New Website

So I'm starting a new site called "Adventures on the Gold Coast". It will follow me as I travel around the world during these next few months. Check it out over there. It should be a great one. I won't be posting here until I get back. Which really won't be until September. I'll be in Ghana from February till June. Then I'll be in Spain during July and Turkey during August. AWESOME! I"ll probably make a second blog for the Spain/Turkey trip that I'm making with Vicky/an NU class. So, yeah, check out those stories, you won't regret it. Peace - see you in a few - tamu

My photos are live

So I just spent all morning setting up a picasa web photo account. This way I can put pictures up on the web for all to see. Before, I only put them onto Facebook, but that way only people with fbook accounts could see them. Now they are freed of that proprietary loop. I just want to welcome my memories to the life of freedom.

Check them out here.

Although right now I only have recently liberated pictures from from facebook. Bot, I'll add more when I"m squeezing my baby in Boston(she has my computer).

University of Oregon

This week I was at U of O

Here's a blow-by of the trip. I arrived on Saturday and saw Ty for the first time in way too long. After dropping stuff off, we went to a show of the K.R.U.M.P Kings. They are a Christian Hip-Hop dance troupe. K.R.U.M.P stands for Kindom Righteously Uplifting Mighty Praise. They were pretty good. A little unorganized, but it was nice to see people using hip-hop for something cunstructive. All too often its bling, parties and ho's.

Sunday, we dropped by Cimone's place to cook her breakfast. After that we went to Church... a place called Jubilee. We were a little late since we were told they sarted at the wrong time, but the preacher was cool and I enjoyed the sermone. He mainly spoke on the need to read the book and in general apply the Word to our lives. All around nice.

Perhaps Monday was the day of our great hike. I can't remember because I'm writing this post soooo late. But if this is the right day.... Ty and I went on a powerhike up to the top of this peak with a great view. We could see for 20 miles. It felt so good to just sit up there and enjoy the beauty. We nearly sprint-walked the hike. There was a couple that we passed twice(once on the way up then again on the way down). We were fast.

We played a lot of Wii aswell. Golf with Jimmy. I showed Ty how to box.

Then we went to school and I shadowed Ty. Went to his Black Student Union meetings, his classes and his basketball game.

Next I hung out with friends from high shcool. Andrew, Rebecca and I went bowling(she's obsessed with it as of late). The next day Ben, Sean and I ate lunch and played pool, then merged with Jimmy, Andrew and Brian for some dinner and Rock Band. I rocked the mic and Bass. The other stuff(especially the drums) were just too hard. For those of you who don't know, Rock band is a video game where you get together with friends and form a band(with actually video-gamey instruments).

The week wound down with a few more rounds of Wii at Ty's place and then I got to meet Ben's girlfriend. I've been looking forward to that for a couple of years.

Then I went home(barely catching the bus) to Portland.

It was a great time, and I'm glad I got to see everyone.

Building and Remembering

These past couple of days were spent on crafts. I built a chair for my mom out of an old coffee table she didn't want anymore. Its not done yet, but, I'm working on it. We also bought materials to line my pea coat with fleece. Irene bought it for me in a thrift store. Its really heavy... however what it lacks is real warmth. I'm fixing that up so it will have all the style of an East coast coat and all the functionality of a West coast coat. Hopefully, it all works out. I won't be able to finish it until I get back from Eugene.

Oh, I also chatted with Vicky a lot. I love Meebo. Thank you interweb. With Meebo I get to interact with Vicky through text, audio, video, games, etc. Its great.

I also played racket ball one more time on Friday. But what sucks is I missed out on going to Salem with the Rodriguezes to watch Lincoln's Constitution Team debating. Luke Rodriguez is on the team this year. I was on it my senior year. I loved that thing. I've never studied so hard. At one point I was putting in 40 hours a week to that group. In the end my team lost: 4 of our six groups won; 1 group was even with its competition; and 1 group performed so poorly that they killed the lead the rest of us had earned and we lost the thing by 4 points.... out of 1,000. I know, I know... I'm still pissed and should probably drop it. But oh well, a grudge is a grudge right? Our team used to be the best in town but now we've lost the past 5 years in a row. Its mainly because other schools have seniors take the class, while Lincoln is institutionally set up to push sophomores towards the team. They can't compete. We'd have seniors but, all our seniors are too busy doing advanced I.B. coursework. Plus, in my day Lincoln's team was was a part-time, extracurricular activity. Grant High School(our main competitor) had a regularly scheduled class that met every day. Those two things will plague Lincoln until they restructure the program. I hear from Luke that they have it as a regular class now. Great. Now tackle that second thing. I just want to see Lincoln excel. My alma mater deserves it.

