Portland was indescribable. It’s not all my cup of tea, but it’s as close to being “Josh’s Town” as they come. World-class coffee and beer, radical thinkers that care for causes, usable public transportation, and ready access to some of the best varieties of organic and fresh foods.

We were able to attend a cupping at Stumptown Coffee, which pretty much blew my mind. It was like a wine tasting but for coffee, and the people took it pretty seriously. We tried six different varieties of coffee. The process was pretty complex to describe, but it was a lot of fun. Three of the coffee varieties were from the same farm, though I’m not sure of the particular type of bean.

The other three coffees were geisha varieties, which is a type of coffee that was largely ignored until a few years ago. A farmer had decided to separate out all of his geisha beans and submit them by themselves to a competition, where they blew away the judges. The coffee is unlike any other. The geisha coffee that stood out among the others, for me anyway, was the Panama Esmeralda, which had a tea-like aroma. On the first pass it had a very fruity taste, like blueberries, with the herbal taste remaining. As it cooled, it became vey hoppy and beer-like. It was amazing.

Aside from coffee, we stumbled across countless markets with organic and/or fresh options. We even found an organic beer, Henry Weinhard’s Organic Amber Ale, which blew me away. Even the supermarkets like Fred Meyers, which we do not have here in Oklahoma, had far more organic or fresh options. I suppose there just isn’t the same market for those kinds of things in Oklahoma.

The weather was pleasant and far cooler than it is in Oklahoma. For example, tomorrow’s forecast for Stillwater calls for a high of 95ºF, but only 77ºF in Portland.

Why does this seem to have become a comparison between Stillwater and Portland? Well, because I am going to move there. It’s that simple.

Yes, I am going to be delaying my schooling. Yes, I am going to spend quite a bit of money to move. No, I do not have a support network in Portland. No, I do not care.

I will detail more about the trip, and the move, later. Until then!

After Kansas we arrived in Colorado and to a nasty thunderstorm. It was so rainy and windy, you couldn’t see anything. Luckily enough, the storm ended as we arrived in Denver, where we could finally see the mountains. It was still kind of cloudy, but after the never-ending flatness we had been through, it was like heaven.

After that, we turned north towards Wyoming. We had planned to stay in Laramie, WY, but we couldn’t find the campsite and instead got lost. As we were trying to find the site, we stumbled upon the Medicine Bow National Forest, and just decided to stay there. It was too dark to see anything, let alone our surroundings, but when we woke up, we were blessed with some gorgeous surroundings.

The air was cool and smelled of sage brush, and we were surrounded by tall pine trees and mountains. Lots of fun.

So, that’s how our second day began. I’m getting caught up on writing these posts, so expect more soon.

It’s going to take us about a week to get there. You can view the route we’re going to take on Google Maps. Each destination is our goal for each day of our trip. We’ll be driving an average of 14 hours a day, covering about 4,400 miles. It’ll be a crazy drive, but I’m sure the scenery will make up for it.

While we’re in Portland, we’ll be staying with some friends, but other than that, we’re camping. I don’t know very much about camping, but luckily enough for me, Jeff is fairly seasoned in camping.

I’ll try to keep this updated as we go along, if I can find Internet access along the way.

I’ll see everyone in two weeks!

Of course, I can understand a landlord’s hesitation to lease to pet owners.
Not everyone is very kind to their landlord, and the mess a pet can leave
can be the worst hassle a landlord has to deal with. But it’s still very
frustrating when you’re presumed guilty of the same offense simply based on
the actions of others.

If there were some way to prove to them that I’m a decent person and won’t
ruin their property, I’d do it. Sure, references can help and all, but if
a location has a pet policy, they have a pet policy- end of story. They
don’t need to change it in order to make money. Stillwater provides every
landlord an endless supply of apartment and house hunters.

That’s why the pet policy issue is only one of many that I’m facing, such
as overall quality, landlord reputation, availability, proximity to campus,
and whether or not I can fit at least most of my stuff in it. This isn’t
even mentioning this biggest and probably most limiting factor of them
all: cost.

Oh how they change their minds when greenbacks are waved in their faces. It’s
just a shame I don’t have a whole bunch of them to wave. It would seem as
though many of these landlords would let me use their finest properties as
my dog’s lavatory.. for the right price. This isn’t to say that all of the
landlords are like this, but I get the impression that the vast majority of
them are ready and willing to sell their first-born children to make a
dollar.

