Recent Exposures

Last night Jason and I headed down to Squirrels to meet up
with Kristin and Chris Holm for a few drinks for my birthday. Anna and all her new friends showed up later
in the evening. Chris had a lot on his
mind that I’m sure he felt good about getting off his chest with me. I won’t discuss it here but the poor guy is
going through a really tough time. After
a funny convo about Harry Potter thankfully getting killed off we all went
upstairs to chat and play pool.  I also won’t go on about what I saw happen
upstairs between friends of mine. It doesn’t
effect me at all but I don’t like seeing my friends get hurt by the
thoughtlessness of my other friends and I ended up losing a lot of respect for
certain people that night. I ended up taking off from the bar around 1am because I had to get
up for my South Sister climb the next day.

Last night was Greg Wilson’s qualifying exam party. I’m not sure why it was his because Bart also
took his along with several others. In
any case the party was a
dress-up party at Anna’s new place so everyone,
including the
guys, had to wear dresses. Tiffany came by my place early in the night and left me with what I
would consider her hottest outfit – a long dress and cute brown halter
top. I also insisted on wearing her
cowboy hat for the party along with a $5 pair of gold aviator sunglasses I
picked up in NYC with Adrian last week. I was told I was the best looking man-girl there. Oddly, with everyone in dresses it turned out
to be the most testosterone-filled party I’d ever been to. There was a rock hang-board bolted above the
kitchen door and soon a contest broke out of who could do the most
pull-ups. Anna of course was rocking it
out. With everyone in dresses Anna was
the most manly looking person in jeans and white top. I told her she needed to
put on a dress and
she eventually did. Later the party
progressed to the deck
out back and a game of “hit the nail into the log” or
something broke out… again… testosterone. There was two home-brewed kegs and punch which were fantastic. I took over control of the music with my
ipod as usual and small dance party broke out in the living room for a
while.  It was a great party. I didn’t drink too much and ended up getting
a ride home with Brendan. Anna living
with 5 guys worries me….

Well, tonight was Eleanor’s going away party.  Everyone dressed up in ridiculous outfits
for the party.  The girls bought a keg which was quickly drank so they went out and picked up 8 racks of PBR to finish the night off.  I brought my ipod and played DJ as usual.  The party was a blast and I definitely drank more than I wanted to which led to a pretty intense mountain bike race around the block with my buddy Mac Barr… only a few people here know the TRUE results of that race… We are all going to miss Eleanor as she heads home for the summer to work at Isle Royal on Lake Michigan as a park ranger.  See you this fall Hodak!

Yesterday’s night of partying began for me at the annual Spring COAS barbeque where we roasted up two pigs in a pot-luck dinner.  The food was nearly completely gone when I showed up to the park on my bike and I was lucky to be able to snag a whole leg off one of the pigs before it was all gone!  As usual, Greg Little, the owner of
Squirrels was the bartender serving up the hefeweizen.  Unlike the fall bbq where Hodak, Mac and I got tore up finishing the keg ourselves this keg was kicked before I even had my 4th cup!   The bbq dissipated into a game of frisbee and kickball where Hodak was at her finest…

After the bbq I rode my bike home with everyone and stopped at my house to change and slam some beers (got temporarily hooked on youtube watching animals battle
each other..) before heading to Chris Somes for some pre-game drinking before the 7th Annual Battle of the Bands on the quad.  My lighted longboard was a hit as usual with everyone until Hodak tried to ride it and smashed herself good, spraining her ankle and managing, as we later found out, to score a decent puncture wound into it as well!  The picture is of me pushing her along the rest of the night as she rode on it on her butt.

The battle of the bands was huge and the even had a beer garden set up for it.  None of us were really digging the music (the sound person sucked) so we retreated back to Chris’ place for some more drinking before heading out to Jame’s party on VanBuren.  When we got to his place it was packed as usual and the bands he had, as well as the beer where the best of the night.  Cups were gone but I managed to find a large,
clean pickle jar to use for stout I found.  I ended up staying late into the night talking to a couple girls, but the only number I got was from a kid named Ben who loved to ski and thus instantly took my drunken attention away from the girls.  Ha.  I ended up leaving the party to see Hodak sitting on the curb nursing her ankle and a fire thrower in the street tossing around flaming sticks… typical for a party there.  Great night, but it took me until 11am to get up today so hiking will have to wait until tomorrow.

