I'll admit it, I know nothing about soccer. It's like basketball, but with 95 percent less scoring. It's like football only in the sense that you use your feet. Fans get injured or even killed at games despite the fact that Ron Artest isn't there.

They run around a lot. They hit the ball with their heads.

Now the World Cup tournament is about to begin, and once again, I'm wondering if I can understand it; if so, I'll try to get into it.

My buddy Steve Stark (of Beatle book fame) has, along with his son Harry, penned a short series of essays on the games, and they're up for sale dirt cheap as electronic downloads on Amazon. For 49 cents you can read their intro.

Steve lived in England for three years in connection with his Beatles project, and that's where he caught the world soccer bug. It will be interesting to see if he and Harry can break down my immunity.

After months of passing these things on the streets of Portland, I give up. What are they -- bike racks?

They're fancy. Up at the top, there are lovely icons of walking, driving, biking, and riding a bus:

But down below, the place where you'd chain up a bike is puny. You couldn't get more than two bikes around the thing, if that, and one of them would be out in the sidewalk or awfully close to the street.

What are these things? How much did they cost? Who paid for them? And has anyone ever, ever seen them doing anything other than standing there taking up space?

The Trib's got an article today about Portland Commissioner Sam "the Tram" Adams's current pitch to local business districts: Let us put in parking meters. It will help your business.

Uh huh. Pay for Homer Williams's business is more like it. That cash flow would probably go straight to the SoWhat debacle. The list of unfunded traffic improvements in North Macadam comes to a good eight figures.

Parking meters will help your business? That's a Portland City Hall classic.

Consider this true story: Last Friday I was driving around doing errands that had piled up over vacation, and I got hungry. I decided to stop at the Subway shop in the awful Merrick Apartments (a.k.a Burgerville Manor) on NE Multnomah and MLK. There are meters out front of that shop, but I had some change in the dash of the car.

Well, guess what? The spiffy Euro-looking meter wasn't taking change that day, and so I had to use a credit card. And of course, the instructions on the darn thing are so baffling that I even bought a little more time than I intended.

It cost me $1.20 to park so that I could run in and get a sandwich at that Subway shop. Especially when there are many other nearby lunch options that don't involve pay-to-park (shops with their own parking lots, or in areas with on-street free parking), I won't be going back to that Subway again.

Old Grandpa Bogdanski, whose namesake I am, was full of quirky catch phrases. He had nicknames for everything and everybody. For instance, shredded wheat cereal -- which used to come in a cylindrical box as a single, giant mass -- was "last week's Brillo pads." He never called them anything else. You get the picture.

One of Grandpa's sayings was "What do you want -- a hop in the a*s or a gold watch?" He'd often say that to us kids when we were acting up. I never did quite establish with him what it meant, but I think it was the equivalent of "Get out of here." You were either being fired or given a testimonail upon retirement, but either way, you were gone.

I thought of Grandpa's saying as I read late last week that the last two holdovers from the Katz era are leaving the board of the Portland Development Commission. The proverbial more-time-with-the-family.

That leaves Mayor Tom Potter with two appointments to the board, to complete his clean sweep of all five seats. No word yet on whether there's a nomination process, but how about a level-headed small businessman and a neighborhood activist with experience in the city bureaucracy?

Our Complete Internal Revenue Code Podcast Project is written up in this week's Chronicle of Higher Education. (Click on "cancel" at the password prompt to see a few paragraphs, at least.)

Ain't it the truth.

So how was your Memorial Day? Are you like me -- did you catch up on a bunch of chores around the house and yard? My horoscope said this was a weekend to get organized, and I made some strides in that general direction (including the annual tax records shred -- bye bye, 2002).

Did you do anything to remember the veterans? I spent some time thinking about my favorite vet, my dad. He was in the Navy in World War II -- dropped out of high school in his senior year to get in on the action. It was toward the end of the war. He went to Guam, where, the story goes, he delivered mail. He had more than a few unkind words to say about the Japanese from the time he got back.

