Up, Up, and Away

4151This is the plane in the previous photo, just lifting off from runway 10L-28R, headed, for the moment, into the west, bound for parts known only to the pilot, the crew, the passengers, the tower, and airport administration ... but not us. We're just spectators.

On a whim, I drew a box around the plane in GIMP and saturated all the color, bringing a little bit of artistic interpretation into the photo. 

Flying aircraft seem to be in their own bubble.

PDX: British Airways At Take Off

4150The plane taxiing in front of the PDX control tower/parking garage/terminal is a British Airways jet, which was a pleasant surprise - we didn't know BA had flights into PDX.

The life of an international airport, at a glance, in a frame.

The Patron Saint of PDX?

4149Recently my spouse and me were driving along Marine Drive alongside PDX, like we do, and we pulled aside to watch a jet taxi and take off, which we don't get to do a lot, and I noticed that someone had committed a devotion of an indeterminate sort on the fence post at one of the gates.

It left me bemused. But what confused me the most? Was it that someone did this at all, in a place you weren't likely to stop and see, or that she vaguely resembles Demi Moore?

The world will never know.

Cargo Coming In At PDX, As Seen From Rocky Butte, with bonus Luuit

3815

Rocky Butte, according to Wikipedia:

...is an extinct cinder cone butte in Portland, Oregon, United States. It is also part of the Boring Lava Field, a group of volcanic vents and lava flows throughout Oregon and Washington state. The volcano erupted between 285,000 and 500,000 years ago.

Its summit is 613 feet, or 187 metres, ASL: its obstinance in the face of the Missoula floods is what caused a riffle in the alluvial flow driven by those which we know of today as the Alameda Ridge that snakes its way east-northeastward through NE Portland for several miles, defining a number of neighborhoods and the course of a historic NE Portland street known for lovely views and high property values. 

It also has gorgeous views of its own. It takes in at least two major Cascade volcanoes clearly, miles of tree-covered eastern Portland between there and downtown, beautiful stretches of the great Columbia, parts of Vancouver and Camas, and Mount Tabor, if you look the right direction. Yesterday we spent an invigorating hour on the top of it, at Joseph Wood Hill Park, where there's a viewpoint with pumice paths, and over the next handful of blog posts, I'll be sharing these views.

Yes, there will be Wy'east. Just not yet.

The long view today is centered on a landing UPS cargo jet at PDX. The industrial and commercial land going north from the line formed by Sandy Blvd and Columbia Blvd are spread out at ones' feet here; and this all just so happens to be the main approach from the east to PDX itself. You're never late to spot any given plane; just early for the next one. 

In the foreground you have Government Island bisecting the Columbia and I-205 curving along one of the spans of the Glenn Jackson Bridge. Beyond the Columbia is, of course, the slopes encompassing the riverward part of outer Vancouver's Cascade Park nabe. 

Luuit/Mount St Helens should, at this point need no introduction though, at this time of year, still snow-clad, it's on fine form.

[pdx] In David Douglas Land, The Stranger Abides

3246.

As a matter of fact, The Big Lebowski is one of our favorite movies. But, that's as maybe.

We live in an area of outer east Portlandia where the schools fall under the historic name David Douglas. School geography in Portland is a curious thing. The Portland Public Schools … in, what one would imagine a nominal sense, the school district covering the City of Portland, is not, in fact, the school district ones' kids go to if they live, in the main, east of Interstate 205. You can still be in the City of Portland and not pay property taxes to PPS, a fact which endlessly amuses me when I see them talking about Portland school taxes and strife on the school board and I have to take a moment to remind myself that this does not apply to me out here out 122nd Way. 

Though we don't take part in much of the David Douglas social whirl, being night owls of necessity so long it's become nature, we do take pride in being part of the David Douglas community. It's the kind of place you find yourself in that you realize, after being here a while, that you were meant to be here all along. It's also has the reputation of being the most economically and culturally-diverse community in the city.

Portlandia, as funny as it is, was not written about the Portland I live in, the Portland of eastern-European churchgoers who walk to church and never step out in anything but their best to so much as go to the store; the Portland of Somali housewives who step out dressed int the brightest colors you can imagine; the Portland where all we have to do is walk down the street and around the corner to get authentic Mexican pan dulce from the tienda. 

