Whatever David feels like writing about... http://drueck.net/thoughts.php You may have noticed a new little image below my list of slideshows on the right. I figured I'd write a little note to explain that (and give my subtle plug). The new version of my favorite web browser, Firefox 3, is coming out on June 17th; they just announced the date today. The little banner I put up is about Download Day, which is an attempt by the Firefox folks to set a world record for most copies of a single piece of software downloaded in a 24 hour period. If you click on the banner you can pledge to download it on that day (for free, of course) and add one more download to the count for your country. It shows a map that you can mouse over and see how many people have pledged so far around the world--it's kinda neat. Anyway, it would be cool to be a part of the world record, but regardless, you should definitely try Firefox 3. I've been using it for quite a while now, as Firefox 3 Beta 5 was the default browser in the latest release of Ubuntu (Hardy Heron). It's great. I like it a lot. Firefox 2 was amazing, and this is even better. So yeah, that's what that's about. :) [Edit] Well, download day is over and was quite the success with over 8 million downloads in the 24 hour period after it was released. Pretty cool. http://drueck.net/thoughts.php?thought=83 Well, it's been a very long time since I've written anything here! That's partly because I haven't been on any trips or done anything super exciting lately. More significant, though, is that my thoughts as of late have been troubled more often than not and haven't been the kinds of thoughts I've felt like sharing. My faith has been shaken up pretty severely over the past six months or so. I have started having doubts about things I've never really doubted before. This has really scared me. So, I'm writing now, and that doesn't mean that I've overcome the doubts that I've been facing, but it means I am encouraged. My friend Phil--one of my best friends for nearly twenty years--has always been someone I could talk to and share my struggles with in detail. We've had many good conversations lately. I have also thanked God for my much newer friend Audra. She and I are encouraging each other to spend time reading the Bible, even though we're a couple hours drive apart these days. And I am seeking God, praying that He will teach me how to hear His voice and how to know the truth. I believe He has already started answering. The other night the thought came to my mind, "The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want." This verse that I had memorized from the Bible--from the beginning of Psalm 23--played in my mind several times. The words I emphasized above were the ones that were emphasized in my head. I saw myself as a sheep who is pretty helpless and not too bright, and I heard that God is the one who takes care of me, personally. In my mind's eye I saw Him caring for me. That has been my comfort this past week. I hope you all are doing well. Thanks for reading. http://drueck.net/thoughts.php?thought=82 Last night Tiffany, Shaun, Audra and I played Nertz again. :) I made dinner for us and my parents and my grandma, with the help of my mom and Audra using a couple of recipes from the Veganomicon. We made two dishes, Baja Grilled Tempeh Tacos and Mexican Millet. I think they turned out great. Very tasty. I had some leftovers for lunch today. Yummm... Cooking took longer than I expected so we got started playing late as usual and played until midnight--ridiculously late for Tiffany and Shaun who have to get up early for work. It was really fun, though. Audra killed us completely with 290 points, and I was in last place until right before the end when I passed up Tiffany by just a few points--99 to 94. Shaun was right in the middle, with 165. So, Audra's currently the one to beat when the four of us get together, although Tiffany and I would be glad to beat Shaun as well! ;) http://drueck.net/thoughts.php?thought=81 Lately I've been addicted to a card game called Nertz, a kind of competitive as-many-players-as-you-want solitaire, if that makes any sense. I'm not sure why I like it so much, 'cause I almost always loose, and it's one of those fast games that I'm usually not any good at. But yeah, I really like it. And my friend Audra and my sister and Shaun like it too. Last weekend Audra came over to their house and we had pizza and played Nertz until some ridiculous hour in the morning. It was a blast. Shaun and Audra are both really good, and this time Shaun beat Audra by just a little while both of them creamed Tiffany and I big time. It was still a blast though. I really enjoy sitting around playing games, drinking coffee too late and night and just having fun hanging out with friends and family. I'm excited that we've found a game we all like and can play despite not always having a certain number of people--like the ever elusive four that we're always looking for so we can play Canasta! Tiffany and Shaun and I played again last night. We were planning to get together to go see Jumper, so we met up and went out to this restaurant we love called Wei Wei, and still had a bunch of time before the movie started at 10:20. So, not having my cards 'cause they were in another car, we bought a couple more decks and started playing Nertz before the show. We were having so much fun we seriously considered skipping the movie and continuing our game. In the end we decided to go to the movie and think about playing more afterward--even though it would be after midnight! Well, we went to the movie, enjoyed it, and were all up for playing more after. So we played from 12:30am to 2:00am when we cut ourselves off. I was ahead the whole night, which was totally amazing, but in the last two games Shaun pulled ahead and beat me 257 to 240. Oh well. Like I said, I always loose, but I love playing. I heard rumors from my sister that Audra might join us again this Sunday night! Fun stuff. