The Britons
I spent two days in Chicago and spent the most amazing time with my family. My grandparents from Bolivia are visiting and I met the family there and took Novali to see them. It is the first time they have met her, and I am glad they got the chance.

My Abuelitos are the best, they are getting old (late 80s) and I are so strong and vibrant still it amazing me. From the stories of abuelo hanging from a Mango tree, to abuelita and the crazy airport drama on the way here. They now have meet their two American great grandchildren and I know they could not be happier. My abuelo has not stopped talking about how tall the Sears Tower in Chicago is...

Of course we swam, ate, and caught up. Novali took a little time to warm up to the abuelitos, but not much time. I did not get any pool pictures this time, maybe my dad will send me some and I will post them. Here are a few shots of my family time in Chicago.

My abuelitos have not been to the USA since 1994 for the world cup.

With the old Centellas men... my Dad and Abuelo had tons of fun with her running around.

With the Centellas women: my mom always is trying to teach her new things, and Abuelita sang some old children songs in Spanish with her.

When they dropped us off Novali showed her toys to Abuelo, and then the family took off.

I am glad I got to spend sometime with the family in between all my trips. I am planning some time in Saginaw with the family at the end of August as well.

Currently I am in Orlando at my Fraternity Convention. In one hour we start our business meeting at which someone will be elected as our new Vice President of Finance. I am hoping to be elected... wish me luck.

Oh, for those wondering... I am going to be a Briton.

Around Oregon in 48 hours
Three day weekend, 1200 miles on a rental car... hold on.. didn't I do that last weekend in the Midwest? Well this time it was in Oregon. I have officially seen everything this state has to offer, so now I can leave and be happy that I saw it all. Lets recap the roadtrip weekend.

Friday Night
A vineyard tour and tasting, more sand dunes, big RVs, some old town shopping and the smallest scallops ever.

King Estates was huge and the rows and rows of grapes were amazing.

The ground were perfectly manicured and this would be a great place to have a reception.

The view on the dunes was great, it was a hit day and the ocean really helped cool the air.

Sand between my toes.

Old Towne Florence was very scenic and reminded me of the old lake side towns in west Michigan.

The old boats added to the rustic touch... but the seafood restaurant was nothing specially... tiny scallops.

Saturday
Glide Oregon, a lost camera, Diamond Lake, Crater Lake, Willamette Pass, a Gondola, Covered bridges, a sunset and music at Taylors.

The drive south wound along the Rogue river and had awesome views and winding roads which made it fun to drive on.

After having to go back and get Becky's camera she left at a store, we stopped to some awesome views.

Diamond lake was so smooth, makes me wish I still water skied.

All the pine trees reminded of that artist guy.. the one who painted happy trees. What was his name?

On the way to Crater lake there was snow! I had to jump in it barefoot.

Crater Lake is an old Volcano, now it is one of the deepest lakes in North America.

Mountain ranges surrounded the location.

The water was a shocking blue mixed with green.

The Willamette Pass ski lodge is open all year.

The Gondola ride to the top revealed some long distance views.

All day spent looking for a covered bridge... and this one you could not even drive through.

Sunset. We called it a day and went to the famous campus spot, Taylors.

Sunday
Homemade cobbler, St. Helen Burger, lots of bikers, a big blowed up volcano, regrown trees, and accidentally finding the Oregon Brewmaster Festival.

The family run dinner was great. St. Helen burger=Burger, fried egg, ham, and all the fixin's. Yum.

Not nearly as scenic as I had hoped, the history in the park was cool though and so was the drive.

As we drive into Portland we saw a little festival happening. So that means bands, and old people trying to dance.

They had microbrews from around the world... even Michigan!

In Oregon people are either shirtless or on stilts. Standard.

Brews and Porta-Johns. A match made in heaven.

People could put where they were from... someone was already there from Santa Cruz!

Of course... I ate... pizza, and teriyaki chicken, but they ran out of elephant ears!

The weekend was great. I am tired but the travel continues... this week I head to Chicago and then the weekend to Orlando, FL. Yes I know... I don't like to stay still in one place. I am looking forward to more traveling. Not looking forward to starting to pack of my place in GR... now where will I move it to is the question... stay tuned for important updates.

My abuelitos are great! Novali is being fun and we are about to jump into the pool, again. So I got to run. I will update about my time in Chicago soon.

IntroDUCKtion
This weekend was a blast... Crater Lake in the South of Oregon, Florence on the ocean, Mt. Saint Helens in WA, and the Oregon Brewmaster Festival and Portland. I will be posting pictures soon of the adventure. For now an update from Greek Life...

The summer orientation program here is called IntroDUCKtion (Oregon mascot is a Duck). Greek Life gets to put on a presentation, have information tables, and give tours of a house (fraternity and sorority). I get the pleasure of helping to coordinate the Greek involvement. Of course this is the first major time they will get to recruit potential new members and get to set parents minds at ease about their son or daughter going Greek.

I field a ton of questions (which is tough being how new I am here) from parents and make sure the students are getting the correct information. Students come with their parents to orientation here, about 70% of students bring their parents. I find that strange coming from Michigan were I don't know of schools that would have such high parent enrollment in an orientation program. I like it though. Most parents went here and it is an excuse for them to visit and check out all the changes... "I remember when" stories all over the place.

The first couple sessions were packed with people interested in Greek Life. Many were legacies (meaning someone in their family is Greek) and some had friends who were Greek. I of course took some pictures and figured I would let you all see one of my summer projects.

The fraternity info table gets lots of random questions, the students study up on Greek facts before hand.

The sorority table spends most of their time explaining what the Formal Recruitment Process looks like.

