Portland

Portland is awesome. I've been here for the last 5 days of so. I'll give you all the highlights.

Shooting guns with Donny. We started out with don's Ruger .38, which was a snub nosed revolver, with a 5 round cylinder. The gun had a pretty good kick to it, and i was genuinly scared to fire it. I've never fired a gun before, and the ease with which i was allowed totally free reign over it was pretty terrifying. I mean, i went in, filled out a little name and address thing, which they never checked or even looked at, and was given a deadly weapon with a box of 50 rounds. How do they know that i'm not totally insane?
Then don't friend Matt came, and we got to use his gun, which was a lot bigger, and used either .38 caliber rounds, or the more powerful .357 magnum rounds. That gun was crazy, those rounds were epic. after maybe 15 rounds my hands hurt from firing the gun. It kicked like crazy. Turns out I'm a pretty good shot, on my first attempt, i got 5/5 in the heart at 20 feet.
After that box of .357, we elected to rent a Glock 9mm semi-auto pistol. This things was light, comfortable to hold, and super easy to fire. The clip was surprisingly hard to load, the spring tension went up dramatically as more rounds were loaded, we couldn't fit any more than 9 rounds in the ten round magazine. After cocking the gun, the explosion from that shot ejects the brass casing, and automatically cocks the gun with the next round in the chamber, ready to fire again. Really well balanced and accurate shooting as fast as your trigger finger could pull. Truly a terrifying experience, not the actions themselves, but more-so the ramifications of it all.

Messenger Party with Damian,
Friday after work i went downtown to hang with Damian. I walked from the Rose Garden by the zoo, and although knowing the basic setup of the west side, made an assumption that ended with me being 10 blocks away from where i was supposed to be. After a little confusion i found the "Ash Street Saloon" and met up with Damian. We drank a few beers and talked. I was a little overwhelmed by suddenly being amongst all these unfamiliar people, but recognized jason, who i was not expecting to see, and didn't know that well from SF, but we'd hi-five occasionally when we were going thee opposite directions down the street. I'd always see him doing sketchy shit, and he'd always be embarrassed and complain that i was always there when he did something stupid or unusual.
After a few beers we went back to his place for beers and such, he had brought a bike to borrow while i was in town; a redline steel cross bike, setup fixed with a front brake, and atac pedals. I only had my sneakers on, so i was riding with a less than idea setup. We got food at michaels deli, a chicago style sandwich joint. At which point his friends heidi and co met up with us and we headed out to the going away party for a couple messengers. One of whom was going to SF for a while. This was in the north part of town, and i felt a little odd riding drunk, fixed (which i don't do often) on clips pedals, with no helmet, and no lights. But it was really fun. We stopped at the liquor store and got a couple sparks and head out to the party. They had a keg of Lompoc beer in the garage, which was a very good local brew. At some point, while i was refilling for the umteenth time, someone who was on the roof, had grabbed the chimney as support and it had all toppled over, bouncing off the roof onto the front yard, which was were everyone was hanging out. No-one was hit, amazingly, though Briana, who was talking to Damian, had one brick graze her cheek, leaving the slightest red mark. The night wore on, i talked to lots of cool folks, made some new friends, namely Briana and Amy, and the cops started taking an interest. In Sf, this party, in the suburbs, on the front yard, with plenty of minors drinking, would have been shut down long long ago, but here in portland the cops were happy to sit a block away and wait for anything crazy to happen. Eventually we rode back to Damian's house, i slept on the couch in my clothes, and we woke up at the ass crack of the day to get breakfast with Heidi and co at some amazing breakfast place, with the world's best biscuits (i don't even like american "biscuits"). A good night out. Thanks Damian, thanks Portland.

Spicy Beer.

Waiting for 2 hours for sushi

Riding through the rain to get Breakfast at 1pm

Teaching donny to ride a fixed gear

Going to Ground Kontrol, the pinball mecca of portland

Eating at Voodoo donut and getting sneered at by the punk staff

Climbing up Multnomah Falls