Recent Exposures

Anna and Isaac dropped me off at home last night and I promptly fell asleep but at
4am in the morning I woke up feeling terrible and ran to the bathroom
to possibly puke my brains out… As I was sitting on the side of the
tub, stomach horrible with heartburn (I’ve been known to puke from
heartburn before) I saw a small object dart across the floor…. a
mouse!  The mouse we had been trying to catch, and it couldn’t get
out!  I then spent the next 10 minutes scrambling on the floor of the
bathroom, blind without my contacts trying to catch the damn jumpy
thing!  Finally it was on the top of the toilet looking at me
defiantly.  I went for it and it jumped…. right into the waste paper
basket!  hahaha!  I had him.  I ran to the kitchen and put a plate on
top of the basket and set it on
the sink with a note that said, "guess
what I caught bro, shake can to find out", for Jason to find the next
morning.   By the time I was done with all that I had forgotten all about puking and went comfortably back to sleep.  This morning when Jason walked to the bathroom, groggy still from sleeping and picked up the plate to a very jumpy mouse he jumped back… it was hilarious.  We then let the mouse go in the backyard for Mckenzie to chase… no he didn’t catch it. 

Today I went for a hike on the coast with Anna, Eleanor and Ashley.  We took Anna’s diesel bug from Corvallis because it gets 50mpg and it was an hour and a half drive.  On the way we stopped for lunch at the Newport Cafe where I got a great California Sandwich and bowl of mushroom soup.  We got a little lost finding the forest service road past Lincoln City but when we did it was a relatively short drive down the dirt road to the trailhead.  This trail was completely different than any other trail I’ve hiked on because it started off going down towards Hart’s Cove.  The four of us found ourselves steeply descending through large cedars until we entered into a literal rainforest complete
with streams, small waterfalls, muddy trail, and dew on all the vegetation.  The trees surrounding us were enormous as well, towering into the sky, each of their branches as big a single tree in the East.  We passed by several downed trees across the trail that had to be chainsawed.  One of these had to be atleast 6-7 feet in diameter (check the pic of the girls sitting on it).  As we were walking through the rainforest about a thousand feet above the ocean we could hear many seals and sealions grunting on beaches below.  I’ve never been on a hike and heard that before.  We finally descended to a
meadow on overlooking the pacific with Hart’s Cove below us to the left.  There were small volcanic seamounts and outcroppings along the shore.  One of them, through wave erosion had formed into a bridge with several large holes in the center of it.  We could hear the sea lions below but were a little too far away to see them clearly.  We hung out for a bit in the 70 degree weather and sun and then headed back up, yes up, the trail to the Bug.

The trip home was a lot of fun involving me playing DJ with the ipod and us singing along to all the old school hip-hop tunes and 80’s rock ballads.  I had to go to the bathroom bad when we got to Newport but the girls were determined to find a Dairy Queen for Blizzards on the ride home.  When we didn’t find any in Newport I thought my bladder was going to explode before we got home, but then, as if God himself had created and dropped it into the land, a lone DQ appeared on the side of the road out of the woods like a mirage…  Ashley failed to see it so was scared shitless as the three of us screamed in excitement!  I of course bolted for the bathroom right away.  The woman behind the counter who got our blizzards had a shirt on labelled "Blizzard Tech"… haha… Did she actually go to school for this?  When she made our blizzards it looked as if she was actually working with a beaker filled with a dangerous solution that could explode at any second.  She took her job as head blizzard technician very seriously while her stoner co-workers took their breaks.  I gave her a tip for her hard-earned effort and amzing Blizzard-creating technical skills! 

We dropped Ashley off at her house and then the three of us hi-tailed it to Fred & Myer after picking up Isaac to get some house warming gifts for Gwen and Cosmo who had just purchased an absolutely beautiful new home on 17th street complete with a beautiful garden in the back and fish pond.  The girls picked up great gifts such as UNO and some candy while I picked out the most ridiculous thing I could find… a calender called "Monkey Business"… basically a magazine filled with hilarious looking apes dressed in outfits making funny faces.  It was a huge hit and was hung next to the refridgerator so that any time they are upset over anything all they have to do is look at the monkeys and laugh.  Gwen made some delicious sushi for us and we ended up all playing UNO for a while.  People there were Brycen & Abby, Robyn, Karen, Bart, Greg, Anna, Isaac, Eleanor, Gwen, Cosmo, and I.  So the game of UNO was pretty damn big.  I watched the first couple games which Anna won and then Abby and then after being pressured into it joined in and immediately won the first game I played… mwa ha ha.  I was a great party and everyone seemed to truly have a great time.

Tonight I went to see the Gaurdian with Eleanor and my roomate.  It actually turned out to be a terrific movie.  We stopped at Wilco for some candy on our way there which turned out to be a shit-show for me as usual.  My candy bag had a hole in it which caused me to spill candy all over the isle and then I forgot (never really buy bulk candy that often) to right the candy bin number on my bag so the guy at the register had to take extra long making me look like an asshole.. haha.  Then my atm card wouldn’t swipe… man I was really holding up the line by that point.  When we got to the movie theatre we had to wait in a long line with two 20 oz bottles of Rogue Shakespear Ale in my top cargo pants pockets and 4 PBR’s in my lower pants pockets for us during the movie… (I had a hard time walking up the steps of the theatre with pants full of bottles and cans!)  We finally got in and were all pleasantly suprised by the movie which paid a great tribute to the Unsung heros of the National Gaurd.   At the end I was suprised to hear from Jason that CMRU actually trains with the same coast guard helicopters for mountain rescues that were used in the movies and that at some point I would also be trained to hook into the line and put injured people into the baskets to get flown out.  Lucky for me though I wouldn’t be doing it while floating in the cold pacific like in the movie.  Anyway, it was a nice relaxing friday night at the movies with friends. 

