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.

Nabe

On Thursday, Kate, Dan, Keevin, Silvia, Pam and her boyfriend came over for some nabe. As usual it was good.

Nabe food

Nabe

We did up Nabe again on Sunday. Ron, Jami, Angel, Esther, Ingrid, Matt and Mora came over and we continued the ritual of Nabe. It was good, as usual. Esther made brownies and ice cream, that helped.

Nabe

Esther's Birthday

We went out to Lebanese food for Esther's big 29 birthday. The had the largest pita breads ever and it was pretty grub.

Esther's crew

Keevin & Silvia's Wedding

Last weekend Keevin and Silvia got married up at Timberline on Mt. Hood. Here are a ton of pictures and stuff.

Nabe

On Sunday Jill, Jami, Esther and Billy came over for some Nabe (Japanese one-pot BBQ). It was kickass.

Esther and Jill

Lamb Roast

I did a lamb roast to celebrate Kate & Dan getting back from Asia, Keevin & Sylvia getting married and Mo & Dan just getting married. The fire the night before was just as painful as last year but we had hot rocks in the morning. We forgot to put the meat in a trench of hot rocks and just threw it down and covered it. And the thermometer broke, so we couldn't tell how hot the meat was. We went off of last roasts temperatures and took it out after 7 hours.

The bottom was cooked perfect, the top wanted to be thrown on the BBQ for a bit. But it was all good, we had a good turnout, the lamb was damn tasty and people had a good time. The 6 brought pictures and we watched them on the TV so everyone could see how their trips and such were. I started drinking from the wine bottle so the rest is a bit hazy, but someone might have spilt beer on me and pushed me over in my chair.

Fire for rock

Fire hut for lamb roast

In preparations for the lamb roast this weekend we (Dan, Ron and I) built a little hut over the pit. Hopefully if it rains the roof will keep most of the water off of the fire while we run around like pagans drinking beer and burning wood.

Firewood

Munra Point

On Sunday I went to the gorge for a little hike with Kate, Cyndi and Matt. We went up Munra point. Well, I didn't make it all the way cos my shoes sucked and were sliding all over the place near the top. Cyndi was nice enough to turn back with me as Kate and Matt went to the top a bit further. It was a cool hike and looked like Mordor for a while.

Near ridge

Kate and Dan

Dan and Kate just got back from their travels in Asia so we all went out for beer.

Ron, Kate and Dan

St. Helens bif

Jaime sent me a picture of one of my crashes:

Mt. St. Helens kicked my ass

On Saturday Jaime invited me to go ski up and down Mt. St. Helens. I went with him, Matt, Bob, Michael and the Boarder (whose name I forgot). I had a list of excuses to turn around but thankfully didn't have to use them as around 5000' the wind got ridiclous and we all stopped there. As the wind didn't get better we headed down anyway after declaring 5000' the summit of St. Helens.

I made one successful turn and then fell on every turn after that. My best was falling head down hill and then flipping over my head. So I took off the skiis and carried them down with my broken pole (from fall #8).

It was a frickin' gorgeous day and I think everyone had a good time.

Hut at beginning

Snow Caves

This weekend I went up to Barlow Pass with Vince and his scout troop to practice building snow caves. It took about four hours to form a cave, afterwhich you are completely soaked and cold - at least I was. Vince and his brother made a cave next to mine and we joined them.

It was badass and was pretty fun. The cave was warm at night, though the floor got to be a bit cold at night. Next time I will bring a tarp and a larger thermarest. I was trying to see what it'd be like to build and sleep in one with just what I'd bring on a climbing trip. More insulation is better.

In the morning we drank hot cocoa and waited for the sun to rise. After we got most of our stuff out of the cave I tried to break in the ceiling. After a few large jumps on one leg I broke it in near a vent hole. After that we went to Dairy Queen where I grubbed down food and fell asleep at the table.

Snow cave site

New Years

For New Years we went down to Bend to ski on Mt. Bachelor and drink beer. Everyone had a great time, the weather was excellent and the snow was pretty comfortable to fall on. On New Years Eve we hung out at my house and had a fire, sparklers and a hot tub. And beer.

Ron on Bachelor

Christmas 2006

Christmas 2006. We had cool stocking stuffers and then a fresh ham for dinner. Ron, Jami, Esther and Angel came over for dinner and ate all the food.

