World Champions!!!

Tonight the Red Sox are World Champions! They were down 1-3 in the series against the Indians and then came back to win the next 7 straight games to win the World Series and Sweep the Rockies. The turning point was when veterans such as Varitek and Schilling sat down in a players-only meeting after the Indians beat them for the last time. They simply told the new guys, rookies like Dustin Pedroia and Jacoby Ellisbury, that they needed to just take it one step at a time, "one out, one hit, one inning, in one game at a time". All the rookies agree that was the turning point for the team in the post season. October became the teams best month with a .754 avg. Ever since they won in 2004, thereby erasing the "curse" of the Bambino I knew a that the tide had shifted. That year was eerie with a lunar eclipse the night they won. No longer are the Yankees, who spent a billion dollars of payroll since last year, the franchise that they were. Joe Torre has been "let go" and Steinbrenner is embarrassed with their post season results getting eliminated quickly from the start. The new Kings of Baseball are the Boston Red Sox and they seem poised to dominate again last year like they did this year (they had the best average in baseball for a full 3 months over the summer). Guys like Papelbon, Becket and MVP Lowell are now legends and Varitek is their leader. Theo Epstein knows how to make trades and the choices he makes always come through such as Dice-K. Terry Francona better win manager of this year for his performance this season! Anyway, I could ramble on for hours about my boys.... but I have to go to MLB.com to start ordering my championship apparel. This is one night when I really wish I could somehow be with all my Boston buddies!

Happy Halloween

Tonight was the annual Halloween party and this year it was held at Eleanor's. The party was amazing. 3 Kegs, bonfire, ice-luge shots, flip cup, and a dance party provided by my ipod and hits from our high school years. Some of the more interesting costumes were Captain Morgan, Britney and K-fed (Vinny & Cheney), Brycen the keg, Levi as Towlie, Brendan as a Pirate, Eleanor as PBR girl, the Brownies, Mac as Nacho Libre with his jailbird date Sarah as Paris Hilton, Sarah and Heather as 80's prom dates, Logan as a life-size massage chair, Somes as Dick Tracy, Evan as Doc from Back to the future, Holm as Tinkerbell, Niloo & Urva as the Flintstone wives Betty and Wilma, Splinter as a ski bunny, Brendan as a pirate, and on and on. I myself went as an 80's Gaper skier. It was a fantastic time and everybody got thoroughly loaded. There are just wayyy to many photos to post with this blog so I urge you to simply click the title of this post for a fantastic slideshow of all the shinanigans! I ended up leaving around 2am to walk Marybeth home. They went through all 3 kegs and even had to go buy more beer for the end of the party. From what I hear they woke up to bodies all around the house. haha. Captain Morgan won best costume. A lot of skeevy things went down and certain people got it on with certain people but because I'm the human vault when it comes to secrets I can't devulge! Great party and instantly regretted taking Tequila shots with Splinter when I woke up this morning! I went to go put my suit away and found 4 full PBR can's in the leg pockets that I must have walked home with without even knowing it! Can't wait until next year!

Skiing Before Hallloween with Sammy Carlson

Today I went skiing at Timberline Mt. on the Palmer Glacier. It was beautiful out with blue skies and I got a little bit of a goggle tan. The Palmer Glacier skied like spring corn. It was perfect. There were a few jumps set up and after skiing switch a few runs and pulling a few 360's I felt like I'd been skiing for weeks! It was great to be back on skis again! After a few runs I ended up on the same chair as Sammy Carlson, an 18 yr old pro skier who lives locally and is probably top 20 park skiers in the world. I wanted to see if I could keep up with him which I'm happy to say I could. I ended up skiing switch near him on every run we took. Although, as I was spinning 3's off jumps, he was backflipping 360's... ha! After a few runs with them and jumping some 10' lava rock drops I took a couple more runs by myself then took off. I was able to get some pretty cool video of Sammy hittin' some cab 540's etc... and even crashing (yes, pros crash too). It was a great day of skiing and I can't wait to go again!

