DarrenDriven el-Bloggo

Wrapping up the Elevens

2011-12-31T10:56:00.001-08:00

Wow, is 2011 already over? I haven't blogged for six months!?!

Well, not too much has happened in the last half a year. I lived in my cute little Mount Tabor house for six months with my old friend and former-roommate Kyle. Then in November we cleared out and I turned my house into my first rental home. Two cool guys moved in at the beginning of December and I moved back into my Dad's empty South Waterfront condo.

I took two trips to Maupin this year. I officially had the best and worst runs over Boxcar ever. The best happened with a completely full raft (Project Mayhem) and everyone got dumped into the cold, swirling water. (Chase held on the longest, but when the raft is upside down you eventually have to let go) On my second trip out I took a few of the kids and somehow I went BEHIND Boxcar and missed the rapid altogether. We carried Bumblebee Tuna back up the road and hit Boxcar a second time. It wasn't easy, but it was worth it.

My pair of calico kittens were split up. In September I allowed both kittens to wander around outside while I ran a 20 minute errand. I rarely let them outside, but it was a nice day and this was the first time that I ever let them stay outside unattended. When I returned 20 minutes later one of the kittens had vanished. It turns out that a young girl who was walking home from school picked the kitten up and carried her home, five blocks away. She kept it overnight and then let it go in her back yard. That was the last that anyone ever saw of her. On the bright side, the remaining kitten got much friendlier now that she was solo. What can ya do?

My addiction to cars runs unabated. I bought a 2005 Pontiac GTO soon after I bought the Jeep. The 450hp GTO made the Jeep seem REALLY slow, so I sold that and bought a 2007 Dodge Ram with the Hemi. Sold the Bondo Condo to Windell's Camp near ZigZag on Mt. Hood (so look for it on your right side when you head up to the mountain) Then the GTO started falling apart (100,000 abusive miles) so I sold that and just recently bought a 2005 Nissan 350Z convertible from a little old lady who barely drove it. I don't think there is any cure for the motor oil that runs in my blood.

I spent both of my holiday vacations in Idaho this year. I went to Lewiston, Idaho, for Thanksgiving with my Livengood family, where Inge, their grandma, treated us to colorful German stories and even better authentic German food. (Schnitzel, anyone?) Then for Xmas I headed to Pocatello, Idaho, with my Dayborn family and enjoyed the company of a couple of my brothers (Zack and Seth are really Sierra's brothers) along with Mica+Jodi and Mica's parents. One night Mica's grandma Marie came over and taught me how to play Mahjongg. She is 95-years-old, very feisty and liked to erupt in German randomly. What are the chances of two authentic German grandmothers in two different Idaho towns over two different holidays?

And now the adventure continues into 2012...

Jeepin', Montavilla and Asian-Alcohol-Pets

2011-06-01T12:52:00.000-07:00

I have now been back in my homeland for two months and the time has flown. It is hard to explain, but things are just easy. I don't have to stress out at the grocery store worrying about unintelligible labels or conversion rates. I realize how much I missed the freedom of driving where I want, when I want. (but not missing how great it felt not to be shelling out for gas and insurance) As much as I am still trying to avoid the collection of "things" I am glad that I have a few more of life's basic necessities. (and not having to continuously cram them into a small backpack) I can tell that there will be more adventures like the great 2010-2011 trek, but for now I am just relaxing.

One of the first tasks I knocked off of my return list was to get my transportation back in order. That was achieved with the procurement of a bad boy Wrangler four-door which I look forward to rolling around in this Summer sans top and doors.

Now mobile, I directed my attention to my living situation. The first month back was spent crashing in Dad's vacant South Waterfront condo, but since he returns to Portland in the summer there was an hourglass in the back of my mind. I found a small two-bedroom house in the evening shadow of Mount Tabor. It's a little green yardless cutey tucked behind some trees and bushes. I've always wanted a shop for my boy toys, and this house has a 35x25 behemoth in the space where a backyard should be. It works for me!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_DVIoUrVq8

I spent the first couple of weeks cleaning out the massive shop, painting a cool mural on the back wall and painting flames around the entire lower perimeter. My ex-roommate Kyle happened to be building a race car to compete in some Formula D drift competitions this Summer, so I have rented out half of the shop to him. It's cool to wander out to the shop to follow his progress.

Since I had a residence and a roommate again, I added two more little roomies that get to live rent-free. Two Calico sisters (that are both sleeping peacefully on my lap as I write this) have adopted me and are creating havoc with my unpacked boxes and loose items. The black one is Sake (sah-kee) and the white one is Sujo.

Now that Summer is approaching I look forward to all of the activities that I used to do before I owned a boat: hiking, biking, camping. For now, I am just taking a deep breath and appreciating where I am. Welcome home!

Home Sweet Home (100th post)

2011-03-31T23:30:00.000-07:00

It feels like it was all just a dream. I'm back in Portland now, after a day without internet. After a day of cold and wind. That's just the way it is at 30,000 feet. I snuck back into town so I could surprise a few people. I told the two kids that I mentor that I had extended my visa and wasn't coming home until August. They freaked out when I knocked on their doors. I tried to trick my mom into buying magazines from a high school kid to fund a trip to Australia, but unfortunately she didn't take the bait and slammed the door in his face as I tried to surprise her by stepping out from beyond her field of view. She thought she was about to experience a home invasion and was extremely relieved when she found out it was just me. Oops.

The funniest thing is that the first true realization of being home was when I went to turn on a light and the switch went up instead of down or sideways or in or whatever. It is the little things that really define what home is. I want coins that make sense (the Australian $2 coin is the size of a dime and the twenty cent coin is almost as big as our half-dollar!), I want to understand what strangers are saying (true, Oz was easier than China, but sometime it was nearly as futile), I want to eat effortlessly (not easy unless you choose Micky D's as your main staple) and I want to see the people that make Portland my home. Ahhhh, it feels good to be home.

Of course, I am technically still homeless. Now that I am back I am going to get my driving and living situations sorted out ASAP. I'm still living out of a backpack and I'll be driving a rental car for the next week. In the next month I hope to either find a house to buy or find an apartment that I can temporarily call home.

And now, a few of my favorite moments from the past four months...

Meeting Elvis, the huge Napoleon Maori Wrasse that lives in Blue Pearl Bay

Surfing the coast with the Mojo Surf Camp in Crezzo and Spot X

Drinking more than too much with my fellow Wolfpackers from Sydney to Airlie Beach

Wakebarding at the cable park outside of Noosa

Successfully ordering our first meal from a non-English-speaking restaraunt in Shanghai

Hanging out with the Shanghai Crew at the Bulldog while we proved how much trivia we didn't know

Spending a true week relaxing, recovering and revitalizing at the Southern Cross Hostel in 1770

Internet Troubles

2011-03-28T01:40:00.001-07:00

Just found out that my access to the Internet will be down for at least the next 24 hours. No new news anyway, so I'll be quiet for a couple of days. It's supposed to be very cold and windy tomorrow anyway...

Doing Nothing

2011-03-26T20:17:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was hungover, but today I feel great. Light clouds have rolled in and the humidity has evaporated so it is a perfect 80-ish degrees and occasional sun. There is even a nice little breeze! I swam some laps in the pool this morning, played a few games of ping pong and now I am back in the hammock working on my book. (Not a great book, so it is kind of work)

The family that owns/runs the hostel know me now, so it is starting to feel a little like home. I might stay a few more days again. The only downside is that the internet is up and down all of the time so I never know if I can get my messages and read the news. There are worse things.

Bundaberg Rum and Bin Bags

2011-03-25T20:51:00.001-07:00

Last night was party night here at Southern Cross, and once again I drank too much. I had a leftover bottle of Bundaberg Rum (made just a few miles from here) from the Whitsundays trip that I was tired of lugging around, so I managed to "dispose" of that in about an hour. Ouch.

Today is a down day so I can rid myself of this pounding headache. I'm realizing that it is a much different experience to stay in one place than it is to travel every day with the same group. Most people are here for one or two nights, so just as I have met people and remember their names they are gone. What's worse, the outgoing buses that stop in Agnes Water come through at 7am so by the time that I wake up each morning the three other beds in my room are empty again. On the bright side, it is a great way to continuously meet a steady stream of new people. (Since I have been here there have been only girls staying in my room, so I'm not in any hurry to leave!)

I booked a few more nights here since I am having such a good time. This place is just what I was hoping to find, and small paradise that is a little off the beaten path.

Roo Spotting

2011-03-24T14:37:00.000-07:00

Oops, I forgot to post yesterday. After a lazy morning I rented a bicycle and rode for several hours in order to spot a kangaroo in the wild. I rode the same route that the Scooteroo tour took me a couple of weeks ago, but all of the places that we had spotted kangaroos were without. Finally, after sweating half of my body weight away I found a house with a huge front yard and there were four kangaroos hanging out. They weren't big ones, but at this point I was so exhausted that I didn't care.

As I pulled out my camera I heard a droning buzz quickly approaching and almost immediately the Scooteroo tour (40+ scooters strong) cruised by and the Kangaroos went scurrying. What luck! After a few minutes the kangaroos came back, though. I took some video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ac4ZPa_zWIA

Today I plan to finish off my book and hang out with all of the girls around the pool. This place has about 50 guests max, and right its about 75% female!

Yeah, but what is it?

2011-03-23T00:09:00.000-07:00

Woke up early this morning thanks to the fact that I've had to wake up early the last few mornings for various reasons. It was nice to eat breakfast while everyone else was sleeping. I borrowed a shovel, caught the early shuttle from the hostel to the beach, and spent a couple of hours building a large sand castle/sculpture thing. There were many people walking on the beach and ever few minutes somebody would ask me what it was and I never had an answer. A guy in his forties commended me and told me that I had a better appreciation of the beach than most of the residents of this town. I smiled.

Video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17dGe7Lf5UA

The sun was hot. After a couple of hours I had to retire to the shade and drink the rest of my water. The sand-thing was crumbling while I watched it and within an hour the tunnels had collapsed and the details had melted. Today was probably around 90 degrees, but it is a heat that is unlike anything that I have ever experienced. The intensity from the sun is incredible. I am an ant under a magnifying glass.

Not sure what my plan is tomorrow. I bought a new book from the overstock at the local library, so I will probably dive into that. Tonight is karaoke night here so hopefully I can impress some of the cute girls that are staying here.

Back to 1770

2011-03-21T19:58:00.000-07:00

I watched a captivating, three-hour lightning storm that punctuated a most beautiful sunset over the town of Emu Park last night. It was far enough away that we didn't get rained on, but close enough that the thunder shook the windows in their frames. I love thunder and lightning so i just stayed up until the storm fizzled out.

This morning I had to wake up at 4:40am in order to catch the shuttle bus that took me to a nearby larger town in order to catch the Greyhound. Unfortunately, the Greyhound was delayed because of flooded roads, so I got to sit in an empty parking lot for a couple of hours. I never got to sleep on the bus, so I am teetering on the edge of narcolepsy at the Southern Cross Hostel in Agnes Water. Nap time, here I come.

You may recognize Agnes Water because I was here last week. I have cycled back south while the flooding that is occuring up north recedes. This hostel is a true paradise and now that I am here solo (without the Mojo crew) I can relax and appreciate uninterupted the beauty around me (landscapes and females). I plan to stay here for four nights and then move north again to meet up with the Mojo guys in Mission Beach and then Cairns.

So there won't be a lot of updates from me in the next few days, but trust that life is good.

Emu Park

2011-03-20T18:27:00.000-07:00

Took the overnight Greyhound to Emu Park and found another sleepy little beach town. This is probably the quietest town that I have been to, there are only a few restauraunts and the first two that I tried to visit were closed for good. I need a little relaxation, though, so I am heading down to the beach with my book and I plan to spend a few hours with sand between my toes and the sound of the waves breaking.

Tomorrow I am waking up early to catch another Greyhound and am heading to 1770 again for a few days. My group of fellow travelers has started to disband, so I am going to spend the next week dipping my toes in the pool and catching a few winks.

Another Day, Another Room

2011-03-19T22:08:00.000-07:00

We partied hard last night, shots kept being delivered tome my friends. The town of Airlie Beach is small, but since it is mainly supported by the vibrant backpacker community there are plenty of bars and dance clubs to choose from. They all vary their happy hour specials, so the patrons cross back and forth from one end of the town to the next like packs of wild dingos.

We are taking a midnight Greyhound tonight, and since we had to checkout of our hostel room at 10am we are temporarily homeless. The rain-to-sun-to-rain pattern has returned, so we snuck back in to our hostel room and are currently squatters hoping that our room stays empty for the night. So far so lucky! At least we have sweet, sweet air conditioning as today is one of the most humid that I have experienced.

Tomorrow morning I will wake up in Emu Park, a town that got skipped because the only hostel was fully booked. I look forward to relaxing in a hammock by the pool and finishing off my book tomorrow.

Brushing My Teeth

2011-03-18T19:42:00.000-07:00

Today I brushed my teeth with sand. Seriously. The white sand found in Hill Inlet on Whitsunday Island was washed out of an underwater extinct volcano after thousands of years of swirling against itself. The pure silica sand can be used to polish metals, exfoliate your skin or even to brush your teeth. Just make sure you bring some water for a good rinse!

Went snorkeling again today and met Elvis, the largest tropical fish that I have ever seen. He is so friendly that some of the people in our group even hugged him. He let me run my palms down his sides and it was quite a moment.

The Atlantic Clipper has docked now and we're in Airlie Beach for one last night before we start moving north again.

Hook Island Resort

2011-03-17T14:04:00.000-07:00

The Atlantic Clipper stopped by a small, private resort yesterday evening, where our group enjoyed hand-made drinks and frolicked in a swimming pool overlooking the beach. The owner and operator of the resort was also the crazy bartender, and he was a super-hyper, A.D.D.-addled, Redbull-fueled spaz, which made the place even more fun and memorable.

I have no cell signal on the boat, but when I woke up this morning my emails were downloaded, so I'm hoping this email makes it out across the blue waves and around the 74 Whitsunday Islands.

Headed out to the Whitsundays

2011-03-16T14:33:00.001-07:00

I leave this morning on the Atlantic Clipper, a three-level, 113-foot party yacht complete with water slide and deck-top hot tub. I won't have any internet until I return from three days of exploration, diving and partying through the Whitsunday Islands.

Chillin at the Lagoon

2011-03-16T03:47:00.000-07:00

After yesterday's 70km bike ride we were perfectly happy to relax for a day. Since the sharks and jellyfish are constant dangers, the town of Airlie Beach was thoughtful enough to put in a freshwater lagoon right at the beach. We spent most of the day throwing the frisbee and soaking up rays through our 30SPF.

A travel agent tipped us to a $10 dinner special at a local bar which included steak, chips (fries) and a pint of beer. We all ate two meals and now we're headed out for some late night drinks. Tomorrow morning we'll get on our Clipper and sail through the Whitsunday Islands for three days.

Cedar Creek Falls

2011-03-15T02:34:00.000-07:00

Still hanging out in Airlie Beach, but after yesterday's rain-induced confinement we woke early and rented bikes for the day.

We road 70km round trip to check out Cedar Creek Falls, which is an oasis in the middle of the forest. Nothing is flat here, so we were challenged by rolling hills and even a couple steepies that we had to walk up. At one point we even had to cross a road that recent rains had flooded. Knee-deep water didn't stop us! (YouTube vid tomorrow)

Tomorrow is our orientation and safety briefing for the boat trip into the Whitsunday Islands, then the boat leaves the morning after.

Row Row Row Your Boat

2011-03-13T21:20:00.001-07:00

I don't have a boat, but I might have to get one soon. This morning we woke up to find several inches of standing water covering the grass outside of our hostel cabin. The sky was dark and fat raindrops were banging off of the tin metal roof so loudly that we had to raise our voices to communicate.

A drainage ditch that runs through the back of the hostel grounds went from dry to raging. I walked barefoot around the town and saw plenty of other visitors hiding under awnings and makeshift umbrellas.

Today is movie day and book day. The bike ride plan has been pushed back until tomorrow.

Recovery

2011-03-13T04:13:00.000-07:00

Walked around Airlie Beach today and checked out the town. Not much to see, but tomorrow we are going to rent bikes and roam a little farther. Relaxed and recovered from drinking last night.

The beach was made up of tiny shells more than sand. It was pretty cool just to look at the variety of shapes and colors of the itty bitty shells.

Airlie Beach

2011-03-12T00:15:00.001-08:00

Another one-street tourist trap filled with trendy boutique shops and restaurants. We are here for the week then will head out to the Whitsunday Islands on Thursday for a three-day sailboat tour. (now sit right back and you'll hear a tail, a tail of a fateful trip...) After that we'll hit Mission Beach and then Cairns.

Last night was rough, a ten hour bus ride that that dropped us here at 7am. Unfortunately check-in wasn't until noon so we got to sit in the lobby for five hours. Blegh.

Going out drinking tonight. Ciao!

Scooter Roo and Kangaroos

2011-03-11T02:11:00.000-08:00

Today was a lazy morning in Agnes Water, since it was our last night here we had to check out of the hostel at 10am, but my Greyhound bus doesn't leave until 9:30pm, so I'm homeless for the day. Taylor and I hoofed it into town and ate some delicious sandwiches, then we went on the Scooter Roo mini-chopper tour. It is essentially a three-hour 50cc scooter tour, on bikes that look like mini Harley choppers.

I FINALLY SAW MY FIRST KANGAROO! As we mini-choppered around the area in our 30-strong biker gang I saw about 20 different kangaroos hanging out in fields and yards along the quiet roads. I tried to snap photos, but my camera wouldn't cooperate as I zipped along on my badass chopper. I feel better having seen some, though.

Tonight is a hardcore Greyhound ride that leaves Agnes Water at 9:20pm and arrives in Airlie Beach at 7am. I plan to read, watch some TV on my laptop and sleep.

Smashing Sandcastles

2011-03-10T00:02:00.000-08:00

Today we headed down to the beach in Agnes Water and got our last surfing of the northern journey in. As we move north from here the Great Barrier Reef will block the waves from reaching the shore and surfing is impossible. We also rented a couple of boogie boards which we nearly as fun in the medium-sized waves.

The sand was perfect for sandcastle building, so we made a crazy 70s-era modern castle in about an hour. Some of these guys had never built a sandcastle before and regarded it as work, but I introduced them to the fun of destroying a sandcastle and they were pretty enthusiastic about that.

Tonight is a chill night for us, since the bar at our hostel (one of only two bars in the entire town, and the other is a 40-minute walk on a highway with no shoulders) closes at 10pm. We might play Century Club tonight to use up the extra beer cans that we have been lugging around.

