We arrived here yesterday--Wednesday afternoon--and it's great having a place of our own that we can immediately settle down in.  I saw "Fool's Gold" and "The Bucket List" on the plane.  The former had some very nice beach and yacht scenes and a pretty goofy story but it was a fun plane movie.  The Bucket List was highly recommended by my parents and I liked it a lot--great actors and a great message.

My sister Laurel is joining us for about ten days starting this weekend.  She's currently having a marvelous time at the beautiful Greek island of Santorini.  Apparently they're sleeping in some kind of cave hotel tonight.  She's a teacher and can take these monster vacations (though we're all feeling the pain of the bad exchange rate with the dollar).

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This past Sunday Ivy and I joined my sister and her husband Mark at the Nike campus for a 5k run to support our friend Bridget and cancer research. Mark made cool t-shirts which all twenty of us on the "I Love You Bridget" team sported.  It was a great experience and Ivy and I were very moved by how many people were out there to support loved ones suffering from cancer.  We also saw a number of cancer survivors who were running and that was definitely encouraging and inspiring.  But we were sobered up when we saw quite a few young kids (under 10) with bald heads who were pulled in wagons or brought along on bicycle seats by their parents.

The whole event was very impressively run and well organized and the Nike headquarters/campus is the most beautiful corporate environment I've ever seen.  (There's a great shrine in a building devoted entirely to Tiger Woods too).   "Tour de Lance Armstrong" was there and his Livestrong organization sponsored the whole thing.  I think it's great he's spending so much time and energy on this important issue and when he spoke he sounded like a good guy. 

Ivy and I haven't done an organized run together before--especially for such a noble purpose--and it really was energizing and a something we want to do again. Above all, our hearts and prayers go out to dear Bridget.

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Last weekend we had a fantastic time at Stacey E's wedding.  He's a good friend from high school youth group and we also lived together our first year at UCLA.  He married the lovely and very kind Kristin who grew up in North Carolina but met Stacey when she moved out to take a job in Bakersfield, CA..  Just about five years ago Stacey had been hit by a drunk driver when he was driving at night and nearly died.  Knowing this was simply another reason to be overjoyed for the two of them.

Their outdoor wedding was in a very nice rural setting with lots of trees and nearby meadows for great photo ops and about an hour north of Charlotte.  This was our first time to North Carolina and we were impressed by how green everything is.  Also, southern people are definitely some of the nicest in the world and their customer service (by and large) can't be beat.  They truly are courteous and the contrast between the "habadashery shop" in North Carolina (where the proprietor was amazingly friendly and thoughtful) and the Men's Wearhouse tux experience I had a month ago were dramatically different to say the least.

On Sunday morning Ivy and I drove over to visit what is known as "America's Largest House" in western North Carolina near the Smoky Mountains and the Appalachian trail.  This "house" is actually a castle (known as "Biltmore") and was built by George Vanderbilt in the late 1800s.  We went on an audio tour of this place and it was amazing and beautiful inside and out--the gardens surrounding the house/castle were designed by the same famous landscape architect who did Central Park in NY.

What always amazes me is how many cool things in this world I've never heard of--and that includes the Biltmore mansion.  It was also fascinating to learn how the Vanderbilt men built their fortune: Grandfather Vanderbilt amassed $100 million in shipping and then his son (George's Father) doubled! that amount in 10 years as he expanded into railroads.  From what I know of this family (I'd like to read a book about them now) they sounded like they actually did a lot of good with their money (e.g. creating a university) and employing lots of people.  Ivy and I discussed whether it was a good or bad idea for George to have built this mansion.  I came out thinking it was a good idea because so many people are still enjoying it today and it's a beautiful example of world-class architecture.  Ivy found it wasteful overall and she thinks he should have created another university instead (though it's nice to have at least a few wasteful Euro-style castles in the US).  We're both very glad we visited and recommend it.  We wish we had more time to visit the coast but hopefully there'll be that chance someday.

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I saw two inspiring pictures today.  The first was in an Outdoor magazine that featured a young guy in his late twenties who is both a world-class athlete and a photographer who takes pictures while he travels all over the world.  He also was born without any legs.  He takes a lot of pictures while he's riding on some kind of custom skateboard in foreign countries--his pictures they featured were great (and often taken looking up at people staring down at him).

The second picture was sent from a friend in Hungary and showed her and her mom visiting Israel.  Her mom has a serious illness but she's still getting out and about. 

Lots can be achieved despite serious setbacks.

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Ivy and I are doing some babysitting for my sister and husband tonight.  I'm still struck by how convenient it is that I can check email from their computer and also do some blog updates too.

I want to recommend a great book that Ivy and I both finished last week called "Children of Jihad" by Jared Cohen. (Note: checking books out from the library is actually a great incentive for having to finish them off with a deadline.)

Cohen is a young, adventurous, smart guy who graduated from Stanford, was a Rhodes scholar and loves to travel.  He spent two years traveling throughout the Middle East right after he graduated from college.  His book (written when he was 25 or 26) tells about his experiences interacting with young people from Iran, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq.  He asks them about their views on topics like democracy and terrorism and spends lots of time getting to know their perspective and culture.

Ivy and I both had our eyes opened in many areas: how similar young people in the Middle East are to Westerners; how most of these countries have experienced devastating wars just in the past couple decades and on their own soil;  how few opportunities they have to get a good education and jobs;  how oppressive it is to live in Iran and Syria in particular--they are police states similar to the communist system.

