Tag: moving

Jan 27 2013

falling away…

So its been almost 10 months since I moved back to Oregon from LA.  A few weeks ago it had me thinking about the people I may never see again.  I know part of this is just the natural course of life, that people move into and out of your life.  But its still strange to me that there are people that I was pretty close to, that I may never see again because both they and I have moved away.  But then, I suppose this happens even in Portland.  The only difference being there is still a chance I might randomly run into them.

to my So Cal friends…if I don’t see you again…thank you for helping to make my time in LA enjoyable in each of your particular ways.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2013/01/falling-away/

Mar 19 2012

Heading back to Portlandia

Its official…I’m heading back to Portland at the end of the month.  I don’t have a permanent place to live yet and I don’t have a job yet (though I’m trying to continue on remotely at my current job…fingers crossed).  So this is another leap of faith.  Now to get everything done between now and the end of the month.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2012/03/heading-back-to-portlandia/

Aug 09 2011

4 years

4 years ago today…I arrived in LA.

Purely coincidentally, I happen to be on a train returning to LA from a long weekend vacation in the Bay Area.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2011/08/4-years/

Oct 15 2008

Sketch 41

Well I am more or less settled into my new apartment.  Most everything is unpacked and with the addition of a new dresser from IKEA on Saturday, things are pretty much put away.

The weekend was pretty busy and full of food.  On Thursday night, dinner at El Cholo.  Friday was dinner at Pizzeria Mozza.  Breakfast on Saturday at The Griddle (I had a 2-Stack of the “Tis the Season” pancakes…which are made with pumpkin pie filling in the batter).  Dinner on Saturday was my first trip to The Counter, a build your own gormet burger place.

Mozza was excellent.  Fried Squash Blossoms filled with Ricotta for an appetizer.  I had a pizza with house made fennel sausage, bacon and salami for the main course and then the Butterscotch pudding for dessert.  It was my second trip to Mozza, and I think the pizza is really good, however I think Apizza Scholls in Portland still gets my vote for best pizza.

The Counter, was ok, but I wasn’t that impressed.  Basically you get to choose your toppings on your choice of patty (beef, turkey, vegetarian).  There is a wide variety of toppings to choose from and the price of the burger isn’t that outrageous (though still on higher end of things – $8.25 for a 1/3 lb burger with 1 cheese, 4 toppings, and 1 sauce).  On paper, pretty good idea.  In practice, I found the toppings to be over done (as in too much).  I got the beef patty with blue cheese, mixed baby greens, sprouts, and honey mustard and bbq sauce.  It was good, but there was too much blue cheese on it, which kinda overpowered the rest of the burger.

On Monday, I finally replaced my mobile phone with the new Blackberry Pearl Flip.  I was a little torn about getting an iPhone 3G, but decided that the cost of the service on AT&T was too much, especially when I could get a Blackberry on T-Mobile for about $30 less a month.  So I stayed with T-Mobile.  So far I like the phone.  I’m still getting used to the Blackberry software…and its definitely not an iPhone in terms of its media and web handling…but it’ll work for me.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2008/10/sketch-41/

Oct 08 2008

Sketch 40

Well much of last week was taken up with finishing up packing and getting ready to move on Saturday.  The move went well…I’m still far from being unpacked completely, but I’m getting there.

I went to the Oregon/USC football game Saturday night.  Wasn’t such a good game for the Oregon fans…but I still had fun at the game.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2008/10/sketch-40/

Sep 23 2008

Sketch 38

Sometimes I feel like I’m doing nothing, even though I feel like I’m quite busy at the same time.  I think I’m just at one of those points where I need to get away from the city again…but I won’t be able to until after the pending move.

Friday night I finally made it to Tropic Thunder.  Funny, funny movie.  Go see it.  Even if you normally can’t stand Ben Stiller movies.  This one is good.

Saturday, I headed down to Mr. Pocket’s in Manhattan Beach to catch the watch party for the Duck game.  Amazingly enough, the game (UO vs. Boise State), wasn’t on TV except for the Oregon’s local production.  Because of a new TV rights deal, Oregon games not carried by the Pac-10 contracts (ABC/ESPN, FSN, and VS.) are aired on the new Comcast Sports North West (also the new home of the Portland Trailblazers).  The problem with this is that since CSNW is owned by Comcast, most of the other cable/satellite/etc providers, do not carry the channel.  Normally, this would mean we were out of luck for watching at the bar, but the folks at Mr. Pockets hooked up the streaming feed from the internet, so we could watch it live after all.  The game was good (in the end), even though we lost.  Oregon played pretty cruddy for 3 quarters and its hard to win games like that (even though we almost came back).

I spent some time going through things in preparation for packing on Sunday.  Nothing is packed yet, but I’m pretty much ready to pack.  Just waiting on the rental agreement from the landlord to sign and I’ll be completely official.  I’ve already started changing my address with the various powers that be.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2008/09/sketch-38/

May 21 2008

Sketch 20

It’s been a busy week.  Thursday was my last official day at Canterbury USC (Granted I pretty much hadn’t worked since the end of April other than a few days).  I also moved to my new apartment on Thursday.  I can’t say enough how excited I am about the new place.  I really like my new roommate.  The place is much quieter than my old place.  Anyway, I’ve mostly unpacked and organized the room.  The only thing really to do is unpack the books.  I’m considering painting the room, but I haven’t gotten around to going to look at colors.

