my wu-chi blog

Road Trip

ja — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 05:07:52 +0000

Last week, Jen and I took our first road trip to McMinnville and Tillamook. We met with two county health departments and two hospitals. It was very worthwhile to hear what they are doing and how they are using our systems or why they are not. They also seemed to appreciate the face to face time.

We stayed at Hotel Oregon, which is one of the McMenamins hotels. It was a five story building in the middle of downtown and it was pretty swanky. Each room is themed after someone famous from Oregon, or at least that was my impression. The best part was the Rooftop Bar. The top floor had a small room, maybe 6 tables plus the bar, and then a huge patio area on the roof. You will see pictures of it below. Jen and I spent a lot of time there. Oh, and the $1 happy hour peppered tator tots were awesome!

We walked around town a bit and came across a small park with the best jungle gym ever! It was all wood and had a castle theme. If I played paint ball I would totally want to play in this fortress.

In Tillamook, we took a quick side trip to the Tillamook Cheese Factory and took the self guided tour. We felt bad for the workers in the factory for the self guided tour allows people to go up on the second floor and look down into the factory and watch them do their work. I would feel weird knowing that someone was literally always looking over my shoulder. Anyways, there were some free samples and Jen and I loved the garlic spicy pepper cheddar cheese. You can find it in the specialty cheese section.

Overall, it was a good trip. Next up, Astoria!

Here are some photos (or view the photos here):

The slideshow will not work for your browser, but you can also
view the photos here

Possessed

ja — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 03:02:20 +0000

The xbox has taken on a life of its own lately. It has always had issues with the CD tray wanting to open on its own accord. For instance, if the xbox is plugged in but not turned on, it might just randomly turn on and open the tray.

Well, it has gotten a lot worse. Now it seems to be dancing to its own beat – the tray is popping in and out like someone is sitting there pushing the open/close button non-stop.

For the love of all that is holy, make it stop! Does anyone know an exorcist?

Covered by insurance?

ja — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 21:04:19 +0000

I have been through an emotional roller coaster this week and I decided that it was time to take a drive and sing loudly and badly to music. Honestly, after singing my first two songs I could have just turned around and come home for I felt much better. Instead, I kept driving. I drove into the gorge again, but this time on Washington’s side. It is a bit different of a drive for it is just a small two lane highway versus at least a 4-6 lane highway on the Oregon side.

I ended up getting stuck behind a couple of semi trucks, so I had some time to think. I realized how therapeutic driving and singing was for me and I wondered whether doctors/therapists ever prescribe that for their patients – take two long drives, sing badly, and call me in the morning. It works for me. I bet it could work for a lot of people. Then I wandered, could I write off my car for medical (mental) purposes since that is pretty much the only thing I use it for. Do you think universal health care would cover that?

I ended up driving about 60-70 miles into the gorge where I pulled over at a rest stop. It was up on a cliff over looking the river and had a couple little trails that went around the area. I took a walk and found a perfect corner on an edge with a grassy hill facing the sun. I used my backpack as a pillow and laid down to enjoy the warmth of the sun. I think I fell asleep at one point.

I was thinking about items that I would like to work on over the next few months. I need to work on relaxing so I am going to look for some tai chi and yoga videos. For some reason going to a studio just does not sound relaxing to me. I also want to work on my concentration so I am going to look for an audio CD to help guide me in meditation. Next, my voice. I know that I have the capacity to speak loudly for I do it in meetings and when in loud areas, but it is not my normal voice. Well, now it is going to be. I realized that if I talk from the back of my throat I am a lot louder. Luckily, no one was around me on the grassy hill while I was practicing!

No more

ja — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 21:04:06 +0000

Last Sunday, Jodi and I split up. I did not see it coming so it was quite a shock for me. Basically, it came down to her not seeing it going anywhere. It is unfortunate, but I understand and respect her decision. We had a good talk and she did her best to answer all of my questions.It is amazing how someone can become such a big part of your life after only five weeks. It took me a few days to get over the feeling of excitement every time I got a text or an email for I was always excited to hear from her. The hardest part has been losing a close friend to talk and laugh with on a daily basis.

