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Thirsty Thursday: Portland Wandering

Rambler: Beth

Drink at Hand: Tablas Creek 2011 Mourvedre 

Thirsty Thursday here again, time to pour something yummy and make those weekend plans! And if you are thirsty and you like Rhone varietals, I highly recommend anything from Tablas Creek. Great winery outside Paso Robles. Now, back to the photos...

I had my final Portland State MBA residency weekend last weekend. Yay for a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel (I'll finish in December), but boo for no more required trips to Portland. I've had fun exploring the city and enjoying its quirkiness. Its an urban wilderness for me...a place I can wander and be in my own head without anyone bothering me, much like being out in an actual wilderness. 

I had a flight to catch at 10, but when I woke up and peeked outside, I wanted to go wander with camera in hand. It wasn't raining too much and the soft light was calling me. 

The view from my hotel room that coaxed me outside. 

I had about an hour, so I quickly grabbed the camera and headed out. I just wandered, slightly rushed with only an hour so I didn't have time to immerse myself in many scenes, but I found a few interesting sites. I only had the 40mm f/2.8 with me, and the fixed focal length forced me to work for the compositions I wanted. 

So, after finding food carts, a bubbler, Voodoo doughnuts, and people on bikes all in an hour (and not knowing that I'd find any of those things), I think I had a pretty successful Portland morning photo walk. Someday I'll get back to do a few more photo walkabouts in Portland. 

Visual Nicaragua

As a few of our readers know, I am plowing my way through an online MBA program at Portland State University. One of the cool aspects of this program is a series of study abroad experiences in which students sign up for a compressed 2-week course that takes place in a variety of foreign countries. The content and course descriptions are a little different for each experience, which allows a student the opportunity to pick an experience in a part of the world or with a subject matter focus in which they are interested. I was lucky enough to do two study abroad experiences this summer--one in Germany where I learned about product innovation, lean management, and green management; and one Nicaragua where I learned about micro-enterprise with a focus on micro-finance and renewable technologies. 

For the Nicaragua trip a crazy opportunity to create a couple of video documentaries fell into my lap. I couldn't pass up a chance to be embedded in a culture with the primary job of collecting photos and video footage of our experience. I've posted a few of my favorite photos in previous blog posts. So today I figured I'd share one of the videos I created. The purpose of this video is for use in a student info session for the study abroad program to attract future Portland State MBA'ers to the Nicaragua trip. This was my first time recording video footage and editing/putting together a video. I learned a ton...and want to do more! 

Note: This is a 9-minute video.

I created another video that will serve as part of an Indiegogo campaign in the coming months, so I'll wait until the campaign starts to share that video. Nicaragua is the second poorest country in the western hemisphere, so even just a little support in critical areas really makes a difference.  

For now I'm settled back into the day-to-day grind of the real world, but I would love to tell more stories for people who need to have their stories told. It was an incredible learning and growing experience.  

Thirsty Thursday: It Rains in Portland

Rambler: BethDrink at Hand: Ventana Pinot Noir

Thirsty Thursday is here again! Time to pour something yummy and make those weekend plans. Tonight I'll share some photos from a recent trip to Portland.

This fall I decided to be ambitious and get myself one of those MBA thingies. I signed up for the Portland State online MBA program. This program requires the online MBA'ers to participate in an on-campus residency weekend each quarter, so once a quarter I have to go to Portland. When we were here in August for orientation I fell in love with Portland...it was warm and sunny and green and just plain beautiful.

Then I came back at the end of October. It rained. A lot. The whole time. I finally squeezed a little bit of free time out of the busy weekend on the final day of the residency weekend and wanted to go wander with camera...but it was pouring down rain. I went anyway. I got soaked. Luckily my camera has a rain cover.

Here's what I came away with. I can tell I've been busy with school. My skills are rusty. But its always nice to have the opportunity to go wander around without any distractions, just me and my camera.

All in all, it wasn't so bad. I didn't melt. Portland is still a cool city, even in the rain.

Get out there and wander in the rain (or sunshine if you're lucky) this weekend!