That's Ken's head, then Ann and Helen. Marty's in the gold shirt, next to Nick.

Yesterday, Ann and I took the kids to Great America, along with their uncle Nick Kolinsky, who was down for a long weekend. The kids had each earned a free ticket to the park through a reading program at school, so it didn’t cost us much at all, and they always have a wonderful time there. Last year, Nick and Helen were just a bit too short to get on some of the bigger rides, but this time around they cleared that hurdle.

This year, we had some extra excitement. We got stuck on two of the rides.

The first was the Whizzer, which has been there since I was a kid. When we got near the top of the first drop, the coaster froze, and the clouds that had been mumbling about rain all morning finally started to make good on their implied threat. A staffer came up to reassure us and ask us to stay in our seats. About ten minutes later a woman with a tool belt and a man in a tie joined him. They explained the situation to us, then each grabbed on to the side of one of the coaster’s cars and gave us a push. The coaster’s motor finally kicked in then and brought us to the top and finally past the point of no return.

It was a great ride, and after we crawled out of the cars, the man in the tie gave each of us a coupon that would let us skip the line for any one ride. Pat was annoyed because he and his uncle Nick had been waiting to get on the first car, so they missed out on all the excitement.

Later in the day, we tried to ride the Giant Drop, a ride that hauls you up into the air on a pole and drops you into a second or so of freefall. This time, the ride got stuck before it even started going up. Unfortunately, the restraints were stuck too, and we had to wait ten minutes or so for someone to come let us out.

All we could do was laugh — and collect another line-jumping coupon.

Yesterday, the Beloit Daily News ran an article on the Welty Environmental Center, a great place out on the edge of town here that’s dedicated to teaching people (especially kids) about nature. Ann takes the kids out there regularly in the summer for various classes and activities, and reporter Daniel Thompson showed up while they were there. Read the article to see what Ann has to say about the place, and if you cock your head the right way and peer at the photo that accompanies the text, you might see Patrick in the blue shirt on the left and Nicholas in the white shirt on the right.

If it seems like it’s been a bit quiet around here, that’s because I haven’t been around. I spent most of the last two weeks on one of those classic family road trips that American families insist on inflicting upon themselves every summer they can. (Cue up Lindsey Buckingham’s “Holiday Road” from National Lampoon’s Vacation.)

Ann and I packed the kids into the minivan for a two-day drive out to Colorado, where we spent a night at the house of my cousin Tim Kuhn, a professor at the University of Colorado. He was off at a conference in Singapore, but his wife Sophia and their two young kids — plus his mother, my Aunt Joan — took great care of us.

From there, we spent four nights camping out in Rocky Mountain National Park, our first time in a (very large) tent with the entire family. We wandered and hiked all around the place, including a drive to Grant Lake and back by way of the Trail Ridge Road, which winds up to a height of over 12,000 feet. On the way back up the Trail Ridge, which was under re-construction at the time, we ran into a thunderstorm during which we spotted lightning flashing below us. You might still be able to see the marks of my grip on the steering wheel.

While there, we saw deer, moose, mountain goats, lots of birds, and herds of elk. We cooked hot dogs, grilled cheese sandwiches, and burnt way too many marshmallows making s’mores. We spent one rainy day at the YMCA of the Rockies, which turns out to as big as a small town all by itself.

Every night, after everyone else was in bed, I sat at the picnic table and worked on my latest short story, which should be in an upcoming anthology this fall or winter. Working on a vacation is never fun, but it’s the freelancer’s lot. Still, tapping away at my keyboard under a full moon while elk cries echo off the surrounding mountainsides reminds me why I prefer to work for myself.

On the way back, we stopped to visit with Tim for a bit, who’d gotten back from his conference, and with his father, my Uncle Dick, who’d come out to help as well. Then we raced off to Kansas to stay with Ann’s Uncle Marty and Aunt Jan. While there, we got to visit with a couple of her cousins (Kristi and Julie) and see her 98-year-old grandmother too.

I think I’m still recovering from the trip, but we all had a fantastic time. We’re already making plans for where we might go next summer, but in the meantime we’re determined to make the most of what’s left of this one.

