I really honestly didn’t FORGET about you all.

July 27, 2003

I apologize for not doing more updates, but my friend Heather has been in town and it’s been tough to find time to sit in front of my computer to write an update. She hates it when I do that, plus I think I’d be kind of rude to do that while someone from out of town is visiting me, anyhow.

She finally showed up Thursday afternoon, a couple of days after I orginally thought she’d be here, but she got here nonetheless. We were going to go out to dinner with my friend Michiko from Eugene as I mentioned, but right as Heather arrived Michiko called and said she was just getting onto I-5 down in Eugene, which meant she probably wouldn’t be in Portland until 7 at the earliest, which meant that we couldn’t get together until 8 at the earliest. Well that was too bad, because Heather was dead tired and didn’t want to stay out too late. Heather and I just ended up going to the Olive Garden for dinner, which was advantageous since I’d been salivating over an Olive Garden commercial not a week or two before. I haven’t been eating a whole lot of pasta this summer, but I figured once would be OK. It was a nice dinner, and it was nice to see Heather again.

Friday we just kind of bummed around, which was a nice change of pace for Heather. She’s been so busy for the last 10 weeks doing her internship that she hasn’t gotten much of a chance to just sit back and relax. We dropped her pictures off for development at a local place and went out to lunch, then came back and went for a walk in the nice weather. I’ve been exercising almost every day, but it’s not really all that convienient or polite to do a whole lot of exercising while someone’s visiting. Anyhow, Heather really likes this one restaurant near my house, so I made reservations and we went to Hall Street Grill for dinner. Now, I used to go to Hall Street Grill with my Mom and sister quite a bit, but I’ve always gotten the same thing when I went there. I decided not to get a big steak this time, though, since I knew that SATURDAY night I’d be having a lot of steak, so I got a very spicy chicken and pasta dish instead. I figured out pretty fast why they called it the Fiery Chicken Fettucine dish.

Saturday we went to the Columbia Sportswear outlet in Lake Oswego, which always has great deals on clothes and the like. Heather got a nice jacket for $15, and I got a whole bunch of shirts and some shorts for a song. We then went over to my Dad’s for yet another dinner of beef cubelets and onion rings–only the second one this summer, but this one was mainly for Heather. That’s the one meal she always requests–well, beef cubelets and sweet corn, at least–and we’re too happy to oblige. Yum.

So now I’m sitting in a hotel room in Bend. Heather and I looked around for hotels a lot on our way into Bend, but man, all we could find were really expensive ones like Fairfileld Inn, Shilo Inn, Red Lion, etc. There was a Holiday Inn and Quality Inn on the outskirts of town, and we stopped to get the price at the Holiday Inn, but it was about $15 more than I wanted to spend. I didn’t even bother to get the price of the Quality Inn because I figured it would be too expensive, so we drove on. And on. And on. We just couldn’t find ANYTHING. I finally found a Comfort Inn a little off the highway where I wanted to be, and it turne dout to be *$20* more than I had wanted to spend, but I was so sick of driving I said screw it and we got a room for the night. First thing I did was set up my laptop and check for other hotels around the Bend area. Turns out that the Quality Inn I DIDN’T look at the price of was cheaper than the Holiday Inn, had a pool like the two of us wanted, and it was more where I wanted to be. Eh, oh well. Heather said she’d pick up the bill for tomorrow’s hotel bill, so I’ll still spend less than I wanted to, but more than I could have. How frustrating.

So instead of doing more driving, I decided to switch the plans of when we’d do the stuff out here. Tomorrow we’re going to walk through the lava cave and tour the lava forest followed by a trip to the High Desert Museum, all south of Bend and closer to us, then we’ll go back up the highway and get a room at a hotel that is right under my price range and north of Bend, where we want to be to go hiking at Smith Rock. So I guess we’ll do that on Tuesday morning, and then just go straigh back to Portland after hiking. I guess I don’t mind being dirty when I go home that day….. Still bugs me getting shafted on the hotel room, but it’s just money, and it’s not that much more.

That’s about all I have to say for now. Gonna sit back and watch “Meet the Parents” on TV, then maybe some “Dead Zone” and then hit the sack for our hikes tomorrow. Catch you all later.

Posted in Geekery, General