my fabulous blog

It's not every weekend that you have the opportunity to show one of the great cities of the world to people who have never been there. Last weekend another family and mine had fun showing the Karki family from Nepal around the city.

How did this all happen? In a sense it began more than 10 years ago when the Karki family decided to take in its first American student through the External Studies Program run by Pitzer College. This first student was our daughter, Amanda. She spent several months living with them in their home as a part of their family, learned to speak Nepali, worked in the fields alongside them, and ate at their table. She also traveled with other American students to Royal Chitwan park where they were charged by a rhino and up into the mountains where they were hosted by Sherpa families. When she returned, she talked about one of the girls in the family who didn't want to follow the usual path for young Nepali girls - marriage at age 13 or 14 and children soon to follow. Meena, naturally independent, was meeting women who would be her role models.

Seven other American sisters followed over the next years. Having met several of them in the last year, I can tell you that they are extraordinary women. One, Svea Closser from Marquette, Michigan, spent the whole year in Nepal and was visited by her parents around Christmas. Sally and Bruce Closser were the ones to bring Meena to the US to spend a year in the high school where Sally was a counselor. The Clossers continued to sponsor Meena with the help of several organizations in the Marquette community and numerous individuals from all over the US, and in May of 2006 she graduated with a degree in nursing from Northern Michigan University.

One of Meena's dreams was to have her parents come to Marquette to see her graduation. They began the Visa application process in the early spring of 2006, but ran into problems when the US embassy closed down during the disturbances in the capital. They finally received 5 year multiple entry Visas a day before graduation, too late to make it for the ceremony. They did arrive a week or so later, thanks to the Marquette community. The local newspaper carried an article about their visit.

When Tobi and Talia Inlender were in Marquette for Meena's graduation (Talia was one of Meena's American sisters), we decided that we would invite the family to San Francisco when they were visiting. We set a date, got the tickets, decided where we would all stay, and what we might so. All we had to do was wait for the date to roll around!

Dave is the kind of guy who seems really quiet at first, but when you get to know him you really appreciate his many talents and terrific sense of humor. He's pretty new to the Portland area, too, but he knows an amazing amount about the city. I guess that's the travel agent in him - always finding the cool things to do in a destination! This week we went to witness a "Great day in hot dog history" a few blocks from our Portland office, and I took this picture of Dave alongside the world's longest hot dog and bun - it's that long light brown thing at the back of the table under the photo!


One of Dave's favorite destinations on this planet is Hawaii. He's been blogging like crazy and has a number of posts related to Hawaii, including his favorite luxury Big Island Hawaii Hotels, luxury Hawaii spa vacations, favorite luxury Maui hotels, and even the Hawaii climate! His blogs are getting a lot of readership - and he's even getting fan mail! Way to go, Dave!

Three of the gang (Arletta, Ann and Jared) at TheBigDay had birthdays the 27th of May. Needless to say, we decided to have a party at our regular weekly meeting, which gives me the perfect opportunity to begin to introduce anyone out there who reads this to the cast of characters at the office and give you links to their blogs so you can find out more about them.

First up is Jared, our resident tech dude who hails from the Rochester, New York, vicinity. As you can see, Jared has no fear of taking a dive into a bit of dessert!

Jared is pretty new to the Portland area and has been exploring Oregon in his spare time. He moved out here from back east with a couple of his friends and found a job with us pretty soon thereafter! We're happy to have him around to bug when something is amiss tech-wise.