Monthly Archive for April, 2008Page 2 of 3

Something in the muddy water

Published
by
adamd
on April 14, 2008
in culture and food and drink
. 4 Comments

There’s something about the hot, muddy water brew in Portland. It attracts even non-coffee drinkers. What is so magnetic about the many cafes and coffee shops around town?

It may be about our love of the drink, sure. Seattle is considered the coffee capital, but we have held our own. Legendary Stumptown Coffee had seven Portland locations before expanding to Seattle. And what city other than Portland could produce a Rails-powered, award-winning coffee tasting site?

There are plenty of cocoa and tea orders to show it goes beyond the love of coffee. It gets to the core of what makes Portland: community. We go to our neighborhood coffee shop because it’s our neighborhood coffee shop. We see friends, we enjoy the company of strangers, and we remember that we live in a city where people are valued.

So, yes, there is something in the muddy water, whether it’s from the Columbia to the north, the Willamette down the middle, or the brew from the shop around the corner. Whatever it is that keeps us coming together, I hope it never goes away, because when it comes to community, there’s no place like Portland.

Portland is Bicycling and Bicycling is Portland

Published
by
pdxbob
on April 14, 2008
in culture, entertainment, events, outdoors and portland is awesome
. 1 Comment

Do you think Portlanders like to ride bicycles? That’s a rhetorical question. Of course we do! The Springwater Corridor running along the east riverbank and then east through Johnson Creek is one of the best paved foot and pedal paths I’ve seen anywhere. If you like off-road, in Forest Park is the eleven-mile long Leif Erikson Drive,  a wide dirt and gravel swath that had originally been cleared for a earlier twentieth-century housing development (that fortunately fell through).

Then there are the organizations and online sites! The center of the online universe for Portland bicycling is BikePortland.org, a site which the founder, Jonathan Maus, dedicates himself to full-time. That’s where I get all of the latest news covering legislation, new bike rules, accidents, and anything else related to this greenest of all travel modes. There are also awesome (yes, they deserve that hype) organized bike trips throughout the year. A relatively new organization, ORBike, runs bike events such as the Portland Century, the Worst Day of the Year Ride and Bike to the Future. I volunteered to post signs on the Century last summer and then rode the quarter century (wish I had done the half century because the rest stops were stocked with goodies like fresh, prepared in front of you, strawberry shortcake, energy bars, fruit and lots of water). The best part of the ride was the people — everyone so friendly and accommodating. At the finish line, in the North Park Blocks at PSU, was a gourmet wild salmon dinner and local micro-brews waiting. I was in heaven! The most surprising part: I left my bike unlocked along with hundreds of others and out of sight for well over an hour and I had nothing to worry about. I would never ever have done that in Boston (my old home).

I can’t write about bicycling in Portland without mentioning the Bike Boxes. We lost a couple of bicyclists over the past year in accidents where they were hit by a truck turning right into them. One of the city’s responses was to create several bike boxes with the intent of giving bicyclists a safe haven in front of stopped traffic at lights. Our city government really appears to care about cyclists. This isn’t an endorsement in any way but one of the leading candidates for Mayor, Sam Adams, is in fact an avid bicyclist and advocate.

I live in the hills overlooking Cedar Mill, west of Skyline and it’s not an easy place to embark from on a bike trip. We will take our bikes down to Sauvie Island or to the East Esplanade to get some level riding in. Someday I hope I’ll be able to ride to work without worrying about manic rush-hour drivers. In Portland, I have hope for such a future.

Neon Avenue

Published
by
kmazz
on April 14, 2008
in culture and north portland
. 0 Comments

This is really something special. A neon corridor on Interstate. For designophiles and culture vultures like me it would be like Christmas lights all year long. In fact, why don’t they rename the street Neon Avenue?

The signs would be grandfathering into code governing the gentrification soon to descend on this neck of Portland, saving these vintage artifacts for all posterity.

Check it out here.

My life as a Portland Tart

Published
by
sharon
on April 14, 2008
in portland is awesome
. 0 Comments

Portland is indeed awesome.

I say this mostly because of the communities I have become a part of here. I’ve lived in various cities around the world throughout my life, and I’ve never felt more at home and more a sense of community than I do here in Portland.

Portland; the binding glaze over my communities

I am involved in several communities; my analogy is that each community is a luscious fruit, which is glazed with the heart of Portland, which in turn makes me the tart I am today.

But let’s look at the places I’ve lived besides Portland.

