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Finally, some pictures to accompany my Oregon Coast travelogue post from the beginning of this month. Nothing earth-shaking here, just what you'd expect.

Their big sign on Highway 101. You can't miss it.

Click through for the rest of the pictures

We spent the weekend on the Coast, and while I don't feel like writing a 2000+ word recap like I did for our Ashland trip last year, I wanted to highlight some of it—the (shall we say) less obvious things. So I thought I'd present it more travel guide style.

(Inspired largely by the Fodor's Pacific Northwest guidebook I picked up from the library for ideas. It covers a lot of ground but is still frustratingly sparse.)

Tillamook, Oregon

First thing to note: Tillamook smells like cows. Lots of cows. To me it's not at all unpleasant since I grew up around cows; to others, it depends. Sometimes it smells only like cows, sometimes there's also a bit of cow manure in there too.

The Tillamook Cheese Factory - This is the thing to see when in Tillamook. Open seven days a week, from 8 until 8 during the summer (8 until 6 the rest of the year), tours are self-guided and best of all, free. Kids will love it, as you get great views of the vats, production, and packaging lines—but note, the packaging line (the biggest part with the most moving parts) only operates from Monday through Friday. So if you come on a weekend (like we did), you'll just see a lot of inactive machinery.

There are two gift shops, a café and, of course, a full range of flavors of Tillamook ice cream for sale. You can't stop here and not get a cone.

Blue Heron French Cheese Company - Down Highway 101 a ways from the Tillamook Cheese Factory, Blue Heron specializes in French cheeses: Bries, Camemberts, blue cheeses, and the like. The have a charming gift shop/deli/wine bar with lots of samples of all sorts of foods: cheeses (naturally), dips, sauces, jams and jellies, wine tastings, and more. They also have a very decent beer selection by the bottle (not that I'm an expert for the area, but it could be the best in Tillamook for all I know).

There is also a "petting farm" for the kids; for 75 cents you can buy a small bag of animal food and feed it to the goats, donkeys, and miniature horses on the property.

Oceanside, Oregon (9 miles west of Tillamook)

This beachfront community strikes me as being almost entirely a vacation rental "town." Aside from a couple of restaurants (one of which was closed) and a gift shop, it looked like there were only vacation rentals and very nice houses. Odd, that.

Down on the beach, there's a great find: a tunnel cut through the cliffside that juts out into the water, leading to a very secluded rocky beach on the other side. Great adventure for kids.

Roseanna's Cafe - The only restaurant of note in Oceanside. It overlooks the beach and occupies a creaky old building built in 1915 or something. It was pretty good food, but we had a bit of a wait—they don't take reservations. Other than that, it was worth the visit.

Newport, Oregon

Newport is my favorite city on the Oregon Coast (though Lincoln City and Pacific City are tied for a close second). There's just so much to like about it: their Historic Bayfront, the Nye Beach district, the Oregon Coast Aquarium, good food, and of course, Rogue Ales.

Prepare for chillier weather than you'll get elsewhere on the coast, though. Lincoln City was in the 70s (and maybe 80s) during the weekend, and Newport barely broke the 50s and low 60s.

Fishtails Café - This has to be the best-kept secret in Newport, because in my opinion it's the best breakfast place in town. Though I had their excellent salmon hash, the breakfast they're known for is their marionberry French toast. Check this out:

A favorite at Fishtails Café, we take our homemade bread rounds and stuff a slightly sweetened Cream Cheese mixture between two slices, dip it in Cream and Eggs and sautee it to a delicate golden and top it with our homemade Marionberry sauce.

It's a steal at only $6.95 (I'm not kidding), and this thing is huge and freaking delicious. The restaurant itself is homey and charming and over in the South Beach section of town (across the bridge).

Port Dock One - This restaurant is located on the Historic Bayfront and overlooks, er, Port Dock One. The food is decent, but the real draw is the view. Not only of the Bay, but also of the sea lions that tend to sun themselves and nap on the piers below the main dock. It's like every visit comes with a show.

Rogue - Being the only brewery in Newport, Rogue is of course big in the area. Most restaurants have Dead Guy Ale on tap, but you'll definitely want to visit their Public House, also on the Bayfront. Not only are all the Rogue beers on tap (along with several from their Eugene and Issaquah breweries), but they also have their full line of Rogue Spirits, and good food. Plus, there's an adults only section of the place decked out with video poker and pool tables, so they're covering all the bases.

You can visit the actual Brewery itself in South Beach, where they also have a tasting room and restaurant and gift shop. Tours are available, as well.

And across the lot from the Brewery, in the South Beach marina area, is the Rogue Spirits Distillery (though their main one is in Portland). You can pop in here to check out their distilling operation (three years old) and get a drink from the bar. Beers and gift shop breweriana are also available.

Ugh, did I say I didn't want to write 2000-plus words? I'm already approaching the halfway point for that with this post. So I'll wrap it up for tonight, but I'll probably have a bit more to write about Newport before all is said and done. And of course, I have some pictures, but I don't have them on the computer yet so those will have to wait for a later post as well.

We left Friday morning (just the wife and I; Grandma had the kids for the weekend) and headed down to southern Oregon for a play and a getaway. The weather turned out great, and the trip was largely a winery tour, among other things; we visited four wineries and ended up buying just over a case of wine.

The last time we'd been to Ashland was nine years ago, before the kids were born. Compared to Bend over the past decade, few things in the area have changed; both Medford and Ashland have remained pretty stable, and even though there are signs of growth, much of it (particularly downtown Ashland) is as I remember it.

(Holy smokes, this post got long.)

Click through to read on...

The news on KTVZ tonight about the former Rajneesh land being sold caught my ear and got me reflecting a bit on that particular period of weirdness in Central Oregon history. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a "dark day" in Oregon history like the interviewee on the news did, but it was definitely weird.

The Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh was an Indian (from India the country, not Native American) spiritual teacher who in 1981 came to Oregon, where his followers bought The Big Muddy ranch outside of Antelope and started a commune there. Naming the commune Rajneeshpuram, they attracted all sorts of attention among the locals, mostly negative.

Understand, this part of Oregon in the 80s was much more conservative and rural than now; the majority of the population was based in agriculture (farmers, cowboys) and operated on Good-Ol-Boy-ism. So the idea of a cult moving in and then taking over the town of Antelope was met with open hostility.

It didn't help that the Rajneeshees had a number of odd practices and goings-on as well. They all wore red, for instance. They owned a large number of Rolls Royces and the Bhagwan would ride around in them everywhere. They carried machine guns in open sight.

And when I said they "took over" Antelope, I'm not kidding—they registered to vote there and got a referendum passed renaming the town to "Rajneesh." They were able to do this because some 7000 of them lived in the commune.

Sheela, the Bhagwan's Number Two person, was a real piece of work. When authorities started investigating the Rajneesh commune, the crazy stuff came to light and Sheela and several leaders "were indicted and convicted of several crimes, including immigration fraud, wiretapping, first and second degree assault (poisoning) of two public officials, and the attempted murder of Rajneesh's personal physician."

Sheela and the Rajneeshees also have the dubious honor of perpetrating the largest germ warfare attack in the history of the U.S., when they infected a salad bar in a restaurant in The Dalles with salmonella—sickening over 750 people.

The Bhagwan went on the run and was caught back east in North Carolina and deported. The sheriff or whoever who was involved in the capture appeared on the news, drawling, "We caught us a Bag-wahn from Ory-gun."

Strange days, indeed.

This is part of an ongoing series of articles that I'm writing on Central Oregon and growing up here; you can view the introduction here and the series as a whole here.

Living relatively self-sufficiently on five acres, we always had some livestock. For all intents and purposes, we had a farm, but it was more of a small family farm than the big operations I usually think of when I hear the term (with cattle, pigs, chickens, sheep, etc.).

At any given time our livestock generally consisted of one milk cow and a coop full of chickens. Along the way we tried out different animals, but this was the general combination that held.

Read on...

I'm not sure what this might say about me, but when I was reading this KTVZ story about the utterly ridiculous Measure 37 claim on the Newberry Volcanic Monument, I couldn't help but think the image filed with the story looks like a skull:

See the eyesockets? Yeah, that's messed up.

Oh and FYI, Measure 37? Only one of the most retarded ballot measures ever passed in the state of Oregon.

Like the trip we had almost two years ago, tonight we're in the Phoenix Inn hotel in Lake Oswego in preparation for our daughter's corrective eye surgery tomorrow. Pretty much anything I would say is covered in that previous post; the only details being different really are that my daughter is six and it's her third (and hopefully last) such surgery. And I've taken today, Wednesday and Thursday off from work for it (back on Friday).

On the positive side, we had a really excellent dinner at Piazza Italia in Portland's Pearl District; we got to try some cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory at Washington Square; and we'll be doing a Trader Joe's run sometime before coming back on Thursday. Anyone need anything from TJs?

I'm taking the day off from work this Friday and going to Portland for the Oregon Brewers Festival! Woo hoo! My original plan was to stay in Portland the entire weekend, but as it turns out I'd already obligated myself to a friend's wedding Saturday evening, so I'll be spending Friday night with my friend Justin (who's also going with me to the Brewfest) and leaving Saturday late morning sometime.

It's going to be an eventful day. Aside from the Brewfest, there's a beer blogger meetup that evening (starting at five) over at the Rogue Ales Public House, so I'll get to meet yet more bloggers from Portland and other far-flung places (Arizona, for one, I think).

Are any other bloggers in the area going to the Brewfest? Let me know.

At any rate, I'll have the camera and notebook and plan on writing a bunch about it. And, Friday right now is looking at an 80-degree forecast for Portland, so that's just about perfect. Three days and counting!

The Cowboy Dinner Tree was fabulous. A real experience, one I would absolutely do again! So this review will mostly consist of gushing over the meal (I can't think of anything bad to say), followed by a few pictures. Read on...

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A promo-note to any garage salers reading: my brother and his girlfriend are having a garage sale today (Saturday the 15th). Among other things, he was planning on selling some of his older video game systems (Nintendo 64, Super Nintendo), with games, and we took a toddler mattress over there for them to sell ($45 OBO).

They live over on Douglas Street, just off and north of Wilson. I told them to post an ad on Craigslist, but I don't see one there...

This post is really to supplement my Water in the Desert post from yesterday; I wanted to include some pictures of the cistern we used to play on, because that was one of my favorite parts from that post. So while we were out at my parents' place today, I snapped a few pictures.

Here's a view of the thing. The concrete's a little worse for the wear after 20+ years, but you can see it's shaped like a box, and has those weird steel blade-looking things sticking out of it. Like rebar, only sharper. And sideways. Plus, you can get a sense of its height; I was standing on an elevated spot, and the top was still over my head a bit, and I'm six feet tall.

