It’s a good thing the RIT Big Shot took place earlier in the evening because shortly after it was all over a storm moved through the area so quickly and forcefully it felt like a hurricane.
I took the (rare) opportunity of being out alone and with my camera to attempt some lightning shots.
Boy am I glad I did!
As we look back on the years we’ve all said the phrase
“man I was dumb”
or
“what was I thinking?”
This one tops the cake, but it happened a long time ago so don’t worry, it’s just a tale of what could have been and almost was.
It was July 25th, the weekend of the democratic national convention in 2004 (Where Barack Obama was to speak ironically enough). My good friend (and roommate at the time) Brian and I were on our way to Boston to see some friends for the Whiskey Company BBQ. We were driving my stupid (pseudo) pimped-out cavalier (pictured at the Grand Canyon). Tinted windows, sound system, headlight covers, mirror-tint Chevy symbols in the rear windows, you get the idea. At about 1:30 in the morning on an empty 6 lane highway somewhere near Boston we got pulled over.
This cop came out of nowhere. I still don’t know whether he was in a turn-around watching for cars or whether he was just driving along. Either way he came up on us at about 90Mph lights blazing. I pulled off to the side thinking he was headed to some emergency but no he pulled up right behind us.
Awesome.
License and registration
“Sure thing” I answered while fumbling in my glove box. As I handed them over I politely asked, “Is there something wrong officer?”
I know everyone says they weren’t doing anything wrong but in this case we really weren’t. I couldn’t even fathom why he had pulled us over. He made some lame excuse about how we had changed lanes too quickly while passing a car and headed back to his car with my license and registration. This couldn’t have been farther from the truth since there was nobody else on the road. We hadn’t even been passed since being pulled over.
When the cop came back to my car it was the only time in my life he came back without a ticket. However he came back up on the PASSENGER side. He then asked for Brian’s license. He handed it over without question.
The officer then proceeded to pester us both about “items we have in the car which he should be aware of”. After about the 8th time (no joke) I said “look, you can search the car if it’ll make you feel better”. He immediately responded “I’m gonna take you up on that, step out of the car please.”. wow, not the first and definitely not the last, but a BIG mistake on our part.
He had us walk away from the car and sit on the guard rail facing AWAY from the car while he searched.
We’re just gonna stop there for a second, let you absorb this picture.
He comes back to us, twirling my baseball bat in his fingers. ‘What’s this for?’
‘baseball’ I say. not much else to tell…
To be honest I don’t even remember what happened after that. The next thing I remember is driving down the road thinking ‘holy shit what the hell was that about’.
It could have ended a lot worse. a LOT worse.
Don’t ever turn your back on the only evidence proving your innocence.
If you’ve done nothing wrong and a police officer is harassing you, call the local police department or 911. don’t just put up with it and think “holy crap” after the fact like we did. it might not end that well for you.
We were lucky, very lucky.
Our trek from Glacier National Park back to Portland was rather uneventful, and yet satisfying. We drove all the way through, only stopping in Coeur D’Alene for lunch (which was a completely unexpected yet beautiful city in Idaho). Again, somewhere in Montana we hit a giant hailstorm of bugs. We seemed to literally drive through a wall of them with some as big as your fist.
As we drove through the dry areas, we watched the outside temperature gauge in the car reach as high as 106ºF. Rachel wanted to know what that feels like, so at 70Mph we opened the windows and stuck our arms out. It felt just like a blow dryer, and closed went the windows.
Along the way we saw a ton of dust devils, which is kind of neat as I don’t remember ever seeing them this large before. They look like mini tornadoes, and they seemed to tear across the skyline with a fury.
After crossing into Oregon we followed the Columbia River along I84, a large section of which we had taken before. As the sun set, we were provided beautiful views of Mt Hood clear as day right over the river. The most beautiful sight however was as we were passing Multnomah Falls and the sunlight was peaking through some clouds so only the falls were lit up. It almost made us turn around, but we pushed on.
We arrived at George and Stacie’s with just enough time to show them some pictures and then head to bed.
Even just driving through, the scenery out here is beautiful and fulfilling.
One of the things on the must-see list in the Portland area is the Columbia River Gorge. A large group decided at dinner last night to meet up and head out for that at about 10am. Because we’re relatively early risers we thought we’d get a head start, do the Mt Hood loop and meet them out. It’s a good thing we did!
If you get a chance to take the Mt Hood Scenic byway DO IT! That being said, we did. We saw the Oregon trail at laurel hill, the Salmon River, the White River and some fantastic views of Mt Hood. We also got some sweet cherries for a cool $1.50/lb at a local fruit stand. They cost more than $4/lb at home!
From there we met the group at Multnomah Falls along the Historic Columbia River Highway where a few of us hiked to the top. Getting to the top is quite a workout, 15 switchbacks and a mile later. The group headed back from there but since we hadn’t gotten a chance to see the Vista House, we stopped there for a vista and what a one it was.
The whole loop : Highly suggested.
An awesome first day.
So I guess it’s safe to talk about now that I’ve been doing it for a month and a half. I tried riding the bus over a year ago and quickly stopped. This time I did some things different and it has worked out for the best. I’d like to share a few things I did and thought differently this time around that really helped me overcome the dread of using public transportation.
Video of our drive through the White Mountains New Hampshire with great fall foliage.
29,998. That’s what my Odometer read today when I finally pulled into the car lot at Cortese. My Warranty conveniently runs out at 30,000. They say this is when stuff starts to happen. Maybe, but my current problem happened months ago and I just forgot to do anything about it until I was driving home from work today and realized.
holy crap I have 8 miles left on my warranty!
I’ve never cut anything so close in my life, except for maybe that time with the mailbox but that story is much more severe and for a different day. An electric problem for sure, this problem was just with my mirrors refusing to go up and down. I’m interested to see what money I saved by noticing my mileage today instead of tomorrow.
How much in our life happens purely by chance?
How much stuff that angers us happens purely by chance?
Would life be interesting at all without chance?
I wish I could drive like this.
Today we took in the highly recommended road to Hana. The road to Hana is 42 miles long, includes 54 bridges and over 600 hairpin turns. It’s not so much the destination that’s important, but the trip. Driving the road is all we did today so we’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.
If you like those, there are lots more where they came from.
If you want to know how to get the best deal on your Cingular plans and phones, Take a look at the 7 Confessions of a Cingular Sales Rep. It’s worth a read, and some of the tips would probably work with more sales reps than just Cingular.
A while ago I wrote about how Toshiba was going to be including solid state drives (or SSD’s) in some of their laptops. The biggest drive they had thus far was 32gb. Samsung just released a 64gb drive with some crazy performance specs. Check it out.
Continuously Variable Transmissions (or CVT) have been around for a long time. In fact snowmobiles have been using them since they were originally created. Just recently some incredible advancements have been made. I just read about a new implementation on a Bike by Ellsworth. They call it the Continuously Variable Planetary Drive. Be sure to watch the video, it’s very interesting.
If you’ve got money to burn I suggest you either throw it my way or buy one of these million dollar laptops.
Matt was talking about how he wanted to have a conductor game for the Wii. A while ago I saw a video with people conducting using the Wii. Yesterday I ran across the Wii Loop Machine. Pretty interesting the amount of stuff it can do and how easily.
Youtube has announced the winners its first official Youtube Awards. My favorite is the following:
how to freak out other drivers:
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Randy Aldrich 