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!

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.

This is the most coolest picture ever. Eric and I went to Pittock Mansion today for an outing. The actual mansion is pretty cool, but the views are much cooler. I think we’re going to have to picnic up there sometime soon. We had decided to go in and take a tour of the place s well. We started with the “official” tour but the lady went on and on about who made everything that Eric and I just went off ourselves. It was more fun that way anyway. I think one of the most interesting things there was the phone/intercom. Basically, servants and delivery people would intercom into a room to let the occupants know either they were there for a delivery, or that the meal was ready. I could believe all the wonderful views in the place. Man, how cool would it be to live there.

P1000489,

Awesome! Awesome

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

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.

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.