There's only three more days of International Accordion Awareness Month and National Dairy Month. So go play a polka and eat some ice cream! Or just drink a glass of milk and be aware of accordions. Most importantly, be aware of how the word is spelled: I-O-N, not I-A-N. (Some posit that "accordian" is the feminine spelling, but I don't buy it.) I did pull out the 120 bass one evening at the beginning of the month—probably the first time all year—and everything came back fairly easily. I'd like to spend more time playing, but there's lots of other things I'd like to spend more time doing also. Updating my web journal isn't one of them, however.

The month started with Lady Washington and Hawaiian Chieftan paying their now-annual visit to Portland for the Rose Festival. I spent the first weekend helping out with tourists, but it was wasn't quite the madhouse it was last year: then, we had a shortage of crew and people were waiting three hours in line to come see the ships; this year, they had a whole mess of Evergreen students for crew and they were charging five bucks to visit instead of asking for donations. I don't think there was a line all weekend. The evening sails were all booked, which meant, what with the full crew, that I didn't get to go sailing. I'm hoping to get on for another two weeks in September, but we'll see what else is already planned then. Don't want to miss the Polish Festival!

My birthday was on the 7th, and I think we just went out for wings instead of doing anything fancy. I'm saving the party for October, for my 33 1/3rd birthday, one third of a century old. A pretty good first third, I think.

The next week was WWDC, where we found out that Apple had come up with a really sweet way to make apps for the iPhone: you build a web page. Hey, thanks! The rest of the conference was great, though: lots of review of stuff they released years ago but am only just learning. (Bindings are finally starting to make sense!) Good to see lots of old friends, as usual, and I didn't eat too much horrible food or drink too much. Mostly. Oh, and we won another Design Award..

I talked Molly into taking the dinghy sailing class I took last summer at Willamette Sailing Club with me, to see if she'd take to it or if I'd have to find some other attractive woman to go boating with. Either she had an even better time than I'd hoped or she's a much better liar than I thought. We haven't had a chance to take Ellen the dory out again, but there hasn't been much incentive from the weather.

And, most recently, I've started demolishing the house. It's fun! The previous owners had framed in a couple of walls in the basement to make small rooms: one for growing pot, according to the neighbors. That room almost has more outlets than the rest of the house, so it's not too surprising. I've wanted to turn it back into an open basement since we moved in, so I finally just started pulling down drywall and knocking down framing this weekend. It looks great: light comes in from the windows now, air can circulate and help keep the mold down, and we can reseal the foundation walls. Also, I realized with the construction going on around us, this is a perfect time to have someone come in and get rid of the six inches of gravel the previous owners put around the house. We might have a real yard some day!

So, yes, June. June has been good.