I think the last time I wrote something Oregon had just been cheated out of the national championship by Scam Newton (and yes, I'm going to beat everyone to the joke) or maybe cheated their way into the national championship game. That was a bitter pill to swallow, especially with my buddy Mau sitting there cheering for Auburn. He's lucky he's bigger than I am. That was about it for January. I had a birthday, the big 33. Funny, I still act like I'm 15 most of the time. I just remembered that I wrote that already in the last blog. See, I don't even remember what I wrote. Crap, this is going to be another month by month breakdown. Let's see if I can make it entertaining at least.
So I remember that I mentioned I sold one of my bikes in order to make way
for a new one. During February I started getting the frame and parts together for the new one, a Transition TR450. It's pretty and orange, and yes, for those of you who were wondering, it got the General Lee sticker treatment. It's beautiful, and it was fun to put together. Brought me back to my days working in bike shops. Jami was a great sport about letting me put it together in our living room, next to the dining room table. I was even able to limit the amount of grease and oil that leaked down into the carpet. I'm such a nice guy. It just contributed to the wall art that was made when my tires would leave marks on the wall after I'd put them away after a ride. Very eclectic.So every so often, Oregon winters actually have periods of time where you can go outside and not get drenched, and one of those weekends in February Jami and I went down to Lincoln City on the coast and spent a few days down there for some much needed rest and relaxation. Yes, we got to eat at Mo's (some lustrous clam chowder), and hit up Pig 'N' Pancake as well for some awesome breakfast one of the mornings. It was more of a weekend just to get away from things and do absolutely nothing, which was awesome. It's exactly what I would do if I had a million dollars...nothing. There were some romantic walks on the beach (Jami knows I really like those), and at the end, a trip to Read's Homemade Candy for some salt water taffy (I vaguely remember writing that in my last blog post, at least we're predictable).
For those of you that were wondering, sitting anxiously on the edge of your seats, I have pretty much discontinued my watching of the WWE. See, I have matured...slowly. Anyway, February brought back the return of the Great One, The People's Champion, The Rock! He was announced as the guest host of Wrestlemania, the crowd went crazy, and I had flashbacks to watching WWF Raw is War with my bro Tom and his friends the summer after my mission. Luckily I have some friends that are wrestling fans as well (more fans of The Rock than anything) who all decided that we were going to drop the cash necessary to watch Wrestlemania when the time came at the beginning of April. Totally worth it, if just for all of the promos that good ol' Dwayne was in. It was legen....wait for it...dary.
March rolled around, the new bike was built and ready to go, now just had to wait for the monsoon that is winter in Oregon to go away (or subside for a day or so), to get out and break it in. I'll make it quick, first ride was wet and muddy out in the Columbia River Gorge, but it was awesome, and the bike rides great. On a down note, we got rid of our cable TV, it was one of the hardest things I've ever done, especially with the fact that each and every one of the NCAA tournament games was going to be broadcast on TV this year, on like 4 different cable channels, not to mention the loss of ESPN and HGTV (I really dig Holmes on Homes). I'm surviving, it's been tough, I'm not going to lie, but ESPN3 has become a good friend of mine. I finally got to watch a BYU basketball game since their game against San Diego State was broadcast nationally on CBS. That Jimmer guy is pretty good. I remember texting my cousin Dane (who at the time was in Provo as a BYU student) and telling him that Jimmer reminded me of myself, to which he responded with "Why, because he shoots the ball every time he gets it?" Yeah, that's actually pretty close.
Those of you that read any other blog from one of my family members know that every March, around NCAA tourney time, ESPN puts on their annual bracket challenge, and my extended family (which includes a ton of competitive, basketball-crazy people, and some real smart a's) all get in the same bracket and make our picks. The best part about this whole thing is that there is a message board where you can talk smack to everyone else. It's usually pretty funny to read, although I think this year was a semi-slow year on the trash talking. Maybe it's because the tourney was so weird with all the teams that won and lost, I know my bracket was blown apart after the 2nd weekend. The winner of the family bracket challenge gets a cool basketball head trophy (hard to explain, I'll post a picture of it when I win it next year).
