Greetings from Portland!!

We touched down in Portland at around 11pm last night after enjoying a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. Before I start in on Portland, though, let me tell you about a special email I received during that wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. No, not another email from Coach K, but one from his assistant. She informed me that my sweet tickets to the Duke/Oregon game were going to be upgraded. On Saturday, I will now be sitting directly behind Duke's bench instead of across from it. Yes, this is ridiculously awesome news. I give thanks for Duke hoops, that's for sure.

So we landed, hopped on the light rail, and were in downtown Portland by around midnight. We had an impromptu dance party in our hotel room (the stereo has a port for the iPod, so I channeled my inner DJ) and I finally settled down and got to bed around 3am. I realize that 3am is a very late bedtime, but I just wasn't tired. Over the last week or two, I've noticed that my energy levels are incredibly high and they don't taper off like they used to. And they don't spike or crash like a sugar or caffeine high -- they are just UP from the minute I wake up. I force myself to sleep a solid 8 hours regardless of my bedtime, but man, sometimes it's hard to get sleepy. I'm taking my freakishly high energy levels as a sign of good things.

Our time in Portland has been awesome and chock full of activity. A little stroll along the Willamette River (was it cold? yes, it was), breakfast at the Three Degrees Restaurant (home of "The Elvis" -- french toast, bacon, peanut butter, and banana), browsing at the famous Powell's Bookstore, shopping at REI (the quintessential outdoorsy Oregon-esque retail store), lunch at Rogue Brewery (did I sip a bit of beer? yes, I did), and a star-sighting of NBA player Greg Oden.

We're resting and reloading back at the hotel now. Winston is happy we're back since he spent the whole day snoozing in solitude -- he'd much rather snooze while resting his head on one of our legs.

Living life in super-HDTV in Portland has been excellent, and I haven't seen a second of Duke basketball yet, so you know it's going to get even better. I'm feeling fantastic and I'm having a blast. I'm a lucky, lucky kid. And I have a cool new hat!