Wrapping up Summer

Our summer in Sandpoint is wrapping up within the next two weeks. Then we're off to Nanaimo for the Fall semester at Malaspina University-College. Our subsequent return to Sandpoint will be in mid December or so.

Our summer, as usual, featured frequent visitors. Eli's sister and family have a summer place here; so our evening meals often became communal affairs incorporating both families and visitors. Activities included hiking, biking, swimming, kayaking, and city events such as the music festival, art fair, and twice-weekly farmers' market.

I biked less this summer than in recent years because of incorporating kayaking into my activities. I also spent significant time preparing materials for my Fall semester course, "Introduction to Embedded Linux Development - Hacking the Linksys Wireless Router". As I got into the material, I found that there was a wealth of information available on the Internet, plus at least one book. I found reasonably priced Linksys routers on Ebay for the 12 students. The cost to each student will be on the order of $50 CDN, depending on what duty must be paid at the border.

One interesting event this summer was the 1.76 mile Long Bridge Swim. This year it consisted of two entrant categories, the Masters and the Open swimmers. It was used as this years US National Masters Open Water Championship. The Masters started 10 minutes or so ahead of the Open category. The fastest time was someone in the Open group. I joined perhaps a group of 70 kayakers to provide support for the race. Weather conditions were optimal, so the main job of the kayakers was herding. The number of swimmers was about 500.

Richard
2007.08.16