Marcel's Blog

Happy Holidays everyone It’s been almost a year since I’ve written a blog about what has been going on with us so here it is.

It’s hard to believe we’ve been in Portland for almost 2 years and in our new Portland home for a year already. So far we are very happy with our cozy new home and neighborhood, but we do at times wish we would have waited another year to buy. We’ve made significant progress this year on many different fronts, but it has also been a lot of work and stress just to get by and try to have some quality of life while doing so. We took a big leap when we bought our house and then suddenly we were bushwhacked by a faltering economy. Who would have thought I would get the news the company I was working for was going out of business the day after we closed on our house. I wasn’t out of work long and did find a job, but with the longest commute I’ve ever had. Shortly afterwards gasoline skyrocketed in price costing me nearly 200 a month just to get back and forth from work. Then inflation went crazy 80’s as a result of that and the housing market bust just made things even worse. I’m sure many of you are also feeling the pinch in some way too.

All of this has had a sobering effect on us and our budget. We knew things would be tight after buying a house but we had no idea that things we used to take for granted would be so difficult now. Mainly we haven’t been able to buy things we normally would or travel at all outside of regional driving trips. Regretfully this has caused us to miss a few important events with family and friends that we would have normally attended. Things are still tight for us but we are getting by and thankful that our situation isn’t as bad as it is for many other people in our country and around the world. I guess one positive to come out of all of this is that we are learning to be a lot more responsible with our money and doing a much better job with budgeting. I give Charlotte all the credit for that along with a financial blog web site she frequents which is based locally in Portland GetRichSlowly If you are interested in improving your finances I’d recommend checking out some of the advice given on that site. I sincerely hope that things do improve next year not just for us but for all the others who are having an even more difficult time than we are.

Another positive note about this year has been Charlotte’s job and career. She is doing well out here in the Pacific Northwest and the company she works for seems to be going strong. Unfortunately I can’t say the same for my career or any job I’ve had since moving out here. I lived in Denver for 6 years and had exactly 2 employers that entire time. Since moving out west I’ve had 9 different employers which include two short term contract jobs I worked, and will have a 10th job soon when I start delivering pizza part time next year. My current job has been the best one I’ve had so far out here even though it is the most unstable job I’ve ever had. I’m currently working for company that is assembling data server racks for a major internet search engine company. We basically build several different server rack configurations, wire them, test them, sometimes perform upgrades, and then ship them out to wherever. It’s somewhat monotonous work but the group of people I work with are all really cool folks. Our work environment is blue collar which is a nice change for me from the corporate “office space” environment I worked in for 5 years at Comcast. We can wear shorts in the summer, and I can listen to my mp3 player while I work. The downside is that the long early morning commute really sucks and the work fluctuates so one week we are leaving work early everyday and the next we are asked to work 10-12 hour days all week. Still I’d take this job any day over a job where I have to listen to customers complain about their computers, phone, plotter, or whatever not working. The bad news is that I’m still just a contractor with a company who is contracting work from another company that could very easily get bought out in the near future. That’s a lot of if’s so I’m keeping my options open, even though there aren’t a lot of options available right now.

One very bright spot in 2008 has been our new doggie Mulder. If you read the last blog I wrote entirely about him then you already know a little bit about the “wild animal” living with us. He is doing very well now and although he is still a rowdy puppy teenager at just 15 months old he is starting to mellow out a bit. He has grown to 80 pounds and will probably fill out a little bit more. We’ve taken him on quite a few adventures hiking, to the beach, and local festivals that allow dogs or are for dogs. He really is like our own kid and has definitely added a lot of life to what would otherwise be a quiet household.

Other good news is that we’ve had quite a few visitors this year. My mom has visited twice, Charlotte’s mom and brother have visited, and my dad was just here for Thanksgiving. It’s always nice to see family and we are glad that we have a decent home with a guestroom to accommodate folks who want to visit. We’d love to have more visitors in 2009

As far as hobbies go I’ve been snowboarding a few times and hiking quite a few times. For more info on this visit the new PNW hiking page that I just recently created. I’ve added hikes from Mt St Helens and South Sister and plan to add about 10 more pages from hikes I’ve done out here over the last couple of years. We have many more pictures from Portland and other regional trips we’ve made around Oregon and Washington but I just haven’t had the time to post them or fix the gallery 2 section that became corrupted when I tried to upgrade it. Someday….

If you haven’t seen JavaFoto in a while check it out. Charlotte has quite a nice blog going there with updates on daily life in Portland. Since she has pretty much turned JavaFoto into her personal website and done a great job with the blog that has further encouraged me to slack off with the upkeep of cosmicadventure. Plus I work a lot and don’t have access to a computer on the job like I have in the past, which is also why I just don’t keep up with email the way I used to. None of that is likely to change next year since I will be busy working two jobs at least until the summer. However with the launch of our new website greencropcircles.com in the spring I am renewing my commitment to writing and research. If you haven’t heard about our new site go ahead and check it out but keep in mind it doesn’t officially take off until spring 2009. Right now there isn’t much there but we do plan to do this full force next year in an effort to raise awareness about global warming and other environmental issues. Charlotte and I feel very strongly about this topic and hope that we along with many others can make a difference; yes we can!

For now that is all from this cosmic channel in Portland, Oregon. Tune in next year for more updates and cosmicadventures

Some of you may have been surprised to see the puppy pictures in the gallery 2 and wondered where that wild animal came from. You’re probably wondering “Have those cosmic vagabonds finally settled down, and why would they want a doggie”? Well to answer your question in the best way I know how I thought I’d just blog it. So here it is- Mulder’s story.

I’ve always had cats growing up and thought someday when I have a house I’d like to have a dog too. There are two major reasons for this, companionship and security. A dog is man’s best friend, and nothing else tells a burglar to buzz off like a badass barking dog. Of course I still want a cat too and we are working on that, but for now we have our hands full with a very energetic puppy.

Shortly after we bought our house last winter we started our search for a doggie. As usual when it comes to big decisions we flip-flopped around quite a bit. I saw some Mastiff puppies on Craigslist that were adorable but they can get up to 200 pounds. We considered fostering dogs that were looking for a home to “get practice” but never got around to it. We found a cute Jack Russell mix puppy that we really liked but someone adopted him while we were flip-flopping about what to do. Charlotte and I both liked the size and attitude of pit bulls but were afraid that if we have kids that breed of dog could potentially become aggressive when we were not around. What to do, what to do?

Finally after seeing many dogs at the pound and online we saw two really cute puppies up for adoption at Petco in mid January 2008. The brothers were originally from a pound in Bend OR and somehow ended up with a local adoption agency in Portland. The one we liked had adorable coloring but was very rowdy in his kennel and just had a poopy accident when we got there. I knew he would be trouble but he really had a striking look about him and lots of energy. His brother was handsome too but much lighter in complexion and smaller. We decided to take the little guy they called Yogi for a walk; our first official walk with any dog. Like most dogs he pulled on the leash dragging us all over the place until he finally squatted down in the middle of the road to do his business. We were both a bit shocked at the time and didn’t know what to do so we just irresponsibly left the doody in the road for someone to run over or step on, ! I guess we just expected him to be trained and well behaved; actually we didn’t know what to expect. When we went back inside everyone was saying how cute he was and few other people were interested in walking him so we had to make a decision quick. After a short huddle we decided to make a leap of faith and took soon to be renamed Yogi home with us.

The paperwork said Yogi was a husky mix weighing in at 18 pounds, but this was obviously for the wrong dog, and that name had to go. The adoption folks said they thought he was a 4 month old hound-shepherd mix that had all his shots and deworming. They also said we could expect him to get about 40-50 pounds, which was ok with us. This of course was all guesswork and we were skeptical since they didn’t even have the correct paperwork, so basically we were starting fresh.

