Crack of Dawn at Farch Mountain

Last week, I was talking about where to go fishing in Portland with my Uncle and he was listing off all these lakes that I have now forgotten. Anyways, we started talking about scenic points and he mentions Farch Mountain having a great view of the sunrise. He jokes, "Wanna wake up at 4AM and drive up there? wahaha" Calling his bluff, I look at him deadpanned and go, "sure, lets do it!"... "ooh ok.. we'll go then, sure you can wake up?"

Haha when 4AM rolls by, I feel like crap and just snooze until 4:30AM. Then Wilton runs up the stairs bursting with energy, "Chad! Are we going? It's 4:30! I just ate two burritos!" The kid stayed up all night for this haha and I didn't have the heart to say no. I check out the sunrise time and it's 5:36. It takes about an hour to get there. So I'm like if we're gonna go we gotta go now!

About 30 minutes of driving, I start hitting the twisties to go up Farch Mountain. The sky is already brightening up, yet it was kinda foggy. Crap. I shrugged it off because we already drove so far. Twisties always bring a smile to my face, so I step on it. Wilton's been kinda quiet, so I look over and ask him if he's alright. He mutters that he's a bit carsick, so I dial it down a bit. I wasn't going fast just for the fun of it, I wanted to get there on time too! Apparently I didn't slow down enough. I totally forgot that he had eaten two burritos right before the trip. He ended up not going to see the sunrise at all. He threw up in the back of my car into a bag (thank god I had that bag)

I was probably about 5-10 minutes too late. When I left the parking lot, I had about a 1/4 mile trail to walk up to the viewpoint. From the parking lot the sun was poking out already...nooooooooooooo. But it made an awesome picture:

ooOOOoo, if I only had a better camera

Once I saw that starburst of a sun, I booked it.  Running like mad up the trails and I encounter the steps.  DUN DUN DUN

How far up? HOW FAR??

Luckily it wasn't that far up (but on my way down there was this heavy-set dude that was struggling so hard to get up there.  he had to rest every 3 steps.  ah man, poor guy).  When I made it to the top, I was gasping for air......

.....because the view was so breathtaking! (couldn't resist. i know, it's an illness and i believe its contagious)

Wish I was here before it rose.

I like this rock formation

Mt. Hood: Where snowboarding happens.

Above the clouds

What I saw when I first got up there, made me go Wow out loud. 

Staring at this kinda trips me out

The trees directly across from the sun provided a cool backdrop.  Yeah, I was alone, my uncle didn't wake up and my brother was passed out in the car.  But it was so awesome up there, even if it was by myself.  The sun was slowly rising, a sea of clouds below you, and five mountains in the distance all around you.  It was peaceful and quiet, I just let my mind go blank for a few minutes.  So relaxing... until the mosquitos found me.  RUN!!!!

Mt. Tabor

It's been loverly in Portland lately, so I decided to drag the boys out of their gaming dens and go hiking on a Sunday afternoon.  My brother came up here to visit for the summer and everybody just spends most of their time separate in their own rooms!  Can you believe that?  It'd be the same as if he didn't come up.  Kids these days.

Mt. Tabor is a small extinct volcano turned into a park only a few miles from where I live.  It's a really nice place to checkout on a sunny day.  It's got reservoirs, basketball courts, tennis courts, a playground, and a good amount of paved road.  I saw this guy take his longboard up there, and it looks like a lotta fun! We were initially feeling adventurous and decided to take the most adventurous paths we can find.  After about 10 minutes, and scurrying through a mosquito infested forest we decided to walk on the paved road instead.  Haha I think I got bit like 5 times in one path. 

 That's our drinking water

 Mr. Scott, the Pioneer pointing West

 NOOO Dont go in there!

Kenneth (15 minutes into the hike): "How long is this gonna take?"

Return, View and Review

Return

I'm back! it's been a while because of this fixture design and manufacturing project that I've just officially finished. WOO! Boy, there was overtime, and weekend working, and major hurdles, but I'd rather not get into details.  This weekend was just what I needed to unwind and I didn't even know it was coming.  My uncle tells me on Thursday night that I have to drive him down to Eugene so that  he can drive my cousin's car back to Portland to get it Smogged.  Oregon has this crazy backwards rule where you have to get the car DEQ'ed (Smogged in Cali) in the city that it was registered in?  So instead of having it smogged conveniently in Eugene, we had to have two cars travel over 200 miles roundtrip to get it done.  Thats great for the environment...