1770 (Agnes Water)

2011-03-09T03:13:00.001-08:00

Internet here is crap, and I'll be here for the next two days. No cell signal either, so I can't post my regular photo, but you will survive.

This is a tiny town and there are no real bars or anything, but my hostel has a bar with ping pong and karaoke, so I should be happy for tonight. Tomorrow is going to be surfing and a scooter tour of the town? We'll see.

Back from Fraser Island

2011-03-08T02:48:00.000-08:00

Just returned this afternoon from a three-day adventure on Fraser Island, the world's largest sand island. Our group, plus three others, were handed the keys to some classic Land Cruiser Troopies and we spent most of three days exploring the sand trails, beaches, freshwater lakes and wildlife on the island. We spent nights at a permanent camp that is shared by several other adventure groups, so there were about 100 people drinking and partying in camp each night.

During the days we swam in beautiful, secluded freshwater lakes with catfish and small turtles nearby. We hiked to vantage points that allowed awesome views of miles of sandy beach. We ate lots of bread and ham!

It was fun, but I'm glad to be back on firm ground with showers and real food. Ate myself silly tonight, stomach hurts a little now. Tomorrow is a bus ride to the town called 1770.

Hervey Bay

2011-03-04T22:52:00.000-08:00

A three hour bus ride this morning dropped us off at Hervey Bay, one of the fastest growing communities in Australia. It is a sprawling town that reminds me of every suburb I've ever seen, except that it happens to border a calm, sheltered body of sea water.

Early tomorrow morning our group will pile into a couple of 4X4 Toyota Landcruisers and be ferried across the bay to Fraser Island, the largest sand island in the world. We'll spend three days (probably without any Internet) roaming the island and partying in permanent tent cities at night, with groups of other campers doing the same thing.

The weather has lightened up and the rain has stopped, and though it will remain cloudy for the next 48 hours it will still be warm enough to ditch shoes and shirts. God this place is great!

Rainy Day

2011-03-04T02:00:00.000-08:00

Last night as I tagged and captioned photos in my Picasa album on a lounge chair by the pool, a large bat hanging in the palm tree above me spilled some precious guano across my back, shoulders and white towel. After a quick dip in the pool to wash it off I snapped a couple of photos that are worth checking out here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/darrendriven/australia2011
(scroll to the last photos to see it)

Last night a serious rain storm took hold of the region and the roar of rain woke me up several times. It rained all day today so our posse lazily napped and relaxed, trapped in our hostel room. The beach volleyball court turned into a pool and the actual pool overflowed and ran down the pathway leading to the lower rooms.

We escaped the rain inside of the local theater and watched No Strings Attached as we drank cola laced with rum purchased from the bottle shop next door. (props to Jodi and Mica for that practice)

Tonight is going to be another rally night as we just purchased two more boxes of "goon" (wine in a box) and three more fifths of rum.

Tomorrow is a travel day from Noosa to Hervey Bay, where we will stay one night then begin our three-day Fraser Island camping and 4X4 adventure.

RHD and Bli Bli

2011-03-03T02:32:00.000-08:00

Totally hungover yesterday, hit the sack early last night while everyone else went out. Felt great this morning and rented a Nissan X-Trail, which is similar to a Honda CRV, and drive around Noosa a little to get used to driving on the "wrong" side of the road. I had no problems, but kept hitting the wipers instead of the turn signals.

Noon was creeping up quickly, and I got the peanut gallery piled into the SUV and we drove about 30km south to Bli Bli. We spent the entire day at a cable park, which is essentially a man-made lake with a long cable running around pulleys suspended from tall poles. You can do laps around the lake and there are ramps and rails just like a snowboard park. (If you fall you get to swim to shore and walk back to the start ramp) I had fun pulling grabs and 180s off of the tallest jump and even successfully navigated one of the intermediate rails. I also crashed. A lot.

Dinner was a great burger at the local Irish pub and a couple pints of Kilkenny's to wash it down. Now I'm pleasantly exhausted and I'll have no problem zonking out.

On the road again...

2011-03-01T19:21:00.001-08:00

Went out to a club last night, drank a lot and somehow walked the wrong way when I left. A two-block walk turned into a 40-minute exploration of Surfer's Paradise.

Slept late, watched Zombieland in the hostel's TV room and now it's early afternoon and I'm on a Greyhound headed for Noosa, by way of Brisbane. Three hours in a comfortable air-conditioned reclining seat, I can deal with it!

It's a hot one

2011-03-01T00:58:00.001-08:00

The sun was out today and the clouds were gone. 92 degrees is hot in Portland, but in Australia it feels like 120. Since the ozone layer is destroyed here the UV isn't filtered out and you can burn in minutes, so staying in the shade is important.

Today we chilled out at the hostel. I slept 12 hours last night, fighting a sore throat that is tickling the back of my throat. As the sun was starting to dip behind the tallest trees Tyler and I started a tennis match that soon turned epic. After we were tied 6-6 games we played a long tie-breaker that ended well for me. Dripping sweat we shook hands and went back to hiding in the shade.

Hopping on a bus to Noosa Heads tomorrow. It should be a smaller town, quieter and more laid-back.

Wet'n'Wild

2011-02-28T01:51:00.001-08:00

Today our mishmashed group went to a water park about 30 minutes from Surfer's Paradise. We spent the entire day lathered in waterproof SPF30, broiling under the hot sun. Slides, tubes and lazy rivers balanced out the $15 burger and $4 bottle of water. A couple of cute Canadian girls (Kelsea and Georgia) kept smiles on our faces.

A day to relax

2011-02-27T01:57:00.001-08:00

Walked a few miles to buy some nokia Bluetooth speakers today. (check the spider video on YouTube) the rest of the day was relaxing. Tomorrow is a water park!

Surfer's Paradise

2011-02-26T06:47:00.001-08:00

Took Greyhound to surfer's Paradise today with no idea what I was in for. I thought it would be a little town, but instead I am greeted with a taste of Miami. The world's tallest residential building is a block away and the beach was restricted to several small swimming areas because of the threat of sharks. No one was even surfing!

Bye Bye Byron

2011-02-24T23:46:00.000-08:00

OK, I am going to make some time to say more than a sentence today. For once I didn't stay up really late last night so I woke up relatively early and felt rested. I haven't really been too hungover since the strongest beer here is 4.5% and the bars mix their wells very thin. Today was my last full day in Byron Bay and the cloudy, sometimes-rainy weather of the last few days finally improved and there wasn't a cloud in sight and the temps were near 90 degrees again. It is strange, because this place has the exact same vibe as Seaside and it is hard to swallow the fact that I am 13,000 miles away. Becky noted that it is snowing in Seaside (and Portland) so I guess there is a measurable difference.

I hadn't surfed since our Mojo trip ended a few days ago, but today we negotiated our way into a couple of free board rentals from our hostel and spent most of the day chilling on the beach taking turns surfing the easy waves. Our group is made up of nine guys from the Mojo adventure: me, one from Canada, four from England and three from Holland. We also booked our next adventure today, which is really two different trips. March 6th through 8th we are heading to Fraser Island, a long sand island, where we will receive some 4WD trucks and camping supplies and will take a semi-guided tour of the island's many features, such as freshwater-lakes, shark-infested beaches (no swimming!) and natural wildlife (kangaroos, koalas and dingos). March 17th through 19th we are hopping on a three-level, 30-person Clipper sailing ship that will take our party to the Pacific and should include feeding and swimming with non-captive dolphins, playing games, chilling in the on-deck jacuzzi and ingesting more alcohol than is probably safe.

Between those dates I will be bouncing up the East Coast with an open-ended, hop-on/hop-off Greyhound bus ticket, with stops in Surfer's Paradise, Noosa, Brisbane, Hervey Bay and finally end up in Cairnes. Tonight is our last night as a group in Byron Bay, and since it is a Friday night the local bars all have drink specials and ridiculous games planned so I am sure it will be tons of fun.

For the next few hours I'm just chilling in the hostel's patio as we finish out an impromptu ping pong tournament.

Darren (sent from phone)

Just Chillin

2011-02-24T02:15:00.000-08:00

Walked the beach today. Warm, but cloudy. Tomorrow we lined up free surf boards and the clouds should part.

Typical Beach Town

2011-02-23T05:49:00.000-08:00

I've hopped the Twilight Zone Express and I've teleported to Seaside Oregon, only it's called Byron Bay and it is in Australia.

Byron Bay

2011-02-22T00:14:00.001-08:00

My bus just arrived in Byron Bay, and we are currently unloading passengers at a hostel across from the town's main bar, Cheeky Monkey. We'll be heading there later!

Surfed our last session with the Mojo Surf guys this morning as it rained on us, but the water was so warm it didn't matter. A pair of dolphins swam about 50 meters from us as we waited for waves and it was pretty epic.

From this point on I'm making plans as they pop into my head, so stay tuned.

And Then There Were Two

2011-02-20T22:06:00.001-08:00

Last night around 3am a great thunderstorm rolled through, with blasting winds and sideways rain. When I woke for surf lessons this morning the clouds were light and the beach was inviting.

Since the rest of our group took off yesterday, Robert and I were the entire class. Our instructor was someone that we had not yet met, and he was the genuine article. Tanned, grizzled and very knowledgable. I made some great progress. After the lessons I found out that John (the instructor) had a second place trophy in the Australian surf finals. Wow!

Robert and I went back out this afternoon for our last free surf, but the waves were pretty messy from the wind. Our last lesson (from John again) is in the morning and then we head to Byron Bay.

Here are some self-taken photos as I hopped up on a small wave. Not easy shots to capture!

Het Leven Is Mooi

2011-02-20T01:39:00.000-08:00

I've met more Dutch people in the last few days than I have in my entire life. There have been a few Canadians as well, and a few Germans. Almost no Americans, but that's OK.

Surfing last night and this morning was just so-so because of winds that weren't optimal, but the perfect blue sky and 90 degree temps make trying to catch the messy waves enjoyable all the same. The weather turned tonight and a thunderstorm passed nearby, but the surf is supposed to be ideal in the morning. We might hit the beach at 5:30am to catch the smoothest water and watch the sunrise as well.

Nights have been fun. Our group from Sydney is full of cool guys and girls, and I've learned a new drinking game every evening. Most of the group left for Byron Bay a few hours ago, but my bunkmate, Robert, and I are both on the seven-day program so we get two more days of lessons before we hit Byron. Some of the group is going to wait for us in Byron and we are talking about going on a week-long boat trip to Fraser Island.

By the way, the title of this entry means "Life is Good" in Dutch.

Spot X

2011-02-18T13:57:00.000-08:00

We are now in Arrawarra at a large surf camp called Spot X. Most of our group from Crescent Head moved along with me, so there are many familiar faces. The surfing here is much easier, and I am looking a little better everyday. Yesterday was beautiful, but this morning there is some light rain. The ocean is warm, though, so rain doesn't really put a damper on anything.

After surfing yesterday, our group snowballed into a larger group that ended learning some new card games, played pool and then held an informal ping pong tourny.

I will be here at Spot X for the next few days before heading north to Byron Bay.

Adios Crescent Head

2011-02-17T14:25:00.000-08:00

We just got on the bus and left the paradise of Crescent Head. We had a morning and afternoon surf session yesterday, and last night the group of about 30 gathered around a campfire at the beach and drank too much.

We are now headed to a larger camp called Spot X. I plan to sleep the two hour bus ride, so good night.

One cell bar near Crescent Bar

2011-02-16T14:48:00.000-08:00

Hiked a few minutes up a nearby peak to capture one bar of cell service. Crescent Bar is absolutely gorgeous. Our hosts and coaches are authentic surfer dudes and the water or about 80 degrees. It was cloudy and raining on us yesterday (not that it mattered) but today is blue sky and big waves. Will be leaving tomorrow morning for a place called Spot X and hope to post another update from there.

Surfin Safari

2011-02-15T13:05:00.000-08:00

Just found out that I'll be out of reception for the next few days, so no updates from me. The bus picked me up at 6:00am and we are about two hours into hour six hour drive today. You'll hear from me again in a few days. Mojo Surf, baby!

Sydney

2011-02-14T21:14:00.000-08:00

I swear I will write more when I have more internet. Walked about 10km so far today, Sydney is beautiful!

Two hours in Hong Kong

2011-02-14T02:25:00.000-08:00

I got to see some fishing boats and high-speed ferries zig-zagging the bay as I landed in Hong Kong, but other than that my only experience is that of a modern airport, so I could be anywhere in the world.

I board my Virgin Airlines flight in a few minutes, and at noon Monday (Portland time) I will be Down Under.

This is my first experimental blog post using only my phone. Thanks for the tip, Seeborns!

Last Day in Shanghai

2011-02-12T20:11:00.000-08:00

I'm going to try to blog shorter and more often for my expedition to Australia. As I ready my backpack for tomorrow, I am reflecting on the differences I have noticed between Shanghai and Portland, both good and bad.

Near the top of my list, I will miss the transportation system. Shanghai has the longest subway system in the world and it keeps growing at an astounding rate. In the next few years it is planned to double in length. You can hop on the subway from nearly anywhere in the city and get pretty much anywhere else for about a dollar. The cars come every 3-4 minutes and they are long and clean. Subway doesn't run there? Then hop in a taxi! There are taxis everywhere you look and they cost about $2 for short hops. There are also a million buses, but I never made it onto one of them.

The scale of the city is a double-edged sword. I will miss the vision of Shanghai, which is China's statement to be world-leading global power. Money is thrown into municipal projects and skyscrapers that almost reach the moon. No matter where you go there is a tall building with an interesting architectural feature, or a crane holding the promise of a new building soon. On the flip side, there are just too many damn people here. (It is the most populous city in the world, ya know) This leads to some behavior that gets a little old. People push and shove their way into elevators and subways without regard for the people who might have to exit. After having to get out of an overloaded elevator or missing a packed-to-capacity subway car I understand the mentality, but I don't have to like it.

I will miss riding my bike through Shanghai traffic. It reminds me of downhill single-track riding on Mt. Hood. You zip in and out, dodge to and fro, squirt ahead to get around a bus, then slam on your brakes to avoid a taxi. It is exhilarating and exhausting and adrenalin-pumping. At the same time, it sometimes was hard to get psyched up for a ride to the market to get supplies, but I always felt great when I did get out there.

There are small things that I will gladly leave behind. Light switches flip down instead of up to turn things on (I never could get this down) and many lights in my building are sound-activated but are either burned out or are just ignoring me. The buildings here are poorly insulated, not that it would matter because local culture dictates that most windows and doors are wide open at all times to "get the bad air out", even if the bad air is warm and the fresh air is freezing. The smog is easy to wave goodbye to, but it did make for some beautiful sunsets.

So much for keeping this short! I will mostly miss Troy and Sierra. They are experiencing their own adventure now and although I am sure that we will communicate just as often as we do now, via email, it just won't be the same.

Tomorrow at 3PM Monday China Time (11PM Sunday Portland time) I will be getting onto a plane that will take me from Shanghai to Hong Kong, then to Australia where I will land at 7AM Tuesday Sydney time (Noon Monday Portland time) with an entire day to explore the city. Farewell everybody!

Zaijian Shanghai!

2011-02-06T18:31:00.000-08:00

Zaijian (Zie Jhen!) means goodbye in Mandarin, and I am officially saying zaijian to China. One week from today I will be getting on a plane with nothing but my backpack and a three-month Australian visa. China has been a real adventure in the true sense of the word, but I realized that I just didn't want to be in a large city no matter what language is spoken. I long for sunshine and warm temperatures.

In the last month we've gone pub crawling, maintained mediocre standings in a weekly trivia competition, survived a Shanghai blizzard, toured Shanghai's sushi scene via bicycle, survived the Chinese New Year's fireworks celebration, braved Spring Festival crowds in the Shanghai Aquarium, retreated to Tongli Watertown and hunkered through a second night of Spring Festival explosive celebration.

This past week has been the first half of a two-week celebration of Chinese New Year, which is called the Spring Festival. This year is the Year of the Rabbit, and vendors have been going crazy selling tiny little bunnies from bicycle stands on the street and even over the internet. Unfortunately, the coldest temperatures to hit Shanghai in a decade have not treated the adorable little rodents well. Many people who have ordered their bunnies via internet get a next-day package containing bunny popsicles.

On the bright side, the experience of Chinese New Year was possibly one of the craziest sights that I have ever seen. Our friends, Chris and Flo, invited about 30 people to enjoy the evening of Chinese New Year at a potluck on their balcony at the top of their high-rise apartment building. We arrived at 7:30pm and the fireworks that we could see around us were about equal to what you might expect on the evening of Independence Day in the states. The photos and video that I took at that time were deleted by the morning, because what happened at midnight was completely so overwhelming that those early hours meant absolutely nothing. It was as if every single adult (and some of the kids) in Shanghai spent their month's salary on fireworks and lit them off at the same time across the city. Un-FUCKING-believable. Times ten. And it didn't stop until nearly 3:00am! But the Chinese also seem to burn down a major landmark every New Year as well. Last year it was the CCTV building and this year it was a five-star hotel. Oops. Check out the view from our party in this VIDEO.

All of China seems to have the week off for Spring Festival, and Troy and Sierra are no different. We spent a day exploring Shanghai, something which I have had many opportunities to do but they have not. On our checklist was the Shanghai Aquarium, the largest aquarium in all of China. We thought that with most of the city being gone for the festival (most go home to family during this time) we could enjoy the aquarium quietly. Oops, the place was so packed that we saw almost nothing during the first half. Fortunately, once we made it past the bottleneck things opened up slightly and we got to enjoy some pretty awesome aquatic life via a moving walkway that slowly wound us through the longest underwater tunnel in the world. Sharks, stingrays and tropical fish swarmed around us. Most impressive was the jellyfish exhibit which featured several different tanks all lit by color-changing LED panels that made the alien-like creatures even more foreign. Check out the VIDEO.

To celebrate the Seeborns' time off, we joined a travel group and headed out to Tongli Watertown about two hours west of Shanghai. The entire trip was 1000 RMB, which is about $150 and included four eat-til-you-explode meals with open bar, rooms at a brand new five-star hotel and explorations of a 33-acre private garden, a full day at the ancient watertown and a boat trip to Hanshan Temple which is located on a small island in the middle of a lake. The highlight of our trip was actually exploring Tongli late at night with Felix and Elaine and a bag of beers. Even though the group's plan was to visit the town the next day, the five of us taxied our way to the town and spent more than an hour wandering through the dark alleys full of closed stores and quiet residences. It was great to see the town in a natural state before seeing it packed with tourists the next day. Overall it was an outstanding experience that we could have never planned as successfully ourselves (thanks Josie!) and we met many other travelers who were living in Shanghai from places around the world. Want a taste of true Shanghai? Check out this traditional music being performed by a woman who is wearing the same jacket is approximately 50% of all Shanghai women in this VIDEO.

