Last night I was once again reminded how much I love food. Went to Andina for cocktails, oysters and empanadas. Then to Portland’s newest restaurant… Irving’s Kitchen. The steak and salmon dishes were outstanding and you have to get the butterscotch for desert. Ouch. So good. I love food. Thanks IJP.

After accepting the opportunity to stay in Portland for an additional 6 months, I’ve mentally settled into the idea that I actually “live in Portland” now and am not simply passing through. 6 months makes it feel like you show up, figure things out, and leave. Now I can actually try out the good list of restaurants I’ve been given and start to mingle with the natives

It also means I’ve almost come to grips with the fact that it rains here. A lot. It better be a nice summer. Do you think if I put my dehumidifier outside that will dry things up? Maybe if we get everyone to put theirs outside…

If you haven’t heard them, you should. Mumford & Sons will be world famous before the end of the year. Promise.

Memorial Day saw me reintroduce J back to the good old U.S. of A. She’s been in some far off land for a little while so what better to do than to eat Yep, we had hamburgers and milk shakes before heading to the M&S show over at the Aladdin. The venue was cool.  The crowd was awesome. The band was Ah. May.Zing. (Opening band was The Middle East – Got to hand it to this band. They’ve been on the road for weeks, one 10 pax van, 7 peeps, plus instruments, and only 1 driver). M&S was just wild though and if they don’t make a movie about them you’ll surely hear their music in a movie soon enough. I’m proclaiming them the Band of the Year. Here are a few of their pieces…

SEA = Seattle for those who do not speak in airport codes.

Saturday evening saw M & Princess take in dinner and a show at the Pink Door… surprise surprise… cabaret and burlesque show as part of dessert. Quite tasty

Sunday saw M & Princess biking in the richie rich neighborhood of Mercer Island. Damn. Some big houses over there. And of course all exercise is followed by my favorite part of the day… eating. (Phil Tangent: And aren’t you glad we get to eat more than once in a day. Could you imagine if we were only allowed to eat once a day!?!). The day took a lull while I worked on a paper (see previous ASIST post) but was filled with too many cups of stumptown. And what do we do after we write?… eat more! Off to Via Tribulani for some awesome pizza and dinner with new and old friends – Another Phil Tangent: We cannot be friends unless you know how to socialize on your own and without me. I’ll never leave your side if you need me but I don’t like people who are too needy. Sorry – Back to the dinner story,… ok, dinner is over and we’re off for some dessert (are you seeing a theme here) but along the way we learned that if you really want something from Phil, you’ll have to buy him a Ferrari.  I can’t remember the name of the of the place where we had dessert but to wrap this up, we got to dip whip cream (I mean real whip cream, none of that can stuff) in cups of melted dark chocolate. Oh, they also had salty nutz (inside joke).

Night ended with a little more writing but no eating. Hmm. I’ll need to rethink this part of the story.

Monday rolled around all too soon but hung out with another good friend, had a great meal, and then picked up the “package” to get back to PDX (=Portland). It was sunny all of two moments while I was in SEA. During the ride up and during the ride back down. What’s with that?

Bward and I submitted a paper on generational differences and ICTs in the changing workplace to ASIST2010. Here’s hoping I didn’t mess up on any of the last minute details.

I’ve been offered the opportunity to extend my stay with Intel for an additional six months, which means I will be in Portland until Jan2011. This is a great opportunity because I will be able to gather more/better data for my dissertation, begin to publish on other interesting observations and studies we’re conducting, and continue to work on my top secret project which is going to be wicked cool Oh, and I get to stay in Portland for a little while longer. Now if only the sun would come out…

I keep getting all these spam comments written in what looks like some kind of Eastern European language. Ridiculous. Please people. Why don’t you go for a run or read a book.

This past week started out very well. On Monday night I was notified of my acceptance to CSST 2010 in July. I am quite honored and very excited to attend. This year CSST is in Skamania, WA. I also want to give a congratulations to my friend and colleague Patricia Spence who was also accepted.

Tuesday morning I was also notified that I had received the FEI 2010 Doctoral Travel Scholarship. I will be attending FEI 2010 in two weeks in good old Boston (May 3rd-5th).

In all my excitement I also caught a cold and have been in bed most of the week/end… the highs and lows of real life.