cheering vicariously

i can't watch the ducks on TV (except when they lose to Cal, apparently), but i always cheer vicariously through my friends back home. i'm up early to check the scores. and i am wearing my green right now.

did i think the ducks could beat the red-hot beavers? the ducks, with their ugly uniforms, fourteenth string QB, and an offense that has turned the ball over just as many times as they've scored with it? no, not really.

did i still have a candle of hope? a little tiny burning candle of hope that the ducks have recently licked their finger tips and -- pssst, out it goes? yes. no matter how many times they lose bowl games to oklahoma, i still have hope.

and they finally did something i could be proud of. really proud of. in front of 35,000 angry beavers, they not only won, they destroyed them in the civil war. (commence whining about jaquizz rodgers and his bum shoulder).

i will hear none of it. who the hell is jeremiah masoli anyway? enough said.

tricked out

ever since i went to amsterdam last september, i've been obsessed with european cruising bikes. i told dan about it, my mom, my friend erica, the botts, carrie -- whenever we were in a "bike friendly town" i was on and on about getting one of these tricked out rides with the full fenders, wicker basket, and mandatory bell. finally my parents got tired of hearing me, so they pitched in to the holly's third, and hopefully last, bike fund as a thank you gift for my tour guide services.

dan sort of didn't get it, why in the hell did i need three bikes? well, my road bike is for long distance riding and exercise, my mountain bike is for off road action, and this bike will be for going to the supermarket or when i have to go home late from erin's house all by myself and feel like being on a bike will make me fast, and thus impervious to knife attacks in dark alleys.

i was hoping for a classic rusty cambridge model, but old bikes are at least twice as expensive as new ones. and my town is quite hilly, so i thought having a few gears would be a better plan. walking my bike up a hill isn't going to be effective against those drunk knife wielding brits.

so, i finally found my lovely new tricked out ride. on sale, some rusty parts, a new wicker basket and i was off to the Tesco for some arugula and aubergines.

2 out of 8 ain't bad

i had to call dan yesterday to report that "i've done something bad." it wasn't that bad, but it was just another in a series of bad things that happen when i get behind the wheel. i am that guy who will volunteer to put the first dent in the new car. it is the curse, and every time i think i've broken it, it rears its ugly head.


1. my mom's 1996, at the time brand-new, honda civic. i was being a little 16-year-old hot shot and came around a corner a bit too fast when someone blinded me with their brights. since i was a new driver, i overcorrected, hit some gravel, and careened into the ditch where the car hit some grass, followed by a huge rock, and then gently rolled over on its top. this was my first and only legitimate crash. i drive very carefully now, but the curse has mutated and remains. *kill 1*


2. after the civic debacle, i was given a 1985 ford F-350. if you aren't familiar, this is a huge beast. the biggest truck ford makes for the average joe. the old ford was painted black with accents of primer and rust. it was a tank. i never ever ran into anything seriously (except for going forward into a fence instead of reverse and "brushing" someone's car in the high school parking lot), so i count this as one of my two "not damaged" rides.


3. the blue toyota. now here is where it gets technical. first, i personally never damaged Chewy, the extra winterfresh gum colored '95 toyota that i drove senior year. sure, some lady pulled up right behind me and i backed into her, damaging her car, but not doing any damage to my bumper. also, i allowed my then friend, now sister-in-law to drive one evening and she rammed it into the side of my friend ryan's little POS honda and royally screwed both cars up. thank god for brush guards. so, i put this in the *kill 2* column simply because there was damage and my decisions led to it.


