I do an awful lot of talking about this particular beverage but am by no means an aficionado. I brewed another IPA the other day with my buddy Steve. I think I have only brewed IPA’s except for the first brew I ever tried, a Hefeweizen. I have always known it was the world’s oldest alcoholic drink but I was surprised to find out yet another great historical fact. My Grandma Elenore is 93 years young and never ceases to amaze me. Seriously she is witty, intelligent and can still dance a jig. She moved to Alaska on her own with three or four kids back in the 60’s and built a grocery store. Her life really should be a book, but anyway back to the beer.

She got her license to sell liquor and had it shipped in from Seattle along with all the other goods she sold. So the other night I was with her and talking about my brewing in a nonchalant cool way and she just pulls out the “do you have a capper?” and motions the capping mechanism. I was like what, you brew too!?! She brewed it and gave it to her friends, and soldiers on leave ( I am sure that is a great story too). Anyway the thing that is great is that although it has been done through the ages it has the ability to relate across generations. I love that my grandma brewed beer. You too can get in on the action by going over to the Home Brew Outlet don’t mind the guy that works there, he was born that way. That’s what he said anyway.

On the 12th of this month my family and I are boarding a plane to Ethiopia to go help out with the orphanage we have been talking about on here lately. That means you are going to start seeing some changes here on the blog and I thought I would start to introduce you to a few of them.

This trip means that LJ Urban is going to be on a sort of hiatus. Still alive and passionate about making cities better but temporarily backing off of what has proven to be an incredibly hard real estate market. We own several properties across the central city that we intend to come back and develop when the market is delivering active buyers at reasonable prices. Today that is not the reality and this trip provides the perfect opportunity to take a break while things are slow, and sales prices are lower than the cost to build.

We are going to keep blogging here but from a whole different angle. Jessie and I are going to be doing our best to update the Blog from Ethiopia. So instead of hearing about city planning meetings and the epic saga that is green building, you will be hearing about a family in culture shock and the struggle to learn how to speak Amharic and find diapers by the truck load in rural Ethiopia. Our favorite friends over at EMRL are going to be working over the next few weeks on changing the feel of the blog so that its design is more in line with what you are going to be reading. For instance the red box at the top right of your screen is going to say something about how we are a development company on Sabbatical in Ethiopia and how you can come along and join us on our adventure. I am sure that we will loose some of our 25K visitors every month but such is life. I guess if we do a real good job of telling the story we might be able to keep everyone… You never know.

So changes will abound and you are as always invited to chime in and make suggestions as we journey onward and upward into a whole new world. Here we go!

Levi Benkert

Word is starting to get out that my wife and I are moving to Ethiopia to run the orphanage I keep mentioning here on the blog. We simply could not sit by while children were being killed over there without stepping up and doing something about it. So sometime in the next month we are going to be moving our family to Jinka Ethiopia for a Sabbatical.

But before you jump out of your seats… Don’t worry, LJ Urban is still going to keep rolling here with Micah at the helm but at a much slower pace. As I am sure you all know the market has slowed significantly and its a good time to slow things down and wait out the storm. I will be explaining all the details as well as keeping you all up to date on our progress as we wind up our American life here to embark on something completely new. As for the blog we are going to keep posting updates from Ethiopia and so it will be a sort of developer – orphanage blog for a while. Sound fun?

The thing with blogs is that there really are no rules and so we just kind of do what feels best and with this change in our lives it feels to good to keep blogging here. It’s been quite a ride for those of you who have been with LJ Urban since we started and I hope you will all stay tuned as we go on the biggest adventure yet!

In the mean time head over and check out the site for the orphanage and see what we are up to.

Levi Benkert

Many of you read my post a few weeks ago about the kids in Ethiopia and their situation. I have to say that I still think of them every day. I wonder if they are going to be ok and how things are going to work out. I hope that there is some way to set up an adoption plan for them and that families here in America and other countries are willing to step up and invite them into their homes. It’s odd to step outside your world and see another reality and another struggle up close. In some ways its like an irreversable change inside you that you can not shake.

Not trying to make a big point here just saying that its good to see outside your world now and again.

Also, exciting news…Vanessa who many of you know because she worked with LJ Urban for several years is on her way to the orphanage right now. She is going to be there for a month helping get things in order. I will update you when I hear more from her.

