'Ello Guv'nu

Still working on the fence at the Williams but there will probably be only one or two days more. After that I may have some working digging out some raised planting beds in their backyard. Mr. Dutton stopped by while we were working and that was pretty funny. When he left I had stuck a piece of paper from 2002 under his windshield wiper and he didn't notice it when he got in or when he drove away. Mr. Martin and I had a pretty good laugh about that one. On my way to church in and hour.

John

Thirsty Work

I had a really busy and eventful weekend with many interesting anecdotes. I won't be able to tell about every thing that has now permanent residence inside my head but I will try to remember the highlights. On Friday Adam and I went out to Clackamas Public Safety Training Center and shot handguns at an indoor range. On the way home we had Burgerville Chocolate Hazelnut milkshakes, which I highly recommend. On Saturday I went and volunteered at Thumpers Center. That was a great time; listed here are some of the things I did/witnessed: Five police officers inside a coffee shop with only one police motorcycle parked outside, riding horses, riding bareback for the first time, and horses that needed to be rated R. I worked cleaning stalls and sweeping at Thumpers until after dark and then my ride was there to pick us up. When I got home I found that my Amazon.com order had arrived and now I have two new CDs: Herding Cats, and Tree both by Gaelic Storm. Now I have four of their CDs.

Catch That Goat!

John

Cheer Up Me Lads!

Hey, if you know me, or if you just happened to stop on my blog, leave a comment, let me know what you think.

John

Down Underground

So far this week I've been really busy. On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday I worked for Mr. Martin building a fence at the Williams. On Tuesday I only worked half a day because I had to go to piano lessons at 2:15. When I got home from piano I rode my bike to Mace Stables to work for Mr. Mace. By the time I was done there it was about 6:30 and it was dark. Yesterday, I worked with Mr. Martin until 4:30. When I got home I worked jackhammering an old fence post until it was too dark to continue; it was about 5:15. After dinner, I had to shower and then we went to Wednesday night church. After church, when we got home, Sara opened her birthday presents and we had cake. Then I got ready for bed, read my Bible, and listened to Gaelic Storm before I went to bed. I checked the clock before I finally went to sleep and it said 11:11, so this morning I was tired.

John

Keeping Good Face

I took the bandage off my chin yesterday and the wound is all but healed. New pink skin is there instead of scrapes and scabs. It looks great.

John

Dig, Level, Set

This morning just as we were about to start school Mr. Martin called and was wondering if Adam was available to help him work on a fence. Mom asked Adam if he was interested but Adam said that he had a lot to do today and this week and was really available. I was sitting at the table waiting to start school and I piped up and said that I would help if he wanted. Fifteen minutes later Mr. Martin showed up and I went with him over to the Williams to work on a fence project. We worked all morning digging post holes and setting posts in concrete. At noon we took a break and went over to church and had lunch in Mr. Dutton's 'office.' Mr. Dutton was there but he had already finished his lunch so he was working on some stuff. I will say on thing however; Mr Dutton and Mr. Martin are so funny together. They can play off each other so well that just watching them is hilarious. After we finished lunch we headed back over to the job site and dug and set five or six more posts until four thirty. After cleaning up our tools Mr. Martin drove me home and talked to Mom about working tomorrow morning before my piano lessons. So tomorrow I'm also going to be working again and then after my piano lesson I'm going to go work at Mace's Stables cleaning up after the horses. Looks like I've got a pretty busy day tomorrow. And tonight I have to practice my piano and do my Physics.

John

Face Rash

It doesn't look so bad in this picture, actually, but you should have seen it right after it happened.

John

Red Alert

Yesterday, after Sara's party had just ended, Adam got back from fixing airsoft guns at Airsoft Outlet NW. When he came in the door he asked if I would be interested in going with him to and airsoft skirmish at the Army National Guard Armory in Gresham. I thought that sounded like fun, so after we got all our stuff together and shoved some food in our faces we headed out the door to meet with the North West Operators, the guys who invited Adam, at Red Robin. When we got there it turned out that they were going to be eating there, so we joined them and ordered some chicken strips. After we got our food a couple of others guys showed up and Steve and Avery, the guys 'in charge,' got on with their airsoft meeting. After they were done there we followed Ben, the son of the owner of Airsoft Outlet NW, out to Gresham to the Armory. When everyone had arrived we had a little training session about basic room clearing techniques and ways to carry yourself and your gun. When that had finished we started to move a bunch of folding tables out onto the main floor as barricades in our skirmish. We played the first one for about ten minutes then switched sides. In the middle of the second skirmish, as things started to heat up, I moved to the left side of the main room and took cover in a side hallway that was out of the direct line of fire. In between shots I paused for a second to check the mag when I heard something out of the ordinary: an alarm klaxon. That couldn't be good. In a few moments, Avery, who was playing with us and is a Sergeant in the National Guard and has an office in the building that we were in came out and called a cease fire. When the firing had stopped he told us to take all our guns and gear and put them in his office. As soon as our stuff was in the office we started to pick up the tables and all the things we were using for cover and put them away. Avery was on the phone trying to get the alarm turned off while we got out mops and brooms and commenced cleaning up every single bb that was on the floor. In a while the alarm turned off and Avery called someone to inform them that it was a false alarm. When all the clean up was done we were standing around "debriefing." Adam and I left shortly after that. We had a good time learning about the team and some tactics and playing some skirmishes.

