From my office I can see Mt. St. Helen's and today there is smoke/steam/whatever rising from the top of it! So here you have a Midwestern boy who's yet to even go out and explore a mountain, never really seen mountains up close except driving on highways and today there's a Volcano smoking outside my window! This is a link to the Mount St. Helens VolcanoCam. How big is Mount St. Helens? Big. I can see it on the horizon to the north while driving in on the expressway and to the east the immense Mount Hood. I took Heidi to Jo-Bar for Valentine's day. It's the restaurant where we met. It's a very trendy place in the NW Portland. The menu is new each day. She had elk and I had a steak. Now I've never had elk before (and neither had she actually) but it was damn good and this is the Pacific Northwest. Also I thought it was weird that the server gave us a spoon for the bone marrow... that's right. You scoop out the bone marrow and eat it with a spoon. It was ok but the meat was far better. I've been wanting to see the movie Walk the Line about Johnny Cash. I don't really have any of his music and Heidi bought me the The Legend of Johnny Cash CD. I listened to it on the way to work this morning and it was very good. I'm not a country fan and I certainly wouldn't consider it country by the way it sounds. She also got me Teacher Man. Basically it's the 3rd book from Frank McCourt, an Irish immigrant. I read Angela's Ashes (great book [a Pulitzer Prize winner] although it didn't get really good until about half-way through it and he writes in a very strange first person small child-like manner - basically writing as if he was dictating as of whatever age he is the moment the event he's writing about is happening) and Tis late last year (2005). I'm looking forward to reading it.

Went to see Lenny Kravitz and Aerosmith at the Rose Garden Arena last night. It was a little weird being in the Trailblazers stadium. When I saw Clyde Drexler's jersey hanging from the rafters I couldn't help but remember cheering for the Chicago Bulls back when they played with Jordan, Pippen, etc. Lenny put on a great show - it was the first time I saw him live. I liked the mix of rock, funk, and a little jazz and blues. The guitarist rocked and the trumpet player (19 from New Orleans) was great - Heidi says that's one of the most difficult instruments to play. The sax guy kicked ass too. Aerosmith was good. Not great but good. I think they were a little better when I saw them at Alpine Valley back home. We went with a group of people that had rented a bus. Not your normal bus. It had a bar and felt more like the inside of a limo than a bus. The stereo was kickin some dance music and playing video on a plasma screen in the back of the bus - the whole bus was rocking during the trip back after the show because of everyone dancing - one of the girls even had a few dollar bills getting stuffed down her pants. Yea... its like that.

I came across this today while reading Jeff and Doug's blogs. A race course through the skyway system in St. Paul, MN. Pretty good video even through the helmet cam. News footage. Helmet cam footage. The weather here has been gorgeous. 50+ temps and clear blue skies for the last week. It's been nice riding outside. For the time being I'm exploring the local streets downtown and getting a feel for how the city is laid out. It's weird riding around and having all the mountains looming in the background. There is a pic of Mt. Hood I'm going to post as soon as I get web access at home. Heidi and I went to the Japanese Gardens on Saturday... undescribable.

Well Heidi and I arrived in Portland yesterday. Again - I don't have much time to type since I'm using a internet enabled PC at the local library. We took lots of pictures and I have some stories to share. I did my bike first ride in Portland today. The first 2 miles were pretty easy even though I was riding up a very large hill. It overlooked the city and was beautiful. And it wasn't even raining :) So feeling confident I figured I would try this second hill. It wasn't a hill really because it had warning signs about cars needing tire chains. I don't know what the % grade was. We'll just call it ass-kick-grade. I had to stop 4 times to catch my breath and the lactic acid was building in my legs so fast I felt like they were on fire. I couldn't even make it to the top of the hill. It just kept climbing and climbing. The weather was 50ish and I figured I'd be cold but I was a little warm, I was probably over dressed. It started raining on the way home but it actually felt good. Time for some Sushi with Heidi!