polaroid

business

anybody who has spent any length of time around me, or who has read this blog at all will know that i love to bake. cooking is alright, but if it involves flour and eggs and butter, i am in love.
what i love even more is to see my friends and family enjoy what i have created.

my friends have recently been harassing me about opening up a shop to start selling my tasty treats. i have a few rebuttals for them.
1. bakeries start working at about 3 am to make the day's edibles. that's about when i like to go to bed.
2. owning your own business is a 24/7 endeavor. i like to travel.
3. i would have no idea where to start, and riverside is notorious for demolishing small, creative, independent businesses.
4. the idea of owning my own business frankly scares the crap out of me.

that being said, i must admit that i've been toying with the idea for the past few days.
i've been thinking of where i would look for retail space, what the design would be like, what to call my little shop, what equipment i would need, how to advertise, and menu items.
jon can take care of the graphic design, and marissa will design me a sweet interior.

this isn't something i'm going to go out and try to do any time soon, but it is definitely somthing to think about when its time to come up with my next 2 year plan.
i think i'll spend the time until then experimenting with recipes.
i'm also thinking that doing research at european pastry shops would probably be a good idea, too.

(oh, steve and mike. you can keep trying, but i won't ever answer to cookie. you'll need to come up with something better than that.)

uh...maybe

me: so Cody Hudson seems like he would be fun to hang out with.

alissa: i think when you said 'hang out with', you really meant 'make out with'.

exactly

The Wart did not know what Merlyn was talking about, but he liked him to talk. He did not like the grown-ups who talked down to him like a baby, but the ones who just went on talking in their usual way, leaving him to leap along in their wake, jumping at meanings, guessing, clutching at known words, and chuckling at complicated jokes as they suddenly dawned. He had the glee of the porpoise then, pouring and leaping through strange seas.

The Sword in the Stone
T.H. White

PDX

some people think i'm crazy, but i love to fly. i love airplanes. i love being at airports.
maybe its because my parents took me on my first flight when i was a week old.
maybe its in my genes. my grandfather loved planes and when they lived in Seattle he used to take my mom and uncle to SEATAC every sunday afternoon to watch the planes.
my grandfather was a pilot.
he died when his plane crashed.
i was only 6.

anyways...

out of the innumerable airports i have been through in my lifetime, the portland international airport would have to be one of my favorites. it is fairly small, but doesn't feel small. it has a wonderfully friendly, unhurried feeling about it. even the TSA employees are friendly.

i would spend all day sitting watching planes at PDX if they would let me.

i guess this isn't really a road trip anymore

today i'm wrapping up my time here in portland.

yesterday alissa was done with work early, so we headed downtown to the fifty24PDX gallery to see the show by cody hudson. after a stop for boba tea, we headed out to sauvie island to pick blueberries and marionberries. and of course, it started to rain...again.

the rest of the evening was filled with a sewing party, a trip to fred meyer for ice cream and other assorted junk food, and watching a movie. i ate pretty much the entire pint of ice cream by myself. my body is not very happy with me right now.

tonight i say goodbye to portland and fly home to riverside.

it feels weird to be going home without micah.

portland adventures

yesterday began with a bang. or rather a series of booms as a substantial thunderstorm rolled through p-town. it was fantastical. i love weather.

so since alissa still has to work while i'm here, i was lazy all morning and occupied myself with the internet and reading while she was working in the other room. (as i am doing today.) when she was done we put on our hiking shoes and headed a few blocks south down to the river. she lives in north portland, which is very industrial down by the river. many docks and factories.
we walked down the hill to the railroad tracks and followed them around the bend, picking and eating wild blackberries as we went. (the university of portland is just up the hill at this point.) after a little bit of walking there is an abandoned factory that skate kids have turned into a skate park and it is filled with amazing graffiti. a little creepy, but very cool.
a bit farther on is a little beach where you can see the ships heading up towards the columbia river and where the railroad crosses the river. i felt like i was 12 years old off on an urban adventure.



