Hot Hot Hot!

Not sure where the weather came from but we've been having HOT tempuratures. 92 Sat, 101 Sun, and Forecast today is for 103. Strange thing is that it drops back down at night to the low 60's. That's a large swing. Back in MKE you would not have that typically. If it's that hot there it doesn't cool down that much unless a storm front blows in with high winds, tornado conditions, etc... At this point I can only guess the elevation and ocean have something to do with the weather pattern here. Since we don't have an A/C we spent Sun afternoon hiding out under the large tree in the backyard. Thank god it was windy. Homemade Sangria and Mojito's helped too.

Saturday

I did ride some trails in the afternoon. I took a couple pics so I'll post the story abit later.

In the morning I finally got my OR drivers' license and vehicle plates.

For some reason the DMV is not open on Saturdays. Only one DMV in the entire metropolitan area is open. Lame. So the place was a madhouse with a line extending way outside the building. It took about 2 hours to get this done. Can you say government beauracracy. I jinxed myself in the DMV though. I had to take the written test for both auto and motorcycle. As I was taking the auto test a guy came up to the desk to get his results and the woman said he failed "see you next week." I giggled to myself (an slightly out loud), because it seemed the test was so easy. And it was since I passed the auto with a 90% but when I came to the motorcycle I guess I missed the finer nuances in the questions and perhaps should've slowed down. I failed with a 72% on the motorcycle. Ah well. I don't own one and I'd like to retake the course anyway since it's been over 3 years now since I've even ridden one... So I just went ahead and got the license with the auto classification only.

Friday!

10 years of FPS...

"Late on 22nd June 1996 Quake was uploaded to cdrom.com's archives in the form of 7 1.44MB floppy disk images. Though it wasn't until the 23rd that everyone realised (or at least, that's my excuse for being a day late with the news submission). Cue much aggravation on the newsgroups as eager downloaders experienced glorious 2 FPS gameplay."

Now I feel like an old fart. Seems like only yesterday I was playing that FPS game. Course it bugged the shit out of my best friend, social butterfly, and then roomate at the time, Ray, when the phone line was tied up... And this morphed into Capture the Flag (CTF), Team Fortress (TF) and league play sitting on the edge of your seat, sweating, and the exhiliration of fraggin someone else sitting behind another monitor who knows where. Yea, geek, nerd or Internet Rick as I was sometimes called. It's all good.

Today is Thursday

Oak Creek Canyon

Read in the news today that Oak Creek Canyon near Sedona, AZ is on fire... strange after having been there just 3 weeks ago. There's alot of nice houses down along the stream/river that runs in the bottom of the canyon that are going to get burned up. Not to mention all the great trees, scenery, etc. According to the article:

The blaze started Sunday in a camp used by transients and spread quickly

Hard to believe that this (pic I took while in AZ)

Will end up looking like this (photo taken from yahoo AP photo titled [The Brins Fire burns along a ridge of Wilson Mountain in Oak Creek Canyon near Sedona, Ariz., Wednesday, June 21, 2006]

Weekend Update

Friday's band, Built to Spill, was ok. We left before the show even ended. The 2nd band was cool though with the xylophone or whatever it's called. The girl playing it had two sticks in each hand. Rest of the weekend was recovery on Saturday - I can't handle all the drinking anymore. Friday's dinner at Henry's was good though. The fish and chips rocks. Sunday vegged out. Currently engrossed on this game called Galactic Civ 2. Watched 'Walk the Line' Sunday. Pretty good movie. B+. Heidi and I are dying for some New Glarus beer. You can't get it anywhere but Wisconsin though! On the trip out to Oregon we tasted some of their Raspberry Tart (they use berries from Oregon) and man was it good.

Lots of stuff on the list to do, get some mtn bike races in the calendar, get the new pc spec'd and purchased, finish working on the 2nd bedroom/office area, and scope out some camping/outdoor adventure trips.

Built To Spill

Going to see Built To Spill Friday night at the Crystal Ballroom. They're from Boise, Idaho. I guess they have a strong following here in the Pacific Northwest. Their website allows you to listen to three tracks off their new album. The first two of them are surprisingly good. Get this, they are putting on a show in Boise to help save the Buffalo... seems so foreign to me but yet enlightening at the same time. I love finding out about music I've never heard before - one of the primary reasons I moved to Portland. Too bad the boys from back home can't join me to see these guys.

Movie Review: Pulp Fiction

I like this movie. I've seen it before but Heidi and I watched it last night. Heidi likes it as well. In fact she picked it out.

Allow me to step onto my soap box for a moment and rant about something. Why is this movie so damn popular with women? Most women I've talked to love this movie. It's violent. Extremely violent. And the same woman who will refuse to sit down and watch Saving Private Ryan or Braveheart will watch Pulp Fiction. Do those "guy" movies really have more violence? Generally there's a reason why there are channels like Oxygen or Lifetime TV, which states they are 'geared to women', and we have channels like SpikeTV or TNT, which you may have channel hopped past on a Saturday or Sunday and saw them running "Movies for guys who like movies." Women tend to prefer romantic comedies and guys tend to prefer action/war type movies. (I'm speaking in very very general terms here... yes there are exceptions - one of my favorite movies is Return to Me as well as Kate & Leopold - starring the champion of all romantic comedies, Meg Ryan).

