Pizza, blazer games and even a geocache

Last month was full of activity. I just didn't blog about it until now.

I learned my favorite pizza cart opened a new location on the east side. It's about a mile from my house so I took the opportunity on a nice day and walked down there. Pulehu Pizza is great stuff if you are ever in Portland.

 

The Blazers have been hit or miss for the month. I think they are coming back around.

I also found one geocache. My first, and so far only, cache of the year.

Hips

RIP Jerome Kersey

Its a sad day in Rip City. Jerome Kersey one of my favorite all time Trail Blazers died today. If you asked me when I was 12 who my favorite player was... no doubt I would have named Kersey before even Clyde.

I took this picture last year of Jerome presenting some season ticket holders near me with a piece of the 77 championship court.

Go Blazers!

I wasn't going to buy season tickets this year. My plan was to see game by game what kind of deal I could find. By game 2 I had come to the conclusion that I live far too close not to go every game. So I bought myself season tickets.

RIP Maurice Lucas

Trail Blazer great Maurice Lucas died today at age 58. The "Enforcer" was a big part of the 1977 championship team. I stood just a few feet from him in Las Vegas once and he was still intimidating... I couldn't say a word. He'll be missed. Hope the team can win tomorrow for big Luke.

Blazers game

Going up tonight to see the Blazers play the Lakers. Should be a good game. I've loaded up a handful of caches to find on the drive... to break it up a little.

Its been nice weather lately. Too bad I have been stuck at work with no time for geocaching. Next weekend however I am going with Daveydude to Coos Bay for the "10 Years of Geocaching", Wintertime Fun-1 #4 event. That should be a fun time.

Blazers Win!

Took a trip to Portland tonight to watch the Portland Trail Blazers take on the Golden State Warriors. After a poor first quarter the blazers won ever other and won the game 105-89.

Even saw fellow Southern Oregon geocacher Beaver Lover at the game. In fact we sat in the same section... small world.

Found two caches on the way up and will probably look for a couple on the way back tomorrow. Finds for the day included

Back in the Woods
Saginaw Inn

Trail Blazers

No Geocaching for me this weekend. I did however get to meet 2 Trail Blazer dancers and Clyde Drexler this weekend at seperate events. The blazer dancers were signing posters at NAPA Autoparts on Friday. My coworker heard about it on the radio and told me to go down there so I did. They were very nice and posed for a couple of pictures and signed a poster.



Clyde was signing autographs at Lee's Mini Storage on Saturday. I guess the owner is a long time blazer fan himself and met Clyde when they traveled to the Basketball HOF to see Clyde inducted. The owner of this place had a lot of signed Drexler items in his office. So I don't know how he convinced Clyde to come down and sign autographs but I was glad he did. I waited in line for 4 hours. I had him sign a poster, and I took this picture of him signing a basketball.

RIP Mr. Duckworth

Sad news today as former Trail Blazer Kevin Duckworth has passed away at the age of 44. Duck was one of my favorite players as a kid. He was money from 16 to 18 feet and other centers had to respect his shot this would pull shot blockers like Hakeem, Manute Bol, and Mark Eaton away from the basket. He was a two time All-Star and named the league's Most Improved Player in 1988. Besides being a good player he also seemed like a good person and I wish I would have gotten a chance to meet him.

Trail Blazers

Yesterday I went to my first Trail Blazer game of the season. They took on the Dallas Mavericks and played very well leading pretty much the whole game. They let the Mavs come back at the end but hung on for the win.

I've been boycotting the Blazers this season because of their TV coverage in our area (ie "little of none") If I hadn't got these tickets for free it would have been the first season since 1996 that I didn't go to a game. I didn't buy any food at the Rose Garden... and no shirts, sweaters, hats or anything all season long. Obviously my impact has not been very significant. Sadly I now feel that my only hope for getting CSN (the new channel with the Blazer games) lies with the Oregon Ducks. If UofO decides to show football games on CSN maybe the Duck fans will be vocal enough to get Charter to pick up the station.

Here is a picture of me at the game



I also found three geocaches on a brief stop in Corvallis on my trip north.

Whimsical Academic Jail
GGG #1
The Cedars

More on the NBA Draft

Yesterday, I was so happy when the Trail Blazers got the #1 pick that I almost cried.


