Some Pics Posted

I'm home from my trip and back to the grind. I know I'm laggin on telling you about it-- in the mean time, check out photos from the Portland leg of the trip: click on "My Photoblog" in the right column.

Also, just wanted to give a huge, HUGE, THANK YOU to Haley and Mesha for being such great friends and hosts: thanks letting me crash on the couch and for driving all those miles just to show me around. I truly had a wonderful trip and enjoyed spending time with you two!

And, thanks to Sara and Francine for taking a long weekend off to hang out with me in Seattle. I'm glad I didn't have to explore the city on my own.

Next up: Seattle

I can't believe I'm coming up on the latter part of my trip! It's been so great seeing Portland with Haley (especially our awesome tour at the Oregon Zoo), then exploring almost half of the Oregon Coast with Mesha (beautiful scenery and good seafood!) Today, I'm catching a bus back up to Portland to stay with Haley for the night, and then will hop on a train tomorrow morning for Seattle to meet up with Sara and Francine.

I will have to blog my trip when I get back home, so stay tuned...

Snow!

Made it to Portland safely, and am having a great time so far. It is pretty freezing, but bearable. We woke up yesterday to find snow on Haley's car. Snow! In Portland!!

Visited Powell's City of Books yesterday which was AWESOME. A book lover's paradise. Wish you reading fans could have been there with me.

Just wanted to give a quick hello from the Pac NW. I'll update more later...

Gloom and rain, here I come!

I'm taking off on my week-and-a-half vacation to the Pacific Northwest, and am so very excited! First stop will be Portland, to visit Haley. I've only seen her once since Australia (which was five years ago!) so it will be very fun to hang out and see her corner of the west coast. Next, I'm heading over to Newport on the Oregon Coast, where Mesha now lives. We're going to do some driving tours, and hopefully some hiking if the weather cooperates, which I'm looking forward to. Lastly, I'll be going to Seattle. Sara and Francine are flying in, and we're going to spend St. Patty's weekend exploring the city. My first flying-required vacation since NYC last February, and I'm so happy to be traveling again...

And the winner is...

My friend Henny and his friends organize an Oscar Pool every year: you pay $10 for a ballot to vote for who you think will win, and the top guessers get a portion of the pool money. Although I hadn't seen all of the movies, I thought it would be fun to join in this year anyway. So, after doing some online research (IMDB and some "Oscar Prediction" sites) and after changing my vote several times (I filled out three ballots before the final draft), I turned in my ballot thinking I didn't stand a chance against the thirty other participants. I also concluded that I would never do something like that again, because it was too stressful trying to "think" like the academy and voting for who would "most likely" win rather than who I wanted to win. In the end, I enjoyed participating in all the fun, from voting to going to the Oscar party, but especially walking away with half of the first place prize. Yep, that's right, yours truly tied for first place! I went home with $90 bucks, and it was the best $10 investment I've ever made. Maybe I won't totally write off next year's Oscar Pool....