The Oregon Bar Exam

He came, he saw, he kicked its ass.

Paul passed the Oregon Bar!! He took the exam back in February after months and months of preparing, and the results came in yesterday after months of waiting. Congratulations Paul! Of course it comes as no big surprise to most of us that he passed. :)

To celebrate I took Paul out for dinner at Departure, a new restaurant and bar on the top floor of The Nines hotel, situated in the heart of downtown. It has a very cool retro nautical/1960s jet liner/world traveler theme... which sounds hokey, but it really isn't. I think the Willamette Week sums it up nicely: "Depending on where you stand, it looks like a near-death experience, an airliner from Dubai, a catamaran designed by Star Fleet, a Barcelona penthouse, the inside of an engine block, the Winchester Mystery House and a particularly nice bank office on the Death Star. And it is amazing."

Not to mention, they have two incredible rooftop patios overlooking almost the entire city. We had some cocktails out there before dinner, and man... this is the life. Our friends Kelly and Eric met up with us to celebrate as well (Eric is an accountant, who was also ready to celebrate tax season being over!), and after enjoying round after round of dim sum plates, we topped the night off with dessert at Pix Patisserie. Amazing.

Here are some shots of the rooftop patio:

Pioneer Square down below, "Portland's Living Room"

A very fun evening indeed. We have a wave of warm weather coming up, so we're headed out to enjoy it!

Love,
Jenny (and Paul Mayo, Esquire)

Early Spring and a Multimodal Commute Home

The Hollywood Theater

Hi everyone, it's Paul posting for once. Yesterday Jenny and I took the MAX from downtown out to the Hollywood District located near where NE Sandy, NE Broadway, NE 42nd, and I-84 all meet - if for some reason you were to look at a map to see what I'm talking about, you'd see that this makes for a lot of interesting intersections with some odd angles. Anyway, the neighborhood is named for the Hollywood Theater pictured above and is home to some new mixed use buildings, a couple of which are still under construction, and old single family homes. The commercial part of the district is pretty typical of Portland, with Fleur de Lis Bakery, the Laurelwood Brewing Co. pizza place, a vintage MCM furniture store, Trader Joe's, a comic book shop, a tropical fish store, coffee shops, wine bars, and restaurants.

On the way home we stopped to take some pictures of the cherry blossoms along the waterfront. Spring is definitely here in Portland:

Waterfront Park from the Steel Bridge

The Steel Bridge

There are cherry blossoms all over the city right now.

Since we haven't been up to much other than our daily routines lately, and there have been a lot of complaints about a lack of posts, I thought it might be about time to do a post about my daily routine. Well, not all of it - this is just about my commute home from work today.

The WES arriving at Tigard Transit Center

Portland is famous for being bike friendly and for having excellent public transit, and I depend on both to get to work. My route to and from work varies, and may involve anywhere between 6 and 25 miles on my bike (round-trip) in addition to trains and buses. Today I rode my bike 1.5 miles from work down to catch the WES commuter train north to Beaverton. The WES line just began operating in February and uses diesel powered cars and freight lines rather than electric and a closed system like MAX. WES operates from Wilsonville to Beaverton with three stops along the way. The line may eventually extend to Salem.

The WES cars are comfy.

My bike safely secured in full compliance with federal regulations.

Here's the WES train at Beaverton Transit Center

At Beaverton Transit Center I transfered to a MAX train, which I took two stops east to the Washington Park/Oregon Zoo MAX Station.

The Washington Park/Oregon Zoo MAX Station is 260 feet below Portland's West Hills, and is the deepest train station in North America (second in the world after one in Moscow).

There's a core sample of the 260 feet of rock above the station mounted along the station wall on the left.

To get to the park you take a high speed elevator 260 feet up to the surface, high above downtown Portland:



Once you get to the top of the elevator, you can pretty much let gravity do the rest of the work all the way into downtown Portland. Every Sunday night a group of Portlanders meet up to ride the MAX from downtown to the Washington Park station to "Zoobomb" their way down the hill (usually on little kids bikes) to another station and repeat. The 4 miles from the station to our apartment building are downhill and mostly through a heavily forested park:

It's a lot more work going uphill.

Bombing down an empty road on your bike while surrounded by trees makes for an enjoyable commute.

