gardening, etc

1) we got new hiking shoes. you had to wear PJ's at the sale to get 30% off:


2) my garlic is growing pretty good:



















3) ok so i've been throwing all compost/organic matter in my little garden out back all winter long and have been turning it to make the soil really healthy...well this weekend, i began sowing some seeds...threw some carrot, radish and pole pea seeds in the ground and watered...these, i've learned, are the first to plant for the spring - a couple of weeks before the last frost....

4) through together a ground turkey meatloaf real quick tonight w/ chopped onion, garlic, a lil mustard, an egg, some worchestchire, some A1, salt, pepper, cumin and chili powder. mixed, tossed 1/2 in a pan like mom used to do, then some spinach, then some cheese, and then the rest of the meat mix. spread ketchup & bbq on top. pop in the oven on 350 for about an hour or so... served w/ some brocolli steamed w/ lemon and garlic, some rolls and a salad. red leaf lettuce, dog. gotta switch up the lettuce! and cukes. and french dreezy...and some quail oak cheapy cabernet tonight...

Sasquatch Fesitval

sickest festival coming up @ the columbia river gorge

the shins, beck, death cab for cutie and MANY more:

http://www.sasquatchfestival.com

hump day

ground turkey and spinach enchiladas tonight and another sale today at work.

evan called this weekend, was nice to hear from a cuz. talked to alex and goldbean about Yo CUZ! publicity helping out Goldbean's boxing publicity empire. keep playing phone tag w/ bj. tim sent me a text msg. chatted w/ both my grandparents last weekend. both jays are chillin - my uncle and mel's cousin... abbies moving...

any new babies? marc? new weddings? new moves? new jobs? keep me up to date, people. what's new with y'all? post some comments about what heads are up to...let me know who actually reads my ramblings...and happy mardi gras. and happy wednesday (ash) and hash. browns, that is...

UAE terminal takeover extends to 21 ports

wtf is up with this?!?!?
UAE terminal takeover extends to 21 ports

slow cooker

tested our slow cooker out yesterday with a nice pulled pork. the night before i was to make it, i rubbed the pork with a spice mixture of equal parts brown sugar and a spicy red powder that forget to label - it's not a chile powder, but it's spicier than a paprika...i think it's hungarian paprika...so i did about a 1/3 cup of each of those. then about a 1/4 cup of the following: salt, garlic powder, black pepper...thats pretty much it for the rub....rubbed it all in, massaged the pork shoulder...covered it and put it in the fridge over night...

next morning at about 6:45 am, sliced up a couple fat slices of red onion. put then in the bottom of the slow cooker. then, put the pork shoulder on top of the onions, fatty side up. drizzled some worchetshire over it, some hot sauce, a little apple cider vinegar and some bbq sauce. added a tiny bit of water in the bottom. turned it on low, covered it up and jetted to work.

on my way home from work, i stopped at safeway and copped some french bread rolls, some cole slaw and some pickles.

when i opened the door to my house, the smell hit me like a ton of bricks and MAN DID IT SMELL BLAZING! wow...so good...that bbq smell...ummm...i opened the top of the slow cooker and pulled apart that pork in like 20 seconds with two forks...it was sooo tender it fell right apart..there was a little bone in the middle and it came right off... now since it sat for like 10 hours in a steamer, it was a little dry...i cracked open a Bridegport Black Strap Stout and poured 1/3 of the dark beer in and finished the rest...added some more hot sauce, some more bbq sauce, mixed everything up and covered it back up for about an hour till Mel got home. best bbq pork ever she said and the rest was history.

oh yeah, cut open your roll...throw some slaw on that baby, cut a pickle in 1/2 and put both halves on the roll and cover w/ a couple large gobs of pulled pork.

just another fresh recipe from Chef Boy-R-P.

