Live diggnation in Portland Oregon: Digg this to make it happen!

We know Kevin loves Portland. Who wouldn't? It is time to demand Kevin and Alex to come to PDX for a live diggnation.

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PDX Pipeline

I wrote a short article about my experience with the Ikea grand opening in Portland for the PDX Pipeline.
You can read it here.

IKEAnsanity - The Story by Brian Brewcaster

Goonies

We had a little Goonies adventure. Go look at the photos here. The beagles loved the beach. I mean LOVED!

PHOTOS - Click

HD - TeeeVeee

So as we were faced with hanging out in an apartment with no furniture for a week, we made a decision. We should buy a new TV, we could play the Wii and watch DVD's via laptops on a new HDTV. I looked over the cashola we had made from the house and thought it would be a good plan.

It was. OMG it was. HDTV is a whole other world. We got the HD setup from Comcast, with HD DVR. It is absolutely amazing. SNL in HD? Get outta here! Conan in HD! ya.

So, if you are considering making the jump. DO IT!!! One more thing, Lost in HD, nuff said.

Weather/Furnture

So here tell its been pretty hot everywhere. Pretty much every blog I read is talking about the heat. I thought I might show you what I have to deal with:



Not too shabby ;) IT did get to 100 degrees on our second day here, but that felt like about 87 degrees in Oklahoma weather.

In other news, we have our furniture!!!! We are so super pumped. Unpacking is almost done, and I think the apartment is turning out nice and cozy. I am very glad to not be sleeping on an air mattress anymore. I will take photos when done so you all can see.

How are things with you?

State

OK so our apartment is pretty small.

How small?

small.

We knew we would be downsizing our living space, but this was a little more than we expected. BUT, it will work. The location is worth the price and small space. We are still excited.

The dogs are an issue right now. They have been through a lot of confusing things in the past week. Driving 12 hours a day for three days. Staying in strange hotels. Sleeping in strange beds.
They can't be left alone right now. We tried yesterday and the howling that proceeded made the whole neighborhood turn and stare. Daisy is the problem child. She really has emotional issues and we knew that. On the last day of driving she freaked out. She started yelling at the top of her lungs. For no reason at all. We stopped at a rest area and she was fine, wagging her tail, running around. I think she had just had about enough of all this chnage.
We are hoping that the arrival of a familiar bed, couch and chairs will help the dogs realize that they are safe and at a new home. But only time will tell. I am pretty stressed about this. But again we do have a lot of time before both of us would start working(Sept.) If you have any advice for dogs with separation anxiety, please do share.

Other than that, Melissa is at another interview now. I am at a coffee shop just a block away from the apartment. Ordering internet today. The free city-wide MetroFi, is a joke. I had read bad reviews of it, but had high hopes. I occasionally can see the signal, but never have once been able to get on it. And with cable internet costing about $50 a month, EVERYONE has theirs locked down.

So this is city living. WAY DIFFERENT than anything I have experienced. My initial response internally was, "what the hell am I doing?" I gave up an extremely confortable lifestyle for all this? But then I think harder about it. Change is scary. We needed this change. With comfort came lazyness and a boredom with life. Sure it would have been easy to coast out the rest of my years in Oklahoma. But looking back on those years we would have regretted the oppurtunities we passed up. I was not ready to "retire" at the age of 29. And that would have been what would happen. We would have continued to work, sleep, watch tv. That was no longer satisfying for us. Thus the change. I am taking all this as another exciting challenge. One that will reward us each day. If nothing else the weather and pine scent in the air will be enough. Plus, did I mention the beer here? Yummm.

Sorry for the ramble, but lots on my mind, I have nowhere gotten close to expressing it correctly, but I tried.

Oh, did I mention there are no mosquitos here? none.

Holy crap!!! We have been in 10 states in the last 3 days!! Over 2000 miles! Man.

man.

man.


OK, so we got in before sundown, the air is cold and crisp, we were so pumped. We drove over to our apartment and walked around the block. OMG.

We can't get our keys until tomorrow, so we will stay in a hotel near Melissa's Monday interview.

This is where we need to be now. I don't think we have been this excited in a long time.

I will leave you with this photo. This shows how progressive this state is. This was in our hotel room drawer:

Corn Country

CORN!!!!

EVERYWHERE!!!!

Nebraska produces a lot of Corn as far as I can tell...
Here is a picture of Daisy doing what she does 80% of the time in the car; sniffing the air vent to smell the exciting smells outside.



Not much else to report... a little tired. Hotel room won't let us hook up the Nintendo Wii, :(

Good and Bad

More news:

Melissa scored another interview with another school. On that same note, please note that the first interview is Monday morning, the second on Tues.

Now, update on the furniture/everything we own arrival date. They have changed drivers(whatever that means) now the arrival date is set for July 16th!!! Hotness, that means we get there on the 8th....you do the math, but it means a lot of sleeping on air mattresses and spending a lot of time out of the apartment. We shall see how that goes.

Nebraska, take notice, you are next.

Day One

We closed on the house yesterday. Made enough cash to cover all moving costs plus a bunch more. :)

We then remembered it was our 2 year wedding anniversary. So we went to have dinner at Deep Fork late in the evening. Food was OK considering they were starting to close for the evening.

This morning began with last minute box packing. The movers arrived on time and loaded us up for the road. *Tip- if you are using a moving company and traveling a long distance, they may tell you they will provide a hard date for arrival at your destination. This is/was a lie. We are still being given an arrival date of July 9th-16th. Great. I did some good old fashion complaining, and they contacted the driver for our move. He estimated arrival on the 11th. So we will be getting to Portland on the 8th, follow me?

All packed and ready to leave the house for the last time. Melissa lets the dogs in and finds that they have rolled around in the worst smelling substance on Earth. I have no idea what it was, but it was amazing. So, I got to run to the grocery store to buy shampoo and hand towels(they didn't have bath towels) so we could wash the dogs before driving to Tulsa. Good times.

Then the good news starts...the movers call me to tell me the final weight and estimated price for the move. Let me preface this by saying we listened to this segment on NPR today, warning against movers that quote you a low ball price based on their estimated weight, then stick you with a huge price once the truck is loaded and weighed out at a much higher weight. So I was ready for it... but it turns out the weight was much lower, thus the move will be $1000 less then we expected! High five.

Then Melissa gets a call from a potential job in Portland! They talked for a while, then she was called back to setup an interview. Another high five please... thanks.

So far, so pretty good. We won't get to spend as much time as we hoped with our families on the way out as we have to beat the spread, but these kind of headaches come with the task.

Stay tuned for a minute by minute update of driving through Nebraska. Sounds boring? I bet it will be. I will save you the boringness.