the break in review

Six weeks off, well sorta. I still managed to work under 20 hours per week so it wasn't complete off time, if you know what I mean. The spirits are high and the future looks good, despite continued possible world financial melt down and eminent government bail out. The break started out...

with a day trip to the coast. It was one of those 100 degree days inland, where it's about 60 at the coast. Pretty special for the dogs who pretty much

The macbook just crashed a while ago (and the blogger autosaved the above, so I'm just leaving it), and now I'm on the PC. Sux for me. Hopefully the macbook comes back to life tomorrow, but it's not looking good right now.

Anyway, the dogs loved the beach. Then it was on to Minnesota for Labor day weekend! It was some great weather (in the 90s), and we got to spend some time at the lake with family. Too bad we couldn't stay longer, but we both left with a little bit of a chest cold.

Then I planned to do some 10ks and a half marathon (Laurie did the 1/2 marathon along w/ Kelli and Kyle above!), to get back into shape. I did the first 10k, and it was pretty good. On the Tuesday after the P2P 10k, I sprained my ankle ending all hope of running any other races during the break. Oh well. I've been getting some rides in at least, and the ankle is finally feeling better.

I got to go sailing w/ a friend from school in his catamaran and after several hours of fun sailing we were nearing the end of the day, and caught an unusually strong gust of wind and flipped the thing. I ended up sitting on the top cat up in the air, and he was in the drink with his son. So we did manage to get it upright, but it wasn't easy. All in all, it was fun.

Then last week, we went to Bend for the weekend, after not being there much at all for the last year (and then some). The whole weekend, we hardly went anywhere without running into someone we knew, which felt kinda good, (but admittedly was a little weird), but just reinforces the small town-ness of Bend (that we miss) and that we don't get much of here in Portland.

So school starts on Monday, so it will be good to get back in the mix with the other clowns /er students again, we have a pretty good group. I'm looking forward to new classes this term. It's like a chance at a new start. Also, Laurie is going to be in Thailand (w/ OpSmile) in November for 3 weeks so send care packages around halloween. :D

And I watched the debate the other night, and I found it real interesting how Mc-Cane (sic), basically ignored Obama when Obama said we have to restore America's reputation in the world, because the world view of the USA is basically pretty shitty. McCane (sic) is an old timer that has all this 'experience', but I'm saying that all that experience he's got, is just what got us into this mess (or all of these messes) and we need some new life running the show up there. holla if you hear me! WORD.

Now lets just hope the bail out works.

Here comes the rain again...

It's been a busy time after the cx season ended, first with finals, and now moving. That's right, moving. How are you spending your christmas vacation? No vacation here.

Aside from the big storm that caused all the problems on the coast a few weeks ago, it's been pretty decent weather-wise, until this week. I guess it's not even too bad, considering what the bike commute might be like if it would be 10 degrees cooler with the same winds and precip. 40F and gusting wind driven rain isn't bad compared to 30 with wind and snow. Of course if it was snowing like that here I think the city shuts down. But the cascade mountains are getting snow now, finally, as the skiing reports that I've heard so far have been pretty ugly. The skiing in the midwest however, is awesome this year, for the first time in 8 or so years according to my brother. Speaking of my Brother, he's engaged to Danielle now... Congratulations!

So next week we are going to move most of our stuff from Sellwood to Westmoreland (next to sellwood). By 2008 we should have everything moved. The bad news is, moving sucks no matter what. The good news is it's still a very walkable neighborhood and we'll have ample room for a basement bike shop / renewable energy laboratory, and a huge back yard for the greyhounds to do their racing (even though they're retired-they still like to go at it every once in a while).

More updates as necessary.

Well, here we are, we live in Portland now. It's been one week plus one day since we took the final car drive over the cascades to SE Portland where we live now. We do still have some stuff stored at the townhome (Laurie's Mom's place), but not too much.

