07/02/08

So time away from eastern Oregon went well. Sarah and I drove to Smith Rock (a popular rock climbing destination) on the way to Portland and ended up camping up in the Cascade mountains right on the Pacific Crest at a place called Frog Lake. There were still piles of snow on the ground that hadn't melted and the lake itself was even covering some campsites it was so high. However, late spring means no mosquito problem yet. All of the campsites were reserved starting the 3rd (for the 4th weekend), but there were only a handful of people there on the 2nd.

07/03/08

Dropped Sarah off at the airport, then dropped the lizards in the ovipositorium off at Kathy's son's place in Vancouver, WA, then Kathy and I drove into Portland to have some fun. Went to Powell's Bookstore (a big independent book store in downtown...kinda like the Book Loft in Columbus, OH) and spent some time and money browsing. After dinner walked over to the Blues Festival and met Drew, who came up from Eugene. Got to see Isaac Hayes (who seemed small and weak, but apparently he had a stroke a few years ago so that might explain it) and had a great evening.

07/04/08

House was too warm to sleep inside last night so Drew and I slept on the little deck in the backyard. At 9am a man's voice woke Drew and I saying "guys, I hate to ruin your camping party, but I'm the realtor and I'm going to bring someone by to see the house in 45 minutes and just wanted to make sure the house was empty." Kathy, Drew, and I were able to clean up and egt out in 35 minutes. We went to have breakfast and wait. After about 90 minutes Kathy and I went back to the house (Derw had an errand to run). We got out stuff, checked and fed lizards, and went to Portland where we set up our blankets for the day at the Blues Fest. Even at 12:30 it was packed to the point were it took us a god 20 minutes to find even enough space for a beach towel and one of those Mexican blankets. When Drew arrived around 14:00 we added a small inflatable chair to our tiny space. However, people kept arriving all day and fillng in all available space even in places you would swear there's no room for more people. It was a fight to keep our space all day, but the biggest thing I was trying to avoid is having an aisle right in front of us. There were some good acts and Patrick and Helen from Eugene showed up around dinner time. The evening showed culminated in fireworks launched from two barges brought up the Willamette River just for this. It was great and lasted quite a while. Kathy and I parked about 6 blocks from the fest and were able to get out of the parking garage in about 20 minutes despite the traffick jam. Drew parked closer and it took him 90 minutes to do the same. Kathy and I were back at the house and in bed before Drew even showed up.

07/05/08

Drove to Eugene this morning and spent the afternoon visiting with erstwhile bro-in-law Chuck. Staying with Chuck and Andrea at their house out in the woods. Asked if I could sleep on the deck, which overlooks the valley below and provides a great view (are you sensing the theme of sleeping outside?). For dinner met Rodger Kram, my post-doc advisor from University of Colorado, and a couple of his friends from Unievrsity of Northern Arizona (Bob and Erika) and their daughter (Tasha) at Art and the Vinyard (a music and wine festival going on in Eugene). One of the goals of meeting up with RK is to discuss the recent reviews of a paper on box turtle locomotion that resulted from my post-doc. We got the reviews back from the journal back in May, but I've kinda been busy since then. We have until about the time the semester starts to get the reviews back in and after our discussions think they should be manageable once I return to Easton (can you say "back burner for now"?).

07/06/08

Met with Rodger and another of his friends (Tim) at 10:00 and drove up to Spencer Butte for a morning hike. Stopped for Burrito Boy on the way adn ate lunch on top of the butte. While we were there the fog lifted and we had a good view of town and could even see the Three Sisters up in the Cascades. Made it back to the Olympic trials in time for the start of the first field even of the day (men's discus). The whole atmosphere was grat since they turned it into a bog festival. Actually what they turned it into was a place to get a lot of free stuff in exchange for your info for advertising purposes. Most of the stuff was crap, but the small battery-operated fan (given away by a tribal casino) was pertty cool. The meet was great. At one point we were trying to keep up with the finals in the men's triple jump, the men's javelin, and the women's pole vault on the field. In some instances those three were competing for our attention with the 110 high hurdles and 200 meter dash finals. The day ended with the 1500m, which was domintated by (gasp) non-Americans. The winner is a Kenyan distance runner who immingrated, second is a mexican whose family came here when he was 4 years old, and third is a former lost boy of Sudan who was rescued and brought to America. But hey, that's what America is all about...land of opportunity. SO watch the 1500 m in the Olympics and contemplate that while America is extremely well represented by these three, our gene pool is not really represented at all in Beijing.

07/07/08

Decided I had had enough fun this weekend and that I needed to get back to the desert (actualy I was feeling a bit overstimulated to go from sagebrush and lizards to 21,000 at the Olympic trials and trying to watch 4 events at once. Drove back to Burns stopping briefly in Bend. Went Willamette Pass this time, which I rarely take because I think it takes longer and is out of the way. It was a good diversion though and I was on that side of town after going to breakfast with Chuck. Arrived around 17:00 and set up lizards, fed them the remainder of the crickets I could scrounge. Worked some around the lab egtting things ready for my trip to the Alvord. Apparently I was so ovwerstimulated that the isolation of Burns isn't enough for me and I need to head out to the deep desert. The only bummer about the trip was that it wasn't until I was 2/3 of the way to Burns that I realized I left my laptop at Chuck's plugged into the wall to ercharge the battery. God place for it. I'll get it when I go back to Eugene in two weeks, but will suffer withdrawal until then. At least this way there are no excuses for not getting construction done.