This isn’t my normal way of updating my blog but this is one avenue that is available to me at the moment since my work is a little slow.
Last week was quite the action packed week with travelling back and forth from Salem to Corvallis and then to the coast. On Monday we went to Corvallis for the 4th of July where we had the annual picnic with the neighborhood where we got to chat with the Hanauers and the Gustafsons. Cheri was having a ball with our grandkids since they were so new and full of energy. The food was great as usual and afterwards we had a small fireworks display. Interestingly Scott Catchpole showed up for the get together but didn’t actually have any food. Instead he just came to socialize basically and then left after people had finished eating. Alan then showed up later in the evening unannounced just to chat as well where eventually we scouted around on steam for some games that were cheap and could be played in groups.
Thursday evening we headed out to the coast where we stayed at a motel 6 in Lincoln city which dad had reserved. We ate dinner as a huge group of us with Uncle Drew and Ryan and Martina’s family at this Denny’s like restaurant called Sambo’s (some cat like animal’s name) which was literally less than a block from motel 6. That night I made sure to take one pill of the motion sickness stuff dad got. After watching some espn which I dearly miss we went to bed at like 9:30pm. Almost immediately after hitting the sack I realized it would be a long night when started snoring. I slept through most of it but almost every 2 hrs I was rudely awakened by a loud snort or something or being nudged or something since I was sharing a bed with dad (I was literally staying on the edge of the bed just to be on the safe side, no luck). The next day started promptly at 5:30 a.m. where I took two of the motion sickness pills as did Dane and Dad. We went through the Tradewinds company in depot bay to get our deep sea fishing/crabbing license and the boat to go on. Mr. Max was the boat we went on. I think I faired decently well for the first 2 ½ to 3 hrs until the whole stop and starting of fishing at different spots finally got the better of me and I just couldn’t hold it anymore and the water (only thing I had to wash the pills down…) just started coming out of my system. After a couple more times it was bile at which point one of the crew of the boat gave me some bottled water to keep me from ruining my teeth by not throwing up more bile. So I didn’t really chum the water much but everyone around me seemed to be catching fish nonetheless. Dane and Ryan seemed to be doing fairly well because Ryan was getting two at a time and Dane fished up a beast of a fish early on that he thought he had caught the bottom of the ocean. Dad was consistently catching fish left and right but about 9 of them had to be thrown back since they were these ugly red/yellow fish that were small and not for catching. Dad was getting a little frustrated since he only got to keep 3 of the 12 he was fished up but he was happy to have some action. Of the people on the boat our group of 6 got the most (I believe). It would have been even more of a blow out if Nate hadn’t had stomach problems (non sea related) and I hadn’t been out of commission for half of the trip at sea. Once we got back I had to promptly head back to Salem for work where I ended up being 40 min. late but no one seemed to care too much although they thought it was odd that I showed up just after the sets were done so there wasn’t much to do at that point in the day.
Sunday we headed down to Corvallis for Dinner with everyone to have shish kabobs and hot dogs/sausages. Not a whole lot happened honestly since it was continual watching of little people running around and keeping them happy since there were occasional outbursts every 5-10 min. I played the piano, watched some baseball with the guys of the family, and watched an episode of Naruto during some downtime. Besides that I think I just chatted with Dane, Annette, and Kari here and there until it was time to head back home. Everyone is very interested in where I’m going in the near future and I wish I could give them a better idea.
Monday was a day off of work, volunteering, and family which was odd and nice but a little boring since I hardly get days like this anymore. I think I just beat an indie game called Trine which was far less epic than what I had hoped since it was very reminiscent of Lost Vikings but incredibly easier. I found out around 4 o’clock that we were having dinner in Corvallis at Papa’s Pizza so that was a nice surprise. Papa’s pizza hasn’t changed much but the atmosphere and the play area is still great. The munchkins enjoyed themselves but didn’t like being pulled away for food. We only had to get 2 large pizzas to cover everyone there but they were ridiculously expensive. Each cost around 28$ which blows my mind but that is why papa’s is a special occasion place and not a frequented restaurant.
The next day was also nice to be able to sleep in and later in the evening Dane and Dad came to watch Thor at Northern Lights where I work. It was fun showing them the theater and all the perks for working there. We had free admission, drinks, popcorn, and half off all the food we ordered which ended up costing us 12.65 or something near that. Normally all of that would have cost 45$ for the 3 of us so dad was extremely grateful. Thor ended up being pretty mediocre which I kind of suspected but I thought the fights would have been a bit better. The very first battle in the movie was the only one that I thought was pretty good besides the rampaging through S.H.I.E.L.D.’s security to mjolnir (the hammer). My colleagues at work were really nice and accommodating even though they didn’t need to be but it was nice to chat with some of them. Afterwards Dad and Dane stuck around a little bit to chat with Kari and Nate and then headed back to Corvallis. I didn’t have much to do so I messed around playing League of Legends for most of the evening before having to hit the sack at 12 since I had to work at the hospital at 8am the next day. If you can’t tell I’m able to write this 2 page entry due to the fact that there is literally nothing for me to do today and I’m tired of the e-learnings that are available since I tried to find some new ones only to realize that I had already done them and started nodding off during some of them. I even had 45 unread emails that I was able to go through in less than 20 min. so it is safe to say that my time at the hospital is less than desirable (understatement).
In other random news the summer sales through Steam have ended. I think I purchased close to 40$ worth of games which seems like a lot but I was basically investing in things for me to do since that money got me over 20 games to play if I get in the mood. I tried to err on the side of games that were multiplayer based since what’s the point in playing games alone if you have the chance to play with people. There is only one game that I wish was still on sale (Terraria) but only so that I wouldn’t have to pay full price but thankfully that game is only 10$ but I’m waiting to see if people are going to continue playing it since many of the online crew go through phases of games that they play and I hate to get sucked into buying a game that doesn’t last more than a month or so. It’s only 10:45am and I have 5 more hrs to go…
