Bonny Portland

Portland just got a taste of Chicago White Sox baseball. I'm sure everyone in my apartment complex heard me! Next up, time to bring the pain to the Minnesota Twins!!!!

Exciting weekend! We had a visit from the local fire department on Saturday! We had the entire apartment complex evacuated!

Saturday Night, Olivia is making us a nice steak dinner. It gets real smoky and eventually sets off our fire alarm. We can't get it shut off. We have all of our windows open and nothing works, so we open up the door to our hallway too. Soon, the entire building's fire alarm goes off and everyone evacuates. Building manager comes over to the apartment and we try to explain, can't do anything till the fire department arrives. I go outside to explain to people what happened, that everything is ok, and that I'm sorry. Everyone understands but they can't go back in because the entire building is in lockdown. One young lady asks me "Do you need some help cooking?" She's lucky I didn't rat her out to Olivia. Fire department comes running in with axes and equipment. I try to stop them, tell them there is no need to run but they go pounding on Olivia's door and turn everything off. Nice first impression with the neighbors, I think =)

Earlier on Saturday my desk was delivered from EcoPDX. Its really sweet. It looks awesome and I'm happy to have a desk again.

On Sunday, we went back to Apizza Scholls for Sicilian Sunday. Definitely prefer the regular selection over this pan style. But it was worth noting because they sell OLDSTYLE in tallboy cans! We went right before the Bears game so I was excited. Old Style and a Bears win.. woo!

Bears: They are tied for 1st place in the NFC North with a Sunday Night WIN over the Eagles!!!
White Sox: They have driven me to the brink this week. A 2.5 game lead with one week to go has become being behind 0.5 games. They have to win on Monday for the right to play a game on Tuesday against Minnesota to get into the playoffs. They've been a real disappointment. This was the first game they won IN A WEEK. The team has NO heart. I don't know why I keep watching...

Here in Portland, the DMV is fun. I had to get my car registered here in Oregon (my California plates expired in August) and get a brand new Driver's License. First step was to get the car checked for Smog. You can actually watch a webcam through the state's website to see how bad the line is and plan your trip accordingly! Second step, go to the DMV. Nice big parking lot, 7-8 windows of workers. About 5 people needing help. They have a "pick a number" system. More of a formality. Got my plates and a sticker good for 2 years. The nice DMV girl asked me if I had studied for the written knowledge test for my license, of course not. Took the vision test, I swear those things aren't calibrated right. the lines are easy enough to read where the light is shining correctly or the lens isn't bent. I dont get it. center of line: clear as day.. left of line unreadable except if you look at some crazy angle.. right of line almost gibberish until you again press your head _just_ right into the machine and suddenly its clear as day again. give me a poster and a taped line on the ground. this is just stupid. the written knowledge test is actually a computer touch screen test. kinda like a videogame! it tells you if you selected right or wrong. Passed no problem and now I got my temporary Driver's License. The DMV girl did admonish me for not shaving for the picture though....

Olivia wanted to celebrate me being alot more of an Oregonian than her. (I have a DL and a registered car. She's still California Dreamin'...) We picked a Southern style place near by called the Screen Door. Not bad. The appetizers were awesome. The portions were HUGE. I had some fried Okra, Olivia had heirloom tomatoes. Dinner was more pedestrian. Fried Chicken.. but no drumsticks.. that really kills my chicken buzz. Sweet tea, not very sweet. Quickly ordered a beer. Collard greens, spicy. Sweet potato fries, pretty good. Olivia had some banana pie desert. It must have been pretty good, it was huge and it was all gone by the time we left.

I feel like a snake shedding off my Hell-A skin

The Chicago Bears had a game stolen from them today. The defense didn't hold a 10 point lead with less than 7 minutes left and a 7 point lead with 2 minutes left. Then, Peanut Tillman got called for an unnecessary roughness penalty for jumping to protect another Bears player getting his head slammed to the ground. That turned Tampa's 4th down punting situation deep in their own territory in OT to an automatic first down that eventually lead to a Bears loss. I really thought we had won the game. We caught it at the Broadway Grille and Brewery again. We're becoming regulars, even catch our waitress at the grocery store.

The rest of the weekend was pretty nice, though its hard to recount it well with the sting of 1-2 still burned into my soul.

