Family Meetings

Mini-Christmas

Last Saturday we took a drive to Grants Pass to meet with the Catchpole parents.  We went down Saturday because mum and dad were too busy partying Friday night and because we wanted more favorable weather.

The drive down was fairly uneventful.  There was a lot of snow on the sides of the road, especially on the passes, but the roads were relatively free of hazards, mind the occasional lump of chain in the middle of the road.  Why people think they can drive faster than 30 mph with chains on over bare pavement is beyond me, but I digress.

We met mum and dad in time for lunch.  They took us out for some delicious Subway sandwhiches.  Betsey and I powered through a footlong each and mum and dad split one.  I guess we were hungry.  The only thing we'd eaten was an apple pie from McDonalds on the way down because we wanted to use the restrooms and felt guilty for not buying anything.  Those subs went down quick, and then we all tooled around Grants Pass together picking up last minute gifts.

After a bit of a relax back at the parents house, we went for dinner at the Wild River Brewing and Pizza.  We enjoyed delicious soy cheese pizza (thanks fam) with an array of delicious toppings.  Their beer was as yummy as ever.  We reminised about the first time all four of us had eaten there, it was when I introduced Betsey to mum and dad.  With good food in our stomachs, but no desire to eat more, we had to find a different locale to continue our pleasent conversation.

Once we arrived back at mum and dad's and everyone had relaxed a bit, it was time for mini-Christmas.  Mini-Christmas involves opening the presents you don't already know about in front of the people that loved you enough to get them.  It lets them see the happy look on your face since they won't see you on Christmas day.  We received some wonderful presents and there's a story about mine that deserves its own post that I probably won't get to until the new year.

The next morning, after a wonderful brunch prepared by mum, we had to pack the bags and head out.  I had work the next day and we were trying to catch the warmest part of the day in Corvallis.  We'd all had a wonderful time, and after saying our goodbyes, we made one stop at Dutch Bros. for our traditional leaving Grants Pass coffee, and then we hit the road.

Three hours later at exit 228 for Corvallis, we stopped to fill up with gas.  I had wanted to check the car's gas mileage with all freeway driving since Betsey's recent town driving had been killing the averages.  The car performed admirably (34 mpg) and we noted the temperature wasn't that cold (only 46 degrees F) .  I reset the odometer and we pulled out of the station for the last leg of our trip.

One minute later, 1.6 miles down the road, surrounded by torrential downpour, the car's external thermometer was reading 36 degrees F.   We simply couldn't beleive it.  It was clear that the next cold front had some serious clout.  We safely made it back to our home, turned on the heat and settled in for a quiet day-after mini-Christmas evening.

Unexpected and Welcome Birthday Guests

Last night after getting back from work, I received a call from dad.  Apparently Chrystal and Kim had been on the road for hours in Portland and were trying to get home that evening.  It seemed a little unsafe to be tired on these roads, and I excused myself from the conversation immediately.  There was only one thing to do, have them over.  I called Chrystal to get the report directly.  After sitting in Portland through road closures and moving at 2 mph for most of the day, they were driving through Salem.  I knew, from traveling home from work that the worst was behind them, but Kim was extremely tired from the stressful driving and fog was setting in thick.  I made sure they knew they were welcome at chez Catchpole, and that dinner and a warm bed was waiting for them.  It took them about 30 seconds to determine that it was the best offer going.

Once we knew the girls were coming to stay with us ON CHRYSTAL'S BIRTHDAY,  we had to get a cake and candles.  Betsey and I rushed over to the Safeway and found "The moistest cake you've ever tasted".  Well that's what the sticker said.  We returned home and set 22 candles into a lovely chocolate fudge cake and hid it in the bedroom; our plan set in motion.

Chrystal and Kim arrived shortly thereafter and, it being the first time I'd seen Chrystal since she went to Denmark, I squeezed the living daylights out of Chrystal.

"I'm making that face you make when mum hugs you," she said.

Over a yummy pasta dinner, we listened to colorful and well delivered winter adventure tales.  There were great dangers, lovable characters (yummy firemen) and a happy ending.  As tummys were filling, Betsey dissappeared to light candles.  At the same time, Chrystal uttered an almost prophet like sentence.

"I could really go for something sweet."

I pretended to look through the cupboards, and I came up empty.

"Sorry," I said.

It was about this time that Kim spied something that must have looked like a flaming commet moving slowly through the living room.  Chrystal couldn't see it yet, but seconds later, everyone started singing the birthday song as Kim and I scattered through the apartment looking for the cameras.  Chrystal had trouble getting all the candles out in one blow, so I guess that means she's old now.  She was definitely surprised, and it was wonderful to see the look on her face.

Christmas Eve

Today is Christmas Eve, and the family meetings are scheduled to continue.  We have a somewhat trecherous trip to Portland to make, and once we've seen Chrystal and Kim off safely, we will begin that adventure.

We wish everyone who reads this a safe and happy Christmas.

Snowy Nights

The weekend in Corvallis was marked by the appearance of snowy nights and the baking of cookies. I went to Brent's Saturday night (10 mins away) and ended up sleeping on his couch because the roads were too icy to safely get home. Betsey baked cookies that night until the wee hours of the morning. Sunday night, we opened our blinds to see this:



Ten hours earlier the roads had been clear. How fun to have a winter wonderland so close to Christmas.

Dark Leader

Your transformation

renews childhood memories

leader of evil

Thanksgiving 2008

This was our first year hosting Thanksgiving dinner.  We hosted for the Catchpole branch of the family.  Mum and dad drove up.  Kim drove down.  Crystal Skyped in for an appearance.  It was a fairly uneventful couple days filled with good food, good wine, and a couple of family friendly movies.

For her part, Betsey took care of all the cooking.  She planned out everything in excel in true Betsey fashion.  She knew the time the oven temperatures needed to change, and she knew at any particular time, how many burners would be availabe (in case someone wanted tea or something).  All the planning paid off because we had a perfect turkey dinner complete with apple sage stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean cassarole, cauliflower, peas, butter flake rolls, and, of course, cranberry sauce.

Haiku-Tu shall return

Month 17: New Marriage Lesson Learned

You can pick your wife,

and you can pick your nose,

and if you have a mustache and you kiss your wife,

you can pick your wife's nose.

Saturday Market Swan Song

Today was the last day of the year for the regular Corvallis Saturday Market.  Betsey and I decided to get up and make the most of it.  We needed a short list of fruits and vegetables for Thanksgiving dinner, and we could turn it into a local economy adventure.

The Market was well attended, and the winter air seemed to carry the scents of fresh produce and cooked food better than ever.  We picked up celery and parsley at one vendor, four pounds of potatoes and a couple ounces of sage at the next, and found some really great small and large onions at another.  We unexpectedly encountered some delicious rhubarb and strawberry jam that became a must have and bartered the price down a nickel so we could afford it.