Travel Plans and Evan

Wednesday The 16th. Two great things happened this day. The first, my baby went in for her interview with Professor TanyeriAbur. They got to know each other and the Professor wanted to meet Vicky to see if she'd let Vicky go on the Spain/Turkey trip. Well, the great news is that TanyeriAbur liked Vicky and told her she's getting into the program. AWESOME!!!! I'm so glad that she gets to go. Its great. Also, she told me that the Prof. said that she was going to accept everyone else into the program as well. Which meant that I was going to get in too. While that was great, I didn't really feel like rejoicing unless the professor told me that in person, or at least named me specifically, when telling Vicky who was going to be in the program. That being said, it was great news. Yay!!!! for Vicky. Yehaw! She's never really traveled. hasn't seen much of the US and hasn't been out of the country. Not even to Canada. Crazy! And her mom's from Jamaica, but never went back. What I'm trying to say is when I found out that she'd never been anywhere. I immediately set out to correct that. I tried to get her to apply to a semester abroad program. Even my boss(Dawn) had a good talk with her imploring her to travel. Since Vicky looks up to Dawn, that talk was very successful. She was on the brink of applying, but over the weekend she overcame our persuasion and didn't. Boo. But, now she is. So I'm happy. This is a GREAT thing for her. You really can't undervalue experience. It opens up your world, your mind, your being, to new ways of existence, news ways of living, and new things that just can't be described. There's a great travel guide company called LonelyPlanet. Their company had this slogan "Do Something Good for Your Country: Leave" I can't agree with that mentality more. Travel/experience exposes us to this far reaching world and teaches us more about our own our place in it.

Guess which one is which:

Well today I learned that she's going Spain and Turkey. So that is great. She will triple the number of continents that she's been to. Plus, we could get to go together. I'll get to e there with her when she has that first experience. That's what makes me the happiest. Mmmmmmm.... can't wait. It will be an awesome trip. It will be lead by Prof. AnyeriTabur. The students will be a group of Northeastern students. And we will take classes that give us NU credit. You can check out more info on the program right here. In each country we will take one class on culture, history, geography and art, then another class on economics, politics and sustainable development. They sound really interesting.

Vicky called me as soon as she found out. At the time of the call I was doing the second thing that happened that day... hanging out with my good buddy, Evan. Before I start on that, I'm going to go grab some food. It is 11:30 and I'm hungry. I haven't eaten yet today. BRB

OK, I'm back. I had the leftover veggie lasagna from last night. It was warm which is nice. Even though I'm wearing a sweatshirt, I'm still cold. On to the topic at hand: Hanging with Evan.

So a couple weeks before he had sent me an email because him and I were going to be in Portland at the same time. I hadn't seen him(or anyone else from Lincoln) in the past couple of years. What's more, he's been one of my best friends since 2nd grade. So I couldn't wait to see him. Sadly, I never responded to his email because I figured I'd just call him when I got into P-town. But I wasted a week in town without calling so in the end we were only able to see each other once. Which is fine. I love seeing the guy, just knowing that he's still around and that we still care about each other, is enough for me. It warms me soul. Well, we met up at Powell's(a huge booktorium). He was with two guys. A friend from college who's from Oregon and that guy's little brother. Their cool guys. I like them. Although the younger one is all about random play. He told us a story about how he went from eligible lay... to 'that guy' who all the girls stay away from. I thought it was funny for the irony. He wants to solve that issue not because he's seen the errors in his ways but because he wants to be able to go a party and find girls who will be willing to sleep with him again. Lately whenever he meets someone, mid way through their conversation the girl pauses, takes a step back and says something like 'Oh your _____(insert name here), I can't talk to you.' Haha. I think its funny because he's a freshman and he was only in college for one semester before earning his toxic reputation. Then on top of that, his school is tiny... some 2,000 students. So its not as if changing his circle of friends will help him meet people who don't know him/know of him. I told him that he has two choices: either not be a dog anymore or wait for each successive freshman class to hunt and take down the weak before they now he's on the prowl.

