Austin J. Shinkle

Ready for snow!

I have successfully obtained all of the necessary gear to spend the majority of my winter weekends on the mountain. This includes my Fusion Pass for Timberline and Skibowl. I want to give night skiing a shot this year. It is nice to buy thing in the off-season, but that means that you have too look at it until it can be used. I have looked longingly at the snowboard leaning up against my wall. I will get to use it soon enough.
I went on a road trip for work a few weeks ago. It went pretty well. We drove 1500 miles in five days, only 4 of which we were actually on the road. It makes for a long week and reaffirms that I made the right choice in not being a truck driver. I can see how it would be appealing for some, but not for me.

The Blazers start back up on Tuesday and I have tickets to the game. It will be a pretty good game as the Rockets are coming to town. I am excited to see if they have improved this off-season. If they play as well as last season, the should be fun to watch. I guess that is about all for now…not too much is new.

Hello from Mexico

I am in Queretaro, Mexico tonight for business. I flew through Phoenix and Guadalajara. Guadalajara is a huge city. Seeing it from the air is pretty impressive. I am here to evaluate a supplier that wants to move production here. It is going to be a short trip as I head back on Friday. It is only 8 PM here and I am very tired. I had to catch a 5:20 AM flight…I guess that is all. There isn’t any time for anything fun. After we got to the hotel, I ironed my pants and then ate. Now, I am going to read and go to bed.

What’s new with me…

So I am very excited that football season is about to start. Oregon plays this Thursday. I might have a volleyball game to go to, but that is ok. I will have to record the game and watch it later. I have also been very into soccer lately and try to watch games whenever I can. I found that you can watch international soccer on ESPN360.com and that is pretty cool because I can watch the Bundesliga (German) games. It is too bad that the commentary is in Spanish (they originally air on ESPN deportes) and not English or German. I usually just end up watching them and listening to music since trying to understand the Spanish give me a headache. I have been watching the Sounders FC also. I can’t wait for Portland to have a MLS team. I hope that it works out.

On another note, I have officially started an international currency collection. It turns out with the internet it is pretty easy. I have collected some from my travels to Europe and Mexico, but I have purchased alot of them online. They really aren’t worth anything, but they keep my busy documenting them and I learn fun things in the process. For example, did you know that Ecuador’s official currency is the US Dollar? Also, the mint their own coins and they have are the same shape and material as US cents?

I have about 60 different countries right now and have a few more coming. I would like to get a fairly representative sample of coins from the mid 1800s until now. Like I said, I have 60 different countries, but some of them I only have 1 coin. Hopefully, I can get one of each denomination used since the 1800s. It will take some work, but it will give me something to work to. Some countries have had quite a few different currencies since the 1800s. I am still in the process of organizing all of them. I am pretty sure that the collection is worthless, but that is not why I am doing it. :D

Back from Las Vegas

So I am back from Las Vegas.  It was a lot of fun.  A friend and I decided to spend 4 days in Las Vegas and I had to take a week of vacation or I would lose it at the end of August.  I am off for the next couple of days and have a wedding to attend Saturday.  The wedding should be fun.

So more about Vegas…We stayed at the Monte Carlo, which is about 10 years old.  It was pretty nice and they have a pool, wave pool, circular river and a hot tub.  It was over 105 the whole time we were there, but it really wasn’t uncomfortable.  We spent about 3 hours a day at the pool getting some sun and occasionally jumping in one of the pools.  We got in Saturday night and were a little tired from the flight.  We spent about 2 hours trying to find a bottle of spirits.  We later found out that we could have gotten a bottle from a store in the hotel…After that we had a couple drinks and gambled a little.  I lost pretty bad (I am not a big gambler, so $40 is a lot), but my friend won so I guess it evened out.  I fared a little better the rest of the time losing about $10 a day.  I don’t really consider it gambling, just paying for entertainment.

A very nice couple gave us some tickets to The Lion King, which I have been wanting to see.  It was at Mandalay Bay, which is a pretty nice casino and the play was awesome.  I am glad that they gave us tickets and would go again if I could.  Other than that we spent a lot of time checking out the casinos.  We saw the Treasure Island show The Sirens of TI, which was pretty neat and saw two of the Bellagio fountain shows.  We tried to go into as many casinos as we could an probably hit 12 or so of them.

