Day at the Beach

So here are the afore-promised pictures from our trip to the beach on Sunday. Didn’t get a whole lot of writing done (which was the plan), or submissions done (which were finished up today), but it was a great trip and a lot of fun. 

Andy is not a daywalker, so he hung out in his tent most of the time. I think he got more work done that way, though. ^_^ 

Finished the latest batch of novel submissions today, which was good. That was something I was going to work on Sunday, also, but the beach beckoned, and how could I refuse to heed its call?

OH! Almost forgot: Apex’s Community Board is now up and running! I’m already making a general nuisance of myself, so do feel free to drop by. ^_^

Writing Stuff:

Two from-the-top attempts at Chapter 2 for the “UNTITLED NOVEL PROJECT”. Decided I need to go back to the drawing board in order to establish the kind of confidence in this sequence I need. Got some stuff in mind, will see how it goes. Changed the WTDL to reflect the need to spend some time planning.

 

Silver Falls Trip

Today we took a trip with Kaku to Silver Falls State Park just outside of Salem, Oregon. We’d been planning this trip for a while, but the weekend weather and other plans always seemed to get in the way. But we planned ahead this time to make sure the weather was good and that we were all free. 

It was a great trip. The weather was perfect, and the hike was pretty easy. (I say “pretty easy” because I’m horribly out of shape, and one of the up-hill patches was a little tough for me. Resolution: get in shape.) First, we headed to the South Falls. Before we got there, however, we took a brief detour to Frenchie Falls. As you can tell, Andrew and Kaku were far from impressed by what they called “The Surrender-Monkey Falls”:

 

 

 

The South Falls were a little more in size with what we wanted to see. It had a nice path that lead behind the falls, and on that path, you could see all the erosion “chimneys” where water had worn away at the rock.

 

 

 

We followed that path and joined up with the Canyon Trail, which we took to the Lower South Falls. The Lower South Falls are a little shorter, but much wider than South Falls. The walk behind this falls was pretty flooded, so we had to do a little jumping to get by. 

Then we hiked up Maple Ridge Trail back to the parking lot and from there drove over to North Falls. If we’d had more time, we might have hiked it, but since we didn’t get to the park until about 2:30, and still wanted to get home for pizza-making, we decided to utilize our modern amenities. Didn’t bring my camera for North Falls, which is too bad, because it was nice and tall. It reminded me of Richenbach Falls in Switzerland.

And now we’re back, making pizza! Later, we’re going to head to The Wooden Chicken for some cocktails. ^_^

 

I like the sun, too

Now that’s what I call a sun worshipper. Just can’t get close enough. ^_^

Speaking of cats! Went out last night with friends for gelato at Staccato Gelato. I don’t know if I’ve ever had real gelato before, so I thought it was pretty tasty (especially the zingy Blood Orange flavor! Mmmm…), though Andy says he likes more ice creamy gelato, and this was a little more icy than creamy.  Still, the fruity flavors were yummy in my tummy. ^_^

But as for the cat! There’s a random cat who hangs out at Staccato Gelato. He’s such a sweet, lazy cat, and is totally unfazed by all the people around him. It’s like the shop is his own personal little kingdom, filled with all his admirers. And he’s certainly not short of admirers! ^_^ I wish I’d had my camera… And isn’t that *why* we got a little snapshot camera in the first place?

 

If it comes to war, I call dibs on the sharkapolt!

I was going to begin this entry with a lengthy, nose-to-dirt grovel session for being so bad at updating lately, but then I decided not to. Truth of the matter is, things have been going well, but I’ve been super busy with rather everyday, mundane things you probably wouldn’t care much to hear about. So until I have more time, I’m just going to do a quick running pros/cons list, plus the writing stuff at the bottom, par usual, in order to keep me accountable to what I do and do not get done. ^_^

This weekend:

+ + Cleaned the house. Much needed. I would post the video I took of it “before” and then do another for “after”, but it was seriously awful, and no one deserves to see that enshrined on the Internet for all eternity.

