When you fall hard... really hard... there are skin colors that follow after black and blue. With a really deep bruise, your skin turns yellow and green.

I have vivid memories of those colors, because I have fallen hard. It was at least ten, maybe fifteen years ago, when I used to roller blade laps around our circular driveway.

You don't forget a fall like that, ever.

It certainly was on my mind today when I headed to the trail with Stef. Blading is part of her summer plans.

Stef was tenuous and I was apprehensive as we left the car. What a pair! Still, based on my GPS, we did three miles in 40 minutes.

That's pretty slow, but we're just getting started.

The trail was loaded with people today. As usual, they ran the gamut from skinny to fat.

Of all the people, one young woman stands out in my mind, because she was dressed as if she'd just teleported in from the sixties. She was even clutching a small bunch of wildflowers.

There's no doubt, this is hard exercise. Stef and I returned flushed and sweaty and out-of-breath. As an added bonus, I discovered there are muscles in my butt which can get sore. Great.

It will be a good summer as long as I have nothing turn yellow and green.

Stef is home. The semester is over and she's abandoned the dorm for free laundry service, home cooked meals, quiet surroundings and no 4:00 AM fire drills.

For the next few months, the DVR will be filled with shows whose names are unfamiliar to me. They are not 'talent' driven, but mainly reality shows on channels I seldom watch. None of the participants is old enough (or lacking in vanity enough) to have graying hair or facial wrinkles.

It will be a summer of sculpted six packs and supple breasts, the latter flanked by exposed flesh. There's nothing I can say in this sentence that won't make me sound old, so I'll pass.

A generational shift in viewing has taken place As a broadcaster, I know it.

I got out of bed around 1:00 PM and began to head downstairs when Helaine poked her head from the laundry room. She gave me a "shhhhh." Stef was asleep on the sofa downstairs.

It is quite possible one member of the Fox family will be asleep at any given moment through September. Steffie and I are both world class competitors.

CBS buys CNET. It's not the world's sexiest purchase.

However, CNET owns some of the best domains on the Internet. This list is amazing - maybe the best there is under one roof.

I have no idea what those names are worth, but it wouldn't surprise me if they trump whatever CNET's businesses are worth - seriously.

I'm branching out and doing a little writing 'on the side' for Ziff Davis, the publisher of PC Magazine and other tech publications.

My web posts will appear on gearlog.com and appscout.com, to name the two I remember off hand.

Here are my first posts: One on a free Photoshop book download, another on my little GPS receiver and a third on Animoto.

Why am I doing this? Trust me, it's not the money!

I wish I was better with email.

Sometimes I'll leave a message aside, hoping for time to answer it later. Then, nothing. I forget and it slowly slips to the bottom of the screen and then off entirely.

I really hope I haven't done that to you.

All my mail from all my accounts end up in Gmail. That even includes my work account.

Originally, I didn't think I'd like using on-line access, as opposed to a standalone email client. I've actually gotten used to it, which isn't the same as saying it's the perfect answer.

One thing I do appreciate is, email follows me anytime I open a web browser. No matter where I am, or what computer I'm on (and I use a bunch of different machines every day) I can get at all my mail - sent and received. And, when I reply, it's with the same return address that received it, all from one page.

I also like Gmail's the ability to filter mail as it comes in (or goes out), so it's easily found. I'm sure other clients do this too. It seems an obvious feature to have.

Emails from certain addresses or with certain subjects come right into my inbox, but also live together in easily clickable categories.

In some ways, the strength of having email on my cellphone has become a weakness as well. If I read an email on my phone, it seems less urgent to answer when I get to a 'real' computer. At the same time, answering email on the phone is incredibly tedious.

Email has become a vital part of my day. I'm not sure I ever want to live without it again.

This is the perfect spring day. Temperatures, judging by feel, have to be around 70°, with low humidity. The sky is a deep blue.

I left the bike n the garage today as Helaine and I set out to hike in Sleeping Giant State Park. It's a beautiful place and only five minutes from here.

We thought we were heading up the main trail to the castle at the summit, but after 30 seconds, I realized we'd gone wrong. Oh, what the hell, we just kept walking up the Yellow Trail.

My cellphone rang. It was Stef, calling from college. Later, I snapped some pictures with the camera in the cellphone and uploaded them to Flickr.