I found a medium sized dog crate on Craigslist that night for cheap and went to pick it up that night. Isn’t craigslist awesome! We played the name game all night and finally decided to name him Mulder, after Fox Mulder on the X-Files. Charlotte wasn’t keen on the name at first but after I started calling our little mysterious puppy Mulder the name just stuck. He also has quite a few nicknames such as Destructo, The Wild Animal, and Mr. Licky or Mr. Sniffy. Charlotte has a few of her own like Moldy Boy, The Most Handsomest Dog Ever, Little Big Doggy, The Distinguished Gentledog, and Malder. Fox Mulder weighed in at 25 pounds the first week we took him home, 35 pounds after a month, and then continued to gain about 2 pounds a week for the first 3 months. Most people that saw him and his big paws would say “oh he is gonna be big”. We weren’t sure what “big” was going to be but he is now about 65 pounds at almost 9 months old. His growth has slowed significantly but he will surely fill out a little more and likely gain another 10-20 pounds. So much for the predictions from the adoption agency

The first night we took Mulder home he whined and howled all night We were very frustrated and questioning if we made the right decision to get a dog. The second night he was better but he continued to have accidents all week, both number 1 and 2. By the end of the week we were really frustrated and almost took him back to the adoption agency. After a long discussion and looking into his sad hound dog eyes we decided that we would make 100% effort to do whatever it took to train agent Mulder. The first month was the hardest but he has vastly improved since then. The potty incidents are all in the past, but he still gets rowdy and occasionally play bites. He is really smart, but also energetic and stubborn which makes training a challenge. We have watched lots of “The Dog Whisperer” shows and also taken an 8 week dog training course at Pet Smart where he has learned all sorts of tricks.

We still aren’t sure what mix he is. The original Hound-Shepherd assessment that the adoption agency told us is the most common consensus. We’ve heard all of the following and more- Beagle, Coon Hound, German Shepherd, Rottweiller, Hound, Doberman, and Lab. He does walk like a Rott and have similar markings on his face. His body colors are that of a Shepherd, but his build is like a Doberman. He uses his paws more than any dog I’ve ever seen which is more like a Boxer. He is very sniffy which shows his hound side. His face and ears look like a Beagle. He has always had a big deep bark, but can sometimes howl like a hound dog. Although he can be very playful and friendly he quickly switches to guard dog mode whenever there is a new sound or knock on the door. The vet said he could very well be a mix of 3 or 4 types of dog, fondly referred to as “Heinz 57”. It’s amazing he looks like he could be a pedigree dog even though he is definitely not a purebred mix. Sometimes when he is in a chewing frenzy or having a zoomie (running back and forth erratically) we suspect he might be part hyena or coyote, hence the nickname Wild Animal Other times we have seen him grazing in the back yard and wonder if he is part goat Everyone loves Mulder and always asks what breed his is. We usually just say it’s an X-File! Personally I think he has some Rott in him, along with coon hound, and maybe lab or shepard, but who knows

Once we committed ourselves to making Mulder part of the family our attitudes about dogs completely changed. During this transformation we made an interesting observation that there are two types of people in the world, dog people and non-dog people. We are dog people now! We also discovered that Portland is a dog-town. Apparently there is 1 dog for every 4 people in Portland! We now notice pet stores that we never paid attention to before, found out where all the dog parks are, read about dog restaurants, resorts, and events. All of a sudden our quiet orderly lifestyle has transformed into a doggie dog world.

We can’t always include Mulder in our activities but we try to take him to cool dog events, hiking, fishing, and local shops that allow dogs. We also go to the Dog Park a couple times a week where it’s always fun to see all the doggies, and we have met some cool people there too. The Dog Park is really an interesting place which has become a part of our weekly activities, and a big part of Mulder’s socialization and development. I have so much to say about it that I will probably just write a separate Dog Park blog in the future. There are many stores and markets around Portland that allow dogs such as Home Depot, Hollywood video, and all pet stores. There is even a bar/brewery here called the Lucky Lab where you can hang out with your pooch while enjoying a cold microbrew and some pub grub.

The coolest dog event we have gone to is the Doggie Dash. It’s an annual race at the downtown Willamette River waterfront in Portland where dogs and their owners can run a two mile race for the benefit of the Oregon Humane Society. Mulder and I ran the two mile loop while dodging landmines of dog-doo. We ran hard but didn’t win since many people in Portland (US home base of Nike and Addias) are hardcore runners. The race wasn’t timed or official anyway and the real fun for Mulder was mingling with all the other dogs and getting lots of free goodies from all the vendor booths. Mulder even entered the weirdest Mutt Mix contest but lost to some very good competition. After the event we went to the always fun Portland Saturday Market where Mulder enjoyed all the new sights, sounds, and most importantly smells. Coming up later this year is the Dog Daze at PGE Baseball park where the Portland Beavers play and Dogtoberfest. We missed the Pug Crawl and Dog Brew fest in Newport but will be sure to visit those next year. We’re always on the lookout for more dog activities and usually check this site for the latest in our area. Portlandpooch.com

In the last few months we have learned a lot of information that has been very valuable such as what types of foods to buy and not buy. Just like any industry advertising can be very deceptive. It’s amazing how much crappy food is out there for pets. As you might expect most foods in conventional grocery stores is garbage just like the majority of human food they sell. We try to eat fresh foods and organic stuff as much as possible and likewise we get the best foods for our doggie. No by-product pieces and parts for Mulder, we’ll leave that stuff for big name brand pet foods, McDonalds, and Taco Bell. Right now we are feeding him Blue Buffalo, Natural Ultramix, and By Nature (not to be confused with other products that have the name Nature in it). We’ve found out that Costco also has nutritious dog food which happens to be priced good as well. Costco is the rare exception to a retailer that has quality dog food, along with other foods; they are based in the environmentally conscious PNW so I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise.

Along with good dog food we’ve found there are plenty of foods to avoid giving your dog. Some common household foods can be downright poisonous to your dog. The worst culprits are chocolate, raisons, grapes, avocados, caffeine, alcohol, onions, walnuts, macadamias, nutmeg, tomatoes, some fruit seeds like apple seeds, cherry pits, plum pits, corn cobs, and artificial sweeteners found in gum and other products. Additionally there are lots of foods to avoid giving to dogs like garlic, too much liver, anything fried or salty, ham and bacon which are fatty, egg whites, chicken bones, too much dairy, and pennies which contain zinc that is harmful to dogs. Not that you would feed your dog a penny but they will eat anything left laying around, even their own poopy There are many lists out there with different opinions but for the most part these items are on most lists. There are also good foods to give your dog. Many fruits and veggies are good for your dog as long as they are chopped up and the seeds removed. Apples, strawberries, bananas, watermelon, carrots, lettuce, raw pumpkin, but remember NO Grapes or raisons. Lean unflavored meats like turkey and chicken and limited amounts of yogurt or cottage cheese can be good too. If in doubt about a certain food just don’t give it to the dog or research it first. Here are a few links of interest.

Bad foods for your Dog link
More Bad people Foods for your Dog
One more Dangerous foods article
Everything you have never wanted to know about commercial dogfood

On the homefront things are always interesting. I was working odd hours in my previous job so Mulder almost always had company until recently. Now when we leave for the day we usually turn the radio on so he doesn’t feel alone all day. For the most part he’s adapted well to us both working bankers’ hours as long as he gets his daily “W” (walk). We have to say “W” or spell out w-a-l-k when talking beforehand otherwise his head will perk up and he will excitedly run to the door in anticipation. Sometimes I take him rollerblading or biking with me. As he got bigger we eventually had a biking accident, and just recently a big rollerblading crash too. He’s really too big for me to control now so I might just have to stick to jogging with him from now on. We’ve found that daily exercise is the key to good behavior. A tired doggie is a good doggie.

