Rehearsed today with Jack and a new friend who is playing bass with us. All is going well so far, it’s fun to play some big rock. As is required, we’re outside taking a break with some beverages and smokes for those who partake.

There’s not much that needs to be said about this. World Naked Bike Ride 2009 here in Portland, Oregon. Clothing becomes the new being naked. You’ll feel out of place for certain if you’re still wearing something during the ride. It was a great ride except for the huge bottleneck downtown near Burnside where a lot of people had to end up walking their bikes instead of riding. This year seemed much larger than last, I’d guess well over 3,000 beautiful naked people taking to the streets.

The season for late night bike rides is upon us. Tonight was the first ride I joined for pedalpalooza 2009 – the midnight mystery ride. The idea is that all cyclists meet up at a location before the ride (at midnight) which then leaves to the secret location. Only a few people leading the group know where it will end up. It’s a great event – riders of all backgrounds and bikes of all types. There were bikes covered in lighting, there were bike sidecars, there were bike boomboxes, there was even a bike grill (propane tank included). A wholly amicable group where socializing is easy and definitely encouraged. Pictured here is a tall bike covered in EL wire that was sound-responsive. Pretty neat.

I did done just cut my hair. I’m getting good at cutting a nice tight pomp these days.

Much needed date tonight with the missus. We headed down to Dot’s cafe for a large portion with a small price tag. Afterwards we went across the street to Savoy, which is a wine bar. Everything in there is related to Wisconsin in one way or another, not really sure why. This is too-shallow DOF picture of the jukebox that they had keeping all the patron’s ears happy.

Just playing around with Aperture a little bit.

There is something rewarding about seeing your band name on a marquee. It’s kind of neat to know that someone spent time putting my name up there! Justin and I had a show tonight at Kelly’s Olympian, where were pinch hitting for another band unable to make the show.

If you haven’t ever picked your own strawberries, I highly suggest you do. As part of Katie and I’s six month anniversary, we went to Sauvie’s Island to pick some strawberries and enjoy other various activities they offer. Suffice to say, I’ve never had a strawberry so juicy before. We sat beneath this big beautiful tree for a while before we came back to Portland proper whereupon we cooked a fabulous lobster dinner to celebrate the occasion.

These are four young couchsurfers that stayed at my house for a few days. They’re amidst a road trip from Minnesota to the West coast. If you haven’t checked it out, couchsurfing.com is a very fun and useful site. It’s a grand opportunity to meet some very excellent people while you travel.

I went to go hang out with Ms.Ellie tonight and have our normal craft night. On the way home down Interstate I spotted this lot full of empty cargo truck haulers. Possessing the affinity for patterns and things repetitious in demeanor, I was obligated to attempt a photo of these fine trucks.

Roommate bought himself a new ddrum 4 piece kit. He’s still got his old one plus extras. Sometimes I think it’d be fun for both of us to set up our kits into some 20 piece kit reminiscent of something Neil Pert might play.

Saturday saw a quickly planned camping trip to Manhattan beach on the coast of Oregon with some friends. The beach was unlike anything that I’d ever seen – driftwood as far as the eye could see up the coast, at least 600 feet in width from the coast further back to the dunes. Saying driftwood is a bit misleading as there were whole trees of considerable size interwoven with one another and stuck in the sand. We built this fantastic amphitheater-like structure to shelter our fire from the wicked winds. I have a few more pictures from this visit but I liked this one best – it paints a very bleak and hopeless portrait of a one living forest.

Read more on my photoblog at <a href=”http://www.evanreeves.com/blog”>evanreeves.com/blog</a>

Today marks the one year anniversary of my photoblog. It makes me really happy to have made it to this point. Despite having missed some days, it’s very rewarding to be able to look back at the variety of photos from the previous year. Its been pulling double duty by allowing me to explore photography as a hobby and serving a higher purpose by allowing me to keep a journal of all the things that I do. I look forward to using this past year as a great lesson to make this next year even better. Here is the cake I bought for the occassion.

There are these flowers all around Portland right now that are in bloom that are the most vivid fushcia color one could imagine. I was sad last year when I was unable to capture a picture of this enormous bush across the street when the colors were at peak intensity. Alas, I missed my opportunity again this year. I put a green monochrome filter on these ordinarly vivid flowers and produced this result, kind of a happy accident. They look like they’re made of oil, or something.

And so our flight was pushed back two more times today. Originally scheduled to leave at 20:00, we didn’t hit the ground in Cancun until about 1:30. Apparently we were pretty lucky to have gotten out as the Cuban government decreed that there were to be no more flights to or from Mexico for the entire month of May. Good thing we got out in time, I’m not sure what we would have done otherwise. At any rate, we were back to being knee deep in idiots as hysteria about the swine flu overtook the common sense of most people. The International Red Cross aided in the exaggerated threat by setting up these infrared cameras to monitor the temperature of those people catching flights. Woo prevention, right?