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that we had Fidel Castro with us last night as well, although he didn't play. He's retired now, you know. http://drueck.net/thoughts.php?thought=80 Last Saturday I had a blast going sledding and tubing with my sister Tiffany, her husband Shaun, my neice Allie and my sister's friends Anne and Jenn and their husbands Nate and Jason. I had been wanting to go up to the mountain sometime with Allie so she could play in the snow. I thought she would have a blast, and as you can see from the photo, she did! Check out the slideshow for more photos and to read about the trip. :) http://drueck.net/thoughts.php?thought=79 After snowshoeing up near Seattle on the 5th and having a great time we decided it would be fun to try some cross country skiing the next weekend, so we did. :) Kara and Cara and I had decided to go for it while we were together in Seattle and on the drive home, and we invited Kara's dad and sister, Brian and Laura, and I invited my friend Tasha for a grand total of six of us. The night before the trip Cara and her sister had invited Kara, Laura and I and our friend Christine over to her sister's place for a homemade Korean dinner. That was really nice--very tasty, one of my first times trying real Korean food--and we got to work out some of the last minute details for the trip. Initially we decided on a route starting from Bennett Pass Sno-Park that would take us to Hood River Meadows and Sahalie Falls, but when we got up there the Sno-Park configuration had changed and they were detouring people to an alternate location. Since none of us had ever been there before, we couldn't really tell where the trail we were looking for started, so we just followed some other skiers on the only path we saw taking off from the Sno-Park. When we got back and had a chance to look through the book I have we discovered the route we followed was Bennett Ridge Trail, and the one we had originally wanted was actually across Hwy 35 from the original Sno-Park, which may or may not have been the one we ended up parking at. Anyway, the trail we went on was very nice; it felt more like an actual trail than a snow covered road. I'm definitely glad we stumbled upon it. It was a great trip. Someday I would really like to check out the one we originally looked at because it is supposed to have wonderful views of Mt Hood in clear weather, and it's always neat to see waterfalls in the winter. When we returned our gear to Winter Fox in Sandy where we had rented it, we talked to the owner, Barbara, about how the day went. We had asked her earlier about the trail and she said it was a really nice one, so we told her that we ended up going on a different one because we weren't sure how to find the one we wanted. She said that next time we came in she would draw us a map, 'cause it was pretty tricky to find. She's a super nice person. I've enjoyed renting stuff there and talking to her about the trails and our experiences. I guess she is retiring this year and is going to close up shop. It'll be sad to not be able to drop in and chat with her anymore about our trips, but I'm sure she'll enjoy having more time to enjoy the wintry landscapes herself. :) Well, I haven't actually talked about the trip itself yet, and that's partially on purpose. I'll point you to the photos and you can read about our adventure with visual aids. http://drueck.net/thoughts.php?thought=78 Not last Friday but the Friday before, I went up to Seattle for the weekend and got to do some snowshoeing! I had planned the trip for a while with my friend Julie who lives up there. Her and I went to the same church for maybe two and a half years or so while I was going to SPU and living on or near campus, and we have kept in touch since then. She is a fan of adventure of all sorts, so this was perfect. We each invited friends to go with us. My friend Kara from Portland and Seattle and most recently China came along. She has been teaching English in Southwest China for two years now, and is on a seven week vacation in the Northwest (Oregon and Washington). She was already in Seattle visiting with her old roommates and so she met up with us up there. Julie invited two of her friends who also used to go to church with her (after I stopped going there), Cara and Eileen. Eileen lives near Seattle so she was already around, but Cara was staying with her sister down in Tigard (near Portland) so I picked her up and we rode up to Seattle together. She is also on vacation from teaching overseas. She had formerly taught in China as well and was currently teaching in Korea. Kara and Cara had quite a few things in common, including their names. :) So, Friday night we got to Julie's house in Seattle around 5:00 or so. Julie made some tasty dinner for us and we ate that and some Trader Joe's dark chocolates and talked and planned until sort of late then hit the sack. We got up and planned to leave by 9:00. We got a little bit of a late start, but not too bad. We ended up choosing a shorter trip--Gold Creek Pond--that sounded extremely scenic and we weren't dissapointed (although several of us would have enjoyed being