So we moved out of our house in Bend that had a square footage of about 1550. Right now that seems like a mansion, compared to the little house we're renting. I did a rough sq ft calculation with my tape measure last night and it came to 676. The parents old cabin on Lake Alexander was much bigger than this place. On the bright side, I suppose our energy bills will be lower?! I'd feel much better about this house if we weren't paying as much as we are for rent. But we do live in an excellent neighborhood (sellwood) that's quiet and there are many good restaurants within walking distance. Plus the bike commute to alot of places (like downtown) is much easier than the drive, and the drive isn't bad either, Parking is the problem.

We went on a road ride up the willamette to St. Johns bridge, and then took Germantown road up through forest park. It was an awesome ride through the woods with lots of climbing, we just need to find a better route through downtown, on the way home, if there is one.

Tonight there is bike racing at Portland International Raceway (as there is on pretty much every day in or around Portland).

So that's all right now. Here's a picture from the Criterium at Mt Hood Cycling classic:

Moving to PDX

So goes the story of life, we've lived in Bend almost exactly three years ago, and now we are making plans to move to Portland, Oregon. By June 15th, we'll be fully moved over to the 'rainy side' (but on the plus side, I'm hearing that it's supposed to be pretty nice weather there from about now, until about September when it starts raining non stop for 8 or 9 months). I'm wrapping up my duties with Merrill Corporation. That means I QUIT!!! And no, it has absolutely nothing to do w/ the convention I went to last week.

Why in the hell are you moving out of bike mecca, xc skiing paradise, trail running heaven, that is Bend, Oregon, you ask?? Well, that's a good question. I once told my wife on lovely winter day XC Skiing, "it was hard for you to get me to move out of MN, but it will be even harder for you to get me to move out of Bend!". Well, turns out, I'm the instigator this time... I will be going to school full time starting next fall at OIT's Portland campus. The program I'm enrolled in, is a BS degree in renewable energy systems, and it lasts 3 years. Essentially it's an engineering program that focuses on renewable power. We'll see where that road leads.

Laurie found a nursing job at OHSU and we found a place to live in a SE Portland neighborhood, that should be good for bike commuting. It will be the first time either one of us will have lived in a city larger than Bend, (or Fargo, ND, or St. Cloud, MN if those are counted as larger than Bend) We're both anxious, excited, scared. It seems like I already miss Bend a little bit. But Bend will still be here, only 3 hours away.

We sold our house, and holy crap. we're moving. It was a tough decision to
move away from Minnesota 3 years ago, but we wouldn't trade it for anything. We've met so many great friends here. Moving now will be a bit easier, although we've got quite a bit of stuff, and some of that stuff might have to go, or find storage. I'm still going to do a bit of skiing (XC Oregon - PDX squad), but snow will be further away, so maybe I'll have to sharpen the hockey skates, as Portland actually has some ice arenas, that is if I have time between the homework.

Our new address will be

8005 se 8th ave
pdx, or 97202

Write that down.

email is the same.
cell phone will be the same (541+619+9679)
blog will continue.

Twenty one.

Well, here I am back in Bend, Oregon after a nice weekend of not being in las vegas at a convention. The whole trip to Vegas was sort of a blur, basically worked the whole time and slept the other time. We did get done at about 4:00 on Thursday, and had a nice dinner at the NY NY hotel. I was surprised at the will of some of my co-workers to 'hit the strip and gamble' after 2.5 long days of convention work with very little sleep. But then after thinking about it, most of them have children, and when they are away from home they have to take advantage. I was perfectly content with going up to the hotel room to sleep. But I did manage to hit a few slot machines.

I put 5 bucks in a nickel slot, pulled the lever, and BAM 48 bucks. Cash out, after one spin. Then I went over to the deal or no deal slots and within about a minute i was up 8 bucks. So, I wasted the rest of the 8 bucks and change, and stormed out of there with almost 45 dollars more than I came in with! Hot damn. If everyone could say that when they left vegas it wouldn't be vegas! I had some temptations to play some 21 (three card poker), but the minimum was $10 per hand, and I figured if I played 4 hands, and lost all four, I'd be down, or where I started, and depressed that I just lost all that money. Even though it wasn't that much... One of the wives of my co-workers won a Grand. sweet.

