chuggnutt.com

I miss...

• ...the statue of the of the homeless guy checking his wallet on the corner of Franklin and Wall. People used to decorate it for the Christmas season.
• ...when the Tower Theatre was an actual movie theater.
• ...when J.C. Penney used to be downtown. This is old school, it used to be on the corner of Wall Street and Oregon Avenue, the location of the (not-coincidentally-named) Old Penney's Galleria. We used to buy our shoes there, and it was the only place in town I knew of that had a bomb shelter.
• ...The Juniper Café. Okay, I didn't eat there that often, but it's been in Bend my entire life.
• ...Book & Game. Before Barnes and Noble moved in, it was the coolest bookstore we had in town, out at the Mountain View Mall... I even have some bookmarks from there, still.
• ...hell, the Mountain View Mall itself, during its heydey, when the cinemas was there, and K-Mart, and the Emporium, and the arcade...
• ...Café Paradiso. The original coffee shop, with couches, lounge chairs, chess, a small stage... It was big, too, much bigger and more comfortable than the other places in town currently. Soba Noodles is there now.
• ...the Mexicali Rose. It was the lava rock building on the corner of Franklin and 3rd, where Bella Cucina is now. It was a neat little restaurant (when it was Mexican), even if parking was a little tight and weird. Now, with the awkward signage (like the banner hanging where the actual sign used to be), it just looks... wrong somehow.

More as I think of them.

This story from Bend.com last week reminded me of the Stumps posting I made a year ago.

An Oregon State University oceanographer has discovered remnants of an ancient forest in a seaside cliff near Yachats, with exposed tree sections that have been dated at older than 55,000 years.

Those trees, which apparently were flattened during an ancient landslide and preserved in sediment, are now being exposed - and may help shed light on the tumultuous historical natural conditions along the Oregon coast, researchers said.

Of course, those trees at 55,000 (or greater) years old trumps the "merely" 2,000 year-old trees at Neskowin, but it's amazing to me the kinds of things that are washing up on the Oregon Coast recently.

You can win a café in Eastern Oregon by entering Ma & Pa's Café Essay Contest. Really! It's a diner located in Imbler, Oregon, about 12 miles northeast of La Grande. All you have to do is submit a 500-word essay and $150 entry fee by August 1st, and you have a chance to win the café and $50,000 in start-up cash.

It's a prototypical old-school diner in a tiny agricultural town (Imbler only has about 380 people); check out their pictures. Not only would you have to have a burning desire to run such a place, but you'd also have to commit to living in rural northeast Oregon (largest cities are Pendleten and La Grande, at about 16,000 and 13,000, repsectively). It's certainly an intruiging notion, I'd be tempted to enter just to see, though I think that'd be a tough sell to my family :).

Still, I notice that there's no obligation or limit to what the winner can do with the place, and there also appears to be a scarcity of microbreweries in eastern Oregon... that would be an interesting thought.

Bend.com has a write-up on this, too, with a detailed interview of the couple "selling" the café.

The cougar problem will continue, according to the Bulletin. There's just not enough manpower to devote to it, and in fact there's only one agent for the "Animal Plant Health Inspection Service, Wildlife Services Program" for all of Deschutes County... and he's tied up with every other wildlife issue that arises.

And this strikes me as funny:

"It is so hard trying to run through back yards and jump fences with these dogs," Spencer said. "And then you have all these domestic animals so you have to be careful because, as far as dogs are concerned, a cat is a cat."

Just the image of a guy with a bunch of baying hound dogs running through suburban Awbrey Butte makes me smile.

Meanwhile, Hillside Park is still closed. Near as I can tell, anyway.

This topic on ORblogs prompted this post. What the hell is up with that creepy Burger King mask? All I know is, if I see that thing anywhere near my house, burger or no burger, I'm going for a gun.

So I've helped my mom to set up and start a weblog, to be found at DianeAbernathy.com. She's a real estate agent, herbalist, teacher and more, it should make for interesting reading. Go check it out, I'm making the case that a weblog is much better tool for building an online presence and influence than a typical real estate agent's website (for instance).