And there are famous people who come from here too. Last week, we attended the David Douglas Holiday Bazaar, held in the North Campus building in the halls and the cafeteria, and there were the usual throng of convivial people, all very nice, handicrafts and wooden toys and witty artifacts and all, and I don't know why I never noticed it before, but over the main hall past the school offices are photos of the student body presidents gong back more than 60 years. Particularly interesting is the one who graces 1962. He went on to Hollywood; made some good movies and TV, and played the enigmatic center about which Lebowski really revolves (and has hence been abused as a meme to the point of meaninglessness), and even though he was born in Sacramento, he appears to claim the Rose City as his home (and David Douglasville claims him as a homey) and he still came home to visit his then-going-on-97-year-old David Douglas mom (and visit an alternative newsie or two).

It's this "dude":

Sam Elliott. Being rather smug about being a Sam myself, I feel lucky to be a namesake with such a fellah.

The Stranger abides, man. And he's one of us.

[PDX] Snowy Volcanoes on an OryCon Friday

3243.

OryCon 37, the yearly must-do and the SF con I designed the program books for this year (which I'll talk about perforce) opened today and we went down to get the lay of the place, connect with much confriends, and get copies of my program book.

I was too busy to take photos inside, but let me tell you, the kids are alright, and the adults aren't doing too badly, not neither. The daytime parking … the nearby SmartPark garage offered $15 flat for four hours or more … that's another matter. Weekend parking is going to be a lot more kind, economically speaking.

The view from the 7th floor of the 2nd and Jefferson SmartPark was almost worth the price of parking there. Actually, priceless.

I give you two Portland icons. In the foreground, the Hawthorne Bridge. On the horizon, Mt. Hood, called by our Multnomahn predecessors Wy'east.  You won't be able to see this view forever though, in the next few years, a new and monolithic Multnomah County Courthouse is going up on that block between this POV and the bridge. How, I'm still not certain, but they're promising it's going to happen, much to the Veritable Quandary's dismay.

What is that white stuff on it, you may ask, fellow Oregonian?

Snow. It's snow. We haven't seen it out there in a while. And an ironic moment for me was realized when I remembered that that stop-sign in the middle, at the bottom, where the traffic from northbound Naito Parkway patiently waits for eastbound access to the bridge, is where Working Kirk Reeves did his best work.

Still miss that fellah. Haven't seen that vivacity around here in a long time.

Cropping the photo to more focus on the mountain gives a different feel. More drama. You lose the deck of the bridge but you gain the feeling of a whole other world.

I love Mount Hood.

Of course, when it comes to volcanoes …

… we got 'em coming and going around here. But not quite erupting just now, a kindness that. Saint Helens reminds us we have to keep our eyes open.

They do make for an almost-indescribably-beautiful mountain, though. 

[pdx] What Good is Weird If You Can't Afford It?

3193.

We here at Home Base have been following the upwardly mobile cost of having a place to sleep in Portland with more than a little alarm. And while we're nowhere near retirement age, we do remember when one could find a place to hang in most areas of the core of Portland without having to pay more than half of ones' monthly poke.

We ourselves lived in a lovely one-room/kitchenette with a shared bath in NW Portland … NW Flanders between 21st and 22nd Avenues … for $150/month. And the same apartment we had near SE 52nd and Flavel until '04 … and was paying a mere $600/month for it (860 sf/2br/1bath) now leases for a year at more than $1,000 a month.

That's insane.

I love Portland's weird. I like helping to keep Portland weird. But if there's a sign at the city limits that says "You Must Be This Wealthy To Enter", then what good is weird? 

[pdx] Burgerville Souvenir Pencils

3188.

In doing a bit of micro-tidying I came upon this, which we still have.

Burgerville USA's 50th anniversary was two-three years back. At the time much swag was to be had. We grabbed a handful of these:

There are still fourteen of them. With all the pencils and pens that have collected here as Chez Klein, there's no need to use them just now. Though I will, eventually. But that day's a while off, I wot.

[PDX] Yay, But Just For Green Arrow

3143.