Washington Park is also home to Portland's Japanese Garden and International Rose Test Garden, which are on the way home. The roses aren't blooming yet, but these were:

Once I got home, Jenny and I took Buckley up to the dog park a few blocks north of our building to play Frisbee - his new favorite toy. We took these along the way:

Watching Buckley run around at the dog park

Some not-terribly-exciting stuff

Once again, I've been a total blog slacker. But really, once again, we haven't done a whole lot of interesting stuff (either that or stuff you've already seen on here). But, spring is just about here so we should be getting out more! Lots of trees and flowers are blooming, which is really nice to see. I will take some pictures of that soon.

We celebrated our first St. Patrick's Day in PDX last week, which was actually not quite the spectacle I was expecting. I am used to SPD in East Lansing... lining up at bars at 7am, everyone's mouths green from the cheap dyed beer, and most of the city either passed out or arrested by 3pm. I must say, I enjoyed this much more! We spent most of the day at (where else) Rogue. Good beer and good people, can't beat that.

Mmmm, Imperial IPA

Um, this may be after a few Imperial IPAs...

We ran into my buddy Annapurna, a server at VQ... and the creepy
dude on the left wouldn't stop hitting on her

And of course, March Madness is here! I'm not a huge sports fan, except for MSU games, but something about March Madness is just so FUN. Last Friday we met up with our new friends (yay!) Kelly and Eric, who also moved here from Michigan last year, to watch MSU play. Kelly's mom is friends with Paul's mom, so the moms set us up on a blind double date. :) And they are totally awesome.

So, at the next table there were a group of crazy Canadians that decided to be our friends. I don't even know where to begin... it started with drunkenly singing college fight songs and the Canadian national anthem, and somehow ended up with this guy philosophizing with us while spraying french fries in our faces. Ah, the people you meet in Portland.

Guy #1, Guy #2, Eric and Kelly

Guy #1 with the Mayos

Guy #1 with the Fischers

So this guy's friends were telling us that he is a Canadian TV star, and whaddayaknow, he wasn't full of it: http://www.randallmark.com/. Haha! In his merriment, he also invited us all to stay at his house in Vancouver (his 4-bedroom house on 10 acres to be exact) whenever we want. I bet he thinks we won't take him up on it. :)

As of yesterday, I am officially car-less! I turned in my beloved Ford Escape, and we're gonna see how it goes without a car. Between our bikes, our feet, and all the transit here, I don't think we'll miss it very much. It will be cheaper to rent a car for any excursions than to worry about a car payment every month, for sure. Now I'm just waiting for someone to tell me I'm ruining the economy by not driving a car...

I think that's it for now! We'll try and do some fun stuff soon to liven up this blog. Promise!

Love,
Jenny

The Mayos emerge

After hibernating for most of February, we finally got out yesterday! It was our first day off together in a while, so we decided to take a drive while the weather was decent. We decided on Three Capes Scenic Loop, which took us out to the coast.

First stop was Cape Meares. We stopped off at a beach just before the cape to let Buckley run around a little bit. It was Buckley's first trip to a beach, and to an ocean.

Cape Meares is off to the left.

Buckley running away from an incoming wave... he was such a scaredy cat. :)

This is the view at the actual cape. It was just breathtaking.


Also at Cape Meares is the Octopus Tree, which grew to this shape due to high coastal winds. Pretty cool.



Another view from Cape Meares.


After Cape Meares was Cape Lookout, however the park required a day-use pass which we opted not to purchase. We'll probably go back when we have a full day to hang out and explore - it's a very popular beachcombing spot. Next was Cape Kiwanda, situated conveniently near Pelican Brewery. :) Of course we stopped for a beer, and after that I just forgot to take photos of the view. Oops. Well, here's the brewery!


On the way to our next stop, Tillamook, we stopped off at Munson Falls. Not quite as large as Multnomah Falls, and you can't get as close as some of the other falls on the Oneonta trail, but still very pretty.

Danger? "Danger" is Buckley's middle name.

We finally ended up in Tillamook, with only two things on our minds: cheese and ice cream. We headed to the cheese factory for a riveting free self-guided tour.

The cheese-packers.

My ridiculously delicious ice cream, Lemon Blueberry Pie.

And that was it! We didn't get to spend a ton of time in any one place, but it was nice to just get out of the city (after less than an hour of driving - oh how I love that). I look forward to spending more time in these places during the warmer months.

I can't believe it's March! Nice weather is right around the corner, and we'll definitely get out more then. Especially now that Paul is done with the bar exam! He took the exam last Tuesday and Wednesday, after months and months of studying and prep. He does not get the results until April, but I know he did great. I am so proud of him!!

And now, only two hours left until the new espisode of Lost. Can't wait (no spoilers, East Coast)!

Love,
Jenny