?

mecs visit

our girl meca aka jenny from the block came to visit us for the weekend...mecs is a travellin girl, from the philippines to virginia beach to philly to san fran....she's a big time trooper, as she woke up at 4:45 am this morning and flew back down to SF and went to work today...after going to bed at around 1 the night before...so sorry voodoo doughnuts was closed, that was a bummer...good times though this weekend, besides the hour and a half spent at buffalo exchange or whatver...i had to lie down on the ground stinke-style as a que that it was time to jet to these girls...peace though, mel and i had a blast and are really happy you came. more pics to come soon of widmer brewery, shang hai (aka pland silk city), dope train pics, and oh yeah, i love my penis. you'll see what i mean. i really do, though...

p

freezing

man portland is cold today..these arctic windchills coming down from alaska sting...hopefully it'll go back to how it's been though, gorgeous...

melenie landed the full-time teaching gig she's been working hard on at joyful noise downtown, a nice preschool/kindergarten...

ive been cooking great meals as usual...some awesome pico de gallo the other night w/ strawberries, cucumbers, thai chillies, red onion, cilantro, lime, olive oil and tomates...rocked that w/ some corn tostadas, grilled ckn and rice and beans.... last night, broiled some pork chops after rubbing them the night before w/ cajun seasoning... some roasted garlic (1 hr in the oven w/ olive oil), and fresh dill blended into the mashed..amazing...and some steamed broc and baby corns w/ lots of lemon...

peace to meca isa coming to visit this weekend.... stinks, watch out, son...it's on!

Dr. Dog

wanted to let y'all know about my old roomate, tadd's little brother's band, Dr. Dog. They're really good, sound Beatles white albumish and are doing great...on a huge european tour right now with Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.

check Dr. Dog out.

gorgeous day in portland at mt. tabor park

so mt. tabor is an extinct volcano that is now a picturesque park in portland. it was like 65 or something and totally sunny today..we packed some food and reading materials and went for a hike/chill day in the park....back home in philly there was about a foot of snow...

grammys

the grammys were all that last night!

jay-z and linkin park rockin "yesterday" w/ paul mcartney... madonna & the gorillaz w/ de la... john legend, kanye and jamie... oh and the best one was mary j blige w/ u2 doing "one"... she killed it...she was amazing! props to all the performers, it was the best grammy's i've personally ever seen....

lisa loeb

i know my fam checks this but so do my friends. and i gotta represent now and again with something more interesting than family pics. so here ya go, do y'all remember lisa loeb? well peep her now:
http://www.thesuperficial.com/archives/2006/01/31/lisa_loeb_in_a_thong.html

p!

falls/timberline/voodoo doughnuts

here are some pics from multnomah falls, timberline lodge on mt. hood and voodoo doughnuts:

(stories to come later...)

GO SEAHAWKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

reiter fam visit

fam visitation time, visiting the kennedy school, as discussed in a past post. an elementary school turned into a bar/hotel/movie theatre/pool. very good time...

crib pics...

pics from my new crib, a long time coming...

an earthquake

A little rumbling and shaking in Portland

By KATU.com Web Staff

PORTLAND, Ore. - An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 2.8 struck the Portland area Saturday evening. The micro earthquake, which happened at 6 p.m., was centered in the Laurelhurst area. There were no initial reports of injuries or damage.

*Melenie and I definitely felt it though..we were chillin on the couch watching back to the future or something and it felt like it came from the roof or upstairs, like bigtime shaking from up above...pretty cool...it was our 2nd earthquake experience...we felt one the first time we went out to san fran a couple of years back...it was weird, we were chillin on the bed in a hostel and it sounded like people started banging on the door...there was always a lot of activity in the hostel so we thought it was just some people messing with us...

damn!

update: fishing trip cancelled again...

salmon, mcmenamins and timberline

hells yeah, the fishing trip is on for this weekend. we leave tonight to head north a couple of hours up to some river in washington for salmon fishing with this guy!

last night went to mcmenamins on broadway for the best burger i've had in a really long time, some incredible locally brewed stout and also some local gin i had with olives... melenie enjoyed the ruby beer and a couple of pomegranete cosmos that she said were the best she's ever had..and thats a damn nice compliment as she's a certified cosmopolitan expert...mcmenamins, by the way, are bars and hotels and movie theatres all owned by these two brothers..they brew their own beer, put movie theatres into cool bars into hotels, etc.. they have about 20 locations, all in oregon, i think.. they turned a whole elementary scool, the kennedy school into this huge fucking bar...one of them is a hotel, golf course, huge pool, movie theatre, and like 10 bars in one place, its supposed to be amazing....good food, good beer, dope atmosphere, what else do you need?!?! once again - mcmenamins.com

my parents and lil sis are coming to visit on wed night until sunday...i think we're going to take them up to timberline lodge at mt. hood one of the days and then out to visit jeannie and chris another, and the third chill downtown, hopefully it'll be nice and we can walk around everywhere...

p

ribs

damn, 2 posts in 1 day...i must be bored, right? yuuuuup..

