Blog by Rich

So far this flight is on time, and Joyce's AMAZING move to get me the free upgrade to first class (see post on 12/19) has already saved me buku time at check-in.

My flight tomorrow was canceled, and there were NO flights from PDX or any nearby airports to Chicago, but my AMAZING bride got them to put me in first class on a flight via Philly. I'm totally doing a happy dance over that, and now praying (quite earnestly) that they don't cancel that flight as the...

Today I'm working out of The Cube Gallery: http://theCubeGallery.com

My brother and his wife run it as a sideline and as a place to sell their fine art. Right now my brother's photography is on display.

The little building used to be the dentistry office for the father of Doc Severenson, thus the band...

My brother and one of his Weimaraners watch the snow fall.

Though I'm still bummed tonight and tomorrow have been my first two cancellations due to weather that I can remember in 13 years of doing this full-time, I did have a great time reconnecting with Ben Crisman ( MWF '05) and Brandon Langeland ( MWF '0?-'08).

Ben's sister, Katie, met with me to plan a ...

Another innovative idea: my brother and his wife use logs made of coffee bean husks. They burn for hours with a very nice aroma.

Okay, so my award-winning brother takes better pictures:

My brother and sister-in-law run an award-winning company called Lightbourne that creates book and CD covers and interiors as well as doing web site and ad design.

To get more exercise they bought a stationary bike with handles that could be adjusted to hold their laptop and a keyboard. They switch ...

Performance of Views of the Manger have been canceled for tonight and tomorrow night due to snow falling on ice. I heard from a friend that there are only about five snow plows in the whole Portland metro area!

The good news is that we've already rescheduled performances for January: RichDrama.com/I...

We're beginning our descent into Portland.

I've been blessed to visit 24 nations and 49 states, and I still think this Oregon, where I started, is among the most beautiful places on earth.

Annapolis was only 8 miles from where we performed, so we had lunch there. There was a group of Singles on Sailboats that packed out the largest room of our restaurant, so it makes you wonder how many people sail in total!

Annapolis was our nation's capitol (and remains the capitol of MD). Their Sta...

Here you can see the masts of the sailboats in the distance.

After tonight's performance, Julie Gallimore (pictured here) bought a copy of Running the Race (available at http://RichDrama.com/BookStore). Her father, Richard E. Howell, won the gold medal in swimming for the 4x200m freestyle relay at the Paris Olympics in 1924. He died before Chariots of Fire, w...

We're going to hang out with Joyce's family down here before our performance near Annapolis on Sunday: http://RichDrama.com/Itinerary

We're experiencing another perk at Manhattan Plaza ( http://RichDrama.com/MP ): The tree lighting cereony. We're singing Christmas carols with The Manhattan Brass Quintent. They've been doing this for the past 15 years.

We were delighted that they focused on carols proclaiming the birth of Christ.

I went out for a morning run to find people warming up for The Jingle Bell Jog right outside my hotel. So I ran it. I've been training to play Eric Liddell in the spring for the dramatizations we'll add to our documentary: http://RichDrama.com/OlympicHeroinChina

But I over-estimated what kind of shap...

From Clarksville, TN

What an amazing place I found Clarksville to be. I often create albums separate from this blog when I visit foreign cities because I find myself taking so many photos. This is the first US city for which I've created a separate album. It's that picturesque. A lot of the photos ar...

From Clarksville, TN

I had performances in Clarksville, TN, but I got to fly into Nashville, so I drove through Downtown to reminisce.

For my first visit I parked in this parking lot before hitting the town. It was on one of my first nation-wide tours and we'd driven a long way that day. My friend, S...

James, the Movie!  My wife,  Joyce, has been leading a Bible study on the Book of James over the last few months.  We're closing with a review of the book, including James the Movie, which I performed when I was a student at George Fox College ( http://GeorgeFox.edu ).