amazing

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY - MUM.
and like every good son who forgets to send a card to the UK, may as well say it on the web!

Just as a preface: my hotel is in Beaverton area on the west side and about a 25min car drive from Portland.

Today well.... Ecstatic..I don't know any other-way to describe this , than amazing. Today was awesome, I have been itching to ride my bike after 2 days of driving everywhere... ugg..cars.. so I met my boss at Yakima (4 miles from my hotel), I unpackaged my cross bike that I had sent there, built it up left my car at Yakima office then rode. I rode from Yakima to the Zoo, met Nathan and Sarah at the zoo, then I rode downtown to the Pearl (west dowtown). I think about 16 or 17 miles total with a few steep climbs...I forgot how amazing it is to ride round here, hills, hills, green, tress, tress, nice cars, trees, green hills..awesome..so happy so free. All I had on was a T shirt and a cycle jersey, tights, chrome knickers and msngr bag filled with ulocks, laptop, rainjacket, tools and blar. I met up with Nathan in the Pearl, he wanted to buy some shoes so we checked out the boutique stores, Adidas, puma and Diesel, then we went up to REI. Then i rode another 17miles home at 6pm, all the way bike lanes in the dark, crazy hills, cold but sweating. The cars are so nice here, on my way to the Zoo I totally ran a red at the bottom of a hill - flying down hanging a tight left, BMW in the rear, shoulder glance to see what clemence i had to the the BMW - it had stopped - perhaps in amazement, I guess cyclists don't roll red's here... ha ha... all good though, guess I'll have to loose the Chicago style riding. Riding here is so great, hills are amazing, makes me feel weak after 14months without hills!

Sat - I managed to check out a few areas, just scoping to see what i like and dislike, my biggest dilemma is West side or East side, i will be working west side and sometimes the commute between the sides can add up. basically west side is hilly, beautifully, more suburban and not hip. East side, flatters, more urban, more hip, more culture. i looked at a house share, where I would have the top floor of a bungalow, 3 rooms, 1 small, the others good. Anyway, i'm rambling now!

I'm gonna be very happy here. All I need to do is find a sweet place to live.

So tomorrow - first day of work. I'm excited but my boss (Chris) had already prepared me today and told me I had a lot of administrative meetings about blar and company and blar. Tuesday i'm gonna meet with the CEO, he's pro design because he has seen the sales numbers increase, so thats good that i'm not fully figting an uphill battle.

Anyway, I'm pumped, i basically got into the hotel, threw my bile in the door and started writing this......

Now feebie is IM'ing me..... I'll tell her to read the blog.