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All-around great guy Dave Hoffman took a couple of cool pics of me at Spencers Hole on the Santiam River in Oregon. This was an OKCC run in March, Dave was a leader and I was acting as one of the safety’s. Cheers Dave!

This morning I wrote an email to friend describing my day of whitewater kayaking yesterday on Washougal River about an hours drive from Portland. I’ve decided to put my experience up here too. So here’s how it went:

On Saturday I was whitewater kayaking and it kicked my arse. I hadn’t realized it while on the river but after 10-15 mins after take-out I was knackered. Two weeks ago I’d spent a Saturday & Sunday kayaking with a group of people. We were all beginners in an intro class of whitewater kayaking. For those two days we spent were on the Clackamas River for a 5 mile stretch which is pretty basic. During the weekend I flipped my boat once and had to swim with my boat till I could get ashore. But this weekends class we needed to do more technical maneuvers and go through harder rapids, but our options for local rivers were severely hampered by recent hot weather which has caused the snow on nearby mountains to melt fast resulting in high, fast flowing water on all rivers around here. Our best choice was the Washougal River in Washington, about 45 mins from downtown Portland, so we headed there. We were going to run about 4 miles but after 3 miles Paul, our incredibly patient and all round excellent instructor, thought we should stop for the day as some of us had spent entirely too much time in the water and we were getting tired.

I spent way too much time upside down in the river. It goes like this; I paddle but not not very well, I just thrash the paddle left & right and try to go in a straight line. Going in a straight line usually, but not always, occurs in slow flowing water. In water with waves anything can happen and invariably I will at some point be heading backwards (which is what happened as soon as I got in the water on Saturday) if I haven’t already fallen over. Imagine some guy in a boat with his paddle going apeshit, the boat bobbing from side to side, spinning round and round while saying to himself “whoa, whoa, whoaaa!” and then he’s suddenly upside down in the water.. That’s me. After one fall where I was swept downstream upside down inside my boat I got out of the boat held on to it and the paddle and waited for calmer water as Paul came racing up to rescue me, again. Though in reality I can always handle the situation and wait for calm water to get to the river edge it is good to have the help. I don’t ever feel a need to be “rescued”. So I scrambled to the river edge, got the water out of my boat and climbed back in. I’d just started to paddle again when Paul gave my boat a shove from behind to help me along and immediately I was upside down again. Damn. That was my day Saturday, though I did successfully navigate the hardest section of the river, a class 3, without any problem. We postponed Sunday’s outing because water was still too highso will do it in a couple of weeks. In the meantime I have to get into a pool and practice my rolls.

Yesterday was another mix of weather but not so much rain and relatively warm. In the afternoon I raced down to the county election offices on my bike to register myself though it turned out I’m already registered. I had to switch parties to be able to vote in the Democratic primary so for now I’m a registered Democrat which I don’t like the idea of. Better than a registered Republican of course but not by much in my opinion. I’d rather not be affiliated with either, or any, party. I have little faith in the dems or what is essentially a two party system in this country which for all intents and purposes is run by lobbysist for the big coporations. It’s all quite disgusting and even though I’ll vote I do understand those that don’t. Al Gore won by 500,000 votes but he lost, a) because of vote rigging in Florida and b) because of some fucked-up antiquated system called the electoral college where a person can win the popular vote such as Gore did but still lose. Stupid fucked-up system which is there to be abused and twisted in favour of those who are willing to abuse and twist the system to their benefit.

Anyway on the way to the offices the wind was blowing and created a mini petal-storm which looked great. I managed to get a couple of snaps one of which is below. A better version of it is here which is larger and on a black background.

Technorati Tags: pdx, photos, portland OR

I really wish I’d had my Powershot SD100 last summer instead of my old Powershot S30 that I was using. The difference in quality is quite significant and I have some good photos that would be amazing if taken with a better camera. Anyway I’ve just quickly converted one I took on a hike last June into black and white. I’m sure there’s more advanced ways of doing this and making it look better but I just took the quick & easy route with my new version of Photoshop Elements.

Technorati Tags: 3 sisters, hikes

My new Canon Rebel xti arrived which is very exciting though I haven’t really taken any pictures with it yet. Well I have but nothing I’ve wanted to keep. The weather has been pretty grim so I haven’t been going out too much although I have plenty of time as I haven’t worked in over a week. Over at the PDX Flickr group someone started a photo thread on the cherry blossoms in flower at the moment here in Portland. I’m not sure that the picture I sent in is actually of cherry blossoms but they are beautiful enough that I felt I could put the picture in there. It was taken with my Powershot SD1000:

The other morning I was downtown and had coffee at Stumptown on SW 3rd Ave. It looked so good I had to take a photo. Taken with my Powershot again:

Obviously I need to start getting some photos taken with my new camera. I need to start work too.

Technorati Tags: coffee, pdx, portland,OR

I took a few photos yesterday which was the day of a big anti-war protest. I didn’t even know of the protest until I read some of the guys on the Portland Flickr group were heading down to it. It kicked off at 2pm but I was in a coffee shop keeping warm and dry and got downtown later. I did manage to catch up with the march but had to keep under shelter from the rain, then I made a beeline for Powell’s bookstore. I bought myself Watchmen which is the first graphic novel I’ve ever purchased. Anyway none of my photos I took yesterday had anything to do with the protest. I met up with some of the Flickr group on Thursday night and hope to hook up with them again. Yesterday wasn’t the day though. Some more photos on my Flickr page.

Note to self - Get a grip and start making an effort to post stuff here.

Took some pics recently with my new camera. Here’s one;

I really want to get back into running again. I miss the running routes I had in Boston and all the miles I used to do. I ran this morning in the heavy rain, then went and bought a new pair of running shoes and got a new battery for my heart-rate monitor. If I hadn’t had the debilitating knee problem last year I’m sure I would have been running more regularly than I have been doing, but there’s just not the great options for running routes straight from my home here in Portland as there was back in Cambridge. I have one park I can run to which is excellent and is a workout because of the hills, but that’s all there is around here. There’s great running trails across town but I have to drive to get to them which I don’t like doing. Now I have an opportunity to do the Copenhagen marathon next May. It would be nice to do but I’m starting from essentially a zero base. It can be done with dedication and a lot miles, just not sure if it’s the best thing to do. Hmmm…

I’ve finally got around to sorting out some of my hiking pics from the summer. I climbed Mt Adams in WA state on July 4th which was great. Fantastic weather and scenery. Eight of us did the climb, well it’s not technically a climb but it’s not a hike either. We camped out at 5,500 ft on the night before and got up at 5.30am to head up. Mt Adams is 12,200ft so that’s over a 6,500ft climb which is pretty good and certainly not something I’ve done before. If you look at the map below you will see I’ve placed a blue teardrop pointer on Mt Adams. To the east of the mountain is Mt St Helens. To the south in Oregon is Mt Hood, and to the north is Mt Rainier. If you click on the pointer you’ll see a thumbnail pic of me on the summit. The rest of the pics I took on the hike are over here at Flickr.

View Larger Map

One of the coolest bridges ever is the Steel Bridge here in town crossing the Willamette River. There were thousands of runners crossing it today during the Portland Marathon. There’s a lot of bridges crossing the river, but this is my favourite.