Found this really cool picture of Portland the other day. Click for a larger version.

So adorable <3.

Last weekend I headed down to Roseburg to help with my Grandma's estate sale. She's up in Portland now because she can't live alone anymore, so basically her house and stuff were just sitting there. So my mom went down a week early along with her sister and brother... and they sorted and set up the whole sale. So when we came on Friday night everything was ready to go for the next morning. There was a lot of stuff too... it filled three rooms in the house and the whole front yard basically.

The temperature on Saturday was 104 degrees with high humidity. It reminded me of the Florida humidity last year which caused me to say:

"It's really disgusting. You're covered with moisture when you first step outside and it's like breathing in a suana. I don't know why anybody would want to live there."

Touche Thomas from a year ago. But Oregon rarely gets this high of humidity, normally its very low, so let's call it an abnormality. An abnormality with 104 degree heat and working outside for 7 hours. Oops.

Well my aunt fucked up the ad in the paper... it was supposed to start at 10 but all the classifieds said 9. So we thought just the Roseburg paper screwed up, but it turns out it was our fault. Anyways we had a lot of bellyaching 60 year olds threatening to leave, but we stood firm on the 10:00 time. They weren't going to leave... we knew it and they knew it. They wanted their hands on some sweet, sweet delicious antique furniture.

When we opened the gate at 10:00, we had old women (and men) actually RUNNING to the house. They were frantic to get first pick. It was kinda funny actually. One woman burst into the house and shouted "WHERE IS THE BEDROOM!?!?!" She then proceeded to dash into the bedroom and hug a piece of furniture yelling "I WANT THIS ONE!". There were people stationed at each area with triplicate receipt book so they could write the item down on the person's "tab" for that room and put a "sold" sticker on the piece they wanted. Basically the first 15 minutes were hell for the people working stations.

Finally after a half hour or so all the crazy people had gotten what they wanted and things calmed down. I was working the cash box outside, so I took their money and gave them change if necessary. Some people spent in excess of a thousand dollars, it was insane. Lots of people would whip out a stack of $100 bills and slap them on the little table I had. I checked all of them and they were all legit though, so touche rich people.

Anyways it lasted both Saturday and Sunday. We thought Sunday was going to be a calmer day, but alas, no. All the bargain shoppers swarmed in, wanted to get stuff for as cheap as they wanted. By that time we just wanted to get rid of the rest of it (since it was picked over anyways) so we cut lots of deals. Some people were just buying absolute crap that you knew what just going to sit in their barn/storage unit. But oh well, at least it wasn't our problem anymore and we got money for it.

Another interesting thing was the ebb and flow of the sale. For twenty minutes not a soul would be there (especially Sunday) then all of a sudden like 20 people would storm in and be high maintainence.

The rewarding part was getting to swim in the Umpqua River once the sale was over at 4. It was the perfect temperature... and damn... that felt good. On Sunday I left the sale at like 2 during a slow period and took my aunt and uncle's black lab to the river. It was really hot so that poor thing was dying. She was so happy when I started walking towards the gate that leads to the road that a half mile later is at the river... she was flipping out, whining, bouncing up and down, trying to pry the gate open herself with her head... anyways we walked down there and she bounded into the water, flying through the air for several feet before bellyflopping in. It was pretty cute.

So we swam around, she was so cute, she'd swim up to you and sniff you with her cute whiddle nose and even let you grab onto her and go for a ride. Labs love water. So anyways I threw some sticks to her (she goes nuts) and we walked around the other side of the bank for a bit but the rocks were so fucking hot from the sun it burned my feet.

Anyways, me and my dad left Sunday night since we had to work the next morning, and my mom followed shortly after on Monday afternoon. We're having another sale in a couple of weeks to get rid of the rest of the stuff/stuck in the barns/old sewing stuff. This one will be a "garage" sale though and shouldn't be as hectic.

Found an interesting nuggest today while surfing Wikipedia:

"Benton County, of which Corvallis makes up the majority of the population, has the lowest church attendance per capita of any county in the nation (25% attendance)"


Interestingly Corvallis also has the:

"Highest education rate per capita of any city in the state and in the nation"

Go figure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corvallis%2C_Oregon
http://www.gazettetimes.com/articles/2003/12/21/news/top_story/local01.txt

Sweet.