+ Hung out with Kaku! YAY! We’ve all been so busy, it seems like time to hang out just slips through the cracks. But not this weekend! Walked around Mt. Tabor in Portland (+), had a shoe-throwing contest which was sorely weighted (one of us has extreme shoe-throwing skills) (+), ate Little Caesar’s pizza (+), watched “Steamboy” (-), and played some Halo (+, always). 

+/- Minus, because I wrote 1000 words of Chapter 17 for “Thief Dilemma” only to realize I couldn’t use any of them. Plus, because it made me realize what I *actually* needed to do for this chapter, and because I got a fresh, usable 1000 done today at lunch.

+ Did minor grocery shopping. We’re trying to maintain damage-control for our arbitrary April budget. 

+ Changed bank account over to Oregon, at last. 

- Didn’t get any painting in.

+ Hung two of my paintings (see “House of Mirth” and “We Are–All of Us–Robots”) on the walls, and they look good there!

- Didn’t finish backlog of Apex submissions.

+ Did get through a huge batch. Hoping to close the gap over this week, and dive into more recent submissions. Finally reorganized my day planning to make more time.

+ Write Nite is awesome, and I get a lot of work done!

= (+8) vs. (-2) = +6. A Good, Productive Weekend ^_^

Writing Stuff:

 

[Add Snappy Title Here]

And the weekend is over again. It flies by so fast these days. Ah well, at least it was a good one! 

Naturally, this week contained the infamous Valentine’s Day, and Andy and I decided to take a drive down Route 14 on the Washington side of the Columbia River Valley. It was stunning. Moss, trees, tunnels, enormous rocks jutting out of the ground, steep drop-offs, the clouds swirling around the looming, snow-frosted hills–amazing. Naturally, we forgot the camera. ^_-

We also junked out on candy and pizza and watched Jason Bourne kick the crap out of various undercover agents in The Bourne Ultimatum. Very fun. Lots of explosions! ^_^ 

Oh! And I got an easel. A proper, standing easel! And it was 40% off, which is SUH-WEEEET. 

Sunday commenced in the usual way: breakfast out at Pig N’ Pancake (yes, the name is awful), and then grocery shopping at Winco. After that, I did some painting, which is still a work in progress, because it’s a lot more complicated than my last few attempts. I definitely still have the problem of making the models (in this case, myself) more attractive than they are in real life. Mrs. Pepper, my high school art teacher, once called me out on this, but I just can’t seem to help it. Ah well, one of these days I’ll get hard-core realist on your butts, and then we’ll see who wishes I didn’t polish up that little flaw! But then again, it’ll be hard-core realist, so it’ll actually look better. Ah well–it’s a conundrum. 

We also finished off Season 3 of Earl, which means no more Earl until #4 comes out. ;_; That makes us sad. But until then, we will just have to root around for other TV shows to watch obsessively. ^_^ 

Writing Stuff:

Continued on the path today. Only had a 1/2 hour lunch, so I got only ~400 words done, but it was still steady progress. I had a bit of a scare yesterday–my computer randomly decided not to turn on. O_O Luckily, it was just some funny logic problem in the computer’s brain (yes, I realize I’m very technical), and we got it back on without too much trouble. But for about ten minutes there I think I was having a mini heart-attack. I mean, sure, I save compulsively, but that doesn’t do any good if the computer itself craps out on you! And yes, once it got back online, I immediately grabbed my thumb-drive and hauled serious wordage over to it, just as a back up. 

*Phew.*

Crisis averted.

 

Oz-bodkins.

SO! Lots to cover since the last post. I won’t really try too hard. I’ll just recap this weekend so far.

FRIDAY
Worked–as usual, so nothing new there. BUT! We had the “corporate” X-mas party at Players later! Players is a restaurant/bar/arcade//bowing-alley. It was a ton of fun. We all got a few free drinks, the food was really surprisingly good, and then bowling-! Oh, bowling.