Incidentally, I set the blog up using WordPress, which I mostly find to be pretty good software. I'd recommend it for anyone who has their own server, it was about the quickest and easiest software to set up that I've ever seen. And so far it works pretty well, too.

Following up my Cougar! coverage from last night... today on The Peak 104.1 radio morning show, they were having people call in to name the cougar. I missed it, but that's classic. From the clips they were playing later it sounded like somebody suggested "Mellencamp." That's just so wrong it's funny.

And from the So which is it? department, all the local news reports are saying if you encounter the cougar, to not make eye contact, back away slowly, never run, etc. However, in the Wikipedia Puma article (cougars are technically pumas), the advice for an encounter is to stand and face the animal and make eye contact (among other things). Huh.

Just a quick note, today is the three year anniversary of when I started this blog (April 22, 2002). It's also Earth Day, but this is more important :).

Kind of crazy to think it's already been three whole years... I guess I'll have to celebrate, somehow.

When mountain lions attack! Apparently there's a young cougar attempting to establish territory in Bend, primarily on Awbrey Butte and possibly Shevlin Park. This is not unusual for Central Oregon, but the way the local news outlets have been covering this story you'd think the world is ending. I actually find all the hooplah amusing.

Here's the online rundown:

• Bend.com: Tethered dog killed by cougar on Saginaw
• Bend.com: Cougar Kills Again (sensationalistic, but my favorite is the subtitle: "Jack Rabbit found dead")
• Bend Bulletin: Cougar hunt closes park on northwest side
• Bend Bulletin: Cougar eludes capture

The Bulletin actually has the better coverage; makes me long for the days of Barney at Bend.com.

Speaking of Barney, KTVZ has been covering the cougar nightly, too. I get a chuckle and shake my head every time I hear them talking about it; something about their delivery, maybe, but when one of the items reported is about a sighting that turned out to be a house cat, well, you just have to laugh.

Look, I've lived here most of my life, so to me it's just not shocking, freaky or worriesome when this type of thing happens, it just gets dealt with. Face it, this isn't just cougar country, it's also bear, coyote and rattlesnake country, and that's not changing anytime soon; this Chicken Little syndrome is getting old.

So one of the shows we watch on Food Network is $40 a Day, where Rachael Ray has a budget of "only" 40 dollars and traipses around the city du jour looking for the meal deals. The tourist-y part of the show is interesting, but the fake-suspense-building (will she go over her budget? Will she??) annoys the hell out of me.

So far I know of three Oregon towns they've filmed episodes in: Portland, Salem and Ashland. I think they should do an episode right here in Bend.

The question is, then, where could you go to get three meals and an afternoon snack or drink with a 40 dollar budget, and still capture the essence of Bend? Without consulting the budget (so I may be off), my own choices would be:

• Breakfast: either the Original Pantry or the Victorian Cafe.
• Lunch: hmmm. Pilot Butte Drive-In.
• Afternoon whatever: another hmmm. Perhaps a brewery tour at the Deschutes Brewery?
• Dinner: The Pine Tavern.

Other suggestions?

I got a copy of Wednesday's Bulletin today (the Community Life section) that mentions my blog (see The Bulletin quoting my site?). The article is about both Reynolds Pond and Mayfield Pond, both east of Bend, as little-known oases in the desert. I wasn't quoted directly, but I got a paragraph:

Go to www.chuggnutt.com and you'll find a wistful description of Reynolds Pond written by a person who spent a lot of time out there as a child. On a return visit 12 years later, the author noted that several barren islands in the pond were now covered with vegetation.

That sounds about right. I don't know about spending "a lot of time out there" but I did write that I frequented the pond growing up, so that's fair, I guess.

Jim Witty, the Bulletin's travel writer (I think), wrote the article. When we used to get the paper, I enjoyed the accounts of Oregon and beyond he would write for the weekend travel section. Thanks, Jim!

A follow-up to my Scrapple post the other day: that post was inspired by a catalog for the Vermont Country Store ("Purveyors of the Practical & Hard-To-Find") that inexplicably appeared on the desk of a co-worker last week. It's a neat store, and I like the website; they sell all sorts of quality, unusual, nostalgic, and/or useful things like this Uncle Sam Bank (I had one of those!) or this Vacuum Coffee Maker or, yes, a Can of Scrapple.