View

But it was a blessing in disguise, because when I showed up in Eugene I found out that we were going to the beach on Saturday.  Woohoo! I forgot how long it's been since I've seen the Pacific Ocean.  I've taken living 1 mile from an ocean for granted.  This portion of the blog shall be in pictures.  I present to you:: Hobbit Beach (credits to LN and JY for their beautiful pics!)

Nice view of Hobbit Beach (left) We spent probably over 2 hours building our  manly wave protection wall hahah.  It was destroyed in 15 minutes.  Damn you nature! (right)

 We then proceed to fight back against nature by trying to destroy boulders.  BAMM!! ROCK SMASH! 

You always gotta do handstands at a beach.  Guess who's the gymnast and who's a good fer' nuthin' scalliwag?

 The Ferocious Five

 I draw the only thing that I know how to draw, Turtle Power!

 I get buried, and it was so comfortable I damn nearly fell asleep!  (feel free to caption-ize this pic)

Heh, thanks to Jenny's action picture taking skills, I had to make this.  He was merely helping me get all that sand off, don't judge. 

 Then we went into town and ate Prime Rib for $12.95.  Hell yes. 

Ahh it was a great Saturday at Hobbit Beach in(around?) Florence.  Thanks for bringing me guys!

What else is new? ah yess, I splurged and bought myself something nice and shiny.  So let's get on to the

Review
I always despised Bluetooth Headsets.  So hard to use!  The first one I got was this crappy cheap logitech one where I was never sure when it was on or connected or off.   It would drain out of batteries cus I left it on, and I probably spent a total of 9 minutes actually using it.  So since then, I stuck with the tried and true wired earpiece or the even more tried and true "cellphone held by wrenched neck" method.

But then I decided to look for one recently, because I had this Call of Duty session where there were 5+ buddies with headsets trying to talk to me, but I remained a mute.  It was like I wasn't even playing with them at all!  And plus, I was tired of the CHBWN method.  And plus, I'm going to be driving a heck of a lot and will need emergency calling to keep myself alert (like last time when I played "I Never" over the phone).  Anyways I scoured through the net seeing what the most recent new fangled reasonably priced Bluetooth headset was, and I came across this baby

Behold the Motorola H17

This thing is so cool! the microphone boom flips open and close to turn the headset on and off! Now I'll definitely know if its on or off, and it's super quick so that I can flip it open, put it on my ear and still be able to answer the incoming call.  Another big feature for this is that it can connect to 2 devices at once.   So imagine this: I'm playing COD with my friends, smack talking, yelling, having a grande time when suddenly my phone rings.  This headset will let me switch over to my phone with one touch of a button, and when I'm done I'm back in my game.  Yay!  Now I understand this use case scenario doesn't apply to a lot of you, but I really love the design of this headset.  Simple, elegant, and it just works.  Plus it charges in 15 minutes haha

So when I'm driving back to home, feel free to give me a call.  I won't end up in a ditch trying to fumble for my phone, I promise! (plus, thats illegal)

RIP CITY

I had another chill out weekend, and it was sunny to boot! (I don't know what that means, I just heard that somewhere and I hope I used it right).  Tiana and Julien were in town and we went to go yum cha at Wong's King.  It was so good, I haven't had good Fung Jaos (chicken feet) in a long time.  Julien never had them before and I was hoping he'd try them but he mentions that they look like a baby's hand O_O.  Haha, I see where he's coming from, but I still love my Fung Jaos.   They went to Saturday's Blazers-Suns playoff game and got me these!:

(thats the sound it makes, for real)

Now I can twang by myself in my living room!  (you're sick)  Ahh.. they're so lucky to be there, it was a great game too! With Brandon Roy making a surprise appearance and Blazers with a W. RIP CITY!!!

So a lot of people wonder why Portland is called Rip City.  Even my cousins didn't know.  So here it is:

From Wikipedia: 
"The term was coined by the team's play-by-play announcer Bill Schonely during a game against the Los Angeles Lakers on February 18, 1971, the Blazers' first season.^[13] In the days prior to the three-point field goal, Blazers' guard Jim Barnett took an ill-advised long distance shot that nonetheless went in, giving the new team hope for a victory against the powerful Lakers. Excited, Schonely exclaimed "Rip City! All right!" Schonely admits that he has no idea how he came up with the expression, but it became synonymous with the team and the city of Portland.^[14]" 

Interesting how Jim Barnett is now the announcer for the Warriors!  Also from Wikipedia, Portland is called Razorblade City....for its relatively high depression and sucide rates....wonk..wonk..wonk....