So it's surprising to me exactly why women have such an affinity for Pulp Fiction. Let's go over some of the violence. In the first 15 minutes we get to watch Samuel Jackson blow away the "flock of seagulls" guy on the couch followed by offing 'Brett' while he sits in his chair. Then we get to watch Uma Thurman overdose on drugs, watching blood spill from her nose and vomit out of the corner of her mouth, followed by John Travolta jam an adrenaline needle into her chest. There's also the brutal man on man rape scene with the wonderful S&M guy that they keep in the box. We watch Bruce Willis kill John Travolta and slash up the rape perpetrators with the samurai sword. And last but not least lets not forget the accidental shooting of guy in the back seat by Travolta which splatters brains all over the back of the car... So which movie really is more "violent"? I would submit that we're splitting hairs here and that the difference between Saving Private Ryan and Pulp Fiction isn't quite as far as some women would have us believe.

End rant.

Mount Hood

Here's another shot laying around. I took this one while driving home from work. Mount Hood lies to the East of Portland. I took this shot while driving south into Portland on Interstate 5.

Columbia River Gorge

I was going through some pics I've yet to post and saw this one. This camera, Cannon PowerSHot A520, although relatively cheap, does a couple of cool things. Movies and panoramic shots. To take a panoramic shot you take like 2 or more shots in succession and later use software that came with the camera to 'stitch' the shots together.

Below is a cool shot of the Columbia River Gorge. Actually I think it's 4 shots stitched together. Perhaps this can convey some of the beauty of the Gorge. I can't remember the name of this outlook and I think it's about 1000 feet up from the floor of the Gorge.

Blogger's been down...

Looks like blogger has been down the past few days which has prevented me from posting so there's a few posts for today.

Pedalpalooza - Which Ride?

Pedalpalooza - June 8 - June 24, 2006

I've been doing alot of solo riding lately ~ this looks fun. 2 weeks of events with stuff going on all day. Sorta reminds me of the Critical Mass phone call I got from Butch where he outran (pedaled) the policeman chasing him and another rider down (I guess the other guy got tackled). What do you know - Critical Mass is part of the event schedule. Hmmm...

Trip to Arizona

Sat May 27th 11:06 am

It's raining outside and we are on the plane about to take off to Arizona to see my Mom. Last night was Jen's 35^th B-Day party. We had dinner @ SBX which stands for Saucebox. 8 girls plus Pat and I. Tough job but someone has got to do it. SBX was ok. We went there after Jen's wedding cause she really likes the place. The food is ok ~ it's not really my thing but the girls seem to like it.

After dinner we went dancing at Aura which I think is Portland's premier dancing place to be if you are into that. It's not really my thing either but the girls like it so I have to show em my dance floor moves. Heidi is a very good dancer - nice hip movement.

Funny that I felt anxious on the way to the airport this morning. The last 2 times I rode with Heidi to the aireport she was dropping me off so I kind of had some of those feelings again. Luckily this time she's sitting right here next to me.

I'm curious to see how the weather is in AZ and what kind of convertible rental car we are going to get.

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Sun May 28th 9:47 am

We have a great room here at the Bed and Breakfast. It's run by Gary, a single guy. I like his attitude. The terrain here is awesome. It seems almost artificial. The rock formations seem like styrofoam casted prices made for someone's movie set. Can't wait to hike it tomorrow.

Mom's house is at the base of a mountain. Well more like half way up it. Glen has a great studio to work his art trade with an awesome view of the valley and opposing mountain range. The lack of any tree's on the mountain's are strange. On the drive to her house we saw some strange houses. An 'A' frame with a yard cluttered with old vehicles, a dog, etc. Looked like someone you'd see in the bible belt. Then there was this castle. Well a castle wall with a couple of trailers parked inside. Chickens, goats, donkey's etc. Like a small farm. You can build what you want here like the guy across the street from my Mom's house that is from California who has built this palace like something from the gardens of Babylon in the middle of the desert.

The drive up to Prescott from Phoenix was beautiful. Little to no traffic. Lots of vehicles broken down on the side of the road however. The drive too about 2 hours fr the 80 or so miles. The convertible ended up being a Chrysler Sebring which wasn't the Ford Mustang that they had pictured on the expedia.com site when I made the reservations.

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Mon May 29th

I didn't take any notes so this if from memory.

We did a long drive today. Out from Prescott to I-17. Stopped at Montezuma's Castle which is an old Indian village built into the side of a cliff.

Then on to Sedona through the beatiful Red Rock Mountains. Once in Sedona we stopped to have lunch at Olde Sedona Grill and the waiter gave us some good advice.

He recommened we drive north 15 miles in the opposite direction and go through the Oak Creek Canyon canyon. Wow. What a great view.

We stopped at this viewpoint at the top of the canyon after having driven through a series of awesome switchbacks.

We then turned back south back through the canyon, through Sedona, and then stopped in the town of Jerome. An old mining town perched on the side of a moutain supposedly haunted by ghosts.

Also a stop for all the biker crowd. One thing about AZ, I felt right at home with all the Harley-Davidson riders going by all the time... not a single one with a helmet either. We then left Jerome and drove through a mountain range through some magnificent switchbacks - stuff that will make your stomach turn as you veer around each corner and look out over a long drop from the cliff your car is on.

At the top of the mountain range was a park where you could camp. Top of the mountain was 7100 feet. Once on the other side we headed back into Prescott and had dinner with my Mom before going home for the evening.

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Tue May 30th

We flew home on Tuesday to some great weather back in Portland. Every time I've flown in perviously it's been raining or overcast. This time is was clear for miles so you could see all the surrounding snowcapped mountain peaks - Mt. Hood, St. Helens, Adams and easily all the way north to Mt. Rainier outside Seattle. It's impressive just how large these huge mountains are and how far you can see them from.

Great trip. Pic set here. Looking forward to going back for more than just 3 nights and 2 days so we can do a little camping, hiking and mtn biking.