That was a defining moment for him. It was as far from home as he would ever get. I think the trip he made to San Francisco to see me graduate from law school may have been his only other jaunt west of Philadelphia.

Of course, we kids came after the war, with the baby boom, and so we never really got to take our own read as to how devoted a sailor Dad was. But he sure was an enthusiastic member of the veterans' post across the street, where the old boys used to hang out with great regularity. Amidst decades of membership, our father was even the commander of the post for a few years.

When Dad left us several years ago, a group of guys from the veterans showed up at the wake and did a little service. These were Vietnam vets, mostly just a year or two older than I. I was impressed by how much respect they paid one of the last local members of the Greatest Generation. At the cemetery the next day, they took the flag off the coffin and gave it to me -- "the eldest son," said whoever was in charge. I wasn't expecting it, but of course I took it with great reverence.

It's quite the screwed-up world we're witnessing now, but I still find it hard to imagine what it was like around here in the early '40s, when Dad and his buddies signed up. Nazi death camps. Rising sun war flags. Steel pennies. Silver nickels. Rationing.

Those guys went about the task with a singleness of purpose that we won't likely see in our lifetimes. The duty was clear, and the response was sure. God bless them and rest them.

Must... get a grip...

I know, I know... the elections are over... way over... and how I ache for a fresh start... so you'd think it would come easy... tonight being recycling night and all... the yellow bin is right there... it would be so simple... but God help me... for the life of me... I just... can't... bring myself... to throw this one away...

It's got me in its sick grasp... can't eat... can't sleep... can't... take my eyes off it... Get thee gone, Satan!

As I was saying earlier, when I get to a place with heat, sun, and water, it's hard for me to think about spending time with much else. But while in central Florida, we did a little -- just a little -- of the typical touristy central Florida stuff.

Of course, there's the whole theme park thing, and this time we spent just a day on that. We took in the Disney Animal Kingdom, which is a Disnefied version of a really nice, large, well appointed zoo. In addition to getting excellent looks at several rare species (at least,they're rare to us), we enjoyed the Lion King show, a fun re-creation of an African village, a few kiddie rides, and the usual encounters with the life-size cartoon characters. There's a lot of preaching about conservation, and I tried not to think too much about the irony of getting that message from a corporate giant like Disney -- especially at a location where it likely mowed down square mile after sqaure mile of habitat for its plastic universe. Anyway, it was a fun and educational, albeit hot and ultimately exhausting, day.

There were cheaper wildlife thrills right in our condo backyard. One day the kids looked off the deck and saw a family of peacocks strutting around on the grass strips around the complex across the street. And there were quite a few signs of interesting life amidst the shells that were all over the beach. Many crab bodies and parts thereof, and the bones of some big fish, were among the finds. Tiny fish swam in the shallowest parts of the tide. Perhaps the most interesting critters were some black sea snails that attached themselves to the rocks that line the channel where the cruise ships go in and out of Canaveral. The size of the head of a pin.

Probably the coolest moment of the trip came on our last evening in Florida. We were nearing the end of an action-packed day, in which we were trying to soak up everything our hosts had to offer. We had found our way to the beach for a farewell to the Atlantic, and my daughter and I were walking up toward the jetty, combing the beach. A bright and lively young girl ran up and made friends with my little one, and after a few steps we met her dad.

"We're here to see the launch," he said, gesturing north toward the Kennedy Space Center. "We come down to watch a lot of them."

"Darn, we won't get to see it," I responded. "We're leaving in the morning."

"No, it's today," he responded. "There's a window between 6:11 and 7:11."

It was an unmanned flight, of course -- a weather (they say) satellite called GOES-N, being launched as a ready backup in case anything goes wrong with the cameras we already have up there.

