toyota yaris

this is the car we bought today, same color, toyota yaris.

buying a car

cant decide, new car or used car?

new cars i'm looking at are the floor level toyota yaris, maybe the kia (only because of the 6-10 year warranty), maybe honda fit, but its out of my budget. i dont want to finance.

OR...used toyota or honda accords...

looking to drop around 10k....

what to do, what to do... the new car will put me at 12-13k though....

December

It's been awhile since my last post. Things are going really well, though pretty stressful learning to adapt with a couple of hours of reading a day for school. My first two classes are over this weekend and two new ones start this week: finance and managerial assessment.

had a little Babson holiday party last night and I have my work one tonight, which should be a blast. things are going great, i'm juggling some potential very large sales right now, should find out some news by end of year about them...

i think we're gonna buy a car this month, as we need to get out and explore more on the weekends, if we can get away from schoolwork. melenie's taken over cooking on the weeknights. i miss it. she does a great job, however, as she's an awesome cook also.

facebook.com is my new favorite web hang out. im probably mad late on joining that party, but i dig it, nonetheless. def. way better than myspace.

happy hanukah and merry xmas.

p

beaker from the muppets sings coldplay

bday wknd

Thank you for the birthday wishes.

Family visit was a blast. had some great times, some great food, some great laughs. i got a Nintendo Wii, a dope digital voice recorder, a bbq kit, cast iron pans, home depot gift card and a homemade apple pie. couldnt ask for more...dinner at Carlyle was fantastic, breakfast at Columbia Gorge Hotel even better and lots of wine and brandy tasting. oh, and honeycrisp apple eating, the best apples in the universe.

busiest week for me in ages...school and work proved to be super stressful this week with team conference calls lasting 2 hours each night and a long in person one on friday night....

Babson issued a press release about our class this week...

pumpkin carving video w/ me, erica and melenie:

School/DC/30

Life has been hectic, really hectic lately. First off, I've started school and went through 5 days in a row of 8am-8pm class from thurs-mon. Then, the next morning I woke up at 4am to fly to DC. Worked at a conference until this morning and now I'm waiting in DC to fly home. Cool thing is though, I fly through philly and have a 3 hr layover there, so my mom and sis are gonna pick me up to chill for a lil bit and maybe grab a cheesesteak. Waiting at the airport now blogging (writing this) on my cellphone and doing some observations for class. I'm REALLY excited about school, the kickoff was very inspiring. My class is about 45 very bright mid-30s to 40 guys from Intel, Microsoft, Nike, GE, Apple and more...mel is quitting her job next week, my parents and Er come out to visit next week and I turn 30. Getting old stinks. Pauly.

breast cancer walk

My cousin Abby’s team for the fight against breast cancer and the huge walk this wknd in Philly raised over $60,000!!!!

 

That’s amazing and I am very, very proud of her.  Abby, my mom, Aunt Lo, and many more are walking like 50+ miles this wknd for the cause.  Congrats on a great job, ladies and have an awesome weekend.

 

Paul

some links

a ton of links for you to browse:

a little info about my new grad school here: Babson College

SHOCK: GREENSPAN CLAIMS IRAQ WAR WAS REALLY FOR OIL

Oregon Wine

our new supermarket where everything is local, organic, sustainable, etc.: New Seasons

the current audiobook i rock in my mp3 player while biking to/from work: Malcolm Gladwell, "Blink"

our favorite new thai restaurant on alberta st, its actually fused w/ brazilian?!?!? but it's amazing: siam society

update?

sorry for not writing for such awhile...

been fixing up the condo a bit, learning how toggle bolts, how to put up mirrored closet doors, etc. bbq to meet all the neighbors last night was fresh...made 2 racks of ribs and some sum thum. oh, and we made sangria too...delicious.... so erica and rich came to visit...then a few weeks later, kellie and jesse came to visit...we went wine tasting and to the coast both times....def. our favorite things to do here...winter's hill is our current favorite winery.... we're off to america's dopest sake producer next time - Sake One.