out a little bit longer). We took our time, I took a lot of photos and we all had some good conversation. All the women have done a considerable amount of international travel and had quite a bit in common to talk about. It was neat to hear the stories everyone had to share. After the hike we went back to Julie's place briefly before we split up and went to dinner. Kara and I wanted to go to my favorite restaurant--Thai Tom. I LOVE that place. It's a tradition for me every time I go to Seattle to try to make it there and have some Swimming Rama. Mmmm... tasty. So we met up with my friend Matt and his friend Andy (both of whom went to SPU with me) and sat at different tables together (since the place is too small to have bigger than two-person tables). After a delicious dinner and some pre-dinner bubble tea at W.O.W. a few doors down, I took Kara to her place and went back to Julie's. Cara's brother came by and we all played a few rounds of speed Scrabble before calling it a night. The next morning we got up early to make it to the 9:00 service at Kara's church in Seattle, Rainier Avenue Free Methodist. I missed my church, but it was good and Kara had a great reunion with so many friends. After that we quickly grabbed some Vietnamese sandwiches to go and headed back to Portland so Kara could meet up with her family to head off to the coast. Rough life, huh? It was a great trip. Great friends, food, scenery, conversation. It made us want to do it again, which we sort of did this weekend, but that's another post and another slideshow. :) Click here to see my photos from the trip. http://drueck.net/thoughts.php?thought=77 Last Saturday Marcus and I hoped to go flying, originally to Sunriver (which would have been very cool!) and then as a backup plan, just down the valley to Albany where there is a Chinese restaurant at the airport where we could get some lunch and Marcus could get in some cross country hours. Sadly the weather was looking pretty minatory for going over the cascades, so we just planned on getting some Chinese food in Albany. However, after Marcus pre-flighted the airplane and we got in and he tried to start it, it wouldn't turn over. (He found out later that the fuel pump had gone out). We could have swapped planes and still gone up, but as he was trying to start our original plane we saw some ice pellets hit the windshield--a sign of freezing rain above. It was very brief, and wasn't in the forecast at all, but it was questionable enough to cancel. It was really a bummer that we couldn't go up, but it wasn't a total loss. While Marcus was pre-flighting the plane I was walking around taking some photos, since this was a different plane than I had been in before; it was a Cessna 172SP, a fancier, newer model than the 172P we flew in before. I think Marcus first noticed the subject of the photo below and pointed it out to me--crystalized fuel surrounding the fuel vent on the wing. Pretty neat looking. http://drueck.net/thoughts.php?thought=76 Once again, I'm really behind on reporting cool events... More than a month ago I had the priviledge to go up flying for the second time with my good friend Marcus. This time he took us up to and around Mt. St. Helens, and it was spectacular. I'll let the photos speak for themselves. Check out the slideshow here. http://drueck.net/thoughts.php?thought=75 [Note] I wrote the following almost exactly a month ago, but just finally finished writing all the captions for the slideshow so I could post it. As I'm starting to write this I'm hanging out with my friend Phil at a newly discovered 24 hour coffee shop in Beaverton called Ava Roasteria. There are a couple of people here playing live music and the place is packed. I have a theory that at least in the current cultural climate in Portland if you start up a coffee shop and want to be successful, keep it open all night and it will always be full. Every place I've seen around here that has gone 24 hours does really well, not only when everything else is closed but all day. There's just something about knowing you aren't gonna get kicked out at some closing time that makes me want to always go to these places. So, anyway, it's nice to have another place to hang out late at night, even though it's on the west side. ;) Okay, so, back to the topic at hand... My friend Sam and I went on a backpacking trip last weekend to a spot called Elk Meadows on Mt. Hood. It was the first visit there for both of us, and I think it's safe to say that we both had a great time. We got sort of a late start, part intentionally; we worked the first half of the day before meeting at his place around 12:30 or 1:00pm on Friday afternoon. After making a few stops including lunch in Hood River, we arrived at the trailhead at Pollalie Campground at around 4:00pm or so. The lateness of our start really affected our plans, but I think for the better. Because of how quickly the sun was setting we ended up stopping for the night at a pretty cool camping spot right by the creek and then hiked out to the meadows and back the next day with just water, Cliff Bars and my camera. We weren't sure about the decision at the time, but after seeing what sites were available between there and the meadows, we definitely made a great choice. At the meadows we had some great views of Mt. Hood, and on the way back from camp to the trailhead we took a detour to check out Tamanawas Falls which was pretty neat. It was a great trip overall. I'll save the details for the slideshow, though, so check that out here. http://drueck.net/thoughts.php?thought=74