This is a high school I sometimes walk past when on my way to Division or Hawthorne.
This is a bizarre installation on Lincoln. It is a bit too obvious to be a geocache.
This is a smoke shack in town. I wonder if someone is having fun with the sign or if cocaine means something different from when I was a kid.
Last weekend, this is where I biked to. There were people making out, people in a far-off drum circle, a crazy old lady with a harmonica, a pair of young Italian guys playing bocce ball, and lots of people walking their dogs.
The reservoir has funny little processing buildings that look like a combination between a castle and a pirate ship.
And this is what I munched on:
One of the neighbor cats is getting very friendly. He keeps climbing up to the outside windows. Keep in mind that these are not at ground level. With the added height of the basement and its windows, these particular window ledges are about 6 feet from the ground.
Ebenezer says hi. He looks over the neighbor cats when they’re hanging out outside the kitchen.
That’s all for now.
Every once in a while, it occurs to me that I live about a mile south of a volcano. Or, as a neighbor says, at least half-a-million-dollars south of the volcano. Housing prices up there can get crazy because Mt. Tabor is a rather nice park. Fortunately for housing prices and my own personal safety, it is an extinct volcano. My life won’t turn into a crappy disaster movie any time soon. Or if it does, it will be because of an earthquake or zombie uprising or something–not a volcano disaster.
I guess Portland is one of the few US cities (”one of two major cities” according to Wikipedia) to have an extinct volcano within city limits. The other city is Bend, also in Oregon.
I might just fix my bicycle and head up to the volcano today.
BrianEnigma: Oregon has crappy butter geometry.
I tweeted that earlier tonight and expect some amount of confusion. Sticks of butter across the country all have the same volume. You go to the store, you buy 16oz of butter, and you get four sticks of 4oz. In the rest of the country, the sticks are long and skinny. Here, it seems that some sort of legislation is in place to enforce the maximum annoyance factor possible because the sticks are short and stubby.
“Well, what does it matter? You’re still getting the same amount of butter, right?”
It matters because all butter dishes seem to be specifically engineered for the long, skinny sticks. Case in point: tonight (although it has happened a half-dozen times in the past), I lifted the cover of the butter dish to get at the buttery goodness contained within–but it was gone! All used up? The buttery equivalent of the hamburgular? Though… why was the cover more heavy than usual? *splat* The butter, which being taller than “regular” sticks, had melted itself to the cover and lifting it at an angle had provided just enough jostling for it to become free. And so it hit the counter.
Damn our butter geometry. And damn the lack of butter dishes to accommodate our fat, stubby butter sticks.
So I picked up Little Brother and Cathy’s Key last week. I guess this is where I get to be a Young Adult for a little while. I have to admit to being a little sheepish at shopping in the Young Adult section of the store. I started reading Little Brother, and even at my glacially slow reading rate, am about halfway through.
The book itself is quite scary in a psychological what-if way. If I had to use one word to describe it so far, it would be “claustrophobic.” It starts with some teenage friends living in San Francisco when a terrorist attack occurs. The Department of Fatherland Homeland Security swoops in and pretty much turns the city into a military state indefinitely, constantly chiseling away at people’s liberties–and not in an exaggerated way, either, but in a realistic step-by-step frog-in-boiling-water fashion. The teen and friends start doing things to subvert the system. The most scary thing about the book is that it is all quite possible. The DHS stuff is totally believable. The stuff the kids do is perfectly accurate given current technology (heck, the character even has an Instructables account with the projects.) Well, technically accurate (from what I’ve read so far), except for the remote writing of RFID chips. The fictitious version of Linux described in the book is becoming reality (ParanoidLinux.) The whole thing just solidifies more and more in my mind how much of a genius and luminary Cory Doctorow is.
Today was a lovely day. In fact, the wonderful weather stretched well into the evening. I pulled out a camp chair, and made myself a not-mint-julip [more information further down], and finished off another few chapters in the front lawn. I have to say that I have a love/hate relationship with the neighbor Siamese cat. He’s cute and friendly and lovable. He’s chatty. He’s also pushy and prissy and selfish. He thinks he owns you. He’s actually scared off some of the other neighborhood cats, in an attempt to horde the attention. (Fortunately, they’re starting to take a stand and fight back.) He jumped up on my lap and constantly fought the book for attention.
