My calves are still sore

This weekend, we took the family out for the Providence Bridge Pedal. This is an annual event, in which the city closes half of each bridge for exclusive bike traffic, including the two interstate bridges. This does not amuse drivers, who are stuck with detours and delays all morning. Too bad. Actually, due to the fact that one of our kids only has a plastic tricycle and the other one barely has feet, we chose to do the Bridge Stride instead, which only covers two bridges. I'm not sure how many walkers there were, but there were 18,000 total walkers and bikers. The Mizz rode in the backpack (hence my sore calves), and D rode in the stroller and slept, the lazy bum. Here is a picture of us setting out.


And here we are heading up an off-ramp onto I-405. This felt wrong in more ways than the sign can convey. For an added dose of wrong, marvel at the optical illusion created by the confluence of the dark pad on the backpack, my cargo pockets, and the Mizz's shoes, making my backside look positively enormous. Perhaps I should walk on the freeway a little more often.


Here is a view from the top of the Freemont Bridge. This was pretty cool, since you usually see it at 55 mph, when you are not up there for long and you really ought to be watching the road anyway.


And finally, I don't understand all the fuss about closing Starbucks stores. We can get lattes in the middle of a frickin interstate highway down here. High speed drive-through is the wave of the future.

The Bleeding Edge of Web 2.0

Scarborough Research (as if I've ever heard of them before) has just released a paper regarding the prevalence of blogging in various cities in the US. I'm proud to say that Portland came in second, as that somehow must make me a better person. Apparently, 14% of Portlanders are bloggers, behind only Austin, TX, at 15%. The national average was 8%. The cities above 10% are:

Austin, TX, 15%
Portland, OR, 14%
San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose, CA, 13%
Seattle/Tacoma, WA, 13%
Honolulu, HI, 12%
San Diego, CA, 12%
Dallas/Fort Worth, TX, 11%
Columbus, OH, 11%
Nashville, TN, 11%
Colorado Springs/Pueblo, CO, 11%
Washington, D.C., 11%
Atlanta, GA,10%
New York, NY, 10%

When you round to the nearest percent, there are a lot of ties. The press release is located here. It has a lot of guesswork as to the reasons for these rankings, but get real, the only reason any of you are going to click is to find out where your own city is on the list. (The complete list is on page 3 of the link.) Someone on the radio this afternoon guessed that our reason was Portland's weather forcing us to find some way to amuse ourselves indoors. You can't drink beer and coffee all the time, although both are certainly compatible with blogging.

The only problem I see with the research is that, to Scarborough, you are a blogger if you have "read or contributed to a blog in the last 30 days" (my emphasis). By that logic, I am also a reporter, a novelist, a chef, an actor, a rock star, a magazine editor, and a hard core rapper. You should feel lucky that you heard of me just as I was on the verge of making the big time.

(Careful, Dave. That's two posts in two days about blogging. You're running the risk of becoming a caricature of yourself. Or at least becoming an insufferable Blogger-with-a-capital-B.)

Portland Shanghai Tunnels

An interesting piece of Portland history is the Shanghai Tunnels. Back in the day of the somewhat lawless West (a century or so ago, give or take a decade or two), Portland was known as a bad place to have too much fun in the rougher parts of town. There was a network of tunnels connecting lots of the businesses downtown to the waterfront, which is a park now, but at the time was the main cargo/shipping part of town. Many less-than-honorable captains would pay less-than-honorable Portlanders to abduct young men and conscript them into duty as sailors until their ships landed somewhere else. You would be drinking for free with some kind stranger and wake up later on a ship already at sea, having been drugged and then hauled through the tunnels to the waiting ship without anyone above being the wiser. There was lots of trade with China, hence the "Shanghai" tunnels.

That's the story anyway.

Turns out it might not be actually totally true per se. Archeology and historical record-searching is apparently not finding much of the evidence promoted by the outfit making money by taking people through what is left of the supposed tunnels.