So what did we all do? We went from Powell's to Cha! Cha! Cha! (a great Mexican half fast food, half sit down chain restaurant). The food is succulent, the service is speedy and the cost is tiny. I hope the chain continues to spread. I think they started in Portland, maybe somewhere close. Another Mexican place that started in Portland is Taco Del Mar. Andrew and I used to
eat there all the time. Spent a ton of money in that little shack. Well, Cha! Cha! Cha! is better than Taco Del Mar. A lot better. Evan and I had burritos and the other two had some sort of platter. I thought it was telling of the closeness of the pairs sitting at the table. The two brothers of the same genome shared their genes and tastes for messy Mexican platters, while us brothers in upbringing shared our preference for a food thats clean and whole.

We drove over to Evan's and along the way stopped by my dad's to pick up some athletic gear. The four of us decided to play some racket ball, so I needed to suit up. My dad's house is on the way because he moved into a house that's on the same street as the Rodriguezes'(that's Evan's last name). Pat fixes up houses and sells them. But they get a huge tax break if they live in the house for something like a year or 2. That way they're selling it as residents not business people. I think it saves them 25% or so on the profit. After my house, we hung out at Evan's. We played some Wii and a Cranium card game. We traded stories and I got to see his mom, Molly. I've always felt like she was another one of my parents, since I've grown up going over to her house so often. Not only did I have a strong friendship with Evan, my brother had a strong friendship with his brother Alex. So we were over there a lot(I'm saying 'so' too frequently). I didn't talk with Molly since she was on her way out. We basically hugged as she left, but like my one short sightings of Evan... it feels good just to know she's still around.

After our games, it was off to the YMCA. There were five of us(Evan's brother Luke joined the show) and we split into a game of three and a game of five. With the winners and losers switching rooms. I lost every game. Evan won all of his games. In the end we played one game, after he came over to the losers side. I think we played 5 games. After which we were pretty well worn. His college friends drove home and I had dinner con los Rodriguezes. It was Pizzacato, an upscale pizza joint. His dad brought it and shared it with us and their foreign exchange student. His name is Robert and he's from Spain. Very quiet guy. It was just cool that Vicky had just gotten into the Spain program and here I meet someone from Spain. I love how interconnected life seems to be. Whenever I learn about something new, I find a connection to it in some other part of life. That's something I love about experiences and knowledge, its always relevant. Even if it takes a while to find out how.

Yesterday I went Snowshoeing

We went up to Mt. Hood. Our local favorite... actually its a world favorite. It is either the most climbed mountain in the world or the second most climbed mountain. Its competitor is Mt. Fuji of Japan. For those of you who don't know what snowshoeing, it looks something like this:

From Mt. Hood

It is basically hiking while wearing really big, flat shoes. Their supposed to be extra big so you don't sink into the snow. That being said, I still sank into the snow. Pat had rented the shoes for me, but, she thought I was 6 foot, 165 lbs, while I'm actually 6'2", 175 lbs(I've gained some weight... but, I've always been 6'2"). Luckily it hadn't snowed in a while so I wasn't walking on powder. Instead, it was all frozen ice. That is, at least on the way up. On the way down the ice started melt and the ground was giving way. But by then two things had happened. 1) I was a lot better at balancing/walking with the snow shoes. So I could go over the harder terrain without falling through as often. 2) We had arrived really early in the morning and beat the rush. When we first parked our car there were some 5 cars in the parking lot. When we returned the whole place was filled. Needless to say, there was that there was a lot of foot traffic during the second half of the hike. So, the snow was packed down to the point where the melt didn't matter much anymore.

Also, for those of you who don't know Mt. Hood, it looks like this:

From Mt. Hood

Isn't that a great photo? Well, it looked better while we were there. That's why I love hiking so much. Baby, we have to go hiking/camping/backpacking together. You'll love it. I promise. Its great to be out there, its so peaceful and quiet. You weren't a walker before and love it now. Well hiking is just the logical next step. Its just going on a walk... but outside of a city. Mwah!

And people, check out the gallery to see the rest of the pics. I'll just leave you with this final one of Jake after his long adventure. That dog was tired. As my dad says, he just doesn't move for three days after going up to Hood.