Holding the camera over my head and shooting blindly... here's the top of the cistern. Nice and flat. The pumphouse is adjoining; from the cistern you could wander around on top the pumphouse. That wasn't as much fun though.

Nice view along the side, closeup on the blade thingy. Yes, we would climb on those. They're what, maybe an eighth of an inch thick.

This is part of an ongoing series of articles that I'm writing on Central Oregon and growing up here; you can view the introduction here.

Growing up on the desert, water takes on a special, almost symbolic, significance. You are constantly surrounded by sand, sagebrush, juniper trees, dry vegetation like bunchgrass and cheat grass, all of it broken up by undulating mounds or ridges of dark lava rock... and not a drop of water in sight.

...I was going to write some pithy metaphor about how the mind grows to reflect the desert environment around it and consequently understands water to be as precious as it is to the ecosystem, but you know what? I'm not that high-fallutin'.

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Our big Memorial Day weekend was spent over on the Oregon coast, chillin' out in Lincoln City.

...I of course mean "chillin' out" quite literally; it was chilly and windy and rainy on Saturday and Sunday, and finally started getting nice on Monday, when we were leaving. It was in the 50s and maybe low 60s, so by Central Oregon standards, just like spring!

It was nice. It'd been ages since I'd been to the coast, so the chance to get on the beach and touch the ocean and taste the salty air far outweighed any minor weather concerns. We stayed at the 'D' Sands motel right on the beach, just below the D River (the shortest river in the world). It turned out to be a pretty good place to stay since we had a fantastic view, easy beach access and a full kitchen room (condominium style). That worked out well since we had the kids and didn't have to rush to meals anywhere if we didn't want to.

The trip was split between relaxing, shopping, gambling, and drinking. I know, the perfect trip, right? The drinking largely consisted of driving up to Pacific City and visiting the Pelican Pub and Brewery (right on the beach), and having a bottle of wine later while the kids watched TV, and a few odds and ends here and there. Gambling was two hours spent at the Chinook Winds casino (not my cup of tea). Shopping was, well, shopping... Lincoln City improbably has a large and busy complex of factory outlets, and then there's all the tchotske and souvenir shops that you invariably find on the coast.

The relaxing was the money, though. The kids and I flew a kite. We walked on the beach and played in the sand and threw rocks at the ocean. We swam in the swimming pool (a bit chilly there, too). We lazed around the room. I even got up early in the morning and walked barefoot on the beach, collecting a few rocks and shells here and there and splashing in the sea a bit. Yes, nippy! But totally worth it.

Unfortunately, those coast trips never seem long enough. We left Monday bound for Portland, as we had an early Tuesday morning eye doctor appointment for the kids there. Perhaps we'll have to see about a summer trip, when the weather is much nicer... the ocean's still damn cold even then, but that's never stopped us from jumping in anyway.

Yeah, I know I'm a little late to the party blogging this, but I thought this was pretty good footage of the Trojan nuclear power plant being destroyed: Trojan implosion on YouTube.

There's not much more to be said on Trojan (check out some of the latest news); I never knew much about the plant, but I remember always being impressed, even when little, seeing the looming tower rise out of the forest on the horizon. There's something jaw-dropping, fleeting, and a little creepy seeing such an icon emerging from the landscape all of a sudden.

Trojan power plant, on Flickr

This is sort of like those "How I spent my summer" essays—did anyone ever really have to write those? Anyway...

The main purpose of our day trip to Eugene was to visit one or several of the children's stores they have over there that specializes in kid beds; our four-year-old is soon to turn five and it's time to move him from the toddler bed to a regular bed. We'd looked around here in Bend but there's just not a great selection.

It was a beautiful day to cruise over the Santiam, and aside from some controlled burn haziness, ran into no problems at all. It's been years since I've actually been to Eugene, so it was a nice drive. And only about two-and-a-half hours, easier than the trip to Portland, even.

Our travels brought us first to the Valley River Center, to check out a store that, as luck would have it, was having a 20% off clearance sale. We looked at a few things, made some mental notes, and headed for downtown to check out the other store and get some lunch.

A quick note about navigation in Eugene: it's almost criminally easy. (Granted, we only went to a few places.) I always expect more complication, but the few times I've been there I've never really had any problem figuring out where to go. Today, for instance, I think we found every place we needed despite ourselves.

Downtown Eugene led us to the other children's store and then the Steelhead Brewery for lunch (I wrote a review of that on The Brew Site). We still hadn't decided about a bed, so after lunch back across the street we walked (nice, eh? The store and the brewery were next door to each other) to take another look at the styles we liked, and then it was back to the Valley River Center and the first store again.

That was the store that won out; we bought the bed we liked, but it was the floor model and they needed an hour to disassemble it for us, so off we went back downtown again.

This time, we were looking for a store named Down to Earth, which sells "natural products for the home and garden." My mom had ordered a couple of plants from them and asked if we could pick them up for her; no problem. Good grief, but this is a big store; it's basically a warehouse that spans the length of a city block and packs in an amazing variety of things. We were able to find my mom's plants (they had to search) and while we were wandering around the nursery, an employee asked the kids if they'd like to plant some free flowers for Mother's Day.

Turns out, they had planned and promoted this "Free Flower Day" thing for kids, but not that many showed up. It was a very cool idea though; we left with three extra pots of flowers, all free. And I was even tempted by a "hardy banana" plant, with the bold claim of being able to withstand temperatures as cold as -20°F. It was close, but I resisted. Aside from the exotic idea of having a banana plant growing in the backyard, it's not like we don't already have plants that can withstand that kind of cold: they're called "trees."

Back to the store to pick up the bed components, and some creative minivan-loading later, we were ready to head out of town. Almost, anyway; we had to make the obligatory trip to Trader Joe's.

Come on, you know the routine: Trader Joe's simply rocks, and whenever a Central Oregonian travels to a city with one, they have to stop and stock up on Three Buck Chuck, or shepherd's bread, or ten-pound bars of authentic Swiss dark chocolate, or whatever. Often, there's even a list of things to pick up for other people. It's okay. We've all been there. :)

Anyway, one quick TJ's stop later and we were on our way. We made good time coming back, just as in the morning, and pulled into the driveway at about 6:30. Sure, it made for a long day, but not as long as a Portland trip, for instance.

Hey, that makes me think of a great tag line for Eugene: "We're closer than Portland. And criminally easy to navigate."

Tomorrow we're off to Eugene for a day trip. We doing some kids bed shopping, and will likely stop at the Steelhead Brewing Company (fodder for The Brew Site) for lunch and beer. Likely it'll be a decent trip. It's supposed to be 71 in Eugene tomorrow, so that's good.

I had hinted a while back about a new project I was starting, and I think it's time to launch and announce it. It's a new blog called Hack Bend, and it's purpose is to be an insider's guide to Bend and Central Oregon. (In fact, the tagline I have on it right now is "Getting the most out of Bend and Central Oregon." Original, no?)

There's always a bit of trepidation in announcing something like this, but I'm excited about it. I've got a bunch of ideas and things to write about already, but as I wrote on the About page, "obviously, I can't claim to have all the answers or know everything there is to know about the area." One of the things I'm considering is opening it up to multiple authors, making it a group blog—but that would be down the road sometime. In the meantime, anyone who has any hints, advice, stories, or hacks about the area, please let me know! I'd like to make this a definitive website about Bend, and the more contributions I get, the more likely that'll happen.

So pop on over and check things out, subscribe to the RSS feed, and become a regular contributor. And let me know what you think!

This is a series I've been mulling over for a while now and even at one point promised Simone I would write. I've been wanting to write it partly because I think the perspective of growing up in rural Central Oregon is unique, and partly because I think there's some good stories to tell. So bear with me.

First off: an introduction. The background. I'm laying the groundwork and setting the stage...

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The title refers to the board game, not a business monopoly. Sorry to anyone coming here looking for juicy Bend business gossip. :)

According to CNNMoney, Monopoly is updating its look with modern places and landmarks and further, letting users vote on their board placement. That's pretty cool, and it brings to mind the panoply of custom Monopoly games that are floating around out there on just about every conceivable topic.

Which led me to wonder: Is there a custom Bend, Oregon Monopoly game anywhere? I tentatively want to say that I might remember seeing one at one time—perhaps in one of the shops downtown—but I'm pretty doubtful. A cursory web search revealed nothing.

So maybe I'll make one. It'd certainly be easy enough to print out new board spaces and glue them onto an old game; anyone have any suggestions as to what they'd like to see on Bend Monopoly?

(And then, of course, we'll have to play at the next blogger meetup.)

Okay, the headline is a bit sarcastic. But since the date for the closing of the Newport Avenue Bridge has been a moving target up until now, it's hard to take it seriously when they finally commit to it. But there's this item on KTVZ naming tomorrow (Saturday) the day, and I also heard the same thing on the radio this morning.

The first date I'd heard for the closing was April 1st. Then, a few days before the first, word was the date got pushed back to the 7th. Next it was the 10th. However, the orange construction sign at the bridge downtown still says April 7th. (I noticed this as I crossed the bridge yesterday, on the 13th.) And in the meantime there's been a big pile driver sitting there, ready to get started on wanton deconstruction.

So, if the bridge is actually closed tomorrow, everybody has to remember to use the Portland Avenue or Galveston Avenue bridges to get to the west side. What a pain.

Oh, and does anyone really believe the bridge will only be closed for seven months? Knowing how road projects tend to work around here, I'm betting it'll run long... Maybe we should start a pool.

Just wanted to blog a short note about the Bond Street Barber Shop in Downtown Bend. I went there for a haircut for the first time Tuesday after work, it's a nice place. The big draw, though, is the complimentary beer and wine you get while you're waiting!

Yep, you read that right. They stock Cascade Lakes beer (and a few macros), but I didn't see what variety of wine; I thought maybe there was a bottle of Yellow Tail red something, but I couldn't be sure. And on Saturdays, they also have Bloody Marys.

As far as haircut experiences go, they were good. A bit of a wait, actually (I was waiting for almost a half hour, then another half hour to cut my hair), but they're old school—straight razors for the fine hairs and everything. I was happy with what I walked out with.

So it'll likely be my regular barbershop from now on; anytime you can combine scissors, straight razors and beer, you know you're in for a good time!

After work today I swung by Newport Market over on the westside for their Thirsty Thursday beer tasting. I just found out about these Thirsty Thursdays recently; they're every, er, Thursday from 3:30 until 6:00. Free beer! Can't go wrong with that.