Hmmm, what else. March brought the wedding of Mau and Amy, so happy for those guys. It was great to see them get married and be able to celebrate with them and all of the family and friends that showed up....and there was a lot! It was awesome though. Also, the last weekend of March, I was able to participate in my first downhill mountain bike race ou
t in Spokane. I headed out there with my buddy Jamie for the weekend, it was a great time. The Spokane race is one of the few out there that actually has a race on Saturday, so I figured it'd be fun to do it. It rained on us all the way out there, rained once we got there, but stopped raining and cleared up as soon as we got the bikes out and headed up the mountain. Good timing. I'm not the fastest guy on the mountain, but it was fun to hang out with the guys that I normally ride with, fun to race and get yelled at by the people on the side of the mountain, and there's a picture of my leg in Decline Magazine, which did a write up on the race! I'm famous! You can tell it's me because I'm wearing shorts, and my leg is a nice pasty white.Ok, so I'm going to rip through the next couple of months, because I'm sure this is getting long and no one wants to read each and every little detail of our lives. Plus I can't remember everything either. April brought General Conference (which meant a trip to Red Robin....mmmm, Monster Burger and Groovy smoothy....after Priesthood session). We also go to meet my sister Megan's fiancee Glen. Good dude. Also watched Wrestlemania. Sweet. And...the announcement (sorta) of Bill and Ted, movie #3. Words cannot describe. Tom and I also played at another Open Mic night-Johnny B. Goode and Misirlou (surf song from the beginning of Pulp Fiction for those of you wondering what that was). I played bass. It was interesting. In May Jami and I got to see her brother Chris, who has been living in New York City the last year or so, he was out here for a friend's wedding. For Easter Jami set up an awesome egg/candy hunt for me, there were a bunch of Cadbury Eggs. She knows the way to my heart. April and May is Prom season, so Jami was super busy doing hair for all sorts of girls getting ready for the big night. She cuts my hair too, that's why I always look so beautiful.
We had been talking since the beginning of 2011 what we were going to do when our lease was up at the end of June, and decided in the middle of April that we were going to look for a new place. I think we were done living next to 3 other apartments that surrounded us with about 12 smokers who smoked 12 packs a day (I'm not exaggerating). Plus our next door neighbor had 3 pugs in her apartment that smelled like Koa's face (do you even read this SDBF?) We found a place in West Beaverton over by Valley Catholic High School and spent May and June packing for the move. I realized that moving brings out absolute worst in me. Anyway, that's what was going on for
most of May. Tom and I went to WWE Raw at the Rose Garden in May (he won tickets), that was pretty entertaining, some really good people watching going on there. The weather was sometimes good, sometimes bad, so I was able to get out and ride the bike with my buddies, that was fun. On Memorial Day we had another soggy day out at the Ravens Ridge DH trail, but there were still about 30 guys that showed up. We had a BBQ out there, lots of mud, but it was still pretty awesome. We finished up early in the afternoon, and then Jami and I headed down to Salem to meet up with Mau & Amy, Juval & Moana, and James & Callie to go watch Kung Fu Panda 2. Again, it was full of pure awesomeness. And had a hint at a 3rd one! Simply awesome. It was good to hang with all of them.June brought a major bike wreck (bruised shoulder, tailbone) at the beginning of the month. Good times. On June 11th, Megan and Glen got married at the Portland Temple. Weddings in the family have turned into impromptu family reunions, and this was no exception. It was good to see all that were able to come up. We had a good time, all of the guy cousins that were there played some basketball after the wedding luncheon (when you have a good reason, you can clear out tables faster than you think you can), and then had the reception out at the Corneilius Pass Roadhouse, whe
re I got to see a bunch of people from the past. Good times. The next weekend we moved (big thanks to all that helped out, there will be ice cream made in your honor when we get a chance). We are really digging our new place, it's mostly
smoke free, ant free (and the fleas have been killed). Jami even let me hang my bikes in the living room. It was at her insistence that they were hung up. They make good wall art. We got most everything put away and organized pretty easily, so that was good. Turns out June was pretty busy. Jami did a bunch of hair for weddings, I rode my bike, we moved, on the 25th we celebrated our 1st anniversay. She hasn't killed me yet. Success! We headed to the beach (Cannon Beach) to commemorate, ate at Mo's (again). Got salt water taffy (again). Jami got me an ice cream maker! For those of you that know me, I love to make pineapple sherbet, words cannot describe how awesome it is. So, the fact that she got me an ice cream maker shows how totally cool she is. Or else she just likes the ice cream I make.My Dad, my bro Tom, and I headed up to Seattle on the 27th of June for a quick 2 day trip to see the Atlanta Braves play the Mariners. We are all big Braves fans, ever since the early 80's (because of Dale Murphy and TBS), and have followed them religiously ever since. The last time the Braves were in Seattle was in 2003, Dad and I went (Tom was in Utah), and so we weren't going to miss this. We had a blast, watched the Braves win t
he games we saw (they swept the series), ate a bunch of amazingly good food that was really good for us, saw Green Lantern, and just had a good time hanging
with each other. We ate at Ivar's when we first got there, and the rest of the trip can be summed up in 2 words--garlic fries. Copious amounts of garlic fries. Yum. Jami said it took 3 days for me to stop oozing garlic smell out of my pores. The smell reminded me of the stadium.So, we've made it to July, which means I'm almost done. And there was much rejoicing. We didn't blow off any fingers on the 4th of July, mostly because we didn't have any fireworks. We continue to do our thing working, Jami did hair for another wedding. That brings us up to date. I'm sure I left out a bunch of stuff, left out a bunch of people (sorry to everyone that I left out). Oregon has decided to regress back to winter weather, it's been raining the last week or so (and I'm none too happy about it). I did get up to Ski Bowl for a day of riding up there a couple of weeks ago on one of the rare days it was sunny this July. Once again, I'll try to do better about updating this thing, I'll believe it when I see it. Maybe Jami will do it.
