Starquest 2016 And A Weekend In Portland

As we ventured off for the first out of state competition of the season, we had a list of amazing things to do in Portland and the outlying areas. From our usual hangouts of Peet’s Coffee and Powell’s Books, to our new found cool places like the Portland Saturday Market and Pine State Biscuits, our trip itinerary was filling out very quickly.

Our trip down was very uneventful. We arrived at the hotel well before we intended to, checked in and were ready to go check out the dance venue. After spending a bit of time there, we decided to hit Pine State Biscuits for our first night’s dinner. After a careful perusing of the menu and a few questions to guy behind the counter, the Reggie Deluxe was on my plate and a side of sausage gravy fries was along side it. I finished off the meal by adding a gorgeous IPA to it. It was perfect. We ventured back to the hotel for the evening and settled in.

On Saturday, we had the entire day to check out things around town. We started downtown in the Pearl District with Peet’s and Powell’s. Peet’s always delivers a decent cup of coffee, and Powell’s Books is one of the best places to go to find something to read. We grabbed a cup of coffee and a few books.

Powell’s also had an amazing story time setup for Saturday morning. There’s a Giraffe in my Soup was the title of the first book. We didn’t have time to stay for the second, but the reader did a wonderful job of presenting the story to everyone, even in a noisy bookstore.

From there, we moved on to the farmers market and a beautiful day at the Riverfront Park. The trees were blooming, the sun was out and the temperatures were in the 70’s. It was a perfect day to be outside. It was so nice out, we even took a bit of a detour to the Splash Zone of the park.

Evie decided to get seriously drenched at the park, so before we had lunch, Ara snuck off to grab her a new outfit. Once we got dried off, we grabbed some lunch from one of the on-site trucks and ate. After that, we headed back to the hotel to change before going to catch some of the performances and awards for the girls that evening.

Evie ran into a teammate and took some time to get a few selfies before we went in to watch some of the performances. After seeing how far ahead of schedule they were, we decided we better get dinner and get back before all the acts we wanted to see went on.

Bistro 23 was where we ended up for dinner. Their burgers, pizzas and sandwiches all looked incredible. For the second night in a row, We had nailed our dinner choice. Even their Brussel Sprouts were great. If you’re even in the Parkrose area of Portland, you need to hit Bistro 23 for one of your meals. You won’t be sorry on that one. After we finished up dinner, we went back to see a bit more dancing.

With Sunday morning now upon us, we were up early and in makeup and hair for the big day. Show time was 11:00 ish and awards were scheduled for about an hour after it. The girls did great earning a High Gold and nailing their performance. They were quite amazing! We then had the afternoon to watch a bit more dancing and finally shuffle off to Target so Evie could find her toy for the trip.

The evening ended with a trip to a sushi belt place, which isn’t even worthy of mentioning. It was back to the hotel for another night before we headed back on Monday. The trip was a huge success and we had a blast. We’ll be back on the road in a few weeks taking our Spring Break trip to Cama Beach again this year. Can’t wait to settle in and disconnect from things for a few days, but that won’t stop my blogging!

So, We Got A Second Vehicle…

Yes, it’s not glamorous or vintage, but this “manivan” as it has been dubbed is truly a blessing. First off, it’s in amazing shape, especially for being 13 years old. Second, it was dead in our price range thanks to an extremely wonderful seller. Third, we got in house financing on it from said seller that makes it perfect for our budget. It couldn’t get much better than that for our little family.

Now for the good part… I did some checking on this one, and the towing capacity on this model is 3800 pounds. That means that it should work for pulling a little trailer like an Rpod or something similar. Of course, we may not need that trailer since it’s been pointed out by so many that we can just sleep in the van.

To say am excited about having a car again would be an understatement. It’s not what I expected us to get by any means, but as I said earlier, this just worked out to being a great fit for us, both financially and comfort level. Now, Evie’s biggest problem is figuring out what seat she is going to be sitting in.

What’s Wrong With America: My Own Version

I cannot wait for the election to be over... I am so tired of people thinking that "free college" or "companies paying more taxes" or "closing the borders" will help this country. The facts are, we are no longer making our own stuff, buying our own stuff or taking care of our own stuff.