We don't get the Bend Bulletin anymore, so I missed this, but apparently yesterday the Bulletin ran an article in their Community section (which they don't post online) wherein they quoted my blog on the subject of Reynolds Pond (with attribution—to my blog, but not to me by name). I found out today when my mom told me about it, and then someone at work told me they saw it, also.

I'll get a copy, and I'll definitely comment on it when I do, but in the meantime, has anyone else seen this?

What's scrapple? According to Wikipedia, it's

a cornmeal pudding in which the cornmeal, perhaps with the addition of buckwheat, is simmered with pork scraps and trimmings, then cooled and hardened into a loaf.

Scrapple is one of those farm foods invented to use those parts of slaughtered food animals which were not suitable to be served on their own, in the same manner as sausages, or Jewish kishkes. Scrapple typically contains the meaty parts of hog heads, hearts, some liver, and other scraps. The proportion and spicing is very much a matter of the region, family, and the cook's taste.

Commercial scrapple will often contain these traditional ingredients, with a distinctive flavor to each brand, though homemade recipes often specify more genteel ingredients, and consequently a blander taste.

Scrapple is typically cut into thin slices, fried until the outsides form a crust, and eaten at breakfast in a similar manner to bacon or sausage. It may be eaten as is, or served with maple syrup, apple butter, ketchup, mustard, and/or butter.

I just loves me some pork scraps!

The Bend Bulletin (our local newspaper) has an interesting article online today: Tech Town, a profile of the local computer/tech industry and how it's pulling "young, technically savvy people" to the area.

The conventional wisdom is that Bend is a great place to retire, but increasingly it is a great place for young, technically savvy people to live and work, too.

Bend officials envision an industrial park and university campus at the north end of town. The so-called Juniper Ridge project could become the cornerstone of an invigorated regional economy based on science, engineering and innovation.

If those companies materialize as planned, they will bring even more skilled workers to the region, workers like Marshall Simmonds, Morgan O'Neal and [Chris] Reese.

All three pointed to the character of Bend and outdoor recreation as drawing and keeping them here. That foundation, they said, makes the region ripe for new technology companies that will need to attract talented young workers.

The three people they profile are Chris Reese, technical director for Sony Bend (whom I've blogged about before); Morgan O'Neal ("a throwback to some of the early entrepreneurs of computing and the Internet. He has little formal training in technology"—is the Bulletin trying to be complimentary here? jeez), web developer with my old employer, Alpine Internet; and Marshall Simmonds, vice president of Enterprise Search Marketing for The New York Times Company by way of About.com. That's a pretty diverse group, considering.

Still, it's not entirely news that Bend is a high-tech region; technology is one of the industries that's been growing like a weed for at least a decade (along with tourism) since the older industries like logging have been waning. Even so, this part is intriguing:

City officials and local business leaders for the last few years talked about bringing more high-tech companies to the community. Most recently, the city has been eyeing the Juniper Ridge project as a potential home for such businesses.

The first phase of Juniper Ridge development is already in the works, the city having annexed 500 acres it owns on the northeast edge of town. The city will select a master developer for the project, but the council is working with the region's legislative delegation in Salem to site a four-year university there that can complement a contemplated high-tech industrial park.

Almost sounds like the play Klamath Falls made for high tech ("Silicon Basin," anyone?)—the difference being, of course, that Bend is already supporting a viable tech industry. But what's this about a university? Ah, I see from this Bend.com press release that it appears to be for OSU-Cascades and possibly Cascades Academy of Central Oregon. Interesting.

Don't have much to write about. Okay, that's not totally true; I've got some things I want to write about, but they'll run long and that's not really what I feel like doing at nearly 11:30 at night. The topics? You'll see why I'd run long:

• Evolution
• Ebooks
• Reviews of some regular books I'm reading

So instead, tonight, I'll stick with the mundane things that tend to bore the hell out of people...

We steam cleaned the carpet this last weekend. It's amazing how much dirt and pet hair had accumulated in the ten months we've been living here. Amazing and gross. Makes me want to get rid of all the pets.

This next weekend we need to dethatch the lawn and try to restore parts of it. I hate lawn maintenance. Makes me want to get rid of all the grass.

