Here's why I think all Earth-bound attempts at time travel are doomed to failure: Unless the time travel also involves some sort of spatial component, the time traveler is going to reappear in empty space. The Earth is in motion. The solar system is in motion. The galaxy is in motion. The universe is in motion.

By the time you finish reading this sentence, the Earth will have moved far beyond where it was located at the beginning of the sentence. If you were to travel back in time (or forward in time) just one minute, what is it that would keep you tethered to the Earth as opposed to some absolute location in the universal scheme of things, an absolute location essentially in empty space? (Or, at the very least, in the middle of an ocean.)

I'm not saying that time travel is impossible — though I believe that's likely the case — I'm just saying that time travel is impractical, and isn't likely to produce anything other than a bunch of space flotsam.

Teleportation, on the other hand, might be practical. If it's instantaneous.

When I was a boy, the extended family would gather at Grandma and Grandpa's house on regular basis. It was easier then. The three siblings (and their families) lived within an hour's drive. I remember summer afternoons whiled away on the farm — which was a quarter mile down the road from our trailer house — in the company of all my cousins. Those were magical times.

As we grew older, and as people began to die, the extended family gathered less and less often. For a decade, we didn't get together at all. About six years ago, however, we all came together one day in late fall for a potluck meal at Tammy's house. Since then, we've met at least once a year, sometimes more. Last year, Kris and I hosted the family reunion. This year my cousin Scott held a pig roast.

Kris attends these gatherings with a bit of trepidation. She doesn't know anyone, and the family culture is foreign to her. Most of my Aunt Virginia's family — which makes up the bulk of attendees — is conservative Mennonite or some variation thereof. But Kris had a good time on Saturday: she talked with Uncle Stan about family history, she played volleyball, and helped eat pig and ice cream.

Here's what a Mennonite family reunion looks like circa 2007. It's not much different than it looked circa 1977. (This video was taken with my spiffy new ultra-compact digital camera.)

As we were preparing to leave, Kris decided that she needed some plums. The ladder wasn't handy, but that's okay — Scott had a forklift ready to go:

"That was fun," Kris said, as we left the reunion.

"I was hoping you'd say that," I said. "This gathering was perfect. It's just like I remember the gatherings from my youth. This is what it feels like to get together with family."

"I guess everyone's getting more comfortable with me," she said. "And maybe I'm getting more comfortable with them."

Whatever the case, I'm glad that Kris had a good time. I look forward to next year's reunion, wherever that might be.

In the evening, we drove from Shedd to south Salem for dinner with Mac and Pam. It's been a long time — years — since we had a nice meal with just the Proffitt-Smiths. It was great to do so again.

We toured their house, looking at all the work they're doing, both inside and out. Inside, they're currently remodeling the master suite. The project has been going on for months. As those of you who have done (or are doing) remodeling projects of your own will understand, they're tired of sleeping in the living room.

Outside, Mac has been ripping up and chopping back the overgrown hedges. Pam has been working to turn one field into a productive garden — it's come a long way from just last year! They have seven chickens now.

As the others prepared dinner, I sat and read to Megan (whom I've dubbed "Lulu"). She wanted to hear about the animals of Hawaii, and about counting, and about a mouse who turned into a tiger.

I was hoping I'd get to see her in a fit of rage:

Luck was against me, however.

It was a lovely evening, a perfect end to a lovely day.

Then last Thursday, she surprised me. "Let's watch Heroes," she said.

"Er, okay," I said, and we traipsed upstairs to connect the computer to the big monitor. We watched the first episode.

"Hm," said Kris.

"It's supposed to get better," I said. So we watched the second episode. And the third. "It's time for bed," I said.

"We can watch one more episode," Kris said.

On Friday, we watched three more episodes, and on Saturday another three. In fact, it was hard to stop. It was like an addiction.

Heroes is a clever show in many ways. Creator Tim Kring has drawn on many modern superhero tropes, and developed them for television in a way that is friendly not only to comic book geeks, but also to those who wouldn't be caught dead reading a comic. The characters don't run around in costumes — they're average people leading average lives. Superpowers are downplayed at the expense of human drama. Sometimes it seems like a soap opera with superheroes.

The main characters include:

• Claire, a Texas cheerleader with amazing healing abilities.
• D.L., a ghost-like ex-con.
• Isaac, a drug-addict who can paint the future.
• Hiro, who can bend time and space.
• Matt, a cranky L.A. police officer who can read minds.
• Nathan, a politician who can fly, and his brother, Peter, who can temporarily absorb other people's powers.
• Niki, who is basically the Incredible Hulk.
• Micah — Nikki's boy — who can control machines.

