Recent Exposures

So last night was the annual COAS Halloween party at Pam’s house.  After the football game we picked up our outfits at my place and Eleanor’s and headed to Anna’s for some pre-gaming and
preparation for the party.  I wasn’t sure what I was going to wear for the party until I got to Anna’s and was talked into wearing a boxer’s outfit.  I looked absolutely ridiculous.  Anna talked me into wearing a pair of her shorts, which were a pinkish red and very, very short.  I then put on a blue wife beater that Isaac had and a pair of red gloves while Anna put makeup on my eye for a black eye and gave me a bandaide on my eyebrow for toughness!  Slowly people started to arrive at Anna’s including Logan in his Ronald McDonald outfit and Mac and Sarah with his motorized cowboy blow-up costome.  At 9 we grabbed the pumpkins we had carved and then went to the party.  From what I can remember of the party it was a blast.  I had made Pam an old school hip-hop mix of the hits we heard while
in High School and the DJ at the party was definitely playing a lot of them.  I’m not even sure what I was drinking but there was a keg of microw brew at the party and there is a picture of me holding a Pabst which doesn’t make sense to me.  Ashley came with a bike helmet on in a costume that looked hilarious.  Kendra looked
pretty damn cute as a wtich dressed all in black with a big black hat on.  Then Milli Vinilli showed up (Chris & Aaron) which was hilarious….
even funnier when their song came over the stereo.   Eleanor, who had warned us she was a violent drunk earlier, was tearing it up at Beer Pong (Bowdoin Style cause Mac was at the table).  I went over to say high and distracted her from the game, also may have given her
a friendly chop with my padded glove, and was angrily thrown to the floor against a heater which hit my head…. yup… a violent drunk.  Later I would try to talk to her again and got a full beer thrown on
me…. so that was the end of me having fun with Eleanor last night.  Eventually people started to leave the party including Anna who I apparently was pretty rude too and am sorry for.   It was a very drunken night and thankfully I got a ride home from Kendra or I may have ended up in a gutter.

That is what ESPN’s web site said yesterday with little print at the bottom "Cardinals win world series".  Yep, that’s how big the news was that OSU (not even ranked) beat #3 ranked USC in football yesterday at Reser Stadium.  I’ve never been to a football game in my life besides highschool and the one I chose to go to ended up being the biggest game for the Beavers in over 20 years!  I heard that the last time we even beat USC was in the 1960’s! 

Eleanor, Anna, Isaac, Karen, Brycen, Abby and I had all waited in line for tickets monday morning at 6:30 in the morning so we could make the highly anticipated game.  I pretty much woke up Saturday morning planning to have a great day and drinking a beer as soon as I crawled out of bed… next week is midterms and today (sunday) I spent all day studying for Chemistry - taking a short break to write up this.  So… I planned to have a good day on Saturday before hell set in.  By the time we all got to the game (we picked up Chris Sommes at his place and played a few games of flip cup and Beer Jenga) I was about 10 beers deep, but since we couldn’t bring anything into the game I knew I would sober up before the Halloween party.  Being that I had such a shitty day on friday I told everyone that I thought the Beavers would win because something good had to come my way after such an awful night.  We quickly found our seats as the game started which were all taken up by rowdy Beaver fans anyway so we stood on the edge of the risers near the isle. 

As the game progressed we noticed something really odd…. we were DOMINATING.  It seemed like every hail-mary pass that we through, we actually caught and powered our way down the field.  By
halftime the score was 30-10 Beavers!  The fans were going absolutely crazy!  Watch and Listen  We had a couple interceptions, one was actually a touchdown pass USC tried that was caught and run down the field by us for about 60 yards!  After halftime things started to go downhill but the Beavers had built up a dam of so many points (yes I wrote that purposely) that USC ultimately lost despite a huge comback in the 2nd half.  The score was 33 to 31 after USC scored with less than 10 seconds left on the clock.  This meant they had to go for a 2 point conversion instead of kicking a field goal to tie the game.  They hiked the ball, threw… and somehow by a miracle of God (and I’ve still yet to see the amazing replay) one of our guys got their fingertips on it and deflected it enough that the reciever missed the catch.  The fans instantly stormed the field from the bleachers but were ushered back for the last 5 seconds of clock time where they kicked off to us.  Once the clock ran out it was mayhem.  The
bleachers emptied onto the field as students jumped the walls and ran to congratulate and lift up the Beavers!  I myself jumped the wall, ran up to the Beaver mascot slapped him five and then stormed the field with everyone else… Check out the video of the last seconds of the game and mayhem HERE. 

