How Do I Love Portland? Let Me Count the Ways... #3!

The Saturday Market - Supporting artists since 1974
It's a giant bazaar downtown every weekend from March through Christmas Eve. It's apparently the largest continuously running outdoor fair of its kind in the United States. Part of it is under the Burnside bridge which is a very central location. Here's a picture from the bridge, under the sign are stairs which go down to the market.

The MAX (our light rail) runs right through the middle of the market, which makes it VERY easy to get to. If you must drive you can just park at any transit center and hop on the MAX. It's only $2 from anywhere and if you spend $25 at the market they'll comp your fare. I don't worry about that because not only do I have a monthly transit pass, but I can walk there from my house. This picture is from the other side of the tracks, it's not dark, this is just the part of the market that is under the bridge.

The Saturday Market has all kinds of arts and crafts and food and entertainment. The 'food court' is full of interesting choices, including British, Himalayan, African and Hawaiin foods, as well as many others. The market is definately a must-see if you're ever in Portland. This picture is another view.

How Do I Love Portland? Let Me Count the Ways... #2!

Voodoo Doughnut - The Magic is in the Hole!
If you blink you'll miss it! This is a tiny little doughnut shop downtown Portland, ironically across the street from Dante's, Storm's home venue (see How Do I Love Portland? Let Me Count the Ways... #1!). They are open 24 hours, except 2pm Sunday until 6am Monday, unless they are sold out. This is good way to spend an intermission at a Storm show.
They are NOT just a doughtnut shop! They are a wedding chapel as well. $175 gets you legally married by an ordained minister, with doughnuts and coffee for 10. The ceremonies are performed beneath the holy doughtnut and a velvet painting of Isaac Hayes.
They also have Club Doughnut Tuesdays and Wednesdays, $1 gets you a 1 hour show by some local band. Usually pretty weird bands, but that's encouraged here in Portland.
You can get weekly Swahili lessons a Voodoo Doughnut.
They have monthly doughnut eating contests.
In the intrest of keeping this blog family friendly I won't tell you about their annual Cockfest, you can go to their website if you want to know about that. voodoodoughnuts.com

Their doughnuts are all amazing. I'm sure you can guess by now, that they don't have your typical doughnut shop menu.
The first one I ever tried was the Memphis Mafia - a big banana fritter with chocolate chips and peanut butter glaze.
Here are some others I've tried:
Triple Chocolate Penetration - a chocolate cake doughnut with chocolate glaze topped with Cocoa Puffs
Dopler Radar - There's not a description of this on thier website and I tried it so long ago I don't really remember it well, but I know it was delicious. I think it was similar to a Bismark, with a pretzel stick in the middle.
No Name - They apparently couldn't think of a name for it. It's a chocolate doughnut with chocolate glaze and Cocoa Krispies and peanut butter glaze. I think they should name it Fred.

Here are some that I have yet to try:
Grape Ape - a raised doughnut with vanilla frosting and grape powder
Dirt - a raised doughnut covered with vanilla glaze and oreo cookies
Arnold Palmer - a cake doughnut covered with lemon and tea powder
San Dimas - a cake doughnut with three types of chocolate on top
Butter Fingering - Devils food, vanilla, and crushed Butterfinger
Neapolitan - chocoalte doughnut with vanilla frosting and strawberry Quik powder
Dirty Snowball - a chocolate cake doughnut covered with pink marshmallow glaze and surprise filling
Maple-Bacon
The Tex-Ass - if you can eat this one in under 90 seconds you get it free. It's a GIANT raised glazed doughnut. I saw a guy try it once, he didn't make it. I think it's a waste of a doughnut.
And finally...
The Original Voodoo Doughnut

Polar Bears Have No Shame! (or My Trip to the Oregon Zoo)

I got to go to the zoo for work today! Here are my pictures - the first one is not a great picture but I couldn't resist including it! I didn't realize he was peeing until after I took it. A couple minutes later he backed up again and pooped!

