Reel Paddling Film Festival 2011

Lined up outside the Bagdad for the film festival.

The Reel Paddling Film Festival made it's annual visit Portland this week thanks to Alder Creek Kayak and Willamette Riverkeeper.  As usual it was held at the McMenamins Bagdad Theater & Pub.   The Bagdad is a great place for events like this as you get your pizza and beer while enjoying a movie in a comfortable atmosphere.  Tim (my ride for this outing) and I were able to navigate traffic and cross town in 45 minutes to arrive right at 6pm for the doors to open.

Being a paddling film festival, you get a very focused audience. It was like having a super sized kayak club meeting.  Through the various outings and classes I've had, I probably knew more people in the theater that evening than I know at work.  This year there was a kayak which was raffled off at the end and a special twist on the last film of the evening.  We got to choose the last film of the evening.  Either the best sea kayaking or the best canoeing film of the 2011 film festival.  With a whole theater full of paddlers, most of whom are sea kayakers, I knew what our last film was going to be.

Beer, pizza, and movies.

This years selection of movies were all very good for their own reasons.   The festival opened up with Halo Effect by Steve Fisher.  I like watching white water films, but I find that too many of them are a series of waterfall drops which lasts for 60 minutes.  Through good cinematography and a compelling narrative, Halo Effect had much better staying power than your average white water kayaking film.




Our second film for the evening was Tanker Love.  This film follows a group of Hawaiian Life Guards visiting Galveston Texas in an effort to raise peoples awareness of the destruction that still exists from Hurricane Ike.  Oh, and while they are in Galveston they use standup paddle boards to surf tanker wakes that would run for 5 miles.




While I can not say that I liked our third movie the best, it is the one which I have thought the most about.  Solo is a documentary about the attempted trip from Australia to New Zealand by Andrew McAuley in 2007.  He was an IT professional, with a wife and young son, who quit his job to attempt a kayaking journey which most people considered impossible.  Aspects of this story hit very close to me and I imagine many others in the audience.  Previously, at the end of each film we all clapped to show our appreciation of the effort and quality of the production.  The somber mood of the film hit everyone so deeply that nearly all of us forgot to applaud.  After the credits had finished rolling and the film festival logo was showing on the screen, one person from the back of the theater began to clap.  By the third clap we all were jolted out of our personal reflections and gave the same appreciation applause we gave for the other films.  A man sitting off to my right said, "It's hard to clap for that one".  It's a very good film which is hard to like.








After Solo, the next two short films greatly lightened the mood.  Season: Fall and Small Hydro Power.








And finally we came to the last movie of the evening.  Was it going to be a canoe or sea kayaking movie.  I just knew that it was going to be the sea kayaking flick, until the details of the films were announced.  The best canoe film of 2011 was made by Frank Wolf.  His previous film, Borealis, was the most entertaining movie of the evening at the previous festival.  Suddenly I'm thinking that we might be in danger of watching the wrong movie.  I would guess that we were at least 80% sea kayakers with myself included.  Whichever film got the most applause was the one we were going to watch.  First up was the sea kayaking film.  The applause was good and I was wondering if the canoe film had a chance (along with probably everyone else who wanted it).   The voting for the canoe film came next and I clapped hard enough to make my hands numb.  So did everyone else who wanted it.  We soundly suppressed the sea kayak vote and got to watch Mammalian by Frank Wolf.   It was a very entertaining trip through the interior of Canada starting at Yellowknife and traveling to Rankin Inlet.  A number of mammals are encounted in the journey including the very rare snow leopard.






The final event of the evening was to raffle off the kayak.  Unlike most raffles for something this nice I was not up against thousands of other people.  It was my three tickets up against the tickets held by my fellow paddlers in the same great hall.  After a few moments of tension we all found out that the holder of ticket 662 had just won a kayak with paddle, life jacket, and car transport system.  A cheer from the upper deck let us all know where the winner was.  In that moment I discovered a reason to make sure that I attend this film festival again next year.  Maybe I'll be the person holding 662 next time.

Our Scouts Spend the Night on the USS Blueback Submarine

Captain Ramius: Re-verify our range to target... one ping only.
Capt. Vasili Borodin: Captain, I - I - I just...
Captain Ramius: Give me a ping, Vasili. One ping only, please.
Capt. Vasili Borodin: Aye, Captain.

This and other flashbacks from "The Hunt for Red October" were flashing through my head as we took a tour of the USS Blueback.  The sub is on permanent display at OMSI and is available for tours and camp-ins.  Our cub scout group shared the sub with a few other cub scout and boy scout groups for a great outing.

Bunk intended for a full sized adult was just right for Patrick.

Our fist stop was to board the submarine to choose our bunks.  After getting our sleeping bags and overnight gear stored, we went back into OMSI where we watched a movie in the planetarium about the creation of stars called "Journey to the Stars".  This movie captivated the scouts as we were taken on a cosmic trip through the origions of the universe and watched stars from birth to death.  The movie on the planetarium's domed screen surrounded us as we looked up at it.   We really got the feeling of flying through space as celistical objects whipped by us and passed just to the edge of our vision before disappearing.