It actually worked pretty well on the way back.  We got the the airport early since we had to check out of the hotel by 11.  Our scheduled flight wasn’t until 2:00 with a 2 hour layover in Seattle.  We got on standby for the 12:00 direct flight to Portland and managed to get on.  We got home at 2:30 instead of 7:00 and I got to play volleyball.  It was awesome although the flight was pretty rough.

All in all it was a good vacation and nice to play in the sun.  I will go to the wedding this weekend and then back to work next week.  I am actually looking forward to going back to work.  Things should be pretty interesting in the coming months.

I have posted a few pictures of the trip in the Pictures section.  Nothing too special, but a couple good ones.  Until next time…

Vegas…

My friend and I are headed to Las Vegas this weekend for a little fun in the sun. Nothing too big, just hanging out by the pool, gambling and possible a show. It should be fun. I have only been once and it was only for a night. I am also excited to have vacation. I have to take a week of vacation by August 20th or I lose it. So I am taking it. With the shutdown day and two weekends, I will have 10 days off in a row. That will be very nice. So I will enjoy the sun, take a lot of photos and keep everyone updated.

Pictures from California

I went to California last weekend with a friend with our 5 days off. We spend two driving and went to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, California’s Great America and spent a day in San Francisco. It was a pretty fun trip, but a lot of driving. Check out the photos on the Pictures page.

Great America

Today I spent the day at Great America, which is located in San Jose. It was quite fun. I had been there once previously, but was not old enough to ride any of the intense rides. This time I was. :o) We started on the Demon, which was apparently there the last time I was there. It was pretty cool with two loops and a corkscrew. But it was nothing compared to Flight Deck. This was by far my favorite ride. I believe that it used to be called Top Gun. The queue looked like an aircraft carrier. The ride was a hanging coaster with loops and a very cool barrel roll that felt like what I imagine a jet would feel like. We went on that quite a few times. They also had a drop ride that was a 3 second freefall. That was pretty intense. It was pretty scary. All in all the part was not quite as fun as the one yesterday, which had live animals.

Yesterday, we went to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo. It was pretty cool. There were some pretty intense rides and animals. It even had a butterfly garden that was pretty interesting. At the end of the night we got to ride Medusa 5 times in a row. It was awesome. It was the best ride in the park.

We are headed to San Francisco tomorrow to see all of the sights. I am excited.

Vallejo!

Well…after 12 hours of driving we made it to Vallejo, our first stop on our journey. If you weren’t aware, a friend from work and I decided to drive to the bay area and ride some roller coasters. I have been wanting to do it for a while and we had a four day weekend, so we decided that it would be a perfect time to go on a little road trip. We are also going to take a day of vacation so that we can spend a day in San Francisco. I have never been there before. The weather has been good so far. It was about 95 in northern California today, but it gets pretty cold at night. We decided to do the Motel 6 thing. We checked in today and there was a biker gang hanging around. It made me a little nervous.

We should have fun. I am excited to ride some amusement rides again. I have not ridden an amusement park ride since I was in high school. We are going to go to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom and Great America. I have been to Great America once before, but I was only 4 years old. I didn’t get to experience the fun rides. I am excited to see San Francisco as well. I have never been there and there are some pretty cool things to do.

Right now we are just hanging out in the hotel and watching Mythbusters. We went to the supermarket and bought some liquor (you gotta love California), so now we are hanging out and I am drinking some Crown Royal. :)

I guess that is all for now…later!

Koeln

For my last weekend, I went to Koeln, which is English is Cologne.  I am not sure exactly why we call it that, but we do.  It is a great city on the Rhine.  It is becoming a center for culture in Germany.  It has great museums, churches and an interesting atmosphere.

I visited the Koelner Dom to start, which is one of the largest churches in Germany.  I climbed to the top of it for a better view of the city.  The staircase was very narrow and steep.  Once I finally made it up there I was rewarded with an amazing view of the landscape.  The only thing that could have been better was the visibility.  But still it was great.  I visited another chruch called Saint Martin which was also very nice.

I then headed for a tour of the Germanic Roman museum, which had artifacts from as far back as the Stone Age some 10000 years ago.  It was quite impressive.  They had coins from the 1st century and stone and metal works from over 1000 years ago.  They had some gravestones and coffins and busts of Roman gods and goddesses.