R.I.P. Miranda Hobbs...

Our sweet kittycat was hit by a car and died Tuesday night. We got her two years ago. Our household decided that a cat would be the best way to deal with a little rodent problem we were having. We searched Craigslist and found an ad titled "Great Mouser!" She sounded great, so I drove down to Salem and picked her up. The mouse problem was gone almost immediately. She wasn't the best cat though. She would pee all over and cry a lot (she wasn't fixed). It turned out she had pyometra and was very sick. She almost died, but she had surgery and got fixed and really became the best cat ever. She loved being around people, but she didn't want to be noticed, I think it was always her dream to be invisible. She gained a lot of weight with us. She wasn't incredibly overweight, just pleasently plump, with a scooshy belly. She always followed Sophie and me on walks around the neighborhood, but she would creep in and out of bushes in peoples yards and occasionally jump out at Sophie, bump her and keep running. It was really funny. She would lick Sophie's ears and tail, and when I wasn't looking she'd bite her legs (love bites). All of our friends and neighbors loved her too. We will miss you Miranda Hobbs...




Miranda Hobbs
2004-2007

This Guy Is Amazing!

I saw a blurb about this British guy on our local news this morning and decided to look up more of his work. His name is Julian Beever and he is an artist who does these sidewalk chalk optical illusion drawings. Unbelievable... the only clue that they are flat drawings are the sidewalk cracks showing through, but they are pretty much lost when you look at the whole picture. Here are some of the ones I thought were the most amazing:

This one's called Pre-modern and Post-modern




Here the guy and girl are real (incase you weren't sure)




He calls this one Baby Food:




The drawings are only viewable from one perspective, otherwise they're very distorted. Here's a picture of the last one from the wrong side.


Since they are chalk drawings, they only last a short time. How sad!

How do I love Portland? Let me count the ways... #1!

I've been slacking! Oh well, I never promised how often I'd write. I've been wanting to do sort of a series of blogs about Portland. I think that Portland is the best city in the world and I'm going to document the cool things I've found here (and continue to find!).
One of the first things I fell in love with here is Storm and the Balls. This is a local band, lead by Storm Large (her real name) and backed by former members of Everclear as well as other known bands. Here is a review I wrote on another website about a year and a half ago:

When you see her you will you be put into a trance instantly, you will be physically unable to avert your eyes. You will question whether she's real or not, it's not typical to be able to get so close to perfection. This will continue during the entire first set. During intermission you will vehemently express graditude to your escort for bringing you there, and you will ramble on aimlessly about how fabulous she is (not to mention that fucking band!). In the back of your mind you will have thoughts of times gone past when you had been invited but had declined, regardless of your trustworthy friends prodding. You had read the reviews. You knew. But you wasted so much time. So much time that you will never get back.

Dramatic, I know, but seriously, she's good. Everyone that goes to see her has that same experience.
About a year after the first time I saw her, she announced that she would be leaving us temporarily to appear on the show Rockstar Supernova. With the restricted material and editing, Storm certainly couldn't show her full potential. But she still rocked, still made it to the top 4 or 5, and nothing came of this 'new hot rock band' anyway. In fact, Tommy Lee is suing his manager over it. Whatever, Storm is back with us now, sort of, no more $5 Wednesdays at Dantes. She's touring a lot more, she's been to Iceland and New Zealand and I think she's in Canada now, but she manages to sneak local shows in here and there. The problem is that now she has so many fans here that they have to keep the shows almost secret, with cryptic ads in the weekly paper, so you gotta hear about them. Recently I attended her CD release. Here's a picture I took:




So that's Storm. I was going to put a video on here, but none of them really do her justice. If you want to see her do a search on YouTube, there's tons.

