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Only one more week left in Portland... and I still haven't done quite a few of the list of things I meant to do at the beginning of the summer. I just ran out of weekends. I managed to get a few done Saturday though, such as getting some stuff from Powells (I'm really going to miss that bookstore) and finally seeing the Portland Rose Garden (which was amazingly beautiful, wow... pictures to come next update). And I drove quite a ways to get to the only Wienerschnitzel in Oregon today. I grew up on their hotdogs, and it's been four years since the last time I had one. Needless to say I ate a bunch and probably knocked a year off my life from all the fat and cholesterol in the chili and cheese, but it was worth it.
The weekend before was deep sea fishing (now with picture goodness). I caught three fish, and got to keep one of them (you can only keep certain one's). The intern right next to me though got 9. What the heck? The next few days were cooking/eating said fish. I don't like fish however so I gave mine to my roommate. I went swing dancing again on Thursday since there was no soccer/baseball game to go to, and yet again I'm quite impressed with the Portland swing scene. Had lots of fun and did a lot of dancing with a lot of cute girls. I also got an SUV for the weekend for only $10 a day, which is quite the upgrade from a Ford Focus. It's really nice, but dear lord does it suck down gas like no tomorrow. By playing Designated Driver Friday and Saturday night, and going to the Der today, I spent a small fortune on gas. I kind of like those tiny cars because their 8 gallon tank will last you the entire weekend. On the other hand, it's significantly cooler than a Kia Rio.
Peter Jennings died today from lung cancer. I used to watch ABC News as a kid, but eventually I noticed that everytime there was a story on something I knew a lot about (ie computers, videogames, the internet) they'd always get stuff wrong or be really biased in how they presented the story. And if they screw that up, who knows what else they screw up on topics I know nothing about. Hence why I get all my news on-line and in newspapers. And network news is at least somewhat trustworthy, compared to the horrendous local news scene.
Now to start packing. And to attempt to eat at least some of the food hanging out in my kitchen. Not sure how much I'll succeed on that one if this week is like any of the previous weeks.
And thus ends the most fun (funnest should be a word!) summer of my life. This week didn't do too much actually, it was a nice change of pace from the normal hecticness. The first part of the week was just catching up on grad school stuff and organizing pictures to burn some CD's for other interns. I went downtown Wednesday to wander around Powell's one last time and see the city. On a complete whim I also went to see an amazing documentary about quadriplegic rugby called Murderball. It's about regular people getting in accidents that paralyze them, but still being able to do most everything they could before, including competing in the Paralympics (not to be confused with the Special Olympics) in rugby, which essentially means trying to ram each other as hard as possible while in a wheelchair. I also ate a very interesting donut called the Memphis Mafia from Voodoo Donuts. Take an apple friter, spread some peanut butter and chocolate syrup on it, and sprinkle with chocolate chips. Thursday I played shuffleboard for the first time, and Friday went to the Bite of Oregon to sample some great food, hang out with some of the interns one last time, and see the Violent Femmes (the Blister in the Sun band) play for only $5. Today was packing and spending a small fortune on shipping things to my Gainesville apartment. I also got $1.20 back from all my Pepsi can's from over the summer. Which is nowhere near the amount I gave, but so it goes. , and then I leave bright and early tomorrow for my flight to Tampa. I'll also have to remember that I have to pump my own gas, since it's illegal to do it here.
So this being my last update from the Northwest corner, I'm really going to miss Portland (and not just because of the weather). It's got so much stuff to do, but yet it's not too large. It's also got a great liberal vibe, and the surrounding area is absolutly gorgeous. And it's a young city, which after living in Huntsville last summer where everyone was married and older, made me really want to live somewhere with people my own age. I could easily see living here after graduation, though I still want to try Austin, TX next year since quite literally everyone I've ever talked to has loved that city. So next summer: Austin!
So for the record, here's most of the highlights of this summer so I don't forget them (I've done so much this summer that I'm already forgetting stuff):
Locations:
- Portland, OR
- Dallas, OR (drive in movie)
- Mt. Hood, OR (windsurfing capital of the US)
- Multnomah Falls
- Saddle Mountain
- Redwood National Forest
- San Francisco, CA
- Stanford
- Seattle, WA
- The Gorge amphitheater (Central Washington)
- Vancouver, Canada
- Oregon Coast (Seaside, Cannon Beach, Astoria, and more)
Firsts:
- Surfing
- Bungee Jumping
- Touching the Pacific Ocean
- Drive-in Movie
- Drinking chocolate beer
- Hiking to the top of a mountain
- Renting a car
- Going to Canada and going through customs
- Eating at an Indian restaurant
- Eating Din Sum (I actually like Chinese food?)
- Riding a cable car
- Seeing the famous California Redwoods
- Deep Sea Fishing
- Going over a class 5, 14 foot waterfall in a raft
- Jumping from a bridge into a river (~30 feet)
- Getting searched by airport security
Concerts:
- Sasquatch Festival 2005 (Modest Mouse, Arcade Fire, Pixies, AC Newman, others)
- Presidents of the United States of America (opening acts The Carolines and The Village Green)
- Violent Femmes (opening acts Pat MacDonald and The Decemberists)
- Warped Tour 2005 (Offspring, Billy Idol, My Chemical Romance, a bunch of bands I got there too late to see)
- Captured! By Robots (one man and his robot band. Opening acts were two terribly horrible heavy metal rock bands)
- Missed The Shins my first weekend here, and there's a TON of awesome bands coming in September I won't be around to see
Other Notables:
- Seeing the very first Starbucks
- Playing on a 1.5 Mix DDR machine
- Powell's: The largest bookstore in the US
- Movies in Pioneer Square
- Thirsty Thursday's @ PGE
- The parties, nights out downtown to bars and clubs, watching foreign movies, late night coffeehouses, random activities, and everything else I'm forgetting
- All the awesome Intel interns who are the whole reason I got to do all these things and made the summer so much fun!
Finally, Summer 2005 in pictures.
Yesterday marked my 6th year of using the world's greatest alternative operating system. It's cool how far Linux has come in such a short amount of time. It's still not perfect, nor as user friendly as I would have hoped by now, but I still like it. And all that experience paid off this summer with my internship, since all the servers I was benchmarking ran SuSE and I had to play around a lot with them.
Does the window seat ever get old?
After an eventful and exhausting Saturday night in which I never went to bed, I managed to catch my flight back to Florida with no problems. Heading back up to UF on Friday for some meetings related to grad school, and then I start my Masters the week after that. College, how I missed thee
I finally bought a Tivo yesterday, and I'm already wondering how I lived without one. It's so incredibly useful to be able to pause TV, or rewind to catch something I missed. And now I don't have to miss another show I like because I don't happen to be around the TV whenever the corporate bigwigs think I should be. 8 PM on a weekday night is about the least likely time I'll be home just wanting to watch TV. I've also watched more TV in the last day since I got it then I did the entire summer combined. I got the 140 hour model (120 GB harddrive) since Circuit City had it $50 cheaper than any other place for some reason.
If you've got a lot of hard drive space, a guy from Portland has been taping all the shows that he can and putting them on the web for download. It's all legit since he gets their permission beforehand, and it actually goes on archive.org for posterity.
And space gets that much closer. I know where my savings from this summer are going toward...
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