Okay, let’s have a little background here. I have bowled “for real” (8lb+ balls and all) maybe once in my whole life. Andy has gone twice. In short, we are not pros, by a long shot. The first round, I managed to scrape together something around 50. Yes, that bad. But not the worst on my team, surprisingly. Andy was on the SUPER TEAM, of which all the members broke 100 except for Andy (but he got 75, which compared to my 50, is darn good). He also had more strikes/etc.

But that second round. Oh man. I hit my stride. Still far from pro-levels, but I got two strikes, a spare, and worked my way up to a nice neat 98. But that’s not where the story stops–oh no! I WAS going to break 100, because we still had one more round, and with the way I was bowling, I knew I could get the 2 pins to top 100. But before I could do that, the alley cut off our game, because we had passed our “allotted time.” LAME.

But still, it was tons of fun, excellent company, good laughs, and just an overall great time.

SATURDAY

Slept in = awesome. Then we headed over to Safeway to get donuts (yum), and went on to Kohl’s, where my grandma had reserved us our x-mas present= a HUGE set of white dishes! YAY!!! Now we actually have more than the three bowls/four plates we’ve been barely scraping by on! XD! Love. This is something we desperately needed, and we’re looking forward to using very, very often.

Then when we got back, we called up Kaku, who had picked us up an X-box replacement (ours died, for some unknown reason) while he had a steep discount on gamestop hardware (he works at B&N). So we drove downtown to have lunch with him and his parents. We ate at this little deli next to Escape from NY Pizza, and it was delicious. Plus hanging out with Kaku (and his parents!) is always a ton of fun. But he had to work today, so we couldn’t hang out like we all usually do. Ah well. It’s the x-mas season, and B&N is one of those places that gets swamped over the holidays.

So Andy and I came back here (after a little shopping with Kaku at the Lloyd Center B&N so we could steal his discount–very sneaky of us, I’m sure, as we pass him stuff to buy for us at discounted prices lol), and I set to painting. I’ve had this SciFi idea in my head all week, so I decided to give it a shot. I’d sketched it out already, and decided to try the wet-on-wet style for the background.

I have decided that I do not like the wet-on-wet style. I like fighting the paint to get it to blend–makes for fewer brushstrokes. Still, the beginning of the painting isn’t horrible. I’m hoping I can polish it up a lot with details, but I’m going to have to wait at least a week or so for the bottom coat to dry before I can start layering new stuff. I’ll have to figure out another picture to work on until then. This time, no wet-on-wet.

Then we just finished eating our leftovers from Players and watching The Little Shop of Horrors–which I must say, was a heck of a lot funnier than I thought it would be. Good times! ^_^

Tomorrow, the goal is to top off all the submissions in my Apex inbox. I must say, all the recent peeps whose stories I’ve had to pass on have been exceptionally cool, professional people. I love that so much. Thanks you guys! It’s more appreciated than you know.

Writing Stuff:

 

A little personal time

So I took a little personal time this Friday/Saturday (will return to regular duties Sunday), and I gotta say, it’s been a lot of fun.

On Friday, Andy, Kaku, and I hung out, finished up Season 2 of Dexter (fun!), halo’d it up, and then headed over to Costco to get some ink for my insane printer (now tentatively name “Rita” since our new group swear is “Friggin’ Rita” and if you’ve seen Dexter, you may understand this and even find it humorous). After the Costco run, where we had lunch (mmm! Hot dogs!), we dropped off the stuff back at the apartment, swapped cars, and headed downtown. Andy got his hair cut, I borrowed Neuromancer from Kaku, and then we all headed over to Pinocchio’s for HH. I tried the Autumn Sidecar (very yummy), and later the cranberry-vodka well drink ($3!), which was very tasty. Needless to say, I was *slightly* buzzed after that, but I’m glad. The shoes I’d decided to wear turned out to be evil in the end, and I was getting some mighty blisters. The alcohol did at least make it easier for me to ignore the pain.