From Mt. Hood

This Weekend

Hey,

So the weekend has come and we've had some highs and lows. The high has been learning how to video conference through meebo. Its great. I love it. The first day(Friday) it took quite some time to figure it out, but on Saturday it was a breeze. We video conferenced a ton. Its so great to be able to see my baby's face. But, she also sent me images of her crying and those made me so sad, then on Saturday when i had to leave she started crying again. I feel so bad for leaving you Vicky. I'm sorry. I love you. Please hold up until I'm back. Kisses and Hugs.

Other things that I did this weekend:

On Friday my mom, Senja and I went to go see Atonement. Its a movie about a girl who breaks up a relationship with an accusation when she's 11 and doesn't realize how wrong she was until later, when she attempts to make up for it. It was really good. I didn't think I'd like it so much, but I did. It stars Kiera Knightly. And its one of those British nobility, country manor, dramatic period types. That are normally so dull. But this one had a great twist and halfway through they left the manor and it became a whole other kind of movie. Bravo. It was great. Oh, and bit of irony... Senja started farting during the movie, so I asked her if she had to go to the bathroom(which she did). My mom took her away and the story fast forwards to the future where a big reveal happens. My mom totally missed the end of the movie and there was a really great monologue about the meaning of the movie... too bad. I tried to explain it to her when she returned, I hope I did it justice.

Then on Saturday, I woke up early so I could do my RA reapplication. It took me the entire day and I was so annoyed. First off I finished completing the forms after just 2 hours. Then when I try to email it out the program crashes. Luckily I saved it right. WRONG. The form doesn't allow you to save it. That's so smart you retarded monkey, what were you thinking when you made this form. Your such an idiot. It doesn't let anyone save it and it has a built in emailer, which of course doesn't work. those things never work because they assume your using a desktop email app that's built into your OS. No one does that because they suck. Webmail is so much better. For one thing you can check your email at (GASP) any computer. Crazy, right? The only people who would logically use a desktop app for email are those who have an email account tethered to a specific computer(this reads professionals with desk jobs... i.e... not RAs) or people who live in the 1980's and only have one computer in their life(i.e. not college students). Either way the guy who made this app angers me. I played with it all day and in the end just had to email her a PDF version.

Luckily I was able to talk/see/be with my baby the whole time so I wasn't overly angry.

After that, my dad and I went to meet an old family friend named Don Moore. He has season tickets to the Portland Lumberjax with his daughter who turned out to be bipolar(whic is really sad, because now she's all medicated, unstable and I think suicidal at times if she does take her meds). So we went to the game to meet them. We bought the cheapo $5 tickets(what a steal) and half way through went down to find Don. It was a great game Portland rallied back the whole game, brought it to a tie at the end, but in the last 2 minutes lost by 2. Heart breaking. But, the cool thing was the music. They had heavy rock pounding the whole time. The atmosphere was crazy intense. You could feel the action pumping through your heart. And the Rose Quarters(our stadium) has a brand new killer sound system that doesn't even echo. I've never heard anything that good in a stadium. And they have like a 300 inch, wrap-around screen in HD to show the action up close. Its awesome. Oh yeah and the lumberjax are a lacrosse team. I've never seen lacrosse before and I really like it. Its so fast passed and that pounding music mixes in for an adrenalin rush. It was a good night.

Oh and baby.. this ones for you. If your reading this... guess what... there's a new Big Shots episode.


Plus I love you, so that's good too. Have fun, my love

The Annals of My Trip

On the 7th I nearly stayed up all night. Vicky and I watched Avatar, a show that her sister recommended, we squeezed each other tightly and had a very sweet final night. We didn't do the things that we were planning to, but no regrets on my side. I was just glad to be with her and happy. Around 2 a.m. we decided to fall asleep. But not for long, I was awake by 4:45. I hadn't packed yet so I got to work while Vicky continued to sleep. Eventually, I was packed and Vicky was up and ready to go.

It was 5:34, a little after we had wanted to leave we took a taxi, got there a little late. In the rush, they put the wrong tag on my bag and my stuff got sent to Pheonix. And on the connecting flight, someone experienced some medical problems.. paramedics came and all was fine, we just got delayed for an hour or so.

Upon arrival, my mom picked me up and we had had spaghetti. Its been really mellow. I haven't done much of anything and I really need to get myself away from the internet. I'm here at my dad's now and I guess I'll go to Powell's Books Store.