Latest news on the iron overload front is I'm officially 100% de ironed, with no phlebotomies in sight. I stopped going in for weekly phlebs at the end of February, when my ferritin was 30. A month after that (at the beginning of April), my ferritin went up 5 points, so I had another phleb. Today my Ferritin tested out at TWENTY ONE. That was the best news I could have hoped for. Now it's time for some steak!!!!!

Parting shots from Las Vegas:

Convention before:


Convention during:


The strip, as seen from the walkway between MGM and NYNY:


Statue of Liberty, NY NY hotel:


We actually did make it down here on the last day (view from Bellagio entrance):


I was still smiling after the chaos.


With this post a new format is also being rolled out, to accommodate larger photos. Thanks Blogger, for making this easy.

Arb0nne N.T.C. 2007, Las Vegas

What am I doing here? How did I get here? When can I go home?

I'll just start from the beginning. I signed up to help out at the convention, as the 'IT geek'. Merrill (company I work for) does -alot- of printing work for Arbonne. It was a trip to Vegas and hey, what the hell, why not. Can't be that bad.

Left Bend @ 4:15pm tuesday, when I thought my plane left at 4:45pm. Needless to say, the gal at the ticket counter basically said, if I'd have been one minute later, they may have not let me board.

The airport in Vegas. Notice, there are very few signs that say "to Baggage Claim". They want you to gamble at the airport.

Got to NY NY Hotel at about 9:50pm, call Stephanie (the project manager for this task, think NBC TV show apprentice). the task: sell as much arbonne stuff as possible in 2 days. Go to MGM grand garden arena to help setup the computers. La la la, that happens, and when it's all said and done, it's about 1am, off to bed ASAFP. Slept horribly.

Next morning wake up call at 5:30, in hopes to find breakfast, before going to the convention to begin selling crap. Best I could find with the time frame given: 2 Starbucks scones and a coffee. Yippie skippy.

Arbonne doors open up at 7:30am. we had 2 stations, with 4 registers (read: laptops running a db program) each, and by 7:45am, both areas had lines until about 4pm. That whole time I was running a laptop that was acting as a cash register with one 15 minute break. I'm not really complaining but it was extremly busy, overall it wasn't too bad, everyone was nice, nobody was mean, and there were no computer melt downs (whew). out of the what seemed like five thousand people that came through my spot there were literally 3 men. (there are some 16500 people here, 99% women). yea.

We also had drop boxes where people could drop off an order for pick up tomorrow. We got WAY more of those than we expected. We were assembling those until about 11pm.

Photo inserted 4/30/2007
Here's what the scene looked like at 9:34pm:

If this get's pulled off tomorrow (it will), it'll be a work of art from Stephanie. It seemed like we were in way over our heads at times today, and would never get done. now all we have to do tomorrow is alphabetize ten thousand bags for pickup. How long will that take if we start at 6:30am. If big races (like the Birkie, or Twin cities marathon) can do this for participants post race bags, we should be able too...? right? we'll see...

4/30/2007 update: We did get them mostly alphabetized. Except somehow the S and T piles got overlooked, and there was madness trying to get those alphabetized while people were trying to pick up their stuff.

Anyway, this blog post was way too long for how late it is, and how tired I am. But my blog has been lame lately, and I needed to spark it up a bit.

One more full day in viva LV, and then back to Bend on Friday. Big races coming up.

Photos added on flickr, may be inserted into this blog post at a later date.

Blogs...

So here we are in Bend, Oregon, another beautiful day where you can XC ski in the morning and road ride in shorts in the afternoon! 65 and sunny!!! And the skiing was excellent! It really is march madness ;) ... Speaking of march madness, I'm in a NCAA pool w/ some guys from work, and I pick the U of O Ducks to win it all. So if that happens I'm going to win the pool, because nobody else picked Oregon. It would be sweet to win the pool having not watched one minute of one NCAA game during the regular season and not even during the NCAA tourney! That's what no cable TV will do to you. I still hope to catch some MN wild nhl hockey games when they start kicking but in the playoffs!