Xmas chicken

Ski Bowl

Dan and I went up to Mt. Hood for our second ski of the season. Last weekend we went up with Ron, Esther and Keevin to Timberline. The weather wasn't so good last time, but today it was super nice out. We skinned up twice and then called it a day. Next time we'll get some lift tickets so we can get in a few more turns.

In case the picture of Dan crashing isn't large enough, here is a bigger version.

Dan and Hood

Simone's Christening

This Saturday was Simone's Christening.

Sleeping Simone

Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving we (Mom, Dad, Ron, Esther, Ingrid and me) went down to the beach to eat the turkey. My mom beat us all in Mexican Train, like usual.

Ingrid and Ron

Angel's Rest

An Saturday Ron, Dan and I went up Angel's Rest as a small training hike. It was sunny out until we got to the hike and then it started raining and hailing. After the hail it was awesome out and we had rainbows and fog.

West

Pig Roast

Last weekend I threw another pig roast. We learned a few things from the last years roast, namely to start drinking beer earlier. This year I got larger lava rock from the Cascades and we started the fire earlier and had about 8 hours of rock cook time. We cooked it Imu style, in the ground surrounded by lava rock and then buried for half a day.

The pig ended up getting cooked to 160 degrees by 1pm, in just 5 hours. Where as last year it took at least 10 hours to get to 140. So it was more sucessful with the hotter rock. Steve (the pig) came out nicely cooked at 173 degrees and the skin just fell off and it was very easy to get the meat off. Next year maybe we'll try lamb.

Dan and Ron at fire

Beach

Over the weekend I went down to the beach with Sheri to take some photos. Although we didn't have the light we wanted we took quite a few pictures and got comfortable taking shots. After Sheri left to go surfing my friend Jill came down and with her came the sun. We spent our time looking at Jill's recent travel pictures and eating Spanish tortilla. I took entirely too many pictures of Jill's sandals at the beach on Saturday night.

Beach walk

Dog Mountain

Trail up

Movies

At the end of the climb on French's Dome there is a rapell where you are hanging in space and get to dangle. I got a short clip of Matt playing around on his descent.

(3.2MB)

A while ago I got a helmet cam from woot.com and tried it out on the Voodoo Trail in Bend. While it's not ROAM it should give an idea of the trails over there. (If video doesn't work in your browser, try saving to disk first.)

(12MB)

Memorial Day

Over Memorial Day a bunch of us went down to Bend to do climbing at Smith Rocks and biking at Phil's Trail and the Whoo-De-Doos. As usual it was kick ass. Ron's friends Adam and Angel came down and did their first climb every and did really well and (I think) had an awesome time. My buddy Sara and woman Becky drove all the way from Seattle and said they had a good time even though they had to wait all day for us to string up some ropes for them.

These are our pictures from Phil's Trail

These are our pictures from Smith

Olympic Penninsula and Gearhart

Two weekends ago I went out to our place in Gearhart and watched too much 24. While waiting for the DVD player to cool I went to the beach and took some pictures. This was the first time I've been at the coast where it was below freezing, the sand was even frosty.

Last weekend I went up to the Olympic Penninsula with my buddies Matt, Keevin and Josh to do the Third Beach to Oil City Road hike. It is a very cool hike, 17 miles of rain forest and beaches. About half of the hike is on the beach and when crossing the headlands into the forest you take these steep ladders with ropes up and down. We had awesome weather, only 20 minutes of rain, the rest of the time was sunny and cool.

It turns out I'm still taking pictures with unlevel horizons. As my photos are now digital it's much easier to fix the horizon problem. These are the some hundred odd photos from the trip.

Portland Madness Scavenger Hunt on New Years!

For New Years I went out with Aimee, Kim and Matt to the first annual Portland Madness Scavenger Hunt. We were team We Like Big Jugs (A technical climbing term). Our mascott was named Hotness. You'll see her in each picture. We had to take pictures with Hotness at various place around town, only taking public transportation. Each team had a theme and we were climbers, thus our name.

We didn't quite come in first place but we had a kickass time, I even got my name and hand into the paintings at the end of the night. They showed everyones pictures from the night, which was pretty damn cool. Here are ours:

Start of Scavenger hunt on Alberta

Keg ball

I've had the keg from my halloween party hanging out in the backyard, waiting for some attention. On Saturday Ron came over to eat pizza and look at my broken window. Instead of working on the window we broke out the 16lbs sledgehammer and went to town on the keg.