"It will be right over in that general direction," the other dad said. "Over that hill." He pointed slightly west of due north -- not to the launch pad right on the water that they use for the space shuttle, but an unseen site a bit inland.

"Cool!" I said. A while later, as we headed back south toward our beach headquarters, we noticed the number of people on the sand growing, and all eyes were looking past us toward the space center.

By the time the thing took off a few minutes later, we had made it back to our towels and had met up with the rest of our family foursome. The launch made quite a prolonged rumble, and an awesome sight -- a bright yellow tongue of fire blasting out behind the speeding vehicle. "Look, kids -- the rocket! Wooo-hooo!" What a piece of work is man.

I tell you, that thing went up fast. It was through the scattered clouds and out of sight in nothing flat. There was a bit of an easterly arc to its path. The sound persisted for a while, even after the rocket was beyond the reach of the naked eye.

Somewhere in there, I suspect, there's a metaphor for our trip.

From a patriot.

When you drive inland from Tampa Bay, after you labor your way past the long line of hideously dense residential development right on the freeway, the countryside gets pretty rural. Lots of cows and horses munching away next to I-4. And some serious wetlands -- gator habitat, no doubt. Not a whole lot going on. Before we took the cutoff to bypass Orlando, we stopped at what has to be about the bleakest Wendy's in America. Dave wouldn't have approved.

It was roaring hot and sticky, and the locals were making pained faces about it, but when you're a tourist from Portland, Oregon with a nice pool in your near future, it can't get hot enough. We slid all the way around Disney World and paid toll after toll and we buzzed on through to the Space Coast. As you approach the Atlantic, the expressway narrows a little, and when it hits the coastline just south of the Kennedy Space Center, it hangs a right and turns into a fairly standard American commercial strip, beach hotels and such on your left.

Just before that turn, there's an exit for the cruise ship launching stations. The big ones run out of here -- Disney, Carnival -- along with some lesser lines and some short-hop gambling cruises. If you take the cruise dock exit and head east past the oil storage tanks (there just for a nostalgic hint of the Jersey Shore), you hit the two-year-old Ron Jon beach resort, which was our Atlantic coast destination. A big roomy two-bedroom condo just off the beach (free shuttle tram all day long -- and no, it's not aerial) runs you 200 clams a night in May. Once you're settled in a bit, the run to the nearby liquor store and supermarket is an easy routine.

The main options at this place are pool and ocean. Both are so fine, you don't need much else. The pool complex includes a couple of toddler pools, a "lazy river," a big folks' pool with a volleyball court, and a fairly hairy water slide. In the afternoons a duo plays soft rock -- in a way, they're like the middle school music teachers from Saturday Night Live, but a little less goofy and with a beachier feel. Along with the Buffett you get some Creedence and maybe Tom Petty.

The ocean beach is five minutes' walk away, pure white sand and warm, healing waves, with a long gentle slope out into the breakers. There's a tendency toward riptides here, but the surf was tiny the whole time we were on the scene.

The resort has all manner of on-water stuff for kids to do. Magic shows, arts and crafts, and a wildlife safari show that gets the tarantulas and alligators right on your lap. (Most curious, but nonetheless reassuring, part of the gator display: the electrical tape around their jaws.)

If the spirit moves, there's an exercise room and a massage therapist. But let me tell you, people, there are few customers for either. America has gone to pot physically. All of Florida seemed to be a gigantic obesity clinic, and we're talking patients of all ages. They say Americans are going to live a lot longer, but I don't know. Fully seven out of 10 vacationers we saw were strokes and heart attacks waiting to happen. You just looked around the resort, and you saw what Rome looked like right before the empire fell. A bunch of soft, overstuffed whales. A bunch of hungry Arabs could kick our a*ses in a Riyadh minute.

We didn't let any of that bother us. We took full advantage of the excellent facilities and ran ourselves ragged with swimming, beachcombing, miniature golf, beach jogging, and hours in the indoor kiddie play area. We ventured down the road to the funky Cocoa Beach Pier a couple of times. Not much going on there, even on Friday "beach band bash" night. A couple of timeshare salesmen hustled us, but we weren't biting.

