July 31, 2006
~ Wallowas / Eagle Cap Wilderness ~
After a period of separation from my BFF, who currently and non-permanently resides in Portland, Oregon, and occasional meetings in the company of others (primarily our significant others), Elizabeth and I formulated a plan to spend a weekend camping. The plan involved us meeting at a pre-determined halfway point and then venturing into the deep wilderness together. We met at La Grande, at a Denny's Restaurant right off the highway. If one considers a map of the pacific northwest, one would notice that La Grande is not halfway between Portland and Boise. Indeed, it is much closer to Boise, which meant that Elizabeth had about two hours of extra driving than I. Nevertheless, we met in LaGrande where we found this amazing place to have a lunch, Folley's, which was in "downtown" La Grande, and we each enjoyed an eggplant parmesean grilled sandwich with a sundried tomato pasta sallad. After eating, we took a stroll along the main drag of "downtown" and unnecessarily purchased passes for the Eagle Cap Wilderness trailhead. Then we drove deep and for a long time on backwoods fireroads, to the Two Colors campground in the Eagle Cap Wilderness in the Wallowa - Whitman Ranger District. Our main adventure was a big hike along the Main Eagle trail. This hike was through some spectacular scenery, as evidenced by the below photographs. On our hike back from whence we had come, we stopped at a stream to enjoy a cooling experience. Elizabeth removed all of her clothing and plunged into the ice cold water, which is a very Elizabeth-thing to do. I merely dipped my feetsys in, which was mighty refreshing. The trail itself was interesting. It varied from gradual ascents and decents, and was littered with boulders and rocks of all sizes (which were sometimes hard to navigate) along with piles of horse manure (the area is popular with the owners of stock animals, such as horses, for recreational use). At some point, Elizabeth made the comment that she rather enjoys the smell of fresh horse manure. I disagreed. Later, after navigating around some fresh and very sloppy horse manure, she retracked that statement. The main highlight of the trip, in my opinion, was having so much time with my Honey Bear to just talk, and talk, and talk, and talk.
July 22, 2006
~ Dancing at the Arcade ~
I've finally gotten around to posting my photos from the camping trip to Upper Payette Lake onto my flickr dealie. If you depress your mouse button on the above photo, your browser should be directed there. I've decided to refer anyone interested in the narrative of the camping trip to Josh's Camper's Log as I feel that it does a very nice job of capturing some of the camping moments.
Anyhoo, last night Josh and I found ourselves in something of a pickle as we tried to decide how to spend our evening together. See, we work kind of incompatible hours, and Friday and Tuesday are the two weekdays that we have the possibility of spending a decent chunk of time together. Which is why I like to embrace my Friday evenings...that, and you know, celebrating the end of the work week. So, part of the problem of deciding what to do was the fact that it was over 100 degrees outside, which basically precluded doing anything outdoors. Josh was attempting to persuade me to go to a movie with him. I, however, was hesitant because I feel that I've had a disappointing several months of trying to go to the movie theaters. A few weeks ago we saw the latest Pirates of the Carribean movie and Josh was so bored that I think he fell asleep (we also saw the LATE showing) and I just sat there and sat there and sat there wondering why the movie wouldn't end. I thought it was terrible, it duplicated so many of its scenes and gimmicks, and the plot failed to substantiate the duration of the film. So we left before it was even over. A few weeks earlier, we saw that Nacho Libre film by the director of Napoleon Dynamite. I believe that I already provided the internet with my thumbs down review, but aside from the fact that I was so annoyed with the teen boys behind me talking for the entire movie, the movie sucked. And we walked out of that one before it was over too. Which makes me feel like both of those experiences were just a waste of money, and I am of the opinion that wasting money is lame. So Josh had quite the task ahead of him if he thought he could convince me to go to another summer blockbuster...
Instead, while I was in the shower after having a workout at the gym, I was brainstorming things to do. I didn't feel like sitting down at an establishment (like a bar or restaurant...or movie theater) so I began to think about what sorts of places would provide airconditioning as well as amusement. And it hit me! A video game arcade!!!