This Memorial Day weekend our good friend Shilo decided it was time to throw a party at his parents farm in Deadwood, OR where he grew up.  It was called something like "party in Rock Creek".  The town of Deadwood is pretty much in the middle of nowhere in Oregon.  Even the guidebooks I have for hiking and backpacking list no hikes or anything spectacular in that area, yet I thought it was beautiful. 
    It took Eleanor, Toshi, Chris and I an hour to drive to his farm.  I was extremely hung over from a party at Eleanor and Anna’s Friday night after kickball.  I don’t know why I drank so much that night.  I guess it was just because I was destressing from the past few weeks.  I didn’t even wake up until 1pm on Saturday and barely dragged myself together to hit the road with those guys.  On the way we stopped at a couple yard sales to buy some really eclectic stuff (didn’t see anything that interested me though).  Right before we got to Toshi’s I spotted a huge bald eagle out the window on a branch overlooking a river.  We all jumped out to go look at it but spooked it before we could get a great photo.
    When we got to Shilo’s farm I was a bit freaked out at first because it appears like the kinda place people get murdered in movies in when they break down with their cars.  Every vehicle in the area had either an animal skull or doll head screwed into the hood or bumper.  There was a wierd Native American sweathouse in a field (which later I thought was really cool because Shilo’s family has a strong connection with the Native American community there), a car graveyard down by the river with about 5 wrecks slowly sinking down into the earth, and a crazy amount of animals
running amuck.  There was a big sexually frustrated bull in a coral that kept bellowing his disgust at a younger bull put in there with him and there were two beautiful horses that shilo’s family are trying to breed in the other coral.  There were also sheep running around the yard, goats up in the hills, and a cute baby goat that we passed around the party a bit who was only 2 months old so everyone could hold it and pet its soft fur.  Apparently the baby goat has a nervouse defect or something and has trouble finding it’s balance.  I even heard shilo trying to pawn the goat off on Dennis to take it back to Corvallis as a pet!!
    At first I was a little wierded out by the amount of local older people showing up in ti-dye’d shirts but then I just got used to it.  It was definitely a local hippy party for
sure.  Everyone brought dishes for the potluck and the food was consummed almost instantaneously.  There was a court for basketball and Eleanor also set up croquet.  I spent some time wandering around the farm checking out all the cool eclectic stuff in the yard and hunting for crawdads in the stream that circles it.  I guess that’s the one cool thing about having a farm at the end of a road in the middle of nowhere… you can do anything you want with the place and who’s gonna care??   I went around Rock Creek and gathered up a cupfull of huge crawdads to cook up and eat but decided not to when I couldn’t find a proper way to steam them over the fire so I threw them back.
    After the food was devoured they opened up the barn doors, wheeled out some
huge speakers and a DJ with a laptop and a bunch of the locals with guitars, drums, and even a saxaphone (which Eleanor even played later in the night) held a jam sessions for several hours.  Robin
even joined in with her violin for a bit.  The jam session later turned into a dance party to electronica from the laptop while Shilo’s best friend Jessie and I hung out by the big bonfire and cooked up some of his own farmed beef, and Elk that he had shot the year before.  I now believe that elk is my favorite type of meet.  It was sooo delicious, as was the fresh beef that he had raised on grains and hay. 
    At around 2am I decided I was pretty burnt out from everything and headed to the
tent to watch a movie on my ipod and hit the sack.  I wasn’t really drinking because of the night before at Eleanor’s.  At about 4am Eleanor joined me in the tent and quickly passed out hammered next to me!  :).  In the morning we all woke up and departed for various places on the coast.  I lost my Reef Fanning sandles somewhere in the cleanup.  I assume somebody probably took them home by accident.  Oh well… guess I’ll have to buy a new pair for the summer.  That pair was getting pretty worn anyway.   

Great party at Rock Creek!!!!

Last night we played our usual kickball game that lasted way longer than we all thought.  Afterwards we headed over to Kristen Splinter’s for her roomate Meribeth’s 27th birthday bbq party.  A lot of people showed up and it was a great time.  We were even graced with the image of Mac Barr wearing the birthday girls’ kitchen smock.  I had eaten an entire Summer Sausage at Kickball earlier in the evening and after a 6-pack of beer at Kristen’s and a lot of heartburn I saw it again at 2am…. haha.  Looking forward to starting the Carnivore Club here on campus with Dave. 

