Kevin Durant: Dad's latest man crush

So, I'm sitting here, teaching dad how to blog. He needs a tutorial on how to add pictures. I decided it would be a picture of Kevin Durant, future Portland Trail Blazer and Dad's latest man crush.

Illusive racoon # 7

A 7th racoon is working the Robbins farm. I saw him at 10:30 pm about three nights ago. He was pigging out on the cat food. So I set up the trap again. He showed up about 2:30 am the next night but didn't eat. I took the trap down because the kids are here, and the racoon is now stripping our cherry tree. I discovered his poop (full of cherry pits) in the crotch of the oak tree. The same place they have pooped for a long time. When the tree house was up there, there were BIG piles of poop (full of cherry pits) on the back side of it. Anyway, that is the latest on the racoons. They still love us. ha ha ha.

My Random Ebay Luck

By: Stephen

So throughout the years I've had some random luck on Ebay. In high school a friend gave me a box of junk for my birthday. Included was a Ken Griffey Jr. rookie card. I told him I thought it was worth some money, but he insisted that he didn't want it. I sold it on Ebay for 100 dollars (Griffey was at the top of his game, the value of the card has since gone down considerably).

After Grandma Robbins died (has she gone back to being Grandma Robbins? I honestly don't even remember what her last last-name was), we were all at her little apartment going through her mail and claiming her things (I can't wait to die and have people go through MY stuff!). While the girls fought and cried over jewelery, I wandered over to the bookshelf, and immediately identified a few gems of my own. I later sold two of the books for almost 1000 dollars (500 each).

Well yesterday I was driving down Center St. in Provo, when I passed an old house with some junk in the yard and a sign that said, "FREE." I didn't stop because it all looked pretty crappy, and nothing that is free is any good. (This reminds me of a story a friend told me recently. A friend of theirs was trying to get rid of an entertainment center, so they put it on the corner with a "FREE" sign. It sat there for days. Finally they replaced the "FREE" sign with a sign that said, "$50." The entertainment center was stolen that same night.)

Anyways, I came back later the same way, and there were some old guys unloading boxes of old books onto the yard. Everything was going in the "FREE" pile. I picked out about 20 different books, a rug, and an old record player. Most of the books were simply for reading, but some were old and/or interesting, so I picked them up too. When I got home later that night, I was looking through the books and I found that one of them had been signed by Heber J. Grant!! I went ahead and posted it on Ebay today. Check out the auction and cheer me on! I'm hoping to get about 500 for it, but we'll see. Maybe I'm getting cocky.

Check out the auction here.

Does this look familiar

I just found some random unlabeled CD's under my bed. Low and behold they are pictures from college. These two pictures totally cracked me up. I think I spent about oh....maybe 75% of my college career asleep. These pictures do a pretty good job of capturing the attempt to study and then once again, the failure.

This week

Early this week we received a letter from the IRS saying we owed $11,000+ dollars. I felt sick. When I started reasoning again, I thought it just couldn't be right. Jay came over a couple nights later and I had left out a $79 interest payment but I hadn't filled in the part where it asked if we had sold stocks. Our investments went from American Express to Ameriprise and I hadn't clicked on the right box so the IRS thought it was all income. Acutally there was a loss on one so we should get about 260 back. There were also two other pension payments that Turbo Tax put in wages and salaries and the IRS couldn't find it apparently. I have the paperwork ready to go in the mail tomorrow so hopefully all will be well.
I believe it was Thursday that I went out to go from Calapooia to Albany Options. The car wouldn't start--wouldn't even turn over. I called Dad and he picked me up and took me to the other school, picked me up again and 5 and went back to Calapooia with jumper cables. We still couldn't get it started. We talked about getting a tow truck. Dad said: "Let me try" so he get in, puts in it PARK and starts it right up. I guess the whole time it wasn't in PARK. Yikes!! I'm glad we didn't call the tow company.
Fathers Day is next Sunday. I know Grandpa would appreciate a card or call. I think I resented my mother always saying things like that to me but I just can't help myself. I love you all. Have a good week.
Love MOM

A cat and the racoons (cont.) pages 3,4

to try and catch him.
I was telling Fred Dunmire about my dilemma and he said, "I have a live trap, never been out of the box."
"Would you like to borrow it"
"Sure," I said.
So I did. I took the trap out of the box and set it up. I put in a bowl of cat food, then shut our cats in the garage. Later that night, onto the patio crept the cat.
Very warily, into the trap he sneaked The door slammed shut and I had him.
This trap had a door on both ends. One end had the trip/catch mechanism and the other just opened to release the animal. When I picked up the trap by the handle in the middle to carry it to the pickup, the cat shifted to the release end. The trap went vertical and somehow the funky little clip that held the door closed released letting the cat escape. Dang it.
Almost the entire month of March was spent trying to get the cat back in the trap.
About the 25th of March I woke up on Sunday morning to find a raccoon in the trap.
Not making the same mistake twice, I wired both ends of the cage shut. The pickup was full of furniture waiting for a trip to Kelly's House. I was left with the van for my trip to the country with the raccoon. I could just picture the cage coming open and into the front seat while I was driving comes a mad raccoon.



