On the evening of September 21st, a cold wind swept out of the east and blew Summer away. I'd never experienced Fall coming right on schedule. That it was to-the-day was almost eerie.
Where I grew up, we had cold foggy Summers, and Fall was when it warmed up and got really nice. The only White Christmas I ever had was having the Iceberg roses still blooming.
I realized, though, that McMinnville is perfectly situated for the seasons. We're just a hair North of the 45th Parallel, halfway between the North Pole and the Equator. Fall here starts on the first day of Autumn. It has to, geographically and astrophysically. The 45th Parallel is the Platonic Ideal of seasonal change, like Greenwich Mean Time is the standard for clocks.
The longitude of the Earth should be graded for seasons. The Equator: always Summer, and the North Pole: always Winter. If the Tropics spend 12 months having June and July, and the Arctic spends the year with December and January, then the people along the 45th would be the only ones getting all 12 months.
"What month is it in L.A.?"
"Don't talk to me about roses, it's February here!"
The 45th Parallel is surprisingly Northerly. McMinnville shares latitude with Minneapolis, lower Montana, Northern South Dakota, Ottawa Canada, Darkest Maine and Colchester Nova Scotia. Seems like it ought to be a lot colder here right now.
The Bordeaux region of France is right there, too, which is one of the reasons there's so much Pinot growing around here. Also Hokkaido, Japan. I wonder if they grow Pinot grapes.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Saturday, September 30, 2006
Where's George? At the Dollar Tree!
I took Max to the Dollar store ("Dad, the real name is "the Dollar TREE.") to get some goodies for a sleepover. He'd gotten a zip-style motorcycle which instantly broke but was still fun, and we figured we'd get some more of those. The rider's legs had broken horribly, but not in a crash, they just broke, and the seat came right off but you could still run the plastic zip strip through the wheel and make it go. The zipper degraded visibly right before your eyes; I figure it's got about a hundred runs in it.
Anyway, caveat crap, and I have a hate/hate relationship with cheap-ass Chinese crap, but I is unteachable, and we went anyway.
We got some really cool flip-over cars in similar packaging to Evel Parapelegic, and some glow bracelets for everyone to have fun with after dark. So, six bucks. Everything's a dollar at the dollar store.
When I went to put back the "Two Three-Color Glow Necklaces!" in favor of the pick-up-sticks-sized-tube of 15 various glow things, there were three hispanic kids playing in the aisle, and a dollar bill lying on top of the toys in a bin.
It brought me up short. "Is that yours?" The kids were running around, paying no attention to me or the dollar. Weird. The back of the dollar was up, and in the middle I recognized the "where's George" stamp.
One aisle over, there was a loitering teen with pinkish hair and a trenchcoat. I think he had a friend wandering around, as well.
That was cool. What wasn't cool was just now finding out how lame the Where's George site is. I expected I'd be able to search for McMinnville, or 97128 and try to figure out which bill I'd seen. Nope. Nada.
Plus, I know I entered a bill once, but they had no record of my email address. Any of them.
Sucky. Plus there are idiotic banners for things much less cool than I'd expect from such a conceptually cool concept like tracking currency collaboratively with rubber stamps and internet connections.
BUT! By using Google to search ONLY wheresgeorge.com (Advanced Search), I found several McMinnville dollars, the most recent of which was found on July 2nd. I wonder if the pinkish-haired kid was the one who made the note about the small tier (sic) in the bill.
Note, though, the idiotic map showing Alaska in Baja, with a red-rocket-line of the bill shooting up to Washington from the south. Edward Tufte would not approve.
The one that had two entries two years apart in McMinnville made me wonder, too. Did it just knock around here for a couple years, was it in someone's piggy bank the whole time? Did the same person enter it both times?
I wonder.
Anyway, caveat crap, and I have a hate/hate relationship with cheap-ass Chinese crap, but I is unteachable, and we went anyway.
We got some really cool flip-over cars in similar packaging to Evel Parapelegic, and some glow bracelets for everyone to have fun with after dark. So, six bucks. Everything's a dollar at the dollar store.
When I went to put back the "Two Three-Color Glow Necklaces!" in favor of the pick-up-sticks-sized-tube of 15 various glow things, there were three hispanic kids playing in the aisle, and a dollar bill lying on top of the toys in a bin.It brought me up short. "Is that yours?" The kids were running around, paying no attention to me or the dollar. Weird. The back of the dollar was up, and in the middle I recognized the "where's George" stamp.
One aisle over, there was a loitering teen with pinkish hair and a trenchcoat. I think he had a friend wandering around, as well.
That was cool. What wasn't cool was just now finding out how lame the Where's George site is. I expected I'd be able to search for McMinnville, or 97128 and try to figure out which bill I'd seen. Nope. Nada.
Plus, I know I entered a bill once, but they had no record of my email address. Any of them.
Sucky. Plus there are idiotic banners for things much less cool than I'd expect from such a conceptually cool concept like tracking currency collaboratively with rubber stamps and internet connections.
BUT! By using Google to search ONLY wheresgeorge.com (Advanced Search), I found several McMinnville dollars, the most recent of which was found on July 2nd. I wonder if the pinkish-haired kid was the one who made the note about the small tier (sic) in the bill.
Note, though, the idiotic map showing Alaska in Baja, with a red-rocket-line of the bill shooting up to Washington from the south. Edward Tufte would not approve.
The one that had two entries two years apart in McMinnville made me wonder, too. Did it just knock around here for a couple years, was it in someone's piggy bank the whole time? Did the same person enter it both times?
I wonder.
Pronunciation update
I called the last post "pronounciation" to make you pronounce it wrong, but I'm over that.
I talked to my neighbor in the Courtyard, who'd just gotten back from 18 days hunting elk in the backcountry. He hadn't gotten his elk this year, but had come pretty close and had a good time. Seven inches of snow had fallen and crushed his tent.
I was sporting, I said "that sounds okay, though, you and your horse and your gun out there in the mountains," and he said actually he was a bow hunter, and was very scrupulous about taking a shot that might only injure the animal. He said, "not to say anything bad about anyone," (which always means you're in for some dirt) there was a guy in Grande Ronde who always got his buck, but might have to track it for a couple of days before it died with his arrow in it, "finding it by smell or something sometimes."
We both agreed that wasn't right.
He pronounced Grand Ronde "Grand ROUnd", which makes me think of ground round, which is kind of funny.
I talked to my neighbor in the Courtyard, who'd just gotten back from 18 days hunting elk in the backcountry. He hadn't gotten his elk this year, but had come pretty close and had a good time. Seven inches of snow had fallen and crushed his tent.
I was sporting, I said "that sounds okay, though, you and your horse and your gun out there in the mountains," and he said actually he was a bow hunter, and was very scrupulous about taking a shot that might only injure the animal. He said, "not to say anything bad about anyone," (which always means you're in for some dirt) there was a guy in Grande Ronde who always got his buck, but might have to track it for a couple of days before it died with his arrow in it, "finding it by smell or something sometimes."
We both agreed that wasn't right.
He pronounced Grand Ronde "Grand ROUnd", which makes me think of ground round, which is kind of funny.
Sunday, September 03, 2006
Riding Bikes
Riding bike is really cool. Last night Rex called up to ask if we could all ride bikes today, so we did. Mark, Rex, Max and I rode around the neighborhoods between NW 19th and downtown, played in Dragon Park ("Rarrhh! I'm a lava monster!"), ate and drank at the Hotel Oregon, and had ice cream at Serendipity, the best smelling place in the world.
It smells like being 7 years old, in the candy store on 4th St. in San Rafael, where I once got 5 soft serves because the guy filling in for the owner (who was at a funeral) couldn't get the machine to work right. Total bliss. I was replete. There was melting ice cream everywhere. I had one in each hand, my dad had two, and my mom had one, walking down the sparkling sidewalk.
We rode back through the NW neighborhood to about 12th Street, and came home. We looked at the 1920s bungalows, kept the kids from getting run over, and enjoyed the town.
In the evening I went for a ride out Hill Road, which turns to gravel where the yellow line in the road ends. There are two more hills behind that one. Not too steep, but it was a lot easier to come back in the 54" gear than it was going out in the 70" one. It's cool to ride on gravel with fat tires, but there are still cars (well, pickups) that use it as a real road. I had to put my shirt in my mouth on one downhill to filter the billowing clouds of dust after an F150 with a trailer of ATVs passed.
I'm surprised at the number of dirt roads in Oregon that actually GO somewhere. Even in Portland, there are neighborhoods where you're driving along and "whoops!" there's no pavement. It's cool. It reminds me of Australia. Which reminded me of 1970s California. Which reminds me I have yet to write the post called "Why DO so many Californians move here?"
The colors in the evening on Poverty Bend Rd ("Poverty Bend Road" might be the best name for a road ever) were incredible. Very intense greens. Warm orange lambs. A field that could not be any greener. The Perkinje Effect, of course.