This show isn't perfect, though. In fact, often it's just mediocre. To some degree, Heroes suffers from the Battlestar Galactica disease: characters that are chummy one week will be at each other's throats the next week, and then allied again in the third week. These ever-shifting alliances make little sense, and it's often difficult to discern any long-term motive for a particular character. This frustrates me, but it's not as bad on Heroes as it is on Battlestar Galactica. Also, like Galactica, Heroes has the danger of becoming "about itself", the ultimate sign of a doomed show.

(Someday I'll articulate this theory in more detail, but it's my belief that you can tell a show has grown stale — jumped the shark, if you will — when it no longer adheres to its initial premise, but becomes "about itself". The classic example is Seinfeld's self-referential plot about developing a "show about nothing". In that particular case, it was well-handled, but most of the time when something like that happens, the show is lost. It happened in a big way during Battlestar Galactica season three, and it's happened to most of my favorite shows. It's one of the primary reasons that the Star Trek franchise imploded.)

I like most of the cast of Heroes, but I'd be happier if some of the characters died. Matt Parkman, the telepathic police officer, needs to be offed. I'm not a fan of Nikki/Jessica, either. I know that there will be new characters during the second season, but I'd actually prefer if the show was mostly about new characters and situations. We'll see.

I enjoyed the show — though the first ten episodes were better than the last thirteen — and I look forward to seeing where the creators take it in the future. Best of all, I know that Kris will be watching it with me!

(For those of you who watch the show, be sure to check out the Heroes wiki.)

Paul and Amy Jo have been using our home as one of a couple bases as they remodel their new house, which is just a mile away from us in Oak Grove. They stayed over last night. This morning when I woke up, I was startled by the sounds of a rather large cat. Or so I thought. It took me a moment to realize that it wasn't a cat I was hearing, but one of our houseguests.

Meanwhile, I just couldn't drag myself out of bed. This is has been a problem since our vacation, and it's odd. I've always been an easy riser — quick to wake up, get up, stand up. Not lately, though. Something happened on our vacation and I've learned to linger under the covers.

Today I finally got up after six, pulled on the clothes I wore yesterday, and stumbled out the door. This is something else I picked up while on vacation. I took a limited amount of clothing to Europe, so I became accustomed to wearing the same clothes over and over. I knew that today I was going to be the only one in the office, with no danger of having to see anyone, so I just took the easy way out and wore what I'd worn before.

I walked down the sidewalk, turned toward my car, and stopped in my tracks. Something was fishy. Simon was out by the road (which is a little strange in itself), but he wasn't coming to me. He seemed to be stalking something around the tires of my Focus. I stepped into the road for a better view, and what did I see? An orange rabbit.

Kris likes to tell stories of the wild hares she sees around the crime lab (which is located in a wetlands), but we don't get them around our house. And besides, an orange rabbit like this must surely be a pet. I was worried for it. Simon was keen on it, and he was nearly twice its size. But Simon didn't seem to be particularly aggressive. Quite the opposite, in fact. He sniffed at it, and then he flopped to the ground and rolled, as if it were his best friend and he was glad to see it. It was bizarre.

I went to get Kris. We followed Simon and the rabbit to the driveway, where we discovered Oreo, the neighbor cat (and Simon's nemesis), also intent on the orange rabbit.

"What should we do?" I asked.

"I don't know," said Kris. "There's no way to tell where it belongs."

She was right. Though I really wanted to catch it, the thing was too skittish. Meanwhile, Simon was becoming a little more than friendly. He had that look in his eye. Against his protests, Kris grabbed him and carried him into the house. Meanwhile, the rabbit hop-sprinted from one end of our property to the other, sticking to the road.

Our neighbor Curt drove by in his jumbo-sized clanking diesel pickup. He stopped for a witty word or two, laughing at our rabbit-hunting attempts. But our attempts didn't go on long. We had no plan. We had no idea how to catch the orange rabbit or what to do with it after we'd succeeded. So we just gave up.

Someplace on our property, there's a strange orange bunny. I just hope it's able to survive the day, and to somehow return to its owner.

Time passed. My taste in sodas evolved. I drank more Dr. Pepper because I was old enough to buy my own pop. I started drinking diet soda instead. Occasionally I still tried a Coke, but I found that I didn't like it as much as I used to. Something seemed to have changed around the time of the New Coke fiasco. There was a cloying sweetness about it, and it just didn't taste as good as I had remembered.