In Portland, we like our superheroes, true.

But only one counts, really:

The only superhero we love.Right on … Green Arrow, ONLY!

So, you go boy … but just Green Arrow, ya understand?

The rest of you are on your own. 

[PDX} Project Pabst Bites My Style

3125.

Recently, as in the last couple of weeks, I've seen a upcoming festival break in the press; a little thing called Project Pabst, a musical festival (a/k/a that voodoo we do so well) featuring a plethora of musical combos in a marketing love letter to a city that apparently made a beer I drank when I didn't care about quality cool again.

They've come up with a pretty cute badge for it … here, let' me give you a look at it:

Totes adorbs, right? But I wonder … where could they have gotten the idea to combine a unicorn with the Portland Oregon sign? Where, I wonder … hermmmmm … Oh! I know Maybe, maybe, I don't know, I never had any success at designing, but, back in March, 2009, I posted this to this very tower of cultural integrity …

Dang. Uncanny.

Oh, I know. Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. And maybe … just maybe … that foolie a few of us got in on back during those days to remind everyone that Portland is built on an ancient unicorn burial ground has longer legs than I thought and went deeper than we imagined it would. And it's easy enough to say they got the idea out of the same found objects pile that I did.

Still …

If it was the inspiration, a hat tip would've been nice. Just sayin' here.

(speaking of hat tips, thanks for pointing this out, Mike Vogel, and his little twitter dog, too)

[pdx] A Little Bit Of PDX in GTA?

2991.

This, via Soylent News™ (Remember, Tuesday is Soylent News™day) … if you like living the dream in Liberty City, you'll love a certain transitional homeless camp there.

It looks pretty close to a little local landmark.

Art imitating life? Or kind of mocking it a little?

[pdx_liff] #OregonSnowmageddon2013

2974.Yeah, it happened again. Bunch of snow and hideously cold weather hit the Pacific Northwest, and Portland in particular.

Here's some scenes from a certain transit home from work on a certain recent Friday morning for a certain 3rd shifter involved in a branch of the transportation industry.

SE 102nd and Stark Street, in the bustling Oregon metropolis of Russellville, which is actually a sub-metropolis of Portland.

This'll be notable for recording the gas prices on a certain Friday morning in December 2013 as anything else.

This next shot proves that there are some stretches of Hawthorne Blvd that are less fashionable than others, but just as cold and wintry. More evergreen trees, too!

Next, SE Stark and 122nd, looking east. Look at that line of headlights dwindling into the east there. Not only was the traffic on the greater Portland freeway system historic, but the side streets were no great shakes neither. But interesting looking.

SE Stark, looking east from about 112th Avenue. They say, today, in the weather, now that we're in Bitter-cold-and-the-water-in-your-bathroom-pipes-is-frozen-and-I-hope-to-God-they-haven't-burst-alypse 2013, Oregon is actually a few degrees colder than Alaska.

So now we know where Alaska goes for vacations.

Here.

While it is personally easier to survive steely cold snaps than it is the heatwaves (one can always put on another layer) it's no less horrid. The prolonged extraordinary cold can be just as oppressive as the hot, and just about as enjoyable. We look forward to the warming this coming week with a mixture of eagerness and apprehension - those frozen pipes don't exactly encourage.

Seeing "12 degrees" on the home weather station is only amusing for just so long, and it's a lot of a shorter time than you'd otherwise think, oddly enough.

And so it goes.

[PDX_Photos] Hillsdale Center … Shopping Center, Old School.

2969.On Saturday this weekend, The Wife™ and myself struck out for Hillsdale Art Supply Company. That was a good thing to do, but more on that in the next missive.

I was smitten at once by the charming, well-kept, and dated (in the good way) architecture I saw there. It really is a genteel gem, and it hasn't been covered over with a layer of development cruft accompanied by how some things 'just need to be updated'.

I like having old things about that are well-kept and sweet in that way. Living in a place that gets stamped out of a die every five years as the moods change leads to that evil of evils … tedium, monotony. Portland has history and lets it hang out.

I give you the Hillsdale Center, which may be found on the north side of Southwest Capitol Highway just west of Southwest Sunset Boulevard, in what amounts to downtown Hillsdale.

