Friends of the Devil

Todd and Jeff: Two straight guys in a crooked world. More adventures w/ the good doctor Here
Jeff, and Todd in Sipsey wilderness. Mad like the Hatter
Layla, Rachael, and Amy in Vicksburg lookin quite... uh, ... no comment.
Jeff, Ballz, and D-Love, preparing for the Chance Fisher show
Jeff lookin' like, "Don't mess with me!"; Werm lookin' like, "He just messed with me!"

From 'Y'all' to 'You Guys'

What we think about moving from Mississippi to Oregon.
The move had us anxious because we didn't have any idea what to expect in Portland. Going from having a tightknit group of good friends in a town of 55,000 to not knowing anyone, or even how to get around in a city of 1.5 million is definitely a big step. Hopefully it wouldn't be off a plank.

The only thing we knew for sure is that Amy had a job. She is training to manage a major retail store and thankfully they let us choose a city for her training. After much deliberation and pondering we decided to give the northwest a try. Portland was an intriguing city. It is big, but not huge; costly, but not expensive; and has four seasons. (MS has summer for 7 mos. and 'falintering', a conglomerate of the other three seasons packed into 5 mos.) We left right when it started getting really hot and came to Portland during a 93o 'Heat wave'. Since we've been here it has broken the 100 degree mark 4 times. Everybody here complains about the heat and rushes out to buy A/C units. (most housing here has heaters but no A/C) Three days later the highs are back in the upper 70's to low 80's. I don't think they could hack one week in a MS summer. Of course, I say this and one of the reasons we wanted to come here was to escape the heat. (and bugs) We have yet to be through the much talked about Oregon winter. Apparently it rains pretty much every day from November through May. Luckily we have plenty of Gore-Tex.

Once we got here we quickly discovered that everyone is really friendly and helpful. It's like a huge small town. The main difference we can tell so far is that when you go out, you don't see the same people over and over, so it seems kind of impersonal. But most people will readily offer insight when questioned or if you look confused about anything, like say, blankly staring at the parking sticker machine-thing downtown, scratching your goatee. It's funny, when you say you're from a place like MS they look at you, amused but confused, and ask, 'What brought you to Portland?' It isn't with any malice that they ask; I think that they have the stereotypical image of Ms (dirt roads, hoopty cars, bare feet, et. al) in thier head and wonder what brought us 'billies to the big city. When we say Amy got her degree and a retail managment job, the reply is ALWAYS the same: 'Oh, niiice.' There are plenty of meaningless jobs here and, of course, I have one of those. I might not get paid much, but I get to work hard.

Probably the best things about Portland (to me at least) is proximity to outdoor activites. Mountains, the pacific coast, Crater Lake, the Columbia River Gorge, and other stuff is around 2 hours away. Also, much to our surprise (and delight) Portland has more beer breweries around than anywhere else in the WORLD! Boo work; Hooray Beer! (to paraphrase the Red Stripe commercial)

Greetings!

Well Allright
Welcome to Jeff and Amy's blog. We created this (using the 'Big Bang' technique) to let our friends and family see what we're up to in lieu of our moving across the country. We hail from Mississippi, Amy from Vicksburg; Jeff from all around the state, and moved to Portland, OR in June 2006. This will mostly be an ongoing biographical- style blog, so don't be expecting any philosophical breakthroughs. Enjoy

P.S. If you don't like cats you'll probably get sick of this site