Julie's Graduation Weekend

(Julie glowing after her graduation ceremony.  She now has a masters degree in Teaching!)

Today Julie graduated with a masters in Teaching.  She worked really hard for the past year to accomplish this goal and did so with flying colors, a 4.0 GPA!!!  She flys off to visit friends in San Fran this week and then she flys back to MD to spend the summer teaching windsurfing at Ultimate Watersports and spending time with her family.

The past few days have been fun.  I got an extremely beautiful day of creeking in on Opal creek in Central Oregon.  I'll let the photos below speak for themselves.  Do also check out another story with more photos about this trip at:  http://www.capefalconkayak.com/opalcreek.html .  Julie and I also did an amazing waterfall hike yesterday in Silver Falls State Park, the Trail of 10 Falls.

OPAL CREEK

(Luke winding up for a huge boof.)

(Luke airing it out on a fun little class III rapid.)

(Luke stylin Big Ugly.  Check out the amazing scenery!)

(Luke scouting Big Fluffy.)

(Luke entering the class IV lead in rapid to Big Fluffy.)

(Luke having what turned out to be an "all good" line on Big Fluffy.)

(Me stomping a fat boof and a crazy soft landing on Big Fluffy!  Photo courtesy of Brian Schulz.)

(Luke having fun on the lead in to Thor's Playground.)

(Brian entering the final drop of the run.  Crystal clear water, amazing greenery and cool rock formations all make this run special.)

TRAIL OF THE 10 FALLS

(North Falls 136 ft)

(Amazing cave/trail behind North Falls.)

(Twin Falls 31 ft)

(Middle North Falls 106 ft)

(Drake Falls 27 ft)

(Double Falls 178 ft, as seen on sign:))

(Lower North Falls 30 ft)

(Lower South Falls 93 ft)

(Julie behind Lower South Falls)

(South Falls 177 ft)

(Julie running through the updraft of spray created by South Falls.)

(The lip of South Falls.  Not good for kayaking!)

(Monkey Business!)

(Winter Falls 134 ft)

(Upper North Falls 65 ft)

U. of PORTLAND GRADUATE SCHOOL GRADUATION 2010

(You can see Julie's big smiling face in the top center of this sea of graduates.)

(Julie being "hooded".)

(Julie with her school advisor.)

Recovery

It's been some time since my last post.  This year kicked off with positive thoughts and a good day on the river, then went down hill from there.  Luckily things very recently have hopefully turned for the better.  I've had some major health issues since Sept. of last year and haven't been able to get any answers as to why I've been in such bad shape.  After many doctors and tests an odd bump on my gums eventually appeared and provided the needed clue.  The short story is that I had a root canal that was horribly done, think metal file left in root canal, back in '07 and sometime in the past year my upper jaw developed a horrible infection.  After a few procedures, you really don't want details, I am hopefully now on the road to good health.  There is going to be a period of recovery and hopefully no complications.  There will be a number of years of serious dental work in my future:(

Between all the fun health issues I've been working stupid hard at the Paddle Sports Center at Next Adventure.  Nice weather has kicked the season off early and the shop has been very busy.  Light staffing, a new building to build out, and a full kayak school to oversee have made for some long days at work.  I'm also working hard on pulling my finances together and looking into some exciting new invesments, more info to come soon:)  I have managed to get outside a few days in the past few months, but not nearly enough.  I'll let the pictures below speek for themselves.

Julie is teaching her last day as a student teacher today!  She graduates in about a week and is very happy to see the light at the end of the tunnel.  She worked with her students to build a set for the high school play of "Oklahoma" and the show turned out great.  (Would post some great pictures, but liability issues with kids preclude me from doing so.)  She has been putting in some time on the water with both Dragon Boating and Outrigger Canoeing, and has her first big race tomorrow.  Julie is looking forward to summer and having some time to play outside.

(Julie at the top of Beacon Rock in the Gorge.)

(Julie at the top of Beacon Rock looking East up the Columbia.)

(This is the amazing "trail" up Beacon Rock.)

(Some more of the Beacon Rock Trail.)