*Tear*

The Paradoxical Commandments

I found this in a magazine a couple years ago. I am trying to incorporate these ideas into my life. There's a funny story about it too. This was written in 1968 by a man named Kent Keith. Then in 1997 he was at a Rotery Club meeting and one of the presenters wanted to read a poem by Mother Teresa (it was shortly after her death). He proceeded to read these commandments and Kent Keith was stunned. He looked through a bunch of books relating to Mother Teresa and then he found it, no author was listed, but the reference said 'from a sign on the wall of Shishu Bhavan, Mother Teresa's childrens home in Calcutta'. How strange to have something you wrote in college (for a student leadership manual no less) end up being credited to Mother Teresa. Anyway, they are great commandments to live by.

The Paradoxical Commandments

1. People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
LOVE THEM ANYWAY

2. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
DO GOOD ANYWAY

3. If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies.
SUCCEED ANYWAY

4. The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
DO GOOD ANYWAY

5. Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
BE HONEST AND FRANK ANYWAY

6. The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
THINK BIG ANYWAY

7. People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
FIGHT FOR A FEW UNDERDOGS ANYWAY

8. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
BUILD ANYWAY

9. People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
HELP PEOPLE ANYWAY

10. Give the world the best you have and you'lll get kicked in the teeth.
GIVE THE WORLD THE BEST YOU HAVE ANYWAY.

Anna's Triathlon

Yesterday after less than 2 months of planning, we pulled off an AWESOME event where I work. A woman named Anna, who works at the hospital next door to us is battling her 3rd round of cancer. She wanted to do a triathlon and her coworker (who we know well), decided to make it happen. The only way for Anna to be able to complete one was if it was very modified, and there just wasn't one like that, so my boss and I offered up our facility to do it our way. We had almost 50 participants. We had people on all ends of the spectrum, healthy athletes, people on oxygen, a couple in their 90s, an 18 month old and everyone in between. And we had just as many volunteers as athletes, which made for a seamless event.
Here is Anna checking in:

This is Cole, our 18 month old, just after he crossed the finish line:

This is James, he was so great, he taught himself to swim for this event!

This is Jim. This was the award ceremony afterward. We had so many sponsors that everyone went home with armloads of stuff.

What's wrong with the world...

I am trying not to let things like this get to me, but they do. The other day my friend was telling us a story about a time when he was standing behind a man in line somewhere and the mans wallet, stuffed with bills, fell out of his pocket and he didn't notice. My friend picked it up and gave it back. The man said 'thanks' and went about his business. My friend was upset that this man didn't give him a reward, after all he could have just kept it.
I think that doing a good thing with the expectation that you will immediately get something in return negates the goodness of the act. He may as well have picked up the wallet, tapped the man on the shoulder and said 'I'll give you this back if you give me some of the money.' At least he would have been honest about his expectations.
There are so many factors in something like this. That may have been all the money that man had. He may have just lost his job. Maybe it's his kids christmas present. Maybe he just robbed a bank. But none of those things matter to me. Don't give expecting to get. You will always get something in return for doing a good thing, but you'll have to pay attention because it could happen any time, any place, in any form.
This same friend made the comment 'I'd be rich if I wasn't such a good honest person'. Not doing bad things does not make you a good person in and of itself. People who have these attitudes also seem to be the same ones who say yes to every favor anyone asks of them and then act as if it were a burden. Don't say yes to doing someone a favor if you don't want to do it. Saying no to something doesn't make you a jerk. Saying yes to something and then flaking out or making that person feel like a burden does make you a jerk.
I guess the bottom line here is, if you find yourself complaining about what a nice person you are, you're probably not.

More flowers!

I took some more flower pictures this past weekend! There are a lot of flowers here that I've never seen in Minnesota.


I've noticed that the gardens are very interesting in Portland. Many people have NO GRASS AT ALL because their yard is all garden. I really like the look of this type of gardening versus the little well-manicured strip alongside the house. Here is an example:


Here are a few pictures from our garden.

Flowers

I walked around and took pictures of flowers in the neighborhood yesterday.