We arrived back home last night and had no idea that Shanghai was preparing to explode yet again. The first night of the festival uses fireworks to scare away bad spirits from the previous year, but the fifth night is all about welcoming the gods of wealth and good fortune. So yet again, the entire city (and a forest in Eastern China) went up in sparks, smoke and echoing kabooms for several hours. In fact, as I took video down on the street Troy was on his balcony dodging flaming fragments of large fireworks that were lighting up the sky right near his apartment balcony. In the following video you can see a few of the fireworks near his apartment when I pan to the right in this VIDEO.

And so I leave Troy and Sierra to pursue their adventure in China. They look pretty sad, don't they? In one week I hop on a plane and land in Sydney, where I will get on a bus and spend the next week surfing up New South Wale's east coast under the hot Summer sun. I'll end up in Byron Bay, where I will find my next adventure.

...and the World's Your Oyster!

2011-01-09T23:51:00.000-08:00

OK, the lyrics actually say "one night in Bangkok" and I had four. Well, the last night didn't actually involve any sleep, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

The visa that allows me to stay in China requires that I leave the country every 60 days, then I can return 48 hours later. So with this in mind, I started looking for places to go that were relatively cheap and nearby. As luck would have it, my cousin Ryan was going to be in Thailand from the middle of December through early January. I haven't seen him for over a decade since he lives in San Francisco, but a few Facebook messages and the trip was a go. He even had a friend with some spare room for me to crash so I wouldn't have to get a hotel room. Way to go man! On top of that, flying SriLankan Airlines will get me there and back for only $200USD each way! Wahoo!

Things are never that easy. I should know that by now. The subway from Shanghai goes right to the airport, and there is even a high-speed mag-lev train that gets you there faster. Unfortunately, in order to catch the mag-lev you must get off the subway at the correct station, which I did not. I went three stops past, at which point I decided just to soldier on through eight more subway stops. What I also did not know is that those last eight subway stops take about 45 minutes instead of the 15 minutes I imagined. Oops. On the bright side, I met an African-Canadian art dealer on the train and he eagerly chatted me up as he seemed to be desperate for some English conversation. Since he had been to the Pudong Internation Airport many times, he told me exactly where I needed to go in order to efficiently meet my looming deadline. Sweet!

Things are never that easy. I should know that by now. I followed his instructions to the "T" and spent the next 20 minutes wandering around the wrong terminal. Note to self: there is a sign at the last subway station that tells you which terminal each airline flies from. In my false confidence I blasted right past that sign and did little doodle-laps through the incorrect terminal bouncing from check-in desk to check-in desk. Apparently SriLankan Airlines is pronounced completely differently in China because nobody had the slightest clue what the exasperated American was loudly blurting at them. Oops. Luckily, I finally made it to another sign which told me I was in the wrong terminal. Whew.

Things are never that easy. I should know that by now. After a panicked 1km sprint from terminal one to terminal two I felt that I was ready to rock. I quickly found the SriLankan check-in sign and looked for anybody that looked official. Nope. Zero. It was now 50 minutes before my flight was scheduled to leave and I soon found out that the check-in counter closes one hour before departure. No amount of begging or pleading over the phone would change that, as I ricocheted from the help desk to SriLankan support to the actual manager of the airport. (Seriously, anybody can just call him to say hi) I wasn't making the flight. To make things worse, SriLankan would happily put me on their next flight that was leaving in two days. Grrr.

OK, so already now you are tired of this story because you want to hear about Bangkok. I don't blame you. Let's just say that my dumb ass should have gotten an earlier start and call it good. I plunked down WAY too much money for a flight on Thai Airlines which left in a few more hours and I relaxed and drank a beer. A Guinness Stout.

The temperatures in Shanghai right now are right inline with Portland. We are hovering around freezing and have had a few flirtations with snow. My apartment in Shanghai is so drafty that my heater at 100% capacity keeps it about 65 degrees with a 40 degree concrete floor. I was desperate for some heat. As I stepped out of the airport all of my wildest dreams came true. The 80 degree evening quickly seeped through my light jacket and I just closed my eyes and soaked it in. Sehr gut. Muy Bueno. Fuck yeah.

The taxi driver takes my handwritten address and we take off (on the wrong side of the road) into a traffic situation very much like China's. Cars and bikes careening across the stripes and giant buses belching clouds of blue smoke into the air. There was almost no honking, though, which was quite a relief. Although there was a lot of traffic, people seemed to respect each others personal vehicle bubble, a nice change. The other thing I noticed was that Bangok is a true car-lover's city. I saw tons of customized cars and even many of the taxis were lowered and had spoilers and custom wheels. I even saw an ambulance with a custom wing and bodykit! I was almost ready to see my long lost cousin, who I hadn't seen since I was a kid.

Things are never that easy. I should know that by now. After 40 minutes of demolition derby we are now in a narrow, gravel alley bordered by stone walls on each side. There are overgrown bushes beyond the walls and broken glass on the ground. I catch the slightest whiff of rotten garbage and then, for the first time, I spot the street dogs. There are about a dozen mangy dogs laying on either side of the road (well, either side of the center of the road, there was no shoulder) and I'm starting to freak out a little. My driver can't find the address and his cell phone battery has died so we can't call. We spend another ten minutes going up and down the alley, when he borrows a stranger's phone and calls Ryan.

Things are finally that easy. We are less than a minute away and when the taxi turns back around I see Ryan and his super-cute friend, Michelle, standing in the road. They greet me warmly and take me into Michelle's home, which is one of the coolest houses that I have ever seen! After passing through a large double-door gate into a courtyard with a circular turnaround, there is a three-story Spanish-style house with a generous front porch. Inside the front doors was a large round courtyard with an open air roof design. Well, take a look for yourself:

The sun was long gone, but the night was still young. Michelle took us to one bar where I ate my first chicken knuckles and drank my first SangSom, an 80-proof rice liquor that is poured over ice and mixed with seltzer water and a splash of soda. Then we were whisked to "Parking Toys" which was a funky place with knick-knacks all over the walls. A Thai rockabilly club called Trix O' Treat was seriously killing it! A tiny little Thai girl was belting out greats like Good Golly Miss Molly, Johnny Be Good and Walk This Way while a thin guy tickled the electric guitar and a stocky fellow stood on his bass! I couldn't see the drummer, but he was just as good as the rest. Everybody in the joint was whooping and stomping their feet. It was probably the coolest single moment of my entire trip.

There was one last bar after that, which I remember being smartly crafted in the style of a 70's living room, but the liquor had taken effect at this point (as well as the big hand pointing at the 4) and we soon were deposited back at Michelle's house and zonked for the night.

Michelle hosts a local roaming variety television show, so on day two (Wednesday) she tasked the two of us with helping her create a piece for Children's Day, a national holiday in Thailand. We met her cameraman and birthday celebrator (named Sun? No, that isn't a question, it is how you correctly pronounce his name) from the evening before down by the banks of the Chao Phraya River, which runs right through Bangkok. (I researched it on Wikipedia which informed me that the river is home to the Giant Freshwater Stingray which can grow up to 1300 pounds!) Michelle, Ryan and I sat down on camera as she interviewed us about our childhoods, our tastes in music and our impressions of Bangkok. After that, as the sun starts to set, we wander through some international neighborhoods that are home to many hostels, then grab some Chang and Singha (beers) on a rooftop bar. The night ends early at the hangout called Happy Monday.

Thursday was a sleeper-inner and in the early afternoon the three of us went to the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre where I learned about the riots that had ravaged the city earlier in the year through a series of photo essays. It was a little jarring to see images of the city in flames and char, especially when you were blissfully ignorant of the chaos. Some shopping and wandering through various malls consumed the rest of the afternoon. In one of the malls I discovered a series of exotic car shops. There were actual dealerships on the third story of the mall, with Lotus, Maserat and Lamborghini (among others) represented. Check out the vid. We ended the evening back at that same mall with a much-needed air-conditioned viewing of Tron in their 3D Imax theater. In Bangkok when you go to a movie the seats are reserved like in an airplane, and you pay more for good seats than you would for seats at the edges or front. Our primo seats? Twelve bucks! Nice.

Friday was my last full day in Bangkok, as I had a 6:00 am flight back home. (Wow, Shanghai is home now) Ryan had decided that Michelle's tattoo hookup would be a great opportunity for him to get his first tat. We taxied our way across the city toward Contrast Tattoo. But first, we stopped at a market that wasn't much different than the markets found in Shanghai, but one entire level was almost entirely devoted to print tees! I was in heaven! I walked out of there with a bag of new tees and we continued on to the tattoo parlor. Suprise, surprise, Contrast Tattoo is owned and operated by the members of Trix O' Treat! These guys were a blast to watch in action on our first night, and hanging out with them at the shop was every bit as pleasurable. They were very friendly and before we knew it Ryan's forearms were expertly marked with his Mayan 11's.

That evening we arrived back at the local favorite watering hole, Happy Monday. The beer and SangSom flowed freely and before I knew it the time was near for me to taxi back to the airport. I was pretty drunk at this point and I barely remember the taxi ride at all. Easy peezy.

Things are never that easy. I should know that by now. When I stumbled up to the SriLankan Airlines check-in counter it was explained to me in stunted English that I did not actually have a seat on the plane. Apparently due to the fact that I had missed my flight from Shanghai to Bangkok, the airline had assumed that I would not want to fly back home. (In Shanghai I did tell them that I was flying the first leg on a different airline) I believe at this point my English may have been more stunted than the Thai airline representative. Through some miracle I was able to explain the whole sorted mess and secure passage back to the crowded city that I called home.

It is interesting that my shortest trip has earned the longest writeup. I am thankful that Ryan welcomed me into his trip with open arms and that Michelle was gracious enough to invite me into her home. (Getting pulled out of bed in the morning with hot breakfast on the table is friggin sweet!) I will end this here, with some video from the Mag-Lev train that runs from the Pudong airport in Shanghai, to a mysterious subway stop inside the city limits. Ciao!

Cars in Shanghai

2011-01-01T18:38:00.001-08:00

This is just a supplementary blog post for those of my friends who are gearheads like me. If you aren't a car enthusiast then you can just skip this one.

My first impression of the cars here in Shanghai is that with all of the chaos that I see there really aren't any clunkers or beaters roaming the streets. I have already been in a taxi that was involved in a collision, but for all of the total obliviousness to street signs and signals (not to mention no one even pays any attention to police cars or ambulances) there are hardly any cars with dents or even scrapes. I don't know how this is possible, unless there is some kind of law requiring cars to have no visible damage.

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Also, there are no old cars here. I mean, some of the cars on the road are cars that were designed in the 80s, but car ownership is a relatively new experience here and you would have a hard time finding a car on the road that is older than fifteen. Buick is the car to drive here, and you will find a variety of GM vehicles with Buick badges slapped on them. I spot Saturns and Chevys all over, but those two brands are rarely seen, instead they are Buicks. The truly elite are chauffeured in Bentleys and Mercedes, but some choose to be driven in Ford conversion vans that stand out like sore thumbs. Ambulances are crappy little vans that earn no respect from other drivers on the road. Nobody yields to emergency vehicles here.

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You can't help but notice the thousands of taxis ready to whisk you to your destination, but I was a little shocked to see a familiar shape from the past. Almost every single taxi, and most police cars, are VWs. They are called the Volkswagen Santana and it was sold as the VW Quantum in North America during the early 1980s. The car was also sold here in the 1980s, but production never ceased. You can still buy a brand new Santana and pretend that you are in the eighties. You can also find 90s-style Toyota 4Runners that are sold under the brand "Great Wall" which bought the tooling from Toyota and sells these reliable SUVs with a minor facelift.

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Speaking of Great Wall, they were in the news a few years ago because they ripped off the Scion xB and sold it as the Coolbear. Well, I have seen some of these around and now they have Dodge-style tail lights and Chrysler-style front ends. I've also seen several Shuanghuan Nobles, which are blatant Smart Car clones. In fact, the company tried to sell the car in Europe but Mercedes blocked the importation on copyright infringement grounds.

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Because of the relative newness of auto ownership, I really didn't expect to see many nice cars here. I was wrong. There are tons of Porsches, Bimmers and Benzos. One day when I was walking I passed the Land Rover, Porsche, Mercedes, Ferrari and Maserati dealerships within a few minutes. I have seen a dozen Ferraris, a handful of Bentleys, a Lambo, an Audi R8 and just yesterday I drooled over a sweet white Aston Martin that drove down my street. It is pretty amazing, considering that this is a culture where owners purchase their cars in cash and where auto loans simply don't exist.

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The primary form of transportation for most people here is either scooter, bike or subway/bus. Everywhere you look there are bikes and scooters locked to posts and fences. There are huge lots full of chained and U-locked beach cruisers and Vespa-clone electric scooters.

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In the month that I have been here I have seen exactly one Lexus SC430 and exactly one Honda S2000. I guess that the Chinese just don't share my taste in automobiles.

Our First Month

2011-01-01T02:52:00.000-08:00

Well, as I write this you are sleeping off your New Years Eve stupor. I am listening to 94.7 NRK and drinking a Rogue Amber Ale. I watched the ball drop live in New York a few hours ago. Life on the other side of the planet can be pretty familiar if you make the effort. As I suspected, this is life in the big city -- anything I want is here, sometimes it is just hard to find and costs an arm and a leg. The larger effort is when I try to live like a true Shanghainese. Ordering meals from photo-less menus that are completely in Mandarin, trying to explain that you need to pay your cell phone bill to a vendor who doesn't speak a lick of English and would fail at a game of charades, trying to make a taxi driver take you to a specific restaurant at a specific location, not just a random one in a random place, these are the small daily challenges that make you appreciate living in a place where you can communicate with everyone.

In the past month I moved into an apartment (which I just learned is actually for sale so I might get a phone call any day asking me to vacate) and bought a bike. I activated a cell phone and bought something on Taobao.com, the equivalent of our Amazon.com but entirely in Mandarin. I learned how to say my address in Chinese and found all of the close markets and malls. I have made new friends from countries all around the world, and even a few native Shanghai residents. I suffered a suspected food allergy which caused my face to molt, and had to visit a doctor at the hospital to get medicine. (I'm back to normal now!) And I have now experienced New Years Eve in a country that doesn't really celebrate this one all that much. (Chinese New Years is supposed to be crazy!) I went to the Shanghai Art Museum and I saw a Chinese acrobatic show similar to Cirque du Soleil.

Its the little differences that make you realize you are in a far away place. The sky is consistently cloudless, but the smog has varied from nearly non-existent to a dark gray day that was the worst smog day they had seen in a decade. I don't miss Portland's rain or overcast days!

I was aware of the culture clash before I arrived, but seeing it in action is a bit different. Spitting is quite common and there have been a few times that I had to hop out of the way as a pedestrian turned their head and just hocked a loogie without checking to see if anyone was next to them. In fact, the general awareness of many people on the street seems to be very low. People walk across the street without checking for traffic, then are always surprised when a bike or car zooms within inches. (I am that bike, sometimes!) Other bike and scooter riders will ride at full speed across busy intersections against the light, sometimes careening left and right just barely escaping catastrophe. Although I have seen a few bikes get hit by cars, the truly astonishing thing is that I don't see them twenty times a day!

Check out a video of me riding my bike around the block on New Years Day:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9ifAyN659I

I have to remind myself that I am the stranger in this culture. Although I have been pushed and shoved in lines at the supermarket, cut in front of at lines in the subway and completely roadblocked as I try to walk down the sidewalk, I know that this isn't a culture of rudeness, it is just a different way of getting things done. I think of it as a game and I don't get frustrated, I just smile and appreciate the learning experience.

I leave for Bangkok, Thailand, in a few days. I'll be enjoying the 90-degree sun with my cousin, Ryan Riehl, and sipping drinks with umbrellas on sandy beaches. Then I will come back here and pick up right where I left off. Happy New Year everybody!

Jinger Bears, Jinger Bears

2010-12-14T22:30:00.000-08:00

I am not joking when I tell you that I just got back from buying a jacket and I heard a Chinese rendition of Jingle Bells on the store's muzak system that sounded suspiciously like Jinger Bears. I smiled as I handed over the funny money for my new warm jacket. And not a moment too soon, as I exited the building to walk home a few small snowflakes began to drift down from the dreary gray sky. Now that I am writing this the tops of the buildings have been eaten by the sky and the tiny little flakes are growing in numbers. Check out my video here:

YouTube Link: Shanghai's First Snow

I've been meaning to write about Christmas for a few days, since this will be the first time in my life that I spend it without a big family dinner. I'm thankful that I have Troy and Sierra here, and we'll be having a Christmas dinner with Anna and our new expat family over at her place. I was under the impression that since we were in a non-Christian country that Christmas would be glossed over, but I couldn't have been more wrong. If anything, Christmas as a marketing machine is twice is powerful in this land of new wealth and cheap goods. Almost every single store that I have walked into since my arrival has been BLARING Christmas music to the point that it is almost painful. Yesterday I couldn't stop humming Frosty the Snowman because a store that I was "stuck" in for 30 minutes had some kind of remixed extended version that never began and never ended, it just played and played and played.

The plethora of malls around our neighborhood all have extravagant light and decoration schemes in an attempt to outdo the others. I think it is fun, but it also disgusts me because I know that many of the locals here are buying into the whole marketing gimmick. Unfortunately, out of necessity and curiosity, I have been to two of the Shanghai "fakes markets" in the past week and if you don't like regular malls (like me) then this is the next level of hell. As you walk by each stall the shopkeeper calls to you in order to attract you to his/her wares. If you enter a stall on your own the shopkeeper hovers inches behind you in an attempt to... actually, I don't exactly know why. It is a combination of his trying to be helpful and persuasive mixed with a feeling that he assumes you are about to steal anything you touch. I'm glad that I finally found a jacket and I don't have to deal with that again soon!