All in all it’s not easy or cheap having a dog. We had to get him shots again since we were never sure he had them before. There was the license, microchip, training classes, and a trip to the vet for an ear infection. We bought a dog crate and then the bigger dog crate, now he doesn’t need a crate at all, except for the occasional time-out from bad behavior. He quickly outgrew his first leash and collar. There are dozens of chew toys in the living room and he gets different treats along with a few luxury items like a doggie backpack. The doggie door is an ongoing conversation but in the meantime he has a bell taped up to the door that he dings with his nose when he needs out, which sometimes isn’t a need but a want. It’s a complicated doggie world but we are learning and he is learning how to adapt to our lifestyle as well. Looking back I can’t imagine how boring our lives would be in this house without Mulder. In some ways it’s a more restrictive lifestyle because we can’t’ just take off for a weekend trip or leave the house for more than 8 hours a day. On the other hand after buying a house we don’t have much extra money for traveling anyway. Besides he is always excited to see us and we are uplifted by his zest for life and happiness to be around us, which more than makes up for any inconveniences. I suppose in many ways having a dog is like having a kid except you can leave them alone for 8 hours or so while you work, but you can’t take them with you everywhere you go like you can with kids. Maybe what we need now is a kid that we can train to take care of the dog. Somehow just like getting a dog I bet that having a kid is not going to be as easy as it sounds, but like having a dog the rewards should far outweigh the hardships

Yep, just like the Jeffersons, we’re moving on up After bouncing around, living in apartments, and traveling the globe, we finally are in a place we can call home sweet home. By home I don’t just mean Portland, but a real piece of American suburbia- a house It’s been a long time coming but we finally took the plunge and bought a home. Not a townhome this time, but a real house with a yard and garage. Our house is a good step above a starter home, but by no means is it our dream home. Nevertheless it is much more than we ever expected to get out here on the west coast. We took a great deal of time and effort to find this special place. In the end we realized there can never be a perfect home so we had to compromise on a few minor things like price, neighborhood, and size. Ultimately we got pretty darn close to what we both wanted, and even more in some aspects.

As we were moving out of our apartment we took time to reflect on our lives up to that point from an unusual perspective. I calculated that in 35 years I have moved approximately 24 times, and Charlotte estimates she has moved about 20 times By moving I mean physically moving your belongings to another dwelling and having a new address where you receive mail. In addition to all this moving around I haven’t lived in a regular detached house since I was in high school. It’s always been apartments or townhomes. Not to knock our townhome in CO which fit our needs fine for a while, but a home doesn’t really feel like a home unless you have a yard and garage. Finally we can unpack all of the stuff we have been collecting over the years, get some pets, have a backyard BBQ, and do all of the things suburban’s like to do

In addition to our new home Charlotte has a new job This time it’s a permanent hire position which is what she has been looking for since we moved out to the Wild West. Although she really liked her previous two jobs at the “software giant” and the “chip leader” they were both contract positions. Her new job is much more low-key, but a permanent position with stability and room to grow. So far she really likes it and seems to be very happy there. Early next year I will be looking for a new job myself, but that is a blog for another time

With our recent house hunting duties and adjusting to our new jobs we haven’t had much time to enjoy the local Portland lifestyle of late. We did however get to spend some time with my Dad who was in Portland for a little over a month working on a contract job by PDX airport. We went out to eat at some great Portland restaurants, and took another tour of Hood River and Multnomah Falls. I think he really likes it here and seemed to have a great time. We hope to have more visitors in the years to come.

One thing Dad really noticed that we had gotten used to (here and Seattle) is all of the kamikaze pedestrians and bicyclists. Like us, he can’t believe the way Portlanders just stroll out into the middle of the street and expect all the cars to stop for them as if they are parting the Red Sea In much the same manner bicyclists fly down the street zipping in between cars just daring you to run them over. To make matters worse they rarely have lights on their bikes and typically wear black gothic looking clothes while it is already dark and rainy outside. If you are wondering if they ever get run over, well they do, quite often in fact Every now and then you hear about it on the news. The locals are always shown protesting about the terrible motorists who didn’t slam on the brakes fast enough to miss the jaywalker who was running across a busy street with his/her Starbucks coffee in hand. Sounds crazy and it is, but that is Portland for you, or as we like to say T-I-P (this is Portland)! Note: This is a reference to the movie “Blood Diamond” (T-I-A this is Africa), or for an alternate meaning just visit any local business establishment in Portland and you’ll see the unavoidable and usually highly decorated tip jar staring you in the face.

There is however a good side to the pedestrian and biker culture as well. I applaud the people who are wearing dresses or business suits while riding their bikes or walking from the light rail station to work in all types of weather. It’s very European and progressive, just like a lot of things out here. Unfortunately there are always a few (or in this case quite a few) bad apples that spoil it for everyone. The end result is lots of people getting hurt (or worse), which causes excess animosity between motorists and everyone else. Can’t we just all get along

In other news some of you may have heard about the crazy weather we had out here this month. It seems like November/December are the worst weather months for the PNW. We had another crazy windstorm that had 129mph wind gusts out on the Oregon coast. The weather guys coined the term “hurricane force winds” and amusingly had to explain “not to be confused with a hurricane because that is a tropical event”! I guess it’s just another local term they can add to their already weird collection of sayings like “freezing fog”, “sun breaks”, “snow levels" (listed at starting elevation), “100% humidity” and “showers followed by rain”. In fact there are all kinds of terms used to express precipitation; rain, drizzle, sleet, showers, sprinkles, downpour, mist, increasing moisture, etc. Then there are the detailed adjectives that go with the nouns like light, moderate, possible, probable, likely (this one’s popular), potential, intermittent, and my favorite 100% chance of rain. After a while you just don’t pay any attention to the weather because you realize that the temperature is usually going to be about what it was the day before, and in the winter time it is usually cloudy with possible rain at anytime. To qualify this point I’ll post a picture of our local forecast at the bottom of this paragraph for your viewing enjoyment. The exception to the typical weather is in Nov/Dec when we occasionally have these crazy storms blowing in from the Pacific. This time around a whole town named Vernonia was flooded underwater, more people were killed by falling trees among other things, all routes to the coast were blocked by debris, and I-5 was shut down because parts of it were underwater. If you want to read more about the storms here are the wikipedia articles about them, and the current local forecast, (story continues below picture).
2007 PNW Storms
2006 PNW Storms

As a metro area Portland did not get hit nearly as hard as Seattle. We are much further from the coast and somewhat shielded by the coast range of mountains. Believe it or not one of the houses we looked at during our home search backed up to open space with huge pine trees that were probably at least 150 ft tall. It was a lovely sight to see from the back porch and a really cool house, but after seeing all the news clips of falling trees smashing right into people’s living rooms that house was instantly disqualified. We have trees in our new neighborhood, but none that can take out our house, and as far as we can tell we are far enough above sea level to not worry about any floods. Unless the Greenland ice sheet melts, but then we ALL will have a lot to worry about

Speaking of Greenland brings to mind that Charlotte and I were finally able to attend a BootsNall.com party this year. Bootsnall is our favorite travel site where we each have a couple travel stories published. The forums there have been so much help to us while traveling, and the entire site is just awesome so we try to promote it whenever possible. They are based out of Portland and have a Holiday party here every year. This year it was downtown at the Lucky Labrador Brewery. Since most attendees have only communicated previously via the forum or email everyone wore a name tag with their name, forum user name, and last place visited. Charlotte and I listed Greece since it was our last International destination. As you can imagine that is already a good conversation starter. It wasn’t surprising that a lot of other people at the party have also been to Greece along with many other places. As we enjoyed the complimentary Lucky Lab Brews we heard great stories, and met some really cool people. We also got to talk travel without getting the deer-in-headlights look we are so accustomed to when Europe and 4 months come up in the same sentence. The highlight of our evening however was when Charlotte very unexpectedly won the grand prize for the evening, a 500 dollar travel voucher for an international flight to a destination of her choice Wow, I mean double WOW Neither one of us has really won anything before. THANKS BNA Then to follow that up Charlotte won a super-cool wine bottle opener the following week at her work Christmas Party. I’m still trying to get her to buy some lotto tickets for Christmas