Places I’ve lived, in order:

  • Copenhagen, Denmark
  • Bellingham, WA
  • Denver, CO
  • Boulder, CO
  • Reservation near Flagstaff, AZ
  • Ashland, OR
  • Eugene, OR
  • Lancaster, PA
  • Portland, OR
  • Seattle, WA
  • Portishead, England
  • Whitefish, MT
  • Rhododendron, OR
  • Portland, OR

I’ve had amazing offers for wonderful career paths outside of Portland since moving back in 2003, but I just can’t seem to take them and move away; I feel like I have found home here in Portland within my various communities.

My Communities.

Many of my communities overlap, and each of them tend to have their own medium of communication or central place of interaction. I would consider myself a part of a few communities (in no particular order):

  • Geek
  • Jewish
  • High School Friends
  • Neighborhood
  • Gay

The geek community I feel is those who have geekishness in their lives and talk about social networking web applications or tech companies or new hardware products or Red Dwarf on British television.

I love hanging with my Heebs. As g-d is an important part of my live, as is my cultural heritage, it’s great have my Jewy friends beside me either drinking at a bar, dancing in a club, playing dodgeball, or at shul.

My high school friends are my close inner circle of friends, my main set of homies; I love them, their spouses, their kids. From backyard bbq’s to working on each other’s houses to being there for each other emotional on the roller coaster of life, these friends in our little community mean the world to me.

Even though I have only lived in the S.E. neighborhood where I bought my home for two years now, I feel really connected to this community; I care about the businesses here and the schools and the crime, and I endeavor to help create a positive difference. (Can I get a ‘what, what?!’ for multi-block garage sales?)

I try to stay connected to knowing what’s going on in the queer community by either hanging at Crush, or reading Byron Beck, or supporting the Cascade Aids Project or reading Just Out every now and then or going to the PDX Lesbian and Gay Film Fest. While the community is not an integral part of my life, and tends to overlap into other communities (PICA, music scene, etc.) being a lesbian is integral to who I am (hello ladies!) and so, I am connected to the community.

How are you Tart-ish?

Now, one could say ‘You could have all of those communities in any other city. I hear there are Jews in New York and gays in Philly!” Thanks for the incredible insight, Snarky McSnarkerston. But see, here’s the thing:

None of these communities would be what they are without being a part of my overall Portland community.

Each of my communities have the wonderful Portland feel to them - they are painted lightly with a warm Portland tone, like a glaze upon a tart. A glaze which binds everything together, holds each entity together as one and puts a shine on my whole life.

What are some of your communities in Portland? Are they replicable elsewhere or are they Portland specific?

Next week: why Portland strip clubs are like submarine sandwiches.

Portland is a Salty Town

Published
by
Dawn
on April 14, 2008
in food and drink, north portland and northeast
. 1 Comment

Maybe I eat a little too much salt, but I have a big weakness for fancy salts, which are ridiculously easy to find here in Portland. I’ve always loved salt, but until a few years ago, I ate mostly run of the mill table salt. About 7 years ago, I bought a salt grinder and switched to sea salt, which seemed so exotic to me at the time. A few years later, Todd introduced me to coarse kosher salt, which is great on so many things.

It wasn’t until a few months ago that my first dinner at Nutshell changed the way I looked at salt. Nutshell has a bread, olive oil and salt menu where you select a type of bread along with one or more high-quality olive oils and fancy salts as an appetizer. I tried Turkish Black Pyramid salt, which is just as the name describes: black in color and naturally shaped like little pyramids.

We decided to go online and buy a few cool types of salt to have at home, and a google search for Turkish Black Pyramid salt led me to a site called The Meadow where I ordered a “starter set” of salts to try. The day after placing the order, I went back to the site to see where The Meadow was located (to help gauge when my awesome salt would arrive). I was surprised to find out that they are located at 3731 N. Mississippi Avenue in Portland! Oops. I could have just visited the store to pick out my salt, which I have done several times since that first order. They also have a huge selection of chocolates, so even if you aren’t as much of a salt fan as I am, it is well worth the trip.

I will never think of salt the same way again!

Join the Portland Butt Hunt

Published
by
Dawn
on April 13, 2008
in events and southwest
. 2 Comments

When I first saw the links, I couldn’t image why people were hunting for butts, but get your mind out of the gutter! This has nothing to do with the body part that we each carry around of various shapes. This is about cigarette butts! It isn’t even about an anti-smoking campaign. The Portland Butt Hunt is about reducing the litter associated with cigarette butts.

What is the Portland Butt Hunt?

