was just thinking about my commute since I’ve been riding regularly, and how much I enjoy my morning time on Portland’s light rail, the Max. It’s really the only time of the day that I can count on to be my own time. I can read, write, get some work done, chat with strangers, or just stare blankly. When I work, it’s without fear of interrupts, so that 30 minutes can be more productive than a whole day in the office.

Nice little audio blog piece on beer in Portland, OR. Go ahead and take a listen. It covers the whole gamut from enjoying to making in our little beer mecca.

Just a reminder that the NAOBFis happening this weekend, starts at noon Fri-Sunday at Overlook Park. This is my favorite brewfest of the year. It doesn’t get crazy crowded, there are tons of fun beers to try, and it’s always an all-around good time. I’m helping Dave Knowswith his story about it this year, so double-stoked. See you there.

Jeff at Beervana poses a question: what five beers are a connoisseur’s must-haves visiting Portland. I might have to tackle that, but really, Jeff is really on top of that in his post. I suggested a different route, a road trip around Mt. Hood. But I also threw in a crawl that I think is really worth sharing with your Portland visitors. Begin at Rontom’s. If it’s nice out, enjoy the patio.

Portland has been a Gen-X city for as long as I can remember. Which is as long as I’ve been here. We’ve had a lock on cuisine, fashion (?), transportation, attitude, periodicals, entertainment. Pretty much the whole shebang. Sort of a Gen-X wonderland. Don’t get me wrong, PDX is a city of variety and range, there’s a lot of of other stuff too for Y’s and boomers and everyone in between.

I am terrible at identifying plants, yet at the same time I’m really susceptible to poison oak. For some reason, it is very difficult to find a decent image of the toxic weed. Guidebooks all have the same line drawing as can be found at trailheads. Pics on the internet are obscure and frequently hidden behind broken links. So I found a plant I think might be poison oak. Can somebody please confirm?

Rob L of the Oregon Brew Crew posted this to our listserv in a conversation about a new beer tax proposed in Oregon. He makes a number of lucid points. And doesn’t just complain but proposes action. Oregon HB2461 surprised me. Actually, at first it was shock, then disbelief and anger. Now I’m ready to do something about it. Jim P wrote: Cost of producing each keg (tax is production cost) would go up $25.

This is pretty sweet. Now if only my credit union will get on that! props amanders.

The North American Organic Brewers Festival is this weekend, beginning tomorrow at 3pm. I had a great time last year, but I generally go to these events early and leave early. This is one of my favorites. I’m surprised that they picked this weekend since at least one of the organizers is a huge soccer fan and the Euro cup final is Sunday. His boys aren’t in it this time around, though Spain vs Germany should be a pretty awesome match.

This is a strange situation. The logistics alone are mind-boggling.

Stepping out of Powell’s technical yesterday, I was a bit confused by the gleeful roar I hear in the distance. As I turned onto Couch from the park blocks, the noise grew louder and more distinct. Looking towards the Willamette I was a bit astonished by the source: a colorful crowd of people running shopping carts down the middle of the street. At first I thought this was some sort of guerilla theater event, but as I watched, the roar grew louder, and the crowd kept coming.

There’s a movement to rename NE 42nd Ave to Douglas Adams Blvd. I’m on board, Douglas Adams got it, wrote great stories, and did good things. My only request is that we get to call my street (NE 40th Ave) Infinite Improbability Dr.

It’s been an interesting Fall so far. I’ve got a few fairly exciting projects in the works, and there’ve been some bizarre twists, so I’m not going to put anything on digital at this point. But looking out the window, my mind wanders. The squirrels have been extra-busy this Fall. I’m thinking that’s an indicator that winter is coming early, and it’s going to be pretty serious about it when it shows.

Continuing on this odd consumption-oriented kick I’ve been on, Trader Joes moved out of their old location and into a new one two blocks away. And it is way better. Truly, seriously an improvement. Trust me when I tell you that even though I’ve not been closer than 100′ from the new location. Because the old location sucked eggs bigtime. It was cramped way beyond cat-swinging range. That many Joe’s shoppers packed that tightly just radiate bad mojo, and I feel it and it makes me want to go outside and sit on the curb and sulk, alone with the package of tamales that I managed to snag, holding it, realizing that I hadn’t paid and that I really really don’t want to wait in that line and do I really want the tamales that bad when I can go get cheaper better ones at Taqueria Don Pancho and so I drift into a pit of nihilistic despair I don’t care about the tamales or the lines or that I’m on Sandy Blvd on my knees beating the paved earth grinding the chicken tamales into my forehead yelling wishing (but not caring!

Not really, but metroblogging has the dirt on Portland’s Ikea installation. Honestly, I’ve been looking forward to getting an Ikea for quite awhile now, and now that the date is almost here, I’m starting to look at my closets and corners just a bit differently. Long ago I linked to Defective Yeti’s genius Ikea Walkthrough (at The Morning News). Here it is again for the local Portlanders. A bunch of folks seem upset about the new big box store.