2007 has been great but we have high hopes for an even better year in 2008. It will be an election year after all so we can all be guaranteed at least one positive change! Surely there will be other changes as well, but for us it will be a year of settling into our new home, making more new friends, and hopefully a few trips here and there. For now we are here, and from here in Oregon Charlotte and I would like to wish all of you out there a Very Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year

Hello everybody! So much time has passed since my last blog entry that I don’t even know where to begin. As most of you know by now Charlotte and I have moved down to Portland Oregon where the sun shines 5 more days a year than it does in Seattle, or so they say. We liked Seattle a lot, but found it difficult to live there for various reasons that I’ve mentioned before. We love Portland and everything seems to be working out just fine here. We hope the city of Roses will be our home for many years to come

Charlotte has found a good job similar to the one she had in Seattle. I can’t say much more about it due to nondisclosure agreements, but basically she is learning new things and enjoying the challenges her job brings. I have also found a good job as a PC repair technician, which I really like. Its hands on hardware repair of desktops, laptops, software fixes, data backups, etc. I’ve always preferred hands on work rather than sitting in a cubicle or chatting on a tech support line all day, so this is the perfect job for me and a nice way to get back into the computer field after being in Telecom for so long.

Before I found this job I worked on a couple of contracts, and volunteered at a local nonprofit place called freegeek. Freegeek accepts all kinds of computer donations, and then people who are volunteers go through a series of processes to determine if the computer or parts of the computer are worth keeping. The volunteers recycle the old or bad parts and keep the good parts. More volunteers use the good parts to build new refurbished systems and put the Linux operating system on them, which if you don’t know already, Linux and most programs for it are FREE. Linux has a big following in Portland and several major companies are choosing to use it instead of Microsoft. Currently I’m about halfway through the Freegeek build program and plan to finish that by the end of the year which should give me somewhere around 100 volunteer hours. I’ve met quite a few interesting people at Freegeek and can say its truly a Portland experience. The Portland culture is very progressive and Freegeek is just one example of that. To learn more about Freegeek visit their site.
FreeGeek Website

In April I had the chance to work with my dad in Albuquerque for a couple of weeks. I’ve been there a few times before and always thought it was a beautiful city so I was delighted at the chance to visit again. The southwest architecture is really amazing and the food smothered in green chili is super-delicious. After spending a couple weeks in NM I noticed the people seemed a bit strange like you would expect from an X-files episode. You know, like they all know something that you don’t, and they all know you aren’t from around there but will be leaving soon anyway Don’t get me wrong, they are friendly, but kind of distant and secretive. I get a similar feeling in Salt Lake City, but probably for different reasons. In some ways NM is like a different reality, or a parallel universe. Could there be more to all of those Roswell alien souvenirs than we outsiders know about? Hmmmm

I did manage to have one heck of a cosmicadventure while I was on that trip. Due to a miscalculation with the job my dad and I were working on I had to drive a box truck back to Dallas to pick up more supplies and then drive back to NM in a couple days. This was one hectic trip driving all night and arriving just hours ahead of one of the worst thunderstorms Dallas has seen in years. I tried to rest as soon as I arrived but I was a bit delirious and really tired after driving all night. When I laid down it felt like I was still moving, and then the sirens went off. A tornado touched down just miles away from where I was staying. I lived in Texas for 10 years and never heard tornado sirens before that moment. It turns out a handful of people were actually killed in that storm, 6 was the total if I’m not mistaken. I was really lucky to arrive in town ahead of that storm instead of driving through it in the middle BFE, or BFT to be exact. After the storm passed I finally did get to sleep and didn’t wake up until about 12 hours later. The next couple of days I had a great time visiting old friends and family that live in the Dallas area.

In May my cousin Jason from Minneapolis was in Seattle on business. He had the weekend off so Charlotte and I headed up there for a day to visit with him. It was our first trip back to Seattle since moving. We showed Jason around town visiting all of our favorite sites and the usual tourist locations too. It was a fun day for all of us, especially at Pikes Market. On the way back we got stuck in a traffic jam at 11:00 at night which added nearly 2 hours to our driving time. It was at that moment that we remembered why we wanted to get out of that rat race in the first place. Back to Portland, home sweet home

Last week Charlotte and I had our first official visitors from out of town. My dad, my sister Tara, and her boyfriend Hugh all came to visit. We went out to dine in some of the fine local restaurants, and to tour some of the coastal towns and beaches. The beaches are breathtaking, but the real highlight of the week was no doubt the Oregon Brewers Festival. You can view the brewfest website here if it’s still up.
Oregon Brewfest Website

The brewfest had two huge beer tents set up near on the waterfront where you can sample endless varieties of microbrews. I haven’t seen a party this big since Oktoberfest, not that anything can really compare to the Munich but this was pretty darn cool. It was also way too much fun if you know what I mean (“the hangovers hurt more than they used to”). But even more entertaining than the festival itself were the local “Portlanders”. It’s really something you have to experience for yourself to understand. The locals here are very unique and most people in Portland are actually born and raised here so there isn’t a lot of outside influence- yet. Some people describe Portland as a cultural epicenter, liberal stronghold, progressive & forward thinking, freakshow, one love, etc. Whatever your opinion, Portlanders are definitely a unique bunch of people in a very livable city.

Speaking of freakshow, our new travel gnomes Sparky and Jojo have been busy making babies and now we have a whole family of travel gnomes. We even sent two of them off with Tara and Hugh to colonize California. The gnomes all had a great time at the brewfest, and later on at Kell's Irish bar where we eventually got kicked out We are definitely inspired by our gnomes antics so there will be a lot more to talk about in the future concerning their adventures. In later blog entries I’ll elaborate about the unique culture in Portland. For now I’ll leave you with a nice little picture of Wolfgang as he enjoys some frites and local Widmer Hefeweizen at Kell’s

Bonsoir All is well in Portland and we are really enjoying life here. You can find out more about our “goings on” in Charlottes new blog on javafoto.com For this cosmic blog entry I just want to elaborate on some changes happening with our two websites cosmicadventure and javafoto. You are all probably curious to know what happened to Javafoto.com and why haven’t we updated it since we lived in Colorado? Well as you might expect the photography business is not very easy to make a living at so we’ve decided it is much better as a hobby for now instead of a side business. Therefore the old Javafoto site has been wiped clean and Charlotte is now using that domain for her personal website. She wants to use it to learn html, css, along with other web apps; and also to communicate some of her ideas and creativity out to friends and family. For now it will mostly consist of a blog and gallery with subjects leaning towards food, photography, travel, and lifestyle. If you’re missing my old blog entries about our going ons then check out C’s blog for more up to date info on some of our weekly happenings. The old Javafoto pictures that were on that site may make their way into the new CosmicAdventure Gallery 2 in the future once I’m caught up on uploading galleries from the last year and a half; more about that later. For now I’ll just make a disclaimer that this blog entry is mostly about Comsicadventure.com and somewhat technical in nature rather than my usual amusing stories. So in other words feel free to skip this blog entry if you aren’t interested in the technical talk and visit the link to our new gallery 2 below for new pics from the PNW.
Gallery 2 link

Many of you are probably wondering why I put all this work into CosmicAdventure in the first place, and what is the point of this website. There are multiple reasons. First and foremost I like to keep in touch with everyone and feel this is a great way to do that while letting everyone know what is going on with us. Our current email is always listed on the website so anyone who knows our website can always get in touch with us. I know I haven’t been very diligent at responding to emails, calls, and just keeping in touch with folks but I am always glad to hear from family and old friends so be sure to keep in touch with an occasional email or phone call. Secondly it is a great way for me to learn and expand my skills in web development, writing, photography, and photo editing. These are all things I’m very interested in and this kind of wraps them into one bundle. So I guess you can say it’s kind of like a hobby for me, sort of like watching TV is a hobby for some people. Someday this web design stuff could lead to a new career direction or even a side business. Even if it doesn’t this is a fun hobby for me and mentally stimulating, much like doing a puzzle, playing chess, or reading/writing a book. Lastly it is a place for us to share our pictures, videos, experiences, and ideas about life. If you can’t share these things with others, then what is really the point of having them in the first place

