my last days in Portland....

Friends,

Before I start telling you about my new adventures down under. I have to tell you about how those final days were in Portland.

Thursday night before I left Omar, Dale, John B, Seth and I hit the Ambassador on Sandy Blvd. for one last night of binge drinking and karaoke! As you can imagine we had a great time and got way too drunk! To the right is Dale, Me, Seth, (Seth's room mate, sorry but I've forgotten his name), and John. Singing that famous Men at Work song "I come from a land down under"! Omar was running late and glad he missed this one.


Omar and I had our chance to belt one out together. But for the life of me, right now I can't remember what song we sang. Like I said, we got pretty drunk. Some other songs that made it to the stage where me doing a solo of Bob Seger's "Against the Wind" and a big group rendition of John Denver's "Take me home country road" was done by all the guys. With Angie and Heather laughing their asses off! Luckily we had the smaller back room to ourselves so the crowds in the front room had no idea of the awesome performance taking place in the back!








Omar and I managed to make it into the office by 10am on Friday. I'm pretty sure I was still drunk. Some power drink thing Omar gave me at 3am helped me not have a hang over. Which would have been a huge without it. So THANKS OMAR!



Friday evening it all started over again at the Mandarin Cove. My last, of many, going away parties. I went in saying to myself I wasn't getting drunk. Hell, I still could feel the vodka running through my veins from the last night. But I couldn't disappoint my fans (oh I mean friends). About 20+ people showed up to wish me well. Emily Moshofsky even came and didn't drink at all now that she's preggo! and due in January (Sorry, Emily you know I had to blab that one somehow). Jamie and Alan, Michelle and Rob, Ed Alcantar, Roger, Luke, Phyllis, Ruth, Bob Post and many more showed me how much I'll be missed. There was no camera at this event so you have been spared a few pics.



Saturday before the flight was spent hanging out with some fabulous friends Roger Vines. Who I met 15 years ago when I first moved to Portland and then Leslie Jones, The twin sister separated at birth I met at the Mandarin Cove bar. We did our usual (NO BOOZE AT THIS EVENT thank god!) gossiped about our lives, our dreams and our men.




Sunday, I spent the day doing something I LOVE with some people I LOVE just as much. Ed Sharick and Corina Aspaas! We did a hike on Mount Hood to Tamanawas Falls. This was another hike in the 100 best hikes book that is so popular in Portland. It was a beautiful day and we did everything we would have traditionally done! Stopped at Jack in the Box on the way out of town for breakfast, smoked too much, hiked a beautiful hike, and hit Paola's in Sandy on the way back for drinks, video poker and a huge amount of carbs. Just as we had done a 100 times before.




That's me standing at the base of the 100'+ Tamanawas Falls. The spray was all around me and the sun was out making it an awe inspiring final day in Oregon, a place I have grow to love very much. There's nothing like the Pacific Northwest. So for those that haven't seen it yet. You have to put it on your must do before you die list. I spent 16 years there going every where from the Redwoods of Northern California to Vancouver BC and at every turn there is more beauty than I have found anywhere else!


Sunday evening came and it was time to actually start packing my stuff for the plane. Thanks to Michelle's superb packing skills I managed to fit 150+lbs of stuff into 3 suitcases. Monday morning I had to run some final errands. I got my driver's license renewed and dealt with Sprint about getting my phone shut off. Sprint was a huge pain in the ASS! Way worse than DMV! I'll never go back to them. Then I let go of the anger and had lunch with the girls from the office, (Phyllis, Robin E, Jennifer, and Tara (so sorry I forgot to add you. Tara, when I first posted this.Please let me blame it on the jet lag!)) and my roomy Michelle, one last time at Gandhi's. Some good Indian food we used to go to all the time. After lunch it was off to the airport for more drinking and some tears. Robin M, Ed, Corina, Ken, Michelle, Aaron, Dale, Phyllis all came to send me off. Several others tried but weren't able to make it. The highlight of the event was that Ed brought this cute card with very colorful birds on it and everyone signed their drag names. Which is the first pet you remember and the first street you lived on. So mine is Checkers Turnpike! We did take pictures but I haven't gotten a copy yet. Look for them in my next blog. At 4:15 I had to get to the gate. My flight was leaving at 5pm. We walked out of the bar and thanks to Ed the tears started to flow. I hugged everyone and held on as long as I could and looked back from the security line waving to all my friends and trying not to cry again. It's not pretty when I guy my size is bawling his eyes out in the security line at the airport.


My first flight to LAX was good. It seemed to go by very quickly. I had to go from the domestic terminal to the international terminal which can be quite the walk at LAX. I had a 4 hour layover so in the open, smog filled air of the airport I broke out my sax and jammed! It was GREAT!!! Bringing me some inner peace I didn't realize I needed! It also netted my first paycheck as a professional musician! 75 cents!













In true LA fashion I couldn't find a person nice enough to take my picture. So I did it at arms length. The guy that threw me the money was gone too fast for me to ask him. After that I found my way through security and to gate 120. Then right to a bar (who'da figured!) I had 2.5 more hours to kill and a wanted a buzz to go with the pain killers I was going to take to sleep on the plane. So I had some crappy sandwich for dinner and 4 vodka's on the rocks, Met a very nice lady, Toby, that was going to Perth to live as a nanny and watched the Olympics. The flight it self wasn't bad at all! I watch the movie 21 (blackjack in Vegas movie) and then fell asleep. My planned worked because much to my amazement I slept for about 5 hours! without my CPAP! The rest of the flight was pretty uneventful Watched another movie, Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr. Is no Christian Bale! Played some video games and read my Melbourne travel books.

The flight landed pretty much on time at 8am Wednesday morning and a coworker, Emilio Depaulis, picked me up. He took me to the apartment, which is right near the office. If you want to call the direct number to my room is 61.03.9694.5631. but please remember I'm 17 hours ahead of the west coast. Yesterday, I walked around trying to get familiar with the Prahran (pur ran) neighborhood. Picked up some groceries and got a massage. I made myself some dinner, ate Tim Tams and was in bed by 6:30. Now it's 4:30am and I've been up since 2:30 replying to emails and typing up this blog. Today's task is to try and get a Iphone so I can take some pictures and post them here. I also have to run to the office and meet the HR person, Patricia Lynch.

Melbourne is a beautiful city there are palm trees, subway, 7-11 and Parson Brinkerhoff (URS main competition) It's the middle of winter which means a light sweater. but no gloves, hat, parka like the people here are wearing. I want to save more of my travels for the next blog when I can post pictures too. So that's all for now.

I miss you all very much!

Brian

PS: please go to my website when you can (see past blog "the boxes are gone", is the one that has the links, I think) Shopcheaperhere.com one is bringing the most $ so please do that one if you can.