  It seems like once again I am good luck with sports…  When I left NY and moved to Maine for my undergraduate studies the New England Patriots started to blow up, then when I moved to Boston the Red Sox won the World Series for the first time in 86 years.  Maybe now that I’m at OSU the un-ranked Beavers will tear it up!  Doubtful but one can always dream…..

Tonight I was planning on staying in and possibly getting some work done but after a stressful week and the urging of Anna and Eleanor I was talked into meeting them at American Dream Pizza at 6pm for the movie "Little Miss Sunshine" at the cool rustic theatre downtown.  It took a while for Isaac to show up and when he did we were too late to see the movie as it was sold out.  Logan decided that we should all go to his place to watch a rental so we took a detour to Hollywood Video and picked up Nacho Libre and headed to his place.  Eleanor was riding with when Bang! I was hit from the side taking a left onto a sidestreet near Logans to park…. I didn’t even flinch, just turned my head,
sighed, "shit".  I pulled over to the side of the road and the woman in her white truck said she would pull around.  My back driver’s side door was completely smashed in but it looked like that was all that was hit.  This just sucks!  What a day… From the moment I got up today I’ve had a bad day and this was just icing on the cake. 

The woman pulled around and we talked at her car.  She was incredibly nice and we even joked a little bit about the accident.  Her truck seemed absolutely fine while my truck was caved in.  That’s why old early 90’s trucks with the real metal bumpers are the way to go!  Don’t make ‘em like they used to!  We exchanged numbers and info and then I walked over to Logans to watch the movie, pretty bummed out that I would now have to pay a $500 deductible AND my insurance would go up again after I just got it lowered by moving to Oregon!  What a shitty day!

Yes, the leaves in Oregon turn color.  Not as much as in New England but they do.
Over the past few weeks the campus has turned a multitude of colors and the leaves on the ground has made longboarding to classes a sketchy task.  And of course with Halloween comes cabage night and frat row… haha… If you look closely at Anna you’ll see her black eye from an attack by a kayak the weekend before! haha. 

On monday I sent out an email to all of COAS inviting everyone over to my place for pumpkin carving and beer on Thursday.  Being that it is midterms I figured that not many people would show and I was right, which is good because I too have a lot of work to do.  It was a nice crowd though.  Eleanor, Mac (the pumpkin carvin’ expert), Chris Holme, Aaron Hartz, Kendra and her friends Anne Marie & Brad,
Brendan, Karen, Ashley, Jason, Kenzie and myself.  We started carving the pumpkins around 10:30 and weren’t finished with them until a little after midnight.  Eleanor failed to bring a pumpkin to the party so she took charge of cooking up the pumpkin seeds which ended up smoking us out in the kitchen!  Jason was sitting on the floor and casually looked up at Eleanor and said, "set off the fire alarm yet?" to which Eleanor jumped up and ran to the oven to find her charred pumpkin
seeds stuck to the pan… hilarious.  Meanwhile, Mac was on my computer looking up pumpkin porn to carve…   Ashley Hatfield showed up for a little while towards the end of the night to watch the pumpkin carving shit show for a bit.  We all ended up with great pumpkins and several were left at my place to bring to Pam’s Halloween party on Saturday night.  Jason and I also ended up with a huge bin full of pumpkin guts and a lot of pumpkin seeds to eat up.  It was a fun and friendly get together.

