Boots

As R will attest I'm a big fan of the colder seasons, mostly because of a particular change in fashion.  A change not without its price.  I suspect a similar event happened when i first met my wife, too bad the concussion wiped it from my memory.

The author in Southwark, London, UK

It’s been a long and surreal day of suburban planning.   What I wouldn’t give for a pint of real ale in a truly ancient pub.  Perhaps a fire and only a short stroll from home.

Homelessness Sucks

It's 4am and I just had a homeless person evicted from my porch.  First time in over four years of living at this address.  I feel bad because the man was sleeping rather soundly in a tidy arrangement of blankets and tarps, trying not to disturb anyone or be a burden, though his snoring was so loud it woke me up on the other side of a closed window.

At first we thought it was the cat, not entirely out of the question if you know the beast, but time and volume proved otherwise. After 30 minutes of internal debate with myself and my half-awake wife, I called the police and guiltily requested an eviction.

As with any temperately weathered city we have our share of homeless and destitute.  A few are junkies, a fair number are psychotic or delusional, but most are harmless in my experience.  It is hard to witness their suffering, even on the best of days, and one learns to live with a certain hardness of the heart.  Unfortunately my porch is neither a shelter nor a refuge.  There is also the question of safety and sanitation.  If the adjacent Catholic and Anglican cathedrals actively evict homeless sleepers from their porches, why shouldn't I?

The best I can do is hope he finds himself help at the new Bud Clark Commons or one of the other homeless shelters and kitchens down in Oldtown.  If you're unfamiliar with BCC, it's a fabulous piece of architecture that assembles a shelter, transitional housing, and social services all in one building. The idea is provide a unified center to deliver basic daily needs (showers and laundry), access to social services like mental health and addiction treatment, and 130 studio apartments for those ready to move off the street.  If you weren't aware of the building's purpose, it would be hard to mistake it for anything other than one of the swank new office or condominium projects going up in the neighborhood.  Just blocks aware are other shelters run by the Catholic Church and other nonprofits, all are well used and overburdened given the lines one sees on the sidewalks.

I happen to know at least one person who resides at one of the shelters in Oldtown.  A pleasant and gentle man who cleans my office but has obviously known hard living in another life.  I don't ask about his past, but am happy to see he's got a future.  Let's hope there are more stories like his.

Back to the Future of 1961

Hello Sexy

Nice curves, wanna make some memories together?

Sunrise and Sunset

These movies are great bookends to each other.  Snapshots of chance encounters full of hope and yearning and trying to pack far too much into far too little time.  The antics we pull off as youth, and the more restrained but clear headed behavior of adulthood.  Not quite chick flicks, otherwise I wouldn't feel compelled to watch them periodically.  In fact I'm watching Before Sunrise now, and feeling very old as a result.

You see, it was filmed the same year I was studying in Nottingham and bumming around Europe during university holidays (1993-1994).  I even made to Vienna for a week, and the movie rings true with some of my random encounters along the way.  Granted, I never spent all night with someone as delicious as Julie Delpy, but you get the general idea.  The movies also capture the grand yet human scale of two amazing cities that I explored in days gone by, and who wouldn't love that if not a city planner.  Could this movie be filmed in an American city?  Probably not given the lack of human scaled public spaces, save for a handful of coastal cities like New York or Portland.  Anyway, I shan't go on and will end with a shot of me and a strange soul I met in Prague...

Bachelor Weekend

Streetcar on the South Park Blocks.

Fall is here and Portlandians are moving indoors.  Or in my wife's case flying to SoCal to visit a new baby while I dusted off sweaters and lived the manly life.  Contrary to popular expectation, this weekend was not the bachelor fest of years past.  There was no naked HALO, no strippers, and no pub crawls.  More of a meandering through inner Portland combined and an attack on my Netflix queue.  I wandered down to the Lan Su Chinese gardens, had a sketchy lunch in China Town, checked out the Art Museum, and in general poked around and met up with a colleague from work.  