Thank you to all of my friends for listening and helping me out this week! I really do appreciate you.

Hitting the road

ja — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 19:30:52 +0000

Starting this week I will be traveling around the state about twice a month to visit all of the hospitals and local health departments in the state. It looks like if we are able to keep to our proposed schedule we will be done with this task in September!What’s the point of the traveling? The Outreach Coordinator, Jen, for the computer system that I work on is responsible for evaluating how each agency is using the system and will visit each agency in person to accomplish the assessment. I got myself included in the assessment for one of my main responsibilities right now is to help reorganize the document library and I need to ask a lot of agencies how they currently use it, if they use it and see if they have any suggestions for a new organizational structure. I realized that Jen and I are trying to get similar information from the agencies so I asked if I could join Jen on her travels and the request was approved. Woo-hoo! This means that I am going to get paid to travel the state, stay in nice hotels and eat at nice pubs. How cool is that!

Now, I will not be able to go on all of Jen’s trips for I will have to stay home to help with the migration to the new version of our system in May. Plus I am sure other items will prevent me from going over the next six months, like the fact that my service ends in the middle of August!

I am hoping to take a lot of pictures while I am traveling so stay tuned to see what areas of Oregon I visit.

Attitude

ja — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 00:47:23 +0000

I have been sick for about a week and a half now. It started with a cough and then I got congested. On top of that I have had a weak headache going for the past few days. Woo-hoo! Anyways. I have noticed that on days that I feel horrible it is because I have had a crappy attitude while on days that I feel decent, it is because I have had a good attitude. I probably have had the exact same symptoms each time, it is just a matter of how I deal with it. It is amazing how our thoughts and attitudes color everything in our lives.

Back to Basics

ja — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 00:37:53 +0000

I took a Chinese Calligraphy class about 5 years ago and loved it. Unfortunately, I have not touched the brushes since the class was over. When I was in Phoenix last month I grabbed them and brought them home. Well, today I finally broke them out and had no clue what to do. Luckily, I found a site online that explained how to do the 7 basic brush strokes. I am decent at doing the horizontal bar, everything else is horrid. I did not always understand the instructions but after a few attempts what I learned in class started to creep back into my memory. Now I just need to do it enough to build up the muscle memory. And best of all – I did not spill the ink. Yeah!

The good old days

ja — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 20:12:33 +0000

Click on image to see full size.

Scary

ja — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 05:28:09 +0000

Ran across an infographic about Facebook over it’s six years of existence. Yes it has only been six years. Here are some of the scary stats:

Average user spends over 55 minutes on FB every day
Of the 400 million ‘active’ users, around 50% log in every day
2.5 billion photos are uploaded every month

I am soooooo glad I do not have to provide tech support for their servers!

In case you are wondering, I lost interest in Facebook over a year ago. I will log in maybe once or twice a month, but I have friends that check it several times a day and it can come off looking like an addiction. Or, maybe that is just me not being social versus others that are very social. I use FB more as a social psych experiment to see who wants to be my friend and who actually stays in contact with me.

Click on the image to read the article and see the full size version.

Halfway

ja — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 03:00:09 +0000

In two weeks, I will be halfway thought my year of service. As with most things, the time has gone by slow and fast at the same time. There have been a lot of great moments, but I cannot think of any bad moments right off hand. Well, maybe the food stamp process, but that was minor.

So now that I am halfway through, I need to start thinking about what I am going to do next. First off – am I staying here in Portland? Yes. I really do like it here and I would like to stay longer so I can experience more of the Pacific NW. Next, do I have a job? Nope, not yet. Do I know what I want to do? Again, nope, not yet. If a job does not present itself, I am considering doing another year of AmeriCorps VISTA. I do not know if I will stay in my current position (I have a meeting with my boss and VISTA Leader this week to talk about this) or try for another VISTA position within Portland. I might even look into a VISTA Leader position but I do not know if that is my cup of tea. I would get paid a little bit more though. Stay tuned to see how things turn out.