Packages come in all sizes!

Today turned out to be a very rainy day...which somehow I have learned to love. I have just started my 3-day weekend, thanks to my new job at Oregon Health and Science University. OHSU is quite an amazing place, as I have found out in the last three days.




The views are pretty amazing from up at the university:





I just started working in the Casey Eye Institute, in the Retina division, as an administrative assistant to two specialist Opthamologists. There are a total of 12 Opthamologists in the retina division and on our floor we have two other divisions totaling 3: Retina, Glaucoma, and Cornea. This is what my building looks like:




I've been working there for 3 days, which have been incredibly exhausting and exciting all at once. The university is huge and is connected by a series of tunnels and skyways because it is located on the side of a mountian. Its very cool.

Other than my sweet job..I haven't been doing too much. So this morning I decided to test ride a possibility for a new bike. It was raining so I didn't expect the bike shop to let me test out a bike...but they did. The guy laughed when I said...uh its raining..can I still ride the bike? He chuckled as he said, "Hey man, you're in Portland....noone would get to test ride bikes if we didn't let them ride in the rain.

So anyway...here's the rig:



Very beautiful!! The guy at the shop said to me "go ahead and take it out for as long as you want and get a feel for the bike." So a feel for the bike i got!! I hit everything in site, including a set of 8 stairs. They went down real smooth. I couldn't find anything bigger in the area, but i ripped it up for about 45 minutes. Lets just say I had a Session. The guys even gave me a helmet to use:



So here I sit..gazing at my road bike with disgust in my eyes. Oh how I wish that it was gone and the Session 77 was in its place. Soon my friend, soon.

After the session I headed out to a trail to do some rain hiking and I was greeted by a couple that had just got done hiking. They informed me that while they were hiking, someone broke their car window and stole everything of value. Yikes...that sucks bad. So I let them use my phone and by the time we were done , it was almost dark out.

I concluded my day off with a nice cold Kokonee beer, actually 2 of them, and watched a movie. Very nice day overall. Tomarrow will be an early morning workout and then maybe some camping on the Coast. Who knows.

Today I learned to not discriminate towards bicycles because of their travel. You must respect the suspension...because it is good, real good.

Quote of the day, as I thought back to my morning commutes on the TriMet trains and buses:
"No Eye Contact!"

5/11/06

Please, no more interviews....

This morning started with an excellent cup of Joe accented with a beautiful Chocolate Biscotti. Man, sometimes things just can't get any better.

After that I jumped on the bike and did some efforts that made my legs feel good. I'm really finding some sweet hills to train on...there are so many different roads to ride on here in P-town. I like it a-lot. A-OK.


The weather was great, a little humidity but nice riding weather. I finished the ride with just enough time to shower and prepare for an interview with Ameripride Financial. I headed down to Tigard for the interview which began the 4-step interviewing process. The first part was an orientation and description of the job. After that, the individuals that were interested in continuing on in the process stayed to take a reading and mathematic comprehension test.

Man, those tests were pretty hard. Each test was timed and proved to exhaust most of the alotted time. One hour later I was finished in which I was offered another individual interview. After that there will be a field test and then another interview by the VP of the company. Its a long process but could pay out with the end result being a financial advisor. We'll see what happens.....

The rest of the night was cool...I set up two more interviews for tomarrow and talked on the phone for 4 hours. The night was topped off with a nice glass of Pinot and an episode of NOVA. Exciting night.

Tomarrow, two more interviews on deck.....should be good.

Quote: "Ahhh, Schiezenstick!"

5/10/06

A good ride...

This morning was pretty intense, but I got alot of resumes sent out to possible employers. At the same time I have been making loads of calls to set of interviews and contact employers. Oy.

So I decided to do a sweet ride over the ridge into Portland. Yipee. The ride started great with some lush green grassy meadows.


"Look over there at that greeness!" I said with excitement.

I continued on my ride to the top of the ridge where I was greated with a pleasant view of the valley.



The road to the top of the ridge was very cool which looked very vegetative.


So I crossed over the ridge and dropped right into a road that runs parallel to the Columbia River with a sweet big bridge across it. Look at that sweet bridge...magnificent.



So I did what anyone would do in this situation, which is strike a pose.



Anyway, the bridge looks alot bigger when you are on it. I was very amazed by it...and the coolest part was that bikes were allowed on it. Sweet!!



It was a very sweet ride with some great scenery. When I got home I indulged myself with a nice oatmeal cookie. I cooked up some chicken with vegetable complemented with some red wine. Ooh so good. Tomarrow will be some fun interviews.

Until then, "may the wind behind you, be your own."

5/09/05

Still more interviews....

Today the interviews took me downtown Portland, which is completely gorgeous, in which I interviewed with Volt. I had to take a 10-key, numeric and alpha, and typing tests in order to hire on with this company. Wow, the tests were so intense...but I passed the test and got hired on. The company is pretty cool, I get to work temporary jobs in which my recruiter finds jobs for me and set them all up. Its kinda cool.

