A rally was held for the National Champion Beavers in Portland on Tuesday, just over 12 hours since their monumental victory. It was planned whether they won or lost, but once that final out was recorded, you knew it was going to be bedlam at Pioneer Courthouse Square, and it was.

Between 8,500 and 10,000 orange clad Beavers showed up to support their team. Local parking structures were jammed, and I was very lucky to get one of the last 10 or so spots at a nearby SmartPark (on the very top level mind you).

The Beavers rolled up at about 11:50am to the roar of the crowd. They circled the square a few times, the whole team riding in Hummer Limos with Beaver stickers all over them. Dallas Buck was standing up through the sunroof, holding the Championship trophy above his head and looked quite content. People were going wild. Finally they made their way to the stage.

It was a nice presentation. Mike Parker, the play-by-play guy for the Beavers hosted it, and they played clips from his radio broadcast of the final game. They played the final call... and wow did the crowd go nuts, just like they did the night before. After that the Beavers all got introduced to loud applause, especially Pat Casey and Jonah Nickerson. They got a chance to talk and it was really fun, although the speakers could have been louder.

Anyways, I took off work and it was totally worth it. A great way to celebrate a monumental win in Oregon State history. The team then rode down the freeway and had an equally big and crazy celebration in Corvallis at Reser Stadium.

What a team, what a season. Never expected that from my Beavers.

Oh, turns out it was the second largest gathering in the history of Pioneer Courthouse Sqaure, the largest being some protest in the 70s I think. Pretty cool, great turnout by Beaver Nation.

Oregon State University

2006 National Champions!

The Beavers beat North Carolina 3-2 to Secure Championship in Baseball.

What a ride. I haven't been updating the team because well, I guess I bored enough people with sports. That and I was lazy. But this was too special, too monumental not to post about. An hour and a half ago, the Oregon State Beavers baseball team went against all odds and captured a National Championship for the University. It is only the second national title in the history of the college, and first in a major sport (other was in 1961 Men's Cross Country).

Let's start with the beginning. Oregon State breezed through the rest of the regional I wrote about a half dozen or so posts ago. Move onto the Super Regional against Stanford. They were at home, so me and Stephen got tickets. They were so hard to get, selling out originally in about thirty minutes. The games were awesome, the Beavers beating Stanford in two games (best of three series) to send them to Omaha. The atmosphere was great, the crowd lively and into it, those who were not part of the 3,200 or so in the stadium found intresting ways to watch. Scaffolding with couches over the center field fence, ladders, buckets, whatever.

The Beavers get to the College World Series. They were there last year, dropping their first two games to leave empty handed. It looked like they might go two and out again (you have to lose twice to be eliminated) after losing 1-11 to Miami on the opening day. They played like crap. But then, their backs were against the wall and they FOUGHT. Two days later they played Georgia and won 5-3. They played Miami again and eliminated them after winning 8-1.

Onto Rice, who they had to beat twice in a row to reach the championship. They didn't even allow ONE RUN in that series. 5-0. 2-0. Onto the final series after playing their way through the loser's bracket. North Carolina won three straight to reach the final, so their pitching was rested and ready to go. Oregon State had played five games and were running on fumes.

Opening game of the final series, best of three games. North Carolina takes a heartbreaker 4-3. The Beavers backs are against the wall again. Onto the second game, were the Beavers fall behind 5-0 headed into the bottom of the fourth inning. The thing looks like it's over, reporters are changing their plane tickets to fly out that night.

Beavers score SEVEN runs in the inning. Go up 7-5. North Carolina is shocked, losing 11-7 and setting up a game three for all the marbles.

And the rest goes down in Beavers lore. Jonah Nickerson pitches a whale of a game and the Beavers squeek by the Tar Heels 3-2 for the title. What a day!!! I never thought I'd see Oregon State win a National Championship in anything. But wow, they did. And in the most awesome fashion you could imagine. Fighting and clawing their way back, never giving up even though most wrote them off.

So there you have it, Oregon State University... 2006 Baseball NATIONAL CHAMPIONS!

Let's give a little update on no parents week.

It's been swell. In fact, it's gone by really quick so far. Basically, it just means I can walk around the house in my boxers and not clean up after myself. I didn't let thing get as bad as last time when they went to Belize though... last night I was just like "okay enough" and did all the dishes. And I've been keeping up with it since then, so yay for me. I've made myself a couple of meals but nothing spectacular.

Another nice thing is staying up late with the TV blaring, driking Coke (gasp) and basically doing whatever I want whenever I want. It does get a little lonely though, so I've been playing tennis and baseball and went out a couple of times. All in all it's been fun. Kinda like having your own place, but not having to pay for it.

