No particular story to tell today, just a few random bits floating through my brain this morning, chit-chat over the morning coffee.

Goodness, this has felt like an autumnal weekend! A serious dose of rain and cooler temps. And I've been noticing the first few drift piles of leaves littering the curbs and driveways. Fall isn't here yet, but it's in the post. Walking upstairs this morning to make the coffee, the floor was cold in a way that felt distinctly familiar. Best make the most of what little remains of Summer.

And speaking of which... a friend of a friend died Sunday morning. She was very recently diagnosed with stage IV cancer, and still I find myself stunned by how swiftly it progressed. As if that's the sort of thing that should be called progress. After having recently endured a bunch of family deaths that hit pretty close to home (grandfather, uncle, mother, MJ, grandmother, in that order), this is the first death in a while that I've been able to watch with some distance and perspective. It's not the most original thought, but I find myself wondering how much of our grieving is related to a deep emotional sense that our day will come too. And then Melody reminded me that some amount of it is simply lost history. Someone dies and you realize that was the last person who could have reminded you of lost stories, could have explained small mysteries, could have filled in specific holes in your life story. I want to ask Mom how to do the perfect barbecue pork shoulder, or ask my grandfather about growing up on a farm and fighting in WWII. Those stories are gone now, forever and ever.

Death, in its democratic fashion, votes for each of us, eventually. So there's your theme, Summer and life, make the most of however many days we might have left.

I did my second ride through the SW hills yesterday, about 30 miles., on a route that went down to Lake Oswego, circled the lake, then back up to Stumptown. I felt reasonably strong and could have gone faster than the collective group speed, but I won't pretend the hills didn't kick my ass. The elevation profile for the ride looked like an EKG. And while 20 miles feels like a fun night of lazy riding, 30 miles definitely feels more serious. At the very least, it's the threshold where I want real padded biking shorts for my delicate bum. I'm still trying to top 1000 miles for the year. I know some of the people reading this will scoff at that number, and some will be impressed. It's just a number; at the end of the day, we're only competing with ourselves.

Still expecting to be laid off from the Big Fruit in two weeks. I've been accepted into PSU for the Fall and I'm still awaiting word on my transfer credits and how much distance might be between me and a math degree. I've thrown my name in the ring to continue tutoring at MHCC this fall, but depending on schedule that may not work. Or maybe I'll look into tutoring at PSU. Of course, I've also got my resume into a couple of tech recruiters in the area, and if something interesting came up I might get distracted by a sparkly shiny new job/project. But with this economy, I wouldn't count on it. Ahh well, I refuse to get stressed over it. New adventures, one way or another.

I just noticed this neighborhood banner on NE Alberta Street. See the little wind cups at the bottom, which spins the red plate as well as the spiral above it. Lovely!



And what a gorgeous day! I think we're facing a solid two months with no rain before Portland resumes its usual weather pattern. Hello, Portland Summer!

For a while now, I've been interested in raising my biking mileage. With some of the three-day weekends I've had lately, I thought sure I would break a 50-mile weekend, but it never seemed to happen, for one reason or another.

But last weekend I talked myself into joining an Easy Riders ride through the SW hills and trails and did my first 30-mile ride. That went so well that I had a salad and drinks afterwards, and decided to ride all the way home as well, another 20 miles. w00t, my first 50-mile day! I arrived home very dry, and with a terribly sore ass, but otherwise quite chuffed.

This weekend, there was a Portland Wheelmen ride down in Canby, and I was determined to build on my experience with their "short" little 30-mile ride. I did a bit of riding during the week, to stay loose. I also made it a point to eat really well during the week. My staple meal all week was Thai Spring Rolls, without the wrappers. Basically, that's a veggie confetti (cabbage, carrots, radishes, mint, cilantro, cucumber, bell pepper, water chestnuts, celery) with a modest amount of shredded roasted chicken and some spicy peanut sauce. Yum! Layer all that over a wee bit of brown rice, and I could eat that seven days a week! I also slept better during the week than is normal for me. I had a good meal the night before, didn't drink, and went to bed early.