Half of the people I’ve called about listings have bordered on being rude.
The other half seem indifferent, and really, have no reason to be any
other way. Why should they take the time to be friendly, outgoing, and
eager to help, when there are hundreds of other people ready, willing and
able to lease from them?

Because it’s the right thing to do. But that’s none of their concern. Their
goal is money and money alone.

Many people across the U.S. have addressed similar problems in the grocery
industry by creating co-op grocery stores, run by a community of fellow,
like-minded shoppers. What would happen if the same principle were
applied to the housing industry? What about some kind of housing co-op?

The devil would be in the details, naturally, but at this point, my brain
just needs to have hope that something could be done to make all of this,
at the very least, a little bit better.

Zum Beispiel: Jedes Jahr möchte ich eine Party haben, nicht sodass Leute meinen Geburstag feiern werden. Trotzdem will ich mit allen meinen Freunden herumhängen und will dass sie mit einander herumhängen können.

Die meisten meine Freunden gehört zu verschiedenen Cliquen. [Vom Thema abzukommen: ich konnte da "Gruppe" oder etwas anders schreiben, aber "Clique" klingt mir besser hier.] Sie hängen mit einander selten herum, und ich sehe die meisten nimmer gemeinsam. So, man kann sehen, wie es mir so besonders ist.

So, wir alle essen bei Crepe Myrtle heute abend, und ich kann nicht warten. Es wird vielleicht nicht vor nächstem Jahr wieder passieren, so ich halte es in Ehren. :)

Tea can be an acquired taste, but I might argue that it’s easier to acclimate yourself to tea than coffee. If you’re willing to forgo the high road of coffee & tea shop snobbery and slum it up with me, I have some thoughts on tea.

First of all, I must admit that I’m not a huge fan of plain tea blends. Anything I drink generally has to have some kind of flavoring to it. Depending on the flavor, I may or may not add a sweetener to it.

Tea is such a simple beast, preparation-wise. All you need is boiling water, a cup, and a tea bag. Throw sweetener into the mix if you feel so inclined (crazy).

Chum with a ceramics major and drink your tea in style. I read on A Nice Cuppa recently that it helps to maintain a creative mindset if you surround yourself with creative objects. Heidi Goertz supplies my mug fix, such as the delightful specimen here.

If you’re drinking black tea, go ahead and boil the shit out of your water. But if you’re drinking green tea, you’ll burn the leaves if you pour boiling water on them, so try to estimate and take the pot off the heat somewhere around 80°C to 85°C (176°F to 185°F) (See: Wikipedia on Tea).

Here are my favorite teas:

• Harney & Sons’ Hot Cinnamon Spice
  Buy from The Third Place or The Roasterie
  This is my favorite black tea. Drink it all by its (and your) lonesome.
• Tazo’s Organic Chai
  Buy from any grocery store
  Add some honey and a splash of milk. I personally cannot drink this without honey– it is way too strong.
• Lipton’s White Tea w/ Mango & Peach
  Buy from any grocery store
  The ghetto offering. I like this when I want something more soothing. This tea plays well with Splenda (which seems to make some other teas taste really bitter).

One section of the book was particularly interesting to me. It’s basically a chapter discussing what it’s like to be “Love’s Executioner”, which refers to one of his previous books, Love’s Executioner.

From The Gift of Therapy (which is actually the opening lines from Love’s Executioner):

“I do not like to work with patients who are in love. Perhaps it is because of envy- I too crave enchantment. Perhaps it is because love and psychotherapy are fundamentally incompatible. The good therapist fights darkness and seeks illumination, while romantic love is sustained by mystery and crumbles upon inspection. I hate to be love’s executioner.”

Yalom is addressing something that has always worried me about studying psychology. My goals for becoming a psychiatrist are numerous, but I can’t deny that one of them is to understand how my own mind works. This is, of course, not a major goal. If it were, it would be silly, since the only way to truly understand your own mind is through a neutral third party, such as, gee.. a therapist? :)

But at the end of the chapter, Yalom reveals a question that he often asks those dealing with such infatuations- “What would you be thinking about if you were not obsessed with …?”