I've been exploring the city via subway, which is generally a poor experience. The subway itself is fast, clean and amazingly easy to use, but every station looks the same and since you are traveling underground you don't get any kind of sense for where you are now. I found a subway line that is partially above-ground, but all I could see were the exterior walls of 30-story apartment building after 30-story apartment building. I haven't tried to ride the bus yet, but I definitely have to do that soon. I'll take video, since buses are the scariest things on the road here! (red lights don't mean stop, they mean honk the horn and close your eyes)

Troy and Sierra are halfway through their second week of work and they both seem to be enjoying it. We are very close to the office building so they can sleep in (when the remaining jet lag and/or car horns outside allow it) and it only takes them about ten minutes to walk to work. When they get bikes it will probably but that down to less than five minutes. Sierra has been working on some internal poster projects and last night she told me that the day seems to fly because her projects are so fun. They don't get out of the office until around 7pm, but if you like your job then that isn't a problem.

There are still challenges to daily life and we are all feeling it. The communication barrier is ever-present, but can easily be overcome with a combination of pocket translator, pantomimes, drawings and, when that fails, speaking slower and louder. (Does it work in movies? It doesn't work here either) The problem is when you need to communicate quickly and then frustration sets in. As long as you give yourself plenty of time to complete a task it isn't an issue. I have found a few local restaurants that understand english and if that isn't an option we order from a picture menu. We tried a local fast food chain called Kung-Fu (complete with an image of Bruce Lee on the signage) and couldn't stomach the inedible chunks of rotting meat and broth that were served. Anna was incredulous that we even attempted to eat there, but how could we know?

But completing some of these simple tasks are cause for rejoice. For example, it took us three hours to register our addresses with the local police department (something all foreign residents must do) and when we finally finished it felt like we had invented a cure for cancer. Yesterday I found a jacket that I liked but I didn't have enough cash (they don't really use plastic here) and when I went back to the store today to buy it the entire rack had vanished. I somehow managed to convey "black jacket yesterday XXXL" and pointed to where the rack had been. The salesperson vanished into a backroom and reappeared with the exact jacket I wanted. I was amazed and astounded and proud of myself all at the same time. (XXXL is a different size in this land where every jacket has sleeves that are 6" too short for my arms)

That is all today. I will update again in about a week. I upload new photos and videos almost daily, so be sure to check my Picasa album and my YouTube channel often. Ciao!

Taking Root

2010-12-07T05:33:00.001-08:00

So I've left you hanging the past couple of days because I've been exploring the city. Well, to be honest, I haven't made it more than a mile from my homebase, but when you are exploring on foot it takes a little more time. In the photo above you see our new home, the Huashi International Service Apartments. (google map) It is the building in the center of the photo. We were told by our agent that about 75% of the building is occupied by Japanese, but I have barely seen any other residents in the past few days of living here.

This is a short post just to let you guys know where we have landed. I'll post again soon with a little more introspective content. Here are some video walk-throughs of our new places:

The Aliens Have Landed

2010-12-04T23:30:00.000-08:00

It's day three in this strange land and with the exception of a few unique quirks it isn't as shockingly alien as we had expected. The flight was fairly uneventful, although at the eight hour point the uncomfortable seats caused my butt cheeks to complain. Luckily there were only five hours for them to continue aching. When we arrived in Shanghai at 5pm Thursday we snaked through the standard customs lines and unfortunately a sharp-eyed official spotted our attempts to disguise the cat carriers as luggage and whisked the poor creatures off to a seven-day quarantine. Troy and Sierra are pretty bummed, but the week will pass quickly and we'll have the little guys back in no time.

We are staying with our friends Kurt and Anna in an area of Shanghai called the French Concession. The streets are tree-lined and there are a lot of bars and restaurants. Our flight arrived at 5pm and Anna already had an event lined up for us, so as soon as we dropped our stuff at the pad we hopped in a taxi and ended up at The Boxing Cat Brewery. It felt just like a place that could have been in Portland! In fact, the first beer on their imported beer list was Rogue Dead Guy. Cool place, but we found out that it is pretty unique and might be the only craft brewery/restaurant in Shanghai. We met a handful of Anna's friends and after several beers and dinner we crashed out for the night.

Friday was apartment hunting time! Judy, our agent and Anna's friend, took us to look at a bunch of different places. One unit stood out above the rest and had the adjacent unit available as well. We were specifically looking for two apartments in the same building, and if they shared a wall that would be even better. Well, it turned out that although the adjacent apartment had been empty for three months, it was leased just minutes before we could get our hands on it. We were very disappointed. Bummed. No time to dwell on it, though, because Anna had organized a cocktail party at her place in just an hour, so we cleaned up and met a bunch more of her friends. The night went well and we ended up at a club called The Shelter, which was built in an old bomb shelter in the basement of an old building. We ended things at 3am and my eyes were closed before my head hit the pillow.

Today (Saturday) we headed out for some more apartment shopping. After a second full day of disappointment we finally found two apartments in the same building, signed the lease and handed over fat stacks of RMB. Troy and Sierra landed a sweet one-bedroom on the 13th floor, overlooking a busy intersection and with a view of the city. I am the proud renter of an identical unit on the 5th floor that looks over the same intersection. We get to move into the units tomorrow, but we have to buy a lot of stuff to get the apartments livable.

It is almost 11:30pm Shanghai time right now and I am absolutely friggin' exhausted. We walked miles in the past two days and last night's drinking, lack of sleep and general jet lag is taking its toll. I'm hitting the sack now and will post more information about our new places in the next couple of days. Hopefully I'll have the energy to make it a little more humorous.

T Minus 17... 16... 15...

2010-11-30T14:46:00.000-08:00

Fifteen hours until my Air Canada flight leaves the PDX tarmac, bound for a blip in Vancouver, America's Hat, and then a brief thirteen-hour jaunt to the Paris of the East: Shanghai. I hadn't actually looked at the flying time for the long leg until I started writing the previous sentence. Thirteen hours will be the longest flight that I have ever endured, but I brought two books, five magazines, two iPods, a laptop, a brother and a sister. I won't be going to sleep tonight since I have to be at the airport at 4:00am, so I will likely sleep the entire flight and never even dip into my cadre of gadgetry. I guess I just brought it to get every penny from the airlines; how dare they impose a 50lb weight limit for my carry-on bag. I'll show them!

I'm trying to make this blog funny, or at least mildly amusing, but if you want to read about the experience of a professional comedic writer who recently ventured to China then you should check this blog post out: theflyingporkknuckle.blogspot.com

So the last week has been a blur. Packing and repacking my suitcase, then madly grabbing another suitcase and repacking everything into both of them. Rushing to Salem for an administrator to stamp a piece of paper so that Troy and Sierra could
take their two cats along with them. Hanging out with the people who I'll miss most and feeling like I'm heading off forever instead of just the rainy season. (I won't miss you at all, Portland rain!) Downloading movies and music and games so that my electronics will be satisfied while I snooze the flight away (see paragraph one). And drinking as much dark beer as I can with the expectations that I won't get a drop of good stuff once I'm "over". Now that the last day has arrived I feel a sense of calm and anticipation, but none of the nervousness or worry that I thought I would feel.

Anna will (hopefully) be meeting us at the Shanghai airport when we arrive at 5pm on Thursday, which will be 11pm Wednesday for you west-coasters. For the first few days we'll be staying with her and check out a couple of apartments in the area. She already located two pairs of next-door apartments that might work out for us. I get to be Kramer!

I will try to post again as soon as I can with some photos and video. Here is where the images will be posted:
http://picasaweb.google.com/darrendriven/Shanghai2011

Anticipasia

2010-10-19T18:14:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we bought our plane tickets. Yes, there is an imaginary hourglass now running in a thought bubble over my head (next to the dim lightbulb) every second of every day until December 1st, the day we leave. Of course, there isn't much that I need to do before I leave. Sell my house? Check. Minimize my possessions? Check. I sold the car, the truck and the boat as well. I'm down to just my bus, my bike and the stuff in a small storage locker that doubles as my bat cave.

So until then I basically just twiddle my thumbs. I submitted my visa application today and should find out in about a week if that gets approved. (it better!) I'm excited, apprehensive and a little scared about this change. The number of unknowns are unknowable (thanks Troy) and it's both thrilling and frightening.

The Only Constant is Change.

2010-09-28T09:42:00.000-07:00

It has been eight months since my last update. Much has changed and the process of change continues. When things get too comfortable and "normal" I seem to gravitate toward a little bit of chaos.

My house sold at the end of May, almost five years to the day since I bought it. That is a long flip, my friends, and I am happy to say that although I bought out of desperation near the height of the bubble and I sold somewhere around the lowish market, I managed to eek out a very small profit. My hourly wage during those five years probably hovered around the pennies, but at least I didn't lose money, right? Now here is the funny part. Three people moved into the house, a couple and a widower. (That isn't funny, don't laugh yet) They are dropping quite a bit of coin to convert the house back to a duplex!

The chimney that I had rebuilt? Removed completely. The new basement? Totally gutted. The open-air ceiling from the basement to the main level? Filled in. The new furnace and all of the custom ductwork I fabricated by hand? Relocated. At least they left the exterior recognizable! I'm not really bothered by their changes, as this house has gone through many iterations over its life and I wasn't the first to modify it. I learned a lot while I completed this project and that is what really matters to me.

As I finished the last weeks of completing all of the tiny details involved with putting a house on the market I began planning my next domicile. I purchased a used wheelchair lift bus that was previously used as a retirement home transport in the city of Lebanon, OR. The dirty, white 17-passenger bus was quickly converted to my new home. A new paint job, bunk bed, flat-screen TV and small kitchen was all included in my home-made home. The wheelchair lift was converted into a motorcycle lift using telescoping exhaust pipe. I added a hitch so that I could tow the boat around with me. It has been quite a summer with this rig, and no matter where I go I have people of all ages asking for a walk-through.

The summer was filled with fun. I went on two rafting trips to the Deschutes, visited Lake Billy Chinook several times, went on some day-long motorcycle rides to Detroit Lake and up around Mount Saint Helens. I spent a good part of the season polishing my wakeboarding skills, which mainly consisted of drinking massive amounts of Willamette River sludge. I consistently nailed my 180s and consistently failed my 360s. Epicly. My young amigos also took their share of spills and thrills: Tommy, Chase, Cody, Travis, Nick and Logan.

And now that summer is over and things have gone back to (my version of) normal, I have been sleeping in late, tutoring the kids almost daily, hanging out with my cousin, Bobby, and staying up late. Summer ended early with the rains hitting us before August was over. The S2000 and the boat are both sold and my attempt to lead a more minimalist existence is getting closer. And then the bombshell was dropped.

Troy and Sierra both landed jobs in Shanghai, China, and asked me to move with them. It is such a cool opportunity to experience another lifestyle and culture, so I couldn't refuse. In the next couple of months I will be moving into a small apartment in Shanghai and hopefully adventures and hijinks will ensue. I will try to update my blog more frequently once I get there, but until then. Adios.

Snowboarding and San Diego

2010-02-01T15:53:00.000-08:00

This is a quick one for those of you who actually read this, and so that when I get old and senile I will be able to remember what they hell I did in 2009.

Winter has come to Portland, but very halfheartedly. This is the first year that I splurged for a season pass on Mt. Hood and after two back-to-back weekends at the end of November the snow melted and the rain washed away most of the base. I couldn't snowboard at Ski Bowl at all in December and most of January, but last weekend Cody, Tommy and I got up there and enjoyed a great day on the mountain. The snow fell all day and kept everything nice and powdery.

The week before Christmas was downtime for me, so I took Tommy and Cody on a road trip down to San Diego. We stayed with my dad at his retirement home on Mission Beach and spent a day surfing, a night exploring downtown SD and then a day at Six Flags Magic Mountain. It was a quick trip, but loads of fun.

As for the house, I am getting ready to put it on the market. I don't really have much of a plan for the future. I'm excited to see what is in store for 2010.

Eighteen Days of Europe

2009-09-23T10:01:00.000-07:00

Photos for this trip are here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/darrendriven/Europe2009

I just got back from nearly three weeks in Europe. Some things were very different, but overall I didn't get the culture shock that I had been expecting. I guess that I imagined an alien world, but for the most part it wasn't much different than a trip to Mexico. Funny money, funny signs and a sometimes little bit of Charades to communicate. My neighbor, Jennye, and I spent about a week each in Ireland, Germany and in the Dutch area of Belgium/Netherlands.

We stayed in hostels the entire time, some were small and quaint and others were large and busy. The best was the Hideout Hostel in Dingle, Ireland. It had been recently converted from a bed & breakfast and was small enough to actually meet everyone staying there. Staying in a room with many people presented some challenges, mainly sleeping through other peoples' snoring. The iPod took care of that, though. The other major issue, one I was less prepared for, was the shower situation. Ideally one would hope for a shower with hot water, good pressure and room to move, but in reality you were lucky to get two out of three, and more likely just to get one! One example was our first hostel, which had hot, high-pressure water, but a shower that was more like an upright coffin than a place to scrub yourself. There were a couple dozen shampoo bottles sitting on the floor (never any shelves in these showers) and a drain that couldn't keep up with the firehose of a showerhead. After just a minute in that shower you ended up with a spiraling funnel of tiny plastic bottles whirlpooling at your feet. Funny, but those suckers hurt!

Food was also a challenge. Ireland was probably the scariest because most of the time we were in Gaelic country and that just wasn't a language at which you could guess meanings. But the food there was fantastic! Germany was a little more familiar, but most of the time I had help from my cousin, Nick, and things went smoothly. In Hamburg (homm berg) we had hamburgers (homm bergers) and they were rays of sunshine. In Amsterdam we discovered the Dutch Pancake, basically a giant crepe. You can get pretty much anything in it, so I treated it like an omelette and I was never disappointed. Unfortunately, by this time in our journey I was trying to get some American food and it was a mistake. I couldn't wolf down a burger in this country, and a steak showed up fresh from a microwave. Stick to the specialty of your region and you will be much happier.

Traveling in Europe is interesting. We had Eurorail passes that allowed us to get on any high-speed train for as long as we wanted, but I preferred getting around on the bus because you would see the fronts of houses instead of the backs. Bicycle travel is above all others in the places that we visited. In Germany and Amsterdam the bike is pretty much at the top of the food chain. Pedestrians jump out of the way and cars patiently yield. In Amsterdam there were so many bikes, both parked and pedaled, that they were literally stacked on top of one another. This was better when they were parked, but more fun to watch when they were moving (its called a crash).

Our first week started in Dublin, then we spent a few days in Dingle, and ended up in Cork. Dublin was a blur, we walked a LOT and saw a lot of touristy stuff, the best was the Guinness Storehouse tour. Dingle is a small rural town with the best population-to-pub ratio of anywhere we went (1500 residents and 50 pubs). The original plan was to bike around the Dingle Peninsula, but rain and wind shut that down. We settled for a van tour of the peninsula, and ended up staying in the same Hostel all three nights, which gave us a chance to settle in and meet some of the other hostelers. Cork was a smallish city that we didn't have much of a chance to explore, but we were near the shopping district so I got to see that. Whoop-tee-doo.

The next week was Berlin and Hamburg. Berlin had a very cool vibe, probably having something to do with the young population and low cost of living. There are old masonry buildings still crumbling from war damage situated right next to modern glass-and-steel works of art. Our bicycle tour guide pointed us towards Kunsthaus Tacheles, basically McMenamins Edgefield on LSD. We spent a couple hours hanging out in that art commune drinking beers and exploring the decaying building. Hamburg was a three-hour train ride away, and finally I could relax with family. Nick, Jenna and little Mayzie were great hosts and we biked, walked and canoed our way around the city. They had only been living there briefly, so we made several discoveries together.

Belgium and Netherlands rounded up the last week. Brussels was not that much different from Portland, if you pretended that all of the French and Dutch was understandable. By this time I had seen dozens of thousand-year-old churches so they started getting a little dull, until we wandered past one at night just as an electronically-choreographed light show started. It was a little Disneyish, but still neat. Antwerp was another familiar-feeling little city on a large river, and it was good for some walking but we only hung out there for a few hours. Amsterdam was our grand finale, but by this point I was so tired (and hungover) that I didn't really make the most of it. I did buy some pot, and smoked a little, but basically just kept myself in a semi-drunken state until our last morning arrived.

Beers, there were a lot of them! I was determined to try lots of new beer along the way, so I avoided drinking the same beer twice (as much as possible anyway). In some places there just wasn't much choice, like in rural Ireland. Most bars there carry just a few standards, although they were nice creamy stouts so I was fine with that. Delirium Bar in Brussels holds the world record for most beers (over 2000!) but I ended up only having one there. My favorite beer of the whole trip was discovered in a tiny bar in Amsterdam. They proudly carried 300+ labels and I requested something dark and out-of-the-ordinary. The bartender sold me on an import that I had never heard of, and after downing most of the glass I was impressed. I asked for the bottle so that I could take a photo, and the beer ended up being a Stout brewed and imported from Denver Colorado! I paid over $10 for this beer, and it was almost from home. Too funny. And now, although no one will probably read through this, here is my nearly complete beer list: PHILADELPHIA PA: Railbender Ale - Erie PA , Yuengling Porter - Pottsville PS, Dogfish Head Raison D'Etre - Milton DE, Troegs Troegenator - Harrsburg PA, DUBLIN IRELAND: Smithwicks Irish Ale, Carlsberg, Guinness, DINGLE IRELAND: Murphy's, Bulmers Apple Cider, Harp, Beamish Irish Stout, Satzenbrau Pils, Bulmers Pear Cider, Carling, CORK IRELAND, Budejovicky Budvar - Czech Republic, Tiger Lager, Rebel Red, Blarney Blonde, Schofferhofer Hefeweizen, BERLIN GERMANY: Konig Ludwig Dunkel, Schultheiss Pilsner, Lausitzer Porter Schwarzes, Paulaner Weissbier, Jever Pilsner, HAMBURG GERMANY: Duckstein, Monchshof Kellerbier, Paulaner Salvator, Erdinger Dunkel, Franziskaner Weissbier, Holsten Edel, Dithmarscher Dunkel, Schofferhofer Dunkles Hefeweizen, Kostriker Schwarzbier, Astra, Lowenbrau Oktoberfest Bier, Desperados Tequila Cerveza, Dithmarscher Dunkel, Grimbergen Blonde, Maes Biere, BRUSSELS BELGIUM: Gordon Fine Platinum, Leffe Brune, Westmalle Trappist Dubbel, Grimbergen Dubbel, Chimay, Orval, Rodenbach, Kwak, Haacht Witbier, Kaiser, ANTWERP BELGIUM: St. Louis Gueuze Lambic, AMSTERDAM NETHERLANDS: De Koninck, Zatte, Hertog Jan, Natte, Jupiler, Super Bock, Grolsch Pilsener, Peroni Nastro Azzurro, Yeti Imperial Stout - Great Divide Brewing, Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout - Brouwerij De Molen, Oesterstout, La Trappe Trappist

I'm a car guy, so I notice cars. There was a lot of interesting stuff going on and my eye was always catching something a little funny...