Most American's feel entitled to a better life without thinking they have to work for it. What made this country great was people that worked hard to build something that someone else needed. People that broke their own backs so their children could have it just a little bit better than they did, and that their parents did before them. It was a generation of people that worked to earn what they needed, not a group that does it on credit to pay it back later.

The problem with our country today is that everyone is looking to politicians for answers when they should be looking at themselves. What are YOU doing with yourself? How are YOU making this country better? What are YOU going to do to make today better than yesterday?

Sure, you might be struggling under college debt, but how nice is that car you drive? Sure, you might be having trouble finding a job, but how hard is searching for one from your iPhone at Starbucks? Sure, you might even be having trouble putting food on your table, but then why are you reading this on Facebook instead of spending this 20 minutes flipping burgers at McDonalds? Stop thinking life is unfair and tragic and start doing something about it.

We've become a generation of lethargic, self entitled, former Americans that are just out for our own good. The only problem with our country is that we think someone else has all the answers to fix what's broken, when all along, we are the ones that are broken. Free college won't fix us. Raising taxes on businesses won't fix us either. Heck, giving every American a million dollars won't even fix us. The only thing that will fix us is making the decision that we will work harder than ever to make today a better day than yesterday.

Dance, Dance, Dance...

Well, today was the big day. Evie's first dance competition, or at least the first one that she was able to participate in. The Energy National Dance Competition started bright and early with us arriving at 7:30 AM all made up and ready to go. Showtime was due to be 9:30. I wasn't able to snag a photo of their performance due to the 'no photography' rules, but they did very well and ended up placing 5th in their category.

As the day went on, we were basically talked in to letting Evie perform during the open dance improv, which is where about 60 petite and junior dancers joined about the same number of senior members to dance it out on stage. Evie not only did us proud, but she was the only petite to advance to the second round. She was amazing.

The day was just about perfect. Awards were fun to watch, and seeing them take 5th place was great. After a few quick shots in front of the Energy banner in the lobby and we were off for the day. Of course, we didn't just have to end the day there. It wouldn't have been fun if we didn't somehow make the birthday party that we didn't think we could becuase we thought we would be at the competition too late. We did make it though, and it was the perfect way to end the day.

A Dinner At Big Daddy John’s

About a month ago, we heard from a friend that a new burger place had opened up in town. Being a big fan of a good burger, we ventured out one cold evening to give the place a try. First off, finding the place was a bit of an adventure in itself. Big Daddy John’s isn’t in a typical location where you’d expect to find a burger joint – in fact, it’s almost impossible to find. Buried between a home brewery supply shop and an office, BDJ’s didn’t exactly stand out.

The bad part, once you actually go inside, it didn’t get much better. The strange room that houses BDJ’s is more fitting for a wedding reception hall than a greasy burger house, but who am I to judge. Walking in, I got the feeling it was a sit down restaurant, until I saw the hand written “order here” sign above the counter. We were then greeted with a paper menu that highlighted a few burger options, a few main dishes and a few other eating options.

Let’s just get this out of the way right here, I love the people at BDJ’s. I love the food at BDJ’s. I don’t like the fact that while my family was trying to enjoy a nice dinner out, we had to put up with an episode of CHiPs, playing on a 20 foot projector on to the wall right in front of us. I think that’s where my issue is with BDJ’s. The food is pretty good, though at $15 a plate, some may question the value, but the atmosphere just kills it quickly.

From the nice tables with centerpieces worthy of much higher class foods, we move directly to the plastic wrapped to-go plastic utensils sitting in front of the patrons. The self-serve drink options are also a bit weird as the 6 ounce plastic water cups barely hold enough for a real drink. The canned soda also doesn’t quite fit the room as well as a nice pint glass filled with ice and soda would either. Overall, it’s just a bit of a mess of good food and weird locale.

That said, the actual food is good. I had the amazing Blue Cheese Burger (just add the bacon and don’t argue) and waffle fries on the first visit. For our second go round, I jumped on the Chicken Fried Steak Sandwich and the waffle fries again. The first meal was about the most perfect thing I had ever had. Burger was perfectly cooked with just the right amount of tangy blue cheese and the fries were crisped to being spot on.

