Spain!

Ingrid and I traveled to Spain for a little over a week to visit our friends Eric and Eli in Malaga on the Mediterranean. On All Saints Day we went up to Antequera with their family to see the cool rock formations. A few days in we traveled north to Granada to see the Alhambra and Albayzin - where we had a very nice hotel room. We also made it with Eric and Eli to the caves in Nerja, which were pretty cool. As we missed the Alcazaba of the Alhambra, we went to downtown Malaga and visited their Alcazaba which was uncrowded and very cool.

Travel photos

Malaga

Antequera

Granada

Alhambra of Granada

Caves of Nerja

Alcazaba of Malaga

Orangelanterns

Orangelanterns

Japanese Garden

Denver

Ingrid and I flew over to Denver to see Wes and Phyl. They plied us with martinis and 18oz steaks after making us brush their cats. Strange folks. We got up to the Bucksnort Tavern which is a great ride if you are on a motorcycle, a little scary if you're being driven by Wes. We got to check out his new Triumph and pour some motor oil on his back yard as it's too nice.

Looking for the tiny rental car

Moto ride

Ingrid and I went on a ride on one of the last nice days of fall. We rode over to Forest Grove and to Bald Peak, which is the top of a hill.

Coffee at the Flying Cat

Ingrid's Birthday

Ingrid's 29th birthday was last week and we celebrated by having cupcakes in the City Of Rocks. Last night we also went over to my parents for dinner and a proper birthday cake.

Steak pie

City Of Rocks

We had our selves another trip to the City of Rocks in Idaho. Ingrid's dad came with and got in some climbing as well. There was less climbing this year as I had a few sicknesses. This didn't stop Ingrid from leading her first trad (5.9). Or stop the van from having its annual 'somethinggowrong' event. This years events consisted of lights going funky, speedo breaking, and water pump issues. The hammer brought it back inline though.

Pictures

Moto ride in Central Oregon

Ingrid and I went on our first overnight moto trip to central Oregon. We took the backroads from The Dalles through Condon and down to Spray. The roads were uber clear and no police to catch us going a few mph over the speed limit. We stayed in Spray and after having some grubbing cafe food we got the best beer money can buy - MGD. After dispensing with the half rack, we walked around the town and visited the local ducks and geese - who say 'hi' by the way. The next day we took a different road through nowhere back to Condon for some much needed ice cream.

Went to coast to avoid the heat

Oswald West

Horse Ride

Keevin & Sylvia

Keevin and Sylvia are leaving for Kentucky for medical school. They will be missed, and they will be back.

The Keevin

Moto ride in Gorge

Ingrid and I went for a ride to the Gorge with my new saddle bags - no more backpack. I rode her moto from Larch Mountain back down to Crown Point. It's about the fastest thing I've ever driven, maybe not the van, but very fast.

New bags for moto

4th July

For the 4th of July we all went down to Gearhart to play with the dogs and snag candy in the parade. I rode down on the moto for my first freeway drive, which was on the scary side. Ingrid and her mom came down on Friday with the dogs. They got along with Simone's dog Hazel after a break in period. We all went to sleep before the fireworks started as we are old.

Ride to beach on 26

Moto

After taking the motorcycle class last weekend I went out and snagged a 2008 Triumph Bonneville.

Lamb Roast, RIP Chop

We had a lamb roast to celebrate Dan & Kate coming back home and to mourn Keevin & Sylvia going to the midwest for medical school. And to drink beer and eat lamb. My buddy John from Brown came up from SF and helped try and melt rock for roasting. I decided we could sleep in until 3am and then start the fire so the meat would be ready by 5. We had the beast in the ground at 9:30, and by 11 it was done. Next time we'll have to get a later start or a larger beast.

The lamb turned out perfect, especially if you like a hint of dirt in your food. It fell apart as we transfered it to the table, which the dogs loved. After we were full of lamb we moved onto contests of who could eat 6 saltines in one minute without water. We all failed at 3.

Olympics with Sara

Ingrid and I went up to Sara's cabin in the Olympics to go mountain biking. We ended up eating Geoduck chowder, and muscles from their beach. We had a cool ride on the peninsula with a long up on logging roads and tons of sweet singletrack back down.