The thing that cued me of the vintage of the place was that lovely, sublime roof line. Accented in teal, I was all of a sudden called back to when I was a kid, a time when the American ideal was a dapper fellow at work, all suit-n-tie, and his well-attired wife was going to the shops, stopping in at a beauty salon here, a stationer's shop there, and the post office … and there's still a post office station here in this little shopping center.

I remember being a kid in Silverton, going to the JCPenney store downtown (hard to believe there was ever one in Silverton, but there was), and the hardware store, and the pharmacy.

It was a gentle time.

The thing I noticed the most about Hillsdale Center was just how neat and trim everything was. Oh, it's in a tony (yeah, I said it, Onion, and I say it regularly!) part of town where the incomes are rather high-middling to just-plain-high, so maybe they have the throw-weight to demand the rents that keep if spiffy, but it is nice.

And old-school, as I said. Submitted for your approval, the Jade Dragon Chinese Restaurant. Old school, and proud of it.

It anchors the building closest to the corner of Cap Highway and Sunset Boulevard with massive authority. I adore this edifice. I love the way the corner looks like a hinged wall of LEGOs, and I love the way the paint job accentuates the entry. Do I need to also mention that I'm absolutely smitten with the two huge ideograms centered up near the roof line there?

Reviews of the restaurant on Google+ et alia suggest that the food quality is mediocre. We apparently all consider ourselves such foodies that only the most sublime restaurant experiences garner even the most tepid approbation from us. Bull. Those of use who live in the actual world know that mediocre food in just the right context can be sublime.

We shall therefore, perforce, be visiting there for lunch one Saturday when next we pay a visit to Hillsdale Art Supply. We expect to enjoy this. The rest of you can shut up and enjoy your P.F. Chang's and be all pretentious and locavore-y.

And one amusing aspect of the layout is the sheer topography of it. As witness:

The slope you see here is looking down from near the entry to the rear parking lot off Sunset Boulevard. This slope is, as in many photos, much steeper than it looks. I'm no civil engineer (if I was an engineer I'd make quite a nifty nasty and obnoxious one, I just know) but that slope has got to be more than the mythical 6% that's so popular on the road signs. Immediately to my left in that building is a liquor store, just over from that, the post office, and the art supply store just beyond that.

I find it utterly charming that the solution to having a walking path at the side of the building that doesn't include steps, which would be inaccessible to anyone without a perfectly operable pair of legs, is to delineate it on the street with that red line fimbriated in white. One can see that it opens into a crosswalk extending across the walkway to the line of parking spaces.

Indeed, it seems like parts of this would be suitable for Italian mountain goats to shop in.

Never mind. We are smitten with this cute shopping complex never the less.

I mean, they call it the West Hills, not the West Plains.

[liff in PDX] Undocumented Immigrant Discovered In SE Portland Parking Lot!!!

2968.… and we found him ourselves. This is what what he looked like:

Now, before you go all nuh-uh!!!! on me, that goose was a Canada goose, and Canada's a foreign country (unless we've annexed it yet), and I didn't get a chance to search him, but I'll bet ya that handsome fella hasn't got one stick of ID on him.

Well, come to think of it, he's probably more of an undocumented migrant. 

Here's some footage of him stealing bread from good old, American red-white-n-blue geese:



Seriously, though, that is kind of a handsome guy, isn't he? He was hanging around the Franz bread outlet store, out on SE Foster Rd between 111th and 122nd, because bread, yo, and there were locals perfectly willing to throw him some food.

I've said the life is wild out here in outer SE Portland.

Case closed.

[logo] Lloyd Llogo: The Most Portlandest Of Malls Gets A New Graphic Llook

2961.Portland's Mall is re-imagining itself.

The Lloyd Center is pretty much the point of entry of the Mall into the culture of Oregon. Built in 1960, once opened, Oregon shopping joined the national scene in as much as the modern shopping mall is concerned.

It's had its ups and downs; it went from a 100-store mall with an open courtyard to a completely-enclosed mall with two levels of shopping and one of offices. It's really going strong, and considering how some malls have died, are dying, or have re-imagined their own selves into sere multi-acre parking lots surrounded by big boxes, that's no small feat.