Today it was a rep from Deschutes Brewery doing tasting of their two newest: Inversion IPA and Buzzsaw Brown. Both good, but the IPA was really good. So I picked up a six-pack of it, and then, to my amazement, found a bottle of Deschutes' Mirror Mirror, which I'd heard about but hadn't seen anywhere. I'm excited! But it's a big barleywine, so I'm saving it for the weekend. Or Friday night.

So remember—Thursdays at Newport Market.

Heads-up, Bendites: The Paperback Exchange, which is one of the oldest used bookstores in Bend (if not the oldest), is closing! Right now they're having a huge 75% off sale on everything. I stopped over there after lunch and bought four books (for only $4.50, which would have been regularly priced at $18) and talked with the owner a bit.

They have to be out by April 30th, but will probably close a week or so before that to empty out the store. So, you've got about a month left to get there and get some great deals.

It's located at 184 NE Greenwood, on the corner of 2nd and Greenwood. Hours are Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

My mom mentioned this yesterday, though I didn't see it online and I'm too lazy to do a deep search: there is now apparently one realtor for every 200 people in Bend, according to The Bulletin. Wow.

I figure this should be good fodder for the newish Bend, Oregon Housing Bubble blog.

There was a magnitude 4.5 earthquake off of Oregon's coast this morning. Interesting. Not a huge one—not enough to strike up a tsunami—but a good reminder that a big one could hit at any time.

It was a whirlwind tour of Portland, but we managed to make the most of it. We did some quick shopping in Gresham on the way in, stopped to visit with our friends for a bit (had to take over some of my pumpkin ale for a missed birthday), and then went out to lunch at the Horse Brass.

The Horse Brass rules. Seriously. It's an English pub, with a ton of beers on tap, real darts, English food, the works. We had a tasty lunch (never had a Scotch egg before—it was good), tasty beer, and when we were finished, we stopped in to Belmont Station and picked up some harder-to-find beers.

Afterwards, I was able to go to Powells for a little bit ("a little bit" is relative, because my ideal visit to Powells would quite easily be half a day), but didn't find anything I wanted to spend that much money on.

We checked in to the hotel, relaxed for a few minutes, met with our friends who were also going to the concert, and then went to BJ's Brewhouse for dinner. It was good, although slow, and the service was ditzy at best. I have to say, though, they're seven taster deal is amazing: seven five-ounce(!) tasters of beer for only $7.25.

And, finally, the concert. We walked to the Rose Garden, entered without fanfare, found our seats. A local Portland band was playing the opening gig (they won a contest), I didn't catch their name but I wasn't paying close attention anyway. We had to move around seats a bit because when the tickets were purchased, the available seats remaining were single seats two rows apart (of course!), and after playing musical chairs trying to figure out the best place to see (and—damn it—missing a good portion of one of the classical Bon Jovi songs that everyone is actually there to see), the usher got permission to seat my wife and me in the announcer box seats at the top of the section—otherwise roped off to everyone else. That was pretty cool, because the view was much better and we weren't surrounded by screaming fans.

As far as the concert itself, it was decent. Two songs they performed that they didn't do last time were "Runaway" (eh) and "Blaze of Glory" (cool!). And, Jon had a lot more audience interaction—the first song was from amidst the crowd in the back rows of the floor seats, and "Blaze of Glory" was amidst the crowd at our level one section over from us. The most amazing part? He wasn't mauled by the crowd. :)

Okay, this is getting long. I'll leave you with this writeup of the concert—with pictures.

On Sunday we'll be heading up to Portland to see Bon Jovi in concert at the Rose Garden. Yes, we've done this before (warning: I sound like a drooling fanboy in that post).

Anyway, we're casting about for something to do Sunday after we get to Portland... we'll be seeing some friends, probably, and of course my wife would love to do some shopping. Myself, I don't really have any real plan; I like going to Powells and I wouldn't mind hitting a brewpub or two, but I'm pretty open.

Would any Portland bloggers want to meet up? I'm not promising anything, but you never know. ;)

For that matter, any bloggers/readers going to see Bon Jovi too?

This idea seems like a natural: a blog spotlighting funny Bend-related T-shirts. All locally designed and offered via CafePress.

I wish I'd thought of it first.

Inspired of late by Boing Boing's pointers to subway maps that have been remixed to used anagrammed names, I thought it would be fun to do the same with Bend. Only, Bend doesn't have a subway (or any mass transit, grrr), so I did the next best thing: remixed the map of downtown.

The only constraints I followed were dropping the directional part of the street names (the NW in NW Franklin) and spelling out the type of roadway ("Avenue" vs. "Ave").

Enjoy! Oh, and the Internet Anagram Server came in amazingly handy for this.

Click to view full map

That's the current population of Bend, Oregon. It's up, what, 40% from the year 2000 census population of 52,029. My question is, have that many people moved into the city (18,209 of them) in that time, or have the powers that be mostly been creative with the city limits (which is what got us to the 50,000 milestone in the first place)?

Not only was it about six degrees this morning in Bend, but we woke up to blowing snow and snow drifts in our backyard and cul-de-sac. Fun! You can see the ground in some spots, others are buried in drifts up to six inches deep.

On the radio they claimed it was an Arctic front that has moved in. Stellar.

Last week I met with a local businessman who was interested in finding a local PHP expert/consultant for a project that he's expanding. He already has a long-distance PHP guy doing work for him, but also wanted someone local. This got me to thinking; aside from myself and a few isolated individuals, and Alpine, who are the PHP people for Central Oregon? Are there any PHP-specific shops or consultants who are available for this kind of thing? If not, why not? And how would anyone find out about them?

My next thought, invariably, was We need a local PHP user group for exactly this kind of thing. A local organization where any and all of the PHP programmers/users can get together, and perhaps build a directory of services and maybe even host events.

Would this be of interest to anyone? I'm actually pretty ignorant about the user group thing (it's probably been close to a decade since I've been anywhere near a user group type of function), so I may not actually know of which I speak. For instance, is there already a Central Oregon PHP user group that I'm totally unaware of?

I'd be interested in getting involved one way or another. What says the community-at-large?

For anyone keeping track of these things, the snow they keep warning us about (last I heard, the advisory was from 3pm today until something like 5am tomorrow morning) has started in earnest at about 1:30pm, here in Downtown Bend.

I think Jennifer almost always has insightful things to say about Bend (and is a fine writer to boot), but last night's post was really remarkable, I think. She points to the Bend 2030 website (the project of which I was only really tangentially aware of until the past few days), and drops the bomb on a couple of the hard questions:

What's the most significant issue facing Bend?

Well, an increase in growth threatens two of the three things I value most about living here. So Bend's biggest issue is limiting growth or, if that's impossible, limiting the damage.

Also: this town has a severe divide between rich and poor with almost no middle class. That gives my kids a wacky sense of how the world works. First, it's not a reflection of most of the United States; and second, they don't see a model for success — except, of course, in real estate. People grow up here and disappear for awhile, then come back as doctors and lawyers. Or they grow up wealthy and never work for keeps. Unless Bend changes, my kids won't have much opportunity to watch someone start out on a low rung and work their way up.

So, to answer question four:

What is your personal vision for the future of Bend?

I want growth in Bend to slow way, way down, so that we can get a psychic grasp on what's happening here. And then I would like Bend to work toward becoming not a resort town or a retirement mecca but a normal city, where people work and go to school — and just happen to climb mountains or ski or run rivers whenever they get a chance.

Dead on. I really couldn't have said it better myself, and I find myself nodding in nearly perfect agreement with this.

I've been thinking a lot about Bend and its growth and what it's been turning into lately. In light of my rant yesterday, I think it's safe to expect more rants and thoughts on this topic from me. In the meantime, keep watching Jennifer. She's going to be a force to be reckoned with.

I don't know how I missed this the first time around (December 23rd, probably because I don't read the New York Times): Where Timber Was King, the Golf Club Replaces the Ax.

I don't really know what to think about this article. I certainly can't relate to it, it's aiming for the affluent and reeks of elitism. A little fisking, anyone?

WHEN you own a home in the sixth-fastest-growing region in the country, you worry about letting the cat out at night because of the coyotes howling in the forest. You scribe fresh powder turns down 9,000-foot-high bowls and muscle bicycles through high-desert hills. At some point, perhaps on a fairway between Holes 4 and 5, you wonder whether those lonely volcanoes lingering on the skyline will ever blow. The thing you rarely do is call your town rural.

Dammit, I do call my town rural; I grew up rural, that's how we are. We actually did lose a cat to coyotes, growing up. I don't ski, I'm sorry to say, nor do I golf. So far, it's failing to hook me.

Albert Angelo Jr., an owner of a family-run development company, bought in Bend for its 300 annual days of sunshine and the 4.3 million acres of public land just beyond his floor-to-ceiling windows. He plans to divide his time between his houses in Vancouver, Wash., and Palm Desert, Calif., and his new $3 million, 5,100-square-foot single-story house in Pronghorn, a resort on the outskirts of town.

"When I look out my Pronghorn house facing north, I see a covered patio with a 10-foot-diameter barbecue pit, a pop-up plasma TV and a view of the golf course - but of a putting green, so my house won't get hit by golf balls," Mr. Angelo, 59, said. "You have a good lifestyle down there."

Okay, I totally cannot relate. I'd say this guy's idea of "a good lifestyle down there" is completely out-of-sync with the reality of Bend.

About 300 people are on a waiting list to purchase another dozen town houses at the Bluffs at the Old Mill, a neighborhood with views of the Mount Bachelor, Broken Top, and Three Sisters volcanoes.

Again with the volcanoes. In my day we just called them "the mountains." And for everybody wondering about the high real estate prices, look no more... the 288 people on that waiting list who won't get a choice home want to go somewhere...

Bend's proximity to trails for hiking and cross-country skiing, coupled with a bustling vibe, appealed to Stephen Johnson, 29, a salesman from Medford, Ore. In November, he bought a new 1,933-square-foot, two-story weekend house for $215,000 in southeast Bend. "It still feels like a small town but with more amenities that make it a fun place to visit," he said.

Holy shit, there was a two-story, 1,933-square foot house for sale in town for only $215,000 as recently as November? Who did he have to kill to get the place for that cheap??

When Benders aren't bouncing through the 370 inches of annual snowfall at Mount Bachelor, about 30 minutes west, much of the après action centers on Wall and Bond Streets, downtown's two main arteries. Today, you'll find no hardware store off the brick sidewalks, but should you seek information on a $2.75 million resort home or wish to make a donation to pierced buskers outside Bellatazza coffee shop, you need walk only a few blocks.