The parental units come home on Saturday (techincally Sunday) at 2am, so I have to go pick them up at the Portland International Airport. Should be a blast.

So I've tapped the Precision Wire Components faucet again. I talked to them a few weeks back and was assured of summer work again, so that was a relief. I'm currently working five to six hours a day, five days a good. So I'll be getting a steady source of income going which will be nice so I can golf and go out and whatnot. Oh, and of course save most of it because I am smart like that.

Right now my main job is the "Thomas Project." Yes, they have a project named after me. Jealous? You should be. Okay, well, it isn't very exciting. Data entry sorta, correcting some errors in a bunch of parts. Kinda mindless stuff. But I have my own office (okay, it is a storage closet... but it's well lit and I'm right under the a/c!) complete with computer and phone. I have people calling me a lot with random little projects (help me move this box, laminate these sheets, help me count this part number, etc) so it spices things up. The six hours actually goes by pretty quick, much quicker than in the winter or even last summer. So that tells me the work is more interesting and varied, which is a good thing.

What really makes it worthwhile is the people. I love my boss and all the people I work with (okay, maybe not a select few... but I don't dislike them... it's just that we're not... how you say.... chummy?). It was great to see everyone again and everyone is like "heeeeeeey Thomas is back!" and the typical "make up your mind!". I work a lot with this one girl from high school, so we have fun doing projects together and what not.

Overall I don't mind work all that much, my schedule is totally flexible (right now I'm going in at 10 and out of there around 4) so if I need to take a day here or there off it's completely okay. Also, I can go in earlier (say 8) so I can get out soon enough to play golf or baseball or whatever. All in all it's a good thing.

This term went really well. I expect to receive the following grades:

Anthro 210- B
History 103- A
Health 241- A
Astronomy- A
Microeconomics- A

So everything went really well, that's a 3.80 GPA which is good. Need to bump the core up before I hit the upper level business cores.

Moved back on Wednesday... my dad was half an hour late to help me move so we almost missed our "check out time." I was amazed at the amount of crap I had left in the room... didn't think it was so much. But anyways, I moved back and everything has been great. My parents went on a week long vacation to the Bahamas, so I have the house to myself for a week. Very similar to two years ago around this time when they went to Belize. So I'm enjoying that... I should probably get on those dishes someday.

I sit here at my computer, the room empty around me. Well, except for the piles of stuff I'll be taking back home. I'm surprised on how much stuff came out of this little dorm room.

The computer is the only thing left to distinguish my room from the other empty ones. My dad is of course running late, putting me in a pickle. All the shit has to go downstairs in about 10 minutes (in an hour or so) before they come and inspect my room. Kenny left this morning.

The room looks so big without all our stuff in it. So bland, so sad. A room foresaken. In an hour, I will never see this place again. My home for 9 months. I'm not sad, I mean I'm glad to be going home... but good old Bloss 710 was my first home away from home. Freshmen year was awesome.

Looks like passing some time on Beaver baseball message boards while I wait, ready to return to life back in Tualatin for the summer. Then onto a new experience... my own apartment.

Finals week... so busy... more later. I'll gush about the Beaver baseball team soon (World Series bound!).

The Senate voted it down 49-48 today.

Let's see what happened this past week? No tests or papers due... marginal weather. Guess the most significant thing that's happened is that the Beavers won the Pac-10 in baseball and got awarded their own regional to begin the post season.

Before I talk more about that, I should mention softball hosted their own regional (winning it) and then a Super Regional (also winning it). So they went to the Women's College World Series. First time in program history they've been a part of the final eight teams. Unfortunately they dropped their first two games in Oklahoma City and are now done (they played Thursday morning and then again this morning). So although that was disappointing, it was another awesome season for them.

Back to the baseball regional, it started yesterday and will hopefully conclude tomorrow. Beavers, the #1 seed, opened up against Wright State, the #4 seed in the regional. It was a rather tense game, but the Beavers ended up winning 5-3.
Pictures are here.

We watched from Dixon's third floow window (the student gym) because tickets were $10 and I didn't feel like paying that much for a game against Wright State. It went well except for the fact you couldn't hear anything (I brought along a radio so we could listen to the broadcast).

Today we planned on attending the game against Kansas but it was sold out when we got there (it was about 600 short of a sell out the day before). So we ended up standing in this area near right field with about 50 other ticketless people watching. You could see decently so it worked out.

Tomorrow we plan on going way early so we can make sure to get tickets (600 will be up for sale during the 5th inning of the afternoon game). The winner of that game plays us. They have to beat us twice to win the regional. If we just win once, we win everything. So hopefully we can close it out tomorrow. And hopefully I'll be inside the stadium for this game.