It was a real joy being with the kids so much, but I experienced an interesting phenomenon more than once. There were quite a few youngsters there who were running around unsupervised, and they seemed fairly starved for adult attention. Our two swimmers were shrieking "Watch this, Dad!" over and over with great gusto, and within a few minutes some other child, a complete stranger, would be over with us showing off as well. It wasn't competition among the kids as much as it was just wanting to be seen and acknowledged by a grown-up male. I didn't quite know how to react.

With a nice, well equipped kitchen, we ate most meals "at home," saving money and waistline inches. There's a fine coffee roaster in town called Wahoo Coffee (named after the fish, not the U. Va. rooters), and he's got the wi-fi going all day and night. We stopped by on a Sunday afternoon only to find him closed, but our older daughter and I staged an impromptu tailgater on the van -- I on the laptop, she on her art pad.

What restaurant fare we had in Florida was heavy. I don't care if I ever see another French fry. But the local fish was plentiful and first-rate. They're grilling grouper, mahi-mahi, and something called triggerfish, and they know what they're doing with it. There's a joint called Grills tucked in near the cruise ships, which has got the right combination of party atmosphere and grub.

It was the end of the slow season down that way, and we didn't meet with big crowds for much of anything. In fact, on weekdays, we had most of the place to ourselves. However, just as we were wrapping up the trip -- the Wednesday before Memorial Day -- all manner of school-age kids appeared. We were informed that the school year in Florida had just ended. It's a Jeb Bush program, I guess -- no child left in the classroom to learn anything.

Life is good when your biggest problems are the sand in your bathing suit and the menu choices at Grills. When the big project is showing a five-year-old how mini golf works. When you're goofing off, physically beat, slurping down a frozen strawberry daiquiri with a sleepy eye on the basketball playoffs. Wondering how hot it will be tomorrow. Beach first, then pool, or the other way around? Which day should we do Disney? How low should we turn the a.c. down to tonight? (To be continued.)

Here's just the kind of publicity that can accelerate the wreckage of a good place.

It's more than 30 degrees cooler in Portland today than it was where we were yesterday. But look on the bright side: We have such a good base to work off for global warming.

On our return from vacation, we found this in our inbox:

Hi, Jack,

Amanda

We gave our summer a nice jump start with a 10-day shot to central Florida. This time (our third in four years), we hit both coasts, as I had a speech to give in Tampa, and we wanted to spend qualiy time back on the Space Coast.

The trip took more than a few unexpected turns, but the forces of good travel were with us, and every change in plans seemed to work out for the better. Take our first stop, for example -- the car rental counter. They couldn't give us the full-size car we were supposed to get, and so they upgraded us, for free, to a van with a DVD player. We had a heck of a time getting the movies to work, but they did operate well on our three longest drives, keeping the munchkins content.

Our first night, we cruised to St. Pete Beach over on the gulf. I have long wanted to stay at the Don Cesar Hotel over there, and given that I was spending someone else's dime this time, we checked right in. The next morning, however, we awoke to the shocking news that there was no water in the entire hotel! When it would be restored, no one could tell us.

Needless to stay, we were concerned. I had to make my grand appearance before the expectant audience late that afternoon, and after the long trek from Portland, I was beyond grubby. A sponge bath in a public restroom wasn't going to cut it. Maintaining calm as best I could, I demanded that the room be comp'ed and that we be moved to the nearby Tradewinds as quickly as possible. The Cesar is run by the Loews hotel chain these days, and they do a nice job. They reserved us a penthouse at the Tradewinds, wrote off our brief and waterless night, and sent us on our way.

