…yet we now have one awesomely amazing RSS feed!

Check it out: http://feeds.metroblogging.com/allcities.xml

i want pie. i want to enjoy a good slice of pie. where in this fine city can one attain good pie. i’m downtown and will be heading north soon.

help a soul out.

i’m getting up early these days for a personal project i’m working on. i’m loving the coffee. this morning, i’m enjoying Stumptown’s Peru Norte, an organic fair trade coffee. i’m not a reviewer, so don’t have any flowery words other than it’s strong and yummy. pick some up next time you’re out.

the PDC has published a pretty good map of all the projects they are involved with downtown. this includes parks, condos, refabs and general “renewal.” i find it interesting that huge chunks of downtown are flagged as urban renewal zones – River, Downtown and South Waterfront.

some projects i have never heard of but am interested in:

multnomah county morrison bridgehead – are they tearing that up too?

up in the pearl, a 2 block area named “North Park” – ingenious name.

finally, i’m glad i took this photo, according to the PDC map, this beautiful industrial building may not be around much longer since it’s in in the zone.

check out the map for yourself

I’m loving the fact that it’s warmer lately. I’m not loving the fact that I need to cut my lawn already.

All those buds on the trees are gorgeous, of course. But does my red nose and puffy eyes need to match their appearance? Sadly, yes – thanks to the onslaught of my seasonal allergies. (Is it just me, or is this an unusually bad year this year?)

And thanks to the O’s war on meth (mythical or not? you decide…), I need to find a new allergy medication of choice (goodbye, Claritin D) before it loses its OTC status. Anyone have something better to suggest?

Finally (as if I weren’t whining enough, ugh) – it looks as if the ‘cram in all the construction downtown that you can’ season’s kicked off as well. Can’t those reconfigurations on Fifth and Sixth Avenues wait until they tear the streets up next January for the planned transit mall work already?

Okay, enough whining. Go enjoy the nice weather – I’m glad to see it as well, despite the kvetching above. And if you have a sudden jones to mow a lawn? Email me, please…

…hordes of small children (accompanied by tired-looking adults in their wake) will be invading the eastbound MAX train starting at approximately 4 pm today from the Washington Park stop. I’d anticipate many shin-bashing strollers as well if I were you…

Well, maybe not today if it’s going to rain later. But I was stunned to see the hordes of people clustered outside the zoo gates at 9 am (I was dropping my own daughter off for zoo camp), and watched them all stream out at 4 pm when I came to retrieve her (the zoo was also closing for the day.)

And the gift shop? Sheer bedlam, with stuffed animals of all kinds flying off the racks (I got coerced inside to buy one of those keys for the talking boxes since I’d forbidden my kid’s vaunted ‘pick the lock with a leaf’ trick).

It looks as if they have special activities planned during the week for their Zoo’s Gone Wild Spring Break celebration. BUT anyone thinking of heading out should note that the Zoo is still on winter hours, and is only open from 9 am to 4 pm.

Which means MAX trains will be extra-special crowded this week, I’d bet, if yesterday’s experience is anything to go by…

Bold Ski RIP

Originally uploaded by dieselboi.

well, the first of the first generation of N Mississippi restaurants is closed. Bold Sky Cafe has a sign up stating it is now closed and “moving.”

A GREAT new concept is opening here next month.

why can’t a restaurant just be a restaurant. why does it need to be a “concept.” i know the owner worked her tail off to put this place together from scratch. it’s too bad to see a local business close.
then again, no love lost in this household. we were great neighbors and supporters early on, even returning after not so good experiences. but hey, you can only fool me three times. what i didn’t like about Bold Sky was the “i am too cool to care about the customer” attitude that was pervasive throughout the establishment. its too bad. i wonder if that has anything to do with it closing.
oh, and when you open your new place, post your hours and stick to them. don’t do the open tuesday afternoon and thursday morning one week and then monday night and saturday mid-day the next. it further alienates your core customers. just a thought.

I don’t have kids but I find it unconscionable that every year there is a struggle to find funding for schools. When I was in school there was an excellent after school theater program being run by a teacher that really cared. I’m fairly certain that if not for that program I would have been hanging out with my stepbrothers and they both ended up spending time in jail. Shouldn’t the education of our future be one of our top priorities?

Maybe I have a solution. How about a tax on campaign contributions? Tax all contributions to all candidates running for any office. There seems to be an inexhaustible amount of money for all those candidates and what politician running for office wouldn’t want to help pay for education just by running? Personally I think more schools, more teachers with better salaries and smaller classes is worth the sacrifice of a mudslinging television campaign or two.

I don’t have the political savvy to get an idea like this in motion but maybe someone out there reading this will.

I know, I know, it’s a ridiculous idea but we need a solution that doesn’t put a burden on those already struggling to get by and we need it quickly.

Westerner Motel fire

Originally uploaded by dieselboii.

Last night, the westerner motel on N. Interstate had a significant fire. According to the news, numerous families have been displaced. No one was hurt i guess which is good.

Why is this news? this is one of those motels that cater to the weekly crowd. There are probably 10-15 of them left along n. Interstate even 2 years after MAX came in. Tri-Met bought one up by killingsworth..not sure what is to become if it. The venerable Palms accross from Kaiser with the wonderful neon had a big fire a few months ago too and still haven’t reopened 1/2 of the place.

(conspiracy anyone? Motel fires?)

I wonder what will happen with the westerner. Will the owners rebuild? Scrap it for condos? Hmmmm. There must be some good money in low rent motels given property values around here.

data through the air……like the days of our lives….

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originally uploaded by russ.

I “got high” to shoot that pix on Mount Hood. Upwards of 7,000 feet.

A most depressing cover article in today’s Oregonian describes the glacial loss on Mount Hood in ominous terms.

Sandy Glacier, on Mount Hood’s west slopes facing Portland and a headwaters of the Sandy River, covers about 60 percent less ground than it did a century ago. Other glaciers have comparable attrition rates.

The pace of melting has been drastically quickening over the last few decades. Yes, I know the mountain is white now, but just give it a few months.

Of course global warming has mostly been responsible for this quickening pace, but I have to wonder if threatening local and regional phenomena will cause melting to go even faster.

Now that Measure 37 has been upheld, I sense lots of farms turned into subdivisions- employment centers, shopping centers and strip malls being built to serve the people in these new subdivisions. And, of course, the great majority of shoppers will get to these facilities by car.

Since the entirety of the Portland metro is situated west of Mount Hood, and air generally blows west to east at this latitude, that means that in several years when more subdivisions rise on what was farmland, emissions from vehicles will hit west-facing Sandy Glacier right in the face.

Private-property rights folks such as Lars Larson may have gotten their way with Measure 37. But all I know is if, mere decades from now, Mount Hood becomes a big pile of brown rocks, Measure 37 and its selfish advocates won’t be able to escape at least a bit of blame.

Maybe more.