but it eventually started getting dark and then the light portland spittle-rain began, so we started the walk back up the hill. we grabbed dinner at king burrito and then went back to alissa's house and watched a documentary on the flaming lips.
not a super-eventful day, but i had fun.

i have a bunch more photos from the trip so far on my flickr page.

my eyes are a little sweaty today

it's been raining in portland today, which is appropriate.
i've been having a hard time this morning. you see, i had to say goodbye to micah last night. it kind of sucked.

our road trip has been awesome, which is to be expected. after spending the night in ashland on friday night, we had breakfast at this little cafe, which i thoroughly enjoyed. then we hit the road and headed towards mcminneville to see the spruce goose. i love air museums, and i had seen the spruce goose as a kid, so of course i enjoyed myself. it would have been nice if i hadn't been sweating profusely, but what can you do about the weather?
we finally made it into portland and micah and i went up to alissa's house and hung out in the basement for a little while. (yes, the basement. it was about 10 degrees cooler in there.) then we headed out and got some food at monsoon thai and ate dinner with micah's folks at their hotel.
sunday morning we headed out for breakfast at cup & saucer. i was really excited about this, because the last time i was in portland i ate the best breakfast in my life at cup & saucer. it wasn't nearly as good this time. oh well. then we made a stop at the saturday market (yes, they're also open on sunday) to buy some organic soap from 'the soap guy'. then around the corner to stumptown to buy my coffee beans. then micah, alissa and i headed out to the coast for some cooler weather. we stopped for lunch in seaside, then headed out to oswald west state beach for some hiking. it was beautiful and amazing. then dinner in cannon beach and a drive back to p-town.

but then we dropped micah off at her hotel and it dawned on me that we were saying goodbye.
how is it really enough to give someone a hug and say goodbye in a parking lot when you're all dead-tired? i feel completely deflated.

i was so blessed when micah and i became friends. in the process of getting to know one another we realized that we would be perfect for one another - if either of us were into chicks. micah is the female version of my future spouse. for reals. i think that's why i'm having such a hard time with her moving away. i know i'll see her every couple months, and i'll talk on the phone and email her all the time, but the fact that she's now so far away kind of feels like i've broken up with yet another boyfriend. which sucks. i'm tired of feeling so much loss. the older i get, the harder it becomes and the more it hurts.

i know i sound like a real debbie-downer right now, but i felt like i just had to get it out.
so i'll leave you with one of my favorite flight of the conchords songs, which has been going through my head all morning. this one's for you, micah.



dying. that's right, dying.

roadtrip...again

this morning began my, uhm, i think 9th road trip to oregon. i think i like to drive to oregon.

micah is moving to victoria BC to attend a photo school, and i decided to go along for the ride and jump ship in portland and spend some time with alissa.

i am super-excited for micah to have this experience, but also sad that she will be so far away.

so i am trying to not think about how this trip is going to end and am concentrating on enjoying the journey.

we set out early this morning and made sure we stopped in redding to visit the lances and met new baby moses. we've also been taking a lot of video with the intent of making a collaborative road trip 'movie'. i'm excited to put it all together and show off our creation. it will be epic. or at least awesome.

stay tuned for more road trip updates.

a quick and dirty cliffs notes history/current events lesson, or what the hell is going on in russia?

some of you may have heard of a little skirmish going on currently between russia and georgia in a place called north ossetia. for the news-junkies out there, this is probably going to be nothing new. for those of you who are just learning that there is a place called georgia that is not in the american southeast, this may be educational.

a little background...
there is a little spit of land between the black sea and the caspian sea which is somewhere around 300 miles wide and contains a mountain range called the caucasus. (yes, this is where we get the term caucasian.) as far as researchers can tell, this region has been continuously inhabited since the stone age. this region is also quite rugged and at times impassable, so of course a number of distinct people-groups emerged over the centuries. as far as i can tell, this relatively small piece of real estate contains somewhere between 30 and a zillion distinct ethnolinguistic groups, as pictured in the map below. (ethnolinguistic = people who share a distinct culture and language.)