I've been a blazerfan since around 1989-90... I was in the 6th grade and that season I started watching and they went to the NBA Finals. It was easy to be a fan then. Unlike other people I never quit being a fan... I've pretty much watched every game I could for the last 18 seasons. Even in the mid 90's when they were constantly out of the first round of the playoffs... and those great teams of 99 and 2000... and the "jail blazer" years that followed. For the last couple of seasons we've had a nice change of personel and now we have a great core of young guys... the future looked bright and then with this Draft Lottery the future just got a whole lot better. Other years the #1 pick might not mater so much, but this season has two potential superstars... and we get our choice. It can't get much better then that.

Go Blazers!!!

My Blazers just got the #1 pick in the NBA Draft. This is a great day... I am still stunned...

Blazers, Super Bowl review, and why Charter Cable sucks

Over the weekend I went to another blazer game and they lost 88-86. They are now 1-3 in games I've attended this season. After being behind by 17 points at the half I was just happy they made it a game. Decided just to drive on back and made it home around 3am or so.

In past seasons Charter Cable would show the games broadcast by KGW in Portland, but this season they decided not to pick those up. So I don't get to see nearly as many games. In fact all 6 games I bought tickets for are games I otherwise wouldn't get to see. I tried to call Charter and complain but they don't have an easy. I'd drop their service in a minute if I thought there was anything better.

After driving home at 3am I was a bit tired, and despite it being a nice day I didn't bother to go hide, find, or maintain any caches. I just layed around till the Super Bowl. It was an entertaining game with the rain and all the turnovers. I was never sure what was going to happen. I also enjoy the comercials, but none of them really seemed all that great this year. And Prince as the halftime show? Ummm... not quite my thing. And I seriously doubt that many of the millions of beer drinking, nacho eating guys out there were saying "Yeah, Prince is going to Rock!" Now don't get me wrong... I'm glad they have gone away from the super lame pop productions of the past where the wardrobe malfunctions were 20 times more entertaining then the act. My opinion of the last 3 Super Bowl halftime shows

Paul McCartney = great
Rolling Stones = good in theory
Prince = not so great

Blazer game adventure

Well Sunday my friend Dave and I had planned to go to Portland to look around for Christmas gifts and watch the blazer game. Sunday morning at about 9am I ventured out into the cold and started my trip north. Usually I only worry about the montain passes as far as weather goes, and they were clean and dry... not a problem at all... after that I figured I was home free... wrong.

Now I've driven I-5 many, many times in all sorts of bad weather. I've seen mini tornados of hale in the freeway near eugene before, rain so hard you could not see, snow and wind... I've driven through them all. On Sunday however I saw something new... freezing rain. Now its really nothing new... it happens sometimes especially up in Portland... I've just never actually encountered it myself.

When I saw the first sign mentioning wrecks and freezing rain I should have probably turned around... but of course the blazer game was calling me. Soon I came up on the stopped traffic and waited... and waited. A semi truck from the south bound lane had slid into the north bound from what I could tell. The road at this point was wet but not icey... at least were I was. After a bit I got passed that wreck and was able to travel along at about 30-35 mph until coming up to the next wreck... an SUV that had rolled. Traffic was stopped there too and after several minutes I got though that one... had I-5 south not looked 10 times worse than North I would have turned around about then. I came up to stopped traffic once more, but never saw a wreck. I pulled into Sutherlin to get gas and when I stepped out of my car I almost fell down because I was walking on ice... I was second guessing myself but knew it was either continue on or wait it out where I was... I wanted to go to the Blazer game so on I went.

In between these time periods I had a chance to flip through the radio stations and listen to the Seahawks try there best to lose. In between about each play they would interupt to give weather updates... "wrecks along I-5"... "I-5 South closed"... "Freezing rain in Springfield"... by the time I was in Sutherlin Seattle had pulled it out and conditions were improving in Springfield.

Traffic was slow, but I-5 north was moving and I saw no more wrecks on my side. On the South bound side however I saw at least 6. Eventually I made it to Cottage Grove and stopped to eat. Mmmm... Arby's. By this time the freeway looked much better and I made the drive to Albany in a reasonable time. So when I got to Albany I had been driving for just over 5 hours. I met Dave there and since the freeway had been so much better, we decided to keep going.