After Pinnochio’s, we headed over to Powell’s, which was probably dangerous, considering I *was* buzzed. Ended up succumbing to my bookworm addiction and bought 4 books, though the total was under $20 (yay for frugality!): Wild Seed (Octavia Butler), Nova (Samuel R. Delany), Triton (Delany), and The 22nd Century short-story collection (John Christopher). Christopher was the one who originally broke down my defenses against spending, because his stuff is so hard to find, and I’ve been dying to read some of his other works. (John Christopher is the author of When the Tripods Came and the whole White Mountain series about the tripods, which I love dearly). Then there was Delany, and Butler, and I just couldn’t turn them down. Plus, the books were used, so they were cheap. Love that. And when I had those four books in hand, I painfully picked my way back on painful feet to where Andy was browsing the music section (yes, they left me *alone* to browse the SF/Fantasy section–dangerous, I know), and we headed out with my prizes. ^_^

Headed to McMinnigan’s for dinner, which was yummy! The food was actually surprisingly good, considering it’s a pub. Andy tried the Terminator stout beer which came highly recommended, and we both agree it’s quite good. Dark as mahogany, with a distinct smokey aftertaste. Like what cigars, I always imagined, would taste like, without the ew. After dinner there, we made our way back to Kaku’s car (with Andy carrying me piggy-back only a little of the way), and headed back here to the apartment for some more halo and some Futurama. It was much fun! ^_^

Today was also good, but the details are below.

Writing Stuff

I finished Chapter 16 of The Thief Dilemma! YAY FOR ME! It’s been so long in coming–literally six months–I’ll be amazed if people are still patient enough to still read it. I’ve continued to get regular hits on the story, though, which still blows me away. Thanks guys!! You should be knighted and sainted for your patience.

The Thief Dilemma

81,601 / 80,000 (102.0%)

(Looks like I need to re-estimate how long this story is actually going to be! Also, the last count must not have counted a few chapters. Sorry about that. This is the right word count now.)

 

Portland’s Japanese Tea Garden

So today we went to the Japanese Tea Garden! We’d been meaning to check it out for a while, and since we went to Pinocchio’s and India House for Andy’s birthday, that meant we had to do something for mine. So when we read that this weekend would be warm enough, and sunny enough, we figured we’d better take this opportunity.

It’s a beautiful garden. Really makes me want to study the aesthetic of this style of gardening, because I’d love to have one of my own someday (not this big, naturally, though that’d be dreamy!). Every detail is so carefully thought out–even the rocks laid into the path are deliberate. And everything is so neat and tidy. Made me feel rather slovenly for letting our apartment get so cluttered. (I cleaned when we got back.) Everything was just stunning. My only complaint (which can’t really count, due to its nature) is that I wish I could have been there without the crowds. I don’t suppose that’s really possible, but it felt a little like no one could truly appreciate the garden to its full extent when we’re all moving through.

Andy took lots of pictures at my request, and he did a marvellous job of it too!:

Writing Stuff

 

Cannon Beach

Andy and I went to Cannon Beach yesterday! Hooray for being outside and getting some relative sun! We headed out about 2:00 (we wanted to be there for the sunset, but have time to walk around/eat/etc.), and arrived at the beach around 4:00. Not too bad! And the drive was very pretty. It reminded me in spots of New England, only bigger.

It was a lovely day spent strolling along the beach, marveling at the iciness of the Pacific (which Andy has never seen before), and admiring the giant rocks sticking up out of the sand. I’ve never seen anything quite like it before, and it was very cool. I was very glad that Andy brought his camera. While we were down by the giant rock, some nice ladies asked if we could take their picture–which of course we did–and then in exchange they took a picture of us together! YAY! Rare footage of the two of us in the same picture! ^_^ Then we poked around the tide pools and looked at nifty little fishies and crabs and such things.

We strolled along for an hour and a half or so, until past five when most of the shops closed. Then we headed back up to the town of Cannon Beach and strolled around looking for a place to grab a relatively inexpensive dinner. After examining the display menus of a few pricey places, we settled on The Local Grill and Scoop. It’s a very cute little place, and the prices were pretty reasonable. Andy had the clam chowder (which he said was excellent), and I had a BLT (a little small, but we were going to have desert anyway, so it wasn’t a problem). Then we ordered a Black and White sundae for desert. It was huuuuuge! O_O Needless to say, we couldn’t finish it, but the waitress said that was common.