so lemme tell u bout these ribs i made last weekend...they were amazing...and in the oven! slow cooked like a mofo...

night before: get a bowl and rock like 1/3 cup of brown suger, 3 teaspoons of chili powder (real deal shit, not no corny shit), 3 teaspoons of black pepper, 2 teaspoons of salt, some cumin and a teaspoon of garlic powder...i think that's it...then mix together with your fingers...next, rub the crap out of a rack of ribs with your fingers, massaging the meat with your spice rub..hells yea, get down with that meat..make sweet love to the meat with the rub! put in a big bowl or a large ziplock bag and refridgerate overnight...

next day, preheat oven to 225 degrees...slow cooking, baby...low temp...aiight, put your ribs in a baking pan, or tin foil pan or whatever can hold the ribs and go into an oven and can be covered properly....add in enough of the following liquid mixture to cover the bottom of the pan about 1/2 of an inch: water, apple juice, hot sauce, little bbq sauce...stir mixture together a little bit, brush some over ribs...dont sweat it cause these babies will absorb all that cause we're cooking them for over three hours!!! hells yeah, your meat will be fallin off the bone..it will be amazing! feel free to mix whatever you want in your liquid: some wine, red or white, some beer, some orange juice, whatever...your ribs will be blazing cause you're slow cooking them and you rubbed them properly, so it don't matter! ok, throw your ribs in on top of that mixture...cut the rack in 1/2 if you have to...put the ribs in fatty side up, so fat drips down, then cover them up and let them cook for around 3 hours...check in on them every hour, making sure the liquid doesn't dry up...if it does, which it shouldn't do, just add a little more water, or juice, or beer or wine...

lastly, enjoy with some beans, mac n cheese, spinach or greens or kale or whatever...some good bread...some good beer...

enjoy!

mustache

so i made a bet with my boss (who by the way is a year younger than I and works out of our NY office) that i would make my first sale by wednesday. i think i'm good for it, but we shall see. if i win the bet, he is going to next-day air me two pastrami sandwiches from my favorite deli in the world, katz's deli on houston st. in the lower east side, the deli where in when harry met sally, sally has the fake orgasm and does that stupid salad routine that most chicks are famous for...

if i lose....i have to grow a mustache for a month...now being that my boss is in nyc, how's he gonna know? well he could ask the other people i work with..or i could just do it, as i'm a man of his honor....so wish me luck!

on another note, my fishing trip was cancelled for this weekend and pushed back till next due to the incessant rain building up the river and causing it to rise so damn high he doesn;t know where the fish are, or something...

food...so i hate to admit it, but we've satisfied our craving over a couple of years t give in and try these two chain restaurants out. red robin and pf changs. red robin was like a huge kids party inside a tgi fridays that served mainly burgers and milkshakes. i had a banana shake and a whiskey bbq bacon burger. the burger was way too well done, i wanted it more juicy..sent it back, it was still well done. oh well, never going there again. pf changs was really good, but it's still glorified americanized sit down chinese, unlike panda express which is awesome fast food chinese, the mcdonalds of chinese food, but way better. still, the lettuce wraps at pf changs were prtetty good (although melenie can easily make better), the chili scallops were just ok...they were fried good, but when i asked for extra spicy they just dumped more chili sauce on it instead of chili oil, semi reuining the taste...melenie's mongolian beef was fantastic though, albeit a bit too salty and some pieces not as thinly sliced as mongolian beef should be...great service though and shehad a great pear mojito or something...

recently, we've been talking about opening a bed and breakfast in the future instead of a restaurant... we shall see....

we're planning a trip to tokyo this summer. anybody want to join us?

i really want to try this restaurant pok pok here in pland which serves takeout northern thailand fire roasted chicken and my favorite side dish, som tum...

those are my thoughts for now on saturday morning...

oh, lastly, i may have mentioned it before but my 2 favorite new beers are both made by widmer. coincidentally, widmer's brewery is about a 15 minute walk from my house... if you see snowplow or drop top amber at your takeout joint, please pick them up...they're amazing and im gonna walk my ass right over there one night soon and get blitzed on snowplow off the tap....p!

seahawks

oh yeah, i forgot....