And woke up Saturday morning feeling like crap on a stick. Groggy, listless, half asleep, with a bitch of a headache and little flashes of light in my vision. (I've had those light flashes a few times in my life, once as a precursor for a major migraine.)

But I was determined to tough it out. We drove down to Canby, only to find it cooler, grayer and windier than predicted. We signed up, ate a wee bit of oatmeal and started the ride. Right away, I let my ego run away with me, and I hammered hard (for me) through the miles. I kept thinking that if I just pushed through, I'd come out the other side feeling fine. It happens sometimes! It didn't happen this time. My legs had no juice, I couldn't get a second wind, I felt like I was pedaling into a stiff headwind on the entire loop. And I let myself fall into the headgame of keeping a running count of riders I was passing, versus riders who were passing me. (Yet another time when very mild OCD is not helpful.) I was doing fairly well until the last five miles (26-26) when two separate packs of 15, lithe, spandex-clad gazelles slipped past me like I was standing still. That dashed all hopes of breaking even. I salvaged a wee bit of pride by passing a pack of seven riders a little later, but by that time I was mainly interested in simply being done. Ride finished, we ate a wee bit of post-ride food and came back home to crash for a most righteous nap.

And I woke up feeling better than I had in 24 hours. Go figure. Apparently I know not a damn thing about prepping for a ride. Sigh.

After lots of thought and discussion, on the next ride I will focus on simply having fun and enjoying the day, and speed and competition be damned. At this point, I'm more interested in building miles than building speed. (Though I expect the one will contribute to the other.)

One final note - Last night, after dinner, I stopped by REI to look at padded bike shorts (ow, my ass!). In the changing room, I flexed my legs a bit. Damn! I've always had pretty cut calves, but my quads... wow! When did that happen?!

I spent last night looking over the Pedalpalooza calendar, deciding what events I was most interested in joining. Heh, I have something in mind for almost every single day, and multiple events for several of the days. It's gonna be a bust bicycling month in Portland!

Winter be damned; Spring has hit my yard with a vengeance! Here is today's set of flowers, blooms and blossoms.

The canopy of cherry blossoms from the trees in the front yard.


( Clique here for moar pix! )

I am used to watching new laws be passed that I object to passionately on principle, and that I find to be a pain in the ass personally. So I guess it's only fair that once in a great while a law will be passed that I find objectionable based on ideology, but that just happens to work in my favor in a very selfish way.

And so, let me confess a very selfish glee about the smoking ban! Woohoo! I've been to several bars, clubs and shows lately. Last year, a visit to any of those venues would have left me dripping with the stale, sour reek of cigarette smoke. This year, the worst I've encountered is the sad smell of rancid fryer grease that is only noticeable now that it is no longer masked by the cigarette smoke. I hate the law, but I am pleased to be benefiting from it so blatantly.

And on a related note, I asked the bartender at the Goodfoot if he had noticed a drop-off in business since the law passed. He said, "Maybe a little, at the very beginning, but we've more than bounced back." Yay! I'd be sad if the law hurt some of the few bars that I really enjoy.

On a bike ride Saturday, I stumbled upon a house that had suffered a major fire recently. My riding partner has a real thing for abandoned buildings, so of course we had to take a closer look.

I didn't think much of it at first. Ragged, charred holes in the roof, smashed windows, door hanging open on one hinge.

But then I reached the front porch and the smell hit me. Even after all this time, I know that smell, down to my very bones. Smoked sheet rock and lumber laced with the flat dull smell of barren dirt. My family home burned to the ground when I was nine years old, and that smell still jumped out at me as vivid as yesterday.



The insides of the house look just as sad as you'd imagine. Everything ruined, from the combined effects of the fire, the mind-bending amount of water used to extinguish the fire, and the subsequent exposure to the elements.

