Before you ask...

YES, I've started to pack.

But just barely. We've been busy in the garden, on our bikes, drinking good beer and hanging around town.

The garden has surpassed my predictions and produced more peas and beans than we could possibly ever eat:
We hit the bridge pedal again this year with Laurel at our side and had a marvelous time. The greatest highlight once again being the Marquam bridge...and this year we had opportunity to ride it twice. A close runner up, however, was the new route that opened the whole of southbound 405 from the Freemont bridge to the Marquam.

Laurel snapped a shot of the Freemont overrun with bicyclists and said that she was going to to call it "the future"....brilliant. I had remarked about how fabulous it would be if this same route was opened up for the daily commute. What a blast eh?

We had a nice day for it, warm enough for short sleeves and little wind. And oh my goodness, the crappy little ice cream bars they give you at the end are most delicious after crossing the finish line...

-Ride Stats-
Pedal Mileage: 48
Average MPH: 12

Max MPH: 32

A couple weeks prior, we took in the OBF and sampled some excellent beers. I must say that the Saturday crowd wears on my nerves and I will make every effort to try to go on Thursday to try the beers at the top of my list. This was our method this year, we had a few tastes after work on Thursday night and then went for round two on Saturday morning with the out of town people. After a few hours of swimming through people I was spent. That said, I did get to just about everything on my short list either by my cup or a sip off another.
Favorites this year:

-New Holland's Oak Aged Ale, Dragon's Milk
-Lagunitas Imperial IPA, Hop Stoopid
-Green Flash Red Ale, Hop Head Red

...ah beer.

...ah Portland.

A soda machine Dirk Gently would like.

...or the pensive soda machine
...or what gave me the giggles on Saturday
...or the day that spell-check failed

Thank you letter to Bank of America

Thank you for your kind attention:

It was today brought to my attention that after ages and ages of wanting to leave this banking relationship and find another that I really have much to be thankful for.

First, I would like to compliment you on the quality of your customer service. You have trained your employees to be extremely friendly and able to answer every imaginable question while avoiding giving direct answers or even correct answers, and all with a smile and a parting wish that they have addressed my concerns.

Second, I must applaud your excellent lobby design, the palette of the seating area is soothing and almost is able to calm my nerves as I wait a full hour to be helped with my latest BOA inspired issue.

Third, thank you for making it possible for me to talk to a new (and friendly) customer service person on the phone every month to correct the mistakes that are associated with having accounts with your bank that are in two different states. It's excellent that you're able to span the globe and still keep the scope of your customer service capabilities local.

Fourth, thank you for always promising me things that you cannot deliver. It helps to keep my expectations of other things in my life extremely low.

Fifth, I especially appreciate the efforts that your bank has made in keeping me on my toes. If I hadn't been trained by your inefficiency I may not keep such a close watch on my accounts and might have completely missed the random monthly maintenance fees you occasionally, accidentally dole out; the theft and comprising of my checking account by a person cashing a fraudulent check at your very institution (thanks for keeping an eye out for my best interest!); or the omission of part of my name on our OR statement; or even the fact that you kept our closed account open and started to assess fees for non-sufficient daily balance. I feel lucky to have this training and I hope to be so vigilant with all aspects of my life.

Sixth, although I do realize the market fluctuates I still want to give credit to you for selling me foreign currency at a much higher rate than you purchased it back from me. It is a rare occasion that the common people have opportunity to give a bank a loan and I was so pleased to be able to hold currency for a few days so that you could make some money off of it.

Seventh, I had started to feel like everything in the world was good and golden after I signed the papers on my house, but I again am indebted to you for slapping me back into reality and allowing me to feel the usual stress that first-time home buyers should all be feeling, waiting on tenter-hooks to see if wire transfers really can come true.

Eighth, I really appreciate that your employees are my equal. It's so nice to go into a branch with a question and have an employee pick up the phone to get the answer. I can hear them cycling through the prompts the same way I would; how refreshing to not have anyone available with an answer at their fingertips.

All in all it's been one of those excellent learning relationships that we've had and I couldn't be more glad to be soon moving away and finally having the ability to take my account with me.

Very truly yours etcetera etcetera and so forth...

I have a really long name.

It's my own fault. I realized it when I did it four years ago and shortened my everyday signature to suit my level of patience.

Lenders have a different level of patience for the inch of paperwork you sign when purchasing a home. First name, middle initial (phew!), last name. Thank goodness I only had to sign about half the documents- Joe observed that we might have been there twice the time if I had, had to sign each page.

The official close is still a few days away, but it still feels good.

Observations upon riding my bike to work...

I like it.

At first I was trying to hone in and reduce the amount of time it took me to get from point A to point B. I’ve changed my route rather much since I commuted by bike last fall. However, I had limited myself to a certain degree by taking those roads which I was most comfortable with. I’ve since become slightly more daring and have reduced my bike in time from 1 hour to 40 minutes which is kind of exciting. However, I have now found that given the prospect of a new yard (that’s ours all ours!) and a new home I am sight-seeing quite a bit on my way to work (read…dawdling). I’ve made up for the sight-seeing by taking the hill, and it’s not so bad. In fact, when I can make the light at the bottom it’s quite thrilling.

