Mason's World

Oregon is not known for it's hot weather - and to be honest, it hasn't been crazy hot lately. But I'm going to talk about it anyway. For the past 3-4 weeks, it's been between 80 and 90 degrees everyday. One thing to be thankful about is that we don't have any humidity - but being in a state that isn't used to high temperatures, NOBODY here has air conditioning. 

As a new homeowner, that means my house is crazy hot right now. One or two days of heat is fine - it still gets cool enough at night that I can bring in enough cool air to combat the heat of the day. But three days in, I'm doomed. Now we're dealing with three weeks. Ack!

The best I can do is work out an elaborate arrangement of fans trying to circulate air through my house during the day - then switch up the arrangement and open all the windows at night to get the hot air out and cool air in. 

At this point, you're probably thinking I'm a total wimp for complaining about temperatures under 100 degrees. And that's fair. But I'm a delicate, sensitive grape and this is my blog. ;)

I live in Portland, and we have fantastic public transportation. But I still choose to drive to work most days. I defend my choice for the following reasons:

- It rains a lot in Portland

- The busses stop too often - and so take too long to get places

- I'm lazy

But driving definitely has its down side. Like yesterday. I have to cross a river to get to work, and there are many bridges in Portland. As I approached one of the bridges on my usual route, there was a lot of traffic.

So I thought to myself "No problem. I'll just go over the next bridge. Maybe it will have less traffic."

Well... it didn't The next bridge was just as busy as the first. So I thought, "Well, nice try. I guess I'll just wait to get over this bridge."

It took my almost 20 minutes to get to the start of the bridge - which is usually the total amount of time it takes me to get to work - and that's when there was a sign saying the bridge was closed! Can you believe it?!?

In the end, I had to go an entirely different route to get to work - and it took me 4 times as long as usual. As a result, I missed my first meeting of the day.

Not a good way to start off the week.

Is there traffic where you live?

I recently had my 30th birthday, so I feel like I've got to hold on to my youth.

First off, my wife threw me a wonderful birthday party. We rented a coffee shop in our neighborhood and hired a karaoke company so all my friends could come sing. It's no secret that I love to rock the karaoke mic, so I had a blast.

The weekend after my birthday, there was a comedy festival in Portland with lots of comedians that my wife and I love. But the problem with the stand-up comedy world is that those shows go very late into the evening. Over the past few years, I've started acting like an old man, going to bed around 10pm every night.

So the comedy festival became an opportunity to show the world (and myself) that I can still party. I'm proud to say that I stayed out 'til 1 or 2 am every night. Did my body hate me for it the entire next week? Yes. Was it worth it? Absolutely.