These thumbnails are just a preview. Click on them to see the post. 170 photos

Ready to go…

To get to both of the trails you must first walk back west along the hwy, as there is no parking where the trails head uphill.

Then we headed up, pretty much STRAIGHT up, the Starvation Ridge cut-off trail.

This is a good time to show you where Mt. Defiance is:

The trail gains elevation very quickly.

I like photos with graceful curves of road.

So great it was to have a blue sky day. The weather was perfect.

That was quite the little viewpoint of land. Some large bird also thinks so. It would be the perfect spot for a bird of prey to hunt from and survey the gorge. Everyone else just hiked right by, but a few of us could not resist taking a look and pictures. Why work so hard hiking and not enjoy the views? Maybe if you have a fear of heights.

Then the trail heads south, away from the river.

A quick break.

Mt. Adams, right?

You cannot see in the thumbnails size, but there are people in the first two photos.

The second break, in a nice sunny spot. Since this IS 2010, some people had phone calls to make.

Back on the move again.

Then we reached pretty little Warren Lake. Our group leader didn’t even stop. There was no way I was hiking up that far and not stopping to at least take pictures of the lake. I spoke up and some people agreed and stopped at the lake with me for a few minutes. If I had not been with group, I would have spent an hour or two there, including taking a swim, like other people there were.

Over where our leader had waited, not by the gorgeous lake.

We headed up toward the summit of Mt. Defiance.

Along the way in an open area, where once again the group did not stop to enjoy the view, I DID stop and took these of the three mountains. From left to right are Mt. St. Helens with the blunt top, Mt. Rainier which is much larger but way farther north, and Mt Adams which is directly east of St. Helens. Obviously you must view these full size. My little camera goes super wide, but has almost no telephoto.

If you hike up to Defiance, make sure you DO stop there, because at the summit you cannot see much. The top is too rounded and you cannot see the Gorge or anything nearby. I still don’t get why anyone would hike up 5000 feet and not stop to enjoy anything. If I wanted to do that I could just use a stair climber at the gym.

I had to walk way out on a bunch of rocks to take these. By the time I was finished with all the picture taking, I was WAY behind the group. That was fine though. I wanted more exercise anyway so I just ran up the mountain to catch up. It felt good. I really do get frustrated hiking slowly.

At the summit is not exactly a wild nature scene. Since it is the highest point around, there are antennas for everything up there. There is also a gravel road to the summit. There were guys on dirt bikes that day. The mountain in these photos is Mt. Hood.

In the green shirt is Jeremy, a very nice guy. I still have his vest which he left in my truck.

Me.

I could not pass up the up the tower shots.

Then it was time to head back down, starting out on the road for just a short distance. I had gone straight up through the forest with a couple of people, which was steeper, but I was glad to be out from behind slow hikers for a few minutes and loved it.

From there which was on the way down the Mt. Defiance Trail, not the same way we went up, you could really see how high above the river we had hiked.

There is a lot of dramatic and varied geology here in Oregon.

Hiking down was a lot of very steep switchbacks, and extremely uncomfortable, especially because I needed to hike so much faster than the people I was behind. Every step down was like constantly trying to stop or suddenly slow down, and crushed my toes into the front of my boots a thousand times in a row. There was another part of our group that had broken off and gone down ahead. I tried to complain as little as possible, but I still irritated a few people who were really working hard and struggling, where I could have gone jogging. Sorry.

Finally, after many unpleasant miles and thousands of feet of elevation loss, I could see the river, not far below us, and figured we must almost be there. WRONG.

We came to one more switchback, to the right, and it just kept going and going… I swear I have never seen a longer traverse than that. That one switchback leg was over a mile long. It just kept hanging onto the side of the cliffs and heading upstream.

Eventually we finally got somewhere.

Handheld. Fast shutter speed, slow shutter speed.

The light was too extreme to take decent pictures of the next waterfall.

I like trains. The gorge is cool because it has the river, trains, and mountains all in the same place.

Check out the cliffs looming over the parking lot. Those are what you need to get up onto to start the hike.

I highly recommend the hike. I would just like to go faster on the way down, and have more time at the good parts, like the LAKE. I will go back and do it again. Thanks so much for taking a look.

These thumbnails are just a preview. Click on them to see the post. There are 56 photos.

“Welcome to the Tualatin Island Greens Golf Center & Grill website. Located in Tualatin, Oregon, we offer an impressive driving range, putting course, and Island Grill restaurant. We also offer golf instruction from our PGA Teaching Professionals, along with club fitting and repair services.”

I found them online and it is a cool place.

It was odd to see such a nice building and interior at a miniature golf place. My dad got to watch a major golf tournament on the flat screen while we waited for our food, which was half price due to happy hour. They have a real pro shop with lessons and range right outside the windows.

 

Many of the driving range spots are covered and have heaters for winter.

They also have some outdoor seating for sunny weather.

It was then time for mini golf, which I find much more relaxing than real golf. I did not have a single temper tantrum or rage. Hooray miniature golf. I of course got a blue ball, just like when I was a kid. I still am a kid, I just look older now.

Check out the cool sweeper attachment for the trimmer.

The course is well done, with shag carpet for sand traps and tons of water and water bugs. Those water striders remind me of home.

There were some holes we could not play because they were redoing the carpeting. That was ok though. We just went back around and played some holes twice to get to 18. Even though it was June 18th they had not been able to work on the course due to cold rainy weather. We sure seem to be in a global cooling pattern. It is now August and it is warmer

My dad got very frustrated on this hole and the girls behind us were amused.

Fish.

That is a pretty long hole for miniature golf, and had no curb on the water side.

Oops. He was not the only one who ended up in the water.

I really like this photo.

Check out the beautiful practice greens and even more driving range spots outside.

We bought a package that included a bucket of balls each for the range. I really need the practice.

That is a very big driving range.

Look, it is just like you are there. I aim to share.

Good luck landing on that green. I never did.

My dad watches a LOT of golf.

Eventually it was time to go and I got photos of the sign that I had forgotten on the way in. I had a very nice time with my dad and thank him very much. I wish my brother could have been there too. He was busy being a doctor.

On the way to my house we stopped at Whole Foods to get a vegan birthday cake. It was rich and delicious but, like most things at Whole Foods, terribly overpriced at about $30.

Since it was my birthday and I am not fancy, we got local Chinese buffet to go and ate in my living room. My brother had finally arrived and I was happy to see him. Thanks for driving out, Dennis. Sorry the photos here are blurry. Also somehow I neglected to get a picture of my vegan cake.

The day ended with a gorgeous sunset across the street from my house. My dad’s truck and brother’s car are in the photo.

Happy birthday to me, a long time ago now, and thank you to my dad and brother and anyone looking at this.

These thumbnails are just a preview. Click on them to see the post.
There are 122 photos and one video.

“Established in 1995, Family Medicine of Southwest Washington is an unopposed, community-based, University of Washington affiliated program, a part of the University of Washington Family Medicine Residency Network, and sponsored by Southwest Washington Medical Center (SWMC), located in Vancouver, Washington. We are a 21 resident program, fully accredited by the ACGME. Bordering the Columbia River, SWMC is a 360 bed healthcare facility serving the Portland Metro and Southwest Washington regions. Besides active Cardiac, Orthopedic, and Neurosciences programs, SWMC has the West Coast’s busiest ER north of San Francisco.

At over 4,000 deliveries a year, the Family Birth Center is the second busiest OB unit in this metropolitan area of over 1,000,000 people. FMSW has a diverse population with strengths in OB, Medicine, Practice Management, and Procedures. Our curriculum focuses on the Future of Family Medicine project, with the pleasant lifestyle afforded by a night float schedule.”

http://www.fmsw.org/

My brother. He LOOKS like a doctor.

It was a beautiful afternoon/evening. The event was held at The Heathman Lodge in Vancouver, Washington.
http://www.heathmanlodge.com/

They are totally sweet together.

I apologize for all the dark/blurry photos. It was very dim in there. I did my best to brighten a lot of these. They were much worse before Photoshop.

I have a tough time sitting still without taking pictures of something.

Aw, see, I told you.

Dinner is ready. But you are vegan now. What will you eat?

No problem. I had a great meal.

Time to walk around and get some photos for you.

Dennis up on the screen.

It would have been very much better if they had some light over the stage.

Another photo of Dennis up there, from hiking a few years ago.

Initial speeches over, it was then time for the graduating residents to receive their recognition.

That guy gave a little speech that, while hilarious, was also made people uncomfortable because it seemed it would surely offend at least one of the staff he talked about.

Conferring over technical difficulties.

Back on track. The woman doing the introductions seemed very kind and had prepared things to say about each resident. She did a great job. She also had each person read the statement they wrote when applying to the program years back. It was projected up on the screen.

I used the movie mode on my little compact Panasonic LX3. It turned out way too dark. I apologize. You should have seen the original video before brightening it. Anyway, here is my brother’s turn to get up on stage. No, you cannot hear him. He did not speak into the microphone. That is ok though.

The video starts playing in 360p. Click it up to at least 480p.
If you play 720p click the outward arrows to expand. It is too wide for the frame on this page.