On the way back to the car, I was struck by some white berries lining our path and had to get a picture.

After dropping the market items at the car, we both decided we still had some adventure left in us and decided to browse down town.  We checked out Sigg bottle tops at Peak Sports, found an awesome floor mat at Inside Out, looked at things at Donna Bella, and then happened upon a wonderful surprise when we stepped inside Avalon Wines.

Avalon Wines has free wine tastings on Saturdays, starting at noon.  It had just turned noon.  So we sat and enjoyed three wonderful dessert wines (Sedouce, Sarah's Stories, and Ten Roses) from Harris Bridge and finished it with Lumos's Temperance Hill pinot.  We talked at length with gentleman from Harris Bridge. If our family is good this Thanksgiving, we may take them up to Harris Bridge for some dessert wine.

With the East side of 2nd street fairly well explored, we crossed over to the West and started back.  

We quickly found ourselves inside the Pegasus Gallery, admiring a number of pieces of art priced slightly outside of our means.  We both found ourselves amused by a young girl who was very taken with a hat she was wearing from the gallery and whispering ever so quietly as she looked in the mirror, "So beautiful".  It was a cute hat and she was pretty cute wearing it.  Children can be so funny.

Just as we thought we'd explored every store we could have remote interest in, the tea pots in the window of Oregon Legacy Coffee Company pulled us in.  As we stepped in and the scent of fresh roasted coffee beans hit us, we realized we needed coffee for our soon arriving company.  We bought some Crater Lake blend coffee, which hopefully the whole family will enjoy.

So Saturday Market is over until next year, and in all reality, we probably won't have any adventures like today's until it starts back up.  I'm glad we made the most of today, but now, I'm ready  for a nap.

A Beautiful Autumn Day

The sky was blue, and the sun shone brightly.  We bundled up and went for a walk through the local wetland trail.  We've visited this walk several times over the course of the year.  It's been fun to see the seasons affect the landscape.  The elusive beaver have yet to make their appearance, but with the folliage off of the trees, we could finally see evidence of their exitance.  A couple trees seemed only a few bites from being felled.  The tad poles have all but left the ponds.  The summer's dry cracked ground is covered with water and looks like elephant skin just an inch below the water.  The crows sit with their partners and alternate between bathing and sunning.  A family of ducks has yet to decide to fly south, and the mostly grown ducklings are busily forraging with mother.  The last of the thistles are blooming, and a blue flower dominates one area of the park.  I can't be sure, but it looks like some late blooming pea plants.  We note that they will get their pick of the remaining pollinators and move on.  Days like today help shake off a week of rain and put a bounce in your step.  On the walk back, we use our newfound bounce to smash dry crisp leaves, releasing satisfying sounds of childhood and the memories to go with them.

Predatory Lending Hits Home

The nap fairies charge ridiculous interest rates: for a 40 minute snooze on the couch yesterday, I paid 4 hours of insomnia.

Star Trek Addicts

Star Trek on TV

Inconsistently scheduled

Resistance... futile

Betsey and I spent a good part of Sunday watching a marathon of Star Trek.  We accidently stumbled across one this evening.  We are glued.

When Star Trek nerds find each other and fall in love, it's a  beautifulsomething.

Blue States - Red Wine

No better time for

wedding wine than when the world

chooses hope... not fear.

Halloween Happenings

Friday night, Betsey and I drove up to Portland for the Sehti gang's party in North East Portland.  I went as zombie and Betsey went as a member of Clionidae, or a "Sea Angel".  Nobody had trouble recognizing my costume, but Betsey had to bring some reference art.  That being said (written?), she owned that costume.  Once people knew what she was going for, they were very impressed.  We left the party kind of early to get home and sleep in our own bed.

Saturday was a Beaver game, or as Betsey calls them, Stupid Head conventions.  Largely she's right of course, but for this particular convention, one of the smartest heads we know came down.  Andy stopped in and lodged at Chez Catchpole Saturday night.  After the game, Nate came over too and we all watched SNL together.  This was especially exciting because we're a Nielsen household this week, so we were able to add two visitor columns to our TV diary.

Sunday morning, after everyone had some tea, I showed Andy some "Endless Ocean" and then we finished up with some "Smash Brothers".  I don't like the handicapping on Smash Brothers.  I don't like being punished for being good.  Instead of starting me out at a higher percentage, they should just start out others at a negative percentage.  I just get so frustrated with getting thrown off the screen at the first landed hit.  It doesn't teach the skills of persistance to the "handicapped" that are necessary for them to actually become good.  Where's the edge of this soap box?  I need to step off.

Tonight, I drove down to Cottage Grove to meet up with mum and Kim.  We ate dinner at the "Vintage Inn Restaurant" because the place I tried to find is apparently very well hidden.  Since it was vegetarian Sunday, I had spaghetti with marinara, which came with "garlic" bread and green beans.  I can't vouch for the garlic bread, but everything else was palatable.  Mum treated, which is always nice, and after dinner, we all parted ways to our separate cars and towards our separate cities.

Miniature Golf

Dan and I rematched on the same golf course as always.  Dan schooled me as usual.  We finished with dinner at Arby's.  Mmmmm.....  Potato Cakes.

Front Nine
Par	22
Myles	28
Dan	23
Back Nine
Par	21
Myles	27
Dan	26
Totals
Par	43
Myles	55
Dan	49

Congrats Dan.

Miniature Golf

is super fun, but I have

never beaten Dan.

Responsibilities

Civic

It's hardly been mentioned in the news, but I want everyone to know that the election is just around the corner.  If you vote by mail, absentee, or early, please do so.  Please do read about your candidates and your measures.  Seek to understand.  If you think the country's in a good place or a bad place, it's because you did or did not vote for the people running the show.  I don't care about your politics. I don't care about your causes.  I care that our government should feel accountable to the people and to nothing else.

Societal

This week, I cooked vegetarian Sunday.  After looking around for a bit, we picked a recipe that allowed us to also take advantage of the amazing weather and use the grill.  It was "Eggplant Mixed Grill" and it was fabulous.

Personal

Another month has flown by already.  Another visually interesting budget.  We had a little V for Vendetta thing going on this month.  I think we're out to get overspending.  New rule: Five dollar penalty for every fifteen over budget.  The penalty comes out of the play money fund.

"The proudest now is but my peer"

Gone Fishin'

This morning I woke up at 5:30 on purpose.  Strange as it may seem, I did this of my own free will.  When James invited me to go fishing several weeks ago, I said yes.  

I've never really been a fisherman.  I went with my granddad years ago, and I always managed to frustrate him.  I even pulled on my rod so hard once that it snapped in two.  Oh he loved that!  When I would get bored, which was often, I would toss rocks.  Yep, fishing is in my blood!

