I love this city.

it's true, i do.

Thursdays

I may need to rethink taking the time to watch LOST on Wednesday as it airs. I always feel like crap the next day when I have to get up at 5am. I'll have time for a nap after work and before D&D (assuming I get off work on time), but that won't help me actually get through the work day.

Good Times

I had a pretty amazing weekend this past week, and I'm hoping the next one is as good or better.

New D&D game is under way, thanks in large part to my organizational efforts. I managed to find a good group of people who get along and are fun to play with. That means we win D&D before we even start playing.

Spent some time getting to know someone better, and had a great time with that as well.

Managed to bike downtown and back, not all in one go of course, but I got down there, and I got back, which is something like 4.2 miles each way, so an 8.4 mile round trip. Possibly my record for one day of biking. Getting to work and back is almost trivial now, the hills along the way barely seem to register.

Started watching The Wire, did season 1 this past weekend, started on season 2 yesterday. I dunno about "The Best Show on Television", but it's damn good.

I'm glad that I'm in the habit of actually doing things on my days off now. There was a time not long ago when I would just sit around and do nothing, and that does no one any good. Nothing like hard work 40+ hours a week to make the weekends something precious.

Biking!

I've now ridden my bike to work and back two days in a row, so I think I can say that I'm back into the swing of things. It was even chilly and sprinkling a bit this morning, and I didn't even feel like I was making myself choose the bike over the car, so I was pretty psyched about that.

The weather here is definitely getting warmer, and with that apparently comes "wetter", as it seems to have rained every damn day. I don't have much of a problem with this, and it's usually sunny by the afternoon when I get off work.

I went to "World-wide Dungeons and Dragons Game Day" this past Saturday. Sounds like something of an annual event, but really it's something that Wizards of the Coast puts on whenever they have a new major product to sell you. Regardless, it was a good opportunity to sit down with some strangers and roll dice. I've never played 4th edition D&D before this point, though I have some of the books. I must say I enjoyed it quite a bit. They've changed things up to give every class lots of toys and interesting things to do, instead of the old "I'm a barbarian. I hit it with my axe. I hit it with my axe again. Oh, my turn again? I hit it with my axe."

Extreme biking up a volcano

I rode my bike up a volcano yesterday.

ok, well most of the way up. The first bit of the trail is a bitch and a half, but things level off a little better further up. And the way down was super easy, of course.

Mt. Tabor is an extinct volcano that is within the city limits of Portland. Not only is it in the city limits, but the park around Mt. Tabor is about a mile away from my apartment. I'm not sure why I hadn't explored that area yet, but I finally got around to it yesterday and it was pretty awesome. Lots of windy roads and trails, a neat playground, and good seating at the top for hanging out and watching sunsets and whatnot. Not to mention a pretty amazing view looking downtown. Plus there are some reservoirs on the park land as well, which look cool, but I don't think you'd want to swim in them or anything. Only one of them was full yesterday.

I took some pictures, they'll be up on Flickr shortly.

Going out

I'm a fucking social butterfly lately, it's a strange change of pace from back in Iowa. Whereas I'd maybe go out once or twice a week back then (and each of those outings more or less revolved around drinking until bar close), here I find myself going out nearly every night of the week, and the drinking, if any, is quite limited. Just this week for example, I have Tubesday tonight (going to a bar called Tube for vegan ham'n'cheez sammies), LOST on Wednesday, Hopworks on Thursday (a local microbrewery) to hang out with some local PPKers, and then a Christopher Guest movie night on Saturday. Granted there will be some drinking at these events, given the locations, my personal level of drinking has gone way way way down. I'll have maybe two drinks on the more wild nights here, and often none at all if I'm working the next day, though that may come primarily from a fear of a 5am hangover.

I credit this new more social life primarily to the fact that I'm not playing World of Warcraft any longer. It's been hard to give it up, and there are still times I'm tempted to reinstall, but I feel happier and more fulfilled by spending time with friends in real life, and not spending all day alone in my apartment.

Of course now, between working 40 hour weeks and going out most nights, I almost feel like I don't have enough time at home, for things like cleaning and bill-paying. To be fair though, I do have enough time, I just spend it fucking around on the internet instead of doing useful things.

hmm. this is starting to sound mopey. I was going to talk about my lack of a dating-life, but then it would definitely be mopey, so I'll sign off.

meh...

I just went across the street and rented the first three discs of season one of Battlestar Galactica instead of going to the library. Various people have been hounding me to watch this forever, and this seemed like a good time to do so.

ps: it's pretty good so far, but the first episode is 3.5 hours, so be prepared to sit for a while.