This is a different version of beer ball, which we did with the 2 half-racks of skunked beer. With the beer cans you can toss them like a baseball and hit them with your broken shovel. With keg ball you just beat the keg.

And there was ice from the backyard and pumpkins from halloween. After we got tired of breaking open the keg, we put the ice and pumpkins on the keg and went after them.

Halloween Pictures

May got me a copy of pictures from her camera from halloween. Here is the cool chick in her Batman inspired outfit.

Running

I've been thinking that it'd be cool to have a thing to map my runs and maybe keep a log of them. So I ran across mapmyrun.com from lifehacker. It's really cool, you use googlemaps to plot you runs and it tells you your distance and calories (with your height/weight info.)

My runs are here

Halloween

Fittingly as yesterday was halloween, on my run with May I got bit by a vampire dog. (It looks much cooler in person.)

After wiping the foam from my mouth I went out with May and Aimee to the Clinton Street Pub where they were having a corn dog eating contest. May thought she'd take me down, but we both lost to some dude at the end of the bar. I was in second, but it's not horseshoes.

I'll have better pictures up when May throws a few my way, until then here is The Great Pumpkin and Daisy Duke in the dark.

Halloween: Beer, Axe Fights, Flying Spaghetti Monster, Women in my bed

Flying Spaghetti Monster

Japanese Gardens

Aimee had some friends visiting this weekend and let me tag along and we made it up to the Japanese Gardens this Sunday. It was no comparison for my weed infested back yard, but it was pretty cool. I stole May's camera and put up some pictures here

Swifts In Portland

Waiting for the birds	They're starting to round up (Mt. St. Helens smoking in the background)
More swifts	Funnel of swifts
Swifts being attacked by a falcon	Shooting into the smokestack

Run Hit Wonder Pics

They put pictures of us from the race up. Here are my two ugly ones:

Humor Test

I just took a humor test And these are my results. I think I actually have a less clean humor than this says. The very very fat person dancing part is funny though.

the Cutting Edge (56% dark, 52% spontaneous, 33% vulgar)

your humor style: CLEAN | SPONTANEOUS | DARK Your humor's mostly innocent and off-the-cuff, but somehow there's something slightly menacing about you. Part of your humor is making people a little uncomfortable, even if the things you say aren't in and of themselves confrontational. You probably have a very dry delivery, or are seriously over-the-top. Your type is the most likely to appreciate a good insult and/or broken bone and/or very very fat person dancing. PEOPLE LIKE YOU: David Letterman - John Belushi

Race Results

My race results finallly got posted. Here are my stats:

Finished in 57 minutes! 30 seconds (running 9:15 miles)
1945 out of 4874
258 out of 477 for my division
1246 out of 2201 for males

Run Hit Wonder

Today I finished my first run, the Run Hit Wonder. It was a 10k, or 6.2 miles. I was aiming for under an hour and I think I just sneaked in.

There were like 10,000 people, it was pretty cool to see the crowd as we ran down Salmon to the river. I actually passed people, but then got passed myself quite a bit. Turns out there are larger people than me who can run fast. Who knew?

Fourth of July

For the 4th of July we went over towards Bend to do some mountain biking and rafting. We camped on the Metolious river just the other side of Santiam Pass. We rode Phil's Trail on Saturday and everyone had a great time going down the Whoop-De-Doos. I finally got a few pictures of people on the trail, so you can all be jealous now.

On Sunday we went over to the Mckenzie River and did a half day raft. I found out you're not supposed to yell out that you're hung over when they ask how everyone is doing. Who knew? The rapids were class II for most of the way and we had a great time doing 360s off of rocks and through rapids.

The rest of the time we spent eating and drinking at camp. Ron and I played a game called cleave the quarter with a hatchet. That was fun.

I put up some photos here.

Pig Roast

On Saturday I held a piggie roast in my backyard. I have pictures from my camera over here and will put up better versions soon.

