oh yeah, this is what you get from a disposable camera

quality. you can see the rest of the roll here.

another reason to visit me in portland

i heard on the news the other night that the portland airport (PDX) was rated most pleasant airport experience, or something like that. from personal experience, it really is, as far as airports go. sometimes there's someone playing a grand piano for you, and it's usually not too crowded and obnoxious...anyway. i can't find any verification of this claim searching the internet, though, so i wonder if they made it up.

oh wait, here's one. whatever shortnews is. actually it was rated the BEST airport in the country. and there's free wireless. now all you need is a plane ticket.

books and super best friends

i think i'm going to have to break down and have chris help me edit my template because it is so lame. then i'll be able to show off some sweet photos of the area. so eventually that will happen...

last night i was getting a little stir crazy staying at home (the whole trying not to spend any more money on crap this month) so i went to find a borders to hunt around in (courtesy of mike and gail). i discovered that a mere two miles from me is a giant suburbia-esque (hmm, that word didn't work out so well) shopping mall. the borders was not-so-strategically placed directly across from a barnes and noble. anyway, i ended up with some good finds, and i was able to make the final total a mere 5 cents under the gift card value. got a new cookbook, a coctail book (who knows why i needed that one, it was just there), sudoku book (i'm really lagging behind the fad on this one...i just did my first one ever last week), and a plant book (real exciting, i know). i got home and got all excited about books, so i had to investigate the portland public library system. of course, there's a library not far away so i plan on getting to know it next week. that's a free activity, right? why didn't i think of it a couple of weeks ago?

speaking of books (kind of), i was watching a classic south park episode the other night - the one about the super best friends, a great episode - and i realized how little i know about a lot of the history of world religions. was the asian super best friend confucious, or some other guy? does anyone have a recommendation for a good basic world religion history book? i'm hoping that a certain religious studies/sociology guru in wisconsin can answer this one. i'm looking for a light but informative read here. and i thought it was unfair that the mormons got to be represented with their own super best friend, since they're kind of an offshoot of christianity. anyway.

okay, i'm back

ah, the ol' microwave egg and cheese sandwich. one of the only real uses for american "cheese." originally it was going to be a bagel instead of sandwich, but i discovered that my two remaining bagels were nicely stuck together with a carpet of mold. i guess i wasn't that disappointed though, because of the following piece of information that i recently discovered: hawaiian bagel = PLAIN bagel. (acually it may have been a little sweeter, but for all practical purposes...PLAIN. i wasn't too sad to see those two other poser bagels go) i hope this information is helpful to others so they can avoid the same letdown that i experienced.

i'm officially car-less now (well, chris still has his, so the household isn't car-less). as a brief update, portland licensing requires that vehicles pass an emissions inspection (which the corolla failed with flying colors). a general inspection of the car at this same time revealed that several other areas of the car were also badly in need of replacement, so many areas that the repair costs for these were greater than the value of the car. when i went to pick up the un-repaired car after the inspection, they cautioned me several times not to drive it too far. considering i had just driven it the distance of the entire length of oregon, it wasn't too comforting to hear. so anyway, i decided to just be done with it and donate it (autos for animals). they came to tow it away the other day. i wanted to take some pictures of it being towed away, but i was asleep at the time. :(

so i'm not on a new car hunt yet, and i don't plan to be anytime soon. in an extremely environmentally-conscious city, this has actually been a good (be it forced) adaptation. at least portland is the most bike-friendly city i've ever seen (well at least big city u.s. i'm sure). i'm sure we'll get a long fine indefinitely with our one car.

and incidentally, when i was describing the car saga, i was reminded of how i hate it when people name their cars. "cindy lou failed her emissions inspection." "bob needs all new brakes, pads, and tires." "fiona is leaking radiator fluid." blehhhhh. a couple people told me i should name it once (the type of people that were into car-naming), but the best i could come up with was "the corolla." so, "the corolla" will be sold at a car auction shortly, and will probably end up being disassembled to use for parts. the end of an era.

ditto that last title

ditto's such a dumb word.

well, since cabell has called me out on the whole reformat of the blog without any new postings (i was planning on it, really), i might as well finally get around to it. the first step is the hardest, right?

but first i have to make some breakfast, because that brownie i just had for breakfast isn't quite cutting it, and all i'm doing now is getting up and looking in the refrigerator every two minutes. as if something has changed in there. and yes, it is still before noon here, so it's still breakfast.

hold on a minute.