Bon voyage

So I'm going whitewater rafting this weekend. Wish me well. If I don't live, remember me fondly.

Okay, so I'm exaggerating. My wife and I (and the JLowe family) are going with a bunch of the ladies' friends on a whitewater adventure. To be fair, the adventure is being undertaken by JLowe and the ladies. I am, to quote Martin Short in an old SNL skit, "not a strong swimmer," (couldn't find the clip, neither can this person) and tend to wuss out of the water sports.

So, as the rest of the posse floats down the raging waters of the Deschutes (or whatever Class V rapids they're rafting), I will be driving the vehicle that holds all belongings. JLowe is kind enough to bring his portable DVD player, so I suspect I will catch up on my movie watching during the down time.

Feh.

So, I've come to the interesting place in my career where I've learned that people actually read my blather, and indeed what I do (or don't) write may actually mean something in my real life. Although I got into this whole writing-on-the-internet business intentionally, I never actually thought you'd read it. Oh, well, c'est la vie.

Don't take anything I write too seriously. If I want you to, I'll let you know.

Anyway, had dinner tonight with Mr. 12, who (as I mentioned in an earlier post) is off to Iraq on the 16th. The plan was to go eat Phu, but thankfully 12 decided to have some steak instead. I'd much rather have the rib-eye that the pizzle on any day.

Twelve brought along one of our chums who's already been to Iraq. His name is Chuck (generic enough to use here). Chuck got a Purple Heart while in Iraq, because during his first or second week in-country his vehicle drove too close to a roadside bomb, and it ended up blowing off his right ring-finger.

Many insensitive jokes were told on his behalf before he got back, but mostly (I suspect) out of relief that nothing worse happened.

Chuck appears to be in good spirits. His hand really doesn't look that bad at all (the wonders of modern medicine continue to astound) and it's really just great to have him back. He gets married at the end of August.

So The Missus and I have finally planned a good vacation. We're going to Mexico in January (assuming my boss approves it) (if you're reading this, please approve it or I'll die). Check out our digs at here.

As far as I can tell, the plan seems to be that we have to try to take one trip per year, whether we can afford it or not. For our honeymoon, we went to Cabo San Lucas, which was very nice because my aunt donated a timeshare week as her wedding gift. We stayed at the Hotel Bahia (now called the Bahia Condo Hotel), which was just a couple minutes from the beach and, per my wife, served some of the best Pina Colada's she's ever had (see the poolside bar and a picture that looks suspicously like our honeymoon room here). For our first anniversary, we were very poor, with The Missus in nursing school and me just finally starting to get my stride financially with my current employer. So we journeyed to beautiful, scenic Forest Grove to stay at the lovely, rustic McMenamin's Grand Lodge. I hear your mind working. Despite my propensity for cheapness, this was actually my wife's pick.

Big mistake. The distinguishing factors of the Grand Lodge are that it is not rustic (it's across from a car dealer on Highway 99), it's movie theater was closed, and you have to use group bathrooms. None of these things appealed to The Missus. The most exciting parts of our anniversary adventure were drinking a bottle of champagne while eating our cake topper (which, thanks to Piece of Cake Bakery, was fresh, not frozen) and sneaking off to Aloha to catch Blackhawk Down (very romantic) because we were too bored to stand it. Nothing like dying troops in Somalia to spice up a weekend...

The following year, we took an anniversary trip and turned it into a birthday celebration for the entire family. A little known fact is that The Missus, Lady Lowe, and I all have our birthdays within 5 days of eachother. Poor JLowe almost had to buy us all a present, but instead we decided to head on down to Disneyland and all paid our own way. While there, we checked in with my old roommate, Joey D, and then went up to Santa Barbara to visit The Missus' brother, a photography student at the illustrious Brooks Institute (you can eventually see his work at his website, which is still being worked on).

Good trip, but didn't really excite The Missus too much.

So, this year she took the reigns and told me to shut my yap with all the complaining, and off we went to Italy. The picture at the top of my blog is from a street in Venice. We had a really wonderful time, and now whereever my wife wants to take me, I'll go (although I'll still silently mumble and grumble about the money part of it).

So, tomorrow she's taking me to Maupin, and I'm seeing her off as she tackles the extremes of Mother Nature.

Best of luck to her.

So, again, wish me luck. The way things go for me, I'll end up putting the van in the rapids and will drown that way. If that occurs, I will this blogue to my boss, who generally has more interesting things to say than I do, and who never runs out of good stories. Seriously.

Couple links for ya:

The new Batmobile at work

Super Dead

See the Swiftboat Veteran's Anti-Kerry commercial? Watch carefully to see Al French, the man who made me a prosecutor (hired me as an intern in Marion County, now one of the top guys at the Clackamas County DA's office)

This is almost enough to get me off the computer...

In fact, in my fear, I'm off. But, as always,

Catch ya later.