First of all, that should be "Bendites," not "Benders"—we're neither (mostly) drunks nor a certain sarcastic cartoon robot. Second of all, don't remind me that there's no hardware store downtown—it was a sad day when Masterson St. Clair finally closed down. But it's good to know I can find that info on that $2.75-mil home, that's important. Otherwise, this whole paragraph? Pretty much reeks of narcissistic self-importance. "Après action" and "pierced buskers" my ass.

Bend is 94 percent white. The joke among locals is that diversity means Subarus of different colors.

I've never heard that joke. I've lived here most of my life.

Okay, that's enough. Go read the article, even if it bothers you as much as it seems to have me. I can't help but wonder if they're writing about the same town that I live in...

Something I hadn't blogged yet but thought I should "break": I've been approached by the new publisher of the High Desert Sun newsletter to write for them. I said yes, of course, and the first article I'm turning in (by tomorrow) is based on my Reynolds Pond blog entry from about a year and a half ago.

I hadn't heard of the High Desert Sun before, but it's a newspaper-format newsletter that covers most of Central Oregon: Bend, Redmond, Prineville, Alfalfa, Powell Butte, Terrebonne, Madras and Crooked River Ranch. (I culled those from the "Locations" page on the website, it's possible they also cover Lapine, Sunriver, and Sisters as well.) The publisher found my little corner of the web here and liked my writing well enough to invite me to write for the paper.

Cool! It's not huge, granted, but it's a start. Of course, if I become a regular writer for the newsletter, then I'll need to start thinking things up to write about—I'd hate to have to recycle stuff from my blog all the time. :)

I can't help it, but this is just so weirdly funny. Bend man robs liquor store: this is not the funny part. The funny part is the guy's mugshot:

This dude looks like the love child of Rodney Dangerfield and Bob Marley or something!

Today was one of those days when you wake up, blink, and there's eight inches of snow on the ground.

That's pretty rare for Bend. (Lapine and Sunriver, not so much. But for Bend and points east and north, rare.)

It's still coming down. The snow advisory is still on, through at least seven o'clock this evening... eight to 14 inches total is the latest prediction, though since we're already at eight, that seems like a lame prediction.

So, I dug out the driveway this morning, and finally left for work about nine. The office is about half-staffed right now, I imagine people will be trickling away as the day goes on. My wife tried to take our youngest to preschool (our oldest is home, schools are closed) and got stuck in the snow—the main roads are plowed and sanded, but the neighborhoods and side roads are still unattended.

Surprisingly, I had more trouble driving to work the other day when it first snowed than today; I suppose it could be because there's less traffic on the roads, or that I left later.

It'll be an interesting day. Except for work, this would've been a nice day to hole up at home and watch the snow. And play in it.

Snow! It's coming down pretty good, as I'm sure all the Bendites know by now—though I think Rhys will be especially pleased. It's coming down pretty good; I'm downtown, and looking out the window I'm seeing an inch or so, I think. Driving is pretty awful right now; normally I go home for lunch but I may be staying in the office for lunch for the next few days. (I already went home today; that's how I know it's awful.)

And I know it's technically not the first snow of the season, but to my mind, it's the first significant snow of the season, and that counts more. :)

Halloween blogging #1

The Fall 2005 issue of Bend Living (no link love, their site sucks and the "current" links point to other articles) has an article titled "Ghost Stories" that explores some of the supposedly haunted places in Bend and Central Oregon. And on the radio last week, they were asking for people to call in to name the haunted places we have around here, so I thought it'd be fun to blog it a bit.

The Bend Living article mentions the Deschutes County Historical Society building, the old Reid School in downtown Bend. Supposedly the ghost of George Brosterhous, who died there in 1914, haunts the place.

The Shadowlands Haunted Place Index for Oregon (which I can thank Rhys for mentioning, if I remember correctly) mentions five for Bend:

The Congress House: This was mentioned on the radio, and is the subject of the only ghost story for Bend found in Ghosts and Strange Critters of Washington and Oregon. According to the Shadowlands site, "there have been a few families that have lived there that have either died or something tragic has happened to them due to living in the cursed house," which is identified in the ghosts book as the McCann House. I don't know about cursed; the book simply mentions that sometimes figures are seen in the upper story windows, and gives a short history of it.

The O'Kane Building: Mentioned in the Bend Living article, too. There's "ghostly smoke, weird lights, footsteps, and voices," and occasionally a voice that calls out orders in the restaurant.

Old Mt. View Hospital: I'm not sure where this is, the site says it's now an apartment building next to Drake Park. Floor creaks have been reporting, like someone's walking around.

The Old Smoke Stacks: They must mean in the Old Mill District, which isn't relevant anymore since they're building it out... But it sounds like teenagers would sneak in there at night to see if the place was haunted.

The Pilot Butte Cemetary: Also mentioned in Bend Living. Reports of ghostly blue orbs floating around.

Independently of these sources, I've also heard the Lara House Bed and Breakfast is haunted. Ironically enough, it's located on Congress Avenue... just like the Congress House mentioned above! (Cue cheesy horror music.)

Other places mentioned in the Bend Living article include the Downing Hotel building in downtown Bend, current site of The Grove restaurant, Bronco Billy's in Sisters (the old Hotel Sisters building), Sunriver Resort's Great Hall, and the New Redmond Hotel in (you guessed it) Redmond.

Shadowlands mentions Redmond, too. In addition to footsteps, there "have been pictures taken and in the pictures there are clearly orbs in the lobby hall. Feelings of a strange presence in the rooms in the middle of the night. Apparitions of a woman have been reported."

So, what else have we got around here? Anyone know of any haunted places I didn't mention?

A new local weblog has popped up: Bend Oregon Restaurants. Found it when "BrENDa" (its author) left a couple comments here. Finally! A good restaurant review/guide blog for Bend, by someone who knows what they're talking about.

And you gotta love the honesty in her reviews: read the O'Kane's review or the Bon Bien review to see what I mean. My favorite line: "Bon Bien is Non Bien."

The Bulletin today has a piece on the DeWolf sexual harrassment case, with much more detail. It's rather appalling. Touching on some points:

• Apparently "Deschutes County policy requires employees to report sexual harassment.... Violating the policy can draw penalties that range from a warning to dismissal, according to the policy." While I think sexual harrassment is a pretty serious offense, this policy seems awfully harsh for the victim—I mean, not only could you be subjected to the harrassment to begin with, you could lose your job for being too embarrassed or scared to report it? Wow. Sounds like a great way to breed a culture of fear and avoidance.
  
  (The article does mention that none of the employees—there are at least three—who knew about it have been disciplined specifically under this policy, though one of them has been suspended pending the ongoing investigation of the juvenile department that pulled the trigger on this whole mess.)
  
  
• When he was first interviewed for the juvenile department investigation, "DeWolf said the investigation would have never been authorized had he not taken a month off over the summer to attend a public policy school at Harvard University." Hmmmm. Is he admitting that he would have hindered this investigation, given the chance? Sounds criminal.
• The article covers the incident in question in detail. It illustrates some pretty blatant behavior on DeWolf's part—this is the stuff in particular that I found appalling. In particular I have a hard time reconciling that with DeWolf's resignation statement where he declares: "I stand by my statement of August 9 that the incident from two years ago was resolved the day after it occurred. Valid county policy was followed in that resolution"—except for the county policy that requires sexual harrassment to be reported. Or, when he says this:
  

  People have asked what purpose was served by the Lane County Deputy District Attorney holding a press conference in the county office building. They've asked what purpose was served by bringing up an incident from twelve years ago. They've asked what purpose was served when he used such salacious and sensational language in declaring his intention not to file charges. They've asked what purpose was served by the media quoting that salacious and sensational language. I have no answer for these questions.

  Talk about avoidance—trying to lay the blame for all this coming out into the open on the Lane County DA(!). Seems to me the answer to those questions is pretty obvious; it prompted a much-needed housecleaning.

We're back from Florida none the worse for wear; we actually got back Saturday late, missing hurricane Wilma by two days. As my friend Kerry said, ironic that the one time we should pick to visit Florida, the biggest storm ever tracked starts building up nearby.

Florida was... flat and humid. No, really.

Well, it was. Anyway, we had a good time. My wife's grandparents have a swimming pool (of course) so we spent a lot of time in it. And of course we drove up to Disney World for a few days (three and a half hours each way), that was a trip; it's utterly mind-boggling just how big Disney World is. We only had time to visit the Magic Kingdom (which is basically all of Disney Land), and part of Epcot.

Some general Florida observations, from an outsider: what's up with drivers there? Nobody uses turn signals! And apparently they'll hit-and-run other cars in parking lots (which seemed to happen to us— borrowing the grandparents' car— on our mini-trip to Disney) all the time, we're told. Also, everywhere you go— and I mean everywhere— there's air conditioning. All the time. Many times we were in restaurants and it was too cold— people were wearing sweaters or jackets. Not what you expect to see in Florida, of all places.

Didn't see any gators (in the wild, anyway). I was kind of hoping.

Meanwhile, it's interesting to note some of the local goings-on while we were away:

• There was an E. coli outbreak at McGrath's; Bulletin story here, Bend.com here. Damn, I knew there was a reason I'm always resisting going to eat there... What really worries me though is the Bulletin's article states, "No changes in McGrath's operating procedure were suggested"— say what? Yeah, I'm done.
• More information has come to light regarding Deschutes County Commissioner Tom DeWolf's sex abuse scandal: details from the investigation reveal that he allegedly put his hand down two separate women's pants and groped their genitals. Bulletin story here, Bend.com story here. Not surprisingly, DeWolf is resigning. His statement is here. Not really much more to say, other than I'm not really surprised. That's some seriously stupid shit to do, Tom.

Anything exciting anybody wants to tell me about?

Among other things, Bandon, Oregon is known for two things: cranberries and cheese. Whenever we've been to Bandon we'd stop at the Bandon Cheese store and indulge in a bit of tasting and shopping. Not long ago, though, someone told me that the Tillamook Creamery had bought and made Bandon Cheese, though still sold it under the Bandon label.

Now I see that Tillamook has closed the Bandon cheese store completely. So, now you can't even buy Bandon cheese in Bandon? That's just dumb. What's worse, the cheese is now being made in Wisconsin—Tillamook can't even be bothered to make their own cheese?

They're even goofier than that, according to the Pacific Northwest Cheese Project article I linked to above:

Another aspect of the sordid Tale of Tillamook and Bandon encompasses Tillamook's misguided pursuit of its newly acquired "Bandon" trademark. Tillamook threatened the city of Bandon, Oregon with a lawsuit for violating its intellectual property by using the name "Bandon."