Nevertheless, when James said fishing, the memories above became warm memories, and I missed my granddad.  I thought about how I had his fishing pole, and I had never used it.  I thought I could even have fun.  So, I said yes.

Now James is a great guy.  He knew I was basically a novice.  He's taught kids to fish.  He had the right qualifications to teach me to fish and to teach me to have fun fishing.  So two weeks before today, James spent our encounters at work educating me about fishing:  How to properly set up your line, What fishing off a jetty means for you and the fish, Where different knots go, and What to wear.  Then last week, I took my granddad's fishing pole to work, and James brought some weights.  Having graduated from theory, James showed me how to tie knots and had me do some practice casts on the field.  I was prepared to fish.

Granddad had spent his time trying to teach me knots.  He took me fishing and showed me how to cast.  Give him credit, you can only teach someone who doesn't want to learn so much.  All I had wanted was to make him happy; I'm not sure I had ever wanted to fish.

Today, for the first time in my life, I both felt prepared to and wanted to fish.  I woke up.  I got dressed.  James picked me up and we drove in the late evening early morning to Newport.  We crawled down trails and out along the jetty and we cast our lines.   James caught three fish.  I caught one.  Not a great tally, but I'm told the tides were not favoring us.  I have now, however, doubled the number of fish I have caught unaided.  It's a great feeling.

At the end of the fishing day, sun high in the mid-day sky, we climbed back to the car and ate our peanut butter and jelly sandwhiches, our cleaned hands still stinking like fish.  The sandwhiches tasted great.  My cheeks were a bit rosier from the sun and also sore from all the smiling.  I won't be waiting as long to go fishing again.

October Volleyball

Sunny days in Fall

Few dry volleyball games left

Enjoy and play on

P.S. Vegetarian Sunday: On Tuesday: Lemon linguine

Fishy Responsibilities

The water in a fish tank, even for an air-breather Betta, should be replaced every so often.  For a single Betta fish in a 10 gallon tank, that turns out to be every 2 to 3 months.  So, as part of our fish-watching responsibilities, that is what we did today.  It took several hours, but we were probably more thourough than we needed to be.   

First, we filled the holding tank that Flitter would live in for the cleaning process with water at the correct temperature.  Then we treated that water to get the chlorine fixed.  Then we gently captured him using a plastic container and transferred him to the holding tank.

We...

...transferred the plants to their holding tanks.

...took many small trips from the aquarium to the sink, taking dirty water each time.

...carried the tank to kitchen, where we drained what we could and got all the rocks out.

...cleaned the fake rock home.

...cleaned the filter.

...cleaned the heater.

...cleaned all the rocks by putting them in a sifter and running hot water over them.

...dried the rocks by putting them on a large towel.

...further cleaned the rocks by sifting through them and removing plant material.  

...wiped down the aquarium surfaces until they shined.

...returned the aquarium.

...returned the rocks.

...took many small trips from the sink to the aquarium, adding fresh water at the right temperature.

...added the plants.

...treated the water for chlorine.

...added plant growth solution.

...transferred Flitter.

This is a task done out of love.  So there are no complaints.  I am, however, seriously startled by the ammount of time and effort it took two people.  For Chrystal to do this all the time for Flitter is just amazing.

Tomorrow: Clean and put away all the transfer aquarium materials.

Monkey See

Susan does this thing

she posts it on each Tuesday

I thought I'd try it

P.S. Vegetarian Sunday: Thai Peanut Noodles

Kim's Birthday '08

Kimberley turned a little older last week and the family came together to celebrate on Saturday.  For presents, we went shopping at Fred Meyer and bought Kim things she needed.  Chrystal's package from Denmark arrived and was opened with much fanfair.  We journeyed to P.F. Chang's in Hillsboro for dinner.   The food was excellent, the company was great, and Kim seemed to have a fun time.  

Our Fortunes

Mr. Cachew: A wish will be granted after a long delay.

Mrs. Cachew: Generosity and perfection are your assets and they show.

NPR Music

Betsey and I were listening to ATC on the way home.  We were listening to a story about giant pumpkins that explode.  Towards the end of the segment they invited us to go online and view video of a gentlemen chopping up his pumpkin.  The outgoing musical interlude was "Today", and I guess I was a little bit slow, because out loud I wondered, "Really NPR, Smashing pumpkins?".

To which, Betsey responded with incredulity, "Duh."

To which, I understood my folly and smiled sheepishly.

Thanks NPR for a wonderful car moment.

Beautiful Sky

Leaving work today, the sky was too beautiful not to photograph.

I was rewarded by being pelted with rain when I otherwise would have made it to the car dry, but I think it was well worth it.

P.S. Vegetarian Sunday: Veggie burgers and homemade potato salad.

Update:

So today is Thursday, it felt like Friday, then I get home and I'm watching all new SNL.  What the heck?

September Wrap-up

October is starting and I don't want to get too far behind, so here's a good effort to play catch-up.

Visiting the Folks

The second weekend of September, we traveled down to visit my mum and dad. On Friday night, I managed to get quite drunk all by myself (well the entire bottle of wine to myself helped). We all had fun, but I was wiped for pretty much the whole rest of the weekend. Saturday, after I recovered a bit, Betsey and mum went out for girl time, and dad and I moved a water softener to the water pump and pulled wiring out of the attack. After we finished grunting, we cleaned up and relaxed a bit. Mum and Betsey came back a little later and then we all went out to dinner at The Brewery (map). We were treated, because they're great. The food was excellent. Sunday arrived all too soon, but there was no hurry to go anywhere, so we stuck around and had a late lunch. Before leaving, I grabbed a box with my old yearbooks in it so I could finally accept those facebook names I just couldn't put a face too. The trip home was uneventful, and we looked forward to the next two weekends; our first weekends without plans to see anyone in about two months. Seeing mum and dad had been fun, but we needed time to be us with just us.

The New Things

When the third weekend rolled around, there was one simple date. Go have dinner Friday night with James, his wife, Kayla, and their just 1 year old daughter, Chloe. This was kind of new for us. Being adults and having dinner with adults our age. They made us a great dinner with fresh vegetables from their garden and garlic rubbed pork cooked on the barbeque. It was an amazing dinner. After dinner, the five of us went on a nearly 2 mile walk (baby in stroller) through the neighborhood on a fine end of summer evening. We finished up the evening with a movie and marionberry pie, taking home a jar of homemade pickles, the best pickles we've had in quite some time.

Saturday afternoon we awoke. On the way home the previous night, I'd told Betsey I was thinking about cleaning out the office for when her new school year started. Well we woke up, and went on our usual walk to the local coffee house. Walking home, I was surprised to find myself still motivated. The office has never been clean since we moved in, so cleaning it would be no small task. The main bit was emptying, cleaning, and moving Molly's habitat. I hadn't wanted to do anything with it after she died, and the habitat had sat there, silent and full of bedding and toys and food, for several months. With the 50 gallon aquarium and stand in the garage, there was a huge space left in the office. Betsey and I decided new furniture was in order to fill up the space and provide shelving and organization.