An interesting side note is that CosmicAdventure and JavaFoto to a lesser degree both had near death experiences. It is true, we almost lost our domain names forever. The files are all backed up for the most part but if you lose your domain name which is the name of the website cosmicadventure.com it would never really be the same again. I’d have to register a new name like cosmicadventureresurrected.com which would just be ridiculous. To make a very long story short the company that hosts our domain names went out of business. They conveniently forgot to tell their thousands of customers but didn’t forget to charge us and others to renew domains while making the appearance of keeping up a normal business . The cosmicadventure domain expired and we were locked out of our account unable to renew it, even though we had paid to renew it. With much effort I was finally able to x-fer it to Godaddy.com where it will hopefully be safe for the ages. To read more about registerfly (now known as the enron of the internet) just google “registerfly sucks” or click this link.
registerflies.com

Now about those new website updates. I’ve finally installed a new version of the photo gallery software. It’s a little different from the old gallery mainly because it runs off a SQL database and has many more advanced features and themes that can be added. The old gallery can be imported but it is a tedious process and some data like comments may be lost, so for now I’ve decided to keep them separate but that could change in the future. Eventually I will make a new website header (top of the website) to include the old Gallery you all know and love, and in addition there will be a link to Gallery 2 (pending) which will contain any new galleries. I have a few more albums from the U.S. part of our eurotrip that I will add to the old gallery, but otherwise everything else will go into the new Gallery 2 section including some Canada, New Mexico, family, and retro Colorado pics (eventually). I may also make a Europe’s greatest hits gallery area with larger edited photos containing some of our favorite night shots, food pics, landmarks, and so on. Gallery 2 is functional now and running smooth but will undergo some changes as I customize the program.

The new Gallery 2 should be a much more pleasant viewing experience for most of you. For some of you it may run slower than the old version depending on your computer and/or internet connection, but like Heinz ketchup it’s worth the wait. Now when we post galleries we will select a lot fewer pictures and edit most of them so they look more professional and bright just like film pictures do when they come back from the photo lab. Yes for those of you who don’t know film pictures are almost always edited at the lab which is why they look so good compared to a digital image that has not been edited and color corrected- like most of our Europe pictures we uploaded in a time crunch without editing. Anyway I will try to keep the new galleries to one page per album unlike the old gallery where some albums have multiple pages. All of our pictures will now be in 800x600 or similar resolution instead of 500 or 640 res. That means the picture is bigger on your screen with more detail. You can now run a full screen slide show but that will stretch out the picture causing some loss in quality. The regular slide show feature will look much better running at the max output of 800x800. Some other features will be added such as a voting system, improved commenting with spam protection, previous/next picture preview, larger thumbnails, slideshows, etc. The pictures will now have a short title for the thumbnails and a longer description attached to most pictures, but you will only see the long description if you view the full sized picture or slideshow which is recommended. Eventually I’ll customize the theme to make it look more attractive.

You may have noticed that the blog theme has already changed for the better. It is much cleaner and easier to read now. With new anti-spam commenting software I should be able to open the comments again for those of you who feel inclined to give a shoutout. Next I plan to change the entire site in a similar fashion to the blog so it is more modernized and uniform but still keep the artistic feel. Some of the pages and code need updating so I’ll try to address those issues. An occasional new static page may appear (like the pages under the sports section) and when they do a link will be added to the recently updated section on the home page. There is still some good journal and video material we have from Europe that I will eventually edit and post in the travel section or possibly into the new gallery or even youtube.

A lot has been happening with us lately in our new home, and Portland does feel like home, but I’ll leave that for a future blog entry. For now be sure to visit Javafoto and check back over the summer for more cosmic updates.

Salut

Yep the rumors are true, we have moved to Portland, Oregon We’ve been considering this move for quite some time now; in fact we almost moved to Portland initially instead of Seattle but thought a larger city would have more to offer us. Seattle is a great town and does have a lot to offer, but there were too many factors working against us to make it the right place to call home. If you read my last blog you know the top ten up’s and down’s of Seattle already; unfortunately (at least for us) the up’s were overshadowed by the down’s, so here we are 180 miles south

Portland is everything we expected Seattle to be and more. It’s a much smaller town with a more distinct personality, but still has plenty to offer. Some of the things we were looking for in Seattle were the ocean, an outdoorsy vibe with cool ski/hike type of people (like Denver), good food, hot job market, and reasonable real estate. These things never materialized in Seattle, at least not to our satisfaction, but in Portland we have found “new cheese”. A few days ago we went to the Oregon Coast which is only an hour drive away. It is the real Pacific ocean (not just Puget Sound ), and probably the best scenery anywhere on the west coast. I’ve seen some beautiful coastlines before but the Oregon Coast rivals anyplace I’ve visited.

The city of Portland is much smaller and more condensed that Seattle. The vibe here is very liberal and eco-friendly. Portland does have its fair share of homeless people and weirdos, but I think California has us beat by a mile in those departments. Speaking of California I kind of felt like Seattle was very comparable with L.A, and Portland is more comparable with San Diego, or if you prefer Seattle=NYC and Portland=Boston. If you are familiar with those places you kind of get the idea of the different type of city Portland is compared to Seattle. I actually feel like Portland is a cross between Florida, Colorado, and California, basically all of my favorite places rolled into one

Some of the things our visitors can look forward too if they come visit us in Oregon are great food, 1 hour drive from the famous Oregon Coast, 1 hour drive from Mount Hood, 1 hour from the Columbia gorge and Hood River area, Oregon beer & wine tours, and Crater Lake NP just a few hours drive south. Seattle is 3 hours north, Mt St Helens and Mt Rainier are both within a 2 hour drive. The Columbia River is the largest river in the Western U.S and you can ski year round on Mt Hood- just make sure your picture doesn’t show up on CNN
http://traveloregon.com/
Did I mention the food? It is sooooo gooood It turns out Portland is one of the top culinary hotspots in the country. If that isn’t good enough it is also the microbrew capital of the country and boasts a decent wine country to go along with that. “Why yes, I’ll have some wine with my new cheese ”.
http://portlandfoodanddrink.com/
The job market here is also very healthy and we are already in a better financial position than we were in Seattle despite some setbacks from the process of relocating. The Portland real estate market is about the same as it was in Denver, or about 30%+ cheaper than Seattle. That means we can finally buy a house YAHOO

The question people are probably wondering is if we regret the last year we spent in Seattle. Of course not! We love NYC but neither of us can imagine living there which is kind of how we feel about Seattle. In other words Seattle is great to visit but Portland feels more like home. Despite our criticism of Seattle we met some great people, saw some beautiful places, and had lots of cosmic adventures (don’t get me started on the pizza delivery stories or snowboarding in the rain ). The Seattle metro area is very large so there are tons of things to see and do. Instead of twin cities the metro area is kind of like a quintet of cities starting with Olympia, Tacoma, Seattle, Everett, and then you can throw in Bellevue which is the major city on the East side. Each city has its own large downtown and individual tourist attractions. We’ve seen most of the museums and other sites the region has to offer but still have a few more on the list. Undoubtedly we will be back to visit on occasion. As for Oregon we are just beginning to scratch the surface here so there will be much more to come. For now I’ll leave you with a top ten tribute to Seattle listing some of our favorite places to visit in the area.

