How come no one told the Juggalos that clowns aren't hard?

I moved last month, cutting my commute downtown from 12 miles to 2.
( pics n' stuff )

Today I saw a beater pick-up with a gun rack....holding an umbrella. I love Oregon

Except for the 2 of you that already live here. This is the view from my desk at work (taken w/ my phone)

I had a dream last night that Dylan got a dalmatian, and bleached the jolly roger into each of the spots.

My Seattle plans over Christmas fell through due to lack of planning and procrastination. You know how we do.

Kristin came to visit over New Years, and it was fantastic. There was a lot of biking, drinking of good beer, and biking. I had to work a lot of that week, but she rode downtown every day to meet me for lunch (that's a 25 mile round-trip for a little hummus). I finished her bike the night before, can be seen here. Now I just have to wait for the velodrome to open in the spring.

I also had a mattress built, and it was finished that week (there had been a delay due to some sort of cotton shortage). I've been sleeping on either the floor, or the (world's worst) air mattress that Ryan gave me.

We got snow this week, which isn't supposed to happen. It was only 3-4", but most of the city shut down. It took me about 1:15 to bike to work that day (which is only 10mph), and got hit twice. One was an Escalade talking on his cell and turned right into me, and another slid through a stop sign. At least I wasn't this guy. That's a good indication of Portland in the snow. They drive like Californians in the rain.

Also, this is another reason why my city rocks: Teamwork!

The US Scrabble Open is on ESPN, and I'm morbidly interested

Trip to MI was pretty amazing, if not too short. Defense went well, she passed. Kristin's now a Master of Science! Got to see a bunch of friends, drink a lot of beer, bike in a snow storm in the low teens (I fear my handling skills on ice are going to atrophy here). Other things went better than I even hoped they could. Still a little in shock.

Went to a friend's housewarming party this weekend. After getting lost in Gresham for ~1.5 hours, I found the place. No one showed up, so it moved to a club around the corner. No one warned me that this was a strip club. Didn't charge cover, and let me tell you - free shit is what it's worth. I was glad to have not worn my glasses there.

This weekend I also noticed the front hub flange was cracked on my commuter. I took the front wheel off my road bike for now, can't decide what I want to do w/ it (keep the rim and replace the Record hub? buy a whole new wheel?)

Now I'm off to the bike store to finish my project.

It snowed here yesterday. Perhaps I should say "snowed." It was 39F, more like sleet, and of course nothing stuck. That didn't stop some people from chaining up. One person that lives right by me said she almost turned around and called in. She was looking for sympathy for the treacherous drive....from me - the guy that just did it by bike. There was a little ice formation on the way home (mostly on bridges), but not solid enough to be slippery.

I'm going to be in MI this weekend, and there's going to be a party at Dylan's apartment sunday evening (12/03, starting around 7pm). Call for details or directions.

I commissioned this 3 months ago, finished just in time for her defense:

I'll be in the mitten for 3 days next month (12/03-12/05), and will have a lot(?) of free time. You should call me.


Also, I got some new stuff in the last month:


Bag matches my hip pack from this guy. Miche cranks, hubs, and BB. Will start building the wheels this weekend. Eventually I'll buy a bed ;)

I'm off to check out the flooding from the river by my house.

Since I last posted, I got an awesome job (well, it's not awesome yet, but has great potential), been to half a dozen shows, ride my bike a lot, and got drunk. Went to Eugene to see Mikey and Wendy on their way through moving to SF. Found a drinking buddy that's a cage fighter, but he just got a contract to fight in Pride, so he moved to Japan on friday. I'm currently building one of these, even though I don't have a bed.

I'm surrounded by mountains, making more money than I ever have before, never have to deal with snow again unless I drive to it, and a girl just bought plane tickets to come visit in dec and I CAN'T FUCKING WAIT! I love it here.

There was a deaf couple arguing on the bus today, in sign. It was especially cute because they were ~18 yr old skater punks.

And the old Japanese guy who runs the beer store by my house calls me "Michigan."

I learned a new word today: Zoobombing.

I got an unofficial taste of it a few days ago as outlined in my previous post. Basically, you go up into the west hills (where the zoo is), and haul ass down the hill into downtown. Apparently this is a ritual here in Portland, there's a group that does this every Sunday evening, with 2 exceptions:

1. They do it one street over, so that you can take the MAX (light rail) back up for another run (we walked). Kinda like a ski lift. That's also Highway 26, so there are no lights or cross-traffic.

