Thursday, October 15, 2009

Work, Work, Surf, Work, Sick, Work, Run, Work, Sick...

There are no excuses for not keeping this up.  Life just seems to get in the way of documenting life.  A Skook video will happen, it just hasn't happened yet.  The big news is that the paddlesports dept, my dept, at Next Adventure has now moved into a separate building and will be run a bit more like a full service kayak specialty shop now, instead of a dept. within an outdoor store.  Between the new shop location, preseason order writing, events, and our big biannual sale I've been in the shop over 60 hrs. every week.  It is an exciting time, but there is a lot to get done and little time to do it.  The last few weeks I've been a bit of a mess as well with one of these flu viruses getting me quite good.  Today is actually day 5 of basically not leaving the apartment.  I'm feeling a touch better and will try to get a few hours in at work this afternoon.  Between work and being sick I haven't had much time to work out or recreate too much.  I've been to the coast a few times surf kayaking, which I'm really getting into, and I ran the Portland Marathon on Oct. 4th.  I managed a 3:50:05, a PR, while being sick.  Julie has also been crazy busy with grad school.  Between her classes and her student teaching she is busy most of the day and then she gets home and starts writing papers and lesson plans into the wee hours of the night.  She actually stays up as late as I do:)  She really enjoys school most days, but the piles of work get old fast and "busy" work is never fun, but always seems to be part of school.


(Next booth at the PDX Dragon Boat Races.)
(Julie's team doing quite well at the PDX race.)

(I taught Ross Island Kayak Tours every Sunday all summer and always seemed to have great students and amazing weather.  This was the last class of the summer with another perfect day.)

(This is a photo of my largest Skagen account at Washington Square Mall.  I've done merchandising for Skagen in HI and OR now and this month put in my resignation.  I just ran out of hours in the day to have a second job right now.)

(This is Cape Kiwanda in Pacific City, OR.  I had a fun little kayak surf session here and will be back sometime for sure.)

(This is the front of the new Next Adventure Paddlesports Center, during our big sale.)

(This is the inside of the shop during the sale, after having the building for only about 5 days!!!)

(We closed down a street outside the shop for our big sale and to help benefit the Surfrider Foundation and Portland Mountain Rescue.)

(I call this shot the "Tools of the Trade".  This is Indian Beach and my normal kayak surf beach.  This day was 9.5ft at 11 sec.)

(This shot gives you some perspective.  That paddler is Joe in a Fluid Element on the inside, smaller, break.  We both surfed the outside break for over an hour with some amazing rides.)

(Indian Beach, looking south, showing a serene this place is even with huge surf.)

(This shot is by: byronwillphotography.com, a photographer that just happened to be out shooting the day I went sea kayak cave hopping with my boss, Deek, and a few amazing local sea kayakers. It was truly an amazing day out on the water and a very cool way to experience the Oregon coast.) 


Hopefully work will settle down for both Julie and I and we will get out and enjoy all that Oregon has to offer.  Ski season is upon us and I'm excited for the snow.  The rain has started to fall as well and the rivers and creeks will be back to paddleable levels soon.