Calvin's Weblog

The Oregon Coast

This Victoria Day long weekend, Carole and I drove the Oregon Coast, from Astoria in the North, straight through to Florence.

This is just a quick blog entry - I'll tell more stories later, when all the pictures are developed but for now here's a quick rundown of what we did... as well, I'll throw some pix that we took with my cheap digital camera at the end...

(Click here to browse satellite maps of the coastine.)

The drive from home, straight throught Washington to the Oregon border took about five hours. Instead of taking the I-5 straight down though, we decided to vere off at Kelso and take the Longview bridge over to Nort West Orgeon, so that we could drive the historic (and scenic!) Oregon Coast, starting at Astoria (where The Goonies, The Ring, Kindergarten Cop, and Short Circuit were filmed).

Our first night was not far from there, at Seaside, OR - a boardwalked family-vacation town, much like Ocean City, NJ.

The next day we drove all the Way to Florence - where the biggest sand dunes in North America can be found. Of course, we made MANY stops along the way, including Canon Beach, Ecola State Park, The Dunes National Park, Seal Rock, Otter Rock, Devil's Puncbowl (or was it Devil's Cauldrin?), Lincoln City, Tillamook, Depoe Bay, etc, etc.

We relaxed in Florence, got lots of great pictures, had dinner and drinks on the Old Town pier, went to a fair, had ice cream, then retired to our nice view suite at the Best Western for the finale of Desperate Housewives (lol ...sad but true...)

So, quickly, ('cause I'm at work, and I'm busy!) here are a few pictures:

This first one's a money shot from the beach in Seaside - it had been raining all day, but the sun came out (very briefly) shortly after we arived, so we ran back to the beach with our cameras to get some sunset shots.

This cool tree is in Ecola State Park. The weather was much better the next day, as you can see!

The Rocks below Ecola State Park - Canon Beach and the rest of the big haystack rocks are directly to the left of where this picture was taken...

This is the Devil's Punchbowl and Otter Rock in the background - amazing place!

On Heceta beach in Florence:

Under the historic Bridge in Old Town Florence, with the rolling dunes in the background.

More Sand Dunes. These things go on for a hundred miles - some are over 300 feet tall... it's impossible to take a picture of their magesty, which is why I added the link to the satellite photos at the top of this entry - you gotta check 'em out ... pretty darned cool!

Oh- and Carole has added some of her favorite pix from my digital camera to HER photo gallery page - be sure to check out http://itsallgood.sed.ca/Oregon for more photos!

Man, You just had to be there...

Last night, Carole and I headed out to Kits to see our friend Gerald Vargas perform his comedy stylings at The Urban Well. This was a "best New Talent in Vancouver" competition, and there were ten really great acts on the bill.
We got there early (about 6PM) so we had dinner and a couple of drinks across the street at Malones. By 7PM, we were in the Well, said 'hi' to Gerald, and kicked back waiting for the show to start at 7:30. Carole had invited her step-sister Laura down, and she showed up just before the show was about to begin.
The commedians had to draw numbers to determine their opening slot, and just Gerald's luck, he drew 10th.... last!

After the first six comedians had finished, I feel a tap on my shoulder - it's Gerald, and he's looking kinda worried... he passes me this note:

Sure enough, Robin Williams was sitting at the end of the bar. Wow!
So, it turns out he's in town filming RV with Jeff Daniels. RV is about Bob McNeive (Williams) and his dysfunctional family who rent an RV for a roadtrip to the Rockies, where they ultimately have to contend with a bizarre community of campers. But that's neither here nor there. What's REALLY important now, is how nervous the last four performers are looking - well, to be fair, they were all troopers - but the pressure MUST have been on.

So after the last performer (Gerald), the MC gets on the mic and says something like "Well, that's the ten performers we had lined up for tonight, but there IS one more person that wanted to take the stage tonight... you may recognise him from Mork and Mindy, Mr. Robin Williams!" - The crowd goes crazy!

So, if you've ever been to the Urban Well, you know it seats maybe 50 people. You also know that if you're standing back at the bar, it's still only about 12 feet to the stage. Long story short, we got to see Robin Williams doing about 40 minutes of complete improv in an intimate venue, for nothing! Man, he's funny. I hear he does that a lot - if he's in town, he'll just show up at a local comedy club and ask if he can do some improv. That's pretty awesome, I'll tell ya.

Not much more to say - it was exciting as hell, it was an amazing surprise, and it was hillarious! I feel really bad for the last four commedians that had to compete with all that pressure, but it sure was a night to remember for the rest of us!

