by jltitus on June 26, 2009
You know there’s nothing better than spending time with friends you haven’t seen for a while. Tonight Eric and I met up with our friends Eric and Natalie at Toro Bravo for dinner. It was such a nice time. We all had some AMAZING food. Thanks Eric for ordering the Paella because that was the bomb!
What’s even nicer is that the four of us talked about all sorts of things; politics, greenhouse emissions, farming hemp, American history, and more. It’s so nice to have friends that are well rounded and able to hold conversations well. I always learn so much from Natalie and Eric each time we get together. It’s fun too because I can share the things I know a little bit more about too. Thank you both for a great night. We need to do it more.
After dinner and after dinner drinks Eric and I headed to southeast Portland for the infamous Whiffies Pies that I’ve heard about from people I follow on Twitter. All I can say is YUM! I had the marionberry pie and Eric has the pineapple pie. They were both so tasty, nice and warm.. and well… just good.
I snapped a picture of Eric with his pie.
Tagged as:
eric,
friends,
natalie,
portland,
wiffies
by jltitus on December 21, 2008
The last week here has been…. well, CRAZY! We’ve gotten a huge dump of snow here in the last week. I think we’re up to the fourth snow storm coming in the next day or so. Today marks day 9 of being stuck at home, except for a brief amount of time on Friday, when the weather cleared and we had time to get Christmas gifts. We now have 8 inches for now and a 1/2 inch of ice on top of that snow here in Hillsboro, Oregon. I can’t believe it’s this bad. I’m pretty sure that this snow storm is worse than the storm of 2003/2004. I mean already highway 84 has been closed several times and chains have been required for all cars around town for days.
When this crazy weather started I was excited at to prospect of a white Christmas but now, it’s looking like it’s gong to be a small affair for Christmas because the snowy weather is supposed to continue for the next week which will mean bad roads and I don’t want my mom and Eric’s parents making a treacherous trip like that. Like I said… this is day nine and I’ve got cabin fever so bad… heck, even Eric has cabin fever. We’ve played video games, watched movies and tv.. for tons of hours. We’ve even broken out a puzzle to do… that’s how bored we are. We’re both sick of being home and getting bored with it all. I’ve taken some time to make some holiday caramels and I think here in a bit I’ll make some sugar cookies. I think the other thing that stinks is that this isn’t much of a Christmas break, because we can’t go anywhere, or do anything. In any case, I’m hoping the weather improves so we can all have a wonderful and safe holiday.
Tagged as:
hillsboro,
portland,
snow,
winter
by jltitus on October 2, 2008
Finally I’ve gotten the opportunity to post about WordCampdx that I attended this last Saturday. this was the first event of this kind I have attended, I just have to say, it was AMAZING! I wasn’t sure what to expect but it was better than I had thought it would be. I started the morning registering and meeting other bloggers. I’m usually a pretty shy person around people I don’t know, but having blogging in common enabled me to come out of my shell. I think I started with 18 twitter followers and ended up with something close to 40 after one day of networking.
- I learned so much attending Wordcampdx. I’m sort of at a loss of where to start. Let’s see, Lorelle VanFossen shared a great story about how Wordpress is changing lives. I had never thought about how blogging enables some people. Lorelle shared a great story about Glenda Watson Hyatt of the Do It Myself Blog. Glenda’s story is so powerful it even made me weepy and thankful that we have techonlogy and the it enables people to break barriers and perceptions. Thanks Lorelle, for the story.
- Betsy Richter shared with us how she got a website up, with authors in something like 10 days. I appreciated the anlogies she made and all the “lessons learned” she shared with us. If you haven’t put it in your feeds, add Our PDX Network to your feeds. It’s a great site to keep up with Portland happenings and people.
- I was pretty happy after those presentations but the day only got better. Chris O’Rourke showed us the top 10 plug-ins to make our blogs pop. He has some great plugins that I had not heard before. It was super exciting to here him talk about each plugin and install them on my blog as he talked.
- After lunch, Jane Wells showed us all the exciting things to come with WordPress 2.7. Man is it going to be awesome! I can’t believe it’s not going to be out for about another month. I’m so waiting for that one.
- Next up, Tying you Tubes: Integration with WordPress Josh Bancroft . Josh made some great analogies relating integration of our “web life” with our blog and how we can support such things as twitter, friendfeed,e tc on our home page.
- Marshall Kirkpatrick did great presentation showing us how to feed our blogs with rss feeds. I can’t believe all the ways to get feeds and aggregate them to get a feed to post on your blog, use for news, etc. Let’s just say I was left in awe and super excited about the possibilities.
