted into a museum) that played a huge role in the French and Indian War, so much so that it had a large role in the book-turned-movie “Last of the Mohicans” by James Fennimore Cooper.

I can’t say we did much over the weekend, and that was absolutely perfect. We ended up renting a motorboat and spending most of the daylight hours fishing and relaxing on the water. And while we didn’t catch anything, we did get some nibbles, and the whole appeal of fishing is the relaxation thing anyway.

It’s extremely dead here at work today, as pretty much everyone decided last minute to take the day off. I kind of like it when that happens; it’s much quieter and I can get my projects done without being interrupted.

My Christmas present haul this year once again proved to me how big of a kid I really am. We’re talking loads of movies, video games, a remote-controlled Dodge Viper (compliments of Meg’s dad), and, thanks to my dad, the Bose sound dock for my iPod.

My dad came ’round for Christmas Eve, so we spent the evening decorating first Meg’s mom’s tree up in Carlstadt and then ours at home. It was a really nice evening, topped off with a power outage that covered a few city blocks for a few hours. Chris ended up coming over and we wasted the time away drinking wine and having target practice on the television with one of Meg’s new Nerf guns.

On Christmas Day, my mother and stepdad came over, having spent Christmas Eve at Woody’s mom’s place in Princeton, so we had the typical Christmas Day thing: opening presents and eating far too much, then moaning about it. Good times.

I’m ready to go home and sleep.

On this Independence Day, I would like to give thanks, thanks that is devoid of any political sentiment, to the brave men and women who continue to risk and give their lives for the country in which they believe.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great … war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate – we can not consecrate – we can not hallow – this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. - Abraham Lincoln, 1863

Happy Fourth of July!