Blackalicious

Last night I went to a Blackalicious concert in Eugene at the MacDonald Theater with Breandan, Jason Patton, and Eva Woodsen in her Shaggin' Waggin' Adventure Mobile. The van doesn't have any brake lights or even turn signals but somehow we made it. On the way down we picked up some ice at a gas station and put in her sink, yeah... that's what I said, her SINK in the back of her van to keep the beer chilled. We made it the concert and bought a few more beers there at the upper level. Blackalicious is an amazing hip-hop artist but the sound system was way too loud and we couldn't hear anything he was saying clearly. It just came out as a loud stream of noise. I knew the lyrics well enough so I knew what he was saying but they seriously need to fire the sound people there. It was a crowd of only about 200 people but they had the system cranked like they wanted Corvallis to hear it. We spent half the time up stairs with beers, and the other half in the crowd just below Blackalicious.
The ride home was a fun time and we ended up stopping at McDonalds at Midnight for a bite to eat for Eva. Then suddenly Jason just gets up and climbs out of the van to walk home from their... a little odd but ok... I ended up leaving my camera and bag in Eva's car and when I got it back today it had some interesting photos on it that I didn't take... ha. Anyway, it was a great time and an ok concert simply because it was too loud and Blackalicious is just too talented to be captured correctly by loud speakers at a concert venu.

New World Disorder "Smack Down" Premier

Last night after biking in Post Canyon we met up with their friend Graham, Chris Skidmore and Will for the movie premiere at the Clinton Theatre. I had a few beers after taking a shower and scrubbing off the dried blood on my leg before heading out with everyone for dinner at a local BBQ joint. I had a huge bbq pork sandwich and the table got a couple rounds of PBR Forty's... yeah, you heard me.. a bucket of PBR 40's was brought to the table with pint glasses.. Can't beat that! Eleanor would be so proud! After a huge dinner we hit up the movie and scored some pretty sweet seats. The movie premier also had 5 free kegs of great microbrews like FAT TIRE which I think I had about 6 glasses of before they ran out. The movie was a total sausage fest so Gwen wisely dropped us off after dinner to avoid being oggled by all the bikers. I can't say enough how crazy the movie was... in one 30 second period of crazy riding I saw a double backflip and a 720 off a ledge... and remember, these tricks are on full size mountain bikes, not bmx! The movie was fantastic and I can't wait to get it myself. At the end we saw a couple drunk fights out front before Gwen showed up and we all dove into her Subaru... Will and Darren in the hatch back area, me Ryan and Chris in the back seat, Graham AND Steven in the passenger seat (I hear they have a history together... :), and Gwen driving our drunk asses. It was a great night and I can't wait to hang out with those guys again. Click the title for a funny slideshow as always

Post Canyon & Big Air

Yesterday I got to finally ride with Darren, Steven and their friend Ryan in Post Canyon near Hood River, OR on the flanks of Mt. Hood. The area is a free-ride park of single track trails, huge kickers, bridges, gaps, see-saws, etc. It's like a skiing terrain park but built for bikers in the thick woods. It was truly amazing to see what these guys can do on their bikes. I was just happy I could pretty much keep up with them on the downhill single track through the woods. There was no way in hell I was going to attempt any of the jumps they were hitting. The wooden ramps they were taking off from were 8-10 feet high with gaps of nearly 25-30 feet so these guys were about 20+ feet in the air at times! These were jumps that I would consider decent for skiing and they were hitting them with metal between their legs and landing on solid ground! And Darren was even riding a bike with the same travel as mine and cleaning them just fine... I took a ton of video of Ryan and Darren eating up the jumps like they were nothing. I myself hit a small gap (not on purpose but I was going to fast to turn out of it) and I cleared it ok which gave me some confidence. Steven let me borrow an extra top of SixSixOne body armor which felt good but before I start pushing myself I want to get full body protection and a full face helmet as well. I'd like to get into the sport because it's still not as popular as the terrain parks at ski resorts where you now have to wait inline for the hits. At Post Canyon on a beautiful fall day with perfectly tacky dirt we could have ridden the entire trail down, hit all the jumps, and not passed anyone without stopping. That's amazing to me. So.. I now have another wild sport to look forward to getting into next summer with these guys. They said they would help me fix up my bike and I'm definitely going to take them up on that one weekend this winter when I'm up there to go skiing. Check out the slideshow of hits by clicking the title of this post. I'll be putting together a video of these guys shortly as well hopefully.