Needless to say, I had a TOTAL blast at the event, met a TON of people and look forward to the continued connections. I honestly feel like I’m becoming part of the PDX blogging community. I’ve been checking out Upcoming and plan to attend several events to keep my involved.
Thanks Wordcampdx for a great day full of information! I look forward to the next one!
Tagged as:
community,
portland
by jltitus on September 7, 2006
I just realized that I haven’t posted for a while. Didn’t mean to ignore people, just been really busy with life and everything else. So let’s see here….what have I been up too…
1) Work- Well work is work. Nothing has really changed for me, I’m still going to work and doing the best I can. I’m sure a lot of people saw the articles running around the Internet last week and early this week. OK, yeah, we’re loosing some more people but not the 10-20K the media has been talking about. When everything is said and done we will loose about 10K from January of 2006 to June of 2007. For me and my entire organization there should be about 700 cut either through retirement, attrition, etc. For now, all I know is that I should know my fate by the end of September, first week of October. SO, until then it’s work. work work. Which in my case it means another trip to Boston. I’m heading out on Sunday morning for another week there. It’s going to be crazy busy, I’m sure but I sort of like that and the fact that Eric won’t be able to go means being busy is a good thing.
2) Home Stuff – Last weekend we went camping for Labor day, this year at Ft. Stevens. I had a good time but it sort of stunk that we only got to stay over night since Eric had to work. I think we need to get back there and check everything out again. I haven’t been doing much scrapbooking lately but I have been TOTALLY getting into quilting. I’m working on a quilt for Ethan right now and I’m just about half way done getting the appliqué done, well sort of. I still have to zig zag the edges of each fabric piece before I start putting it together but it’s coming along nicely. I so can’t wait until it’s done. It’s been so very fun to make the quilt. I’m also working on a quilt for my manager too. Both quilts are simple but made with a lot of love and care. I’m having a great time doing something totally different while still creative. I finally got everything moved into the garage and made a nice little studio area for myself. I love it. I didn’t realize how much I missed sewing until I did Natalie’s dress.
Well, that’s what I’m up to.
Tagged as:
camping,
home,
job,
portland
by jltitus on July 9, 2006
After the mansion we headed to the rose gardens for some great photos and a look at some of the most amazing roses. I’d never been there before today. it was so cool to see all the different roses. I can’t even imagine how many different ones there were. We walked all over that place and then some. Some of the pictures we took turned out really cool, like the close ups on many of the flowers. I still have a lot to learn with my camera because we tried to get this great close up shot of a rose with a few drops of dew and it didn’t come out as well as we’d have liked. Guess that’s a reason for even more of a zoom lens 
All in all the day was pretty wonderful. It was nice to enjoy somethings we’d not been to and just have fun with each other and the camera. After the rose garden we headed to southeast Portland to the best tapas place we’ve found i Portland, Bar Pastiche. The food there is great! What’s cool too is their desserts are brought in from Pix, another great place to eat and for desserts. YUM! So now we’re home, Eric’s watching World cup, and I’m blogging… again
Tagged as:
eric,
jona,
pittock_mansion,
portland,
rose_gardens
by jltitus on April 13, 2006
Just read this off the Internet today
Seattle, Wash./Portland, Ore: The overall news out of the Pacific Northwest isn’t great. The area lost jobs in the tech bust and is still recouping. But in terms of housing price appreciation, the thing these cities have going for them is a restriction in supply. Tight controls on development have prevented the normal progress of builders going farther out from the city core to find cheap land in the suburbs. Hence, demand stays high for available units. (Forbes Magazine lists Seattle as the most overpriced place to live in the country; Portland was third on the list.)
“Portland and Seattle have really benefited from California’s growth,” says Richard Gollis, principal of San Francisco-based real estate consultants The Concord Group. “Portland is starting to see the next generation of housing product, which is large-scale, high-density projects in downtown. The same thing is happening in Seattle. People who moved there 20 years ago for the tech market are older now and have a different lifestyle.”
Interesting news because I know in our development we’ve had several houses on the market right now for over a month. Good thing though is to know they’re appreciating and that it’s not all for not.
Tagged as:
housing_market,
portland,
seattle
by jltitus on July 20, 2005
Today Ken (Papa) and I took Ethan to the Children’s museum. We got on the Max in the morning and headed into the museum. Ethan loved the ride in on the train. He really loves trains. Once we got to our stop we got out and took the elevator up to the museum. When we got to the museum Ethan went right to the grocery shopping area and played. Ken and I just sort of hung back and watched him play with what was a dozen or more kids. I thought it interesting since last time Eric and I brought him he was pretty shy. Ken helped Ethan check out when he was done buying his groceries.
