Friday, June 04, 2004
What a morning! Coming down Broadway across the usual chaos of the weird lane closure on the bridge I was close to getting killed by a truck - in part my fault for zooming down the sidewalk. Truck going to make a right, not seeing me coming down the sidewalk, my brakes locked up and not stopping fast enough, luckly he saw me and stopped as I slid around the front of the truck. The other option was to hit the side of the truck which I wasn't so into... Next on Glisan and 18th a van from Timberland framing contractors makes a right hand turn across the bike lane without signaling or looking to see if anyone was in the bike lane. I proceded to keep my mouth clean, but yelled a lot and threw up my hands. I caught up to him at the next light where I tapped on his window - he wouldn't roll down the window I told him to check his blind spot before turning and to make sure his blinker was working because I didn't see a signal, he shrugged and sped away - dick! It was the start of the new extra polite jered, instead of swearing and getting mad I decided awhile ago to try and take a more kind and gental approach, try to educate people. This was my first chance to practice it... I don't think it worked. I'm going to put a callin to Timberland Framing Contractors though. That was far too much excitement for one morning. Strange how I'll go months with no problem and suddenly everyone will try to kill me at once... Off for my afternoon espresso...
posted by jered bogli 2:54 PM
Thursday, June 03, 2004
Alright, while this isn't as funny as the "Get Your War On" comics it is still a fun way to kill a bunch of time. You may remember this from the original "emo" game. Now it is back with a more important message!
go play now!!
posted by jered bogli 10:12 AM
Tuesday, June 01, 2004
Memorial Day weekend + Oklahoma = Crazy
Jess and I went to visit a friend in Tahlequah Oklahoma this past weekend. The trip started with a delayed flight out of PDX, which caused us to miss our flight out of Denver despite a 20-gate sprint.
We ended up arriving at the departing gate ahead of the scheduled departure time, yet the door was closed and we watched as they finished loading luggage and eventually moved the jetway away and thus we watched our flight depart without us. This was easily the worst way to miss a flight! We got booked for the next morning and got our airline sponsored hotel stay set up and went to wait for the shuttle. The shuttle ran every half hour. Forty minutes later we see the first shuttle, which has no seats, left. The driver promises another shuttle in ten minutes. Half an hour later another shuttle arrives and the driver leaves the doors closed while he loads luggage, then opens the doors so we can all board the bus. The next stop the driver wanders off before boarding any people and about ten minutes later he shows back up to again slowly load luggage, then allow some people on, close the doors, load more luggage, allow more people on, lock his own door and circle around to get in the main door. The guy behind us we had been talking to since missing our Tulsa flight, he was assuring us this was random and we were not bad people and we did nothing to deserve this. The shuttle delivered us to our hotel last - this wasn't our fault, we did nothing wrong, we are not bad people. While talking to this guy who we've been chatting with for the past couple hours on this adventure we come to find out his uncle was our high school physics teacher - the class Jess and I met in. It was unbelievably strange. It makes you wonder how many other people you have a connection with yet you never know of because you never get to that point in the conversation. Quite a random meeting.
The next morning we went into downtown Denver I'd recently finished redesigning the Jordan pavilion in the Denver Niketown so we used our morning to check that out - fun to see. On our cab ride into downtown Denver we met an odd character by our standards. A black republican who was originally from the Bronx. He told us how good Bush was for the next 20 minutes and how the Arabs broke the horn in his cab, how he had just joined the marines and was going to Camp Pendelton in November and more and more about how Bush was actually a smart man, but he chooses to talk like he is dumb...UH...?
We walked over to the capital and then took the bus back to the Airport. We finally made it to sunny Oklahoma. It was hot and humid in Oklahoma. Our friend Katherine picked us up and drove us back to her cabin in the woods. Along the way I spied countless fun looking drainage ditches and a set of skateable full pipes sitting in a field.
Why did I forget my board? As far as Oklahoma goes let me say it was culturally amazing. We floated down the Illinois River on Sunday.
The group we went with was all Cherokee (minus myself and Jess) and with a touch of beautiful irony the Indians and us were the only sober people on the river. People with a cigarette in one hand and a beer in the other all sunburn and drunk floating down the river. Finish the cigarette and drop it in the river, finish the beer, drop the can in the river. Adults holding beer funnels, girls flashing for free beer, lots of stumbling and falling drunkenly off of rafts into the river. In our 12-mile float we also encountered a thunderstorm and blinding rain only to have it clear up and be sunny for the last six miles. It was crazy. It was gross. It was amazing!! Unfortunately I have no pictures of this chaos, I didn’t bring my camera on the river, which was fortunate because Jess and I swamped our canoe once. On one of the swift parts of the river we ran straight into a hanging tree (which is a good way to hit a hanging tree – straight with the current) we back paddled and tried to miss the tree, we failed and hit it again perpendicular to the current thus flipping our canoe and spilling us into the quick current. I do wish I could have documented the folks on the river that day. The other thing I have to note is my friend Brian has been raving about Sonic.
The TOTS at sonic and the grilled cheese on “Texas Toast”. We ate at Sonic and it was awful – Sorry Brian. There it is, Oklahoma. A beautiful state to visit. We’re much better for the experience, very relaxing and very educational. What more could you want out of a vacation.
Our fine Oklahoma lodging
Relaxing
Downtown Tahlequah on Friday afternoon...
I love the tow truck that is already halfway off the sign.
posted by jered bogli 12:25 PM
