Sitting on a couch at the Bendistillery Martini Bar, Dana MacKenzie sips from a Rogue Dead Guy Ale as he points up at his artwork on an adjacent wall. He’s giving a deeply detailed account of his two pieces and revealing some of the inspiration behind the work he placed on the wall just a few minutes prior.

He  points out that even 15 years ago, his work might not have even been considered art and that’s because the two pieces on the wall are in the form of skateboard decks. The 39-year-old MacKenzie is a graphic artist and made a name for himself early in the history of computer-aided design. Now, MacKenzie lends his skills to the creation of video games, an industry he’s been in since the mid-‘90s.

The peculiar and markedly simple card game of faro might actually be spelled “pharaoh,” but there’s no point in debating the spelling because hardly anyone has played the game in the last century. But down at the High Desert Museum, faro is being played, the antiquated cards dealt onto a century-old table by a young man dressed in a vest, dress shirt and a bowler hat.

He’s dressed like it’s 1900, which is exactly the time period the High Desert Museum is trying to create with its Sin in the Sagebrush exhibit, a meticulously crafted, time-period-accurate look into the gambling, drinking, whoring, fighting, dancing, shooting and other displays of general debauchery that accompanied life in the often harsh Western frontier. The exhibit, running through September before hitting the road to other museums around the country, has been some three years in the making, as curator Bob Boyd and his team gathered genuine articles from this era like, for example, an array of gamblers’ cheating devices, including a strap that allowed card players to literally keep an ace up their sleeves.

So after a week or so of mock-preparation for the Polar Plunge, writing an article about it and raising a few hundred dollars for the Special Olympics with my team, I kind of had to do it. So I took the plunge. And it was cold.

Some athletes spend months or years training for one day of glory. In preparation for the Vancouver Olympics, skier Lindsey Vonn trained six to eight hours a day, six days a week, engaging in a mix of hardcore cardio and weight training.

My day of glory arrives this Friday, when I will join hundreds of brave souls as we jump into the icy waters of the Deschutes in the name of Special Olympics Oregon. Luckily, I am already in excellent physical condition. I can run nearly 3 miles without stopping, do a handstand for at least two seconds before falling over, and just last week, I ate half of a foot-long salami in one sitting. However, I have a weakness. Call it my Kryptonite. I loathe being cold.

Joe Katroscik is trying to explain something about bicycle parts, while Michael Martin bangs an old frame with a hammer. Pointing towards the front of the bike in progress, Katroscik says, “See this joint, what’s it called Michael? A lug?”

“You big lug,” Martin chimes in, clanging away.

Not acknowledging the joke, Katroscik continues to talk bike mechanics and the mission of Bend’s Community BikeShed.