There are LOTS of small cars in Europe, far more than in the states. In the top of this photo you can see a Smart and an old school mini parked near each other, and this was very common. I saw a million Minis, both old and new, and a billion Smarts. Also, there were some very tiny cars that were used almost like scooters. One had a tilt-up back hatch with a drive-in ramp and was for someone in a wheelchair, another was dressed up like the General Lee. You can see how a red one was being driven in the bike lane between pedestrians and cyclists. There were some small cars that I had never seen, like a little Audi subcompact, a Smart sports car and a tall Mercedes minivan.

Europe got some pretty cool rides that we didn't. The red Civic is a four-door hatchback that looked straight out of the future. The VW Scirocco was recently re-released and it is a Europe-only car (apparently so that it doesn't compete against the VW GTI here in the US). The Toyota Urban Cruiser and Toyota IQ are both Scions (the Scion xD and the soon-to-be Scion iQ) and not very common. There were Italian Alfa Romeos all over the place.

Convertibles galore! Since I just sold my Lexus I have been on the lookout for a decent replacement, and it seems as though Peugeot makes plenty of little, sporty hardtop convertibles. I saw them everywhere, and above are three variations. I also saw a neat little MG convertible running around.

There weren't a lot of exotics in the places that I visited, but that made the contrast even greater. A couple of Audi R8s, an Alfa Romeo 8C, some Astons, some Maseratis and a couple of Bentleys dotted the streets. Not much else.

Taxis everywhere, but nothing like here in the states. In Ireland you could pretty much slap a taxi sign on the top of any car and it was official. In Germany all of the taxis were a light pastel yellow, off-white almost, and nearly all of the were Mercedes. There wasn't a lot of variation, but every once in a while you might see a really old one or a really new one. The new E-class Mercedes was just released in the US, but they were already shuttling tourists around in Berlin. Police cars were just little economy cars! Totally different perspective. The fire engines were also much smaller.

In Hamburg I saw an articulated bus, which isn't really that strange, until Nick pointed out that it was THREE sections. Amazing. The coach buses were very futuristic-looking and the semis looked straight out of Mad Max.

One thing missing from Europe is old cars, especially Germany. I guess that the registration process is so strict that any old cars are very expensive to maintain, but when you did see an old one it was special. There were some Citroen 2CVs, "Ugly Duckling" is its nickname, and some East German Trabants. In fact, you could rent Trabants in Berlin and go on a tour of the city, following a bunch of other rented Trabants. Cool! The coolest classic that I saw, though, was a 70's Caddy being driven through Amsterdam by an old guy in a white pimp suit. He was blaring country music at full volume and everyone was staring. Talk about out of place! The two last funny things I have to mention are the occasional roofed scooter and the funny looking trailer hitches that you would find on cars, even cars that you would never expect to have a hitch.

That is all, until next time...

D

Bathroom: Check

2009-03-12T17:27:00.001-07:00

Well, the main floor bathroom is now finished. It took 18 days from demolition to completion... but most of these days were just a couple of hours of actual work time. Thanks to Tommy for helping me demo the room in a couple of hours, and thanks to Lowes for accepting my returns without any hassle! The first vanity, that I bought over a year earlier, was too large. The second vanity that I picked out was still a bit too large. The medicine cabinet that I had bought over a year earlier had hidden damage, but they swapped that out for me also.

In total, I would estimate that I put 35-40 hours into this room, and my receipts show about $2500 invested. Not too bad! The complete gallery is located here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/darrendriven/2541MainFloorSuite

Project Old House

2009-01-31T17:46:00.000-08:00

It is shameful, I haven't posted updates on the house for nearly a year! During the summer progress slowed, but it didn't stop. The last time I posted about the house was when I had finished rebuilding the front, turning it from an ugly ducking into a beautiful swan. Here are the things that have changed since then...

The sides of the house now match the front. The east side of the house (driveway side) was completely stripped down to bare sheathing and a new vapor barrier and siding was installed. The west side of the house was just scraped and repainted. Both sides also got new high-efficiency windows with pretty new two-tone window trim.

What was originally a front bedroom became part of the new entry/dining room. The old lathe and plaster wall covering came down, new insulation and windows went in and the walls were recovered in drywall. The ceiling was treated to the same coffered look as above the living room and a liquor cabinet was recessed into the back wall. A neighbor was selling a pool table for a good price, so I opted for that instead a pricey dining room table that wouldn't get used. Mom got me a cool map for the wall, and Troy and Sierra are working on a large (8'x6') painting for the wall facing the street. That will be particularly cool because the painting will be visible through the glass french doors. The only things left to finish are the floors and baseboards, but that will wait until the back bedroom suite is finished.

Speaking of the main floor bedroom suite, yesterday Tommy and I destroyed the bathroom in preparation for all new walls and fixtures. You can follow along with the progress daily (almost) in my Picasa gallery...
http://picasaweb.google.com/darrendriven/2541MainFloorSuite

Adventure Caribbean

2008-12-04T05:42:00.000-08:00

The original plan was to hop on a ship computer every day to update this, but it didn't happen. So I'm gonna do the best I can to break through my drunken, foggy memory to remember the trip.

DAY ONE - THU NOV 20

Mica, Jodi and I flew to Miami today. We were supposed to be on the red-eye later tonight, but when Jodi checked Alaska's website this morning she saw that it had been canceled! Turned out that Alaska canceled flight two months earlier but hadn't bothered to let us know, so instead we had an 11:30 AM flight from Portland to Seattle, then a 1:30 PM flight from Seattle to Miami. Uh oh, as soon as we checked in at the Portland Airport we learned that the 11:30 flight had been canceled, too. There was a 10:30 flight that was leaving in just a few minutes, so we ran to the gate and made it just in time. Thanks, Alaska.

Our flight from Seattle left on time, for a change, and while we were seating I realized that Andy (Wes's dad) and Marge (his step-mom) were seated just two rows in front of us. Small world. Twenty minutes in the air and a passenger a few rows behind us starts having a seizure. The flight attendant starts screaming "turn the plane around!" In a few minutes the guy was back to normal and the flight continued to Miami. Right as we landed in Miami the guy had another seizure and everyone remained seated at the terminal as he was wheeled from the plane. Poor guy.

At the airport we found a shuttle that would take us to Fort Lauderdale and shared it with a 70+ year old couple from Victoria BC. The old woman was hilarious and very blunt. They were also going on a cruise, but on a different ship. They thought it was very important to find the cheapest motel possible and ended up at a dive that was only $49 a night. In their excitement they almost forgot their bags in the van and she exclaimed that she "would have to sleep in the nude and might get raped". We were cracking up. We ended up at a hotel just minutes from the terminal and walked to an Irish pub for dinner.

DAY TWO - FRI NOV 21

At noon we groggily made our way over to the sea port where the shocking contrast between industrial container traffic and floating hotels made your head spin. (It could have been the alcohol, though) Getting onto the ship was a little chaotic, as it holds 3000 passengers and the facility was not really large enough to handle everyone. When we finally made our way on and had a chance to explore it was pretty overwhelming. The Splendor is Carnival's newest and largest ship and throughout the trip were continuously discovering new places. Our first night we broke out one of our eight stashed bottles of liquor and started making drinks. In a happy, vodka-induced fog we roamed the ship until the wee hours of the morning.

DAY THREE - SAT NOV 22

Our room was on the inside of the sixth deck and had no windows. It also had no clock of any kind, so it was impossible to judge the time. We slept in late, recovering from our late-night-binge, and enjoyed our day at sea by laying around on one of the many sun decks. The Lido Deck pool had a giant TV screen that played movies every evening and night. The days leading up to our cruise seemed to drag on forever, so it was really nice to have nothing else to do except lounge around and relax.

It was formal night on the ship, so we dressed up and hit the Gold Pearl Restaurant for a full-course meal that was pretty fancy. We met some partners-in-crime at dinner, three cousins named Shante, Tamika and Alisha. Later that night we again broke into our hidden stash and grabbed a fifth of rum and roamed the outside of the ship. Seeing a pattern yet?

DAY FOUR - SUN NOV 23

Most of this day was spent at sea but in the evening we arrived in San Juan, Puerto Rico. We walked up through the old town, fighting a light breeze and rain, and happened across a giant old rock structure called Fort San Cristobal. The facility was celebrating a festival of lights, and a bored-looking security guard happily told us all about the history of the fort. He was better than a tour guide, as he was very knowledgeable and excited to tell us all that he could in the few minutes we were there.

From there we walked west along the northern coast of the island to a plaza in which there was live music and food vendors, then to the northwest tip of the island where we found Fort San Felipe del Morro, a sixteenth-century fort that was built to guard the entrance to San Juan Bay. Totally breathtaking. Next we walked back downhill toward the port looking for food and drink, then stumbled onto the only microbrewery on the island. Perfect for a beer snob like me! Since the only affordable beer on the ship is Budweiser, I was craving something dark. Not too bad. By the time we got back onto the ship it was about midnight and we had to wake up early the next morning, so we called it a night.

DAY FIVE - MON NOV 24

For the first time on this cruise I was hating life. Our plan for the day was to go on a snorkeling excursion in St Thomas, Virgin Islands. We had to wake up at 6:30 AM to be ready, and with the three-hour time change it was like waking up at 3:30. Ouch. Once we were off the boat we finally saw that the weather had shaped up and the sun was out. An open-type shuttle drove us about 20 minutes around the island, which was predictably beautiful. A medium-sized catamaran with a crew of three sailed us even farther around the island and then out to sea where we anchored near Great St. James Island for some snorkeling. It wasn't the best snorkeling that I had every done, but it was exciting to finally get into some tropical water. While I was chasing a stingray, Mica and Jodi found an octopus that would puff up and change colors to match its surroundings. After a while we climbed back onto the boat and enjoyed rum punch all the way back to the dock. Once we were back on the ship all three of us fell asleep on some lounge chairs and pretty much frittered away the rest of our day. That night we watched a stand-up comedian do his thing in one of the ships smaller venues, and crashed out happy.

DAY SIX - TUE NOV 25

We decided to take it easy today in La Romana, the third-largest city in the Dominican Republic. I didn't know much about the DR and was a little disappointed to find that La Romana was basically a tourist town, and a fairly dirty one at that. Our exploration of the city was short and punctuated by a mediocre meal in a fine dining restaurant located just a few blocks from the dock. On the light side, the conversion rate was very favorable and there were plenty of places to poke around for shopping. It was here that I had my first Presidente beer, brewed in the DR. Not too bad, especially for $2 a bottle! With about an hour before the ship was to depart, we watched some of the local baseball teams practice at a fairly respectable field just outside of the dock.

At night we discovered that the Splendor had a karaoke bar on the fifth-deck aft. Michelle, the karaoke girl, was new to the ship and pretty much let us do anything we wanted to get the shy singers going. Somehow we managed to bring a crowd to the bar and by the time it closed at midnight everyone was singing loudly, clapping and dancing.

DAY SEVEN - WED NOV 26

Grand Turk Island was probably the most beautiful place we visited on our trip and the destination to which we would most likely return. The water was the lightest shade of aqua and the sand was the cleanest white I had ever seen. We didn't get much of a chance to explore the island, because we had decided to do another catamaran/snorkel excursion. The catamaran left from a dock right next to the ship and was far larger than the one that we had sailed on in St Thomas. It held 85 people and had a crew of five. We sailed about a quarter of the way around the west side of the island and anchored a few hundred feet from the beach. The most dramatic part of the dive was that the water was so clear that even though the reef was twenty-five feet below the surface you could see it so perfectly. Then, about 50 feet away from the boat, the reef dropped off and there was a sheer underwater cliff that went as far down as you could see. According to the captain it drops off to 5000 feet. Unbelievably awesome.

After finishing the snorkeling, we had a few hours to lay on the beach and play in the warm water. This was a true paradise and it was tough to see it go from the top of the ship later that day. It was another lazy night, since we had burned a lot of energy.

DAY EIGHT - THU NOV 27

This was another day at sea and it was nice to sleep in again. I think it was the laziest day yet, with nothing more going on than lounging around the pool, soaking up the rays and poring through a good book. Oh yeah, it was Thanksgiving!?! We got dressed up and went to the formal dinner to celebrate. After dinner we decided to pop our heads into the karaoke bar again and before we knew it midnight had arrived and we had rocked the joint yet again. Throughout the trip people would continuously approach us and tell us how much fun they had watching us perform. We pretty much had no memory of any of them. :)

It was tonight that we finished off the rest of the vodka and broke out the last bottle of rum we had smuggled on-board. With about half of the bottle still full and barely poking out of my hip pocket, we were just outside of the karaoke bar when a security guard walked up behind me, snatched the bottle and my wrist and demanded my full name and room number. As my options blinked through my inebriated brain I decided that my best bet was to just disappear, so I scrambled down the nearby staircase and into another bar on the floor below. I sat down at a small table with a couple of Russian guys from New York, explained that I needed them to be my cover for my daring escape, and proceeded to chat with them for about ten minutes. They were cracking up, I must have been pretty drunk. Later, I wandered back up to the area where I had been caught and another security guard started following me around. A few minutes later he asked me if my name was Darren, and I denied it, claiming my name was Steve. Steven. Farnsworth. He looked at me funny, then walked away. Hehe, I am such a smooth criminal. What I DIDN'T know is that after I had run away Mica had chosen MY name as his own cover and I think we really had confused security.

DAY NINE - FRI NOV 28

Today was our last destination, in Nassau, Bahamas. I was a little apprehensive about going through the security checkpoint to get off of the ship, thinking that my ID card was going to set off some buzzers and red lights, but nothing happened and we all left the ship peacefully. Whew. Nassau was a bustling, touristy city with plenty of fantastic old landmarks to walk to. We started by walking up to Fort Fincastle, then down the Queen's Staircase which was chiseled from solid limestone as an escape tunnel three hundred years ago. From there we headed to a Pirate Museum in downtown Nassau that had an exceptional interactive tour that blew us all away. Then after a late lunch at a little local joint we headed back to the ship and started our nightly drinking and wandering.

DAY TEN - SAT NOV 29

The ship docked back in Fort Lauderdale at about 8AM and Jodi and Mica headed out for a tour of the Everglades while I made my groggy way to the Fort Lauderdale airport. It turned out that there was a taxi strike, so as 3000 people fought to exit the ship they found themselves standing in a large parking lot with pretty much everyone else from the ship. Those who had secured travel plans early were greeted by buses, everyone else just scratched their heads. Luckily, I had found one of the few taxis that broke the strike line and I hopped in and was at the airport around 9 AM. My flight didn't leave until 6:15 PM, and I just didn't have the energy to try to explore Fort Lauderdale, so I camped out in the terminal and alternated between napping and reading. Mica and Jodi joined me around noon and we just vegged together. From there we flew to Houston TX, then got back to Portland at midnight. Another adventure complete.

Damn cell phone drivers...

2008-07-30T17:11:00.000-07:00

California and Washington both recently passed laws prohibiting drivers from talking on their handsets while on the road. While I'm impatiently waiting for Oregon to follow suit, I am once again reminded of how important it is for us motorcyclists (and bicyclists and pedestrians) to avoid these multi-ton weapons that are piloted by oblivious conversationalists.

Just a few minutes ago I was riding my motorcycle back from Vancouver, where I was running some errands. On SR500 I was riding in the left lane, matching the speed of the congested traffic, when all of a sudden the truck to my right started changing into my lane. I beeped and moved over onto the shoulder to avoid getting squished. The truck, more than halfway into my lane, moved back over into his own lane and I made eye contact with the driver. I'm sure you already guessed, but he was on his cell phone.

I yelled at him to get off his damn cell phone and threw one hand up in the air at him. My tinted face shield was down, so he couldn't hear me or see my face, but I'm sure he got the message. In fact, he got it so well that he decided he was going to come back over into my lane anyway just to teach me a lesson. Shame on ME for being in his lane when he needs to get over! I didn't budge out of the lane, but I slowed way down and so did he. In a few seconds he is yelling some kind of obscenities at me and I let him go in front of me.

He immediately pulled into the left turn lane at the next signal, and I followed him, then stopped behind him at the red light. I didn't need to turn there, I was just curious to see where he was going -- thinking about calling the cops. He got out of his truck and started walking back to me, practically pulling up his sleeves like he is going to fight. I didn't need that, so I pulled back out into traffic, thought a moment about kicking the passenger side of his truck, then decided it would be a bad idea. I was out of there.

So if anyone in Vancouver spots a white Lincoln MK LT four-door truck with wide tires, a diamond-plate utility box in the bed and no license plates, please flip him off for me!

Small world and coincidence...

2008-07-23T13:03:00.000-07:00

Every once in awhile something happens to remind you just how small this world really is. A motorcycle accident I witnessed over a year ago caused me to eat free sushi for lunch today.

In April of 2007 I was heading out of Portland to enjoy a weekend at Rockaway Beach with my girl. I was driving her Acura and we were in the center lane of highway 26 approaching the tunnel just on the west side of downtown. As we neared the tunnel a motorcycle pulled up next to us in the fast lane. The rider seemed to be trying to look into the car, but the tinted windows on the Acura were making it tough for him. Just as we entered the tunnel he slowed down, then gunned it. Well, traffic inside the tunnel came to a dead stop and as the bike caught back up top us he saw the sea of brake lights. Too late, he jammed on the brakes but ended up making a premature stop against the back of a Subaru wagon. The rider was thrown over the handlebars and slammed against the back of the car.

Not an actual photo of that event!

I immediately parked the Acura in the middle of the freeway, jumped out and ran to the downed rider and bike. The guy jumped up, appeared to be unhurt but very pissed off, and I helped him right the bike and wheel it off to the side of the freeway. Luckily, there was a police car about five cars back and he was there to take over. I got back in the Acura and noticed that the wagon with the new bike-shaped dent had vanished. I sped up 26 past the zoo looking for the car, but never saw it again. Other than telling this story a few times, I hadn't given it much more thought.

Today I was in the mood for sushi at my favorite joint near Lloyd Center. I've been there dozens and dozens of times, but had never ridden my motorcycle. To save on time and gas I hopped on the bike and zipped up there. As I sat in my motorcycle jacket munching seared salmon and california rolls, one of the sushi chefs asked me what bike I rode. We started chatting about our bikes, then he mentioned that he had wrecked his last bike when he rear ended a car on the freeway. Crazy coincidence? I think so. I asked him if it happened in the 26 tunnel and he stared at me. How did I know that? Well, I told him my version of the story and he ended up comping my lunch.