4. the '91 mercury tracer. wow. this car and i spent six years together. we drove around eugene in the rain, over snowy mountain passes for holidays, to L.A. for spring break, to Florida from Oregon, to Oregon from Florida via Montana and Minnesota, all around Idaho, and Dan drove her all the way to San Antonio before we passed her to our friend Ox. with six years of driving, i took very good care of this little go-getter. i only ran one yellow light and some hotshot 18-year-old in his Dad's fully restored '64 camaro gunned it through the yellow, too, whilst turning, and tagged my rear driver's side door. now, it's just me, but i can run yellow lights in mercury tracers because if they hit things, i'm only out a few hundred bucks. but if i'm driving my dad's sweet '64 camaro (which after this blog i will probably never do, even if he had one), i am going to be pretty cautious. anyway, the police decided he was at fault and i got a $1200 check. ha ha, d-bag. i did accidentally scrape the headlight against some guy's totally dangerous sticking-out metal pole on his camper, but it was just a headlight and it wasn't my fault. and someone backed into us in the albertson's parking lot and left a note. i wasn't even in the car, so that wasn't my fault either. we got another $1200 check for that one. officially totalled, but still ran great. i give myself *kill 3* on the tracer because i know better than to run lights.


5. dan's jeep wrangler. now, like my dad's imaginary classic camaro, i know better than to be an absentminded retard whilst driving dan's jeep. i drove it every other day for a year when we were in idaho so he could take the tracer down to base to save on gas money. the only incident that ever happened was that someone broke in, stole his CDs and our garage door opener. i changed the garage code that night and kept the jeep locked up tight after that. but not a scratch thank-you-very-much.


6. holly's hot rod red ford F-250. after spending 18 months driving the jeep and having nowhere to put the dog, the tent, the cooler, and our food and clothes, we added a beautiful 1999 ford F-250 to the family. it was so pretty with chrome accents and mint condition interior. i got to drive it because dan wanted me out of the jeep and the tracer was still driving to mountain home three times a week. i was soooo careful, especially pulling in and out of parking spaces and ensuring that i had enough room for stoppage. after about two months, the curse rears its ugly head. backing out of the garage one morning, i must have not been aligned from the night before and screeeeeech, i crumple the left driver's side front tire fender arch (luckily there was this nice piece of chrome arch covering the actual red paint. it only cost me $30 to have it replaced and back to good before i even told dan about it.) "honey, i ran the truck into the garage, but it's fixed already! haha! see, i am safe. don't take it away from me!" *kill 4*


7. currently we have a 1996 red Rover saloon (sedan). it is exactly like a honda accord of the same year, but called a Rover here for some reason. it's sort of our junker, but that doesn't mean i'm not careful. i just have this problem with parking it in our tiny space. i've bumped the trash cans, scraped the front along a brick wall, tagged the garage door, and sort of brushed up against some lady's car at the salon once. just once. no real harm done. the best, though, was when my parents were visiting and we were on a one-lane road and a huge semi came upon us. i thought i would just reverse and swing into the driveway i'd just passed. scrreeeeeeech, as i turned the wheel right and punched it in reverse, i didn't take into account the pretty little stump-lined flower bed that some guy had built in his yard across the street. i ripped one of the stumps out and sort of dislodged the Rover's bumper. oops. dad said that the garden display looked better with that little splash of red paint. *kill 5*


8. my little min-min. the mini has enough problems without me running it into things. it is old. it is british engineered. it is rickety and shaky and the advice my mechanic gives when something goes haywire is "well, jiggle the wires, and see if that helps." hm. already we've had a clogged fuel filter, a broken heater, a squealy fan belt, a messed up immobilizer, and a dead battery. but those are all general repairs on any aging ride. i just had to add to the record by not paying attention while backing out of my teeeny garage yesterday and ripping the front bumper halfway off. holy CRAP i was so angry. i am SO FREAKING CAREFUL with my little mini. and the sound of twisting metal was like a reminder that i am an idiot that can't be trusted with nice things. a replay of all the fender-benders of old went rushing through my brain. DAMN IT! I SUCK! ARGH! *kill 6*


to conclude, i have to have some pride in my safe driving record since 1996. although my father has joked that we have a revolving account at the body shop due to mine and my brother's handy driving skillz, in my case, it is just stupid body damage. stupid garage damage. i drive nice and slow, i am defensive, i keep a nice distance. But when i get below the 5mph mark it it like all objects are magnetized to my ride. i blame it on my legitimate lack of depth perception, but it is probably just me not paying attention. hopefully Iain will be able to rustle me up another mini bumper soon!