It was an inspiring book and I'm glad Cohen has since joined the US state department.  Also, having cross-cultural exchanges between the Middle East and the US and Europe is definitely the way to go and very important these days especially.  An idea that Ivy and I are toying with is to save up some money to go to the Middle East for a week or two with Ivy's cousin Rita who is fluent in Arabic.  That would be an amazing trip--and a hot one, so we'd want to go in the winter for sure.

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Last week Ivy and I had to study up to take the written driving test to get our drivers licenses for Oregon.  So we went to the DMV early Thursday morning.  Ivy only missed one question while I missed four! (thankfully I passed as well...).  It's kind of weird not having a California ID now--this makes being Oreganders official.

We had quickly left the DMV (breaking all kinds of driving rules of course), picked up our bags at home and caught a plane for North Carolina for our friend Stacey's wedding.  The turbulence was actually pretty bad right as we flew over North Carolina and neither of us were having much fun at that point.  But we were reassured when I pointed out that our plane simply couldn't go down in NC: this was where flying was invented and no doubt the Wright brothers factored in all that turbulence and wind in the area when they created the airplane. 

Stacey's wedding was great and we had a good time seeing the sights and experiencing the South for a couple days too.  We got back earlier today and are fighting off jetlag with our stovetop espresso maker.  I'll be posting in more pictures and updates of the weekend.

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We explored the very big and beautiful Washington Park on Saturday.  This park is right next to some great walking streets in northwest Portland.  Washington Park has a very peaceful and colorful rose garden, an arboretum with a bunch of exotic trees and great hiking trails, and the best (and most authentic apparently) Japanese garden outside of Japan!

We also walked through the neighborhood surrounding the park and there are some very nice, stately houses which would be great to live in (if you had an extra million dollars).  We discovered the "Portland Heights" neighborhood which is very classy and has amazing views along with $1-2 million dollar homes.  As Ivy saw me gazing longingly at this neighborhood, she tried to help me snap out of it with comments like "do you really want to live in a boring suburb with a bunch of rich people?"  After I said "yes!" she said, "feel free to come up with the money" and this effectively doused the fire.

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Since I can record whatever I want here, I want to say that my wife has made some amazing dinners for us this past week.  Two of them came from a Rachel Ray cookbook we picked up a couple weeks ago at Powell's bookstore in Portland.  After eating these meals, I'm  completely persuaded Rachel deserves all the glory and money she's getting from her tv shows and book empire.  But my wife deserves just as much credit because she put together an amazing stir-fry, fantastic artichoke pesto pasta and a delightful no-flour (for extra flavor) chocolate cake. 

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We borrowed this movie from my sister and brother in law yesterday and were very moved by it.  In fact, it is officially one of my favorite movies of all time.  "The Diving Bell & the Butterfly" is a true story about a hot-shot French editor of the magazine Elle who is living fast and loose until he has a catastrophic seizure at age 42.  He is completely paralyzed except in one of his eyes.  After dealing with his anger and self-pity (which he can't really express), he agrees to let one of the compassionate nurses at his hospital help him communicate.  By blinking his eye to signify a particular letter he's able to slowly talk to others. 

He also decides to write a book--all by the excruciatingly slow process of blinking his eye for each letter of each word.  Despite his horrendous condition, he doesn't give up, and this is very profound.  I don't think I've ever seen a better portrayal of the reality of the human soul. The movie is incredibly well-filmed and acted and has a very inspiring message.  I'd like to read his actual book someday soon.

(Note: I was also proud to learn that the director was an American--even though the film is in French with French actors.  He was awarded "Best Director" at Cannes in 2007).

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Two weekends ago, my parents and younger brother came up to visit for a long weekend.  We played some tennis and my Dad helped me seriously improve my handyman skills as we got some Ikea curtains up and some car maintenance taken care of.  My sister Melissa and brother in law Mark threw a great bbq party in their huge backyard (briefly threatened by rain of course) and we got to meet a lot of their friends from church and elsewhere.  There's a good chance my parents will move up to Portland as well in a couple years.

This past weekend was filled with very fun and memorable times with good friends. I lived with Paul and Kalen in Davis for a couple years and their extremely hospitable parents hosted us at their lovely house in Weed, California, right next to Mount Shasta.  Their house has direct access to the gorgeous Lake Shastina and we had a fabulous time wakeboarding in their sweet speedboat on Sunday.  Ivy, by the way, impressed everyone by getting up on her very first try!  Her snowboarding skills paid off big time.  On Saturday we went on a very enjoyable 4-5 hour hike in the mountains and these hikes always combine great views with great conversation.

Kalen and Melissa had visited us in Budapest last year and now we're thrilled that they're probably going to move to Portland soon themselves (with their son Aiden).  Somehow, Crazy Paul was able to become a successful surgeon and he is finishing his residency up currently in Ohio.  He and his wife Renay (and new baby Madelin) will probably head out to somewhere in the Pacific NW in the next several years.  We are lobbying hard for Portland!

This past weekend was an awesome combination on many levels: it felt a cross between a college reunion, outdoor Christian retreat with lots of singing and trip to Vegas (I learned how to make mojitos).  Our batteries died on the hike on Saturday but other people brought their cameras so I'll add those in later.

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