To download the video right-click on the link below and click “save link as”, “save target as” etc.
It is a slightly crappy .wmv with half the data of the original .mov, but hey, I had to brighten it and have only Windows Live Movie Maker (free).
http://www.passingperception.com/wp-content/photos2010/dennisgradres/dennisgradresidency.wmv

For this photo I was able to remove the red cast, unfortunately along with much of the rest of the image. I just got tired of red. Deal with the blotchiness.

And there it is. I always love seeing, “Dennis Edward Morrisroe, M.D.”
I also have certificates, but they say I completed traffic school, DUII diversion, state mandated counseling…

My brother will have to tell you who the people are. I just take pictures.

A very proud father and son.

I had more pictures of the inside of the Lodge, but people were waiting for me so I hurried too much and they were all blurry. The place looks like a cross between a Lewis and Clark exhibit and a Pendleton store.

I wish this photo was decent quality. It is not. Sorry, it was dark and I had only a moment. Failure.

I made everyone stand for a LOT of photos. It kind of irritates people, but once in a lifetime events don’t happen twice. I wanted to make sure we had some decent pictures. Thank you all three for your patience. I kind of like having the in-between photos that show some personality.

I get a very good feeling every time I see these photos. I am WAY proud of my brother.
Great job, Dennis. I will love these photos forever, just as I do my dad and brother. (and mom and sister who live far away)

I sure got all choked up a few times near the end of this post.

Life really sucks a lot of times, but not that day.
My brother has been working to get where he is since at least Junior high, and deserves all the best, which is more than I can say for some people who have tried to screw things up for him, but I will keep this positive, and just say what a great privilege it is to be his brother.

By the way, Dennis finally found a wonderful girlfriend. He better not screw it up.
He seems to really be at ease with her, and she not the least bit fake or selfish.
I hope all the big pieces in his life are falling into place and things roll on smoothly.

These thumbnails are just a preview. Click on them to see the post. There are 169 photos.

Food from one of my favorite local restaurants, Super China Buffet in Forest Grove, next to Safeway. I eat out for dinner every single day of my life and buffet to go is very convenient. It is family run and they are extremely nice people. I quit eating those mushrooms because they are covered in butter. I have a couple kinds of rice, with different sauces, usually one spicy one sweet, chow mein, often with their chili sauce on it, a bunch of big green beans and or asparagus, various fresh fruit, especially pineapple (yesterday I had strawberries and grapes), and whatever good stuff I decide on. Last night I also had corn on the cob. This photo is old. I have also been trying to cut way back on those way greasy potatoes and get something else instead.

Designing my character for some Xbox 360 game I was playing. Someone asked me why his eyes look Asian. That is because they didn’t have enough eye shape choices so I was stuck with that.

I recently decided to make another effort to learn to play guitar a little. I took home a few more things.

There is that Chinese Buffet with a nice sky.

I am pretty happy about this guitar. Yes, it looks like a Gibson Les Paul. It is not. Someone made it themselves. I bought it from a guy at the shop for $100. It it a tad rough around the edges, but it stays in tune, sounds wonderful, and plays extremely well. The padded hard case I got with it costs more than the $100. DEAL.

Some boring photos of the unfinished landscaping in front of my house. I don’t know why I took them.

I bought this way cool glass thing at The Artfull Garden in downtown Hillsboro. I love that place. The owner is very friendly and has all sorts of different arts/crafts pieces from local artists and elsewhere. Go check it out. I was very pleasantly surprised.

An old Dell computer that was recently retired here at work. I was using it for parts for…

this, which is also old, but still way better. I bought it at Goodwill for $14.99 “as is” “NO HARD DRIVE” I figured, no problem, I have drives. I planned to take the drive from the dell and use it in the gateway. Thought I was all clever. NO. Gateway would not power up. It is likely a dead power supply, which I also have extras of, but I have not tried it yet.

Recently while doing cleanings and water changes for my aquarium, I noticed all the plastic plants were falling apart. They have been in there for several years so I am not surprised. All that UV light kills the plastic eventually. Yes, I could have live plants. No, I don’t have time for it right now. So instead I bought all new plastic plants and replaced them all during next tank cleaning.

Before…

Goodbye old plants.

Tank minus plants.

New plants.

All finished; scrubbed, vacuumed, replanted, refilled. The plants will look more real (they do now since I took those six weeks ago) when they get some algae growing on them.

Ah, it looks so great at night.

Random cloud shot driving home.

The tank the day after overhaul. It takes overnight to really clear up. Hello, fish.

I had never had one of those folding carts like old people and transients use. Now I have. Sold it.

Using some of those new air-tite coin holders I had just received in the end of the May post.

Making a public spectacle of scumbags who steal and sell stolen property. His name is JOSE RUBEN VALDEZ JR. AND HE IS A THIEF AND LIAR. I helped convict him. Until recently he was living here in Cornelius and stealing from his neighbors. If you see him, let him know how much you appreciate him.

One of a couple of different species of little snails that unintentionally ended up in my aquarium and breeding like crazy.

Some of my little cory catfish. I have two groups of different varieties. They are schooling fish so please do not buy just one. These are pretty young still. They grow very slowly.

This is perhaps my favorite thing in this post. I LOVE real world oddities. I saw this “camper shell” in the Safeway parking lot. I am in awe of the cobbled together nature of that piece of work. It is the DEFINITION of cobbled together. I am very amused. I do not know why. Look at both photos larger. It has a come-a-long WITH a bungee cord wrapped around it to hold one part together. You don’t see that as part of a truck topper everyday. Every time I look at these I shake my head and laugh. What kind of mind thought that was a good project? You can get a perfectly good old beat up camper shell in ONE piece for $50-$75. It took HOURS of labor to patch that crap together instead.

I needed an extra guitar tuner. This one was way cheap (online) and shows chord positions too.

After waiting many months and missing out on TONS of firearms income and customers, THERE IT FINALLY IS on the wall here. What a relief.

Plumber finally fixing the only outdoor faucet here at work. It has never worked since I got here. It was a special, complicated, expensive, commercial, freeze-proof fixture. He had to order parts and come here about three times. It will be very nice to not have to run a hose outside from the faucet in the back room.

Drawer with firearms transactions log book and a few of the other many forms and rules I must have around again now.

I needed a new Blue Book of Gun Values so I went to Bi-Mart. The book is much thicker than it used to be and more expensive too. I got a bunch of money off the price because the only copy they had was slightly wrinkled. Thanks to the girl at Bi-Mart in Forest Grove for helping me out. I didn’t even ask for the discount.

This metal sun had been sitting around the shop, primed white, for a long time. I bought it at Fred Meyer, cheap, because it was all scratched up. It was originally a dark flaky gold color, but the paint had gouges in it. I sanded it a bit and sprayed it with white primer. Then it sat for a while. When the real sun finally came out I took it outside and painted it. I totally love it.

Primed

First light coat

Krylon, it’s not just for graffiti and Mexican paint jobs. That should be their slogan.

Sun yellow

Pumpkin orange

Back inside. I eventually evened up the orange on the bottom.

Two blocks from my house.

That evening I put the sun up on a fence post at my house

So some day in the middle of June I decided it was time to go for my first trail run of the year at nearby Hagg Lake. It was supposed to finally be a sunny day. Keep in mind that until mid-June it had been terrible weather and often raining like hell. I was excited to get out. BUT when I got to the lake it was cloudy. I refused to not get my sunny run so I waited. I waited a LONG time. Hours. I drove all around the lake and checked things out.

At boat ramp C there was a huge line of people trying to get their boats in the water. Boy am I glad I sold my boat. What a pain in the ass.

It was STILL cloudy, so I went for a drive out past the lake, into the State Forest, to do a little more handgun practice. Boy do I need it.

Yes, there was a chair in the forest. Unfortunately there are a LOT of things in the forest.

I still suck and need a ton of practice, but at least now I shoot with both eyes open. It would sure be nice if there was a handgun range nearby.

People piss me off with all the crap they leave out in the woods. Look at that stuff people are shooting at and leaving behind. It is illegal to shoot at anything in state forests besides paper targets. Obviously that excludes computer monitors and satellite dishes. I suppose phone books are paper, but you still can’t leave them behind. Jackasses. I would have brought all that stuff back if my truck bed was not already full that day.

Speaking of that, I was up in the Tillamook State Forest yesterday looking around. I checked out a bunch of logging landings where people shoot. I was disgusted by all the trash I saw. I mean like propane tanks, bottles, and any random man-made thing you can imagine. I am going to take everything out of my tuck bed, drive up there and pick up everything I can. If people don’t quit shooting at live trees and leaving trash behind, we will all lose our rights. DON’T BE AN IGNORANT SELFISH DICK. Thank you.

After shooting I drove back down to the lake. It was finally partly sunny.

I like photos like this when people are just relaxed and not posing.

I like this photo with the family walking down to the lake. It shows how tall that grass was.

I finally went for my 10+ mile trail run that afternoon. It was an adventure. The trail was still wet in some places and slightly overgrown. I did a good job and was proud. This was the aftermath.

Back at home I got the first sunny photos of my new sun, in the sun. I am going to lightly paint downward at the face part with yellow to highlight the features better. Also, like I said, I did fill in that thin area of orange at the bottom. That bugged me. (not yet fixed in the photo).

