Now, I can picture how this is going to go having said that. Either my Dad, my sister, or my Mother is going to say “Oh it’s easy to get there, you just…” and tell me the easiest way in the world to get there. Well that may be true, but see, I didn’t know that. I tend not to drive many places in downtown Portland and I prefer to get there via other means because I hate dealing with traffic, parking, etc.

(I can just hear it now, “And you want to LIVE in downtown Portland?” is what I’ll hear from my Mom)

Remember, I got lost the last time I drove out to the airport. LOST. I almost went over the St. John’s Bridge, which is waaaaay out of the way of the airport, and not only was I late picking up…well, I guess that was actually Michiko, last time she was here, but I almost ran out of gas on the way home and then got lost dropping her off at Union Station. Not good, not good. How could I get lost going someplace I’ve been dozens of times? Easy. First, you move. Then, you try and go to the airport a way that your airhead sister says is a “faster and easier” way to get to the airport than the route you’ve been taking since you could drive. Then, you don’t remember the route and you get lost on teh way there, first almost crossing into Washington and then almost crossing the wrong bridge. See, Portland has a lot of bridges, but most of them put you generally in the same area of town. The Burnside Bridge, Steel Bridge, Freemont, Morrison, Hawthorne, Marquam, they all put you within a few miles of each other hen you cross the river. The exceptions are the St. John’s Bridge, which is way up in north Portland, and a bridge that escapes my memory, though it’s the one that puts up right at Oaks Park Amusement Park way in south Portland. It’ll come to me later, I’m sure.

Anyway, my point is that I’m an idiot. But then again, who doesn’t know that already?

This weekend I far too much fried food for my own good. First there was Saturday, when I got up early to go over to my Dad’s house to help put in a new fridge and as it turned out, the delivery guys did all the hard work for us. I spent the rest of the day working on getting my Dad’s new computer up and running (successful), drinking beer with my Dad (too much), and then chowing down on onion rings, steak, and mashed potatoes for dinner when we finally ate at 11 PM. OK, so it wasn’t that late, but it sure felt like it. We kept hitting snags trying to make dinner. First we got a late start, then his new deep fryer crapped out on him and we had to use the fallback model, 50 years old this year, etc. I think we finally sat down at 8:30 or so. Anyhow, they were great onion rings. As far as the beer in the afternoon went, I had a couple beers with lunch, and then I decided I wasn’t going to have any more until dinner, and my Dad went and got himself another beer, opened it, took a sip, and found it wasn’t what he expected at all. He’d expected a Deschutes Twilight and instead had a Black Butte Porter. He doesn’t like them, so he passed it off to me and I had to finish it. I hadn’t wanted any more beer, but heck, I didn’t want to see it go to waste. Opened beer doesn’t refrigerate well.

I napped in the afternoon after I was done with the computer. The lulling sound of the History Channel on TV and the beer flowing through my veins made for a relaxing time and I nodded off. I didn’t have any beer with dinner though. I thought I’d had enough.

My “new” computer is running very well, though. About the only things it’s missing to make it top-of-the-line are a new case with a window on the side and neon lights shining out from the inside, and a brand new video card that would cost me a good chunk of a paycheck. Well the case thing I certainly don’t need, especially since I keep my computer on 24×7 and it’s in my room. The noise from the fans I can live with, but bright neons lights shining out from the inside I can do without. My room is already lit up in the darkness by all the LEDs around my room. I just bought a new video card earlier this year, and I know that it’s going to serve me well until I build myself a new computer from the ground up next year. I haven’t done that in years, and I keep talking about doing it, but now that I have this upgrade I could probably push it back even further. Frankly the hardware doesn’t concern me all that much. I’m not playing games very often now anymore now that I’ve dropped Star Wars Galaxies, and pretty much all I ask of it is to play the games I want to play now and then and to run the software I throw at it without crashing. So far so good.

I just had a nice lunch from Burgerville, so I’m pretty happy. Still not eating hamburgers, but I couldn’t say no to a Spicy Black Bean Gardenburger with a side of super salty fries. I normally would have just eaten cereal for lunch, but I was really hungry this morning and didn’t eat before I left, so I had cereal here for breakfast. I don’t mind cereal twice in one day, but the same kindo f cereal twice in one day–especially corn flakes–I’m not terribly fond of. So I went out. I normally do once or twice a week, anyway. My preferred eatery would be the Teriyaki Express place down the street, but I don’t have any cash to pick up a bottle of Diet Coke, and their drinks are expensive. Good food, though. I’m finding that in addition to the teriyaki sauce they put on my bento, I also like putting a liberal amount of the the spicy garlic sauce and the spicy sweet chili on my food. Gives it just the right zest. Meh, I’ll go later in the week.

Starting September 1 I’ll be covered by insurance here at work. That means that I can finally get hit by a bus and not have to pay for the hospital bills! My insurance will show up on the next paycheck, though, and I think that even given the amount they deduct from my paycheck, with this first raise and then the second one I’m likely to get in a couple of months I’ll still be able to get my own place in the city, if I so choose. I’ll just have to figure out what to do for furniture, but I don’t have to deal witht hat for a bit.

But what the hell will I do with that dorm fridge of mine? Hmmm. I’ll think of something.

Catch you all later. Sorry about the sporadic updates.