At three minutes and four seconds after 2 AM on the 6th of May this year the time and date will be ...
02:03:04 05/06/07
This will never happen again.
(and this is Zach's birthday!!!!) (wow, he's amazing.)
Friday, April 27, 2007
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Our New Apartment...part 2: the neighborhood.
These are our front steps.And the house from the opposite corner (note the bus stop :))
Behind our house, we have recycling:
And one block away is a McMenamins' tavern,
a library,
a cooperative grocery,
a mural on the co-op,
a post office,
And a way to get anywhere else you want to go!!
I am a huge fan of our new neighborhood. I hope you come visit soon!!
Our New Apartment...part 1
Last night, we went to the opening game of the Portland Timbers (Soccer). We wore our matching bright yellow rain jackets!
The Timbers beat the Puerto Rican Islanders 3-1. The most interesting part of the game (to me, anyway) was the man who led the cheers. He started his cheers with firing up a chainsaw and holding it triumphantly over his head. Throughout the game, whenever the timbers would score, he would slice another piece of wood from a log and hold that triumphantly over his head. Very unusual. I'm not sure quite what I thought about that.
Following is a tour of our new apartment! This post will be the interior, and next I'll take you on a tour of what makes our neighborhood so great.
When you enter the front door, watch out for our bikes. We haven't worked out the ideal place to keep them yet, and because we use them quite frequently, it would be very inconvenient to keep them in the basement. But right now they're blocking the feng shui. We'll think on that one. Oh...note that Giraffe (lower left) is guarding our territory for us:
Continue inside to your right, and we have an open space with the gas fireplace and our desk.
Our futon is also in this living area:
If you walk toward the futon and take a left, you are in our kitchen. Here is our gas stove (not too hard to operate, but we do get some nasty gas smells sometimes):
Our cabinets and sink:
Stepping back through the living space, you see our bedroom (complete with large wooden sliding double doors):
Here's the infamous bookshelf and Dan cozily writing in his journal:
The bathroom has a clawfoot tub:
The view from our front porch:
The Timbers beat the Puerto Rican Islanders 3-1. The most interesting part of the game (to me, anyway) was the man who led the cheers. He started his cheers with firing up a chainsaw and holding it triumphantly over his head. Throughout the game, whenever the timbers would score, he would slice another piece of wood from a log and hold that triumphantly over his head. Very unusual. I'm not sure quite what I thought about that.
Following is a tour of our new apartment! This post will be the interior, and next I'll take you on a tour of what makes our neighborhood so great.
When you enter the front door, watch out for our bikes. We haven't worked out the ideal place to keep them yet, and because we use them quite frequently, it would be very inconvenient to keep them in the basement. But right now they're blocking the feng shui. We'll think on that one. Oh...note that Giraffe (lower left) is guarding our territory for us:
Continue inside to your right, and we have an open space with the gas fireplace and our desk.
Our futon is also in this living area:
If you walk toward the futon and take a left, you are in our kitchen. Here is our gas stove (not too hard to operate, but we do get some nasty gas smells sometimes):
Our cabinets and sink:
Stepping back through the living space, you see our bedroom (complete with large wooden sliding double doors):
Here's the infamous bookshelf and Dan cozily writing in his journal:
The bathroom has a clawfoot tub:
The view from our front porch:
Sunday, April 08, 2007
Eco-Roofing!
On March 24th, we volunteered to help build a "green" eco-roof through a really cool friend of Dan's (Katie) that he met at this weekly lecture series about affordable green housing.
We arrived at the house (which, incidentally, was one of the houses we toured on our "Green Homes Tour") (see previous blog entry), and had orientation (rules of the project below) ...
A nice poster board describing the elements of green roofing:
...then we got to try our hand at each of the jobs in the process of creating the roof.
The process includes:
1. shoveling the substrate (dirt) into buckets (note our dirt pile below)
2. hauling the buckets up the stairs to the front of the house (the Bucket Brigade!)
3. clipping the buckets to caribeaners attached to ropes (hard hat zone below)
4. hauling the buckets up to the roof (Dan, Jessica, and Bevin)
5. sorting the buckets into extensive and intensive substrate
6. handing off the buckets to the people harnessed in on the sloped part of the roof (no, not us, we were not covered by the homeowners insurance. maybe next time!)
7. planting the seedums (which involves a little flick of the wrist and a lot of finesse)
The March 24th Volunteer group:
We had so much fun the first time that we went back today (April 8th) to help put the finishing touches and haul up the last few buckets of substrate.
Altogether a very cool experience--I learned a lot, and I think Dan got a chance to do some things hands on that he had only read about in books before.