Levi Benkert

I get these every once in a while from my Grandma-in-law (is that a proper term?) in the mail. Usually they are about some random person who also likes old houses and fixed one up once, or who is a teacher (my wife was one pre-kids),  or who knew a person who knew a person who did something interesting to someone.  Anyway I think you get the point I am usually less than enthralled by the content of the clippings.  This one is interesting though, small house movement in Texas???  They don’t do anything small in Texas, or do they . . .

Micah Baginski

Its Saturday today and I woke up thinking about how I like weekends, don’t get me wrong weekdays are good to. I love what I get to do all day for my job, Mondays are my favorite because I get to start the week with a new energy and hit the ground running. But without weekends there would be no Mondays or good quality time with the kids or time to regather my thoughts.  All I am saying is that whoever thought out the 7 day calendar was pretty smart. And today is a good day.

Vanessa Dunne wanted to make more friends for her girls who were 2 and 4. So she decided to ask the the folks at Pipeworks (the Climbing Gym on 16th ST) if they would let her use their exercise room for free every week. Dance class was born. Now 3 years later Vanessa shares the class with two other moms and every Tuesday at 11 you can hear as many as 30 moms and kids in the exercise room singing and dancing their hearts out. What Vanessa did was start showing up and told a few friends, she didn’t need to spend a bunch of money or write a 10 chapter charter she just started small and built a big community. Communities that are based on simple small concepts that are understandable work best. It’s the ones that you have to explain for 20 minutes that don’t get anywhere.

UPDATE: They now meet on Mondays at the McKinley Park Library.

VASP Air

When I  was 14 my family traveled to Brazil to work with an orphanage for kids who used to live on the streets.  We flew out of Los Angeles on an airlines called VASP.  I remember the name because we could not get any of the airline employees to tell us what it stood for and when you are 14 and stuck on a flight for 12 hours something like not knowing the name of the airline can really get to you.  Thanks to Wikipedia I just figured it out (finally, whew what a mystery) it stands for Viação Aérea São Paulo.  Ok, now that we have that solved…

Anyway the name of the airline has nothing to do with why I am telling you this I just wanted to get you into the setting.  We got on our incredibly large airplane and started to look for our seats and before we even sat down you could tell something was different. People were all saying hello to you from nearly every row you passed, and some were even shaking your hand as you walked down the isle. Kids were enjoying themselves and spirits were high.  Now I have been on my share of international flights and this is not the usual case. People are not friendly when they know they are going to spend the next half a day crammed in a tin can with you, but the Brazillian people were different. 13 years later I can remember at least a half dozen of the people who were sitting near us and would most likely be able to pick them out of a crowd. You see these people wanted to get to know you and were thrilled to be able to spend time on an airplane just hanging out.  Brazil itself proved to be no less friendly, everywhere we went we met new people and everyone wanted to know your name. I truly long to go back not because it was the most beautiful place in the world although parts of it were but because the people are beautiful. That is the kind of people we should be striving to be, happy, friendly caring and most of all willing to say hello.

Levi Benkert

We just got word that the money you all pitched in to help out for Chala who runs the orphanage in Thailand helped avert a disaster. The debts were paid off in full and the 40 children will now be able to continue to have their caregiver safely at home with them. You all heard the call and stepped up and I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart.

We are going to stay in touch with the folks from The Charis Project there in Thailand and hope that things go more smoothly for them. They let us know that they are working on setting up a sponsor a child program with Homes of Hope International, I will make sure and let you know when that is up and running.  I know my family and I will be supporting a child.

Thank you!

Levi Benkert

Hey so here is a very cool family-centric idea. Levi and I spent the other evening (it was raining) with all of the kids in car driving around looking for something to do. We have done the bounce houses, the art museum, old sac, all of the malls, more old sac, all of the parks and so on. We were driving around saying, “Man why aren’t there more things to do with the kids, are we just not that creative?” We ended up going to the library which turned out to be pretty cool in fact, but we still left wondering why there aren’t more things to do crafted towards kids’ interests.

I am not here to answer that question but I did just run across this place that my friend has been to in Portland. Yeah I know, Portland shmortland, darn it why are they so cool!! Anyway the Air Play Cafe is a family-centric music venue that has kids’ sing-alongs in the day and mellow music at nights that you can take the kids to. You can have a beer while the kids eat cheerios and little fishies at the bar. I haven’t been yet but I plan to go when we are up there during Christmas. I’ll let you know.