Threatened the city itself for violating the trademark? Uh, hello?

Lee on RoguePundit has more on the closure and goofy Tillamook practices, too. Of course, he has a good point:

At one time, the purpose of the store wasn't just sales, but promoting the brand. Since the brand looks rather hollow when the cheese has to be imported for sale, maybe it's better to not remind folks that the Bandon Cheeses are just flavors that can be made anywhere. The attractive label with the Coquille River Lighthouse is just marketing.

Although the flavors can't necessarily be "made" anywhere; cheese acquires some of its characteristics from the types of food the cows (or goats, or whatever milk-producing animal) eats, and that can certainly be regional.

Anyway, I just thought it sucked. That's one less neat thing about Bandon, and that much more unemployment for Oregon.

Check this out: BendSearch.com. Alpine, the company I used to work for, has finally resurrected it and updated it. Good for them.

I was responsible for a lot of the work that went into that site back in the day (this would be in 2000-2001). Oh, I'm not bragging; that was, of course, early in my career as a PHP developer, so there was a lot of ugly, bad code floating around in there, courtesy of yours truly.

Hopefully they'll be able to get somebody to give it the attention it deserves; it's looking a little sparse right now but I rather like what I'm seeing.

Bend is yet again on another top ten list: we're the sixth fastest-growing metropolitan area in the country (via the Bulletin). This list is according to the U.S. Census, though, so probably has a bit more weight than whichever flavor-of-the-month magazine's top "whatever" list of cities... although, they're considering all of Deschutes County to be the metropolitan growth area, so your mileage may vary.

Is this a good thing? Depends. Read through the comments on my Trump Bend post, you'll see varying degrees of opinion. Really, go read them, the good ones start about halfway down, past all the "rumors" about Trump. It's some good stuff in there; maybe I'll re-post some of those comments on the front page here...

According to Metroblogging Portland, Corno's Food Market is going to be torn down. Wow.

I say "wow" because there's a more personal connection for me: my grandfather is one of the Cornos that used to run the place. Granted, it's been closed for something like 10 or more years, and my grandfather hadn't worked there for longer than that, but it's still kind of a shock. (In fact, I think my dad may have mentioned to me that Corno's was going to be destroyed.)

During the holidays, we'd always get the gift box from my grandparents full of (among other things) fresh fruit and nuts and such from the Market. One of the perks. And before that—well before that, before I was even born (or at least too young to remember)—we'd get the hookup from my grandfather when he ran the meat department. Yep, cheap meat.

This looks interesting: The Bend, Oregon Celebrity Weblog.

This article in the Bulletin Monday caught my eye: Dinosaur discovery. Part of a plesiosaur was unearthed over near Prineville last summer:

The self-trained paleontologists found what is believed to be the first remains of a marine reptile called the plesiosaur that has been found in the Pacific Northwest.

It is also thought to be only the third vertebrate fossil uncovered in the area so far from a rock formation that dates back to the Cretaceous period, the last of the three periods of the Dinosaur Age....

When South Dakota paleontologist James Martin excavated the site in May on behalf of the BLM, he found at least two nearly complete teeth, tooth fragments and a 3-foot-long lower jawbone of a 90 to 100 million-year-old plesiosaur. The pieces may constitute 80 percent of its lower jaw.

Martin thinks it was from a large-headed, short-necked plesiosaur that was 25 feet long from head to tail.

Pretty cool stuff—it's a long article (for the Bulletin), gets into detail about plesiosaurs. And, there's another first that I'm aware of: using Wikipedia as a source (and citing it in the article). That seems to me to be pretty clueful. Have they mentioned Wikipedia before?

Lately I've been playing around a bit with Google Earth, and correspondingly Google Maps, and it's amazing the kinds of things you can do with it. Unfortunately, their source data for Central Oregon is less than impressive; try to zoom in too tightly and you just get pixelated blobs.

Well, the city of Bend website has put their GIS mapping system online, you can get to it here, and it's super-detailed (for Bend only) and largely fills that niche that's missing from Google's maps. It even has some of the same functionality with their layers option. The only drawback is that it only runs in Internet Explorer 5.5 or greater (and, I'm assuming, Windows).

Still, it's pretty sweet. I'm already thinking about how to use this data somewhere...

Heard about this on the radio this morning, and I wanted to blog it before I forgot about it. On the front page of the Bulletin today there's a picture of three people floating the river (a popular summer activity here in Bend)—which by itself is no big deal. However, the focus of the article that accompanies it is on the excessive alcohol consumption that goes along with the river floaters.

Back to that picture. Three people floating the river with booze in hand. Here's the picture:

Photo courtesy of The Bulletin

I'm not against drinking, rafting, drinking while rafting necessarily, but damn! That's some hard drinkin' in the picture. The guy on the left is drinking some kind of hard liquor, the middle guy a beer, and there's at least two more bottles visible with them. The girl has a Jagermeister. I like Jager and all, but that's way too hardcore for me.

Besides, everyone knows the proper way to drink Jager is chilled, ideally right out of the freezer ;).

You can tell I've been busy these last few days: I've got a number of things to write about but haven't had the time to until now. These next couple of things are about articles that appeared in the Bulletin.

First: 7-story hotel planned for downtown. This, of course, will be literally right next to the five-story parking garage. I'm a little ambivalent about this. I don't necessarily think it's bad for downtown Bend, but does it have to be a seven-story monstrosity? Plus, it'll turn into a cost-overrun, logistical nightmare typical of recent downtown development.

To be fair, though, the city has yet to approve the application. We all know that that's just a formality, though, right?

And the plan is to put a swimming pool on the sixth floor. Uh, okay. I know I sure wouldn't want any room directly beneath several thousand tons of water suspended 55 feet or so above the ground... but that's just me.

The other item is this: Post office will test for anthrax. Yeah, that's timely and relevant, what, three years later? Is this really news? I think bioterrorists have probably figured out by now that anthrax is kind of a no-go anymore, and are more likely to have something different cooked up. Seems to me the post office should be expanding the scope of their testing, if they're really worried about it...

Busy busy busy weekend, that's why I haven't been posting. And I'm getting hammered at work with things, but I needed to jump on to post this bit, lest I forget again:

There's finally another Bend blogger meetup this week! Wednesday (July 27) at the Farmer's Market downtown, at six o'clock. Basically we'll have a picnic in Drake Park. (Buy your own dinner at the Farmer's Market.) We'll be meeting near the booth selling fish, though Shannon said if anyone gets there late, look for her and an orange blanket. So if you see a group of people sitting by an orange blanket in the park near the Farmer's Market, odds are it's us.

Maybe we could get a roll call in the comments here, so we know who all can make it?

Yep, we're heading up to Portland tomorrow, for the weekend. We've got a bunch of clothes shopping to do. And appointments to keep. And friends to see, if there's time. With all the running around, I wonder when (if) we'll find time to relax...

Taking the laptop, though, so I'll still be checking in.

Forgot to mention this when I saw it the other day, but there appears to be another blogger here in Bend: e n | x | e n d u b. Did anyone else catch this?

Either way, welcome!

There's a new Bend blog in town: Bend Reality Check, but I don't know how long it will last. I say this because the tagline is, "Mission: to maintain some sort of reality for those who think they are the most important people in Bend, Oregon" and it appears to have been launched primarily to get back at Shannon and Simone for blogging their bad experience at Kanpai. As such it's full of snarky comments about the two of them.

That's too bad, because this sounds like it could be a good insider's blog about the restaurants in Bend:

I am an culinary hermit that lives in the shadows of Bend, Oregon. In a former life I was a culinary mercinary in this town, with 14 years of food slinging under my belt. Titles were bestowed upon me, such as: restaurant manager, production chef, lead saute chef, kitchen manger, etc, but I renouced my titles to walk the earth, like Caine in Kung Fu, only unsheathing my food mojo for special people and occasions.

So, continuing in my "Things I X about Bend" series:

I don't like...

• ...the traffic; the disproportionate amount of congestion and the bad drivers.
• ...not having a mass transit system.
• ...how the north end of town is a stripmall/boxstore eyesore.
• ...skyrocketing real estate prices.
• ...the roundabouts. Actually, I'm kind of on the fence about them; they're not inherently bad but do we really need so many of them?
• ...overpriced "public" art. Like the "gateway to Bend" thing on the parkway made from rusty scrap metal.

What else?

See also: Things about Bend that I miss, Things about Bend that I like.

Just when you thought you'd heard the last of it, Mellencamp the cougar is back in the news. There's an article in today's Bulletin, more or less reiterating the cougar report on Z21 News last night. It was spotted near Newport Avenue and Fourth, but officials had no luck tracking it.

Last week the Bulletin also ran an interesting article on Jack Spencer, the wildlife specialist for Deschutes County heading up the cougar search. It's a good read, and shows just how crazy that kind of job is: he's been bitten by a rattlesnake, caught bubonic plague (!), even tranked himself while trying to get a bear out of a cougar trap. You gotta love that kind of stuff.

That is, these are things that are new in Bend, or are a result of progress, that I like. It's a balance to my Things about Bend that I miss post the other day.

I like...

• ...the Bend Public Library building. I have fond memories of the old building they used to be in, but their newer building is far better.
• ...McMenamins' Old St. Francis School. Can't ever have enough microbreweries, and they've really done excellent work on the site. Plus, they brought back a movie theater to downtown Bend—a theater pub no less (which is what I always thought the Tower Theater should have been turned into)!
• ...The Old Mill District. For the most part. They've developed the area much better than I would have thought.
• ...newer restaurants like Zydeco, Mercury Diner, Merenda's.
• ...Barnes & Noble.
• ...the Les Schwab Amphitheater.

More as I think of these, too.

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.

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.

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!

In my previous post, a fellow named Kirk wrote in the comments:

Hi Jon my wife and I will be relocating to the Klamath Falls area soon from the Spokane,Wa area. I have become quite fond of talking with bloggers in the Spokane area and found that there is much information to be learned from them. Not knowing the area very well I was wondering what you could tell us about Klamath Falls and surrounding area.

Seemed like a good idea for an entry all its own, except for one thing... I don't really know all that much about Klamath Falls! :)

Here's what I do know: It's a nice area, located in beautiful southern Oregon, though economically worse off than much of the rest of the state. The population is just over 19,000. It's about 60 miles or so from Ashland (which is my favorite southern Oregon town) and about 20 miles from California. I know that, some time back, they were pushing to make the area a high-tech mecca, even coining the name "Silicon Basin" for this purpose—though I don't know how it turned out. (Not entirely well, I'd guess.)

