Life in Portland Area

Click on the back button of your browser or click here to see the previous page of this series.

Click on any of the little pictures to see it full size (as big as it goes).

However, I was able to get back that evening (September 11, 2004) and go to Bruce's 50th birthday party. Bruce runs the warehouse at Active Moving. Here is Bruce with his sister (I forgot her name, but Bruce has four sisters, so there were lots of names to remember). The drinks were served in a big Army tent (Vietnam era)
Some of the crew from Active Moving came by after the company picnic. Here are Nick with his girlfriend, Nickie, and their daughter (I forgot her name).
Marsh also came with his wife Michelle. They were happy to hang out with Nick and Niokie as Michelle and Marsh are hoping to start their own family.
Later Bruce opened his presents. I had taken a couple of pictures of Becky (Bruce's sister who had worked as a packer at Active last summer) who hosted the event, but the diskette failed and I wasn't able to recover the pictures. Doh!
The highlight of the party was when they had a belly dancer. I tried to get pictures of the event, but because of the lighting none of the pictures showed her face. Oh well, I guess with belly dancers that is not the main attraction.
Bruce dollars from Becky and had fun with them while the belly dnacer used her scarf to decorate Bruce. All was in good fun. Bruce's daughter, Shania (7 years old) was all eyes with her two friends (girls about the same age).
Here is a five second video (320K file, about a 40 second download) of her dancing.
When I first started with Active Moving in May of 2003, I worked with Travis. Travis was looking for regular work with regular hours and regular pay. Shortly thereafter I didn't see Travis around, so I assumed he found regular work elsewhere. However, over the last week I saw him a few times and worked him again. Here is a picture of Nick and Travis as we were taking a break.
Previously, Mike (the driver, not the dispatcher) had never let me get his picture, but as I was leaving, he finally consented. Here he is in the driver's room.
Toward the end of the summer Active Moving hired a new driver, Dave. Here is Dave driving the fork lift.
While on one job, we were to move a six burner stove and double oven into a new kitchen. It had been delivered by a freight carrier who wouldn't move it into the kitchen. We were there to move it into place. However, the carton had been damaged in transit, probably by a forklift as you can see from the hole. There was a long delay while Lori, who had ordered the stove, called to find out what to do about the damages. I took pictures and then we carried it into the kitchen.
Here you can see the bent lower door. Lori had said the stove weighed four to five hundred pounds, but once we took off all the attachments it was only about 150 pounds, no big deal for two movers (her estimate was way off, a common problem with estimates by non movers).