Sunday morning we decided to make good on our thoughts about furniture. We still had a ton of Target money from our wedding, so we went shopping. We picked up a short cabinet that Flitter's 10 gallon aquarium would fit on and a modular cube shelving system that we already had one of and knew we liked. As an added bonus, all our wood furniture in the office is from the same Target line and is the same pattern "maple", so things look quite coordinated.

Flitter is Chrystal's fish we're looking after while she's in Denmark. Her blog is full of great pictures of the places she is visiting. There's a link to it on the right called "Crossing the Atlantic".

Sunday evening I finished building the furniture and moved it into the office, while Betsey started cooking for a new household tradition we're trying to start up: Vegetarian Sunday. She made Southern Italian Ratatouille. The only thing Betsey did different from the recipe, as I understand it, is not salt the ingredients. We tend to prefer to add salt to taste after the meal is cooked. After dinner, we moved Flitter and thus his aquarium from the floor by the television, where he had lived for over a month, to his new home on top of the cabinet in the office. His aquarium fit perfectly.

Last Weekend before School

Knowing how Betsey becomes school Betsey, I surprised her Thursday night with the news that I was taking Friday off to spend some quality time with her. After she canceled all her dates with her myriad of boyfriends, she was pretty pleased about the deal. We did spend a lot of time together, which was nice, but we picked up on the tasks from the previous weekend and continued the great office effort. As I sorted through probably over a decade's worth of bank statements and miscellaneous documents and separated the few keeps from the many other papers, Betsey became an extension of the shredder. As a team, we eliminated from our life several cardboard boxes, two full garbage bags of papers that did not need shredding, and six full bags of fairly well compressed shreddings. The process was very liberating. It took all three days to make it through the papers, and we're still sorting things out now. I imagine, in a couple weeks when everything is as we want it, there will be a photo or two to share. Until then, admire the trash; please.

We did reach a milestone of sorts that weekend that's worth a picture. In August, we bought a cheap little white board from Dollar Tree and started tracking our budget. We set an ambitious goal of 100 dollars a week. Those 100 dollars do not include fixed costs like utilities, rent, and loan payments. Well, the cheap board fell apart by the end of the first week, but we kept at it and we learned two things: We liked having our budget on the wall giving us feedback, and we had set the budget aggressively. So in September, we bought a better white board, set the budget to 150 a week, and went for the gold. We beat our budget each week. As a reward, the money not spent, goes into the play money (Christmas gift) fund. If we go over, it comes out of the play money. I think it's visually interesting to see how the budget came out, and I hope you will too.

The budget also doesn't include food, because in July we bought 1200 (Tax Relief) dollars of FredMeyer gift cards (that's 4 cards). FredMeyer gave an immediate 10% gain in value for every 300 dollars. We knew our bank couldn't beat that, so we picked up the extra 120 bucks. Our food doesn't enter the budget until the cards are empty, and then we'll bump the budget to adjust.

Capitol Idea

As a member of Salem YoungPros, each month I have the opportunity to go do something pretty fun. September's event was a tour of the Capitol building. I didn't get to go in grade school, so, camera in hand, I intended to make up for it. The building is quite impressive. We had a full tour, including the statue at the top, but due to the fire in August, we did not get to see the governor's office. I had a ton of fun with Dan, Scott, and Nick, some of my friends from work.

Cousins Weekend

The first all-grown-up Mathew Cousins Weekend was the first weekend in September.  The cousins (totalling 8, 9 if you count me, and they all do) convened on the unsuspecting town of Seaside.  In all truth, it was a pretty sober weekend full of smiles and laughter.  There may be some pictures on the internet of me holding a doorknob in my hand and a drink in the other, but I can explain pictures like that if pressed to do so.  

The first night most of us relaxed and then went to bed.  Kendall was a bit too excited though and went to the beach alone in the pitch dark, where the sea swallowed his eyeglasses and made him crawl the three blocks back to the house blind as a bat.

The next morning, after Kendall explained why he was wearing prescription sunglasses indoors and we'd all laughed a bit, the majority of us went to take our chances with the sea.  The Oregon coast was in fine form (overcast and windy) providing the perfect conditions for kite flying.  There were some beauties up that day, but most excitingly for me, mine successfully flew for the first time in two years since I bought it.  After tiring of the beach, we went into town and enjoyed the car show and had some coffee.

In the evening, after watching Ninja Warrior, we all cozied up and watched "Enchanted", a surprisingly entertaining flick about a cartoon princess that enters the real world.  Think "Who framed Rodger Rabbit" with all the plot devices running in reverse and with a good extra helping  of sweet innocense thrown in.

The final morning was primarily an excercise in cleaning and packing .  We all hopped in our various vehicles and exited as quickly as we had arrived and a bit too soon.

Since Cousins Weekend, at least one cousin has left the area, so who knows when we'll all be able to get together again.  It was a great opportunity that I'm sure we're all glad was taken.  Maybe if we're lucky, the next Cousins Weekend won't be more than a year away.

PAX 2008

PAX was August 29th through August 31st.  Every year since its inception, it's been a weekend to get away with friends and preview upcoming games.  The level of nerdiness at PAX is actually higher than my comfort threshold, but I always seem to manage.  Maybe it's the beer or the fact that we don't spend more than a few hours there on any one day that enables me to make it through.

This year I left a day early with Nate to head up to Kevin's.  Kevin made 10 dozen cookies for the cookie brigade (new this year).  The cookie brigade took donations (cookies) and sold them for charity.  Nate and I went to help (deliver supplies), game (Lumines), and sleep.  Staying with Kevin made the trek to Seattle, a little easier.

On the first day of PAX, we awoke and went to downtown Portland to collect Rachelle, the first woman to ever be invited to our men's only nerd weekend.  Rachelle had planned on earning her honorary Y chromosome over the weekend, but by the end, well Rachelle's own words put it best: "The more I learn about this [Y chromosome], the less I want [even an honorary] one."

From Portland we drove to fabulous La Center, Washington where Andy was getting his gambling fix in.  We shoved Nate into Andy's car to make more room, and our caravan continued toward Seattle.  Well, first we split up because I wanted to follow my Nuvi's directions and we ended up on a more scenic route.  Despite our delay, we beat Andy and Nate to Burgerville in Centralia by about the time it takes to order and sit.  Andy drives the speed limit as every good citizen should.

After lunch, it was a straight shot to downtown Seattle where we entered the geekiness and met up with Jon, our friend and couch host for the weekend.