studying accounting today. very fun.

we now have a new pet, a beta fish. its name is bater.

i got a promotion at work. yay!

ive been on cholesterol meds for awhile now and riding my bike all summer but my lipids are worse? nay!

i like these comedians, they're flipping hilarious. flippin! (like flight of the conchords...)

john heffron
http://www.comedycentral.com/comedians/browse/h/john_heffron.jhtml

demetri martin
http://www.comedycentral.com/comedians/browse/m/demetri_martin.jhtml

we have 2 other visitors coming this month...nicacelly, an ill clothing designer who se know from stink and mecca and my girl marisa tener...and also tim sword, from Food Export, USA, who we went to India with in December....

rich and erica visit

new spot is coming together very nicely. mel turned 29 on aug 1. rich and erica came to visit this wknd. wine tasing, chess on the coast, seafood eating, bar hopping, here's the Rogue brewery, best beer in the world:

school/condo

i've been accepted to 2 schools thus far for grad school and am waiting to hear back from 1 more. i'm torn between a very prestigious, top 25 school (according to business week) And #1 entrepreneur school worldwide according to newsweek... but MAD expensive... $50K for the 2 yr program... so torn between that school and a good local school thats very reasonable on the pocket...about 1/2 the cost of the prestigious one...i figure if i make $10k more per year with the prestigious degree, even if it's 5, well then i make that back in 2.5-5 years...so i'm gonna attend the prestigious school if student loans will assist enough....i've already got the burden of rent going up by $350 a month because it's not rent anymore...now it's mortgage + HOA dues...

new interpol album is boring. sales are great right now. new condo has the coolest neighbors...10 units and all the owners are cool peeps that are our age.

its been absolutely gorgeous here with the most perfect temperature and weather. 75 and sunny today. can't beat it.

im off to do some super late night moving.

p!

new condo tour - sorry about the lighting & camera-work

my boys from philly's new song/video: The Cobbs "Hold On"

Ratatouille

mel and i took 3 of her students to see the new Pixar flick, Ratatouille today. The movie was amazing...a rat aspires to be an amazing chef in paris...awesome for kids and adults, check out the trailer below:

amazing weather

its been an awesome summer thus far in terms of weather. another gorgeous high of 80 day today enjoyed with some wine, cheese and gelato at a chill neighborhood outdoor café...

condo

our offer on the condo was accepted and so i guess we bought a condo!??!?

it is located here.

it looks like this:

we close/settlement in about 2 weeks. we will move between mid next month and the end of the month...

the show flight of the concords on HBO is hilarious!

oregon strawberries and ranier cherries are so ripe and delicious right now.

peas.

gmat/condo

retook the gmat today, brought my score up 70 pts to a 550! good news, good news. also made an offer on a condo we really dig, for only $150k in a dope up and coming neighborhood!

tall lilys

we've got some tall lilys in our yard...

its been a while...

let's see what's new with us...well, we've been house-hunting exhaustingly over the past 2 weeks, going out almost every night looking at condos to purchase...we're still not sure exactly what we want though and finally realized howw stressful this can be whhen push comes to shove...for example, when you're sitting in the realtor's office going through the 50 page sale agreement with the pen in your hand, initialing everythign and at the last minute, ask what's up with the other property, then see that that one came back on the market at 10G's lower than what it was before, but it's still not necessarily in the your budget...or is it? hmmm....

after the past 2 weeks we've developed a way more knowledgable perspective on things though, and are gonna just chill and keep an eye out online but not go look at anything else unless we aboslutely love what we see online...we're gonna focus on school tests right now...I have to retake the GMATs because my math score was sub-par, and pretty much, same with mel, she has to retake the math portion of her PRAXIS test also... so we'll be studying the next month or so...

our cousin out here, Dylan, is graduating high school tongiht, so congrats to him, we're off to his graduation ceremony in an hour or so....

my plants are looking nice right now, especially the strawberry's and mel's HUGE lilys...pic to come...they tower over us...

early shout out to my mom turning 50 next weekend and tim-t turning 30 on the same day...

im thinking about driving to either Glacier or Yellowstone National Park this summer...which do y'all thnk would be doper? both are around an 11 hour drive...