Named for Mr. Perkinje... of course, who noticed that in the evening, right before sunset, red things really popped, and green things looked really cool. He figured out that it was because the light from the Sun had to pass through more atmosphere in the evening, and some of the shorter wavelengths don't make it. So more green and red light gets through to reflect off green and red things, and hit our eyes and make us say "ahh, the Golden Hour!"
My friend Holden told me about the Perkinje Effect a long time ago, at sunset, which made me realize something important. If you notice something, and can give it a credible explanation of WHY it's happening, you can name it after yourself.
You want to be careful, though. If I figure out that the reason people are such wadweeds* on the road, or choose to put things up inside themselves, I might not want to call it "the Philip Effect". No.
Besides, "the Philip Effect" is already taken. It's the effect where people notice something happening, and explain it, and get to name it after themselves. "The Philip Effect." Simple.
Riding out there made me glad to be an American. But this... made me proud.
*I was pleased to see that Ben Pappas' 1992 coinage, "wadweed", is completely absent from the internet. Until now.
It smells like being 7 years old, in the candy store on 4th St. in San Rafael, where I once got 5 soft serves because the guy filling in for the owner (who was at a funeral) couldn't get the machine to work right. Total bliss. I was replete. There was melting ice cream everywhere. I had one in each hand, my dad had two, and my mom had one, walking down the sparkling sidewalk.
We rode back through the NW neighborhood to about 12th Street, and came home. We looked at the 1920s bungalows, kept the kids from getting run over, and enjoyed the town.
In the evening I went for a ride out Hill Road, which turns to gravel where the yellow line in the road ends. There are two more hills behind that one. Not too steep, but it was a lot easier to come back in the 54" gear than it was going out in the 70" one. It's cool to ride on gravel with fat tires, but there are still cars (well, pickups) that use it as a real road. I had to put my shirt in my mouth on one downhill to filter the billowing clouds of dust after an F150 with a trailer of ATVs passed.
I'm surprised at the number of dirt roads in Oregon that actually GO somewhere. Even in Portland, there are neighborhoods where you're driving along and "whoops!" there's no pavement. It's cool. It reminds me of Australia. Which reminded me of 1970s California. Which reminds me I have yet to write the post called "Why DO so many Californians move here?"
The colors in the evening on Poverty Bend Rd ("Poverty Bend Road" might be the best name for a road ever) were incredible. Very intense greens. Warm orange lambs. A field that could not be any greener. The Perkinje Effect, of course.
Named for Mr. Perkinje... of course, who noticed that in the evening, right before sunset, red things really popped, and green things looked really cool. He figured out that it was because the light from the Sun had to pass through more atmosphere in the evening, and some of the shorter wavelengths don't make it. So more green and red light gets through to reflect off green and red things, and hit our eyes and make us say "ahh, the Golden Hour!"
My friend Holden told me about the Perkinje Effect a long time ago, at sunset, which made me realize something important. If you notice something, and can give it a credible explanation of WHY it's happening, you can name it after yourself.You want to be careful, though. If I figure out that the reason people are such wadweeds* on the road, or choose to put things up inside themselves, I might not want to call it "the Philip Effect". No.
Besides, "the Philip Effect" is already taken. It's the effect where people notice something happening, and explain it, and get to name it after themselves. "The Philip Effect." Simple.Riding out there made me glad to be an American. But this... made me proud.
*I was pleased to see that Ben Pappas' 1992 coinage, "wadweed", is completely absent from the internet. Until now.
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Howard and Dave's Barbershop
Max got his first haircut in a long time today.
He's been wanting Jimmy Neutron hair, which sticks up about a foot, and what with one thing and another, it's been a long time. Pursuing the Neutron Style, we did find that the Plaid Pantry carries hair gel. The woman there was surprised, but it's true. Smells like grape.
Lisa did touch it up a little while ago, but his bangs have been in his eyes for weeks.
We went down to Howard and Dave's Barbershop on Cowls street, mostly because every morning when we ride our bikes to school, Max weaves in between them on the sidewalk as they're opening up their shop to start their day. They always smile and crack some comment.
The shop is great. Comfortable. Two old-fashioned chairs and some smart-ass regulars.
This was Max's first time in a grown-up barbershop, and he didn't like the idea of no video games. In practice, though, he looked through a car magazine and bantered with the guys. Got some gum from the machine. Pretty fun.
I liked it, too. I've never gotten a professional haircut in my whole life.
As a child, my mom cut my hair to much wailing and crying, which turned into mean comments as I got older, and finally culminated in No More Haircuts. I had a friend cut my hair in college, but she exactly cut off the part I told her to keep (the Bozo undergrowth that supported the straight hair on top). She was totally acting in my best interest ('get Philip laid'), but my hair was never designed to be long. Too lank. Next was midnight head-shavings at Nine Gables, with friends, housemates and mohawks. Finally, my friend Molly cut her own hair, and told me "you've GOT to cut your own hair! It's SO FUN!" It was fun, and I did a pretty good job of it, but how hard is a mohawk, really?
That reminds me of a story I heard in the barbershop. The subject of 'myths' came up, and one of them insisted that the "famous story" of some loggers from one of the local mills cutting a hippie's hair with a chainsaw was a true story, and cost the mill owner "a lot of money." A crew was coming back from work and passed a hippie on the road ("a real long hair"), and that was too good to pass up, so they buzzed him so close he had to jump in the ditch. He come up out the ditch and let fly with a one-fingered wave, "and those guys nearly turned that thing over backing up so fast". They jumped out, held him down and cut his hair off with a chainsaw.
Ow. About half of us thought that must've just pulled the hair out in chunks, but some thought it could've been done cleanly, if they held the hair on both sides. The noise and the terror, though, must've been awful.
Reminds me of the time me and my hippie friends were driving around and came across a logger alone in the woods. We almost ran him down, then jumped on him and superglued a big blonde wig to his head.
Nothing like that happened to Max, though. He got a great haircut, which took twice as long as anyone else's, but cost less. Go figure. Probably because just about the time Dave was finishing up with the cut, I said "don't be afraid to cut it short - we never comb it," so he went over the whole thing again, making it shorter. Two haircuts, but he only charged for one.
Really enjoyable experience.
He's been wanting Jimmy Neutron hair, which sticks up about a foot, and what with one thing and another, it's been a long time. Pursuing the Neutron Style, we did find that the Plaid Pantry carries hair gel. The woman there was surprised, but it's true. Smells like grape.
Lisa did touch it up a little while ago, but his bangs have been in his eyes for weeks.
We went down to Howard and Dave's Barbershop on Cowls street, mostly because every morning when we ride our bikes to school, Max weaves in between them on the sidewalk as they're opening up their shop to start their day. They always smile and crack some comment.The shop is great. Comfortable. Two old-fashioned chairs and some smart-ass regulars.
This was Max's first time in a grown-up barbershop, and he didn't like the idea of no video games. In practice, though, he looked through a car magazine and bantered with the guys. Got some gum from the machine. Pretty fun.
I liked it, too. I've never gotten a professional haircut in my whole life.As a child, my mom cut my hair to much wailing and crying, which turned into mean comments as I got older, and finally culminated in No More Haircuts. I had a friend cut my hair in college, but she exactly cut off the part I told her to keep (the Bozo undergrowth that supported the straight hair on top). She was totally acting in my best interest ('get Philip laid'), but my hair was never designed to be long. Too lank. Next was midnight head-shavings at Nine Gables, with friends, housemates and mohawks. Finally, my friend Molly cut her own hair, and told me "you've GOT to cut your own hair! It's SO FUN!" It was fun, and I did a pretty good job of it, but how hard is a mohawk, really?
That reminds me of a story I heard in the barbershop. The subject of 'myths' came up, and one of them insisted that the "famous story" of some loggers from one of the local mills cutting a hippie's hair with a chainsaw was a true story, and cost the mill owner "a lot of money." A crew was coming back from work and passed a hippie on the road ("a real long hair"), and that was too good to pass up, so they buzzed him so close he had to jump in the ditch. He come up out the ditch and let fly with a one-fingered wave, "and those guys nearly turned that thing over backing up so fast". They jumped out, held him down and cut his hair off with a chainsaw.
Ow. About half of us thought that must've just pulled the hair out in chunks, but some thought it could've been done cleanly, if they held the hair on both sides. The noise and the terror, though, must've been awful.
Reminds me of the time me and my hippie friends were driving around and came across a logger alone in the woods. We almost ran him down, then jumped on him and superglued a big blonde wig to his head.
Nothing like that happened to Max, though. He got a great haircut, which took twice as long as anyone else's, but cost less. Go figure. Probably because just about the time Dave was finishing up with the cut, I said "don't be afraid to cut it short - we never comb it," so he went over the whole thing again, making it shorter. Two haircuts, but he only charged for one.
Really enjoyable experience.
Saturday, August 26, 2006
Nice lunch from Red Fox bakery
I was on my way to Harvest Fresh to try out their sandwiches when I was distracted by the Red Fox bakery. The Red Fox lady and her kid came into Dustpan Alley the other day, and I figured I'd return the favor.