PAX was great.  The bits of concerts that I heard were fantastic.  Among the finds I think will turn into a purchases, Rorschach Ink Blot Game looked like a great a new party game to purchase.  I played some games that made me wish my computer wasn't 5 years old.  The Political Machine would probably take up tons of my time if I could run it.  I found a free online card game, Alteil, that I've been having fun with too.  More than ever, I wished I had a 360 and Halo 3.  Some of the best memories involve shooting Andy.  Some of the worst memories involve Andy trouncing me.  Indeed, as is the case every year, it was being with friends and playing games back at base into the wee hours of the morning that made it fun and memorable.

At the end of the expo, we reloaded the carpools and went south.  Rachelle went with Andy.  Everyone else with me.  We stopped at J in the B in Olympia and then went back to Kevin's.  The final bit of drive home with Nate was long but in good company.  We used the iPhone to get star charts to try and figure out a particularly bright star in the sky.  Yes, I guess really, the geekiness never ends.

Hood to Coast 2008

Hood to Coast was August 22nd and 23rd.  It was the most physical activity I ever set myself to do.  I ran three legs (6, 18, and 30) totalling 15.72 miles.  I had a blast.  I'm actually starting to look forward to doing it next year.

I wore a Garmin Forerunner the entire time.  I had my data uploaded to Motionbased.com.  You can review my legs (1) (2) (3) from that site.  I ran sub-nine minute miles on all my legs, and I'm quite pleased about that.  Given my estimated time (slower), it meant that I took approximately 15 minutes off our total estimated time, making up for a few members that had even more difficult legs.

I slept about 2 hours during the run.  After meetin' the team at the finish line, Betsey picked me up, and we moseyed over to the "Love Shack" that our dear friends Pam & Mark allowed us to borrow for the weekend.

We took the scenic way home and stopped in at a home made sausage place and at the Flying Duthman winery.  It was a really grand weekend full of great memories and beautiful vistas.

The Spinning World

Did anyone else feel it? In July, the world stopped spinning for a moment. It knocked these Catchpoles off their feet, and we're still learning to stand again. A big thank you to our friends that have helped keep us steady.

In other news, today we wished Chrystal well on her voyage across the sea. I caught a picture of her as she turned the key to enter the great big world.



"For the line is thinly drawn 'tween joy and sorrow"

A puzzling weekend

Last weekend was very relaxed. I decided to tackle a puzzle that had been staring Betsey and I in the face for quite a while. At the beginning I decided to take a picture of the puzzle after every hour of work on it. Twenty one pictures later, the puzzle was complete. As you look through the pictures, you see that some hours were more productive than others. Those are the hours where Betsey helped.



Besides being puzzled all weekend, we were also entertained. We went to see Wall-E to escape the heat on Sunday. That movie is great and well worth spending matinée prices on. I find it hard to imagine any movie is worth seeing at full price anymore. We finished the evening with Sushi and then returned to work on the puzzle. Despite the post title, it took more than just the weekend to complete.

Betsey got leied by my groomsman

Dan came back from Hawaii and brought with him gifts aplenty. For Betsey he brought a lei, which was incredibly well received. Look at the smile on this girl.



Dan brought me a cool manly necklace, some carmacs (caramel and macadamia chocolates), and a dolphin shaped bottle opener. Truly I'm lucky to have such a true and generous friend.

Let's do the time warp again!

Where the heck did June go? It went. A number of events conspired to keep the blog from being updated by taking my time and leaving me just too tired whenever I was home. Here they are, chronologically.

5/21 Wii Fit is released
Early Wednesday morning, my friend and coworker held to a promise to take me to Costco (from work) to buy a Wii Fit on it's first available day (excluding New York). He held this promise even though he had obtained one earlier somehow and had no personal interest in going to Costco.

The Wii Fit is initially addictive. There are a great variety of exercises that come included. These exercises include yoga and strength training as well as fun activities like heading soccer balls and snowboarding. I imagine it can continue to be addictive; however, the same events that kept us from updating the blog have kept us from continuing our daily regimen. It's been over a week since I stepped on that cool little balance board now. I miss it. I think I'll try to start up again this Monday.

5/26 Memorial Day
This last memorial day we started early and kept it going all weekend. Beer flowed like wine? Well there was plenty of it consumed to say the least.

On the day, SciFi channel ran an Enterprise marathon that kept us glued to the television, but somehow we managed to invite our neighbor Nate over, and he spent a couple hours enjoying food, drink, and nerdy TV with us.

5/31 Falcon 15K Relay
For the days immediately following Memorial Day, I trained my but off for the Falcon 15K Relay. It was the fastest 5K I ever ran and our team did really well. My personal results were not kept because I was a part of Team Awesome (comprised of Dan, Thomas, and myself). However, I can tell you that I averaged about 7:40 minute miles. My personal best. It was a proud day.

My Birthday
As I took some well deserved time off from everything after the relay, my birthday crashed into my work week. It was a great day. Early on I received warm wished from dear friends Susan, Jim, and Anne via email. Then I received a package of yummy cookies and treats at work from my beloved. Chris was kind enough to take a picture. When I arrived home, I found a bikini birthday cake waiting for me, which I was allowed to eat after I had delicious pork chops for dinner.





Shoes Prank (the next day)
After being out for the evening, Betsey and I arrived home the next day to find that our neighbors were having a get together. How would we know this? Were they loud? No. Our neighbors (well these ones) are model neighbors. We knew this because there was an accumulation of shoes in the stair well the likes of which were hard to imagine. How many people can you cram into one of these apartments?

As I opened our door and walked in, I nearly tripped over a box of items intended for the good will, including several pairs of shoes Betsey had decided she no longer needed. If ever a light bulb should have materialized over my head and become illuminated, that was the moment. I looked at Betsey with the spirit of Pan glinting in my eyes and said, "What if, when everyone goes home tonight, there's an extra pair of shoes?"



Such an innocent prank that had the opportunity to cause so much confusion. It had to be done.

Of course, our perfectly wonderful neighbors neatly set the shoes out next to their door when there was nobody to claim them. The next morning, when they were gone, we reclaimed the shoes to deliver to the Good Will. We hope they tell a tale to their friends of the mysterious shoes that appeared and disappeared, but we may never know what they thought of our little prank.

Andy Visits (that weekend)
Andy came down to visit that weekend. It was his last visit to Corvallis as an unmarried man. Nate, Brian, Brent, and I met up with Andy for dinner at Woodstock's and an evening of video games and board games. It also marked the last meeting with Brian, as he happily found gainful employment in the Portland area.

6/14 Andy's Bachelor Party
A little later, we celebrated Andy's bachelorhood ending more properly in Portland. The day started at Bridgeport Brewery downtown, moved to the Ground Kontrol arcade. After overdosing on 90's video games and pinball machines, we filled up our cups and hit the links at McMenamins Edgefield. The course runs alongside a prison, which affords one the unique opportunity to lob a ball over razor wire and get several bounces on the tin roof of the prison. I imagine it's only more fun when the prisoners are out for their exercise. The night rounded out with drinking, video games, and poker at Kevin's house. He made an Alt Bier that was to die for. I finally had a chance to play Mario Kart for the Wii (very fun), and I took second in the poker tournament. When I left, Andy was near death on the couch, and I knew we had done right by him.

