I’m surprised that they picked this weekend since at least one of the organizers is a huge soccer fan and the Euro cup final is Sunday. His boys aren’t in it this time around, though Spain vs Germany should be a pretty awesome match. Both teams play to win.

Inside: Hercules Double, Elysian Avatar, assorted homebrews, and lots more fun stuff.

cheers.

Well, it was definitely Moist over the Memorial Day. We had a great showing of ballers and their friends and family. As seems to frequently be the case, the various Moist squads had some difficulty putting the ball into the back of the net. I don’t think it’s due to any shortage of talent on the teams, probably more because all of the teams are just mixes of dudes and ladies who haven’t necessarily played together. And it actually takes some team dynamics (beyond awesomeness) to compose a nice goal-scoring opportunity.

Moco means snot in Spanish, we discovered.

One of the hallmarks of the Moist Coalition is the hair thing. Originally it was “mustaches and mullets” but we’ve grown. We’re far more mature, and while some of us haven’t left our roots (to which I still aspire), others have skyrocketed past them.

Here are my picks for the winners of Best Face:

The ladies of moist, Real Moist, showed well this year. Overall they took 4th, and stayed in strong spirits after opening the tourney against two very strong teams. The women’s side of the tournament suffers because there is only one division, so there’s a broad range of talent you need to face. The ladies suffered because I lacked the foresight/abllity to specifically recruit a keeper for them. They did great and MB and Sara did a great job filling in.

Moist United, our hero team playing D-2, scored the most goals of the tourney (for a Moist Squad). The braggart Jay pointed out that he scored more goals than my entire team ;) I don’t hate him for that. Sadly, a bottomless supply of goals isn’t enough when your keeper and sweeper are injured, allowing a few too many goals into the wrong net. Overall, United placed 7th.

Moist ST was a solid squad. Unfortunately 500 breakaways and connected crosses don’t mean much if they all sail wide or high. They only allowed three goals throughout the tourney (regular time), but they lost on PKs at pivotal moments and ended up placing 8th.

FC Moist was the winner of the surprisingly annual Moist on Moist match, placing them into the top half of the table. As usual, this game is an exciting one, despite the lack of regulation goals. Both sides had a lot of scoring opportunities, but none were capitalized on. FC eventually won in penalty kicks, with their keeper saving two of the first five. And despite allowing 5 goals and only scoring one, FC took third in the tournament.

Virtual and real gameballs go to: Jason (FC Keeper), Greg (United keeper), Maribeth (Real keeper), and ?? from ST. We love our goalies, especially when we have trouble scoring ourselves!

It’s really pretty amazing…so many people, often many have never met, and just good times. For the uninitiated, it all started 5 or 6 years ago as Gremio North under Sturtz. It was a blast, but Sturtz went civilian the next year, so Paul, Dave, and I took it over, renamed it to the Moist Coalition, and got a coupla teams together (FC Moist and Moist United). From there we grew, folks come and go, but almost everyone comes back for more. Last year we added a lady team, the Moistresses, now Real Moist, and they’re bursting at the seams.

Swing by, or have a fantastic weekend.

The brewpub and restaurant sounds like a monsterous undertaking. It’s a huge space, and they are going green. Very bike friendly. Lots of organics. Recycled this and that. Hopworks brews are big, bold, and tasty, and I’m excited to see them taking on this ambitious task. Plus they’re right across the street from my team’s home field.

And me without my camera.

Apparently, the race is 4 miles long, with beer break checkpoints scattered throughout. It seemed that everyone was celebrating the entire time. It was beautiful. And they kept following me. After Powell’s tech, I went into the big Powell’s. After I emerged, they were still partying by my car on Davis and I walked to grab a gyro at Aybla (so good!). As I started unwrapping my tasty pita goodness a familiar sound greeted my ears, and I was swarmed by iditarod mayhem.

Favorite costume goes to the big shirtless guy with the angel wings. So wrong. That team was all kinds of wrong with the sexy angel on the wagon working the stripper pole.

Neatest cart: cavemen with real fire.

Funniest shirt: it takes quick hands to beat off evil.

I love Portland.

PS. It looks like the best page to get more info is unfortunately their myspace.

Our group met at the snow park where we began the route at around 11, and were on the snow shortly after. Some cops out for a training weeked were nice enouh to snap a few mugshots.

The road in was uneventful, a gradual decline, until we forked off the snowmobile trail and came across a small river canyon. We trolled the banks for a way to cross for awhile, then built a bridge from dead wood. Not too far beyond that we came across the hut.

Because we didn’t have to carry tents and some other heavy gear we were able to pack in extra beer and booze. And we did. Saturday was fairly raucous (yet respectful) in the one-room hut. One chair suffered from our stay, but that was due to its inability to support the fairly massive mountain ninja than anyone behaving like a jackass.

New friends were made. At one point, Joe asked me why Chris and Jay had been calling him Joe Rogen all night. My response was…it’s the same reason we call Chris “Chris Smith”….that just his name. Joe Rogen looked at me blankly, smiled and nodded. The next day it came up again, but this time he explained that his last name was Jones. Well, now it’s Rogen.

Chad was the chef, making pasta with marinara or cream sauce (I mixed) with shrimp, and a salad for dinner, and banana pancakes and tons of bacon for breakfast. The rest of the night we finished off two bottles of Jager, a liter of SoCo, some Evan Williams premixed with coke, some Bushmill, and beers and Sparks. It was pretty ridiculous. Tired, we got to bed fairly early, but not as early as the Mountain Ninja birthday boy.

Oh yeah, and my sunglasses got busted so I had to wear goggles to do the dishes.

My favorites were how to be an undercover prostitute and the one about eating sushi. But that’s because they’re the ones that apply most directly to my life. Depending on what you’re into, you may relate best to a discourse on pepper, the history of stick figures, wtf is biodiesel, or venture capitalism in portland. Or one of the others.

I was a bit surprised, as I’d expected there to be a bit more of a technical focus. But this was fine, I love random stuff too. But what I don’t love is lines. And there was a huge line to get into the place. Getting off the bus I ran into a fellow nerd-buddy heading to the event as well, so we walked the line down thirty-seventh, and took a left on Clay where the line bent, and continued nearly to the end of the block. As we walked, blowing off the show and grabbing a pint sounded like an increasingly good idea. Some lady friends remained in line while we went to Oasis Cafe for some tasty malty beverage. They called us when they got in to say that it looked like there were still seats. The line still extended into the distance, so we continued sipping our pints. We finished and decided that we’d give it a shot. They had stopped letting people in, but we were queued up near the front and with a little luck and conniving, we were able to join our friends on the “inside”.

The event was around two hours, for the most part is was good. Informative and/or entertaining. It’s still young, so I imagine that things will get smoother. I think they should do away with the free food part. It’ll help eliminate freeloaders and fence-sitters. That or move it away from the center of the city. The size is good, the energy is great, I’m excited to see where Ignite goes.

UPDATE: added actual link to the event.