I left Portland, OR yesterday at 7am and drove for 10 hours straight through (stopped in Medford, OR for gas).  I had a really good time seeing my family again.  I was cleaning up the house but the computer was calling to me.  It is going to be another busy day today so I had better get off this thing.  I’m drinking the Stumptown Hollister Mountain Blend coffee this morning and man is that some good stuff.  I scanned the labels of the coffee I got when I was there (Hair Bender and Hollister Mountain).  I’ve said many times I don’t understand why so many people love Peet’s Coffee.  Don’t get me wrong it is good stuff too but I’d take Starbucks over Peet’s any day.  I also have to admit I have probably bought into the Starbucks marketing.  I can be bought people.    I tried Starbucks Thanksgiving Blend (see I buy into their little marketing campaigns) and I can’t say I would buy it again.  There, that should stir the coffee pot and get people commenting!  My favorite coffee places in order:

1. Stumptown
2. Tully’s
3. Starbucks
4. Peet’s
5. Seattle’s Best

So I know this is going to sound really odd but prior to Friday night I had never been to an IKEA.  My parents wanted to get Tyler a little table for him to do activity stuff on and I have to say that place is crazy big isn’t it?  I took a picture of the table in the store and I know Tyler is going to love it.  It was funny because by the end of my visit my parents would say “that is going to go on your blog now isn’t it”?  Even funnier when they would say “um that isn’t going on your blog is it”?  This is my life people, exciting stuff.    I also got a coffee press for a whopping $13.00 which I can’t wait to try.

I haven’t been to the movies in a really long time and I actually can’t remember the last movie I have seen in a theater.  We went to see James Bond Quantum of Solace today and trust me I won’t spoil the plot for you by telling you what it is about because there isn’t much of a plot to begin with.  It is basically about a group of terrorists/”bad guys” who Bond learns is trying to control the water supply.  Yeah that is pretty much the plot, sorry I wish there was more.  It has lots of action and all of that good stuff but they would have action scenes to have action scenes which was a little annoying.  The infamous Bond women were pretty annoying and I guess you have to see it to understand why.  I have no idea what Australia is about but it has evidently received good reviews so we were going to see that but there wasn’t a showing around the time we got to the theater.  Unless Bond flicks are your thing, Quantum of Solace is a rental in my opinion.  It was still fun to get out and go to the movies.  I did like the opening car chase scene though, that rocked.

Went to Stumptown Coffee this morning with my parents on Hawthorne Boulevard in Portland.  The one on Division Street has coffee roasting but we missed a few turns and decided to go to another one (next time I come for a visit I’ll go to the one on Division Street).  It was a smaller cafe than the one downtown but being on Hawthorne Boulevard it was definitely more “artsy”.  I took the above pictures. 

Happy Thanksgiving, Evan wants to wish a gaboo gaboo (what a turkey says) to everyone!  My dad always told me growing up that “life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans” and that is definitely the case for me in 2008.  Although it definitely didn’t turn out how I thought this year (or any year) would, I am still very thankful for:

1. My family
2. My friends
3. My job
4. My health
5. Just being alive, some day I won’t be able to say that
6. My computer skills (they have saved me this year in more ways than you could ever know)
7. Ice cream
8. Coffee
9. Macaroni & cheese (Kraft of course)
10. Creating a new chapter in my life.  I can’t wait to see how it turns out.

OK I just read the news story below from http://news.ninemsn.com and can you imagine going through this?

“A Northern Territory woman has endured a nightmare operation at Alice Springs Hospital after she became conscious during stomach surgery but remained paralyzed by the anesthetic. Rebecca Jones, 24, told the Northern Territory News she could feel every cut of the surgeon’s knife during the operation last month but was unable to scream for help as the anesthesia had paralyzed her. Ms Jones, who was being operated on for gallstones, said she could not open her eyes but could hear and feel everything.

“I thought the doctors had woken me up because the surgery was over — I quickly realized that was not the case,” she was quoted by the Northern Territory News as saying.  Ms Jones realized her predicament when she took a breath and found she couldn’t move, but eventually moved her hand to get the attention of surgery staff — to no avail. “(Someone) said, ’she’s just moved her hand’ but they kept going,” she said.

The hospital’s general manager Vicki Taylor admitted to the NT News that Ms Jones had been awake during the operation but denied medical staff knew of her pain. Ms Jones is now considering legal action against the hospital.”

I am watching the news here in Portland who talked about a site I hadn’t heard about.  The Accidental Wine Company sells discount wine because “a bottle breaks and stains its neighbors, a new label design replaces an old established one, or a winery just closes its doors. A soiled, retired, or discontinued label is suddenly and simply less valuable. Ah, but the contents remain perfect. Whether it is ruby or straw colored, it still has its legs, and its fruit and perfume. The character and charm remain in tact and by golly, it still commands passion and presence. And, wow, what wonderful taste.”  If anyone tries it out let me know what you think.  It sounds like a great idea.

I am hearing some good things about Friendman’s book and hope to some day get a chance to read it.  Wikipedia has a summary of the ten “flatteners” that Friedman sees as leveling the global playing field:

• #1: Collapse of Berlin Wall–11/’89: The event not only symbolized the end of the Cold war, it allowed people from other side of the wall to join the economic mainstream. (11/09/1989)
• #2: Netscape: Netscape and the Web broadened the audience for the Internet from its roots as a communications medium used primarily by ‘early adopters and geeks’ to something that made the Internet accessible to everyone from five-year-olds to ninety-five-year olds. (8/9/1995). The digitization that took place meant that everyday occurrences such as words, files, films, music and pictures could be accessed and manipulated on a computer screen by all people across the world.
• #3: Workflow software: The ability of machines to talk to other machines with no humans involved. Friedman believes these first three forces have become a “crude foundation of a whole new global platform for collaboration.”
• #4: Open sourcing: Communities uploading and collaborating on online projects. Examples include open source software, blogs, and Wikipedia. Friedman considers the phenomenon “the most disruptive force of all.”
• #5: Outsourcing: Friedman argues that outsourcing has allowed companies to split service and manufacturing activities into components which can be subcontracted and performed in the most efficient, cost-effective way.
• #6: Offshoring: The internal relocation of a company’s manufacturing or other processes to a foreign land in order to take advantage of less costly operations there. China’s entrance in the WTO allowed for greater competition in the playing field. Now countries such as Malaysia, Mexico, Brazil must compete against China and each other to have businesses offshore to them.
• #7: Supply chaining: Friedman compares the modern retail supply chain to a river, and points to Wal-Mart as the best example of a company using technology to streamline item sales, distribution, and shipping.
• #8: Insourcing: Friedman uses UPS as a prime example for insourcing, in which the company’s employees perform services–beyond shipping–for another company. For example, UPS repairs Toshiba computers on behalf of Toshiba. The work is done at the UPS hub, by UPS employees.
• #9: In-forming: Google and other search engines are the prime example. “Never before in the history of the planet have so many people-on their own-had the ability to find so much information about so many things and about so many other people”, writes Friedman. The growth of search engines is tremendous; for example take Google, in which Friedman states that it is “now processing roughly one billion searches per day, up from 150 million just three years ago”.
• #10: “The Steroids”: Personal digital devices like mobile phones, iPods, personal digital assistants, instant messaging, and voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP).