Here are a few more photos taken from my recent trip to New York. Basically, we ate and drank our way across the City. My kind of vacation! The beer was okay. Remember, I live in the beer capitol of the United States! Two of the better places that we grabbed a pint were at the Brooklyn Brewery and McSorley’s Old Ale House. McSorley’s was established in 1854 and is argued to be the oldest bar in NYC. Abe Lincoln has had a brew in this place! (first photo) The food in the city was awesome though. I think the best place we ate was at a BBQ restaurant called Brother Jimmy’s in the Upper East Side. It was decorated in license plates and Christmas lights, but stunk of ACC basketball. What didn’t stink was my pulled pork sandwich and side of homemade mac & cheese. My mouth is watering… We walked through Central Park on our way to Rockefeller Center. All three of these photos were taken over Jacqueline Onassis Reservoir. The park was beautiful. I’m sure offers vastly different scenes and feelings throughout the seasons. I would love to see it in winter. We saw our only famous person, or “FP” as my friends refers to them, just as we were exiting Central Park. Maria Carey was filming a video outside of the Fairmont Hotel. I wasn’t really stunned to see her, but I was bit bewildered in that she’s still making music. Didn’t I dance to her songs in 7th grade?  Are Boys to Men still filming videos in Philadelphia? Oops, I meant Boyz to Men. Clearly the “z” means your not messing around.   The last shot is another view of the arch at Washington Square Park.

Outside of the Discovery Channel, I can say I’m loyal to only three sitcoms. Last night I tuned in for the final episode for one of the three, Scrubs. Thinking back I can divide segments of my life with the television shows that were broadcasting around the same time. I remember watching old episodes of Leave it to Beaver in morning before kindergarten with my brother. I recall staying up past the 10 o-clock news to watch Cheers and Night Court when I was 8 or 9 years old.  I’m reminded of Mike Seaver, Zach Morris and Kevin Arnold when I think if my early and middle teens and of course the high school years were synonyms with Seinfeld and Friends. For me, the 8 seasons of Scrubs corresponded with my college life, moving to Oregon, marring my wife and exiting my 20’s (next week). I wasn’t manically addicted to the show. There are episodes I have never seen, and I even had to rent the first season to get caught up. My brother initially suggested that I tune in to watch because of the show’s witty humor which he knew I liked. He was right. Along with the humor though, I appreciated the occasional life lessons that were being taught, the way the episodes were sometimes written around specific songs by old and new singer/songwriters, and the way the writers would throw in past season references to reward those of us who regularly tuned in. I fully expected this season to be the last for Scrubs as it left NBC for ABC at the end of last year. To be honest I was fine with this enviable conclusion to a program that had been loosing viewership over the past years as the writers began to focus more on new characters. What I didn’t expect was the final season to be as good as it was. The shift to ABC seemed to energize the writers and I felt like I was watching episodes that I had never seen from earlier seasons. As for the series finale… probably the best episode I have ever seen. As for the last scene, I’ll be the first to admit that I was near tears as JD (Zach Braff) envisioned his life after the hospital as Peter Gabriel’s “The Book of Love” was slowly mixed in. The finale was clearly a “thank you” from the shows creator Bill Lawrence, who even played a near unnoticeable roll at the last moments saying, “Good night” to JD as he walks away. I believe the series was poetically reviewed last night with a final message that can easily be tied into the previous 8 seasons. Life is full of relationships, some will be easy, some will be difficult; but you will only get out of them what you put in, and its not up to you to determine which ones will be important. Finally, and most importantly, never be afraid to imagine your future or ashamed to remember your past.

One more photo from the weekend. We spent Sunday evening on Hank and Darcy’s patio with a couple of pizzas and a mutt case of beer. Just in case you wondering, a mutt case of beer is anything you have left from multiple beer runs over the past month. Or in this case;  what was leftover from a party two weeks ago. Speaking of mutts, this is Darcy’s dog Amoni; who is probably one of the most photogenic dogs I have ever run into. For Valentines Day Hank ordered a test to determine what breed(s) she is. The results were so outrageous it almost made us question its validity.

Great Dane, Ikita, Rottweiler, Italin Gray Hound, Minature Pincher, Boston Terrier.

I know I’m forgetting one, but let’s just say she come from a long line of unlocked gates. Anyway, this is clearly the Great Dane in her coming out because she has no clue how big she is. To bring out her eyes I bumped up the brightness and contrast of the entire photo while taking down the saturation in everything but reds.

I saw this photo on my camera tonight and totally forgot that I even took it.  I swear I wasn’t drunk. Seriously, its impossible to play this game and drink. You dont have enough hands! Anyway, we all started playing rockband at around 11pm and the next thing I knew it was 3am! I put a strobe behind Ash (Ringo Starr) to give it the concert look.

