Honestly, I thought Boxing Day (today) was the day when everyone (other than Americans) “boxed” up those items they no longer needed or used and gave them to charity. I am soooo wrong. I was going to write up this great post about it and then looked it up on Wikipdedia and learned that Boxing day is just a “second Christmas” for many.

Well, in our house, we’re sticking with my twisted logic and doing a purge. This is for both charitable and selfish reasons. I’m a typical American who has clothes in the closet that I “may” wear at some point. Every so often, I smack myself upside the head and donate those clothes to charity. And that is what this week is for in our house. And it isn’t just clothes. We have some furniture, some older electronics and books that could use a new home. ARC should be coming by tomorrow, so clothes first. Then we’ll load up the truck to head to Goodwill.

Oh, and I mentioned selfish reasons. Well, I get a tax deduction for everything I donate along with cleaning out the basement a little to make room for the air hockey table we picked up a couple months ago.

If you haven’t already, take a few moments to clean out the closets. If you received new electronics for Christmas, Goodwill will take the older ones and you’ll get a nice fat deduction. You have 5 days.

Dearest Readers/Commenters/Bashers/Friends/Foes,

Everyone here at the Metroblog wishes you a wonderful Christmas and a fantastic New Year.

It is my sincere wish that each of you is spending your holiday with family, whether they are blood relations or your chosen people. Go ahead, have that extra piece of pie!

As I write this from Eastern Oregon with the Timberline Yule Log playing on OPB I’m feeling festive, and I hope you are too. Now that it’s a bit too late to shop for Christmas proper, hopefully you can kick back, enjoy some wine (or whatever beverage it is that you prefer) and appreciate this bit of time at the end of the year just before you make and break those resolutions. (:

If you are in the City of Portland, this is a reminder that your local recyclers and trash collectors take a day off for Christmas and New Years. Your normal trash and recycling pickup days are different this week and next. Put the items out one day later. If your normal day is Tuesday, put it out on Wednesday. If Friday – put it out on Saturday. This schedule runs for the weeks of Dec. 24 and Dec 31.

Portland Office of Sustainable Development Hotline
503 823 7202

You’ve got about 9 hours left if not…but I honestly don’t think it will be too horrible out there if you must go. I ran out last night around 8pm – went to 2 different stores – and was back home in an hour. Sure – some of the places I walked though looked like they’d been torn apart by wild wolves – but the perky seasonal employees were out in full force straightening shelves, restocking, and knocking down those prices even more.

There was woman in a department I was in freaking out because she couldn’t find what she was looking for and now what was she going to do…and a guy in the checkout at another store who ended up having the cashier void and re-ring his one item 4 times while he tried to figure out whether the best deal was the discount for signing up for the store credit card, or the coupon he had or who knows what else…but for the most part both the shoppers and employees seemed in good spirits.

My office is closed until after the New Year, so I’m not going anywhere today until it’s time for Christmas Eve service tonight, but if you have to work today or tomorrow – GOOD LUCK!

If you’ve wandered anywhere near fourth and Harrison recently, you’ve seen this building going up, and like me, wondered “what the hell?” Until recently it’s been unmarked and unbranded, until a website address banner was thrown up in the window. Before that it was nothing but a source for lunchtime ire for me: several yummy lunch carts called this corner parking lot home when they were unceremoniously relocated a couple blocks away to fourth and College. I decided I could forgive this transgression if it was going to become a new Apple store or something fun but alas, it was not to be.

It’s for a project called Cyan PDX, and a visit to their website doesn’t reveal a whole lot. The basic gist is that it’s going to be a condo complex of low impact construction, green living, and lower carbon footprint than other condos going up downtown. The adjacent lot was home to a vacant office building for the last year, but that’s been torn down in the last month and now the building is starting to go up. The white base for the large crane that’s about to go in to get the party started was just completed last week.