Just a quick blog here… I went over to Bart’s place in The Gem last night to watch a scary movie in recognition of Halloween coming up.  What I didn’t expect was to be honestly impressed by how scary the movie was… If you go like it rent… It’s called "The Descent" and it involves a bunch of hot women stuck in a cave with some pretty nasty looking creatures…

Today I woke up so hungover I didn’t know if I wanted to do anything but Anna called me and motivated me to make a plan for the day and make the most out of the weather.  Her and Eleanor were downtown at the Farmer’s Market where I met them briefly to say hi before heading East towards the mountains for a day hike up to Rooster Rock, a really cool volcanic tower of rock off route 20.  I got to the trail aorund 1:30pm and noticed that the guidebook said there were two trails up to the top.  Being a hiker who loves loop hikes rather than returning the same way I decided to drive further East to the Rooster Rock Trail and return via the Trout Creek trail 2.5 miles back from where I had come.  The trail up was very steep with very few switchbacks but I hauled ass up it so that I could get back and study some Chemical Oceanography with Anna and Eleanor (which didn’t happen because they had their phones
off… my bad luck I guess).  On both hikes I’ve done in the area I’ve noticed that in the valley where the road and river are the vegetation is pretty much like a rainforest with ferns and moss covering literally all of the bark on trees and rock.  It’s amazing.  It feels as if I’m walking through a rainforest until I ascend further up the slope of the mountain and the vegetation turns to enormous Cedars and volcanic rock formations.  The variation in vegetation and the amazing geological structures created from ancient volcanism are truly amazing to behold.  On the way
up I saw several Pacific banana slugs (Ariolimax columbianus).  See pic.  they are enormous and look more like rotten bananas!  When I got up to Rooster Rock I was truly amazed.  It was a giant spire rising from the side of the mountain into the sky.  The small part of it was easily the size of my parents
house and the spire behind it was about 3 times as big.  Check out the picture of it from the trail going down.  I climbed about 100 feet more to a lookout that was about level with the top of Rooster Rock from where I had come.  I was afforded great views from the lookout over the range of mountains towards the glaciated snow caps of the Sisters, a famous volcanic
chain of mountains to the East.  After a few minutes soaking up the views I tightened my pack and literally ran down the Trout Creek trail back to Route 20 where I dumped my pack and then
ran the 2.5 miles east down the road to my truck again…  It was a beautiful day, a great hike and the fall colors are really beginning to show despite the relatively warm and beautiful weather we have been having! 

Last night I went through a Corn Maze with my friends from COAS.  All the new COAS students have pulled together and made a calendar of fun events for us all to participate in.  General idea is to keep it fun, cheap, and easy for everyone.  Last weekend’s kayak trip was one of these events as well as Gwen’s house warming party, etc.  This week Abby and Brycen put together a trip to the Corn Maze in town.  It was only 8 bucks and I took a few beers from Jason’s stash at home for the adventure.  I had been drinking some left over beers from when Eleanor, Mac and Sarah came over for cards last weekend before we went to the Maze while Anna, Isaac and I watched PCU at my place.  So by the time I got to Brycen’s place I was a little lit, but not too badly so… that was later…   Before I go on I want to clarify something to anyone who may think I drink too much.  I don’t.  I have a few beers every Tuesday at 10pm at Bombs merely to socialize and relax from schoolwork from Sunday -Tuesday.  Then I pick either Friday night or Saturday night to also drink… thus only two nights a week do I drink… that’s not bad for the amount of stress I’m under - Plus I just read that a drink a day keeps heart disease at bay… so it’s
also healthy for me! :)  Anyway… At Abby and Brycen’s place we gathered together and were given awesome glow sticks, necklaces, and glow glasses to wear
(check the pics, I bet you can guess where I’ve tucked the lowest glowstick in the photo… haha).  When we got to the Corn Maze I was able to sneak in a couple beers while walking around which was fun, as did
Anna :).  We ended up getting stuck in the HUGE maze for about an hour and a half.  Every once and a while someone in a costume would jump out and try to scare
us.  I was buzzin’ pretty good so I had a great time, and the whole night only cost me
8$ for the entry to the maze!  When we finally got out ( I was told people could tell
where we were from my screaming!) we went back to my place for a "dance party" around 11pm and some cards.  It was a lot of fun and McKenzie even joined in on a jog pile,… I mean dog pile…
when he got home (see pic).  Great night last night and it was a little rough getting up this morning.  I was later told I left several messages on Brendan’s phone to the tune of "we are all going to die, we’re never gonna make it outta here!"… hahahaha.