i traveled to this area (Kabardino-Balkaria to be specific) in the summer of 2002 and saw firsthand how each of these groups sees themselves as distinctly different from the others. and there is not a lot of love lost between them. each group has their own history, culture, traditions and language. and then you throw in a few different religions....and i think you all know what happens.

now for some history...
we all learned about the russian empire in school, and how czar after czar slowly conquered most of the eurasian continent, absorbing numerous countries and people groups. and like the roman empire before them, they kept order between these groups mostly by force. then the russian empire fell and was taken over by the USSR, which continued the expansion of borders and kept order with even more of an iron fist.
fast-forward to the early 1990's and the dissolution of the soviet union.
in the aftermath of the end of the USSR, there were a number of countries who were able to regain their sovereignty. (think latvia, estonia, lithuania, etc.) but what about the innumerable ethnolinguistic groups which were absorbed by the russian empire before the invention of the nation-state, so had never had the opportunity for sovereign rule the way we know it today? well, some of them were allowed to create their own countries. (think uzbekistan, khazakstan, azerbaijan, georgia, etc.) but wait, according to that map up there, there are still a lot of ethnolinguistic groups who never got their own country and are living in the country created for another ethnolinguistic group.

there's your problem.

the russian government had to put their foot down somewhere, because the area inhabited by ethnic russians is not very large, and if they let every people group form their own country, there really wouldn't be much of a russia left.
but that doesn't keep them from trying...
the ossetian people group claim an area which is partly in russia (north ossetia) and partly in georgia (south ossetia). and the ossetians don't much like georgians. the people of south ossetia - backed by the russian gonvernment - consider themselves to be an independent republic. yet the international community consider it to be a part of georgia.
so last week when the georgian army went into south ossetia to show them who was in charge, the russian government stepped in and backed the ossetians. now why the russian army is storming toward the georgian capital of tbilisi is another story...

i could say a lot more about this, but most of you probably stopped reading a long time ago.

but for those of you who got this far, i hope that it was at least somewhat educational.

now back to the michael phelps juggernaut and lip-syncing 9-year-olds...

nature

this afternoon i was looking through the california state parks website, trying to decide where i would like to reserve a campsite.
as i was looking at the details for the campground at silverwood lake, i noticed that they were very proud to say that they now offer wi-fi at their campground. upon further reading, somewhere around 49 state parks now offer this service.
i don't want to sound like a luddite here, but is this really necessary? what kind of vacation is it if you can whip out your laptop or other nifty portable gadget and check your email in the middle of the woods?
next thing you know, they will be offering flatscreen televisions in every site. or maybe even various product placements on the trees and wildlife.

i'll get off my soapbox now.

stuff

today my friend alissa sent me an email telling me i needed to check out http://storyofstuff.com/.
i just finished watching the video and now i'm telling you all to watch it. it is 20 minutes long, but the time goes fast and it has a lot of things that Americans need to hear.
the first half didn't really tell me anything i don't already know, but parts of the second half left my jaw on the floor.
i've always been interested in the sociology of consumption, so i found this to be enormously educational.
and the website has lots of great resources.

set some time aside and check it out.

plastic

i came across this article on the BBC news website. this journalist is on a one-month attempt to introduce no new plastic into her life. the current collection of storage containers and various other plastic products are ok, but any new purchases need to be free of plastic.
seems pretty straightforward, right?
far from it.
three days in, and there have been several stumbles.
that disposable paper coffee cup? wait, not just paper, but has a plastic insulating coating.
going shopping for fruit and veg? wait, everything is wrapped in plastic and it is impossible to buy berries packaged in anything but a plastic container.
i'm excited to follow the blog and see how this experiment plays out.