Day Two - Oregon Trip [12-10-2010]

The saga continues...

Part of of our adventure included a "gaming" component.

There has been a standing joke about an old Nintendo fishing game "The Black Bass." We enjoyed messing around with this game about 20 years ago. My brother brought his Nintendo and the game to Portland. This was entertaining in and of itself (please see comment in previous post about the low threshold required to amuse us.)

Our friend stepped it up a notch. He went into another room and unveiled Rappala's fishing game for the Xbox 360. The game included a controller that was a shortened version of a rod with an open-face reel. We had fun messing around with the newer game.

Our friend also gave my brother and I a year-long Xbox Live subscription for Christmas. We stepped through the process of setting up the Xbox Live accounts. Each person is assigned a system-generated username. My brother's default username was pretty funny -LopsidedErmine4 (basically means crooked weasel.) I am not sure which is more funny...the username itself or the fact LopsidedErmine1 through 3 were previously assigned.

My friend and I also created my brother's avatar. We thought it was spot-on. He decided to change it though.

On to other things...

We decided to grab lunch at a "greasy spoon" in the area - Helvetia Tavern. I have been here both times I visited Oregon. My brother has been here numerous times as well. There are a couple things that set this diner apart from others.

First, there are hundreds of hats hanging from the ceiling. I am not sure what the back-story is. Feel free to make up your own.


The other thing that sets this place apart is their food. Their burger, fries and onion rings are great. They also offer a mayo-based dipping sauce they call "Goop." Here is a "beauty shot" of one of our meals:


After we finished eating, our friend took us to another attraction in the area. The following are pictures of an all-wood train tressel that is still in use. It reminded me of the same architecture utilized in the construction of wooden roller coasters.



Stay tuned for tomorrow's episode...triple-pigged waffles and a very large wooden waterfowl...

The Mother of All Storms

I am going to step away from the posting of day-to-day accounts from my recent trip to Oregon.

First, I realize some people may not understand what I am going to post. I am at peace with that. There are times in life where seemingly unorthodox things need to be done for one to move forward. I think this post will demonstrate it is possible to have a transcendental moment while sharing a beer with good friends.

Some background information is needed for context. Up until a couple years ago I had a passion for craft beer. I gave that up due to medication I am currently taking. The circumstances of my last beer were not positive. I had not discussed this with with many people but felt driven to perform a "do-over" of my last beer. I privately made a pact with myself that I would do this if I ever made it out to Pelican Brewpub again.


I did something similar to this with a couple friends at Great Lakes Brewing recently. I had a single snifter of Barrel-Aged Blackout Stout. It was important for me to have positive vibes related to my last beer(s.)

Back to Pelican Brewpub...there are several reasons I wanted to do this at Pelican:

+ The brewpub is literally located on the beach. The scenery is awesome.
+ I knew I would be with one of my best friends. As it turns out I was with two of my best friends.


+ Pelican brews some of the best beer I have ever had.
+ The food is also great!

I did not tell my brother or friend about this initially. I originally planned on ordering a Tsunami Stout. I noticed an advertisement on our table that promoted a vertical tasting of Pelican's Barleywine. I caught them off-guard when I ordered the vertical:

The six samples were about the equivalent of a pint. I sipped on these all evening. Four of the samples were four different "vintages" of Pelican's Barleywine. The last two I tried were Pelican's Barleywine aged in Bourbon barrels. They named their barrel-aged beer "Mother of All Storms."

My favorites were the 2005 Stormwatcher's Barleywine and the 2009 Mother of All Storms. They were all well-crafted beers though.

I didn't realize it at the time. Upon further reflection, I realize I had the perfect beer for my last beer - The Mother of All Storms. Thanks to my family and friends I have been able to weather "The Mother of All Storms" the past couple of years.

I will never forget that night. Thanks again to my brother for making it all possible.