So if you're bored, check out a couple of these blogs...

xcoregon.org/blog - Great blog about XC ski racing and some local bend racers that are tearing it up in europe and norway. Good stuff.

ourdreamourreality - Our friends and former neighbors here in Bend that recently sold their house and packed up and headed out. They are currently traveling around Argentina and other parts of South America. (did I mention they have a 2 year old daughter?) They are having a big adventure!

kyia - Some of our friends from MN recently traveled to Poland, for vacation and a 50km xc marathon.

Well, that's about all for now... Damn the time change this year sure seems like spring and it's only mid march. I'll be XC ski racing next weekend here at Bachelor at the national masters xc ski races. I'm excited, but after this excellent weather, and 35 blood donations over the past year, I have no expectations. If your reading this, and your also doing the races, and skiing in the 30-34 age group, I will still try to kick your butt!

Later

Oregon update / weather.

Some of my friends and family back home have been wondering about what the hell is going on in Oregon this year. Californians getting stranded in snowstorms (1 out of 4 dead) , Snowmobilers getting lost (1 of 2 dead), climbers stranded on Mt Hood (status unknown), and huge storms coming in almost every week making the national news. Well for the most part we have been high and dry in central Oregon, since we're on the other side (east side) of the cascade volcanic range. We have had storms, but by the time they get here, they are a bit weaker.

And since there's no snow in MN right now I thought I'd just rub it in a little bit more. I just pulled up the el nino forcast for Central Oregon (see below). If this forcast comes true, we'll be skiing in town. But right now, it's full on sunny. On the horizon where we usually see white capped volcanoes, it's a huge blanket of cloudy snowy wonder. That's the high desert for ya, in 10 mintues we might be in a blizzard. Get the kick wax ready!

NOAA weather forcast, Bend, OR as of 2:07 pacific time:
HEAVY SNOW WARNING IN EFFECT UNTIL 3 PM PST THIS AFTERNOON
Rest Of Today...Snow showers west of highway 97 with total accumulations of 6 to 12 inches. Mostly cloudy with scattered snow showers and rain showers elsewhere with local accumulations of 1 to 3 inches. Breezy...Colder. Snow level 3000 feet. Highs 34 to 42. Southwest wind 15 to 25 mph. Gusts around 35 mph. Chance of precipitation 80 percent.

Tonight...Mostly cloudy with a 30 percent chance of snow showers. Much colder. Lows 7 to 16. Southwest wind 5 to 15 mph.

Saturday...Partly cloudy with a 20 percent chance of snow showers. Highs 28 to 34. South wind 5 to 15 mph.

Saturday Night...Mostly cloudy with a 20 percent chance of snow showers. Lows 8 to 16. Southeast wind 5 to 10 mph.

Sunday...Partly cloudy with a 20 percent chance of snow showers. Highs 27 to 37. Southwest wind 5 to 10 mph.

Sunday Night...Partly cloudy. Lows 7 to 13.

Monday...Partly cloudy. Highs 32 to 37.

Monday Night...Mostly cloudy. A slight chance of snow showers. Lows 16 to 21.

Tuesday...Mostly cloudy. A chance of snow showers and rain showers. Highs 33 to 38.

Tuesday Night...Mostly cloudy. A slight chance of rain showers and snow showers. Lows 15 to 23. Highs 33 to 38.

Wednesday...Mostly cloudy. A slight chance of rain showers and snow showers. Lows 15 to 23. Highs 33 to 38.

Wednesday Night...Mostly cloudy. A slight chance of snow showers. Lows 19 to 25.

Thursday...Mostly cloudy. A slight chance of rain showers and snow showers. Highs 33 to 39.

The gingerbread man.

In the holiday spirit, Laurie made some gingerbread people cookies. Can you tell which one is her's and which one is the actual photo in a magazine?

Turkey Day!

I hope everyone had a great thanksgiving and safe too! We have it so good here, we're thankful for so much. I miss getting together w/ the family for the holidays, that's definatly the hardest part of living so far away! Mom- we went skiing today though, and the snow was perfect!! We hosted thanksgiving here, at our house, with some friends of ours, that also don't have nearby reletives.

