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Saturday, March 24, 2007
Backpack
Last weekend, Amara and I went out to go hiking near Mt. Hood, which is a little more than an hour away from here. We wanted to visit Trillium Lake, but during this time of year, it's still a Sno-Park requiring either skis, snowshoes, or a snowmobile to get around (and we didn't have any of those). Instead, we hiked a part of the Pioneer Bridle Trail in Zigzag, Oregon. It was quite fun to get out of the city and enjoy the freshness of the outdoors.
More pics can be found here.
Real-ty and Phone-y
My apartment lease was up at the end of February. Interestingly, I've been in the same small studio apartment here close to campus for the last 2 1/2 years. Since the rent is fairly cheap (although it's gone up $75/month since I first moved in) and moving is usually a hassle (except if you have inflatable and/or portable furniture like me), I ended up just renewing my lease for another year, which will make this the longest I've lived in the same place since high school.
Another contract I renewed was for my cell phone plan with T-Mobile. There were a few nice phone deals for me to get a new plan if I switched to Cingular, but the plans wouldn't have been as nice. Plus, switching would require me to have two plans for at least a month, and there would be a bunch of rebates to deal with. So instead, I renewed my contract with T-mobile for another 2 years and got a new phone. I went with the Nokia 6030, which is a simple phone that is capable of making phone calls well and not much else. Though the default ringtones aren't very good, the battery life is excellent.
Date Night
Amara and I try to have date night at least once a week where we get to go out and enjoy ourselves. This week, we went to try an Ethiopian place called Queen of Sheba. The food was quite good. We had a potato/carrot/celery dish, a lentil stew, and sizzling lamb with berbere sauce. All of the food comes served on this huge family style platter on top of large pieces of injera, which is a pancake-like bread that you eat everything with. There are no utensils, so it's all about using your hands (which is fun and can be romantic). The food was very tasty, filling, and a good value.
Afterwards, we went to the bowling alley for the arcade games there. We played air hockey, pinball, Ms. PacMan, Cruisin' Exotica, Wacky-Gators, and the Love Tester. Amara's quite the air hockey player. Our first game, we ended up tying 6-6 before the game timed out, but she had scored 10 out of the 12 goals. The second game, she beat me 7-4. For the Love Tester, Amara didn't do so hot (literally) and scored "Clammy." I, however, scored as being "Uncontrollable," which was (not surprisingly) the highest category on the machine. On the Wacky-Gator game (where you bonk on the gators as they come out of these little cubbies), the high score of the day was 89. Together, Amara and I whacked them silly and posted a new high score of 95. We're a great team!
Reader's Digest
Last night, Amara and I started in a new book together called Abba's Child by Brennan Manning. The book describes the significance of having a personal relationship with God and how we are to live our lives for that to happen. It's nice, too, because the book has study-type questions for each chapter to promote discussion and reflection. So far, it's been good and I'm looking forward to getting through it some more when we get the chance.
2:20 AM Albert
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..a life in DUO
