My Wushu Blog

The previous night I was lucky enough to get out for a jog and Portland is pretty nice, that is until I hit a truck stop type of road (which is odd, I guess I just naturally find myself in this places). I made a full circle back to the hotel at that point anyway, so the jog was shorter than I had wanted (and I ended up adding 30 minutes to the total on a treadmill that night), but it was nice to get out and see some of Portland and not get completely lost.

the next morning was our early drive to Seattle. This part was pretty quick. We had to drive about 170 miles from Portland to Seattle, and it only took 3 or so hours ( add one for a Wal Mart stop plus a coffee break).

Seattle is a very nice looking city, just like Portland and I wish we could have hung out for a little bit. However, our timing was perfect, and we were able to hop right on the ship without any delays. Checking in took a while, and by the time we got through (about an hour or so), they told everyone entering the ship to head to deck 9, to eat at the buffet.

This is where things got way to chaotic. It was about 4:30, and it was time for Owen’s afternoon nap, so Caralyne and I headed to the buffet while Michele stayed with Owen. While Caralyne and I were just about to eat, the Captain said at 5pm (in 15 minutes) they would have the emergency drill, and everyone was required to attend. So I rushed back to the room, grabbing some bread rolls for Michele, to try and grab her, and two children sized life jackets. When I got to the room, the alarms were already going off, waking up Owen. If you’ve ever woken a sleeping baby when they were not ready, you know how bad it can be. So now imagine hauling a crying 1 year old, who can easily rival the ships alarm system, so you can hang out with everyone on the 5th deck, packed together like sardines. After 10 or so minutes of roll taking, they went over the life jackets, and then let us go. fBy this time, the buffett was closed, and we had to wait another hour before we could actually eat. I told Michele that she and Caralyne could go eat, while I stayed with Owen until he fell asleep. That took a while, when he gets upset like that its very hard to calm him down, so we sat in a pitch black room crying together

After that, I ate, then pretty much hit the hay. It was a long day and I was too tired to do anything else. that always frustrates me.

The drive to Portland was really nice. The best part about drive NORTH on I5 from California, is that it gets prettier the farther you go. Oregon is a beautiful state, I’m really going to dislike the drive back home (view wise that is, otherwise, I’ll be ready ).

We had timed it really well, we left right before Owen was ready for a nap. He slept most of the way, and then we kept him busy with a bottle and toys. When we arrived out today’s destination, Portland Children’s Museum, he was ready to get out of the car.

Michele’s brother, Charles, and his family also came along

This place was really cool, for both kids and Michele and I. This is sums up nicely why I liked the place so much:

There were a lot of cool things for all of us to play with, like ambulances

doctors offices (I felt right at home)

a fishtank Owen really liked

a water-table that I liked a lot

And best of all, I got my first Bear picture (not polar though)

All the photos for the day can be found here:
http://www.m87-blackhole.org/photos/2009-05-portland/

We are driving up to Seattle to catch our cruise ship. Our “Vay-Kay”, as my sister Jessica was trying to get Caralyne to say. We’ll be on a 7 day cruise up the coast of Alaska, and the first part of that is driving from Antioch to Seattle. It should be really nice. I’m also going with 12 or so of my In Laws.

This, like any good HP Lovecraft journal, will document my path to insanity. The may end in me hallucinating about the Deep Ones, the city of R’lyeh.

Today we left Antioch around 7:30am, drove 533 miles to Eugene Oregon. It took about 10 hours. The biggest problem with driving that far with two kids is… driving that far with two kids. We are also caravan-ing with my mother and father in law, which has its pluses and minuses. The minuses are things like rest stops. They are drawn to them like moths to a a light. Michele and I actually have so far refused to stop at a few of them, I mean really, we don’t need to stop every 50 miles to pee.

We stopped to eat a few times though, and eventually found ourselves in Eugene Oregon and a very nice Holiday Inn. The rooms were killer, the place was brand new, and it only cost about 100 a night. We ended up letting Michele’s niece stay in our room, and that was kind of a bummer. Its harder to tip-toe around someone else when you have things to do in the early morning or give a baby a shot in the middle of the night.

We got this delicious Hawaiian pizza for Mezza Luna Pizzeria, man it was good (I ate about half of it). I completely forgot that Eugene is home to the University of Oregon, and more importantly, UO’s Wushu Club. If I was super motivated, I would have asked Mark if he knew anyone here and find out when they train Oh well, I was beat and we only stayed one night.

The next morning we left for Portland, which is only 120 miles away. That should be a much easier trip.

Wow, what an awesome class!

It was nice and warm tonight, so it was really easy to get warmed up and stretch well. That was a bonus though, there were a few really killer parts to tonights class:

• We had some nice and quick basics
• Jumps! which I have not done in a while
• James taught me part of the Baji set he learned
• I had to change my shirt twice, and that means I got a good workout
• James also showed me some interesting weight lifting routines

I had commented to James that I’d still like to learn the Baji set he picked up in China, so when it was time for the class to break off into sections (long weapons tonight), he pulled me over and wanted to go over it. BUT, first thing is first, I wanted to run it by Patti, she is after all our coach and it wouldn’t have felt right not to. She was cool with it, and at the end of the class was happy that I asked James to work on that

So, I worked on a small part of it a bit, and for now, I think I have the general feel for it. Once I get back from the cruise I’ll pick up more and also go over the rough spots. Thankfully, I have footage of the form so I can also refer to that.

After that I did some weights with James, and then we did a bunch of ab work, 100 crunches, 10 push-ups, 15 “twister” crunches, 10 more pushups, somewhere I passed out, more I think I did something else like a pushup, then we finished up.

Too bad I’ll be on a cruise for effectively two weeks, I’d really like to continue off of this momentum.

I grew up on Sierra adventure games, this was the highlight of my trip

A few weeks ago the four of us went with my In-Laws and Butch, a friend of the family’s, to a place outside of Yosemite. It was a RV kind of campground, and they even had cabins you could rent out. Yeah, camping is really tough these days With two kids, we opted for a small little cabin, and it was nice even though I had a cold and a sore throat.

We arrive on Friday, and on Saturday we went the state park. You can find all the pictures here:

http://www.m87-blackhole.org/photos/2009-04-24-yosemite-trip/

I’m very tired today, so I don’t have the energy to write anything else.