Life has been very intersecting lately. Two weeks of over 80 hours of work (each), enthralling new purchases, friends who are oh so cute and probably getting hitched someday and very sore arm muscles from punching down fermenting grapes. The first week and half or so since my last blog post I was a truck driver, hurrying all over the Willamette Valley and all the way up to Yakima Washington, and for the last week-ish I have been learning how to run a wine press. Messy work and long hours, but not hard. Driving was very fatiguing but I had a lot of fun seeing vineyards and learning about the different fruit and locations. I spent so much time in that tired beat-up Isuzu that I gave her a name so we could commiserate together while waiting for the grapes to be loaded at yet another vineyard.





I saw some incredible scenery too. Oregon is an amazing state. And now it is cloudy and sprinkly and cool and even lovelier.





Seven AM is too early for intense physical labor, but my AMHfuture-C is adorable as ever...sigh...



And perhaps the most exciting thing of all is of a vehicular nature...(ahem) our new car: a 1972 Volvo 145-E wagon; lowered, custom wheels, manual transmission, hot-rodded engine. Could we possibly be hipper?

This book is like nothing I have read before. It is harsh, rude, shocking and sad; but overflowing with tenderness, truth and deep love for God and man...

When was the last time I posted something here? This month? Today is the first I have had off in the last 21. It is a revelation to actually sit in a coffee shop and know that I don't have to do ANYTHING until tomorrow. Amazing. And I am not going to. (Do anything). I browsed today through some of my old blog posts from the last couple of years and though much of what I wrote was rather silly, I forgot how full of wonder and questions I was. It is not as if I have been dry or dull lately, I just seem to have a harder time than I used to putting words to my thoughts. And of course, for the last month nothing but getting dinner when I am finally off work for the night and enough sleep has really been important enough to think about. Life is so different from everything I was doing such a short time ago. We always speak of how life is ever-changing and emotions are strong and things get too sad, and in a sense all that is true right now...except that I am not sad at all, and the changes that might have hurt so deeply are calmed and smoothed away by love and companionship of the very best of persons. God always takes such good care of me, no matter how selfish or stupid I get. And the future holds only good things to those who look for them.

Two weeks into work at Owen Roe winery and I am cranky-tired. I love the people and the job is good, but I am so tired of being a grunting broken-backed minion...the kind of work I have to do reminds me of being twelve years old hauling watermelon in a blistered field on a 105 degree summer day and getting paid $4.35/ hour. Okay, I'm exaggerating and complaining, but I AM tired of so much menial manual labor.

On a completely different note, here is your list of new music to get:

1) Muse: Black Holes and Revelations
2) Eels: Live at Town Hall
3) David Bowie: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars

Do not question, simply prepare yourself for some diggable audio enlightenment. And now, it's smoky treat time, so I will leave you all now....

I've been a vagabond for nearly five weeks now. Traveled a couple thousand miles by motorcycle and truck, been to almost every major Northwest city from the Rocky Mountains to the coast. Played music with new friends, ridden bicycles in the city, woke to the crashing ocean in the morning and drunk a lot of good coffee. I start working again tomorrow morning, and these strange lovely surroundings will slowly become home. Leaving California for the second time has been both relieving and heart-breaking...

Say, if you never see another movie in your life, you must see this one. It has to be the funniest picture I have ever seen! Gee, I hope you watch it soon!

There are a lot of things I could say right now. I could talk about friendship and love and riding motorcyles with guitars on our backs and riding unicycles in the dark after drinking too much...

sorry...

I'm just gonna sit here and listen to the Meat Puppets and have a smoke for the memory and not write a thing.

Interestingly enough, Sprint PCS is crap. Roaming charges all over the place, phone battery completely died and won't hold a charge, and now they want to charge me nearly $300.00 for my $59-a-month plan, which I have had for only 2 weeks. WTF?! Soooo...I dumped them (thank you, 30 day free return policy!). For now, my old number is still in place, sorry for the annoyance.

A note for everyone---I have a new phone number. It is:

971.732.2706

Pass it along when you get the chance. Thanks.

By the way, I am back at 'Coffee People' on Grand Ave., and the girl working at the counter is a Goth with the name tag, 'Ashes'. This is fun, I think I am going to keep coming here.

I have been taking care of business and surfing the web for about the last 45 minutes at a local coffee house on Grand Ave in Portland, and so far I have seen:

(3) giggling, shrieking Japanese girls speaking in fast-forward
(1) Very feminine-looking transexual describing fashion and clothing in a deep voice
(1) Middle-aged woman in a Magical Fairy outfit, complete with wings, bells, and pixie-dust
(2) Gay boys (probably)
(1) Lady in full traditional Japanese dress, Kimono, wooden sandals, hair and all

And they say California is weird.

All in all though, this is a very cool town, and my new job is probably the best I have ever had. I am living with two great Catholic guys in a sweet old house way out in the country surrounded by huge trees with an incredible view of the Willamette Valley and Mt. Hood from our back porch. One of the guys is an old classmate of mine from TAC, the other is a kindly nutcase from Indiana, and we have been drinking, gorging, laughing, and jamming on ALL SORTS of instruments from the minute I got here. We were blasting tadpoles with shotguns last night. We are talking about trying to go see a good play. We are also putting together some songs for recording. Life is very, very good.

Sitting by myself in a chill little coffee house in Newburg, Oregon. I have not been this happy or relaxed in a very, very long time...

We made it in thirty-nine hours. The last great road trip in the long and hair-brained adventures of a strange and enviable duo; based in unshakable friendship, California bred, highway fed, and thirsting for all that is romantic and GOOD. Thousands of miles of desert, mountains, rivers, cities, things we had never seen all in a few brief days: this has always been our way. From here we go on to new lives---to the next great things...I am taking on the rain and mist of a seductive Northwest city; he is taking over the world of shopping carts. I possess and am possessed, by a sunbeam through the clouds, a rich moon through the trees, the endless laughter of an angel among the patchwork folds. A levy broke in my soul and what pours out now will flood the plain of God's wise choice, and nothing will ever be the same. And though we are home now, I am not here. The faces I saw and the places that spoke still whisper of songs sung in private, of smiles only felt, of souls that were buried but awaken. Let me live for this. Let these arms never loose their grasp. Let the tires whine across the asphalt forever, carrying me to the Falls at the Edge of the World.