Hot Hot Hot!

Not sure where the weather came from but we've been having HOT tempuratures. 92 Sat, 101 Sun, and Forecast today is for 103. Strange thing is that it drops back down at night to the low 60's. That's a large swing. Back in MKE you would not have that typically. If it's that hot there it doesn't cool down that much unless a storm front blows in with high winds, tornado conditions, etc... At this point I can only guess the elevation and ocean have something to do with the weather pattern here. Since we don't have an A/C we spent Sun afternoon hiding out under the large tree in the backyard. Thank god it was windy. Homemade Sangria and Mojito's helped too.

Saturday

I did ride some trails in the afternoon. I took a couple pics so I'll post the story abit later.

In the morning I finally got my OR drivers' license and vehicle plates.

For some reason the DMV is not open on Saturdays. Only one DMV in the entire metropolitan area is open. Lame. So the place was a madhouse with a line extending way outside the building. It took about 2 hours to get this done. Can you say government beauracracy. I jinxed myself in the DMV though. I had to take the written test for both auto and motorcycle. As I was taking the auto test a guy came up to the desk to get his results and the woman said he failed "see you next week." I giggled to myself (an slightly out loud), because it seemed the test was so easy. And it was since I passed the auto with a 90% but when I came to the motorcycle I guess I missed the finer nuances in the questions and perhaps should've slowed down. I failed with a 72% on the motorcycle. Ah well. I don't own one and I'd like to retake the course anyway since it's been over 3 years now since I've even ridden one... So I just went ahead and got the license with the auto classification only.

10 years of FPS...

"Late on 22nd June 1996 Quake was uploaded to cdrom.com's archives in the form of 7 1.44MB floppy disk images. Though it wasn't until the 23rd that everyone realised (or at least, that's my excuse for being a day late with the news submission). Cue much aggravation on the newsgroups as eager downloaders experienced glorious 2 FPS gameplay."

Now I feel like an old fart. Seems like only yesterday I was playing that FPS game. Course it bugged the shit out of my best friend, social butterfly, and then roomate at the time, Ray, when the phone line was tied up... And this morphed into Capture the Flag (CTF), Team Fortress (TF) and league play sitting on the edge of your seat, sweating, and the exhiliration of fraggin someone else sitting behind another monitor who knows where. Yea, geek, nerd or Internet Rick as I was sometimes called. It's all good.

Oak Creek Canyon

Read in the news today that Oak Creek Canyon near Sedona, AZ is on fire... strange after having been there just 3 weeks ago. There's alot of nice houses down along the stream/river that runs in the bottom of the canyon that are going to get burned up. Not to mention all the great trees, scenery, etc. According to the article:

The blaze started Sunday in a camp used by transients and spread quickly

Hard to believe that this (pic I took while in AZ)

Will end up looking like this (photo taken from yahoo AP photo titled [The Brins Fire burns along a ridge of Wilson Mountain in Oak Creek Canyon near Sedona, Ariz., Wednesday, June 21, 2006]

Friday's band, Built to Spill, was ok. We left before the show even ended. The 2nd band was cool though with the xylophone or whatever it's called. The girl playing it had two sticks in each hand. Rest of the weekend was recovery on Saturday - I can't handle all the drinking anymore. Friday's dinner at Henry's was good though. The fish and chips rocks. Sunday vegged out. Currently engrossed on this game called Galactic Civ 2. Watched 'Walk the Line' Sunday. Pretty good movie. B+. Heidi and I are dying for some New Glarus beer. You can't get it anywhere but Wisconsin though! On the trip out to Oregon we tasted some of their Raspberry Tart (they use berries from Oregon) and man was it good.

Lots of stuff on the list to do, get some mtn bike races in the calendar, get the new pc spec'd and purchased, finish working on the 2nd bedroom/office area, and scope out some camping/outdoor adventure trips.

Going to see Built To Spill Friday night at the Crystal Ballroom. They're from Boise, Idaho. I guess they have a strong following here in the Pacific Northwest. Their website allows you to listen to three tracks off their new album. The first two of them are surprisingly good. Get this, they are putting on a show in Boise to help save the Buffalo... seems so foreign to me but yet enlightening at the same time. I love finding out about music I've never heard before - one of the primary reasons I moved to Portland. Too bad the boys from back home can't join me to see these guys.