Trap # 1 and Racoon # 1

Not a pretty thought while listening to an angry growling animal with very sharp fingernails. He wasn't liking his temporary home.
We then went for a Sunday morning ride in the country out by the coffin butte landfill. After arriving at the release place, I opened the side door of the van and took out the trap with the raccoon and sat it on the ground close to the door of the van. Then I got into the van through the side door. Leaving the door open just enough for my arm I reached out with a pair of wire cutters and cut the wires holding the release door closed. I opened the door and the raccoon went bounding off into the bushes.
So the first raccoon trapping was pretty much an accident while trying to catch a cat. I did think, however, that the raccoon problem had been solved. So I continued trying to catch the cat in the cage, i.e.; putting food in it etc. I even lined the bottom of the trap with cardboard to make it look different. I also left the trap

A cat and the Racoons

It's about time I told the real story of how I became, "Dean (Daniel Boone) Robbins", the great racoon hunter. This is a 26 page story I have written in word. It takes place over a 4 month time period. February-May, 2007.
I am only going to post a couple of pages at a time. So when you check the blog there might be more to the story. Woohoo!!!!


A cat and the raccoons by Dean Robbins


This story began sometime in late February 2007. I was sitting on the couch by the front window eating my breakfast one morning. I sleep late so it was probably around 10 or 11 am.

As I looked out at the tree in the front yard that has the squirrel feeders on it, (See picture below)

I noticed a cat at the base of the tree eating what was left of some cat food I had put in the feeder the night before. (There is no cat in this picture, but this is the tree.)
The deal was, Racoons had been cleaning out the squirrel food every night from the squirrel feeders so I decided to give them a little cat food instead. Much cheaper and I thought they might leave the squirrel food alone. Wrong, but that is another story we will get to later.

This cat was a big feral male, and very very wary. I had not seen such a wary cat since growing up on the dairy farm. I thought, "Maybe I can tame him." After all I had just tamed two stray cats recently.
One female I named Cali. A very pretty calico. Another male I named Blackie. I had both neutered, absolutely wonderful cats. (See pictures below)
Blackie

Cali

So I started to put out cat food on the driveway for the new wary cat. But, pretty soon Rosalind noticed the cat hanging around more. She said, "You aren't trying to tame that cat are you?"
"Well, ya," I replied.
"No your not. I don't want another cat around here. We have four now," she said.
Sheepishly I said, "Ok I will try to get rid of him." Because, now the cat was hanging around big time, peeing on everything, plus he and Blackie were having a big time stand off. I had made a mistake trying to tame him and now I had to try and catch him.

(page 1,2)

I'm FAMOUS!

So, as most of you (except Dad) probably don't know, the Portland Trail Blazers have a player on their team who is from the Canary Islands. Today at work I read an interview of him in the Spanish newspaper El Pais, and decided to translate some and send it to the Blazers beat writer Jason Quick. He wrote me back with a big, "THANKS A TON!" and immediately posted it on his blog. You can check it out here:
http://blog.oregonlive.com/behindblazersbeat/2007/06/sergio_unplugged.html
Notice that he gives me huge props.


Stephen

what is going on at our house

Things here are good and getting better. I am working hard (following Mom's instructions of course) to spruce the place up a bit. The young men came over and split some wood for a service project last thursday.

There is still more to do though, so I set a goal of splitting 10 pieces of wood every day. Pretty soon the wood pile will look like this.

Dustin came across some pavers that were available from a mobile home site that was being removed at a Pacific Power site. All he had to do was remove them and haul them away. ([all] was a lot of work) He figured there were enough of them to do what he wanted and leave enough for us too. So with that idea in mind, our driveway became a staging area for these pavers. Today John came over and when he saw the pile he counted them, then said, "There must be 1000 dollars worth of these things!"

Every day after splitting the 10 pieces of wood, I move to the south side of the house, which has been neglected forever, and work on our new path. (made out of the pavers)

Then I prune a few bushes and call it a day to sit and watch baseball or basketball. (in the cold of course)

Dad

If I ever make it to a dunk contest . . .