There was a disturbing sign in the window warning of coming price increases, since this has been the worst year for the MidWest since the Dustbowl years, and wheat crops are being lost.
The fella in front of me asked if their coffee was good, and the girl said "it's the best. We use Illy."
The guy said, "well, I warn you, I'm a coffee connoisseur!"and described the custom blend of six beans he likes to drink. Like a dick I chimed in with, "then I don't think you're going to be happy with Illycafe."
I got to chatting with the guy and his wife, and told the story of when I roasted a pound and a half of green Jamaican Blue Mountain beans in a cast-iron skillet. Best coffee I've ever had.
The guy's wife is like "oh, no! Now there's something else you've got to try!" :)
He said there's no good coffee in the South, "but maybe you disagree." I did disagree, but only second-hand. When I was growing up, my father had my Grandma mail regular 20 lb packages of coffee in red bags from Louisiana, since there was no decent coffee to be had in California at the time. The guy had to admit that Louisiana French Roast was good, and that before he got into his "bean-thing", he'd mix some Lausanne(?) coffee with chicory into his Maxwell House to give it a bit of a kick.
Anyway, he had a cup of coffee (with milk) and when the girl asked him if it was good, proclaimed that it was "in the range of acceptable."
Anyway. The Red Fox has no debit machine, so I scaled back from the Turkey and Apple sandwich I wanted to an Egg Salad Sandwich ("egg-selent salad") so I'd have enough to leave a tip, because I thought I'd stay instead of take my sandwich to go. I thought I wanted a coffee, too, but not after it became such an issue.
The egg salad was really good. The bread was a little crumbly for the job, but I also got a beautiful little 'salad', which was either the worlds most compact salad, or the fanciest, tastiest garnish in the world. It was a leaf of baby romaine, with a cherry tomato, a baby carrot and something shredded maybe (I ate it in two bites and I forgot to dissect it, sorry), dressed with a nice vinaigrette.
And a macaroon. Oh, the macaroon was great. Even a bad macaroon is pretty yummy, but this one was crispy and chewy and very flavorful, and made me downgrade all other macaroons in my estimation. Now they all seem either too gummy or too burnt in comparison.
I could see eating one of those macaroons every day as part of my morning coffee ritual. I may even try it with the Illy Cafe coffee...
There was a disturbing sign in the window warning of coming price increases, since this has been the worst year for the MidWest since the Dustbowl years, and wheat crops are being lost.
The fella in front of me asked if their coffee was good, and the girl said "it's the best. We use Illy."
The guy said, "well, I warn you, I'm a coffee connoisseur!"and described the custom blend of six beans he likes to drink. Like a dick I chimed in with, "then I don't think you're going to be happy with Illycafe."
I got to chatting with the guy and his wife, and told the story of when I roasted a pound and a half of green Jamaican Blue Mountain beans in a cast-iron skillet. Best coffee I've ever had.
The guy's wife is like "oh, no! Now there's something else you've got to try!" :)
He said there's no good coffee in the South, "but maybe you disagree." I did disagree, but only second-hand. When I was growing up, my father had my Grandma mail regular 20 lb packages of coffee in red bags from Louisiana, since there was no decent coffee to be had in California at the time. The guy had to admit that Louisiana French Roast was good, and that before he got into his "bean-thing", he'd mix some Lausanne(?) coffee with chicory into his Maxwell House to give it a bit of a kick.
Anyway, he had a cup of coffee (with milk) and when the girl asked him if it was good, proclaimed that it was "in the range of acceptable."
Anyway. The Red Fox has no debit machine, so I scaled back from the Turkey and Apple sandwich I wanted to an Egg Salad Sandwich ("egg-selent salad") so I'd have enough to leave a tip, because I thought I'd stay instead of take my sandwich to go. I thought I wanted a coffee, too, but not after it became such an issue.
The egg salad was really good. The bread was a little crumbly for the job, but I also got a beautiful little 'salad', which was either the worlds most compact salad, or the fanciest, tastiest garnish in the world. It was a leaf of baby romaine, with a cherry tomato, a baby carrot and something shredded maybe (I ate it in two bites and I forgot to dissect it, sorry), dressed with a nice vinaigrette.
And a macaroon. Oh, the macaroon was great. Even a bad macaroon is pretty yummy, but this one was crispy and chewy and very flavorful, and made me downgrade all other macaroons in my estimation. Now they all seem either too gummy or too burnt in comparison.
I could see eating one of those macaroons every day as part of my morning coffee ritual. I may even try it with the Illy Cafe coffee...
First fixie I've sighted in McMinnville
Young fella named Alex had a rebuilt Raleigh fixie in front of Tommy's Bikes! The only other fixed gear bike I've seen in Yamhill County was on top of a car at the skatepark in Newberg, and the owner had come down from Portland.
Alex's fixie was a nice medium dusty blue in the neo-classic style. Flipped and clipped homebrew bullhorns, a single interruptor brake, and a 42x16 gear. He says it's light enough to keep up with cars on Evans Street. I believe him, but this is semi-rural Oregon. Max can keep up with cars on Evans.
He's from here, but he might be moving to Portland soon. They've got tons of fixies. We need you here, dude!
Alex's fixie was a nice medium dusty blue in the neo-classic style. Flipped and clipped homebrew bullhorns, a single interruptor brake, and a 42x16 gear. He says it's light enough to keep up with cars on Evans Street. I believe him, but this is semi-rural Oregon. Max can keep up with cars on Evans.
He's from here, but he might be moving to Portland soon. They've got tons of fixies. We need you here, dude!
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Oregon food: Uwajimaya
I feel like I wrote this entry already, but I can't find it.Clinton and I went to a monstrously large Asian food market in Beaverton called Uwajimaya. Clinton says it's about half the size of the one in Seattle, and doesn't have the non-MSG choices the Seattle one has.
I gotta say it's overwhelming.
Walking into the first aisle, floor to ceiling with alien colors, big Japanese text, and not a lick of English was an overload. I didn't know where to look. I walked down the aisle trying not to miss anything, but being visually pummelled and pushed from shelf to shelf. "What IS this?" It would be like an Estonian from 1953 walking unprepared into the detergent aisle at Safeway. Wearing 3-D glasses.I've never been a mid-century Estonian, but I have worn 3D glasses in the detergent aisle.
Pretty frickin' cool. I bought a bunch of cheaper beverages to try. I didn't want to get anything I didn't think I'd drink, and I didn't want anything that cost FIVE DOLLARS. There were some mighty spendy beverages, mostly weird Hawaiian-flavored things with Japanese writing.I got some Lichee drink, which was good, but ended with kind of a grainy texture, some Strawberry Milk Tea which was super-yummy, and Max wants me to get a lot more.
Also some "Hello Boss" canned coffee. I got that in memory of the canned coffee I bought Angelina at the "Happy Super" Chinese market on Clement Street in San Francisco. We had that can for YEARS. It said "drink on Feb 31", so, y'know, we could never drink it.(We lived over the Happy Super for a couple months right after we got married, and I remember watching them deliver whole dead pigs right under our window. Years later, I went into the City to visit my friend Tara at The Other Place when she was a bartender there, and passed by the Happy Super, only to find all its stuff out on the street and Going Out of Business signs in the window. I took a 'frozen food' sign which graces our freezer to this day.)
Anyway... we didn't buy an entire roast pig, and we didn't get any steam-table Chinese... but we could have.I did buy some chocolate-covered mushroom cookies and some milky popsicles, and Clinton and I each bought an indecipherable box of something that seemed really exciting. Like tiny somethings, but we couldn't tell what. The shelves we got them off had what may have been little boxes of plastic models of things like "Secretary coming through door", and "Spacy Housewife", but we couldn't tell.
Our spider-senses did not fail us. My box (which I got for Angelina, because she loves weird tiny shit) had a tiny plastic Meat Gift Box, where you put the stickers on the meat, constructed the box, and packaged it all up. Whoa. The whole thing is about an inch and a half long.
Clinton's had the goods, though. It was things you might stock a convenience store with. A roll of film, a film canister to put it in, and a tiny box you construct to put the canister inside of. Tiny candies. Salt? Gum?
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Antique Fly-In and airshow
When my dad was here, Max and I took him to the antique fly-in. There were hundreds of old planes, which my dad loves. There were three Bellancas, like my dad had when I was a kid.
Max liked the snow cones, the corporate jet the crew dicked around with for 20 minutes getting parked, and the shuttle ride across to the Air Museum.
The museum is the home of the Spruce Goose.
Most people are surprised the Spruce Goose is in McMinnville, including my dad, who's an aviation enthusiast (he just came from the huge EAA fly-in at Oshkosh). Seems like they could do some better promotion, if people with an interest don't even know where it is.
Let me digress: I think there should be big billboards on I-5. "A beautiful detour to see the Aviator's masterpiece." There is a billboard on 99W in Dundee, showing the Spruce Goose in the clouds, which is just bullshit, since the thing only flew once, for about a minute, just a few feet off the water.