Anyone that knows my darling wife can affirm that she is very loyal  and has difficulties parting with anything she has developed a personal relationship with. This includes cars… We’re selling her 2000 Celica tomorrow and she’s having a tough time letting go. She asked me to take a picture of her with it so she can always remember her little sports car. While this doesn’t show much of the car, it was my favorite.

Ash and I were invited to a beach rental this weekend in Manzanita with friends. On Saturday we went on a hike along the beach; the trail ended at a point with sheer cliffs that drop off hundreds of feet to the ocean. It was a great place to take some shots with Hank and his dog Zoey.

Ashley and I went to Bend last weekend for our nephew’s second birthday. I cant believe he is two already. The theme was monkeys and between this and Christmas he has the present opening thing down to a science. It was nice to visit to Bend, Ash and I have only been back twice since our wedding. The trip home was a little time consuming. What is typically a 3 hour drive took us 6 due to snow, ice and traffic coming down off of Mt Hood. The last photo is of Kian’s friend Brendan. I dont typically like photos with one color saturation, but this has got to be an exception. He’s not as ornery as he looks. His parents may disagree…

Well, the flakes have been counted and the grand total accumulation here in the West Hills is… 3 inches. Its tough to tell though because its a dry snow (very odd for this area) and drifting up to 2 feet while other areas are bare. It’s being dubbed “Snow Blast 08″ and its not going any where for a couple of days with the cold temperatures. In fact, it sounds like we might get more on Wednesday! 

The first winter storm warning of the season has been issued for the Portland Metro area. If  your from the area the title of this entry has already made you chuckle. I’ve only lived here for 5 years, but in my estimate 15% of the time these warnings are valid. Portland is a unique winter weather area in that we get tons of precipitation in the winter, but this is almost always rain because the low and constant cloud cover keeps the temperatures just above freezing. However,  apparently as we speak a giant cold mass is going through customs and moving into the area from Canada.  I dont know why, the exchange rate is 1 – 1.244 and from what i’m told they have better weed, so it just doesn’t make sense to me.  The media, along with their triple doppler storm tracker high-definition radar,  have been hyping this one for a couple of days now and i’ve begun to see  several titles that have made me smile:

“artic blast 2008″

“Wind, rain and snow followed by severe cold to test region”

“Oprah weighs 200 pounds!”

Okay, the last one was on the magazine in the checkout stand, but it still made me smile. And who knows, maybe they named the storm Oprah…

All im saying is lets not freak out at the weather reports. Sure, they’re calling for a high of 28 degrees on Monday, but as long as we can still get in touch with FIMA I feel secure. Finally,  before I get to my weather predictions, when the 11 o-clock news said I need to prepare by obtaining alternate sources of heat… will an extra hot cafe mocha do?

40% Just Rain at the valley floor with Snow atop the West Hills

25% Snow under 2 inches accumulation  (still enough to make the front page of the Oregoian)

10% Snow between 2-3 inches in accumulation. (somehow 10 people will become missing)

7% Snow over 3 inches in accumulation.  ( National Guard will be activated)

13% Substantial Icing. (This really does suck, look up ”car on ice Portland” on youtube)

5% Oregon will detach from the continental US and float to Siberia. Don’t worry, we will learn to trade lattes for fur to stay warm… Except the hippies, they’ll protest the wearing ofFur but eventually give up and knit something cozy.

 
It was a beautiful weekend at the coast in Oregon. My dad and stepmom were in town to visit so we took off for Cannon Beach on Friday. These are the weekends you deeply appreciate as an Oregonian. October is the swing month when it comes to weather. The average temperature on October 1st is 71 degrees while the average temperature on October 31st is 58 degrees. I guess it’s a “get it while its hot” mentality in terms of weekend recreation. I love the Cannon Beach area, but I’m ready to travel to the central or southern coast soon. The beaches are rockier and you’re much closer to the crashing surf, which also makes it a better area to go beach combing. That being said, I think Haystack Rock is one of the more amazing formations on the coast. You can click here for my past photos of it.
 
**UPDATED**
 

It kind of sucks posting these photos of our beautiful weekend from last week while it is (and has been) pouring outside.  The rest of these have more of an “abstract” feel to them. Most were taken at the Chinese Gardens in China Town.  The photo of the tree has been turned upside down to really mess with the eye. If you can’t tell from the lily in the bottom of the shot, it’s actually a taken as a reflection in the pond. It’s kind of interesting  that the rocks in the bottom of the pond serve as clouds in the sky too.