Since Kirk sounds like he's looking for bloggers, I did a quick search online for some in K Falls. Not many; ORblogs doesn't have a page for them, and a Google search turned up nothing. Then I figured I'd browse Blogger's regional blogs, with some luck: Klamath Falls Bloggers, 30 of them. I can't speak to how current they are, though. What's up with that? Where are the Klamath bloggers?

Anyway, Kirk, welcome to Oregon!

While researching something about Pacific City, Oregon, I came across the Pacific City Oregon Visitor's Guide which has some links to a bunch of extremely neat historical photographs. I like Pacific City quite a lot, not just because of the Pelican Pub & Brewery, but also because it's the quintessential small Oregon coast town (like Bandon, another town I really like). And the Dory boats are cool.

Links to Pacific City history, historic photos, more photos, and historic Dory photos.

A bit of Oregon esoterica for everyone this Friday morning, and it's a ghost story to boot: The Bandage Man of Cannon Beach.

The Bandage Man is a phantom of a man completely wrapped in bandages that haunts this small community. The bloody figure, who smells of rotting flesh, jumps into vehicles passing on a road outside of town, notably pickup trucks or open-topped cars, but also sedans, station wagons, and even sports cars. Sometimes the mummy breaks windows or leaves behind bits of bloody or foul-smelling bandages. One legend has it that he is the ghost of a dead logger cut to pieces in a sawmill accident.

The Bandage Man is sometimes said to eat dogs and may have murdered several people. He appears on the short approach road connecting US Highway 101 to Cannon Beach, between the town and where Highway 26 intersects with 101. The phantom always vanishes just before reaching town.

I first came across the story of Bandage Man in the book Ghosts, Critters & Sacred Places of Washington and Oregon, and it stood out because it's not the typical "sounds and thumps in the night" type of ghost story that fills books like these.

Not surprisingly, there's not much on the web about Bandage Man; digging around only reveals a handful of sites, with pretty much the same one or two paragraph description. However, I did find this post on the MysteryPlanet MSN Group that sheds light on the origin of the legend:

I was googling on the chance that I might find some mention somewhere of the Bandage Man. I have been aware of this story for over forty years. For I was a child in the community where it got it's start. I knew some of the family of the kid that first encountered the Bandage Man. There is an old road, that for all the years I was growing up was known as "Bandage Man Road". It was just an old section of Highway 101 that had been bypassed when a new section put in place, but it was still accessible and wasn't very long-just a short loop off of the highway-the whole thing from end to end could be driven in maybe five minutes or so.

This loop of road was a popular place for local kids to go park and makeout.

That is where the story started. One night, two of the local kids were up there doing just what teenaged boys and girls do when they are parked on dark lonely roads. The boy had an old chevy pickup and his girl and he were sitting in the cab. All off a sudden they felt the truck sort of lean, like something was moving around in the bed of the truck. They turned to look out the rear window and there looking back was a bandaged face, with only some wierd looking eyes showing through eyeholes in the bandages. The bandaged figure started beating on the glass, and the top of the cab. The kid started his engine, got it gear and tore out of there-his girlfriend screaming in terror as the man in the back continued his pounding. Any of you who've been to Bandage Man road, or Cannon Beach, know how curvey the roads are and to drive them at highspeed is dangerous. On they went-after what seemed an eternity they made it to downtown Cannon Beach, where the boy's family owned a service station that they lived next door to in green house. Once they got there, they looked in the back and the Bandaged figure was no where to be seen.

I first heard this story back in 1960-61. And it's the original version. Some of the family of the kid still lives around here too, I know two of his brothers.

I have never heard of a repeat appearance by the Bandage Man.

I guess you'd better watch out if you're driving around Cannon Beach, if you believe that sort of thing...

It's crazy how much development is going on around here these days. Downtown, they're just about to tear down the old post office and start erecting a new parking structure. The "Firehall" is ongoing, with a giant plastic bag over the top of it (it's truly surreal). The new building on the corner of Wall and Franklin looks mostly finished. Something's going up on the old Eagle Lodge location, on the corner of Greenwood and Hill. The Old Mill District continues to grow and change. Up north, there's of course talk about the Super Wal-Mart, but good grief, Bed Bath and Beyond is already open, Best Buy can't be far behind, CostPlus and PetSmart are going up. Target is expanding, I hear.

And everywhere you go, residential development is gangbusters. You can't swing a dead cat in this town any more without hitting construction. (Ironically, I work for a builder that's contributing to all this mess. And live in one of their homes.) I know growth and change has kind of been the theme for Bend and Central Oregon this past decade, but right now it seems like there's more going on than ever before. Or is it just me?

And of course the one thing Bend really needs—a mass transit system—is nowhere in sight.

I first spotted the news a few days ago on Metroblogging Portland: Google in The Dalles. Then my wife read about it online this morning, and now it's on Slashdot. Sounds interesting, but it seems like kind of a random place to plunk down a data center (if that's what they intend to build). Well, it's better than Medford or Umatilla, I guess.

I wonder if this means The Dalles will be the next technology nexus in Oregon?

...yeah, right.

Hey, I almost forgot: in addition to Valentine's Day, today is also Oregon's birthday: it was admitted into the Union on February 14, 1859, the 33rd state. Just random facts. Move along.

Well, I posted too soon. Tonight's blogger get-together has been cancelled, too many people had something come up. Hopefully we can convene next week or something.

Unless plans changed when I wasn't looking, the Bend/Central Oregon bloggers are getting together again tomorrow, Tuesday the 8th. It's at the Cascade Lakes Brewery Lodge (upstairs!) on Bend's westside, starting at 7pm. I don't know yet if I'll make it, but I know a bunch of the others will. Cheers!

According to this article in the Bulletin, a woman in Prineville gave birth to a 14 pound, 1 ounce baby. Holy c-section, Batman! Still, as big as that is, it doesn't quite beat the 16.7 pound baby born last month. And then for some bogglers check out these Guinness World Record entries for heaviest births.

Our little trip to Portland over the weekend went well, except for the ice storm that hit Saturday. We stayed indoors the whole day with our friends (who we were staying with, fortunately, otherwise we'd have really worn out our welcome), and pretty much any other plans we'd had were shot.

On the other hand, our friends introduced me to the BBC comedy The Office, which is insane but entirely plausible—I've known people (and offices) that are exactly the same way. It's hilarious, check it out. Amazon has it for about 42 bucks.

Our drive back Sunday was uneventful; the ice was already breaking up in Portland and the farther out of town we went, the better it got—even over the mountains. Back in Bend, you wouldn't even know anything had happened. All's well that ends well, they say.

Seems like we just can't get enough of Portland; we're heading there tomorrow (Friday). It's part follow-up to our son's eye surgery, part vacation-y trip. Always fun. I'd like to get in a trip to Powell's Bookstore, but I don't think we'll have the time unfortunately.

Happy birthday to Bend! Today is the 100th anniversary of Bend, Oregon, marking the beginning of the year-long Bend Centennial celebration. Just a quick post while I'm thinking about it; I might have more to say later.

Also, check out Bend.com's article from November.

This article on Bend.com is interesting, about the occurence (and likelihood of) tsunamis off the coast of Oregon.

Some time between 9 and 10 p.m. on Jan. 26, 1700, a similar great earthquake, with the same estimated magnitude as the one in Asia, struck the Northwest, rocking the region with strong shaking for several minutes. The specific time can be told through a variety of evidence closely studied by scientists in recent years, such as land levels, sand deposits, the rings of ancient trees and historic records....

Geological evidence indicates that mega-quakes have occurred in the zone at least seven times over the past 3,500 years, meaning they happen, on average, every 400 to 600 years.

With a little digging, I found out this was the Cascadia Earthquake (thank you, Wikipedia), a magnitude 9 megathrust earthquake that slammed the Pacific Northwest. I also found this page which has a somewhat more consequential description:

The earthquake collapsed houses of the Cowichan people on Vancouver Island and caused numerous landslides. The shaking was so violent that people could not stand and so prolonged that it made them sick. On the west coast of Vancouver Island, the tsunami destroyed the winter village of the Pachena Bay people, leaving no survivors. These events are recorded in the oral traditions of the First Nations people on Vancouver Island.

Freaky. I knew the area was geologically active—volcanoes and such—but I had no idea it was this active.

Sitting in the Red Lion Inn at the Convention Center in Portland tonight; we'll be here for the next couple of days. Not a pleasure or casual visit, though; tomorrow our son (he's three) has corrective eye surgery for esotropia.

It'll be his second such surgery (our daughter, who's five, has also had two eye surgeries). It's simultaneously a minor and a major surgery; minor because there's nothing being transplanted, or amputated, or anything like that, and major because he will still be fully anesthetized and getting the full surgical "treatment."

The gory details? The lateral muscles of the eyes—those attached to the sides—are moved forwards or backwards on the wall of the eyeball to correct the respective alignment problem. Yes, this involves removing them from where they attach and sewing them onto a new location. Freaky? You bet, but at the same time utterly amazing at what can be accomplished in this day and age.

Anyway, that's the latest in case blogging gets light the next couple of days. (Though tonight I'm blogging a bit.)

I was disappointed to see both the Bend measures (establish a mass transportation district, more money for schools) fail, though not particulary surprised: you can pretty much guarantee that when a measure appears in Central Oregon that requires raising taxes, it will get shot down.

But hell, do kids have to be cannibalizing themselves in the schools before this town raises some money to help relieve the overcrowding and budget issues? And since the money was going to be raised by increasing property taxes, should only property owners be allowed to vote on these issues?

Personally, I think less than $100 per year is a small price to pay if it helps alleviate the Lord of the Flies problems my own kids will be facing within the next couple of years.

As to the mass transit issue, I'd love to see it here, and I supported it, but... Keep in mind this is the city that made national news when it proposed banning stinky people from riding the bus, so you'll understand if I express skepticism about the whole affair.

And this is the best election day story I heard: Tuesday morning my friend Kerry asked if I had a number two pencil to fill out his ballot—he didn't have any at home and that was what had hung him up on getting it mailed earlier (Oregon is entirely vote-by-mail, remember, but on the last day you can drop off your ballot at the designated locations since it's too late to mail it). Later, when he went to drop the ballot off, a Z21 news team interviewed him on why he waited until the last minute to turn his ballot in. He gave the honest response: he couldn't find a number two pencil! He said the guy running the camera was the new crazy weatherman (if you live in Central Oregon, you probably know who I mean) and the guy gave Kerry a big thumbs-up and shit-eating grin—my words, I'm paraphrasing :). I never did see if it made it on TV but we sure had a good laugh about that.

