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I hiked up Dog Mountain on Saturday.

Every muscle below my waist aches.

The hike is brutal: a 2900 foot rise in three very short and steep miles.

It was a cloudy day, too, which was unfortunate and fortunate all at once.

Unfortunately, we couldn't see anything when we reached the top of our climb (about halfway up, we could still see beneath the clouds, and we were afforded an incredible view of the Columbia River and the Gorge, but from the top, nothing but white.)

Fortunately, the mist that settled in at about 2000 feet was uncanny and beautiful in its own way. We anticipated the appearance of gnomes or tree sprites. And it wouldn't have surprised me had King Arthur and his knights come riding by on horseback, jingling and jangling in their heavy amour.

Working our way slowly up the mountain, we soon came out of the forest.

The mist was screaming by in the wind, and we pulled up and tightened our hoods.

We were standing on the edge of a meadow growing on the side of Dog Mountain at a 45 degree angle.

Yellow flowers, part of the sunflower family, but squatting near the ground, dominated the meadow's color scheme. Here and there, white and purple flowers pronounced themselves.

Once at the top, we could see that the meadow grew on the West side of the mountain, and that the East side was still heavily forested. We stepped across the line dividing East and West, and in one moment were transported from a dry, windswept meadow into a dripping rain forest.

One step back, and we easily found a dry spot to sit and eat our PB&J sandwiches.

I am sore.

Saturday last was my birthday, and I decided that I would take my twin brother Douglas with me on a three-day backpacking trip to celebrate.

We drove nine hours in a van to the trailhead of the Wenaha backpacker's trail. We climbed out, shouldered our packs, and stretched our legs by hiking six miles up the Wenaha canyon, with the river on our left and the canyon walls on either side.

When we found our campsite, at the convergence of the Wenaha River and Crooked Creek, we set up our tents, settled down against some logs, and ate homemade macaroni and cheese.

We slept soundly that night, tired from the long ride and the long walk, full of dinner, and lulled downward by the constant rush of water.

In the morning, I had the first opportunity to finally appreciate the valley in which we were camping.

Because the Wenaha River curves as the Crooked Creek flows into it, the three bodies of water--the Wenaha before and after Crooked Creek, and the Creek itself--converge at perfect angles.

Roughly 120 degrees of land lie between each body of water. And the three valleys that stretch off into the distance cradle water with grace.

On Sunday, we climbed up into the Crooked Creek valley.

I saw a bright green tree frog, we stepped lightly by a rattlesnake, and we smelled nearly every wildflower we could find. All in all, we hiked four miles with the Crooked Creek winding on our left side.

When we turned to hike down to our campsite, we were facing a rainstorm. Within seconds it was pouring rain.

It was warm enough that I simply took off my t-shirt. Skin is the best water-repellent material known to man, and when it is warm, it is rather refreshing to hike with no shirt on.

My shorts were soaked, but the rain stopped, and about an hour after we arrived back at camp, they were dry.

In the evening, I played two Irish ballads on my tin whistle.

I have never been deep in the wilderness without having meaningful conversation.

Whether it is the power of the surroundings or the separation from the mechanical world, or some other force that drives us to think deeply, I always end up talking about the meaning of life or the nature of spiritual belief or some other thing.

This trip, we discussed the nature of science. We were concerned with people who blindly believe everything they read/hear/learn. Attitudes ranged from absolutely trusting to an x-files level of mistrust.

But lucky for us, in all cases, we were happy to share with each other, rarely if at all offended by what we had to say, and gracious about our differences.

In the van on the way home, we discussed marriage between people with drastically different beliefs. I submitted that it is somewhere ranging from difficult to impossible for two people with different core beliefs to marry and stay married happily.

Others were troubled by this, reasonably, suggesting that it was limiting and exclusive.

In the end, we didn't really find an answer, but we did draw closer together in the midst of our struggle to understand each other.

And just for now, that is enough.

May twenty-eight, nineteen ninety eight.

Five days into being twenty-four, I have this to say about it:

It started out beautifully.

But these last few days have revealed the simplest of truths to me--I need some rest.

Two weekends ago, the dearest person in my life graduated from college in Spokane Washington. I flew up there and spent five days with her, going through the process, almost like I was a graduate again myself.

Then she came home with me and spent a week in Portland, preparing to move here in August.

Then I took my brother hiking to celebrate our 24th birthday.

Next Saturday, I'll be rock climbing, and the weekend after that I may climb Mount Hood.

All of this is good and well, except that my house is not clean, my personal books are not balanced, and my friends are starting to wonder if I'm still kicking.