So we went to PoJo's Arcade and played a variety of shoot'em-up games, motorcycle racing, and other standard arcade games, as well as several rounds of that Japanese dancing game (which is quite a workout!) and bumper cars. We left around 10:30, which is my bedtime. By the time that we got to my apartment, I realized that I had locked myself out of my apartment. Which was this complete freak occurrance. I was stressed out because it was way too late to call my landlady to let me in (I've been thinking recently - about the last year - that I need to get a spare key, but I've been putting it off...). Josh and I wandered into the alley behind my apartment and he shimmied up the concrete wall and managed to open my alley window (which was totally latched and locked from the inside) and hoisted himself through. While I was delighted to get back into my apartment, I was alarmed at how easy it was to break into my place of residence.
This morning I got up at 7:00 and went on a two hour road ride before the heat hit. I think it's almost 105 degrees right now. Which is fine because I've already got my exercise in and now I can just relax at an airconditioned coffee shop all day playing on the internet.
July 17, 2006
~ Secesh to Loon Lake ~
This weekend, while Josh and I were camping at Upper Payette Lake in the Payette National Forest, we took a day trip to bike the Loon Lake Loop. We drove about ten miles from our camp to the Ruby Meadows turnoff from Warren Wagon Road. From there we asked for directions to the trailhead, as it was not readily apparent which way to go, and along with directions we also received some information about a WWII era bomber lodged at the far end of the lake. In my googling of Loon Lake information, I discovered someone who had taken photos of the bomber, which can be viewed here. We, incidentally, opted to not hike to the far end of the lake to view the bomber.
The first half of the loop, to Loon Lake, was amazing. It began as a road suited to ATVs and motorcycles, though all access, with fun banked turns and the sort of rollercoastery bumps that off-road vehicles tend to produce, which happen to be super fun on a bicycle. The trail took us through the area that was burned in the 1994 fire, and the effect was a graveyard of trees. Eventually the trail turned into a well maintained singletrack which had a pleasant combination of mild technicals and rolling intervals of ascents and descents, into meadows, forested hilltops, and rocky mountain slopes. There were several wooden bridges to cross as the trail wound through the meadows. These bridges were constructed with a series of wood panels jutting upwards into the center of the bridge. This created an effect similar to a rut. At some point, while I was navigating my bicycle tires in between the wooden bridge rut, my front wheel scraped the edge of the wooden panel causing a loss of control. I sensed that I was about to flip face-first onto the wooden bridge so I attempted to prevent falling with the use of my trusty left leg. As I was trying to catch myself, in a manner involving the wild flailing of limbs, I was stumbling along the bridge with my bicycle firmly attached to my right foot until I launched off of the bridge into the unknown. At either side of the bridge there was some thick tall grass, and it was impossible to see what was beneath the grass (whether water, rocks, mud, etc.). Fortunately for me, there was only soft ground, which provided that the only thing hurt was my pride. As I was hoisting my person back onto the bridge, Josh and I had a good guffaw.
We continued peddling until we reached Loon Lake, a name which I found pleasing, almost as pleasing, in fact, as the lake itself. Though, stunning would be a more appropriate description. Once lakeside, we relaxed and consumed some carbohydrates. I removed my socks and shoes, though not in that order, and noticed a very prominent dirt line divided my dirt and dust coated legs from my non-dusted and non-dirted feet. I placed said feet into some water, which I found somewhat freezing, and splashed them around.
For the second half of the loop, we took a different route to get back to the car. I have chosen to delete the second half of the ride from my memory. All that I will articulate is that I would not recommend that route to anyone with severe- to worse-than-severe phobias regarding narrow technical trails at the edge of steep rocky cliffs.
By the time that we reached the car, I was very happy to have reached the car. Frankly, I was kind of pooped. Back at the campsite, Josh and I inched our way into the lake for a refreshing wash - - and boy, did it feel great to rid my person of all the mud clumps, dust coating, dried sweat, congealed sunscrean, and smashed bug bodies. For the duration of the evening, I was in a daze of sheer exhaustion.
July 12, 2006
~ On Matching...or, At 26, I Still Cannot Dress Myself ~
An excuse that I find myself articulating on a rather frequent basis points to the fact that I do not own a full length mirror. Indeed, I own but one mirror and it is barely large enough to encompass my face. On most days, I play this self-deceit game in which I balance myself on the edge of my bathtub in an effort to glimpse a reflection of my appearance in my small mirror mounted to the wall adjacent the bathtub. The other method that I utilize to evaluate my appearance before entering into the public sphere is to look downwards. Combined, these two methods fail to allow me to understand my appearance in the way that others perceive it. Frequently, I find myself looking into the large mirror in the bathroom at work, wondering what was in possession of my reason when I dressed myself. Last week, for example, the morning before a Board meeting, I realized that I was wearing a silk floral patterned skirt with a horizontally striped cotton pollo shirt. The outfit was similar, but not at all the same as this outfit which I posted onto the internet as myself having worn. At least in that latter outfit, the material for the floral patterned skirt is the same sort of cottonish material as the diagonally striped cottonish shirt. In a sense, I was matching in the way of fabric texture, though not the pattern of the fabric. In the former outfit, however, the fabric texture clashed, the fabric pattern clashed, the colors clashed, and even the degree of formal / informal clashed.