For many years, now, its logo looked like this:

… and this wasn't too bad. The rose-as-an-O was very appropriate design, and I always thought the type was rather restrained and refined.

The center has undergone a change of ownership, and the new owners have deemed a logo refresh is in order. Delving back into its 60s-past, here's what they came up with:

A report by KATU-Channel 2 relates that the new owners feel as though the design harkens back to the Center's original 'retro charm'. I can see this. The design would tessellate very nicely into one of those latticework dividers so popular in the hip, upscale pads of the 60s.

I must admit, it didn't take off with me right away. I didn't much care for the asymmetry, though once I pictured it as a wall texture, it clicked right there and then. It was a quirky inspiration, to be sure, that caused the designer to link three of the open circles with the L, leaving the one bolded into a C to stand outside, but after sifting the design in my head for a while, it works.

At least it does succeed in evoking a retro feel, and as far as that goes, it's a success.

[pdx] T.S.O.PDX.

2887.Portland, they say, has a special 'sound'. Could be that that's at least a little because the dude at Ear Trumpet Labs, Philip Graham, does such a fantastic job of makin' microphones.

They're almost painfully Portland … many custom designs incorporate bicycle sprockets … and before you get a hankering to make Portlandia-esque jokes about it, consider that they've attained legendary status amongst performers, many of which are quite willing and eager to pay the prices asked for these hand-made works of recording art.

It's hard not to look at the Josephine model (illustrated) and not think of recording studios and performances of the 30s, 40s … the swing era.

The URL is http://www.eartrumpetlabs.com.

[pdx] Rewind: Extreme Makeover - Made In Oregon Sign Edition

2867.Stumbled upon by The Wife™, of which I am grateful (both for the stumblage as well as the wifeitude) …

I am usually of torn mind about most politicos, and when it comes to Commissioner Leonard, I'm positively schizy. That said, one of his moves I liked the absolute most was when he got Ramsay Signs to donate the famous Made In Oregon sign on the White Stag Block at the west end of the Burnside Bridge to the city - so as to prevent the U of O from putting its name on a beloved landmark and, not coincidentally, to make the sign a landmark for all of Portland, not just the Duck fans.

Go Beavers.

Anywhozzle, the ensewage from this stumblage is an article at Commissioner Leonard's blog, which actually showed some behind-the-scenes looks at Ramsay Signs as they pieced the new look together. I've always been obsessive about signs, and seeing them up close is something cool to me. Views like this:

The rest of it is here: http://commissionerleonard.typepad.com/commissioner_randy_leonar/2010/11/portland-oregon-sign-coming-soon.html (posted in 11/2010).

[pdx] Mount Hood Near Sunset, Vance Park, Gresham

2849.The Wife™ is of the opinion we need to spend more time outdoors. I agree.

Right now I enjoy long walks in the park, which sounds very singles-bar-ish, which is awkward since I'm happily married.

Anyway.

This is the sort of thing you'll see in Vance Park, in Gresham, late on a early-Summer evening:

Vance Park is on SE 182nd Avenue, just south of Mill Street, a short walk from SE 181st and Stark. So it's accessable. Just a pleasant city park, nothing special except maybe an undefinable something that concentrates time and space into a feeling of … well, something or other. 

It backs up to an old gravel quarry on its eastern margin that you can reach via SE 190th Avenue. It's possible to get into it this way, from the park, as some enterprising people have made a hole in the fence there and here, but I'd advise against it. That first step … it's a lulu. 

It's possible to get some gorgeous shots of Mount Hood though. I really wanted something like this since the cloud adds more than a little bit of drama. That's the maximum zoom the Kodak EasyShare will allow, which is all the optical zoom plus a bit of digital zoom.

… context is all, as they say. Here's some of that, too.

I really recommend Vance Park. It's got a nine-hole disc golf course, a little panhandle which reaches back into some treebound seclusion (which would be good on a hot day, we got the feeling), and a nice amount of lawn and the people around there are awfully decent sorts.