I only wanted ONE of each of those stickers, but they didn’t sell them that way so I got sheets. I was trying to cover the ugly/discolored areas on that nice not-Gibson guitar I bought. The science stickers rock. It says, “SCIENCE Just because it’s not imaginary doesn’t mean you can’t believe in it”. Awesome. Later I got a way cool and much better looking moon/sun sticker, tore off that moon you see there, and replaced it. The mushrooms on the back are Dan Morris. Yes, I know, a little hippie. Who says adults can’t play with stickers too?

From hippie stickers and music to combat firearms we go. Hey, if it were not for wars won with guns, there would be no freedom to prosper and buy a guitar in the first place. This is the first handgun bought at my Cornelius business with the new firearms license, and boy was it a nice one. It is a Wilson Combat KZ-45.

http://www.wilsoncombat.com/p_kz45.asp

New it was a $1400 plus firearm.

That is a small LCD HD tv for my sister. I got it packed, along with an HDMI DVD player and here it still sits in the shop. I apologize. I am going to buy a digital antenna to include and get it shipped to her in NY, SOON.

Hello. That is me.

Thoroughly cleaning that pistol before it went up for auction online.

Someone sent me that quote in an e-mail and I liked it. There have been some issues here (and elsewhere) with a TON of people moving here, ignoring all rules, learning nothing, showing much disrespect, and basically trying to convert decent American town to Mexican slums. I am not impressed. SO, up in the window went the perfectly reasonable statements you see here. I have had compliments on it from a wide variety of people of several races. Be careful what you e-mail to me. It may go public.

A guy the building owner sent here to spray the hedge, hoping to save it from whatever disease/fungus was killing it. I wish it had died. Then it would no longer block the view of cars to my business. There is still hope. Maybe the fungus will come back.

More fun, inexpensive glass jewelry.

A while back I finally got underneath my truck and unbolted the running boards that got mangled when I drove on that muddy cat road and got way stuck.

Side yard. Still haven’t done anything with it, but did spend many many hours cutting down weeds and grass that had become about for feet tall.

Still spared that lone clump of grass and that tall whatever-it-is. The Whatever-it-is is now about, oh, 10+ feet tall. Wait til you see more recent photos. That pile of trees/plants are going to return to the earth. Not right there though. I will get them out of my yard soon.

That tree was a birthday gift to me from my friend and neighbor, Jonna. Thank you. It is a buckeye tree, like she had back in Illinois. It is smaller variety that apparently will only get half size or so, good for yard or big planter. I had just re-potted it in this photo. Unfortunately, as soon as the strong sun came out, it burned the tree to a crisp and every leaf fell of. Sigh. I moved it closer to the house so it only gets later afternoon sun. Small leaves are growing back and I hope for the best.

I have had the plant for a couple years. I re-potted it and placed it there to beautify the ugly end of that wall.

My dad recently brought some rifles over here that belong to me and my brother. Thanks very much to him.

There is me with my new sun hat, to replace the one I ruined in the dryer. The new one is an expensive but high quality Tilley hat.
http://www.tilley.com/detail.asp?catId=13&gender=m&extractBy=CategoryId&id=1&productNo=T4MO
Yes it is geeky, but it works, and skin cancer is even less cool than the hat. It helps a lot during long sunny hikes or events. Also, it would look a lot cooler if it were a darker color, but that would defeat the purpose of a SUN hat and would not FEEL cooler. Function over form.

The sign I put in my door when I wen to my brother’s graduation. I pretty much never stop bragging about my brother and sister.

The next day at work, still obsessed with my new ADVENTURE hat. Yes sir, I hate work and want to go outside.

Speaking of outside… Checking out one of my maps, that one of the Columbia River Gorge where I did about four hikes recently.

WONDERFUL billboard that I could see out the windows of my business recently. Sadly it has already been replaced with something boring.

That was my first try at re-stringing a guitar in the teens of years. I did a fine job. I use that cheap Fender at home.

You never know what I will get at work. I was going to turn down those talking Simpsons collectibles, but they were so cheap… Besides, he pretty much threw in the Star Wars stuff.

The forms I ordered from the ATF for firearms.

This is for my mom. That is what I bought with the gift certificate for my birthday. It has a great bluesy sound and I love it.

Random Portland photo. Did you know AAA baseball is leaving Portland? I could hardly care any less than I do. If you do:
“Merritt Paulson confirmed on Wednesday what’s long seemed clear: The Portland Beavers’ 95-year history in this city — including 43 years of playing baseball at PGE Park — is nearing its end.” http://www.oregonlive.com/pbeavers/index.ssf/2010/07/post_3.html

Have I posted about my Camelbak yet? Too bad. It has recently become a best friend of mine. The model is Alpine Explorer and I love it. These photos are from the first time i filled the reservoir. I learned quickly the need to check carefully that the big plug is screwed in properly.

Same inexpensive jacket I have had for a while ($29.99 vs. obscene REI prices like $90-$170+) but improved with thorough layers of waterproofing now.

How could I NOT buy “Adventure Paper” for my printed topos of hikes? Ok, so in the summer regular paper is just fine, but still, ADVENTURE PAPER. Cool.

I thin that was probably the first time I ever had the bladder filled and installed. I have used it tons and improved, modified it since then.

See? FREE topo maps http://www.digital-topo-maps.com/ unnecessarily printed on Adventure Paper.

Trying it on for the first time with water and things in it.

Since I am not fond of being a walking advertisement after paying $100 for something, as is often the case, I busted out the permanent marker and toned down the BOLD logo. Ah, much better. I do the same thing with some North Face things.

These will be in future post but I am so happy/proud for/of my brother, here they are again.

Ok, now I can move on to several posts about hiking that are waiting. Thanks for looking.

This post is out of chronological order. I misplaced these photos from mid-June in the wrong folder.

The hike was not very long, but that was ok. It was still a pleasant introduction to meetup.com.
http://www.portlandhikersfieldguide.org/wiki/Dog_Mountain_Hike
At the link above you can see what the hike is supposed to be like on a sunny day.

I found this pleasant recent review today at:
http://www.localhikes.com/Hikes/Dog_Mountain_0000.asp

“Reviewed by Kmh on 7/23/2010
Saw Black Bear today on this hike. About a mile and half into the hike on the “more difficult ” trail. Bear was coming down hill and did not come at me. I have never been as scared as I was today. I will not be doing this hike again ALONE or unless there are many others around. Please be careful. ”

These thumbnails are just a preview. Click on them to see the post. There are 31 photos.

 

The Bridge of the Gods connects Oregon and Washington states. It has a toll and we drove over it to get to the Dog Mountain trail. Along the way we passed Stevenson, Washington. I was proud to not be one of the many flakes that RSVP’d and did not show. The guy who drove us works at a company that builds those big river barges.

This is the parking lot at the trailhead which is right on the river.

The large group was some other organization.

That is us. All five of us.

Not us.

 

Check out the topo of the trail(s). The trails are the black dotted lines. We went up the steeper way.

The trail was nice and steep and a good morning workout, although I would sure like to go faster. I got pretty restless.

Sometimes it was raining. It was WET. I definitely need to buy synthetic waterproof long pants.

When you get up higher the tail comes out into the open and there should be dramatic views. There were not. It was foggy and WINDY.

Some of us wanted to walk right up to the summit in the open. The leader of the hike did not, so we went around the back way.

Look how comfortable everyone was. There is an open area on the gorge side of the summit, right outside those trees. I forgot to take a photo because I was taking pictures of a group of guys there, with their camera. There was nothing to see though. Their pictures were just as a joke. Instead of the spectacular view behind them, it was just pure white. You could see NOTHING.

On the way down, toward the bottom, the sun came out partially. I am sorry I do not have very good photos from this hike. It was raining a lot and various other excuses are also available should you like to hear them. I did a better job at the hikes since.

“North Lake Hike via Wyeth Ridge Trail
Length: 11.4 miles round trip
Elevation Change: 3840′ gain”
http://www.nwhiker.com/CGNSAHike42.html

These thumbnails are just a preview. Click on them to see the post.
There are 75 photos.

The hike started in Wyeth Campground up top in that darker green rectangle and turned back at North Lake at the south edge of the map.

What a nice group of people they were. You never know exactly who will be there because different people sign up and half do not show. It sure is a great way to meet people without stupid bars or some dating site. I love getting out and already explore everywhere anyway. It is perfect to do it while also getting to have good conversations and company.

The weather still was not what I had hoped for. Even though there were occasional sun breaks and the lower trail was comfortable, the top up toward the lake was FREEZING cold. I had to get out hat and gloves and was still cold. It was worth it though and a great hike. I recommend it. It is not a steep trail, just steady and comfortable. I could have jogged some of it. I would like to see that little lake a gain in the sun.

I skipped extra commentary for now because I am WAY behind on editing and posting. Thanks for looking.

These thumbnails are just a preview. Click on them to see the post.
Continuing my tradition of going all the way, there are 312 photos.

Leaving Forest Grove we saw this, the oddest roadside cross I have ever seen. Zoom in and see for yourself.

The museum a while back was expanded to two buildings, now air in one and space in the other. That third building seen here is going to be, of all things, a water slide theme park type of place with waterslides coming out of the 747. Odd. They also have wine tasting from their own vineyard. I really like the whole place.