There is evidence of some tunnels, although the extent of the network seems to be in dispute. Also, the practice of Shanghaiing sailors was widespread, with San Francisco being the most notorious city, but with Portland certainly playing a part. The main dispute however, is whether the tunnels that may or may not have existed had anything to do with the kidnappings. According to the stories, law enforcement was widely corrupt at that time and was involved in the kidnappings, at the very least by being bribed to look the other way. Why then, would anyone worry about the expense of building and maintaining tunnels when you could just as easily pay off the cops and drag a poor sucker down the street? We're only talking about something like four or five blocks in the middle of the night.

The reason for the Shanghai Tunnel dispute is that most of the research and evidence seems to be in the hands of the Cascade Geographic Society, and they are not sharing. Supposedly, they (mainly a "he", but supposedly with some volunteer help) are withholding everything they have until they can finish a book about the tunnels. There is precious little other evidence available beyond "My Grandpa knew a guy..." or "I used to play in the tunnels before the city closed them." The problem is that the best anyone can do is a story about a story, since anyone with firsthand knowledge is long gone. In addition, most of the portions of the city involved have since been renovated, so most of the tunnels that were supposed to have existed are also long gone.

The Cascade Geographic Society is not helped academically by the fact that they seem to want to push the "haunted" aspect of the existing tunnels. It certainly make it seem like they are more interested in guiding tours than conducting research, although since they aren't giving specifics, who knows?

I for one hope they have a trove of evidence and blow this story wide open. The Shanghai Tunnels (or "Portland Underground") are a very popular story around Portland. Definitive proof of the stories would only heighten the importance of what some believe is an integral part of Portland history. But I'm not holding my breath.

No matter what evidence is ever produced one way or the other, this story is certainly not going anywhere anytime soon.

Long time, no blog

I'm not sure where I've been lately. Just not in a blogging mood I guess. Things have been happening though.

In case there's anyone reading this who doesn't also read Franny's blog, she's pregnant again. Yes, it was intentional. Thanks for asking. Not super far along yet, but she did decide to dig out the prego clothes this evening. Due next May, so there's still a bit of time to purchase naming rights. We certainly reserve editorial control over the final name, but there's probably a right price for just about anything.

Franny's folks were here last week, and we had a nice visit with them. The Mizz had a great time seeing Gran and Grandpapa. And I didn't have to cook for days. Mothers-in-law aren't that bad after all. Who knew?

The only down moment of their visit was our trip to the pumpkin patch. Actually the trip to it was fine. And the patch was fine too, as far as pumpkin patches go. The Mizz had a fun time trying to pick up pumpkins that weighed more than he did and finally settled on drumming on them. There were also tractors and a barn full of aneeemals, most of which he could name. He failed on the llama, but we'll check again next year.

JUST KIDDING!!!! There's no way in the world we'll be going back there again! At least not at pumpkin time anyway. Every person in Northwestern Oregon was apparently there. For those who don't know, Sauvie Island, as nice as it may be, has only a two lane bridge connecting it to the real world. At the end of that bridge is a light that lets maybe 10 cars out at a time before letting the main road pass you by for several minutes. Do a little math on the huge number of cars on the island for the pumpkins, and you get Dave and Franny and Gran and Grandpapa and the Mizz stuck in a car moving at just over 1 mile per hour for TWO STINKING HOURS! Then for kicks, add another half hour to get back home after the bridge, which would be expected. This apparently happens every year. You think they'd put a cop at the end of the bridge or retime the light or something.

To top it all off, why were we stuck in one car together when we had driven out in two? Because we found that our car was low on gas. This did not seem like a problem on the way in, as we were maybe 5 miles from a gas station. However, we did not count on idling for two hours and decided not to risk it. Franny and I ended up taking a couple gallons of gas back later and found that if we had just waited three more hours, the full round trip took just over an hour.

The only bonus was that we had taken two cars out there in the first place. We hadn't intended to do that, but there was a problem with our car. When we bought it a couple months ago, one of the rear seat belts was damaged and we had it replaced. However, Gran was the first person to try using it and found that the wrong latch had been installed. We now have a useless left rear seat belt until we can get it replaced again. Oh, joy.

