I'm getting ready for my pig roast tomorrow. Last night Dan and Kate came over and helped me dig the pit for the pig. It's about 4 x 2 x 3 feet. It felt like we were getting ready to bury someone, I guess we are going to bury Bessie (I know it's a Cow's name, but I don't discriminate.)
Today I ran out to Mt. Scott Fuel and bagged up 8 cubic feet of lava rock for the pit. Who woulda known it'd be so heavy?
Tonight I'm picking up chicken wire (to get the pig out of the whole), some cloth (to cover the pig so it doesn't get dirty) and maybe some charcoal to start the fire going.

I got myself a new crown today. Here's my tooth pre-crown.

Over the weekend I went out to Smith Rock with my buddies Dan and Kate. On the way I found out that gas stations inbetween Sandy and Madras close at 9 the hard way. I ended up driving back to Sandy after dropping Dan and Kate off at a bar.

On Saturday we went into Smith and walked over to Spiderman. It is a two pitch climb so we got to hang out at a set of bolts a hundred feet off the ground. Kate and Dan led by placing nuts, cams and hexes along the crack. I would follow and just unhook as I went up. The climb was pretty awesome. It was rated as a 5.7, but I think some moves were pretty difficult. Near the top is a roof that you have to traverse under and then climb around. That was frickin scary, but awesome once you get over.

The next climb we did was under Monkey Face. We did two pitches up this time as well. There were awesome views of the Sisters and Jefferson from our belay station. The top of our climb didn't end up at any bolts so Kate built a 4 point anchor and I sat above her with two additional pieces of protection. Dan came up last and did a traverse whil being belayed by Kate. I followed while being belayed by both Dan and Kate and then she came over last after clearing her anchor. Then we had a 200 foot rappel down the face. I think this was 160 feet further than my last rappel, so I was freaked out most of the way down. But it was good.

On the way out we ran across some climbers who couldn't free their rope from above. So Dan climbed up at 5.10b route to bring them another rope. I thought that was pretty bad ass of him. We had a nice walk out along the river. We were the last ones to leave the park, so it was all ours.

On Sunday we drove down to Bend and rode up Phil's trail to the Whoop De Doos. Yet again it was an awesome ride. Until Kate got attacked by a log and did an endo. We thought she might have broken her collarbone or torn something. We drove to the hospital in Bend, which is like 15 minutes away from the trailhead and took her to the emergency room. Turns out she sprained her somethingorother on her shoulder and should be back in business in 2 weeks. That's pretty awesome given she could have been out for the whole summer if it were the collarbone.

Photos

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Last week I realized one of my molars was hurting me. I was thinking it was a cavity or something - it hurt to eat french fries and drink beer at the same time. Which is totally unacceptable. So I rolled down to my dentist in Corvallis today. And I have broken my molar by grinding my teeth at night. It was a "virgin tooth" and it's rare to break one like this. I'm getting a crown, nothing like Trey cos I don't want gold. This blows. Now I have to wear my nightguard. Which if I had been wearing it before I wouldn't have gotten this damn crack in my tooth. So I'm going to drink beer until my tooth is fixed. Advil is bad for your stomach I think, so this is a better approach.

On Saturday Aimee, her buddy Erica, Kala and I went for a hike up to Larch Mountain. We dropped Erica's car off at Multnomcah Falls and hiked in through Horsetail Falls. We actually didn't make it up to Larch Mountain, I had the bright idea that the map wasn't right and that I was. So we headed down trail 427 towards Larch Mountain trail.

After going a mile down a really cool ridge we realized the other trail was the one we wanted, but it was late and we were lazy. And someone mentioned ice cream cones - that's enough to not hike back up the hill. We went down to Multnomah Falls and pushed past the little fat kids and grabbed ourselves some cones.

Photos

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I've been super lazy and haven't been posting any pictures lately. Last weekend Ron and I went over to Bend to do some mountain biking. On Saturdya we rode with Trey and Mary and then sunday we rode again. We rode from the Phil's Trailhead and hit the whoop-de-doos a few times. It's still the most fun I've had riding.

I got pretty amped after watching my new DVD The Collective which I saw at the Banff Film Festival. Pretty much the best biking video I've ever seen.

Last week I was in Moab, Utah with my buddies Sara, Ron and Dan. It was pretty badass. We rode every day and had pretty solid weather. The poofs from the cottonwood trees were out in full force, but if you could ignore them (which we couldn't) then it would be allright.

Ron came up with a new term for getting hurt on/by the bike: gak. Ron got gakked almost every day. The worst gak was on Bartlet Slickrock and we hadn't even started the slickrock ride. He was standing on the rock and just started sliding and then fell down the slope, got attacked by his bike, did a few rolls, stood up and started bleeding from his leg.



Anyhoo, it was a lot of fun. We drank almost all of our 10 6 packs of beer, the last one is in my fridge. Awesome riding, good weather, good people.

Arches Photos

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Biking Photos

Moab IIX. We rode Sovereign Trail, Gemini Bridges, Monitor Merimack, Porcupine Rim, Bartlet Slickrock, Slickrock and Amasa Back.

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Tomorrow Ron, Sara, Dan and I are heading down to Moab for a week of biking, hopefully climbing and drinking of beer: We're taking down 10 six packs of Mirror Pond. One would think I'd stop drinking after last Saturday's birthday celebration, but it's vacation! I'd have written about my little party, but I don't remember too much.

I finally got around to picking up the pictures from the Beaver Freezer and here are a few of them.

My office moved over the weekend from downtown Portland to Lloyd Center. I lost my nice view: and got this view: So that kinda sucks. And our showers are gone, so I'm left to taking a sponge bath in the sinks. I got a weired look this morning, but what can I do? And last week I was over in Denver, CO for a developers conference. That was pretty neat, I got to spend time with some family and eat some steak and drink some beer. So that was good. I have some pictures over on my mobile blog. The little ones are my second cousins.