It's so close I can almost taste it. Less than 6 hours left in the work day, a podcast to record and post and a few hours of rest before we board a plane headed for the City of Sin and lights. Vegas, I'm coming for you and I'm prepared.

Passport, camera(s), money, clothes. Check, check, check, check. I've also added US roaming to my cell package. I'm more than ready.

The plan: don't really have one other than lots of walking, lots of pictures, a bit of video, food, drinks, a show and probably less than a few hours of sleep; I'm ready for it all.

Stay tuned for a few trip updates next week (if not sooner!)

I've been a bad blogger. I've been back for a week and still haven't posted the rest of the trip or even the pictures. Ooops.

I'll try to get to that at some point but I'll just let you all know that the Oregon Coast is fantastic, highly recommended and that I promise to see less sights and get more rest next year. It was a case of too much to see and too little time. We still had a fantastic time but we've been back since Monday afternoon and life hasn't slowed enough to let me rest. Still, it was fantastic and I urge anyone who's vaguely interested to go. You will NOT be disappointed.

I'm seen a couple of interesting films this week including a really interesting and very good documentary on fonts called "Helvetica" and yesterday I saw the American classic "Killer of Sheep" which has been haunting me since I left the theater. Until this point I'd very rarely seen a film that afterwards I knew was a classic and why until I saw this. Breathtaking.

Enough of that now. I have a bunch of work to get done before going home and I'd like to get out of here on time. I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend and until my next post, enjoy this week's KFF.

D and I headed off at 3:30AM from Vancouver. Pitch black out but the dead roads helped quicken the speed of our travel. By 4AM we'd arrived at the border and by 6AM we were driving, along with rush hour traffic, through Seattle. We made a bit of a wrong turn but ended up safe and sound, and not lost on the I5. Stopped outside of Tacoma for breakfast. Nothing else but McDonald's was open. Ugh. It wasn't bad but the coffee was awful. Thankfully, we spotted an open Starbucks across the parkade. French vanilla caramel machiado. BRILLIANT.

Driving speeds picked up as we exited the suburbs and by 10:30 we were outside of Portland. Again, no stopping in Portland (no Powell's! :( ) but we did stop just outside of of Portland for fuel, smokes and more coffee!

Drove through Corvallis. Wished I could have stopped because it looked absolutely charming. After what seemed like an eternity of mountains and trees, we finally saw the ocean, arriving in Newport at about 12:30. Checked in, did some shopping (new running shoes. YEY!), checked out the Historic Bayfront and then walked on the beautiful beach for a few hours. Sand as soft as flour. AMAZING.

Next on the list: some dinner, watching the sun set, hitting the pool and hot tub and getting a good night sleep to see more of the local sights tomorrow!

This is the view of the Ocean from our hotel room. Well worth every penny.

Loads more pictures on Flickr and lots more to be added over the next three days!

D and I are finally taking a vacation. We've been together nearly 9 years and this is only the 3rd trip we've ever taken and I'm not sure it really qualifies as a vacation but, it should be fun. I've taken tomorrow off which gives us a nice 4 day long weekend. We're driving out to Newport, Oregon tomorrow morning, spending 2 nights and then stopping over somewhere in Seattle on Sunday night. I'm *very* excited and plan to take loads of pictures. Not to worry, I'll be posting everything along the way!

In other unrelated news, a few weeks ago I mentioned that I'd done my film presentation and that I thought it went well. Yesterday I got back the paper that went with the presentation and I nearly fell off my chair. Not only did I get a perfect score on the presentation, I also nailed the essay with an A+. That was exciting but not nearly as exciting as this next bit. The prof has asked that I fix up the 'rough spots' and give him a clean copy for his files and he's suggested that I look at submitting it for publication in an online film journal out of the University of Victoria.

WOW. WOW. WOW.

This is the greatest thing that ever could have happened. I don't want to get ahead of myself but it would be AWESOME to be published in a film journal.

Because I'm not around tomorrow, I'm posting the KFF a day early. I hope you all enjoy. Good weekend to everyone and an extra good one for my BC buddies who get a long weekend!