Last year there was a minor internet fuss about Mexican Coke, which was widely available in and around San Francisco. This version of Coca-Cola, bottled in Mexico and with only limited distribution in the U.S., reportedly had a cleaner, more satisfying taste. I remember Will brought it up at a dinner party or something last fall to disbelief (or disinterest) from those present.

Yesterday Kris and I stopped at Justy's Produce on Johnson Road to pick up some tomatoes, apricots, and plums. (We also got some local honey — Kris wants to be sure you all know this.) I was very very thirsty all afternoon, and Justy's had a case of old-fashioned glass-bottled pop, including Coca-Cola. I picked out three of my favorites, but then put back two, keeping only the Coke. (It cost $1.69 plus deposit!)

I drank it last night with dinner — damn it was good! The stuff was much better than I had remembered. At the time I attributed this to the following factors:

• I had frozen it in the afternoon sot he Coke was mighty chilly.
• The glass bottle was giving me a sensation transference.
• I just hadn't had Coke recently.

I opened the can and slowly poured the Coke into the bottle, pausing every couple seconds to let the foam subside. Then I took my first sip. Ugh! It was ghastly stuff. This is what I think Coke tastes like nowadays. The glass bottle wasn't helping. Instantly, I realized what was happening. I remembered the fuss about Mexican Coke from last year. I set the bottle and the can side-by-side and compared the labels. Sure enough: the can was run-of-the-mill Coke produced in the United States. Its ingredients:

Water, high-fructose corn syrup, caramel color, phosphoric acid, natural flavors, caffeine.

The bottle, on the other hand, was from Mexico. The label was in Spanish, and the ingredients included:

Carbonated water, sugar, caramel color, phosphoric acid, natural flavors, caffeine.

The Mexican Coke had 150 calories in twelve ounces instead of 140 calories in the can from the U.S., but I don't care. I'd gladly pay the ten calories (and the extra money) to drink real Coca-Cola. The Mexican Coke had a crisp, clean flavor, and was sweet without being overpowering. The Coke from the can was cloyingly sweet with a dull flavor, and it left a sticky residue in my mouth after I drank it.

From my perspective, Mexican Coca-Cola is far superior to the swill we're given in the United States. The main culprit is that nasty, nasty high-fructose corn syrup.

When we land, we'll still have two or three hours of Stuff before we're actually able to get to sleep (at 1 or 2 Eastern — 10 or 11 Pacific). Basically, we'll have been up for 24 hours straight!

Why haven't I posted sooner? The reality is I haven't had time to post before now. I have five hours of down time now before we land. That's the largest block of time I've had since the flight from Portland to London. As a guy who likes his alone time, you can imagine how I must feel.

So how has our trip been? It's been great, but not without bumpy spots. It's been l-o-n-g, that much is for sure. And I miss the cats. Even Toto.

We arrived in London on the 15th of July and spent a couple days hitting all the major tourist sites. We saw Big Ben. We saw Westminster Abbey. We saw the London Eye. It was awesome to be in the presence of such history. I love the juxtaposition of the modern with the ancient. I loved seeing sights I'd only read about in books.

My feet hurt for the first several days. I heeded advice from a close friend — Dave, I'm looking at you — that said, "Don't wear sneakers in London. You'll stick out as a tourist." First of all, I was traveling with Kris' parents, who graciously funded this trip, but who are dead giveaways as tourists. Secondly, there are plenty of Londoners who wear "trainers". Sure, they don't wear them to the office, but so what? They wear them because they're comfortable. Based on the advice I'd received, I picked up a new pair of shoes before the trip. Big mistake. My feet hurt for the first 50 miles.

Since I've walked a lot on this trip, however, the shoes were eventually broken in. I'm over 120 miles on them now in sixteen days, with more to go in New York. I hope to have clocked 150 miles by the time we fly home on Friday.

The walking has actually been the highlight of the trip. The best times have been those where I've left the group and wandered off on my own, strolling across London or Dublin, setting my own pace.

My favorite part of the trip so far: Avebury

Another highlight was the three-day car trip we took across the English countryside. Despite the great things we saw, London was mostly underwhelming. It all seemed so ordinary. I'd expected more. The English countryside, however, did not disappoint. Again Dave was the purveyor of misinformation. (Dave, it's almost like your trip to England was to a different country.) He'd warned that driving in the U.K. was a surreal affair, with narrow unmarked country roads and confusing roundabouts.

There were many roundabouts, it's true, but we found the roads well-marked. There were places with narrow roads, too, but they were mainly in the villages, and these spots were plainly marked to indicate who yielded to whom. In fact, Tiffany (my navigator) and I came to prefer driving in the U.K. to driving in the U.S. The traffic laws make sense. I wish I could be more articulate, but I can't. Everything seemed obvious and we wondered why Americans haven't adopted certain practices. I also found British drivers pleasantly polite.