Googling around, not much information can be found out about this project, so I guess we’ll have to wait and see. I asked some of the construction folks about it and they just shrugged, but they did tell me that the smaller building that is nearly complete is going to be the leasing office as well as a full model of one of the completed units. Until things move along and the sales office opens, or the website decides to reveal more, it’s a bit of an enigma.

Before I became a (ahem) Respected Pillar of Portland Society, and long before the local merchant community latched onto the bohemian vibe of this berg with their “Keep Portland Weird” campaign, I spent a decade as a bachelor living la vida loca here.

Thousands of miles from family, and with an anti-commercial, atheist bent, each big holiday presented its own special opportunity. Sure, there’s the Christmas movie matinee, Chinese food, and Christmas night at the bars. But I had some truly wild days I’m not at liberty to discuss (now that I’m setting an example for the children).

So, Portland weirdos, what’s on the calendar this year? Where do you go, what do you take, what do you do, and who do you do it with? Let it all hang out; I’m living vicariously here.

(In all seriousness, there’s no place I’d rather be than my living room with my wife and kids and extended family this Christmas, even if I am still an atheist socialist at heart.)

I know, since we’ve had the Winter Solstice the days should be getting longer. That doesn’t do any good for the pedestrians out and about right now, though.

So here’s a little PSA from the Metblog (just for you!) for your own good (and mine, I’m one of those pedestrians): Get your faithful sidekick/partner in crime/minion/spouse/whoever, and have them make a lap around your car while you tap the brakes and the high beams and the turn signals. Now’s as good a time as any since you can also update your wiper blades on that same auto parts trip and we certainly haven’t made it through the worst of the rainy season yet.

So spend a little time inspecting your lights (and that goes for bikes too!) and not only will pedestrians be happier for it, but the person in the car behind you who can now actually see your signal or more importantly, your brake lights.

Remember, knowing IS half the battle…

Last night on the way to dinner with my family we were driving along when I noticed that the SUV ahead of me was watching TV on a little in car screen. I commented out loud that they were, just because I’m a chatty person, because my family already knows that I think too much TV is watched by kids as they sit at home on their butts. We pulled to a stop at a light behind them and I turned to answer something to my daughter when my husband said “Well I don’t think it’s the kids watching that TV”.

I looked up and stopped at the light ahead of us was the SUV with some incredibly graphic porn playing on the screen clearly visible through their back window. My parents, who are in town visiting laughed, my husband laughed and then I laughed too but only because the seat in front of my daughter blocked the up close and personal penetration scene that played out on the screen ahead.

I have to say, that screen was pretty good quality, but really, why the hell do you need to go rolling with your friends watching porn at 6:30 on a Sunday night? My kid couldn’t see into that car, but someone else’s could have. Don’t get me wrong I would have been just as, if not more, offended at the thought of my child, or any child, watching a grisly scene of violence.

But as parents it is our job to protect our children from things we find inappropriate (even if they shouldn’t be set out for all to see in the first place).

So ignoring my mother hen instincts I have this question; In a time we are already fighting to keep people off their cell phones and PDAs as they drive is their really ever a good time to watch porn while you drive? Isn’t that maybe just a little distracting?

DSCN7255

Originally uploaded by dieselboi.

Awhile back, I blogged about an atrocious building down off SW 6th that was going to be made into a boutique hotel. That building, with a facade of gravel on concrete is getting its much needed makeover. Initially, they did report that the original facade would be renewed, but earlier this week, I discovered that renewal means replacement. It is pretty cool to see an existing building naked like this. You get to look in and see how the building was built structurally. I wonder if the new facade will just be plain old steel and glass or if they have something ingenious in mind. We’ll see.

(more…)

Hey, it could happen. Even the national weather service thinks so this year. But I’d peg the odds as inversely proportional to the hype factor on the local TV news…

That is, if they start screaming about the big storm, it ain’t gonna snow.

Still, a guy can dream, can’t he?