A week in one page.

March 23, 2004

It’s been a good week, but I’ve been lax about posting a new blog entry, as you can see. A lot to talk about, so why not just start at the beginning?

Late last week was spent not doing much at all. I’ve been working on something in my game but thankfully it doesn’t require me sitting in front of my computer completely, so I can be in and out of the room, or as it happened most of the time, not even at home. Thursday night was a lot of fun, as my Mom and I went out to dinner and then to a speech by Matt Groening, creator of “The Simpsons” and my beloved “Futurama”. He was a lot of fun to hear speak and showed a few clips from “The Simpsons”, most of which I’d seen before, but I’d never seen them with other people most of the time, and it was good to hear the positive reaction from the audience members…even if he did show clips from episodes that were from long after the show was past its prime. As long as HE’S still happy with it, that’s fine. As far as I’m concerned, though, I haven’t enjoyed new episodes of “The Simpsons” in YEARS. Oh well.

Friday I took a lunch break and went to McMenamins #24. After that, I met my Dad downtown and we took MAX back to Beaverton and we both drove over to Lake Oswego so I could spend the night there.

Now, let me make an aside here about some of the Friday night television that’s on. Fox has a new showed called “Wonderfalls” that’s gotten rave reviews from Entertainment Weekly, TV Guide, and just about everyone who reviews TV shows that I’m aware of, not to mention positive viewer comments, too. The show centers around a young woman who works in a gift shop at Niagra Falls and one day to her dismay finds that inanimate objects like little figurines are talking to her. Needless to say, she doesn’t like this as she’s a relatively intelligent person. It’s not like she has a conversation with them, either, they just tell her to do things. I know, I know…sounds kind of like a strange premise for a show, but the writing is excellent, as are some of the more philosophical issues that surround the fact that she’s getting instruction from SOMEWHERE. Joan of Arc was burned at the stake for claiming that she’d received messages from God…so who’s this girl talking to? Or what? I like it. I missed the premiere both the night it was on and when it reran because I forgot to set a tape for it, but the second episode was very good. Friday night, Fox network, probably 8 or 9 PM, depending on your time zone.

Oh yeah, and while I’m pimping TV shows, make sure you watch “Arrested Development” on Fox, too. Sunday nights, 9:30. Excellent show, created, produced, and narrated by none other than Ron Howard.

Saturday morning, 7 AM, I set off in the Escape headed South on I-5 once again. Heather and I decided to meet in Crescent City, CA this time instead of Gold Beach, OR, but despite being 52 miles from Gold Beach along 101 and another 30 miles further as the crow flies, my trip actually took the same amount of time, five hours on the nose with one stop for gas. My route was also a lot more fun to drive–I-5 to Grants Pass, OR, and then onto 199, also known as the Redwood Highway since it goes right through Jedediah Smith National Redwoods Forest. BEAUTIFUL drive. Kind of a windy road that you either don’t want to do at night or faster than about 40 in the daytime, but very, very nice.

There isn’t a whole lot to do in Crescent City, we discovered. Rocky beaches, more urban than Gold Beach, more cars plowing through. We were both tired so we just bought a pizza and a six-pack of beer and vegged in front of the TV that night, though. Heather doesn’t get to watch TV when she’s at her house she’s living at now since they don’t get any reception out there, so all she wanted to do was watch movies on TV. Fine by me. We got a nice big pizza from a place in Crescent City and watched the end of The Game, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, The Wedding Singer, and What Women Want. There was another movie that came on after the last one that we started to watch, but by then it was 12:30 AM and we wanted to get an early start in the morning.