Other than that little episode, the in-law visit was fine. They even agreed to keep an ear out for the sleeping Mizz one evening so Franny and I could have a little time out. We were tired and I still had to work in the morning, but we don't get time out together much, so we weren't about to say, "No." We spent a couple hours eating cake, drinking coffee and playing Scrabble at Palio's. We always enjoy their deserts. Plus I won the Scrabble game (but not by much). Don't tell Gran though, 'cuz she'll want to challenge me, and she will most assuredly kick my sorry butt. She's absolutely insane about that game. I don't know is she's the craziest Scrabble person in the world, but she's the craziest one I know.

It never really affected me, but Portland played host last week to a pretend real terrorist attack, which was then interrupted by a real false bomb scare.

We were one of the cities in the Topoff exercise this year. Supposedly, some terrorists blew up a dirty radiological bomb on a light rain train on the Steel Bridge, and the local, state, and federal authorities got to practice what they would do in that case. This ranged from first responders having to check out the scene and deal with "casualties" while wearing protective suits to a local animal shelter trotting out it's new emergency animal shelter trailer. Apparently they learned from Katrina and put together a way to deal with "evacuees" with "pets." In this case, some of the "pets" were "teddy bears," but they wanted to practice, so they logged them in and caged them just like the real animals that came in. Like all of these exercises so far, the responders tried out things learned from previous ones and exposed some gaping holes nobody had thought of. All in all, interesting goings on for a few days.

However, on the "wrap up" day of the exercise, there was a bomb scare when dogs checking out the hotel that Michael Chertoff was going to visit later indicated that they found something bad. Nothing was ever found, but it did close of several blocks for a few hours. In the end, the assumption was that there was some residue on one of the military or other government vehicles already at the hotel. Seems important to make sure, I would think.

In personal news, I was a little ill last Thursday and again yesterday. I don't know what that was about. Most likely, the Mizz had begun the season of bringing microbes home to me from daycare.

This weekend, we finally got up to see my folk's new place. Unfortunately, due to job stuff, we had to go up Saturday and come right back Sunday, but that's all we could do for now, and we had to see it. It's awesome. The house itself is fine I suppose, for a house that was last renovated in the 70's. Importantly though, someone had the foresight to put it on the western slope of Whidby Island, Washington overlooking the Olympic Mountains, Port Angeles, the Straits of Juan de Fuca, Victoria, BC, and the San Juan Islands. It could be a teepee, for all it matters. I'm glad to report that Dad is getting excellent use out of the telescope we got him for retirement. We thought he might have a good time watching the ships going by into Seattle. We didn't know that both he and Mom would have a hard time doing anything else. From what I hear, they are forever running because one of them sees a cool ship or a whale or something. The scope even has a prominent place in their living room and appears to be permanently located for easy, and constant, use. I want to retire.

We also met up with my younger sister in Seattle on the way home. Younger, but she just turned 30 on Friday, so I don't know if that counts as young. I was definitely told that I was old at 30. Anyway, she's doing well. Plus she's pregnant too. We got an "official" announcement, so I suppose it's okay to share. Plus plus, she's due the same day as Franny. What're the chances?

To bring things completely up to date, I got to visit the dentist this afternoon. I think I mentioned a while back that I would need some crowns. Dental work from years ago finally giving up the ghost, or the teeth anyway. Well, now I have two temporary ones in place. I'm going to be eating like an invalid for a couple weeks until I can get the real ones. They don't look horrible, but they apparently can't handle things like biting. Joy. The experience was as good as it could have been, I suppose, but I can't say I enjoy being pumped on adrenaline for an hour and half while having to sit still. It's not like it hurt, what with the gallon of Novocaine, but I kept imagining it was about to start any minute. When a guy is drilling in your teeth, it's hard to think of much else.

This would have been easier in a few smaller posts.

Vaux's Swifts

I think I forgot to mention something about last weekend. We didn't make it to Whidby Island, but we did get to Chapman Elementary School in Portland to see the Vaux's Swifts gather for the evening.

