dia de los muertos!

dumbo

It's kind of hard to believe when you see it,
but some little dummy actually fell asleep like this.

what a dope.
Guess he's warn out from all of the Portland he's in.

Aaaah Portland.

After our first trip back to Chicago - we were walking from our terminal to the bus that would take us to our car.
On the way down the escelator Stacey started laughing. I had no idea why. She told me to go back up and come down the escelator again, but pay attention to the big sign above, which welcomes people to Portland.
It's a jokey sign that says "The Best Cars are made in Portland" - and is referring to train cars. Stacey said she has seen the sign hundreds of times, but never noticed what is in the upper right corner until right then and there and it cracked her up.

I went back up and came down.
I had to do it twice so I could take this picture of it.


Silly Portland, you're my home now for sure.

Pictures... finally!

There it is. Our first glimpse of Oregon from our car. Stacey took this picture when we crossed the border from Idaho into Oregon. Thing is, it doesn't come close to capturing just how beautiful it really is here. When you see it for yourself you'll know what I'm talking about.


We entered Wyoming and saw our first signs of natural beauty. I think it's Montana that is called "Big Sky Country", but going through Wyoming Stacey convinced me it was Wyoming. We could see for hundreds of miles. We were on top of some of the highest mountains in the country and could see nothing but blue sky forever... until we spotted the storms - and they rolled in (and out) quickly. It was crazy. We hit 4 or 5 storms in Wyoming, but each of them was isolated. You could see the sky falling as you approached it. We would drive right through it and see blue sky on the other side, 20 or 30 minutes later.


Not much else to do in Iowa, other than stop at a rest stop and walk your dog. Boringtown. We stopped at 2 or three rest stops and met other folks travelling with dogs. At this rest stop we met a guy in a small Rav4 or Jeep style car packed to the point of almost overflowing. He had two medium sized dogs with him. Arlo ran around and played with the two dogs. We talked to the guy... he was headed to Utah. Then we watched him load his two dogs into their two specific compartments in his packed car. They had no more room than where they could fit. He told us he stopped at every rest stop though... so that's good.

on the Workfront

Well alright...
I still haven't had time to load any pictures.
I should search out the cable I need to connect my camera to this here computer and get that going. I should, but I don't think I'm going to. Soon though... I'll make that promise again.
For two weeks I've been temping at a pretty cool ad agency in Portland. On Friday they talked to me about hiring me full time. I'll be making pretty good money, have insurance and I'll be doing something somewhat creative. Plus, the office is really great. They have some crazy music software and speakers throughout the whole place - and anyone can add music to the listening que. There's a lot of hipster designers that work there, so the music is right up my alley.

In other news, Stacey bought Arlo a new toy. It's this weird cloth snake and he's obsessed with it.
We haven't been able to tear him away from it for three days.

Saw the Darjeeling Limited the other night. M'eh. I haven't liked anything Wes Anderson has done as much as Rushmore since Rushmore. I think he likes to be quirky just for the sake of being quirky. Great, Wes Anderson... You have/had a weird relationship with your father. Do all your movies need to address that? Change it up. Sheesh. I didn't find any comedy in the whole thing. I was bored for way too long... and I'm an expert. I'm kidding. I know I'm not, I'm just stating my opinion.

Good effing Lord

After four and a half hours on the phone with both Apple and Comcast - we finally have the wireless internet connection working in our home.

Ugh.

Pictures to be uploaded soon.
I promise.

La La

I went to LA this week, for the first time in my adult life.
It was a great trip. Got to see some friends, saw a reading of
a (hopefully) soon to be made animated movie, and saw the old couple
who does the Superstar Machine cover in this clip, play live at the Dresden:


Thanks to Amanda for hosting me - and for Mike P and Matt C for hanging out
late thursday night.

good times in LA.

Krampus

Thanks to the Spencer Krug interview on Pitchfork today - I just found out about Krampus.
Apparently - Christmas in Austria is very different for good boys and girls, than for the bad ones.
Santa has an evil side kick that hits the bad boys and girls in the head and takes away their gifts.
He looks like a devil santa and his name is Krampus.

Krampus can be found on the back of the new Sunset Rubdown album as well.

crreeeeeepy.

update

I have started my first official temp job.
for this company:
www.headnorth.com

It's pretty nice so far.

Our show opens this weekend.
We're all a little crazy at this point.

Hopefully it will all work out for the best, as I'm sure it will.

In Rainbow's 'eh?
It's good, right?
Radiohead, 'eh?

Poor Tland

Hello Friends.
We're in our new place. It's huge and great.
Our Kids show SOMETIMES TOILET WATER opens in less than a week.
Weather has been good.
However...
Our belongings have not yet arrived in Portland from Chicago.
They are expected Wednesday of this week.
We are living in a big empty house with borrowed kitchenware and towels
and a futon we bought for our guest room.

Also - I have no job, still.

But things are looking good!
I have many pictures to upload once our stuff gets here.