Chaos Love: love, life, design and more.

For my birthday this year, Christine decided to treat me to a day of snowboarding up at Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood. We hired some gear and headed up yesterday - cheap lift tickets mid-week made the deal more attractive and the slopes were pretty empty, so it was a good day for a beginner like myself. Christine, who hadn't snowboarded for a few years, jumped straight on her board like it was an old bicycle and was carving up the mountain, no problems at all. And, looking at this photo, you might think that I got the hang of things pretty quickly...

Looks pretty impressive, eh? Unfortunately, this was not the normal position for the day. Most of the time, I looked more like this picture...

Seriously, I lost count of the number of times that I fell flat on my face or butt. Snowboarding is really, really hard, and I just couldn't get the hang of certain necessary techniques, especially the all-important turns that move you from the toe edge of the board to the heel edge. As a result, I spent most of the day on my toe edge: in effect, standing on tippy-toes facing up the hill for extended periods of time. My calves got a thorough stretch, that's for sure!

Every time I'd try to transition to the heel edge (resting on your heels, facing down the hill), I'd lose control and fall down again. And again. And again. A couple of falls were real bell-ringers, as well... I slammed the back of my head hard into the snow a few times (not as soft as it might sound), and winded myself a couple of other times when my arm got caught between the snow and my ribs when I fell. Ouch. Still, everyone says that the first two or three times you go snowboarding, falling down constantly is simply part of the job description, so at least I'm not alone!

One thing I can't fault is Christine's instruction. She was a great teacher all day, even when I was having little temper tantrums... she showed far more patience than I ever thought possible. She laid out all the theory and techniques perfectly, but my body just couldn't turn theory into actuality! However, despite feeling like I have the body of a 90-year old with severe arthritis this morning, I actually had a really good, fun time yesterday and will definitely be back for more.

Just as we were leaving, the thick cloud that had been blanketing Mount Hood all day long suddenly blew away, leaving us with this spectacular view of the mountain to remember the day by. Stunning!

Posted in: chaosboy, oregon, photography, sport on February 18, 2009 at at 1:03:00 PM 0 comments    

Last weekend, Portland played host to one of the craziest days of entertainment that I have ever witnessed - the Red Bull Flugtag. Flugtag means "flight day" in German (Red Bull being an Austrian company), and it certainly lived up to its name.

A crowd that has been estimated at being in the vicinity of 80,000 people crammed into Tom McCall Riverside Park, the Hawthorne Bridge's entire southern sidewalk and one east-bound lane, and even the Eastbank Esplanade on the other side of the Willamette River (which was jam-packed with boats both big and small) for this event, which is interesting in itself.

You see, ol' PDX generally prides itself on being staunchly anti-corporation, looking somewhat down its nose at coffee and fast food chains because we're better than that here in Portland, don't you know? Except when afore-said corporation is promising a day chock full of idiots throwing themselves and their home-made magnificent flying machines off a 30-foot high runway into the drink. Then we'll drop everything and turn out in droves.

And we did. I've never seen the riverfront so full, not for the Blues Festival, the Brew Fest, Barack Obama or anything. I arrived a little late and tried to force my way through the seething masses to take some pictures from down the front - it was impossible. I eventually found a few good locations on the periphery of the park, but things were hectic the whole time.

As for the flugtag itself, it was all about showmanship and spectacular crashes and the crowd loved it. We had a giant plane made out of "Lego", complete with "Lego Men" pilots, the Winnebago from Spaceballs (crowd favourite), pots of gold, sporting mascots, hot dogs and more. Some of the "planes" didn't even have wings! The winner flew some 60-odd feet, but no one really cared. Distance was irrelevant; the crowd only cheered for suicidal death plunges into the murky water below and everyone went home happy.

Posted in: chaosboy, photography, portland, sport, weirdness on August 6, 2008 at at 8:49:00 PM 0 comments    

Yesterday was the day of the biggest sporting event in the US... one that households tune in to watch by the millions, one that true sports fans acknowledge as the ultimate test! And no, I'm not talking about that silly old Super Bowl - this is the Widmer Bowl, contested annually on the same day as that other football game by Widmer Bros employees, ex-employees, friends of employees (ie, me!) and anybody else who feels like joining in.