Lest anyone think I'm whining, I like snow!
Granted, Portland has had an uncharacteristic amount lately. Getting snow in December at all is unusual, but to get over a foot of it has been a little overwhelming. But whatever; I work at home, I can walk to get groceries, so it's not a panic. The biggest inconvenience is when I want to get across town to see one of The Girls, or when there's an event happening that is a pain to get to.

And I think I've had a white Christmas only a couple of times in my life, so to have a solid blanket of white on the 24th and 25th was a real delight in that respect.

But c'mon, when I've got a reservation at the coast that I can't get to because the roads are so bad, it stops being quaint and lovely! Ocean views and lazy decadence are calling me!

Finally, during a break of warmer temps and drizzle that was melting off the top layer of snow, we decided to make a break for it. Supplies were hastily packed and thrown in the vehicle. We braved the slippery ice and slush on the city streets and got to the freeway. We dodged countless tangles of discarded tire chains and cables in the middle of the freeway. And then, sigh. *thump, thump, thump, thump* "What's that noise?" "Aww, crap, that can't be a flat, can it?!" We pulled over and checked, and sure enough the right rear tire was totally flaccid.

There we were, pulled onto the shoulder of the freeway, being battered with icy winds and the occasional spray of muddy slush from passing vehicles. I've been nursing a sore shoulder for several days, so wrestling with a flat tire wasn't exactly the easiest enterprise. I found a tire iron and got the lug nuts removed. Then I found my spare. It was a donut (darn it!), but at least it had air. I pulled it out, and found the jack. Except... I couldn't seem to wrestle the jack out. It's like it was glued down or welded to this metal holding bracket. I tugged and wrestled, but the damn thing wouldn't budge!
*grumble, gripe, moan*

Well, AAA had already been called, surely they would have a jack. We climbed back into the car and tried not to fret while we waited. Thank goodness for games on the iPhone!

Very soon, a well-used pick-up pulled onto the shoulder in front of us and backed up towards our car. It was clear this was just "some guy", not anyone from a tow company or AAA. Most of the gear in the back of his pickup was still draped in a thick blanket of snow, and his outfit was waterproof pants and a camouflage hoodie. "Whatcha got goin' on?" he asked.

I explained about the flat, and the jack, and he came back to look at it. We puzzled for a second before he saw the obvious problem. The scissor jack was extended up, wedging it snugly into the bracket. By design, duh. You're supposed to drop the jack a bit to remove it from the holding bracket. Once I got the clue, I was ready to thank the guy profusely and let him be on his way. Instead, he finished getting out the jack and proceeded to start lifting the car. I removed the flat and wrestled the donut into place and started tightening the lug nuts. We got everything done and the gear returned to the back of the car. I turned to our Good Samaritan and said, "You've been a real life-saver! Can I offer you anything for you time and help?" He brushed me off immediately, "Nahh! Merry Christmas! Y'all be safe!" And before I could argue or protest, he was in his pickup and pulling back into traffic. I think I stood there a minute stunned. It's always jarring when a confirmed cynic is faced with such unambiguous altruism. It's a more complex world than is dreamt of in my philosophy.

With the tire repaired, I had a tough decision to make. There was no hope of getting the tire fixed on Xmas Day. I could go home and admit defeat (again), which would pretty much kill any chance of making it to the coast during this holiday break at all. Or I could try to drive the remaining ~200 miles to the coast on the temporary "donut" tire. I decided to take a gamble on the tire.

Thankfully, the road conditions were bad enough and the traffic slow enough, I didn't have much opportunity to be tempted to speed on the spare tire. Slow and steady, we finally made it out to the coast! To a fabulous ocean view! To an inviting hot tub! And several days of slackerly bliss.

I started to write this as a response to a response to a post, but decided to make it a post of its own instead.

