Friday, July 30, 2010

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Oh, shut up. If you've ever attempted to keep up on a blog then you know first how how tricky it is to keep it up to date or do all the gloriously entertaining things that you promise to do. So, here are the photos from the trip. If you want the stories that go along with them... well just ask!
And now, without further ado....


Friday, July 23, 2010

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July 23 - August 2
I was seriously debating whether I would consider the whole trip one TAD or give each day it's own. Well, turns out that staying in a place that had no internet and no cell service I wouldn't have to decide till after we got back. And I'm glad for that because the trip was so jammed packed with doing stuff...all...the...time... that each day easily warranted it's very own post.

It may take me a little bit to get all the photos and stories posted but I'll keep pecking away at it and post-dating them for them to show up on the correct date (as I do with many posts that I take longer than expected to get to) and in the mean time post the most recent TADs as they happen.

ready, set, OHIO!

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So day one actually begins slowly... and late since G was sleeping off his birthday hangover till like noon. But up 'n at 'em because we hadn't finished doing laundry or even started packing, figuring that the plane didn't leave till 11:30pm and we'd have all day to run errands. Which we did, including buying airplane sized bottles of whiskey for the ride and discovering this is pretty much the best idea ever.

Things get a little foggy here because then we fly BACK in time and meet up with the sun just about 2 hours after take off making that the shortest night ever and arriving somewhere around 7am local time hungry enough to believe that a breakfast sandwich from a truck stop Subway was pretty damn good. But I think this all counts as day 2....

Thursday, July 22, 2010

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Thursday July 22-
So for 3 weeks I planned. I lied and misdirected and kept contact with all our friends in secret to pull this off and it was perfect!

"The Plan:

NOON @ Oregon Beer Fest:
Those coming for the first big surprise you need to be at the Waterfront Park at noon sharp. Meet up with Cassie and others in front of the Oak St. Entrance which is located in the middle of the festival.

If you have questions, get lost, need directions or anything else call Cassie on her cell phone.

I will shoot Cassie a heads up message just before we get off the max and head your way which should be 12:15-12:30 depending on how hard it is to get him out of the house on time. I'd recommend you also take the max as parking will be hellish. Plus it's free, and drops you off one block from the entrance!


LATER @ Oregon Beer Fest:
If you are joining us later than the noon meeting. Go ahead and feel free to shoot a message or call me on my cell to figure out where we are at!


6PM@ Wallace Park for free Concert
Please try to get to the park as close to 6 as possible and keep an eye open for other friends that will also be showing up here and looking for you! We will be taking him to a "surprise" location via street car and hope to arrive at about 6:15ish. The location is: Wallace Park - NW 25 & Raleigh, show is 6:30-8:00 PM.

I'm sure a gathering at a bar like the RAT (Rose and Thistle Pub) will follow and everyone is welcome to join us there!"

It was truly a perfect day!






Monday, July 19, 2010

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Friday July 16- Sunday July 18-
Oh. Hell. Yes. I love camping. I don't mind sleeping on the hard ground. The bug bites are totally worth it. And coming home smelling of campfire is pretty much what I imagine heaven to be like (if there was one).

Those who left on Thursday found the most unbelievably awesome site waaaaaay up in the sticks outside of Zig-Zag, Oregon on the river in the shadow of Mt. Hood. I don't think I could have imagined a more awesome place. So needless to say, I see this becoming a yearly tradition. Welcome to Camp Epic!





Wednesday, July 14, 2010

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Wednesday July 14, 2010-

Went to see Left Coast Country play at the White Eagle. It was pretty bad ass and I'm always impressed with how much the guys improve everytime we see them, even if it's only a couple weeks between shows. Took lots of photos but even 3 weeks later I still haven't had a chance to edit them all. But soooooooooon. In the meantime here are a couple I've got so far:



Tuesday, July 13, 2010

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July 13, 2010
Portland is an incredible city if you like to get out and do things that are social, unique and encourage hanging out with your neighbors. Portland Parks and Rec do a fantastic job of creating active parks with their free movies, concerts and other family friendly events.

We rode our bikes out to Oregon Park, hooked up with a couple buddies to see The Fantastic Mr. Fox and enjoy an al fresco picnic dinner!