Just looked out the window here at work and saw that it's snowing. As far as I know, this marks the first snow of the season for Bend.

I'm very, very surprised this story isn't being picked up nationally (or if it has, I haven't seen it anywhere yet except locally): during Bush's visit to Medford, three schoolteachers were removed from the rally for wearing offensive T-shirts. How offensive? They read, "Protect Our Civil Liberties."

Via Jack Bog's Blog, this post points to the relevant Bend.com article:

President Bush taught three Oregon schoolteachers a new lesson in irony – or tragedy – Thursday night when his campaign removed them from a Bush speech and threatened them with arrest simply for wearing t-shirts that said "Protect Our Civil Liberties," the Democratic Party of Oregon reported.

The women were ticketed to the event, admitted into the event, and were then approached by event officials before the president's speech. They were asked to leave and to turn over their tickets – two of the three tickets were seized, but the third was saved when one of the teachers put it underneath an article of clothing....

Three Medford school teachers were threatened with arrest and escorted from the event after they showed up wearing T-shirts with the slogan "Protect our civil liberties." All three said they applied for and received valid tickets from Republican headquarters in Medford.

The women said they did not intend to protest. "I wanted to see if I would be able to make a statement that I feel is important, but not offensive, in a rally for my president," said Janet Voorhies, 48, a teacher in training.

"We chose this phrase specifically because we didn't think it would be offensive or degrading or obscene," said Tania Tong, 34, a special education teacher.

So, they show up to a rally to support the President, wearing T-shirts that are about as politically innocuous as they can be, and they get booted?

Hmmmmmmm.

I got an email today from someone from the online magazine Preservation Online wanting to get a quote from me about the Crane Shed demolition, since I wrote a bunch about it. Cool. I wrote back letting them know I'd be happy to give a quote, or they could just quote my blog. Since I haven't heard back from them, I assume they'll quote my blog.

Quick public service announcement: I've hacked together an RSS feed for the Bend Bulletin. It's a first-pass, I'm scraping their Local, Business and Sports pages and building a summary feed only. If I have time, I may go one step further and pull each article on those pages, and provide a full-text feed.

Either way, here's the RSS feed link. Enjoy!

On Sunday I took the kids to the local swimming hole that I frequented when growing up: Reynolds Pond. As to be expected for something located in Alfalfa, there's not much online about it, so I thought I'd remedy that a bit. Herewith a bit of local geography and history, along with some wistfulness over the passage of time.

More...

I guess I was bound to comment on this sooner or later: The Crane Shed demolition here in Bend last Thursday, August 19^th. It's the big news around here. Here's some recap:

• With a mighty roar, Crane Shed is no more: The initial Bend.com story which lays the groundwork
• Crane Shed demolition brings shock, sadness: The Bend.com follow-up story, which reveals that Crown Investment Group (who owned and demolished the building) didn't even have a permit—oops!
• Exclusive: Crane Shed owners tell their side
• Crane Shed update: City seeks $150,000 fine: Fine amount for demolition without a permit? $500. Watching Crown Investment Group getting their asses kicked over shady dealings? Priceless.
• DEQ after Crane Shed owners over asbestos: And the hits just keep on coming.

And, here's a good link about the Crane Shed: Brooks Scanlon Historic Crane Shed. Guess they'll need to update their site now, though.

For my part, I think the city should have fought for the Crane Shed and prevented Crown Investment from demolishing it. I'm not sure it would have helped, though, considering Crown Investment's highly questionable actions:

• Threaten the city of Bend with a lawsuit to deter a denial of demolition;
• Demolish the building, after hours, without a permit or safety precautions, while the whole matter was still legally pending;
• Publicly thumbing their nose at the city and the situation;
• Not perform the necessary safety inspections that would have prevented the asbestos issues the DEQ is smacking them down for;
• Lying about the state of the building and issues surrounding the demolition.

I hope Crown Investment gets the royal smackdown they deserve—and they look like they will, too. Plus, how hard do you think it will be for them to conduct future business in this town? I guess they got what they ultimately wanted, though: now they can sell off the land, which is already worth a bunch more now that the Shed is gone.

And in the meantime, yet another piece of historic Bend is gone. Sucks.

So, even after the bizarre entry pricing, the first annual Bend Brew Fest exceeded my (lowish) expectations. It was a decent event; my dad and I got there about 1:30 when the crowd was still very light, so we had a good run of the place. And it was great weather for it, too: started out sunny and hot, with a nice breeze, and as the day wore on clouds moved in to alleviate the heat.

Decent beers, too. I was pleasantly surprised to find there were beers from breweries I'd never heard of, like Walking Man Brewing out of Stevenson, Washington, and Snipes Mountain, from Sunnyside, Washington. And of course, the "regulars" were there: Deschutes Brewery, Bend Brewing, Cascade Lakes, Rogue Ales, Full Sail, Bridgeport Brewing, Sierra Nevada Brewing. For posterity's sake, others I remember:

• Old Lompoc
• Lagunitas Brewing Company
• Dick's Brewing Company
• Terminal Gravity Brewing Company (improbably located in Enterprise, Oregon)
• Far West Ireland
• ...and some others I can't remember.

I was a little disappointed to not see Silver Moon Brewing (note to self: talk to Tyler about fixing his 403 Forbidden website error) there, since they're local and all. Oh well, maybe next year.

The crowd grew during the day, and I imagine they had a pretty good turnout Saturday night. The (free) music wasn't bad, either. When we first got there, there was a lone accordian player up on the stage, and it only got better from there.

I also ran into Kasey as we were leaving, which is ironic since we (my dad and I) had been talking about how we hadn't run into anyone we knew, but probably would once we left.

Now, how they can improve upon the brewfest for next year:

• Cheaper admission! Like, at least 10 dollars cheaper.
• More brewers. 20 brewers and 40 beers is a good start, though.
• Space the beer serving stations and tables farther apart; there needs to be more room for people to line up, and/or browse among the various brands.
• Break the beer serving section into two distinct areas, to promote movement and more effectively use the space (put food and general seating in between).
• Complimentary water. The Oregon Brewers Festival has stand-alone water coolers that are self-service; spending three dollars for bottled water doesn't do it for me.
• Set up a website for the event, and list all the brewers and the beers that will be there. Also use it for publishing photos of the event, etc.
• More food vendors. There were six, which isn't terrible for a first time, but more variety would be cool.

Just a quick reminder that tomorrow, August 21st, is the first Bend Brew Fest at the Les Schwab Amphitheater. Also, a sucky note regarding the price: they advertise that if you buy the ticket in advance, it's only $10, versus $15 if you buy at the door. However, if you buy in advance it's not $10, but $14—they add a four dollar service fee to the ticket.

So, it's really $14 in advance, and $15 at the door. What a deal.

Following up to the post I made about the deputy arrested on sex abuse charges, there was this last bit from the Bend.com article about the arraignment that's been bothering me:

In the front row for the arraignment was a supporter of Malloy's, who had quite an unusual story to share.

"I know that he was a good police officer," said Bend-area resident Janet Wickersham. But she also said that five years ago, after the officer came to her Spring River home to take a domestic-violence complaint (involving one of her four children's fathers), Malloy, not in uniform asked if he could date her daughter—who was then 16 years old. (He would have been about 33 at the time.)

"I told him, 'Not until she's 18—then you can come and get her,'" Wickersham said. "He didn't do anything out of the ordinary. He never did anything with my daughter.... He lived down the road from us." She said the family moved to Newport for a couple years, and that her daughter, now 21, still lives there.

Acknowledging she was "a little drunk" at the time, Wickersham said she responded to Malloy's request by putting her own arm around him and lifting her leg to do the same. "I said, 'What do you want with a near-virgin with no experience, when you can have a mature woman like me?' But guys like younger women."

At one point during the court proceeding, as the judge set the new bail amount, Wickersham exclaimed: "He's in deep!"

Holy shit, there is just so much wrong with that, that I don't even know where to start. I've gotta give props to Barney for (I'm assuming) not just sitting there in slack-jawed horror after hearing that story.

It's just like the embodiment of every cliché about white trash you could imagine, rolled up into that segment. Wow.

Disturbing local news: Deputy arrested on 180 child abuse, drug counts (from Bend.com) and the follow-up article: Deputy arraigned on 143 sex abuse, drug charges. This is way too creepy. The guy was a deputy for 10 years. So wrong.

The articles state that the "charge of using a child in a sexually explicit conduct is a Measure 11 offense and carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 70 months in prison"—I hope they apply the 70-month minimum to each and every charge he's arraigned for (143 counts). That would put him at 10,010 months, or over 834 years. Otherwise, 70 months just doesn't seem anywhere near long enough.

Sick freak.

The Deschutes County Sheriff just can't catch a break. Not only are they dealing with some eyebrow-raising issues dealing with their budget and money, which I blogged about here, but now they're awash in controversy over the establishment of quotas ("don't call them quotas").

Jake has already written about this twice, here and here. And of course, since the story broke on Bend.com—and continues to unfold—here's the links to the relevant articles:

• Stiles: New 'performance standards' aren't quotas
• Standard, or quota? Sheriff, Daly disagree
• Gordon backs sheriff, blasts Daly on 'standards'

I'm not as bothered by this as I was by the "found money" deal, but some people are. (You know who you are! *heh*) Hey, it's what passes for drama here in the High Desert.

Isn't it interesting that after the Deschutes County Sheriff's Office pushed so hard to get a levy passed for more money, with all the hand-wringing and guilt trips about people losing jobs and criminals being let out of jail, now all of a sudden they have extra cash?

Aware of the likely criticism, Stiles insisted the rosier situation wasn't clear before May's vote to approve a 3-year levy, and that the funds come from non-levy sources.

Stiles and Jim Ross, the department's business manager, explained that the agency's 2003-04 ending fund balance, which they had conservatively estimated at $200,000, has turned out to be $874,000 instead.

And not small change, either. No, to the tune of two-thirds of a million dollars. And it might even be more:

And some said Stiles still may be under-shooting the amount of revenues he'll have for the new budget year. "It's going to get to $1.2 million," said Commissioner Tom DeWolf; Maier said at least $1 million beginning balance is likely.

The best part? They insist it's not levy money, and there will still be jail releases. Hello? Shouldn't keeping criminals in jail be a priority here? Or is it just me?

Here's a site containing links to the texts of diaries from the Oregon Trail. Interesting stuff; it would be worth collecting it and turning it into a Palm Reader ebook. (If I can find the time.)

As reported on Bend.com, Greyhound is leaving Central Oregon:

It is eliminating 260 stops, leaving 99 in the 13-state region.