Sara and Sam

Phil's Trail

We went down to Bend this weekend to get in some mountain biking at Phil's Trail. Ingrid had her new Gary Fisher bike that kicks ass. I took my helmet cam and got some shots during the rides. I'm still working on the video - trying to make it not lame.

Run For The Roses

Ingrid ran in the Run For The Roses today. It was a super nice day out for running. I didn't actually run but it seemed nice out.

Pre race

Beaver Freezer

Trey ran his 5th or so Beaver Freezer. This year had great weather instead of cold and rain, it was just chilly. He placed pretty high this year. Afterwords we went back to his place and had cinammon rolls and played with the new dog.

No time

Wilderness First Responder course

I took a Wilderness First Responder course at PSU the last weekend and week. It was a really in depth class and we got a lot of information. The coolest part was doing simulations of patients that were hurt or sick and we'd access them. In almost all of them I (and everyone else) would miss one thing or another that was critical. But after doing that I now remember what not to do again. So hopefully if the situation ever comes up I'll be prepared. We dealt with everything from Acute Stress Reaction (freaking out) to brain injuries requiring an evacuation.

Base for simulation at Tyron Creek Park

Angels Rest and new camera case

I recently bought a new camera case called the Alpinist case for schleping my camera when climbing. As I'm in no shape to climb outside yet, I thought I would go up the grueling hike to Angels Rest to work off 2 Cheez-it crackers and try the case. It's designed to be used with one hand for climbing and such and after a bit I got it down and it's pretty slick. So it should do on my 5.2 climbs this summer.

Mt. Tabor Summit

Mt. Tabor

Snow

We finally got some snow in Portland that shut the city down for 2 weeks.

Dusting on Mt Tabor

Seattle

Sara and I had grand plans of going up into the mountains to go hotspringing and camping. The cold front that said it was coming with 7 degree weather talked us out of it. Instead we slept in and went to Dish for breakfast and then headed up North to get in a good hike. This time the weather talked to Sara's shoes and said they shouldn't hang out. So instead of hiking we walked over a bridge to look at the river and headed back to town to visit REI and buy some shoes for Sara.

Sara had talked about this mythical mountain bike park under the bridges of Seattle. I thought it sounded like the Troll that lives under bridges. This, like The Troll was true. We will be making trips over there to get ready for, well, get ready for talking about mountain biking.

We celebrated our conquest of nature that night by having dinner at a Japanese restaurant that cooked their food on stones. They were quite friendly and even did the "Irashayimase" when people came in. It was quiet good. The beer helped out as well.

Snow North of Seattle

Guns

Today we went to BFE to go shooting guns and chew terbaccy. I skipped on the tobacco but shot a few guns, I even got some of the elusive pudding pops. Us:1 / Terrorists:0

Cookies

Kellie came over to hang out Saturday night to make cookies w/ Ingrid. I was the food critic and got to taste everything for free.

Mice cookies

Halloween

For Halloween we dressed up as each other and hung out at Keevin's. I was Matt, Dan was supposed to be me, but he went as an Olympian instead - same caliber, Ingrid was Dan, Keevin was Ingrid, Karen was Keevin, Sylvia was Karen, Jeremy was Sylvia (we think).

Ingrid after tripping

HDR Photos

I've seen articles and pictures concerning HDR, but thought it was all just a hack. The more I thought about it, the more I thought it was performing the duty of dodging and burning. It really just modifies the picture to show the detail in the darker and lighter areas of the picture at the same time.

So I downloaded a few programs and tried one out. I'm still learning my new camera, but I set it up to bracket the shots and took 3 pictures in the back yard. I think I exposed two pictures above normal, as opposed to doing one photo under exposed, one normal and one over exposed. But the result is still pretty cool.

Final picture

Dinner

Ingrid and I went over to my parents for dinner with Faustina and her family. Cole and Simone showed us magic tricks and didn't like my one magic trick with a dollar bill where the president turns upside down. And they ate the dessert.

