According to the Census Bureau, Portland is the 31st biggest city in the US with 537,081 people. Kind of interesting.
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Tag: Oregon
Walking through the park today I snapped a picture
Now, take a look at this screenshot from Oblivion (the video game)
Obviously the lighting is different, but yeah, I think Oregon might be part of the video game 🙂
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Washington Park, Portland OR
Took a walk through Washington Park today and took some snaps.
http://flickr.com/photos/scaleovenstove/sets/72157600454435349/
There is the International Rose Test Garden, and the Japanese Rose Garden (I didn’t go into it, 8 bucks??). Nice day for a walk, a lot of people out there though…
Technorati tags: Washington Park, Portland, Oregon, International Rose Test Garden, Roses, Rose Garden, OR
In Minnesota, you go to Target, or Walmart, or Shopko, or something else. In Portland, you go to Fred Meyer (wikipedia). Fred Meyer is a grocery store type Walmart but nicer type store. It usually has a Starbucks, electronics area, organic section, etc. There is one a few blocks from my apartment, and there are stores all over the city (all over the Northwest for that matter).
It is a refreshing change from running to Super Target every other day, or Walmart, or even Cub Foods or Coborns Grocery store.
Technorati tags: Portland, Oregon, Minnesota, Walmart, Target, Super Target, Fred Meyer, Starbucks, Coborns, Grocery Store
I have really never been to a Starbucks before, aka “I hate coffee”. Well, there are tons of them around my apt, and since I have T-Mobile hotspot on my phone plan, I might as well use it. Today I ventured out to a nearby Starbucks, laptop in hand.
Since I don’t really like coffee, I decided to try their new Orange Creme Frappuccino. Whoa, good. But $4.05! It was pretty empty when I got here, and I had some issues getting on the Internet. Not sure, I had them reboot the router, and it worked. Pretty nice, air conditioning, music in the background, people sitting around, and I can get work done at the same time. There are power outlets scattered around (not enough in my opinion), and since it was empty when I came, I got a table close to an electrical outlet.
Since moving to Portland, I am contracting, so I have been working out of my apt, so now, I have a ton of “2nd offices” two or three within a few blocks of my apt, depending if I want to walk East of West. Next, to find some good local shops with reliable Wi-Fi as well.
And for the after work Internet fix – bars with Wi-Fi. There is this awesome site, Barfly Magazine, that lets you search on location and amenities at pubs around PDX, and here is the search for Wi-Fi. If you want air-conditioning, etc, you can filter it all out there, pretty sweet.
Technorati tags: Portland, Oregon, Starbucks, Orange Creme Frappuccino, Wi-Fi, PDX, Barfly Mag, T-Mobile Hotspot
Since I moved into my apartment here in Portland, there is one thing I noticed. They make it really easy to recycle. All the places I lived at in Minnesota, none of them offered recycling. Here, when I moved in, I was given instructions on how to do it, etc.
One small difference, but really a huge one in a way. Most apartments don’t recycle at all, and there are a ton of people who live in apartments. All the plastic and glass for sure is easy enough to recycle, so why not?
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Jamming – Craigslist and Audio Cinema
As I mentioned in a previous post, I met up with some guys that I met through Craigslist on the musicians forums, and we jammed on Wednesday night.
We met up at Audio Cinema, in the an area full of warehouses on the SE side of Portland. At first I couldn’t find the place, it was like under a bridge and just like in a weird street, but finally found it.
We rented a jam room for 2 hours (15 and hour) which came with a PA already set up.
I brought my acoustic guitar and a mic, and there was 3 other guys, a electric guitar, a bass, and drums. We jammed out pretty good, played a couple covers to just get warmed up, then we just started playing different chord changes to see what we could come up with.
It was very laid back, no pressure, and a fun time. The other guys have wives and kids, so it isn’t like we will be rock stars or anything. We plan on getting together again in a week/2 weeks. Should be fun.
Oh yeah, hit up the Kingston which is like 3 blocks from my apt for some beer and nachos (don’t even get me started on nachos, its like the 20th time I have had them in 2 weeks!)
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Mount Hood, Oregon – Afternoon Trip
Yesterday me and Emily went for a drive after work out to Mount Hood, Oregon just to see the sights. I always hear “Mount Hood this, and Mount Hood that” from everyone around here because you can see it from the city, but up until yesterday I could never see it because it wasn’t a totally clear day. Well I finally saw it driving around so that was cool, but then we took off to get up close.
On the way out, the elevation is posted on the road. 1000 ft, then like 2 miles later, 1500, then 2000, 3000, up, up. Pretty crazy. Once we got to the bottom of the summit, there is a hotel/lodge/museum/bar-restaurant thingy, so we went there, man, walking around in the parking lot I kind of felt dizzy. Not sure if it was the thin air, or just some crazy sense of vertigo.
Then we cruised to Hood River, OR, which on the way we stopped to take some pics of the Hood River. Stopped at some Brew Pub (so many of them here – I think my IPA was 8.0% booze!) which was good, and split in pool (next time, no mercy!!)
Pictures Here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/scaleovenstove/sets/72157600364857049/
Small vid of the river here:
Around where I live in Portland, the Northwest District off Burnside Street, between 21st and 23rd avenue, it is filled with shops and restaurants and bars.
This is great for walking around, and even better when the block sizes are half-size city blocks (200 feet vs. the standard 400-foot).
My only guess is that when designing the blocks, they wanted to encourage walking, but also wanted to keep the sizes small for another (valuable) reason. Corner lots are worth tons more to developers than non-corner lots. I am sure many real estate developers have lined their pockets because of the extra cash they can charge for a corner lot, and in Portland there are twice as many!
here is a Portland block on the left, and a St. Cloud block on the right
You can see the Portland block is about half the size from north to south, but a tad longer on west to east. (This is not a scientific proof, I just pulled 2 random blocks from Google maps :))
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Open Mic Night – Cheerful Pit Stop
Last night, we headed to the Cheerful Pit Stop in Beaverton, Oregon for some food and it was open mic night. The backup band was 24/7.
I had my guitar, but no strap, but I sang a few songs. “What I Got” by Sublime, “Hound Dog” by Elvis, and “Red House” by Jimi Hendrix.
It was a fun time, the band members switch out, some real good guitar players, drummers, etc. Might just have to head back there next week 🙂
As you can see, having fun:
On that note, meeting up with 3 guys tonight to jam to see if we want to start something up, should be cool.
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