ANYWAYS, on Monday Nate called me up to go watch the Blazers game at Mission Theater (a bar theater).  It was awesome, packed with Blazers fans watching the game on a movie theater screen.  Man the 1st few minutes of this game was a blast! We came out in full fury and the Sun's were ice cold.  The theater was going crazy, it felt like I was at the game, so fun!  but.. the Blazers streak got stopped dead in its tracks with relentless foul calling the whole game.  The most memorable and ridiculous one is this one:



Watch it! Even if you don't watch basketball, its so ridiculous!

McMenamin's Mission Theater was a great time out.  They show movies here too and you get to drink, eat meals while you watch!  For those that don't know McMenamin's owns a bunch of restaurants and pubs in Oregon.  Nate and Emily told me that they even have a place called the Kennedy School, which is a ex-school turned into a hotel!  wowza.  another place on the "to check out" list

 What it kinda looks like in there.  Imagine a sea of red and black, with an endless supply of beer pitchers.(please excuse my poor photochopping skills)

Food Tour Weekend

This past weekend was very eventful.  I've been wanting to post about it, but I was waiting for Angel's pics to be uploaded.  That and I got lazy.  Julia and Angel decided to come up for their spring break to checkout the raved about food scene in Portland. Yay! Friends!  Dillon and David (happy bday) came up too, I was psyched. Now I got the chance to try food places with buddies.

Food Tour:
1.  The Big Egg:  Great breakfast egg sandwiches and wraps here.  Only 4-5 bucks!  I got "The Portlander" and it was this stacked egg sandwich.  The bread was thick and flavorful and the scrambled egg was perfectly fluffy.

2.  Voodoo Doughnuts:  After many people telling me to go, I finally got some!  They have two locations here and they are both RIDICULOUSLY packed.  We had to wait half and hour to get into the store.  We got a dozen of our own picks but they ran out of my long awaited Bacon Maple Bar.  I gotta say my favorite was the Portland Creme. mm..  Chocolate covered, custard filled.  The other ones were unique but sugary as hell.  The bubble gum flavored one actually tasted like bubblicious, blegh. 

3.  Potato Champion:  Known for making the best french fries ever.  I gotta say, they are pretty good.  Not big on french fries, so I won't be rushing back.  But I did invent my MusKetchRacha sauce here! Equal parts mustard, ketchup, and sriracha, with 3 drops of vinegar.  Stir until evenly orange.  It's damned good.

4.  Waffle Window:  Really delicious waffles.  You order from a window in the side of a building!  I got the strawberry cheesecake waffle and it was the best waffle I've ever eaten.

5.  Pok Pok:  Southeast Asian dishes.  This was our last stop of our tour.  This place is so popular that the wait was an hour long! So what did we do?  We ordered to go and ate in the car in front of the restaurant lol.  It was ghetto as hell, but we were hungry.  Hey, they had the top 10 best chicken wings in the US in 2007!

Devil's Point: At the nudie bar!  It was my first time at one, and it was a lot of fun!  This place is great, totally deserves the 4.5 stars on Yelp.  No cover, cheap beer, friendly staff (talking about the bouncer and bartenders).  Judging from the dive bar interior, I did not expect the girls to be very pretty.  But they were hot!, and a few were extremely talented on the pole.  We missed out on their fire dancers and Stripparaoke (Stippers + Karaoke on a Sunday night!)  So next time ya'll are in town, let's gooooooooooo.

[Sorry no pics haha]

Dollar Scholar:  The coolest dollar store I've been to.  It's on Hawthorne (I missed it the 1st time I went).  The guy is hilarious.  When I was about to walk into the store, he starts throwing sticky blobs at the door. haha I was like wtf.  I go in, and he gives me a turn while other people try to walk in.  He lets you play with anything in there, and the best thing is everything is a dollar or less.  When I left, he gave me a flier for a Pirate Treasure Hunt on 4/18 on Hawthorne Blvd.  Damn! my costume is in SF

POGS HAHA

Powell's City of Books: It is definitely a city of books.  You can get lost in here.  Great place if you love books! Me not so much.  So Dillon and I mischievously browsed the Erotica section.  Point, Laugh, Giggle, "what the??"  I spot the name 'Chadwick' 

Places we didn't get to hit up:  Ground Kontrol Barcade,  Glowing Greens (black light indoor mini-golf!), Pho Le (Vietnamese Sandwiches and Pho from a cart!, Koi Fusion. 

