Jake's Famous Crawfish

So I'm back from Portland and the sun was shining and it is certainly starting to feel like home and I don't even live there yet. On the long plane ride back east there isn't much else to do besides maybe catching up on some reading and just thinking. I thought abbout how comfortable I felt while in Oregon and how sometimes (for long periods on end) I would not be conscious of where I was and I just felt at home. It made me wonder if home was place or is something more like a feeling.
Mary Kay ended the day by taking Sim & I to "Jake's Famous Crawfish", a charming turn of the century seafood restaurant in downtown Portland. It had to be one of the most pleasant evenings that I have had in a very long time and it was nice to sit and catch my breath in the midst of all that is going on around me these days. Thanks for the warm welcome to Portland and for making us feel at home.

I read that China's President Hu Jintao will be visiting the United States for the first time next week. What I found especially peculiar was that instead of making the White House his first stop (as most foreign heads of state might do), he is in fact headed to the pacific north west . He is visiting Seattle and will have dinner with Bill Gates and other influencial politicians and business people before starting his diplomatic tour. I was unclear on what to read into that except of course that somehow the richest man in the world had eclipsed the attention of this Chinese official. Well I sure hope he enjoys that part of the country as much as I just did.