Now Irish drivers — that's another matter. Everything Dave had told me about driving in Britain certainly applies to Ireland. I can't imagine a worse hell than driving in Dublin. (Note: I didn't actually do any driving in Ireland, but I walked many miles through Dublin, and took all sorts of rail and bus tours across the country.)

Here's where I had a completely different experience from another set of friends. Paul and Amy Jo visited Ireland a year or two ago and they loved it. I was nonplused. Dublin seems like Portland, but dirtier and with a little more history. Ireland seems like Oregon, but with a better climate. (Meaning it's cool and showery, even in the summer.)

The Irish countryside is beautiful — very much like Oregon.

We found the Irish people rather surly, especially as drivers. They were worse than American drivers! The Irish are also very dirty. The country has an annual "clean towns" contest. This contest isn't there because the towns are naturally clean — no, it's because of the opposite, in fact. It's meant as positive encouragement to clean up the mess. We visited a town that had won the "cleanest town" award several times (Killarney maybe?) and I had to laugh at how messy the streets were. The Irish particularly have a problem with chewing gum. The sidewalks of Dublin are pockmarked with the stuff. It's bizarre. There's a country-wide campaign to deal with the problem, but it doesn't help.

Also, the Irish drink. A lot. But then you probably knew that. They also smoke like crazy. I thought London was filled with smokers, but it's nothing compared to the near constant presence of cigarettes in Dublin.

I'm sure that Ireland has its charms, but we saw few of them. I don't mean to make it sound like a bad experience, because it certainly wasn't. It just wasn't what I had expected. It was like something out of a depressing U2 song.

We'd also heard bad things about the food in both England and Ireland, but again we found these notions to be false. The quality of the food was good in both places. It's the selection that is lacking. Dining out in both countries centers around the pub, which is well and good if it's a once or twice per week thing, but when it's every day (twice a day), it gets old. Ploughman's? Jacket potatoes? Fish and chips? Mmmm.... Which one haven't I had in 24 hours?

(I have to confess that the pub around the corner from our London hotel has an awesome dessert: a Texas fudge cake (a common dessert in both countries) surrounded by warm vanilla pudding. Y-u-m-m-o.)

I'm sure this sounds mostly like complaining, but I don't mean it to. I've had a good time. I'm glad to have seen these two countries, or parts of them anyhow. I'm grateful to Chris and Claudia for heavily subsidizing this vacation.

When I return, though — and I will return — I'm going to do things differently. I'm not going to Ireland (unless Paul and Amy Jo are able to provide persuasive proof that I ought to try again). I'm going to focus most of my time on rural England, which is what I truly loved visiting.

Now, however, it's time to turn our attentions on New York. We have Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday in the city (as well as a bit of Friday, I believe). We'll lose much of tomorrow to sleeping in (I hope). Thursday is spent at Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. And one night we're scheduled to go see Wicked. That leaves us about a day-and-a-half to pack in the rest of the city. It's not going to happen, of course, but we can give it a shot.

Meanwhile, Anil is still working on trying to get this weblog repaired. I appreciate his help. I hope to have things working by mid-August. If things stay broken, I'm just going to pack everything off to WordPress.

I hope you're all doing well. I miss my kitties...

p.s. My fantasies of surviving a mid-air catastrophe over the Atlantic Ocean are just that: fantasies. (You wouldn't believe how much imaginative time I've put into this scenario.) It's frickin' cold up here — -53 degrees centigrade. (Those of you in Oregon City will have to convert that number yourselves...)

Matt is safely ensconced as housesitter (soon to be relieved by Paul and Amy Jo), Get Rich Slowly has four weeks' worth of posts scheduled (just in case I don't feel like writing upon return), and everything is packed.

Upon the advice of many, I've put almost everything into a single carry-on sized suitcase (which I do plan to check, actually). The stuff I want for the plane ride is in a backpack with an extra set of clothes.

I'm bringing a minimum of gadgetry. That is to say, I'm probably taking more gadgets than you would take, but less than my natural instincts dictate. I have a digital camera. I have an iPod. And I have the small Mac laptop, which I haven't really used since last November. (That's when I got my large MacBook Pro — that beast isn't travel-worthy.)

If I ever travel regularly, which I hope to do some day, this will be Too Much Stuff. But it's a start. It's much less than I took to San Francisco last fall.

If all goes well — and my blog software doesn't hang — I'll be making posts from the road. Video posts even!

Take care, my friends. See you in three weeks...