6/15 Father's Day
Nursing a headache, I was up early the next morning for Father's day. I drove out to Kimberley's apartment for the first time (lost myself for a bit), and wished Dad a happy day. It had entirely escaped me that I hadn't seen my family since before my birthday, so I received presents as well as Dad. The entire Catchpole gang then headed over to the Mathew's house to enjoy the fine weather provided for Lucy's graduation party. Everyone was merry and things just went great.

6/19 & 20 Andy's Rehearsal & Wedding
As one of Andy's groomsmen, I had the fortune of taking Thursday and Friday off to attend his rehearsal and wedding. Apparently, according to the planner, we were the greatest rehearsal party ever. We moved so smoothly through rehearsal that she felt almost unnecessary.

Rehearsal dinner was at the Stone Cliff Inn. A beautiful setting high up on the side of a (surprise) stone cliff overlooking a river. It was nice to get to know the wedding party better and make some new friends.

The next day, the wedding went even better than rehearsal. The pastor (priest/reverend/celebrant/my way of indicating I don't know) was a gentleman with a British accent and a great sense of humor. The officiating was just the right length and the food afterwards was delicious. There were so many friendly faces, I only wish there'd been more time to see everyone.

6/21 Amy Gino's Wedding
On the heels of one wedding, came another. Amy's wedding was the next day. Her wedding, too, was beautiful. A surprise for everyone was the horse drawn carriage that delivered the bride-to-be to the aisle and carried the newlyweds away at the end of the ceremony.

There were a lot of familiar faces from high school, and too many of them I couldn't remember the name to. It made me feel old and forgetful, but then I reminded myself that this wasn't even my class and I let it go.

The Ginos are like family to me and I was so honored that Amy invited me to her wedding. I have a few very precious memories from my time hanging out with Amy during high school forensics. The most dear is captured in a picture of a man dressed as a giant pancake in Eugene that still sits by my monitor. If you read this Amy, best wishes yet again for a happy and fulfilling marriage.

6/28 & 29 Wanted & Anniversary
We went and saw the last showing of wanted on Saturday night. We let in our Anniversary to the visual splendor of men and women dying, rats exploding, and a hard hitting soundtrack. Yes we do things in style.

The next morning we woke up late and opened cards. The first year being paper, that's all we bothered to get for each other. Simple and sweet, maybe all special days should be that way. Later that evening we had a nice dinner at Headwaters. We celebrated by eating Mediterranean and drinking rum punch to remind us of our honeymoon in Antigua. The atmosphere was laid back and just what we were looking for. The waiter, Bret, was great and when he figured out we were having an anniversary, he comped our dessert. He said, "next time call ahead and I'll put down a red table cloth to make it more romantic."

7/4 Independence Day
Which brings us to this weekend, which is no less busy than any of the others, but I've managed to post, destroying the validity of all my excuses.

We had dinner out with the Christiansens and the Browns Thursday evening. We walked downtown Friday morning and returned in the evening for the fireworks display. We returned to the waterfront again Saturday for the market and took our first trip to the local co-op. Today, we took our usual morning walk to the nearby coffee house where we read the paper and just relaxed. Betsey has read all day and I spent a good amount of time playing Mega Man ZX Advent (a birthday gift) before deciding I was going to blog.

Betsey's making chicken marsala tonight and we have some belated wedding gifts to purchase, but other than that, we're done for the weekend. Hope this posting finds everyone well.

Running News

Interview Skills Redux

Well, my Hood to Coast team is now on the short list for the HTC documentary. So we had a second meeting with the HTC documentary people at the same place, this time, on film. It's exciting to think I could be on film. We played another round of miniature golf. I think the camera, as Dan said, added two strokes, at least to my game.

Hole	Name	Par	Dan	Thomas	Myles
1	Beginner's Luck	2	2	2	3
2	Mouse Trap	2	4	3	2
3	Cliffhanger	3	3	4	4
4	Boulderdash	2	3	2	2
5	Hidey Hole	3	2	3	3
6	Split Decision	3	2	3	6
7	Ricochet Ridge	2	2	2	2
8	Badlands	3	2	3	2
9	Pier Pressure	2	2	2	4
	Top 9 Score	22	22	24	28
10	Tunnel Funnel	2	2	2	2
11	Fountain Mountain	2	2	2	4
12	Summit Plummet	3	2	4	4
13	Friday's Turn	2	3	2	4
14	Booemerang Bend (sic)	2	2	2	2
15	Water Folly	2	2	3	2
16	Log-a-rhythm	2	2	2	3
17	Quarry Quandary	2	6	2	3
18	Wishbone	4	5	6	3
	Bottom 9 Score	21	26	25	27
	Total Score	43	48	49	55

Iris Festival 10K

I ran my second 10K on Sunday. The Iris Festival takes place in Keizer each year and gets its name from the Iris fields that the area is known for. I ran the 10K with Thomas, while Dan and Tim ran the half Marathon (twice as far).

This run was a much flatter, dryer, warmer race than my first. I ran sub 9 minute miles, which amazed me. I'm really pleased with my progress and proud of the results. When I arrived, I was given bib number 1. The organizers said that it came with some expectations. I was the only one in my age division (25 - 29), so I received a first place ribbon. Expectations met?

If Dan puts pictures up somewhere, I'll link to them.

"For he that gets hurt will be he who has stalled"

My First Paintball

Last weekend was my first paintball experience. It was the first six hours of a bachelor party. Running around in the woods, getting shot at, hiding in bushes, and getting sweaty was a lot of fun, but it also made me super grateful for my cubicle life. I was so tired when it was all over. Getting shot where no man should be shot was also an experience I hope to never repeat. I'm still sporting bruises on my arms, legs, and ribs. I took pictures, but then I realized nobody wants to see that.

We rounded out the day with some go-cart racing, dinner at Hooters, and an evening spent in the traditional manner of our people.

If you enjoyed the Where's Waldo books, you may enjoy the picture here (u: danbonebrake p:5251855) of me with Chris (the bachelor) on the left and Gabe (the organizer) on the right. I met these guys in college, and they still keep me in the loop for the special occasions. I'm thankful to be able to count them as friends.

April was busy!

Okay, okay, I know it's May, but I have to wrap up April first.

Farewell Amy

After our wine tour, we had a fun evening planned. A party was held to say goodbye to Amy. The entire Rodney House gang provided a grand buffet of food and drink. Our dear friend Amy is heading to Alaska to make some money before going to live with and help her sister. I can think of few reasons as honorable to leave all you know and all your friends behind. I'm proud of Amy and wish her all the blessings in the world.



