Moving to a New Land

Being that it was much more difficult than I thought to leave so many family and friends in the San Francisco bay area and the Monterey bay area, I thought that it might be fun to document our transition from Santa Cruz to Portland through a blog.  It will be a good way for me to reflect on all of the changes that happen and it will be good for people who are close to us to see what we’re up to.

I am still trying to decide if the blog will have a separate address or if I will just use the platform of Lesson Learned.  I will try my best to get Meghan to post a few guest entries as well.  We’ll see how that goes.

I think Ill start with the present and work my way backwards.   There is a ton of great entertainment here, but being that we are not in the most ideal financial situation, we will have to choose wisely.  Today I picked up the Willamette Weekly to see what was going on tonight.  I was surprised to see that a band made up of a few of my favorite musicians was playing downtown.  The band is Monsters of Folk.  Unfortunately we would not be able to both go due to the price.  So we looked a little deeper in the weekly rag and found out that Michael Chabon was reading at Powell’s books. 

Chabon has written a number of books and stories that I have just loved.  He wrote The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay about a Jewish refugee living in New York, The mysteries of Pittsburgh, Wonder Boys, and well the list just goes on and on. 

He was great.  His first story was about the difficulty men have carrying wallets, phones, keys, etc. in their pockets, yet carrying a bag robs them of their manhood.  Although it was focused on the infamous “murse,” it was really an essay about the societal pressures of being a man in a society where masculinity is changing, but only slightly.  We thoroughly enjoyed it and hope to enjoy more from Powell’s.

…

Prior to our night of entertainment, we’ve really just been adjusting to the move-in and the change that is the Pacific Northwest.  We drove our moving truck over a number of mountains and it took longer than we thought.  Then we arrived and had a hard time remembering what our apartment even looked like.  As it turns out we have a spacious apartment with two bedrooms, room-specific heating, and stylish 70’s brown carpeting.

We haven't really met any neighbors, but our immediate neighbor looked a little scary.  She came out in her bathrobe in the middle of the day to yell at another neighbor. 

It seems that very few people in the complex have cars, probably because they walk everywhere.  We hope to meet them soon.  With the weather as cold as it has been, a BBQ is sort of out of the question.  Maybe we’ll host a pot luck, or maybe we just wont meet them. 

Moving to a new city is always  a bit of a social challenge.

Listening to Bela Fleck Beethoven's 9th symphony

Sunrise over an empty ocean-

Fall in Santa Cruz

Early in the morning, when all is quiet on West Cliff Drive, and all one can hear is the lapping of un surfable waves on cliffs is when I feel most at peace.

This morning was absolutely gorgeous. The air was cool from fall slow resurgence on the central coast. But the sun was shining and slowly warming me and all of the early morning revelers. I went to check the surf, and although it was unrideable, the morning was brilliant. I will miss the way the fall and winter bring a magical ocean to my backyard.

There is nothing quite like breathing in the ocean air just after sunrise.

The Search

Here I am, back in Portland and this time its for real.  Meghan and I have decided to move here and we are looking for housing.  In about two and a half weeks we will really be moving here. 

Over the last few weeks I was surprised at the kinds of reactions that I received from friends.  Many of them have been completely supportive of the transition, but they are also sad to see us leave.  Then there are some who cant figure out why we are leaving.  Its in times like these that I realize that we all do have an immense impact on each others lives, and that by leaving some of our friends and families lives will be impacted.  Its good to know that there are people out there who care so much about us.

I have many explanations as to why we are leaving, but there are some very obvious ones.  We are still in our youth, and along with the things that are making California harder to live in ( see below), we want to take life by its reigns and live it to its absolute fullest.  

I read this article a few weeks and I thought it to be very interesting, it doesn't explain our situation specifically, but it name a number of very interesting perspectives on leaving.

Dear California, I'm dumping you

I’m not dumping California, I’m just moving to a place that is supportive of living the way I do, a place that has jobs, a place that has youth, and a place that has cheaper rent. 

I have a list of things that I may or may not share.  I must say that we are very excited about moving to anew city and making it a new home.  The challenges will of course present themselves but the rewards will also make their way through.

Public Option (double political entry day)

Moveon.org sent me this video and it tugged a few heart strings with  me. 