I was looking for a nice turkey picture for the holiday to post on the blog, so I typed in 'turkey' on google images... and this is the first hit:

Can you believe it? Is that how you would like to spend your thanksgiving? Getting dropped in oil, I'm sure is right up there. We did not have a full turkey, but we did cook a turkey breast, stuffing, mashed potatoes, yams (some tofu also), the whole deal.

Oh yea, did I mention that the skiing is officially awesome.

We'll be skiing the rest of the weekend.

That's all!

Apple CRAP-ple.

Apple iPod nano: completely remastered
Apple MacBook: intel core 2 duo

Yea, in the past few months I got a new ipod, and what do you know, a few days later they came out with a new, even cooler nano with more storage and more battery life. yippie. We got a new MacBook at the same time, and now, what do you know, they have come out with new faster MacBooks. What the hell. It's not like I hadn't waited 5 years (or more) for the next sweet laptop to come out. I could never bite the bullet, because I figured a newer faster one would be offered next month or next year. So what happens when I finally get a laptop? Well, exactly what I thought would happen. Aside from the bad timing, I have to say I'm totally impressed w/ the macbook and it has more than likely converted me to an apple user, instead of PCs only. I only should have waited a few weeks.

I've been a bit sick the past couple days, nothing major, but hopefully it goes away because it's lame.

There was a trace of snow on the Mt batchelor web cam today, so we might just be skiing by Thanksgiving afterall.

I was 2nd in the 10k last weekend but I should've been 1st. I'm chaulking that up to having 22 phlebotomies in the past 23 weeks. That's right, 2 more to go, and I've got 3 gallons. My next appointment at the doc is Nov 21st, so there'll be a full update of de-ironing progress.

Running lately

Not much new. I ran the Sisters Scramble 10k last weekend, and was pretty satisfied with how it went, considering. This weekend it's Mac Forest 15k trail run in Corvallis, and on Nov. 4th it's the Lords Acre 10k in Powell Butte. After that hopefully we have some snow? I heard it's snowing in the rockies, and there have even been reports of skiing in the midwest. We should be skiing soon. Speaking of skiing, there's some new technology in ski poles. I know, you're thinking it's that new swix pole that looks more like a blade and is really strong and really light. Nope, it's called a coldpole, and you can read about it by clicking here. It might come in handy toward the end of the birkie if you can manage to keep it thawed.

We're going to Portland for the weekend. Planning to stop at Silver Falls state park on the way out to see if the falls are really silver. I need some new photos.

Hasta Luego

the mix

Last year I came out with a music mix. Ok it's just a bunch of pop songs, and some you might like some you might not. This year, I will again build a mix, and it'll be coming out sometime within the next 3 months. Get ready, because this years mix is going to send shockwaves through the music world. There are still openings, so if you have any requests for the 2006 mix, drop me a line. You know how to get ahold of me. Email. Comment. Phone.

Here's last years mix (code named Kyle's mix, for obvious reasons).

1. The Killers - Mr. Brightside (Jacques Lu Cont's Thin White Duke Mix)
2. beck - ghettochip malfunction (hell yes) [remix by 8-Bit]
3. nine inch nails - Only
4. butthole surfers - dracula from houston
5. gorillaz - feel good, inc.
6. the killers - sombody told me
7. blur - song 2
8. weezer - hash pipe
9. weezer - island in the sun
10. eminem - lose yourself
11. si*se - sometimes
12. si*se - more shine
13. alanis morissette - crazy
14. madonna - hung up
15. live - the river
16. live - white, discussion
17. the killers - mr. brightside
    

This weekend I'm gearing up for the Sisters Scramble. A 10k trail run through the woods. The compeition will be feirce, but we're drinking the good drink and eating the good eats, so we should be bringing the 'A' game tomorrow. It would be sweet if I hadn't had to donate NINETEEN pints of blood in the last 20 weeks. You do the math. That's more blood than 2 of me can hold at one time. In anycase, I'm feeling pretty decent and should be able to rip off a sub 40 minute 10k. Costume might be in effect.

end.

Update from Paraguay!