Okay, I have been neglecting the blog. Basically because summer has droned on and I can't distinguish one day from the next. So I'm going to make a couple of posts that will appear below this one on stuff that happened within the past couple of weeks or so.

Yesterday I went to hang out with my sister after work. I got stuck on I-84 getting there, since apparently rush hour is at 3:30 now. I got to her house and then we went to pick berries at this one place. Had to take the backroads to get there, since the traffic on the freeways was going to be even worse. So it takes like 35 minutes to get there and... no berries. They were all picked over the weekend. So we ended up buying some.

After that we stopped by my aunt Lena's house and delivered some berries to her. We ended up staying a bit, just chatting and catching up. I love her dogs and the cat Johnny of course.

Then I took my sister on a mini-driving lesson in a church parking lot. She did pretty good considering it was her first time ever behind the wheel. We did that a while before...

...going out for sushi. It was my first time eating sushi... and it was okay. I didn't go wild for it. Obviously some people love it, but I wasn't that way. I didn't hate it either... it was just okay. At least I tried it now though, so it was a good experience.

Then I went bowling with Laurel right after that... so I ended up getting home at like 11:30pm. After leaving the house at 9:50am that morning. Woot.

Today I played tennis after work with Kathy my sorta boss and Tameea, the girl that replaced me after I went to college. Her husband played too, so we did doubles.

Ended up lasting quite a while, with me and Kathy finally winning 7-5, 5-7, 11-9. Guess that's why they invented the tiebreaker. I tried to explain it, but everyone just decided it was too hard to learn that quickly, so we ended up playing you had to win by two sets.

Started at 6:00... finally ended at 8:30 or so. Was fun though.

That's what you call a slow day at the office. There is not someone named that either, I chopped up their name cause they don't want it on the web probably. ;)

Saturday I went to the Portland Timbers game against Coventry City, a second-tier team from England. Portland was still overmatched... but since CCFC was just in the beginning of their training camp basically... it evened things out.

10,985 fans were there, not quite the 15,000 or so for the Sunderland match last year, but then again CCFC isn't in the Premiership. Anyways, I went with Laurel and sat right behind the Timber's Army, which was crazy and loud as always. It was an awesome atmosphere and Portland lived up to the label of "SoccerCity USA."

Coventry City dominated the first twenty minutes or so, scoring in the eighth and taking a 1-0 lead. It looked like the Timbers would be overmatched, but they got things together and fought back. They started controlling the game in the middle of the match. They scored in the 67th minute off a PK (hand ball in the box).

The game would finished tied 1-1. Both clubs agreed to a penalty shootout to decided the winner and give the fans a treat. Portland won on PKs 5-3, sending the crowd into a frezy. Really it was a tie, but still, it was a good game by the Timbers and really fun to attend.

For the fourth I went with a bunch of friends to the fireworks display at Tigard High School in Tigard. The fireworks are actually at a nearby park (Cook Park) but people pack the high school stadium and get a great view. The whole football field was packed with people, it was quite the site... people laying down on towels and lawn chairs, kids running rampant, everyone eagerly waiting for it to get dark.

Finally it got dark and the fireworks started. It was a decent show, but it really didn't have a finale and everyone was confused. Exactly like last year. Check out my post from a year ago... we watched them from this place in Tualatin (not as good since you're so much farther away) and I remember thinking the crappy finish was a technical glitch. But no. They had a flurry like last year... then a couple of random ones at weird intervals... then it was over. Still fun though.

I borrowed a sweater, so I don't actually like "UCLA"... although I must admit it looks good on me.

And people you don't know (most likely).

Today was a very busy day. I had work off for the long holiday weekened, so I went golfing in the morning with Stephen. We played at Charbonneau and it was really fun as usual. I started out really good, after not playing for six months, faded in the middle, but finished up relatively strong. He was good as usual.

In the afternoon my family met the Steiner's and we went boating on their really nice jetboat. We put it in... let's say... 10 miles downriver of Portland and boated up there. This weekend is the huge Blues Festival on the waterfront, with thousands of people packing the grassy hill its located on. Also, a bunch of boats always huddle up close so they can float and listen to the music as well. That's basically what we did, bringing a bunch of food to eat and just enjoying the nice weather.

Overall it was really fun, but the heat, all the food, and the movements of the boat put me to sleep. I was napping on the way back to the dock and car. Guess that's what I get for waking up at such an ungodly hour... 8:00am.