It was fun to go exploring with friends, despite the gloomy rainy weather.  I bet it'd be an even better time if it was sunny.

Thanks Angel for the pictures.  In return, I will use your Yelp posts as links.

Hawthorne Boulevard: Portland's Haight

Today was the first sunny day this week, so I decided to go out and look around.  First, I stopped by for a haircut from my uncle.  Unfortunately, there was some miscommunication and I now have an asian boy cut.  The front was quite overly straight!  It's better now after I softened up the lines with my trimmer.  Oh well, It wouldn't be cool to go back and tell him to fix it.  Maybe I'll join the trend and shave it all in a few weeks!

Option Moe? (haha it's not that bad)

Or Option Curly?

Wikipedia: "Hawthorne Boulevard was named after Dr. J.C. Hawthorne, the cofounder of Oregon's first mental hospital. The road was originally named Asylum Avenue."

Interesting!  Anyways, I was browsing on Yelp on places to go and I found Hawthorne Boulevard which has been notably described as Portland's Haight St.  Rad.  When I got there, it immediately reminded me of Haight back home.  The tattoo/piercing shops, hippies, hipsters, used clothing stores, and guitar-dude singing about hipsters gave me that same laid back feeling I had walking on Haight.  I hurriedly parked my car (plenty of spaces!) anxious to check out the stores.

First stop was Powell's Bookstore.  I read on Yelp that it was a pretty famous independent bookstore around here.  It was a lot like Green Apple's plus a cafe on the side.  I almost purchased Catch-22 (I like war and I like satire) to just chill and read in the cafe but it was almost 5 already so damn me for lagging.  I'll be back on another lazy weekend though.  Hmm... reading a book in a cafe, feels kinda like a movie cliche.  Hell whatever it seems like a relaxing time to me!

Another book that caught my eye was The Smart Aleck's guide to American History.  I realized that I've been so far out of school now that I barely know anything about US History anymore.  I remember a few months ago, my co-worker/roommate who was born in China was touted how he was more American than us.  He's been to most of the 50 states, knew all the 13 original colonies (when us US-borned couldn't name all of them with our brain powers combined).  Now I know I shouldn't be fazed by this and those things are trivial.  But I don't want to end up like those college students on Jay-Walking... Knowledge is Power!


I sure strayed from the topic.  But anyways the main point of this post is that Hawthorne was like 20% of Haight.  I was dissappointed when I walked 2-3 blocks and the hippy groovyness had already ended!  I just browsed some clothing thrifts (Buffalo, Crossroads), bought a $7 jacket, got a hotdog and got outta there.  There were some highlights to the place though, so it's not like I wouldn't wanna go back.  There are a lot of interesting looking restaurants and unique theaters that I'd definitely want to check out with a companion!  Eating food and watching shows by yourself isn't too fun :P

woop woop woop woop!
why you little...!
BONK

Food Challenge: Infinity Hawt Wings

Hot - Chicken BonZ

It was crazy hot.  My mouth was on fire, face was burning and my entire upper body was on pins and needles!  It was a hell of an experience.  So I went with my cousin to Chicken BonZ for all you can eat chicken wings (lemon pepper is de best).  He was doing a video project for class about eating competitions and he decided to go to Chicken BonZ to eat their Infinity Hot Wings and document it.  He had eaten the IHWs before, and vowed to never ever eat them again.  But having short term memory in one hand, and pride in the other, he decided to go do it again.  Being the great cousin I am, I decided to give him moral support by foolishly eating the wing with him. 

 If you can't see the wings, don't worry.. they're there. (...there there there)

I vow not to ever eat the IHW again.

It was pretty funny, we both bought a quart of milk from the nearby Safeway.  The waitress thought we were foolish to order the IHW "sure... if you really want it... at least you guys are prepared! (looking at the milks)"  But yea, that sauce is so spicy.  I didn't feel anything through the first wing, because I was focusing on finishing it.  But once I bit into the second wing, it hit me like a tidal wave.  I couldn't even finish the second wing.  Everbody was laughing about how my face was sweating so much it looked like I just came out of a shower. 