The week before last, when I was sick, it turned out I had a bronchial sinus infection. I ended up getting antibiotics to get rid of it, which is something I almost never have to do.

I've been teaching my five year old to play checkers. She's got a good grasp of the rules, though needs to learn strategy and how to see the big picture. I'm pretty impressed by how quickly she picked it up, though. I have a feeling the strategy part will come to her pretty fast and then I'll be frustrated at how I get beat every time :)

This is classic: Sesame Street: 25 Of My Favorite Memories. I kept reading it and nodding. And you've gotta give props to someone for coming up with possibly the funniest line I've read in a long time:

Oh yeah, & if there's one thing I hate more than those stickers of Calvin peeing on something, it's the jokes about Bert & Ernie being gay, or Bert being evil, or whatever. Next time you mention it, I'm going to unearth a skyscraper with my bare hands, wear it like a brass knuckle, & punch you in the face.

Yeah, I'm funny that way.

Via Boing Boing.

This may possibly be the dumbest idea ever: Congress may extend daylight-saving time. Come on, are you kidding me? What a monumental waste of... well, everything. Jesus Christ, if you really need that "extra" hour of daylight, just get up an hour earlier.

And that whole "The more daylight we have, the less electricity we use" line is a crock of shit, too. Think about it.

Yeah, strong feelings against it. I've ranted about daylight savings before. I just think the whole concept is retarded.

Wikipedia, as usual, has an excellent article on daylight savings, worth reading.

Today at work my friend Kerry and I were talking about geography and globes, which was prompted by the Yahooligans Where in the World is? game (where you see if you know your world geography), and came up with what I think would be the perfect globe: an interactive one whose outer surface is a touch-sensitive LCD screen that has all the details projected onto it from the inside. Think about it: it's basically a spherical computer screen, so it could always be up-to-date with new political country borders—download new data to it via a USB connection to your computer—and facts about each country; a touch-sensitive surface means you could simply poke a country to get information about it, or play games on it (find the country); it could be custom color-coded; it could be animated; you could even load other planets onto it, say Mars, Jupiter, or even a fictional one. It would have to be programmable, of course, so hackers could customize the hell out of it.

A cursory search online reveals this: The Explorer Globe from LeapFrog. It's similar to what I'm thinking:

Touch the interactive pen any place on this interactive, talking atlas and learn thousands of amazing facts. Compare population and land area between say Dundee, Scotland and Oaxaca, Mexico. Find out flying times between Lubbock, Texas and Kyoto, Japan. Learn fascinating facts about continents, countries, capitals, music, currency, highest points and so much more.

There is also a "Eureka" game mode that prompts players to find geographic points of interest (giving hints along the way) before time runs out. Up to four players can play six multi-level games with this very chatty, very challenging atlas. And it isn't just for kids either. Everyone will have fun testing their knowledge of geography and exploring the world.

Sounds cool. Sadly, I'm pretty sure technology isn't advanced enough yet to come up with my perfect globe. When it is, though, I want royalties.

I got this really nice comment on my restaurant post last month, where I reviewed Zydeco, Anthony's and Mercury Diner here in Bend:

We just wanted to say Thank You! to Jon & Andrew. Thanks for your great reviews of our restaurant. We're glad to hear you've enjoyed your experiences with us and that you're excited about passing on some input to future guests. We look forward to seeing you at ZYDECO kitchen & cocktails again soon.

Sincerely, Christy & Robert Kabakoff and Steve Helt

That is one of the reasons why Zydeco is a great restaurant, and it shows that the owners are smart and web-savvy to Google themselves and aren't afraid to join the conversation. Contrast that to Shannon and Simone's poor experience with Kanpai.

Not hard to figure out why I'll go back to Zydeco in a heartbeat but won't bother trying Kanpai.

Shannon had a bad experience at a new sushi restaurant in town, Kanpai. Now she wants to be the number one result on Google for Kanpai Bend, so I thought I'd oblige and try to help her out. Although at this moment, she's already the number two result, so it shouldn't take much.

Appropriate humor for April Fool's, but it's a real site: Superman is a Dick. Yes, those are actual covers from various Superman comics; the comments below each are the best part.