A message to a father, a brother-in-law, and a soldier (all in one):


MERRY CHRISTMAS STEVE! Everyone is alive! :)

OPERATION WHITE KNIGHTS

Mission Brief: Sister and 2.5 y/o niece start traveling across the country from Mass. to OR. First plane gets late, miss second plane, barely make a plane from Chi-town to portland after a 6 hour layover, and then end up sitting in PDX until 4 am waiting for baggage and trying to get a flight to Medford which is ~300 miles south of PDX. Weather all over the country left a cluster#$%^ situation in many airports leaving patrons sleeping the night over in the airport. NOT cool with a 2 year old. This raises tension in the PDX airport and unfortunately there was a jackass working the baggage claim which climaxed in a literal riot at around 4am. The baggage claim guy said some side comment that "everyone from that flight has gotten their luggage" in front of half a plane of people who had been waiting 5 hours until 4am waiting to get their luggage who were on "that flight." People started screaming, a man threw punches, police came in, guy punch airline worker and kicks at cops, my sister and niece decide that their baggage is not coming and they need to sleep.

Mission: Traverse from Medford to Portland, OR to save stranded family. Journey might include bad weather, long driving hours, and dumb dumb people on the road.

7:10a:
Dad: "BEN! You want to go to Portland to pick them up?"
Me: (thinking in my head) if I go I get to see my niece first and possibly have a big adventure. On the negative side I might die of a horrid snow accident.
Me: "yea... let me wake up"
Dad: "Be ready in 5 min"

7:45a:
We've been on the road for 25 min and we are beginning to the conditions getting bad. We should of seen it coming...

8:10a:
Dad's a champ driver and has it under control but there are people with no chains and rear wheel drive passing our 4 wheel drive pickup and are destined for disaster. It's all fun and game until...

8:13a: (i totally estimated the time and 8:15 would of been too perfect...)
two laned highway road in the snow. We're on the left and in front of us is a yellow nissan xterra who has no clue what he's doing. On the right is a big f-350 pulling a trailor full of some kind of equipment. The xterras right wheel catches some snow, he over corrects, and starts on what appears to be a hollywood stunt. He slides a perfect 180 degree turn pulling a u-turn in front of the big truck and ends up parallel parking backwards on the other side of the road he started on and everyone involved is going about 45 mph. One look at his face and I knew the truth: his pants were loaded with an explosion of "I-nearly-died"

8:20a:
2nd car in the ditch. The is one of many.

8:23a:

There IS a road in the picture. One of the funnest parts of not having lines on the road is that you get to "make them up" according to my dad. Average speed of snowy part of trip: 15 mph

8:56a:This one had been abandoned for awhile I guess.

2:30p:
We arrive and pick them up. Miraculously the luggage was standing the in the baggage place like they said and my niece had somehow been the angel of all things traveling: no hissy fits, calm the entire time, and sweet. My sister was exhausted and we began our return travel. Was it all worth it? You tell me:


10:23p:
We arrive back home after a 15 hour mission to rescue the fam. Everyone had napped at some point. The niece has energy but we're all retiring to sleep VERY soon.

DEBRIEF:
Mission time: 15 hours
Miles Traveled: 585
Time spent not driving: 1.5 hrs
Cars found in snow related accidents: 8
Casualties: 0
Accidents: 0
Happy Families: 1

MISSION COMPLETE

Danger is My Middle Name
Greetings!
So i got some new Pajamajama's from my mama and they're awesome. Unfortunately/fortunately they're only christmas time PJs:
In addition to THAT awesome fact I also made the newspaper around here. Mt. Ashland is the skiing resort around here and apparently they knew I was coming and they prepared appropriately: the mountain opened up that day, a newspaper guy interviewed me and my buddy Will (my "pal"), and the bar was fully stocked.
Here's the clip in the newspaper which he clearly outlines my dangerous lifestyle... :)

And for the full article go here
I think it's like the 3rd time I've ever been in the newspaper so it's really exciting for me! I mean... they're lucky they got the interview I was so busy.
If you were wondering what they o-so-awesome scenery was looking like I snapped a picture from halfway down the mountain. We went off in the woods on our snowboards to write out names in yellow snow and while I was waiting for my "pal" to find his way out of the forrest I sat on my frozen butt (my jacket didn't fully cover my pants and so all of me was covered except of course, my ass), called one special person, and took this picture:






Isn't that scenery incredible? It was clearer earlier in the morning but you know I didn't think to take a picture.









Lots of people ask about my pops out here so I decided to post this exclusive shot of us near the entrance of the resort. You can spot the lodge in the background and the fact that I squinted everywhere to see right. Didn't even know I was doing that all day...



And now for the story of 2008:
Will is my buddy who was my BEST friend back in the day (think 1st-4th grade or somewhere in the range). We both lived in Greystone Court way back when, were nearly inseparable, then I moved away for California. Some visits back home to the SoOre and we saw each other a handful of times. The last visit we can remember was 7 years ago. SEVEN! We had nearly completely forgotten about each other and then I come back to visit after a 3 year absence in Oregon and decide to find him. His mom and my folks out here are fellow Rotarians and so a few phone calls later here we are meeting up for the first time in 7 years.
He used to be shorter than I was and now he's 6'1" with a DEEP voice. Neither of us recognized each others voices or faces when we met up.

I don't have childhood friends really. Like many I've moved around and some of those friendships have fallen through the cracks. I'm blessed to find my friend again.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

More photos from the house in OR:
Here's the view of the Rogue River from our BACKYARD:I freak out because I can't believe it. It's a nature zoo AND we're we live. I don't deserve it.
And secondly this is where I saw it from and how I got there:
That bench is an oooooold wooden swinging bench that is frightfully romantic and the atv shifts with your left foot making it WAY too much fun. Nearly killed myself on it playing slip n slide on the road :)
Hopefully you can see the snow. It's a winter wonderland around here. I wish I could take each of you with me and maybe one day I will. Happy Holidays from here in the big OR.
love,
me

the new Oregon Trail
the new trail consists of a long day of flight from ATL to Dulles to Denver and finally to Medford, OR. It's a winter wonderland here

I guess its the perks of living in a winter paradise. So my christmas begins here :)
As I told one special lady... don't be jealous.
I love all of you.
-me