Inaugural Poker Tournament

Like most of North America and Europe, Carole and I have become obsessed with the Texas Hold 'em Poker Craze. So far this year we've attended five tournaments, including Saturday night's, which we hosted. This was our first attempt, and it went over extremely well... well, other than me being out in 7th place (I only got ONE hand all night), but Carole came in 3rd (her second finish in the top three, out of four tourneys), winning her buyin back. We had loads of fun, got to socialized with good people, ate good food, and drank lots of good beer. Everyone had a great time, and we're already planning a bigger/better one for a month from now - not sure if I can wait that long! Of course, I've gotta get out of this poker funk first ... online I always make it to the final table, or at least the top third of the players, but it seems the more poker theory I practise and the more poker books I read, the worse I do in live events. Ah well, just a phase of bad cards I'm sure.

On Sunday, we were elated that I didn't have to work a 12 hour day, so we took off to to Cultis Lake (no, it wasn't a hot sunny day, but it was nice enough to take a good walk, and have lunch at the golf course). Then we checked out some new realestate in the area, and stopped at Wonderland (er, Castle Fun Park) on the way back for some SkeeBall and mini golf.

From there, it was straight to Wayne's place in New West for his 35th birthday party. Happy Birthday Wayne, sorry I only got ya a beer!
All in all, it was a really nice weekend off.

On another note, I wanna express (again) how happy I am to be able to eat anything I want. I tell ya, I'm really getting a tast for the high life... thanks largely in part to my new panini maker, in the last two weeks I've bought 7 different kinds of cheese (bocaccini, asiago, romano, provalone, parmasean, ricatta, mozzarealla), five kinds of slices meats (LOTS of proscuitto [lean AND regular], capicollo, tuscan ham, and peppered turkey breast) and more types of olives than you can shake a stick at (green, brown, black, Sicillian, jumbo, pitted, pimentoe'd, whole, garlic, oh, and even olive-paste you name it!) and I've been making the best panini's this side of Italy, non stop. Loads of fresh basil, fresh chives, oregano, aged balsemic vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, yum, yum, yum! I love food. I think I need to go eat now.

Ever wonder what birds are thinking?

I just went for a quick walk, and as I aproached a particular corner the incessant 'caw' of a single crow grew louder, and louder, and more and more anoyying. When the crow came into sight, I could see that there was something in the grass directly in front of it, that it was directing the full force of it's caw-itude toward.

"Must be some food that he's protecting from us afternoon walkers" was my initial reaction, but as I neared, I could plainly see that the object in the grass was a fully severed crow wing. I'm not talking about a few feathers, I'm talkin' 'bout a "chopped-off-at-the-shoulder, perfectly severed adult crow wing".

"Well, you don't see that everyday.", I thought again as I continued walking, but I couldn't keep my eyes off that crazy crow, caw, caw, cawing at the "arm in the grass", or "bras dans la pelouse" as I decided to affectionately call it. I figured it was much more romantic sounding in French, but that's neither here nore there. I was affixed on the little noise making devil right next to the BDLP, and I couldn't help wondering "What is that little bugger thinking???"

I mean, by definition, Mr. Crow has a bird brain. They're not too big. There couldn't be much going on up there, so this was a surreal enough situation to warrant a little quandry myself. I spent the rest of my walk pensively speculating what on earth must be going through the crow's mind.

Was the wing from his lady friend? One of his kids? Were these heartfelt caws of sorrow and dispair? A crow funeral dirge, if you will?

Or was it some innate defense mechanism - a veritable "Hey fellow crows, I just found some crow parts over here, you'd better stay clear - I'm willing to bet predators abound!"

Possibly, but dang, he was sure sticking around long enough himself... you'd think if that were the case, he'd yell 'fire' then get the F outta Dodge...

Maybe he was thinking "Hey, my arm! My arm fell off! Ahhh! How did that happen! Whoah... my arm! my arm!!! It was here a second ago, now it's over there! Holy crap! my arm!"

By the way, I checked. He had both his wings. This BDLP wasn't his. But hey, he DOES have a bird brain, so who knows, maybe that was what he was thinking.

Maybe he was thinking "Okay dude, I see your arm - you can come out now - great dissapearing trick, that's really cool, but you can come out now... I know you're there! show yourself, er, I mean, show the rest of yourself... this is getting tiring... come out, come out where ever you are!"

Maybe he was thinking "dammit John, if I've told you once, I've told you a hundred times... you'd lose your head if it wasn't attached. Didn't I tell ya that? So here ya are, ya lost a wing, you happy now?"

Heck, for all I know he was yelling crow-ish for "Hey, anybody lose a wing? It's over here, I found it? Wing anyone? Everyone check your shoulders, it looks like a left one... anyone missing their left wing? It's over here! Seriously, if nobody claims it soon, I'm gonna keep it!"

Well, I was almost back at work and I still hadn't come up with a viable answer. Honestly, I'm sure I just spent the last 10 minutes over analyzing the whole BDLP situation, AND the mental capacity of it's caw-tacular guardian...

Most likely, he was just staring at the thing screaming "WTF! WTF! WTF! WTF! WTF! WTF! WTF! WTF! WTF! WTF! WTF! WTF! WTF! WTF!"

(If you have no idea what I'm talking about, go here