GO SEATTLE!! (gotta root for somebody now that my Eagles are done for the year...)

music / gardening / rain

having officially been done with arrakis records for a year or two now, maybe more, i haven't been too down with any music for awhile...i went on a big indie rock phase, some hip hop, etc..i don't know the point of this except i feel like listing some of the music i've been listening to a lot lately...

athlete's "tourist" album is really good, on the coldplay vibe... you've probably heard the song "half light" before...but check the whole album..

ok go "oh no" is a decent album on an indie rock style...funny ass video for "a million ways" - check it out - http://www.okgo.net/video.asp

take a peep at my boy ryan from ty cobb and mad action's new band, mazarin, they're really dope..here's their myspace page, as they were selected as the myspace featured band last week - http://www.myspace.com/MAZARINBAND

what else...not sure...oh, the joggers, they're a pretty dope indie portland band...

seattle's death cab for cutie and scarlett johansen were on saturday night live last night...they were good and she was hot...

new job is going good, i think i'm going to do really well there and in sales...

bj - get your ass up here next month, we're hitting whistler for the best snowboarding/skiing on the fucking continent...and then hitting the amsterdam-like coffee shops in vancouver!

we've been cooking like crazy. and i've been learning more about growing fruits/veggies/herbs from my aunt jean...i just propogated branches of rosemary, sage and lavender and put them in little starter pots...will transfer them to my litle backyard's garden in a month... also, i have 12 garlic cloves that i stuck in the ground 2 months ago coming up real nice, the chive stalks that are sticking up from the clove are now about a foot high.... i'm sowing peas in about 2 weeks to be planted about a month or so from now... i have some lettuce seedlings that will go outside in march... and i'm going to hit the nursery to cop a strawberry plant and some other shite soon... i can't wait till spring hits, it's going to be freakin gorgeous in p-land, as all the rain we've been having is fattening up the roots of all these plants and i know they're gonna go buck this spring... it's rained 27 days straight...today is the first day without precipitation... it's incredible out and as soon as mel gets ready we're taking a nice long walk to stumptown to drink the best coffee ever, where it's roasted on site..

peace - p

lamb vindaloo

made my favorite dish in the world tonight - lamb vindaloo. it's a spicy indian curry with lamb, potatoes and onion. it has an amazing aroma because it's cooked with cloves, ginger, garlic, cinnamon, cumin and lots of special spices...i experiment every time i cook...nothing i ever make is made the same way as before - as I learned at a very young age from my pop mel, who would do interesting things with food like put a touch of mustard powder on my sunny side up eggs on sunday mornings after I slept over the night before...

so back to my lamb vindaloo...it's still simmering downstairs right now along with some basmati rice in the rice cooker that melenie's going to add butter and parsely to, a nice little simple salad, some naan bread (fluffy incredible indian bread) and some homemade raita, which is a yogurt sauce with pureed cucumber, olive oil, salt and pepper, and a hint of mustard that i added in place of mustard seed....its meant to cool your mouth after my fiery vindaloo...

my mouth is watering waiting for melenie to get out of the shower and be ready to eat.....starving!!! please please please do yourself this small favor i ask and try my favorite dish once in your life. you'll be hooked, i promise you this...

its been raining about 20 days straight here.

i have a really cool fishing trip planned with chris and some guys from his work. we're going salmon fishing here at the end of the month.

also im pretty psyched that my parents and erica are coming out to visit in early february!

what else? new job is going pretty well with training thus far...i start selling this wek coming up, so expect an update shortly..

peace from stumptown,

pauly

sixers and coast

went to the sixers/blazers game the other night...sixers lost in the last 20 seconds... the game was dope, too, the score was back and forth the whole time...

yesterday we went to the coast and the tilamook creamery... ate amazing ice cream, cheese, fish and chips and saw the breathtaking goonies stones, or whatever you want to call them...

jobs food holidays

had my interview at the 3rd largest comic company and passed on the offer as the finances just weren't there. i was willing to take a cutback, even by $10-$15 K more than I was looking for, but it was a lot less...entry level money... oh well..

selling email and instant messaging archiving/compliance - here i come! it should be an east sell, as it's required by the SEC for my targets. i was told that right after they check references, that they'll be making me an offer.

for the holidays, melenie's mother is here with us and whenever she visits it means tons of great cooking! we all went to my aunt jean's for xmas and chris made homemade eggs benedict. they were the best i've ever had...we brought the latkes, also a side of home-grown blueberries and it was an amazing breakfast. oh, the best part was the Ramos Fizz's! a couple of sleepy hours later and a huge turkey dinner was served...i received some cool gardening tools and seeds, we gave some cool presents too, made kippy a scratching post which she has yet to use, and there's my jewish christmas.