It was only about six-thirty then, so we headed back to the beach (which was getting significantly colder, air-wise) and walked along down the other direction toward the other rocks. The tide was out pretty far, so the seagulls were having a blast picking crabs and other assorted sea critters to death for dinner. We also saw jellyfish, which we carefully avoided stepping on.

I think the ice cream went to our heads, because we were being particularly silly, but that was exceptionally fun. Did think I almost died when I stepped into a fast-flowing outflow and felt the sand quickly start to sink beneath me. Needless to say, I jumped right back out again! ^_^ I did manage to knock Andy’s glasses off at one point by accident, but luckily they landed in the sand not six feet away and were fine. Lol.

By the time we got to the other rocks, the sun was getting lower. The moon was coming up, too. We waited down there until the sun really went down and Andy snapped off some amazing shots. Then we started to head back to shore, only to find that we were on something of a sand bar, and the tide was already coming in pretty strong. Uh-oh! Another couple was out there with us, watching the sunset, so we all joined forces to wade through the knee-deep, freezing water to get back to shore. For a moment there, I really thought we might have to swim!

By the time the sun went down, it was very chilly, so we headed back. It’s amazing how beaches always truncate distances. We had to walk for probably about half an hour or more just to get back to where we’d gotten onto the sand.

Then we drove home, and got to see all of Portland lit up at night, with a full moon too! It was absolutely breathtaking. (Didn’t take any pictures of that. Andy’s camera was in the back seat. Sorry. ;_;) We were beat when we got back, so we just washed off our feet and went to bed.

But here are lots of pictures! (They’re not in order, but I haven’t figured out how to stop WordPress from being stupid about galleries yet):

 

Happy Birthday Andy! ^_^

So yesterday was Andy’s birthday, and my interview day, so it was insanely busy. Probably the busiest day we’ve had since we moved out here.

First half of the day was devoted up updating some new images for the Apex T-shirts, researching DA contest set-up, while simultaneously getting cake stuff from Safeway and baking said cake. I also ironed my interview clothes and Andy’s khaki pants so we could both look nice for dinner out. Printed off a copy of my resume, got directions, got ID stuff together. Oh, and forgot to eat lunch. Lol.

Second half of the day, starting at 2:00, we headed downtown for the interview. We got there about forty-five minutes early, so we hung out until 2:30 before I headed in. The interview itself went really well. It was a group interview for the placement agency (not for a specific job), but it was very comfortable, and I’m glad I didn’t underdress. The CampusPoint staff seems really friendly and helpful, so I’m looking forward to working with them.

After the interview, I met up with Andy (who had been wandering around downtown Portland during the interview), and we strolled around trying to locate the three Indian food places that he’d picked out as possible birthday dinner spots. It was still pretty early, and a lot of the places didn’t serve dinner until 5:30, so we hit up Pinocchio’s happy hour for some drinks and appetizers. I love going there; it always makes me feel so rich and chic. Probably helped that we were both in formal-wear (I was in a femme powersuit lol), so we actually fit in with the business crowd there.

After that, we strolled (a little dizzily because we’re lightweights) over to India House at the corner of Morrison and 11th. That place is fantastic! The vegetable pakoras and the chicken tikka masala were unbelieveable. So delicious! We both ate a ton.

Full, happy, and no longer dizzy, we headed back to our car and went home. Watched two episodes of The Office in the hopes of making room for the cake (which I frosted when we got back), but we were still way too full to eat it. So that’s a task for today! ^_^

It was a lovely night out on the town, and since my parents had footed most of the bill, it was money-stress free! I am definitely starting to see why people love Portland so much. The downtown is just beautiful, with so many trees and parks, etc., and walking around is just fun.

This weekend we’re heading out to the coast to check out some of the small towns around those parts and to watch the sun set over the Pacific, which Andy has never seen before. Should be fun! ^_^ Maybe I can even get a little sun, because I’m so insanely pale right now. And when I notice that I’m pale… you know it’s REALLY pale. Blinding, probably. ^_^

Pictures!