Deschutes River 2014

Once again this year Emily and I joined Nicole and Cody on the annual Deschutes River Rafting trip!  This year Martin and Shannon, Ian and Colleen, and Sarah and Adam joined us as well making it officially a couples trip this time!  After some debate we decided to leave early on Saturday morning to make it to the Warm Springs put in by 11am on Saturday.  Read on for more photos and details.

Ice Bucket Challenge for ALS

Just a quick post to say that Emily accepted an ice bucket challenge from her friends.  This has become super popular lately on the interwebs.  You either have to donate $100 to a charity for ALS or dump a bucket on your head, learn about the disease and challenge your friends as well.  I think it is a worthy cause but I fear that too many people just take it as a silly social experiment and dare rather than actually donate money to the cause... But, in any case Emily accepted the challenge and took a bucket of ice water over her head with Leo and I watching!  She challenged me, but I never did end up taking a bucket myself.  I do still need to donate some money though!

Quantum Acquisition Flight

On Sunday I finally, after 6 years, got to go up for an acquisition flight in one of our company's Cessna Caravan's with our UltraCam Eagle camera.  We were acquiring 3 inch resolution imagery for the entire Portland Metro area and I will be the project lead for the data when it is all acquired.  That, and the fact that it is now the city we live in and our house will be imaged with both LiDAR and hi-res photos, made this flight even more special.

Dude's Night Out!

Dude's Night Out... This was just plain epic.  Aaron, a friend from work, who's last name I'll leave blank decided it would be a fun time to invite Eric and I out for a dude's night out at some sketchy bars along North Lombard Street in Portland.  Eric bailed and after several of his friends called off I was ready to bail too but he was determined and said he was going out regardless at 8pm to the MouseTrap and that I should meet him out... Challenge... Accepted!

When I got to the bar I found Aaron with about 5 friends.... including a heavily inked girl whose name for the night I was told would be "Steve" I believe... All of them were great people.  A couple were co-workers and a couple were his old bandmates.  They all welcomed me warmly to the drunkfest.  Game on!  

I'm not going to go into details about what happened because what happens on Dude's Night Out stays there.  Some highlights though.... skeevy bars (Mouse Trap, Sweet Home and The Perch), scary drunk old men, massive amounts of arm wrestling (which I won until the 250lb Karoake WWE wrestler dude finally beat me), stolen shopping carts, really, really bad karoake skills, and steering Aaron on his bike into a bush.  Thankfully, besides my dignity, I didn't lose anything and actually made it home by 3am all the way from St. Johns which I don't even remember biking too.  Needless to say my Saturday was a total waste.... but worth the epic memories.... perhaps.... :)  Oh, and although we were drinking all night and had many many many beers and cocktails I don't think any of us spent more than $30... yeah, those kind of bars....