On Friday night we headed into Old Town Portland and ate at Dan and Louis' Oyster Bar. As you might expect, the oysters were super fresh. Overall, the atmosphere inside was very cool. Lots of nautical themes, pictures of older Portland, and an extensive collection of coat hangers. The meal was rather depressing for me because, without notice, they put Indian spice on my Razor Clams. #1, that tasted horrible, #2 thats a pretty strong flavor to not give a heads up about. I'd go back for the Oysters, but certainly not the Razor Clams, which have started to be a favorite of mine out here. Olivia was going to finish them at home, but the bar is in a less economically successful part of town and she gave the leftovers to a man who had asked for them.

Saturday morning was back to the Portland Farmer's Market! Olivia has got the house pretty much together so I had a green light to stock up the freezer with some sustainably produced meat! The market did not disappoint, we were able to get bacon, ribeyes, and t-bones all from family farms, all completely grass fed. I'm looking forward to trying them and I'm just a little sad I don't have a BBQ grill anymore.

After the market, we headed over to EcoPDX to try and find a desk. My old desk had been with me in LA for 8 years. It was just a simple but heavy particle board/Ikea special that got a little less useful everytime I had to break it down and then put it back together. At EcoPDX they didnt have a desk but they worked with me for a custom plan to turn two nightstands into a walnut topped desk. Why would I choose this method? The work is done in Portland, by local owners. The wood they use is all salvaged or reclaimed wood that would otherwise be wasted. How can you beat the chance for a custom, but still sustainable, piece of furniture that should last me indefinitely. If not as a desk, but as two nightstands!

Saturday night we had our Olivia cooked natural Duck. It tasted as good as it looked! Olivia did an awesome job. It was nice to have a home cooked meal and now that all the pots and pans are unpacked I look forward to all the nice meals Olivia will prepare for us at the homestead.

We covered the horror of Sunday morning already. The weekend winded down when we were graciously invited by a boss at Olivia's job to the Ronald McDonald House charity fundraiser. It was a silent and live auction with a little casino action thrown in at the end. We bid on a few things but just ended up with a evening at some sort of Christmas show that is a local tradition. It came with a bottle of nice Pinot Noir and a gift certificate for dinner. We easily are getting more than what we paid for the package. Charity is awesome! We wound down the night playing craps for pretend chips (and raffle entries.) Olivia was a decent roller (I really sucked... my max rolls was "3"). We lucked into a one-time roller who rolled for almost 30 mins. She made us so much fake money we wished we were playing in Vegas.

A good weekend, if we don't mention those darned Bears!!

So yesterday harkened the arrival of our long awaited couch. I had agreed before we left LA that I would be willing to leave the Ikea couch that had served me valiantly for 8 years. I did insist that we find an affordable couch made of solid construction in the United States. Our couch is 100% All-Oregon. People who claim they can't find stuff made in the United States are just lazy.



We also went to a Thursday location of the Portland Farmer's Market. We didn't buy that much, but we did buy a duck for our first fancy home cooked meal. I've never had an animal this fresh, It was slaughtered Thursday morning and the farmer told us NOT to cook it for a few days so it can "relax". Crazy. I thought it would be best to eat it right away, but I assume he knows what he's talkin' about.

Since we couldn't cook up Donald, we hit The Italian Joint on the way home. It was nice and quaint, but nothing special. Olivia's Crab and Artichoke Ravioli with Alfredo and Cheese looked alot better than my Chicken Marsala. I made the mistake of telling them I was lactose intolerant so my Caesar salad (which I can eat) was deconstructed. Blah.

We were super excited to go to the Kennedy School, a property of McMenamins, for the first time last night. As mentioned before, its a former public school that was bought and turned into a bar. Its been on Dave Atell's Comedy Central show and is pretty well known. We chose Sept 17th for our trip because it is also known as"Halfway to St. Patrick's Day," the worlds favorite holiday (tm). Several of the McMenamins historic properties were having Irish themed singing and dancing so we were "all-in". Unfortunately, upon further review, all this was happening at 5 or 530pm. How the heck are people who work supposed to go?? They did have some non-Irish events going on later in the evening, but, whaaa? Kennedy School must wait for another day.

Disappointed about not being able to have some Irish fun, we decided to take our first trip/meal in the Pearl District. Knowing it was a bit more pricey than the area we live in, we decided to try a sushi place as the places around us have been waaaaayyy disappointing. (Are we finally going to have something to miss from LA???)