The Tradewinds was great, especially with the little ones. I got a brief dip in at the pool and stuck my toe in the gulf before dressing up and heading over to Tampa. But first, for 10 bucks I checked in on the internet to read the mostly dismal Portland and Oregon election results (the one and only charge we paid for wi-fi). Then back onto the Sunshine State highways I went.

Florida should be renamed the Toll Booth State. Particularly in Orlando, it's ridiculous. Tolls are so backward, so regressive, we're going to hate them once they get to Oregon. Easy pass, schmeasy pass, it's still a pain in the a*s. Anyway, Tampa at rush hour has its challenges, like any other city, but with the time that I allowed myself I was the first to arrive at the Tampa Club, one of those white bread business clubs atop the obligatory office tower. The audience was swell, the food was great (I ate so much fish this trip I'm sprouting gills), and they even threw in a little extra dough. The no-water-at-the-Don story was a nice icebreaker.

Everything was copasetic back at the penthouse, and we enjoyed a fine evening overlooking the gulf after I got back. The kids had gone to see the Pirate Red Beard show, and the next morning we took a spin around on the paddleboats before hitting the road for the long ride over to Cape Canaveral.

For the first time in a year, I had no work in front of me for a solid week. At this point the Jimmy Buffett soundtrack was rolling pretty good. (To be continued.)

Our deepest sympathies...

On our flight this afternoon: former Blazer enforcer Mark Bryant, looking good with family in tow. Here's another clue for you all: He was flying out of his current home town.

I told Bryant that he ought to come back to Portland and help Terry Porter buy the Blazers. I said that we missed him. He smiled and said thanks, but he didn't seem too interested in the ownership part.

P.S.: He is a way tall man.

We've been blogging only sporadically, and from a secure remote location, for more than a week now. We hit the road before the first fraudulent ballot was opened on End-of-Election Day, and we've stayed loosely in touch courtesy of bootleg wireless service, mostly from people we don't know.

As is our custom, while we now return to the rainy Rose City, we give our readers a chance to identify our travel spot. Our friends have proven so good at this recently that we're going to give only one hint this time: This place has got the most appropriate area code in the nation.

So the feds want to take a look at possible white collar crime in Portland city government? I say, bring it on -- it's about time.

With a budget that big and a bureaucracy that bloated, shortsighted, and arrogant, it shouldn't be hard to find some folks on the take.

Oh, wait, I forgot, there's no corruption in Oregon. Human nature doesn't apply here.

(Note to the mayor: The correct response is, "We welcome scrutiny by our fellow law enforcement officers. If any corruption is found, it will be swiftly corrected. We have nothing to hide.")

I guess I'm having another one of my spells and missing something. I keep hearing talk about having a nonpartisan legislature here in Oregon -- the Stennies all seem to be taking a break from their urban affairs term papers at PSU to drool over the idea -- but it seems to me the real politics are headed 180 degrees in the opposite direction.

The 2005 legislature struck two gigantic blows for partisanship in elections acrioss the state. First there was the new law that major party members can't sign petitions for independent candidates if they vote for anyone -- even candidates in nonpartisan races -- in the primary. Take that, Naderites and Westlund! And then they repealed the law that said that candidates for nonpartisan offices couldn't highlight their party affiliations in their campaign literature.

And in this climate, we're going to switch to a nonpartisan legislature? Come on. Nobody in Salem is in the mood for this. Moreover, even if it passed, it wouldn't mean much, now that candidates for nonpartisan office can paint themselves as blue or red or green as they like.

The Trib is questioning "clean money" today. Shouldn't it be put up for a public vote?

Er, yes. Is this news?

Interesting, though, that the story discusses the scandal of the election just past without mentioning Lucinda Tate. The story's all Emilie Boyles this, Emilie Boyles that, but the author seems to have forgotten that Tate turned in signature sheets with the same apparently false data on them that Boyles did -- procured by the same villain who wrecked Boyles's campaign. By then, however, we "losers" were screaming our heads off about the apparent forgery, and the city bounced Tate on some technicality or other without ever getting to the fraud issue.