• Glacier
• Yellowstone

full sail beer

slamming new full sail brew out. check the 6 pack pics. house hunting this past week, looking for a spot for $150,000. checking out both condos and single homes...still torn between which one we want...also trying to finish up my grad school application essays...thats whats new, thats the deal. peas out, pauly pecans.

gmat; game of real life

took the test yesterday morning, bright and early. i didnt even hit my personal minimum that i wanted to, so im pretty disapointed...we'll see if its enough to make it into business school, i have a couple of options here in portland, though i really only want to get into 1 school - PSU, portland state university...

other than that, played a cool board game over this couple's house last night called "the game of real life" - http://www.gameofreallife.com/ . check the board out below. some hippy took 6 yrs to develop this and sells it at the portland saturday market, which is like a huge flea market every saturday downtown...

raw egg

after a lot of studying for the gmat, me and these crazy culinary student neighbors nathan and jason drank down a raw egg, hatched by a local chicken that a chef-teacher raises at their school...

farmers market, philly/portland/orlando

its been a month since i last posted, so sorry to all my faithful readers.... life has been good to us recently... won a sales contest for being the number one salesman for january through march so got to go to orlando for a few days for a nice conference, made a bunch of good leads, chilled by the pool for awhile, got to golf which was cool. eat and drink great food, good wine with my boss.

melenie resigned from being a pre-school teacher, and has a new opportunity with a non-profit and is concentrating on grad school. she got to fly down to LA earlier this week to interview for the job, though she will work from home in portland. things are looking good for her there.

we flew back to philly for Tim-T's wedding to Alisha, and also for a ceremony for my nan Hannah. the wedding was great, the ceremony was very nice and we had a blast overall. it was great to see all our friends and family. my pop mel gave us some awesome family recipes and a cool willie the worm mumsic box he hand-carved. had my moms awesome brisket which i helped her make, and got to chill w/ a ton of people. peace to travellin matt, my brother in law home for a few weeks as well in philly who brought me a ton of cool shrts from thailand... tim-t - congrats homeboy and have a blast in hawaii. bj, alex and evan - have fun with your girls moving in. dont kill each other. cook for them every once in awhile. bring flowers every once in awhile. dont forget to lift the seat when pissing. bean - tell your girl to pace herself next time. mom and dad - love yas.

mels friend kristy had her baby! congrats to her and alan and little erica anne!

back in portland. spring is here. it's amazing. farmers market today was awesome. we copped a vanilla honey latte, some fiddlehead ferns, maiitake mushrooms, french breakfast radishes, tomato seedlings, lemon basil, thai basil, arugula, awesome organic sausage (country sage, italian, sweet potato and andouille). mel got some peonie flowers.

last night we saw douglas coupland's first movie, "everything's gone green" - pretty dope. nice to see vancouver in a movie, it looks awesome, i want to go back there... cool movie about feeling guilty from slight corruption, not being happy w/ being middle class, photography, the lottery and being in your late 20's.

new pics from wine tasting in dundee

i added some new pics from when unc jay visited and we went wine tasting in dundee, OR.... click on link below from my post the other day w/ thee pics...

Kurt Vonnegut, 84, dies in Manhattan

one of my favorite authors passed away tonight...