The second visit didn’t go quite so well. We were brought a sampler plate with a few appetizers to much on while we waited for our entrees. The bummer deal was the onion rings were overly crisped to the point of being inedible and the waffle fries were soggy to the point of feeling undercooked. The Mac N Cheese bites that were in the tray were very good, but that was the highlight of the appetizer plate. Of course, it was free, so the only thing they made sure of was that after two not so impressive onion rings they won’t be finding their way back to our plates.

The lowlight of the night for me had to be the sandwich. After the raging success of the Blue Cheese Burger the first time through, I was pretty disappointed in the soggy-fied experience of the Chicken Fried Steak Sandwich. It wasn’t that it was a terrible taste, in fact the flavor was pretty spot on, but it was just too soggy and had no crisp.

Big Daddy John’s will certainly remain on the radar for quite some time as the people more than make up for the atmosphere, but they need to make the food worthy of the price if they are going to hang around as a long term dinner hotspot for us. Otherwise, we will just go for the burgers once in a while and continue to visit our regular hangouts instead.

This Girl…

10 years ago, this girl emailed me about an advertisement for a singer that I ran on MySpace – bonus points for anyone who remembers MySpace… Well, unfortunately, the ad was from 2002 and this was 2006. Bummer, the band had brokent up years before, but that didn’t stop this completely crazy girl from asking. So, she emailed me, I emailed back. We messaged, we then got brave enough to swap phone numbers to text. Finally, we started talking. This whole process took like two long weeks to get going.

We then proceeded to share our evenings together on the phone. I was at home, usually doing nothing and she was either on a commute or sitting around her place. It was a strangely comfortable place. There were a few offers of going out passed around by her casually, but nothing that really seemed like this would be a ‘relationship’ since I wasn’t looking for one. Ha, what did I know though…

Finally after about 3 months of this craziness, she finally started to actually ask about when we would really meet. Like face to face, on a date, together meet, not just, talking and stuff on the phone. Her birthday was right around the corner in July and she asked me one last time if I could come out with her for her birthday, and I actually had something planned so I couldn’t. She got a bit frustrated and was about to cancel everything until I mentioned I could the following weekend. And we set the date.

I still have a firm belief that the world had no idea what was instore for itself from there. We met in July and instantly clicked. I still wasn’t looking for ‘the one’ but if there was going to be ‘one’ this was going to be her. So, after a month, I made the decision to put a ring on her and hang on for the ride. In September, at our favorite date night hangout, we became engaged. Not the way it was planned at all mind you, but that was about perfect for how this crazy romance came together.

Still, to this day, as she sleeps, passed out on the couch from a long weekend of fun, this girl is the one that captures my heart and soul. They say show the ones you love a special day on Valentine’s Day, but I’m more hopeful that the amount of love I try and show her every day is more than any Valentine’s Day has given her before.

I love you sweetie! Happy Valentine’s Day!

Welcome To Willawong Station!

One of our favorite spots to travel through at Woodland Park Zoo is Willawong Station. It’s basically a tropical bird exhibit with a pretty cool twist. During the weekends, you are able to take advanatage of a program that allows you to feed the birds for a very small $1 donation.

For that $1, you get a popsicle stick that has bird seed attached to it. The birds fly around the room before landing on you or a neighbor to visit and have a treat.

The colors in Willawong are well worth the trip in, but there’s not much more exciting than having a bird come to visit and stay for a bit on your shoulder or arm. Not only is it fun for the kids, but there is hardly a time where the adults don’t have a giant smile on their faces as well.

Willawong Station, is a 1200 square foot enclosure that contains more than 150 birds. Most of them are budgies or parakeets, thought there are some cockatiels in the mix as well. Willawong Station celebrated it’s 10th birthday last May. For more information or for seasonal hours visit the Zoo’s website at the link below.

http://zoo.org/exhibits#willawong

Dealing With Dance Disappointment…

There’s been one day on the calendar since Evie was invited to be a member of the PDC Mini Elite Dance Team. February 6, 2016. It was the date that marked her first competition performance with her team. Last night, the bags were all packed to go, costume was secured in her bag, the time line for the day was set up and we were ready for anything that the day would bring. But, after months of work, hours of practice and mastering of skills, none of it mattered, at least not for this day. Last night, the one thing that could stop our baby from dancing happened – she got sick.