Just looking at showtimes. We did not go until later.

Hooray for big rooms full of helicopters and planes. Makes me happy every time. Such an incredible collection of engineering, ingenuity, and beauty.

Reminds me of a science project I did in elementary school.

I would like to go up in a hot air balloon some time.

I always end up with this same shot. I can’t help it.

It was really great to have my dad and brother with me at the museum this time. My dad really liked it. That made me happy.

There are a couple of planes there I love the most, and this is one of them. I really like sporty radial prop planes.

That is a pretty darn cool fire extinguisher.

Check out that beautiful monster.

I like the photo of the gigantic turbofan and my distant tiny-looking brother. Look at it larger.

There is another one of my favorites. What a gorgeous aircraft.

Fun with FLIR.

Recently I watched the riveting documentary, “Stranded: I’ve Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains“. Every time at the museum when I saw a section of airliner or seats where they did not belong, I thought of that movie.

My dad liked that Cletrac very much. I am sorry for the blurry bad photos. They are all I have.

At the Hillsboro Airport recently they were offering rides in a plane just like that one. I stopped by but it was way too expensive.

I like this shot for several reasons. Look at it larger.

My dad has a soft spot for those old jeeps. He had a lot of adventure driving one when he was a kid.

I like this photo too, all three elements, the Spruce Goose Model, F-4 tail section, and actual Spruce Goose.

One thing military jets are not, is built for comfort.

I love these shots of miniatures. They look mostly real.

Eventually it was time to go over to see the IMAX 3-D movie. I Would sit through the part where they were touring star building nurseries in 3-D from Hubble images over and over if I could. It nearly brought a tear from my eye. The universe and its scale are INCREDIBLE. Makes me shake my head that in light of the fantastic discoveries we are making, so many people still have their heads so far up, they still cling to dark ancient fairy tales instead of embracing knowledge.

Then we headed over to the new space museum. It is still a work in progress and not totally full, but is coming along nicely. They are now attempting to get one of the retiring space shuttles. That would be awesome.

As far as the photography goes, this image always makes me stop for a moment.
Look at it larger. It feels relaxing.

Sorry for the blurry capsule photo. I did not have a backup.

This totally blows me away. You have all seen the giant, thick, multi-layer suits American astronauts use for space walks. The suit in the photo here is a Russian “Berkut” spacesuit. Yes, someone went OUTSIDE the spacecraft in that thin little suit. That is BALLSY.

The space museum is really coming along nicely. The rockets, missiles, satellites and capsules are great. Like I said, they are working to get one of the retiring space shuttles as the centerpiece. That would MAKE the entire museum.

That actual Saturn “Ring of Power” is a very cool addition to the museum.

Cool, I touched a moon rock. With how much it is wearing out and Obama canceling Much of NASA you may want to go see it soon.

That is a pretty sweet exhibit.

Now THAT was impressive. It is a Titan II ICBM which carried a warhead 600 times more powerful than that used on Hiroshima. That huge missile would travel at 15,000 miles per hour. I love how they displayed it in a mock silo with control room and all.

In the mock control room you could watch a few minute countdown sequence with audio and video of an actual launch.

My ICBM / Aerojet museum beat up your modern art / paint splotches museum.

I was fascinated by these attitude control thrusters. So simple, purposeful, elegant.

Once again, there is that extremely rare SR-71 electronics payload, surveillance, jamming, etc.

I always like that playground. How great would it be for a kid to have a helicopter jungle gym at home?

Again, it was so great to have my dad and brother with me at the museum. Thanks to both of them.

I am pretty sure that is an airstrip for radio controlled aircraft.

It always makes me feel somewhat sad to see all those great aircraft sitting outside rotting.

I would like to hang out with my brother more often than I do.

 

After the museum and some lunch there, we drove to Bethel, which is here:

First we went to the cemetery there, which is way out in the country on gorgeous quiet rolling hilltop. My dad was looking for names of our ancestors that are listed as being buried there. I helped him look. I walked all the rows and looked at every single grave, except for a few my brother covered. None of the names of my family members were there. Apparently many of the people no longer, or never had markers. A few were even wood, which obviously would not last long. My great great grandfather on my dad’s side is listed as being buried there.

I think this is a great photo of my brother and dad looking for evidence of ancestors together.

Heading out.

In the field behind the only remaining buildings in Bethel I saw a mother and baby goats. I stopped immediately to take a look, say hello, and take a picture. I like goats. When I got to the fence, a LOT of goats suddenly poured out from under a big tree where I had not seen them.

Look at this photo larger. How can you NOT love goats. LOOK at them. I wanted to pet them until I saw the large scary alpha male.

See, check that big guy out, herding his females around.

Then we drove back to the school/church. I prefer school, which is what it started as. Schools are places for people to think and learn. Churches are places for people to learn they don’t have to think. Anyway, check out the neat old historic SCHOOL.

I walked over to make fun of my brother for sitting in the truck texting instead of participating, but it turned out he was looking up the list of people buried in the Bethel cemetery on his iPhone.

I really love this photo of my dad and brother together. I am very glad I take these pictures. I rarely see my brother looking as relaxed as in this photo. That is what he was like many years ago before life and people screwed him over too many times.

So there you have it. As usual, this post took WAY longer to put together than I had expected. I worked on it for hours on many different days. I hope you have enjoyed looking. Thanks very much for doing so.

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There are 107 photos.

Some people were there or had been there to see the very beginning of the burn, but left soon. I stayed all the way until it was burned to the ground. Fire at night is mesmerizing and beautiful. What would I watch instead, tv? Since the photos are dark it is more important than ever that you view them larger. Always you have the option to click on one and flip through slide show style.

I like fire silhouettes. This is a nice one. (clicked larger of course)

My business used to be down that street (C) and around the corner to the right.

I like this one too.

Fire trucks are always cool and interesting.

After a while they set the separate garage on fire too.

By the way, it used to look like this:

Here are a few with faster shutter speeds so you can better see the structure of the flames. Since fire is BRIGHT you cannot expose for the fire and dark surroundings at the same time.

Same deal here. One exposure is better for the firefighters and ground, but the flames are blown out.

You know how people sometimes say they see faces in fire, clouds, or hills on Mars? Check out the little demon-looking face in this shot. Yes, I realize that it also looks like a monster with the roof lines being the arms, which is also cool, but that is not what I am talking about.

Or how about in this closer crop of same shot.

One of the guys was being very nice to the kids.

Getting near the end and pulling down the last pieces. What a fun thing to take pictures of.

I laike the water spray photos.

One of the guys was being very nice to the kids.

Yes, there are a lot of photos. Nobody is making you look. They are a lot easier to see and make more sense if you click one big and slideshow through them.

Very petty glowing. I like how some parts are pink/purple.

And that was it. No more house or garage. That was a very relaxing thing for me to do that night. I love photography. It gets me concentrating on something besides life worries. And of course, I always love fire. Thanks for taking a look.

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There are 362 photos.

This Gigantic billboard truck parked in front of my business a couple of times while the driver hung out forever at restaurant next door. I tried to be patient and nice, but eventually I got tired of it blocking me and called the number on the truck. A guy answered in New Jersey or somewhere like that. He was nice and told me he would have the driver not park there any more. It did not work. The next time I talked nicely to the driver and asked him to not park there anymore. He said he would move it, but, “Somebody gets pissed no matter where I park it.” Well what does he expect?

For those of you keeping track, that building next door had been vacant and bright yellow since before I moved my business here. The car dealer from down the street, (actually they sell trucks almost exclusively) moved in and did a great job fixing up the place. The new paint looks great, and here they were adding more signs. Since these old photos they have made much more progress. I will try to catch up soon.

Laptop I bought for $70 and fixed up to use on coffee table at home so my smaller one can be in bedroom. It is scratched up on the outside and missing one key (unimportant one like left alt and still works anyway) but screen is beautiful. Hardly worked due to tons of spyware, broken files, etc. Still had recovery on drive partition so I ran it and did the 80 updates or so to catch it up. Now I have a 17″ laptop for $70 and a day of labor. Older, same age as my smaller one, but fine for web browsing.

(Update: I have been having SERIOUS problems with that damn laptop lately, even after ANOTHER windows re-install)

A while back on rare day off I got ladder and razorblade out to start getting paint and other stuff off outside of windows at my house. I still have much more to do. Never enough time.

Where I live in Clark Historic District in Forest Grove. It is beautiful and peaceful.

Replacement Brinno Gardenwatch Cam (time lapse) to replace one that died as soon as I got it. I WILL take more videos with it. The weather has been terrible.

On my way home from work one day. You must understand how rare it is to see sky here.

From my front porch.

Subs and electronics at work.

I think I went up to the roof of my business to get the time lapse camera down, and LOOK at the sky.

Algae growing strong in my aquarium a while back.

I took a time lapse video at Jackson Bottom Wetlands Preserve, south of Hillsboro.

“Jackson Bottom Wetlands Preserve is a 725-acre wildlife preserve located within the city limits of Hillsboro, Oregon. The Preserve is a tranquil sanctuary for both people and animals. The quiet open waters, rolling meadows and upland ash and fir woods are home to thousands of ducks and geese, deer, otters, beavers, herons and eagles.”

