10 Most Popular Posts of 2012

Note:  Photos and blog links will be added to this post tomorrow evening, January 1 [Update: photos added, with links in blue].  Tonight we're heading downtown to get our New Year’s Eve on!

All good things must come to an end.  Parting with 2012 is such sweet sorrow.  A bird in hand… well, enough of the clichés.  2012 was our best year so far!

The overseas journeys (some of which were not even mentioned here on Garth’s Blog), the growth and development of Baby Lena, the unforgettable time spent with God, family, ministry partners, and amazing friends… 2012 has been a banner year.  Thus, I’m taking a different approach to choosing the year’s highlights.

It has been humbling to see the readership (aka, page hits) of “Garth’s Blog” grow exponentially this past year.  In honor of both our loyal and newly discovered BlogSpot audience, it seemed best to let you, the readers, pick the highlights of 2012.  In order of page rankings, here are the most popular “Garth’s Blog” posts of 2012 (links are in blue): 

Runner-up:  Twitterfied

A reluctant blogger’s leap aboard the Twitter bandwagon

10.  The Face of Fear

 A silly throwaway teaser for my upcoming skydiving post, which has yet to see the light of day.  Early 2013, anyone?

9.  (TIE) Tokyo Drifting, Part 1

This post from Japan fared slightly better than my sequels:  Tokyo Drifting 2: Senso-Ji Temple, Tokyo Drifting 3: Fleeing Sumida, and an educational encounter with a Japanese toilet.

This was just one of my many brief overseas trips to sample the Japanese (and many other countries') nightlife in 2012.  In early 2013, I'll try to blog about some of my other previously unmentioned 2012 international trips.

9.  (TIE) Thankful for Lena

 A Thanksgiving-themed update on Baby Lena, brimming with photos

8.  Tomato Battle: Portland

Portland’s biggest, rowdiest, messiest food fight

7.  Happy Halloween from Delta Airlines

Absurd, nonpartisan nonsense from failed VP nominee Paul Ryan and the A-Team

6.  Coldplay Put a Smile Upon My Face

  A taste of Para...Para...Paradise from Coldplay’s final Portland show before announcing their three year hiatus

5.  Belgium- Spring Break in 

the Low Countries, Day 3

  The most popular of my Benelux countries travel series with my dad, which also included stops in Amsterdam, Luxembourg, and EuroRail purgatory

4.  Backpacking Elk Meadows

An example of the many types of outdoor adventures that we provide for our students

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Before we reveal the top 3 “Garth’s Blog” posts of 2012, here are the two other most highly read E.P.I.C. student ministry updates from this past year:

International Youth Convention: Denver

 A rare appearance by guest blogger Kathy, who puts to shame my earlier post about this year’s IYC trip with high schoolers

E.P.I.C. Student Ministry Update- Feb 2012

 Serving the homeless, worshiping God, boating, camping, and shaving cream fights

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And now,

the Top 3 most popular posts of 2012:

3.  Intermission: Banks Lake Wakeboarding

 This was the Hamilton family's annual Banks Lake camping trip in eastern Washington, a.k.a. an excuse for a week of wakeboarding, waterskiing, kneeboarding, and white-knuckled tube riding.  Lots of great action photos in this post!

2.  Behind the Scenes in L.A., Pt. 2

 Decisively trumping March’s blog post about Lena’s first ever plane ride to Los Angeles, this 2^nd chapter of the making of our “Delta Wanderland” holiday video focused on the music video shoot itself.  Part 1, technically #8 on this 10 Most Popular countdown, shared the blood, sweat, and tears (okay, maybe just the sweat) that we dancers shed at the International Dance Academy on Hollywood Boulevard.

I milked the video shoot’s ridiculously lax policy (compared to the countless other film sets where I've been shot) on cell phone cameras for all it’s worth, and these posts are the result.  A brief, professionally made behind the scenes video was also added here last week, including some all-too-brief clips of our Soul Train dance-off.

1.  Lena’s First Christmas

 Was there ever any doubt?  Lena starred in the first “Garth’s Blog” post of 2012 and also tops your year-end Top 10 list!

Sadly, that cute little 15 ½ month old is currently ill for the first time in her life.  The promised Christmas 2012 update will be rolled into a Lena retrospective, and it’s coming in early 2013.

So there you have it.  Some of my personal favorites didn’t come close to making the Top 10, but that’s life.  Note that this list excludes those oft-viewed posts from years past which refuse to die:  Touring London, Kathy’s baby announcement, Banks Lake, randomly popular ministry updates, the Black Crowes, and boogie boarding.

Addio, 2012!  It’s been another riveting year!!

Tomato Battle: Portland

IMG_8378_edited-1.JPG, a photo by gkhamilton on Flickr.

FOOD FIGHT!! Kathy, me, and Brett study the art of war at Tomato Battle- Portland

If only La Tomatina festival in Buñol, Spain wasn’t so tricky to reach flying standby. On July 21, those of us Portlanders choosing to remain in the U.S. this summer assembled for the next best thing-- Tomato Battle: Portland!