On Saturday April 19, the Leadership Portland class of 2008 invites you to join us in the first Portland Butt Hunt. We have partnered with SOLV to incorporate the Butt Hunt into their annual SOLV IT Earth Day initiative - one of the largest Earth Day projects in the nation. Our objective will be to clean up the butts around downtown Portland. Mark your calendars, sign up, and join us for the hunt!

We encourage smokers and non-smokers to join the butt hunt. This is not an anti-smoking initiative, it is an anti-litter initiative. It is important to have smokers on our team.

Some ButtHunt details: We will meet at Pioneer Square (by Starbucks) at 9am on 4/19. Gloves and garbage bags will be provided. Suggested routes will be coordinated and assigned.

Quoted from the Butt Hunt Portland site

I hate to see the sidewalks littered with butts. I was once a smoker (in college), but I was never a litterer. I was one of those who would put it out on the sidewalk, and stuff the butts in my pocket until I could find a trash can. This is a great cause, and I encourage people to get out and support it.

Karting in Portland

Published
by
metafluence
on April 13, 2008
in entertainment
. 7 Comments

If you, like me, enjoy driving your car to the point where your passengers let an “Oh shit!” slip out around tight corners, you made need to get your Kart on. However, not all go karts are created equal, so I thought I’d share my experiences with three of the most popular karting options close to Portland.

Family Fun Center

Originally known as Bullwinkles, the Family Fun Center is fully intended for children. Located in the same parking lot as Fry’s Electronics in Wilsonville, the Family Fun Center lives up to it’s name as a great place for families to enjoy playing together. However, if you are over 5 years old, you’ll find that their go karts are about as much fun as a potato sack race. The cars are designed for two, but the engines are heavily governed, which means they are super slow. Unless you have small children, this is no place to kart.

SyKart

SyKart is an indoor track, which makes it a great year-round destination. These karts are intended for speed and come in two engine configurations: 6 HP and 9 HP. You have to qualify in order to use the 9 HP karts by achieving a sub 32 second lap in the 6 HP kart, which does take some practice. SyKart is totally fun and a great place to take groups. If it is your first time, they have a cheesy, but informative video that explains the rules. The track is technically oriented as it has no real straight away.

  • Driving Requirements - Drivers must have a valid license or take the driving school. Must buy a SyKart license, which is $5. Must have a helmet liner ($2 to buy one).
  • Price - $15/driver/session. Sessions are 10 mins.
  • Location - 8205 SW Hunziker St., Tigard, OR 97223
  • Hours - 11am–11pm Mon–Fri, 11:30am–11pm Sat, 11:30am–10pm Sun
  • Contact - 503-684-5060

Malibu Gran Prix

The original public kart company, Malibu still delivers a great experience with the most sophisticated karts available for rent in the Portland area. These cars are fast and the outdoor track is a blast. Unlike the rest of the operations in this list, Malibu is a time-based track, which means you aren’t racing next to other racers.

  • Driving Requirements - Drivers must have a valid license. Must buy a Malibu license for $3.25.
  • Price - $15.95 for 5 laps, 17.95 for 7 laps, or 21.95 for 10 laps.
  • Location - 9405 SW Cascade Ave., Beaverton, OR 97008
  • Hours - 11am–9pm Mon–Thur, 11am–11pm Fri-Sat, 11am–8pm Sun
  • Contact - 503-641-8122

Pat’s Acres Racing Complex (PARC)

Pat’s Acres is the real deal. If I have a choice for which place to go, it’s Pat’s Acres hands down. While the Malibu cars are cool looking scale models, Pat’s Acres has modern day competitive karts that are designed for optimum performance, not appearance. This is a racing facility, so people bring their own karts down in their racing trailers and make us normal folk look like the amateurs we are. I really enjoy seeing these modded out karts and they are totally fast. The nicest karts have the same power to weight ratio of an Indy car. Crazy, huh? It’s a little humiliating to be passed by the 9 year old kids in their custom rides, but your rental kart is so much faster than any place else available to the public that you don’t care. Make sure to check the PARC racing schedule because they don’t offer rentals on race days. My only caution is that you may want to get into karting a little deeper after going here. Oh yeah, don’t call them “go” karts here, they’re just karts. ;)

  • Driving Requirements - Drivers must have a valid license. Must buy a PARC license, which is $12.50 and it must be renewed annually. Must have a helmet liner ($2 to buy one).
  • Price - $25/driver/session. Sessions are 12 mins.
  • Location - 6255 Arndt Rd SW, Canby, OR 97013
  • Hours - 11am–7pm
  • Contact - chris@patsacres.com 503-266-PATS