This video of mayhem in downtown Portland is ridiculous. Hoping that nobody got hurt. I think this is in the hills above the MAC. Why oh why?

Could it be true? Word on the street is that beer will be flowing from the Skidmore fountain in about 10 minutes….3pm, September 22. I haven’t found any real confirmations, but a lot of rumors and such. And me bound to the house. arrrr! Always the bridesmaid, never the fratboy doing a kegstand over the Skidmore Fountain.

I’ve written about the roller derby before. And here it is again.  Last time was an exhibition. This weekend, these ladies were for real. The league has begun, and they kicked ass. The Rose City Rollers is Portland’s roller derby league, and it is currently comprised of 4 teams: sweet Breakneck Betties, ritzy High Rollers, compassionless Heartless Heathers, and the evil Guns ‘n Rollers. Sometime since the exhibition match these ladies became athletes.

Yay ladies! You kick ass! I love looking at the little school comparisons…everyone you play is like 10x your size. And you bust their chops. Drop a line if you ever want to setup a scrimmage…my men are down. Y’all outclass us, but I think it’d be a fun match. Update: I heard on NPR that there’ll be a celebration at Pioneer Square today (Friday) around noon (or slightly before). Way to go ladies…keep on smilin’!

Pretty sweet, a number of the more active local bloggers on local issues have put together Blue Oregon. So far it’s looking like a pretty darn good spot for editorial, and looking forward to it as a solid source for localish news. Check it out, it’s on the sidebar for future use.

Oregon is leading the charge in more than just gay marriage. We’re also helping to keep jobs from going overseas. How? My unemployed friends are still unemployed, you may wonder. Well, your prison friends aren’t! Rather than moving call centers overseas, we’re contracting out prison workers to answer phone calls. I wonder what happens if they violate the DNC list…they’re already in jail. Cheap labor, less turnover. That sounds like a win to me.

Alright, I’m now pretty convinced that PUD is where it’s at. I’ve been leaning yes but wanted to catch some opinions and maybe a fact or two in the haze. Here’s my take: power companies are greedy, and want to monopolize. The government handling utilities may not be perfect, but as long as we need to pay for them, there’s probably not a lot of better ways to do it. PUD will honor existing contracts/employment, though with caveats I’m sure.

alright, I’m really not sure which way to go on the upcoming ballot measures to introduce public power. On one hand, I really like the idea of PUD, it seems reasonable, efficient and less corruptible. Also, I’m pretty happy with Pacific Power. Service is good, I can buy wind power, and I’m not aware of the ole’ Enron baggage. I need to do a bit of investigation on this, but I’d love to hear others’s opinions on this touchy subject.

Kudos to the Organizers of Portland’s ‘First Fashion Week.’ I was just down at Pioneer Square and caught some of the show, it looked well done and stayed fun. It has been going on all week, but I’m not sure if it’ll be at the Square tomorrow or a big one at the museum. Anyway, everyone looked great, the designers made some cool garb, and I ate a yummy burrito. Go team.

It’s decision time. So we’ll probably be committed to something one way or another by the next time the Diamondbacks with the World Series. I read a lot of conflicting opions on whether a baseball stadium (pro, with team) would be beneficial of parasitic to our little town. This has been one of the more interesting issues to watch because the lines in the sand are totally skewed from the usual stances.

Check out “The Rogue Hour” Friday morning 9am-10am on KBOO. Emma and BigAir Fred and some others have put together a radio program, and I’m sure it’ll be up to their high standards. I plan to be listening over the interweb. These are two of the best Oregon local bloggers, full of great info and arguments and rants and such, so I’ll expect a lot from their radio project 😉

Emma has posted an interesting bit on Oregon’s refusing of federal assistance in a few areas…to the tune of twenty-some million. The problem has to do with our legislature being bull-headed egomaniacs who are oblivious to the problems in the state. But read the article, it’s much more eloquent than that, and pretty brief too. You can get a few details at The Oregon Blog, which left my head spinning. There’s some business about the Republican from Lake Oswego and how he feels bad about how the national gumment has gone haywire with spending and doesn’t want to impose on them for a few buck here and there to create jobs and alleviate pain for some people who need it.

This is probably out there already, but I have to use the voice that I have to warn people. Some sick bastard is poisoning dogs at Laurelhurst Park by leaving poisoned meat in the bushes. If you have a dog, beware. As a dog-lover and companion, all I can say is that death is too good for this person or group. Update: here is KOIN’s story.

Matt Baldwin (of Defective Yeti fame) has written an interesting piece about copyright laws and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Basically, he discusses how the League was made possible by copyright laws allowing works to fall into the public domain (originally 28 years), which is being made more difficult now as congress regularly extends the copyright periods (now 70 years posthumous). to me extending copyright periods seems like the wrong way to go.

good times. I came across two new portland bloggers…hilsy blog and timberlog. The first is a beerdrinking runner, and the second writes about soccer, which is almost the same thing. The links are over to the right, I’d rather type this sentence than do an href thing even though this blogware has handy dandy clickies to make it easy. Enjoy, they seem like good people.