Cole, Marc and Simone

New Camera

I got a new camera on Friday. I was trying out my dad's camera and decided I needed a SLR myself. I went up to Washington Park on Saturday to hike around Hoyt Arboretum to try out the camera and get in a little walk.

Ingrid

Beach

We went over to the beach with Ingrid's dad Tom and the dogs. We showed him the important places like Camp 18 and the Tillamook Cheese Factory.

Pictures

Panoramics from beach

Swifts

We went over to the Chapman schoolyard to watch the swifts. Mom made a kickass picnic and we hung out until the birds went to sleep.

Here is video of the birds in action.

Ingrid and her dad

Ingrid's Birthday

For Ingrid's birthday, Matt had the idea of bringing her dad up as a surprise. So we packaged him and flew him up from Arizona to escape their crappy rainy weather. We took him to Krugers to watch us get our asses whupped and then out to sushi to celebrate. We had honey cake and it was really fricking good. Now she's like 28.

Ingrid and her dad

Jetboat tour

For work on Friday our group went out on the jetboat downtown. It was uber fun and everyone had a good time getting soaked with our spinouts.

Karen and John

New Panoramics

Here are some new panoramic photos:

Portland

Oregon

Idaho

Jack Johnson

Ingrid and I went to the Jack Johnson concert with JT and Anne. It was way over in St. Helens in some grass fields and we lucked out to have no rain. Ingrid had run into Jack on the MAX and he called her out inbetween songs. We screamed like idiots to get him to bring her up on stage, but he took off his shoes instead.

JT, Anne and Ingrid outside of concert

Karen's birthday

Karen's birthday was on Monday and she was playing at Kelly's Olympian downtown so we all went to listen to her sing. She's pretty bad ass and got some funnel cake or some such, it was really good.

Punchbowl Falls

On Sunday to escape the heat we went up to Eagle Creek and Punchbowl Falls. There were a ton of people, go figure, and the water was uber cold, go figure. It was nice to get out of the heat and we were back to complaining about it once we got back to the trail and headed back to the car.

Start of grueling 2 mile hike

Mt. Tabor soap box race

On Saturday we went up to Mt. Tabor to check out the Soapbox Derby. The soapboxes were really cool and made us want to do it next year. I see us watching it again instead. I just picked up a new/used camera and here are it's first pics. It's not quite as fast or clear as the Canon cameras, but for $25 it's a good price and will do well for climbing.

Dan & Kate's party

There was a party for Dan and Kate going away to Boston. We know they'll be back.

Beach

We went down to the beach for the weekend to get away from the heat in Portland. On Saturday we hung out and those with bikes did some time trials down to the end of Cottage Street and back. On Sunday, we went down to Hug Point to check out the tide pools.

Tabitha

Softball

Ingrid's softball season just started down in Oregon City.

Matt's birthday

Ingrid and Karen threw a birthday party for Matt at our house. Karen and her band played good music and we had burgers.

Karen and Keevin

Seattle

Ingrid's friend Inez came up to check out Seattle as she is thinking of moving there from Phoenix. Can't really blame her. We saw Clif on Friday and he posed for some pictures. In Seattle we saw downtown and the market. After buying a large salmon and some hugeass scallops, we listened to Slimpickenz. They were pretty dope. After we hung out with Sara at her house and had some beers and bbq. On Sunday we went to a Puerto Rican restaurant which made Inez really want to move up.

Clif came around on Saturday

Beaver Freezer

Trey did the Beaver Freezer down in Corvallis on Saturday, so Ingrid and I went down to cheer him on. We tried to show Simone how to yell properly and she improved on our cheering by taunting the other racers.

Trey warming up

Easter

For Easter I made an egg hunt for Ingrid in the morning. After that we put out eggs for Kelly, she was really fast and took care of the hunt in like 5 minutes.

Start of hunt

Ingrid the Ninja

On Saturday we went up to Seattle to rescue my car from the clutches of the gremlins. Ding helped out Ingrid while I just hobbled around. In a half hour she had it fixed and we were ready to go back to Portland. We hung out with Sara and her friend for a while before wanting to go get stuck in traffic near Olympia.