A better billboard: make several, featuring cropped-in views of the plane. How often do you have pictures of things on billboards that are way bigger than the billboard? Put three billboards in series, a couple miles apart. The first one shows two engines and a float, the second one shows the bow and cockpit, third one is looking down the wing so you get an overview of the whole. Mostly the signs would be that distinctive silver-gray, and they'd have the current tagline "it's big."
Sorry. That's the kind of thing I think about. Back to our regularly scheduled programming...
The Spruce Goose is big. So big you don't even notice the huge wing stretching over all the other planes, because your brain interprets it as 'ceiling'. They have an SR-71 Blackbird sitting under the wing next to a Titan missile. Lots of good stuff, including a bunch of helicopters. It seems like they changed a lot of the toys in the store, and focus more on models you can build, including one that was $120. They used to have a lot more hideously-expensive-Chinese-made crap, like the $20 plastic aircraft carrier that sinks. It did come with several little metal airplanes, but it was worth about $5 and still should've floated. I have a personal war with shitty toys that make my kid cry 15 minutes after I've bought it. Every time I break my "no shitty toy that breaks right away" rule I regret it. Plastic crossbow pistols? Total Crap. Good for about 15 minutes of wailing. Sinkable aircraft carrier? Mediocre crap, good for 3 days of peevish complaining.
Boy, another digression.
Aside from the toys, Max likes the flight simulator you can climb inside of. Basically it's a videgame with a really cool seat. He got good at it right away. Unfortunately, it was out of order this time.
The other cool kid thing is the set-up that lets you send a Navy jet down a wire to land on a carrier deck. It seems to work no matter what you do, but my dad explained you're supposed to catch the middle rubber band. It's cool to play with, but it might be due for a tune-up or clearer explanation of the goal.
The nice thing about the McMinnville event is that a lot of the planes are parked on dirt, so you don't have that hot asphalt cooking you. Airplane events are usually really bright and hot, then they get loud. My favorite part was the pint of Sierra Nevada I had.
I do like to look at old planes, though. My favorites are the Ercoupes and biplanes or floatplanes of any kind. My dad said my mom would've gotten an Ercoupe "if she was single." She liked all the planes with the extra round vertical stabilizers, like the Bellanca and the Constellation (her favorite plane, I think). The Ercoupe is kind of the Nash Metropolitan of airplanes.
I was startled to see my Ercoupe search turn up this page on Sheldon Brown's site. He's the guru of all internet bicyclery, and a seminal figure of the fixed-gear renaissance. Small internet world.
About half the pictures I took ended up being AVIs. The mode switch on Angelina's ELF is easily changed when pulling the camera out of one's pocket. The little switch slides over, and "RRr". They start with one frame of a nicely composed airplane, then a sickmaking swing through a 95 degree arc, some asphalt, and then another frame of the same plane. Ick.
Max liked the snow cones, the corporate jet the crew dicked around with for 20 minutes getting parked, and the shuttle ride across to the Air Museum.
The museum is the home of the Spruce Goose.Most people are surprised the Spruce Goose is in McMinnville, including my dad, who's an aviation enthusiast (he just came from the huge EAA fly-in at Oshkosh). Seems like they could do some better promotion, if people with an interest don't even know where it is.
Let me digress: I think there should be big billboards on I-5. "A beautiful detour to see the Aviator's masterpiece." There is a billboard on 99W in Dundee, showing the Spruce Goose in the clouds, which is just bullshit, since the thing only flew once, for about a minute, just a few feet off the water.
A better billboard: make several, featuring cropped-in views of the plane. How often do you have pictures of things on billboards that are way bigger than the billboard? Put three billboards in series, a couple miles apart. The first one shows two engines and a float, the second one shows the bow and cockpit, third one is looking down the wing so you get an overview of the whole. Mostly the signs would be that distinctive silver-gray, and they'd have the current tagline "it's big."
Sorry. That's the kind of thing I think about. Back to our regularly scheduled programming...
The Spruce Goose is big. So big you don't even notice the huge wing stretching over all the other planes, because your brain interprets it as 'ceiling'. They have an SR-71 Blackbird sitting under the wing next to a Titan missile. Lots of good stuff, including a bunch of helicopters. It seems like they changed a lot of the toys in the store, and focus more on models you can build, including one that was $120. They used to have a lot more hideously-expensive-Chinese-made crap, like the $20 plastic aircraft carrier that sinks. It did come with several little metal airplanes, but it was worth about $5 and still should've floated. I have a personal war with shitty toys that make my kid cry 15 minutes after I've bought it. Every time I break my "no shitty toy that breaks right away" rule I regret it. Plastic crossbow pistols? Total Crap. Good for about 15 minutes of wailing. Sinkable aircraft carrier? Mediocre crap, good for 3 days of peevish complaining.Boy, another digression.
Aside from the toys, Max likes the flight simulator you can climb inside of. Basically it's a videgame with a really cool seat. He got good at it right away. Unfortunately, it was out of order this time.The other cool kid thing is the set-up that lets you send a Navy jet down a wire to land on a carrier deck. It seems to work no matter what you do, but my dad explained you're supposed to catch the middle rubber band. It's cool to play with, but it might be due for a tune-up or clearer explanation of the goal.
The nice thing about the McMinnville event is that a lot of the planes are parked on dirt, so you don't have that hot asphalt cooking you. Airplane events are usually really bright and hot, then they get loud. My favorite part was the pint of Sierra Nevada I had.
I do like to look at old planes, though. My favorites are the Ercoupes and biplanes or floatplanes of any kind. My dad said my mom would've gotten an Ercoupe "if she was single." She liked all the planes with the extra round vertical stabilizers, like the Bellanca and the Constellation (her favorite plane, I think). The Ercoupe is kind of the Nash Metropolitan of airplanes.
I was startled to see my Ercoupe search turn up this page on Sheldon Brown's site. He's the guru of all internet bicyclery, and a seminal figure of the fixed-gear renaissance. Small internet world.About half the pictures I took ended up being AVIs. The mode switch on Angelina's ELF is easily changed when pulling the camera out of one's pocket. The little switch slides over, and "RRr". They start with one frame of a nicely composed airplane, then a sickmaking swing through a 95 degree arc, some asphalt, and then another frame of the same plane. Ick.
Robin Williams in McMinnville!
The buzz on the street on Saturday was "Hey, did you see Robin Williams?!" Apparently (everyone seemed to know this), he was in rehab in Newberg.
Angelina's mom saw him twice. Once on the street, and then when he went into Tommy's Bikes.
Nancy at Found Objects said Linda's daughter ran after him and said "you've got to come into my mom's shop!" He walked the two blocks back to Hopscotch with her, and bought some toys.
That just makes me happy; what a guy!
He used to come into the Coffee Roastery where Angelina worked, and he was always charming and down-to-earth. "Regular", even. Once he entertained some friends of mine for about half an hour with an impromptu routine on the bench in front of the Book Depot.
I wish I'd seen him. I wanted to say "Hey... don't I know you from Mill Valley?"
Angelina's mom saw him twice. Once on the street, and then when he went into Tommy's Bikes.
Nancy at Found Objects said Linda's daughter ran after him and said "you've got to come into my mom's shop!" He walked the two blocks back to Hopscotch with her, and bought some toys.
That just makes me happy; what a guy!
He used to come into the Coffee Roastery where Angelina worked, and he was always charming and down-to-earth. "Regular", even. Once he entertained some friends of mine for about half an hour with an impromptu routine on the bench in front of the Book Depot.
I wish I'd seen him. I wanted to say "Hey... don't I know you from Mill Valley?"
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Registering your car in Oregon
The lady in the DMV told us that if you're stopped by a cop, and he finds out you've been a resident of Oregon for more than 30 days and haven't changed your plates, you can be fined $3000. That was at 5:00 on the 30th day. We drove real carefully down to DMV the next morning to fill out all the paperwork and take our Driver's License tests.
I don't know if that's true, or just some DMV-lady fun.
Oregon collects your Driver's Licenses to ship back to your home state (which is a shame, since I make paintings of peoples' licenses), but they don't tell California that your car is now registered in Oregon.
I got a renewal notice from CA DMV, and had to call to find out what to do about having moved (there's no info on the DMV website). You have to send a photocopy of your Oregon registration to the California DMV in the envelope they provide for the registration payment.
Someone we know had a motorcycle-only license in California, but received a regular Class C license with a motorcycle endorsement in Oregon. I guess they'd never encountered anyone who didn't have a car-driving license before.
Or else it all comes down to the people behind the counter.
I don't know if that's true, or just some DMV-lady fun.
Oregon collects your Driver's Licenses to ship back to your home state (which is a shame, since I make paintings of peoples' licenses), but they don't tell California that your car is now registered in Oregon.
I got a renewal notice from CA DMV, and had to call to find out what to do about having moved (there's no info on the DMV website). You have to send a photocopy of your Oregon registration to the California DMV in the envelope they provide for the registration payment.
Someone we know had a motorcycle-only license in California, but received a regular Class C license with a motorcycle endorsement in Oregon. I guess they'd never encountered anyone who didn't have a car-driving license before.