I left the camera on a tripod way back in some bushes where it was highly unlikely anyone would go. I can’t remember why I didn’t use the resulting video. I was just learning and practicing anyway. These photos are from the day I put the camera there. I left it for 2 days.

Again showing the difference between letting your camera make the exposure decisions in extreme lighting situations, and doing it yourself.

All of those building there are for the water treatment plant (Clean Water Services). Your tax dollars at work.

I finally put candy back in the machines here at work. I was just thinking looking at these that I will have to find something besides M&Ms next time to avoid the milk in them. Yes, I am working on vegan. No I am not here to talk about it. Candy was gone for many months due to ants, and Mexican “parents” who let their kids leave half eaten candy all over the place in my store. Gross. Just gross.

Back at Jackson Bottom a couple of days later to retrieve my camera.

Look, a rainbow.

A while back I decided to print out information about the language classes they offer right down the street at the “centro cultural”, to offer people who try to talk to me but don’t know any English. One day shortly after that a middle-aged Mexican guy was getting frustrated (so was I) trying to ask me a bunch of questions. I handed him one of the print-outs. He nodded politely. Then his friend grabbed the papers, read it, and said, “What are you trying to say!? That he should learn English!?” I said, of course. He said, “FUCK YOU YOU LITTLE FAGGOT MOTHERFUCKER!!! I SHOULD BEAT YOUR FUCKING ASS DOWN RIGHT WHERE YOU STAND YOU FUCKING LITTLE COCKSUCKER!!!” After I told him I would call the police if he did not leave, he threatened to beat me to death as soon as he saw me outside of work. Welcome to a typical day in the life of Steven Morrisroe, the same guy who got all giddy about a rainbow above this section. If you wonder why I am volunteering to build a moat, wall, electric fence, great wall between here and Mexico, wonder no more.

After the first time in the field (literally) I decided the tripod needed some camouflage, and also jumped at the chance to play with a bunch of duct tape. I had a lot of fun doing that. I figured it was then ready to go with just one last piece over the orange power button.

My tank with too much algae and very dirty gravel and glass.

After a gravel vacuuming and some manual algae removal. That was my last time dealing with those old plants. The plastic had decayed over last few years and all were falling apart at the same time. I had to replace them all soon after.

I was getting the time lapse camera ready for a different wetlands where I didn’t need the tripod. The camera comes with a stake that comes apart in sections. Of course THAT needed to be green too. More tape.

In spring here there are fields all over the place here that look like that. It is gorgeous. I think it is some kind of clover. If someone actually knows, please correct me.

Somewhere around the edge of town here.

Why these extra tank photos, I do not know. They were just there.

It was the day i got the new Bosemani Rainbowfish. I got 3 pairs, 3 male 3 female. As usual the males are gorgeous and the females not so much. Seen here they were stressed and very young, hence almost no color. Even the next day they were looking beautiful. They have already grown quite a bit since then.

When the males are mature they will look like this:

At home where I park it was always pitch black at night. I finally put some motion floods up. It is way better now and will hopefully also deter thieves.

A new bracelet rack for work.

My new adventure (sun) hat that almost was. I spent a long time picking it out online. I took it in my backpack, rolled up once, but hadn’t worn it yet. BECAUSE THE SUN NEVER CAME OUT. When I took it out it was kind of smashed so I put it in the dryer to “fluff it up and make it pliable”. DO NOT put hats like that in a dryer, I found out. It was totally ruined. The brim shrunk up and the hat now looks like a wadded up piece of paper. It is ok though, eventually I got a better hat anyway, which I will be very careful with.

Out at Fernhill Wetlands a while back at the temporary (dries up in summer) little side pond where I did another time lapse test video. The camera worked fine, but the birds have been few and late this year so the video was boring. I erased it.

While I was there retrieving my camera, I took some time to appreciate the grass and birds. I like grasses. I had to crouch in the grass in those spots a very long time holding the camera before the parent birds would come back. It took patience. It was very peaceful and beautiful there.

That is some biologically rich water. Back then there were millions of minnow in there in big swirling schools. At certain time of year the adults (large carp or something) are rolling around in the grass at the edges of the big pond laying eggs and fertilizing them.

Back again to my temporary obsession with getting the correct color of green for camera camouflage. In the photos with the can you can see the two previous colors I did not like, and the one I changed to.

While I was out there, I took these of the big bush my the dumpster here. There is great beauty anywhere biology is active. Also, my trusty Panasonic LX3 takes great macro shots.

Yard work on a Sunday long ago. I hardly get any time off, so I did all I could that day. I worked outside ALL day without stopping and still only got a start on what needed to be done. I REALLY need some help in my life.

Scraping and diggin all those lawnmower destroying rocks out of the ground was not fun, but I suppose it was good exercise. It took a WHILE.

I also pulled all the plastic out from under the bark dust around the recent trees and plants (plants mostly killed by extra long winter) and put the bark back. The plastic was done improperly, was showing all over, and looked like hell. I will get that are replanted and looking good.

And then there is my little side yard. This is a while back and believe it or not, when I got to it again more recently the grass and weeds were WAY taller than you see here. After the day in these photos when I just carved out around a few things a little, it rained for weeks thereafter and things grew like crazy. A week or two ago when I finally cut it all down (took half a day) the weeds were all at least 4 feet tall and vines had grown all up onto the house and under siding. Not good. One plant was 7-8 feet tall. Things grow VERY well here in north Oregon.

That day I also repotted a few of my container plants. it was overdue. I did more recently and have more left to go.

A different day I had tried to bend a piece of warped plastic fence back in place (because someone is a cheap bastard and didn’t buy some WOOD -not me) and it broke off. Lame. So I thought I would be clever and use epoxy to put it back. I got it back in place, BUT the epoxy is all over and obvious. Now I must either find a piece of that crap recycled plastic crap or paint the whole fence.

That jade plant started out ad a fallen off little twig of a branch from my giant indoor jade plant. I planted it in that pot and took care of it for a while. That day it was ready to give to my friend Jonna. Plants are cool like that.

Repotting… or Re-potting as spell check always tries to make me.

I carved out around my giant sequoias a bit. At least two of them are finally going to get planted.

I don’t know what that plant on the left is, but it eventually got to be at least 7 feet tall. That grass next to it got as tall as me.

I haven’t decided if I will put that rhododendron in a half barrel or the ground.

That satellite dish on my roof bugs me. I have since pulled all the cables off the house for it, but need a taller ladder to get on the roof. I have one here at work.

Back out front. Sorry for the blurry photos. It was getting dim out. I ran out of time to remove all those rocks. They stayed there for a week, until the next Sunday I had off. I am sure people in the neighborhood loved that. Hi, kitty. The cat has not been coming around lately. I miss it. It is around though, someone saw it.

One day at work I decided to find a HIGH resolution American flag online and print it out, because there are too many people in Cornelius who hate white people, and this country and want this to be the new Mexico. I want to go to the local La Raza festivities about as much as blacks to a Clan rally. People need to chill out with the racial pride crap and start practicing some HUMAN pride instead.

Anyway, in the process of printing that flag I realized photo paper goes into an HP printer the opposite side up as my Canon. Here you see the result of a ton of expensive ink on the wrong side of paper. I tried very hard to avoid saying “Apparently these colors DO run” but I was unsuccessful.

These photos make me sigh every time I see them. These are from MAY. LOOK how hard it was raining. That is a TORRENTIAL DOWNPOUR. You really must see the photos full size to appreciate how hard it was raining in LATE SPRING.

Look at the water gushing UP from the drains. But at least it was a WARM rain, right? NOPE.

My newly medium greened-up time lapse camera watching snails swarm around in my tank. Gotta keep myself busy while stuck in here alone for eternity, especially when with biblical rain outside.

I printed those myself. I was proud as they came out pretty good. I have since removed the fairus.org one because I printed something I like more and put it in a different window. The “Support Arizona” sign probably pissed off a few people, but only one person said anything and he has an IQ near that of my scrotum so I was not concerned. Many of the people you might think would be offended, are in fact illiterate, not to mention ignorant of current events, and so have no idea.

This boring looking photo makes me smile, as it represents my return to SWIMMING LAPS FOR FITNESS for the first time since somewhere around 6th grade. Hooray for me. I LOVE the water. I canceled my gym membership and switched to SHARC in Hillsboro. They have weight machines, treadmills, and classes just like my gym, but the cost is way lower, the hours longer, and they have POOLS. I can swim laps any day of week before work. I could not be happier about that.

One day I decided to bring that grill home from work, just because it was there. I used it once. That is not meat, and the white and yellow are not cheese.

More glass pendants. They are selling pretty well.

Healthy breakfast. I am eating better than ever in my life.

The first iPhone ever in my store.

The next Sunday I finally got all those thousands of rocks off the sidewalk.

Swirly piece of glass, meant to be a pendant but hangs crooked. Now it is here in front of me with other tiny happy glass things.

A cemetery near here, over by Verboort. I like to explore.

Notice almost end of may and all the photos are still cloudy.

I bought a cheap happy cozy paper light thing for over my breakfast nook table. It is really the color as seen in the dark photos, you just can’t take a balanced photo with something bright like that.