Which brings me to my friend Amy who would probably prefer that I not discuss her tendency to match at all times, but I am far too busy to consider such things as her feelings. So Amy, in stark contrast to myself, has a knack for color coordinated outfits. Several times a week, we find ourselves standing side-by-side at the coffee bar or water cooler, and this reveals very prominently our divergent matchingness. Over things such as coffee and wine, we have discussed the concept of matching. I have indicated a desire to improve upon my matching, thereby matching more. Amy has indicated a desire to alter her matchingness, and match less.
I have started small. In the way of my professional outfits, I have endeavored to roughly correlate the color of my shoes with that of my jacket. From all that I understand about matching, this creates a balanced effect that is pleasing to the eye. At some point in my misunderstanding of coordinated outfits, when I was very young and wee, a fellow classmate disclosed her secret to matching: socks must always be the same color of one's shirt. I found this matching objective unachievable because I was one of those children with silly-patterned socks (for example, pink zebras on a green background). Therefore I have abandoned this piece of advice. Presently, I am unsure about the wisdom of the sock / shirt linkage, and I defer to the expertise of Amy. Part of my hesitance about matching my socks with my shirt centers around the fact that when I do wear socks, I usually wear them in a manner that they cannot be seen, either in the form of super low ankle socks hidden behind my shoes or underneath the legs of my pants.
I feel that I have lived my entire life under the premise that if I own cool clothes, the outfit will come. By and large, this has been true for my personal life, but has proved inappropriate for my professional life. Which is something of a shame, if you consider the drawbacks to having two entirely separate wardrobes and you live in a small apartment with nary a closet space.
July 6, 2006
~ 50 Miles from Emmett to New Plymouth ~
Because I am still catching up on my blog writing, I still have a backlog of stories to recount. This one centers around the longest bike ride of my entire life (but, hopefully will not remain such). On Saturday, Josh and I got up early and drove to the town of Emmett, which is not all that far away, but is on the other side of a big overpass which makes it seem like a completely different part of the state. We pulled into the parking lot of an Albertson's grocery mart and utilized their restrooms for our wardrobe changing. From there, we rode our bicycles along a meandering route via empty farming roads. It was pretty early in the day and the ride to New Plymouth was under a pleasant temperature. I felt as though I had so much energy and was just having the greatest time. When we arrived at New Plymouth, we located a market and purchased some food items, which we ate under the shade on the grass of a local religious establishment (apparently, they have no parks in New Plymouth). Having refueled, we set out for the ride back to Emmett. It had become early afternoon and the temperature was begining its ascent into the 90's. The ride back seemed to me much longer in duration than the first part. We basically rode a loop around the Emmett Valley. The second part of the loop, rather than going through farm lands and cattle pastures, took us through cherry orchards, which I found much more aesthetically appealing. It also had a lot more "rollercoaster" sorts of roads which, instead of being long and flat or steady mild inclines, went perpendicular to the rolling hills. I found it great fun. There was an unfortunate incident which we aren't talking about in which we were confronted by an angry dog. But since we aren't talking about it because we have agreed to disagree, I shan't say any more. By the time that we were riding into the Albertson's parking lot, I felt that my body could have ridden many more miles, but my butt was kinda tired of sitting on a bicycle seat. Plus, it was really mutherfucking hot out and my front tire had gotten some kind of flat. Here are a few photos of the trip. As always, there are more on my flickr thingie which you can access by depressing the link to the right. I would link it directly right here, but there is an issue with me accessing such things as flickr right now so I'll leave it up to your own internet prowess to figure it out for yourselves.