And I'm not complaining. Not everyone is givent the opportunity to live such an active outdoor life.

I guess I just miss 23. It was my golden year. Born on the 23rd, 23 years old.

There's a special magic about the golden year, whether it is when you are six or when you are thirty-one.

But there are 360 days left in this 24th year. I bet if I had a nap, they'd start to get better.

I'm sitting here in front of my computer and I have no idea what to say.

But it is important to me to keep this page updated.

So here is your glimpse into my life for today:

I lost a friend to the power of a mountain.

And I don't know what to say.

Okay, so I've been negligent. But there are good reasons.

I hope the fifteen or so people who regularly read my page (and I appreciate you all very very much!) are okay.

It has been a hard week after the death of a good friend.

Sunday, I climbed to the top of Mt. Hood, which is the highest point in Oregon. It was beautiful and difficult. More difficult than I'm really at liberty to write about.

For the past week at work, besides dealing with absolute loss, I have been trying to program a new Access database for my company.

I am most certainly not a programmer. But I learn blindingly fast, and I'm already writing bits and scraps of Visual Basic to help streamline the database.

I have a good friend who is getting married on the 4th of July, which is wonderful, if you ask me.

Weddings all around. Anyone for a wedding?

Good friends like this one who is preparing for his wedding with great pleasure are so special to me. I have been thinking a lot about the dearness of friends this week.

I have also received a number of very encouraging and meaningful emails recently. Thank you all. (You know who you are.)

And so I am back. Roughly a week of rest to deal with the sharp point of the pain, and now that it is dulling, I feel like I can take a breath again, stretch my body back out from the curl it has been, and reach outward.

I know the pain won't stop. But I'm getting used to it.

My connection to the net is broken this morning.

But what can you expect from a struggling, bureaucratic urban university with political in-fighting that would make Kenneth Starr blush?

Last Saturday, I threw on my new inline skates and bladed down to Waterfront Park, which runs the length of the West side of the Willamette River throughout downtown Portland. It is a great park to blade in, because there is a wide sidewalk just up against the rail that looks over into the river.

So I stopped by Saturday Market--which is worth the time if you've got it and you're in Portland--for a bite to eat. That done, I skated to the other side of the park, threw down a blanket, and continued to read The Brothers Karamazov.

Yesterday was very quiet, and I spend most of the day alone in a very quiet place.

Today is the first of the two days I am working this week. We get Friday off, but I have a friend who is getting married on Saturday in Seattle, so I'm headed up to the Emerald City (hah! not so green when compared with Portland) to celebrate the wedding.

I leave on Wednesday morning for the Olympic National Forest, where we will spend the rest of the week in tents or a cabin.

Saturday, Ryan and Heather tie the knot, and Sunday, I ride the train home.

The one thing especially nice about weddings is the good number of old friends involved. I know I'll see my share of them, and I'm excited about it.

Guitars, cigars, tents, tuxedos, and old friends.

Our connection has been fixed, so I'm back, with today and yesterday's journal entries to post.

Today has been a glorious day. I'm off to the Olympics to finish the week in a tent and cabin, with stinky cigars hanging from my teeth and bachelors all around.

Then on Saturday, we celebrate Independence Day by watching a good friend tie the knot.

I wandered down to the photo shop to pick up some photographs. In the set was one picture of a "Benson Bubbler," a traditional Portland fountain, bubbling with super-delicious Bull Run water.

Then I was off to the cigar shop to pick up a few cigars for the festivities.

And on the way home, Roy was playing guitar in the park.

I am amazed again and again by this rough, bearded veteran and his guitar. Today, I met him, and maybe someday in the future I'll ask if he would play a few tunes with me.

Another man in the park looked at me and nodded his head in Roy's direction. "He's really good, isn't he?" he asked me with a serious look. I smiled at him and nodded once.

Suddenly, Ryan and Heather are married, which is new, and I am back at work, which is old--or maybe normal.

I feel different, partly because another of my friends is married now, and partly because I had an emotionally, spiritually, and mentally restful week.

It was not physically restful.

On Wednesday, Tim picked Lars and me up at 6am. We were on I-5 before we knew it, rushing toward Seattle. Somewhere along the way we stopped and picked up a dozen doughnuts and a gallon of oj.

In Seattle, we dropped Lars off at a bus stop. He was on his way to visit with Armin to talk about Lars' thesis, which is coming due soon.

Tim and I continued on to Ryan's apartment, where we met Ryan, Joe, and Jeremy. Soon enough, Dan arrived, and we were all present.

We were late leaving, so we decided to head straight to the cabin instead of trying to hike into the Olympic National Forest late in the evening. We would take a day hike sometime later in the week.