This is probably what it'd look like:





Stephen

My first blog ever

The Ditto Family....yes we are alive, and

yes we do love to read the family blog. It's taken me until today to figure out how to add a post. I know Lame-0. It's been fun reading everyone's messages! Life in Keizer is great. We have been doing a lot of projects around the house. Laying barkdust, planting the garden, organizing the garage...fun stuff like that. In the next few weeks we hope to add new rails to our deck (which currently has none) We are looking forward to fewer falls off the deck. Last weekend we went to Seaside and enjoyed a beautiful day at the coast. It was the first time we had been there in 3-4 years. Yikes! This next weekend Brent is taking the three older kids to Spokane for Andrew's graduation and I am heading to Albany with Claire to run our Bookclub garage sale. I'm looking forward to it. I'm counting down the days to Sunriver and will have meal assignments out later today or tommorrow. Love you all. Deena and fam.

Thoughts for a Sunday

Most of you have heard of Joseph Novak. He is kind of a "name" here in Albany. He was on the board at LBCC, ran for State Rep, etc. He owns a restaraunt here in town. He came to the U.S. from Hungary after the Communists took over. Anyway, I see him once in a while buying food at Shop N. Kart for his restaraunt. He is always very friendly to everyone. Yesterday he was coming from the parking lot as I was coming out of the store. He took a grocery cart and then proceeded to pick up a few other carts that had been misplaced, and gathered them up and pushed them to where they belonged.
It was a small deed but it made me think. As important as he has been in this community, he must not feel too important to serve others. I also thought of how we never know who may be watching us and who may be inspired to try a little harder, be a little kinder, be a little more helpful, by just watching us. It is not that we should be "good" so that others can see us, it is that when we become the type of person who is just "good" because that is the kind of person we desire to be, we will do those things without thinking aboutit. It will just become who we are. It is not an act and that goodness can inspire other people.
Some little kindness we do may make a difference in someone else's life.
Mr. Novak will never know that his act of service was an inspiration to me. I thank him for his example and hope that someday I will be a little more like him.
MOM

OK Stephen, we have to do something about these hips! Nice bridge though--and Deyce looks good.

I had a strange thought---we forgot to have Garrick checked out. He is looking a little like a secret agent-spy type guy here. I wonder if we have the whole scoop on him. Bill Hansen next door can do a check Deyce if you think we should.

Some of the cousins at the lambing barns at OSU. Kaysha and Mom took the troops while Deena was in the hospital. CUTE KIDS

Welcome to Provo!

Stephen: I posted this on my personal blog, but thought I'd put it here as well.

Yesterday I had one of the weirdest experiences of my life, one that pretty much sums up the way things are in Provo.

I’ve been pretty sick lately, coughing a lot, sniffing and blowing my nose every couple of minutes. The last 3 or 4 days I’ve also been working a lot, and my muscles have been really sore from jumping rope (my new workout of choice). Anyway, after a long day at work yesterday, I just wanted to come home and crash.

When I got home, I decided to take a bath. I know that traditionally men don’t take baths, but I used to always take a bath in high school after a really hard practice or when I was absolutely exhausted, and that’s how I was feeling. So I turn up the music on my computer, and start soaking.

Pretty soon I hear a knock on the door. At least I THOUGHT I heard a knock on the door; I couldn’t really tell with the music so loud. I figured they were neighbors coming to complain about the volume and so I, wanting to avoid an awkward encounter with my non-English speaking neighbors, jumped out of the tub and turned off the music.

I got back in the water, put my head back to relax, and just when I was getting settled heard the knock again. At this point I wasn’t really sure who it could have been, all I knew was that if I simply ignored them, they’d have to go away, right? Isn’t that normally what you do when you knock on someone’s door and they don’t answer? Go away?

Well, not in Provo.

The next thing I know, someone is shouting from my living room, “HELLLLO?”

There was an awkward pause as I sat naked in the tub, calculating my next move.

“YEEEAH?” I responded.

“YOU MIND IF WE TAKE A LOOK AROUND?” they shouted back.

Again, an awkward pause. They were probably looking for a place to live in the fall, and simply wanted to size up my apartment and the available vacancies. This experience is normally awkward enough on it’s own—being naked and in the bath tub while it takes place makes it ten times worse.

“UH, WELL I’M KIND OF TAKING A BATH,” I eventually replied.

Silence.

“MAYBE YOU GUYS COULD COME BACK IN LIKE 10 MINUTES?”

“OH, WOULD THAT BE BETTER?”
I paused, wondering why they even needed to ask that question.

“YEAH, THAT’D BE BETTER.”

