Vacation 2: Electric Boogaloo

After five days in Central Oregon we're back (obviously, if you read yesterday's post about Roxy). It's a sort of tradition my family has to go to Black Butte Ranch in Sisters for a few days. There's a lot of sitting, watching cable and relaxing going on. We took a lot of photos, but I'll sum up the week this way.

Thursday:

Internet meet Billy, my parent's dog. Billy, meet the Internet.

Friday:

My parents go on a LOT of walks when they're in Black Butte. This is my dad taking a photo of Mt. Jefferson

Saturday:

Also a big part of Black Butte: fishing. Nobody ever catches anything, but they try anyway.

Sunday:

Sunday was our last day at Black Butte, then Katie and I headed to Sunriver for a couple of days (or so we thought)

Monday:

We were there really just for the night and then Monday, but we did manage to get a fun bike ride in.

Tuesday we woke up and headed back to rescue Roxy after her surgery. We heard she was going in the day before, and we decided to head back up a day early to pick her up and take her home.

There were a bunch more photos to show off. You saw Katie's photo already (I hope). Here are a couple more:

Yay! Macro filters!

TONS of deer around that area. On our last day from our house to the main gate we saw 10!

BEST. SIGN. EVER.

Diagnosis: Roxy

Came back to Portland from our vacation in Central Oregon a day early. Wasn't planning on being back until late Wednesday night, but we got a call form Katie's mom saying that Roxy, Katie's dog, was having some.... issues... down there...

Seems little miss thang had six stones in her bladder, and needed surgery. Right now.

A souvenir from John, our wonderful vet/brother-in-law's dad

"Why don't you make a necklace or earrings out of them" was John's suggestion.

Anyway, she went to surgery, got six stones ---- which were anywhere from rice to marble sized ---- removed, and while she was under the anesthetic she got her teeth cleaned, and a fatty tumor removed.

Needless to say when we picked her up today she wasn't feeling so hot.

Don't believe me? Ask her yourself.

Sad panda.

She'll be under the weather for about 10 days, then she'll be back to her only spunky self.

It. Is. Done.

After 525,600 minutes, 366 days, 12 months, and one MASSIVE upload later, it is done.

go here: pursinger365.blogspot.com

I'm talking, of course, about the 365 photos project that I started in September. It took a lot longer than I had hoped to get it all up online (and I'm still working on putting captions and etc. to EVERY photo, give me time!) but it's finally done.

This project was so much fun, while at the same time mind numbingly frustrating. There were times when I was so inspired I took four or five photos in a day. There were times when I forgot about the project completely for about a month and had to make up for it.

Originally my plan was to TAKE a photo every day, but after day 10 I got a 60+ hour a week job, and that project quickly turned into taking 365 photos, to represent an entire year. Yes, it's cheating. Yes, I feel badly about it. No, I won't be doing anything about it.

I have plans for doing another one of these at the start of the new year. A 52 photo project with Katie, one family photo per week.

I highly recommend that everyone try this project. It will make you look at the world differently, and make you appreciate the little things in your day (eating lunch? Watching TV? combing your hair? PICTURE TIME).

If you want to see all 366 photos (I was so upset with one photo I decided I needed another day to make up for it) you'll see them all at my 365-blog, pursinger365.blogspot.com. Like I said above, I'm still putting captions to ALL of them, and that won't happen for awhile. But check it out anyway. It took a lot of time to do, least you can do is peruse.

---Geoff

Vacation: Part One

Geoff and I have had the opportunity to spend some time together on vacation and it has been wonderful!

We spent 3 days in Black Butte and a couple of days in Sunriver. It has been gorgeous and there will be more pictures to come, but for now while I'm on a borrowed internet connection I'll leave you with this amazing view we had from the window of the house we are staying at in Sunriver.

(Thanks John and Jenny for the use of your house!)

Mt. Bachelor and the amazing sunset we had!

I would like to point out that what you are seeing is un-edited colors. It is just naturally that beautiful!

-- Katie

Bruce.....

...has learned how to open cupboard doors. Last night he learned where we keep his food and tipped the bag over, spewing cat food all over our kitchen. Bruce is way too smart for his own good and it terrifies me.

--Katie

Pacific Football

I got to go to the first Pacific home football game on Saturday against the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Stags (wow, that's a name). We lost horribly (it was 9-39 when I left about halfway through the 4th) but it was a lot of fun and I'll totally go to another game.

It was weird to see Pacific act like a REAL college, though. There were tailgaters, and booths selling Pacific swag. There were people who painted their faces and the stadium was PACKED with people.

All in the pouring down rain.

Pacific caring about its own athletics..... weird....

I saw more people at Lincoln Park just as officials and coaches out on the field than I have ever seen at Lincoln Park during 4+ years of Pacific University. It took some getting used to, it was like being at a Division 1 event, that's how it felt. The amount of pride that we had in our team and in our school. It didn't matter that we got CREAMED, I was still blown away by the fact that people CARED about the game.

During the whole brew-ha-ha over bringing Pacific football back I never really cared one way or the other. Football has nothing to do with why I went to Pacific and in my opinion a football player is no more special than a baseball player or a wrestler. But now I'm for it. 100 percent. If football is what it takes to get Pacific kids to care about their school and to get school spirit on the rise then I say that I am all for it.

I was even tempted to buy a Pacific sweatshirt or a hat or something. ME.

Go Boxers.

Attack of the killer GEOFF'S WORK

So today (Thursday) is the day that the new edition of our paper The Times comes out. And today (Thursday) is the day that we put all of our stories and photos and videos and such up onto our website. And today (Thursday) is the day that when all those millions and trillions of people logged onto tigardtimes.com they saw this:

I routinely do google searches for "Geoff is awesome" on my work computer.