Its called “We cant afford to wait”  and its a collaboration between REM and Moveon.  I of course am highly influenced by music, so this really brought the current issue to the forefront for me.  But I am also a newly uninsured American with my unemployment lurking over me. 

As much as people believe that health care will be ruined if it is made public, and that it will cost everyone else more money in taxes, I believe that it will have its challenges, but the reality will be less b.s., and more accessible care.  The current system is out of control, and I hope it changes, for the people in this video, and for my family an friends who cant afford health care…me included.

Lets work together to support this change.

Educational Propaganda

With all of the Uproar around Obama’s speech.  I was hoping for a little bit more edge on his topics.  I thought he might quote Karl Marx or raise his fist in solidarity with the Black Panthers,  but to no avail.  He was appropriate, straightforward and had some basic unbiased points for all students.

 

 

I even think that some of his points veered away from what conservatives were hoping he would say.   He re-iterated the American “pull ourselves up by our bootstraps”  ideal, which to me, is a bit of a farce, but so be it, watch and think for yourself, write what you think in comments.

Lagunitas Hop Stoopid Ale

 

Beer Style: American/ imperial IPA

Taste: extremely hoppy; slightly bitter

Aroma:  sweet malt mixed with hops

Look: light brown

Alcohol percentage: 8% aba

This is my first beer review, which I hope to do on a weekly or bi-weekly basis.  I will try to review a variety of different beers including commercial beers, my personal homebrewed beers, and friend’s homebrewed beers.  If you know a beer I should try or brew beer yourself, please send it to me for a review.

I am a fan of big hop aroma and flavor in a beer, but I believe that some IPAs and double IPA’s go too far into the bitter category.  This beer exists in a nice in-between realm.  It is made with a hop extract, which according to the bottle is not something that is normally recommended in craft brew.  It has a deep hop scent and a nice hop flavor, that doesn't quite match the aroma.   I think it is an easy drinking beer for a 8% aba beer.  After drinking a full 22 its bitterness becomes evident.  The only other beer that I’ve had that has this strong of hops and flavor was a special release beer that I had at the Anderson Valley Beer festival, that Lagunitas tapped on limited release because they dry-hopped the keg and it was incredible.

I enjoyed this beer, and I enjoy many Lagunitas beers because of their hop content, their flavor and their individual mythology.

Grade: A-

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, Delight.

I just finished reading Barbara Kingsolver’s latest, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

 

I picked it up off of the library’s display shelves, thinking that I might get to it, being that I have been reading a lot lately about food and the environment, including The $64 tomato and The Omnivore’s Dilemma.  As it turned out, I thoroughly enjoyed it.  I ended up forcing my girlfriend Meghan to read it, and feeding off my friend Anne’s responses to it.

Its an easy read about Kingsolver and her families’ transition to a local diet based around an old family farm in Virginia.  It discusses each of the trials and joys through a year of growing and raising their own food, and basing their diet on seasonal foods.  Not only does it include her poetic prose about how wonderful it can be, but it also brings in two different perspectives, her husband and teen daughter.   along with their points of views, the reader is treated to a set of recipes that follow the families’ year.

I felt that the book was informational, enjoyable, and easy to follow.  I’m sure that it helped that I am currently procuring a garden and it discussed some of the things that I have come up against like too many squash to handle.  To me it read like a softer and more positive perspective on the slow food movement and Michael Pollen’s Omnivores Dilemma .

I thought that the lifestyle they live is interesting and even attainable to us city folk, but it does have its pitfalls.  In an economy like ours, even though we may want to focus on the environment and local organic agriculture, it is extremely difficult.  There are many discussions about how to truly change the way food is consumed we need to make it accessible to all, including the poor and disadvantaged.   The government’s food stamp program now works at farmer’s markets, but its difficult to justify a purchase of a small bag of vegetables you might get from a farmer’s market compared to the two bags you might acquire from a cheap supermarket.  Growing food is also surprisingly easy, but its difficult to have enough land or sunlight to grow enough for a family of 4. 

After reading this book, I have changed the way I look at food and will change my diet based on seasonal and local vegetables (that I can afford).  But I think we need to continue to look for ways to bring these ideals to the mainstream lowest common denominator.  With the way things are going, we will develop these things through need not want or personal philosophy

Listening to Boards Of Canada