There haven't been many times in my life that I was that blown away by coincidence. Maybe one other time, when I met a guy at a party that had tried to snag the same radio station banner at a concert years earlier. (I got the banner, by the way!) I'm still sitting here totally amazed, and wondering how many times I have missed that strange connection because the clues just didn't lead to it. Wow.

Random photo

2008-06-09T15:31:00.000-07:00

Today I helped my dad move a few more things from his house in Gresham. He recently moved in with his girlfriend, which is pretty exciting. While I was at the house I saw his riding lawnmower that had not moved for a LONG time. In fact, it had started growing its own lawn. Had to snap a shot.

Obama rally in Portland OR draws records 75,000 spectators

2008-05-18T21:59:00.000-07:00

Today I attended the Obama Presidential Rally on the Portland waterfront, which drew a record crowd to the shore of the Willamette. We were originally waiting in the 15-block-long line to get our free tickets, when we decided it might be better to drive all the way back home, get the boat, put it in the water and run it up the Willamette from St. Johns to the Hawthorne Bridge area near downtown. Well, it turned out perfectly and we had a comfortable view of the rally and the 75,000 spectators from about 100 feet off of the waterfront.

From the Washington Post:
"Sen. Barack Obama has seen his share of large crowds over the last 15 months, but his campaign said they have not approached the numbers gathered along the waterfront here right now.

The campaign, citing figures from Duane Bray, battalion chief of Portland Fire & Rescue, estimated that 75,000 people are watching him speak.

The scene suggests this is not an exaggeration. The sea of heads stretches for half a mile along the grassy embankment, while others watch from kayaks and power boats bobbing on the Willamette River. More hug the rails of the steel bridge that stretches across the water and crowds are even watching from jetties on the opposite shore."

The front of the house: DONE!

2008-04-08T00:09:00.000-07:00

That's right! Tonight we officially finished the front of the house (sans landscaping) and can compare the before and after photos. Check it out and let me know what you think!

All pics of the transformation are here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/darrendriven/2541ExteriorFront

Adventures in Edmonton

2008-04-07T23:52:00.000-07:00

Its time for another edition of Adventures in Edmonton. I didn’t actually write about the first trip to Edmonton, Canada, where Kyle and me bounced from a restaurant, to a bar, to a strip club, to a taxi and finally to some houseparty in BFE. I remember playing pool with some coked up dude, then waking up on the couch and chatting to a couple of fugly girls for an hour while we waited for Shawn to come rescue us. Wow. But that is another story that will only be retold again and again by the people that were actually there. This is a story that is so epic it needs to be recorded forever.

Our story starts about a week ago when Wes asks me if I’d like to join him for a quick trip to Edmonton to drop off Andrews car. The last trip was a blast (see paragraph 1) so I gave him the thumbs up. We were set to leave Tuesday afternoon and it was a turn-and-burn so we should be back Thursday afternoon.

Right off the bat there was trouble. I’m along for the ride, but Wes is yawning less than 30 minutes into the drive. Apparently the guy hadn’t slept for about 24 hours and was now settling in for an 18-hour, 1000 mile drive. Fine, I’ll take the first shift. I drive until I get sleepy and we trade back and forth through the night. We end up in Edmonton around 7PM on Wednesday evening.

At this point it seems like a far wiser move to hang out with Andrew and Mark for the night, then get on the road in the morning. So the trouble begins. Dinner and beer is handy at a local brewery, where the Stout runs over like there’s no tomorrow. We were there for quite a while, and I vaguely remember throwing back a shot of something (whiskey) and washing it down with some more syrupy ale. I don’t really remember leaving the bar... but vaguely remember playing a game or two of Halo back at Andrews house, and announcing that I was too drunk even to play Halo -- which is surely impossible.

Fast forward.

I wake up at about 8:30AM in the upstairs spare bedroom. I’m feeling great, especially since I basically blacked out the last couple hours of the previous night. I’m feeling really great, actually. I wander downstairs to find Wes chilling on the living room couch. I mosey over. He smiles at me and holds up his left arm, where his wrist is slightly ’S’-shaped. (Wrists are supposed to be ’I’-shaped) At this point I’ve taken in the fact that he has a too-small towel wrapped around his waste instead of pants like everyone else. WTF?

Rewind.

Wes wakes up at about 7:30A and is immediately in a state of confusion. Instead of waking up on the living room couch, where he most definitely went to sleep, he has awoken on a utility table in the basement. Also, instead of waking up fully clothed, as he most definitely was last night, he has noticed that he is no longer wearing any pants or underwear. He finds a towel (too small) and wears it like he owns it, then trudges upstairs and asks Andrew where his pants have gone. It is suggested that Wes talks to me about that, since Andrew was not in charge of Wes’s pants that night. At this point Wes notices that his wrist has taken on a new letter-shape and is throbbing like a motherfucker.

Fast Forward.

Andrew’s girlfriend is now awake at 8:00A and making a quick stop in the basement to let their cute little dog, Harley, out of the kennel. She wrinkles her nose when she gets near the kennel because there is a definite odor of poop filling the basement. Expecting to find that Harley has sprayed dog poo everywhere, she is surprised to find a tidy little doggy house. She starts heading back across the basement with the dog under her arm when she finds a pair of jeans plopped in the middle of the floor. She picks them up and is horrified to find that they are literally filled with shit. Shit! Bouncing up the stairs she now also notices some new brown stains on the plywood landing at the bottom of the steep stairs.

We are now back to the point where I have joined the second act. Andrew, Wes and I have reasoned two valid explanations for the evidence. The first, but unlikely, explanation is that Wes somehow crapped his pants in the middle of the night, and went on a laundry mission to the basement. During his trip down the stairs he tripped down the stairs. The more commonly accepted version of this story is that he woke up in the middle of the night in desperate need of the facilities. Clenching his butt cheeks tightly, he blindly searched for the hallway door that would reveal the throne, but in the beer-induced fog he hung a Rizzy instead of a Louie and opened the door that led to the basement. There’s no landing at the top of the stairs, just three pie-shaped stairs that make a hard left, so if one were to take a step with your left foot you would catch nothing but air. That’s what we think happened to Wes, and he cartwheeled all the way to the bottom.

In the fall to Andrew’s dungeon Wes manages to break his left wrist in two places. Laying helpless at the bottom of the stairs he loses consciousness... either due to the beer, the pain or possibly a shock to the noggin. This was the precise moment that his bowels decided they would no longer function as a team and dumped their contents into his jeans. He must have been there for a while, because said contents managed to seep through those jeans and leave a nice signature on the stair. (see below)

At some point Wes regains consciousness enough to move his ass from the bottom stair. Noticing that there was something seriously wrong with his pants, he sheds them (along with his boxers) to the basement floor and crawls up on the utility table to catch some more shuteye.

This is taking too long, so I’m gonna speed up the story. We hit up a clinic, they send us for X-rays, then back to the clinic where we are told that Wes is going to need to move this story to the emergency room where they can knock his ass out to set the bone before casting. It’s now noon and we’re sitting in the E.R. waiting room while Poopy Pants devours half of Andrew’s Subway sub. (note: this ghetto hospital has moved the receiving area and waiting room into the ambulance garage while they remodel the old area) The attendant almost immediately calls Wes’s name and announces that there is a room ready and he needs to prepare for the procedure. "Have you had anything to eat or drink in the past four hours?" Ummm, seriously? We’re told to come back at 5PM so that Wes can be properly anesthetized with an empty stomach. At this point the fire alarm goes off and we learn that someone is stuck in the elevator on the sixth floor. This place is seriously starting to worry me.

Back at the house we pack up the Armada with all of our stuff and hook up the now-empty trailer so that we can get on the road as soon as Wes has his cast. At 5:00P we drive back to the hospital and park the truck within site of the E.R. Time for more waiting. (That is what waiting rooms are for) An hour later the three of us are now in Wes’s little room waiting for the doc. Wait, wait, wait. Andrew has a meeting at 7:30, and for some reason needs some of Wes’s business cards, so the two of us head out to the Armada to grab one.

As soon as I open the driver’s door of the Armada there are red lights going off in my head. The interior has been ransacked, and I somehow didn’t notice shattered glass EVERYWHERE! Some asshole has busted the passenger window and taken all sorts of good stuff. My backpack with my laptop and passport, some CDs and DVDs, some car parts... all gone. Fuck. We quickly decide that we aren’t telling Wes about this until he’s out of the hospital and back at the house. We head back into the E.R. to smile and reassure Wes that he will indeed wake up from the anesthetic. At 7:00P Andrew and I are kicked out of the room; the procedure finally begins and we take the Armada back to the house.

About two hours later we are allowed to be back in the room with the poor guy. He is a little groggy, but makes some sense as we grill him about the operation. Hours pass as nurses pop in and out, poking and prodding. An invoice is dropped off totaling about $4000, to be paid immediately. "Hey Darren, will you go out to the Armada and get my wallet out of the glovebox?" FUCK. "Ummmm, Wes, there is a small glitch. The truck was broken into and your wallet is now gone." Can you believe this? So no cash, no credit cards, no license. The hospital generously reduces his bill to just $800 and will mail the invoice to his house. Whew, at least we got a break there, gotta love Canada!

The rest of the trip went smoothly. We left early the next morning with plastic taped over the passenger window opening. About 500 miles and we had to explain everything to the US Customs agent at the border, but he waved us on through with little more than a look at Wes’s arm, the missing window and our pathetic faces. Another 500 miles and we were back in Portland late Friday night. My head was on the pillow and I was snoring by 3AM. The next morning I called Wes and told him not to worry, I’ll never tell ANYONE that he shit his pants in Canada.

Its snowing! Ummm... its almost April!

2008-03-28T09:00:00.000-07:00

Not crazy, not crazy, not crazy...

2008-02-05T08:30:00.000-08:00

This morning I woke up suddenly at 4:45AM. I heard a very deep, low rumbling and I felt my bed shaking for about half a second. I immediately knew that I had just felt an earthquake! Very cool! I could have easily slept through it. I now heard some neighborhood dogs barking from about a block away. Obviously it woke them up, too.

I texted Wes and he was awake (18-month-old daddy) and said that he hadn't felt anything at all. What?? It was monumental, he must have just not noticed it over in Vancouver. I stayed up for the next hour cruising the net with NW Cable News on the TV. Wouldn't they be reporting an earthquake by now?

Well, I just woke up for the second time this morning and still no news of an earthquake. Did I dream it?

I called my neighbor Jennye and asked her if she had heard anything... but at that exact same second I noticed that today was garbage day. If the garbage truck had driven by then it might have made a low rumble and shaken the house. Mystery solved!

Or not. With Jenny on the phone I am explaining my new theory... but then from around the corner comes the garbage truck. It hadn't even come yet! Jennye then tells me that she awoke at exactly 4:45AM also... but didn't know why. Hmmm.....

Check another room off the list!

2008-01-18T14:23:00.000-08:00

Well, today the master bathroom has been officially checked off the list. It started as the upstairs duplex kitchen, then I gutted it and added a toilet room with pocket door, jacuzzi corner tub, double vanity and walk-in shower with spa-jet system. Check out the pics!

BEFORE / AFTER:

Curiousity killed the cat.

2008-01-03T22:53:00.000-08:00

I called my brother a little bit ago, but it felt strange telling him the story over the phone and then not really wanting any consolation... but I feel like I need to get it out.

About an hour ago I was upstairs working on the bathroom, getting ready to install the dual vanity. I asked my neighbor Jennye to come over and help me move the sink/counter portion from the top of the cabinet where it was sitting in the bedroom, in preparation for moving the cabinet itself. We sat the double sink/counter onto a couple of 5-gallon buckets, tested to see if it was balanced and then went to move the cabinet.

As we were in the bathroom we heard a loud crash and I immediately knew that one of my cats had jumped onto the counter and knocked it off of the buckets. It was a stupid place to put the counter anyway, I should have known that it wouldn't have been safe there even for a couple of minutes. We ran into the other room and sure enough YuYu was about ten feet away looking guilty, and the countertop was laying upside down on the floor.

Jennye and I lifted the counter up, flipped it back upright and started searching it for damage. It took 15-20 seconds before I noticed Mia laying motionless on the floor where the counter had fallen. There was a small puddle of blood... apparently the front edge of the counter landed on her neck before it flipped over onto her body.

I've never really gotten extremely attached to my various cats through the years. I don't think of them as little people, as other pet owners can. I'm a little surprised at how emotional I got over this. It wasn't the same as finding a new home for a cat that I am tired of... knowing that they will still be cared for. It was abrubt and unexpected and totally laced with guilt.

These two sister cats came from my upstrairs tenant a couple of years ago. They were unwanted kittens and I took them in. I had always wanted two cats that would get along and play together, because my past cats had always been very territorial. I named them Fook Mi and Fook Yu, after the Japanese twins in Austin Powers 2. I called the black one Mia and the gray one YuYu. They weren't twins, but you could see the similarity in their faces.

Troy and I joked around that Mia was born a little retarted... and the way she left supports the theory: she decided to stand underneath a large, heavy object while YuYu jumped up to investigate. Mia was the skittish one, much more timid and frightened of loud noises and fast movements, but strangely she was also more curious. When someone new would come to the house she would be the first one to walk right up and check them out... but also would run away as soon as the person would reach down to pet her. She sometimes would run into walls and fall off of furniture... it was amusing in a sad little way.

I think that it wouldn't be as hard if she had been my only cat, but since I just have one siblings I feel an immense loss for YuYu. Even though YuYu most likely will forget about her sister quickly, I can't help to imagine how I would feel if I lost my brother. It seems a little silly, but I think thats what is getting to me right now.

Anyway, I don't really want to have to tell this story over and over, so I am putting it here. That is all.

UPDATE: I found YuYu a good home with a girl that was a PSU student. She lived alone in a small apartment and needed a companion. I get emails once in awhile from her, and they all say that YuYu is loving life.

Miami in Winter

2007-12-23T09:51:00.000-08:00

Some of already know about the crazy Miami adventure that Toyota helped make possible, but for the rest of you that haven't heard the story I will recount it now...

Earlier this year I was contacted by one of Scion's primary marketing firms to partner up on a contest through one of my websites, ScionLife.com. We teamed up to send over 300 ScionLife members on a free weekend to Miami Beach for a special Scion appreciation event.

The adventure started on Thursday when every ScionLife winner, plus 100 more Scion club leaders, press members and Toyota staff, boarded planes from all across the country in the direction of Miami Airport. Most arrived on Thursday evening and hopped on a 25-minute taxi ride to the Loews Hotel on Miami Beach.

The hotel was first-rate. Very classy. I feel sorry for the small percentage of guests that paid retail rates for their rooms while 300 crazy, drunk Scion fanatics roamed the halls. But I get ahead of myself. We checked into our rooms, Troy and Sierra in one, Steve and me in another, and Anna in a third. It was getting late, but not too late to find alcohol There was a liquor store a block away, and after a couple of fifths we decided to head down to the beach. It was midnight, the air was about 75 degrees and the water was about the same. We spent about half-an-hour playing in the ocean, then we headed up to the 24-hour outdoor pool/hottub and chatted it up with other ScionLife members until about 2AM.

Friday morning we headed down to a catered lunch in the hotel banquet hall, where we met more ScionLife members and got some grub in our tummies. After that we walked all around South Beach, which is a small peninsula that sticks off the east side of the city of Miami. It was a little over 80 degrees and humid, occasionally raining. We walked through shopping disctricts, tourist areas and even the occasional slum. While trying to lead the group on a shortcut through a dumpy motel I almost walked straight into a shaved-head, fully-tattooed esé who appeared to be massaging his biceps while standing shirtless in the motel courtyard. A quick 180 degree turn and we continued down the sidewalk on whence we came. Haha.

Later in the evening we got dressed up and headed down to the hotel lobby to board busses taking us to the main event. Less than a half-mile away from the hotel we were dropped off at the Miami Beach Convention Center, where everyone was searched for cameras and cell phones, then allowed into one of the MBCC meeting halls. Inside were several open bars, a sampling of customized Scions scattered around the hall, plus two cars hidden underneath black covers. This is where things start to get fuzzy for me. You see, we had started our drinking many hours earlier, and the presence of free alcohol started to erode my normally-fuzzy memory even more.

I do remember Scion 1, Mark Templin, getting on stage and thanking a bunch of people... including me for running ScionLife and helping to make the contest happen. He also, apparently, thanked Troy Sumitomo of Five Axis. Unfortunately, because Troy, my brother, was standing in front of Troy's Scion FUSE at the moment the thanks went out he thought that Templin was thanking him and raised his hands in the air, only to hear the second part of the thank you, which was for creating and building the FUSE concept car. Oops.

Next Templin handed the Mike over to the surprise guest speaker, Rainn Wilson, who plays the character Dwight Schrute on The Office.

Rainn proceeded to announce some winners of various trophies that Scion had thought up, such as 'hardest to contact' and 'hardest to convince'. The categories were lame, but Rainn was pretty damn funny so it more than made up for it. After he was finished announcing he steped off the stage and was immediately cornered by our own drunk Steve and Willy, who forced him to autograph and write a short note, "Troy, I love you. You big gay guy. Signed Rainn Wilson, Dwight". This note was presented to Troy later that night, and will soon be framed and hanging on his wall at home.

As soon as Rainn was off the stage Mark Templin hopped back up and commanded that the black covers be pulled from the two cars in the back of the room. The new 2008 Scion xB and 2008 Scion xD were sitting before us in all of their sparkly splendor. It was hard to take in many of the details, though, since 300 people were clamoring for a good view. (the alcohol had me pretty severaly impaired at this point, too) The cars were each spinning slowly under floodlights. I don't remember exactly what they looked like, but I do remember being impressed with the designs. I believe that both are going to sell very well, which will help ScionLife grow, so I am happy.

After a short amount of time the covers were thrown back on the cars and another surprise guest came out. The lights went black, music started exploding through the room and Ludacris came out on stage. He performed a one-hour private set for our little group of misfits, which was pretty funny when you stood back and looked at it from a distance. Lets just say that the crowd was most certainly not his usual group. We had a ton of people dancing and jumping around, but as I stated before the alcohol was beginning to inhibit the motor functions of many people and I think we might have looked more like zombies from Shawn of the Dead than Luda fans.