1. Pikes Market- The must see site in Seattle, you can spend all day here. http://www.pikeplacemarket.org
2. The Space needle and EMP (experience music project) The space needle speaks for itself but the EMP is really a site to be seen, especially if you are a music lover.
http://www.spaceneedle.com
http://www.emplive.org/
3. The museum of Flight in Seattle- One of the coolest museums I’ve ever been to. http://www.museumofflight.org
4. Woodinville Wine tours, we went to Columbia and Michelle St Chateu. For Beer there is The Redhook brewery and Mac and Jacks in Redmond.
http://www.woodinvillewinecountry.com
http://redhook.com/
5. The Seattle waterfront including the Aquarium, Curiosity Shop and Ivars.
http://www.yeoldecuriosityshop.com/
http://www.seattleaquarium.org/
http://www.ivars.net/
6. Olympic Sculpture Park, also on the waterfront but on the north end of town.
http://www.seattleartmuseum.org/visit/OSP/AboutOSP/default.asp
7. Snoqualmie Falls- west of Seattle and even nicer if you take highway 202 East Lake Sammamish Dr from Redmond.
http://www.snoqualmiefalls.com
8. The parks of Seattle. Our favorite is the very unique Gasworks park on Lake Union. Golden Gate, Seward, Point Defiance in Tacoma, and Deception Pass on Whidbey Island are all very nice too.
9. The unique neighborhoods of Seattle. Queen Anne, Freemont, Ballard, Wallingford, The U district, West Seattle, and on the East side downtown Kirkland.
10. Islands in the sound. There are dozens of islands to visit in the sound. Some of them require a ferry ride, and others can be reached by bridge. We have only visited Whidbey and Camano island so far but supposedly the San Juans are the nicest.
http://www.islandweb.org/parkattractions.php
http://www.guidetosanjuans.com/

Bonus Seattle Restaurant recommendations
Tutabella- real Napolitian style pizza
Preets in Redmond- Great Indian food
Nevilles English pub in Redmond- A little piece of the UK, best fish and chips in town
Ivars- a Seattle staple of seafood whether it is the restaurants or fast food version
Typhoon- Pretty darn good Thai place in Redmond and they have one in Portland too
Lowells in Pikes Market, check out the view while eating your fish and chips
The Brooklyn downtown Seattle- Garlic fries oh my!
What the Pho in Bellevue- Funny name, tasty noodles
Pagliachis or Jet City Pizza for Take out pizza- don’t forget to tip the pizza guy

For all the people out here who are trying to save the trees there are just as many in the lumber industry trying to chop them down. The trees apparently have had enough as they are starting to take matters into their own hands. A couple weeks ago a 100 feet tall evergreen tree fell down on I-90 killing 2 men in a pickup truck. Another 2 people were killed this week by falling trees during a freak storm that hit the Pacific Northwest with hurricane force winds. All year long we’ve been hearing crazy stories about trees falling on people’s houses, cars, and heads. It’s really amazing how much damage these huge evergreens cause in this region when they fall, yet people still love them and they really are amazing to look at.

It really has been a weird and wacky couple months in Seattle. First we broke the all-time Seattle record for the most rain in a month ending up at over 15 inches in November. Some of that rain caused severe flooding in low lying areas. Then right after Thanksgiving we saw snow for the first time since we moved to Seattle in January. We only got 4 inches of snow in Redmond and most other metro areas but it was enough to cripple the city for a couple days. It’s very hilly in Seattle and rarely gets below freezing so snow tends to turn into ice which makes driving nearly impossible. Since we don’t get much snow here there are very few resources like snow plows to deal with the problems. Abandoned cars littered the roads and trees once again fell all over the place from the weight of snow on tree branches.

This last storm was the real kicker though. It was the worst to hit the region since 1993. The wind gusted up to 69 MPH at SeaTac airport breaking a record for the biggest gusts ever recorded there. On the Pacific coast winds were near 100mph and well over that speed in the mountains. All over Western Washington and Oregon trees were falling left and right seemingly taking out their anger against the loggers on innocent bystanders. Along with houses and cars the trees were targeting the power lines causing over 1 million people in the Puget Sound area (Seattle/Tacoma metro region) to go without power during a cold spell where temps were hovering around freezing and not much better during the day. Our power was out for 30 hours, but we were lucky. Approximately 180,000 are still without power 5 days after the storm and some may not have the lights on until after Christmas! This storm really hit us on multiple levels; so far 12 people have died from various causes. There were fatal car accidents, a drowning in a basement, carbon monoxide poisoning from people trying to heat their home with BBQ’s or generators, an electrocution from a downed power line, a victim from a house fire started by candles, and more falling tree victims. You just never know where it’s going to come from out here. I’m fully expecting an Earthquake to hit, or one of the 5 WA volcanoes to erupt at any time; 4 of them have erupted in the last 250 years! For all those interested here’s a link to the storm story and another link to our local news website.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/296223_storm16.html
www.seattletimes.com

You are probably wondering what else we are doing out here besides weathering the storms, but before I get into that if I could just take up a paragraph of your time I’d like to blog about a subject that is near and dear to my heart. I believe all of this weird weather is more warning signs related to the problem of global warming. Most people think global warming is just higher temperatures, but it’s really much more than that. It affects nature, the weather, and environment in many different ways. Public awareness and general information on this issue seem to be extremely inadequate. I’ve really had to search out information on this topic that I’ve been interested in for quite some time and still feel I know very little. The more I learn the more concerned I am about what is happening. Basically it’s not a theory anymore, it’s scientifically proven that this is happening now and has been for quite some time. I could throw facts and figures at you but there are other people who could do that much better than I. What I can tell you is that this is probably biggest threat to the existence of mankind outside of getting hit by a giant asteroid. I try to avoid political topics as much as possible when blogging but I believe this subject transcends political lines. Global Warming is something that everyone should educate themselves on because it will take everyone to make a difference. Whether you are Republican or Democratic a good place to start is by watching the non-political documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” by Al Gore. If you can’t bring yourself to watch Al Gore (now on DVD) then do your own research on the internet, there are dozens of websites available with info. Just remember these are only starting points to raise awareness on global warming and what it’s all about, it is up to you to take the next step.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming
http://www.climatesolutions.org/
http://www.climatecrisis.net/

I know everyone really wants to know what is going out here in the land of Geeks and Coffee so I’ve composed a top 10 list of the ups and downs of Seattle.

Top Ten Ups
1. The entire region is beautiful and the geography is amazing with lots of mountains, water, islands, and coastline
2. Tons of culture in Seattle much like there is in New York which means good food and entertainment.
3. Lots of recreational activities to do like salmon fishing, skiing, kayaking, scuba diving, rock climbing, mountaineering, plus lots more
4. Every city seems to have a local market and locals prefer home grown stores to those corporate chains.
5. Vancouver is less than 3 hours north and Portland is about the same distance south, then Victoria BC can be reached in about four hours by car and ferry.
6. Its very green here, not only in color but in terms of being environmentally friendly and it’s also blue, as in a blue state with mostly democrats with whom I share many common views with.
7. There is a higher percentage of college educated people in Seattle than any other city in the U.S.
8. NO state tax and the minimum wage is 7.67, who says the Dems are always for tax increases
9. This is a hip touristy place, we’ve got Pikes place market, the Space needle and the EMP.
10. We’ve got music, here are a few groups from Seattle- Jimi Hendrix, Heart, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Sir mix-a-lot, and who could forget the Presidents of the United States of America? Ok so you forgot…
BONUS: You are never more than 1 block from some kind of coffee shop/stand, most likely a Starbucks