Work at the coffee shop is going well.  It’s can be kind of slow, but its summer (at least temp wise), and the later hours are still new.  All in all, I like it a bunch.  I’m still looking for a second job.  At the moment still being a little picky, because I can at least through the end of May.  I think I’d prefer to get a job at a beer bar, or even a grocery store that sold good beer.

Sunday, partially in order to escape the heat for awhile, I went and saw Iron Man at the Cinerama Dome.  It was my first time seeing a movie in the Dome.  The screen is huge, but slightly curved, so text on the sides of the screen can look out of place.  But you adjust pretty quickly (at least I did).  I thought the movie was fun.  Definitely one of the top movies made from comic books.  It kind of amazed me that the guy who made Swingers could do such a good job on an action film.  Though maybe that shouldn’t have surprised me.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2008/05/sketch-20/

May 13 2008

Sketch 19

I’ve been slowly packing up my room this week.  It’s always a little jarring to put all your stuff in boxes to prepare for a move.  I’ve been trying to go through stuff and get rid of some of the excess, however the past couple days have just been putting things in boxes.  I’ll try to cull more stuff as I’m unpacking.  This morning I took apart my bed.  I’ll just sleep on the mattress on the floor the next couple days.  Yes, the packing is wrapping up.

Last night was my first night on my own at the coffee shop.  It was pretty slow, but also the first day of the extended hours of the shop.  So I was able to do a bit of reading and get all the closing work done pretty quickly.  I’m looking forward to things getting busier though.

I cooked my last dinner for Canterbury on Sunday.  I made a burrito bar (because the Lutheran Pastor had requested Mexican food) and had purchased a chocolate cake from Costco.  I am going to miss cooking Sunday dinners as it was the one area of my job that I did well (at least as a whole).

Tis a short sketch this week, back to packing. 🙂

Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2008/05/sketch-19/

Feb 28 2008

Sketch 8

Last week was a busy work week, as it was the week leading up to my big monthly event.  Since my event was on Wednesday night, I didn’t quite get to writing up my sketch as I was preoccupied with last minute details for the event.  Mainly, I just worked this past week, but I did manage to fit in a couple trips to the beach though, so that was nice.  It is definitely one of the things that keep me sane in LA.

I had a good conversation with my boss/housemate about what will be happening after the semester is over and my job ends.  We talked about the different scenarios I’m considering, and how we can work on making one of them work.  I really think my top choice is trying to figure out a move to Santa Rosa.  Its in Northern California, which is closer to home, and has at least a little more rain than LA.  Its also about an hour outside of San Francisco, a city I enjoy quite a bit.  The challenge now is to find a job, that I can start in May.  At the very least, I need to work through the end of April, but I’ll probably end up working through the end of finals.  Either way I’ll get paid through May 15th, which is a good thing for my finances.

I’m trying to relax a little today, and will definitely be relaxing this weekend.  I think I’m going to check out the Getty Villa on Saturday.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2008/02/sketch-8/

Aug 22 2007

Welcome to California

So here I am…entering California.  The drive was pretty comfortable all in all.  My rental car was nicely equipped with Sirius Satellite Radio, so most of the first day of driving was spent singing along to the 80’s channel.  The one thing you can say about a solo road trip…no one can complain about your singing.  I wasn’t in California long however before I ran across this:

A giant wooden horse? You’ve got to be kidding me!  Here I am driving to Los Angeles to work at the University of Southern California and I see a giant wooden horse less than an hour after entering California.  What craziness!Other than that, the drive was pretty standard.  The drive past Mt. Shasta and Shasta Lake was beautiful as always.  I ended up resisting the temptation to stop in Redding for In-N-Out, pushing through to Corning, CA where I would need to fill up with gas.  For those of you who haven’t driven down I-5 through Northern California, Corning is home to the famous Olive Pit Restaurant (they also advertise a big “Olive Festival,” however, I’ve never been through when it is going on).  This was a standard stop for a few of my friends and always featured some tasting of some tasty olives.

Day one’s destination was Madera, CA.  I was going to crash at my friend Nicole’s aunt & uncle’s house.  Nicole happened to be in the states (she currently lives in Sicily) during August and offered to give me a place to crash.  We went out for a nice dinner at The Vineyard Restaurant and afterwards watched a little tv with her aunt & uncle before I crashed for the night.

Day two was a quick drive down to Los Angeles.  I stopped in the town before the Grapevine to fill up again and was on my way.  Traffic wasn’t to bad once I hit the LA area except for a little stretch near Downtown LA.  I pulled up to my new place (a townhouse) just after 11am.  After a quick bite for lunch I unloaded the car and here I was…a resident of Los Angeles.

Crazy!

Permanent link to this article: https://www.rhinoblues.com/thoughts/2007/08/welcome-to-california/