Luckily, the place we stayed offered free breakfast. It wasn’t a continental breakfast as you may think, but a coupon good for each of us to get free food at a diner across the street. It wasn’t anything big, just six small selections to chose from–I got one egg, hash browns, and one piece of wheat toast–but it’s better than the tiny muffins and coffee that most hotels serve. After that, we grabbed some food from the grocery store so we wouldn’t have to break at lunchtime and we headed into Redwoods National Forest for a hike. We didn’t take a long one since we were both tired and didn’t want to tire ourselves out for our drive back that afternoon, so we just wandered around a few of the trails to marvel in the size of the trees. Heather showed off her owl calls that she uses to attract spotted owls for her work, but alas, none responded. Probably didn’t live too close to the highway.

After our lunch of Powerbars and soda, we drove a little north to Smith River state park for some more of the same. Smith River is right along 199 just north of Jedediah Smith National Forest, and the sunny day made the blue-green water extremely attractive to sit next to. We parked along the highway on a turnoff, found a way down to the water, and just sat on the rocks there next to the water listening to it flowing past us. We could see fish jumping from the water every 10 seconds or so, and it wasn’t until we looked closer that we could see the bottom was a solid mass of fish swimming against the current. There must have been hundreds of eight to ten inch fish down there. No swimming upstream, not spawning, just swimming against the current and jumping. A fisherman’s dream, eh? Anyhow, the sound and the sun lulled us both to sleep in our seats and we woke up just in time to head out, sadly.

And so it was five hours back, though the second time back to Portland was much easier than the first, even though the time was identical. Just seemed to go by faster, not to mention I was more awake.

Monday I was slated to drive down to Roseburg (about two and a half hours south of Portland on I-5…where I got off to get to Gold Beach last time I saw Heather) with my Dad so he could go to a business meeting and then we could hit the Roseburg McMenamins, but really three days with five hours of driving was too much for me. Sunday night I was just too beat, so I went to bed around 11 but didn’t feel like getting up again at 7. So I bailed. I feel bad because I know it would have been fun, but I couldn’t stand the idea of five more hours on the road, particularly to someplace I’d passed twice in the previous two days. Sigh. Well, another time, perhaps. What I really need is a long weekend to hang out with Heather. I don’t mind the five hours on the road, but doing it two days in a row is tough. A long weekend like Memorial Day weekend–assuming she gets the day off, of course–would be perfect to go camping in that area around Jedediah Smith or Smith River. Cheaper than a motel, too.

As so here I am. My shoulders still ache a bit from holding my arms in the same positions for ten hours in two days, and jogging today didn’t help that, but they’ll feel better soon enough. I won’t be doing the drive for probably another three or four weeks, anyhow, so that’s plenty of time to heal.

Oh, and one final piece of news: I’m moving out. Not getting my own place as I would have hoped, but moving in with my sister. It won’t be my swinging bachelor pad, but it’s more glamrous than living at time. I’m 24–I think it’s time for me to start easing my way out the door, no? So sister Heather has already cleared out the room she was using as her office for me, I have a covered parking spot reserved for me, and I’ll probably start moving in in the next couple of weeks. Pretty cool, huh? I’ll be a little closer to places I go often (MAX station, bank, grocery store), but best of all, on flat ground so I can actually BIKE places. Heck, I can even bike to the MAX station and take my bike elsewhere, like Washington Park to use the trails there. I finally have incentive to get my bike fixed. That will save me on gas money not driving everywhere and not having to drive up the big hill, here, as well as get me a more exercise. And speaking of exercise, there’s an exercise room at the apartment, as well as a pool, so I’ll be able to get back into exercising a bit more as well as use real equipment without paying for a gym membership. Sweet!

I’m not moving COMPLETELY out in that I’ll still leave some stuff here at my Mom’s, but I can empty my room of a lot of furniture, that’s for certain. And cable television again! Kaloo kalay! I even got myself a wireless networking card for my desktop computer and Heather’s going to do the same so we don’t have to run coax cable all over the place to share the Internet connection. Sounds like a good deal to me.

And so that’s what’s been going on in the last week. I hope that I do as much this next week. Though I probably won’t be driving for ten hours this weekend, that’s for certain.

Posted in Beer, Geekery, General