Here is another big thing for me lately. I am working on learning to play guitar after giving it up ages ago. I have one at work and one at home (I sell them so it cost me nothing).

Game systems at work. (or really just resting on the shelves)

I finally bought micro fluorescent fixtures for the oak display case. Now I just need the money to buy a new top sheet of glass for it.

I bought a TON of proof and mint sets from a couple people and also lots of miscellaneous coins. I still have many more to get out. Also, quite a few of those sets have since sold.

Putting coins in the air-tite cases I bought for them.

I really liked those clear/blue candlesticks, and took them home. Can’t beat nice items like that for $10.

Another nice Dell netbook I bought, restored, sold. I had a major roadblock for a while but I figured it out eventually.

Some things I have sold, large DJ speakers, drums, guitars… and a surround system going out for sale.

A pre-police-arrival car wreck I saw one day when I went to the ATM one day here in Cornelius. There was all SORTS of stupidity going on there. I would not know where to begin. Let’s just say you should not feel safe with people like them on the road.

And finally, the box arrived with new currency and coin holders because putting those others out I realized I needed way more and more sizes. Ok. Now that I have almost finished this post from MAY and it is now JULY and I have 5 other posts to do I will move on. This post took ages. Thanks for looking.

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There are 420 photos. As always, I share the whole deal, not just a peek.

First I went to REI to buy a day pack. I want do do more hiking this year and need a good pack. When I got there people were lined up down the street waiting for the store to open. It turned out it was the last day of their used gear sale. I had no idea. I followed everyone in and found an incredible deal on the Shimano mountain biking shoes I wanted to buy last year, complete with cleats. New they are almost $100 and I paid $12.42. Awesome. I did then buy a not-on-sale expensive day pack, but I love it and will use it for years. I like how the guy is pointing at me in the first photo.

I was looking for a place to park and go out to take these first few photos, before driving back over to the I-5 bridge to start my walk from there. Boy do I wish the sun would come out like that now. This is Kenton City Park, which is here. See in Google Maps.

Getting ready to go. There is my new backpack. It has a stiff back piece, lots of ventilation and gel padding, tons of compartments, hip strap, internal water bladder pocket and much more. The ventilation is awesome. I walked 24 miles, mostly in the sun, and my back never got sweaty. Jansport has come a long way from the simple school bag. I tried several similar packs including North Face and liked the Jansport more.

I finally found some parking where it looked like I would not get towed, at the hotels under construction near I-5. I have been towed so many times in Portland I am paranoid now.

A big part of this post was supposed to be my GPS track from my Garmin 310XT watch, so you could see exactly where I walked. I love that. UNFORTUNATELY after 10 plus miles, when I told the watch to calculate my reverse route, I impatiently pressed the cancel button during calculation, and corrupted the entire route. I was not happy, especially since I did not realize this until I got home. SO, no fun with Google Earth/Maps this time. I have learned my lesson. If you own a Garmin 310XT, do NOT press cancel during reverse route calculation.

Anyway, I started near I-5 at the Columbia river, walked east to the I-205 bridge, then looped back around the airport through residential neighborhoods and part of Columbia Boulevard.
The photos start about here. See in Google Maps

On the other side of that bank is the river, but I have trouble passing up flowers along the way.

Bright flowers with dark background are always a dilemma. The first one is what the camera does automatically, which leaves the flower blown out. The second is exposure compensated down some, which shows the true flower color, but makes the background too dark.

While admiring all the plants and taking pictures I didn’t even see the very elderly mad sitting in the chair in the garden. He had gardening gloves on. I said, “Beautiful yard”. He smiled a little and slowly nodded.

How peaceful and serene a scene is that? What a lovely place to go for a long walk. Hello, Beth. That is same place I sent that photo message from.

There is a hell of a lot of money in boats down there.

Check out the toy this guy has.

The parking is pretty tight to say the least.

The great thing about Marine Drive is that it combines two of my favorite things, boats and aircraft.

There are several golf courses near the river.

There were a lot of motorcycles around. I soon found out why.

Back to the river.

Birds of prey, planes, sailboats; all kinds of fun things.

I love these two photos together. Bird on tree, plane on tree. Makes me laugh. I love photos.

A mostly sailboat marina.

More bikers and the sign with the reason for the numbers.

A purposely underexposed photo so you can see Mt. Hood better. That is the airport in front of it.

The only “Don’t Piss Here” warning I have ever seen. Downtown Portland needs some of that.

I wanted to sit and watch aircraft come in for a while, but as it was Sunday the traffic was very light and too long between. If it had been busy I would have been there a long time, sitting in the sun with green all around, runners, cyclists, rollerbladers, going by, and low flying planes.

Yes, I have taken pictures at the airport before. I like it.

For some reason I am fascinated by objects that get lost or left behind along the side of a road. Also, I am kind of like a bee or something and cannot pass-up bright colors.

The Sea Scout Base is a cool quaint little place.

I am always fascinated by antennas and engineering.

I like these two photos.

More Portland International Airport.

See, I told you. I am going to start keeping a bag in my backpack and pick up trash like that along the way. I already do when driving in the forest.

Lovely. Reminds me that I am looking for anyone who will go on bike rides with me.

Yikes. Dangerous place to walk. Cars FLY by there. I was only up on the road so I could share photos of both the airport and river sides.

Check out the awesome colors of the grass. Beautiful.

See, I told you it is dangerous there, hence the people on the BIKE PATH. See what I do to share with you?

Coming up is the I-205 bridge which also goes over the river to Vancouver, Washington, where my brother lives.

I am impressed by large structures, like freeway overpasses, bridges, buildings. Here are some views of the I-205 bridge you never see while driving over it.

These kids were hitting golf balls into the river. Not the most respectable pastime. I waited until they were not looking and got a photo.

That is one HELL of a dangerous crosswalk. Traffic is FLYING past and the bike path crosses there. TRUCK. And yes, a “Dead End” is quite possible there.

Back south into town.

Lonely discarded shopping cart. Reminds me of that Red Balloon movie with the wrinkled dying balloon on the ground.

Freeways are captivating to me. So geometric and out of proportion to us humans, even though we build them.

I like this photo. Some things just strike me. I could not possibly be a more visual person. I like how the focus is in the part where there is nothing and your eyes just want to wander around in nowhere.

I have driven by the motorcycle shop on elevated freeway many times but never walked by. You see a whole lot more on foot.

Look, it is like a homeless swimming pool. Or so I thought until I got close enough to smell the water. WOW what a stench.

“Path Closed” Ya right. How do you close a path? Like I am not going to walk there after seeing that sign. Come along.

So much nature right in the middle of the city.

And where is that peaceful path and greenery and water? Right past the fence for long term airport parking.

More path, south of the airport.

Even business parks here have beautiful things to see.

The airplane food people.

Looks beautiful, right?

Only from a distance. Not good.

More golf, this time affordable and public.

And here we go with the Portland Air National Guard Station. I earned these.

While perfectly legal to take photos from outside the fence, bored military guys with nothing to do and too much gung-ho, may still treat you like a terrorist. A guy drove up inside the fence and said, “Can I help you with something?” I said “No thanks, just walking.” He followed me for a while, then a different guy in a Humvee pulled up inside the fence farther along and started video recording me while I walked along the road. Then when I was well past the base the Portland Police came and stopped me. The cops, well, one of them, was a lot more friendly than the military. They ran my name and told me they knew I wasn’t breaking the law but they have to come when the military calls.

Pretty ridiculous. As if I could see something that anyone walking or driving by could not, or from Google maps. The military tries to make up their own rules, but for now at least I don’t go to jail for photos taken from public areas. Yet.

Columbia Slough again.

Back toward Columbia Boulevard, a big long industrial street.

I am pretty sure that is Mt. St. Helens to the north there. I want to go hiking there this summer. Only been once.

I wanted to walk through neighborhoods on the way back so I went farther south into NE Portland residential areas. This is Fernhill Park which is here. See in Google Maps.

Check out the curly cue of green. Did someone spread fertilizer along that path or what?

Streets in Portland keep getting re-named politically correct names because a lot of people have too little to do and it makes them feel better, regardless of the inconvenience and costs it causes others.

There are beautiful things to bee seen almost everywhere, even in NE Portland. It is not all about shootings and thugs. Beautiful.

See?

Sorry for terrible photos and shooting into light. I wanted to share because I have always loved that kind of tree, whatever it is.

That is Woodlawn Elementary School, which is here. See in Google Maps.

I totally love this. This is the kind of clueless crap you see all the time. “NO WAR FOR OIL!” Oh really. I bet that giant old piece of crap van you have gets GREAT gas mileage. Maybe you slogan would be less idiotic on a bicycle.

Back down again to Lombard St. / Columbia Boulevard.

Even down there I found something pretty in the fading light.

There are a LOT of strip clubs in that area.

Large Kraft bakery.

Odd.

One of the more terrifying strip joints I have ever seen. You should have seen the guys going in the back.

Getting dark. I thought I could just keep walking and gradually Make my way back over to the river at some point. WRONG. Not going the right way in that area cost me at LEAST a few extra miles of walking. I did not realize I had to circle back for quite a while.

