It's cool because its rare.

During Christmas break, I took a trip to the great state of Oregon. By great state, I mean the 200 square mile area known as the Portland area and its surrounding area. Because I know that most of the 5 people that read this thing have never actually been to the city, I have created a sort of short guide based on what I saw during the 3 days that I was there. Now keep in mind that I have been there many different times before. However, a lot of these times were based on the fact that I had driven down with my parents and therefore didn't have a lot of room to explore on myself. I plan to correct this soon and will write a blog based on those experiences.

I started my trip by taking the MAX train into the city, starting in Hillsboro. For those that don't know what a MAX train is, it is a mass transit train that is about 40 miles long and goes from one end of the city and surrounding areas to the other. It is very handy for when wants to travel the fifteen miles into the city, but doesn't want to deal with driving downtown and struggling with things such as parking. The train is fairly clean, and a round trip day pass is usually around a dollar. The train itself was fairly clean and quiet. Didn't see much on the trip into the city, but being as I did pass by a couple of apartments, I did see a naked dude getting undressed in front of his living room window.

After about half an hour, I finally arrived in Downtown Portland. From there, it was about a 5 block walk down to my destination for the day, Powell Books. For those that don't know, Powell Books is a huge 3-4 floor book store. To give you an idea how big it is, each floor is about the same size as a standard size Barnes and Noble that you would find in any gentrified shopping area of any major city. As an English major and nerd like me, just this short description should show why I would be so inthraled by the place. Want to find books on how to jerk off, why there is an entire section of shelf based on that. Love Sci-Fi? Why that section, plus every type of roleplaying game and graphic novel take up an entire floor. Maybe I just like extremely rare things, but my favorite room was the Pearl room on the top floor. This room is the rare book room and if you have ever wondered how interested you could find something based on the fact that it is in a glass case, well come here ot find your answer. From a first edition Lewis and Clark expedition report, to a text book on the orient from 1495, you never knew that you could be so hypnotized by really old books. While I could have spent much longer browsing, I only had an hour, as I honestly didn't have much time.

After that leaving the bookstore, I spent awhile walking around the surrounding area, though I definatly didn't have any money or time, it was fun to just browse. For those that don't know, Portland has one of the highest densities of bars in the United States. Browse any beer aisle and many of the choices that you see will have a brewery or ale house in the city. In a lot of ways, the city reminds me more of Bellingham than Seattle. It has more of a smaller feel and ther e are a lot more artist galleries and places to eat and gather then Seattle, of which you could probably go broke just looking into the window of a sandwich place. One area that I will have to hit up when I go down there next time is this huge parking lot I found that had tons of food trucks. While many places will have one or two taco trucks, this place had anything from tacos, to thai food, to authentic chinese food. I forget what the place is called, but one place that you should try to find is this authentic chinese buffet I went to a few years back. How autentic was it. Three words; Fried Chicken Feet.

After about three hours of walking around, I had to leave. While I didn't even get close to seeing everything that I wanted to. I got enough of an idea to what I want to go to next time i'm in the area, which is hopefully soon.

Last night...

I heard a scary sound outside my window. It sounded like a baby was being attacked by a dog, while someone was having sex at the same time. When I looked outside there was no sign of anything happening. It was not a dream cause I was awake when it happened. Thoughts anyone?

This will probably make me sound conceited.

One of the crappy things about really slow days is that often times long periods of time will go by without anyone to help. It is during these times that I am left with my thoughts, which can be a very dangerous thing sometimes. Dealing with this small number of people, what is my conclusion. If you want to experience the life of some of the people that come into my store, punch yourself repeatedly until your eyes start to bleed. No look at yourself in the mirror and picture what your life would be like if you didn't look like shit because you just beat yourself up, but because you take shitloads of crystal meth. Congratulations, you now have an idea of the calibur of individual I deal with. Think the mindset of Joe the Plumber with intelligence of Terri Schivo even after they pulled the plug (For those that don't know who she is. She is the woman who was kept alive for 15 years through machines while she was brain dead).

For example, today a woman came up to me and asked if my name was Justin. While this may seem simple mistake, my coworker had just gotten done not only telling her what my name was, but I was wearing a name tag. Later in the day, another individual came into the store just so he could bitch to me about why we were going out of business. Now I don't know about you but I certainly don't have the time walk into random stores specifically to gloat about how they are going out of business. Of course a middle age man who has that sort of time probably is unemployed himself, in which case congrats asshole, you win for most ironic insult of the day.

Not that this is anything new. Lord knows these types make up a big part of the country, not to mention the weekly occurance I seem to have of old men attempting to molest me in public places. Yes, I know that people are physically closer in the old country, but I'm pretty sure that rubbing my shoulder isn't normal anywhere. Anyways, I feel that this sort of braindead coast through life is scarily normal in this day and age. To me, a lot of people seem to where their ignorance as a badge of honor. They are proud of the fact that they have been able to get through life being hopped up on drugs, both legal and illegal 90%, and are proud that they are unintelligent. I can't tell you how many times someone will be buying a computer and tell me that they don't have time for "that computer nonsense", but will act like they are fine with buying another one because they fucked the last one up.

Well, I guess I have to wrap this up, lunch ends in 4 minutes. In closing, if you are able to get to this blog, you are already smarter then 90% of most people. Don't let anyone call you stupid because the fact that you were even able to open your web browser shows that you are smart.

Random Thoughts

Just because I don't feel like writing structured paragraphs at the moment, this post will be in list format...

I am thinking of downloading windows 7 just because. I can't justify actually doing it and I know I would play around with it for maybe five minutes at most, but it just looks really cool.

Why do people who admit that they know nothing about computers think that everything you tell them about how they will get a virus if they don't get anti-virus software is a lie.

Why does good healthy food have to be so expensive. Maybe this country would be a lot healthier and feel better about itself if people ate better. Hence, more people need to shop at farmers markets. Seriously, at least here in Bellingham it isn't anymore expensive then if you were to buy it from the supermarket and often times it is even cheaper. Plus if people at healthier maybe they wouldn't be so pissed off all the time.

There is a good chance that I could be out of the job Friday. I will explain once the week ends but lets just say a vacation could be in the plan very soon.

You have no idea how glad I am that Joe The Plumber keeps being drug out beating like the dead horse that he is. Seriously, he is a real life version of two girls one cup. You hate him, but wish he would never go away. He has provided more comedy in the past few days then almost anything else.

To break the fourth wall a bit here. I like writing this blog, but my ADD makes it hard to keep on one subject for too long and these posts often end up being shorter then I or anyone else would like them to be. If anyone has some tips that would be great.

Actually, maybe its because I still think of it as homework in a ways. I mean I just spent the last two years doing nothing but writing for school. Maybe this casual stuff is exactly what I needed.

Well there you have it. There are the thoughts that are running through my head right now. Feel free to reply if there is any subject that you want me to expand upon.(sp?)