Baseball Season

This weekend was the Washington Nationals' first home game in their brand spanking new $611 million stadium. Lauded as the "taxpayer-built palace," it sports freshly manicured Kentucky Bluegrass field and local favorite fares, such as Ben's Chili Bowl half-smokes (accordingly priced $2 higher than U Street) and Five Guy's burgers. Apparently, views of the Capitol are spectacular. One view, however, did not sparkle this weekend. Decked out in his baseball gear, our President was present to wave at the crowd and throw out the opening pitch. He was greeted with a hearty round of boos - and some cheers - and I imagine went home and stomped on his "W" hat. Perhaps it was disapproval for the war, but I like to think that the boos were attributed to the fact that he has done everything in his power to sink our voting rights bill. Thankfully, it didn't put much of a damper on the evening, and the Nationals were victorious.

I haven't been to a Nationals game yet, and given our break-neck pace for fleeing the homeland, I'm not sure I will. Maybe we'll make it out west in time to catch a couple of games at PGE Park - home of the Portland Beavers minor league team. The stadium was a quick walk from our first hotel on the February scouting trip and we passed it at least 3 times a day. I did a bit of research when I got home and found out that PGE Park, as it stands today, was originally built in 1926 as a football venue. However, the history of the site dates back to 1891 when the Multnomah Athletic Club set up a playing surface and stadium for all sorts of activities such as cricket, football, and bike races. The wooden stadium burned and was replaced, but the city decided a larger facility was necessary, resulting in the 1926 building. Football was not very profitable, so the main attraction between 1933-55 was dog racing. You heard me, pooches kept this place running for over two decades. In 1956, the Portland Beavers arrived and stayed through 1993.

Faced with the dilemma of having to attract a team back to the city, officials decided to renovate the stadium in 2001 rather than building a new one. This is one example of why I fell in love with Portland. All over downtown there are examples of how the city decided to invest in its old building stock, even in cases were it was clear that starting over from scratch might have yielded something much bigger, and (maybe) better. Although the inside of PGE Park is completely modern, the stadium still retains its old charm. And, for $8-15 a game and a quick walk from downtown, I'm ready!

My New Love

Surprise! I'm fresh out of things to say about Portland. So, please let me introduce my other new love, Quicken.

When I told J last December that I wanted to start using financial software to track our money, I think he was a bit skeptical. Somehow my conversation about budgeting and tracking expenses translated into deprivation, banishment of beer, and the elimination of CD shopping forever, times infinity. In reality, all I wanted to do was see how we used our money. Neither of us really kept track of finances until a few months ago - there was always enough money in the bank account, so we hardly looked at were it all went.

After agreeing that we'd give budgeting a try, we started talking about finances. Almost immediately it became clear that we each had pretty different philosophies on how to handle money. J often worked in cash, while I hardly ever used the stuff. Personal paper checks blow my mind, and he was perfectly content writing them for bills etc.

Because of the ridiculous system we had established (Jesse writing me a check for his half of the rent every month), I sometimes felt like Faye Dunaway in Mommy Dearest screaming and wringing my hands, "No MORE personal checks! No More Personal Checks!" Now, I don't paint on my eyebrows, and never make him scrub the bathroom floor in his pj's, but it felt that dramatic (to me). In the name of simplifying our lives, we took a few baby-steps to financial sanity:

Step 1: J added Brasilliant to his checking account. He held her hand at the ATM across the street and watched her marvel at the wonders of having cold, hard, cash in her wallet. It was tough, but she's now withdrawing and depositing like a pro.

Step 2: Brasilliant introduced J to online banking/bill pay. She stopped his paper statements and saved some trees. J reduced Brasilliant's emerging grey hair by eliminating last minute, over-the-phone bill payments.

Step 3: They both (but mostly Brasilliant) welcomed wonderful Quicken software into our home.

Our success on paper will be determined in a few weeks after we review our first two months of budgeting and saving. However, I already feel closer to that house, yard, and dog.

Our First Submittal

Today Jesse submitted the first of our Portland job applications. I say OUR, because this job application process really does feel like a team effort. He writes. I edit. We talk, and he adds/subtracts content. We brainstorm, and write some more.

So far, the past two weeks have been all about about gathering information, hunting for job postings, and getting applications ready. I spend my lunch hours finding potential places of employment and we are both busy updating and expanding our resumes. I never knew how much work would go into just getting ready to start the job hunt. I think we spent around 20 hours just getting this application together!

Task for this week: Have patience while waiting to hear back from Jesse's first job.

Impulse Will Have to Wait

I was hard returning to work after our really great trip to Portland. At first it was because of jet lag and utter exhaustion. Now, we find the urge to pick up and move has become more and more tempting. One of our closest set of friends found out that they will be transferring to Arkansas by June or July. Cue the back ground music maestro, "dun dun dun dun...another one bites the dust...."

However, as much as we may talk about jumping ship with the rest, Jesse and I have made a pact that we won’t even consider moving until one of us has a full-time job. Neither of us are ready to be on a grad school budget again, and I am pretty sure that I would survive about three days working at a coffee shop. No, make that two. So, for now, the impulse to abandon our studio apartment will have to wait.

This week's task: update resumes and woo our references.

Portland Rocks, Final Edition

On Sunday we hopped on the Max to pick up our rental car. That morning, I learned true meaning of the old adage "you get what you pay for." Way back in January when I booked the reservations for our trip, I was so excited to get a sweet deal on our car -- only $25 a day. When we got to the airport, we waited and waited for the shuttle to take us to the car lot. After a series of annoyed calls, I found out that the rental car company shares a shuttle with the Holiday Inn. It was clear that hotel passengers were a priority. After waiting 45 minutes for our pickup, we were dropped off in a back parking lot behind the hotel. The rental car "office" was a folding table situated next to the hotel pool with a fax machine and paper shredder. The woman at the card table was nice enough, but as Graham would say, our cheap car rental was definitely not a good value.

On the bright side, our rocky start mean that the day had nowhere to go but up! We drove down to Hawthorne Street, which was a lot more like our neighborhood in Adams Morgan than anyplace we had seen so far in Portland. By the time we got there I was starving. We stopped in at the Cup and Saucer Cafe (recommended by Eric) and had a delicious meal of eggs, bacon, and LOTS of coffee. With a nice coffee buzz and a full stomach, we set off to explore the neighborhoods. We walked, and walked, and walked, zig zagging up and down streets to scope out places that would be fun to live. Along the way we picked up flyers at houses up for sale to figure out if Portland is was place that we could afford to buy. And it is! I think I found at least a dozen houses in our price range that were cute as a button.

Once our legs felt like they might fall off, we hopped back in the $25-a-day car, and drove around some more. We finally landed at our hotel around 4pm, the Kennedy School. The hotel was converted from an old elementary school and still retains all of its charm. Needless to say, one night was not enough, but we'll back!

We had a drink and a snack at the Detention Bar and then Brian and Anna picked us up for a late dinner. We drove over to their neighborhood and had an awesome meal at Doug Fir's. After dinner they gave us an evening tour of the area and showed us a couple of houses that they have been thinking about buying. While driving around we discussed life in Portland, as Brian and Anna both made very good sales pitches as to why we should hurry up and move already. By the end of the night we had worked out a timeline for luring all of our friends to Oregon.

On Monday we did a bit more driving, but were mostly in a daze from Saturday and Sunday's epic amounts of walking. All we wanted to do was relax on a couch with a good book and read. Besides, by that point, my mind was set. Portland is the place, now all we have to do is find a job or two!