[pdx] Downtown Portland: The Good Old Days Weren't That Long Ago

2832.John Chilson, the esteemable chronicler at the helm of Lost Oregon, has shared an album of what he calls 'Recent Portland Losses'. This is an album of stuff that has been razed in aid of putting something else there.

These were the Rose Friend Apartments.

They were on the southwest corner of SW Broadway and Jefferson Street.

This was in 2006, just six years ago. What's there now? Take it away, Google Maps: 

It's a condo and upscale retail tower. Does anyone care what the name is? Given what it replaced, I don't, not really At least they saved the Ladd Carriage House, just in sight to the right of the tower there, rather famously moving it a few blocks west in typical Emmert style, but can we really say what's been put there was better, when this:

… seemed just fine?

Can you really blame the people who moan all the time about how something in Portland these days is only worth something if it can be replaced with something else? Can you really say they're moaning? I think they have a point.

Now, I know I'm quite lucky to be able to call myself a Portlander. We have a sense of history here, and despite what's been deleted from the public view in just the last 10 years, we actually have more of our history than most places. I know a guy in Phoenix who laments that whenever anything … anything … is more that 10 years old it gets pulled down in favor of something else.

I think we can do better than we have been though.

This circumlocution actually was in aid of a goal. This album crystallized something for me; when me and The Wife™ returned to Portland after a break in Corvallis, we went downtown as often as we could. You couldn't pry us out of that place. So much charm. There were nifty places and shifty places. There were new places and gritty places. I saw Waiting for Guffman at the old Music Box Theatre, on Yamhill between Broadway and Park. The block of Broadway between Yamhill and Taylor was beautiful with its Fox and Music Box marquees. Anyone remember Barbara Clark, Social Stationer? We browsed there once. Where the Columbia Sportswear store is now used to be a food court business, Metro on Broadway, where all sorts of colorful downtowners would eat.

That's all gone now. Downtown is kind of a sterile thing, a sanitized vision for the office workers and the hotel patrons we seem to lust after in an unseemly way, and the über-prosperous condo dwellers we wish would fill those towers. Downtown Portland looks wonderful, but it's gotten just skin deep.

There's very little there there any more, to kype a thought from Gertrude Stein.

Me and The Wife™ now spend our time in Montavilla, along Hawthorne, places that still have a little soul to them. Foster and Powell, a bit of Woodstock, and our beloved Russelville, which even has a cart pod of its own now. But we almost never go downtown. Why bother?

It's our downtown any more. Not really. It's someone else's.

Did you  know that there used to be an Arctic Circle restaurant on the corner of Broadway and Yamhill, on the first floor of the Jackson Tower? And you could get yourself a bit of soul-satisfying junk food and sit at the big window and watch the Square and Broadway. Nothing like that downtown now, certainly not that's not overpriced and effete. I couldn't picture myself sitting in The Original watching the world go by (and neither could my budget, for that matter).

Sic transit gloria mundi, I suppose. One must live with it.

Here's the rest of the album, from Mr. Chilson. Give him propers; he's an Oregon transplant that loves Oregon history more than most Oregonians I know, and as a native-Oregonian, I say he's doin' a hell of a job.

Here's the link to view the rest: http://www.flickr.com/photos/9807122@N08/sets/72157601847946673/.


What a difference 10 years can make.

[pdx_liff] Are There Mutant Ducks In Laurelhurst Park?

2814.Well, no … not if you don't feed them, anyway.

Earlier today we repaired to the park to take in the waning day and enjoy a light lunch. The money the City's spent to rehab the pond in Laurelhurst Park has been well spent; ducks enjoy it mightily, and clouds of tireless swifts clear the air of irritating bugs. It's a very pleasant place.

But as you may or may not know, the City's concerned that we keep the Pond clear of everything that we don't need there; feeding the ducks will bring in matter they don't need, and threaten the rehab that's been accomplished there.

This is what it looks like these days …

But wait … what's that sign here?

Either we've got a freelancer working there, or the City isn't being forthcoming about what they're doing over there.

Either way, we took a longer look. Swimming a short distance away were two of the Ducks Whom Must Not Be Fed:

And here's a closer look:

Well, they don't seem mutated.

Yet.

The truth isn't out there.

The truth is in there.

Unless it isn't, of course.