Things are really fuzzy now, but as the event ended we were given back our cameras and phones, herded back onto the shuttle buses and taken to SoBe Live, a night club not far from the hotel. Scion had rented the club for the night and once again drinks were on them. 300+ people were now drinking it up, dancing and chatting away until the wee hours. I remember walking around and shaking hands from a ton of people... the next day I was told that I also hugged many of them as well. Hmmm. I don't remember that, but enough other people did that I guess I will go with it.

After the party we headed back to the hotel... I don't remember much of anything after this point... but I got to sleep around 7AM. We spent most of the next day laying next to the pool and sleeping. Then we flew home Saturday night. It was a crazy trip, not one that I am likely to forget soon... except the parts that I already forgot, I guess. Haha.

Famous on Google Streetview!

2007-10-11T07:34:00.000-07:00

Hehe... a couple of months ago I read a blog about Google's parking lot full of blue Chevy Cobalts being used to snap photos of every street they drive for Street View, the new feature on Google Maps.

"Smile! That Cobalt could be a Google Streetview Camera Car"

A week later I was working in my front yard and saw a blue Cobalt driving down the block!

I hopped on my motorcycle and tried to give chase, to have a little fun with it, but I couldn't figure out which direction it went and finally gave up. Oh well.

Back from Cancun... whew!

2007-10-08T22:14:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, I'm back from Cancun! Here is a quick rundown of our week. The entire gallery is here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/darrendriven/Cancun2007
The photos are Anna's... I didn't take my camera and Picasa ate T&S's pics.

The first night we found a sweet little club in the Hotel Zone that included an open bar once you paid the $10 cover. Yes please! Old-skool music pounded while a devil-faced dancer bounced from table to table.

After a day of recovery we headed east to Isla Mujeres where some scuba diving was in order. It was the first time for most of us, so we took a few minutes of instruction, strapped on our gear and headed forty feet under water. The highlight of the trip was finding a seven-foot Nurse Shark sleeping under a ledge. Troy touched it's tail and it zipped off in a cloud of sand.

The next day we grabbed a bus to Xel-Ha, a natural aquarium that doubles as a water park. We snorkelled through schools of fish so thick you couldn't see through them! Very freaky! Troy and I found a great cliff that we flipped from for about an hour.

Then we headed over to Tulum, an ancient Mayan ruin. The temp had gotten up in the high 90's at this point, combined with VERY high humidity. We couldn't stick with the tour so we headed over the nearby beach and tried to cool off in the ninety degree water, but even that was hard!

The rest of the time was spent relaxing on the Cancun beach or playing around on Isla Mujeres. The last night we booked a room on the Island and rented a couple of scooters to explore. Troy and I hit Punte Sur (the eastern-most point of the Island and also the eastern-most point in all of Mexico) and scaled some cliffs in an attempt to snorkel in some crashing waves. We made it down but realized the water was so cloudy we had no visibility!

Well, I'm back and exhausted... time to get some sleep!

Friggin’ Vegas

2007-09-23T09:56:00.000-07:00

Well, it was SEMA time again. For those of you that don't know what SEMA is (which should be a lot of you) it is the largest automotive aftermarket convention in the world. Two million square feet of exhibits overflow the Las Vegas Convention Center. Some people claim to go to the show to make new business contacts, etc, but we all know that its really just a chance to go to Vegas.

I won't bore you with the details of the show. I'm a car guy and even I was overdosed with the damn things. Here are a couple photos, though: the Michelin booth and the Giovanna booth. There are roughly $4,000,000 of vehicles in each booth. Shiny, shiny.

A fun note is that the Mopar booth had a racing simulator with two seats representing two cars in a Nascar race at Atlanta Motor Speedway. The line was fairly long, but Vlad and I managed to race it three times. We were each driving in a pack of 20 cars in a 6-lap race. After the first race the operator told us that no one had done better than a 3rd-place finish since the show had started. Well, we couldn't walk away from that challenge, so we raced again and Vlad took first place. As the crowd cheered we got in line again, and during our third race I took first place! Felt pretty good, even if it was just a game.

But, as usual, the cars were just a sideshow to the mutant city. My buddy Vlad and I each got hooked up with some free top-floor rooms at the Hard Rock Casino. They overlooked an awesome tropical pool area and the strip was just past that. When we checked out we noticed that the rooms were over $500 per night. Not too shabby!

We managed to have a little fun. One night was the Scion party at Body English. VIP wristbands got us inside quickly and we had a private booth overlooking the dance floor. An open bar meant that we had a stack of drinks on our table the entire time.

Another night we saw the Bodies Exhibition at the Tropicana. It was spooky. Real bodies had been preserved and disected to show off the various systems. It was eery to realize that every body displayed was a living, breathing Chinese person whose body had been preserved 30 years ago. After that we walked through the Titanic exhibit, which featured a scale model of the ship that was about 40' long and a recreation of the grand staircase from the First Class level. Too cool.

On another night we went to see Lance Burton at the Monte Carlo. He disappeared and reappeared several times, then made a Corvette fly around in the air over the stage. Neither of us had a clue how he did these things... amazing. We watched The Prestige after that, which was a movie about magicians set in the early 1900s. Go see it, pretty good even when you didn't just witness the illusions in real life.

I was only in Vegas for about 48 hours, but I really couldn't wait to get out of there. That place is so damn overwhelming that quiet, little, rainy Portland looks so much more appealing. Of course, I'll be back in Vegas in a couple of months, anyway. Vegas, baby!

Tenacious D Live in Portland ROCKED!

2007-02-19T23:30:00.000-08:00

Just got back from the Tenacious D concert... it was pretty sweet. Those guys are funny! The best song was The Metal because they had a giant robot-costumed character come out on stage and perform some karate and dancing.

Here is a sample of them playing... its like a stand-up act and concert all rolled into one!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKAnluy7xYY

Natural Racing Talent & Sunny L.A.

2006-10-23T22:58:00.000-07:00

The following is an article I just wrote for my website. I'm really tired so forgive any bad cliches or poor similies.
http://www.scionlife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=145454

BEGIN ARTICLE >>>>>

Hey guys, Troy and I just flew down to Los Angeles for the third Scion Performance Challenge at the Pomona Dragstrip. The last event was two years ago and I didn't quite win it, so I returned with a renewed spirit and more enthusiasm than ever.

Read about the 2004 Scion Performance Challenge:
http://www.scionlife.com/features/f_041201/

There were over 40 journalists attempting to qualify for 32 spots in the competition. We were going to be racing race-spec Scion tCs that were pulled from duty as the Toyota Celebrity Challenge of Long Beach vehicles. Each car was identically prepped with superchargers, cages, racing clutches, coilovers, upgraded brake systems and steel roofs. The cars still wore graphics from the Celebrity event! I think I could smell William Shatner's sweat in the tweed headliner!!

We were on the track by 9AM with fresh bagels and orange juice in our bellies. The weather was perfect for racing. The sun was casting a long shadow over the track, but the temp was up to nearly 80 already. Gentlemen, start your engines!

Wait a second! They weren't ready to let us hop into those coupes just yet. Pro racers Kenny Tran and Christian Rado took a few minutes to give some advice about the cars, the track and the sequence of events that composed a drag race. Many of the competitors had never raced a car before, let alone on a track! The cars had enough power to spin the tires excessively, even with the surface treated with a super-sticky traction agent. Reving the engine to the limiter and dropping the Centerforce racing clutch wasn't going to achieve optimal results. You had to ease the car up to speed in order to maximize the traction. Traction was of the ultimate importance since we were only racing the eighth-mile and not the full quarter.

It was time for the first passes down the track. They could sense my eagerness, so I was belted into the first car and quickly lined it up in the staging lane. I drummed my fingers impatiently on the steering wheel as I waited for my first opponent to get staged. The lights blinked... two yellows and my left foot was already rising to engage the clutch. Yes! It was a decisive victory for me, almost a half-second ahead of the other car. I ran a 9.85 @ 75.66MPH on my first run, with a .075 reaction time.

As I returned to the pits and relenquished my car to the next driver I overheard someone mentioning my time. As I watched race after race I realized that my time was pretty good. Most drivers weren't breaking the ten-second barrier. By the time everyone had taken a practice run I had the fastest time. That sure surprised me. But, to put me back into my place the two pro drivers, Tran and Rado, took a pass on the track. Kenny Tran beat my time by a few hundredths of a second. Well he IS a professional, after all. So technically I was the second fastest of that round.

The next round of races would actually count as our first qualifying run, so as the racing began I decided to sit back and watch. The track official explained to us that during qualifying you were allowed to red-light as you left the start. That means that you were not disqualified for leaping the green light. About two-thirds of the racers had completed their first qualifying round when I approached the car. I ran my hand down its smooth surface, talking to the car just like in Days of Thunder. I think it might have helped. My second run was a 9.76 @ 74.99MPH, an improvement of almost a tenth of a second. Of course, I jumped the gun by about a tenth of a second, so in competition I would have been finished. But this wasn't competition, so once again I was in the pole position.

As all drivers finished their first qualifying runs the pro racers belted in for their qualifier. I felt pretty confident that my time was going to be a tough one to beat, but my stomach was tied up in knots anyway. As the taillights shrank in the distance, as did the nasal drone of the exhaust, the reader boards lit up with each pro drivers' results. Christian Rado bested my 9.76 with a 9.75! Again I was in second place, losing to the professional by a measly hundredth of a second, less than an eye blink.

The second round of qualifying approached. I had been careful to drive car #24, a Black Cherry Pearl tC, on both of my first runs. I was pretty sure that I had gotten lucky by choosing a car that might have one or two more horses under the hood. But as my turn neared I realized that I was stuck driving a different car this time. That's OK, I had a really sweet qualifying time and I could afford to test another car. This time I was in a white tC and I was certain that my luck would run out.

On this run I wanted to concentrate on launching the car with a good reaction time that would prevent the red bulb from laughing in my face. In 2004 I made it to the third round of eliminations before I disqualified myself by dropping the clutch too early and triggering the laser beam before my light turned green. Well, I still red-lighted the car, but it was just five hundredths too early. I was feeling the tree out and I was much more at ease with the speed of the lights. I earned a 9.79 @ 75.09MPH, so I proved that it wasn't my lucky #24 car that was pulling the good times. It was actually me!

The competition ladder was drawn up according to the fastest qualifying times. Christian Rado was number one and I was number two. (Did I mention that less than an eye blink seperated our times? Oh, I did? Oops, let me continue...) The showdown was about to begin. We would be racing heads-up eliminations. That simply meant that whichever car crossed the finish line first was the winner and would continue into the next round. The other driver would apparently stew in his own self-hate as he came to the realization that he wasn't worth dirt.

The story goes much faster now. Round one highlights included me winning with a 9.84 @ 75.54 vs a 10.45 @ 73.58. Christian Rado was eliminated by his own car as second gear decided that it was too tired to do any work that day. Troy was eliminated, but since it was his first time ever racing he still felt victorious.

Round two was here and I was really freaking out. My heart was racing, I was sweating and my hands were shaking. I was not built for this kind of pressure! I had studied the ladder and I realized that if I could beat the next driver I had a really good chance of winning the whole thing. I suited up and strapped in. I pulled the car into the staging lane and staged it as slowly and carefully as I could. As I waited for the lights to trigger my adrenaline I reminded myself that if I red-lighted again I would beat myself up about it for at least another year.

I focused my entire being on the third yellow light. The moment that light winked on I was going to pull my left foot up slowly and smoothly pull away from the line. I focused. Focused. Then, I blinked. I don't know why. During the split second that my eye close and re-opened the third light become a yellow ball of fire and I freaked out. My left foot yanked up and my right foot slammed down. Bad combination. The tires shrieked as the car slowly pulled away from the line. I had screwed up and I only had eight more seconds to make up for it.

The other driver was just a few inches ahead of me on the strip, travelling nearly the same speed. But then I started gaining slowly... inch by inch I was closing the gap! As the finish line approached I held my breath and looked up at the reader boards on either side of the track. Damn! I lost. I limped the car back to the pits to fester in my own shame.

The timeslip told the story. I had slept at the green and was penalized with a .262 reacton time. The other driver was obviously better at not blinking and earned a .209 reaction time. I was already five hundredths of a second behind the guy before our rear tires crossed the line! As we raced down the track and passed the 60-foot mark and I was just .025 seconds behind, and at 330-feet I was a 0.49 seconds down. When I lost I was only .012 seconds behind and travelling almost 1 MPH faster. Another 100 feet and I would have won. But we weren't racing the 1/8-mile-plus-an-extra-hundred-feet race. And I lost. But I lost fair and square.

I learned that Kenny Tran had also been eliminated in the second round. That left journalists and Scion employees to finish up the racing. Steve Haag, Scion Corporate Manager, managed to make it to the finals. He ended up finishing in second place, but I didn't see who won the race. I know, I am a terrible journalist.

After the racing ended Scion treated us all to a catered lunch where prizes were awarded and bellies were filled. Everyone relaxed in the shade and planned the strategy for their next big Scion race. 2007, here I come.

See my timeslips here:
http://www.scionlife.com/gallery/?photo=34811

View all of the images from this event here:
http://www.scionlife.com/gallery/event-scion_performance_challenge-pomona_ca-10202006

Reasons That Gay Marriage is Wrong!

2006-10-18T00:08:00.000-07:00

01) Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.

02) Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.

03) Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

04) Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn't changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can't marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.

05) Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Britany Spears' 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.

06) Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn't be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren't full yet, and the world needs more children.

07) Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.

08) Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That's why we have only one religion in America.

09) Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That's why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.

10) Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven't adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.

Surfs up, dude!

2006-10-12T21:37:00.000-07:00

Well today I went surfing for the first time. My dad, my brother and I rented some boards and wetsuits and headed for Short Sands just south of Cannon Beach. Not too many people there, and the few that made the ten-minute hike to the beach were beginners as well.

It was exhilarating! The water was warm with the suits on, and it was nearly 70 degrees out there anyway. We spend almost three hours paddling out and riding in. I was surprised because there were actually waves that I would consider large. Didn't know anything like that was found on the Oregon Coast. Of course, most waves weren't huge and I was able to get up a few times. Getting up on the board makes all that paddling worth it.

Not many photos, since I was in the water all day, but there are a few:
http://picasaweb.google.com/darrendriven/ShortSands2006

Living Life Backwards

2006-10-11T00:27:00.000-07:00

Found this somewhere. Interesting.

THE CYCLE OF LIFE
I think the life cycle is all backwards. You should start out dead and get it out of the way.

Wake up in an old age home feeling better every day
Get kicked out for being too healthy; go collect your pension
Start work, get a gold watch on your first day
Work 40 years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement
Drink alcohol, party, be generally promiscuous and get ready for High School
Go to primary school, become a kid, play, have no responsibilities
Become a baby
Spend your last 9 months floating in luxurious peacefulness in
spa-like conditions; central heating, room service on tap, larger
quarters every day
Finally, finish off as an orgasm

Finished the backyard, it can finally rain now!

2006-10-05T20:44:00.000-07:00

A few months ago I needed something for my friend, James, to do while he was staying here. (see earlier blog) I decided that he could dig out a stump in the backyard... a rather large stump leftover from a large fir tree that I had cut down earlier in the year. He didn't get much done before he left for home, but it started me on a frantic drive to get the rest of the yard finished before summer ended. Well, the past couple of weeks have been full of back-breaking work. Digging, mixing and pouring concrete, building cement block walls, levelling ground and laying sod. Whew. Here are some before and after photos (click to view a bunch more):

As usual I did almost everything myself. The only exception was hiring a couple of local guys to cut the hole in the basement wall and install the new door. (Alex Mejia, N. Portland, 971-219-3810) The most fun was renting the tractor and digging out the hole. I had to rent it for two days, and a lot of my dirt went over the fence into my neighbor's backyard. (they WANTED it to level out their yard, I didn't just dump it without asking) A couple of days ago I layed out the grass and Troy & Sierra hit up the Portland Nursery for some plants. I had no idea what to plant, so I let Sierra pick everything out. Ta-da! All done.

I bought a new truck today!

2006-09-09T01:26:00.000-07:00

This will be a short one because it doesn't really deserve more than two sentences. I bought a Toyota Tundra today to add to the collection.

Whitewater Rafting on the Deschutes

2006-08-20T19:44:00.000-07:00

Ahhh yes, that time of year again. Rafting. You can never go wrong in Maupin, Oregon, when you have your friends, some kick-ass whitewater and a little beer thrown in for good measure.

This year we had about 25 people, three rafts, two innertubes and an inflatable Shamu. My new self-bailing 14' Momentum seemed invincible, until we realized that the added structure of the floor chamber caused the thing to act like a springboard. Devil's Hole, normally a mild ride that catches you by surprise, catapulted me from the back of the raft to the front in the blink of an eye. Then Oak's Springs used the raft to eject Troy and I from the back and front of the raft into some of the most dangerous water on the river. We had a nice swim, Troy got some scrapes and bruises but I climbed out OK. Another run at Oaks caused us to lose Bob... and Jeremy's raft lost Janine. Everyone was safe at the end of the day though, at least in our group. There was at least one, possibly two, casualties at Oaks Springs on Saturday. Very scary.

Well, that is all for now. I am exhausted and need a long nap. Enjoy the photos! (click on one to view them all)

Back from Alaska!

2006-07-24T22:39:00.000-07:00

Well, I just returned from a week-long fishing trip with my high-school friend, Jeremy. We spent seven days on the Kenai Peninsula and Anchorage, Alaska, dangling hooks in the water looking for the big fish.

We flew into Anchorage on Tuesday and spent the night on the couch at Jeremy's brother-in-law's (Eric's) house. He lived just north of Anchorage and was generous enough to loan us his truck and all the camping and fishing gear we needed for our journey south. On Wednesday we drove about 180 miles down towards Homer, along the coast of the Kenai Peninsula. The views were absolutely breathtaking. I have never seen anything quite like it... the scale of everything was enormous. Giant mountains, giant bodies of water. Wow. And to top it off the sun didn't set until after midnight, and rose again at about 4:30AM so we had all the time in the world to enjoy the scenery.

On Wednesday we hopped on a 28' fishing boat and headed out into the Cook Inlet to fish for halibut. The first few hours were spent exploring new areas that the captain had never fished... and we were striking out. Then he took us to his favorite spot and the fish started biting. This was my first time fishing, so as we pulled up 20-30 lb fish I was pretty impressed with how hard they fought. Even the small ones that we had to throw back put up a decent fight. Then the guy next to me landed the catch of the week... a 125-lb halibut that took him about ten minutes to reel in and two people to pull onto the boat. The photos tell it all. From that point on the rest of our fishy looked completely insignificant. Halibut prices are about $15 per pound, and about half of the fish's weight it usable meat... making that fish worth at least $900. Wow.

