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Ragnar 2009

Monday, July 27th, 2009

Northwest Passage – Blane to Langley Washington – TURN UP THE AWESOME

I just got done running in a 189 mile relay with a team of 12 great people. We we’re split up into 2 vans, and our van started the race. In van 1, the party van, we had Caitlin, Matt, Adam, Will and Ellen and myself. Adam and Matt we’re both new to our team, but the rest we’re hood to coast veterans. I met Matt at the Toga hash so we knew each other. Adam showed up with a mohawk so I knew he’d be ok.

After a great pasta feast and team meeting, we got some sleep and then headed north early the next day. Of course, early would become a relative term when our 3rd legs start at 5AM saturday morning.

Pimpin' the vans

Trashing it up a little with a Dream Catcher. That might be our team name next year.

Take a good look at that door

Pre Ragnar

I think I took 250+ pictures

Headed over to watch the start

Matt(Drinking Shirt) leading the pack at the start

My view for a lot of the next 26 hours

It ain't...

Caitlin making me feel even taller

Ellen tearing up her first leg. She ran in college and is going back to school to become a optometrist. Sadly, Will and her are moving to Berkley.

Caitlin on leg 3 with some fresh roadkill. She dominated 8.2 miles of hills in the heat.

Who wants a mustache ride?

First leg - the dream catcher caught all the butterflies in my stomach

TURN IT UP!!!

I was like "Umm, do you guys have anything shorter than this red pair?"

Action! I saw a girl go the wrong way on this leg and felt bad for her.

We decided leg 4 would be more fun as a 3 legged race

Adam running incredible sub sevens in the heat

Will taking off to shred leg 6. Note the nice tan.

Caitlin picking up leg 7 for her injured bro. Crazy, especially after her 8.2 leg hours before.

I ran the start of leg 8 until van 2 showed up midway into the run. I think I got about a mile done before Elle took over. They got screwed by the traffic gods.

Van 2 had some trouble with traffic, injuries, dierections and keeping their pants on. True troopers to fight through all of that.

Leg 1 rewards

@ the KIA dealership to figure out what a "defrost" looking button does. This is what happens when you have an Engineir in the van. The nice salesman with a sharktooth neckless was of use to no one.

We got some looks while searching for food

Reno 911 crew

Signing in

Gotta love the "Cop a fee!"

Happy after sandwiches, ready for the second set of legs

Waiting to hand off Matt's go juice.

Matt trying to outrun a thunder storm after his mid leg beer check

Caitlin getting Matt in proper form for his night leg

My second leg

Night leg!

Beer check

Morning after sleeping through a thunderstorm. That wasn't very fun and I blame the event on Jose.

Last leg!

Reppin' the Justice League socks

I got lots of funny looks from old people on their morning walks

Turn it up Adam!

Hand off to Adam - total relay roadkill for me:14

MAX AWESOME

The time to celebrate happened to start at about 10:30AM

BYOB @ the Ragnar beer garden = best relay after party ever

Ragnar Northwest Passage 2009. I had the best group of people to run it with.

Off to Seattle for more running!

Voyage back to the motherland

Matt got a lot of looks like that

True Love

Seattle Torchlight 8k Run

Race-ist! Ragnar medal, H2C shirt, Torchlight bib. Did I mention that the Ragnar medal has a bottle opener?

Serious runners

Ragnar runners

Happy to know we don't have to run anymore

Van 1 rapping up a long weekend

A big thank you to everyone for running their asses off. It was a blast. A special thank you to those who out in so many hours before this thing even started so we’d have all most of our ducks in line:) We’ll be back next year, catching some dreams!

Posted in Weekend Getaways | 1 Response »
Tags: Fun, Northwest passage, Ragnar, relay, running, Turn up the awesome

John Day Adventure 2009

Wednesday, July 15th, 2009

Click to continue »

Posted in Weekend Getaways | Comments Off
Tags: Cults, Frog Legs, Hamms, John Day

Boise, Idaho

Friday, March 20th, 2009

This is what the drive out was like.

Out east

Downtown Boise - very clean. All of Bjorn's friends knew my name before I met them which I thought was cool...

F.Y.I.

Her eyes are as blue as your toilet water?

Brekat's

chef Bjorn....turn on some Ryan Bingham to get the whole ambiance

Bjorn's radical breakfast to even the keel

You could fit a penguin in each side of that!

It's like a summertime version of my corduroy hat

Fitness food

Saturday breakat's. Bjorn knows what he's doing.

Saturday night on the town after a goodwill trip

All you can eat Sushi in out suits

Jager bombs!

Who knew finding a cutting board could be so exciting!

Hashed out...good bye Boise!

Posted in Weekend Getaways | 1 Response »
Tags: Bjorn, Boise, Idaho

Europe ’04

Sunday, January 25th, 2009

I recently acquired all of my emails that I sent from Europe when I traveled there in 2004. They are located in the Pages category to the right. What a wild ride…here’s and excerpt.

