I’m very sorry, but also so thankful to the woman in this video. I can’t stop laughing.
Yesterday was a pretty damn productive day. As working from home holds the great possibility of getting stir crazy, by five o’clock I found myself needing to get out of the house. With mildly stocked fridge and some money in my pocket I decided it’d be fun to ride to the grocery store and get myself some fresh ingredients for an awesome dinner. Needing to get out of the house, of course, I decided to go to furthest of the closer grocery stores in the area, New Seasons, my new favorite-est grocery store. The closest New Seasons to our house is about 4 miles away. I think that I underestimated exactly how far 4 miles really is, at least to someone who’s barely biked in the past month due to moving and a broken thumb. It was an awesome ride, but god was it haul. Definitely not a leisure ride.
However, the view along Willamette is pretty amazing. You can’t really tell from the map, but everything south of Willamette along that route is a pretty straight cliff down, and so you have this amazing view of Forest Park and downtown Portland across the river. At night when the city is lit up it’s pretty awesome too. I’m going to need to get some pictures of the view to post soon.
After the long ride I can home and made a pretty awesome meal. It was a Shrimp with Green Beans pasta dish and I’m going to post the recipe below for anyone to use if they want but mostly as a note of it for myself.
| Shrimp with Green Beans Ingredients 1 tbs Ginger – minced 2 tbs Garlic – minced 5 stalks Green Onions 2 Tomatillas – eighthed ±4 cups Green Beans ±2 cups Shitaki Mushrooms 3 cups Fresh Pineapple – Chopped ½ lbs 40/50 Shrimp fully shelled include the tail ¼ lbs Scallops 12 oz dry Linguini 3 tbs Olive Oil Juice of ½ Lime 2 tbs Soy Sauce ½ cup White Wine ¼ cup Butter Salt and Pepper to taste |
 Shrimp and Green Beans |
| Cooking Directions 1. Saute Ginger, Garlic and Green Onions on low heat in a saute pan with Olive Oil until browned. 2. Add Green Beans, Tomatillas and Mushrooms and saute 5 additional minutes on low heat. Add Soy Sauce and Lime Juice after a couple minutes. 3. In separate saute pan, saute Shrimp, Scallops and Pineapple with butter and wine until Shrimp are pink. 4. Combine both pans. Toss and saute 1 minute. 5. Add Linguini, coating pasta in wine sauce. Add Salt and Pepper to taste. Serve. With white wine. It was awesome. Could be good with Cashews too. |
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So today I headed out on my bike in search of a nice coffee shop to get some food, coffee, and simply to get out of the house. The plan was to go to this place called Little Red Bike Cafe. If you’ll notice from their website, they close at 2pm!? I have no idea what the deal is, but it seems that places, like cafes, in Portland and especially St John’s have really lame hours. Closed on Sundays, Mondays, and/or Tuesdays, and then the days they are open, they close mid-afternoon. It’s annoying. So, I was planning on going to the Little Red Bike Cafe, but didn’t leave the house until about 2pm, at which point they were closing. Arriving at my destination and finding it closed, I resolved to go across the street to the lesser, yet open, coffee shop called University Park Coffee.
As this was my first visit to University Park Coffee I was very susceptible to any and all perceptions the place was throwing at me. What did I walk away with? Wham!, Mr. Mister, Bonnie Tyler and a tasty grilled cheese sandwich. They were listening to XM Radio on a station called The Blend. Now perhaps they had chosen this station due to the clever name that correlates to the coffee business, or perhaps they really actually enjoyed setlist being played. Now I’m all for some good old Wham! or Mr. Mister here and there, but during the hour that I was there they played:
Careless Whisper by Wham!
Miss You Finally by Trademark
Kyrie by Mr. Mister
Lucky Star by Madonna
So Emotional by Whitney Houston
Against All Odds (Take A Look At Me Now) by Phil Collins
Just You ‘N Me by Chicago
Total Eclipse of the Heart by Bonnie Tyler
I felt like I was in a Chinese karaoke bar. And yes, there were a few patrons singing along. Now, I’m really not trying to hate on any of this lineup individually. In fact, I have a good majority of the songs in my iTunes library. It’s just the collective whole that really threw me.
So I was finally able to get the pictures from our trip up on Picasa. There’s an entire album there called “The Oregon Trail” with mostly pictures from Montana. Here are a few favorites:
We drove into a number of beautiful sunsets on our way out west.
Ray was the best Yellowstone guide in all Montana.
Ray and Laura in Yellowstone.
So much contrast in one place.
It's called Yellowstone for a reason.
We saw four elk just as big as this one, all in the same place.
There were litterally heards and heards of bison throughout Yellowstone.
Driving back to Ray's.
Ray and Judy's place was really fantastic.
Driving through the mountains makes ten hours go by really fast. I highly recommend it.
What I'm doing right now, in our new home in Portland.