chipolte is the bomb and two blocks away. mission style burritos. sucks there's none back home for my peoples. 55 and rain on and off here.

i want to take this time to give a shout out to my boy tim tizzle who just got engaged. sorry ladies, he's all taken as of last Friday. tim, it's all downhill from here. welcome to a new life of visiting invitation stores, selecting colors of tablecloths, flowers, tons of family arguments and more. look out for the food tasting, though. that part's pretty fun. another congrats on the house. email me the address, i want to google earth it.

more to come....

merry hannukah

and happy christmas. a delightful kwanzaa. latkes for me over jeannie and chris' house today...we're bringing them. mel's mom is here. i have an interview tomorrow and an interview tuesday and i already have one company who called me yesterday to offer me a job. life is grand.

syriana/jobs/snow

did y'all see Syriana?

we peeped it yesterday. pretty good movie...makes the U.S. government look mad shady, too...some parts i was kinda lost and dragged on a bit, but it caught up in the end. all in all a decent movie on a topic normally where much distance is kept...




next up: snow. we got some snow in portland which is kinda nice, but it's getting washed away today with lots of cold rain. we brought a new couch in from goodwill the other night, large and green and nice for $35. borrowed their furniture dolly and rolled it home from 13th st. to 7th st. and two blocks north. see pic to left!



jobs: took the job doing door to door sales and left in a week. not happy with it. too cold. couldn't make a sale. frustrated. interviewing now with a large comic book company for a marketing position, an inside sales position at a high-tech financial software company and two marketing/PR companies. so the future looks bright.

mel's mom is coming on saturday until new year's day. it will definitely be nice to have some company from home. who's next?

we have a dope new webcam and mic so if anybody out there wants to talk, just holla.

drinking lots of coffee and wine and eating better than i have in ages,

paul

flying over mt st. helens and mt. hood

today our super cool new uncle chris took us flying. he has his pilot's license and rents a plane every month or so. well today, we were his guests and he took us flying over mt. st. helen's and mt. hood. it was breathtaking..gorgeous...so incredible that i've decided i want to take some flying lessons. i actually got my first today, as chris let me man the wheel for a little bit! below are pics. also, melenie got a job the other day teaching pre-school, so we both now have jobs!!! more in a couple of days about how my sales job is going...

peace from p-land,

paul and mel

jobs

so i got a job offer yesterday! and i decide to take it, and right as i'm about to call them and tell them i'll take the position, i wake up this morning and have an email in my box from a cool marketing company that would like to interview me tomorrow. and i have a 2nd interview next week... two sales positions and a marketing position... i think i want to get into sales though...the first sales position, i'd be head of this region, by myself, make my own schedule, door to door sales, but with companies, selling internet advertising...a craigslist competitor....decent offer, financially speaking though... not sure about the others though, as they're not on the table yet... i'm about to say yes and test out the waters...you never know, since it's a startup and it could blow up...with me as the first hire...on a side note, i want to give a big ol shout to anybody who provided me with a professional reference!

on another note, westbrooks out for the season and the birds had the worst game ever on monday night. hey, at least it snowed in philly though,right?

gmail

Gmail is down right now and it's pissing me off!!! also, 2nd interview this morning went well, i think, for a sales position at a new website similar to craigslist. melenie and i roasted a chicken with tons of veggies and it came out amazing. p!

pics for monday.

pork chops

i like pork chops better than steaks these days... man if you cook up a really good bone-in pork chop, it's like eating a piece of nonkosher heaven. my forefathers would kill me.

last night i made such an amazing meal. pork chops with braised pears, roasted garlic and chive mashed potatoes and sauteed zucchini. first, take a bulb of garlic and chop the bottom off (the flat side). drizzle open cloves with some olive oil. put the top back on and wrap in tin foil. pop in the oven at 400 degrees. now rub two fat chops with some brown sugar, garlic salt, black pepper and rosemary. let that marinate for awhile. slice up some potatoes and boil for about 20 minutes. crack a beer. pan fry the pork chops in bacon grease (my new thing is cooking anything in bacon grease. i save it in a glass jar in my fridge). after about two minutes on each side on high, add some chicken stock, some beer, sliced pear, a little bit of strawberry jam, and let it simmer. back to the potatoes. drain when fork tender. place in a big bowl. add a couple tablespoons of butter and some milk or cream. chop up some chives. check on your garlic. it usually takes about 30-60 minutes for the garlic to be perfect. i know this is a wide range, but i sometimes up the temp to speed it up. check on it. when it's a light brown color, take it out and just squeeze the cloves into the potatoes. add some salt and pepper and mash them all up! flip the chops. smell that amazing aroma! lastly, drizzle some olive oil, add chopped garlic and sliced onion in a pan. when onion is translucent, throw some sliced zuchinni in and toss around a little bit. i'm digging my veggies just heated up a tiny bit these days. they retain more nutrients like that. so just like a minute or two on each side is good for me. voila! now serve like so: potatoes on one quarter of the plate. pork chop on top of 1/2 of potatoes. sauce with lots of pears on top of chop and taters. zuchinni on other side of plate.

