We're getting the Blog back together!

It’s been a while, I know, but I’m back on the road, which means it’s a good time for me to pause, reflect, and try to tell a couple funny stories about life around this world of ours.

Many of you know that the summer was a busy one, remodeling a house in Portland, two family weddings, preparing for comprehensive exams, and spending time with people that we love. But perhaps my favorite story thus far this summer has to do with uninvited mammal guests.

See, during the remodel project we at one point had to move everything in the house to the basement to refinish the floors. The kitchen was the last to go, and while items were being moved, a box of old pizza was set outside the back door overnight. The next morning as we were working, Justin happened to walk by and see a patch of grey hair in the corner of the box. “Matt, come check it out, there is a mouse over here!”

So I ran out, and the first words out my mouth were “Dude, that’s no mouse, that’s a bona fide RAT.” This thing, which thought it was hiding by not looking at us, was easily a foot long, with patchy hair and some weird growth on its face. It wasn’t pretty. We called out our friend Alex, who decided the rat was hungry and promptly threw some breadcrumbs at it. Once that happened, the rat knew the gig was up, and decided to bolt. However, in our desires to see the rat, we formed a semi-circle around the box, AND happened to leave the door to the house open. All at once, as if in slow motion we realized our mistake, and unfortunately the rat beat us to the door and proceeded to run into the basement.

Now there are two important things to keep in mind here, 1) the basement was full of a household’s worth of stuff and 2) that’s where we were planning on sleeping the next several nights until the floor finish set. So, Alex and I proceeded to rummage and explore the various boxes, expecting a rat to jump out and chew through our necks at any moment. Eventually, we heard something fall behind the freezer. Using a series of posterboard and broomsticks, we managed to create a barrier that would only allow the rat to proceed back up the steps and out the door. At least, that was the plan.

By the time we actually managed to convince the rat to run again, we realized that it was probably getting mail from AARP. It was moving pretty slow, and had trouble getting up a step, nonetheless the 10 to get to the door. After several attempts, and with a little help from some brooms, it made it. We all thought the ordeal was over, except for Justin, who went after the rat with a dustpan (yes, a dustpan).

Incredibly, Justin managed to pin the geriatric rodent against the outside wall of the garage, and decided that he wanted to get rid of it by grabbing its tail and hurling it over the wall behind the house that leads to the interstate. Alex managed to find two rubber gloves for him to wear, and just as Justin was getting a good hold of the tail, the head of the rat poked out the other side of the dustpan and it hissed, showing four long, yellow teeth searching for something to enact revenge upon. At that moment, Justin’s plan was revised, and, well, the rat is no longer part of this world. We can just leave that part of the story out for now.

Yes, I know the story is pretty epic, but in the end, Justice prevailed over evil.

P.S. More stories to come. Today I travel to India leading a group of students on a service learning excursion to HOINA (see my past blog entries if that doesn’t sound familiar) More blogs to follow!

That's right, I've figured out a way to make this blog multimedia! Here are some good times from a going away party that we had last night.

Also, I should note that these past entries have been a sort of prelude/running experiment for me to get a feel for what "blogging" is all about. Tomorrow morning I begin my journey to India, Nepal and Bhutan, and its this trip that is serving as the inspiration for the blog. Some of you have read trip notes of mine from previous trips, this time since the trip is lengthy and I don't know how often I'll be able to be in contact, I figured that this might be a good way to stay in touch. So please do feel free to comment, it'd be great to hear from ya.

Reunions

I’ve come to the realization that there is absolutely no way that I could be in grad school and in Portland at the same time. And I mean this not only physically (I attend the real PSU, not Portland State) but also that I am blessed with a wealth of incredible friends who all do really fun things. There has been at least one fun event to attend each night that I’m here. It’s been silly fun, and I couldn’t think of a better Summer vacation.

Seeing people who I know but haven’t talked to in about a year has been an interesting experience. On some levels it seems like nothing has changed, catching up with folks after a year’s separation leads to not much news but the big stuff. But at other times when I listen to them talk there are all these new people and events that I realize I’ve missed out on. It made me a bit sad at first, but I realized that I’ve also met a bunch of great people in the past year and now I just talk about them in a louder voice than anyone else around me.

There also seems to be a broad consensus that my dog, Hanu looks older and fatter than he used to. This also made me sad, until I decided to say he is skinny in a much louder voice. I’ve found that this new method of constructing reality is really effective for me.

At any rate. I leave Portland in like 4 days and I’m ridiculously unprepared for my trip. The best part is that I’m typing this on my way out to the coast for an overnight trip, and I’m definitely not going to make any progress on trip preparation while there. Such a rough life.

The road west

Hello friend!

This is my virginal blog-post, so stick with me, and excuse me if I repeatedly try to fit the square blog (err block) in the triangle-shaped hole.

Yesterday I drove back into Portland. On the way I saw a bumper sticker that said "I'm so f***ing happy I could sh*t rainbows." But it didn't have stars. I knew I was back in a good place when I saw this sticker. Any town that allows that kind of statement to remain in public purview is alright in my book, despite my own reservations about pooping rainbows (and as many of you know, I love poopin).

But I digress. As many of you know, I drove cross country yet again this summer. Departing State College, PA with Hanu crammed in the back amongst two months of possessions for two people in a dog, which doesn't sound like much but it is in an Acura Integra. We left May 10th. The first pitstop was in Wisconsin, where I got to visit my parents, sister and a bunch of organic dairy farmers. It was great to visit with all of them, and far too short. Then it was up to Minneapolis for a couple days to pick up Rachel and visit with her family. Then down to Denver to visit Stacey, Jeff and Kate (my sister's family) which was nothing but giggles (apparently now my niece repeatedly asks for group hugs) until she gave each of us a stomach virus that seemed to have a specialization on moustachioed men. It was reminiscent of the last time I was in S. Asia, and was probably good prep for my trip (this blog has SIGNIFICANT potential to discuss bowel movements pretty often: you are now forewarned). But the GI issues did not prevent a night of camping and a brief visit with my relatives Penny & Joel outside Redmond, which was, as always beautiful and joyful.

And now I'm in Portland. I'll hopefully drop a few blogs about PDX and the haps here before I head to S. Asia, but as you might have guessed the big reason for the blog is to maintain lines of communication with the folks back home. I hope that you are one of them, and I hope that we both are able to stick with this.

So that's it, this is my first blog post. I hope it went over alright.

Also, there is a special prize to the person who guesses the inspiration for the blog title. The hint: Its from a musician who my brother Greg introduced to me as a kid.