portland

i'm typing my first post from a wifi readied coffee shop. this is kind of exciting. i'm now looking for wifi hot spots just so i can be online. anyhow, i'm in portland, downtown. it is quite small compared to seattle and san fran. it's a saturday afternoon and there's plenty of parking and not too big of crowds. the place itself is full of brew pubs. but there was a nice little weekend street market thingy with live music that was quite fun. there are parts of downtown by the water but it was too far to walk to. i might drive by it before i leave for eugene.
i asked one of my golf mates yesterday what there is to do here and he basically said that if you like beer, portland is the place for you. it is what he calls a small big city. there's not a lot of land to expand so the new buildings grow upwards to accommodate the growing population.
downtown portland can be walked acrossed town in about 20 minutes. the people seemed friendly enough.

the pictures are of the street market and chinatown. they were right next to each other.

pumpkin ridge

i have been trying to post the panoramic views from the seattle space needle but for some reason, they just won't upload. i'll try again later.
i did a lot of people watching in seattle and have decided that it should be taught as a class either in high school or college. i'll expand when i have more time.
i'm in portland currently and played one of the best golf courses in oregon, pumpkin ridge, yesterday. it is the best non-seaside course i've ever seen. i was lucky enough to be paired with 3 other oregonians who were extremely friendly and gave me great details about the course and the state. i'm going to downtown portland in a little bit and then it's on to eugene to visit an old college friend.
pumpkin ridge has two courses there. one is private called "witch hollow" very cool name. they are playing the u.s women's amateur golf tournament there right now. the u.s. women's open was held there twice and tiger woods won one of his u.s amateur titles there. the course i played is the public one called, "ghost creek," also a cool name. it's called that because there is a creek that runs throughout the course that you can't see off the tee box. hence, a ghost creek. david duval won the nike tour, now the nationwide tour championship there awhile back. the course is in immaculate condition. the fairways are bent grass which sits the ball up like the tee box when you're on it. the views of the forest lined trees and valleys were truly spectacular. too bad i played like crap.

university of washington

people buying and throwing fish