When we arrived at the cabin, we were amazed at the view.

The back yard sits above the sound, a beach spread out below it, an empty island across the water. Joe took the Sea Kayak out. The rest of us dug clams.

In the evening, we threw the clams in salt water, barbecued steaks from the grocery and oysters from the beach. Joe made a salad. We baked potatoes. We ate like kings.

Ryan and I watched the sun go down over the sound and the part of the island that curls left around the water.

We sat on the lower deck and smoked our pipes.

And drifting off to sleep, I thought, "this is just the beginning."

Yesterday evening, I went sailing with Lars, Anne, and Paul.

Anne and Lars--Anne the championship sailor, Lars the president of the sailing club--sailed together.

Paul and I--Paul a two or three-time sailor, and me with one summer class under my belt--took the other boat.

The wind was strong and gusty.

Needless to say, Paul fell on our tiller as we were tacking toward downtown Portland, and I cut my foot while attempting to steer us home with no leverage on the rudder, which was coming up anyway, because the crimp where you secure the rope that keeps it deep in the water was on the part of the tiller that was no longer attached to the boat.

But the last two tacks before our boat was injured were amazing. Paul was a good skipper with me pulling the jib tight and barking at him to watch his tell-tales. I was hanging over the edge of the boat and Paul was pulling the main as tight as he could.

So that was yesterday.

Last Thursday, the preparations for Ryan and Heather's wedding continued.

The six of us--Ryan and I, Joe, Jeremy, Dan, and Tim--woke up early to the bright sun beaming through the windows.

Outside, the sound was scratching slowly against the rocky beach.

Joe fixed scrambled egg breakfasts to order. Dan cooked hash browns using fresh potatoes, garlic, and onions.

Somewhere in the middle of the day, we sauntered into Olympia so Jeremy, Dan, Joe, and Ryan could try on tuxedos. After a few adjustments, everything was okay.

Then we drove to the Olympic National Park. We drove for a good amount of time down a one-lane road with "turnouts" for oncoming traffic. When we stopped, we were parked next to a bridge that looked down several hundred feet to an incredible waterfall.

Then we began hiking up the trail (I think it is affectionately called the "ladder" trail, because it is literally like climbing a ladder in some places). We eventually reached the top of the ridge.

I really only have this to say: go to the Olympics. Just go.

That evening, Steve arrived. Dan and I steamed the clams we'd collected the day before, sauteed them in garlic and butter, and threw them in a pot of pasta and a fresh alfredo sauce Dan cooked up from scratch.

We barbecued corn in the husks, and a couple of oysters for good measure.

We topped off the evening with cigars and port.

And the tide went out, and we went to sleep with thoughts of the weekend fast approaching.

We all knew our time with Ryan was coming to a close--that it was time to prepare for the celebration, that there was plenty to do.

And we were blessed by the days we shared, and excited for the time to come.

Here is the last entry in the wedding series. You might want to read the first four entries in this series: here, here , here, and here.

I went to Colorado this weekend, to visit my girlfriend and the mountains.

I was in Buena Vista last winter, when the lakes were frozen over. I skated on one, at the foot one gargantuan peak.

The city was peppered with snow, and the mountains were covered in it.

This last weekend, it was 80 degrees.

Amy and I hiked to Ptarmigan Lake (the upper lake, not the lower ones, though we feared we still had one more lake to find, following the advice of friends, and ended up climbing a couple hundred extra feet for an incredible view from a 12,000 foot saddle) on Saturday. We were supposed to go rock climbing, too, but we didn't get the opportunity.

We did get to cast dry flies for a while, which was great, though neither of us caught anything. I think I scared the buggers away by casting so poorly.

Saturday night, Amy hosted a poetry reading (it was a little on the silly side for her, but she was sensitive and gracious about the "camp" atmosphere, and allowed for the silliness) and semi-talent-show. I sang a couple of songs, for good measure.

On Sunday, we attended camp church, hiked to Cottonwood Lake, ate a couple of barrios from Pancho's, and drove straight to the Colorado Springs airport, where I caught a plane to Salt Lake City (which was a madhouse, and drove me half out of my mind) and then to Portland.

It was a wonderful weekend, all in all, and I am tremendously glad I went. I had an incredible time.

On Sunday, the 5th of July, Dan and I woke up early to drive Joe to the airport. We said our goodbyes to the remnants of Ryan's bachelor party crowd and one girl who managed to tag along for the evening after the wedding.

Then we drove to Heather's mother's house for a brunch. We ate well, laughed a little, enjoyed each other's company, dropped off the tuxedos, and Dan and I left for the train station.