In ugly industrial area, almost under railroad trestle, I found the Historic Columbian Cemetery, totally neglected. See what you find when on foot?

Yes, that is a very dangerous place to stand.

It was worth it though. I wanted this shot. I like it quite a bit. Great angles.

Nice door.

Bob’s Metals. Wait until you see more of that later.

Nice flowers among the gloom.

See the difference between cul-de-sac in good neighborhood, and in NE Portland? Did you know cul-de-sac means bottom of bag?

By that time I had realized I went way too far and thanks to the last bit of juice in my Blackberry, and Google Maps, I saw where I had to go to get over the slough.

On and near Interstate Ave. there were even more strip clubs and some of the girls and a bouncer outside smoking, to advertise the fact that yes, they do indeed have tragically trashy girls in there, in case you just got out of prison or have been disfigured in industrial accident and are unable to find woman yourself. I had been walking a really really long time by the time I got that far and my feet were hurting. Only a few more miles to go. Or so.

What a scenic spot for a beauty school ad. “We’ve Arrived!” at the junkyard apparently.

And now to the really interesting part of Bob’s Scrap Metals empire. Check out all the crazy cool stuff back there. Who else has a garbage truck collection? Right on. I was totally intrigued by that whole back lot. I could see horror movie scenes being shot down there. Maybe also good spot for last legs heroin addicts, or for young people to get drunk at night. See the things you miss flying by overhead in a car? Aren’t you glad I walked all day for you?

FINALLY getting over the damned slough.

The moon was out, sort of.

Came to the Portland Meadows area and some food.

Man that Mexican food sounded great, but I was in a hurry.

I tried very hard to wait until I finished walk, but gave in and had some fries at BK. I was sunburned, wearing my adventure hat, with backpack, and some black guy in there looked at me like I was crazy.

There is an area that looks safe eh? Just me, some french fries, and the occasional transient or doper on bicycle. Definitely nowhere to be unarmed. I certainly would not have hesitated to shoot some crazy asshole, that is for sure. I had my whole walk planned and watched on GPS watch so I would be back to truck before dark. THEN I took that major wrong turn, or lack of turn, and screwed things up. The last couple miles were DARK.

Deserted Max station.

PIR, Portland International Raceway. I sure want to be on that track.

I just kept going and going.

Again, looks safe doesn’t it?

It got so dark I gad to prop my camera on the guardrail posts to take these.

The “art” at the outer edge of Portland Expo Center lot and more deserted light rail.

I took this because it said “Extra Mile” on the big cup and I was thinking, NO KIDDING. My feet and legs were really hurting and I was cold with sunburn at same time.

I FINALLY crossed back over I-5, actually RAN across because it is deadly there at night. Stopped for photos at Boat Center by freeway.

Then around a couple of corners, I finally got back to the hotels. I love finding an appropriate descriptive photo.

The big question remained. WAS my truck still there, or had it yet again been towed and impounded somewhere? BOY was I relieved to see it still there and also not broken into. Whew, good deal. I had made it. I love adventures, and also sharing them.

There is all my gear, Blackberry, GPS watch, pack, camera case… Hat was in my bag by then. I was very disappointed that my GPS track was lost. I have a lot of fun with that. I will get it right next time. I also learned to save phone battery for when I really need it. I wasted it all day and then it died before end of walk, leaving me without mapping GPS or emergency call if I had needed it. I am learning.

Not only did that walk take a long time, so did putting this post together. It was hours of work on several different days. I am tired of it and ready for next. I have two more posts backed up already. Thanks for being here and check back again soon.

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There are 365 photos.

I enjoy sharing so one day I drug out my big flat bed scanner to show you some of the foreign bank notes I have for sale. They are interesting, I think. I lot of people collect them. Kids especially enjoy them. Take a look. Obviously you must click the first one and go to slide show to really see them. It took a while to scan those in.

I love getting things in the mail that are not bills.

I sold the Earnhardt plaque already.

I have been getting a lot of basses lately.

I twittered about these a while back. Turns out Avon Barbie is worth pretty good money.

Needed to clean my phone. I almost forgot what it looks like under all that armor.

And then the air freshener. I had a photo of it because I bought it on e-bay, which amused me. I bought it to try increasing my rating for my newer account there.

 

Then I happened to have the scanner out for the foreign currency and of course could not resist.

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I get a lot of silver rounds of all description. Here is a pure ounce of silver you don’t see every day.

A nice double bass pedal.

Again with ridiculous packaging.

My dad brought the chipper, compressor, and generator over from our Tillamook store, where they were running out of room. I sold the compressor but not the other two yet.

Going through the Vista Ridge tunnel on one of my many trips to Portland.

This has nothing to do with me not eating meat anymore. I always thought, WHO THE HELL NEEDS TO EAT THREE HAMBURGERS AT ONCE? Gross. Just gross.

I LOVE this Medusa. I am keeping it of course. It is pewter from the Franklin Mint a long time ago.
It is worth quite a bit of money now but I am not selling it.

I bought a very powerful amplifier but it was dirty inside. Since I could not find my small compressor and air hose, I used the Tim Taylor method. Leaf blower. Excuse the greasy hand prints on the front of the amp. I hadn’t cleaned it yet.

My little friends are still there in front of me.

Always more DVDs.

Somehow I didn’t notice that I had spelled Monday incorrectly (in too much of a hurry) until the sign was printed and up in my window for a week. Oops. Apparently no one else noticed either; one of the benefits of being where so many people are illiterate.

The view from my basement laundry area (pre-mowing). I have come a long way from laundromat with migrant farm workers ans crack heads. Hooray!

My little side yard. You think that is bad, you should see how overgrown it is now. I will fix it. Again, I moved in after spring and summer.

Where I live now, getting ready to mow.

Where I lived 5 years ago, also in Forest Grove, upper right apartment. I HATED that place. Bunch of dirty lazy horrible people sucking welfare tit and decorating the place with shopping carts and trash. The a-hole owner of that place would fix nothing. in a later year he punched me in the face in front of the police and got arrested. He now is permanently banned from coming anywhere near me. Screw you slumlord scumbag. He owns a retirement home and steals from old people. He is much hated.

When I lived there the condos to the right were still a vacant lot. I mowed the whole field and spent much time removing all the metal, trash, and broken glass, to set up a makeshift baseball field for all the kids.

Around Forest Grove one Sunday…

I SO want to buy the church down the street. I would either live in it or turn it into a community center for people not stupid enough for the umpteen churches in the area. It would be so wonderful to have a place to meet people. There are events and meetings and social gatherings constantly all around my neighborhood but I am always left out, due to my inability to discontinue my use of reason, rational thought, and logic. I know there are a lot of other lonely, thinking people out there. It would be so great to have a way to get together.

This is where Signmeisters used to be. They are nice people and did all of my signs for my business in Forest Grove. I have not seen her around town to find out what happened. I assume the economy killed them, but you never know. Sad to see the place empty. There is way too much of that going on around here.

 

One of the few small town sporting goods stores around. For now. Walmart opens here very soon.

More of things a couple blocks from my house.

My yard, post-mow.

One Sunday evening I was driving aimlessly around Hillsboro, just looking, and took these to share.

This is one of several Intel facilities around here.

A short road near the end of the Hillsboro runway I had not been on had a surprise. Look in the windows. Nike corporate jets.

I did not know there was a little aviation museum there. I find all sorts of things exploring all the time.

This is over by the Washington County Fairgrounds. Yes, it is really dark. I THINK that track must be for rally cross, but I am not sure. I would LOVE to to that. I have talked to some people who do.

There are so many great looking business buildings around. I like these.

A view of The Streets of Tanasbourne that I had never seen.

Back into town, and over to REI, which unfortunately was closed. My only day off is Sunday, and everything closes too early.

There are lots of beautiful sights, even in cities ans suburbia. I love dramatic lighting.

Back at work, small package from China.

Got a great deal on this nice wide format HP printer. It is nowhere near the quality of my dead Canon, but will do for general business purposes. It is replacing that old white one.

I love the Nightmare Before Christmas things. I kept the bobble head and put it up on my aquarium, sold the bag, and gave the creepy kids to a friend.

More DVDs again. Always. There you can see I returned the season of Alf after watching it all.

Check him out. He pretty much rocks, right?

Medusa looks awesome in front of my tank. A customer gave me the pirate as a gift a long time ago.

I sent the slightly older 8 megapixel cameras to my cousin Beth for her daughter to have fun with. Two because one had a battery door that might no hold up. I love to share. I am sending a camera to my sister this week. I wish this recession would end so I could make money again and do more for my family, especially my mom.

I sent my census form back in at the last minute.

“How many people were living in this house?” 1

“Were there any additional people staying here…?” No.

That is it. Finished. You can shove all your racial and other questions up your…

Tress somewhere, birds building nest here at work again. I will get all that ugly open metal covered and painted very soon, as soon as it is warm out.

Another happy kids’ day at the fire department a block from my house.

Helmet I am selling. Every time I see this it makes me SO want to race cars.

My house and yard, post mow.

Different day. This is the first thing I see on my way to work every day. Such a nice little town. I love it here. Just need someone to share it with. Single women? Hello?