Team Monkeys Soccer Close Call

I planned on taking it easy tonight because I'm headed up to go mountain biking with some maniacs from Portland that jump 25' in the air on bikes like it's nothing so I wanted to have my head straight when I try to keep up with them. So, I decided to not drink.. well after I I had 5 beers watching the Red Sox whoop Cleveland's ass tonight ... and then went out to the local indoor sports facility to see Tory and Eleanor's team play what appeared to be a high school team. It was a good time and a lot of our friends showed up at the upper bar that overlooks the field to watch them. Highlights include Anna being the loudest person in the building, the twins Vinny and Cheney teaming up as mirror image goal shields for shots on goal by the other team, Tory's amazing headband, Cheney's shorty-short-shorts, and Sergio scoring the winning goal for the team with only 28 seconds left in the game... Wish I could have played but I can't afford the 100+ dollars it would have cost to join and buy turf shoes... maybe next year... besides... ski season is coming.. ohhhh yeeeahhhh!

Canadian Thanksgiving

Went over to Kristen Splinter's tonight for her annual Canadian Thanksgiving dinner. The food was amazing and Julie's boozed-up sweet potatoes were amazing along with her spiced apple martini's. Eleanor also got to watch the Bears beat up on the Packers as well. I just got home and seriously I can't even begin to think of eating anything else...

Black Dress Soiree @ The Bamboo Palace

Last night Pam Archer and her housemates through a Black Dress wine party Soiree at her place. I showed up there around 10pm after eating some dinner at Julie's with Jill and Lou after our hike. I brought a bottle of cabernet and proceeded to drink it straight from the bottle for the party. Everyone else showed up soon after and I of course plugged in my ipod to a stereo Pam and I brought down from her room. That's about when the dance party began. It was a good time with people playing cards, throw excersize balls around the bike room (Anna and Hodak), dancing in the living room, etc. I even heard that a certain someone got so tore-up that they pissed in their pants... ha! Pam yanked the ipod around 1pm thus killing the party. The girls (Hodak, Heather, Sarah, etc) and I headed with Brendan to Jed Roberts place for some post-party drinking but I decided to leave around 3am as I heard someone mentioning going for a beer run... ha, yeah right. It was a good time and I definitely woke up with a wine hangover.

Oneonta & Latourell Falls

Today I took Julie and her friend Jill on some hikes up in the Columbia Gorge. We also took Jill’s cute dog Lou who almost has as much energy as McKenzie but a little bit smaller. Neither girl had really seen the Columbia Gorge yet so I really enjoyed introducing them to it. I purposely chose light hikes to save Julie’s knees. For the first hike we headed in at Horsetail Falls towards Oneonta gorge and the Ponytail falls there. We then took a trail extension to also check out Triple Falls further up the Gorge. Lou ran ahead of us the whole way lovin’ it. We got to walk along cliffs high above the historic Columbia Gorge highway. At one cliff I accidentally pulled a 10$ bill Julie gave me out of my pocket and watched it roll off the edge and barely come to a stop before falling. I got down and my belly and was able to retrieve it again… barely.
After the first hike we stopped at Multinomah Falls so the girls could check out the 2nd highest year-round waterfall in the country. We got some coffee and pastries there before continuing on to Latourell Falls to the West. This hike was much shorter than the 1st hike and we were able to get up to Upper Latourell Falls in just half an hour or so. On the way down from the top of the Latourell falls I found a great tree to climb (click the title). On the way back we took a nice loop hike down into the river gorge to the base of the incredibly tall Latourell Falls. It was so tall I could barely fit the whole waterfall into the frame of my camera.
On the way home we stopped at Vista House which is a beautiful historical monument high up on a cliff over the Columbia River. I'd seen it a bunch of times from I-84 but being inside the stained-glass, marble wonder was a amzing. We also stopped at a liqour store so Julie could buy some ingredients for Kristen Splinter's Canadian Thanksgiving. Click the title for a great slideshow of hte waterfalls of the hike.... 5 in all.