These are psycho little birds that spend almost all day flying and only stop at night to sleep. They are not outfitted properly to perch, so they eat, drink, gather nest materials, and whatever else without stopping. They're crazy fast too. And at the school, there are thousands of them every evening for much of September and sometimes into October. The largest recorded flock was 35,000, although I have no idea how that compared to the night we were there.

In 1980-something, they just started showing up and using the school's chimney as a mass roost at night before flying to Central America at the first real cold snap. They fly around all day eating and then gather around sunset in the sky above the school. Shortly after sunset they start flying in a huge spiral getting tighter and tighter until one of them decides it's time to drop in, and then it looks like a giant whirlpool heading down into the chimney. For 20 or 25 years, they school just resigned itself to forgoing heat until the birds decided to leave. Then, a few years ago, they built a new natural gas furnace and left the old chimney as a permanent roost for the visitors.

Now, every evening for about three weeks in September, the Audubon Society has a regular event to watch the spectacle from a conveniently placed hillside. On the evening we went, there were maybe a couple hundred people and many brought dinner and cardboard for sliding down the hill. It was obvious that this was a regular event for many of them and I think we'll have to see it again too. Everybody even clapped and cheered after the last of the birds disappeared down the chimney. I'm not sure the birds cared, but we all had a good time. It reminded me a lot of people in Waikiki stopping at sunset to clap and cheer just as the last sliver of sun dips below the horizon.

We got the extra special version of the show the night we went. Right in the middle, a bird of prey flew right over the crowd and through the flock. It looked like a trick from an airshow, and the crowd reacted in much the same way. I assume it was a peregrine falcon, since they do live around here and hunt other birds. It seemed about the right size anyway. This must have looked like an all-you-can-eat buffet. Imagine birds flying everywhere overhead and making a huge chatter. Now imagine they all suddenly go silent at once and dart away from the chimney as this much larger, and much less maneuverable, bird barrels right through them. It didn't get anything that time, but a couple hundred (at least) of the most ill-tempered swifts followed it like a swarm of gnats. I'm not sure what they thought they were going to do to it. They could fly much faster than it could and darted back and forth trying to annoy it into leaving, I guess. All they managed to do was follow it as it made a large circle and came back quite a bit above the flock that was now back at the chimney. And this is where it showed them its trick. Although the peregrine falcon is not particularly fast in regular flight, it showed its fastest-bird-in-the-sky credentials by tucking in it's wings, leaving the gnat swarm in its dust, and dive bombing right back down through the middle of the flock scattering it again. A valiant effort, but still no luck. Those little guys are quick. Time for a change in tactics. It made a big circle again (with a new gnat swarm) and this time came in at treetop level and popped up into the birds that were much slower and fluttering right as they entered the chimney. The third time must have been the charm. It looked like it got something and it flew straight off without slowing or turning. A somewhat violent version of the show, but hey, a falcon's gotta eat too, right?

Funny what you find on your desk

Just cleaning up my desk and I come across half a page from the Oregonian newspaper. I think it was not too long ago, but I can't be sure. I save and squirrel away too much stuff and I can't quite tell why I kept this. However, it did have an interesting factoid on it.

Apparently, Portland ranks number one as the most courteous city, displaying the least amount of road rage, according the "In the Driver's Seat Road Rage Survey" commissioned by AutoVantage. We are followed by Pittsburgh and Seattle/Tacoma as number 2 and 3, respectively. The least courteous were Miami, New York, and Boston. I can't speak for Boston, but I can see the other two easily. What I wonder is how Washington, DC didn't take the worst honor away with flying colors. Even after enduring the endless horns and middle fingers of New York, I've still always found DC area drivers to be much more self-centered and furious about it.

(Now I can get rid of the paper. What fun.)

News Caught my Attention Today

I'm not sure why, but news caught my attention today. I listen to what's going on in the world a lot, but for some reason, several things today made me feel like commenting.

First, somebody wants to replace this artwork with a Walgreens.