In Oregon, the list of 35 communities losing Greyhound service ranges (alphabetically) from Albany to Zigzag, with Bend, Klamath Falls, La Pine, Madras, Redmond and Warm Springs among those in the middle.

Too bad. I suppose it's a bit odd to lament the loss of a transportation service that's in decline and is (let's face it) mediocre at best, but I have some fond memories of Greyhound. For instance, growing up, every year my grandparents in Portland would ship our Christmas presents in a big package via Greyhound. And they were the best presents; they always got us the cool toys and video games.

(Strange in this day and age of UPS and FedEx everywhere that people would send packages via Greyhound, of all things, but there it is.)

Or the time my brother, when he was still living in Portland, made a surprise trip to visit the family on his birthday. I was in on it; he made an evening call and had us pick him up at the bus station around 10:30 that same night, and then surprised everyone the next day. That was a helluva lot of fun.

I even remember when the Greyhound station was downtown on the corner of Greenwood and Wall—when they had an actual station instead of sharing a gas station somewhere (as they'd been doing the last few years).

Ah, well. It's a shame.

Tim Bray has posted an amazing photo of Mount Hood that he took from a plane—his description is "Mount Hood paying its respects to the moon" and I think that's entirely appropriate. Worth a look.

Well, it's official, there's gonna be a Bend blogger meetup on Wednesday, May 12, at 7:30pm at the Bend Brewing Company. Jake blogged it here, and there's even a Bend.com press release on it here. All are welcome, the more the merrier.

The funny thing about this is, my wife saw the press release on Bend.com and knew about it before I did. Aren't I supposed the one who's plugged into this stuff?

It was a stunningly beautiful day here in Bend, this first day of May. The first part of the morning was spent taking pictures down from the walls, part of our gradual effort to get ready for the move coming up in June, and not long after we'd finished boxing up a bunch of paintings and pictures, I got a phone call. Apparently the boss was heading in to the office to do some work, but found himself locked out.

So, off we went to make a day of it. After getting the boss into the building, we swung by the storage unit to drop off the boxed goods and then drove over to check out the progress on the new house. It's coming along nicely, and quickly. There were people there working on it, so we didn't wander around much.

Afterwards we took a leisurely route up Awbrey Butte on our way to lunch, and stopped at a garage sale on 1st Street, which turned out to be one of the most unusual streets I've seen here in Bend: narrow, steep (there's a big dip in the middle), overlooking the Deschutes River, and all very nice, very expensive houses. It very much reminded me of something you'd find in San Francisco, which is very cool. I'd never seen that street before, though I don't make it a habit to wander about Awbrey Butte much.

We had a decent lunch at Cousins, out on the deck overlooking the river. Perfect day for an outdoor lunch, even if it was a tad breezy. After that, I took the kids home while my wife went out for a bit. The rest of the day was enjoyed at home, playing outside with the kids.

Ah, May Day.

My drive home from work everyday takes me by an old brick house on Hawthorne Avenue, just out of downtown Bend on the entrance to the parkway. What's notable about this house is that it's obviously old—one of those old, pre-War homes that has ivy growing on it and just oozes atmosphere and looks like it should be on a register of historic places somewhere—and for a long time I've been meaning to look up its address online and see what pops up.

Turns out it is a designated historic resource: the A.C. Lucas House, built in 1910, the first brick house in Bend. Cool.

Here's some of the links I dug up while researching the Lucas House:

• PDF: City of Bend Designated Historic and Cultural Resources
• Deschutes County Landmarks
• Bend Area General Plan, Chapter 3

Okay, so not the most exciting of links. I can live with that.

Just looked out my back door a few minutes ago and was mildly surprised to see snow falling. I'd heard there was a chance, but you never really expect it this late in the year. Oh well, welcome to Central Oregon—you gotta wait at least until June before you can guarantee no snow.

This is just a little bit of history and trivia that popped into my head tonight, about McMenamins Edgefield in Troutdale, Oregon (just outside of Portland). The Edgefield is a 38-acre estate that features lodging, restaurants, a brewery, a vineyard and winery, a distillery, and more, dominated by a Georgian-revival style manor. It's a fantastic, fun place, as all of the big McMenamins renovations are.

Built in 1911, it was originally the Multnomah County Poor Farm:

Residents operated a self-sufficient environment, raising hogs, poultry, growing a variety of fruits and vegetables, operating a dairy, cannery and meat packing plant as well as working in the laundry, kitchen and hospital.

At that time, not long after the turn of the last century, my great-grandfather was a mortician in Portland, and on occasion he would have to make a trip out to the Poor Farm to pick up the bodies of residents who died.

Yeah, an odd bit of trivia. It's been an odd week.

I was browsing at Barnes and Nobles this evening and found a book that looks very interesting (so I bought it): Frontier Doctor: Observations on Central Oregon and the Changing West. It's the autobiographical account of a doctor during the formative years of Bend.

Urling Coe came to the new town of Bend, Oregon, in 1905, a young medical student graduate seeking adventure and opportunity in the West. Frontier Doctor, Coe's autobiographical account of his thirteen-year residency, details the extraordinary experiences of a young physician in frontier Oregon and offers a vivid social history of town and ranch life on the Oregon high desert.

Cool! Looks very much like a fun and interesting read.

Sweeping the local news this evening is the South Sister earthquakes: more than 100 shook the area three miles west of the South Sister today, with a magnitude of up to 1.5 on the Richter scale. Bend.com has the best writeup on the story I've seen online.

The quakes were occurring in the northeast part of an area centered three miles west of South Sister, in which the ground has undergone what scientists call "crustal uplift" (but others have called "the bulge") by as much as 25 centimeters (about 10 inches) since late 1997....

The magma appears to be accumulating at a depth about four miles below the ground surface, and measures about 50 million cubic yards in volume.

Interesting stuff; of course the entire Cascade Range is geologically active, so it's not really a surprise, but with the South Sister about, oh, 30 miles away, this news has more than a few people worried, I'm sure.

Personally, I'd expect Mount Hood to be the one to erupt first, of all of them.

Add to that ever-so-slightly growing list of Bend (Oregon) webloggers: Brainside Out. Excellent.

So I was driving home from work today and as I crossed Third Street onto Brosterhous I noticed a new sign proclaiming the area I was entering the "Old Farm District." What was interesting about this is that the sign is in the same style as those of The Old Mill District, so I thought perhaps the city of Bend was giving the area a facelift in the same way the Old Mill District had been done. Which would be kind of cool; it's a neat area where the old farmland acreages and farmhouses are side-by-side with the more modern housing and commercial developments. Historically, this district used to be the outer frontier of Bend, which is hard to believe these days when it's a ten-minute drive from downtown.

I do a quick search and find the Bend Neighborhood Associations Web site, which contains details about the Old Farm District and the other official neighborhood associations. No Old Mill-style plans for the area, simply prettying up the place by planting these gilded signs everywhere. The Bend Neighborhood Map is interesting, presenting a territorial view of Bend that I hadn't seen before. Although I'd be inclined to point out that the real old farm district of Bend should really be extended to include the big white area between the "official" area and the Orchard and Mountain View neighborhoods. As it stands, I wonder what that neighborhood will end up being called?

Amusingly, it didn't take me long to notice that the site was developed by my old employer, Alpine Internet Solutions. One thing they need to do is make that map a clickable image map, where the user can click on the neighborhood and be taken to the appropriate page.

It was an utterly beautiful day today here in Central Oregon, right around 70 degrees and sunny all day. Raked some leaves, played with the kids outside, just gorgeous. And the best part is, I didn't have to be stuck at work on the first nice day of the year :)

Bend made the national headlines last week (CNN: Rush minute becomes rush hour) because it's the largest city in the west without a public transit system. And we're not going to get one anytime soon, unfortunately. From the CNN article:

Public transportation advocates in the city are up against a steadfast car culture reinforced by the influx of Californians, plus a wealthy population that probably wouldn't ride the bus even if one existed.

"If they are getting around town in their Lexus, they are not too concerned about the next bus stop," said Brian Shetterly, the town's chief planner.

All too true. Bend's traffic is one of the big drawbacks to living here; I've watched it steadily get worse over the last decade, as more people have moved into the area but the infrastructure hasn't scaled accordingly. I sometimes think Bend is a city with a small town mentality: people don't want to accept that they are living in a city and therefore can't or won't deal with the issues that growth inevitably brings—like gridlock. Classic denial: "Hey, we live in a small town, we can't possibly have traffic problems that need fixing."

I'd love it if Bend got a mass transit system, I've thought we've needed one for years. I'd ride a bus, if one was available, and I think a lot of other people would, too, despite the picture the article paints. Here's a hint: Not everyone who lives here is wealthy and tools around in a Lexus.

They wouldn't need to start big, at first: maybe two or three routes in Bend, covering downtown, west up to the college, north to the malls and back down east along 27th and Knott Road, swinging south and back up Country Club maybe. Then a route to Redmond, maybe Sisters, and one to Sunriver/Lapine, but those extended routes could come later.

Oh, well. It's nice to dream.

Over on Peter David's weblog is this post about Shakespeare. Since I like Shakespeare, I thought I'd link to it, it's a good post.

It's one of those topics where there seems to be little or no middle ground: either you dig Shakespeare, or you don't. Those who don't can be converted, but I ain't gonna bother with that here—I just thought I'd riff a bit and let everyone make up their own mind.

Back in college I took several Shakespeare courses: the typical English-course requirement-type class and another titled "Shakespeare in Ashland" which was a hands-on course in which we studied several plays and then went to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland to see them performed. It was a totally great class. All the courses were taught by the same professor, who—get this—had been a cop in Los Angeles before getting his degree and becoming a teacher. He was a cool guy, had a totally pragmatic approach to Shakespeare, not the usual "masterpiece of English literature" approach that turns so many off.

Speaking of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, I can't recommend it highly enough. If you ever get the opportunity to see a play performed there, jump all over it. It will likely be the best production of Shakespeare you will ever see, bar none. There's simply nothing like the experience of seeing it performed live, and performed well—especially if it's in the outdoor Elizabethan theater. I've been there a bunch of times and seen about half-a-dozen plays (Richard III and Henry IV Part I really stand out in my mind), and I'd go back anytime for more.

And I just checked the 2004 schedule: King Lear (I guarantee this will be awesome), Henry VI (all three parts, a ho-hum set of plays but I bet they do good with them anyway), The Comedy of Errors, and Much Ado About Nothing (another one that will be really good, I'll bet).

And finally, some gratuitous plugs for my ebooks: Hamlet Palm Reader .pdb file, and Macbeth Palm Reader .pdb file.