It wasn’t one of those “I have a cold” sickness things, this one was actually bad enough to prompt a trip to the doctor this afternoon. Anything less and I would habve been blogging this from the competition today. There was no stuffy nose, no hacking cough that the kiddo could fight through and perform. This was one of those scary, pukey, upset stomach deals that pushes things just far enough to start a mild panic at 4 AM. Hopefully the doc can fix her right up this afternoon and she will back to normal soon enough, but for now, I’m glad she is taking missing today’s compeition like a champ and hope the rest of the team has a great performance.

Making The Right Choice Even When It’s The Wrong Decision

When you look back on life, do you ever have those, “What if?” moments that you ponder about? Was there a time where you think you made the wrong choice and took a path that changed everything? There was that one girl that you dated that kept you from dating the one you wanted. There was a huge paper due when you wanted to be trying out for the football team. There was a career opportunity, but the risks didn’t outweigh the potential money. We all have them, but fortunately, sometimes, even when we make the right choice, it’s still the wrong decision.

As many of you know, I am a tech junkie. I was basically offered my dream job last year, but with the salary cuts and the underwhelming performance of the company over the last few years, I choose to pass on the offer and continue where I was very happy with my sales and marketing position. I wasn’t sure I had made the right choice as I had climbed the totem pole as far as I could where I was at, and breaking into the tech field is where I felt at home more than anywhere else on the planet.

What I never saw coming was what happened next. First off, the company that had offered to hire me ended up laying off close to 90% of the people in the department that I would have gone into – including the person that took the position that I was offered. I also didn’t see the fact that the company was going to make such a disaster of 2015, with nothing really inspiring coming to market. It would have been a tough year to survive.

That said, that wrong decision, not to join them and take my dream job led me down the path to the right choice of staying where I am at. Not only am I surrounded by a great group of friends at work, but we are also just about as close as any family could be. No, we don’t hang out and have dinner, or even hit the bar after work, but we have each other’s backs at the shop and if anyone of them ever needed anything, I know I’d do my best to help them out, just like they have done for me in the past.

That wrong decision, would have been right for so many reasons. The move to an industry that I love, An exciting new company with new products to learn and sell to others. A new group of people to inspire and mold. Most of all, a chance to travel and grow in a new company would have been amazing to experience one more time.Tthat right choice, though, the one not to leave where I am, well, let me just say, I’m feeling pretty good about it right now. My family is in a place that we love, we are still able to make some weekend road trips, we have a core group of friends that are amazing and we have each other. How much greener could the grass get somewhere else?

A Much Better Round Of Golf…

 

Yesterday morning I continued my ‘golfing comeback’ with a day out with Dad at Maplewood Golf Course in Renton. The weather was supposed to be a bit better than our Riverbend excursion last month, so we were hopeful that we would miss out on the rain all together, but we were prepared either way. Fortunately, when we arrived at the course, we found a pretty solid group of people there and just overcast, cold weather.

With my newly gripped Ping S59’s in tow, we hit the first tee ready to roll. I won’t give the play by play, or hole by hole recap here, but let me just say that I was very happy overall with my play. I spent way too much time struggling with my driver and my irons tended to drift a bit right of target, but I’ll attribute that to me adjusting to the new grips. I seem to remember this same issue the last time I went to oversized grips on my Wilson Staff irons, which I quickly worked around in a range session or two, but that’s another conversation to be had later.

The one strange thing that I did on this particular round was putt far more off the green that I ever have before. For the most part, I was pretty successful with my short game as I was draining 10 foot puts like it was the normal thing to do on the front side. By the back side, my putter had cooled a bit, but it was still very sharp.

Dad continued to play his newfound consistent game. Shooting on an unfamiliar course is always hard, but with the exception of a few wild drives, he played a nice steady game. It’s pretty easy to tell he’s been working hard on his game. I never have expected to score well in winter rounds, as I always just used them as a way to shake the rust off before the ‘real season’ began, but if he is able to hit the ball this well now, I would be we will see some upper 70’s from him this year.

All in all, I am really enjoying getting back on the course. It was really the last thing I ‘gave up’ from my pre-married life and I didn’t realize how much I missed it until the last two trips out. I tried to fill the void with a few other things over the past few years, cycling, disc golf, tech stuff, but nothing seemed right until the last month. About my only bummer deal thing is that I don’t have a good range within driving distance (or even better, walking distance) to go practice at. Maybe I’ll check the web for Blue Boy and see what’s up there. The other part that stinks is not having a carpeted area large enough to practice putting. I’m not buying another one of those astroturf greens ever again, but it would be nice to work on that putting stroke at home. Oh well, baby steps right?

