Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category

One Secret to Beating the Heat without Leaving the City

Published
by
Dawn
on July 8, 2008
in Uncategorized, outdoors and southeast
. 0 Comments

Sure, you could go see Wall-e or Kung Fu Panda at the movie theater or eat yet another meal at an air conditioned restaurant to beat the heat. However, I have another option for you.

Mt. Tabor.

OK, I admit that it won’t be as cool as an air conditioned room, but it will be cooler and possibly more fun. I recommend going all the way to the top of Mt. Tabor where you will find a nicely paved circle with plenty of grass in the middle and some of the best views of the city available. The best part is that it will be shady, a couple of degrees cooler, and if you are lucky, breezy.

The options are numerous: volcano crater, reservoir, play area for kids, stair climbing, biking, running, hiking, picnics, and more.

What’s your favorite secret to beating the heat during the sunny summers in Portland?

Attorneys who love chickens

Published
by
sarah
on April 17, 2008
in Uncategorized, north portland and portland is awesome
. 3 Comments

It is a Sunday, and of course I am going to the Chicken Fest at Livingscape Nursery. I have volunteered to help, I am, after all, That Chicken Lady. It is early, and it is cold, and I wonder if maybe I am too early. There are no chicken banners. There are no chicken-y greeters. I wander around, a minute, finding all the lovely hens who have been loaned by local chicken people. I say their breeds to myself. Banded Rock. Ameraucana. Rhode Island Red. Australorp! Cochin.

I see someone who is wearing a chicken hat. Ahh, I’m not too early. When he stops buzzing about, I approach him.

“I’m Sarah Gilbert,” I say. He is wearing worn jeans and a yellow felt hat with a chicken, and looks like he hasn’t shaven for a day or two. Like the sort of person who would run a nursery focused on sustainability and native plantings. “Are you THE Sarah Gilbert?” he asks warmly. He seems vaguely familiar. “Of course you are!”

We know each other, he tells me, and I can’t place him. I blame the chicken hat. “I’m your patent attorney!” he says.

Steve Adamson is very probably my favorite attorney, ever. His patient and careful explanation of the patent and trademark process for one of the startups I worked for was key in developing my own geeky love for intellectual property. I think my boss was very, very slow in paying him, and Steve never got angry or sent me to collections. I find myself hoping that he was paid in full. I went on maternity leave with my second son before that had been wrapped up.

And now he’s here, on N. Vancouver Avenue just around the corner from Pix and SCRAP, running a nursery. Where they sell chickens! I bought two babies, an Ameraucana and a Columbia Wyandotte (”I saw a picture of this chicken and I knew we HAD to carry them!” Steve said excitedly.) They also have blueberries, and huckleberries, and all kinds of great plants and seeds. You should really go there for your baby chicks and your native grapes. And maybe if you are an IP geek too, you could kvetch with him about the state of the USPTO. That’s just the kind of place Portland is.

Thinking out loud

Published
by
howard
on April 16, 2008
in Uncategorized
. 2 Comments

Emily Harris grew up in Portland and attended Lincoln High.  She spent some time at KBOO and, in 2002, landed a post with NPR, reporting from Central Europe and then Iraq, a beat that earned her a 2005 WW cover story.
Now she’s host of the OPB broadcast Think Out Loud, which - to my mind - is a piece of what makes Portland awesome. According to Emily, other NPR affiliates around the country are closely following the reception that this program format finds among radio listeners in the OPB market.

Hawken, Lopez and Solnit at Literary Arts

Published
by
howard
on April 15, 2008
in Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

Every time I come to Portland, I’m faced with the question of why I don’t live here.
- Paul Hawken, at Literary Arts-hosted discussion, this morning at W+K

Yesterday evening, along with writers Barry Lopez and Rebecca Solnit, Hawken sat the Armory stage. Lounging in comfy chairs on loan from the ReBuilding Center and amidst by the woody cacophony of Portland Center Stage’s Great Notion set design, the three tag teamed across a wide terrain from “community as reciprocity” to “prefigurative politics.”

One topic that loomed large was language.

Don’t call it alternative energy, urged Hawken. Energy from the sun or wind or tides is primary energy.

The answer to every either/or question is, I think, “yes,” sounded Solnit.

When we speak of social or ecological restoration, what we mean is “reconciliation,” elucidated Lopez.

While the affair at the Armory soared, the morning’s W+K coffee turned somber. Hawken foresees an immanent “red queen dilemma,” in which - amidst interconnected food, water, energy and climate crunches - societies scramble to meet basic needs.

And this (awesome Portland), stated simply, is one place that’s pointing the way. You must get tired of everyone telling you that, he smiled. But everyone is looking at Portland.

And what we need you to do is to keep raising the bar.