Having experienced my first game of American football at Thanksgiving, I was a little more prepared this time (shoes with grip and a change of clothes!) and probably contributed a bit more to the team effort. Seriously, last time I had no idea of what was going on and where I should be on the field! I was also helped by the fact that players wore detachable tags around their waists, so you could effect a "tackle" simply by pulling off a tag. It certainly helped when Colin, who is over six feet tall and over 60 pounds heavier than me came storming my way:

Yes, my eyes are closed. But can you blame me? I managed to fend off his palm with my right hand and snag the tag with my left, all without seriously injuring myself. Here's some more action shots:

Yay to Christine for coming and taking some shots for us before she had to head off to work, and for dealing with flat batteries in both of my cameras, whoops!

The game ended at 8 touchdowns all, including a game-tying miracle pass from Colin on the last play of the day, curse him and his athletic skills! Much fine Widmer product was imbibed at half time and after the game, including a bit of a drinking contest to determine the real winner, during which I proved that all these so-called "big drinkers" from the US are nothing compared to a boy from Down Under. :-)

And the Super Bowl itself? Actually a fantastic game of sport (despite my general misgivings about American Football), with the result not determined until the very end. And we always love an underdog beating the overwhelming favourite, don't we? And as a guy in advertising, some of the ads were quite fantastic as well.

Posted in: chaosboy, sport, united states on February 4, 2008 at at 2:29:00 PM 0 comments    

Christine's dad came to visit us in Portland for a belated Christmas get-together over the last few days and we had a great time while he was here. On Tuesday, we decided to go cross-country skiing at Trillium Lake near Mount Hood. The weather on Monday had been beautiful and we were hoping for a similar day for our excursion. This wasn't to be, as the day was a typical Portland leaden winter sky, and we even had rain as we set out. Fortunately, the rain turned to snow the higher up we got, and Trillium Lake turned out to be a winter paradise with lots and lots of thick white snow, with more falling all the time.

We strapped on our cross-country skis (which are longer and narrower than downhill skis), got rugged up and headed off to do a loop around the lake. The section from the car park to the actual loop was a very steep downhill slope and I had a very rough introduction: I fell over multiple times, finding out that the worst part isn't the falling, it's getting back up again! Not easy with 6-foot planks of wood strapped to your feet!

Once on the relatively flat track around the lake, I improved quite a lot, although I still wouldn't claim I had anything resembling a "technique". Kim and Christine often zoomed out of sight ahead, while Russ had a few problems with his older skis sticking, meaning he often brought up the rear.

The scenery - snow covered pine trees covering the mountainside - bordered on the surreal, all blinding white and contrasting black. Christine's yellow jacket certainly stood out! The lake itself was completely iced over and covered in a blanket of snow, and there was no hint of the famous view of Mount Hood for which the lake is renowned: in fact, it was difficult to determine where the land ended and the sky began!

We headed back to the car park, but the loop was longer than we thought (5 miles instead of 3) and we were all pretty beat by the time we finally hiked back up the big hill. The car had been covered with a good few inches of snow while we had been gone and we entertained ourselves by making a big snowman in the car park while we waited for Russ. A big burger and hot chocolate at Calamity Jane's Burger House on the way back to Portland made us all feel a lot better and warmer!

Posted in: chaosboy, sport, united states on January 10, 2008 at at 7:25:00 PM 1 comments    

Riding home from having lunch with Christine today, the odometer on my bike ticked over to 1,000 miles ridden, or just over 1,600km. I feel tired just thinking about it!

Posted in: chaosboy, sport on November 5, 2007 at at 2:54:00 PM 0 comments    

Yesterday was the first sunny day Portland has seen for many a week, so I took advantage of it by heading out to ride the Springwater Trail. This is an old train line through south-east Portland that has been converted into a multi-use path. My eventual goal was Powell Butte, another of the extinct volcanic plugs that are dotted around the area. The view from the top is spectacular, possibly even more so that Rocky Butte, where we had our wedding.

The climb up to the top is along rough dirt paths through beautiful forest, but the relatively flat summit is meadow and old orchards, both remnants of pioneer times in the area.

Here's another QuickTime VR panorama for you... the view starts off looking towards Mount Hood in the ESE and rotates anti-clockwise past the Columbia River Gorge and Mount Adams (which can just be seen peeking over the top of the closer hills) to Mount St Helens to the north.



Click and hold inside the movie to scroll from one end of the view to the other. You can also zoom in (Shift key) and out (Control key or the PC equivalent!).

Of course, I got a flat tyre on my bike at the very furtherest point of my trip and had to stop every couple of miles on the 20 mile return journey to pump it up enough to continue! I was certainly sore and tired when I got home!