Well, I guess it’s become tradition now to go out for a couple drinks every Tuesday night at 10pm to Bombs for $2 drink night.  I only end up spending about 9 bucks and I get some tasty microbrews for it!  Plus, after working 12-13 hour days on school work it’s a much needed break once a week.  Tonight we met up and were having a great time when this obnoxious Samoan (from Samoa) comes up to our table and starts dissin’ my buddy Anna… We still don’t really know why.  We think that she has some sort distant connection with Logan who was sitting with us.  In any case, she was horribly drunk and told Anna that she was biased against short people, which she prounounced "shirt people" in her drunken state which was pretty amusing.  Also the fact that Anna herself isn’t the tallest girl in
the room doesn’t make any sense.  At midnight we began to leave bombs to walk down to McMinimans (don’t know if I spelled that right) and guess who comes walking out after us to talk more shit to Anna and Eleanor.  I was snapping a few pictures (as I always do) to remember the funny situation when the girl turns around and grabs me by the arm… hmmm the word "grab" doesn’t really cut it here… She freakin’ latched onto me and wouldn’t let go, dragging me back into Bombs Cafe.  I could only utter a few faint cries for help from my friends now walking away unable to hear me.  Back inside I found myself a prisoner of this drunk Samoan abomination.  She wouldn’t let go until one of her guy friends who could see my plight grabbed her and pulled her off of me… I of course ran as fast as I could to catch up to my friends!  haha.  After hanging out for about half an hour more I went home for the night, still shaking from my near abduction! 

Yesterday I kayaked down a section of the North Santiam River just east of Mill City, OR with my
fellow new COAS grad students.  It was Robyn, Esther, Anna, Eleanor, Bart, myself and Greg who organized the event.  We had rented inflatable kayaks from the Outdoor Rec Center at OSU for the day and took his party van, and my truck to shuttle us between the launch and the pick-up.  We put in at Packsaddle park and ended up at Fisherman’s Bend County Park about 6 miles down river.  It was a
really fun trip with a few close calls.  At one point a friend fell out of her boat and I was able to hold on to her and safely get the two of us to the shore to get back in our boats.  Another time, while helping some friends steer their kayak through a rapid, I got sucked into a pretty big hole and was instantly catapulted out of my boat straight into the air, back flipping back into the rapid.  I sort of felt a little tug back towards the hole when I was underwater but gave  few good kicks and re-emerged at the surface for a gulp of air before going over another small hole underwater again.  I’ve been caught in white water before like this in Australia so I knew it wasn’t a big deal and it would spit me out.  I held onto my paddle the whole time and when I was free of the rapids easily swam to my boat, flipped it upright again and jumped in.  It was exactly the dangerous thrill I’ve been looking for a
while for!  Got my adrenaline pumping again.  Apparently it looked pretty cool to see the bottom of my boat completely vertical in the air from downstream.  ha ha.  We pulled our boats out about half way through our trip for some lunch.  I had on a cotton t-shirt and board shorts while everyone else seemed to be covered in layers, sailing jump suits, polypro, or wetsuits.   So I was a little cold to say the least…. Lunch was fun and relaxing and gave those of us that were a little unnerved by the dangers of the river a much appreciated reprieve.  We got back in our boats and soon caught up with a local ex-river guide named Rick who was super nice to us and helped us safely down the river.  He was able to tell us what lay ahead and which angle to take down the river to avoid the bigger rapids.  We owe him big for giving up his afternoon to guide us.  We eventually got to a site where the inexperienced among us could go ashore and rest while Anna, Eleanor, Greg, and I followed Rick down the last section of the river to where my truck was parked.  We had to go over a 3-4 foot waterfall and then negotiate some smaller rapids afterwards to get back to my truck.  It was great and we were able to play a bit before reaching the truck.  I drove Rick down to his truck about 6 miles away so that his wife wouldn’t worry about him taking so long (helping us).  I also got his email and number so that we might contact him to take us in the future.  From the time we left the main group to the time we got to my truck I was still shirtless, in water that is fed directly from the Cascades so I was pretty damn cold and shivering at times.  I’m sure I was sporting a little THO action… ha!  We got everything loaded in my truck and I drove everyone (Eleanor and Anna riding in
the bed on top of the gear) back up to Greg’s party van (I will always refer to it as that… I mean come on… It’s got a stove and a fridge!).  We all stopped at DQ on the way back (this has become a tradition after trips).  I can’t speak for everyone, but I myself had a terrific time and can’t wait to kayak again!  Hoo-ra.