Back in PDX, I met Robin and Jenny and her beau at the Montage for a meal, then some stoner rock: Red Fang played outdoors near the East End. We had a couple after show beers sitting outside, while inside a bunch of people were celebrating a 10k run or something by having the girls make out with other girls. Was hot girl-on-girl action part of the dream of the ‘90s? Sorry, no photos of that though. But here's one of the Red Fang crowd. Can you spot the shitwig(s)?
Monday, the Fourth of July, our nation’s birthday and the best day to blow shit up and into the air! We shredded some parks in the AM, Holly Farms and Gabriel, and of course I forgot my camera because I am not an experienced blogger. We also skated Burnside, and had the place to ourselves (just like two years ago) for a lot of the time.
Sweet torso at Burnside.
Zach had to pay rent on his practice space, so we went down there. As we were pulling up, some cheesy guy was filming a music video, first singing, and then when we started gawking, lip synching to the song.
Zach suggested we watch the city fireworks from the roof of his practice space. The response was something akin to “I’ve already told Josh Faulk and his family that they could, so drinking and smoking up there wouldn’t be cool, and the neighbors wouldn’t be psyched on you guys lighting up a bunch of fireworks.” How did he read our minds as to what our plans were?
Wixon came through with the spot in full knowledge of the high explosives we were packing. Meg and I hopped on my bike and made some rounds, stopping by Molly Quan’s and then heading to Wixon’s. There was a ton of food, and Zach and I started the pyrotechnics early. The neighbor across the street had some huge mortars, so they kind of took us out size-wise, but we had variety. Especially thrilling were the 2-year-old fireworks that proved entirely unpredictable. One bottle rocket shot up 6 feet and traveled about 20 feet, just enough to hop the fence and blow up in the neighbor’s yard. We used a cinder block to light stuff off, and we could put a firecracker in the hole and blow a beer can up in the air, which led to catching and drinking and then hacky sacking the can. Since the old bottle rockets were unpredictable, we decided the best thing to do would be to light a bunch of them off at one time. Zach stuff three packs into the hole in the cinder block, then used a sparkler. The results were, as predicted, completely unpredictable. This night, nobody lost an eye (although I did lose a flash drive).
Happy Birthday America! FREEDOM!
Tuesday morning Matt and Gin and Meg and I met up with Donna for breakfast. Meg and I peeled off and checked out Bryce and Donna’s crib, then got Meg ready to hit the train back to Seattle. We stopped at a food court, and got Meg to the train station 3 minutes before her train left. The ticket guy was apparently pissed, but Meg made it.
I went back to the house, gathered my shit, said my goodbyes, and hit the road. It took me an hour to get the 10 or so miles from Portland to the bridge into Washington, stop and go traffic, and I got out of first gear maybe 3 times. Way to heat up the bike at the start of the trip. Since I had finally concluded that my bike had too much oil, I decided on only two stops. Around Olympia, 60 miles from Seattle, the bike started to make a little noise. Since I hadn’t adjusted the valves, I thought it might be them acting up after a long and fast ride, although I thought it might be an exhaust leak too. When the noise got worse, I pulled over 30 minutes away from Seattle, let the bike cool for a few minutes, and looked at the exhaust. It looked OK, so I checked the oil (fine), and took it easy back to Seattle.Postscript: It was the exhaust after all – the nuts that mount it had shaken loose, although I couldn’t see it when I first pulled over. But by the time I checked it the next day, I discovered that one of the nuts had actually shaken off completely. I got new ones and no more noise. I also adjusted the valves, although one cover is stripped and I can’t get to it. Gotta get that thing off tomorrow…
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