My buddy Vince supplied advice and a lot of wood for the fire. I got up at 5:30 to start the fire in the pit. It took me longer than I wanted because I suck at starting fire. But, after using lighter fluid, a 1/2 gallon of paint thinner and the gas from my lawn mower, I got the fire going. I spent a few hours adding wood and rock until it was so hot I couldn't stand within four feet. Apparently I had "hot ash" flying through the air into my neighbors yards.

Dan came over at 8:30 and helped me out as I went to the butcher to get the pig. I got back at 10 and we started preparing the pig. I put down the chicken wire, then banana leaves, then pig, then stuffed pig with hot rocks, threw down the onions, garlic, potatos, and yams, covered it all with more banana leaves, wrapped the wire around it and threw that bad boy in the pit. Then we covered it with tinfoil, hot logs and a wet sheet and a few feet of dirt.

I cleaned up the yard and house while Dan played football. When he came back around 3 we started drinking beer and people started showing up. I think like 30 people were in my back yard waiting for the pig to rise from the grave.

Dan and I exhumed the pig and threw it on the table (which almost fell over) and I started hacking away at it. I think everyone liked the meat, which was pretty tender and tasted like banana.

After the piggie was eaten we had another fire in the pit and sat around drinking beer until I fell asleep in my chair.

Piggie Roast

I'm getting ready for my pig roast tomorrow. Last night Dan and Kate came over and helped me dig the pit for the pig. It's about 4 x 2 x 3 feet. It felt like we were getting ready to bury someone, I guess we are going to bury Bessie (I know it's a Cow's name, but I don't discriminate.)

Today I ran out to Mt. Scott Fuel and bagged up 8 cubic feet of lava rock for the pit. Who woulda known it'd be so heavy?

Tonight I'm picking up chicken wire (to get the pig out of the whole), some cloth (to cover the pig so it doesn't get dirty) and maybe some charcoal to start the fire going.

Larch Mountain

On Saturday Aimee, her buddy Erica, Kala and I went for a hike up to Larch Mountain. We dropped Erica's car off at Multnomcah Falls and hiked in through Horsetail Falls. We actually didn't make it up to Larch Mountain, I had the bright idea that the map wasn't right and that I was. So we headed down trail 427 towards Larch Mountain trail.

After going a mile down a really cool ridge we realized the other trail was the one we wanted, but it was late and we were lazy. And someone mentioned ice cream cones - that's enough to not hike back up the hill. We went down to Multnomah Falls and pushed past the little fat kids and grabbed ourselves some cones.

I put up pictures from over here and here.

Bend Pictures

I've been super lazy and haven't been posting any pictures lately. Last weekend Ron and I went over to Bend to do some mountain biking. On Saturdya we rode with Trey and Mary and then sunday we rode again. We rode from the Phil's Trailhead and hit the whoop-de-doos a few times. It's still the most fun I've had riding.

I got pretty amped after watching my new DVD The Collective which I saw at the Banff Film Festival. Pretty much the best biking video I've ever seen.

I've also been playing around with how to do pictures and thought I'd try this out. It's using the "XMLHttpRequest" object that is in modern browsers. Places like gmail and a9 (Amazon's search) use it. It allows you to make a request for some HTML or XML code from the server and refresh just a portion of the web page. It's more apparent on larger pages, but still pretty neat.

Here are some pictures from Bend

Moab baby!

Tomorrow Ron, Sara, Dan and I are heading down to Moab for a week of biking, hopefully climbing and drinking of beer:

We're taking down 10 six packs of Mirror Pond. One would think I'd stop drinking after last Saturday's birthday celebration, but it's vacation! I'd have written about my little party, but I don't remember too much.

Beaver Freezer pics

I finally got around to picking up the pictures from the Beaver Freezer and here are a few of them.

Lead Test

Last night I took my lead test with Scott at the gym. I went up first to get it over with. My hands have been weak the past while so I ended up falling off a juggie 2/3rds of the way up and launching Scott into the air. On my way down I landed on him and turned upside down. That was pretty cool, but it didn't get me the super green card. Everyone at the gym said it was the coolest fall they had seen, so there's that.

Chicago Sun Times

I made it into the Chicago Sun Times again.

Halloween Pics

Here are some more pics from the Halloween party.

She-Ra, Wonder Woman and the Lasso Of Truth

Halloween

Last night I got to hang out with She-Ra, Wonder Woman, Nemo and Marvin the Martian at a Halloween party. I went as Gargamel from the Smurfs, but everyone thought I looked like Friar Tuck. But there was a keg of beer to make things better.