And I rode the train home from Olympia, and then walked home (it's only a mile or so) from the train station.

It was a simple day, a slow one by the time I had finished with it, and though work the next day was difficult after five days of rest, I felt better about it just because I had been in Olympia and in a cabin on the sound for those days.

And today, one week later, I feel the joy of being there a little less intensely, but I am settling into a peace that only comes after important times. There is great potential in this life. I feel it.

Portland is warm and filled with sunlight.

I am a bit crabby, but generally well.

I'm thinking a lot about who I am, what life is made of, what the future promises and what it will actually give.

Family, love, art, life.

The sun is waning now, drifting swiftly toward the West Hills, preparing to plunge toward Asia. It fades and blooms, like someone is playing with the brightness knob on an old television.

It is also peeking at me from a window across the street, reflecting directly into my face. If I sit up straight, it lands on my chest and chin.

Something I haven't told you all about Ryan and Heather's wedding is that it was amazing to meet their families. (I suppose it's "family" now.)

They were so kind and gracious, and tremendously pleased to meet Ryan and Heather's friends. So in one very mystical way, we all were invited in, welcomed with open arms, and celebrated quietly. It was a good feeling.

(Thanks, you all, for emailing me with good comments about the wedding pictures and journal entries. I put them together as much for you who are related to them or close to them as for me.)

For the rest of you, I hope you enjoyed them. The interface is simple, I know. Nothing spectacular. But the pictures (which I did not take) are wonderful, and I didn't want to detract from them by spending too much time messing around in Photoshop.

The leaves are dancing a bit, but not quite like the Aspens do in Colorado.

I'm also seriously thinking of graduate school, looking closely at Montana State and CU Boulder. What do you all think? Any suggestions for a great English program?

I'm feeling kind of cooped up. I need to get out to get some fresh air. I know I've said it countless times since Spring first began, but that's what I really need: not travel per se (though travel is always good) but just a simple weekend at the coast, or in the mountains.

I'm just too busy to spend a weekend camping these days. And something really must be done about that. I'm choosing my priorities, and I'm choosing the wrong ones.

So after all of my moaning about not getting outside enough, Amy and I spent four hours climbing up (and then back down) Dog Mountain.

I've climbed this particular mountain before.

Like last time, I'm sore. Unlike last time, the day was absolutely beautiful. It was the clearest day in months. When Amy and I reached the summit, we could see the peak of Mt. Hood over the hills on the Oregon side of the gorge.

That was Saturday. Yesterday, Amy and I ran 10 miles. We're training for the Portland Marathon. But there's something wrong with my right knee. So I ended up walking (read: limping) a lot more than I liked.

Regardless, it was one of the most athletic weekends I've had in a long time, and though I'm aching from head to toe, I loved it.

Yesterday, Matt and I accidentally ended up running through Forest Park during lunch. Usually, we run by the river, under the Broadway Bridge, by Union Station, and back up through Northwest Portland to our office.

But yesterday, the road along the river was closed to pedestrians. So we turned around and headed straight for Montgomery Park. We felt better than we thought, so we found our way to Macleay Park, along a beautiful creek into heavily forested Forest Park, and home again.

About halfway, on our way down Cornell, we stopped at the top of Northrup Street (at that point, the street is just a staircase) for a quick look at the city and the mountain.

It's been a good while since I climbed Mt. Hood. When I think of it now, I'm not sure whether I'll ever climb a mountain again. Part of me clearly hopes so.

The rest of me is hard to understand.

When I was living in the Pacific Northwest, if I needed to clear my head—to get some relief from whatever ailed me—I would just go for a hike or a climb. Getting outside—especially way outside, where the air is clearer, the trees are really tall, and there's a vista around most corners—was really good for me.

South Florida isn't really known for great hiking. I haven't found anything to replace it yet, either.

I used to go to this gym in Miami that isn't bad at all. But it's a long way (an hour each direction really cuts into an evening, if you know what I mean) and there isn't a strong community of climbers there.

Once, when we first got here a few years ago, Amy and I went for a walk in a park in Coral Springs. It was a boardwalk (to protect the marshy landscape) and only like a quarter of a mile long. But something about the tree cover, the thickness of it all, reminded me a bit of being home. It felt right. But at that length, it would get old fast.

We've been in the Everglades, but yech, it's beautiful but not much to look at after a while. Once you've seen a few miles of it, it all starts to look the same. Worth the trip, but it wouldn't renew me like landscape does.

I've got to find something, or we've got to get out of here. Especially now that Zoe is here. I'm desperate to take her hiking!