Tonight after I finished up my Math review with my TA Brian in the Valley Library at 8:30pm I met up with Anna and Eleanor & their friend Kate at Crowbar downtown for some drinks.  I had had a very long day of school work (Physical Oceanography Questions were a bitch!) but had actually ended up ahead of the class in math according to my TA.  So I felt entitled to a drink or two with friends.  We had a great time and were about to leave when Mac and Brendan walked into the bar.  Anna and Isaac (who showed up briefly) left around 10:30pm but Eleanor stayed with the boys for a few more drinks.  Apparently tonight was the night of the Naughty Schoolgirl Contest at the "Cantina" downtown.  After some coaxing and being "called-out" by Mac as a wuss I was convinced to go check it out… Eleanor rode her bike home (which I feel really bad
about because I should have given her a ride).  But.. I ended up at a skeevy bar that is better placed in NYC than Corvallis, OR.  And yes… there were naughty school girls on stage dancing on poles for all the horny undergrads…  I snapped a
few pics of the lovely ladies, had a cold one with the boys and then headed home for the evening.  I might be the only male in the world to say this but that just really isn’t my scene.  I’ve been to strip clubs many of times with friends from high school and past co-workers but I’ve never really enjoyed them.  This wasn’t a strip club but it was pretty much the same thing… a bunch of young girls dressed slutty dying for attention from guys that they have no interest in dating.  It’s basically just all eye-candy.  It would be totally different if one of them climbed down from the bar, walked up to me with her hot outfit on, proclaimed that she was a oceanographer, loved mountaineering, and was a pro skier looking for a nice guy to grab a cup of coffee with.  If that happened, I would go to these kind of events every night… In reality, the girl probably would end up going home with some meat-head jock for the night, possibly start dating him for a week and then end up cheating on him with in two weeks with one of his jock friends, cause that’s how girls like that operate.  Anyway, that’s my 2 cents on the whole slutty dance-club, stripper scene.  I’d rather find a girl who is bright, likes the sports I like, and can hold a conversation without saying the word "like" forty times who I can then dress up as a naughty schoolgirl just for me :)… haha. 

I went to my Matrix and Power Series math class today only to find a sign on the door saying that it was cancelled which presented a perfect opportunity for me to jump on my bike and explore more of the MacDonlad-Dunn Research Forest nearby.  After stopping at the house I was able to make it to the Oak Creek parking lot by 3:30pm to start my ride.  Initially I had planned to just bike up the forest service road to the top of the Extendo Mountain Bike trail and head down but I ended up going further…  I had gotten my bike repaired at Hike & Bike downtown over the weekend so it was in great condition and peddling wonderfully with a new chain and fixed back brake.  When I got to the top of Extendo I noticed another singletrack trail coming into it from above so I decided to keep going up the road until I possibly saw the entrance to that trail.  I had heard that there were many more "un-marked" trails in the area that were great for biking so I figured this was probably one of them.  When I got to where I thought the trail started another biker caught up with me (unfortunately I forget his name now).  He told me that it was indeed the trail I was looking for and that the manager of the forest didn’t like Mtn. bikers so had blocked off most of the un-marked trails with downed trees… (He doesn’t like mtn bikers because he thinks they destroy the ecosystem but is willing to cut down 20-30 trees and destroy several acres to prevent the bikers from going down trails that are invisible from the sky above… how does this make any sense?).  I told him I was planning on biking to the top of McCulloch peak and he replied that he was as well.  So we biked together up the remaining 800 feet or so to a rock quarry with great views near the top of the 2,400 foot mountain with his dog running up beside us.  He is a PHD research assistant in the geosciences
at OSU and has lived here for a long time so gave me a lot of good tips on the trails back there.  We hung out at the top for a bit and then went our seperate ways down.  I rode up another quarter mile to the true summit of the mtn (I’m such a peak-bagger) and then bombed down the gravel roads to the top of the un-marked trail which I was told was called "endo".  I had to carry my bike over many cut trees to get to the trail but when I did I was greeted by a seesaw right away which I happily
rode over.  The trail down was steep as hell and pretty technical so I was having a blast on my freeride Kona.  When I got back down to Extendo I followed a guy on his freeride rig down the trail who showed me several cool spots including riding between two trees so tight together that I only had about an inch or so on either side of my handlebars to make it through.  I got back down to my truck about 2 hours after I had left it.  It was a great ride and I can’t wait to explore more of the trails back there.  I plan on bringing my gps on every ride so that I can make a map of the un-marked trails for myself and close friends.

Tonight I went to my second CMRU meeting (Corvallis Mountain Rescue Unit).  This week there were more people in attendance and we ran through a rescue operations scenario for a hypothetical lost family near Mt. Jefferson.  I recorded the entire meeting on my camera so that I may be able to learn from it.  A lot goes into every rescue.  Amazingly the search radius of rescues, if no other information is gathered, is the distance a family can drive in their car at 65mph in the time since they were seen last.  So if a family was lost that left at 8am they could theoretically be several states away in any direction which is a huge search undertaking.  Luckily most of the time their car can be located at the trailhead indicating they are in the woods in usually a 20 to 30 mile radius… which obviously is much better.  Then command posts for the search have to be established, and human resources must be pooled together to aid in the search and rescue.  These can include local police, state troopers, Boy Scouts, CMRU, Volunteers, The Posse (horses), Air National Gaurd, etc… It really is an amazing process of organization and execution.  From watching the scenario play out in the meeting I can tell that CMRU is well trained and know what they are doing.  It’s going to take a lot of training but I’m looking forward to becoming an active member myself in half a year or so.  Plus, the meeting was a lot better than going to the Computer Workshop Class….