Here are two pictures from my phone, I'll put up better pics from my camera tonight:

Aimee

Aimee, Brynne and May

New things

I've started getting ready for my little trip to China by spending money I don't really have. My VISA has been neglected for a while, so I figured it was time to break it out and go shopping.

I got a new backpack for this trip that I can use later for mountainering, it has all sorts of dealie-bobs for climbing junk. The tread has finally died on my shoes, so it was time to get new ones with new tread. I took a lead climbing class over the weekend and bought a climbing rope so I can practice leading. And also now I can go outside and have a rope to climb with, dental floss hasn't been hacking it lately.

My phone has been acting up and turning off in the middle of my calls. It was time to retire it, and I got a new phone. It has all of the nifty things like camera, color screen and even video. Not sure what I'm going to do with a video camera on my phone, but what the hell.

I even got a new camera for China. I've thought about it and come to the realization that digital is the way to go for 90% of my photos. I'm most likely to not blow up many pictures past 8x12, and (my) digital is good to above that. But if I have a really nice picture, it's hard to beat slides on my Nikon. So I'm taking my Nikon SLR and my digital and I'll use the Nikon when there is a scene I really like and want to have a great slide of it. I only have a 256 MB flash card, which won't be enough for a 3 week trip, so I'm going to get an adapter for my iPod which allows you to upload your pictures to the iPod, effectively giving my camera a 10-15 GB memory card.

Punching Bag

I finally got a heavy punching bag last night. I've been wanting one for a long time but kept on putting it off. I thought about putting it into the scary room behind my garage, but I'd probably use it more in the basement. Though... the blood from my hands (it just seems to happen) could get splattered around the scary room and that'd give it some character.

China

I just bought my ticket to China for my buddy Moo's wedding. I'm going to Hong Kong for a week to hang out with Moo and see the boats, then train it up to Beijing for a week to see the little fence. Then it's down to Singapore for a few days of food and wedding. Turns out that it's going to be cold in Beijing (with lows of freezing), which is funny because I'll be in Singapore where it's hot (with lows of 75 degrees) a few days later.

Mountains

Over the weekend I went up to Mt. Jefferson with my climbing buddy Brynne. We didn't actually climb the mountain, though we did do some bouldering on a 30 foot tall slab of rock.

We camped out at Jefferson Park, along with about 10 other groups spaced around the various lakes. We had a nice perch about 30 feet above the lake with a nice view across the water. There were even fresh wild blueberries for our pancakes in the morning.

On our way out of the park we ran into a group of climbers who just finished climbing the mountain. They looked pretty bad ass, it was probably the ice axes and helmets. Brynne and I have been talking about climbing mountains for a while, probably since Mt. St. Helens. I asked my dad to take us up next spring so we can get in some practice. I think we're going to take a few classes during the winter, maybe a first response class too.

I've realized to go up these mountains I have to get in some decent shape. I thought I was doing okay, but my legs weren't too happy carrying my pack up the hills over the weekend. Which scares me, I've been biking to work 5 days a week and running 2 days a week. And I still huff and puff.

I ran into a gal while running about a month ago and have started jogging with her during the week. At first it was just once a week when we'd run up to the Japanese Garden, and run sets of stairs (with pushups inbetween sets.) Her normal jogging partner had to stop running so now I'm jogging with her more. She's training for a half marathon in the spring and is wanting to jog 5 days a week. So I'm going to go along with her.

I think in a few weeks I'm going to start carrying weight in a bag when I go jogging. Maybe start off with a gallon of water and work up to 3. I'll have to pad the pack so it doesn't jostle around too much. I've seen other people train for mountains doing this, so it should help me out.

The main problem with my increase in exercise is food. Yesterday I spent 38 bucks on food for lunches for this week. And it's a four day week too. Kinda sick.

5.11 baby!

I finally climbed a 5.11 at the gym this week. I did it clean on Sunday and then again yesterday after a few false starts. In the bouldering area I even climbed a few V1s pretty easily. When I started climbing I had trouble doing VBs (which are 2 lower than V1s) and could barely eek up a 5.7.