Top Ten Downs
1. The housing market is way over-inflated. You can buy a mansion in Texas cheaper than you can get a condo here
2. Seattleites seem to lack social skills and sometimes come off as standoffish, but once you get to know them they are just as friendly as anywhere else.
3. In addition to the above problem most people are totally wired on coffee causing citywide stress, exasperation, crazy drivers, fast talkers, etc
4. The traffic here is horrendous. Many surveys rank it in the top 5 worst in the country. To make matters worse the drivers are not courteous, the weather and other factors make it hard to see, the roads are screwy, and accidents are a daily occurance.
5. The infrastructure is not very good. No state tax means fewer funds for roads, public transport, and other things that are taken for granted in other places.
6. The job market is really good but most of the jobs require much higher qualifications than other places would, and for the same pay
7. You don’t see the sun in the winter. The overall rainfall is less than many other major cities but the cloudiness is what gets people down, thankfully the summers are mild and beautiful.
8. The combination of tall trees, hills, cloudy/rainy weather, and poor lighting makes things very dark and closed-in.
9. It seems like there is quite a bit of violent crime here compared to Denver and it’s usually some really strange set of circumstances.
10. We have Killer Trees, and if they don’t get you then there are always earthquakes, tsunamis, or volcanoes to finish the job

I could expand on each of those points but I think you get the general idea. Basically everyplace has its ups and downs, you just have to figure out what you can live with and without. If you are curious about comparing your place of residence to another then check out this website. It’s not the most up-to-date but does have tons of good info.
http://www.bestplaces.net

I’m actually quite surprised at the lack of news coverage and overall respect that Seattle gets nationwide. It’s almost like the city is an underdog, but at the same times it’s quietly becoming the New York of the west coast. I draw comparisons to New York because of all the unique neighborhoods and cultures found here. In addition Seattle is a major focus of a variety of industries ranging from technology to shipping. There are dozens of major companies headquartered here. Microsoft, REI, Eddie Bauer, Nordstroms, Starbucks, Seattles Best Coffee (obviously), Nintendo, T-Mobile (US), Costco, Safeco, Amazon, Expedia, and the list goes on and on. Most people probably don’t to realize the importance of this city and the roles it plays for the rest of the country. I guess you could say that about a lot of cities, but Seattle is very quiet about it all and the people here seem to like it that way.

I have a feeling that 2007 will be a special year. Charlotte and I hope all of you have all had a great year and have an even better one in 07. Merry Christmas and happy New Year everyone
-Marcel

This is one of my favorite pictures we took this year. It was shot this summer at night from our hotel room in Vancouver BC.

Hello fellow cosmicadventurers! Some of you may be wondering if we have moved on to another dimension, but fear not! We are alive and well in the Emerald City. Just about every weekend Charlotte and I are out and about getting to know another area of town. Seattle is so unique in that each neighborhood or surrounding city has its own culture, style, and charm. You can’t really say Seattle is like this or that because there is so much variety. I guess you could describe the city overall as eclectic. It’s bursting at the seams with culture which is one of the main reasons we moved here. Pretty much every weekend there are multiple cultural festivals, sporting events, and farmers markets going on around the different neighborhoods of Seattle. For example next weekend we plan to go to the Filipino festival, unless of course I can somehow miraculously score a pair of Pearl Jam tickets…

Other than Seattle we’ve also been enjoying some other places in the PNW. We made a weekend trip down to Portland and another one to Vancouver BC. Portland it a great city. It kind of reminds me of Denver with the outdoorsy vibe going on. It’s a much smaller and a more compact city like you would expect to see in Europe. We noticed there are a lot more parks and people seemed to be a little less sophisticated but more friendly. We didn’t do a lot of sight seeing this time since we were really scoping it out as a possible place to live in the future if things don’t work out for us in Seattle. We did find one super-cool bookstore downtown called Powell’s. I’m sure if you ask anyone that lives there they will tell you it is the center of the Portland Universe. It pretty much takes up a whole downtown city block and several stories; they even give you a map to find your way around.

We went to Vancouver BC six years ago when we visited the PNW but forgot how cool it is. Its really a mix between Hong Kong and London. The buildings are designed just like Hong Kong and about half of the people are Asian so you feel like you are in Hong Kong, but the neighborhoods are reminiscent of London. On this trip we pretty much stuck to exploring all the downtown areas such as Yaletown, Chinatown, Gastown, English Bay, West End and Stanley Park. Near English Bay we found a French Canadian restaurant that served Poutine which is thick cut French Fries with hot brown gravy and cheese curds on top, MMM. I just can’t say enough good things about Vancouver! If it were easier to get a Canadian citizenship and make a living in Vancouver we’d be there for sure, but I guess we’ll have to settle for being a few hours drive away. We haven’t been back to Victoria since we moved here but plan to go sometime this summer, it’s as classy as Vancouver is contemporary. We have been to Whidbey island but not the San Juan islands yet, and of course there is also the Olympic Peninsula, Cascade NP, and Alaska…so much to see, so much to do.

Besides sightseeing we’ve been doing some other activities as well. Back in May we went to the very cool Varekai Cirque De Soleil that was surprisingly set up at Marymoor park in Redmond. Redmond is also the self proclaimed biking capital of the NW so Charlotte usually tries to get out on the Sammamish river trail every day after work. It’s just down the street and a very relaxing trail that leads to many other lake, river and city trails. Charlotte introduced me to one of her coworkers who is also a Colorado transplant. He took me out fly fishing on the Yakima river where I caught my first fish in WA and it was actually on my fly rod which was another first. Charlotte and I tried salmon fishing off the Edmonds pier one day but didn’t have much luck, we’ll have to give that another try sometime. Last week my sister Tara and her boyfriend Hugh visited us for a few days. We had a great time visiting the Pikes Market, Mt Rainier, Kirkland waterfront, and other stuff around. We even cooked up some Dungeness crab and local veggies from the Pikes market place that is famous for throwing fish, wow was that good!

Tara and Hugh really seemed to really like it here which was very encouraging to us because despite all the cool things we have done in this area sometimes we do miss our friends back in the Colorado Rockies and wonder if we did the right thing by moving out here. I guess I always wanted to move out to the west coast since I was a teenager and we both wanted to live in a place that has more culture, water, and opportunities. The difficulties we are encountering with our new home are mainly real estate prices, finding good stable jobs, and of course meeting more friends. Seattleites aren’t always the easiest people to get to know, especially on the “eastside” which is full of white collar techie types. If you don’t know what the eastside is just look at a metropolitan map of Seattle and you’ll see a huge body of water called Lake Washington that separates Seattle from Bellevue, Redmond, Kirkland and the other eastside communities that are often thought of as the burbs by the much trendier blue collar Seattleites.

Unfortunately these burbs we are living in are full of overqualified and overeducated people all competing for the same jobs I’m trying to get. I’ve applied for over 50 jobs in the last few months resulting in several email responses, phone screens, and interviews but no new job. I’m still making good money delivering pizza to all of Charlotte’s coworkers at Microsoft but that isn’t exactly the career move I had hoped for when we moved here. Nevertheless I’m trying to stay positive and remember that we are financially as well off as we were in Denver and eventually something has to come through if I keep trying. A drastic career change may be in order though. If you have ever read the book “who moved my cheese” you know what I mean when I say I am actively seeking some new cheese. If you haven’t read the book I highly recommend it. You can read it in one day and it will give you a new outlook on how to accept change. For me I might change to a career outside of the tech field if that is where I find some good opportunities (cheese). Don’t worry I’m not going to rob a bank or cheese market, but I am exploring other career directions I can go into while I go back to school and finish a BA.

With all the effort I’ve put forth in looking for a full time job I haven’t had much time to do website stuff, as I’m sure you’ve noticed if you’ve been looking for updates or noticed that the header and footer is not functioning properly on some pages (soon to be fixed). I do try to list any major updates, especially new html pages, in the recent updates menu on the home page so check there first. I have a couple new photo galleries from Athens ready to upload in the next week or so and hopefully the rest of the Greece pictures will follow. After that I’ll add some pics from the U.S. portion of our trip. I’ve taken lots of pictures out here but there are mainly with the point and shoot camera since our DSLR has been in the shop getting repaired from a defect that started right after our Eurotrip. The repair is taking months so I’ve actually been putting off going to some nice places like the Olympic peninsula until I get it back; hopefully that will be soon. Meanwhile I’ll keep shooting what I can with the S70 canon and maybe come up with some sort of good variety of pictures for a Pacific Northwest Gallery by the fall.