Laurie is in Paraguay, and she sent an update! Sounds like she's having a good time, and busy! Here's the update:

From: Laurie
Date: Sat, 16 Sep 2006
Subject: hola
hello all, well i made it to paraguay friday eve around 6pm a day and a half after my bend departure, a long journey! i don´t think a few of you know i am on a volunteer trip with operation smile. we are staying at a nice hotel outside of town. the hospital is a military hospital that is vacant. i had a tour today and worked a little, we are pretty much set to go for the week. we are planning to operate on 150 children. it is a bit overwhelming at times, emotions etc., amazing how this all works. i guess there were over 400 people who came to the hospital for the screening, and there is only room for aprox. 150 mainly children some young adults and adults. we will have 3 or rooms 2 tables in two of the rooms, 1 in the last. we are preparing for many people in the or rooms. ie. news, students, dr.´s etc. quite different than home!! it is a privilage to be here people very hospitible. i am looking forward to the work week, lack of sleep and veggie food!! but it is so worth it. i will send another note if i can. sorry for any mis spellings yikes i am terrible and spell heck ... .not so good here
hugs,
laurie

So she's in Paraguay, doing some critical deeds, and I'm here running pilot butte and selling stuff on ebay.

Thats all today. Hope you are well.

It was fun while it lasted

Today we said goodbye to the Van.


It had a good run. Ironically we owned it exactly one year minus one day. I was thinking it might have been about a year, and then I checked the records, and it was a day short of a year. Also, we got just shy of what we paid for it. The couple that bought it is great, and they'll really enjoy it.

Now we are going to experiment with DITDOC (double income two dogs one car - yea i just made it up). Well it shouldn't be too bad since I work from home. We'll see how long it takes before I have to bike somewhere in the snow, or how about bike to the red cross for a blood donation? That ride home might be exciting!

Laurie made it to Santiago, and by now she's probably in Paraguay. The dogs are waiting for her, and well, they have a long wait.

bye

Back from Minnesota

For the past week I was back in Minnesota for some work, and also visiting friends and family. It was a fabulous weekend. I really miss going 'up to the lake' in Minnesota, so when I do get the chance to go up there now, it's pretty nice.

It was a real good trip. I even did a mountain bike race. Highlight is below (yea that's me on a borrowed schwinn homegrown singlespeed, and no, I wasn't hurt.) I went to the Laddies Loppet mountain bike race at Maplelag up in northern minnesota. It was super fun, and pretty hard too. There was alot of singletrack on trails that didn't produce any dust! Imagine that! This photo ended up on skinny ski dot com.

skinnyski.com photo

I took a ton of photos, but I have some major computer problems before I can get them organized and uploaded. So you'll just have to hold on!

also, I drained pint #13 today. And I only have 2 more to go to have put 1 gallon into the blood bank at the red cross. They're happy, and hopefully some people who need it are getting my O neg blood.

bye

Iron

Any guesses on how many points my ferritin will drop after 10 blood donations in 11 weeks? In case you haven't studied up on how many pints of blood is in a person about my height and weight, well, it's just about 10 pints. I've recycled my whole blood supply since June 5th. Tomorrow is the first follow-up to see how much iron I've unloaded. I started out on June 5th at about 1090. Guess? Let's say 412. That would mean I'm over 1/2 way done. If it's under 412, I'll be encouraged. (it has to be, right?) I'm tired, mentally, physically (and not from doing things like this), and I'm sick of donating blood.

I'll probably know the result in the next day or 2.

Some netflix notes: from this weekend: Match Point. It was OK. 3/5 stars. The ending bumped up my rating from 2 to 3 stars. Hopefully this doesn't give it away: you'll really like 'the talented mr. ripley' if you like this one.

Last week: Cinderella Man: 5 stars. This was a great movie if you like sports or not. Back in the day, boxing was cool, and this is one of those movies that it's hard to rent for whatever reason, but it's defiantly worth it.

At the theater, we're hitting up Talladega Nights tonight in sisters.

Jazzy says hello:



Here's to low ferritin levels and some dust curing rainy days soon.