Fun loving Northwest tomato warriors (14 years old and up) showed up in droves for this massive food fight/concert/costume contest at MacTarnahans. It was tomato juice drenched chaos.


Many readers will be justifiably horrified about wasting food in a world where so many needlessly go hungry. Don’t worry, no “edible” tomatoes were used as ammo. With that issue put to bed, Kathy and I each came prepared for battle with a fighting spirit and a clear conscience.


In the abridged words of the organizers:
The Tomato Battle unifies as many as 5,000 fruit-chucking fanatics for an afternoon of dancing to music and flinging 300,000 pounds of roma tomatoes at one another. Mosh in a ketchup-covered fray with live entertainment and a costume contest. At 4:00 p.m., soldiers converge on piles of past-ripe tomatoes and set about pelting people with fruits like sentient apple trees avenging the initial-carving of amorous teenagers. Beats flow until past 7 p.m., when ruddy troops lay down their arms and rinse themselves clean of pulp and juice. An extra set of clothes is highly recommended.

All of the tomatoes used during the exhibition will have been previously marked for disposal, making the Tomato Battle an efficient and entertaining use of nonedible waste. Onward.

In other words, since all that red fruit was headed for the trash anyways, it would be a waste to NOT throw these tomatoes at people.


I passed up the earlier festivities of the day in favor of spending some time with baby Lena. By the time Kathy and I showed up at MacTarnahans, Tomato Battle was already underway. Here’s what we missed:

The first few hours of music


The costume contest


The opening salvos

[Both photos above are courtesy of Kyle Helstein’s Facebook uploads and his "Clever Brilliant Mad" BlogSpot page].

Kathy and I arrived as clean as freshly laundered tube socks. We then learned, in spectacular fashion, that charging into a Tomato Battle already in progress makes you the hottest targets in the yard. A random girl cheerfully leaped up and latched onto me with a lingering tomato pulpy arms & legs bear hug. Tomatoes pelted us from all directions. The festive mob heaved, shouted, laughed, tackled, and showed no mercy.

Passing the camera around led to some interesting photos, but most of them were blurry and ludicrously framed. Here are a few good shots, mostly taken as the battle was winding down:





Sharp readers will recognize that Tomato Battle action shot of me, cropped down from my “Food Fight!” post on Tuesday. I launched a double-fisted aerial tomato counter assault on a retreating attacker. Believe me, he flung first.


This leads us to the one fatality that was inflicted during Tomato Battle. Our Canon digital camera, taken along with me on dozens of overseas trips, met a tragic demise. The camera was on its last legs anyway, so I thought it fitting to honorably send it afloat in a tomatoey grave. R.I.P., trusty friend.

It’s anyone’s guess how Kathy managed to stay so clean while my friend Brett and I got saturated with tomato slush and ketchup rain. But I and my fallen camera-in-arms shared a similar fate as we left the battlefield that day. We were both…

…completely and utterly PWNED by tomatoes.



Coming next week on BlogSpot...
My wonderful wife Kathy makes a rare appearance here on www.garthhamilton.blogspot.com to follow up my previous International Youth Convention post with her favorite moments and photos from last month’s IYC in Denver, Colorado.


And after that, I’m praying that I’ll still be alive to blog about this upcoming weekend’s adventure:

Birthday Skydiving!!

Preview: Food Fight!

A853603-R1-13-12A_edited-1.jpg, a photo by gkhamilton on Flickr.

Why am I assaulting this poor man with two fistfuls of tomatoes as he is obviously running for safety? All will be revealed on Thursday morning when I finally get around to uploading my “Tomato Battle- Portland” blog post!


This summer has been nonstop. After walking in the door just now, I have about 15 minutes to freshen up baby Lena and run back out again.

Admittedly, I announced (read: overpromised) in last week’s Japanese Potty Training post that you my readers would be feasting your eyes on some Tomato Battle pics and stories today. Thanks for stopping by BlogSpot this evening, but…

Check back here later on Thursday for a rundown of the tomato throwing frenzy!

Japanese Potty Training

Now that we have Tokyo Drifting 1, 2, 3, and some summery fresh updates from IYC Denver and wave riding in Banks Lake WA (links) behind us, I have a small clarification:  

In my first “Tokyo Drifting” blog post, I had mentioned the utter lack of English signage in my Tokyo neighborhood.  That wasn’t completely true.  The more touristy shops and restaurants in the area sprinkled their Kanji displays with a Yankee phrase or two, and English instructions were ubiquitous throughout the Hostel Kawase Tokyo and Capsule. 

In fact, my capsule/hostel went the extra mile and added a helpful illustration to their posted English instructions for using their Japanese toilet:

Don’t laugh.  Odds are, countless American college backpackers have welcomed said instructions as they opened the WC stall door and found themselves staring down at this:

You just got learned.

Coming this Tuesday night on BlogSpot… Photos and tales from the trenches of Portland’s biggest ever food fight:

TOMATO BATTLE PDX!!!