When we first moved in, my neighbor (who is from New Orleans) found out I cook a lot of Cajun food. He asked us to come to an annual “Fait-Do-Do” (party) that he was holding at his house, where they cooked up a bunch of crawfish (Cajun Lobster :). I of course immediately agreed.

The next year they invited us again, so we brought some fried chicken and experienced a little “South” again – something we miss a lot.

This year, I asked if they were having the crawfish boil again, and was told that at this point, I was part of the family. So I made up a bunch of red beans and rice and we drove to the latest location, at James and Tracy’s home in Federal Way, Washington.

We had a LOT to eat, and got to catch up with all the families. Sure enough, we’ve been adopted in, and now we’re just one of the families that shows up with a ton of food to share.

It’s good to have good neighbors!

I was scheduled to speak at the “SQL Saturday” event yesterday in Portland, Oregon on the 6th so we all decided to go. It’s about a 3-hour drive from here, but if you leave early traffic isn’t too bad. I made some pancakes and strong coffee (is there any other kind?) and we drove down to Portland after breakfast.

I had about 60 or so folks in the room, and we had a really great time.

After I finished work, we drove to the city center. Portland was having its flower festival, where all the floats are made completely of flowers – there were floats from lots of companies and even countries – and there was even a “grocery store” (Fred Meyers) made from flowers – with a few vegetables!

After we saw the sights, we walked all over downtown and stopped for a Thai Ice Tea before having dinner at one of the best Italian places in town – Momma Mia’s. We had lasagna, chicken parm, and pomodoro, all family-style.