The trip from that point went pretty well... we came past Salem and all was clear. We were just a few mile outside of Portland when things seemed to get worse. First there was some snow/ice at the side of the road, then slush between lanes... soon were were driving on packed snow/ice. At this point I was all about turning around... we weren't really in a position to get off and the roads off of I-5 looked worse than what we had... we slowly continued on at about 4mph. By this time I was sure glad I own an AWD as other cars were slipping and sliding, many pulled over and chained up, others were abandoned. As we got closer to PDX the traffic thinned and we made it to the Rose Garden... at this point we thought the west garden garage might be where we would stay the night.

Now I need to back up a few blog entries to remember winning free blazer tickets that weren't waiting for me... well this time we were picking up Dave's free tickets... if they were not there we might have gone postal. This time we were not disapointed... free tickets were waiting... regular price $131 each... sweet! Turned out not to matter... the crowd was so small after the first quarter they told everyone to come on down and sit closer... that was cool... we sat center court just a few rows back... best seats ever. Crowd was counted at 2923 and the blazers played to win for once... final score 97-92 blazers.

On the way back ODOT had come through for us... the road had some fresh sand/gravel and we made it to Corvallis without problem. I only found one picture that kind of shows the road conditions in Portland (it is from thismorning... looked worse last night)... it was quite a trip

Blazer game

went and saw the Blazers yesterday as we picked up free tickets for the game. It was just a pre-season game so it doesn't matter but the blazers pretty much sucked it up. It was still fun and I got a chance to do something I never dreamed of before... when walking around the Rose Garden looking for something to eat this guy come up to me and says "hey Oregon State" refering to my t-shirt... then he asked if I'd like to participate in a contest on the court just after the first quarter... so I got to go out on the court and ride a tricycle around a couple of times (I came in second to my friend Dave who was also picked because he was there) It was a blast... and despite how well we did in the race we all won the same prize, tickets to a future game. I have to call some lady and get my seats so I don't know when I'll go yet.

Wow

The Blazers won a game! Defeating San Antonio, the best team in the league. This is a team with lots of talent and sometimes it clicks... other times they just suck.

Today Lazyboy went up Roxy Ann peak in Medford and check on my adopted cache Roxy. It is there and in good shape, but is rarely visited due to the difficulty of getting there. Not found was a sister cache to this one called Roxy View - the other side of the mountain. That cache was hidden by Zafara who has the advantage of occasionally coming up the hill in a truck to work on the radio tower. I was hoping to get up to this cache so I hope its still there.

my oh my

The Blazers lost again. It wasn't a bad game... they played hard and were short yet another player when Theo Ratliff couldn't play. I've been thinking back and can't remember a time with injuries to so many key players... not that they were playing all that great with them.

As for geocaching the forcast has changed a bit with some showers but it still looks like mid 50's for the weekend.

There has been a lot of talk in the forums lately about forum regulars intimidating others from posting. I think there is probably some truth to it... after all the forums are a community all to themselves. My opinion is that the useless chit chat posts in most topics are what intimidate people... you can post an opinion in a topic just to find the conversation pushed 2 pages forward soon after... it can get cumbersome to read especially when most of it is meaningless. So the influence of regular forum users is really "all about the numbers." The vast quantities of posts that are produced make new users question why they should reply. Really its sad that I've thought about this that much... I'd much rather be out finding caches... I need to find a way to retire and travel the globe. Maybe I can have my own show on the Discovery channel "Geocaching the Globe with blazerfan"

Dang it

The blazers lost last night to the Kings in overtime. It was a good game for the blazers since they were without 3 of their best players. Tonight they play Cleveland and both teams will wear throw-back jerseys to commemerate their first game played in 1970 when they were expansion teams. I sure wish they'd win one for a change.

This weekend the temperature is suppose to reach the mid 50's maybe even 60 on Sunday. So it sounds like a good time for some geocaching.

Nurse Dave has recently built this page to show off his geocoins and other signature items. I notice that beyond having some great looking blazerfan coins he has a rare Lazyboy & Mitey Mite button.