I think everybody ought to celebrate their birthday like it's a Federal holiday. Seriously. I try to. It can be difficult to plan a November day in Oregon. The weather's so fickle. But I do my absolute best.
I took Monday off, and planned the perfect day. The plan ... a long (3 - 4 hour) mountain bike ride with a friend of mine, a pedicure at the local beauty school, a visit with my chiropractor (free birthday visit!), take-out from the Thai restaurant, and watching a movie (any mindless entertainment) with my man.
The reality ... I woke up to a stormy, windy day. Huge wind storms on parts of the coast and inland. Lots of rain and wind gusts here. Christine's a total trooper, and would have ridden with the weather, but had to cancel due to a heavy work-load (she couldn't take off for 3 hours in the middle of a work day). But there was NO WAY I was going to let a little bad weather get in my way of a good time, even without the motivation of a riding partner. I scoff at you, mother nature. Ha.
So I went for my ride. I had to modify my plans a little bit, since the original plan would have had me riding directly into a strong headwind for almost 10 miles. Instead I went due North, and popped into the forest as quickly as possible. The highlights: in at Chip Ross, lower Dan's, upper Horse, got passed by three gravel trucks trying to get from Upper Horse to Upper Dan's, rode lower Dan's (with one minor spill in a muddy switchback), middle Dan's, and back via 29th. I messed up the bike computer quite a bit, so no show-and-tell, but the total ride was roughly 12 miles, in roughly 2 hours. A pretty decent ride considering the foul weather.
I was soaked through, muddy head-to-toe, and a little loopy-tired by the time I got back home. So took a quick shower, and met Christine downtown at Evergreen for lunch. Lingered lovingly over my veggie Samosa. Mmmmm. Veggie Samosa.
After lunch I went to the local beauty school for a pedicure. My comment on that ... you get what you pay for. It wasn't as great as the really expensive pedicure I got in Denver. But it cost a fraction of the Denver pedi. I'm not sure I'll bother with the thrifty version in the future. We'll see.
I stopped by New Morning Bakery before leaving downtown, to pick up Petit Fours for dessert. I love their Petit Fours. Tiny little cakes, covered with chocolate. And then headed to Dr Bilby's office. I heart Dr Bilby. Seriously. He totally saved me after the Vegas injury/incident. And they sent me a nice birthday card with an offer for a free visit for my birthday. Awesome! Now that's something valuable.
After killing a little time I called Tarn-Tip Thai Cuisine to order take-out, and drove back downtown to pick up Gregg. I forced the poor guy to take the night off from his usual projects, and hang out with me for the evening. A movie and take-out. Gregg had also visited the Bakery earlier and brought home some much more decadent desserts, which we ate instead of the Petit Fours. (The Petit Fours were just as tasty the next day).
I tried to stretch my day into a week, but no luck. I still had to get up "early" and work on Tuesday. And since I've been aging myself by an extra year all year (math is hard), my birthday didn't even seem to represent a milestone. I did manage to get a couple of friends together for drinks at Cloud 9 (LOVE that place) Wednesday night, which was a lot of fun. But it shouldn't take a birthday to make something that simple happen.
Still, one nearly perfect day is a pretty awesome way to celebrate My Day.
Showing posts with label Local Stuff. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Local Stuff. Show all posts
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Friday, July 27, 2007
da Vinci Days
As always, da Vinci Days was a ton of fun this year. As well as we sell it to our friends, none of them made it to Corvallis to check it out. But it was also nice to be able to just do things at our own pace.
This year, the festival opened with Pink Martini. I'm pretty sure I have all of their stuff, but I rarely listen at home. It's a little on the mellow side for me to listen to on a daily basis. But their performance was great. Kudos to the sound guy! The sound was flawless, and for a big outdoor performance we were as impressed by that as we were by the band. And since we only paid $15 each for admission for the entire weekend, we felt like we'd gotten what we'd paid for by the end of their performance on Friday. Money well spent. Of course we planned badly, and instead of paying in advance, or even arriving early, we waited until the last minute and then had to stand in the slowest line. We were SO LUCKY that George (another local MTB guy) noticed us and waved us over to share some space on the blanket he was sharing with a couple of friends.