Or else it all comes down to the people behind the counter.
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Getting to PDX from McMinnville
Two rules:
1. Never let your guest arrive at 5:20. That's peak commute traffic and just sucks.
2. Do not take 205 to the airport if they do. Just go 82nd Avenue like a real person.
3. Arrivals at 2:30 on a Friday afternoon can suck, too. Getting to the airport takes an hour and ten minutes, but getting home takes an hour and forty. Three hour round trip.
Another Rule:
4. Allot an hour and a half to get to the airport, so you're only 20 minutes late...
I just took two hours to get to the airport, so I got there about an hour late. Coming home only took an hour, though, since traffic had cleared.
I'm going to do some experimenting with getting off 84 at the Hollywood District and taking NE Sandy...
Bringing my dad home from the airport Friday, I decided to try the Sherwood-Tualatin Road to get to 99W, but as soon as we passed the regular Tigard exit traffic on the freeway was backed up dead. I took the next exit and followed my nose back to 99W.
1. Never let your guest arrive at 5:20. That's peak commute traffic and just sucks.
2. Do not take 205 to the airport if they do. Just go 82nd Avenue like a real person.
3. Arrivals at 2:30 on a Friday afternoon can suck, too. Getting to the airport takes an hour and ten minutes, but getting home takes an hour and forty. Three hour round trip.
Another Rule:
4. Allot an hour and a half to get to the airport, so you're only 20 minutes late...
I just took two hours to get to the airport, so I got there about an hour late. Coming home only took an hour, though, since traffic had cleared.
I'm going to do some experimenting with getting off 84 at the Hollywood District and taking NE Sandy...
Bringing my dad home from the airport Friday, I decided to try the Sherwood-Tualatin Road to get to 99W, but as soon as we passed the regular Tigard exit traffic on the freeway was backed up dead. I took the next exit and followed my nose back to 99W.
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Pronounciation
Many years ago, a good friend of mine had a wicked manager named "De-BORE-ah". This is the common name "Deborah", with the accent on the wrong syLAble (my friend appreciated this perspective). That lady must've been from Northern Oregon, because a lot of their nouns are acCENted just that way. My theory is that it was One Guy in the early settler days who made funny pronunciations on purpose, as a legacy to future generations.
Whe I encounter suspect words, I just never utter them aloud, like at a party where I've immediately forgotten the person's name I'm
Peony: "p-OH-nee".
My physical therapists claimed it was a West/East thing. If you're from the East, you say "PEE-uhnee". I told them I grew up in California and had never even HEARD "pOHnee" and it was probably just a Northern Oregon thing. They didn't like that.
Dahlia: "ah" like in "apple". "DAL-ee-uh"
Willamette: "Will-AA-mit" rhymes with 'Dammit".
We were crossing the Willamette, and I was emphatically practicing "WillAmette!" and Max pipes up, "DAD! That's a bad word!"
Tigard: "TIE-gard"
Not "tiggerd", which does sound cuter.
There was a Robert Crais book that had a psychopath in it who hailed from Tigard.
Tualatin: "t-WAL-a-tin"
Willamina: "Wil-a-MEEN-a"
Chemeketa: "...uh... sha-MEK-e-tuh"
I figured out how to pronounce this be hearing the BMX announcer pronounce "Chehalem"
Chehalem: "sha-HAY-lem"
Champoeg. Guess. No, really, guess.
"sham-POOey"
My physical therapists* were like "how did you think it was pronounced? "uh, 'cham-PO-egg'."
Soda: is pronounced "pop."
*I had surgery for a broken arm, and I've been going to McMinnville Sports Medicine for physical therapy. They're great, and we talk about all sorts of stuff while they're causing my anguish.
Whe I encounter suspect words, I just never utter them aloud, like at a party where I've immediately forgotten the person's name I'm
Peony: "p-OH-nee".
My physical therapists claimed it was a West/East thing. If you're from the East, you say "PEE-uhnee". I told them I grew up in California and had never even HEARD "pOHnee" and it was probably just a Northern Oregon thing. They didn't like that.
Dahlia: "ah" like in "apple". "DAL-ee-uh"
Willamette: "Will-AA-mit" rhymes with 'Dammit".
We were crossing the Willamette, and I was emphatically practicing "WillAmette!" and Max pipes up, "DAD! That's a bad word!"
Tigard: "TIE-gard"
Not "tiggerd", which does sound cuter.
There was a Robert Crais book that had a psychopath in it who hailed from Tigard.
Tualatin: "t-WAL-a-tin"
Willamina: "Wil-a-MEEN-a"
Chemeketa: "...uh... sha-MEK-e-tuh"
I figured out how to pronounce this be hearing the BMX announcer pronounce "Chehalem"
Chehalem: "sha-HAY-lem"
Champoeg. Guess. No, really, guess.
"sham-POOey"
My physical therapists* were like "how did you think it was pronounced? "uh, 'cham-PO-egg'."
Soda: is pronounced "pop."
*I had surgery for a broken arm, and I've been going to McMinnville Sports Medicine for physical therapy. They're great, and we talk about all sorts of stuff while they're causing my anguish.
Monday, August 14, 2006
Oregon State Parks: Ed Grenfell
Ed Grinfell park is just outside McMinnville, and was pretty cool. Kept two adults and three weans entertained for... four hours? There's a creek, very accessible and perfect for dam-building or dam-busting (go Rex!).
The hunt for bottle-caps took an hour and a half, and I'm afraid we just about cleaned the place out. Max got a quart of bottle caps, and I think Rex and Elena got about the same. A half gallon of discarded bottle caps. While the two "Rolling Rock"s and three "Sol" caps were graphically the best, the breakdown was mostly Corona, lots of "BL", "kingsabeers", several Coors mountain caps (lame graphic), about five Heineken, and one Deschutes. I think good beer drinkers put the caps in their pockets.
Anthropologically speaking, the vast majority of caps could have come from ONE party of three who Really Like that spot.
Oddly, no Miller product at all...
The Oregon State Parks are celebrating 50 years in existence with some geocaching fun called "tanglebox", which is just a great name.
The practice of carving elaborate protestations of undying love into the living bark of the trees on the park side of the "human bridge" (the kids wanted to differentiate it from the car bridge, I guess) seems to be alive after all these years. I wonder how Debbie and Mike are doing... and "Bandit"?
H.H. n R.W. must've carved theirs this morning; there were still curls of red bark at the base of the tree. Go Love!
Poking around the Oregon Parks & Rec site, I found out about this Willamette Valley bikeway. We'll return to this later.
Saturday, August 12, 2006
things to do: Portland Zoo
That's a good zoo.
Max and I went a few weeks ago and spent four or five hours at the zoo, only getting to the Lorikeet area and the train after they'd closed. We went again with my Dad, and started with the train and the loris. We stayed til closing again, and I don't think we saw a single thing we'd seen the first time through. It's like two whole zoos.
There are still the hippos and most of the Africa exhibit to see. It's a three-day zoo.
This time we bought the whole-shebang package that includes the Butterfly Experience, the Train, and the 3D Thrill Ride!. $50 for the three of us: kid, adult and grampa.
We did the train first, since we'd missed out last time.
The train is cool. There seem to be three separate trains that run through Washington Park and the zoo, out through the trees along a narrow guage track. It's really cool when the two trains pass each other near a little park. It would be fun to have a picnic there and watch the trains go by. There's a short stopover at a station above the Rose Test Garden, and they'll let you get off and catch a later train, but I don't think anyone did. Next time maybe, just to try one of the other trains.
The thrill ride turned out to be right by the train station, so we did it, too. It was pretty fun; I laughed out loud several times as big critters poked their faces out of the screen. 3D glasses and hydraulic rumbleseats!
The butterfly experience is far more mellow. You go into a big landscaped tent and look at impressively beautiful South American butterflies up close. They land on people, and you can see banks of pupae inside a glass case. These pupae will hatch soon to make a new generation of butterflies in the exhibit.
It's like the Lorikeets, but with less wet poo.
There's one penguin that seems to really like kids. Max was up against the aquarium, moving back and forth, and the penguin would follow him, right next to the glass. He seemed to commune with the other kids, too. Maybe he's studying us.
We went into an area up behind the Tillamook Farm thing that we didn't even know was there last time. At the top of the path there are bald eagles, and there's a hollow concrete log for kids to climb through. I think the log was Max's favorite thing.
Last time we were at the zoo I noticed one of the gumball machines in a bank of ten wasn't screwed down. I thought "You could totally steal that!"
This time, there were only nine.
Max is going again today with his class.
Max and I went a few weeks ago and spent four or five hours at the zoo, only getting to the Lorikeet area and the train after they'd closed. We went again with my Dad, and started with the train and the loris. We stayed til closing again, and I don't think we saw a single thing we'd seen the first time through. It's like two whole zoos.
There are still the hippos and most of the Africa exhibit to see. It's a three-day zoo.
This time we bought the whole-shebang package that includes the Butterfly Experience, the Train, and the 3D Thrill Ride!. $50 for the three of us: kid, adult and grampa.