I'm still in Portland and the Story's not caught up

Where did I leave off, during my restart of firefox?

ahh yes, RA work. One last thing about RA work: while I work for them, I'm supposed to get a compensation package that includes room and board. But, because i'm not going to be an RA during the Spring, they had to drop me out of housing and move in the new guy. Then, I don't even know what the issue was, but, I wasn't given an intersession meal plan. Vicky, my sweet, was kind enough to sneak food out of the cafeteria for me each day. But the bad news, though, because it was intersession they rarely had anything to eat. One day they didn't even have enough supplies for her to make me a sandwich. She had to make it with lettuce and onions and ranch dressing and that's it. That was crazy. so everyday our breakfast came from the caf and we had to go out to eat fast food for dinner. That generally ended up being burger king or boston shawarma. We also moved all of my stuff out of my old room and into hers. That was quite the ordeal. A) getting all my stuff out was pretty easy and B) getting all my stuff into her room was not so easy. In my old room was the only existing loftable bed, that Speare Hall had. I stress had because it ain't there no more. We lugged it out and switched beds(vicks with mine). That was pretty tough, since RSO's not supposed to let anyone steal furniture. Well, with some smooth talking and reassuring them that all was good... we got through. And I am so glad that we did. If we hadn't changed to a raisable bed, my stuff would have never fit comfortably in her room. But, with the addition it fits into her room as if it weren't even there. Everything nestles under her bed, other than the fridge(in her closet) and my computer(on her desk). It looks beautiful. Then we also did some rearranging of her room. I'd say it looks better than it ever has. Yay!

After we were done being intersession RAs, and started RA training. This didn't mean to much. As a returner, she typically had to go to 1 hour of training each day. However, Friday and Saturday she had a few extra hours. In the end, the two weeks after I stopped co-op were great. I spent nearly every hour with my baby. We didn't go out as much as we hoped. But, I guess that just proves that we don't need to go do fancy things to enjoy each others' company. The simple things in life are great, while I'm with her. Whether its the simple triumphs of rearranging a room together into a more successful place or holding each other while we watch a good show. Those two weeks really just reassured me that I want to spend the rest of my life with her.

Anywho, I love you! So there... take it! Tehehe...

I'm in Portland Now

I arrived in Portland on the 8th... now its the 10th. Time to start the chronicling.

This trip starting weeks ago(December 21st) when I stepped away from the desk at my last co-op position. Fittingly enough, I worked at Northeastern University's Office of International Study Programs. It is the office at NU that organizes most of the non-domestic, international learning experiences for NU students. Those include semester programs in some 30 countries and summer programs lead by NU faculty. Those summer short terms are the equivalent of taking a regular class of students and facilitating it on board a roaring 747, as it takes the professor and their students to the far reaching corners of the globe. An interesting example of this is a summer trip this July that will bring them to Beijing during the Olympics to study Chinese culture and history. I did all the typical desk work of an intern, but I thought it was a great opportunity, learned a lot about higher education and enjoyed the experience. But enough about co-op. My current adventures started on the 21st, because that was the day that I left the workplace.


For the following two weeks I spent all hours of the day with my lovely girlfriend Vicky. We wouldn't be able to spend much time together for the next few months, so we decided to build up a store of as much love as we could squeeze into those scarce hours each day presented us with. We are both resident assistants with the department of ResLife here at NU and we spent our winter break working a few shifts holding the duty pager( an annoying little device that tends to buzz, beep and scream only at night or during other inopportune times when you'd rather be doing anything other than leaving the comfort of your room). Anywho, I was on duty for nearly a week straight and Vicky took a few shifts here and there. Ironically she was the one who's pager screamed at her more often. I was only paged twice and only one of those pagers required any action from me. She, on the other hand was paged constantly. We spent the week squeezing and loving, going on walks, hanging out in the LP(which is great... I so want to be an LP RA, just so I can continue to hang out there).

I have to restart my browser, so i'll be right back. peace - love - happiness

Check It Out!

I have a new blog. It will be updated as I get stories to tell from my trip to Ghana. But before that, I'll be going home to Portland.

So, friends, family, my lover, or anyone else who's here on my site... keep coming and I'll keep writing.


peace, love, and happiness - tamu