July 5, 2006
~ Idaho City Historic Independence ~
It would be an understatement for me to say that I appreciate holidays. Indeed, having had an insanely busy last week (working overtime and being overwhelmed with my workload), I was elated at having this Tuesday off of work for some national holiday. On Monday, I seized the day by getting up an hour early in the morning and having an entire morning experience before having to go to work. That evening, I bragged about this feat to Josh, while we were sipping beers on my stoop. On Tuesday, the national holiday, I had planned to get up at 6:30 in order to seize the day even though I didn't have to work. When I woke up, I saw that Josh had sent me a text message wanting to go on a mountain bike ride before the temperature hit the predicted 97 degrees. By 7:00, we were riding our bikes up Hulls Gulch. It was a short sweet ride, which we enjoyed in the cool temperature. There were quite a number of other people on the trails as well, hikers and runners, dog walkers. After we returned from our ride, cleaned up and all that, we met for some coffee at Java downtown, and I had some quality time with my laptop computer. Before the noon hour, we prepared to go on our main adventure for the day: to Idaho City for their Historic celebration for Independence Day.
Part of my desire to go to Idaho City hinged on its location to the north at a higher altitude. From my knowledge of its location, I surmised that it wouldn't get quite as hot as Boise (as I said, predicted at 97 degrees). Unfortunately, it was still really really hot in Idaho City. When we arrived, there were bucket loads of people everywhere. It was craziness. We began our adventure by walking up and down the two roads which comprise the non-residential part of the town. We walked into all of the antique stores (specializing in Old West stuff), weaved through the crowd of people, and I snapped a lot of photos. At one point it was real funny (hah!)...Josh was in the process of walking along this boardwalk thingie that had old saddles slung over the railing and a big wooden fish dangling over his head. I decided that it was an opportune moment to take a photo of the little whipper snapper. Snap! After I had taken my photo, this big sweaty man dressed in a cowboy costume wrapped his arm around Josh and seemed to want me to take a photo of Josh with the cowboy. A little weirded out, I brought up my camera and took another photo. Then the cowboy thought it would be great to swap hats with Josh and give to Josh his gun. Snap! Snap! Then the cowboy started asking us where we are from, wondering if we were tourists from some distant land where they don't have real cowboys such as himself. The heat was making me a tad cranky and I was annoyed that he thought we were tourists. I mean, I happen to have this new digital camera which is this great toy for me, but just because I am always taking photos of everything doesn't mean that I'm not from around these parts.
The Idaho City Library was having a book sale and Josh and I purchased a few books. Josh bought a collection of these "Myserties of the Mind" book series that were published in the early 1980s and contain funny photos of "paranormal phenomena". At 2:00 we wandered over to this place where some real cowboys were having a real Old West shootout. We gathered with a lot of other people in the heat (though we found a spot in the shade). There was a stage made to look like some Old West scene, with a jail, bank, and saloon. Before the shootout, one of the cowboys, the one who had posed for a photo with Josh, gave the audience a lecture on gun safety. Then they performed this skit about an Old West miner who had struck gold, a cowboy who stole his gold, and the sherriff who tried to restore the peace. The "plot" of the skit was quite brief and was punctuated by gunshots and a final "shootout" at the end. Not being much of a "gun person" myself, I found it rather alarming and every time that the loud bangs of the guns sounded, I let out a surprised scream (which was embarassing). The elitist in me found the whole display disappointingly amature (to me, it just seemed like three guys who put on some costumes and wanted to have fun shooting for pretend at each other).
After the shootout, we decided that it was high time to get some food. We located this establishment called "Diamond Lil's Pub and Eatery" and consumed some greasy bar food, pepsis, and beers. The establishment was something else, as may be evidenced by the photos just below this paragraph. There were rows of dollar bills (defaced by writing) hanging from the ceiling, framed collections of outdated currency from around the world, photos from someone's travels, politically distasteful decorations (notice the "slick willie" wall hanging behind Josh and I at the table...in fact, there were several displays of anti-Clinton throughout the town), and the bathrooms... When we first arrived, I overheard the bartender direct a small boy to the men's bathroom by saying to "go through the door with the pretty woman". Later, I discovered that the women's bathroom was the one with the shirtless man on the door. Inside, the walls were covered with photos of shirtless men with big packages...apparently the men's bathroom was covered with photos from Maxim. Belch. I was offended by such a blatant tasteless parade of heterosexuality, and not even just heterosexuality, but a very specific breed of macho heterosexuality which does not at all appeal to me. Honestly, why do people like that have to wave their preferences in my face? So, our bar food was mediocre but we had an excellent time. The air conditioning was cool, the suffleboard table was slick, and the beers hit the spot.
