| |
|
|
Saturday was Bird’s 30th birthday, so a bunch of people rallied down to the beach for a semi-suprise party. We headed over to Belmar, NJ because it’s close and easy, and I’d never been there before. We got there in the afternoon to find a really nice beach town – bajillion dollar homes, lots of grass which is unusual at the beach, and also lots of people because it was Saturday in July. We hooked up mid-afternoon and surfed for a few hours in the crowded mess of an ocean, but it was a good time. We didn’t think much more of this place than it looked really nice and it was really crowded.
It turned out, unsurprisingly, that the night before Bird got himself thrown out and banned from the bar we were all to meet at (and most people were going to be surprising him when they came down.) Little did we know what impact this would have… The plan was changed to head over to a bar called D’Jais (the witty lame name should have been a hint enough for what we were getting into.) As we walked up to the door and showed the meathead bouncers our ID’s, we could hear the really loud distorted techno coming out each time the doors opened. We walk in, get raped on a $12 cover charge, and it this point it becomes very difficult to put into words what was going through my mind. I felt like I had walked onto another planet – this was straight up fucking Dusk Til Dawn, except that rather than this place being packed with vampires, it was ‘roided out metrosexuals. It was a sea of Armani Exchange trucker hats and t-shirts with a hint of D&G here and there, overpriced ripped jeans, lame running shoes, and really bad tribal tattoos. The average shirt was about 2 sizes too small, the average guy had about a pound of hair goo in his hair, and I would imagine most of the dudes in there were carrying some kind of mirror on them to get a quick fix between self-admiration sessions. There was no question these guys took longer to get ready than the girls that were in there, who were caked in makeup and were all dressed in slutty trolling outfits. The thing that blew me away though, was that this was EVERY person in this club and there were hundreds of people in there. If you asked me to collect that many people like this to make a movie or something, I would not have thought it possible.
This is something I just didn’t think existed anymore – I remember this shit in Seaside Heights in the early 90’s, with people crusing their Irocs in wifebeaters and big gold chains, and I kept having flashbacks to the commercials for Growing Up Gotti (which I’ve never seen but now know who watches it.) It gets better though… We ended up at this place for four hours. I hadn’t eaten, so I decided to sneak out to grab a cheesesteak and eat it on the beach. The first food place next door had techno pounding where you ordered, but it was crowded so
I went to the next one. That place had the same shit music going too. It was a great break though to chill out and eat on the beach for a few minutes. When we finally left and stopped into Phil’s hotel late that night, the front desk had techno music going and had the lights down. Ummp chuh ummp chuh ummp chuh… It was as if this entire town had been taken over as soon as it got dark out.
Yesterday was super fun in Jersey, we finally timed it right with some storms and got really good waves. To top it off, it’s trunk weather now. After 4 hours straight of out-of-shape paddling, I felt like I got hit by a train when I got up today. I got up and jumped on a plane this morning to gaurantee the rest of my body seizing up. I also get to spend the next two days on planes to seal the deal.
Speaking of surfing, it’s dinner time up at the Cape where we used to surf every now and then. I had a link to a better, more graphic story of the seal getting eaten, but it’s gone now. This is exactly why we don’t miss surfing in Oregon.
Our sorta-annual 4th of July trip to Portland was a great one. Faz put up with us for 10 days and we did a month’s worth of stuff in that time, and drank about two month’s worth. Here’s most of what we did…
- Got up and went to Lorn and Dottie’s for potato pancakes
- Went to Extracto for coffee.
- Started working our way to the beach, stopping in McMinnville to check out Ehren McGhehey’s new shop called Valley.
- Worked our way to Pacific City to Ehren’s new house
- Did a bunch of house stuff and then hit the beach
- Jumped in the water for some not-so-great surf, but it was still fun
- Spent a lot of time wrestling Ehren and Danielle’s dog Whiskey (video)
- Watched Faz improvise on the ukelele (video)
- Got drunk
- Headed back to the beach for a late-night to climb up the side of a cliff overlooking the ocean. These are the no-joke fireworks people were setting off.
- Got some vague, tight-lipped hints from Ehren of what’s coming up in Jackass 2 while Faz freaked out about potentially falling off this cliff. Can’t wait.
- Got up and tried to make a big big fridge fit into a small space.
- Went to breakfast with the clan where Ehren
and Faz (video) stepped into the ring with a good debate. All time.
- Headed back to Portland
- Went to one of our favorite PDX places, Doug Fir to eat and then see Rogue Wave. The show and the atmosphere were surrealistically good..
- Finally got a little sleep
- Went to work with Faz to see the Holden office
- Walked all over downtown Portland
- Worked our way over to the Foster’s for a cookout
- Watched a big lightning storm
- Back to Doug Fir to see Band of Horses and a lengthy late night dinner
- Went to buy fireworks, had to go up to Vancouver (or the ‘Couve as they say) WA to get the good stuff.
- Ate lunch at Muchas Gracias.¡Muy bueno!
- Got our cookout on, lots of people coming by: Vin, Coulter and Goobkin, the Reeds, LG & Ara, Kara.
- Game on, time to blow shit up. $200 of fireworks. No casualties, except for a close call with a bottle rocket skimming my cheek and missing my eye by about half an inch. (More / slideshow)
- Walked around Hawethorne
- Rented a car
- Went to see Vin and the new Instrument global headquarters
- Stopped by Kegler and Eric Peet’s space
- Hit up Burgerville just because
- Went over to Cal’s Pharmacy and Dept. Pharmacy is under long-term construction.
- Hooked up with Ehren and Danielle and played pool at Bar of the Gods while we waited for our table for pizza
- Got pizza, Faz and Ehren resumed the dispute (video), round 2.
