Watch This: Portland I

Monday, November 5, 2007 - So much has happened here in Portland, I know I am going to miss entering a ton of stuff onto this blog, which is a shame, but better late than never.

I drove into Portland last Tuesday, and met my cousins Jeff and Greg for lunch. Jeff's directions sucked but with my immense intellect and intuition I found the lunch spot. These are some of the funniest and most entertaining folk I know, it's always such a blast to hang out with them. I also got to go back to their house (where I was staying) and meet their new family addition - Beck - who is about 6 months old. That night Ana, a girl from Brazil that works with Jeff and his wife Kira, joined us to see a bluegrass band in town. We all went out for Thai afterwards. Good times, all great people.

Wednesday I decided to check out the Oregon coast and drove to Canon beach. Right on the beach is a huge rock known as "Haystack Rock". Beautiful coast, but it was horribly cold that day. Nice people here.. I went to a brewery and talked with the bartender for a while.. After I paid my tab, I stuck around a little longer and he kept giving me free samples of their microbrews. That night Greg got free tickets from Ticketmaster to a concert - none of us had heard of the band playing there but it's free, so what the heck right? Ana, Greg, Greg's friend Jeff and I all went to the concert. The opener was easily the weirdest act I have ever seen. It was one guy up on stage with an acoustic guitar and some box that was piped into the speaker system. He'd press some button on the box and all sorts of bad Euro-Techno-Pop type stuff played over the speakers, then he'd either dance around and/or sing and/or play guitar. Then in the middle of the song he'd just stop. The majority of the songs were 1 minute in length; I know this because he told the crowd. The next (main) band just wasn't good. We then went to a bar and then headed home. I won't forget that concert, mainly because it was flipping hysterical..

Thursday, Ana came over to help watch Beck during the day while Jeff and Kira were out. Jeff met Ana years ago when he was travelling in Brazil. Years later she moved to Portland. Jeff was living in San Jose at the time, but he and his wife eventually moved to Portland. When that time came Ana was looking for a job, and Jeff and Kira happened to be starting their business and needed to hire someone. Ana has been there ever since, and is now considered part of their family. She is genuinely sweet, thankful for everything she has, and most importantly, happy. We talked for a while Thursday and clicked. She invited us to a Brazilian party Saturday her and her friends here have often.