Anyhoot, I have uploaded many more photos onto my flickr account, which you can access by depressing your mouse button over the flickr photos on the sidebar to the right.
July 4, 2006
~ Knitting Arm Warmers ~
Over the weekend, I finished a knitting project. The project was a set of arm warmers that I knat in a cheap acrylic variegated yarn. I am unsure if I shall ever wear them in public, as they make my arms look buff and wooly. Not that I am necessarily opposed to buff and wooly arms, but also the yarn I used could technically be called "ugly", and I do tend to operate my appearance in an attempt to err away from ugly. Were I to wear these appendage warmers, I sense that I must wear them in accordance with the rest of my outfit and not in vain.
The pattern is simple. I took a measurement of my upper arms, just below the shoulder, at the fattest area. This I used to plot my guage. I determined that using the particular yarn that I used, and the needles that I felt worked best with the pattern and yarn selection, that I would need to cast on 35 stitches. Thus, I cast on 35 stitches. From there, I employed "moss stitch" for roughly seven rows, at which time I switched to stockinette stitch for two rows, thereby creating a "sinching" mechanism. Thereafter, I selected a pattern from my handy Knitting Stitch Library which was compatible with my guage. I selected a pattern of diagnal rows. On hindsight, I would not recommend using this sort of pattern with this sort of project with this sort of variegated yarn. I feel that the pattern I used merely emphasizes the buffy wooly arm effects of the arm warmers, and having anything but a plain stitch pattern with a variegated yarn is just way too much to handle. I employed this diagnal row pattern until such a point that, upon holding the undone warmer against my arm, I felt it covered my arm. Then I repeated my two rows of stockinette stitch and seven rows of moss stitch. I bound off and sewed the long sides together, completing the finishing by weaving my ends in like the good little knitter that I am. I opted to forego the blocking process because I didn't feel that this was the sort of project that required a good blocking.
My thoughts on knitting appendage warmers in the future are that I would use a single colored yarn and would also use a softer yarn (though sticking with the cheap acrylic, because appendage warmers don't mean that much to me). On Saturday evening, I was at Satchel's Grill enjoying some humus and an old film they were projecting, and my knitting caught the eye of a female who became exhiliarated and we exchanged words and numbers. See, there is a reason to knit besides the experience, the enjoyment, the finished product...meeting people!
July 3, 2006
~ Bogus Star Party ~
There are several adventures and projects that I have directed my attention to remember as needing a blog post. I have some catching up to do in the way of my personal reporting. I have been busy lately... Screaming mad busy. Anyhome, I have selected the Bogus Basin Star Party as the first item on my list to recount.
The Star Party, which took place a week ago last Friday at Bogus Basin Mountain Resort, was (as might be inferred from the name) a party to celebrate the stars. There was a variety of astronomical nerds and aficionados, including their star gazing equipment, in attendance. The organizers chose, from all of the music in the world, the soundtrack to the Star Wars films to be the audio experience for the evening. Josh and I drove up to the Lodge in time to enjoy the last bit of a spaghetti feed. We quickly ate our overpriced and rather stale spaghetti and rushed to join a large group of people for a nature hike. The nature hike was annoying. The group of nature hikers had gathered next to some trees and were listening to a lecture on fire safety. Smokey the Bear was on hand to give a thumbs up to good answers to the fire safety questions posed to the attendees. At some point, my glory was stolen as Josh articulated to the group the answer to a fire safety question that I had mumbled so that no one could hear me except for him. Smokey the Bear provided Josh with a thumbs up which should have been mine! Some time later, while the group was still discussing fire safety, I got really bored. Josh and I wandered off a ways and took some photos of the view.
We rejoined the group once it continued the hike. This, however, was short-lived because they stopped again for another dull lecture, on some subject such as the solar power lighting installation at the resort. I suppose that solar power and fire safety are interesting topics, however, the manner in which they were presented in lecture format I found painfully tedious. At the point of our maximum tedium, we quit the group and went on our own hike. It was beautiful. We saw some lovely flowers and plants and stopped to watch the sunset. It was almost dark by the time that we returned to the Lodge. The party section of the Star Party wasn't quite underway, so Josh and I located some beers and drank them over some witty banter. When our beers were done, we made our way to the telescopes and proceeded to examine various objects in the night sky. Unfortunately, the objects were way too far away for the telescopes to pick up very much, so they appeared as not more than a dot. Nevertheless, it was a neat way to spend the evening.
