It's that thing as a parent that, for 18 years, you know is coming but you're still a little stunned when it actually arrives. We moved Allison to her dorm room this week. Of course, I still can't believe she's old enough to move away and be on her own! I still think of her as my little girl in pigtails, a Gymboree outfit and saddle shoes. (Saddle shoes were her favorite!)

This is Allison taking a picture of her room to send to her room mate to ask her, "Which bunk do you want?" I ran into another student in the hallway who said, "Take the one you want! That's the advantage of moving in early!"

Carson gives Allison a hug goodbye.

Then Susan.

Then me. Awwwww. My girl!

And when I got home later that day, I looked in her room and I have to admit, I was a little sad she didn't take this with her.

Who knows why Lena does the things she does? This morning, she wanted to show Crisco and me her sunburn. Okay.

Our band is still at it! We have a show tomorrow and we practiced in my basement one last time yesterday. This is a clip of me trying desperately to get one little drum part right in "Smells Like Teen Spirit."

And some stills of Lena and Intern John from our practice.

RANDOM! This is kind of cool! My wife, Susan, takes cloth bags to the store to get groceries, thus requiring me to dump motor oil in the storm drain just to balance things out a little.

Finally, I've been looking for old KDWB photos and memorabilia. If you have anything of you with a celebrity at Star Party 1998, or at the fair in 1984, please e-mail it to me!

I hadn't seen these in forever until someone showed them to me.

Jon Bon Jovi in about 1997

And Dawn Wells who played Maryanne on Gilligan's Island in about 1995. Wow!

I'm not a huge art-lover. I mean I appreciate it, I really do. And I respect the talent it takes to paint, draw, sculpt and create. Who doesn't? But when Allison wanted to go to an art museum, I thought, "Hey cool! That's something we've never done together!"

So we went to The Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

Here's us outside. I noticed we have the exact same smile.

This was kinda cool. Not what I was expecting to see, but it's cool! It's titled "Rejects From the Bat Factory." Or something like that.

This, on the other hand, is why some art just pisses me right off. If you or I made this in 8th grade art class, we would have gotten a C- on it. But somehow, some morons look at this and declare it special? Artistic? Valuable? A museum piece? Come on!

Same with this one. The artist tells some story about how it was "therapeutic" to make it and soul-changing or some such blah, blah, blah, and POOF! It's a museum piece, that looks like your nephew made it!

This delightful waste of trees is about a well of time and space and life and plywood and WTF?

Okay, let's pause here for a second. John Lennon was a great songwriter and he came up with some brilliant lyrics. But he admitted that a lot of what he wrote was just gibberish that "intellectuals" would find some meaning in. I think modern art is the same way. It's solid hunks of gibberish that the artist either never explains or explains in a way that some people will nod and say, "Ah yes. I see what you're saying there. Very deep."

And continuing.

Okay, secret. Carson made this pot. I sneaked it into a display case and watched people Oooo and Ahhhh over it. Okay, I completely made that up. But it COULD be true!

This was kinda cool. Pretty in the same way a Christmas tree is pretty.

And this is lovely, because just looking at it gives me an inner peace, knowing that the talentless hack that made it is actually able to pay their rent and eat after selling this...thing.

Do you see what the artist is trying to say here? It's "I got fired from Burger King."

The stark beauty of this unconventional piece makes me think deeply of cardboard.

This timeless piece is called "Uncompleted High School Education."

We stared at this for a long time before some teacher came in and said, "Oh, thanks a ******ing lot for hanging my chalkboard in here!"

Okay, done being a d**k now. I actually get why there's pieces like this in the museum. You have a right to think one thing is art and I have a right to think another thing is art. For me, art like this makes me really appreciate the other kind. Now, time for some art that was truly impressive.

This is just cool. He's a telegraph operator. He looks like he's leaning out of the picture toward you. His eyes are red and raw like he's been working all night. And the guy behind him is giving him a look, like he's up to something. It really is cool!

Allison and I really liked this one. Look closely and it's a visual trick. The scene has a painting in the middle that covers the actual subject. That the tower and the street are shaped identically is just cool and creative.

This one is by a guy named Balthus who was obsessed with painting young girls. It's kind of creepy but we thought it was interesting like there's a story there.

This was our favorite painting in the entire museum. Yes, it's a painting titled "Frank." The painter didn't paint it while looking at Frank, he painted it from a 8 by 10 picture of Frank. Yes, that's all paint on there. It was VERY impressive.

The only thing I knew about art when I was a kid was that my Dad loved this old Western artist named Charles Russell. This is one of his sculptures.

And his "rival" was an artist named Frederick Remington. Dad always used to say the way to tell a Russell from a Remington was the way they made their hats. Russell's were always basic and plain, but Remington's were always very stylized and weird-looking. Oversized and floppy. Take a look.

AND FINALLY!

This is NOT art! It's Emergency Shoe Shine practicing "Rock and Roll All Nite."

I had THE BEST weekend! It started out on Friday when I spoke at Deloitte Accounting downtown. What a great bunch! Thanks for having me and thanks Erika for inviting me!

I'm the fat a** in the green shirt, as if you couldn't tell.

Then it was time! Carson and I got a canoe a few years ago and last year we took it on the Mississippi for the first time and camped. It was so much fun we did it again this year.

Here's us about to take off last summer.

And here we are this summer. With Josie, who came along this trip.

On our way downstream! Carson doing some serious paddling.

And that's me, enjoying one of my vices.

Josie didn't like the boat at first but after she got wet and splashed around during a rest-break, she was a lot happier!

Carson and I love turtles, and several times we spotted big ol' turtles sunning themselves on rocks.

We got our tent set up.

Here, I'm trying to take an artsy picture of this wild mushroom.

The sunset over the rivervalley was beautiful. The bugs, not so much.

While Carson was reading in the tent on Saturday night, I went fishing. I used bug spray but it didn't keep whatever kind of bugs they were from killing my ankles. It was more than I could take so I went to bed.

When I got to bed, I laid awake and read "The Scouter's Companion." It's for Boy Scouts and their leaders, but anyone could learn something from it. This may be my favorite quote in the whole book:

"Among the aimless, unsuccessful, or worthless, you may often hear talk about "killing time." The person who is always killing time is really killing their own chances in life; while the person who is destined to success is the person who makes time live by making it useful."

I love that. Is someone you know, boyfriend, husband, maybe even yourself doing that? Killing time? Hey we all love to sit and relax sometimes. But if they are constantly killing time, it's a safe bet they're broke, lazy, and full of excuses for both. And they won't change. Too bad it takes us precious years to learn that people like that never change.

Next morning, we woke up to fog hanging over the river. It really was beautiful.

Carson did some fishing and then we took off to meet Susan and the car a few miles downstream.

What a trip! Loved it! Thanks Carson! The only bad thing was the bug bites are so bad on my feet, this is what my left foot looks like tonight.

This is for real. Check out the pictures.