- Stopped by a kickass birthday party and watched a kickass rockabilly band, Dead Man’s Hand.
- Drank more at a different bar. Again.
- Hit the adidas employee store for some shoes. I got my first pair of running
shoes ever that require a manual, CD-rom, and crazy over-packaging.
- Mio sushi for lunch, best sushi ever.
- Stopped by Holden again
- First Thursday was going on and we went to a party at the adidas Originals store, where Tara won a raffle for a free track jacket and a pair of shoes for me. As if we hadn’t just bought enough stuff with three stripes on it. Booyah.
- Muu-Muu’s for dinner
- The Alibi for cocktails. Karaoke night. I’ve had more alcohol this week than I usually drink in 3 months. This is still the greatest bar ever built.
- Went out to Beaverton for the Paper Zone
- Right back to Portland to check out Bonfire’s super so nice new space. Had Phil prepare me an espresso because he likes, and needs, to serve me.
- Went to see Pirates of the Caribbean in Lloyd Center. Not so rad.
- Went over to Esparza’s for dinner
- Went to Collosal for more drinks
- Got up and went to breakfast at Violet with Shawn and Faz
- Made the rounds of every vintage store in Portland and could have left with a lot of new furniture
- Hooked up with Melanie at Kennedy School for our final meal before heading to the airport, ended up right next to Kegler.
- Flew home on the red eye. Painful.
- Got home, napped for 2 hours, picked up my dad and went to a Phillies game for his delayed Father’s Day gift.
- Done.
We just got to Portland for the not-quite annual 4th of July Blow Shit Up vacation. We’re off to an epic start over the last two days that’ll be setting the standard for the rest of this trip. There’s lots of people to catch up with and lots of shit to blow up, and no time to add anything now. Brace yourself for a mountain of good photos and even some video…
A bunch of us at work have been playing the Quake 4 demo on the network, and today we threw down and bought the full versions. There’s going to be a lot of late work nights now, I’m having flashbacks from the adidas building after work in Portland…
It was another great weekend. We headed down to Maryland (where I don’t know because I never looked at the map) Friday night for the Arcadia Derby where the thongs are big and the competition is intense. There was some last minute prep to Indeed Dave’s car on Saturday morning and we went straight to the event from there. We had a fireball of a Ford Festiva ready to impose its will on a range of Blazers, Neons, and more. Since nobody wanted to drive sight unseen, Bird volunteered to drive the No. 35 Fastiva and made out. We kicked ass for a first showing, but the next round is going to need better graphics and better messaging. The event was basically a free for all race that started on a straight downhill into a tight square track, where some people had trouble navigating the turns. We did well, but not well enough to advance, although the car didn’t have much left
in it after the first run. After the races came the demolition derby, which also took its toll…
Last weekend was a great weekend. Despite having to do some work over the holiday, we made the most of the three days. In that time we picked up Tara’s new car, got some wetsuits we had ordered so long ago I don’t remember, went to three lacrosse games, and spent a day in dirty Jersey surfing. Tara’s Mazda Tribute is the worst car either of us have ever had, and at 70,000 miles was moments away from becoming a total money pit. In the last 2 years it’s probably been towed 4 times from breakdowns, got a new transmission at 60,000 miles, and we’ve spent way too much money fixing it already and we were about due for another big payout. So we traded it in and got a new Toyota FJ. It’s a nice replacement for the old van we no longer have, with the added benefit of being able to drive over things. We picked it up Saturday morning and needed to break it in, so we drove straight to the NCAA lacrosse finals in Philly just in time to watch UVA hand Syracuse a serious beatdown, then swung by to show the parents the new car, and went on to our next game which was Philly’s “pro” lacrosse team the Barrage. Since there’s not a lot of money in professional lacrosse, the level of play is nowhere near what you get at an NCAA game but they’re still fun games to go to and we got season tickets this year. You can tell by the attendance at the season opener that they have a long way to go.
I spent the next day surfing and realizing how out of shape I am. In between being in the water, I smeared some sunblock on my wet self which worked in some spots but not others, so my stomach is a little zebra-striped right now. We hung out with Denny and Kim’s new dog who is in training to kill anything with wings. The beach was so good we blew off going back to Philly for the Division II finals, but headed right back on Monday morning to watch UVA finish their season 17-0 by completely thrashing U-Mass in the finals, after we got in some tailgating in the FJ. Now I am back to work and this is all behind me and waiting for this weekend which will involve a demolition derby…
Nick sent me a batch of photos he took of the flooding up in York right
now. This shit is unbelievable, not something you’d ever imagine on the New England coast. We were just up there 2 weeks ago to open the season with some kickass waves the whole time we were there.
Last night, coming home from our flag football game Tara and I were at an intersection on the way home where we could tell there was a car parked in a pretty unusual spot facing us off the road. Nobody was stopping or doing a thing, but when we got up there we realized a Honda just broadsided a Porsche going pretty fast. There were no cops, no people, just the two drivers. The guy in the Honda was pretty banged up. His head had a lump the size of my fist, and his knee was bleeding a ton and it turned out that something had gone through his knee cap. Tara got to practice her ER skills because the cop that showed up was pretty clueless and the first medical guy there wasn’t all that dialed either. She ended up getting the guy situated and the collar brace on his neck until the EMT’s showed up, and got his knee bandaged. It was pretty crazy, absolutley nobody had stopped to help out. Since I am far from being a medical professional or professional of any sort, I just hung out and took some photos…
We had a pretty cool blue fish that was looking pretty haggard and pathetic. The other night we noticed his stomach was unusually huge and we weren’t quite sure what to do. He ended up exploding overnight, literally.
|
|
 |
July 31, 2006 7:27 pm | 