My sight-seeing has afforded me views of interesting landscaping (lots of people are digging up their grass….) and has also given me a route that is perhaps less used by others. I do join the mainstream by hopping on the east bank esplanade and having a bit of a bike stroll (if you will) along the river. So far, not a day has gone by that I haven’t seen the local police either arresting or harassing (I mean chatting) with the vagrant community that calls the esplanade home. That and some entertaining graffiti (highlights include the witty: “bros not hoes” and “call your deadbeat dad he still loves you”) make this portion of my commute feel seedy and scandalous…mwhahahaha. Not really, but it’s just a strong contrast coming off of Willamette Blvd.

The best thing about my morning commute is that Widmer usually has a boil going and it smells terrific.

4 day weekend

I think it would be absolutely splendid if the fourth of July fell on a Friday or Monday every year.

Unfortunately, the calendar is not so kind.

We spent a fabulous weekend at the lake, entertaining ourselves, munching on food, drinking beer and generally having a marvelous time. Other lake dwellers lit off fireworks to the benefit of the entire lake...it was even better to watch from afar as I was able to play with the settings on my camera and feel much more at ease watching fireworks from across the lake.

It was a our group tenth anniversary (give or take) this year and we put together a rough time capsule. As with many things we do, it's not quite finished, but I figure that we have the rest of the year to get it together. I have to say that I found it rather difficult to find things from the past to toss in there that I hadn't already parted with...however, on Joe's recommendation a couple of newspapers from the week were tossed in and have hopefully created a good base. Now we just have to decide when/if to open it.


Because it was such a long weekend and we were supplying the beverages for two parties we ended up with quite a lot of beer in our car...I estimate roughly 30 gallons, kegs and cases combined, that we brought for the two gatherings (not to mention the 4 cases we transported up here for others). I still can't believe we fit all of it plus a jockey box in the car.

The kids...fearless and daring, braved the cooler water and had some bumper boat fun...

About every other year we have good weather (and sunburns)...this year was chillier and overcast. Without the sunshine to tempt people we became a much smaller party on Saturday and had some low key fun, the highlight of which, included an old lake pastime of driving retired golf balls into the water. Scott came up with a couple of new tricks to an old game by grabbing one of the keg cup pens and creating an effigy on a golf ball. The rest of us followed suit and, I for one, derived more pleasure from the smacking sound of the club than ever before as I hit a ball bearing the title "factory farms." It was entertaining to watch the different style we each had...

Scott entertained us with a running shot...



Sunday brought Pat's retirement and a whole new group of people...that night, we entertained the lake with our own fireworks display.

Pat ordered in a show that took two hours to set-up (the display was set off remotely), lasted almost a quarter of an hour and that kicked total ass.

If you called....

and you got the voice mail, this is why...

Symptoms:
- mosquito bites
- sand in shoes
- warm beer
- berries
- itchy kitties
- dinner outside
- farmers market
- sandals
- sunscreen
- water...lots of water

...it's properly Summer.
Spring made no appearance, but summer is definitely here. And where there is summer, there is busy.

We spent last weekend at the beach for the Brewers Games and a small charity beer festival put on by Pelican Brewery in Pacific City.


Joe participated with a hodgepodge of other Portland Brewers- competing against 12 other breweries/distributors in some whacked out beer olympics.
















I watched from the sidelines as this motley crew tossed, dragged and ran with kegs through obstacle courses and around the beach, threw active yeast in balloons to each other, moved mashed grain from barrel to barrel, and drank and obliterated macro-brews on a homemade iron-maiden.

It was quite a show and lasted pretty much all day. We retired to a small cabin across the way from the brewery and sat around the fire rehashing the best and worst moments of the games and planning for 364 days later when they could compete again.

It was a pleasant and pretty drive to Pacific City; we returned home and promptly recreated a beach environment by introducing half the beach onto the living room carpet.

This past weekend we took in the Organic Brewer's Festival which had many contrasts from our attendance the previous year. It was beautiful, sunny and packed with people. My only complaint is that I went in thinking I'd save my favorite brew of last year, Alameda's IPA, for last and as I approached the tent with my last ticket a pathway cleared in front of me showing the way...literally...people had gotten out of line because the keg was tapped. Lame.

Otherwise it was a pretty low-key weekend. Hung out at the Saturday farmers market at PSU. We stood-in for a friend, volunteering at a bike event doing helmet fitting-which I am very bad at and Joe is not. Biked to and from the bike event (seems only fitting eh?) in the 100 degree weather and spent the later evening walking around the garden and enjoying a beer. Sunday was a relaxing day, spent out at Sauvie Island picnicking and having a little bit of frisbee.

ah....summer.