Making Memories… Video Style?

So Evie’s latest and greatest past time is watching YouTube videos from people like CookieSwirlC and ToyGenie online. She loves to watch their unboxing videos of the latest toy she is interested in. Today though, I came downstairs to see her watching American Girl craft videos. She was inspired.

So, with the help of her trusty “eye therapy phablet”, a slightly dismantled tripod and the cell phone holder that made my STP training a bit easier, we setup a mini video studio in her room. There’s no fancy lighting, nor is there any crazy backdrops (yet) but she is a totally happy camper shooting her own American Girl fashion movies in her room now.

I love that she is so creative and love it even more that she is so adventurous in getting new things underway. There’s no fear, no hesitation and no reason why she wants to or has to do something. It’s just who she is and I love it.

Evie’s Big Elite Team Debut

 

Saturday night was a big night for Evie and her Mini-Elite teammates from Platinum. For many of them, it was the first night that they were able to participate in a PDC winter tradtion known as, The Reveal. The Reveal is a chance for everyone from the Company Dancers down to the Minis to show off their championship dances that will be making their way to the big stage later this spring.

Some of the dances had already debuted a few weeks back at the Rainbow event in Seattle, but most of them hit the stage for the first time that evening. The sold out show lasted almost three and a half hours and was filled with non-stop action and amazing moves from the girls.

Evie was pretty much a rockstar the entire night, nailing her moves in her performance, hanging back stage with the other girls and just plain being amazing. In her finale, she even nailed the cartwheel that she has been working so hard on since summertime. It was one of those amazing moments that I am glad everyone made it to see.

I do have to admit though, the most amazing thing about the performances that night wasn’t the incredible moves or the perfectly executed choreography, but it was something that was happening back stage with the dancers. When you looked off in the wings, you could see friends rooting on friends, older dancers cheering on the next generation and even competitors pushing each other to do that last move just a bit better than they ever had before. The team attitude was in the house and it was awesome to see it.

The even better news, performances are just two weeks away! I can’t wait to see how they do in their first competition!

10 Years Later: My Pings Got New Grips

To say that I have neglected my golf clubs in since 2007 would be a complete and total understatement. I haven’t just neglected them, I have completely ignored them. After playing about 25 rounds in 2005 on my Ping S59’s, then tripling that in 2006, my little irons were due for some new handles. I put it off then thinking that it would be nice to get through our wedding and then deal with clubs after my 2007 season. Little did I know that after 2007, these guys would find a nice corner of the storage closet to sit in for quite some time.

Anyways, to make a long story short, last year, my Dad took up golf seriously again and it was time for me to think about dusting off the old set for a round or two with him. Again, for some reason, it just didn’t happen in 2015, or at least it almost didn’t happen. We managed to sneak in a rain soaked round at Riverbend Golf Course in Kent right before the end of the year. Unfortunately, my grips were no where near ready to roll, and I probably wasn’t either, but that’s a story for another day.

After playing that round, Dad and I decided we were going to make a monthly thing out of playing, so I had to do something with the slickery, worn out things that some would refer to as “grips” on my clubs. So, I shopped around and found a pretty good deal on a nice setup and started the process at work last night. Now, I had regripped about 100 sets of clubs when I worked at a golf store in high school, but that was 25 years ago, so I wasn’t expecting much in the way of a speedy process. Unbelievably, I was able to remove, clean and regrip all 14 clubs in about 30 minutes.

I chose the Royal 1/8” oversized over a few options that I looked at due to the fact that I like to play without a glove and the slightly oversized grips work a bit better for my hands when I do. I can say that even 10 minutes after finishing them, my clubs felt more solid than ever and I can’t wait for our round at Maple Wood Golf Course next weekend – weather permitting…

Anyways, if it’s been too long since you regripped those clubs in the garage, hit up my links and check out the options for getting it done before the season starts. It could save you as much as 10 shots a round if your grips are old and slick. Remember, 50 rounds or two years is the best time to regrip.

Link: New Grip Choices