For the next two weeks I get to look forward to inventory and data entry. Should be good. 10 1/2 hour days will be bunches of fun...but hey it should pay my rent for the month so I can't complain.

In the meantime, I am still setting up job interviews for a permanent job for the next year until I start law school.

Downtown Portland is very beautiful and I hope to be down there again very soon. I mean heck, its only like 10-15 minutes from my house. Check out the scenery.



Freakin' sweet. I felt a tear roll down my check as I left the downtown area only to exit in the wrong direction onto the interstate, during rush hour. It took me 1 hour to get home, which if I went the correct way would have taken me about 20 minutes even in rush hour. Oh well, I never make that mistake again.

Quote of the day: "Sometimes beauty resides in the eye of they beholder...or not."

05/08/06
The Job Search Continues......



Man, I think I have been on my computer for at least 10 hours today. I have been applying for dozens of jobs, trying to find the best one. I was completely exhausted after dialing in my resume, cover letter, and references. I got some super hot leads on jobs though. Should be good.

The coffee this morning just wasn't what I needed, therefore I felt very tired and unefficient during my jobhunt. So I did what any coffee lover would do....and dumped out the crap coffee that I was drinking and drove to Starbucks for some REAL Joe.



As soon as I brewed the sweet Joe, my day instantly got so much better. I mean come on, look at my face! So I continued to job search and line up interviews for the next day.

The moral of the day: "Sacrifice nothing, when it comes to coffee."

Portland!!!

The first real blog.....

So I moved to Portland, Oregon and I am enjoying myself greatly. The move was so that I could aquire residency for law school next fall. I will be taking my LSAT this October, so alot of studying is in the forecast for this guy. In the meantime I will be riding as much as possible as well as racing.

So I finally got moved and just started to ride again. I haven't really ridden consistently for about 2 weeks, so I guess you could say training hasn't been going too greatly. Anyhoo, I got two sick rides in during the last two days.

My first ride took me through western Portland, towards the coast, and routed me through Beaverton, Hillsbrook, and ended in Forest Grove. It was a very interesting ride...lots of small towns, orchards, and some trashy people...yikes. There were definitely times when I felt that I was about to be shot or sexually assaulted. West of Portand breeds a different kind of folk, not my favorite kind. The highlight of the ride was hitting a Starbucks for the traditional espresso brownie and tall Italian roast coffee. MMMM good. The way back wasn't so bad and I didn't see as many yikes people as before. My house greeted me well, as usual, and I immediately sat on the couch to watch the sunset out of my window. I have an amazing view of the sunset every night, it lights my whole house up and makes me feel warm inside.

Today started off a little more laxed, in which I slept until 10 am and then cooked a sick breakfast with eggs, cheese, and Joe. No Joe is not my neighbor, at least I don't think he is, Joe is my best friend in the morning. Because money has been tight (the move) I had to buy this crap coffee cuz it was real cheap. After drinking this second rate Joe for two days, I have realized that no matter how little money I have, I will not compromize my Starbucks Joe. Anyway, I had some quality couch time before I decided to ride. You see, this morning it was pouring cats and cats of rain so I waited to see if I could catch a pocket of no rain. As a result of living in Durango for 5 years, you start to think that rain comes in spurts and then the sun comes out. Well, I'm realizing that its not quite like that here. So I started out on my ride and I got in about a half an hour and then it started to mist. I started to climb a bit under the beautiful tree canopy, which is pretty much the whole ride all around my house, and the mist became a slow rain.



As I continued on the ride the slow drizzle became more intense and the road seemed to indicate what was to come in the near future. But, I wasn't cold yet so I continued on.


As you can see I started to get less happy and the moisture began to get the best of me. I was close to the top of the pass, I think Cornelius Pass, so I pursued on and got there. As I started my way back, a different route than before, the weather changed again and the rain stopped. Soon I was riding in fog which didn't strike me as the safest thing.


I continued on and started my decent into Portland and was greated by some more very wet roads. There wasn't much traffic on the road, but I was a little paranoid because of the fog.

But the fog still made me happy.

So I finished the decent and stepped in my front door and it instantly began to downpour outside. Perfect timing. I would have died out there if it poured that hard when I was riding. Anyway as I sat on my balcony enjoying the rain with some tea...I realized that my sunroof was open in my car. Yes, very smart of me. My neighbors laughed at me and called me a silly Colorado boy. Oh well, you learn the hard way sometimes.

Tomarrow is job hunt day. So I will be advertising myself like some sort of meat that needs to be sold. I always enjoy job hunting, not really, but I do enjoy the interview. Hopefully I will have a job by Wednesday, or else I will be eating minimal and drinking my Starbucks Joe. Yeehaa!

Until the next time, "Drink your daily Joe."