2. They use mini-bikes (kid bikes with 16" wheels. For reference, BMX wheels are 20", and mountain bikes are 26").

Just when I thought this town couldn't get any cooler! And there's a thrift store across the street from my neighborhood that sells kid bikes for about $10. Ryan: I'll build you a bike for this if you'll go. You can pay me back in Sparks.

Here are some more articles on the subject.

I'm off to take my drug test.

What he said.

Here's 4 different spam emails received today:

nobody heard.
That can perhaps be mended, said the Lord of the Eagles. Later on
you might have seen a bright fire on the shelf of rock and the figures


difficult to think of pursuing goblins behind, and when they had put
many miles between them and Beorns house they began to talk and to sing
again and to forget the dark forest-path that lay in front. But in the


great patches of flowers had begun to spring up, all the same kinds
growing together as if they had been planted. Especially there was
clover, waving patches of cockscomb clover, and purple clover, and wide


among the tumbled rocks at its southern corner. About midday, creeping
behind a great stone that stood alone like a pillar, Bilbo came on what
looked like rough steps going upwards. Following these excitedly he and

What a crazy day. I had an interview at 9:30am this morning downtown (about 10 miles away). I got a flat on Ross Island Bridge, about 20 blocks from where my interview is. If I'm late, they will refuse the interview, and won't talk to me for 6 months....and it's my 2nd interview. I literally ran the 20 blocks, threw on my shirt with buttons on as I'm coming up the steps of the building, and was mopping sweat with the bandana I used to tie my pant leg from my face as I'm signing in with the receptionist. But I made it. The interview went fine, and we scheduled my 3rd one tomorrow afternoon. This took until 12:00!

I bus over to my other (1:00pm) interview for the day about 5 miles away, ended up walking about half of that distance because I suck at reading maps. Surprisingly, despite waiting for buses, and walking quite a bit, I was only 5 minutes late. I immediately knew I did not want to work here. It doesn't do it justice, but this made the 'Comm look like a smooth running, professional work environment. It wasn't even when the two girls who had been fired last month were in training for a different department. The person interviewing me had applied for customer service, but rather than being put on the phones, got put in her office instead. When I asked the CS manager about expectations, he told me agents take on average 150 calls per day (more if there's a queue), and with practice, will be able to get their talk time averages down to 6.5 minutes/call. Someone who's better at math please explain this to me. After that I was not surprised to be offered a job right then. Not to be outdone, she then explained that if I'm not busy, I can jump in the training session and start my 6 week training RIGHT NOW. Since they were obviously desperate, I took a gamble: handed back the paperwork and told her I'd call her next week if I'm still interested. She agreed to keep the spot open. Oh yeah, and the application gave two full pages to list convictions. It didn't give half that for work experience.

Apparently, I'm also too cheap to pay the $1.95 bus fare when I'm only 7 miles from home, so I walked. In dress shoes. And since it was my birthday today, I kept putting the wrong fucking year on the paperwork when I'd sign and date it.

I didn't run today. Today was only 4 miles anyway, and by the 3rd beer, I convinced myself that cycling 10mi and walking 9 was a sufficient "cross-training"

Hrm, not too much going on over on this side of the pond. I've been sending out resumes half-heartedly...which I guess is fine, since I'm not really in any sort of a rush. I went out this past weekend with my cousin, that I haven't seen in probably 15 years. We saw Pirates 2, which was ok (they did a great job cutting out the fat that was in the first one, what is that called, um, plot and character development). After seeing all that rum get burned, we decided to grab a drink before we all take off. We go to this tiny bar (about the size of my living room), and what do they have? $1 pints of PBR. 10 pints later and I had completely forgot that the only thing I ate was a cinnamon roll at 7am (apparently that's not the only thing I don't remember, because I woke up in my room, which means 1) I paid my tab, though no receipt to verify, 2) I found my bike and rode 10 miles home...on a flat tire).

I spent the majority of last week putting in a patio. Candice and I did ALL the work ourselves, including, but not limited to: moving over 8,000 lbs of gravel (4 yards), 1,000 lbs sand (1/2 yard), and over 250 2" thick concrete paving stones (~3,000 lbs) all by hand, with only a shovel and a $50 wheel barrow...who's wheel was precariously close to pinch-flatting. Despite our best efforts, it still turned out completely flat and level - almost like we knew what we were doing. Here's a shitty pic from my phone of how it turned out (and Missy, our cross-eyed cat):



That's almost 2/3 of it. Come to find out I suck at centering subjects, too.