Ingrid brought her best tool

Seattle

Ingrid and I went up to Seattle to hang out with Sara and to buy a new tent. Sara made us a badass stew in a crock pot and we ate cookies as well. What diet? Did I mention we joined Fatty Bowl 2008? It's lame or la-may as the French call it, but we've lost some weight which helps keeping you hungry.

We went tubing at Snoqualmie pass on Sunday, along with everyone else and their grandma. We ditched the tubing and just slid on our butts on some little hill that was more fun anyway.

Ding looking at the stew for dinner

Dog Mountain Yeti

Ingrid, Jeremy (JT), and I went to Washington to hike up Dog Mountain. We brought our snow shoes because we love them and wanted to try them out on cambered slopes and still post hole. It was really cool and we turned around because of the Yeti and their pet snow sharks. I fell on my ass and the Yeti laughed at me. By the way, snow shoes don't really take away the suckage of going up hill, without them you can just turn around earlier.

Food for hills

Sun River

We went over to Sunriver for Dan's birthday. We were going to go practice our mountaineering stuff but the weather sucked and we couldn't find a slope without little kiddies on their inner tubes. So I pushed Ingrid into the snow and ran away. Dan and Kate bought some crabs and we tried to eat them but none of us are coasties so we just ruined the crabs.

Moonset in Portland

Angel's Rest

On Saturday Ingrid, John, the dogs and I went up Angels Rest. As it was raining at the bottom I left my camera and resorted to using my camera phone. Which is too bad as the views were great once the rain stopped. And we left the Cheez-its in the car.

Christmas

For Christmas I went over to my parents and opened gifts and then ate too many cinnamon rolls. That night Angel, Ron, Jami and John came over for dinner. We had ham wrapped in bacon with garlic inside. It was as good as last years. The following weekend Trey, Mary and Simone came up to Portland and Ingrid and I went over to my parents to open more gifts for Simone and have lamb. Ding got a new hat made by Mary. He says he likes it, even though he's an ice bat his ears get cold.

Mom's concert

Peacock Lane

I took Ingrid to Peacock Lane to see the light up houses.

Gingerbread

Ingrid put together a gingerbread house party for Kelly. Sara, May, Matt and Kelly came over and we all watched as Kelly and Ingrid made dough. May had a dope house, Sara made a cool shrunken head, Kelly and Ingrid made trees and skiis, Matt made an ice axe and I made a bowl that didn't come off the mold.

Ingrid and Kelly

Perogi

Sara came down this weekend to hang out with us. We went over to my parents house to make and eat Perogi. They're pretty easy to make when you have enough people stuffing the dough.

Cutting dough

Thanksgiving

We went to the beach for Thanksgiving again this year. Ingrid and I went up Saddle Mountain to try and work up an appetite. It was really clear and cold and we could see all the way to the Olympics. Then Simone ate my last piece of pie.

Simone getting ready for Turkey Dinnder

Seattle w/ Ding

Ingrid, Ding and I made a quick trip up to Seattle to hang out with Sara. We had breakfast at Dish, my favorite place in Seattle. We went to the art exhibit downtown and after getting yelled at for touching the art we went over to the Market to watch donuts being made.

Ding having breakfast

Cycle Cross

Last Sunday we went to watch Matt do his first cyclecross race. It looked pretty badass. He got 13th out of like 40 which was pretty good. It looked like enough fun that Ingrid and I are going to do it next weekend. Ingrid will use his bike and I'll convert my old mountain bike to a single speed and give it a whirl

I got two videos of Matt riding. Hopefully you can hear the little girl who was cheering everyone on. video 1  video 2

Ingrid's Birthday

Last Friday was Ingrid's 27th birthday. We went out to Mexican on Alberta St. and then out for a few drinks across the street. The next day we rolled down to Bend to bike on Phil's Trail and the Whoop-De-Doos. Kellie put us all to shame.

Dinner

Smith Night Shots

While at Smith, Ingrid and I played around with my Yashica and took some night shots. I had forgotten my cable release so that limited our options, but some of them came out cool anyways.

4th of July

For the 4th we went down to the beach to hang out and get in a bit of mountain biking. Sara came down on Wednesday to check out the fireworks with us. We had a kickass bbq, even if there were vegetables involved.