I'm not sure why. Drug stores are a dime a dozen, but cars on spikes are a little harder to come by. I only care about this random piece of weird art because I remember it from Wayne's World, which wasn't a great movie by any means, but I had fun with it at the time anyway.

Next there's the latest recall of toys from China, from Mattel again. Several recalls, some for lead paint, which are China's fault, but mostly for detaching magnets, which are Mattel's fault. China made the magnetic toys exactly like they were told to, but it turned out to be a bad design. This affects something like 9 million toys. For those keeping score, that's about 10 times as many as Mattel's recall from earlier in the month. China's not looking too good these days, but for perspective, most toys these days are made in China, so it's not unusual that most of the problems would come from that direction. We're still plenty capable of coming up with automobile parts and food made in America that need to be recalled. You can check this site to see if you have any of the affected toys around. The Mattel recalls are in the "Consumer Products" section. This is a good page for the paranoid to bookmark for future everybody-panic news stories.

Baltimore just announced plans to push for a gun offender registry. From what I understand, it would be similar to a sex offender registry, in that convicted gun offenders would have to notify the police of their whereabouts regularly. There is of course the question of whether it would actually be effective, seeing as the type of person who is going to commit multiple gun crimes might not be likely to keep his address updated on a bureaucratic government list. However, assume for a moment that it would actually deter some people and therefore save lives. In that case, is this a good idea? Any opinion is interesting, but I'm more interested for the moment in hearing the opinions of the more pro-gun side. From the gun-control advocate point of view, this is obviously a no-brainer, so it's not much of a jumping-off point for discussion. I'm not generally against guns, but I don't currently own one either. I understand the historical reasons for the existence of the 2nd amendment and I am well aware that for a large portion of the American population, the right to own a gun is non-negotiable. However, I also understand the "well regulated militia" part of the 2nd amendment and the fact that weapons have shown themselves to cause a lot of problems and therefore require some kind of control in a civil society. The fact is that the people on this list would be convicted of some kind of gun crime and therefore, by definition, would not be the "law-abiding citizens" always touted by the gun crowd. The question is, does this make a difference to the policy's acceptability, or does it still fall under the slippery-slope argument that tends to end discussions before they even get started? I'm actually curious what any of you might have to say about this. Leave a comment if you have an opinion.

I also read about the connection between waist size and heart trouble. So much for BMI. Now we have another number to obsess about. This issue has more meaning to me these days, as Franny and I have both dedicated ourselves to jumping back on the health bandwagon. We've gotten back into running, even getting new shoes, which hasn't happened in a while, but has made a world of difference. Apparently, 6 years is too long to depend on a pair of running shoes, even if you don't run that much. Good to know. Anyway, we're serious this time I think, even to the point of getting up early to do it. Good thing we got this itch now and not in February. Hopefully, by the time the weather gets bad again, we'll be into good habits already.

The last thing that caught my ear this afternoon was Portland's first-of-its-kind biodiesel requirement. All diesel sold in the city starting tomorrow will have to be at least 5% biodiesel, which can be used in any diesel engine. The only exception is the one truck stop in the city limits, which would likely lose all of it's business, since biodiesel is slightly more expensive and trucks could certainly make it another 10 miles to the next option. We have a biodiesel plant in the city that is more than capable of keeping up and is actually well situated to make far more as the need arises. 5% doesn't seem like much, but a 5% decrease in oil-dependence is a good start anyway. I'm guessing the rest of the state and country will be watching this experiment closely.

I'm not sure why I felt the need to expound on all that stuff. I just needed to run off at the mouth I guess (run off at the keyboard?). If you're still reading by this point, I guess you didn't have much better to do either. Sorry about that.

Another Reason to Love Portland

How many places can you pull off skiing, boating, and surfing in one day with a pit stop in a major city? Go Portland!

Blue fire...blue fire...blue fire...