I guess I'll never figure out how they divvy up the free passes in this town.

Willamette Week: Part of the solution or part of the problem?

Opie and Big Pipe now have a mandate, people. And so you can expect the flow of half-baked sludge emanating from Portland City Hall to break through any and all remaining levees of common sense. The rest of the SoWhat boondoggle is a lock now -- the local share will run several hundred million, if the truth be told. Saturday Market -- gone for a condo tower or two. The Convention Center hotel groundbreaking is less than a year away. Light rail on the bus mall? A certainty. "Creative class" pap from PSU is stilll in the driver's seat. Homer and Vera? Heroes. Bluecoat pension reform? Dream on.

I can't believe that the majority of Portlanders want to continue down this path. But let's face it. More than half the people who mailed in their ballots (and their spouses' and significant others' and dead relatives' ballots) want the current juggernaut to continue. My best guess is that the vast majority of Portlanders don't understand, or don't care. And so hey, we soldier on. Read up on municipal bankruptcy, stock up on canned tuna, get a referral on handgun training from Ginny Burdick, stay friendly with your realtor pal, and watch the wheels of incompetent socialism roll on.

They say the mark of a true champion is the ability to come back from adversity, and the Detroit Pistons have done that, defeating the Cleveland Lebron in seven games. The Cavaliers had the defending conference champs right where they wanted them -- up 3 games to 2, and with a game 6 at home -- but they couldn't finish them off. As ill as Rasheed Wallace makes me, his was clearly the superior team.

So now what -- root for Wallace? Or for Shaq and Riley? Guess I'll have to swallow hard and pull for Miami Vice.

With summer almost upon us, I find myself thinking yet again about the crew that raised us -- my parents and their siblings. On those annual two-week vacations at the Jersey Shore, there was no shortage of cheap ways to keep ourselves entertained. I remember the year we decided to move our vacation up by a couple of weeks from our usual last-two-weeks-in-July. When we got to Seaside Park or Ortley Beach or wherever it was, the water was too cold for the prolonged swim sessions we enjoyed.

As we sat on our beach blankets whiling away the hours, a game was devised that made the most of our situation. Each person was assigned two shells or bits of shells. Each of us was instructed to place secretly one, two or no shells in our clenched fist and place it on the blanket. We would then go around, and each player would enter a guess as to how many shells, in total, would appear when we opened our hands in unison. As I recall, the object of the game was not to get the actual total, because the person closest to the correct number had to plunge himself or herself into the chilly water over his or her head. As the guesses went around in the circle, you couldn't choose the same number as anyone else, and we took turns guessing first.

I can't remember whether the oceangoing losers were then out of the game, or whether they returned to the circle for further play (after the ridicule died down, of course). I think the idea was that once you were in the water, you were out of the game, and the rest of the crew kept playing until only one of us remained dry. I can just picture the smirk on the face of the winner. Maybe it was Aunt Eleanor or Uncle Andy, although the two of them were such good sports that they might join the final member of the Polar Bear Club, in a show of solidarity.

But there you have it. Maybe 12 or 15 of us, kids and grownups, howling for an hour over the simplest of pastimes. We would do well to get back to that kind of fun this summer.

Photographer extraordinaire Nancy Lynne has a blog up and running. Go and enjoy.

I see that the local media is making a big deal out of the implosion of the cooling tower at the Trojan Nuclear Power Plant tomorrow morning. Much ado about nothing. The shutdown of plant operations was the real milestone, and the removal of a lot of the contaminated equipment for a ride up to Hanford was a clever maneuver. The tower is a snooze. Wake me when they figure out what to do with all the hideously lethal spent fuel rods sitting in the crummy old pool next to the Columbia River. At least Al Qaeda won't have the tower as a visual marker to help guide them in when they're ready to blow the pool to smithereens.

Greetings Friends, Supporters and Fellow Listerines:

Dave Lister