Oh, the not-a-mint-julip? I invented it over the weekend when I wanted a mint julip, but did not want the hammered-ness that comes with the four shots that typically comprise one. I swapped out three of the shots for about an equal amount of filler:
* Put 8-10 mint leaves in the bottom of a lowball/old-fashioned glass
* Add 1 tsp simple syrup[1] (or 2-3 tsp, if you’re Kim)
* Muddle it
* Add 3-4 ice cubes
* Add 1oz Maker’s Mark
* Add ~3oz of club soda
* Garnish with a mint sprig
* Enjoy
[1] Simple syrup, in case you do not already know: boil 1 cup water, remove from heat, add 2 cups sugar, stir until dissolved, let cool completely. Can be refrigerated in a clean glass jar.
I can’t believe that I forgot to blog about Ignite Portland 3. It is being held on June 18th at the Bagdad Theater again. The lineup looks something like this:
5:30 Doors Open
6:00 Registration & Networking
7:00 Presentations Wave 1
* What is Ignite?
* How to buy a car for under $1,000 - Kevin Fox
* Making Sense of Carbon Offsets - Ewan O’Leary
* The Evolution of our Social Brains - Jenny Andrews
* Make Cranes, Not War - Nedra Rezinas
* Boiling Water in Five Easy Steps - Vanessa Holfeltz
* Cup Noodle: Innovation, Inspiration and Manga - Jason Grigsby
7:45 Break and Networking
8:10 Door Prizes
8:15 Presentations Wave 2
* Dare to Go Where You Fear - Liz Kimmerly
* Fracking robots, dude! - Sharon Greenfield
* The Consumer and the Egg: Negotiating Ecolabels - Michele Knaus
* How To Run a Startup and Not Lose Your Mind - Eva Schweber
* Talking Trash - Meredith Sorensen
* A Short Course On How to Ride Freight Trains - Gerry Van Zandt
* Don’t get mad, make a video! - Phillip Kerman
8:50 Networking
9:30 Go Home! (or adjourn to the bar for further networking)
I believe that the “presale” tickets (admission is free, but there was a way to reserve a seat) are gone, but general admission is still available on a first-come-first-served basis.
I’ll be getting out of work an hour or two early that day, then walking or taking the #14, depending on the weather.
I have seen several reference to several articles on those berries that do hallucinogenic things to your tastebuds, but this New York Times article, pointed to by Avatrix makes mention of an upcoming restaurant in Portland. I am absolutely going to have to check this place out for two reasons. First, they are developing drinks based on the berry. Second, the restaurant will have the name Beaker & Flask.
Oh, hey, and it already has a website with a blog, and it’ll be located at 7th and Sandy. Excellent!
As I mentioned before, I find myself the owner of a book entitled Historic Photos of Portland. I guess they have a whole series with various cities in the US. I’ve been meaning to pour through it for the past few weeks, but between busy weeks and busy weekends, I never had the time. The one time I did have a few moments, I couldn’t find it! (Kim had carried it away to read for herself!)
First, I was a little surprised when I entered it into my bookkeeping system (yes, I catalog all of my books) and found it sat alongside another book I own from the very same author! I had picked up Progressive Portland - On The Move from Powell’s years ago, read through it, then forgot I owned it. The layout is very similar to the Then and Now post I made last month. It was probably subconsciously inspired by the book’s format. This new book skips the then-and-now format and shows full-page pictures of how Portland used to look
At any rate, it looks like this author (Donald R. Nelson) scours the various archives around Portland for old photos and makes amazing picture books from them. Historic Photos of Portland is no exception.
The book is split into chapters by time period:
I definitely have to say that the more visually interesting chapters are the first–the furthest back in time. For the most part, though, they are also the most “detached.” The photos seem like they could have been taken anywhere because there are few landmarks (natural or man-made) that anchor the pictures to something known in the modern world us Portlanders live in. The more modern photos have recognizable locations, but also a more mundane quality to them–mainly because the objects, architecture, and clothing are not terribly foreign. We’ve all seen classic 50s cars and land-boat 70s gas guzzlers. Asphalt roads and concrete buildings are pretty standard.
Anyway, starting with the eldest photos, the city really isn’t recognizable as any sort of metropolis. It pretty much consisted of what’s now downtown, but the layout was mostly Victorian mansions on city-block-sized yards. We have a rather green downtown today, as far as cities go, but back then, it was almost nothing but green! There were dirt streets, horse-drawn carriages, well-dressed men (very few pictures of women aside from a shopkeeper or two–I guess they were all at home doing womanly things), and even a (Steel) bridge! I didn’t realize it, but Skidmore fountain was built in 1888! The first of many documented floods was in 1894–the water level went about half-way up the ground floor of buildings.
The early 1900s brought more people and more commerce. There’s a great photo of the streetcar in 1904 that’s similar to one I’ve seen elsewhere (perhaps a historic photo on the bus or streetcar?) Typically, when I think of streetcars, I think of busy streets, tall buildings, and people around. In these photos, it’s just a streetcar on a pair of rails that stretch off toward the horizon. There are miles of fields without a single building in sight. The only visible human is the streetcar operator. That seems to me like a very lonely streetcar. This era brings more ships and a few cobblestone roads.