“…now this is the part of the story where Cologne gets a little scary, to say the least. I woke up at about ten in the morning, and noticed a couple of people in my room. In the corner there were a couple of German chicks, and then there was an American guy in the bed next to me. The chicks took off, and I started to bullshit with the American. He was about 35 to 40 years old, a truck driver from California, and he looked fucking weird. He looked similar to Jeffery Dahmer, if that helps. Anywho, we were having a conversation about traveling. I told him where I had been, and some “must see” places. He told me about some cool countries, and places that I should probably check out. Then in the middle of the conversation, he stops talking about travel and says “I’m bi-sexual and if you want me to suck your…” more here

Posted in Weekend Getaways | 2 Responses »
Tags: europe, solo, trains, travel

The Official Northwest Experience

Monday, December 15th, 2008

Aww, that title’s just a jab at kink fm’s obnoxious Land Rover commercials. But we did have a wonderful northwest experience this weekend. We headed into the hills above Estacada on sunday to track down a tree for my parents.

Permits are only $5 to cut a 12′ tree on US forest service land. We got bonus adventure points because it dumped snow saturday night and sunday morning. And you’ll notice a gal in the pictures. Here name’s Kara an she’s now my girlfriend. She is radical and can pick a mean tree.

Taking off from South East

Hawthorne. Truck good. Car bad.

I think she was nervous I was going to ram into something trying to take a photo while I fly down a snow covered road trying to get a good shot of us. Hehe:)

I think she was nervous I was going to ram into something trying to take a photo while I flew down a snow covered road trying to get a good shot of us. Hehe:)

Aww. Ok, sap meter off.

In search of the perfect tree. There we're lots, and it came down to a tight decision.

Kara never told me she likes to eat christmas trees. I can live with that.

Too big....

Posted in Weekend Getaways | 1 Response »
Tags: Christmas, Kara, Snow, tree, truck, Winter

502 in the ‘stan

Wednesday, November 26th, 2008

We are worldwide baby! Well, we have been since the initial invasion when General Simpson set foot. But now its official with the 502 flag! Are you going somewhere crazy and dangerous? Send me a message and if it’s just crazy enough, I’ll sew you a flag for your next adventure. No bartering flag for beers, women or pony rides. My only fee is a picture…

Posted in Design, Weekend Getaways | No Responses »
Tags: 502, Afghanistan, Flag, Sewing, Special Forces

Northside 2008

Sunday, November 2nd, 2008

Well, it was nothing like northside 2007 elk hunting. This was my second year in a row guiding/ hanging out and not hunting. It was also my second time going on a hunting trip and not hunting. It’s kind of nice to just hang out and help.

Headed out!

Set up

Stu and his functional art

Kyle finding out he bought 4 jars of sweet pickles!

First Morning @ Pee Log.

Bigfoot sign!!!!

We got lots of props for the 502 flag...

: Camp all set up

Pretty sunrise

Cow - Dead center of photo. Click to enlarge.

Cow elk - Dead center of photo. There were 8 total. No bulls:( Click to enlarge.

Stu and I at the location of my 2006 bull. Brought back great memories (and hard work).

Kicked back on Recliner Rock overlooking the same meadow from my '06 bull.

Recliner Rock + rain

Hey! No elk over there!

Sunset

Creepy flagpole for Halloween night

Fireside

We heard crashing on this hillside and I looked with my binos. I saw a boulder the size of a washing machine saling over 60 foot trees. Then it hit a tree at the bottom and the valley shook like thunder....

How often do you find a midget in the woods?

My midget turned out to be a choker cable for logging.

Kevin took 3 of these high quality photos while looking for elk. The flash lit up the valley 3 times. We saw 0 elk....

Kevin took 3 of these high quality photos while out and about. The flash lit up the valley 3 times. We saw 0 critters....

Tate at the card table

Kevin and Kyle - likely realizing I have them crushed. Typical expressions.

Daylight savings - we woke up an hour late!

End of the last hunt. No bull:(

Tate making the glorious double burgers with string cheese. I had 10 over the week....time to run em off.

Welp, no bull. But we did have a better week than this guy. Hope he made it out ok.

Posted in Weekend Getaways | 3 Responses »
Tags: bull, Elk, hunting, northside

Bend for blacktail….

Monday, October 27th, 2008

At 1AM Friday night(Saturday morning?) we decided to leave for our destination which made for a long night.

Figuring out where to go on the way out. I think it’s called “Speed Scouting”. It’s not very effective.

It's a good idea to turn the flash off when being sneaky in the woods. Tate just rolled his eyes....

Flash off!

Matt, Tate and I back at the truck after a LONG hike and not seeing any deer. I fell asleep twice while out and about....

Kevin and I were excited to find the weather kept everything icy cold.

Halloween party at Matt's later. Operation, Sarah Palin, The Flintstones, and a U of O fan(hippy?)