I ran into a buddy Ben at the gym after I was done. A few months ago he asked if I wanted to climb Beacon Rock. Then I didn't run into him and figured it wasn't going to pan out. Last night he said "So, we gonna do Beacon Rock?" Hell ye. We're going to figure out when we can both go (maybe calling into work 'sick'). Should be pretty fun.

Asia Grace

I came across this great site with photos from Asia. You should check it out.

Drunk Photos

Hopefully pictures of you drinking won't show up on this page

Alex & Susa

Alex, my buddy from Brown, came out from Chicago last Wed. to hang out for the weekend. His wife Susa flew out Friday afternoon too. I took them rock climbing and to Stanich's (the best place for burgers in portland), and finally to the beach.

Snow Shoeing

On Saturday, I went up to Mt. Hood to go snow shoeing with one of my climbing buddies Brynne. The weather was pretty nice, just a little below freezing and some sunshine. The snow was pretty crunchy, so we didn't really even need the shoes. But, it's more fun to clop around with big ass slats strapped to your feet.

After we walked up and down around the lake, we took a drive up to Timberline Lodge to have some hot chocolate. Well, she had a beer and I had melted chocolate.

Sara's Birthday Party

Well, since I took a nap and can't get to bed, I figured it was over due to put up some pictures from Sara's birthday party over a month ago. Most of the pictures were taken by the guy with the glasses below (the closeup of a nose, hair and glasses.)

5.10!

I climbed a 5.10 route on Monday and did it again yesterday. I think it was actually a 5.10-, but that's good enough for me.

Breaking stuff at rock gym

Last night I was at the rock gym getting in a climb on a 5.7. Two thirds of the way up the route I was standing up on my right leg when the hold shattered and flew to the ground. I'm glad my belayer wasn't directly below me. After finishing the route and coming down the guy who made the route came by and brought a new hold. I got to go up again and take out the old bolt and put in a new hold. I didn't get to keep the broken hold, but I have a little shard that was remaining on the wall.

Ice!

We got some rain last night and it froze all over the place. Tonight on the way home from the bus I picked up the big chunks of ice and tossed them onto the ground to hear the large cracking sounds. I'm sure people in their houses appreciated it. I tried to take some pictures of the snow and stuff, but it's a little dark and I didn't remember my tripod, but here goes:

Snow!

We got some snow over the last day or so (ho-ho-ho.) I drove into work today so I can bail to the coast and do some sun bathing. It's the first time my car has been in real snow (for me at least.)

Samurai

I finally saw a good movie in the theatre, Last of the Samurai. I've always thought Japan was interesting, and it was neat to see scenery of old Japan. Cruise did a good job acting, though I did expect him to say "Hello, I'm looking for my wife.", but he didn't. There was a lot of action, and if you don't like blood and violence, then this isn't the movie for you.

Swinging

I went out swing dancing last night for the first time in over 2 years. I met my climbing buddy Karen at the Viscount. It was a little strang to lindy after so long, but it was a good time.

Weather Photos

I was taking a break and found this page that has a bunch of weather related photos. Pretty cool looking.

Climbing

Last night I got a membership to the Rock Gym. Next week they're moving to a bigger location on Sandy and Burnside, and with that the rates are moving (up) as well.

I put a posting on craigslist to find a climbing partner and 3 people responded. I'm going tonight with one of them, Arcoma, and hopefully I'll end up going 3 or so times a week.

The cool thing about the membership is that I can take a new person for free. So if you want to go climbing, lemme know and we can go hit the walls.

Pictures

I threw up some new pictures on my photos, thanks to Tina's new cable Internet connection.

Home

I've 90% decided to go ahead and buy a house. I've been out looking around town, and online. I've seen quite a few houses that would work just dandy. But, I need a loan. I'm talking to an agent on Thursday to get the ball started. I'm hoping to get pre-qualified (or whatever you do) so I can get me a house soon. I've been using portlandmaps.com to find out the last price the house sold at and how much taxes and stuff are.

Online AI buddy

I've been running tests and waiting around for them to finish (or core dump). I came across this web site [dugg.ca] that has an interactive AI (Artifical Intelligence) program that talks to you and asks questions. It's a pretty good program and if you're bored it kills some time.