(Me having a great day on the river with friends.  This is Off Ramp on the Farmlands section of the White Salmon River in WA.)

(My good friend Stephen Wright enjoying a spring day of boating in the gorge.)

(Me having a great line off Lava Falls on the Farmlands section of the White Salmon River.)

(Fun sculpture outside of the boathouse where Julie's Dragon Boat and Outrigger teams train out of.)

(Julie excited to be playing outside, even though her boots clash with her jacket.  We had a great 3 day weekend up at Steven's Pass Ski Resort outside of Seattle.)

(Me in my stylish new Mountain Hardware jacket at Steven's Pass.)

(Julie and I stopped by the Seattle Aquarium on our way home from skiing.  Cool place, but not as good as the National Aquarium in Baltimore.)

(Joe styling Double Drop on the Truss section of the White Salmon River at 3.5ft.)

(Bald eagle on Ross Island near downtown PDX on the Willamette River.)

(Bald eagle comming in for a landing.)

(The first Ross Island Tour of the year run through the new Next Adventure Kayaking School. 60 degrees, sunny, and no wind.  An amazing morning on the water in PDX.)

(Most of these shots came from my new Nikon D90.  Looking forward to getting back into photography with this amazing tool.)

A New Year, A New Perspective

Ringing in the new year was a bit on the anti-climatic side this year.  Julie was still back East with her family and Portland was producing rain, not snow.  I ended up watching Avatar in 3D and chilling at home thinking about the year to come.  The conclusions that I came to for 2010:  I need to find a way to get healthy (Improve Diet, Exercise More, & Take Care of My Injured Back), I need to have a more positive attitude (I tend to be a bit o a grouch and this attitude only causes me trouble.), I need to figure out and improve some of my relationships with others (step one: Be More Positive),  I need to find some finacial stability (Both paying off my business loan and finding a way to finance my prefered way of life in the future.), and last but not least I need to take more time to travel and experience new things (as this is how I thrive).  I know these are lofty goals and require big changes, but as 30 years of life approaches in 2010, it is time to step up and make life happen the way I want it to happen.

Julie is back working hard in grad school.  She is teaching full time now at a local High School, teaching both english and theater classes.  Besides a full time teaching job and graduate classes she is also paddling on a dragon boat team, paddling on an OC-6 team, going to Cross-Fit twice a week, and trying to squeeze in time for climbing, skiing, and the rest of life.

I also wanted to take a second and appreciate some good friends.  Congradulations to Justin and Sarah for getting engaged.  Congradulations to Marie for getting married and soon to be a wonderful Mom. Congradulations to Cory and Brook for having twin boys at home with them.  Congradulations to Three and Lauren for getting engaged to be married in July.  Congradulations to Nicole, my sister, for working to improve life for her and her amazing little daughter Victoria.

I also want to send heart felt thoughts to those that will be missed and those that will miss them.  Brianna and Mark, you guys are amazing and have been so strong through these rough times.  Stay strong and keep being you.

I'm looking for new opportuinites and new adventures.  Please pass on all of the above.  Please also stay in touch and have a happy and healthy 2010.  Hopefully we can find some time to spend together this year, on a new adventure, somewhere:)

(This is the "New New" Paddle Sports Center.  A really big wide open space with tons of potential.  We have our own parking and great visability on a high traffic street.  Work has been keeping me VERY busy lately, with only more busy times to come.)

(Check out the story and video of the new space.)

(This is the WW and Used Gear room in the "New New" Paddlesports Center.  It is still under construction, but is going to be a really cool part of the new shop.)

(This is a really fun drop on the North Fork of the Clackamas.  It is pretty intimidating, but is a ton of fun to run.)

(This is how you style the drop!  It was a huge high to hit this line so perfectly and get a huge boof at the bottom.  I can't explain how good it feels to fly through the air, land past the hole in the airated water, and plane away from the drop.)

(I've been getting up to the mountain as often as I can.  I've dedicated myself to skiing this year and getting better with each trip up.  I've snowboarded once this season and skied 9 times, so far.)

(Enjoying PDX: good local live music, quality dark micro brew, and a stylin' hat.)