We’ll we’ve finally made it to the final destination here in Portland. The house is beautiful and the trip was incredible. Staying at Ray’s was a real treat. Him and Judy were wonderful hosts and it was really great getting to know a part of the family that I’ve never really had the chance to get to know. We’ve invited them to come out to Portland to visit and hope they do. In the mean time though, we’re just trying to get settled and are waiting for the rest of our belongings to arrive.
We were expecting to get the rest of our things shipped and delivered tomorrow (Tuesday), but apparently the truck is “running late” and we won’t be recieving anything until Thursday! We’re both pretty annoyed. The company we’re having move us out is called U-Pack, which for the most part up until now has really been great to work with. They’re far less expensive than renting a U-Haul and the customer service (for the most part) has been great. However… when our crate was being dropped off, it was hours late. They dropped it off late into the afternoon when it had been scheduled to be delivered in morning. Now, after we’ve been given an “estimated” transit time of four days, they’re saying it won’t be delivered until 6 days after it was picked up from our apartment in Minneaolis. I understand this is an estimated delivery time, but you must admit, that when you’re end product is 150% of what your estimate was, that’s a pretty shitty estimate. When I spoke to someone on the phone today, they suggested calling again tomorrow for a mor accurate delivery time. Basically my plan is to call “bull shit” with the intent of getting a discounted rate. After all, if they underdeliver I should be allowed to underpay, right?
Oh, and there’s some lady that works at the Portland office that really sucks. I’m not sure if this was her first day, or if she woke up to wetting the bed this morning or what, but she sucked. Laura called, and the lady she spoke to was immeately annoyed. She was flustered because she was having trouble finding our order record. She then proceed to accuse Laura of not having paid our bill yet. Which we haven’t, because you don’t pay your bill until the shippment is delivered. Why she was having trouble with that, I have no idea. She then proceeded to tell Laura how she needs to be sure there is a 40 ft clearance for the truck to deliver the crate. Why did feel the need to tell Laura this? I have no idea. It was like she kept trying to solve some sort of problem that wasn’t there. She must have voted for Bush. So, one last time, she sucked… and wets the bed.
So, for now, U-Pack sucks. Tomorrow, may change that opinion a little, but they definitely won’t be getting my 100% endorsement, pretty much all because of one useless bedwetter.
Again, I must appologize for a complete lack of pictures. Cords and business for getting stuff from the camera to the computer are currently in the possetion of U-Pack. Upon their arrival I will post pictures immediately.
Sorry for the lameness of these photos. They’re the only shots I’ve taken with my phone recently, and I can’t get pictures off our camera because all of the cords and business are packed away. I promise “much awesomer” pictures soon, but for now these will have to do.
The first blue sky in a while.
Laura and Thomas napping.
The clouded Sun.
An amazing sunset driving to Bozeman, MT.
Sunset #2
Today, we went down to Yellowstone for a day trip with Ray. It was pretty amazing. The drive down from Bozeman is about an hour or so, and it’s incredible how nice an hour drive can be when you’ve got such amazing scenery around you. The mountains are spectacular around here, but also for most of the way up there were this beautiful streams running along the road. The streams were running through the snow, half frozen, with these amazing shades of blues. Really a wonderful drive.
Yellowstone was pretty incredible as well. There was an amazing amount of wildlife. We saw bison, mule deer, elk, coyotes, bird and eagles. Really beautiful animals. We also so these hot springs, the Mammoth Hot Spring (I believe?), that were really out of this world. It was like we were on Mars or something. There are these pools of water coming through all of the snow and ice and steaming from the heat they produce. Seriously you could feel the temperature change from different parts of the path depending on how close you were to the water. I really need to post pictures. It was great to be able to hang out with Ray for the day. He really does know a great deal about Yellowstone and Montana and has been the perfect guide for our trip. It amazes me how much her reminds me of my dad and other Zimney men in the family. Laura pointed out how much we all talk with our hands. Not just gestures, but the way the gestures are made. I guess we curl our fingers a lot when we gesture. Pretty neat to witness the family traits so externally like that.
Tonight we finally got to see Biz and met Judy’s son Chris. It’s been great catching up with this part of the family. I feel like due to the age differences (Ray is maybe 8 years older than my dad(?); biz is 11 years older than me), but I feel like the age differences along with locations has really put a rift in seeing these guys very often. I’ve honestly never really had a relationship with them at all. So, it’s really nice to be able to take this time to put some effort towards becoming a closer family.
Okay… I need to sleep now. Barely staying awake as I write this.
Today (actually yesterday) we drove for about 12 hours (from Alexandria, MN to Bozeman, MT), which concluded with an amazing sunset and our arrival at Ray and Judy’s place here in Bozeman. It’s a wonderful home tucked back in the woods of the mountains. I have some pictures be no way of getting them from the camera to my computer right now.
So I’m guessing some of you may be checking the blog to see how Laura’s and my trip out west is going. I’m hoping to get a post in everyday. If you’re looking for some more frequent updates I suggest following me on Twitter. I have the my last 5 updates being posted to the right of my blog on this page, but if you’re looking for more, go to Twitter. I’m trying to send as many updates as I can on there. Enjoy.