Interview Skills

I had an interview of sorts on the 28th. I'm not changing jobs, but as part of Hood to Coast, there's a group making a documentary. They were looking for rookie runners / rookie teams, and our entire rookie team fit the bill. So we went to the Best Little Roadhouse and got to know the director and producers.

After the producers left, we played miniature golf. Bold * numbers indicate we went out of bounds. The first row of final scores are raw totals. The second row of final scores adds an extra stroke for each out of bounds. The course didn't say how to play out of bound holes, and we played them where they lay, so I thought it only fair to show raw and adjusted totals, probably because I score better that way. Here are the scores:

Hole	Name	Par	Dan	Thomas	Myles
1	Beginner's Luck	2	2	3	3
2	Mouse Trap	2	2	2	3
3	Cliffhanger	3	2	3	4*
4	Boulderdash	2	2	3	2
5	Hidey Hole	3	3	3	2
6	Split Decision	3	2	2	2
7	Ricochet Ridge	2	3	3*	2
8	Badlands	3	2	(1)	2
9	Pier Pressure	2	2	2	2
	Top 9 Score	22	20	22	22
10	Tunnel Funnel	2	2	2	2
11	Fountain Mountain	2	2	2	2
12	Summit Plummet	3	5	4	3
13	Friday's Turn	2	3*	4*	4*
14	Booemerang Bend (sic)	2	4	3	3
15	Water Folly	2	3	3	2
16	Log-a-rhythm	2	(1)	4*	2
17	Quarry Quandary	2	2	2	3
18	Wishbone	4	5	4	3
	Bottom 9 Score	21	27	28	24
	Total Score	43	47	50	46
	Penalty Score	43	48	53	48

Dan (on left) is single.

Touring Wine Country

Last weekend was my a-dec mentor Anne's birthday. In true Anne fashion, she rented a Blimo (bus limo) and treated her friends to a wine tour. We visited Rex Hill Vineyards, WillaKenzie Estate, Sokol Blosser, Erath Winery, and The Four Graces. The Blimo took as from point to point, covering quite a bit of ground and allowing us to keep our BAC up in between stops.

I think my favorite stop was The Four Graces. They had a bit of a French flair and the winery is named for the owners' four daughters. The owners also have a son, and so as not to leave him out, the reserve refers to him as the keeper of the four graces. It's all very sweet, and the vineyard is all about sustainable farming and everything good. They even had shirts printed on American Apparel, so I had to buy one.

The entire day was fantastic, and I'm just honored to have been included. Thanks Anne!

More Mud Run

Oregon Velo, a sports photography company, covered the Mudslinger 10K run. They set up photographers along the trail and took pictures of everyone as they ran by. This is really cool because now I have pictures of me as I get muddy, not just before and after. The pictures also show just how crazy the conditions were.



I'm not sure which is my favorite, but I'm hoping to support the photographer by buying a mouse pad or something with one of these pictures on it. Any input would be appreciated.

Before I ran the race, I created this Google map. I didn't find the one the Mudslinger people provided all that helpful for gauging the terrain. Once I had mapped it out on Google, I was able to fully appreciate and mentally prepare for how drastic the slopes of the run were going to be. You'll notice almost all of the elevation gains and losses occur over relatively short distances. It was tough going up and fun coming down. Compare the forced smiles in the first two pictures to the clearly real smiles in the second two pictures.

Mud Run

Well the weekend after we were in San Antonio, things didn't slow down.

Friday night I spent some time at Nick's house playing games with Nick, Nate, Dan, and some others. It was good fun. We played Chez Geek and Zombie Flux card games until fairly late in the evening. It was definitely late considering what was waiting for Dan and I the next morning.

We, Betsey, Dan, and I, woke up that Saturday morning to snow falling in the middle of April. Very Strange. Dan was staying with us because he and I were running a race. My first race. After traveling over some snow covered scenery, we arrived in Blodgett and were joined by Thomas, another work friend. We registered, we talked, and before I knew it, the starting gun had fired.

For a first race, this one was a bit of an odd choice. The race was mud and gravel most of the way, with 400 feet of elevation climb through trails on BLM land. I thoroughly enjoyed coming back down the trail. I finished, which is all I was going for, but it also made me realize how much I need to improve. I was so happy at the end of the race, and I still feel very proud for having completed it.



My next 10K is coming up shortly. I'm looking forward to it of course, but somehow, I imagine, nothing will feel like completing this first one.

San Antonio Pictures

The River Walk runs under the Streets of San Antonio. This shot is from street level.


The Alamo.


Almost more impressive: The Alamo Koi.


The River Walk is lined with many historic buildings. This one is riddled with gun shot fired at the last remnants of the Mexican army as they held out inside the building.


Cute little ducklings are everywhere.


The tower of the Americas was visible from at least one location along the River Walk.


Safety railing, as seen here, is rare along the waterway.


The River Walk creates a tropic like paradise in the middle of down town San Antonio.

There are a few more pictures available on our Flickr account.

Rembering San Antonio

We spent the Friday the 11th through Monday the 14th in San Antonio, Texas with Betsey's parents and sister.

Friday morning at 3AM we woke up to catch our 6AM flight out of Portland. I find Portland airport to be so easy for getting in and out of compared to other airports. I'm not alone, Conde Nast and the TSA have named it number one (See December 2007 bullets). We enjoyed a unhealthy breakfast at Wendy's that tasted fantastic. Our Continental plane was on time, and I slept all the way to Houston, Texas. I missed food service, and under normal circumstances, that's no big deal, but on Continental the food is actually award winning. Breakfast was Honey Nut Cheerios, a cranberry muffin, 2% milk, and raisins. Then, after a half hour jump from Houston, we stayed at Drury Inn in San Antonio where we saw this one: "Highest in Guest Satisfaction Among Mid-Scale Hotels Chains with Limited Service". Come on! With awards like that, who isn't going to get one? Awards are no longer impressive. That being said, the Drury was really good, three free drinks every night. Maybe awards matter a little.

We were in San Antonio, primarily, to see Frank Jennings, the Frank Jennings, my great-uncle-in-law, and coiner of the term Aerospace (no kidding!). Unfortunately, the day we left he fell down some stairs, so all of our visits were in hospital. The fall may have made him dizzy, but he still had all his wits about him. He's great to talk with. His wife treated us to a great little authentic Filipino restaurant/market.

Our hotel was right on the San Antonio River Walk, which is basically an American Venice for like 10 city blocks. It's really really cool. Lots of restaurants and bars. No safety precautions. It's amazing more people don't fall in.

The River Walk goes right up to the Alamo. The Alamo is strange. Hardly preserved at all until recently, it's been used as a storehouse among other things. The "preserved" grounds are largely rebuilt. It's worth seeing if you're in San Antonio anyway, but really the River Walk would be a bigger draw for me. Also, they have friggin' huge koi.

