The Rise of the Blog of the Planet of the Unipiper

Multnomah Falls

This is something like one of the tallest waterfalls in the country. 

Unfortunately, it rained and was overcast on the day we wanted to do all the outdoors stuff, so these photos are not as good as they should be. 

It's hard to see, but this is actually really really tall

But it was still a spectacular waterfall, and looked fantastic from the bottom and from halfway up. 

The fall from the bridge

Looking down at the viewing platform

The Fellowship of the Internship

The Unipiper, Part 2

So las time, I left off having just kept Portland weird. 

After this, we went to the Moda Centre, where the ice hockey had been the night before,

and there I met the legendary Unipiper … either that, or Vader was just having a day off: 

He has a stressful job; he needs to chillax sometimes

I must’ve done something to annoy him, because he got really forceful at one point: 

He was a pain in the neck

We tuned up together: 

And played together:

This is actually really hard to do, giving that we usually keep time by foot-tapping or watching people’s fingers, which whilst unicycling is … difficult. 

But we had fun, cracking out Game of Drones, Star Wars, Scotland the Brave, Auld Lang Syne, and more. 

Hi five!

He is an incredibly good unipiper, and has arranged some songs that I did not think possible to be played on the bagpipes. I will not spoil them cos he hasn’t released them yet, but my goodness, he is excellent. 

So, in terms of the duel … 

Victory to the Unipiper!!

I take my hat off to him - he is far too skilled for me.

This guy, eh?

This made the Portland trip.

It was otherwise good, yes, but I’m not into shopping. I didn’t care for that part.

Multnomah Falls was good and free:

Voodoo doughnuts was good and cost about $13:

But traveling across the world to meet the world’s most prominent unicycling bagpiper … priceless.

A video is still to come - I plan to pass it by my editors to give them a chance to do it up.

And now to start my own career in Australia as … The BagCycler!!! Or any other better name that I can come up with.

Anyone in Maroubra, watch out. Jack Sparrow’s hitting the eastern beaches walkway.

Coming up next time on Bagpipe Duels: The Bagcycler vs. The Badpiper.

I shall challenge one of our own.

Watch this space for more. 

Also, we stopped off at a Macca's on the drive back, to hit up the dunny, and we also ordered some chips. Not fries, chips. Whilst ordering, the lady behind the counter asked where we were from, and we gave the appropriate answers. During the conversation I mentioned that we called McDonald's "Maccas", like any sensible human being. 

And the lady serving us went berserk. 

“Hey you guys, you know what they call McDonald’s in Australia? Maccas! How funny is that?” she yelled to everyone in the vicinity.

Oh America. 

How quaint.

In other news, 

Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups

We don’t have these Down Under. 

We also don’t have Sloppy Joe’s, the food. It’s basically a bolognese burger. 

Weird.

Anyway.

Reese’s.

It’s alright, but meh. Kinda weird. 

7/11

I probably should have figured this out by now, but … it seemed so obvious that I never thought of it. 

Friday was National Froyo Day, which meant I could get six ounces of frozen yoghurt for free …. however much 6 ounces is. 

I was wondering why this was so, and then started thinking about free slushies at 7-11, and the date.

See, free slushies happens on 7th of the 11th, which is, of course, 7/11.

Not here though.

Here, it happens on the 11th of July … because they write their dates backwards.

Seriously. 

It makes sense on one level, but also seems … wrong.

July 11, free slushies … no. 

November 7, 7/11, free slushies … much better. 

Backwards country. 

Food Tour

This was our final official big intern event (there’s a games night coming up, but I don’t call that big).

It was fun. 

The idea was that we would go to several restaurants and eateries in a row, trying different things, and then check out some cool things in Fremont. 

So we piled into a pair of buses to go to restaurant #1 … and discovered that our bus was the party bus. 

Nice and open, side seats, light show, strobe, lasers, pounding bass … the necessities.

First place was Tavern Hall, your standard swanky restaurant. 

It may not actually have been swanky, but I consider going to takeaway Thai a big deal for eating out, so my standards are very low.

I did enjoy it though.

Then we headed off to an organic sandwich shop, which had good BLTs and tomahto soup. This place was everything organic and homegrown and magical and environmentally friendly and anti-big corporation, anti-governmental meddling … basically unAmerican. Which is totally cool. 

Then we split, and our bus went to this troll under a bridge, and a big stone statue that he stood on: 

If you missed the joke, I'm the troll

Then there was hot cakes. 

Not pancakes. 

Just little cakes that were hot.

It packed a punch

And my goodness were they rich! These things were richer than Bill Gates and Satya Nadella put together! It was like military-grade chocolate, it was so powerful. 

But they were nice. 

That night was pretty fun, and somehow Veronica, Bren and Sarah managed to put up with us. As a former youth group leader I’ve had to deal with difficult and annoying groups of teenagers, and I have to say, this was fairly similar, except that you couldn’t just shut people down as much, cos they are actually adults. So it was harder. Kudos, recruiters. 
Credit and thanks to Sarah and Harley for the photos.

Master Chief

So this guy showed up one day:

The winner of Master Chef: America

And he drove some sort of jeep thingie:

It kinda hogged the road

Valve
We had a tour of Valve!!

Now I'm thinking with Portals

Their offices are pretty cool - very spacious, with lots of room for fun and games. 

And somehow they manage with a flat structure - no hierarchy, which I find weird, but cool.

Lamarr! Lamarr! Oh, where has she got to?

Continue testing

Om nom nom

Building a sentry!

This turret will not threaten to stab you because
it cannot, in fact, speak.

I'm Gordan Freemon

One mute with a weird gun against another

Cirque du Soleil: Kurios

I'm just gonna go ahead and spoil the plot twist of their storyline: 

Dumbledore kills Snape.

I BET YOU WEREN'T EXPECTING THAT TO HAPPEN.

CdS was excellent; I really enjoyed it. 

Juggling, acrobatics, balancing on various things, comedy ... all the standard circus things, packaged around an understandable yet still wacky storyline. 

And they went overboard on the props department this time. 

However, I could still see the performers steeling themselves before some of the tricks, which takes away from the magic of it all - regardless of nerves, as a performer on stage you are not allowed to show that you can possibly make a mistake. 

They almost did stuff up though. 

But this guy at the door had amazing facial hair:

What a mo ... what a beard ... 

The Internship

I hate that movie. 

There are only two weeks left … 

We’re all getting nostalgic … and getting more suitcases to fit all our extra stuff in.

Sad times … 

The end is nigh ...