pinnacle of my career

i made left-handed hook in PE bball on friday afternoon. if you know how horrible i am at basketball, and that i am right handed, this does, in fact, mark the pinnacle of my basketball career to date.

i've been volunteer coaching the JV girls team lately trying to get in shape as part of the post-USA-italy-cruise Muffin Top Reduction Program (last year i was "head JV coach" but i took the season off to concentrate on my academics and passport stamping agenda). so far i've jammed my finger, caught a virus from one of skillet-handed kids, have a painful ingrown toenail, had the basketball shoved into my eye by an awkward sophomore, and lost a pound.

i'm headed to practice again today and am seriously considering taking up an offer to work with the local british girls team and play some ladies league ball, too. me = addicted. too bad my skills don't match up with my enthusiasm.

no comment.

so i've been doing some blog research and have discovered, at least i think, that if someone posts a comment on your blog, then it is entirely kosher to then post another comment on your own blog to respond to that comment. am i right?
of course i totally love getting comments, especially when they are surprises from people i didn't even know were reading up on my b-log. but then if i respond to the comment, on my own blog, it is an expectation of them to return to read my response. i guess this is blog-etiquette -- click, click, click. let me know if i'm wrong.

the grand finale: corfu, olympia, and athens

note: these run chronologically in reverse, so if you want to read it as it happened, start with turkye and go up.

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after our day at sea, we landed in corfu (kerkyra), on the western side of greece, one mile from albania and 50 miles from italy. a totally different island than the arid bits in the east. corfu was lush, pine forested, and full of more dramatic beaches and beauty. we rented some 50cc scooters and went out to find a beach for the day. as we cruised uphill at a zippy 13mph, it was so nice to smell the pine trees and get the egypt garbage stench fully out of my nostrils.

we kayaked and snorkeled in the unbelievably clear waters of the Ionian sea. ate more greek food. and faced the dreaded reality that our vacation was rapidly coming to a close.

after corfu, we hit olympia and ran some windsprints at the site of the original olympic games. drank greek coffee. ate more greek food. and wept a little bit as each hour ticked by.

as we headed to athens, we had little heart left. we packed up our bags and worried about being over the weight limit with our souvenirs. luckily i'd drank all the pepto, so that helped keep our luggage under 23kg.

how can two weeks go by that quickly? how am i ever going eat feta again without comparing it to greece? how the hell did they get me to yell jihad in the middle of an arab nation? how many more marble columns can i take before i die of ancient-world over stimulation? doesn't turkey seem like ages ago?


in athens, we toured the acropolis, ate one more amazing meal with a few rounds of mythos (beer), marveled at how bad the greek wine really was, and boarded our plane to rainy north.

a top-three all-time vacation, for sure.

at sea: the pharoh's curse

yep. that's right. somebody in egypt did something that brought an evil virus onto the ship, and i caught it. i was sicky-sick the day we left egypt, and a few days afterward. i became the jackson pollock of toilet art. the hot tub helped the chills and body aches. the corona helped the headache. and the proximity to the loo was a bonus.

luckily we were at sea in luxury, not in egypt anymore. maybe that's why i loved cruising? one day in horse carcass land, the next day in a four star mobile resort.

i felt much better after36 hours, but opted to stay close to the W.C. during our trip to Corfu and packed my own T.P. for the rest of the vacay. doh! erin got a strain of it, too, albiet with different symptoms. poor girls.

for the rest of the trip the buffet lines were all closed to self-service (the restaurant crew served us all with rubber gloves, tongs, and, i'm assuming, copious amounts of hand sanitizer). i'm now virtually clean of all weak bacteria, but the perfect host for a new superbug.

"spray me all over" -- harley, to hand sanitizer applicator girl, trying to keep germ-free.