We decided on Hiroshi. Widely touted on review sites as one of the best in Portland. Everything was fresh and decidedly presented well. However, it was more like going to a fine dining restaurant where a good deal of effort was placed on ambiance. They also did not have sushi accompaniment staples : Unfiltered Sake and Plum wine. It quickly became clear that if we were going to get full, it was going to cost more than its value. As we were walking around Olivia saw an ice cream shop she wanted to try. Off to desert!!


Maybe its the fact that I haven't had _real_ ice_cream in years, but the Cool Moon Ice Cream shop was amazing. Everyone there was A+ nice and let Olivia sample as many flavors as she wanted. All local, all natural, and all made right there in the shop. Great flavors. I broke down and dared my lactose intolerant self to have a cone with Black Cherry and a flavor that tasted like Nutella. Well worth it!!! Olivia had some sort of Coffee and Summerberry. Great way to end the night, and I didn't even get sick!

A little slower today. Maintenance got all the work done in the apartment and now all the faucets work without spraying us with water! Its peculiar. I've had to change every lightbulb in the apartment because they're the incandescent energy sappers, but all the water flow has been set up for ULTRA low flow. I couldn't even rinse the sink out this morning after shaving. I'd say I'm pretty green, but I don't quite buy the water famine talk, yet, outside of the the desert regions like Hell-A and Arizona/New Mexico. Desalination becomes an energy game. It is very energy intensive, but if you have clean energy, whats the problem? I'm more worried about water quality than water scarcity. All the runoff and overuse of pesticides and fertilizers have made our water supplies tainted. Similarly, why do i need drinking water to flush the toilet or water the plants?

I ate lunch alone at a McMenamins brewpub. They are a local chain of brewpubs known for taking interesting spaces and making cool pubs. They have two I'm really excited to go to, the Kennedy School, where they took an old school and converted it and the Baghdad, a movietheater you can drink at. Unfortunately, the one near my house is rather plain and sedate. The beer was good and the fish and chips tasty.

Dinner was at the cheese den, but they call it Pastini. Its near the house and we had a coupon from the Chinook Book to try. I assume one of the chefs is from wisconsin because everything had 2 scoops of cheese on it. The Caesar salad? 2 (ice cream) scoops of cheese. The chicken marsala that didnt taste or look anything like chicken marsala? 1.5 scoops of cheese. The food was NOT good here. I don't have anything positive to say about the place other than the servers were nice.

Encouraging news on the job front. I made it to the "equally ranked eligible list" for one of the city jobs i submitted for before our move. Here's to hoping an interview is close behind

In days 2 and 3. The original estimate from the truck driver was that he would arrive on tuesday to deliver the rest of our furniture and belongings. It got pushed back till wednesday, so Olivia and I used the day to get some errands done, but also relax a little bit.

We went to breakfast at Francis Restaurant. Again, Olivia enjoyed it much more than I. She had an omelette that looked pretty good, I had the special: cornmeal pancakes with lemon. I also ordered an italian ice that came in the hugest mason jar I've ever seen. 32 ounces, at least. Big props to the restaurant for doing their part to be sustainable. Plenty of vegan and vegetarian options, take home boxes made for composting, responsible sourcing of their ingredients. Overall, willing to give this place another go.

After breakfast was a trip to get groceries at New Seasons. We had to go because when we were looking for places to live, almost EVERY listing included the distance to New Seasons. I guess I would describe it as if Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, and a Co-Op decided to mate and produce offspring. It has a great selection of every item. Has your more hard to find foods but also has a good deal of the national brands too. They make their own sausages and breads and everyone was super friendly. I can't imagine this not becoming our normal grocery store, especially since the prices seemed normal for everything (if not cheaper than what we are used to in Hell-A).

A little later we made a practice trip for Olivia's new job at Comcast. Turns out its a pretty easy commute, around 15-20 mins. I'm glad she won't have to travel too far.

For Dinner, we went to the best pizza place (if you exclude my childhood favorite) I've ever been to. Apizza Scholls. We tried this on one of our visits to Portland, it had been featured on Anthony Bourdains travel channel show "No Reservations". It is better than can be accurately described. They are open Tues-Sat, 5-9pm or until the dough runs out. They make all the dough themselves, and it takes 24 hours for it to set. Therefore, on busy nights, which seems like 100% of the time, its more likely they run out of dough than make it to the end of the night. Its a really unique place. They all take the same vacations, everyone works every day. They can be "Pizza Nazis", only 3 toppings per pizza and some other rules, but it all makes sense in the end. Even being lactose intolerant, I can eat as much of this pizza as I want. (Quality hard cheese = no problems.)