Bruce Campbell

I was waiting for a compile and looked at Bruce Campbell's website and noticed his new movie coming out, Bubba Ho Tep where he plays Elvis at 70 years of age. It looks pretty good - because Bruce is in it.

iPod III

Last night I got the iPod to finally work on my home computer. I spent about 45 min uploading songs and no crashes (knock on wood.) I put on my Ani Difranco concerts which have been sitting on my old hard drive in the closet for a few years. There are 2223 songs on the drive, which is pretty cool.

Too bad there isn't an interface that I could use to copy my camera pictures to the iPod on the road. Then I'd have a huge amount of headroom for taking pictures and movies.

New iPod

On Saturday I bought the new 30gb iPod I was very excited since my last mp3 player went kaput.

Saturday night I plugged it into my dell laptop and followed the directions. I was up until 2am trying to get the iPod to be recognized by Windows. I ended up downloading ephpod to use instead of music match (which is terrible.)

I went to bed at 2am, angry that I couldn't get this simple thing to work. In the morning I ignored the direction and what I'd read on the newsgroups and formatted the iPod with Windows Explorer. Then I used ephpod to create directories and could then start copying music over.

I bet that the iPod works seamlessly with Apples, but with Windows it sucked. None of the software that came with the iPod worked and I had to use some 3rd party programs. It's okay now, but what a hassle.

Carrot Top

On Friday, Trey and I went to see Carrot Top at the county fair in Corvallis. I forgot to take my camera and get pics of him or any movies of his jokes. So I'll have to find another show and do it there.

It was the best comedy I've ever seen, definetely worth the $7. :) I know his 1-800... commercials suck, but it wasn't anything like that. He made fun of it all, calling himself a "phone whore."

iPod

I have decided to go ahead and buy the iPod from apple. I was thinking of waiting until the Visa goes down a little more, but with Tina and me going on a long bike ride next weekend, I want it now. :)

I was thinking of getting a different mp3 player that also plays ogg files, as they sound better. But the iPod seems to be better than any other player out there. And they have a normal battery pack so I don't have to worry about recharging all the time.

Da Vinci Days

Last weekend, Tina and I went over to Corvallis for davinci days. There were cool exhibits and some great elephant ears - fried dough for you East coasters.

The coolest part was the Kinetic Sculpture races - which were human powered sculptures that had to race through mud, sand, water and land. A few jugglers were at hand (hahah) and they were pretty funny.

I got to ride one of those bikes that have an off center rear wheel where you have to bounce up and down on the bike to get it going. I didn't get it going. But it was fun anyway.

Couldn't imagine lacing up the spokes in this wheel:

Wet Paint

Legos

Trey just mailed me a website that lists all known Lego sets. I put together a list of the legos I used to own. Some might have been Trey's, but who knows....

Peter Paul & Mary

I just bought myself a ticket to a Peter Paul & Mary concert for the 18th. It's playing at the Schnitzer and hopefully I'll have good seats.

Weekend

This weekend, my buddy John came up from S.F. to visit. Tina, John and I went biking on Saturday morning from home, going down along the esplanade to Saturday Market. Where we ate elephant ears, or if you're from the East Coast, "fried dough". Ours is much better. We rode along the new Spring Water Corridor, along with a million other people and their kids. It was nice, except for the path is too narrow and I'm sure there's going to be an accident soon. That night we had burgers at Stanichs, the best burger place in anywhere.

Today John and I went for a hike up in the Columbia River Gorge, after taking a look at Multnomah Falls and all the people who were there. I thought it was in the shade and didn't put on any block, but I got burnt just like yesterday. Our hike was up Eagle Creek. It was a great little hike, I waded in the river while John went swimming. He must be a little nutso.

Beginning of Eagle Creek

John at Low Bridge

John at Punch Bowl Falls

Trail at Low Bridge

Punch Bowl water

Punch Bowl

Multnomah Falls

Rock Climbing

On Saturday, Tina and I went to a rock climbing gym and took an introductory class. We learned how to tie a figure 8 knot (over and over) and get into our harnesses. After taking the rope around the woods and through the trees a few more times, we practiced belaying each other up a short pitch - ~14 feet.

Later, we went up the larger walls (rated at least 5.5) a few times until Tina got tired from being bounced around when she belayed me down. I guess I weigh a little more than her.

It was hella fun and I hope we'll go out some more, maybe snag some people into taking us outside - as the summer is coming and all.