That night we stayed at The Eagle Watch Hostel in Ninilchik, a great place! The friendliest couple has been running it for thirteen years, a german-born woman names Roswitha and her husband, Frank. Thursday we fished the Kasilof River, known for its heavy incoming Salmon traffic. Unfortunately, the water in the river was unusually silty due to fast-melting glaciers and the Salmon just weren't running. We camped that night and decided to head back north to Anchorage.

Friday morning we made the trek back to Anchorage and spent the rest of the weekend hitting local fishing spots around the area. I wasn't too into the faishing, as most of it was done too damn early in the morning and performed shoulder-to-shoulder with 50 other fishers. This was known as "combat fishing", and wasn't really up my alley. Yesterday morning I finally decided to give it a shot and caught a 17-lb Silver Salmon within the first few minutes. That was good enough for me!

That evening we hopped on a Boeing from Anchorage to Juneau, spent a few hours in a Juneau dive bar playing pool, drinking beer and watching the locals sing horrible karaoke, then back onto another plane to land in Seattle at 4:30 in the morning. A shuttle took us back to Tacoma and then I drove back down to Portland. I'm completely exhausted right now and just have no more energy to write. What an awesome trip.

Time changes people

2006-07-09T10:05:00.000-07:00

I'm going to be a kid forever. I don't care how old my body gets, I will still build sand castles at the beach, I'll still play simple games and I'll still wear a smile as often as I can. I have never felt as old as I have this week, though.

When I first moved back to Portland in '99 I lived in my dad's house in Gresham. Next door was a house that was rented by a couple, and in it lived their misfit family of two kids and an uncle. I discovered this one day when the kids were using our yard to cut between streets. Somehow I quickly ended up as the "adopted" big brother of the two kids, aged 7 and 9.

Their dad was a real winner. He drove a big, old, ugly Ford van that always had carpet poking out of the back. Apparently he was a carpet-layer by trade. He would always tell me about the fancy houses that he worked in but the funny thing was that he was always home watching TV during the day. I soon found out that he was not really their dad at all... their dad had died when they were young and he was just their mom's boyfriend.

Their mom wasn't much better. It seemed that she supported the family by working in a local deli by the high school. She didn't understand the word "discipline" and her kids would often call the shots when dad wasn't around. She was always happy when the kids came over to play at my house because she just didn't seem to want them around. Two words: birth control. Use it everyone!

The uncle that lived in the house was mean to the kids and was selling drugs out of his bedroom. I met him a couple of times and I could hear jail calling his name.

I gave them temporary refuge from the chaos of their household. Took them to the arcade, movies, etc. For two years they lived near me and the older, James, would tell everyone I was his big brother. He was a good kid that was very close to the line. He was definitely a troublemaker, but largely because it was taught to him by his parents.

One day he told me that his parents were going to move the family to Montana. Apparently they felt that there was too much hardship for them in Portland, and Montana would offer more opportunities for them to get back on their feet. I was sad to see the kids go, but thats life.

For five years James kept in touch with me. He called every few months to let me know how he was doing. He was getting into a lot of trouble in Montana. I don't really know if there is anything EXCEPT trouble in those small towns. When he finally went to Juvinile Hall he wrote me letters. I wrote him back, trying to keep his spirits up. The common thread of all of his messages was that he wanted to move back to Portland. I didn't discourage him, but I also figured it would never really happen.

In May of this year I got a phone call from James. He had gotten out of jail and he was almost completely out of trouble with the law. He had chosen to do a three-month boot camp program that would give him a fresh start. He was very excited about it, and again told me that when he got out he wanted to move to Portland and live with me. Again, I figured that he needed a reason to complete his program, so I left that up in the air.

Well, two weeks ago I got another phone call from James. He was on speaker phone with his mom. They told me a story about a vindictive off-duty cop that had busted James for arguing with his girlfriend. That, in turn, had violated James' probation and he now had to go back to court. This was going to land him back in a cell, and would eliminate the possibility of the boot camp option. They were both very distressed.

Their solution was that they would send James to Portland to live with me. I was the only person that he had ever really listened to. If anyone was going to be able to help him get his life back on track it was me. Big brother. Talk about blind-siding me. I said yes.

Two days later James stepped off of a Greyhound bus in Portland. I didn't recognize him when he jumped down, but he recognized me and walked sheepishly over. He had showed up hungry with two bags of dirty clothes, no money, not even a toothbrush. I took him to get some breakfast and bought him some basics at the grocery store. I was shocked at how much had changed about him. He was loaded with attitude.

I laid down the law for him. No drinking, no smoking, no drugs, no fighting, no stealing. If any rule was broken then he was out. I started putting him to work around the house, cleaning out the basement and digging up a stump in the back yard. Three days passed before he broke the smoking rule. I let him slide that single time, and offered him one more chance. It seemed harsh to send him back to Montana just because he took a drag off of someone's smoke.

He had been in my house for about a week when I told him that I was heading to the coast for two days, to celebrate Independence Day with my family. He would have to follow my rules even when I wasn't around. I gave him a short list of things to do and then I took off. I trusted him to stay in the house by himself, and luckily I wasn't proven wrong. But when I got back none of the chores I had given him were complete. In fact, he wasn't even home.

Hours went by and he finally called me to tell me that he was going to stay at a friend's house that night. No way, I said, my job was to keep him out of trouble and if I don't know these people then you aren't staying there. He got VERY angry, started calling me names and laying down HIS law to me. I gave him two options: come home and deal with me or stay there and move out. He never showed up that night. The next day he appeared at my door and I told him that he was going back to Montana. He confessed that he couldn't have come home that night because he had been smoking weed and I would have noticed.

At 5PM on Thursday he got on a bus and headed back to the state of trouble. His probation officer was waiting for him because he had skipped out on his court date and he probably be going back to kid jail. He started begging me, but I realized that this was just his way of working his parents over. Sorry buddy, but that doesn't work with me.

So that was a short chapter in my life. Good luck, James.

The kitchen is done!

2006-06-19T19:38:00.000-07:00

Well, except for the floor, the kitchen is finally done! There were about three weeks in there that I didn't do anything because I was out of commission thanks to some wisdom teeth removal surgery! I'm glad that is over, but I'm MORE glad that this room has finally been finished!

I integrated a built-in chopping block next to a prep-sink and garbage hole in the near end of the counter. I'm pretty happy, although I need to re-grout a couple of things.

I'm finally going to get started on the new living room in the basement. In the next couple of weeks I should have the concrete floor leveled out and a new polished concrete floor poured on top of it. Once the new floor is in I can start framing the walls and it should all happen pretty quickly!

Update on the house...

2006-04-27T13:10:00.000-07:00

I haven't written about my house updates lately, things have been going at a pretty fast pace. Half of my new kitchen is now finished, so I have an actual place to prepare food! I haven't had a dishwasher, a garbage disposal or a working oven for longer than I can remember! Wahoo! Also, today I am working on the railing that should prevent drunken friends from falling into the living room hole -- but some of my friends get pretty drunk so I can't PROMISE that it will work. I hope to have the railing done tomorrow so I can start integrating the second half of the counter top into the part that runs against the back...

Cirque Du Soliel

2006-04-14T10:43:00.000-07:00

For several years I have seen the giant tent setup on the Willamette River just south of the Marquam Bridge, and have heard of people that went and saw the show... but have put off actually getting there until they have left. This year Cirque Du Soleil returned to Portland with Varekai... a new show that is only stopping in a couple places in the US.

It was absolutely amazing... and now I am kicking myself for not going in the past. The show was equal parts amazement and humor. The costumes, makeup, aerobatics, set, music, etc... was all perfect. Not once did a character break the illusion of the story. It is probably too late for you to make it in Portland this year, but they are heading up to Seattle for a month and if you get tickets quickly you should have no problems. GO!

The big three-oh.

2006-04-02T20:50:00.000-07:00

UGH. Yesterday was my 30th birthday, and I really didn't feel any different than I did when I was 29. Technically I was born at 8:04P, so I didn't really turn 30 until then... and everything went downhill from there! I puked three times, once at the party, once in the elevator of our hotel and once on my own shoes. I don't remember much of the night, but today I spent pretty much the whole time laying in bed. Ryan took me out to dinner, but now that I am back home I am definitely climbing back into bed and TVing myself to sleep.

Thanks to everyone that showed up at Voodoo to celebrate, and thanks to ALL of the people that kept buying me shot after shot after shot. (groan) I am never drinking again! (yeah right)

Photos from the party are up:
http://picasaweb.google.com/darrendriven/Birthday2006

Another new car! Twice.

2006-03-23T09:17:00.000-08:00

Haha... I bought an 86 Toyota Cressida wagon for $900. I had to go all the way to Seattle to pick it up, but they are pretty rare so I had no choice. The car is sweet: climate control, 10-way adjustable seats, heated mirrors, rear wheel drive, DUAL rear wipers... this must have been the absolutely nicest car that Toyota made twenty years ago!

Also bought an 86 Supra Turbo for $300.

Why did I buy them? Well, I guess I have too much time on my hands, or not enough projects, or something. We are going to gut the interior of the wagon, rip out the anemic 2.5L and drop in the 3.0L Supra engine and transmission, weld in a cage, flat black the exterior and bolt on some 17" wheels. Should be fun!

(Update: sold both of them after six months because Wes never got around to helping me out. I made a tiny profit, at least)

Kitchen's getting more kitcheny!

2006-02-23T17:59:00.000-08:00

Ah yes, yesterday I installed the new lights and today the cabinet guys showed up to get the new cabinets in! Wahoo!

Waterproof MP3 Player!

2006-02-20T23:28:00.000-08:00

Wow, didn't know they made them until last week. I stopped swimming because it got so damn boring, but I just picked up a waterproof MP3 player from Oregon Scientific (store is in Bridgeport Village) and I can start getting back into the groove. Now I can listen to Adam Carolla rant for 40 minutes every morning while I do my breast stroke. I already tested it out in the bathtub. Haha.

UPDATE: Back in the swimming habit again and this thing rules! Makes time fly! (not fly, swim!)

Pimpest Cadillac Ever

2006-02-19T11:27:00.000-08:00

I stopped by the NW Custom and Hot Rod Show this weekend... not gonna bitch TOO much about the fact that they charge $7 for parking at the Expo Center (between an industrial area and a swamp) after recently eliminating ALL free parking areas nearby. I was there for 45 minutes! It costs less than $1 to park on the street DOWNTOWN! Ridiculous.

But that isn't my point. The point is this. There was a 1959 Cadillac there that was built as a tribute to Elvis, a known Cadillac enthusiast. It was the most over-the-top Caddy that I have ever seen. Absolutely perfect.

And now, so that I can prove my worthiness to judge such things as cool Caddies, let's all bow our heads for my old 63 Caddy. Had to sell it when I bought the house... there just wasn't any room for a nineteen foot car in my driveway, garage or on the entire block for that matter!

OK, back to work now guys!

Kitchen Remodel

2006-02-19T10:27:00.000-08:00

OK, I'm really posting this a bit early, in a week it will actually have cabinets and appliances in it, but for those who want to see what I have been up to here ya go. A few weeks ago I demo'd the old crappy 70's kitchen space and turned it into a big open sore... I've been replumbing, rewiring and, lately, re-sheetrocking. Yesterday I sprayed the texture, today I will primer and tomorrow I will paint. Whew!

The house STILL didn't fall down!

2005-12-10T18:28:00.000-08:00

So tonight I got the joists removed in what will be the living room ceiling area... no caved in walls or anything! Wahoo! I am, however, getting little static-like shocks when I touch anything electrical in the house... I think I might have screwed up a power line somewhere. Oops.

Stoked that the house didn't fall down

2005-11-29T21:31:00.000-08:00

Well, have been chipping away at the house... a little project everyday. Today marked weeks of work installing some steel beams in the basement so I could remove a column that was located right in the middle of my future living room.

So, today I got the last of the bolts tightened down, reinforced the beam supports on either end of the beam and grabbed my sledgehammer. It took some beating, but the column finally fell loose. I ran upstairs and jumped up and down on the spot directly over the column and it was as solid as a rock. I grabbed my neighbor (280 lbs) and had HIM jump up and down while I felt the rest of the floor. It still felt like the column was there!

Whew, I can mark that one off of my list.

Back from Las Vegas, Round Two!

2005-11-04T17:04:00.000-08:00

Whew. It's a lot of work having fun! I just returned from Vegas a few hours ago and am ready to sleep through the entire weekend.

Five of us drove down in a rental minivan. While driving in the Nevada desert we discovered a gate allowing us to do some precision tests on the vehicle on a large salt-flat/dust area. The only documented result is that pulling the e-brake at high speeds in a dusty environment will result in three well-executed degree spins. This covered the entire van in a very fine dust that served as our makeshift canvas for a series of comic dust drawings on the body and glass. Bummer that it rained on the way back and all of our beautiful art was lost forever.

Seventeen hours of driving left us well-prepared to enjoy Vegas. I don't remember much of the first night, but apparently everyone enjoyed my company. I found a receipt for dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe in my pocket in the morning.... for EVERYONE. I guess I am very generous when I am completely inebriated. Somehow we ended up on Fremont Street and then back at the hotel where I promptly passed out.

The next night we headed back to the Hard Rock for the Scion Party, where Troy and I had VIP wristbands. Well, we had SILVER VIP wristbands when we really needed GOLD ones, but we eventually got in. Open bar! Open bar! Open bar! About 5AM we left the hotel and headed back to our own. The next day I made some more exciting discoveries.... that Cran-Vodka leaves a red debris trail when you spray it down the side of the van at 35 MPH the night before... and a $100 bill that I am told was given to me as the result of my Roulette table win... of which I have no recollection. Sweet.

So yesterday we slept in a little bit, walked the SEMA show until 5PM, watched the live taping of Overhaulin for a while, then hit up a buffett and left the City of Sin. Seventeen more hours of driving got us back to Portland and now I am ready to crash out.

Time to return the tux

2005-10-03T09:58:00.000-07:00

Wow, what a weekend. My little brother got married Saturday and I have a new sister. The ceremony was held at McMenamins Edgefield in the field behind Blackberry Hall... and was almost forced inside because of torential rain... but thee was a clear opening long enough to say "I do" a couple of times then get inside where the booze flowed free.

I think I have been at least partially drunk since Friday and my hangover is setting in. I hope three days of drinking doesn't mean three days of hangover!

Viva Champagne Brunch!

2005-09-19T12:41:00.000-07:00

Wow, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, right? Haha. This blog entry brought to you by the Discovery Channel.

One of the discoveries we made this weekend was the Champagne Brunch at the crappy Riviera Hotel. For $13 we had a mediocre meal followed by three hours of champagne brought to us in plastic pitchers by lovely Emilia. "Emilia, your breaking our heart" we sang loudly every time we needed a refill. Actually, she brought the magic drink faster than we could drink it! Of course, this prompted a quick emptying of the ketchup bottles in the bathroom so we could fill them with champagne. Great idea guys!

Another discovery was that it isn't hard to open the windows past their safety stops in the Circus Circus Skytower. Hmmm.... we are lucky that the desk and chair remained in the room.... since nothing smaller did! Louie, that wasn't a BALCONY, by the way.

Yet another discovery is that you should not expect to get a taxi between 10:00AM and 11:00AM on a Saturday morning unless you are staying at a NICE hotel. Apparently since everyone checks out at this time every cab in the city heads where the money is..... and that wasn't the Dircus Dircus. So after missing our flight we snuck into the MGM pool and napped the day away.... what a TERRIBLE way to wait for our redeye.

Congrats Troy, I don't know if I have the energy to organize another weekend like that one! Oh wait, we are going back in November. HAHA!

Is that really mine?

2005-09-11T13:06:00.000-07:00

So I flew to LA this morning and drove back in my new car. I am amazed that this thing is actually mine. Holy shit. :)

Good morning, Get shot.

2005-09-09T23:42:00.000-07:00

So I'm driving the eight blocks to my neighborhood pool this morning to do some laps. A few blocks from my house I approach an unrestricted intersection (no stop signs in any direction) and slow down... I see a silver Monte Carlo doing about 40 from my right... a ways down the street. So I start edging out into the intersection since I have the right of way. He slows down a bit, then NAILS his brakes and drives around the front of my car. I toot the horn to show my disapproval and he stops... about two car lengths to me left now. The driver, a medium skinned guy with his girl in the front seat, rolls down his window and I roll down mine. I simply say "You've got to let me go through first", and he asks why? I explain that there are no stop signs... the first car at the intersection has the right of way. "If I wouldn't have stopped, and you wouldn't have stopped then what would have happened?" He gives me a REALLY dirty look and starts to roll away. I say, pretty loudly, "Get your license", out the window as I start to drive ahead.

So I look in my mirror and the guy has reversed back to the intersection and is now CHASING me through the narrow side streets. I was doing maybe 20 and didn't speed up (it is a really narrow street with a lot of driveways) so in a moment this guy is right on my ass. I roll up to a stop sign and stop niiii-iiice and slowly, and I see this guy jump out of his driver's door. In his hand I can see that he's holding some kind of old-school, shiny black snubnose .38 looking gun and he's crouching down as he "sneaks" up to my drivers window. Yeah right, so I slowly turn right and creep ahead (trying to make him run as far as I can get him to) and he yells "Punk-ass motherfucker!" at the top of his breath. At that point I was out of his site around the corner and I took a couple of right-lefts before stopping to see if he was following.

I wonder what goes through someone's head in a situation like that. This guy was clearly ignorant of the traffic laws regarding an unprotected intersection. I wonder if he reacted this way because of the differences in our skin color? Maybe cause his girl was in the car? Maybe because I was in a nicer car? Or maybe it was because he just looked for reasons to take the gun out of the glovebox as often as he could.

I watched the movie Crash last night and the entire movie was about how the lives of many various Los Angelites interacted and how racial tensions transferred though their actions... turning bigots into humanitarians, and turning tolerance into racism. I recommend watching it! How relevant that movie seemed this morning.

What a weekend!

2005-08-22T01:45:00.000-07:00

WHITEWATER RAFTING! Wahoo! It was time for our annual whitewater trip to the Deschutes. Somehow we managed to escape the wrath of the State Police this year, although we still got harrassed a little bit. The trip ended a day early because of a horrible mosquito outbreak... I counted 186 bites on my body this morning. Wow. Click on the photo of my bites to view all of the rest...

Wrapped the weekend up with pizza and a movie with a super cutie.... feel pretty damn good right now. Rock on!