Long before I eventually moved to Portland, I visited frequently to see friends and my girlfriend's family. I was in town in February of 1997 when a really big ice storm. We were staying with my girlfriend's dad and step-mother when we lost power and were iced in for three days. We huddled next to the fireplace and listened to the quiet stillness punctuated occasionally by the rifle-shot crack of limbs snapping off trees from all the excess ice weight.

Somewhere during that storm I took a picture of an ornamental cabbage MJ had that was coated in a perfect layer of ice.



MJ is long departed, dead from cancer just over two years now. Which still seems impossible, somehow.

When I saw ornamental cabbages for sale at a local market this fall, I instantly thought of MJ and bought several. And this morning, I snapped the modern, much-less-dramatic version of that original photo, of my own purple cabbage dusted with snow.

I love you, MJ, and miss you bunches.

This came sooner than I would have guessed. I didn't think we'd see any snow of note until the new year. And the accumulation still hasn't amounted to much, but it's blowing sideways so much it seems like a blizzard outside.













In other news, the Honda Element handled the snowy and icy streets with ease. Very sure-footed, not even a hint of a slip or slide. Let's hear it for all-wheel drive!

Remember a couple of weeks ago, when I talked about roughly a dozen people showing up for the Portland Critical Mass, and compared that to the mob scene at CM in San Francisco?

Last night I was part of the Portland edition of the World Naked Bike Ride. I'm convinced there were well over a thousand people in the ride!

We started from a warehouse in the NW at midnight, pedaled down TrendyThird past the bars, through downtown, over the Hawthorne Bridge, down MLK for a bit, back across the Burnside Bridge, and back to the industrial NW. All told, around 8 miles.

The highlights included:

• The sporadic cries from the riders of "nice ass!" Coulda been said by anyone, to just about anyone. It was that kinda crowd.


• The one lone rider (clothed) who refused to stop at a red light where a fire engine was trying to get through... only to get pulled over by a cop almost immediately. Instant karma's gonna get you.


• Cheering and high fives from the crowds thronging the sidewalks outside the bars.


• The driver who pulled up next to me and asked, "Why are you naked?" The best I could come back with was, "Why are you dressed?"

It was massive silly and hugely fun! I would do this ride monthly, weather permitting.
In hindsight, the obvious costume would have been a stylish pair of chaps. Maybe next year.
:-)

Today's ride was along the Springwater Corridor, on the far east end of the route. We started in Gresham and headed east until the trail turned to gravel, and then went a bit farther. Then we turned around and headed west until we reached the detour at SE Circle Ave, at the base of Powell Butte.

Overall, the ride was easy and fun. Flat and smooth (gravel notwithstanding) and fast, and lovely weather for it. The highlight was seeing two young deer along Johnson Creek!



Grand total, a little over 16 miles.

Today we loaded up the bikes and headed to North Portland towards Kelley Point State Park. We actually stopped at Marine Drive and biked in from there, past I-5. We headed south on North Portland Rd so we could stay on bike paths, and ended up biking through the Smith-Bybee Lake wilderness area. A parking lot there had a bunch of public art pieces, including some carved boulders and tree stumps.




Kelley Point is part of the "40 Mile Loop" set of trails around Portland (the Springwater Corridor is another part of the loop). I was surprised to see a couple of signs that seemed to indicate the end of the loop. Umm, isn't the whole point of a loop that it has no beginning or end?



The entire ride ended up being a little over 19 miles. Which still feels like a lot to my atrophied biking muscles. But it was a good day, and definitely a park I will want to visit again!

I woke up this morning in Beaverton needing to get home to Gresham. I had originally planned to get a lift to the MAX station and ride it home, but during the brief car ride, I somehow talked myself into biking home. Yeah, because my tailbone wasn't sore enough from Sunday. :-)

From downtown Portland, I crossed the river on the Hawthorne Bridge and then followed the waterfront south, past the Sellwood Bridge and caught the Springwater Corridor all the way east to Gresham.

