I’m going to blame this one on good beer.   Or maybe good hockey.  Allow me to explain.

There was a stick-and-puck time at the Winterhawks Skating Center near Portland, OR.  I was on the ice, as were a couple of other goalies and a decent number of skaters.  The skaters were taking good shots, and several of them even spent some time working with me on goaltending drills.  It was a good session.

I took a break by the boards for a couple of minutes, during which I chatted up one of the other adults on the ice, a guy named Dave. (Yes, many of the skaters were adults, which was another nice change.)  Dave mentioned that there would be a really great pickup game the following night in nearby Vancouver, WA and invited me to go. I explained that my schedule forced me to decline, but I took the chance to ask him about other fun things to do in the Portland area.  “The Brewfest,” he said.

Portland is famous for the quantity and quality of its microbreweries.  The Brewfest, also known as the Oregon Brewers Festival, is an annual celebration of beer held in downtown Portland.  Over 80 beers are on tap for sampling.

After the stick-and-puck ended, I stowed my gear, hopped on a light-rail train, and headed downtown to drink some beer.  A short while later, the train arrived at a park along the river’s edge in Portland.

I got out and immediately saw a problem: the line to get in the Brewfest stretched more than a block.  What’s more, the festival itself seemed to be little more than a huge beer tent.  A tightly packed beer tent.

My enthusiasm for the Brewfest suddenly waned.

A good day for sailing in Portland with Mt. Hood in the background.

Instead, I decided to walk around downtown Portland for a while.  As I strolled along, I couldn’t help but notice the number of people wearing green.  Bars and restaurants were flying similar colors.  “What a coordinated city,” I thought.  Then I realized that all of the green was in celebration and support of a single group: the Timbers.  But who or what were they?

(continued at Part 2)

The Safeway was like any other: a somewhat upscale grocery store with a decent selection of reasonably priced wine.  I had found an Argentinian malbec and was waiting to check out at the register.

I really hate the shopper cards that Safeway and similar stores force down their customers’ throats.  I blame the experience I had at my first job, which was working customer service at a grocery store that had such cards. As such, I try to avoid signing up for the cards.

My usual approach is to borrow the card of the person in line behind me.  Unfortunately, I was the only one in line that day.

The cashier scanned the bottle and asked me for my ID, which I provided.  She then asked me if I had a Safeway card.  I glanced once more for a savior to emerge at the register.  Seeing none, and not wanting to give Safeway several dollars of pure profit, I capitulated:  I asked to sign up for a card.

I wasn’t about to give Safeway my real name, address, and phone number, so I started filling out the form with some fake information.  I made a few marks with my pen before suddenly stopping.  I had just shown this cashier my real ID, and while I didn’t expect her to remember the details of my contact information, I figured that I had better make my fake information be pretty close to to the truth lest it draw suspicion.  For the Safeway card, I became Jeff Keatling living in St. Paul, MN.  My birth month and year were accurate, but I left the date as an ambiguous European number one, which looked kind of like a number seven.  I was so clever, I thought.

I paid for my wine before giving the sign-up form back to the cashier.  She glanced at it, then did a double-take.

“Keatling?” she asked.

“Yup,” I replied.

“Jeff?” she confirmed.

“Right,” I said.

There was then an awkward pause as she stared at me.  I already had the bagged wine in my hand, so I smiled, turned, and walked out the door.

I’m almost certain she thought I had used a fake ID for the booze.

Hypothetically, let’s say you were in Anchorage and had to get to Beaver Creek, Yukon in, oh… late July or so.  You’d probably be driving on the Glenn Highway if that were the case.

And let’s further say that you had just stopped at a coffee shack in the middle of nowhere on that highway for a hot cup of joe, so your mind wasn’t on the road so much as it was pondering, “Why are there so many coffee shacks in Alaska?”

Continuing with our potential situation, what if you crested a hill, saw a state trooper approaching in the other lane, and looked down at your speedometer to see you were speeding quite a lot faster than you had intended?  I mean, you would probably be trying to speed a little bit, but nothing like 25 mph over, right?

Now, I bet that you would pull over right away as soon as the trooper turned on her lights, even before she had the chance to turn around.  And I think you’d be polite and honest with the officer, because you heard once that being honest might work to get out of the ticket — and because the last time you were pulled over you lied, lied, lied and still got a ticket.

What do you think would happen?

Speculating, I’d guess that you’d still get the ticket, but for 10 over instead of 25 over.  Then I’d bet that you would think about whether or not to mention the incident on your blog, but I bet you’d probably write about it if you were scraping the bottom of the barrel for stories.

All totally hypothetical, of course.

I was parked along Highway 1 near Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park in California to take some photos of the coast.  There were a number of cars around me; it was a popular spot.

As I walked down the shoulder to get a better angle on a shore pine, I noticed one guy and his female companion repeatedly trying to open the doors on their silver Honda.  They weren’t having much luck, so they soon switched to asking people if they might borrow a cell phone.

Unfortunately, that part of California doesn’t have cell phone service, so the phones were useless.  I tried my satellite phone, but no satellites were in range (and none would be until 45 minutes later).

I continued on my walk, and the locked-out man and woman continued to consider their options.

About 10 minutes later, I was walking back the other way when I saw a crowd gathered around the Honda.  At first, I thought that somebody must have been trying a slim jim on the door, but then I noticed the car owner had a big rock in his hand.  Before I could draw my camera, he wound up and slammed the rock into one of his car’s small side windows.  The glass shattered, the door was unlocked, and the crowd clapped.

The car, the rock, and the broken window

Was it cheaper than getting a tow truck or locksmith to come out?  I’m not sure, but I do know that it made for good entertainment.

Remember back a few posts ago where I said I hadn’t earned any money from the trip yet? Well, I’m happy to report that’s changed.  I’m a pro goalie now!

The arena in Seattle threw me $10 for goaltending at the lunch drop-in.  You read that right: I’m earning two figures, baby!  That fat cash will cover at least one skate sharpening, maybe two.  Woo!

I wonder if this means that I can now write off the trip as a business expense.  Hmm…