So the 2 hours of traffic I sat through and the 10 hours of work I spent on the newest video for today is all for nothing.

Six days until vacation.....

---Geoff

Praise for "Life as a Rappinger"

"I absolutely love the blog! I am so impressed with everything in it....WOW!"

.

.

That fun bit of text was found in my e-mail box this morning. Looks like someone out there likes us!

He goes on:

.

.

"FUNNY! It is really good. I have to admit I am a little bit tech challenged and have not looked at any other Blog that I know of..... I saved it to my favorites so I will make a habit of going in every week and seeing your updates. the pictures were awesome....thanks for sharing!"

.

.And who is this mystery commenter? Well, in fact, it was my dad.


But hey! Praise is praise!
-- Geoff

Geoff's kinda crappy videos #1: Urban Chickens

For the last couple of months I've been working on short 2-minute videos for our website. They usually go with a story in that week's paper and are designed to draw people online.

Of course, we never advertise that we have a video on the website, so I'm not sure how much it actually helps, but so far it's meant that I've gotten the creative juices flowing and keeps me busy with film stuff -- I have a tendency to get a little stir crazy when I'm not doing something movie related.
Usually the reporter and cameraman go out and do the filming and interviewing and then the cameraman and I try to put something together in the editing room (usually with mixed results). It's an interesting way to go about making movies, since I usually have no idea what the footage is (or even what the video is about) until I sit down at the keyboard.

But hey, that's the way it works sometimes.

So far we've made nine videos, only about four of which I think are even watchable. I'll post one every so often so you can see, in a new segment I like to call:

GEOFF'S KINDA CRAPPY VIDEOS!!

This was our first one. Personally I think it's one of our better ones (which, if you don't like it, could tell you something about the rest of what's to come....)

Sorry in advance about the quality... not sure how to go about fixing that.

Like I said: "Geoff's kinda crappy videos."

If you actually found that enjoyable, and wanna learn more, check out the story, written by Angela Webber

---GEOFF

Next time: LET'S GO TO THE BOOKMOBILE!!!

Another year older.....

2 more gray hairs! At this rate I'm going to be all gray by the time I'm 30. Yippee. Because of this I felt the need to leave you with a picture I took from a place that does not cause any gray hairs. Enjoy :)

---Katie

Kona, Hawaii

Maybe he had a fish in his pocket...

Went to the zoo with Katie for her birthday. It was a fun day, and you'll see more photos up on the ol' Flickr in the days to come, but I thought I'd play around with some black and whites with a few black-and-white birds.

Humboldt Pengiun (cuteus adorablenus)

This, is a Humboldt penguin. They're adorable, cuddly, and smell like rotting fish-heads.

Usually when you see these guys in the Penguinarium (yes, that's the actual term) the birds swim around in the water, but seldom "do" anything. Until today.

Yes. That is a construction worker's hard hat floating in the water. No idea why it was there, but it was. My theory is that the penguins attacked a maintenance man or something.

Needless to say, when we got there all that was left of the poor guy was this hat. And the penguins were loving it. They were all over it, jumping on it, biting it, etc.

R.I.P. generic construction worker. Your sacrifice made for a fun few minutes in the Penguinarium.

zoo trip!

Headed to the zoo for Katie's birthday, then off to her moms for a berfday party.

These were from a few zoo trips ago, but I thought I'd put them up anyway.

(In hindsight, I should have edited these... but I'm lazy. Deal with it.)

Scariest... yawn... EVER

Polly wanna closeup?

WHAZZZZUP? (sorry. we're better than that. I'll try harder next time)

The wedding of Megan and Taylor Part 2: Dance 'Til Dawn

Last week Megan and Taylor finished their several week long wedding (Ceremony, then honeymoon, then wedding reception). While the wedding itself was closed to only a small handfull of people, the reception was open to everyone. Aunts and Uncles and friends from across the country came to the reception.

It was a lot of fun, mostly because Geoff learned about the Night setting on his camera, which does things like this:

Needless to say, that's all he did for the rest of the night.

Jenny Rapp

And...

Taylor and the MC serenading

And...

Taylor

And...

The Wedding of Megan and Taylor Part 1: Nuptials

After 7+ years of dating, Katie's cousin Megan finally tied the knot with her fiance, Taylor.

A photoshoot with Katy and the happy couple in Lake Oswego

The wedding and reception were on different days. The actual wedding was Aug. 20, with only a few close friends and family. Everyone else got together for a reception a few weeks later.

Megan and Taylor Pecknold.

Katie was one of the photographers during the ceremony.

The ceremony

The wedding was at a small church in Northeast Portland. The other pjoyographer -- also named Katy posted some of her own on her blog.

The rings.

Katie has a bunch more on her Flickr, but by far my favorite:

Megan: "Hey, Sexy." Taylor: "OH MY GAWD......"

The ol' Blogwagon

Whelp, it's done. We've started a blog. Who knows if anybody will find any of the stuff we'll put up interesting, but after seeing friends of ours start some great blogs we figured "Well, might as well."

For the record, if our friends jumped off a cliff we probably would too. We're sheep like that.

Anywayz, we'll be putting up all the fun and exciting stuff that goes off in the life of Rappingers: namely working, and posting to this blog. We've got a lot of fun stuff on the horizon, Katie's birthday, a trip to Eastern Oregon, photos from Megan Pecknold's wedding if Katie will ever get around to putting hers up and Geoff will ever get off his butt and edit his, and --- of course --- all the other great and awesome things that Geoff and Katie do on a regular basis.

The goal is to update this thing every week. At least, that's Geoff's goal. Who knows what Katie wants to do with this thing!