So last night I got to say a great farewell to my lab mate and good friend Jan Baur.  Jan is a geophysics student like myself working with my advisor’s husband on siesmology also.  He just finished his masters here and is now moving on to the amazing country of New Zealand to continue his studies.  He is originally from Germany and
I’m going to miss giving him shit for his accent and for not knowing common English phrases like "dirty blonde".   Last night was the send off party at his place on 13th street.  It was packed as it usually is at his parties.  Anna, Eleanor, and I rolled up to the party around 11:30 after playing kickball (I nailed a bunt home run cause they weren’t fast enough to actually peg me with the ball) and going out to dinner at McMennamins with Brendan.  Apparently the  
cops had come early in the night and given them a warning as they were having a
bbq.  Everyone was dressed up in some sort of crazy outfit - guys as girls, cowboy hats, and Toshi even put on what looked like an ice skating or luge outfit - who knows what you’ll find at th
at place.  Jan ended up burning an old snowboard in a bonfire out back and Anna continued hers streak of shot-gunning beers at parties lately.  After playing slap-the-bag of wine for a while Jan pretty much lost the ability to speak English, Hartz was out of control, I was raging on a bowl of Jan’s garlic pasta salad, and Anna was hammered, all in all a great night.  I left around 3:30am against the wishes of Jan who wanted to party more but I had to get up at 7am and boy was it rough when I did….   Gonna miss ya buddy! 

Well, tonight was Levi’s birthday party combined with Logan’s Graduation Party.  The
theme of the party was "The Price is Right" which they turned into the Pisces is Right as in it being March… yeah… I know.   It was a pretty cool party although I didn’t know most of the people there for some reason.  I was glad to see Hartz and Holm there when Anna and I showed up.  That always means it will be a good time.  Levi
had made a plinko board with "drink a beer, take a piece of clothing off, drink twice, and $10,000" as the bottom brackets that the plinko chip could bounce into.  Unfortunately he had nailed off the $10,000 bracket with nails…. unfortunately for him I took some pliers from Holm and proceeded to pull out those nails… hehe…. he was going to owe some people some money… that’s for sure.  Everyone at the party had name tags on as if they were contestants on the show and Levi himself was dressed up as young Bob Barker in a suit.  Logan’s little sis was even at the party but she didn’t drink.   As the night progressed and people got drunker Toshi donned a cap with a propeller on it, people began to dance (as soon as the rustic folk band finally left), and a pretty intense
challenge of bobbing for apples took place out back.  At first Toshi (Kamikaze Kimura the Samarai Shredder) was dominating but then Levi stepped it up and won.  Basically, it was two of the skinniest bodies I’d ever seen plunging their heads into a bucket full of cold water for half bitten apples… pretty funny looking.  As Anna continued to drink she decided it was time to start shotgunning beers… which of course Holm and I were happy to oblige.   This was the first time I had really drank all month (infact, I bet including that last night I haven’t had more than 10 beers the whole month).  Hartz ended up throwing a beer on Anna in a drunken state, Holm and I caught a glimpse of chewbacca and I stole an avacado before the night was over.  Fun times… it’s gonna suck that Logan is leaving.  He’s a great guy.

Friday night ended up being a pretty laid back night for me.  First I went over to Anna and Eleanors (correction: Eleanor & Anna’s) to chat for a bit.  Anna wasn’t feeilng so hot so nothing crazy was going on.  Pam was there as well as Jesse who I was happy to see pulled through his shoulder operation just fine although he’s going to have a
long recovery.  After that I met up with Julie and Lyndsey and the three of us went downtown to the Peacock for a quick drink.  Lyndsey was quite buzzed from bowling earlier so she stayed at the bar longer than Julie and I who took off around midnight.  I was glad to get back to my bed early because I had to get up at 6am the next morning for training.

Saturday night on the other hand got completely out of control.  I met up with Lyndsey, Natalie and Julie next door and we all went out to a party at Jame’s on Van Buren street.  As usual his party was rockin’, the keg was kicked before we got there and the band was wailing away.  Even though his house was packed he still said it was
a small party!  haha.  Good ol’ undergrads!  Make me feel young again.  After having a few drinks there we all took off for home to call it a night.  It was definitely a night I won’t forget! Good times with good friends.  Quote to remember, Lyndsey - "My lips taste minty". 

