The Oregonian, September 15, 2005
http://www.oregonlive.com/metroeast/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/metro_east_news/112626382279320.xml&coll=7

Ex-Minnesotans put down roots
Thursday, September 15, 2005

A couple from farm country fall in love with Oregon on a visit and stay here; they buy an acre in Gresham and take up blogs

Drawn to the West: Robbie and Sara Bednark grew up in the farm country of central Minnesota. Their lives have turned more high-tech since they left their small hometowns.

Robbie and Sara started dating at Healy High School in Pierz, Minn. They stayed together at St. Cloud State University and got married during college. He studied computer science; she, political science and English.

They moved to Minneapolis for a job but were thinking of the West.

Sara always wanted to move away from Minnesota. "There's not much to do, and it's cold," she said.

They entertained moving to Baltimore, but the hectic pace of the East Coast turned them off.

Sara had never been to Oregon but liked the idea of living closer to the ocean. The couple visited for an extended weekend in 1996, and as soon as they saw the bridges over the Willamette River, they knew where they wanted to be.

Robbie landed a job within two weeks. An acre to call home: They first lived in a Beaverton apartment but yearned for land to could relax on. They found an acre in Gresham, not far from Boring. Today, Robbie commutes for an hour and 45 minutes on MAX to his IBM office in Beaverton. His site: Robbie started a Web page nine years ago; today, http://bednark.com is loaded with information about his life, including lists of favorite music, homes where he has lived and notes from books he has read.

"When I started it, I put things in there I wanted to know about other people," Robbie said.

The site is a labyrinth of links and information, with blog entries that even discuss why Robbie blogs.

Interests? They include meditation, spirituality and reading.

Favorite books? A long list includes Alan Lightman's "Einstein's Dreams" and Robert Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance."

There are also lists of concerts he has attended, and music and ideas that have influenced him.

He's received e-mails from strangers doing genealogy research.

Robbie said he gets hundreds of hits a month. "You really don't know if that's people or computer programs," he said. Her site: Three years ago, Sara started her site, http://sara.bednark.com, where she posts poetry. She has written essays and poems about heat and feeling lazy. The images on the site hint at her life, such as a Buddha that recollects a recent trip to Thailand and scattered crayons that might be used by the couple's 5-year-old son.

"I really don't even worry about if they read it," Sara said.

She has written children's stories about blind frogs and has started taking watercolor classes.

The Bednarks love to travel and try to make one trip home to Minnesota every year, plus one trip to someplace else. This fall, they're hoping to get to Disneyland.

-- Melissa L. Jones