There's Really Only One Sensible Thing To Do

Vacation observations, Day, 3:



Me and my old friend Steve-O planned to hang out for the afternoon. Steve-O's one of my former students and employees and now a good friend. I performed his wedding ceremony to the lovely Mish, and he's all hip and with-it.

We started out with lunch at Bunk Sandwiches. The instructions I gave Steve-O were simple: Let's eat at a place you like but rarely go. He chose Bunk, which fit my affinity for those greasy spoon hole-in-the-wall places that are always crowded and have very good food. Well chosen.

Next up on the agenda was Powell's City of Books downtown:



It's America's largest independently owned bookstore and looks a lot like this for five stories over one entire city block:



The real danger for a book lover like me is that you get overwhelmed with choices and possibilities and books you didn't know existed but now want and all that jazz. My favorite place to check out is the rare book room. This particular shot is of a Salinger first-edition and a Woolf first-edition. The cost to take these two home is around $13K.



Then we headed off to Heart, a nice little coffee shop Steve-O wanted to try. There are TONS of coffee shops in the Portland area, and I'm not exactly sure what would make this one any better than the others other than personal preference, but the conversation was good and we got all caught up. We also sent his entire family photos of us hanging out and had a good time with their responses.

There was supposed to be a large gathering of most everyone I know in Portland, but it didn't happen due to illnesses and such (the onset of the rainy weather and all seems to cause folks to get sick early on in the season). There's another one slated for Sunday night, so that'll be good.

A few photos from my trip up and down Hawthorne two days ago:

This made me think of me (center) and my daughter (right):



Me and all my church dorkiness:



I really have no idea why I'm so fascinated with living in a loft downtown anywhere. These start at like $1.5 million. It costs to be trendy, man.



Anyway, I have trouble throwing things away here. See, they not only have trash bins, but also recycling bins which are broken into TYPES of recycling. Throwing away the left-over stuff on your tray at a restaurant is more confusing than it has to be. The funny thing is that when I'm about to throw something away at my host's home, I'll ask which part of the divided trash can it's supposed to go in. Even the locals say they're not sure they get their trash thrown away right every time.

I finished a book by Andrew Farley titled, "The Naked Gospel: The Truth You May Never Hear in Church." It's very accessible by the average reader and still talks about the things that are near and dear to my heart regarding salvation and the spiritual life. A well-done exegesis of some misinterpreted passages of Scripture, especially on 1 John 1:9.

Like most vacations, well, I'm just starting to get relaxed. It usually takes me 2 or 3 days of good sleep and no schedule and fun stuff to get to where I'm feeling the tension of life kind of go away. Looking forward to the next few days of this, too.