I hadn’t seen my friend, Jonna for several weeks. I asked her to play tennis with me. These photos are from her back patio. I gave her many of those plants but she re-potted them and they are growing well.

Those flowers in the planters on the ground and inside the windows are not from me. Jonna and her daughter planted those. Dog house was her son’s school project.

I helped her cut that big tall bush bush all the way back not long ago. I can’t believe how fast it grew back.

That little house on the alley was for sale when I lived there.

 

I gave this to her just a month or two ago. It is growing quickly and is gorgeous. Thanks to Jonna for letting me take pictures. More sun is finally coming this week. Hopefully I will get to play more tennis with her. I will be honest and say so far she kicks my ass every time. I will not let that continue much longer.

Another neighborhood cat. This one is way younger than the battle roughened one that hangs around me. I kept trying to get a photo of the cat’s face but it kept moving. Very friendly and beautiful animal that lives…somewhere.

That is my old place there. I sure don’t miss it much. Not too happy about being treated disrespectfully and having my space invaded. I bet they miss my $1000 a month.

My mini Nikon flash that some jerk on e-bay bid on and then didn’t pay for.

One of the many reasons for traffic problems driving back from east Portland one day. This is at the 205-84 ramp. Someone did something very stupid.

That same drive, on the way up the hill toward Sylvan…

Another package from the other side of the world.

Very wrinkly, but I fixed that with some warm water and gentle manipulation. I also adjusted, tightened, trimmed and improved them.

Even though my business in now more in Escalade land, there are still lots of big lifted trucks too. Makes mine look like a low-rider. At least one of them was military, and were eating next door.

I gave a few of these glass pendant necklaces to my mom for kids at her school and have ordered many more, from a few different places. I also have a second rack coming and some silver bracelets to sell.

On my way home from work one day…

A local National Guard unit had just come home.

Is it even possible to be more of a cliche’? I seriously doubt it. Like being a cardboard cut-out of a person.

 

I never get tired of the moon being involved in photos.

Ah, look how nice the little theater looks at night.

This again is the school district building a block from my house. Such a beautiful place.

I started using Twhirl one day and it does a good job, but I have not used it since.

Time to get the letters out and change one side of the sign.

I am so glad they repainted the place next door it looks way better now. The car lot (trucks actually) is now totally moved in and open.

Some beautiful silver jewelry I had for sale. It is gone already.

Dusk at a field/orchard right down the road from my house.

I just like their little wall.

Custom wheels in Cornelius.

I ran across that very dangerous chunk of highway to share the local view with you.

I would again like to encourage you who take pictures to not always leave the camera in auto mode. I see so many photos that could be WAY better with simple adjustment or use of different setting.

The first image is the what people get when using auto or P modes. The grass is dark and the sky is bright, so the camera gives an exposure somewhere in between. The result, well, sucks. The second is the same camera, still not in manual mode, but using spot metering from the sky instead of evaluative (or matrix or whatever). One simple mode adjustment makes a huge difference. I see SO many overexposed images because of laziness or ignorance.

Same thing here, evaluative metering on left, spot metering on the right.

A few snapshots from nearby Verboort area. It is SO beautiful here.

While parked at that same spot with glorious beauty to my right, I saw to my left a reminder to enjoy the good things every chance you get, because you never know how long it will last.

Hello, cows.

Back in Forest Grove a few blocks from my house, waiting for some food to go. Beauty everywhere, I am telling you.

Closer to home… evil church, dramatic building, and again with the moon.

One day when I got home I decided to take a few snapshots with the camera sitting on the table where I always put my phone, camera, keys etc. when I get off work every day. The colored light is always there. I have a color changing LED thing under the table. I love color. LOVE. I also love my giraffes, two of several I have.

Some way nice boots I had on e-bay a couple of times. They didn’t sell.

Here are some very nice pieces of equipment I recently have had on craigslist. Only ONE of them sold so far. Have I mentioned that this economy is unbelievably terrible? Probably.

Nice Taco Bell photo, Steve. Thanks. I thought so.

Here are those mountain bike shoes and cleats I got the crazy good deal on at the recent REI used gear sale. They may look dirty ( I didn’t even brush them off yet) but they are a once used return. They are the same shoes I was going to buy last year. They are $97+ new. I paid, wait for it, $12.42, yes, $12.42. I will be going to the used gear sales in the future. I ended up there at just the right time accidentally this time.

Don’t know. Random photo.

Those silver bracelets again. They sold right away. I really liked the turtles.

Well there you have it; some of the thing I saw in April. I also have hundreds of photos coming soon from a 24 mile walk I went on in Portland. This post took many days of work to prepare. Maybe I will take a day off from this before starting on the next one. Thanks so much for being here. Remember, comments are invited. Have a great day.

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There are 208 photos. I always have much to share.

Lately I have been going through a lot of scrap silver as the price is quite high. People sometimes bring in big piles of “silver” like this. The vast majority of it is NOT silver. I have to inspect and test every single piece using a silver test acid if it looks like it may be real.

Sometime a small item interests me. I like this little old sterling silver thimble for some reason.

Check out my nice blue wall. The fish pictures I put on it are from a free calendar I got at an aquarium store I go to. I just cut it up with scissors and, voila! Free decorating. The cardinal tetras look just like mine.

Progress at the Walmart down the street as of a month ago. It is well beyond that now with parking lot lights, drainage, fencing and a whole lot more done. It will be open this summer. It is a big change for such small towns. I will have updated photos soon.

You may or may not have heard about my great experience with the bitch manager at Chase, across the street inside Fred Meyer, my former bank. (one of them) Let’s just say I don’t take too kindly to anyone laughing about my money being stolen when I have only a few hours left to use that money to save my electricity from being shut off. I am now banned from all Chase property in the United States. Screw them. I have other accounts anyway. Goodbye Chase.

Here, finally are my new business cards. I design them myself and ordered them from Duracard. I have had plastic cards from them before but this time got the thinner ones, which I like more. I am of course extremely proud of having my own business that I have put together and maintained myself. I am already almost out of these cards again and need to reorder. It is always much cheaper the second time after the initial set-up fee is out of the way.

Here are flowers on one of the trees in my yard and the first sprouts on the apple pear tree in front. It has since grown its leaves and looks great again. This year I will pull off about 2/3 of the baby pears so the rest will be better. It is incredible how much fruit one tree can produce.

Around the shop… This I thought was cool, a traditional wood lacrosse racquet. I usually get the modern aluminum ones. Curious what the “Tuscarora Nation’ is? I was. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuscarora_%28tribe%29

My little jewelry testing work area.

I got a great deal on Stephen King hardcover books.

Another pile of “silver” that took ages to go through. Mostly not silver but enough to make it worthwhile. The second is my fingers after way to much work with silver testing acid. In case I was unsure if it was really an acid, the little vial spilled on a paper towel one day and it smoked instantly and nearly burst into flames by the time I they it in the toilet, sizzling and turning black and purple. BE CAREFUL.

Here is a gorgeous Epiphone Viola bass I sold recently.

Everyone knows about Guitar Hero and Rock Band for game systems. Have you seen DJ Hero? Here is the controller for it.

Some people do still listen to albums.

I moved the DVD sets and seasons. I have been going through a lot of them. They are more visible there. I put out 40 sets just last week. (not pictured here)

A very large and nice paper shredder, $250 at Office Depot.

Aquarium cleaning, as usual.

Not surprisingly the guy driving this truck turned out to be a total DICK, and got thrown out for rude behavior.

Metro West stages across the street at Fred Meyer, so ambulances are always around and coming and going.

More proof that I am trying to eat healthier, cooking my own food (sometimes), and doing just fine with not eating meat.

A rare bit of blue sky.

Old eraser for use testing metals, and new one.

Me, still looking like hell from long winter of repeated illnesses. I am working on my comeback though. Stay tuned.

Mini Troy-Bilt edger tiller.

Did you know they make mini bags of microwave popcorn? I did not.

Moved a bunch of stuff to make room for 3 big pieces of solid oak furniture my dad brought over from Tillamook. Moved clothing type items to rolling rack and took down rails on wall temporarily. The furniture is very nice.

Waiting for a burrito (minus the meat. I add other to it at home)

Me again, different day. Don’t want my mom complaining about no photos of me.

While I was trying desperately to gather money top pay my lease here, the main computer died. Not cool. It was really dying of old age. It was a cheap Dell I bought 6 years ago. I got a ton of use and my money’s worth out of it. Went and bought another inexpensive, but WAY faster. I am telling you, if you need an affordable desktop pc, go for this e-machines. It was only about $375 and does a great job. Huge hard drive, plenty of memory, dual core, looks good. I can finally run Photoshop CS4 64-bit while also using business program and browser, all quickly and without delay. Bargain.

Notice anything missing? (besides video card) No parallel port. No big deal for you I am sure, but I use that for my work printer. I can buy an adapter to USB online but pain in ass. So much for my super long special purchase parallel cable. I connected form printer to back webcam computer directly and figured I would just network. Another pain in ass networking XP and new Windows 7 computer. Got things working mostly, but still cannot see printer on XP machine from Windows 7.

I love getting my odd packages from China. This one took well over a month to get here but was worth it. The Yellow quartz specimen was dirt cheap, I just had to wait for it.