To end things I’ll make my usual soapbox, or I guess in my case pizza box spiel. I’ve been watching the weather channel lately and WOW is global warming hitting us hard or what! Isn’t it obvious by now? The first half of 2006 was the hottest Jan-June on record ever. I personally think that in the next decade or so we will have hurricanes category 1-6 instead of 1-5. With 6 being a new category strength for the newer stronger storms that were previously thought impossible. I mean think about it, we have been recording these things for only what, 200 years or so? Who’s to say there couldn’t be a storm the size of the Alaska to hit us and it might even hit us in the Northeast or West Coast. Anyway those are just my wild predictions. We saw the real raw data on the Al Gore movie “Inconvienent Truth” and before you laugh let me just quote my old buddy Nayeem and say “that’s not a matter of joke”. The human race is about to get BBQ’ed from all this global warming. Not to rub it in or anything but I’m glad we are in the coolest part of the country. The highest recorded temperature ever in Redmond is 96 degrees which must have been a catastrophic heat wave because for the last week we’ve only been getting up to about 70. At the rate things are going in the rest of the country I’m sure we’ll get a chance to break that 1994 record soon. At least people around here have the right idea to fight the global warming. Seems the most popular car in Redmond is the funny looking Toyota Prius. It kind of looks like a space mobile but considering it gets about 60 miles to the gallon we are planning on trading in the rarely driven jeep for either that or some other kind of hybrid or smart car in the near future. Recycling, conservation, biodegradable cleaners and other environmentally friendly products are all things we and others out here are doing to try and save our world. The question is will it be enough and do enough people even care to make a difference? Only if Americans (who are the biggest polluters in the world) lead the change. We can do it!

Us at Deception Pass on Whidbey Island. We hope it still looks this beautiful for the next generation.

Hey everyone! It was great visiting in Denver last week. Although I was only there for a day and a half I was able to see a lot of people. I really enjoyed catching up with some old friends and seeing all the familiar faces. Too bad I couldn't see everyone but there is only so much you can do in that short amount of time. I'm sure I'll be back in the future to do some more hiking and visiting. And of course anyone that comes out this way should definitely give me a holler so we can get together for some drinks etc.

I guess it's obvious since I'm writing this that I made it back safe and sound. The drive with that ridiculously large 24' Budget truck was quite an adventure. Fortunately I didn't hit any bad weather except a few thunderstorms up in eastern Montana. I took I-25 up north to Billings, then I-90 west the rest of the way to Seattle. It was a total of 1420 miles in all, and took me 29 hours of driving including a few stops here and there but excluding the hotel time in Billings. All in all including the hotel time the drive only took about 41 hours. I drove 12 hours to Billings and then 17 hours the next day to make it to Seattle by 2am. It was much faster than I had planned given that I was driving a big diesel truck that would only go up to 70mph and less on an incline. It was a very scenic drive all the way. I have never driven through Montana before, and as I suspected it was awesome. There were mountains to the west all the way up to Billings. West of there I was surrounded by mountains pretty much the rest of the way. I'm glad the highway went through the valleys for most of the drive so there was only a couple mountain passes to go over. The only passes that were significant were just before Butte MT at the Continental divide, going into Idaho, and Snoqualmie pass just west of Seattle. The divide was only about 6300 feet at that point which is about the same elevation as Colorado Springs, and the other two were even lower so the entire route was really easy compared to going west I70 from Denver.

Now that I'm unloading all our stuff out of this truck (which was only half full) I'm wondering what do we need all this stuff for? Sure there are lots of things we needed like a real bed, clothes, ironing board, broom, dishes, snowboards and our mountain bikes; but a lot of it is just junk. We will for sure be simplifying our lives by making many more trips to the Salvation Army donation center like we did before we moved. Funny how living out of a backpack for 4 months can change your perpective on life. All that time I though man if I just had another backpack this size I'd have everything I could possibly need. Now I just want to get rid of half the junk in our apartment so we can live clutter free. Just one of many life lessons learned for traveling. We hope to learn many more in our future travels.

It's been nagging at me for a while now but finally our move is completed with this last big task of getting or stuff from storage done. We feel like we actually live here now, not like we are just drifters passing through. As true WA residents we are looking forward to getting settled into our new lives here and continuing the cosmicadventures.
Cheers!

Hello fellow adventurers! Yes we are still alive. Our transition into the NW lifestyle is going smooth so far. I’m heading back to Denver to get the rest of our belongings out of storage next week. What a relief that will be. We have not actually seen our “stuff” since last summer when we left for Europe. It’s amazing how inconvenient it is to not have a full set of dishes and pans, microwave oven, ironing board, furniture, and all those other everyday items that we have gotten used to having in our home. The time has come to finally get our stuff out here and get back to some normalcy. Unfortunately I won’t really have time to visit much on this trip to Denver since I’ll only be there for a day or so. Jet City Pizza is so short handed (like everywhere out here) that I could only get a few days off. They’ve been very accommodating to me so far even giving me weekends off so I can’t really complain. Once I get back I think it will be time for me to take advantage of the hot job market going on out here and find some serious work. Charlotte has already done so by landing a job at Microsoft. Yep ya heard right, she has joined the force, or the dark side depending on your perspective of MS. She’ll be working in one of the coolest divisions of MS too, X-BOX! I’m already volunteering to be a game tester.

Speaking of games I’d like to finish my thoughts on the superbowl from the last blog. I have to say I was really disappointed in the way the Refs lied, cheated, and stole to sway the outcome of the game. Lied about holdings calls that were nonexistent such as the one against Seattle that nullified a first and goal on the 1 yard line, and instead knocking them out of field goal range. Cheated by giving Ben Rothliswhatever a touchdown that clearly wasn’t a touchdown when he ran the play, and indisputably clear with instant replay that the ref and the whole country saw. Stole a touchdown from Jackson that should have given the Hawks the first touchdown of the game, and the momentum to steamroll from there. For most of the game I was confused as to whether I was watching the superbowl or a typically predetermined and biased WWF match. I still love watching football but I think in the future I will spend a lot less time watching it and instead put my time to better use doing other more productive things.

As for the website updates are very slow to come these days. It’s just not easy working on this laptop, especially when we don’t have a desk or even a chair to sit in. Also I’m blogged and pictured out. I still have some things I want to upload to our EuroTrip section, a couple more galleries in Italy, and tons of great pictures from Greece I probably won’t get to sort out for quite some time. I probably will throw in a gallery update here and there, and maybe some new static pages listed on the home page when I have time. All the new things we are doing out here are exciting to us but not really things I want to blog about. I might drop a blog note now and then but my longwinded blogs will be a thing of the past, at least for a while. I will also be disabling all the commenting on the older blogs since I've been getting so much spam comments. Ridiculous isn’t it? Do these idiots that spam all day think someone is really going to click on a link out of my blog to buy some prescription drugs? Totally lame! Anyway I’ll leave commenting on for the last few entries as long as the spam doesn’t get too much more out of control.

To leave on a brighter note I have made an interesting discovery. The UFO house that my dad and I saw at the Outer Banks of North Carolina is actually a futuro house. The picture of it is on the X-Files page of this website. There are less than 100 in the world. They were made in the late 60’s by a Finnish architect. Apparently there is some kind of fascination with these houses by lots of people around the world. I thought it was just an extra out of an old UFO film but apparently there is a lot more to the story. There are many others in the States in places like Tampa, Pensacola, Texas, and even Bailey Colorado! Charlotte and I happened upon one during our road trip in Greece. It was somewhere between Olympia and Patras on the west coast highway in the Pelopponese. When I saw a show on the history channel about it I googled it and found all kinds of interesting stuff. Here we are with the Futuro.

Beam us up Scotty!

The Greek Futuro house from the Backside.

Happy Trails!