We did the train first, since we'd missed out last time.
The train is cool. There seem to be three separate trains that run through Washington Park and the zoo, out through the trees along a narrow guage track. It's really cool when the two trains pass each other near a little park. It would be fun to have a picnic there and watch the trains go by. There's a short stopover at a station above the Rose Test Garden, and they'll let you get off and catch a later train, but I don't think anyone did. Next time maybe, just to try one of the other trains.
The thrill ride turned out to be right by the train station, so we did it, too. It was pretty fun; I laughed out loud several times as big critters poked their faces out of the screen. 3D glasses and hydraulic rumbleseats!
The butterfly experience is far more mellow. You go into a big landscaped tent and look at impressively beautiful South American butterflies up close. They land on people, and you can see banks of pupae inside a glass case. These pupae will hatch soon to make a new generation of butterflies in the exhibit.
It's like the Lorikeets, but with less wet poo.
There's one penguin that seems to really like kids. Max was up against the aquarium, moving back and forth, and the penguin would follow him, right next to the glass. He seemed to commune with the other kids, too. Maybe he's studying us.
We went into an area up behind the Tillamook Farm thing that we didn't even know was there last time. At the top of the path there are bald eagles, and there's a hollow concrete log for kids to climb through. I think the log was Max's favorite thing.
Last time we were at the zoo I noticed one of the gumball machines in a bank of ten wasn't screwed down. I thought "You could totally steal that!"
This time, there were only nine.
Max is going again today with his class.
things to do: OMSI
The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry is one of those legendary kid-places in Portland. It's like the Exploratorium, only more cleanly presented. The Exploratorium might have the edge in terms of interactivity, but OMSI is way cleaner and brighter, with no fear of your kid wandering off and getting turned into an exhibit.
There was an exhibit about the monster "Big Pipe" sewer project in Portland, there was something about all the scary scary nuclear and chemical waste stored in vast tanks in the desert up in the Columbia Gorge. Upstream. My cousin Mart lives up there near the Hanford Site, and she'd told me about it years ago. "There's tanks out there NOBODY knows what's in them."
We spent three hours upstairs, looking at that stuff, playing in the kid area and seeing some critters (there are Giant Hissing Cockroaches and Red-Kneed Tarantulas on view everywhere you go in Oregon), then stopped in at the Robot exhibit downstairs for another hour.
Cool stuff: actual robots under glass with videos of them working, an industrial robot that you can race against to make designs out of plastic shapes, and an interesting interactive 'flower' garden.
We bought a "jitterbot robot" kit, which is an electric motor, a chunk of foam and a piece of hot-glue-gun glue stick. You're supposed to put wires into the foam to act like 'legs', but there weren't any wires in the bag, so we taped crayons to a plastic cup and set the thing off.
It was pretty late (about 7), when we left, but we got our bikes out of the car and went for a little ride down the riverside bikeway, and down onto one of the docks. That was pretty cool; the bike loop around the river is great, and appears to be an active bike-commute corridor.
There was an exhibit about the monster "Big Pipe" sewer project in Portland, there was something about all the scary scary nuclear and chemical waste stored in vast tanks in the desert up in the Columbia Gorge. Upstream. My cousin Mart lives up there near the Hanford Site, and she'd told me about it years ago. "There's tanks out there NOBODY knows what's in them."
We spent three hours upstairs, looking at that stuff, playing in the kid area and seeing some critters (there are Giant Hissing Cockroaches and Red-Kneed Tarantulas on view everywhere you go in Oregon), then stopped in at the Robot exhibit downstairs for another hour.Cool stuff: actual robots under glass with videos of them working, an industrial robot that you can race against to make designs out of plastic shapes, and an interesting interactive 'flower' garden.
We bought a "jitterbot robot" kit, which is an electric motor, a chunk of foam and a piece of hot-glue-gun glue stick. You're supposed to put wires into the foam to act like 'legs', but there weren't any wires in the bag, so we taped crayons to a plastic cup and set the thing off.
It was pretty late (about 7), when we left, but we got our bikes out of the car and went for a little ride down the riverside bikeway, and down onto one of the docks. That was pretty cool; the bike loop around the river is great, and appears to be an active bike-commute corridor.
Yamhill County Fair
The Yamhill County Fair is pretty small, at least compared to the Sonoma County Fair.
The Good:
The weird animal exhibit. Snakes, a lynx, and a chameleon in a tree. Pretty cool. Everywhere you go in Northern Oregon you'll see two things. A red-kneed Mexican tarantula, and a giant hissing cockroach. They had five or six different tarantulas, though, which was cool. Very thorough.
The chickens. We always like the chickens.
Lots of horses competing in the arena.
The Bad:
There was a small display of award-winning vegetables. Outside, unattended, on blue paper trays was a selection of shriveled vegetables. Of the five winners in 12 categories, there were maybe three families represented.
The weird:
The Sherriffs had a trailer set up with a meth exhibit, showing all the household cleansers, solvents and decongestants that go into making meth at home. It was like a little how-to on cooking speed. "Build your own meth lab!"
Carnivals are just a rip. $4.75 to run up and down some ladders and slide down a slide. Max enjoyed it, though.
Maybe the focus was the rodeo, which we missed.
The Good:
The weird animal exhibit. Snakes, a lynx, and a chameleon in a tree. Pretty cool. Everywhere you go in Northern Oregon you'll see two things. A red-kneed Mexican tarantula, and a giant hissing cockroach. They had five or six different tarantulas, though, which was cool. Very thorough.
The chickens. We always like the chickens.
Lots of horses competing in the arena.
The Bad:
There was a small display of award-winning vegetables. Outside, unattended, on blue paper trays was a selection of shriveled vegetables. Of the five winners in 12 categories, there were maybe three families represented.
The weird:
The Sherriffs had a trailer set up with a meth exhibit, showing all the household cleansers, solvents and decongestants that go into making meth at home. It was like a little how-to on cooking speed. "Build your own meth lab!"
Carnivals are just a rip. $4.75 to run up and down some ladders and slide down a slide. Max enjoyed it, though.
Maybe the focus was the rodeo, which we missed.
Saturday, August 05, 2006
Oregon Food: Berries
Mmm...
Blueberries for $1.99 a pint. Weeks of them. In Santa Rosa, blueberries are $4.99 per 1/2 pint. The produce guy at Harvest Fresh said "even in season?" Dude, there IS no blueberry season in Sonoma.
Strawberries like I haven't tasted in 14 years. Strawberries that rival Swanton Road strawberries. Our friend dropped off a basket of strawberries that had lost their gloss, but with such intense flavor that I ate them all. They were like syrup.
Blackberries.
Fresh* blackberry sauce on vanilla ice cream.
I like fruit in theory, but in practice I usually don't eat much. I think I eat so many berries because there's no commitment. I can open the fridge and say "I'll just have three." Three pints!
* 8 minutes old.
Blueberries for $1.99 a pint. Weeks of them. In Santa Rosa, blueberries are $4.99 per 1/2 pint. The produce guy at Harvest Fresh said "even in season?" Dude, there IS no blueberry season in Sonoma.
Strawberries like I haven't tasted in 14 years. Strawberries that rival Swanton Road strawberries. Our friend dropped off a basket of strawberries that had lost their gloss, but with such intense flavor that I ate them all. They were like syrup.
Blackberries.
Fresh* blackberry sauce on vanilla ice cream.
I like fruit in theory, but in practice I usually don't eat much. I think I eat so many berries because there's no commitment. I can open the fridge and say "I'll just have three." Three pints!
* 8 minutes old.
Thursday, August 03, 2006
Longer Days
When we moved here in April, we noticed that the days were a lot longer. We noticed it, and other people commented on it, too. "The days are longer here. Boy, it's like summer!" Noticeably longer days. The funny thing is, that in early April the difference was only 14 minutes; 7 on each end.
Santa Rosa Portland
By the Summer Solstice, though, the days (well, THAT day) are 50 minutes longer. Twenty-five minutes in the morning, 25 in the evening.
It's 'cause we're closer to the pole. On HWY 18 at near Otis, there's a road sign that says "45 degrees north; halfway between the North Pole and the Equator". Well that's just cool.
Santa Rosa is at 38.440N, and McMinnville's at 45.19611N.
Santa Rosa Portland
By the Summer Solstice, though, the days (well, THAT day) are 50 minutes longer. Twenty-five minutes in the morning, 25 in the evening.
It's 'cause we're closer to the pole. On HWY 18 at near Otis, there's a road sign that says "45 degrees north; halfway between the North Pole and the Equator". Well that's just cool.
Santa Rosa is at 38.440N, and McMinnville's at 45.19611N.
Monday, July 31, 2006
Found!
Found on 07/31/06, by the side of Baker Creek Rd about a half mile before Orchard View.
If this is yours, by all means contact me to claim it. Otherwise I'll have to tie it to the front of my bike like a lucky albatross.
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Shocking Driving in Yamhill County
In Ashland, even up as far as Eugene, driving is easy. People drive normal. Up here in North Oregon, though, people drive different.