John

Face-Boarding

I just got back this morning from my snow trip last night on the mountain. My mom doesn't like to stay up late and we got back into town around midnight, so I stayed the night at Luke's house. Mom picked me up at 7:30. Last night I went to Ski Bowl with Luke, and since it was just the two of us we had a lot of freedom. We had a great trip, going on new runs and trying new jumps and stunts. I even had a close shave with the ice. On one particular jump, I didn't go over it at excessive speeds and it wasn't a very big jump but when I tried to grab board edge I tipped over and landed... on my face... on the ice... Ow. After I got up Luke came over after me and he was laughing because I had biffed it. I asked him how my face looked and he said it looked okay but it was a little bloody; I thought it would be. I went over to the First Aid station but no one was there so I went into the bathroom and got my first look at the wound. It was bloodier than I thought it would be. After cleaning it up a bit with water and paper towels I went over the Guest Services to see if I could get some help. It didn't hurt at all but I didn't want to get any blood on the collar of my jacket. The lady at the Guest Service counter (who had a kid) radioed one of the patrol guys and he came and cleaned my wound up. He cleaned it first and then wiped it with an alcohol wipe, which stung worse than a hornet, and taped some gauze to it and I was set to go. After that Luke gave me a face mask thing that I wore for the rest of the night. However, the injury didn't bring me down in any way, I still had a good night, and a grand story to tell too. I'll post a picture of it on here as soon as I get one.

John

!*!

I'm going snowboarding tomorrow!

John

United

We Are A Band Of Brothers.

I wanna snowboard and get fat

Yesterday I went to the US Outdoor Store looking to make a special order for some Snowboard pants by Salomon, but when I got there they had the ones I was looking and for and the size that I thought would be too small fit great. So I bought them. I love them. Now I want to go snowboarding. Soon.

It snowed here today, just like it did all over the Tualatin Valley. So we played in it; I had a grand ol' time. Super fun.

John

My Last Five Dollar Bill

Earlier this week I went to work at Mace Stables on Sexton Mt. Rd. I worked as fast as I could so I could get home with time to get ready to go to volleyball game. When I had finished shoveling out all the stalls I was getting ready to leave. Mr. Mace always pays in cash when I do work but this week he didn't have any twentys left so he gave me a fifty instead. I was kinda thrilled.

John

Chili Bowl

I just got back from our youth group bowling activity and chili dump. We went bowling at Park Lanes in Hillsboro near the Cinema. My first bowl was 118 and my best was 136, the best I've ever bowled. After we had finished we went back to the church for a short message and food. I had all three of the mixed chilis amalgamated in my bowl with Fritos, salad, and Oreos. I ate too much. Then I played some football before I had to come home.

DON'T GO FOR "THE ONE"

Ski Trip Pt. 2

Finally we were all together and we spent the rest of the morning going on ski runs and finding out where the best spots were. On one run there was a series of jumps on significant slope, the first jump being the biggest and the subsequent ones diminishing in size. I’d been off the main jump before but I had never landed it, so when I went off of it again I was determined to land at least one. The first time I went off, though, I wasn’t ready and after landing on my board I tried to slow down but ended on up sliding on my back. But I my mind was made up and I was going to go off it again and again until I landed one. After the others followed my over the jump we all met at the bottom. Mark and I both really wanted to do the jumps some more so we rode the lift back up and did them again; Kevin and L.J. came with us. Upon finishing the jumps again Mark and I decided that we should bring my camera up and take pictures of us going off the jumps. So we headed back to the lodge for some lunch and to get the camera. After lunch we headed back up the lifts, this time with the camera hanging from my neck underneath my jacket. As long as I didn’t fall over and land on my chest everything would be fine. After talking a little about logistics I went down first and got ready to take some pictures. We then spent the next hour or two taking turns going off jumps and photographing each other. After we had finished taking pictures of us jumping we rode the lift to the top of the Upper Ski Bowl. At the top we looked out over the vast expanse between where we were and the summit of Mt. Hood. I still had my camera so I took some pictures then decided to take a picture of the four of us at the edge of the precipice. Right then a man on skis was coming by and he agreed to take the picture of us all together. With that done I re-secured the camera under my coat and we headed back down the mountain to put the camera back at the lodge. At the lodge we took the time to have snack to keep our energy up for the rest of the trip. When we had finished most of the food we had brought with us we went back out for the last leg of our ski trip. Since no one had to carry the camera now we set out with renewed freedom.

