Neven and Christa's blog

Wedding plans

2008-01-10T21:18:00.000-08:00

Who knew? We somehow managed to plan our whole wedding while vacationing in Florida over the holidays.

Proper invitations will be sent out by mid-January. The date is April 5th, the location is Anderson Park in Tarpon Springs, Florida. We'll try to capture and share the event in as many ways as possible, so if you're not joining us, we'll recreate it on the Interweb.

Big news: we're getting hitched

2007-09-30T11:01:00.001-07:00

Ok, this will be brief until we have more info:

Neven Mrgan and Christa Dickman are getting married in April of 2008. The ceremony and reception will take place in Florida, to be followed by a casual get-together with our Portland friends somewhere on the coast of Oregon.

That's all we know so far - dates, places, and other details will be mailed in a formal invitation.

Yay!

Spring in Portland

2007-05-15T10:40:00.000-07:00

They told me summer would be great in Portland, but they didn't tell me spring would be so summer-y. Yesterday and today we've had absolutely amazing weather - high 70s, sunny and bright, without any humidity. The nights are still cool and fresh, so sleep comes easy and stays once it comes. I did some light gardening - very light - but didn't get to bike all day. I'm definitely amending that later this afternoon.

Grill-out on Sunday

2007-05-06T22:42:00.000-07:00

Post-kickball grill-out at Christa & Neven's house on 5/13/07 at 7 pm. The kickball crew is invited and advised to watch this space for announcements and such.

Here's where we are.

And here's what the house looks like:

BYOB is in effect; also, feel free to bring grillable foods and snacks. If you're vegetarian, vegan, or have allergies, please let Christa know. Show up as early or as late as you'd like.

Neven's phone number is (727) 515-3029. See you there.

Wining and dining in Willamette Valley

2007-03-24T18:22:00.000-07:00

One thing I'm excited about when it comes to living in Portland are the nearby wineries and breweries. It looks like one could take many a day trip to pretty places with delicious food. This saturday we went on one such quick trip.

Half an hour outside of Portland, Willamette Valley wineries start and stretch almost to the coast. This journey was just a toe in the water, but what a satisfying one. Yum.

Photos here.

Favorite places in Portland

2007-03-02T14:26:00.000-08:00

We've been here more than a month now and I thought I'd share with you a brief list of our favorite places in the area so far.

Silver Falls Park, about 90 minutes southeast of here, is a beautiful waterfall park. We had a really nice wet hike there a few weeks ago, and I imagine that it's insanely pretty and refreshing in the summer.

Apizza Scholls makes some of the best pizza I've had anywhere. This includes New York, Italy, and other places in Europe. They're known as "Portland's Pizza Nazi" for their strict rules - no take-out, no delivery, 3-topping limit, open 5-9 pm - and crazy popularity combined with delicious pies. You usually end up waiting about an hour for your food, but you can't blame them - at 4:30 on a Saturday, there's a line of people in front of the small shop.

We've only gone to Jimmy Mak's once, but it left an impression. It's a classy jazz club downtown, and the music was surprisingly good.

I've also only been to Movie Madness once, but boy am I going back. I thought video stores were dinosaurs until I saw the crazy selection here, coupled with quite recognizable movie memorabilia crowding the walls.

That's all for now. So tell us, what are we missing?

Snowboarding at Mt. Hood

2007-01-31T14:01:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I wrapped up my work-from-home early and caved in to Christa and Tim's suggestion to go snowboarding at Mt. Hood's Skibowl.

Here's the thing: I hadn't been in snow in eight years. I had never been skiing. And I could never wrangle a skateboard for longer than 2 seconds. So, snowboarding sounded like a great opportunity for pain and humiliation.

It was actually fun! Obviously, the temperature at this elevation gets pretty harsh, but this means that I get to wear cool layered gear I last put on when I was twelve years old. It's neat to be looking the elements in the face, mocking their attempt to freeze my ass off under snow pants, thermal underwear, several shirts, a track jacket, and a snow jacket.

How did I do? According to Christa, better than expected. By the end of the 4-hour stay, I was able to confidently glide down the bunny hill (i.e. learning place) and get back up. I fell often, but my hands and lungs didn't really ache for long.

However... my tailbone is very, very sore as I type this. The reason is that I took a fifteen-minute break as I waited for the others to join me (they had gone to the non-wimp hill) - as I saw them approach, I cruised down casually and made a pretty neat descent. However, in those fifteen minutes I had stiffened a little and the hill had iced over a lot, so stopping became harder. I stopped in place, the board hit something slippery and flew out from under me, and my tailbone hit the ground punishingly.

Ouch. It wasn't so bad last night, but I'll be feeling it for the next few days.

P.S. Christa tells me that the proper way to describe my fall is like such:

"Dude, I took a harsh turn and caught an edge, I totally ate it. But the board's fine, so it's cool."