Posted in: chaosboy, photography, portland, sport on October 23, 2007 at at 11:04:00 AM 0 comments    

Hey there.

I know its been some time since I've done this crazy blog. It's not like we have been super busy, but maybe just getting more and more super comfortable. And with winter coming in, we'd better get used to it.

But I was thinking tonight of all the things that Cam has done since he's arrived to this wacky country. Like tonight in particular. We went to our favorite rock climbing gym, The Portland Gym, and Cam was fabulous. He had just exchanged his new shoes the other day and he was flying up walls. Whereas a month ago, I was practically hauling him up on my end of the rope. He has adapted and is getting better all the time. Since I have a year head start on him, I must be the patient one, but I'll make him catch up with me sooner or later. There is so much trust in rock climbing. And the more confident he gets, the more he trusts me that I won't let him plummet to the floor just for a laugh. It's good. We really need to take pictures, but it's always weird taking pictures in a gym where other people are sweaty... and wary of lenses.

Also, Cam has taken over my projects. I'm not fussed whatsoever, as it keeps him quite the entertained while I slave away the day at work. Colin's new website looks amazing - www.colinlake.com - and also he is not quite satisfied with the Wellington Road Moores site which he is taking into his own hands soon. I keep feeding him missions so he can keep his mind busy. Whether it's laundry or design, it seems rare when he is bored.

Not to mention that we have been suckered into technology more and more. Cam has made our house a network mecca. Everything connects to something else wirelessly. And now with our new iPhones we can connect to the outside world even easier (Cam had the cheapest T-mobile phone and I had the oldest, both of which met their demise) and makes our lives more integrated with the pizza joints nearby in our neighborhood. You know, wherever we are, that will be useful for the winter ;)

Posted in: apple, chaosgurl, general musings, sport on September 24, 2007 at at 10:34:00 PM 0 comments    

So, football season is upon us here in America, and it's very interesting to observe things at close quarters. As an Australian, it's always been very easy to dismiss American football as slow, tedious and boring compared to our fast flowing, hard hitting football codes (rugby union included when the referee puts his whistle away!), but then again, I've only ever really watched half of about three different Super Bowls, which isn't exactly indicative of the game as a whole.

So last Monday, I sat down with Kevin to watch the season opening-game for his beloved Cincinnati Bengals as they took on the evil Baltimore Ravens. The game was very even and closely fought, with Cincinnati repelling a lot of last ditch attack from the Ravens to prevail 27-20, so I think I probably saw a good game, and at moments it was genuinely thrilling and exciting. But overall, it still leaves me a little cold. The stop/start nature of the game erodes any sense of continuity: once a play is completed, everyone stops, dusts themselves off and trots off to the middle of the field to set up the scrimmage line all over again. There's no advantage to be gained from a play apart from the yardage up the field. The defence always has time to reset itself for the next stanza of play, which always starts from the centre of the field. Compare this to the fluid defence required in the rugby codes or AFL, where you have to rush to be in the right place at the right time throughout the game.

And adding to the stop/start feeling is the ever-present TV advertising. At one point in the game, a Bengals player fielded a kick off in his own in-goal and touched the ball to the ground, signalling a restart from the 20 yard line. The network immediately cut to a three-minute ad break: when they came back, the players were still milling around the goal line, obviously waiting for a signal to resume play. Talk about a game made for TV!

Don't get me wrong, I can appreciate the skill and power of the players involved, and if anyone thinks they're wusses for wearing all that padding, you should definitely think again. Kevin Everett, a player with the Buffalo Bills team received severe spinal injuries from a tackle gone wrong in a game last weekend, and may never walk again. Like in many rugby tackles, he simply got his head on the wrong side of the tackle, but the forces involved with two 300 pound men hitting each other are much more than the (comparatively) smaller guys in our codes.

On a lighter note, one last thing that amused me was when a contentious refereeing decision is made, a coach can challenge it. When this happens, the head referee disappears into a little viewing booth on the sidelines to review the video. The booth even has little curtains to hide the referee and screen from view! So cute!

So, my verdict: The jury's still out on this one, I think. We'll see how I go as the season unfolds!

Posted in: chaosboy, sport, united states on September 14, 2007 at at 10:10:00 AM 0 comments    

Christine and I have just taken up rock climbing. It's something she got into while in Sydney and she really wanted me to try it out to see if I liked it. So we signed up for the introductory course down at Portland Rock Gym, although it was really just a refresher course for Christine (Something the instructors quickly worked out when she tied up and scaled a 40' wall in about 10 seconds flat!).