Kurt Vonnegut, 84, dies in Manhattan

unc jay visit

uncle jay arrived a few days ago to visit for the long easter weekend...he got here on friday around dinner time and i bbq'd up a leg of lamb...i used alton brown's recipe, marinated it w/ mint leaves (from my garden), mustard, red wine, salt, pepper and garlic.... next day, went to the falls, a fish hatchery and hood river.... dinner at clark lewis for some awesome, local organic foods... halibut, radishes, scallops, mussels, pork, rock fish and squid w/ pasta... drinks at doug fir, mcmenamins, and more....saturday off to cannon beach / indian beach, for cool climbiing on the rocks, awesome seafood: fish and chips, dungeness crab, razor clams, etc... wached 10 commandments at night....sturgeon fishing today! we caught about 4-5 fish, only 1 keeper, though, a 42 incher. sturgeon are living dinosaurs...they haven;t changed in 20 million years, they are bottom feeders, relatives of sharks, CRAZY looking, and taste pretty decent....the guide cleaned it for us - they are really different than most fish....i baked some and fried some up for dinner tonight...new sopranos (slow), and new entourage tonight (pretty decent)...off to voodoo doughnuts later...off to some wine tasting and to visit jeannie and chris tomorrow...next week off to a conference in orlando for work, then week after off to philly...

check out a bunch of pics over the past few days right here:

uncle jay visit 4-8-07

picture test from the celly

test 1, 2 whatup from the cells

what's going on?

whatch'all been up to? me - downloading movies like pan's labrynth and 300 @ rlslog.net and burning dvds. helping melenie study for the Praxis test (like the SATs for teachers. reading "long way down" by nick hornby and "freakonomics" by steve levitt and steve dubner. making sales at work. looking into getting my MBA degree and starting to study for the GMAT test to apply to grad school...thinking of going to Portland State, the other PSU...they have a great business school

spring is here. its nice out and everything' blooming...my uncle jay is coming in a week. im still cooking like crazy.

getting excited to come back to philly for a few days next month. looking forward to it. eating healthy. talk to yall soon, stay cool.

pauly

dvd burner

fiinally copped a dvd burner for my home PC and it took me a few days, lots of frustration, rage, taking the cover of the computer on and off 10 times, plugging and unplugging everything 20 times, etc, but i finally got it working! movies dlizzoaded and burned so far: rocky balboa, blood diamond, borat, hannibal, music and lyrics, pursuit of happiness and the holiday...

watching rocky as we speak...dope scenes of philly...

google text msgs/SMS - INSANE technology!!!

this is CRAZY! you can text message/SMS any question to google and it text msgs you back in like 2 seconds with the answer: weather, directions, money conversion, stock quotes, movie listings, dictionary!??! it's nuts!

try it out...seriously...send a txt msg to GOOGLE, or 466453 and type "pizza 97212" or "sushi 19147" or "philadelphia, pa to portland, or" or "10 yen to usd"

heres a link for more info

Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum / bizarre foods / morocco

im dying to go here, and hopefully will be this october...

also, has anybody watched the bizarre foods show on food network yet, with andrew zimmern? dude went to morroco (which i might take mel to for her 30th bday) and it looked awesome...andrew got down though! dude ate everything, every part of the lamb (down to the eyeball, pancreas, etc..)...then ate some crazy rotted meat w/ eggs...he almost puked though...he was the real deal, he didnt fake like he liked it... here's the link to the show: http://travel.discovery.com/tv/bizarre-foods/bizarre-foods.html

my current favorite song

silversun pickups "lazy eye"

things

saw two flicks recently: departed and stranger than fiction. both super banging.

departed won the coveted best flick of the year and many other awards. incredible cast, very tragic/shakespearan flick. definitely an awesome movie, highly recommended.

stranger than fiction, starring will farrel: to me, was equally dope, but in a totally different category. will farrel still cracks me up when trying to be serious. dustin hoffman plays another psychologist, very similar to his role in i heart huckabees, which i absolutely fucking love. jake gyllenhals sister is in stranger than fiction too, and is pretty cute in it...this flick is highly recommended as well.

finished another coupland book, my third in like 2 mos - jpod. jpod is based in vancouver, about a group of cubiclemates that work at a videogame company. they discuss pop culture, traffic illegal immigrants from hong kong, the mom grows high grade weed, they take a short trip to china, and discuss everyday mundane life. its a funny, fresh read.

im growing a beard until tim's wedding. i might roll to the old south philly italian barber for a fresh shave w/ a true blade again like i did before my wedding.

i made some matzah ball soup the other day. the secret is most definitely a TON of fresh dill.