In the roaring 20s and great depression, the city becomes a bit more recognizable. There’s a great picture of “the brand new Burnside bridge!” I used to walk that all the time and it looks the same then as it does now (well, “now” being about a year ago–it’s been under construction/repair for a while.) There’s a photo of the St. John’s bridge as it’s under construction. The suspension cables are all there, dangling down, but they are not attached to any sort of deck or road. It’s kind of freaky looking!
The 40s through 70s is pretty much what you would expect it to be. I’d really like to say something extra about it, but none of the photos struck me as anything worthy of special mention.
Overall, it’s a really nifty book. I’ve been craving information about the history of Portland recently and this satisfies a good chunk of that. I have to say that I was a tiny bit disappointed that it was primarily a picture book–the text in it amounted to captions and a few paragraphs starting each chapter–but I think that whole internet thing of not being able to browse it first caused me to set my expectations a little incorrectly. To further my knowledge of Portland history, I think that next time I’m at Powell’s I will see if I can find something with a little more text and stories. Regardless, the pictures are a great taste and are easy to quickly show off to friends and family. It’s a great book and will have a heartfelt home on our coffee table!
This weekend in dark fashion and gothic bellydance! Don’t forget!
http://www.myspace.com/la_mode_macabre
http://www.myspace.com/eastmeetswestpdx
I mention partly because they’ll be really fun and partly because the illustrious Kim Sakkara will be vending/showing at these events.
This is another catch-up post to cover all sorts of topics from the past week.
Last night, I had an odd dream in which I somehow lost a cadaver. I have no idea why I had one. I might have been a mortician or transporting it or merely keeping an eye on it for someone. (Wait–what? Keeping an eye on it? Why? In case it walks away?!) I also have no idea how one could lose a lifeless body. But I did.
I pretty much have to put the blame on this week’s This American Life: Mistakes Were Made. It was all about a haphazardly run cryogenics company in the 60s that made a bunch of choices that might have seemed good at the time, but looking back were pretty poor.
Extra points to TAL for using NIN’s Ghosts as incidental music.
Saturday was the final evening performance of the Too Much Coffee Man Opera. Although I have seen plays and concerts in Portland, I had never actually seen anything in the Performing Arts Center. Presumably, it contains some pretty large halls, but it also holds a number of smaller ones. The show was in a room that could probably seat about 100-150. There were a half-dozen or so tables up front and conventional theater seating in the back.
The opera itself was quite fun. It was campy and low budget, yes, but that’s sort of the point! The adventures of TMCM and Espresso Boy, who both fall in love with the coffee shop barista, but she runs off to be a superhero and marry the leader of the evil Martians (but she convinced him to be good.) In the end, the Earth is destroyed but the coffee is saved.
Kim and I met up with Julian at Imbibe on Sunday (or was it Friday? It was some time over the weekend.) I used to really like Imbibe, but something changed recently. Last October they got sued by the RIAA because a live band played a cover without approval. I don’t know if that’s the reason or if it’s under new management or what. They slimmed down the menu, lowered the quality of the food and raised the prices. My $15 olive and cheese plate (which was formerly $10 or $12) was pretty skimpy (it used to be huge.) The other food our table got wasn’t particularly good for the price, either.
The one good thing I pulled away from that evening was the Gotan Project, which was playing on CD between bands. I believe the genre is called “tango fusion.” Basically, I’m a sucker for a good accordion in a modern song.
My bus transfers! Let me show you them! (Oh, speaking of this phrase, I got an email newsletter from Nintendo today about some new Pokemon game. The ALT text for the main image was “Let Me Show You Them!”)
 |
 |
That’s the past month or so of bus tickets–at least, the ones that didn’t get thrown away. I ride the bus a lot, but not nearly enough to make a monthly pass worth the cost.
On the right there is the flowchart that was taped to my door today. We’re in a crunch to get something out next week and I kept getting pestered with inconsequential requests this morning. I’d submit it to PassiveAggressiveNotes.com, except I already have something in their queue.
I now have a copy of Historic Photos of Portland (sparked off by my “then and now” post), but have yet to really sit down and really give it the time it deserves. Initial impressions are that it’s a high quality book with some great pictures. I’ll talk about it in more detail in the next couple of days. (This weekend was much more busy than expected.)
Bad Behavior has blocked 1021 access attempts in the last 7 days.
Akismet has caught 1,913 spam messages.
RSS Feed