Duerk, good job showing our trip through the magic of digital photography. It's was everything I would ask for or imagine. Of course, I was there, watching the Yeshua Mann get married, walking the beaches of Oregon, traveling with Bubnas and Baches and Millers (soon enough). Sorry I've been away so long. I did write a long and invigorating blog before the wedding, including a story of a gas station stop on the way to Washington that coincided with two van-loads of girl soccer players. It just wasn't meant to be. I tried to post, and poof, like any good boy band, it vanished before I even knew it was there. You'll just have to use your imagination. But I do think a little verbal commentary should go well with those pictures that Duerk posted. So, I had arrived here in Vancouver, WA last Tuesday after a one-night layover in Missoula, checking out my old apartment, smoking my pipe in the little park where I used to go smoke my cigars, seeing my former manager and having a good talk with a married Bob Severson. It was a good trip back up here. I also have a strange story with a hitchhiking spider that I'd love to tell you about, but only if you call me, so most of you won't ever hear it. So, like I said, on Tuesday I was at my brother's place, and come last Thursday, Duerk shows up at the Portland airport. We come back to "my place" and have a good sleep prior to our trip south into Oregon. We arrived in Salem slightly before lunch on Friday morning. Fluffy insisted that he knew the address where they were staying, and so Duerk and I ended up walking around this house, ringing the doorbell and knocking on the door until a small elderly asian woman opened her front door looking rather frightened. She was pretty sure she wasn't housing six or eight young adults in her house, but even so, on the phone was an insistant Fluffy telling us her house was where they were staying. We were soon enough next door at the actual place where everyone was staying. Already things were happening as I should have expected. Our next great adventure was trying to find something to eat. We drove, made some U-turns in the middle of busy Salem streets, ran some red lights - everything you would expect following a driver from Colorado. I discovered that if you say the words "Anything but...", it comes true. I said "Anything but Taco Bell." Suddenly we were pouring into the Taco Bell, looking at the Big Bell Value Menu, trying to create some sort of equation between my beloved Taco Johns and one of the only fast food chains I hadn't eaten at since high school. And if you're ever in a planning mood, and you're about to go to a wedding, cheap Mexican should be at the bottom of the list of restaurant possibilities. We survived it, somehow. And then there was a wedding. Bubna, myself, Duerk, and a guy I went to high school with named Cody Fornier were, "the best damn ushers" we could be, quote Bubna. So, the wedding was a wedding, ironically. Some people told stories, some said vows, some people laughed and others cried. I myself was trying to decide who to dance with first, the awfully cute candle-lighter (sadly, for all I knew, she could have been a bit on the 18-year-old-side of things, but shoot, who cares? [the government]), or the cute but also young looking maid of honor. Life's just full of hard choices. So, there was a receptions, as often happens following a wedding. There were some toasts, some dances, some car decorating, and some general merriment. After the bride and groom left, Fluffy and Bubna got to scheming and tried to raise the necessary funds for me to swallow one of the table decorations, namely a beta fish, whole. I said my price was $100. They rounded up $45 in verbal donations. Jason, Josh's older brother, set his price at five bucks, and amid Jahnke screaming and Mrs. Bubna's disapproving looks, he downed the Japanese fighting fish, taking my five dollars since neither of the ring leaders wished the pay the man for his hard work. Nothing happened to him, I don't think. The reception was so quick that I never danced with anyone, not Mrs. Bubna, not candlelighters or bridesmaids or..., that was about the extent of my selection. Wow, that was just a stupid summary of the wedding, and there's a whole other story about the next day driving (and driving and driving across nearly all of Oregon it seemed), but I guess I've already written too much for most of you to read, so I'll quit now and hope that I can get a job at Quizno's tomorrow. If anyone wants the beach/driving story, just let me know and I'll fill up more blogging space, but sea lions and Maria getting crabs and our dinner with Rhonda Johnson will all have to wait until then.