mangia!

ps - another interview today for a sales position with a dot com similar to craigslist.

pinot noir wine tasting..

gorgeous sunday afternoon here in portland, oregon. cloudy at times, then sunny at times...on and off.... take a wine tasting trip with jean and chris and dylan and collin and geoff stone and grandma stone... go out to yamhill county... pinot noir wine tasting... a short drive from portland, and a long way from home...

ever been wine tasting in napa valley or sonoma, north of san francisco? same thing, but here the specialty is PINOT NOIR, the BEST WINE EVER!!! if you haven't, you are MISSING OUT!!! picturesque vineyards and rolling hills, blue skies, succulent grapes, tasty blue cheese or maybe tillamook extra sharp chedda cheese! a nice rosemary cracker, some sopresseta! UMM! then let me tell you about these yamhill county pinot noirs... domaine drouhin , rex hill, ponzi, arrow summit... man, those blackberries, bing cherries, peppery, spicy, ummmm!

decent chardonnays too..

go out and get yourself some pinot noir from oregon tonight, get some nice cheese, some chocolate, some apples or something and think of your old pals paul and mel...

peace from p-land...

all settled in...

well we're all settled in... got the downstairs all hooked up, it's nice and comfy, lighting a fire almost every night, cable's all hooked up, cable modem, etc... all the beautiful kitchen gadgets are in place, being tested...wedding thank you notes have begun getting the pen placed firmly upon the red paper... still hunting for jobs, but at least the market isn't slowing down..i see great jobs everyday appearing on craigslist... EVERYONE rocks craigslist out here..for everything...

our neighborhood's great too...mexican, ethiopian, japanese, thai, pizza, breweries, coffee joints, a huge mall with an ice skating rink and movie theatre, parks, dollar store, supermarket, everything's just a short walk away!!!

we miss philly though, that's for sure, but this is pretty cool..seems like a great place to live...looking for waiter jobs in the meantime until I nail a PR/marketing job...also looking for some freelance PR gigs...

our cat's chilling. melenie's chilling. thanksgiving's coming up...going to jeanie and chris' brother's house, should be interesting going to a new family's house for turkeyday... we're bringing some satay...hope everyone has fun over jay's or wherever you're going...also have a fun black friday, don't shop too hard.

did anybody see maria carey at the american music awards?!?! damn, she looked fine!!!!

until next time,

pauly

Portland

Out in Portland now, actually Newberg, Oregon. Mel and I are staying with the amazingly caring Stone family, cousins of my Aunt Alicia (happy bday aunt lish!). The Stone's are incredible cooks, funny as can be, cool as hell and have like 100 cats. Chris is building a plane in his shed and Jean is busy growing zucchini the size of Philadelphia.

Mel and I found the perfect spot - a gorgeous two bedroom townhouse in the Historic Irvington district of Portland. It has a fireplace, washer and dryer, dishwasher, microwave, huge fridge and a cool little back porch with soil to garden and a little shed. The neighborhood is awesome, we can walk to everything/anything we want right on Broadway. There's neighborhood Japanese, Ethiopian and Thai restaurants, diners, pizza joints, brewerys, coffee joints, supermarket, a huge mall (Llyod Center) and more...Plus, we're 7 blocks from the broadway bridge, so we can walk/bike to downtown any time we want.. Furthermore, since lloyd is so close, we can hop on public transit for free, since it's part of fareless square!

the only thing neither of us has yet is a job! so i'm looking like crazy. please let me know if anybody hears of any open public relations or high end sales positions in Portland.

