Latest news

For the last 9 months John and I have been remodeling a manufactured home for us to move into. The home is located on my mom's property, where Biff grew up. There are three living quarters on this site and Jesse is living in the 3rd site when he's in town.

Our Battle Ground house is currently for sale. It's a great location but needs some TLC. Great starter home for young family.

We just got connected so I hope to stay more current than I have in the past.

I hope everyone is doing well. Please keep in touch. We hope things will settle down as the seasons change.

What a long strange trip...

It's been way to long. I hope to keep this more updated than I have in the past. Wish me luck with that.
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I made it back home

Well I made it home. My luggage wasn’t so lucky. I can’t say that the airline lost my luggage because they knew where it was. It was about 12 hours behind me, still in Chicago.

So my adventure began at 7:48am on Sunday Oct 8. The train leaves Esbjerg, Denmark for 11:30am Copenhagen Main Station; transfer to Airport (Kastrup) train another 45 minutes.
Farwell Denmark one hour later then scheduled at 4:45pm Oct 8. Nine hours in the air I arrive at O’Hare Airport, Chicago terminal 5. Need to go thru US Customs. Which means go thru and ID check, collect your baggage and go thru another ID check and put your luggage on another conveyor belt to your connecting flight. Now that my luggage was on its journey back to mine; I now need to get on another train and head to terminal 1 and get thru security in about 30 minutes. No Problem. Sure enough, this time they want to look at my computer and open it and touch it. Of all the times a girl wants here Apple touched now was not it. I’ve got a plane to catch. I arrive at PDX at 11pm Sunday Oct 8th, and my luggage arrived at my doorstep 3pm Monday Oct 9th.

I had a great adventure; and if it wasn’t for the support, and kindness of everyone I would not have been able to be part of this great experience. Thanks

My last Saturday in Esbjerg

My last Saturday in Esberg and Business Academy West faculty member Lillian Wiese welcomed me into her home with her family. We had a lovely dinner of lamb, potatoes and vegetables; with wine and conversation with her husband Clouse and fellow exchange partner Ole Højgaard Pedersen. It was truly a wonderful way to complete my visit.

Tuesday back at school

This is a picture with Michael Lundorff-Hansen, my host. Bent Pedersen who will be coming to Oregon and working with the CIS program and Ole Pedersen who will also be coming to Oregon and working with the MM program.

Monday car touring the countryside

We also went to a popular beach area. And I had to take a picture of the beautiful rainbow.

Monday went to Odense

Odense is the birthplace of Han Christian Anderson. It is also the 3rd largest city in Denmark. I was busy and beautiful. I wish we could have spent more time here. But the rain really dampened our energy.

Pictures from the weekend.

This weekend I woke up to thunder and rainstorms. I thought my day was ruined. But like a true pacific northwestern. Just put a hat and and get going. I’m so glad I did. The sun came out and it was a beautiful day. I walked down the coast about 2.5 miles to the Menesket ved Havet (Men Meets Sea) four 19foot tall men staring out to sea. I also went to the aquarium. It was a lovely day.

Eventful Friday

Well, I'm not exactly sure what's going on but... It's Friday and the city square is busy with activity.

I just happened to be in the right place I guess. Bagpipes started playing and making thier way thru the crowd to the city center. They were great. Then I hear another band coming from the other direction. I think it's the Esbjerg Police Band. For a moment I think that the Scotts and the Danes are going to go at it. They meet in the center and took a break; drink some beer of course, and then play some songs together. It was lovely. They all leave and I hear another band in the strip, it's a small 5 piece German band. Later I hear another band it sounds like a Ragtime band. That's not all, a crowd has gathered around a group of Irish/Country Line Dancers going at Whisky in a Jar. It's all so International. Just needed some Hip Hop.

It's been a very eventful day. I lectured to about 25 students from noon-3pm and walked home. Got a little lost, but figured how lost can I get. As Captain Ron says, “if you get lost just pull in and ask for directions” I didn’t have to do that I had an good idea where I was going. I was tired when I finally got to my hotel room. I'm trying to say up late so that I can sleep thru the night.

QT movie

www.sean-paul.com/biff/
Here is the address to the directory I’m using to store video files.
Sorry for the lame file name.
Sequence 2.mov is a 37 second QT movie showing you where I am working in Denmark. For those of you have seen any of my Cascade In-Service work, you will be familiar with my technique.

I want to thank Seanpaul for his support.
Let me know how this works.

Jet lag setting in

Well, jet lag has started to set in. I woke up about 1AM and was up until about 4-5ish. I watched "40 Year Old Virgin" and surfed the TV channels and played some games online. I could have done some PCC work, but didn't. Woke up to the sand blasting outside my window. The hotel where I am staying is under renovation, so between 8am and 4pm work is being done. I ended up sleeping on and off till about 11:30, when I couldn’t take it anymore.

Walked around the main shopping strip in town and got a pizza bread. It was very good, and easy to eat while I toured the strip which was about 15 blocks. As I walked back to the city center, I videotaped my walk. I tried to keep it steady with out being obvious that I was taping. I’ll capture it tomorrow at school.

The weather was typical coastal weather. Cool, light breeze and cloudy; Just enough for a light jacket.

I stopped in the city center and had a beer to celebrate my shopping bargains. Next to me some folks had 3 standard poodles. You can’t see the 3rd one in this picture but it’s another white one. Made me think about Miss Brandy B and Violet.

John told me that they finally started eating again, but still quiz him about when I’ll return.

First official dinner

Went to dinner with the head master and other faculty members. The other woman is from Poland and teaches business and accounting. The man next to her teaches English, he gave us a quick evening tour after dinner. The next man is Mikael who teaches video, he came to Oregon last fall. Then me, then Michael who teaches in MM. He has been my primary host; and then the head master, Karsten Rieder. Everyone was very nice. We had Bakskuld, which was a salty smoked flat fish with a lot of bones. It took patience and talent to eat it. It was very good.

Here is the city center by day and night

My hotel is in the city square. If the hotel wasn't under renovation I could see this statue from my room. The weather has been great. In fact I walked home from school today, about 2.8 kilometers (you do the math) and it took about 40 minutes dragging my suitcase with all my technology. I've been taking a cab in the AM. It's about 79 kroner for a taxi one way.

I made a short 37-second video today, but I'm not sure how to include video. So I'll work on that.

The land is really beautiful and the people are so kind it's almost overwhelming. I've only seen one policeman, and the bikes parked along side of the buildings were all unlocked; and not a SUV in site.

I have arrived in Denmark

Well I made it. WOW, what a trip. I would advise not to travel alone. Or to pack lighter then I did.

I had my first class this morning, and it seemed to go great.

I did try to burn down the hotel this morning. I put my curling iron plug-in adaptor on but forgot to put the transformer on it, details, details. It literally explode the iron and the exposed wires melted the carpet. Thank god the hotel is under renovation and they will be replacing the carpet I'm hoping they don't notice.

I go to an official dinner tonight. I hope I don’t make fool of myself.

I am working with a PC, you should all be very proud of me. I haven't melted down.

This has been an incredible opportunity.

I'll write more tomorrow.