And, as always, Dan's favorite part of the experience was the port-o-potty on site.
We arrived at the house (which, incidentally, was one of the houses we toured on our "Green Homes Tour") (see previous blog entry), and had orientation (rules of the project below) ...
A nice poster board describing the elements of green roofing:
...then we got to try our hand at each of the jobs in the process of creating the roof.
The process includes:
1. shoveling the substrate (dirt) into buckets (note our dirt pile below)
2. hauling the buckets up the stairs to the front of the house (the Bucket Brigade!)
3. clipping the buckets to caribeaners attached to ropes (hard hat zone below)
4. hauling the buckets up to the roof (Dan, Jessica, and Bevin)
5. sorting the buckets into extensive and intensive substrate
6. handing off the buckets to the people harnessed in on the sloped part of the roof (no, not us, we were not covered by the homeowners insurance. maybe next time!)
7. planting the seedums (which involves a little flick of the wrist and a lot of finesse)
The March 24th Volunteer group:
We had so much fun the first time that we went back today (April 8th) to help put the finishing touches and haul up the last few buckets of substrate.
Altogether a very cool experience--I learned a lot, and I think Dan got a chance to do some things hands on that he had only read about in books before.
And, as always, Dan's favorite part of the experience was the port-o-potty on site.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Whale Watching
Sunday, March 25th we took a mini-road trip to the Oregon Coast. It is funny how back in MD we would say we were going to "the beach," but in Oregon, you're going to "the coast."
The main objective (as far as I was concerned) was to see the whales, but we ended up doing that and so much more!
Got up early for a Sunday, and we picked up our friend Angela by 7:45am..this is Dan's early morning face:
We don't have binoculars, so I had to improvise:
Along the way we saw the oldest Sitka tree in Oregon, which is about to keel over and die. The next tree we saw (pictured below) is much more vibrant. It is an "octopus" tree (also a Sitka), and the base of the tree is 50 feet in circumference, and each of the tentacles (oops I mean branches!) is 12 feet in circumference at the base. A sight to see for sure!
A view of the beautiful coast, from Cape Meares:
Now I know what you're thinking about this next picture: "but Julia, I can't see any whales, it's all a hoax!" I promise, we saw whales!! They were really far away, but we could see them spray up water spouts with our bare eyes! A kind volunteer let us borrow her binoculars, and we saw the action a little more magnified. Even though it wasn't necessarily the most spectacular sight ever, I found it really thrilling, just to think that these HUGE animals were passing by right then! On their way from Mexico to Alaska! I jumped up and down I was so excited. Then we put 3 from Maryland on the volunteer's tally, even though Angela isn't from Maryland and we didn't actually come all the way from Maryland for the migration. Had to give our state a little boost.
The day kept getting better...we found this cute little cafe in Oceanside (a few miles south of Cape Meares), and this was our view as we ate lunch:
Parasailers were floating down the whole time we ate:
And after we finished, we couldn't resist the urge to take off the shoes and run for the water...although we ran back away from the freezing Pacific just as fast as we had run to it...
Dan & Angela and their shoes:
Our final beach effort was this fine stew:
And on the way home, we stopped by the Tillamook Cheese factory for a self-guided tour and some delicious ice cream!
Now back to work for the week, but we are getting ready to move this weekend, which is exciting, and I've started to gear up for my Gallaudet interview by hanging out with friends who sign (what an awesome way to study!) OH and tomorrow we are going to see one of my all-time favorites in concert at the Crystal Ballroom, India Arie. Reminds me of college and the summer we all went to Camp Pollack and saw her perform live at this event in Baltimore. I can't remember the name of the event..its driving me crazy. The one at Maryland was called Art Attack, and the one in Baltimore was......ArtScape or ArtFest or something like that.
Anyway!
Happy Spring!
The main objective (as far as I was concerned) was to see the whales, but we ended up doing that and so much more!
Got up early for a Sunday, and we picked up our friend Angela by 7:45am..this is Dan's early morning face:
We don't have binoculars, so I had to improvise:
Along the way we saw the oldest Sitka tree in Oregon, which is about to keel over and die. The next tree we saw (pictured below) is much more vibrant. It is an "octopus" tree (also a Sitka), and the base of the tree is 50 feet in circumference, and each of the tentacles (oops I mean branches!) is 12 feet in circumference at the base. A sight to see for sure!