I really learned a lot during the introductory lesson and quickly appreciated the cerebral side to rock climbing: it's not just mindless exercise or a boring workout, every ascent up the wall is a puzzle or a challenge that needs to be solved with a combination of co-ordination, brain power and (occasionally) brute strength!

I initially had problems with trusting that the belay rope was going to catch me if I fell (something that is hard to come to terms with when you're clinging to a wall 30' above the ground), but I've overcome that in the couple of times that we've been back and am really beginning to enjoy it now. And it is one heck of a workout, as you use muscles all over your body, including some I never knew existed!

Posted in: chaosboy, portland, sport on August 31, 2007 at at 5:02:00 PM 0 comments    

This last Sunday, Kim (Christine's sister) and I took part in the annual Portland Bridge Pedal. Unfortunately, Christine was working, otherwise she surely would have joined us.

Portland is situated on the Willamette River, which is crossed by 10 road bridges within the metropolitan area. From north to south, these are: St Johns, Fremont, Broadway, Steel, Burnside, Morrison, Hawthorne, Marquam, Ross Island and Sellwood. Of these, the Fremont and Marquam are normally closed to pedestrians and bicycle riders as they carry freeway traffic, so this ride is the only chance each year to ride across these bridges. The Sellwood and Ross Island are also very narrow, so riding over them while competing with traffic can be somewhat perilous.

We started just before eight in the morning and set out on the full 10 bridge ride. You could also do 8 and 6 bridge rides for those with children or less desire to cross all the bridges. It was an awesome morning, although the traffic jams when the three rides came together at a bridge were incredible... it resembled a bridge walk, rather than ride at times, as seen here:

In all, we covered over 30 miles (or around 48km) and were incredibly pooped at the end. In fact, we skipped the last bridge (the Broadway) and ended up at the Widmer Gasthaus for a cleansing ale (muscle relaxant, as the Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy tells you!) and a good feed. We'd already crossed a "tenth" bridge in the morning to get to the start, and we really didn't want to have to cross an eleventh to get back home again!

Posted in: chaosboy, portland, sport on August 15, 2007 at at 6:00:00 PM 1 comments    

I don't think I've told you yet just how ridiculously good Portland is for bike riding... the place is literally criss-crossed with bike lanes which can take you just about anywhere. I ride my bike almost every day and love how much fitter I am feeling already. There's a big hill from the city to our neighbourhood which absolutely killed me the first time I attempted to climb it... I went that way again a couple of days ago and cruised pretty easily all the way up. I have one of those dinky little bike computers now, so I know I'm doing about 8 to 9 miles (13 to 15km) each day, and I have reached a maximum speed of a whopping 47.4 mph (76 km/h!!) when I was coming down from the top of Rocky Butte... that's some hill!

So here's a picture of me in full bike-riding mode, sitting on the lower deck of the Steel Bridge as we waited for it to close after letting a big ship through... got the gloves and everything! :-)

Posted in: chaosboy, portland, sport on June 23, 2007 at at 10:42:00 AM 0 comments    

Despite the fact that we missed out on a medal this year, the Rose Festival on the Willamette River was a blast. In this hastily put together video, Team Fusion qualifies (barely) in the first race for the Semi-Finals. The team works on their technique and focuses for the upcoming race which would ultimately put them in the Finals. I was in the first heat and therefore was not chosen for the next one, which gave me a chance to make this short documentary. I'm sure you can get a sense of the mood the team shared despite the tension that loomed in our bones.



I am happy to have educated those who showed up to see a few races. Although I still feel quite new to the sport, I have developed pride in it and its no contest that we definitely look cool out there. And I was thrilled to be able to use our sweet new camera to capture this gloomy but high driven Sunday, June 10th.

Posted in: chaosgurl, portland, sport on June 13, 2007 at at 9:17:00 AM 2 comments    