statistics blows. i've been helping melenie a little bit with this class and i absolutely hate it. i somehow got out of it, i think by taking the harder route for computer science, which involved calc 1,2, & 3, but for some reason, stats seems harder right now...ughhh

i want a nintendo wii. REALLY BAD. check out this cooking game they have:

jazzy jeff in thailand / past wk

here's a pic from december i've been meaning to post of mel and i, my brother travellin' matt, and philly's dj jazzy jeff... here we're in MBK mall in bangkok, the dopest spot to shop in the world for everything and anything...


what else has been up? short, but yet somehow long week...mel's been sick...ive been stressing at work over this huge sale. saw the shins the other night which was dope...copped my plane tix to come home to philly...did my taxes and owe a bunch of $ from when i was doing freelance PR last year. tim tizzle's wedding's coming up in april...copped our tix to go home..made the best egg salad ever the other night...checked out this cool neighborhood out here, multnomah village, last weekend, pretty rad...what else...mel's work schedule is changing soon so she can spend more time on grad school...she'll be working 7am-2pm soon, starting in like 2 wks i think...friday night and im helping her w/ some statistics problems...ughhh...

my man pots and pans...

so lets see whats been cracking this past week...

went to omaha, nebraska on friday for a HUGE sales presentation...it went well...brought back some of these nice rib eye/prime ribs:

bought this book also in omaha on the plane ride home and crushed about 150 pages of it on the ride: Chuck Palahniuk's "Lullaby" ... so far = super banging..

i had this really nice Polo wool/cashmere, long black overcoat to wear over suits in the cold months...some lady sitting in the row in front of me had one too from portland to denver...we both had ours in the same overhead compartment...now, i have hers and she has mine...anne klein, size 14. a large lady... this sucks, i loved that coat...united lost and found gets me nowhere...

happy chinese new year this coming week and also happy valentine's day...

i need to cop my tix to come home to philly in april for tim's wedding...next paycheck...

did anybody see Pan's Labyrinth? i think we might go see it tonight... check the trailer here... check the reviews here...

i stepped on a nail yesterday while helping my neighbor move some wood from the house he's fixing up...which i want to buy..if inly i had half a mill...its worth about 750K though, so i should see what i can do... that aside though, i cant tell you the last time i hd a tetnus shot...so i went to the hospital last night for one..always a fun way to spend a saturday night....then came home, drank about 5-6 small glasses of port, watched jungle feaver and passed out...

we've got the shins concert coming up next week... here's their latest video that you may or may not have seen already:



talk to yall next week...this sale is huge by the way, so i will keep yall up to date...

p

Everything's Gone Green

bored, watching the bears beat up on the colts in the first minute or two of the pooperbowl and browsing the web....so it turns out that my boy douglas coupland wrote a movie that is coming out in the US soon called "Everything's Gone Green". written for middle class, late twenty-something year olds...

I HIGHLY RECOMMEND CLICKING HERE FOR THE TRAILER

douglas coupland

just finished two douglas coupland books, and i recommend checking them both out:

hey, nostradamus

and

all families are psychotic

i liked hey nostradamus better, thought more about morals/religion while reading it, though all families are was a faster read...just reserved 2 others of his i slept on - microserfs and jpod, both about cubicle life, working for microsoft or something... gotta give out a shout out to my old millersville professor dr. greg seigworth for putting me down w/ douglas coupland back in 1997 with the book, Generation X, which is a fantastic read...

countries i've visited and foods i reflect on in each country

reflecting on my travels the other night, i made a list of the countries i've visited and thought of some of my favorite foods in those countries..i definitely want to keep adding to this list as i think mel is taking me to tokyo / japan for my 30th later this year...countries i've visited are as follows, along with favorite foods experienced:

