Well we decided to go to Portland on a whim this weekend. Karen had been talking about going somewhere and I had digital camera on the brain, so we decided to go to Portland where the sales tax benefit would be quite nice. The plan was to get the new Nikon Digital SLR camera and use our REI dividend to buy some snowshoes.
When we first arrived at Jantzen beach (a GIANT shopping island just over the border) we found this neat merry-go-round that Karen just HAD to ride.
After leaving REI empty handed and also not finding the camera I was interested in at the camera shop there, we headed to downtown Portland. Having been there before, it was pretty easy to find the “smark-park” garage and walk to Camera World. This venerable Portland landmark has recently been taken over by Ritz (aka Wolf Camera) and I found the experience of buying a camera there to be somewhat disappointing. The sales guy seemed to have limited knowledge of the product he was trying to sell. Not only that; he assured me that no one in Portland had it in stock. So I proceeded to order one.
Well across the block was a tiny camera shop called The Shutterbug and of course they had one in stock. The nice young salesman there said of course Camera World would pull a sleazy move like stating I couldn’t get the camera anywhere else. So much for trusting salesmen who have conflicts of interest…
The new D-100 camera is very nice, 6.3 megapixel and a nice 24-105mm zoom lens. Karen took to it right away! The following pictures were taken on Hawthorne street after we had a nice dinner at the Bread and Ink Cafe.
We stayed at a nice old house in Terwilliger Park (I love that name!). A nice green belt along a hillside overlooking the river and the town. We were the only guests, but the old couple who ran the house were very nice and we had a fun time visiting with them and getting a tour of the house. I regret not taking them up on the offer to sip port after our dinner, but we were just too tired.
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Spirited Away was probably the best movie I saw in 2002. The story was epic, the animation phenomenal, and it was just plain cute. I had all but given up hope that it would win the Oscar for Best Animated Feature, given what happened last year. (Shrek beat out Monster’s Inc). I figured “Lilo & Stitch” would win; while a good movie, it falls apart at the end.
They will be releasing the region 1 DVD on April 15th. The region 3 DVD has been available for quite sometime now, but as usual Disney wants world domination when it comes to DVD distribution. So those of us in the good ol’ U. S. of A. can’t buy or rent this DVD until Disney says we can. Or you can modify your DVD player so that it can play any DVDs, but of course that would involve breaking a federal law…..
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I was so happy to see President Bush do something that I whole heartedly agree with today. He signed into law the national “Do Not Call” registery. This means every state in the nation will have a “Do Not Call” list that must be checked before a telemarketer makes unsolicited calls to your house. Violaters will have to pay a $11,000 fine for each violation.
Of course we follow the junk busters script and our unsolicited calls have dropped to where we almost never receive calls… except from AT&T who is now on their 3rd violation of the “Telephone Consumer Protection Act“; which incidentally the current President’s daddy signed into law back in his day. (It’s amazing how often the cliche, “Like Father, Like Son” applies to George W). I really should try to squeeze the $500 fine out of AT&T for their blantant disregard of federal laws.
Oh by the way I really suggest avoiding AT&T as a consumer if at all possible (IE: if they don’t have a headlock-hold monopoly on your cable TV or internet service).
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We know a couple of folks who keep blogs. Jon and Claire in Germany have Ultissimo. Then Julian Fong a friend of mine from work, has kept a blog since before they were popular: levork. Our friends at church, Dylan and Susan, also keep a neat blog clientandserver. Oh and the title of this entry — Blog Links = B’Links. Remember when it’s a really popular blog term, you heard it here first!
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We had a very nice Ash Wednesday service at our church this evening. We even went out to eat afterwards with some friends to show off our crosses.
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