Ninja(look close!), Fred Flintstone, T. Boone Pickens, Todd Palin

Todd and I

When Todd's not winning snowmobile races he's hustling.

Posted in Weekend Getaways | No Responses »
Tags: Bend, Blacktail, Blue Suit, Flintstones, Halloween, Sarah Palin, Todd Palin

8 days

Tuesday, October 14th, 2008

I just spent 8 days helping a friend chase deer in Eastern Oregon. We were actually gone for 10 days, as the location(Hart Mountain) is 9 1/2 hours away.

Our trip started really smoothly, with us acidently driving past our turn off and winding up in nevada. We thought the signs were a joke until we notices the area code for roadside assistance was not Oregons. 40 miles later we were back on track.

We headed up Hart Mountain, and the rest is as follows.
Here are some important numbers:
3. Flat tires(2 in 1 day!)
15. Bucks spotted
0. Bucks taken
8-12. Inches of snow in 1 night
6. MRES eaten by each of us.
12. Hamburger patties for each of us(doubles with ham and cheese never got old)
1. Mean rattlesnake
50. Number of times Karl asked to shoot a smaller buck
50. Number of times I said “no, we’re going for a monster”

Click on the photos to enlarge.

Hart Mountain has it's own storm system...

Day 1: Clean

Karl's fired up for his first mule deer adventure!

Note the sign has a Big Horn Sheep and an Antelope, but no Monster Mule Deer. Hmm.....

Note the sign has a big born sheep and an antelope, but no monster mule deer. Hmm.....

After several attempts, we got our little palace up and running.

After several attempts, we got our little fort up and running.

Note the wind and lack of stakes to fight the wind: It kept us in check for the next 8 days.

We asked them where the big bucks were and they just stared at us

First night. Huge winds blew smoke down our chimney. Dont point the chimney at the wind.

Our fort at night.

First night. Huge winds blew smoke down our chimney. Don't point the chimney at the wind.

First morning hunt @ 5AM. Cold and dark!

Karl waiting to see what the light will bring

Glassing

This is where they hide.

MRE's for lunch - delicious ribs for me!

The flats bellow the face

Karl rolled his eyes every time I pointed out how pretty the scenery was.

Hamburgers good. Wet sleeping bag bad.

31 to pass the time. We also made shadow puppets to freak out the other campers. Similar to the Riyadah experience.

Multicam + Karl = Sneaky

Chicken MRE = Top performance!

If it were a Chevy, I would have cranked up "Like a Rock"

502 on top of things

Another beautiful sunrise

Fixing flat tire #1!

Karl said "Hey!". I thought, "Why is he being so loud if he sees a deer?". Then I almost stepped on this guy as he screamed "SNAKE!!!"

Flat tire number 2 hours after flat tire number 1!!!!

Sunset on the way to get tire 2 fixed...

Keeping the local tire guy in Lakeview in business

Irony

Aspens

"Hi tower"-The tall buck we chased for 3 days

Hi Tower @ 200 yards after I repositioned. He later took off after Karls muzzleloader failed to fire.

Hi Tower in field @ 200 yards after I repositioned. He later took off after Karl's muzzleloader failed to fire.

Karl celebrated his first stalk with a veggie burger MRE. I got tuna wraps!

Wrong kind of buck

Tire eater!

We found High Tower up here for a second day. He got away again after one of his friends spotted Karl sneaking up.

First snow

Man Opener, for when your can opener fails!

Chilly and lil' smokies!

Cold night!!!

Almost hit a wild horse this morning!

Flat number 3! We were faster than NASCAR by this time....

When it rains, it pours. When it snows, well, its colder than the rain.

Checking an area where a 30"+ buck was spotted.

Karl didn't have good snow clothes.

I did!

Hart Mountain is it's own world

Karl offering a delicious Quaker bar with MRE peanut butter.

Cold, wet and windy with a dash of broken cot.

Our last sunrise.

Brutal cutting wind

The roads became covered with snow drifts

I saw High Tower for the last time here. He was 75 yards away, but Karl was far away in a different area.

I saw High Tower for the last time here. He was 75 yards away, but Karl was too far down the mountain to get a shot.

Crisp, clean air

A beautiful day to cap a rough trip

The view from bellow

Headed home!

No deer were taken, but an unforgettable adventure that we will never forget.

Posted in Weekend Getaways | 1 Response »
Tags: Buck, deer, Flat, Hart Mountain, hunting, Lakeview, Mule, Oregon, Plush, Snow, Tires

Bird Watching

Monday, September 29th, 2008

I would call it pheasant hunting but no shots were fired. That, despite having 4 guys and 3 dogs. We covered a lot of ground and had a fun time. I think we would have came home with one bird, but Kevin happened to be taking a nap when it flew over him. The highlight was saved for the end when Tate stepped on a Hornets nest. He ran and ran and ran. Then stopped, thought he was clear and found out they had infiltrated his pants. Off they went….I can only imagine what outsiders thought was going on.