Looking for surface contacts

From the movie we went on to a class room where the program directors lead a discussion with the scouts on what makes a submarine surface and submerge in the water.  Using a large fish tank standing about 4' off the floor the scouts learned about the principles of bouancy, displacement, mass, and surface area.  Then it was their turn to create a boat of their own.  Each team of two boys were given a block of modeling clay to make a boat of their own.  The goal was to create a boat which could hold as many marbles as possible before sinking in the tank.  At first the boys had lots of interesting boat shapes but quickly figured out that a disc shape was the best for the exercise.  The best team in our pack held about 38 marbles, while the best boy scout was in the 70's.  Apparently they occasionally get boats which manage to hold over 100 marbles.  Then a quick snack for the kids and it was off to the submarine.  The tour started off at the submarines screw (propeller) which is mounted upright next to the museum.

30 degrees down, right full rudder

Moving onto the dock the Blueback is attached to, we got a review of the external features of the sub and some background information of the sub's dates of service and roles it played.  Our scouts were bubbling with questions.  In order for us to move on with the tour, our guide had to limit the questions at any one spot in the hope that we would cover the rest of the questions while we continued the tour.  We moved into the boat where the scouts crowded around the officers table.  On the table was a map of the submarine.  Our guide described the areas of the ship we were about to visit and took a few more questions. Then it was off to the control room.  The control room was lit in red lights which allowed people looking through the periscope to keep their night vision.  The scouts got to look through the periscopes (2 of them), take a turn at the helm, and hear a dive alarm.






 From there we went on to see the torpedo room, galley, the head (so small that most people didn't even know that they passed it), and engine room.  Up to this point the scouts were limited on what they were allowed to touch when it came to the sub controls.  This is where that changed.  There was a whole panel of switches and dials which they could flip and turn.  After the tour we had mostly free reign of the ship.  The boys had a list of items, for a scavenger hunt, to locate on board the sub.  This allowed us to explore more of the ship in detail apart from the group.  The one rule was that they could not go anywhere without an adult.

Captain to engine room, we need more power.

Following all of this excitement was lights out.  This was a bit of a nightmare.  Imagine trying to get a group of boy scouts and cub scouts ready for bed in bunks which are too short for the kids to sit up in and aisles that are too narrow for two adults to pass each other even turned sideways.  At one point when one of our parents needed to get by, I just rolled myself into a bunk which allowed him to pass.  Lights out was at 11pm.  The kids still had a little energy, but in such limited quarters, they settled down quickly.

Six am came early the next day.  The scouts were a little slow to get going but we were off the boat by 6:45am.  We had the breakfast provided and access to OMSI for the day.  After that weekend several of our scouts just knew that living on a sub was the perfect life for them.  Lets see if they still feel that way when they are fully grown.

Epic Bike Ride Home

Yesterday's ride home was epic.  Looking outside to check the weather in the morning I saw that it was wet, but nothing too severe.  I packed some rain gear and my folding bike into the back of my wife's Jeep and we headed into work.  I will frequently catch a ride into work with her and then ride the bike home.  Keeps me fresh going into work and we can both leave on our own schedule.  I knew that I was going to be leaving work late last night but it ended up being much later than expected.  About 9pm I decide that it was time to head out as I had had enough fun in the office.  I suited up for the ride home and headed out.

Finally Arrived Home

Exiting the building I am greeted by a thunder clap and cold rain dumping from overhead.  For a moment I had this vision of a white bolt of lightning streaking out of the sky and blowing the wheels off my bike mid-commute.  This was a considerable step up from the morning and I considered wussing out and calling Beth to get me.  I could not really justify having her come to my rescue as the kids were in bed by now and I was setup for ridding in the rain.  My bike has fenders and was wearing water proof pants, jacket, and backpack.  I should be fine.  Besides ridding in these conditions helps to justify why I have all of this stuff.  A short while later I had my bike unfolded with two headlights, a wheel light, and a tail light screaming "HEY, DON'T RUN ME OVER!" and I began the ride home.

A few minutes into the ride and I was wondering if I should trade in my clear cycling glasses for a diving mask.  The water drops were so large and coming so fast that trying to wipe the water from the lenses made no difference.  At one point the water on my glasses caught the light of on coming cars and glared so much that I lost sight of the road.  In my head I heard, "Luke, you've turned off your targeting computer!  What's wrong?"  I was using the force to stay in the bike lane.  This is a route that I have biked hundreds of times and yet it was taking my full concentration to stay in the lane and try to identify any surprise crud that I might need to avoid.  My primary headlight usually lights up the road, but last night it was almost like I didn't have anything at all.  After 6 miles of cycling by feel, I turn down my street, only to find that it wasn't my street.  I had turned a block early but could not tell until I saw that the first house on the right did not belong to me. 

As I came up to the front door, Beth saw the lights of my bike shine through the window.  She opened the door before I was on the front step.  She was glad to see me home safe, but suggested that on future nights like this it might be better for me to wuss out.

Bike: Novara FlyBy
Headlight: Light & Motion Stella 120
Wheel Light: Monkeylectric
Shell: Mountain Hardwear Epic Jacket and Pants
Backpack: Mountain Hardwear

Spring 2011 has arrived

So the time change just occurred, spring officially does not arrive until next week, but I know that spring showed up last weekend here in Oregon.  Two weeks ago we had a layer of snow coating the valley.  Crocus flowers were punching through the snow layer indicating that spring was around the corner.

Fast forward one week and the snow is gone and I find a honey bee checking out an open crocus.  This is the first honey bee I have seen this year.  The next day I find that the one bee has told all his friends about the flowers and over a dozen bees are buzzing around.

Seeing the bees buzzing around let me know that spring had arrived.  Looks like it is time to switch from thinking about skiing/snowboarding to cycling and kayaking.