Wow, was I really in Portland? Ample views of Johnson Creek, woods and marshland. Spotted a rabbit on the trail, sheep in someone's field, horses in another field, roosters and a possum (or a former possum). I took a very brief breather on the way, but otherwise hammered through it. Just a bit over 17 miles.



Oh, so that's where my quadriceps are!

I finally got around to buying a bike again! Just over two years in the one of the top bicycling cities in the US, and I've only now gotten back on two wheels. Shameful.

Sunday being a gorgeous day, we took the bikes down to the waterfront for some easy cruising along the esplanade. We followed the waterfront, and crossed the Hawthorne and Steel Bridges multiple times.







We also biked along the west side to see the Cinco de Mayo festival, then took a break to watch the basketball game in a downtown sports bar. (The Lakers won.) Then back on the bikes and down the east side until we joined the Springwater Corridor trail and followed that for several miles.



Finally, we turned around and decided we had pedaled enough for my first day back on a bike. I got home and used the most excellent Gmaps pedometer mashup tool to trace our path. Thirteen miles. More than I intended, but it all felt good. Okay, aside from my tailbone.

I saw Hamell on Trial at Mississippi Studios Sunday night. I have only recently been introduced to his music, and this was my first time seeing him perform.
It was like Anton Levay (aww, c'mon, look it up.) dropped religion and picked up an axe.



I wouldn't have thought that a 50-year-old bald guy with an acoustic (amplified) guitar would be considered "rock". But wow, he just shredded that guitar, creating a cudgel of sound.
His energy and enthusiasm and sharp, wicked sense of humor were infectious.

A hell of a show; I enjoyed it hugely, and would happily go see him again.

Last night, I saw Dead of Winter, a collection of three short plays, ghost stories, really. It was like attending Le Grand Guignol in February. Each of the vignettes were short on gore and special effects, but still managed to be creepy as all hell and present a couple of good "jump" moments. I'd love to see this same crew put together something in a similar vein for Halloween.

I'm a sucker for small-scale theater like this. I really enjoy seeing what can be done in a modest space, without a lot of flash to spend, with local playwrights and actors.

The venue was Performance Works Northwest, 4625 SE 67th Avenue, off of Foster. The show runs Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays through February 23rd. Tickets are $10 in advance, $12 at the door, and $10 for students and seniors. Thursdays are sliding scale. Tickets can be purchased online at www.theblustockings.com. For reservations, call 503-777-2771.

Last Saturday the lovely pre-doc and I went to the grand opening of Batty's Hippodrome, a new venue in Portland for circus arts. I saw the late show, which featured Seattle's Pure Cirkus.

The Hippodrome is buried in ( the dark )

I'm a big sucker for "circus arts" theater. Tell me a show has fire play, contortion, acrobatics, and I'm there. I blame it on the time I spent around the SF bay area, where you can find small events like that just about every weekend. This weekend I heard about a show that sounded promising on Sunday night (Sunday night?!). Sounded promising, though even after reading the venue's website, I still didn't have much of an idea what to expect. Which is not all bad; walking into a show with no expectations or pre-conceived notions can be a good thing.

The venue was new to me, the Someday Lounge in Chinatown of downtown Portland. It's a smallish venue, but with enough wide open space that it doesn't feel claustrophobic. There's even a little balcony area that provides some additional seating, though on a damp Sunday night, there weren't enough people to overflow up there. The act was Cirkus Pandemonium, a local troupe of circus performers. Our master of ceremonies was a stilt-walking fire breather who introduced the acts.



The various performers included...
- a pair of aerialists working from a single trapeze bar
- a pair of women swinging fire poi
- a matador swinging red-caped poi to entice a "bull" on a unicycle
- an aerialist working from silks hanging from the tall ceiling
- an assortment of jugglers



It was an unexpected "find", and great fun. I'll definitely look for some future shows from this troupe.