Some interesting, albeit scary thoughts on taxing drivers are being researched here in backwoodsy Oregon. Well, looked into, at leat. The ideas derive from an increase in fuel-efficient cars (not sure where they’re seeing them?!) which is causing a decrease in gas tax revenues…so they want to track mileage. To do so, they’d use techniques such as GPS and other little black boxes that need to be installed into cars. Besides the obvious privacy issues, which About it All has probably already covered, there are some interesting possibilities here.

The phrase dot-com long ago began to sound, similar to ‘milk’ said a few dozen times consecutively, amorphous and lacking in true meaning. Whenever I heard the subphrase I would expect a punchline, even in a Merrill Lynch ad or coming from some VP. Coming from my own mouth, the word would make me double-take with the surprised look of a young dog farting. While the dot-com ookiness will be with me for awhile, remembered like a rough tequila night, it’s coming under control, new terms like ROI and TCO have risen to teh challenge, racing towards meaninglessness, and my dot-com fits are less and less frequent.

Howard Dean is coming to Portland. I don’t have too many details at the moment, but he’s scheduled to arrive on 5/12. The good folks of the Meetup are planning to get out there and show support in an effort to get a bit of press coverage for him. This is a great way to build the grassroots movement, so if you can be there, do it. I don’t have a time for his arrival yet, but I’ll find out and post that.

but I guess we had one today.

That was very cool. I got there early, so managed to get a table right in front and quaff a pint before the ruckus. Ninety-some people showed up to Mississippi Pizza in North Portland to hang out and hear about Howard Dean, the man who I believe will bring character back to the Democratic Party. Really. I’m even considering giving up my registered Independent status in order to support Dean in the primaries.

While not my local Home Depot, the one located in Clackamas may be becoming my regular stop for home maintenance bulk runs. And I’ll have to start doing the maintenance in the morning, around breakfast time. At least do the equiment and supplies runs then. That has nothing to do with the Krispy Kreme opening up in front of the store there. I’d been giving serious thought to changing Home Depots anyway.

Creates crime of terrorism. Punishes by life imprisonment. SB 742 is being sponsored by Senator Minnis. This bill is an insane and reactionary piece of legislature fueled by the paranoia and division inspired by out national leaders and the media, and will work to fan the flames of fear and mistrust on both sides. Basically, SB 742 defines terrorism in a loose and broad terminology, which could just as easily apply to reckless driving as to pipe bombing city hall.

It looks like Portlanders will need to continue their hour-long drive out to Spirit Mountain in order to throw away retirement funds, savings accounts, and milk money. Our Governor Kulongowski did not approve Portland’s plan of allowing the Grand Ronde tribe to build a casino in town in exchange for some hundreds of millions of dollars for a baseball stadium. I am somewhat mixed on this issue. In theory it seems a fine idea.

In light of all the nastiness we’ve been hearing about Oregon, the schools, the economy, the infighting, timber, power, baseball, gambling, and such, I was really happy to see this article, in which the Senate put the (at least for-now) smackdown on GWB’s energy/budget plan to drill pristine Alaska. The article tells us that Gordon Smith cast one of the key votes to shift the win over to the powers of good.

Perhaps it will stay beautiful as I journey to the Oregon Coast in search of Jack’s blue plastic beach decorations. Wish me luck, back tomorrow sometime.

I live across the street from Meek elementary on NE Albert, one of Portland’s closing elementary schools. It always seemed like a cool place, with gardens in the front, little crossing guards in orange, and colorful signs all around the brick building (sadly, they all plead save our school now). So this make me somewhat sad. Now, I am puzzled though about something. In the face of closure, someone has decided to tear about the sidewalks and nearby lawns.

Here’s a must-read from Jack Bog. Details of the sorry situation of Oregon Courts from a fine blogger. I knew there were problems, but wasn’t really aware of the extent of the problem. Think I’ll be parking in the driveway from here on out…one vehicle breakin (this car) is plenty for me. Education has been much more my issue (it’s all bottled up inside!) to this point, but this is freaky stuff.

It truly does. Once again. In bold. Portland Radio Sucks. Bigtime. I could stop this story right here, and probably have said all that I need to, but then what would be the fun in that? I am just freakin’ so sick and tired of all the damn commercials and the stupid DJ’s mackin on strippers for 47 minutes out of each hour. And the three songs that I do hear…if my timing was good and I get to hear any on my commute…are the same ones by the same ‘artists’, rotating between Rage Against the Machine, tool, System of A Down, Korn (sorry deep guys can’t do that kewl ‘K’ thing they do), with maybe a bit of Metallica blended in.