Peace from Newberg,

Pauly

honeymoon and wedding.

sorry it's been a minute since my last post, but life is hectic. the wedding on october 1st was great. email me for a link to the pics if we're cool and you haven't seen them yet. life leading up to the wedding was nuts, you never know how much trouble one of those things really is. no fun at all planning it as there are constant battles between famlies and what each person desires. the end product is a great time, though.

our honeymoon was amazing. we were supposed to go to bali and hong kong, but the night of our wedding, bali got bombed. this put a slight damper on things during our "getting ready" time, but we soon forgot about it until the next day. we still were planning on visiting hong kong but also wanted a beach portion of the trip, so we looked at guam, sanya on hainan island in china and the philippines. we were seriously considering sanya, until we looked on cnn and saw it just got hit by a major typhoon! first a terrorist attack and then a typhoon. we also shortly realized we would need to acquire a visa well in advance, so that was out of the question. i was a little bugged about the muslim population in the philippines, but our friend meca convinced me that boracay island in the philippines would be amazing. melenie's father also always spoke of retiring there, so it seemed like an ideal place. it mainly was, to be honest with you, besides some rubbish washing up in the morning waters. the water was clear aqua/blue/green and the sand was as fine as baby powder. the island's food specialty was garlic rice and garlicky/butter seafood. here's a few pics, but visit my flickr page to the right for more:
















hong kong was incredible also! a chinese country colonized and owned by britain for 100 years, it currently is operating under two systems. in 1997, britain gave the islands back to china and china agreed to keep it under "both systems" for fifty years. we'll see about that, though. hong kong is like new york but it seems like millions more people, even way more crowded, but much cleaner! public transportation is extremely easy to use, so it's great for getting around. the subway is sparking clean at all hours. great food can be purchased really cheap anywhere you look, but you will also see advertising at every glance of the eye. we also got to go to china for a daytrip. communist china REALLY does have giant, brainwashing billboards that read slogans such as: "empy talk is wasteful. work is efficient" and "time is money. work is prosperous." really weird. here's a couple more pics of the hong kong scenery (cool stores and 80's style, but check the flickr page for more:













also - some comments about hong kong food...we tried a set meal at peking garden one night in causeway bay. very good food and good service. we had shark's fin soup, fried prawns with chili sauce, pork sliced as thin as bacon over rice noodles, peking duck and a cool desert with squishy jellybean like balls stuffed with peanuts in cold rice wine soup. washed down with some tsing tao beer. great meal. also had an amazing szechuan meal at red pepper! orange beef as thin and crispy as can be with lots of peppers. imagine beef as crispy as potato chips mixed with beef jerky. tried fried pigeon at the same meal, reminiscent of quail. great fried rice there also and very tasty string beans with fried minced pork and ginger. best meal there, probably. on the street scene, imagine your typical hot dog vendors, but selling thebest dumplings, wontons, sausage, octapus, etc. little fast food joints everywhere selling cool things like noodles in a plastic bag, pick your sauce, pick your meats, pick your veggies (octapus with seaweed miso and giner sauce on spinach noodles for $1 is extremely nice!) also tons and tons of little noodle soup and congee soup shops. if you've never had congee, it's highly recommended. i've had it many times when melenie is sick and her mom makes it for her, or we order out for it. in thai they call it juk soup. it's rice soup with a chicken broth base, but it should have lots of ginger and garlic in it and pulled pork or ground pork. add an egg, some vinegar, soy and chili and it's an awesome breakfast or the asian version of chicken soup when you have a cold. what else? great dim sum and tea!!! we went to luk yu teahouse, where the rich go for tea. there's an extremely proper science to drinking tea. i'll go into it some other time, because i rather talk about the chu siu bao, or bbq pork steamed buns. amazing. har gow - shrimp dumplings, amazing. little crepes stuffed with mango, incredible. let's see...what else...ok, when you sit down at any restaurant in hong kong, big or small, you immediately are served tea. they try to conserve paper, so there are no napkins at the table unless it's a really nice joint. they do not give you water unless you ask. chopsticks, spoons, toothpics, vinegar, soy, white pepper and chili sauce are on every table. some pics, but flickr for more:














i think that's it for now. my body is still adjusting to the time so i went to bed at 8 or 9 last night and woke up at 5. we're moving to portland in one week so i'll have to readjust again. no jobs, no apartment. a fantastic woman whom i've yet to meet, my aunt alicia's cousin, jean (my new auntie jean) is letting us stay with her for a week or so until we find an apartment. good night. or morning. it's 6 am now.