Our office is open letting people register online for recruitment right on the spot.

The morning presentation is very intersting... Flash.. pictures... all the fun stuff.

Numbers are up, way up. I really motivated the guys to push hard during IntroDUCKtion to sign guys up for recruitment (most days we had more guys then girls helping). They are very lax here about recruitment... I am trying to teach them effective techniques to get guys committed to checking out Greek Life. I got big plans for them during my short visit, hopefully we can accomplish some cool things before I go...

Speaking of going, today I fly to Chicago. I spend two days there and then buzz off to Orlando for my convention. On my return I will spend August 2nd in Grand Rapids getting ready to move my stuff, and then back to Oregon for work. Ah... so much traveling, so much work, so much fun, and so little time!

Eugene and I
I am back in my office. Got back into Eugene and saw that Hoobastank was in town and was also quickly reminded of the things that make Eugene fun. Today I got a funny article emailed to me, check this out:

Oregon profs wield influence with Bush
EUGENE, Oregon (AP) -- Over the years, the University of Oregon has developed a reputation as a hippie haven, home to Hacky-Sackers, Frisbee-throwers and anti-globalism activists. But tucked away in a bucolic corner of the campus is a group of education professors whose work has been widely influential and found favor with the Bush administration.

Full Story at: CNN Online

I loved the opening part of that article, very descriptive of this area. Speaking of descriptive, I thought since I came in early I would spend a minute and tell everyone about my office here. The Greek Life Office has three full time staff, one Advisor (me), the Director (Shelley) and an Office Manager (Audra). It is a cool set up and I am enjoying the atmosphere. I don't even have a cubicle, we all just share a big space and I like that. The open air environment is fun and easy to put some head phones on and work without disturbances, or just be available for the students.

Here are some office shots:

No I did not take a side job working for AT&T. I do not have a regular phone, just this headset. At first I hated it but now I love it.

Of course a picture of Shelley's cats, and her famous jar of marbles. Ask me for the story about the marbles.

We are an Apple office, I love it! We have 5 flat panel iMacs, one old iMac, 3 G4 towers, one iBook and two Powerbooks. How sweet!

We are located in the student union and in a very high traffic place.

I am loving working in the office, and surprisingly missed the place more then I thought while I was gone. Well back to the grind. I have a busy next few days getting caught up with Oregon work and preparing for my presentations at the Sigma Lambda Beta International Convention next weekend in Orlando.

Alright, off to do that thing called work.

Fair Pics
I know it has taken me longer then usual to post, not having high speed internet at home is a bigger hinderance then I thought. I know I am spoiled. I had my Bradley interview today and it went well, now I am in Chicago and tomorrow I fly back to the West Coast. I wanted to get these fair pics out soon, so here they are.

So here is the deal, I went to the Oregon Country fair last Saturday (see earlier post). I was surprised to find the fair was really cool. It was not overly political like I thought it would be, it was just a big happy hippie fest of people being "free" or whatever they were being. I won't write a lot here, just make notes on the pictures to describe what happened. There are some "questionable" photos so please use discretion when viewing. I do not want to censor my own photos... I need to "express" myself. Okay enough hippie talk, here goes...

The entrance was filled with weird people and of course... a Welcome sign.

At the entrance I got confused and thought it was costume required... but it was costume optional.

Like anywhere in Oregon bands set up at each corner or open space, with their own hippie ontourage.

Amoung all the veggie booths I had to look and look for meat. Two times now Marty's (Owner) Peruvian food booth saved me at Eugene events.

Gypsy and fairy life was in the air, booths, costumes, everything!

Lots of the people in costume mocked mainstream culture. There was a group of people dressed in all white mocking the tennis life... Muffy shall we play a match after tea?

Family Nudist Park... not that a nudist park is not shocking enough... but one for the entire family?

"What will Bush do Next?" Options on the wheel included illegal invasions, deforesting for oil, and a few other top hippie agenda items.

No hippie nation is complete without a drum circle and crazy dancing.

Bands... bands... bands. Everywhere you looked there was a band asking for money.

Surprise! Another band...

This band had home made intruments.

This guy was telling people to live like native americans... he made a fire with two sticks, but he had a metal hammer in his belt amoung other metal manufactured tools. Yeah real native like there Mister.

Nirvana Tubes: you hold this tube to your ear and hear what the trees do. Hello... put any long tube with a curve on it and you get a funny sound. Maybe some one has never been to the ocean and picked up a shell?

Kilts with cargo pockets were all rage at the fair this year, and also parrots and pirates.

This huge chess set was cool.

I am betting this guy is a stock broker and she is the manager of a Doctors Office... this is their weekend outfit.

Wings of any type were very much in style. I thought about getting Novali a pair... but these were only made in sizes for adults.

Lots of young girls with old guys...

"The Devil is Cool!"... ah... and they wonder why regular people don't like them?

Big Asian dragon, that was very cool.

The rest of the dragon...

His sign said, "The Emperor Wears no Clothes." (he had George Bush mask on)

Topless fairies and mermaids everywhere.

They had a huge disk of ice out there.

You were supposed to touch this one spot, and by the end of the day there would be a hole there. Cool.

Mines and performers all over the place...

Another band... with a guy that played the spoons... now that is talent.

Got to have the silver lady.

Crazy costumes and stilts.

The entrance had some cool big "art" and of course tons of bike people rode there... i mean since gas is evil.

Bush doing the peace sign, shirt says, "Bet You'll Vote This Time Hipppie." I had to get it.

So that was the fair adventure... wow that was a long post. See why it took so long for me to complete. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.