While there we learned that they are having a special Sunday meal for one of their servers that has been ill. They are not usually open on Sundays but they are having special pizza's and all the proceeds go to medical bills and expenses. If you are in PDX, I'd make a trip.

On wednesday Olivia had to go to go to work. I had to manage the movers. Immediately, I get a phone call telling me they can't get the truck to my street and they'll have to use a shuttle. You know, the shuttle the moving company told me about 4 business days before the move and had me sign a form for extra charges, if needed, but they were 99% certain wouldn't be needed. I don't know if all moving companies are like this, but to recap, every day that they did something they attempted to extort more money from me. I fought this one too and gave the driver plenty of options for getting to my street or an adjacent street. After a while, *magically* he was able to park on the street. All I can say is that you have to stand up for yourself in these situations. They're looking for the pushovers that will just pay whatever to get their stuff. Remember: you have legal options if they try to "hold you up". The movers themselves were actually friendly and did a good job. City of Portland gave them a ticket for double parking because I was unable to secure a permit from the city. How does the city expect you to have multiple days notice when the moving companies themselves don't know when they're going to drop off your stuff? And then, to give tickets for this is crazy. My first WTF portland experience.

The rest of my day was spent getting the bed put together, getting the maintenance crew to finish some unfinished problems with the new apartment, getting the cable installed and ready to watch and generally moving boxes from place to place.

We went to dinner really close by at Koji Osakaya Japanese Restaurant for some sushi. I really hope this wasn't indicative of the sushi I can expect in Portland or that I've been spoiled by easy to come by good sushi in LA. The sushi here is really underwhelming and nothing of note.

Now its late morning on the 4th day. I spent time getting the Tivo converted for the new cable set-up and the never ending task of updating all my accounts and shipments to the new place.

Environment link of the day: Saw this article about the new Chevy Volt. I was real excited about it when it was first announced but now I'm of the opinion that GM/Chevy will find new ways to fuck it up. Here is to hoping I'm wrong and an American car company can do something useful again.

Finally! In Portland! The DSL kicked in about 5pm today. No desk or chairs yet, so I'm stretched out on the floor trying to post this without getting rug burn. Lots of stuff has happened the last 2 days. Lets see how much I can remember.

I forgot to point out how country Redding, CA was. It was like being in the south, without the accent or the sweet tea. Lots of trucks, Carrie Underwood blasting from their speakers and blonde girls with their bouffant style bangs. Least I managed to get out of town without hearing any karaoke....

But not without watching Beenie take a poop on a pillow. We were getting ready to leave the hotel room and Olivia was cleaning up their litter box. Sensing we were about to go on another drive and wanting to show her anger, she plopped a poop on a pillow and then proceeded to wipe her butt on the way for good measure... least it wasn't my pillow..

The first thing I noticed after driving into Oregon, other than a nanny-state like insistence on driving slow, was the constant road construction: all financed by some Oregon Transportation Act that they must have had a vote for. I know its an exaggeration, but I don't remember too many 5 mile stretches where I didn't have to slow down because of road work.

We got to the new apartment around 5:30. The management people at the Lloyd Place Apartments couldn't have been nicer. She waited after hours for us and then did a real inspection of our unit, finding several problems that were mostly fixed this afternoon by a cool maintenance guy.

After getting Beenie and Dion situated with some food and a pooper, I insisted we run to the nearest bar, the Broadway Grill and Pub, showing the Sunday Night Football Bears game. Everyone had been telling me we didn't have a chance in that game. I arrived at halftime to see the Bears with a bit of a lead. I ordered the 9 beer sampler and started rooting on the Rex-less Bears. The 2nd half didn't disappoint as the good guys piled it on and posted a convincing road victory against the hardest opponent on their schedule. Superbowl, here we come!!

This morning we woke up and headed for breakfast at the Cadillac Cafe. The food was alright, Olivia liked it more than I. They did have a real Cadillac in the place, though. They also had a Coconut dessert that I'll come back to try.

Somewhere during the day, Olivia and I marvelled at the kismet that had us have our first full day in Portland on the one year anniversary of our engagement. Weird how the world works sometimes. I booked us a table at the best seafood restaurant in town, Jake's Famous Crawfish.