Day One - Oregon Trip [12-09-2010]

Time to recount my Oregon adventure. My brother was kind enough to fly us to Portland, Oregon recently. We stayed with a good friend of ours. History dictated this trip would be an "adventure." We were not disappointed.

The trip consisted of many "firsts." This was the first time I flied First Class. It was nice to have the extra leg room and attention from the flight staff.

My journey started in Northeast Ohio. I drove down to Columbus the day of our flight. We were able to navigate the security screening without any problems.

We boarded the plane on-time. Here is a picture of the frozen tarmac at Columbus:


Unfortunately, an hour and a half later our progress was limited. The scenery hadn't changed much:


I wish our conversation was recorded during the delay. Based on our observations, we concluded an engineer was required to pull the Nintendo Flight Control System cartridge out of the bay, spray it with canned air and re-seat the cartridge. We were able to leave after an issue with one of the drains was taken care of.

Our connecting flight went through Denver. I tried to arrange a get-together with a friend of ours. Unfortunately, our friend was not able to meet up with us. It turns out we would have missed meeting up with her anyways. We originally had more than enough time to account for any delays. We barely made our connecting flight though. We were in the Denver's airport for about 4 minutes. That time was spent getting to our gate (5 gates away.)

We arrived in Portland on-time. We decided to put the trip into gear and hit a wing joint our friend recommended - Fire on the Mountain. There was an interesting back-story to this place. Relatives of the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, generally considered the birthplace of buffalo wings, own this establishment. The story is told on a wall in the restaurant (please excuse the glare):


We tried a raspberry habanero sauce that was solid.

Another thing that was interesting was the available desserts. The Pacific Northwest is known for organic foods, etc. Apparently there is a group of people that like to batter and deep fry odd things. The restaurant had some unique offerings We did not get the deep-fried Twinkies but did try a couple things.

What do you think these are?:


Care to venture a guess as to what these are?:


Hint - both of these are dessert items. Give up???

The top one is deep-fried Nutter Butters. The bottom image is deep-fried Oreos. This is the first time I tried anything like this. The Oreos were awesome. The Nutter Butters weren't bad either.

Another thing that entertained us (mind you....it doesn't take much) was the tabletops. Various "odd" headlines from publications, like "The Onion", were underneath a Plexiglas tabletop. Here are a couple examples:


That is enough for the first day. Please stay tuned for the Adventures of the Black Bass and other tales of wonder....

The Palette of Our Life

It has been awhile since I posted. Time to remedy that I guess.

Virtually all aspects of my life are in flux. Support from family and friends is helping me keep things moving in the right direction. I struggle with relaying how much the support is truly appreciated.

There are various thoughts that continue to cross my mind.

I have been thinking about all of the people I have encountered during my journey. The same mental (or abstract) imagery keeps surfacing. A blank canvas comes to mind. Our being is represented by general, non-precise pencil markings - an outline of sorts. The painting comes to life throughout our lifetime. There are those in our lives that have a positive impact on us - represented by bright, vibrant colors. There are also those that may have a a negative impact on us - represented by dull, dark or neutral colors.

A painting consisting of all bright (or all dark) colors will appear to be somewhat one dimensional. It would be difficult to appreciate the beauty of the image without the contrast offered by a blend of vibrant and darker colors. I think the same can be said of our lives. We are not able to truly appreciate our successes unless we have confronted and overcome challenges along the way.

Another point to consider is that we will never know which brush stroke(s) truly brings our "painting" to life. Our "painting" is always a work-in-progress. It is continually tweaked as we make our way through life. Some of the people we interact with in life are going to make pronounced brush strokes. Other interactions may result in subtle brush strokes. Trying to identify which interaction is more important would be fruitless though. Each interaction adds to the painting - or who we are as a person.

The last point may be the most important. Our "painting" will have imperfections. That is a foregone conclusion. There may be visible brush stokes, globs of paint, etc. To me, these imperfections do not detract from the painting. Instead, these imperfections make each "painting" unique. Each person's life is unique and the resulting "painting" should be considered a masterpiece in its own right.