Today is the Day

Today is the day: PDX-SEA-NRT-BKK-PNH

We are so excited to head off to Cambodia and get to work. This project has been a year in the making, and we owe so much to each of you for your support, encouragement, prayers, ideas, and more. THANK YOU!

Please keep an eye on the blog - This is where we'll be posting regular video updates (keeping our fingers crossed for decent internet), photos, and thoughts about our work. Once we arrive, we'll give you a tour of our new home. Also, rumor has it that Brittany is going to eat a fried tarantula - this you won't want to miss!

Please add us on Skype (our username is adamclough). We'd love to chat with you!

Please check out Transitions Global's website at www.transitionsglobal.org. We are so blessed to be working with this amazing organization!

Love you all,

Adam & Brittany

Clyde Common

Tonight, I'll be heading to Clyde Common for a little celebration dinner with some co-workers. This place is relatively new, but has great food, great vibe, and one of the best Scotch selections (that I've seen) in Portland.

The menu is always sure to spark a lively debate: what exactly is the difference between a hamburger and a hamburger sandwich??? Inquiring minds must know.

Check it: www.clydecommon.com/

Nessie never showed

The first recorded sighting of the Loch Ness moster in the 12th century is reputed to have been through this window

A couple years ago, I spent some time in the Northern reaches of Scotland, looking for Nessie, climbing around castles and drinking Speyside Scotch. Loch Ness contains as much fresh water as the rest of the lakes and rivers in the UK combined. Parts are so deep (over 700ft) and murky that the bottom cant be found even with modern sonar equipment. It is entirely possible that underwater caverns connect the Loch to the North Sea.

No Nessie sightings, but I will be back.

I am an Island

For as long as I can remember, I've had a fascination with islands. Big or small, if it is surrounded by water, it needs exploring and I am the man for the job. Its the closest thing we have to represent the contrast of the finite with the infinite. The island - you're on or you're off.

I'm so inspired by this image. If I ever have a yard, I will be making a tee-pee and sleeping in it on a regular basis.

Iberia is the opposite of Siberia

"Africa begins at the Pyrenees," Alexandre Dumas

Rain City Fix: Brenton Salo

Brenton Salo is my friend. Brenton Salo takes amazing photos. Brenton just finished his second photo book - Rose City Fix. See the flyer, come to the release.

Brenton also took our first round of engagement pictures up at Timberline Lodge.
www.brittanyandadam.com

See more of Brenton's work here:
www.brentonsalo.com

Behold: The Bou Tiki

My good friend Bryan Free has spent the last who-knows-how-long building a tiki bar on the back patio of his Mt. Tabor home. Having heard about it for a few months, naturally I had high expectations. I must admit they were surpassed.

This isn't plywood and cinder blocks, this is high quality finish carpentry, complete with its own sign. Just look at the craftmanship.

Bryan is a phenomenal musician; you should check his songs out here:
www.myspace.com/bryanfree
www.bryanfree.com

He also plays with Crosstide, check it:
www.myspace.com/crosstide
www.crosstide.net

The tiki drinks were pretty good too.

Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night?

So in America when the sun goes down and I sit on the old broken-down river pier watching the long, long skies over New Jersey and sense all that raw land that rolls in one unbelievable huge bulge over to the West Coast, and all that road going, all the people dreaming in the immensity of it, and in Iowa I know by now the children must be crying in the land where they let the children cry, and tonight the stars'll be out, and don't you know that God is Pooh Bear? the evening star must be drooping and shedding her sparkler dims on the prairie, which is just before the coming of complete night that blesses the earth, darkens all rivers, cups the peaks and folds the final shore in, and nobody, nobody knows what's going to happen to anybody besides the forlorn rags of growing old, I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty, I think of Dean Moriarty.

The World Needs More: Weekends

ACE: The Photobooth

A PDX must-do: the photobooth at the Ace Hotel on SW Stark.

Yours truly + fiance, spring 2009.

The World Needs More: Foodcarts

Foodcarts. We have TONS, but we dont have enough. You can find them highly concentrated into three different trailerparks, as well as a smattering of loners on their own corners.

The best can be found on SW 3rd & Stark, SW Alder & 10th, and the corner of Hawthorne & 12th in SE.

More details than you really want or need can be found here: http://foodcartsportland.com/

A few of my favorites are Sawasee (Thai) on Alder, La Jarochita (Mex) on 3rd, and the crepe cart on Hawthorne. Special recommendation - try the golden graham milkshake at the crepe cart; my fiance's fave.

It’s an
amazing
place, where
no one enjoys

life

but they
all want
to live
forever.

George Tsongas

Into the Wild

Every man needs adventure. I'm not talking about anything that requires you to sign a waiver. I mean Hemingway-esque adventure. At a time where it has become so easy to get just about anywhere on the planet, we have to work a bit harder to get off the map. Maybe that's why its so rewarding when we pull it off.

On a search for unspoiled wilderness in Arctic Norway.

“There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games.”

Ernest Hemingway

The Maiden Voyage

Welcome to post numero uno, where Portlandistan begins.

Ideas, thoughts, stories, here we go.