YesterdayI went skiing with Toshi and Aaron.  Aaron decided he wanted to enter an extreme skiing competition at SkiBowl but I declined because it cost 25 bucks and
half the course was closed due to lack of snow… this was a big mistake because as it turns out Aaron got 3rd place and won a tasty pair of gloves and goggles.  I on the other hand came away from the day with a smashed up back. 

Toshi and I decided because of the conditions that we would head up to Timberline in Truckzilla to check out the park there.  The resort was engulfed in a fog bank that
only rose at the end of the day as we were leaving.  After a few quick runs on groomers Toshi and headed to the Park to check it out.  The pipe was awful.. no only 2 feet of vertical when I need about 5 to really have a good time.  Basically I need a superpipe, not a small one.  So I headed to the park for the next run and after about 3 medium sized jumps and hitting them with full speed successfully I kept
going anticipating the rest to be around the same size… nope.  The 4th one I hit was enormous, and I hit it with way to much speed.  Not only that but the lip of the jump was at a steeper angle than the others which through me back seat.  I was much higher than I thought I would be and started to roll up the windows but it was no use.  I came down hard near the bottom of the transition on my back.  I used the tails of my skis to absorb as much of the impact as I could and they blew off instantly even though I had the din cranked to 13.  I’d say that I fell from 15-20′ up
onto ice and the only reason my back is still functional is that I was still slightly in the tranny and had good forward momentum.  Regardless it knocked the wind out of me and for the next 2 hours it hurt to breath.  At lunch I took some advil which is best for inflamed muscles.  I felt a lot better after which made me feel better knowing that it was mostly just badly bruised muscles and not a broken disk or
spine or anything.  The wierdest part of it is that my back felt best when I was twisted skiing backwards which I decided to do for the rest of the day.  We left Timberline as it was dumping fresh snow, picked up Aaron at SkiBowl and headed home.  Even though I was hurt and in a lot of pain I’d rather ski like that than comfortably sit in front of a UNIX computer any day!

last night was Anna and Eleanor’s "Kegorita" birthday party at their place complete with a DJ, a Blue Grass Band, a pong room, birthday cake, Margaritas, a pinyatta, and of course a keg.  It was a formal party so everyone had nice outfits on.  Some of us had on ridiculous outfits as you can see from the photos.  I was
handed a home-made "anna’s special" margarita as soon as I walked in.  I was sitting on the edge of the couch stiff as a board with more sore back talking to Brianna holding margarita.  As I drank it slowly (I hate tequila) and talked to her my glass kept getting filled up without me noticing.  It was Eleanor… walking around with the
bottle of Jose Cuervo filling it up and making my drink stronger and stronger… I blame her for my poor game of pong with Aaron that followed in which we lost by a cup.  I ended up giving my top hat and Cane to Toshi who looked a lot better with them in his suspenders.  Funniest outfit of the night definitely went to Jan who came in wearing a pink blazer and the most ridiculous sunglasses ever. 

As the night progressed into a total shit show of drunkeness the keg was tapped and a ridiculously large game of flip cup ensued that pitted COAS against non-COAS.  COAS ran the table dominating the game, only losing once out of the 8-10 games we
played.  I didn’t realize it but in two games I actually played with cups of strong margaritas instead of beer. 

The girls used the cane I brought to beat the hell out of the pinyatta.  I found out today that it had rubber bouncy balls in it (which explained the confusion I felt this morning waking up to rubber balls in my pockets).  A couple older dudes that apparently are COAS alumni wandered into the
party that nobody new.  They were harmless so we let them party for a bit with us.  I guess later after I had left they asked if they could crash there and Anna sent them packin’.  haha.  I also heard that Anna herself finished the keg at around 4am with a keg stand… Pretty damn impressive.

Kristin Splinter and the girls showed up later at night and I ended up walking home with Julie to make sure she got home safe (plus she only lives about 500 feet from my house).  I had a great time which is clearly evident from how bad I feel today.
Somehow I managed to step on glass which I had to dig out of my foot this morning as well.  Anyway… Thanks Anna and Eleanor… It was a Tasty party for sure.