Lincoln Stollard, who I met at the GAMA Trade Show a few years back, just told me that he’s completed work on a book called The Learning Project. In it, Lincoln interviews dozens of people in different fields to discover different ways in which people learn. It’s aimed at teenagers, to show them that there are all sorts of different ways to become educated about anything, but anyone curious about such things should enjoy it. Lincoln’s looking for a publisher for a dead-tree version of the book, but you can enjoy his work online right now for free.

Lincoln interviewed me as one of the three writers profiled in the book. He caught me on the tail end of an exhausting, fun-filled show (aren’t they all?), and I was probably a bit more scattered and candid than normal. If you’d like to know about me and how I got here, his interview of me is an excellent place to start.

My son Marty has the titular role in the KFAD production of The Emperor’s New Clothes. The play runs this Friday and Saturday at 7 PM and Sunday at 2 PM at the First Presbyterian Church in Beloit. If you live in the area, come on out and join us in watching Marty parade around stage in his long johns!

My wife Ann is a school social worker for the School District of Janesville, Wisconsin. Her main job is to serve as the homeless student liaison for the district. In this role, she’s spoken at conferences across the country, and just recently she’s been on local television twice.

Tonight, she also hauled herself out of her sickbed to appear on the Janesville Area Council PTA-Family Network show. This appeared on the Janesville public access cable channels (96 and 993) at 6:30 PM. Sadly, I can’t seem to find any archives for this show.

However, back on October 26, Ann appeared on Newsmakers, a production of WisconsinEye, our state’s version of CSPAN. If you scroll down to the second show on 10.26.09, you can watch or listen to the entire show, in which Ann discusses the increases in the homeless student population in Wisconsin, along with her counterparts from Milwaukee and Madison.

My son Marty has been pestering me to run a D&D campaign for him and his friends this fall. I’m going to try 4E, mostly so I can check out the new material in full. I have the basic books, of course. Can anyone recommend other must-have bits for the game? I’m heading to Gen Con this week, so I’m looking to pick them up there. Thanks!

Ann and I just got back from seeing Fountains of Wayne perform at Studio M, in the basement of 105.5 FM in Madison. I won the tickets in a random drawing on Monday and arranged for babysitting right away. We drove up to the station and got there on time and enjoyed a couple free beers courtesy of the Capital Brewery, which sponsors these events.

The band played a short set interspersed with interview questions, and they rocked. They even answered my smart-ass question about how much of an influence Michael Jackson had on them by confessing they sometimes used a riff from “Beat It” in their concerts. They went on to say though, that Jackson had undoubtedly had a huge influence on many muscians. Just not them.

It turns out that their bassist, Adam Schlesinger, wrote a bunch of the songs for “A Colbert Christmas.” This fact catapulted my respect for them even higher.

Afterward, we headed over to Westfield Comics and then to the Frugal Muse to gorge ourselves on comics and used books. From there, we ran to Sa-Bai Thong for a fantastic Thai dinner and then raced home to put the kids to bed. We had a wonderful time, and the whole day served as a perfect reminder of how great a city Madison is. I love living in Beloit, but one of the greatest things about it is how close it is to places like Madison, Milwaukee, and Chicago too.

Yesterday’s Beloit Daily News had a short article about the Together We Read celebration at the Beloit Public Library on June 20. The photo that accompanies the article shows all five of my kids sitting in the front row of a story reading. From left to right, Pat’s the one in the green shirt (partially obscured by the reader), then Helen, Nick, Marty, and Ken. Ann brought them there, but I was still in the final throes of finishing Guild Wars: Fall of Ascalon at the time.

My son Marty is a member of a local acting troupe for kids: Kids Fun and Drama. Their latest musical, The Return of the Glass Slipper, opens tonight. It’s a funny update of the classic Cinderella story, and in it Marty plays King Rupert, the father of the prince. You can read more about it in the Beloit Daily News, which also has photos of the kids, including one of Marty on his throne.

The play opens tonight at the First Presbyterian Church (501 Prospect Avenue, Beloit, WI) at 7 PM. There’s also a performance tomorrow night at the same time, plus one on Sunday at 2 PM. If you’re in the area, be sure to come out to support the kids and join us for a night of fun.

(In other recent Forbeck-related news, Ann sat on a panel last night about Beloit’s gifted and talented school programs at our brand-new library, my mother spoke about tree-huggers at an Arbor Day celebration, and my father won his first election as judge, running unopposed.)