“SO HOW MUCH IS RENT IN THE FALL?” one of them shouted.

Again, remember that I’m shut in my bathroom, wrinkly, wet, and really really naked.

“260.”

“HOW MUCH DO UTILITIES USUALLY COME OUT TO?” They shouted in my general vicinity.

“I DON’T KNOW, I JUST MOVED HERE,” I shouted back, wondering if they’d missed the part about coming back in 10 minutes.

“DID SOMEONE GO TO THE CANARY ISLANDS?” On of them asked. At this point I was somewhat creeped out, because the only thing that could have tipped them off to that is the large map/poster I have of the Canary Islands IN MY BEDROOM (which happens to be RIGHT outside the bathroom where I sat naked in the tub.)

“UH, YEAH.”

“WHO?” they asked.

“ME.”

“I WENT THERE ON MY MISSION,” he said, “WHAT’S YOUR NAME?”

“STEPHEN ROBBINS,” I said, praying that the person outside wasn’t someone I knew, thus adding to the awkward scale even more. Luckily it wasn’t, and they responded with a lackluster, “OH.”

There was another long pause, and finally they said, “OK, SO WE’LL COME BACK. THAAAANKS.”

I quickly finished my bath, and went to make sure all my possessions were still in place, the bike, the TV, the IPOD. Nothing was stolen. They did in fact come back, 10 minutes later, mostly to ask about the Ward (local congregation in Mormon speak), ie. Are there lots of babes there, how many babes, how babe-y are the babes, and what percentage of the babes are spoken for (when searching for a religious congregation, these are really the types of questions you want/NEED to be asking yourself).

I think Provo is in interesting place in this way. I don’t know if there’s anywhere else in the world where such a . . . naïve global trust exists for everyone around you. Only here would you think it was ok to simply walk into someone's apartment, and to ask the naked bath tenant questions while you snooped around his stuff. And only in Provo would I be slightly worried, but at the same time trusting of the people snooping around my apartment while I was taking a bath. If I were living anywhere else I probably would have simply yelled, "GET OUT OR I'LL CALL THE COPS!"

It’s kind of a weird feeling, I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, in some ways it’s really nice (don’t get me wrong, I still lock my door every night . . . and from now on while I’m in the shower/bath). I’d just rather people didn’t “take a look around” while I was washing my naked body. That’s all.

Stephen

Name that Mountain

On my recent Memorial Day camping trip we hiked many a trails that provided great views of some of the prominent mountains in the Cascades. It brought back the memories of mom pointing to the mountains on our drive to and from Bend and saying, "What mountain is that kids." I think after 28 years, I'm finally starting to remember which mountain is which. The question is do you? So go ahead - tell me what mountain is pictured above? Mom - please refrain from giving your answer until the children have had a chance to respond.

Wait a minute, wasn't this MY idea?

I love the family blog. I check it everyday, hoping to find new pictures or comments, stories, etc. Lately though Kaysha has been giving me crap for not actually CONTRIBUTING myself. Even though I created the blog, Kaysha is sort of like the Blog KGB, the enforcer who is willing to do my dirty work (ie. call people and make them feel guilty for not participating). I just didn't think she'd turn on me and make ME feel guilty. Oh well, I deserved it.

I'm sitting at work, it's been pretty slow today. Yesterday was crazy since it was the last day to get orders in for the month of May. I still like my job, although it's not nearly as slow since they trained me to take calls from the United States. I get pretty annoyed sometimes with certain people, especially Asians who call in and pretend like they speak English. This wouldn't be a problem for me if it weren't for the fact we have Korean, Chinese, and every other Asian language as an option. Those lines are so busy that sometimes the impatient ones will decide to practice their English skills . . . on me.

Oh well, such is life. I've been enjoying the bicycle. It gave me some problems at first, but I think I was just breaking it in. I think it will save me quite a bit on gas.

Other than that I'm still living alone. If that's still the case come July, I'll have two empty rooms if anyone coming for the wedding would like to stay with me. It DOES kind of smell like old dead people, but other than that, it's ok.

Speaking of my apartment, they finally replaced the vacuum cleaner, 3 1/2 weeks after complaining about it being broken. I should get new couches by the year 2014.

walking in dads footsteps

This is sort of embarrassing to even show. Shown above is my favorite sprinkler. Without a sprinkler system to water for us we do alot of watering. So when my really expensive $3 sprinkler broke and buying a few replacements that aren't nearly as good dustin gave it what we call a little white trash fix. This is our white trash sprinkler. It probably wouldn't make me laugh so much if it didn't totally look like something dad would conspire!!! Watch out dad! As dad always says if it ain't really broke and I mean broke fix it!