We spent the rest of the day just riding and having a good time. As the time wound down towards the end I was getting tired, and since I had taken a few falls, my head was starting to hurt a bit. Kevin, Mark, and L.J. wanted to take one more run but I wanted to head back. I know that when I get tired I start to fall more and each one starts to hurt a little more. I took the one last run I had to to get back to the lodge and I waited there for the others to finish. In a few minutes the met me in the cafe and we started to get ready to go. Kevin and I were hungry and we both wanted something hot to eat so I bought some nachos and a chicken strip basket and we split them. When all the food had been devoured we dragged ourselves outside and gathered all our stuff together to wait for our ride to pick is up. L.J. was about to call his step-dad when we saw him standing about thirty feet away waiting for us to notice him. We grabbed all our stuff and packed it in the minivan for the trip back to the resort where we were staying. On the way back we had to stop and return the rented gear. While we were stopped we ordered a pizza and rented some movies. Back at our condo we all took showers (except L.J.) and spent the rest of the night eating pizza, playing Halo, Risk, and poker until late when we finally got ready and went to bed.

John isn't just my name, it's who I am.

Bring Yer Wellies!

Don't worry, the rest of my snowboard story should be coming sometime this week. In the mean time I am going to be enjoying my new Gaelic Storm CDs, How Are We Getting Home? and Bring Yer Wellies. You can check 'em out at www.gaelicstorm.com.

John isn't just my name, it's who I am.

Ski Trip Pt. 1

I stood on the brink of a sheer drop off of snow and ice looking out over the valley between the peak on which I stood and the summit of Mt. Hood. Evergreen forests covered the sides and floor of the valley and those were decorated with snow. In the bottom of the valley lies the small town of Government Camp. From my vantage point I can make out many of the buildings as well as the lodge and restaurant at Ski Bowl Resort. The scenery was vast and the natural specters breathtaking. How I got there was a story in itself.

I generally wouldn’t see myself on a Christmas break snowboard trip with friends, just because that’s when everyone else would be going, but that was before I knew L.J. Every year after Christmas L.J.’s family rents a condo on the mountain and goes on a ski trip, and he likes to invite his friends to go with him. This year Kevin and I got invited to go with L.J. and after getting permission, making plans, and re-making plans Mark, L.J., Kevin, and I were on our way to the mountain on the first Thursday after Christmas. I had just gotten back from Christmas at my Grandparent’s house the afternoon before and now I was off again on another trip.

As soon as we got to the condo and got settled in I was ready and pumped for a ski trip. I knew we weren’t going to be able to go up on the mountain that day but I couldn’t wait. We ended up driving back into Sandy to get a Risk game and poker chips from the Fred Meyer there. We stayed up late that night playing Risk, Poker, and Halo. After things started winding down Kevin and went to bed but stayed up late talking about anything and everything. In the morning we started talking about our options for snowboarding that day. I was really excited to go as soon as possible but I wasn’t making any of the decisions; I was just along for the ride. After we bounced ideas off of each other we decided to ski all day and started to get ready.

After breakfast we headed out to the ski rental shop to get geared up. I brought all my own stuff along so all I had to do was wait. When Kevin, L.J., and Mark got everything rented and stowed in the minivan we walked over to the Thriftway to stock up on provisions for our day. When we got to Ski Bowl the parking lot was filled nearly to the limit and the ground was covered with ice. We piled out of the van and unloading all of our stuff, we headed for the ticket office. With my lift ticket securely fastened to my coat zipper I was ready to go, not I was just waiting for the others. Every were I look around me I see people going about their own business and air is filled with the hum of voices. Despite all the people I take the time to notice the crunch of icy snow beneath my boots and the grandeur of the evergreen trees muted with fresh snowfall just beyond the crowds. The others are finally all ready and after passing through the crowds at the bottom of the ski lift I’m riding in the lift chair up the mountain.