Red Sox, Longboarding and Drinks

Tonight I watched the Red Sox barely beat the Angels in game two and the Yankees loose their second game against the Indians as well making it a very great night for me. In the Yankees game the entire field was swarmed with bugs from Canada the announcer called “soldier flies”… it was nasty. Just more proof that God really does hate the Yankees. After kickball at five I called up Holm and Hartz and we rallied longboarding up on 29th street until it got dark and we couldn’t see anymore. I then went home and got some dinner before heading out to meet up with Julie and her friends at McMenamins for drinks. I got there just in time to see Manny Ramirez slam one out of the park for a walk off home run in the 9th to win the game on a 10 foot tall screen.. Great night. Chris and Tiffany also showed up to my surprise. After a few pitchers and laughs I took off around midnight. Great night of Red Sox nation, friends and great booze.

North Santiam River

Today we all went rafting down the North Santiam River from Packsaddle park to Mill City just like we did last fall around the same time. This time we took a 6 person inflatable raft though with my roomate Jason Killian and Kristen Splinter as our guides. In the boat were Brendan, Eleanor, Kristen, her sister, Jason, and I. In Kayaks with us were Chris Gabrielli, Cheney Vidrine, Abby? (forget her name), and Toshi the white-water samurai shredder. It was a really fun time and we even got to eat pancakes at Kristen's house before we left with my truck, Gabrielli's Tacoma, and Kristen's new xB. The trip took us about 4 hours or so and we even stopped at a big rapid to jump into the whitewater upon Chris' suggestion. According to Hodak I was "stupid" enough to pull a backflip into the rapids off the rocks. ha! The only one who didn't jump was Toshi. Hodak and I especially had a great time fooling around in the boat the whole way probably to the annoyance of Jason who couldn't for his life control my paddling pattern (the river wasn't serious enough to really be too concerned). Highlights included seeing several Merganzer ducks (to which Eleanor was greatly amused) tons of Geese, many Salmon on the "verge of death and rotting" according to Jason, many fish bones, soggy PB&J sandwiches and frito's, me falling out of the raft every 30 minutes and many laughs. Can't wait to go boating again... and I think we finally fired up Jason to get out with us more hopefully... we'll see. Afterwards we went over to Kristen's for some of her amazing chilli, but afterwards I was so full of chilli and corn bread that I started to fall asleep so I cam home to write this up quick before a nap. Click the title for a slideshow as always.

Logan's Crazy House Party

Logan, Toshi, and Levi threw an amazing party last night. I had planned on going over for just a few drinks because of the rafting trip today but instead I ended up getting pretty drunk and leaving around 3:30am. It seemed like everyon and their sister was at the party. It was great to see old friends like Eva who have moved back to the area. It seemed like all the new COAS students made it to the party as well. The roomates had cleaned out the basement and bought a brand new pool table as well so it was totally pimped out down there. We all went through 2 quarter kegs pretty quick so more beer had to be bought. Chris Holm was kind enough to purchase a couple tall-boy PBR's for me to continue my night. I found a brick of mozzarella cheese in the fridge and began cutting off slices for people. You'd be amazed at what girls will do with each other for a slice of cheese when they are drunk. ha! Anyway, it was a killer party and I had a great time. Highlights were Caleb Fenner completely trashed, Tori falling off the front porch, Evan and his friends showing up at 3am out of no where, Luarel and her 1$ sunglasses all night, Logan topless on the coffee table, Anna pounding a 40 of PBR, and delicious cupcakes with TMNT rings. Click the title as always for a slideshow. Peace!