After a quiet week of work and gym, I was ready to get oot and aboot Friday night. I hit the White Eagle Saloon, another McMenamin's spawn. After camping at the bar for a bit, I was able to lay claim to a vacating table.

Some years ago, I was preparing for my first trip to Amsterdam and encountered the term "gezellig". It's hard to translate, but it means something along the lines of "What are you in such a hurry for? Slow down. Relax. Here, smell this.", and it was especially relevant to Americans who might fume for twenty minutes in a restaurant wondering "Hellew? Is anyone ever going to bring us a friggin' menu?" One guide book even (jokingly?) suggested you bring along a deck of cards to keep yourself entertained whilst waiting. I didn't take it as a joke, and I have many fond memories of idling in a canal-side cafe, playing cards and enjoying the moment.

For some reason, I brought a deck of cards to the White Eagle last night. (Ahh, you thought I had forgotten all about that, didn't you? I am in the prime of my senility!) So I played several hands of whist around a number of bourbon and cokes, cajun tater tots and eventually a real meal.

But, truth be told, I was there for the music more than the food. The opening act was a fellow named Colin Lake. Colin is a talented lap guitar player, singing the delta blues. I admired his playing, but it was a little slow and low-energy for the venue. And maybe this marks me as a bigot, but especially after growing up in Memphis, there just seems to be something wrong about a 20-something white boy playing the delta blues. But he was a good performer, and I was winning hand after hand, so it was all good.

And then came the act that drew me out in the first place, a guy named Jonathan Coulton. This was my first time seeing JC live, so I didn't know what to expect. He performed alone, just a guy and his guitar, and had the casual unassuming pose of the former computer programmer that he is.

If you haven't heard of him before, Jonathan plays very upbeat acoustic pop/rock about... fractals, giant squids from the ocean depths, paeans/curses about Ikea, scientist villains in their mountain lair... you know, the usual sorts of things. It helps if you know Coulton is a contributing troubadour for Popular Science magazine, and once wrote an album for a single issue of the magazine with songs about the main articles.

The venue was standing-room only, and the crowd obviously knew JC and were big fans. There was a fair bit of singing along to assorted songs, which is great until you hear a large room of people singing "All we want to do is eat your brains" in full zombie-voice. Some of the people were entirely too enthusiastic about that topic.



It was a great night out, and I will definitely be looking for JC's next swing through town.

I went to the Doug Fir last night to see Erin McKeown sing.

I had never seen a show at the Doug Fir before, so I wasn't really prepared for the hipster log cabin feel of the place. Add to that, the opening act really drove home the Twin Peaks vibe. The singer, Eleni Mandell, had a quiet haunting voice, and the electric guitar player used lots of echo to achieve an effect that would have made Angelo Badalamenti smile. Really, I was waiting for a dwarf to come out on stage and dance during some songs.

But I'm not complaining; I really enjoyed it. The stand-up bass player in particular was really fun to watch, swinging from plucking a driving beat, sometimes picking up the bow to add to the creepy feel of some songs, and slapping time on the fret board during some of the more energetic bits.

If anything, Eleni reminded me a lot of early Erin McKeown; a very quiet, introspective singer-songwriter with folksy roots. But the Erin of today is a very different performer, very high energy, bouncy, and an undeniable rockabilly sound. Her sense of humor comes through in a playful fashion on stage now. I was introduced to Erin via my pal Anita, who heard her open for Mike Doughty. Anita is down in SF currently, and saw Erin play just two days ago. And then at tonight's show, who should show up but Anita's brother Ed and his gal pal Jill (the Thrill). Ed's in school down in Corvalis, and he and JtT decided to come up to see the show on Anita's recommendation. So they sat with us during Erin's set and seemed to enjoy the show.

I'm only irritated that I forgot to bring the camera. I had a great view of the stage and could have gotten some memorable shots. Sigh. Next time.