New Apartment – The Frank Estate

Woohoo!  I’ve moved!  For the last nine months I’ve been living in a three-bedroom apartment in Hillsboro that showed a lot of initial promise and delivered on very little of it.  The apartment was on the lower floor, which has never been a problem in previous apartments but was a massive cause of pain this time around due to a set of rather inconsiderate neighbors living in the unit above.  They have a five year old daugher who would run everywhere and liked to jump off furniture at about 6am in the morning.  Add to that the two dogs that were both well above the regulated 30lb weight limit and you quickly have a recipe for frustration.  I tried talking to the neighbors originally, but was met with little more than verbal abuse.  The residence manager was of little more help and I ended up just putting up with it and cranking my Cradle of Filth up uber-loud any time I was having a late night.  So, yes, I took the mature route.

For the last few months, things settled into a tolerable situation and I was actually getting on fine until my lease expired and I was told that my apartment complex was raising my rent by $260 a month.  It’s worth noting that this place wasn’t exactly cheap to start with and didn’t have the best track record with me after several ignored maintenance requests and the lack of help I’d received dealing with noisy neighbors.  While I was in the rental office expressing my outrage I learned that my block had been designated as section 8, which explained the price increase.  They’re penalizing me for not being subsidized.  Fuck that! &nbps;Time to move.

I started looking around and found that for only $100 more than my previous rent (which was now translating into a $160/month savings), I could get a two-bedroom townhouse on the Frank Estate.  Located only ten minutes from my new employer SoftSource Consulting, it also was a very appealing place to live.  I went out to look at one of the units and ended up putting down a deposit the same day on a unit that came available August 14th.  Both of the bedrooms are on the upper floor, while the utility room, living room, dining room, and kitchen are on the lower floor.  Further, I’m in an end unit so I only share one common wall.

I officially move out of my old apartment today, which involves a quick walkthrough and handing over the keys.  I already cleaned the place out and paid the final months rent.  I will of course make the usual futile request to receive my security deposit in an equally timely manner before walking out empty handed.  At least I’m finally out of there.  Goodbye stupid old apartment, hello shiny new apartment.  I am now a resident of the Frank Estate just north of the Washington Square Mall.  I’ve technically been living there since last Wednesday, but the place has only really started to take shape in the last couple of days.  Unpacking is never the fastest of procedures, but I’m trying to really downsize the amount of “stuff” that I own at the same time and so I’m currently caught in an ever so efficient unpack, sort, store, and organize all at the same time phase.  I can already tell I’m sleeping so much better and its incredibly relieving to not wake up to the sound of dogs and or a child running around upstairs at 6am!  Further, something about sleeping upstairs is inherently more peaceful to me.  I have great hopes that both this apartment and the coming year will be a much more peaceful and enjoyable time.

Long Live the King

I’ve had a super-busy month, but I didn’t want to miss out blogging that I saw B.B. King earlier this month (August 7th) and thoroughly enjoyed it. Tawny and I were fortunate enough to catch him on his 80th birthday tour while he was playing at the Edgefield McMenamins in Troutdale. We arrived on time but had the mis-forethought to bring some food to eat with us and were promptly turned around at the ticket line. Not wanting to throw two fruit salads, a fresh loaf, some hummus, fruit juice, and cheese in the trash, we decided to eat just outside the venue on the grass. Missing the opening act was fortuitous in this case as we could hear them from a safe distance without having to bear the actual assault of witnessing them up close. I don’t remember the name of the band, but I’m sure you could look it up on Ticketmaster. Having finished our picnic and returned the remainder to the car, we entered just in time to get a great place to sit right near the front. The concert was general admission on the lawn except for a few seats cordoned off right in front of the stage.

Even at 80 years old, B.B. King commanded a fantastic stage presence and got the crowd excited and applauding from the moment he walked on stage. He was very sweet and funny and hadn’t even started the first song before people were already smiling and having fun. The concert itself was a blast and ran from about 7:30 to about 9:30. While B.B. was understandably looking old and had to sit for the whole show, he could still both play and sing phenomenally and put on one of the best concerts I can remember. He was chair dancing like a pro and kept working with the crowd throughout the whole night, always having something to say. One of the best moments I remember was about twenty minutes in after he had just finished talking about how blessed he felt to still be playing after all these years when a rainbow formed directly behind the stage right where he was performing.

The photos below were taken using the camera on my phone and are pretty low resolution as a result. The “Hanselman school of photography” shot has been reduced to remove that lovely “close-up” feel, but the shot of B.B. on-stage is still in 1600×1200, even if totally blurred. Evidence of a great night:

Timberline Lodge

Here are some pictures from last weekend, hiking a trail alongside one of the ski lifts at Timberline Lodge:

The wind coming across the snow kept the temperature low enough as to trick me into not applying sun lotion.  Needless to say, some lessons just keep getting learned!  Really fun day though and walking up that incline was great for the legs.