Hey there sportsfans!
It was a beautiful day in Tacoma, Washington and we arrived early in order to get ready for the first 8 o'clock races! The sun was shining, the water was calm and a strange smell floated over from the factories across the river. About half our team had never been in a race before and we were buzzing with excitement. We pitched our tent on the grass and watched the beginning of the first races.
We were in the long skinny boats, which we were used to, execept (you'd love this mom) at the front sat a large drum. The coaches quickly learned to beat their drums as loud as they could, perhaps a method to overcome the pounding of the racing boat next to them. When it was our turn to go out, an official came to get our team and carrying a number. We were marshalled to the dock and the number was our corresponding lane. We would have to wait on the dock until the previous boats were rowed back to our end of the river. In that time we would size up our opponents standing next to us or just joke around as our coach Ducky constantly tried to get us to focus quietly on the upcoming race.
I wasn't anxious until I was bent over with my paddle in the water waiting for the bull horn. Then pure adrenaline drove us to the waiting finish line, beating the boat beside us by half a second. So we had won our first race in the first heat! There were 3 heats total. Out of the all the teams racing (around 30), the 4 best times are selected and those 4 teams would race in the final. So we had two more chances to get a better time in order to qualify.
In the second heat we beat our time by 4 seconds. However, we came in third in our race, with the second place team beating us by a second.
By the third race, we were focused and I had never worked so hard in my life in a 3 minute time span. We were racing the best teams that the sport had to offer. We kept up with them more than half way but at the finish line we came in third once again. Of course, we were all a bit bummed, not understanding how we could have lost, but we had kept beating our time and keeping up with some very established teams, some who had been together for years, while our team was about 90 days old.
Ducky was extremely pleased with our performance which made us feel a bit better. We didn't win but we were in the top percentage. "If you're not having fun then you shouldn't be there anyway" was a very good point to bring up on Ducky's behalf.
It was a quick day and I had a chance to get to know my teammates a bit better. It also was a good chance to check out what other teams were like, what they wore, how they acted..ect.
There were elderly teams, blind teams, women only teams... they were all there, and all extremely well natured. I collected a few pictures (none of me unfortunately) of the boats and our surrounding areas. Ducky had taken video of us racing which is a bit frightening as he points me out and how my stroke could use improving. I hope some of his pictures turn out a bit better.

Posted in: chaosgurl, sport, united states on May 12, 2007 at at 6:06:00 PM 0 comments    

Yesterday was a bit of a sad day for me: my last game for the Baulkham Hills Cricket Club before I move to the US. We played - and lost - our semi-final match against Erskine Park, bringing our season to an end. Since 1994, I have played over 130 matches with pretty much the same bunch of guys.... and they have become some of my greatest friends, even though cricket is pretty much all we have in common, with careers as diverse as accountant, greenkeeper, removalist, electrician and graphic designer! So here's a salute to the mighty Baulko B5s... it's been a pleasure, boys and maybe one day I'll be back to roll the arm over once more!

Back row: Dave Henry, Jeremy Billings, Darren Tipton (captain), Harry Izmirlian, Brett Stapleton, Brett McLaren
Front Row: Cameron Booth (vice-captain), Richard McInerney, Brian King, Andrew Murphy, Roger Deane

Posted in: australia, chaosboy, sport on March 19, 2007 at at 3:12:00 AM 0 comments    

For those of you who are curious as to what dragon boating is... I apologize. I was going to post a picture or a drawing but Im tellin ya, dragon boats with 24 people in them are hard to draw. I tried thrice. As for pictures, I had my oppurtunity to take a photo in daylight today but my camera decided to run out of battery. So, as you see, I have supplied a picture of a "typical" dragon boat.


Now, our boat doesn't have a guy in a chair just chillin' in the front like that. We also do not have snazzy red paddles. The boats will typically fit 24 paddlers and for competitions you can have no less than 20. In our group (or team) we have people ranging all ages and backgrounds. It's a fun versatile way to broaden your social horizons and also to learn some new skills of the water faring ways.

I do this sport for a few reasons, one: to see the city from a new perspective, two: explore a new sport that I can hopefully get better at and three: to get away from this computer. Number three being the first and foremost important. This winter has been cold and miserable and I love being able to get home and cuddle up and just be warm. Usually the last thing anyone would want to do is go out on the freezing river and paddle around. But, as much I try to make excuses, I end up doing it because it prevents me from just lollygagging around my apartment.

Reasons I don't think Ill be in the Dragon Boating business for long is the fact that the sport is very linear. Even when I get good at it, and the weather is warm, I'll get bored. The repetitivness has already gotten to me. I plan to branch out into a more dynamic sport such as rock climbing or just running around with a soccer ball. I will be much more fulfilled with a more full body activity that requires a bit of strategy thinking... and of course with these sorts of sports I will need another body... such as my wonderful Cameron who is up for any crazy idea that I throw at him!

Anyway... I'll put up some pictures someday!! We have yet to paddle at a reasonable hour with light anyway and I am counting the days till Day Light Savings! Yay!!

Posted in: chaosgurl, portland, sport on March 4, 2007 at at 8:27:00 PM 0 comments