We went into the water room where Ethan had a blast playing with the water. He loves water, that kid. Ken and I did a lot of watching Ethan play with others while in the water area. Neither one of us really wanted to get that wet. Ethan had a great time with his Papa in the water area.
Next we were off to the music area to listen to Ethan beat on the drums. He had a blast beating on the drums and singing his A,B,C’s.
It wasn’t long and he found the dress up area. He ran over in excitement and grabbed the microphone and belted out his A,B,C’s for everyone to hear. Then, he found the fire persons’ boots and really wanted them on, Ken and I helped with them and then he sang us another song. What a cuties.
Tagged as:
children's museum,
ethan,
ken,
portland
by jltitus on July 18, 2005
Today we went to OMSI or as Ethan says “Omseum”. He and I drove over to spend the day having fun there. When we got there we played with a few things in the “big kid” area. I was a little worried because it didn’t seem that there was a lot to hold Ethan’s interest. We saw the toilet and sink there though. It was so cute. They had some bugs in the sink with some sort of plastic encasement over them so you couldn’t get them out. Ethan really wanted them out of the sink. He wanted to alligator out of the toilet too.
We walked a little bit more and found the play area for toddlers Ethan’s size. We went in and Ethan ran for the grocery area. Man that kid loves to shop. He went all over the place looking for food things to put in his cart and buy.
He also found a car to drive to the store. He climbed in and took off for all kinds of places. He went to the store. He went to “aska” to visit mommy and daddy and he went to his house to see Bubby. It was so cute. He’s got a great imagination. He found these cool little houses and climbed in one but didn’t like it much, he liked the one bubby made him better.
He played in the water tub too. He had all sorts of fishes in his hand and was replaying the Nemo movie for everyone. The other parents thought he was so cute and remarked that he must really love the movie Nemo.
After Ethan took his nap we went back to house for the night. Ethan wanted to go in his pool so we stripped him to the bone and he went in his pool to play. After a while Ethan wanted to play with Bubby. He and Bubby played in the pool and had lots of fun. Eventually Ethan was running all over the backyard naked and Justin would throw water at him and get Ethan all wet. He’d laugh so hard at it. He was having such a great time.
Tagged as:
babysitting,
ethan,
OMSI,
portland
by jltitus on March 20, 2005
This weekend was CRAZY. I worked the scrapbook convention for two days. I got up on Friday morning and was at SBA (Scrapbook Attack) by 8 am. Then I had to drive to the convention center on the other side of town to work at the convention until 6 pm. I figured I’d have fun and it would be hard?. I just didn’t know how much of both. I was working in the booth and trying to get people to stop. I always get that job because according to Sam and Sheri, I’m good at that. So people would be walking by and I’d say something like, “Have you heard about the great deals at Scrapbook Attack today?”. People would then stop and I’d make my sales pitch to them and encourage them to stop, buy or at the very least check things out. I had a great time doing it but it was hard to be “on” for 8 hours. After working the convention until 5 pm I had to drive to the store and work the crop until midnight. It was such a long day I was so glad when it was time to go home. Saturday was the same thing, up early, work like crazy and then drive over to the store to work until midnight. By Saturday night I was so tired I couldn’t see straight. I couldn’t believe I’d done it to myself, deprived myself of a weekend and sleep for what? helping out some great people. Sometimes I have such a hard time saying no to people. I’m never going to do that again.
The good news is that I don’t have to work Saturday nights anymore. Now I’m just working Sundays noon to 5 pm which is great. It still gives me a weekend and a break but I still get in a few hours to help feel the scrapbook habit.
Tagged as:
jona,
portland,
scrapbook convention,
scrapbooking
by jltitus on March 12, 2005
I was just reading my last post and realized just how unhappy I was. I can now say I’m feeling better. Eric’s parents came for a visit last weekend. It was so nice to see them. I felt like we had a great visit. They were down to see the new addition to the family, Greg and Hollie’s baby, Beth. She’s so cute.
Friday night they took us out to dinner at “In Good Taste” it’s the store/restaurant/cooking school place that they got us gift certificates for Christmas. We went to the Malbec tasting and dinner. It was so awesome. We sat there and watched the cook make dinner for us and serve it while enjoying some great wine. The dinner was super. We had a great salad and then dinner. It was HUGE. It was a whole truck load of smoked food. There was sausage, beef, chicken and pork. There was so much I couldn’t eat it. It was so good. It was just nice to sit, meet a whole bunch of different people, have great company and great food. Thanks Bob and Julie… again.
Tagged as:
bob_titus,
dinner,
everyday life,
julie titus,
portland