A view of the beautiful coast, from Cape Meares:
Now I know what you're thinking about this next picture: "but Julia, I can't see any whales, it's all a hoax!" I promise, we saw whales!! They were really far away, but we could see them spray up water spouts with our bare eyes! A kind volunteer let us borrow her binoculars, and we saw the action a little more magnified. Even though it wasn't necessarily the most spectacular sight ever, I found it really thrilling, just to think that these HUGE animals were passing by right then! On their way from Mexico to Alaska! I jumped up and down I was so excited. Then we put 3 from Maryland on the volunteer's tally, even though Angela isn't from Maryland and we didn't actually come all the way from Maryland for the migration. Had to give our state a little boost.
The day kept getting better...we found this cute little cafe in Oceanside (a few miles south of Cape Meares), and this was our view as we ate lunch:
Parasailers were floating down the whole time we ate:
And after we finished, we couldn't resist the urge to take off the shoes and run for the water...although we ran back away from the freezing Pacific just as fast as we had run to it...
Dan & Angela and their shoes:
Our final beach effort was this fine stew:
And on the way home, we stopped by the Tillamook Cheese factory for a self-guided tour and some delicious ice cream!
Now back to work for the week, but we are getting ready to move this weekend, which is exciting, and I've started to gear up for my Gallaudet interview by hanging out with friends who sign (what an awesome way to study!) OH and tomorrow we are going to see one of my all-time favorites in concert at the Crystal Ballroom, India Arie. Reminds me of college and the summer we all went to Camp Pollack and saw her perform live at this event in Baltimore. I can't remember the name of the event..its driving me crazy. The one at Maryland was called Art Attack, and the one in Baltimore was......ArtScape or ArtFest or something like that.
Anyway!
Happy Spring!
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Why I love Portland
Lately, I've really been missing Maryland and the general D.C. area. But this weekend reminded me of why I have come to love Portland so much...
First, Dan and I went to the Portland Urban Iditarod. The description from the website captures the event much better than I could:
"The event is held on the same date the “real” race each year - the first Saturday of March. In the Alaskan Iditarod, more than sixty dog sled teams race across the frozen tundra from Anchorage to Nome. In our urban version, teams of ‘dogs’ lead by a musher will pull their sleds (shopping carts) through some of Portland’s most scenic areas. These teams of barking humans must negotiate through the unrelenting and unforgiving dangers of Portland’s urban frontier."
The best part is, each team dresses up alike and likewise dresses up their shopping cart. My favorite team was the USPS team:
Here is the mayhem at the start line (with the Hawthorne bridge and the city in the background):
And the ninja turtles team:
Then Saturday night we went contra dancing!
And Sunday my friend Jonny of PCS fame took me cross country skiing!
Here is Jonny, taking a break from teaching me the basics:
A nice gentle slope
Jonny's girlfriend Linda has a huge turtle who rode through the snow with us (it's been in the car for 12 years)
After the 3 miles or so of skiing, we went up to the Timberline lodge, which is where the Jack Nicholson version of The Shining was filmed. I loved the snow drifts piled up against the window!!
When I got home from my skiing adventure, Dan had a surprise! He bought his first road bike from a Craig's List seller, and here it is!!
We tried it out on a ride to NW Portland (apartment hunting). It is very smooth and is especially nice going up hills!! I think he should name it Gazelle, becuase it is very lightweight and stealthy. Any other name suggestions???
First, Dan and I went to the Portland Urban Iditarod. The description from the website captures the event much better than I could:
"The event is held on the same date the “real” race each year - the first Saturday of March. In the Alaskan Iditarod, more than sixty dog sled teams race across the frozen tundra from Anchorage to Nome. In our urban version, teams of ‘dogs’ lead by a musher will pull their sleds (shopping carts) through some of Portland’s most scenic areas. These teams of barking humans must negotiate through the unrelenting and unforgiving dangers of Portland’s urban frontier."
The best part is, each team dresses up alike and likewise dresses up their shopping cart. My favorite team was the USPS team:
Here is the mayhem at the start line (with the Hawthorne bridge and the city in the background):
And the ninja turtles team:
Then Saturday night we went contra dancing!
And Sunday my friend Jonny of PCS fame took me cross country skiing!
Here is Jonny, taking a break from teaching me the basics:
A nice gentle slope
Jonny's girlfriend Linda has a huge turtle who rode through the snow with us (it's been in the car for 12 years)
After the 3 miles or so of skiing, we went up to the Timberline lodge, which is where the Jack Nicholson version of The Shining was filmed. I loved the snow drifts piled up against the window!!
When I got home from my skiing adventure, Dan had a surprise! He bought his first road bike from a Craig's List seller, and here it is!!
We tried it out on a ride to NW Portland (apartment hunting). It is very smooth and is especially nice going up hills!! I think he should name it Gazelle, becuase it is very lightweight and stealthy. Any other name suggestions???
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