A big highlight was the three day Portland Humanist Film Festival, the second of its name and fairly well attended with at least 100 viewers at any one showing or lecture.  As some of you know I self-identify as a secular humanist and atheist, more so the former than the latter as it's better to state what you are as opposed to what you're not.  The topics ranged from serious to silly, documentaries to The Life of Brian (banned in several european countries after its release).   Beyond the joy of communing with like minded folk, I benefitted from one director's thoughts on the meaning of life.  After literally flying around the world asking clergy and physicists, brahmins and beatniks, he concluded that there is no universal answer.  The question isn't what is the meaning of life, but rather what gives my life meaning?  For him, and many others he suspected, it was the act of creation.   This could be children or cooking, art or ideas.   Such a simple concept, even pedestrian, yet like a zen koan it's had me thinking all weekend.  To that end I'm looking forward to the new camera I ordered last week, but that's for the next post...

I almost forgot the beer. 

Were you waiting long?

Oh dear.  It's been a while.  More than one of you has said something, one person in particular, and I'm so very sorry for keeping you waiting.  C'est la vie.

Summer was wet, hot, exhilarating, and full of milestones.   I become one with my bicycle, then cursed it after a week long ride across Iowa that left my hands number and wife giggling at my confused racial identity (aka cyclist tan lines).   Despite the heat and pain, it was a great way to reconnect with my Dad, an old high school friend, and a great roommate about to retire from the Navy.  Later this year I celebrated my parents 40th anniversary(!!!) and more recently visited the inlaws (twice!) along the border.  Not THAT border.  Less tequila, more redneck hippies and amazing vistas down near Shasta and Oregon Caves National Park.

I can't complain, though I'm not sure what's next.  For now I'm running before dawn and lusting after Italian bicycles and DSLRs.  Wife goes on vacation in a couple of weeks, who knows what she'll come back to...

Bubbling Away

Spring is often heralded as a time of growth and rebirth.  A million and one smells, sights, and feelings that burst onto the scene all at once, combining into a rapturous orgy of warmth and fuzziness across the land.   Or maybe that's just us Cascadians who toil in the grey and rain of our climate...

In any case, my attention has been focused on a different kind of growth.  More of a yeasty fermentation really.  It started out innocently enough with some late night blog browsing, and here we are six loaves later and the addition of a solid bread recipe.  I blame Orangette entirely.  On the flip side I owe this talented woman a bit of gratitude as Rachael seems to enjoy the dark crust and crumb I'm producing, rather than mocking my internet crush on the aforementioned writer or bringing up past attempts at capturing wild yeast for sourdough bread. 

Given this newfound confidence with wheat and yeast, I decided to take a second stab at beer brewing.  Same ingredients, but with hops and carboys rather than molasses and bread pans.  If you've never attempted this at home, let me say that baking and brewing are like running and biking.   Bakers and runners are all about minimalism.  Give me shoes and shorts, or flour and water, and I'll take you places for very little money.  In contrast, brewers and cyclists can (and will) talk for hours about gear and style....and both camps can drop a lot of money before having anything to show for it.  Fortunately the art of brewing goes back to the dawn of civilization, quite literally, so improvisation is not only allowed by strongly encouraged.   Why buy a $200 counterflow plate chiller and a dedicated refrigerator when you can empty out the icemaker and plonk 5 gallons of fermenting liquid next to the couch.  Then again, my wife might insist I invest in such tools after I delayed dinner by three hours and made the house smell like a brewery.  =)

View from my dining room window at 6:57 am, as the plaster shook from heavy machinery dropping chunks of asphalt.  I love urban living, I love urban living, I love urban living, I love urban living...

I'm a sentimental fool who's shocked at how fast he's aging.    Despite the gray hair, I still can't believe that 20 years ago I was finishing my final season of swimming and preparing for a graduation trip to Ireland with my father.   I also can't believe that I really dug the cheesy music of the period.  Consider these gems for your aural pleasure.  Oh the humanity!   

Old Friends

Hello again. Remember me? I'm the blogger who stood you up back in 2009. The jerk who stopped calling without so much as an explanation. The one who left you for those twin trollops Facebook and Twitter. Now, with much sheepishness and hat in hand, I'm hoping you'll take me back. Or at least give me a second chance. And if you don't, Mary's gonna have words with you. Let's not go there.

Much has changed since my last post. I've run and NOT run thanks to various body parts breaking on me. I've managed to not kill myself while driving on the wrong side of the road in England, AND discovered all the charms of Budapest despite the freezing cold and a distinct lack of proper brewed coffee. Which brings me to the fact that I'm now denying myself that sweet fuel of the Portlandia consciousness, but that's another post. I suppose that last one calls for a new profile photo, then again who says you have to take down cherished shots of your glory days.

So here's to forgiveness and picking up where things left off.