Monday, July 12, 2010

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Monday July 12, 2010-
So some of the lovely people at Portland State University (PSU) who headup the Party in the Park (and Party Near the Park) hired me to do a logo for the events. I actually spent a couple days working on this am counting it as one TAD. Below are the logo concepts I turned in to them. I'll post the final versions in a couple days.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

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Sunday July 11, 2010-
That's right, world cup finals. It was a long and wild ride and I'm sad to see it go. Though, now I'm more excited than ever for PDX's very own MLS team to get their asses here and playing games for my sheer enjoyment. But mostly I'll miss having a perfectly valid reason for being at the bar at 7am and drinking.

I made a huge veggie breakfast complete with fresh veg scramble and herbed homefries. It's a good thing we had kickball later in the day to help run off some of it.
Another big deal about this TAD is that G and I celebrated 3 years together. Even though we are insanely broke right now we tried to recreate the first date of coffee>movie>bar but on the cheap. Like, REALLY cheap. We walked the neighborhood trying to find a coffee shop that was open at 8pm and with no luck opted for cold starbucks lattes from Plaid Pantry. We took our coffees home, sat on our tiny porch and read questions out of a book I've had for years called Getting To Know You. We talked for more than an hour since the book asks weird questions you'd never think to ask someone and we ended up bunny-trailing off into stories we'd never really talked about. We followed that up with rewatching Hot Fuzz, which neither of us had seen since our first date and shared a beer that we somehow scraped together enough change to buy. (Holy crap, I'm glad my paycheck came in, being THAT broke really sucks. Hard.)
All in all it was a pretty great day and I'll finish it off by posting pics from the beginning of it all >. G, you're a rad dude! Thanks for everything.


Saturday, July 10, 2010

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Saturday July 10-
Portlandians LOVE anything and everything that supports the unofficial motto of "Keep Portland Weird". Zombie walks, naked bike rides, zoo bombers, amature porn festivals, Plunder-a-thon among hundreds of other happenings. TAD 23 fits happily into that definition, if you consider a small group of rag-tag theater nerds reenacting a classic episode of Star Trek in the park for free and hundreds of people coming to check it out, weird. Atomic Arts did a fantastic job of using minimal set and props and the musical score was live... and awesome!

Aside from being weirdos and general cacophonsits we like normal things too. Though it's more often than not an unnatural or unusual take on those normal things that catch our eye, we are major foodies, artists, coffee and beer connoisseurs which is why things like the Mississippi Street Fair (or really any street fair or block party) is so well attended.

Trek in the Park, along with a picnic dinner was a great way to wrap up an overly sunny and warm trip to the street fair.




Friday, July 09, 2010

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July 9-
Another hot and sweaty day! Seriously loving it! Today we piled into a minivan with missing seats and bombed up to the Washougal River in Washington with about 4 other carloads of people. We stopped at a couple places along the river for natural waterslides which weren't nearly as smooth as you might hope, rock diving, beer drinking and just floating while soaking up some sun.
It's days like this that make me fall in love that much more with living here!


Thursday, July 08, 2010

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July 8th-
Another scorcher but it's supposed to cool down a bit. A whole gaggle of people went to Miss Eva's to work on crafts, create art, collaborate and sip wine. It was laid back but I think a lot of good connections were made.

Wednesday, July 07, 2010

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Wednesday July 7, 2010

The last couple days have been pretty warm and this day was no exception, rather it hovered just above 100 degrees most of the day. So of course that seems like the perfect setting to get a whole bunch of friends together mid-day, have them dress in their fanciest clothes and make them run through the water fountain at Holliday Park (across from the Lloyd Center) while I take pictures.
I loved the fact that like 12 of my buddies showed up! In the middle of the day! In the middle of the week!

Tuesday, July 06, 2010

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July 5 & 6, 2010
Nothing terribly exciting for a reader to observe but spent these two days healing from the hangover and catching up on photo editing including the ones from the 4th of July Party. I also did work stuff on the 6th but that doesn't really count for these purposes.

Monday, July 05, 2010

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Ah, the Fouth of July. The day when Americans commemorate the hard work and sacrifice of life given by americans who came before us by getting wasted and blowing shit up!

Let it never be said that the PAPSEK crew ever failed to take advantage of ANY occasion to dress up in costume!

Saturday, July 03, 2010

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Kept it local tonight and made some tasty ass 4-bean enchiladas. I don't use recipes very often but it's actually pretty great. Except for when we end up eating left overs for 3 days because I made a recipe to serve 10 with just the 2 of us. Ah well at least they were good and make great breakfast scrambles.

Friday, July 02, 2010

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There were some epically rad pics from the Player Haters Ball and I just couldn't help but have a little fun with them. Surprisingly, design this bad is actually much harder than you'd think... which I suppose says something good for all my schooling.