They pull out in front of you. You're driving down a street, and another car comes to a stop at a cross street. He looks at you, and when you get 20 feet away - he pulls out in front. Calmly. Slowly. Not so you have to slam to a stop, but you definitely have to come off the gas and apply some brake. You have to Deal With It. People do it all the time. In fact, they do it every time.
The other thing they do up here is when you come to a stop sign at a cross street. There's a car coming, so you wait. And wait. Five minutes later, the car finally passes. "I coulda gone three times! What is wrong with these people?!"
It took me several weeks to realize that out here in Yamhill county people Drive The Speed Limit. Huh? They do WHAT? That took a little getting used to. Now I'm the one that SUVs and Jettas with Washington plates crowd up behind on 99 West. "What? What's your hurry, bub? What's wrong with you?"
Another weird thing. Everyone turns into the nearest lane.
I'm facing you across 99 West. We're both going to turn North when the light changes. We both have our blinkers on(!). Here in McMinnville, we both get to go as soon as it's green. I know you're turning into the curb lane, and you know I'm turning into the other one. It's like traffic magic every day (except I don't even drive my car every day).
People in jacked-up trucks with obnoxious stickers do it. Grammas in Cordobas do it. Hispanics in import tuners with tinted windows do it. Even I do it.
But I need to be in the curb lane! Easy. I put on my signal and change.
Something really shocking. Left on red. You can turn LEFT from a two-way street, onto a one-way street on a RED light. This may be legal in California, but I don't think I've ever seen it. It blew my mind the first time I saw someone zip a left on a red into a gap in traffic. WHAT?!
Well... it looks safe. And the Oregon drivers' handbook says you can. And the people behind you in that left-turn lane looking at the oncoming traffic waiting for their green sure want you to.
It's pretty cool when you do it. You feel like you're getting away with something.
They pull out in front of you. You're driving down a street, and another car comes to a stop at a cross street. He looks at you, and when you get 20 feet away - he pulls out in front. Calmly. Slowly. Not so you have to slam to a stop, but you definitely have to come off the gas and apply some brake. You have to Deal With It. People do it all the time. In fact, they do it every time.
The other thing they do up here is when you come to a stop sign at a cross street. There's a car coming, so you wait. And wait. Five minutes later, the car finally passes. "I coulda gone three times! What is wrong with these people?!"
It took me several weeks to realize that out here in Yamhill county people Drive The Speed Limit. Huh? They do WHAT? That took a little getting used to. Now I'm the one that SUVs and Jettas with Washington plates crowd up behind on 99 West. "What? What's your hurry, bub? What's wrong with you?"
Another weird thing. Everyone turns into the nearest lane.
I'm facing you across 99 West. We're both going to turn North when the light changes. We both have our blinkers on(!). Here in McMinnville, we both get to go as soon as it's green. I know you're turning into the curb lane, and you know I'm turning into the other one. It's like traffic magic every day (except I don't even drive my car every day).
People in jacked-up trucks with obnoxious stickers do it. Grammas in Cordobas do it. Hispanics in import tuners with tinted windows do it. Even I do it.
But I need to be in the curb lane! Easy. I put on my signal and change.
Something really shocking. Left on red. You can turn LEFT from a two-way street, onto a one-way street on a RED light. This may be legal in California, but I don't think I've ever seen it. It blew my mind the first time I saw someone zip a left on a red into a gap in traffic. WHAT?!
Well... it looks safe. And the Oregon drivers' handbook says you can. And the people behind you in that left-turn lane looking at the oncoming traffic waiting for their green sure want you to.
It's pretty cool when you do it. You feel like you're getting away with something.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Yamhill County Telephone Fun - "Time"
What time is it? What time is it REALLY?
When we first moved here, all our clocks were different, and they were all wrong. I finally got it straightened out, only to learn that Max's preschool's clocks were 3 minutes fast. Since then we've gotten so late dropping him off that three minutes doesn't matter, though...
So how to get the correct time? Call "Time".
Growing up in Northern California, I could always call POP-CORN to get the time. Here, if you want the time you call... [break for a 15 minute session with the phone book] um... [let's dial "0" for the Operator and ask her]. The Operator says there are three phone numbers for Time in McMinnville. I ignored the two enemy prefixes and wrote down the 503 number.
To call Time (aka the Speaking Clock) from McMinnville, you dial 1 (503) 266-8463.
With "popcorn", the whole exchange is Time, and any 767 number works, but here it appears that 8463 is the only good number. Mercifully the other ones I tried didn't connect to anyone.
Looks like 1K0-DAMN-TIME or 1 (503) BOO-TIME to me.
When we first moved here, all our clocks were different, and they were all wrong. I finally got it straightened out, only to learn that Max's preschool's clocks were 3 minutes fast. Since then we've gotten so late dropping him off that three minutes doesn't matter, though...
So how to get the correct time? Call "Time".
Growing up in Northern California, I could always call POP-CORN to get the time. Here, if you want the time you call... [break for a 15 minute session with the phone book] um... [let's dial "0" for the Operator and ask her]. The Operator says there are three phone numbers for Time in McMinnville. I ignored the two enemy prefixes and wrote down the 503 number.
To call Time (aka the Speaking Clock) from McMinnville, you dial 1 (503) 266-8463.
With "popcorn", the whole exchange is Time, and any 767 number works, but here it appears that 8463 is the only good number. Mercifully the other ones I tried didn't connect to anyone.
Looks like 1K0-DAMN-TIME or 1 (503) BOO-TIME to me.
Yamhill County Telephone Fun - "Dial 1"
McMinnville has some funny phone-fu.
It is ALWAYS necessary to dial the 503 area code first, even if you're calling next door. It is SOMETIMES necessary to dial "1" first. The only way to know which is which is trial and error.
If you guess wrong, you get the loud "Boop-boop-boop" sound, and then a recorded voice tells you you're an idiot. You hang up for a second to make it stop, but when you put the phone back to your ear to dial correctly, the voice is Still There, still loud. You have to leave the receiver down for three seconds.
The phone book says "Newbert" is a local call, but when you call Newberg you'd better dial that "1".
This unfortunate aspect of the Yamhill County phone system would've been a dealbreaker if I'd known about it before I moved here. It's me, though. I have a short phone fuse. Surprises or frustrations on the phone bring out the chimpanzee in me. Payphone steal my money? Automated phone systems of any kind? The kind where you have to TELL it your choices? Don't get me started.
Basically the handset is a short-handled beatin' stick, and my first reaction is to use it to beat the rest of the phone to death.
It is ALWAYS necessary to dial the 503 area code first, even if you're calling next door. It is SOMETIMES necessary to dial "1" first. The only way to know which is which is trial and error.
If you guess wrong, you get the loud "Boop-boop-boop" sound, and then a recorded voice tells you you're an idiot. You hang up for a second to make it stop, but when you put the phone back to your ear to dial correctly, the voice is Still There, still loud. You have to leave the receiver down for three seconds.
The phone book says "Newbert" is a local call, but when you call Newberg you'd better dial that "1".
This unfortunate aspect of the Yamhill County phone system would've been a dealbreaker if I'd known about it before I moved here. It's me, though. I have a short phone fuse. Surprises or frustrations on the phone bring out the chimpanzee in me. Payphone steal my money? Automated phone systems of any kind? The kind where you have to TELL it your choices? Don't get me started.
Basically the handset is a short-handled beatin' stick, and my first reaction is to use it to beat the rest of the phone to death.
Monday, July 24, 2006
McMinnville Postcards
Here are some more postcards for McMinnville.
The awesome tanks north of McMinnville on Hwy 99w.
The feed store. Beaver brand feeds!
Well duh.
The awesome tanks north of McMinnville on Hwy 99w.
The feed store. Beaver brand feeds!
Well duh.Pacific City
Guess how hot it was in Pacific City yesterday. It was 108 in McMinnville, so Max and I went to the beach.How hot was Pacific City? Sixty-seven degrees. It was bliss.
We climbed to the top of the huge dune two times, ran around in the waves a lot and built a sandcastle with roads.
I lost one of his trucks when we were running along the beach, but when we came back to the castle from the surf... there it was in the bed of his dump truck! Wow. People are cool.
Pacific City is cooler than Lincoln City, and rumor has it that it will have a skatepark soon. There's a brewpub right on the beach, cool barnacle-covered rocks to avoid while running in the water, and that crazy sand-dune. It's like 150 feet high and you can run down it like a pinwheel!
Thursday, July 20, 2006
Kid Friendly
Oregon is amazingly kid-friendly, with skate parks and stuff to do all over.
McMinnville has two skate parks, Newberg has one that's in the top five worldwide, and Lincoln City has a nice two-part park. The Newberg park is right next to the Chehalem Valley BMX track, where Max raced his first BMX moto last night.
He came in 2nd and got a big trophy because it was his first race. Generally they give out medals on Wednesdays and trophies on Saturday. The announcer called him "Mad Max", which is obvious, but still funny.
Racing only takes about an hour and a half. We left at eight p.m., right after Max got his trophy. I hope that wasn't a terrible breach of etiquette.