First week in Portland

2007-01-26T09:43:00.000-08:00

Ok, this will have to be a brief and disorganized update.

Yes, it's cold here. I know you're all asking that - cold, but not uncomfortably so. Our bedroom on the second floor gets a little freezy (the basement-situated heater can't push hot air that far up quite so quickly). But a sweater and a pair of gloves work.

The house is bigger and nicer than the pictures imply. There's a huge basement, a two-part living room, and a very roomy kitchen. It's a corner house, so there's plenty of parking.

The neighborhood is awesome. I've only taken my car out three times so far, once to go to Seattle (2.5 hours away). There are lots of cool stores, restaurants, and coffee shops around. One of them, K&F, has been my "home office" for a few days now.

We're still waiting on Qwest to flip the switch on our DSL. I hate waiting.

We went to the Seattle IKEA a few days ago and picked up a desk, a dresser, and some random small items. I love IKEA.

Photos here, as always. Adios.

El Paso, TX

2007-01-18T19:36:00.000-08:00

Ay chihuahua. We really picked a great time to travel - our drive to New Orleans went just fine, and the second leg of the trip, NOLA > Austin, TX took place during the worst weather Texas has seen in ten years.

We made it to Austin and stayed with Christa's friends, but the following morning brought crappy news - I-10, the only reasonable Southern East-West route was closed due to ice and snow on the road. After considering our options - stay in Austin until the weather clears? Drive up to Dallas and take I-20? - we made a slow, icy journey down to San Antonio, hoping that the interstate would be open by the time we met it there.

No dice. It was as closed as ever, and the TexDOT wouldn't venture a guess as to when it might open. "We advise travelers to stay off the roads entirely." Yes yes, but... No way. We gotta go.

So we took unplowed "hill country" roads up to Johnson City (the birthplace of a president!), Fredericksburg, and, near the end of the day, Junction, TX - right on the highway, but oh so far from it. This moved us a full 140 miles in a DAY - ouch.

Come Thursday morning, things started looking up. I drew back the curtains of our Days Inn room to see a freight truck moving west on I-10 - yay! Our yayness was shortlived, though, when we heard that the 10 was only open up to the very next exit - gah! With few options left, we drove down to the ramp and joined the crowd of semis and cars waiting for an OK from the cops. It was a sunny morning, if chilly at just above freezing. After about an hour, we were motioned to proceed - yay again!

Some nine hours later we're in El Paso, where we nearly get in line to cross the US-Mexico border after a wrong turn (it seems that there are two Mesa Streets in the city - yo, wtf? City planning never played Sim City?) Now we're in yet another Days Inn, online for the first time since Monday. The weather is cold but it doesn't impede driving. Tomorrow, San Diego. Type at you later, amigos.

New Year in Nashville

2006-12-28T16:24:00.000-08:00

We'll be spending New Year's Ever in Nashville, TN with Christa's friends, including our future roommate Tim. Wish us luck on our road trip - we're taking my car, so here's hoping that we don't run into any serious snow.

Pictures of our Portland house

2006-12-23T10:17:00.000-08:00

Our excellent roommate Tracy sent us pictures of our new domicile. Clicky-click to see at Flickr. Yay!

Portland address correction!

2006-12-06T19:34:00.000-08:00

I previously stated that the house number of our new home in Portland was 2826. It is actually 2836. This makes the full address:

2836 SE 25th Ave, Portland, OR 97202

We have an address in Portland!

2006-12-02T16:27:00.000-08:00

CORRECTION: I previously stated that the house number was 2826. It is actually 2836. The address and the link have been corrected below.

Here's us starting January 15th:

2836 SE 25th Ave, Portland, OR 97202

(We get the house that comes with the address, too. Ha, ha.)

We may have a home in Portland as early as today!

2006-12-02T10:08:00.000-08:00

I mentioned Christa's friends and ex-roommates currently looking for a house for all of us to rent in Portland. They're Tracy, Courtney, and Tim, and we had a bit of exciting news: they applied for a house and we may have the answer as early as today. It's apparently in a very hip neighborhood; we might have photos today too.

We're moving to Portland on or around January 15th, 2006

2006-11-30T20:27:00.000-08:00

We've been planning this forever, but now the families have finally been told, employers have been properly informed, and the trip itself is being organized. We have two "scouts" in Portland looking for a large house to occupy with a few roommates and hopefully they'll find us all a sweet pad before we journey westward. I'm keeping my current developer job on a part-time-telecommute basis.

We'll post more about the road trip; for now, just a note on the limited space we have in my ride. I'll carry only the most essential things and I'm preparing to part permanently with most my possessions. If you're so kind as to think of giving either one of us a holiday gift, please make it very, very portable.