Portland’s awesome artisanal values

Published
by
kmazz
on April 13, 2008
in culture and food and drink
. 1 Comment

There is a trend across America, perhaps the Western world, in returning to artisanal values. This is nothing new; it started happening years ago. But in Portland, artisanal values are part of the city’s DNA and have flourished, along with self-expression and creativity. Look at all the hand designed and sewn fashion boutiques, crafted bikes, microbrews, distilleries, and farmer’s markets to cite just a few examples

Take this pizza. Just a few years ago it was impossible to find a decent pizza almost anywhere in the U.S. in my view. Today, with wood fired ovens sprouting up on Portland’s east side, such as Ken’s Artisan Pizza and the Tastebud food cart (soon to be a sit down eatery near the Aladdin), no one has to opt for the ersatz any longer. It has become unthinkable to open up a new restaurant that is not locally, seasonally and sustainably sourced. As far as artisanal values authentic appeal, you could say they also support the local start up culture, with its emphasis on community, grass roots organizing and love of all things open source (transparency = authenticity). Perhaps open source developers harken back to ancient guilds, the era in which craft and micro enterprises spread

And in craft, the making of things of value, lies another Portland attribute. Richard Sennett in his new book “The Craftsman” writes about the role of craft in creating mental space, in fine tuning the ability to be thoughtful and to solve engineering problems. As some people have noted, being in Portland, surrounded by lots of busy and creative anthills, there is less herd-like thinking. My theory is that this is reason people in Portland are so nice. They have that weightless happiness that comes from doing your own thing with pride and passion.

Bloomin’ tulips

Published
by
samgrover
on April 13, 2008
in events and outdoors
. 0 Comments

Dreamin' - Hot Air Balloon Rides

It’s kinda spring and the flowers are in bloom. Now I don’t know much about flowers, but they sure look pretty. A bunch of photographers from the PDX Flickr community got together and went to see and shoot tulips yesterday.

They went down to the Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival in Woodburn, a few miles south of Portland. The festival, now in its 23rd year, runs until April 27th this year. So if that’s your thing, check it out before the tulips unbloom, or whatever it is that they do after blooming. Be prepared for traffic, because as stop.down commented, the crowds are crazy by mid-day.

Photo by stop.down.

Why I’m Glad That Our Twitter Count Declined By 54% This Saturday

Published
by
Bram Pitoyo
on April 13, 2008
in culture, northwest, outdoors, portland is awesome and technology
. 2 Comments

This Saturday was, as we all know it, almost too gorgeous to be true. That afternoon, I went to sit in the Tanner Springs Park with a friend, doing my nonrequired reading, observing an eagle swooping down to catch a fish then fly back out behind the highrise (no, really) and seeing people generally enjoying themselves and soaking up the sun.

But, you see, I have a habit of refreshing Twitter’s website every time I connect to see if anyone posted an update. On a work day, I would usually refresh every 20 minutes or so, and see at least several updates from the regular Tweeters (you know who you are.) But quick observations showed that Friday was less eventful (I did less checking and found less updates), and Saturday was practically quiet

Almost too quiet. Heck, I didn’t miss anything by sitting at the park all afternoon, with one exception, of course.

So I checked out our leader board yesterday night and today, compared it, and saw that something was clearly afoot:


Notice that Portland’s ranking actually went down by two positions (from #12 to #14,) narrowly surpassed by Seattle and Toronto (cities that were below us on weekdays,) and its count declined by 54%. In comparison, Seattle was down by 42%, Toronto by 38% and other cities at the top five were down by an average of 20–30%.

Sure, we may postulate that this decline showed that we are very easily distracted by nice weathers, or that we aren’t as productive in the weekends when compared to other cities.

But that’s not what I believe.

I believe that this Saturday, we collectively went outside, enjoyed the day and slept early while not bothering with our constant Twitter updates.

And I believe that this decline showed that we have kept our priorities right. That we believe in the equal importance of hyper-connectivity and having real-life conversations. This decline showed that the much anticipated ‘Portland Creative/Tech Renaissance’ is going to be a different sort of movement. One where work and life are balanced and weekends reserved for having fun. This decline showed that Portland’s real edge will not necessarily lie in its technological or creative breakthrough, but in its humanity and genuine willingness to connect with others.

The decline in Tweet count this weekend may be what set us apart from other places. And that, if you ask me, is a good thing.