I also took a tour of the Ludwig Museum, which contained art from Picasso.  There were also other artists who were very abstract.  It was quite interesting although I am really not a fan of that type of art.  There was even one painting that was a blue canvas.  I guess that is only considered art if you are already famous. :)  There was an American Pop Art exhibit there too and there was an interesting piece.  It was a not a painting, but very interesting.  It was a portable war memorial.  It had a recreation of Iwo Jima, with the soldiers mounting the flag in the hole of an outdoor table.  Behind was a memorial that stated it was in memory of D-Day_ in the year 19__.  The blanks were chalk boards where any number could be written.  I actually found an interesting message in that one.

Following that I went to Frueh, which is a Koelsch brewery and had a beer and lunch.  Koelsch is a beer made in Koeln that is very light (~3%) and tastes very clean.  It is always served in a 200ml glass.  You can drink a ton of them and not feel anything.

Finally I went to the chocolate museum and learned all about chocolate, where it comes from and how it is made.  I was intrigued that they estimate that 75% of cocoa bean farmers have never tasted a chocolate bar.  They have a factory there too that makes Lindt chocolate.  You can see firsthand how it is made.  They have a rainforest inside that is very cool.  It is about 100 degrees with 90% humidity.  They also have a chocolate fountain, in which they dip a vanilla wafer and let you eat it.  It was great.

I ate dinner at Paulaner, which is a Bavarian brewery.  Not really from the right region, but I really like their beer.

It was a good day and I spend all day Sunday at one of my friend’s house that works for Hella.  I got to meet his family and another colleage’s family as well.  I played some Guitar Hero with the kids and spoke a little German.  It was great.  I got to eat home cooked Romanian food and it was awesome.  I drank some beer and coffee and had an all around great time.

Tomorrow I am headed to Stuttgart for a day and then to Frankfurt Thursday night in preparation to fly home Friday.  This will most likely be my last post from Europe.  I guess I will make a final update from Portland.  Until then…

Hamburg

This weekend was spend in the port city of Hamburg in northern Germany.  It took about 3 hours to drive there.  I travelled there with one of my colleagues.  We had a good time.  The hotel was very nice but a little outside of the city, which proved later to be a bit of a problem.

Our day started by getting on the S-Bahn which was about 1km from the hotel.  We rode down to the train station and got some breakfast.  We then went to the harbor at LandungsBruecke and took a boat tour.  We thought we were going to get on a big boat, but it didn’t really work out.  The boat that we took did allow us to go into the canals and see a different side of the city.  The tour took about an hour.  We were packed into that little boat, but it was ok.  We then wandered around town a little and saw some pretty cool churches.  I took some pretty good photos.  My favorite was a Gothic style church that got destroyed in WWII.  The only thing left is the bell tower and some of the walls.  You can very distinctly see where the roof was on the belltower.  It is now a memorial from WWII.

We then went to get some lunch at a Spanish resturant that was very good and explored the downtown aread.  We went to St. Michael’s, which was being renovated, but still was quite impressive.  It had a very cool sculpture of Michael killing a deamon above the entrance.

After lunch we went to the Hambug Dungeon, which was kinda of like a walking haunted house, but without the ghouls and ghosts.  It was pretty cool, but there was quite a bit of speaking and it was all in German.  There were a couple rides and the end that would pretty cool.  It was good since it was raining and it kept us dry.  We went a got a cup of coffee and explored the Rathaus area and looked at some shops which all sold things that we couldn’t afford.

We went to the Hofbrauhaus for dinner.  It is the same kind of thing as in Munich, which I have also been to.  Apparently, there is one in Las Vegas.  I will have to visit it next time I am there.  The atmosphere is always pretty fun and people tend to have a bit to drink.  After that we went to the Reeperbahn and hung out in some bars.   It was fun.  We went to a place called The Dollhouse.  It was just a bar with a couple dancers.  They had Dollhouse Dollars, which looked very similar to US Dollars but cost 6 Euro for 4.  We had some singles left in the wallet and just used those. :)  It was funny, because using them was way cheaper than buying the others and no one could tell the difference.

It was a pretty good day.  We didn’t really feel like doing anything today and the time changed so we lost some sleep.  We drive back and are headed to dinner soon.

I have even posted the pictures I took already.  Until next time…