Don't you get it? He's playing World of Warcraft on his iPhone! Wow! The future is now, baby. I want an iPhone so bad, but Im going to wait. I don't want the phone part. I want all the other parts. And I'll bet dollars to donuts that a similar non-phone device will be released by the end of the year...

It's been a long time since I posted, I know. I'm not abandoning this site, despite all appearances. I've just been swamped. It's not a state I relish, and I'm glad that there's an end in sight. (We leave for Europe on the 14th, so the busy-ness is going to come to an end on that date, whether the world is ready or not!)

Here's a partial list of things that have kept me occupied:

• This blog. Behind the scenes, I'm working to get things repaired. Anil is working on the old database. Meanwhile I'm trying to figure out what is slowing down the current database. These two problems make me want to switch to WordPress, but Anil is lobbying for an upgrade to the latest version of Movable Type. I know this is gobble-dee-gook to most of you, but translated it basically means: there are technical problems with foldedspace that I'm attempting to resolve.
• Life and death. My cousin Ron died last Sunday. He was 46. The cancer that curses our family took him. (This is why I'm so anxious to get a colonoscopy now despite assurances that it's not necessary until I am 50.) Ron's death was not unexpected, but unwelcome nonetheless. Nick has been spending much of his time with the family, which means he doesn't have time for Custom Box.
• Custom Box Service. Speaking of the box factory, we're busy. July is not a busy month, but it is this year. To top things off, our truck driver is in jail. This is bad news because he's an awesome employee. Jeff has done a great job filling in for him, but the fact remains that we need to hire a replacement. We've had no luck with Craigslist, so we'll turn to the newspapers. When we have time. Which we don't. Because Nick has been taking care of family matters while Jeff has been driving, leaving me alone in the office. On a normal day, this is just a minor nuisance. But now, when we're busy, it's a frickin' pain in the ass.
• Get Rich Slowly. Because we're busy at Custom Box, I don't have "slop time" with which to work on my web sites, most especially Get Rich Slowly. That site now accounts for 50% of my income. Put another way, I make as much from GRS as I do from CBS. Guess which one I enjoy more? It has been a mad scramble to get entries written and posted lately. I do have a pile of guest entries I could tap, but I want to save them for vacation.
• Vacation. Our vacation looms large. I have a packing checklist (thanks, Paul H.!) and have been working toward getting things ready. One of my big chores is making sure that Get Rich Slowly has a full log of scheduled guest entries to publish. So far, so good. This site will be barren, I'm afraid, aside from occasional notes from the road. I'm still half-tempted to purchase an iPhone, use one of the many tricks to opt out of phone service, and use it as a mini-computer on the road. For now, though, I'm taking a Mac Powerbook, an iPod, and a digital camera. (I am not taking a cell phone. Everyone else in our group will have one. There's no need for mine.)
• Ron's funeral. Coming back to Ron, his funeral is on Friday afternoon. I've agreed to create a video presentation commemorating his life, but that takes time. I've spent the last two hours scanning slides and photos. I have several more hours to go. Then I have to piece them into a coherent video. (Nick will help me do that tomorrow.)
• Backpacking. Our annual Opal Creek backpacking trip is this weekend. There's no way I can make the group hike in, but I still hold out hope that I can join the guys on Saturday. This is beginning to look like a feeble hope. I've put off many, many things to tackle the urgent tasks in my life. I'm going to need time to get things in order before I leave, and about the only time I can see is this weekend, if I don't go backpacking. And yet I love backpacking. (In fact, I just spent $80 on a new tent!)

All this is to say: Have no fear — foldedspace will return, and with vigor. But right now it's experiencing a moment (or thirty) of silence.

What am I trying to say? I really am going to move this blog back to WordPress. I made an aborted attempt at this last fall, but this time it's for real. I'll see what I can do to maintain the look-and-feel that we've all grown to love, but there are certainly going to be some changes. It's very likely, for example, that the flotch will have to die (sorry, Paul!). I don't know of any way to replicate the current flotch format in WordPress. (Actually, the new blog may become mostly flotch. Who knows? It'll probably be a category.)

Also, I'll be moving to a "multiple posts per page" format. Again, I know you all like to read the comments on the main page without clicking through, but I'm afraid you're going to have to exercise that mouse finger. I want to be able to have multiple entries on the front page, which is far and away the standard blog format nowadays.

I don't have a timeline for this change. I want to say "soon", but in reality it may be the beginning of August before it occurs. Meanwhile, posting around here may be sporadic. I can't get the damn blog to work half the time, and that frustrates me.

If you have any requests or suggestions as I prepare for this transition, please let me know.