It was really fun to watch, and Max liked the racing a lot, but hated the noise of the gate coming down. An air compressor keeps the gate up, and when it drops there's a loud FFSSHT and a clang. The first time, Max was so stunned that he just rolled down the hill to the first jump. The second time, I was holding him up by the back tire with my knees, and when the gate went down he didn't go anywhere at all. Oops. I moved and yelled "Pedal all the way to the hill!" like the other kids' dads.
Max was the only kid there without a full-face helmet and 'racing clothes'. He's very concerned about image, but I'm more concerned about his bike. He was also the only kid on an old-school fat-tired BMX tank. The other racers all had 'minis', which run narrow slicks or semi-knobbies. They also weigh a lot less and look a lot cooler, with gear more appropriately-sized for a five year old. The cranks on Max's Schwinn are 170mm long, which is the same as my road bikes.
Word is you can buy a good mini for about $100 on Craigslist. I want two, so I can set one up with the narrowest drop bars I can find, and maybe a fork with a front brake and an offset appropriate for road-riding. Maybe one day Kogswell will make a kid's bmx-to-roadbike conversion kit.
The BMX track is really cool just to ride around on, but the fact that there's an active racing scene there is phenomenal. The first time we went to Newberg it was to skate, and we went back every day for a week, taking Max's 16" Gamma-Ray. He'd skate for a while, bike for a while, skate for a while, then have one of those awful Power-Ades that taste like greasy kool-aid and stain his mouth like he's a vampire that's been feeding on astronauts with Tang for blood.
For all the kid stuff, I expected more places for dogs. All the big parks, frisbee-golf fields and skateparks, but no dog parks. California has a ton, and Killingsworth Park in Portland has a big off-leash dog area, but it seems like Yamhill County has none. I think it's because people around here don't treat their dogs as kids.
They have kids for that.
McMinnville has two skate parks, Newberg has one that's in the top five worldwide, and Lincoln City has a nice two-part park. The Newberg park is right next to the Chehalem Valley BMX track, where Max raced his first BMX moto last night.
He came in 2nd and got a big trophy because it was his first race. Generally they give out medals on Wednesdays and trophies on Saturday. The announcer called him "Mad Max", which is obvious, but still funny.Racing only takes about an hour and a half. We left at eight p.m., right after Max got his trophy. I hope that wasn't a terrible breach of etiquette.
It was really fun to watch, and Max liked the racing a lot, but hated the noise of the gate coming down. An air compressor keeps the gate up, and when it drops there's a loud FFSSHT and a clang. The first time, Max was so stunned that he just rolled down the hill to the first jump. The second time, I was holding him up by the back tire with my knees, and when the gate went down he didn't go anywhere at all. Oops. I moved and yelled "Pedal all the way to the hill!" like the other kids' dads.
Max was the only kid there without a full-face helmet and 'racing clothes'. He's very concerned about image, but I'm more concerned about his bike. He was also the only kid on an old-school fat-tired BMX tank. The other racers all had 'minis', which run narrow slicks or semi-knobbies. They also weigh a lot less and look a lot cooler, with gear more appropriately-sized for a five year old. The cranks on Max's Schwinn are 170mm long, which is the same as my road bikes.
Word is you can buy a good mini for about $100 on Craigslist. I want two, so I can set one up with the narrowest drop bars I can find, and maybe a fork with a front brake and an offset appropriate for road-riding. Maybe one day Kogswell will make a kid's bmx-to-roadbike conversion kit.
For all the kid stuff, I expected more places for dogs. All the big parks, frisbee-golf fields and skateparks, but no dog parks. California has a ton, and Killingsworth Park in Portland has a big off-leash dog area, but it seems like Yamhill County has none. I think it's because people around here don't treat their dogs as kids.
They have kids for that.
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Dundee Postcards
I made some postcards for McMinnville and Dundee.
I wanted to celebrate the quirky and weird; the stuff that will not survive the impending pimpification that's looming over this valley. I want people to come into the shop and laugh and say "what IS the story with that purple house?" And buy the card to show their friends how cool and different Yamhill County is.
I had the idea, when I lived in Santa Rosa, to document the 'eyesores' I saw everyday, or that I remembered from my childhood. Weird things, not necessarily attractive, that I loved.
I got the idea from a letter in the Pacific Sun (small Mill Valley newspaper) calling for the 'renewal' of the Tam Junction area. If you go to Stinson Beach from 101, Tam Junction is where you make the left to go over the hill. It's fairly divey, but it's real. I didn't like it when the strip-mall went in there and Dan's Liquors moved out of the surf shop building. I used to buy Charleston Chews there when I was a kid and they were three feet long. I like the dusty divey reality of the place, and here was someone suggesting that box stores and parking lots would be better, "like the renewal at the Flea Market."
The Sausalito Flea Market was a big dusty lot across the freeway from the houseboats where vendors came from all over to sell weird weird things and you could buy spring rolls from Vietnamese vendors in trailers and go back on Sunday night or Monday morning for the Free Market and dumpster dive all the stuff people didn't think it worthwhile to truck home again.
I bought my $12 Ciro-Flex camera there, which I still use to take my sprocket-hole pictures. I found $5 blown up against the fence once, and I have a set of antique drafting bows and dividers someone threw into one of the 50-gallon drum garbage cans.
They bulldozed that place, put up a huge empty parking lots and dotted some Best Buys, Hornswoggler BBQ places, crapfood drivethroughs and similar jewels of western thought. There's a Ross there now, the emptiest Ross I've ever been in.
It made me sick to think that something similar might happen happen to Tam Junction, and I thought "boy, I should document these places before they disappear!"
I failed.
I thought I had time. In the couple of months I thought about the project, some of my favorite eyesores quietly disappeared. The controversial railroad trestle at Larkspur Landing was hit by a truck and had to be removed. The boarded-up white Victorian, up on blocks by the South Petaluma Boulevard offramp for years and years, suddenly wasn't there.
Already the 'Bottleneck' sign is stripped back to "closed honey", so yay, I got the picture. The trailer underneath the big Honey sign was gone the other day, too, but now it's back. For some reason I really like seeing it on my way up to Newberg or Dundee. It's one of my familiar friends.
I wanted to celebrate the quirky and weird; the stuff that will not survive the impending pimpification that's looming over this valley. I want people to come into the shop and laugh and say "what IS the story with that purple house?" And buy the card to show their friends how cool and different Yamhill County is.
I got the idea from a letter in the Pacific Sun (small Mill Valley newspaper) calling for the 'renewal' of the Tam Junction area. If you go to Stinson Beach from 101, Tam Junction is where you make the left to go over the hill. It's fairly divey, but it's real. I didn't like it when the strip-mall went in there and Dan's Liquors moved out of the surf shop building. I used to buy Charleston Chews there when I was a kid and they were three feet long. I like the dusty divey reality of the place, and here was someone suggesting that box stores and parking lots would be better, "like the renewal at the Flea Market."
The Sausalito Flea Market was a big dusty lot across the freeway from the houseboats where vendors came from all over to sell weird weird things and you could buy spring rolls from Vietnamese vendors in trailers and go back on Sunday night or Monday morning for the Free Market and dumpster dive all the stuff people didn't think it worthwhile to truck home again.
I bought my $12 Ciro-Flex camera there, which I still use to take my sprocket-hole pictures. I found $5 blown up against the fence once, and I have a set of antique drafting bows and dividers someone threw into one of the 50-gallon drum garbage cans.
They bulldozed that place, put up a huge empty parking lots and dotted some Best Buys, Hornswoggler BBQ places, crapfood drivethroughs and similar jewels of western thought. There's a Ross there now, the emptiest Ross I've ever been in.
It made me sick to think that something similar might happen happen to Tam Junction, and I thought "boy, I should document these places before they disappear!"
I failed.
I thought I had time. In the couple of months I thought about the project, some of my favorite eyesores quietly disappeared. The controversial railroad trestle at Larkspur Landing was hit by a truck and had to be removed. The boarded-up white Victorian, up on blocks by the South Petaluma Boulevard offramp for years and years, suddenly wasn't there.
Already the 'Bottleneck' sign is stripped back to "closed honey", so yay, I got the picture. The trailer underneath the big Honey sign was gone the other day, too, but now it's back. For some reason I really like seeing it on my way up to Newberg or Dundee. It's one of my familiar friends.I'm working on some more postcards, and I want to print them up with some info on the back, and a square for the stamp. That's what makes a postcard real, and not just a picture. A white border might look good and old-fashioned, too.
I'd like to sell them stamped, or stamp them as they're sold. The post office is only a block away, but it would be ideal to wander around, buy a quirky postcard, write to a friend while eating a panini at Luigi's Daughter, then mail it from the Hotel Oregon. Easy.
I'd like to sell them stamped, or stamp them as they're sold. The post office is only a block away, but it would be ideal to wander around, buy a quirky postcard, write to a friend while eating a panini at Luigi's Daughter, then mail it from the Hotel Oregon. Easy.
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