Michelle had invited me to take part in the Canine Frisbee Competition on Saturday morning. Demi would have loved it. She wouldn't have even attempted to catch the Frisbee, but she'd have gone nuts for the crowd. So many possibilities for treats! Clearly not a good candidate for the competition though. But I did manage to snap some decent pics of Michelle and her dog (whose name I heard a dozen times, and I've already forgotten).
After grabbing a bite to eat, watching the 'parade', and generally wandering about the festival a bit, we rode our bikes up to the Sand Trap portion of the Kinetic Sculpture Race. I've never bothered to see that section. I assumed it wouldn't be as interesting as the Mud Bog. Gregg would still agree with that analysis, but I actually found it more interesting. It's very, very, very slow ... but with the possibility of serious injury!!! Cool. There were no injuries of course, but there was a sweet fishtail that for a moment looked like it might be spectacular. And there was one vehicle that absolutely wouldn't have made the sharp turn if they hadn't had reverse. Nobody puts reverse in these things.
We did make it to the festival later that night for the final performance of Stairway Denied, but we ended going home early, because we're old and tired and just can't party all night long like we used to. We did get out in the morning to go down to the Mud Bog, which was cool as ever. We were sitting close enough to the action that we both got a little mud flung on us. It's really amazing that some of these vehicles can make it through all the obstacles (Sand Trap, Mud Bog, and floating the Willamette River), and still look pretty! There's a lot of art and a lot of engineering that goes into these things.
This year, the festival opened with Pink Martini. I'm pretty sure I have all of their stuff, but I rarely listen at home. It's a little on the mellow side for me to listen to on a daily basis. But their performance was great. Kudos to the sound guy! The sound was flawless, and for a big outdoor performance we were as impressed by that as we were by the band. And since we only paid $15 each for admission for the entire weekend, we felt like we'd gotten what we'd paid for by the end of their performance on Friday. Money well spent. Of course we planned badly, and instead of paying in advance, or even arriving early, we waited until the last minute and then had to stand in the slowest line. We were SO LUCKY that George (another local MTB guy) noticed us and waved us over to share some space on the blanket he was sharing with a couple of friends.
Michelle had invited me to take part in the Canine Frisbee Competition on Saturday morning. Demi would have loved it. She wouldn't have even attempted to catch the Frisbee, but she'd have gone nuts for the crowd. So many possibilities for treats! Clearly not a good candidate for the competition though. But I did manage to snap some decent pics of Michelle and her dog (whose name I heard a dozen times, and I've already forgotten).
After grabbing a bite to eat, watching the 'parade', and generally wandering about the festival a bit, we rode our bikes up to the Sand Trap portion of the Kinetic Sculpture Race. I've never bothered to see that section. I assumed it wouldn't be as interesting as the Mud Bog. Gregg would still agree with that analysis, but I actually found it more interesting. It's very, very, very slow ... but with the possibility of serious injury!!! Cool. There were no injuries of course, but there was a sweet fishtail that for a moment looked like it might be spectacular. And there was one vehicle that absolutely wouldn't have made the sharp turn if they hadn't had reverse. Nobody puts reverse in these things.
We did make it to the festival later that night for the final performance of Stairway Denied, but we ended going home early, because we're old and tired and just can't party all night long like we used to. We did get out in the morning to go down to the Mud Bog, which was cool as ever. We were sitting close enough to the action that we both got a little mud flung on us. It's really amazing that some of these vehicles can make it through all the obstacles (Sand Trap, Mud Bog, and floating the Willamette River), and still look pretty! There's a lot of art and a lot of engineering that goes into these things.
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