North Umpqua River Trail

Continuing my streak of hanging with the bodacious (yup, used bodacious) couple Chris and Tiff, or "skeevo's" as I refer to them I ended up traveling down to the North Umpqua River which drains down from the Crater Lake area. It is an amazing river with scattered waterfalls and hot springs down the length of it, along with what MTB.com calls the most EPIC single track bike trail of the entire Pacific Northwest! So, of course the three mountain bikers in COAS had to check it out. We drove down Saturday night in two vehicles and stayed overnight at a trailhead when Tiffany began to fall asleep on a twisty road (yeah, wierd right!?). Those two spent a steamy (no shit, the car was all fogged) night in the back of Dirty's car while I slept in the freezing back of Tiff's truck where once again I wasn't warm in my sleeping bag and got little sleep (need to get a new one). Instead of waking up at the ass-crack of dawn we slept in until 9am or so and didn't finished shuttling the cars until 11:30am when we started off on the ride.
The single track was really amazing! For the most part (until the grueling end) the trail was pretty much downhill and fast for us. Tiff was sick and Chris was on a hard-tail so for once I felt like we might all actually be pretty even on the trail with my non-biking legs and heavy freeride bike. The trail was amazing, especially with 6 inches of travel that made for a fantastic ride for me. Chris had trouble on the hard tail he wasn't used to and Tiff was just weak from her flu or whatever the hell she had. We quickly made our way down the 26 mile section of the 80 mile trail we were doing. When we got to the Umpqua hotsprings where the trail crosses the river we found the bridge to be washed out so we had to forge the river ourselves with our bikes over our backs. Then we had to forge our way around and through a bunch of naked hippies around the hotsprings as well before re-joining the trail on the North side of the river. From there the trail went uphill nearly a thousand feet and our tired legs certainly felt it as I began popping down GU packets. It was the first time that I'm sure we all were equally as tired which made me feel good about efforts. About a quarter mile from the end I snapped my chain in half... said, "the hell with this", tore it off and thankfully was able to bomb downhill the whole way back to car, only pushing myself a few times to get going (what luck right?). We got out of the woods at about 6 pm right before dark. We stopped at a pizza place in Roseberg on the way home and wolfed down a Giant Hawaiian pizza. Tiffany ended up taking off at 80mph to get home wearing sunglasses... don't ask, long story. I can't wait to go back and finish off the sections of trail we weren't able to get to this time, but definitely will shuttle it again as biking up the trail would have been crazy! For a slideshow click the title of this entry.

Surfing in 'PC'

I use 'PC' instead of Pacific City because I want to sound like a veteran surfer.. ha. Actually, I'm no where near a veteran surfer as I got thoroughly thrashed while there with Chris Holm and Tiffany Gregg. We spent the morning there surfing some 10-12 foot waves (well for me it was trying to surf. Of course I went paddling right out to the big ones with Chris and tried to tackle the same ones he did.. unsuccessfully. He said it was a bad day to learn because there were a lot of quick "closeouts" of the waves. I did manage to catch one and get my feet planted on the board briefly going down the face of it before completely losing my balance and flying off. When I came to the surface with my hands above my head to protect me from the board leashed to my foot I got slammed by 2 more big waves in the set. After getting beat up a few more times I headed into the shore to get some videos and photos of Master Holm rippin' it. Tiffany soon joined me as she was getting cold. The three of us then got some lunch at a local sandwich shop and I got some oyster shooters and ice cream as well.... yeah, weird combo. It was a great day and I can't wait to get back out and do some more surfing! Check out the colorful dory boat that powered itself onto the beach. Click the title of this entry for a slideshow as always.

New COAS Kids Kickoff Party!

Let me start this by saying that in my year here in Oregon I have yet to bear witness to a party of so many people THAT bombed! I decided to throw the party at my house this year which meant Jason took off with McKenzie for the night. I bought a keg of a local Wit microbrew which was completely kicked by 10pm. Chris Holm and I then took my truck with Tiffany driving to Fredy's and picked up about 170 more beers.... I woke up the next morning with 20 left. This meant that over two kegs of beer were drank that night... and I'd say there were only 30-40 people throughout the night at the house. Divide 300 beers by 40 and that's 7 a piece... and I'd say about 10-15 people weren't really drinking or were drinking hard alcohol instead. This = a lot of drunken people. Tori and Cassidy ended up in my Cherry tree with our bambo rod and can to pick cherries they were using to wack people in the head when they came near the tree. Hodak was done by about 9pm due to many rounds of Bowdoin-Style beer pong. Then a game of flip-cup survivor started that lasted for what seemed forever. Afterwards people were stumbling away from the table completely tore-up. I was pouring out wine I'd bought and a bottle of vanilla vodka and malibou rum were also killed. An all out war involving McKenzie's doggy toys erupted in the living room and several people ended up passing out all over the furniture with pink headbands of flagging tape that Robyn had started putting on everyone's heads! I'm pretty sure the new COAS kids had a great time at the party which turned out to be one of the wildest ones I've seen all year, behind last years' Halloween party at Pam's I guess. Anyway... for those that attended click the title for a funny slideshow of the pics I got and let me know if you want to contribute any. The next morning the owner of our house got a kick out of all the kids coming over searching for lost clothes, hats, shoes etc in the backyard. He looked at me with my horrible hangover and said, "wow, must have been a good party!". He's a really cool landlord for sure.