Settle in Portland Area

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Here is a picture of the motel where we stayed, The Waves. They had nicely done rooms with a little refrigerator and microwave (but no phone of alarm clock).
Here is the view from our second floor window.
Later that morning we went to breakfast at the Courthouse Cafe and then headed back down to the beach. The tide was a lot higher then and Alex had fun running around on the little beach that was left. This picture is of the beach just after high tide.
It was still pretty windy and cool and so Alex did not want to stay at the beach very long. However, on the way back to the car we passed another car which had parked in front of my car. These people were feeding the birds, both gulls and pigeons. Here is a short video (about 120K, 40 seconds to download) of the man/driver feeding the birds.
Of course this really intrigued Alex. When he and Karyn stopped to watch the birds, the women in the SUV threw some bread to Alex which he then fed to the birds. Of course that was like magic to Alex. Here is a picture of Alex and Karyn feeding the birds.
Here is another picture of them with more of the birds (and ocean background).
After the beach we met Chuck and Debby at their 'warehouse'. Here is a picture of Karyn and Alex with their dog Libby. Libby is a pound dog and at least part retriever. Debby showed us a few of the tricks that Libby can do and then Alex had great fun throwing things for Libby to retrieve. Usually Libby wears out whoever is throwing the stuff (she really loves to retrieve stuff), but in this case Alex actually tired Libby out. Amazing. We got back late that evening. After that we settled into a routine of me leaving in the evening (OK about midnight) and then doing errands/chores during the day and applying for work via the internet. There are almost no computer jobs listed in the papers, but the Portland area seems to have plenty of work for experienced java and database programmers.
The local Syda Yogo group had been meeting in the Galleria mall in downtown Portland, but they had to move out as the entire floor they were on was getting lease to the Western Culinary Institue. Their last meeting was December 31, 2002 and after that they were meeting in people's houses until they could find a new space. The first few weeks of January there weren't any meetings while they got organized, but by the end of January they were having the regular Tuesday evening Satsangs. However, it is already dark at 7:30PM when they start and so no pictures of their house.... On Sunday morning, February 16, 2003 they had a potluck brunch and community meeting at David's house (shown here). There they discussed their efforts to find a new location; they have one candidate that is much better than any of the others which they are going to pursue.
Alex's birthday was on February 18, but February 17 was a holiday (President's Day), so we went to Chuck E. Cheese's (CEC) on the 17th for his birthday party. Rather than inviting all 29 kids at Alex's daycare, Alex decided it would be better to just invite a couple of his best friends, Aaron and Andrew. Karyn got a cake at Safeway and we met Alex's friends at the CEC at 2PM (as things were quieting down, at least as quiet as it gets at CEC. Here is the main play area for the kids. Note those cools 'ducts' that the kids can crawl all around in. In this picture you can just barely see Alex between the merry-go-round and the slide down from the play duct area.
As it was a non-peak time, we were able to just grab a table in the 'group party' section which was mostly empty. Karyn ordered a couple of pizzas and got loads of tokens for the kids. Throughout the party the kids mostly abandoned us for the play and arcade section. Here are Karyn and Mary sitting at the table while Alex and his best friend, Aaron (Mary's son) were off watching the video/automated shows in this section.
A little later, Alex's other best friend, Andrew, arrived with his dad, Tom and they went off to the play area with tokens in hand. Here are Alex and Aaron riding one of the cars in the play area.