This question really made me think. I should be clear: it broke me out of the context of the book, which is from a therapist’s perspective, and placed me in the patient’s perspective.

I’m often obsessed with one thing (or person). The question made me wonder to myself: what would I be focused on if I wasn’t focused on X? It’s really a useful self-evaluation tool, even if it does seem extremely obvious.

The question alludes to two possible scenarios for patients:

1. The patient is ignoring his or her own life and its problems by obsessing on something (or in this case someone). The answer to the question might reveal potential issues the patient should be dealing with. If the rest of the patient’s life were in better order and attended to, then maybe the infatuation wouldn’t be as deep or maybe even non-existent?
2. The patient isn’t ignoring existing issues but could counteract the obsession by finding new things to focus on.

Perhaps you’re like me, always obsessing on something. Maybe you’re burying your head in the sand, or maybe you could just benefit from a focus shift. Either way, maybe some enlightenment is in order.

It has become such that when you date someone, the inevitable conversation arises: do we announce on Facebook? Then it’s a seemingly wonderful event. You’re both “In a Relationship” and everyone knows.

Except that shouldn’t your friends already know? Or at least the ones that you care about?

Then perhaps something happens. It simply adds extra pain to an already painful situation to log into Facebook later and see your formerly significant other listed as being single.

You don’t really want to stay listed as being in a relationship, since that might send the wrong signal. But sending the signal that it’s over isn’t really the nicest thing either.

All of this has led me to question why the feature even exists. Is it to show our old high school buddies that we aren’t lonely? Is it to show our exes that we’ve moved on? Or is it because some people actually think that Facebook is a dating tool?

It’s probably all of the above.

But I challenge you to do as I pledge to do from now on. Either my relationship status is going to be some faux gay marriage, something silly, or it’s not going to be on my profile.

If you want to know my real relationship status, you’re just going to have to ask me, and not resort to the shallow profile check & assume habit we’ve all grown accustomed to.

WP allowed me to import my Blogger posts with three clicks, which is pretty awesome. I’m thinking that the Blogger site will be going away soon. It just can’t hold a candle to WP as far as I’m concerned.

I really am impressed. I really like how the UI seems to just get out of the way so the user can focus on the content.

I guess we’ll see if this somehow motivates me to write more. :)

This is not to say that I don’t have geeky interests of my own, worthy themselves of being made fun of — such as my completely unapologizing love for Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

But my distance from my gamer friends might be the reason why I’m so confused about the Nintendo Wii, and why everyone seems so surprised about the effects of its new controller technology.

The Nintendo Wii employs motion sensor technology in its new controllers. Instead of simply mashing buttons to control your characters, you move the Wii remote itself to direct your character. If you’re playing tennis, you swing the remote like a tennis racket. If you’re sword fighting, you wave the remote around like you have a sword in your hand.

But the media, as high up as the Wall Street Journal, seems surprised about the level of exertion involved. Nintendo seems surprised too.

People are talking about aching muscles, vowing to use the machine as an exercise tool. Horror stories are floating around about remotes being flung from users’ hands or accidentally hitting fellow players.

But what’s confusing to me, and apparently to Nintendo as well, is how this isn’t a common sense issue.

Nintendo is warning gamers that so much motion isn’t required. Nintendo President Satoru Iwata cautioned gamers specifically against “excessive motion.” Their company has suggested that play doesn’t even actually require you to get up from the couch.

But even if you do, haven’t we already learned about physically-involved games? I’ll grant you that the Wii remote is the most technologically advanced thing to come to our world since Hamburger Helper Singles, but its predecessors date back as far as the Nintendo Power Pad.

Remember the Power Pad? Think Dance Dance Revolution but less dance and earlier in the evolution. Remember the bratty, rich-kid neighbor who invited you over to show you how cool it was? To control runners in a race, you would stomp on the pad as fast as you could.

Actual movement and physical exertion is old in the video game world.

But if waving around a tiny remote is your idea of a workout, let me introduce you to the Colvin. If waving around a tiny remote is the most dangerous thing to the friends around you, let me introduce you to, “Calm down.”

I’ve assembled a panel of respected experts and first-hand witnesses, that being my friend Brad, and we’ve made a decision. That this really isn’t surprising at all, but it really should be.