I first met Mike back in 1994 on about my 4th day in Portland OR, USA. He was visiting his friend Andy and we chatted for a couple of hours over a pint or two. A year later Mike decided he wanted to move to Portland, so he got my address from Andy and first shipped all his stuff to me (without actually telling me) and then a week later showed up on my door after driving half way across the USA. "I'm Mike" he said. "Aha, so this must be your box?" I replied. 2 hours later we were in a pub and settling into a friendship that basically spanned good music & terrible movies. Mike usually won out on both counts, always knowing about the new British bands before I did, and always recommending an even funnier B-movie then I could. For a while we had movie nights to see how many bad movies we could watch back to back - 3 was usually the limit. We were briefly in a band together, and I always loved the songs he wrote - 'Happy Valley" and "Metamucil Man" being two favorites that I still find myself singing 15 years later.

God bless my friend, you will be missed.

Its amazingly beautiful countryside out here. You can see the mountains in the background, and how green it is around the canal. Whats jarring is how you have palatial McMansions right alongside some of the worst poverty stricken living conditions - people living in mobile homes dumped here in maybe the 50's and unmaintained ever since, so basically falling apart old wooden sheds.