bahamas - dont remember
costa rica - rice and beans, grilled fish
mexico - guac, salsa, beans, grilled meats
jamaica - jerk chicken, curried goat stew, acki and salt fish
thailand - som thum, bumee, bbq pork, juk soup
philippines - grilled shrimp, garlic crab, sour fish soup
hong kong - dim sum, congee, everything
china - everything, stir fried eggplant, pork and string beans, har gow
denmark - tuborg beer, fries, cheese
norway - salmon
sweden - dont remember, oh meatballs?
france - onion soup, cheese, bread, escargot, everything
holland - coffee, soups
england - indian food and beer, beans with my eggs for breakfast
ialy - everything, pasta, coffee, wine, salads, seafood, cured meats, cheese
czech republic - beer, chicken and dumplings, white asparagus
canada - noodle shops in toronto, indian in vancouver
belgium - beer, mussels, chocolate, garlicky steak
india - dhal (lentils), tandoori chicken, lamb tikka, everything.

more to come.....

alton brown

alton brown is the man. i want to get his "i'm just here for the food" book. they just put out a new edition of the version that came out a few years ago...was checking it out at powells and it looks really dope, chock full of science, recipes and food tidbits:

bernard/this past weekend

my buddy bj came for a visit this past weekend. definitely nice to see the guy. some highlights of the weekend:

1) snowboarding at Meadows (www.skihood.com) . we both fell a nice amount of times, but had a blast. all powder, until the afternoon when some rain froze a bit and made a tiny bit of ice. but there was still so much powder it was all that. mel packed us some nice lunches too for the ride.

2) dinner at jakes famous - amazing seafood. had some really ill fried razor clams, great chowder, great small steamers, some kumomoto oysters, beers, wine, etc.

3) drinks at doug fir lounge - w/ the really ill NW log cabin feel.

4) bj telling me that you can REALLY clear your earwax out by lighting a paper cone in your ear for a few seconds. he let me try it on him. it did not work. pic:

5) amazing sushi at yuki's on ne broadway.


6) pool, burgers, beers at mcmenamins

7) a hike at mt. tabor park





8) lunch at burgerville, the fresh, local, sustainable, organic whatever fast food joint

9) lots of coffee, and i kept the kid away from starf*cks too...

10) old school video games and pinball at ground kontrol

it was nice to see you, fam...

next visitor - unc jay - see ya in april!

pauly

daddy, the people don't like me...

"daddy, why don't the people like me? I just want around 20,000 more people to put their lives on the line for nothing..."

"what's the big deal?"

no reservations portland episode next monday the 15th!

anthony bourdain "no reservations" Portland/Pacific NW show airs next Monday the 15th! 10 pm EST/PST

this week/food/sean lennon/books/family

so its been a week since my last post and not much has changed in the life of your chill superhero, pauly pringles. took a yoga class last weekend that focused on inverting yourself into many upside down poses. it was pretty cool and i want to go again, possibly tonight or tomorrow.

my nan selma has a 1/2 brother that lives about 2.5 hours north of here in olalla, WA, just a quick ferry ride to seattle, where we are headed next month to check out the amazing art exhibit on the human body i've heard so much about over the past year or so...i think it was in philly last year...with live, well not anymore, human cadavors (sp?). it's called BODIES...The Exhibition.

what else...lets see...bj is coming to visit in a few weeks and mels girl stacy is coming this summer...my nan selma may also come in june, and we will be back in philly in late april for my homey tim-t's wedding. hope i dont miss the bachelor party in AC...

ive been cooking a lot lately...turkey pot pies w/ frozen leftover thanksgiiving turkey last weekend, chicken korma earlier this week, pork chops piccata earlier this week as well, orange zest salmon, some black dal lentils, thin sliced crispy potatoes and brussel sprouts w/ bacon all last night...spaghetti and turkey meatballs earlier this week, bbq'd some ribeyes and steamed some crab legs on new years... watched the eagles tear it up on new years last weekend also at this awesome philadellphia eagles bar here in portland! check it out right here

freezing here and 70 in philly. reading the dalai lama on the shitter and Chris Moore's "Fluke, or I know why the winged whale sings" on the train and while Mel watches entertainment tonight and mtv. the new sean lennon album is fantastic. it sounds like john lennon just released a new album.

here's his latest video, "dead meat":



p