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