Next stop was Pacific Lifestyle Furniture. Olivia has been jonesing for a liveable couch for years now and after hearing that these couches were 100% made in Oregon with no foreign materials or parts, I was sold. It also helped that the overall price was less than half of similar things she had shown me in Pottery Barn catalogs. It's being made to order and should arrive on the 18th.

We headed home and I decided to find out just how far Jamba Juice was from my door. Good news, not that far. Its in a rather non-descript mall (Lloyd Center), but they don't use styrofoam cups!! Yes! Like Santa Monica, I figure Portland must not be a fan, I'll have to research this. It sucked in LA to have to remember where the city lines were in order to find a styrofoamless beverage container.

I also bought $100 worth of CFL lightbulbs today. This was after I had already replaced 4 light fixtures in the house with CFLs I brought with me. We have 2 bathrooms with 6 vanity lights each. We also have an overhead light in the living room that was stocked with 4 ornamental/candelabra lights. I'll be taking all these lights with me when I move, but until then, Yeah Earth! and Yeah saving money on the electric bill. Efficiency = easiest way to save energy/money. Have I mentioned the power company out here let me purchase 100% wind generated power? this blog brought to you by NATURE!!

Dinner at Jake's was awesome. We had this when we came out for my birthday last year. The Dungeness crab, still good, but not as awesome as last year. The Razor clams, still REALLY good. Both of us were happy with our dessert selections as well. 2 out of 7 Oysters were milky. The rule of thumb is only eat them in month's that have a 'R' in them, but its probably still a little too close to summer for comfort. I look forward to the colder months to eat them up.

Good first day overall. Sun was shining all day. Where's all the rain????

PS: Oregon Girls don't pump gas........

and apparently the guys don't either. Regular folks aren't allowed to pump their own gas. I don't know what kind of training the attendants must take, but I'm sure its extensive...

Whew! Finally got out of Hell-A this morning. Basically, we got on the 5 North and stayed there. We were able to easily average 75 mph through some desolate countryside. My thermometer said it was 108 degrees outside and it felt like it. Since my Blazer was packed full, I really had to watch my engine temperature. Several times I had to turn the A/C off and bake for a while to drop the temperature... not fun. Sacramento seems to be the dividing line between desolate wasteland and livable conditions. We remember it was the same on our trip to Lake Tahoe, too.

Beenie and Dion were my travelling companions. Overall, they took the ride pretty well, but they were antsy by the end of the day.

We're spending the night in Redding, CA. Had dinner at Cattlemens. Huge servings of food, Olivia actually got half a Cow worth of ribs. We have 90% of them left for tomorrow. I dunno, I'll have to wait to be witty and amusing as after this long day of driving, you're stuck with mindless drivel, mostly.

Tomorrow, to Portland!

So, our last night in Los Angeles. Here was the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly:

The Good: Several of our good friends came to Vito Restaurant to see us off. While we are excited to take off from the current routine, we will miss our good friends. Good wine, Good food and a great atmosphere tonight. Being able to socialize with these solid people will be one of our only regrets about leaving Hell-A.

The Bad: the move has had every horrible mishap possible. Our landlord has been completely evil. She doesn't deserve for me to even mention her. Just a few things that happened today. As the movers were loading up our stuff, we get a call from the office saying they had underestimated our load and they needed to bump it up. Mind you, we had a representative come out and estimate himself and give us a binding estimate. Then, he wants to make us pay more or we can't move our stuff??? That didn't fly with me, I know what a contract is. I gave it to him over the phone, they did take all of our stuff, we'll see how much I'll have to fight. The next horror was when the Green cleaning company (Green Clean) that we had made an appointment with WEEKS ago called us at 4pm today to tell us they were cancelling our 830am appointment. WHAT? No matter that our landlord has it written into the lease that the apartment has to be cleaned before we can turn it over. Oh, did i mention she lives in london so we can't even get ahold of her?? Her proxy, who doesnt even have keys, was also less than helpful. We've set up a replacement cleaner, but they can't get here till 130pm, the earliest. We wont be here, we have to get on the road.

The Ugly: That landlord who's name will no longer be spoken.

So we still have a ton of stuff we have to cram into our cars in the morning before we can take off. Long story short, you can make all the plans and appointments you want, weeks before, get estimates and moving will still try to screw you. You have to just forget about it and keep going, getting to the destination will have to be worth it.

Oh yeah, and then I hear that TCQ, otherwise known as Carlos Quentin, MVP candidate for the Chicago White Sox broke his wrist punching his bat after a foul ball. AWESOME.