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:

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.

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.....