Snow!

Well, the MLK weekend gave us with a three day weekend so Logan and I drove to Bend on Friday evening for some fun in the snow. We woke early and trekked (I snowshoed, others skied) into Paulina Falls where we were going to be doing some ice climbing. Having left in between groups, I arrived at the falls to watch the leaders of the group get set up to do some climbing. I started taking photos and got these pictures (roll your mouse over the photo without clicking... then roll it away again!):


That massive chunk of ice fell away as I was watching one of the climbers (Rob, he's in the post-collapse picture) get lowered. He stuck his axe out to the left to steady himself, and BOOM! The whole thing just went straight down into the pool of water below. Fortunately, he had both feet in the column of ice that stayed put, but man, what a rush! Afterward, he was blown away by these photos and how much ice had fallen. "I was too close to the ice to tell how much had gone; it was just like one moment I had ice next to me, and the next there was nothing." He'd said. At any rate, it was a pretty crazy thing to watch.

After that, we decided it probably wasn't a good idea to climb on that ice, so we moved to this piece:

This ice was much more stable (route indicated in dark red) and we each got a couple climbs in.

On my second ascent, I was climbing up as the sun was blasting through the ice, and one of the my fellow climbers got this photo:


After the initial scare of the collapsing water fall, it was a chill fun day in the snow and ice.

The next day, Logan, Forest and I headed to town to get some back-country gear. After a crappy morning of trying to figure out what gear to get, we finally picked out our stuff. I rented a back-country snowboard (a.k.a. splittey), and we trekked up Tumalo (across from Mt. Batchelor). We got a couple good runs in before we had to head in. Here's a descent picture of Logan and Forrest:


And here's one I took of myself as it was getting dark and stormy:


The next day, we headed back up Tumalo with a few more folks. There were some really good shots of the Sisters and Broken Top:


Oh, and of course I can't leave this photo of Logan out:


What a super weekend!

So I've been meaning to write this post for a while. Many exciting adventures have happened in my life lately. Most recently, I have just walked in the door from the 2nd night of my Cuban Salsa I (specifically Casino) class. What a blast!

Perhaps the most significant happenings in my life over the last month have had to do with my near miss with dropping out of graduate school. The short story is that: a) I got discouraged/depressed about school. b) took a while off to think about it why exactly I want to do this at all (including traveling home to Alaska... more on that in a moment). c) Eventually decided to actually do this thing. For those who have talked to me in the past, this may not sound much different than other thoughts that I've had to this effect. However, for those who have talked with me through this one, I think the differences are clear, and I feel pretty good about the decision that I've made. I'm now shooting for being finished with my PhD in a year. There, I said it. ;)

Alaska was fantastic. My Nana and Grandpa Mark were there as well, and it was wonderful to spend some time with them. August is growing up, and while it is fantastic to see him, it makes me miss all the moments that I don't even know I am missing. My favorite August story from this trip was when we were sitting down to breakfast at "The Cosmic Kitchen", and two police officers came in. When they sat at there table to wait, August sat up straight and said:
"Thank you for serving and protecting our city of Homer." You can imagine how much the officers appreciated this, and August proceeded to get up and sit at there table to discuss local current events.

I've had a few fun weekends since coming home from Alaska. The day after I arrived back in Corvallis, I headed straight back to Portland and joined Peter, Kara, James, Andy, Axel, Tim and Melissa for a "ring-in-the-new-year" at Mt. Hood Meadows. It was fun, except for the 20 minutes that I had to wait at the bottom of the lift while the fireworks went off (at 10:00, not midnight). The next weekend (Jan. 5), Emily came into town. It's been nice to have another friend around town to hang with.

On the 12th, we threw our "Saturday Night Fever", disco party that was inspired by the Disco music I won in a White Elephant gift exchange at my Mom's friend Shannon's place in Alaska. I don't know if this was the best party the Hacienda has ever hosted, but it was the best party I've ever hosted and the best party I've been to since... I dunno probably Junior year. For some reason, I can't imagine parties ever being as much fun as my sophomore year of college. It was all so new and exciting at the time. Anyway, highlights included Kenny - root beer in hand - heckling pool players for at least three hours. The dance floor was raging for at least 4 solid hours, and the kegs (ya, that's right there were two... though admittedly one was only 5 gallons) were tapped by midnight. Fortunately, I had encouraged people to bring back-up supplies, and the party was still going strong at 2. Logan lost his shirt, twice, and pretended like he couldn't find it again. Many impressive costumes surfaced, out of the >70 people. I even caught a bunch of crap for not telling everyone that it was a theme party. I can't really keep track of all of the debauchery, but I believe it was a success.