This is the Mizz's new favorite tricked-out rice-burner. All he could say was "Blue fire...blue fire...blue fire..." We had to stop and see it again on the way home because he wanted to see the "blue fire car...blue fire car..." He gets stuck on things sometimes. This was at the Woodstock Festival Cruz-in, part of the Woodstock Parade and Festival near our house. Most of the cars were restored classics, but this was the only one that the Mizz was even remotely interested in. If there had been some fire trucks however...

To the guy's credit, the gull-wing doors are a very cool addition.

Happy Solstice

What did your hippies do to celebrate the Summer Solstice? I'm guessing ours were dancing naked around Stonehenge.


No, not that busted old thing...



...This newer and more improved Northwest Stonehenge. See? Our Stonehenge has all the appropriate rocks and everything. Although from what I hear, it doesn't line up right with the celestial events due to the difference in latitude, but unless you're a druid trying to locate the moon or whatever, big deal.

From Maryhill Museum, who now cares for it:

Built by Sam Hill as a tribute to the soldiers of Klickitat County who lost their lives, Maryhill's Stonehenge is the first monument in our nation to honor the dead of World War I. The structure is a full-scale replica of England's famous neolithic Stonehenge. A Quaker pacifist, Hill was mistakenly informed that the original Stonehenge had been used as a sacrificial site, and thus constructed the replica to remind us that ''humanity is still being sacrificed to the god of war.'' The location now also includes monuments to the soldiers of Klickitat County who died in World War II, Korea, and Viet Nam.

Just for fun, here's a Google Maps view of it. This has now cemented for me that Google Maps are currently better than Yahoo! Maps, at least for looking at satellite pictures anyway. The best Yahoo! could do was half the size and blurry. Google is much quicker too. I haven't compared directions yet, but Google does say "Do no evil," so how bad could they be?

For more fun, see this somewhat related spectacle.

With the longer days, I got to looking at Portland's location and what that means relative to sunlight. The sun was officially up here at 5:22 am, which of course means so was the son. Not so thrilled about that. However, the fact that the sun didn't set until 9:03 pm is pretty cool. That means it was light until almost 9:30. (I got these times from the Old Farmer's Almanac. It still amuses me that this publication has been in continuous production since 1792, 215 years ago. George Washington was president. How many other institutions can say that?)

The long days got me thinking about our latitude. We are north of most of the major cities in the county, Seattle being the noted exception. We are completely north of 39 states, and north of at least part of 8 others, including Oregon. We're even north of four of the Great Lakes and part of Canada. Which makes it all the more fun watching all of you freezing your butts off all Winter while we notice that it's a little chilly when our drizzle dips down to 40 degrees. Suckaz!

The Northwest's not so wet after all

I came across an article about rainfall in various cities. Apparently, the Northwest isn't that wet after all. The wettest cities in the country are mainly in the Southeast. They don't rain as often, but they do it really well when they do. The first Northwest city on the list is Olympia, WA at number 24. Seattle and Portland don't show up until 41 and 42, respectively. The northwest is well represented in number of rainy days, however. But if you've ever been here in the winter, you know that. The study didn't even get into number of gray days. For any statistics nerds, the actual report from Weatherbill is here.

Starlight Run

One of the many cool things about Portland is the Rose Festival. And one of the cool things about the Rose Festival is the Starlight Run. It's a regular race, but with a Portland twist. Everybody runs in a costume. We've seen a pregnant (not really) woman running next to a doctor (not really) and being chased by her husband (maybe) carrying a suitcase (really). There was a tree, which seemed hard to run in since the tree had no arms. There were several guys from Portland General Electric running tied together dressed as a power station, several power poles and a house. Lots of guys in dresses and people in clown wigs. All sorts of silly crap.

Anyway, I've decided to run it this year. That sounds impressive, until you realize that it's only 3.1 miles long. However, I'm in awful shape (you know post-partum and all that), and it's a good motivation to change that. I don't want to be the only idiot huffing and puffing to finish a 3 mile race. I'm trying to get Franny to run with me. Maybe we could do some silly-ass costume together. I need some idea help though, because although I'm motivated to get some exercise and be good for this, I still lack the creativity to come up with something good for a costume. Any ideas?