Of course we took pictures of all this, but we haven't web-sized them or anything. We'll try to post later.

No Foolin'

If I'd posted this yesterday, it could have been mistaken as a joke. I ran 4 miles for the first time yesterday. Quite the accomplishment. That puts me two miles from my top goal. I'm only a little sore today, so that's very good. I need to find a better way to stretch my ankle and Achilles before running because that's where I feel the most stress during and after my run.

I've picked up a side project at home using a spare component or two we had laying around and a donation from a friend. Hopefully, we'll have a working DVR shortly, but right now it keeps crashing. Still, it's been a refreshing reminder course on some of the ins and outs of one distribution of Linux.

Not too much else to report on. March was pretty slow. April should be a lot busier, so there should be more to write about.

"My pen floods the pages while the children are crying"

You're a dream Ruf!

Last night Betsey and I went to see Rufus Wainright (sans band) at the Newmark Theatre in Portland. We sat in second balcony, row A, dead center. It was a great night, even though we were both extremely tired. We had a quick bite to eat just to tide us over right before hand at the Art Bar and Bistro inside the theater. The fries were great, and you'd have to ask Betsey about the Mac & Cheese.

I don't know if it was because it was a solo performance, or if he's always this way, but Rufus was pretty chatty with the fans. He explained early on that he woke up from a nap just 10 minutes before walking on stage. "This whole thing is just one big dream," he said. To which one of the men in the balcony screamed, "You're a dream Ruf!" Laughs from all around. It was all very relaxed and he played a variety of songs from all his albums. I was very happy that he played my favorite from the latest album, "Going to a Town.".

Of course being in Portland at night made Betsey and I miss the city so much more. We need to get back, but I guess all in good time.

"You can find yourself a God"

Update Medley

Birthday
I may have hinted that I would talk a little about Betsey's birthday in my last post. We had an excellent evening with Betsey's mom, dad, godmother, sister and sister's beau. We watched our wedding video with much less solemnity than with my folks, but I'm glad I've had both experiences. It's nice to know the video is versatile enough to be entertaining for all types of audiences. Rated PG for excessive kissing shots.

The food at Big River is always excellent, even if their web site is horribly pretentious, slow, and loud. If you invest enough time, you'll eventually find out where to click to look at the menu. Can you pass this test of stamina set forth by the plating gods? Probably, but I feel sorry for the odd person with dial up that wants to get this kind of information from them.

Found: One Friend
I occasionally represent my company at career fairs. At the last one I ran into Brett representing his company. Now Betsey and I have been lamenting the fact that we haven't seen Brett since basically we started dating, so with excitement I excused myself from my current conversation and attempted to catch up. At first, our man was too busy for anything after the career fair, but later in the day he came around and made our day by inviting Betsey and I out to beer.

On the way out of the career fair to pick up Betsey, Brett asked, "So where do you want to go?"

"Do we have a choice?", I asked.

We smiled and continued on to our old haunt. It was so nice to catch up and see Brett. Nicer for me than Betsey was having entire conversations in CS metaphor. I hadn't done that in years and it was as awkward and funny (ho ho, not ha ha) as ever.

Anyway, this is clearly the best development of 2008 to date.

10 Legs and 4 Hearts
I once again teamed up with Ben and Hayward for a run to the covered bridge and back. This time it wasn't raining and we were joined by Brad. I hadn't run since I last went in the rain, and I'm still sore a couple of days later. Getting back into the swing of things is harder than I expected. As soon as my hip feels normal, I'll be out running again. Here are the stats from our latest run:

Distance: 3.34 miles
Time: 32:44 min
Pace: 9:48 min/mile

Fastest pace (set by Myles) 6:15 min/mile

Return of the Lyrics
On my old blog, back in the day, I use to put up lyrics to my song of the moment and explain how it related to my life. I received many a comment from the friends that bothered to read that it was their favorite section. Well, I don't think I'll be putting that much effort in again, but I'll try to provide a lyric and a google link to what I'm currently listening to from time to time. The motivation for the lyrics will of course change. Inspiring, clever, sad, happy, or just about anything will serve as a good enough excuse for the link. The only assurance is that I've heard it recently and enjoyed it.

"Inaction is a weapon of mass destruction"

Next Stop: Twilight Years (and Night Blindness)

Today I am old. Old enough to be considered a responsible driver for insurance purposes. Please mourn with me the passing of my carefree, car accident-ridden youth.

Sunriver

My first chance to bring any news since our annual trip to Sunriver. We go every year at the invite of our friend Andy, who uses it as a four day birthday celebration. We (Andy, Julie, Nate, Brian, Lindsey, John, Rachel, John, and Dave) all came together to play board games, real board games, card games, video games, watch crazy movies, and make the most of they skiing, snowboarding, and ice skating that is available in the area. With so much snow hitting the area, many of the usual routes were closed or severely delayed. The crew from our home town ended up taking the long route, which was remarkably all clear roads until outside of Bend. While we added several hundred miles, we only added about an hour to our estimated travel time given the weather and open routes at the time. This time around it came several weeks late because many people had other engagements. I have a feeling this will become more the norm as we all become older. So this year, it coincided with the Super Bowl. I didn't really care much about the Super Bowl. I rarely do. What was important to me, was to get the opinions of my friends about one particular ad. Apparently, it wasn't the worst, which is, I guess, better than last year. During the Super Bowl, I shoveled snow so we could get the car out early in the morning to get back, so I made the most of it. Unfortunately, I did not get to snowboard or ice skate this year, but it was nice to just relax.

During the trip, we found my OSU ID in the car, so I can start running indoors again. Despite that, last night I went running with Ben, who is on the Hood to Coast team. We ran three miles in the rain with his dog Hayward. It was a good run to the old covered bridge and back. It also made me more thankful to have the indoor facilities available to me.

I received a new computer and flat screen monitors at work. I'm pretty stoked about the new setup, and I think it will help me get more done. I'm pretty excited about it.

There's a special persons birthday coming up around the corner. We should have some family fun to report on that day.

Being Sick

Anyone who knows me, knows I don't get sick very often. So it was totally unexpected when the pathogens (I choose my word carefully see "Our Living Language") mounted their assaults on me. It must have been a co-ordinated effort because I've been 'under the weather' for at least a month now. At first it was just a throat sickness but then came the coughing. Oh the endless coughing. I'm down to just a couple of fits a day now, so I think the end may be in sight.

During all this time I haven't run, and I am not happy about that. I also can't seem to find my OSU ID. Hopefully I'll find that as I prepare for my parents to visit this weekend, although with the snow on the ground, driving has become a bit treacherous.

Dare I suggest that they not come up this weekend. I'll find out tonight on the phone.