Right afterward I thought, hmm.. this wasn't too bad.  I actually kinda like it.  It's like a wasabi rush times 10, I might do this again!  *ANKKK* wrong.  The worst was to come.  For the next 3 days, my stomache became a gas factory.   Or more like a Volcano; Spicy in... Spicy out.. @_@.  It's horrible!!

Never Again
(unless monetary rewards are involved)

(pics and possible vid?  TBA when available)

More on Mt. Hood Snowboarding

Oh yea, I forgot to add.

I was looking at other resorts besides Mt. Hood Meadows.  And I found out there's a resort near it called Timberline Lodge. (linky1  linky2) Apparently it's got some history/legacy and lot's of pro's come to train there.  Why?

It's open 51 weeks a year.  Yep, thats right.  The only lift-accessible summer ski resort in the country just 60 miles away. 

whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat...

That's pretty crazy. 

Exploregon: Fitness Fun

I sat around for most nights during my 1st week, and I got sick of it quick.  The Portland area rains like crazy throughout the year so I couldn't go out and jog or shoot some hoops (there's a basketball hoop in the parking lot).  So I was looking for something active to do at night (get your mind out of the gutter heh) and I kinda missed swimming when I was in Santa Rosa. 

I found this pretty sweet community center about 2-3 minutes away from my place with a swimming pool, so I decided to check it out.  Turns out, it's equivalent to a YMCA so it also has a weights room, an indoor basketball gym, and even table tennis!  So I have a membership there now, mostly for the swimming.  The coolest part of the swimming pool is that they have a water slide indoors!  They also have a pretty big whirlpool, and a separate lap pool.  So far I could only swim 200m before I collapse and plummet to my doom :P

Exploregon: Ground Kontrol

Most weekdays I just stay in because I don't really know the area.  But Alex starts pestering me about finding my soul mate immediately earlier today and how I'll die a lonely man if I don't get out of the house.  At first I shrugged it off, because I don't like people telling me what to do (real reason is I'm scared).  But there's only so  much Starcraft one can play with their younger cousins before your mind begins to rot.

So I hop onto Yelp and search Nightlife in Portland.  Bookmarked a bunch of 4.5 stars and started reading up on them.  Came across this place called Ground Kontrol.  It's a barcade.  What's that you ask?  By now you probably figured out.  Yep, it's a Bar and an Arcade.  Sweet.  Sounds like a good Thursday night.  Even better! every last Thursday of the month they host a Nintendo event! With Nintendo trivia, and tournaments.  Awesome, perfect timing thanks to Alex.  

I would have gone alone, but I called up my pal Joey to go with.  We end up somewhere downtown, and Joey complains about the narrow lanes.  I didn't notice because it felt just like SF downtown lanes.  I actually felt kinda nostalgic haha.  Apparently GK was located in a shady part of town, but it felt pretty damn safe to me.  The inside of GK looked a lot like the arcade in the movie TRON.  They even had the game TRON! (i sucked miserably).

As I slowly got tipsy sipping on my 2 dollar PBR I fed the following machines:

• Simpsons Arcade - went further than I ever went using only 50 cents!
• Gauntlet Legends - Spent most of our time and money on this one.  One of Joey's Nostalgia games.  It was pretty fun, but Gamespot gave it a 2/5 stars?
• Frogger - you gotta play frogger,  but I was a disappointment holy crap.  I killed 6 frogs within 1 minute.  Couldnt get past the river at all wtf. 
• Tron - It was the tanks game, and I believe I do not know how to play, similar experience to Frogger
• Demolition Man Pinball - their entire top floor was filled with all kinds of pinball machines.  I love playing pinball, and the one that caught my eye was the one with Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes in.. DEMOLITION MAN.  I lost all 3 balls within 1 minute. -_-
• Pirates of the Caribbean Pinball - This is probably my favorite pinball machine.  Probably because they had the exact same one in Davis.  Pew Pew Pew I lasted 3 minutes. 

Man while were absorbed in the world of Gauntlet Legends, they were holding Goldeneye and Mario Kart 64 tourneys.  I so wanted to do the Mario Kart tournament but my character was level 8! So much hard work, I couldn't just leave and die!

I would definitely go back here, cheap beers, nostalgic games and a chill crowd.  Now to check my Yelp bookmark list for the next installment of Exploregon.