Am I missing the purpose of the great outdoors?

The GPS didn't get a good fix until we were halfway up the trail, but it looks like we did about two miles in 45 minutes. It's a hilly trail with lots of big rocks poking up and making footing a challenge.

We'll be back.

I just posted this on dpreview.com, but I guess I might as well post it here too:

I'm looking for some advice from forum members.

I am interested in doing a photo workshop sometime in September. I've never gone to one before. I am a reasonably competent amateur. I'm still shooting an original 300D Digital Rebel (over 40,000 shots) and use mainly Sigma lenses.

I'd like to concentrate on shooting skills. I'm already pretty good with Photoshop, which I use on a regular basis at work.

I am looking to go somewhere beautiful, not worried about some hiking (I'm 57, work at a desk and reflect much of what that implies), and will fly anywhere Southwest goes, rent a car and drive where necessary.

I looked at a website for a Rocky Mountain National Park workshop run by Andy Cook & Bruce du Fresne. It seems to be along the lines of what I'm looking for, though it might be too short for my long trip. I don't know.

Actually, that's the operative phrase: I don't know. So, any suggestions will be appreciated.

I'll let you know what comes of this.

I am the tech support guy. I usually have a computer or two hanging around the house, needing repairs. These come from friends and associates. It's a challenge, which means I enjoy it.

My friend Farrell's mom's machine is on the floor next to me. Once a very pricey Fujitsu, this laptop is getting a little long in the tooth. It was gunked up with a little spyware and some tiny applets; only a problem in the aggregate.

There was one other problem. Ruth had somehow locked the computer with user name and password she didn't know!

If you have your PC password protected, I have bad news. With a quickly downloaded copy of the "Emergency Boot and Recovery Disk," I logged on and was in control of users and passwords in under five minutes!

I told the family the laptop would benefit from more memory... but it's at its design limit already.

It will work and do everything Ruth wants. It will do it more slowly than I'd like.

She would actually be the perfect candidate for Linux, though I haven't (and probably won't) mention it. It's a little less CPU intensive than Windows XP, meaning it will be faster, and it has all the applications she wants and uses.

Linux still scares most users who cling to the belief Microsoft is some sort of gold standard. Of course, to me Linux is worn as a geek merit badge.

One thing I did do was install logmein. Next time, the repair is done via remote control! There are now seven machines I can operate from home.

Helaine sent me an email a little while ago asking me to schedule a few vacation days. Most were days we'd already discussed. One was not. I called her to ask.

"Just take it off," she said.

That's the most I could get out of her. My wife is being cryptic.

I went to the Phillies' schedule. Low hanging fruit. She knows I want to go.

The Phillies are playing in St. Louis. That's out.

For the next month I will look for hints... and get none.

Stef spent the weekend with us at home. I always laugh when I walk by her room and see her door closed and her lights off at midnight... or earlier. She is nocturnal, like me. This is a very early bedtime. I think she sees home as some form of rehab.

Today was Mother's Day - time for Stef to get back on campus.

First, we went out for breakfast. Our Mother's Day plans had changed a number of times, so our choices (on the busiest restaurant day of the year) were limited. We went to "Cracker Barrel," partially because it's our inside family joke and partially because it taste's good.

Is there any place where the food is less healthy? I'm not talking ingredients. Cracker Barrel's weakness is their style of cooking, from an earlier era before we knew some foods could actually kill you!

Bacon, ham, sausage, eggs... are my arteries hardening yet... grits, biscuits, potatoes. More than a few patrons had bodies which reflected a long running disregard for nutrition.

We had a long wait, which was to be expected today. Quite honestly, Cracker Barrel did an excellent job in handling this crowd. They had free coffee and other beverages, plus small biscuits and muffins.

A hostess wrote our order, so we could just hand it to our waitress as we sat down... an hour after we arrived.

Sin is always tasty. Damn you Cracker Barrel!

The trip to college was uneventful. Sure, our timing for traffic was pretty good, but I attribute a lot of it to E-ZPass. Or maybe I'm missing the bigger picture. Helaine was quick to point out the cost of fuel as we drove by the Turnpike's service areas. Did I see less traffic because of $4/gal gas?

Helaine and I return to being empty nesters for another few days. Stef is back beginning this Thursday.

She turns 21. She has an internship. This will be an interesting summer.