Seems like it’s only been a few weeks since we had a beerfest - actually, it has! The Organic Beerfest was held a few weeks back, and was a thing of beauty (and heat). Coming up this weekend is the International Beerfest. Out of Portland’s many beer festivals, I think that this is my favorite. The beer selection is always amazing, and the do a good job of switching it up every year. It’s held in a great location (the north park blocks) and is dog friendly, because everybody knows that drinking beer is better when you can drink beer with dogs. It’s also a much more low key affair - a place to sit in the shade with friends and drink good beer, without all the hooping and hollering of the OBF fest the upcoming week (not that that’s a bad thing).

The lineup this year is looking stellar. My early favorites are the “120 Minute IPA” from Dogfish Brewing (with a whopping 21% ABV), the “Baird Temple Garden Yuzu Ale” from Japan, and “Cantillon Cognac” lambic-style from Belgium.

The fest is open on Friday from 4PM -10PM, Saturday from 12PM-10PM, and Sunday from 12PM - 7PM. Admission is $20 and includes a glass and ten tasters. However, if you get there during the first hour of the fest on any day, you get five extra tickets.

Finally, according to the FAQ, kids are not allowed.

You can get all the info you’d possibly need right here.

Yup - it’s the time again!

Tuesday, July 22
5pm - ???
Plan B
SE 8th & Main

We had a great group of people last month - including several of our new authors and commenters, as well as our old friends and regulars. And what do we do at these things? Let’s see, we talked about about: beer, bikes, bacon wrapped foods, vegetarian restaurants, crazy neighbors, kids, iPhones, Zip Cars, blogs, bands, humidity, why we live in Portland, the East Coast…..

We hope to see you all again next week. Come on down for some food and drinks and talk about all things Portland…or anything else!

So last night was the first of a 2 night stint for Eddie Izzard playing here in Portland. From what I know, it’s sold out, but I’ve still heard that a lot of people are looking for tickets. If I wasn’t so broke from my move here, I’d go again!

That’s right ladies and jellyspoons, Eddie Izzard is on tour and here! I’m personally a huge fan and I got my tickets WAY back in March… during my honeymoon… in London. Kinda pathetic, I know, but as soon as I heard the pre-sale date, I marked it on my calendar. So there I was, in London, in March… emailing friends here in Portland to see who else wanted to go with me. Well, it paid off!

I personally thought that this show was better than the last tour. He’s gotten more political and he definitely never skirts around how he feels about things, which, I felt, he put out there more this tour than during any other.

Last night I overheard a girl telling her friends that she just got a ticket for $20! This was about half an hour before the show. So, if your interested in going, you can always check with the venue to see if any tickets were released or even see if anyone is trying to sell tickets that they cannot use.

If you’re interested in going, I highly recommend you look into finding tickets for the show tonight.
Eddie Izzard is playing the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall at 8pm.

Yesterday, the main headline in the New York Times read “Senate Approves Bill to Broaden Wiretap Powers”. Pretty important story involving the government expanding surveillance powers against citizens and simultaneously granting telecoms immunity from civil suits initiated by said citizens. Here in Portland the main headline read “Cyclist Clubs Driver With His Bike”. Really? With all the stuff that happened on Wednesday, the Oregonian editorial staff thought this was the most important story of the day?

Truth be told, the story has generated a lot of discussion - hundreds of comments on both the Oregonian and Bike Portland. Some comments were amazingly poignant, some were jaw-droppingly stupid. Still, putting the story above the fold on the front page strikes me as a depressingly sensationalistic move by the “O” (and judging by what I’ve read on other sites, I’m not alone). I’m not going to go into the details of the story itself, those have already been talked to death elsewhere. What I am going to say is that Wednesday was a pretty busy news day, and the fact that the Oregonian chose to run this story above all others illustrates why people like me look elsewhere for my news.

So it’s time again for my annual DCI post - this year we are lucky enough to have both the Blue Devils - the 2007 champs - and Phantom Regiment who brought in 4th place last year. Our own Oregon Crusaders will of course be there, and this year it’s the only show in Oregon and Washington.

Words cannot explain… just watch…

P.S. none of that footage is sped up. They really move that fast.

Tuesday - July 8
Hillsboro Stadium
8pm

It’s obvious that something’s gotta give. Anyone who’s made the drive from Vancouver in the morning or to Vancouver in the evening knows that. On bad days, it can take more than an hour to cross the span. It’s a headache for both commuters and trucks making shipments. But is a new bridge the answer? The problem is more complex than it looks.

First, while I most definitely sympathize with truckers just trying to get across the river to make their shipments and do their jobs, our neighbors up in the ‘couve haven’t really done much to try to solve the problem of having too many cars on the road. For well over a decade now, our neighbors to the north have given the finger to mass transit. They voted down a MAX connection. They refused to pay three cents out of every $10 spent to prevent major service cuts for C-Tran. And now there are rumblings that they might try to kill the light rail portion of the new bridge, essentially dooming the project. I know that our suburban readers get pissed about perceived “bashing”. Unfortunately, Vancouver readers, the shoe fits here so you’re gonna have to wear it.

Compounding the problem is that the new bridge might not be effective after all. As reported here and here, the new bridge might not be all that effective in reducing congestion, anyway. According to the “O”, right now it takes a driver 16 minutes to get from SR-500 to Columbia Blvd. With the new bridge, that same trip would take 19 minutes. The reason is that the current bridge reduces the flow of traffic into existing bottlenecks in the I-5 system - bottlenecks that will still exist, even with a new bridge. By way of contrast, doing nothing would result in the trip taking 19 minutes - two minutes shorter than if the bridge was built. With information like that, I think that the city should at least look at some alternatives before building this thing. The Merc has some listed here.

So, what do you think?

Saw this yesterday morning on Sandy Blvd. while out getting a coffee… perfect Americana for the holiday weekend!

Holy crap was it hot last weekend. As a person sans air conditioner, and with a slightly crazy side, I forced the boyfriend to help me clean the house (as was previously planned) leading to nearly dying from heat exhaustion. Fortunately for him, I sent him down to Foti’s after cleaning for some gyro goodness for dinner - there was just no way I was going to turn on the (now sparkling) stove on Saturday. So yes, we missed out on the Organic Brewfest at Overlook park, and besides a multi-store grocery and Laurelwood run on Sunday, we didn’t much leave the apartment (though I might have, had I read the Dave Knows suggestions).

I started bike commuting a few weeks ago with partial hopes that it would help me adapt to the rising temperatures, among other things. Since my ride in to downtown is mostly downhill, and the mornings are still cool, my cooldown time before entering cube-land is short, but on the way home, with the all-uphilledness of the region and hot patches of air, I’m sweating something fierce by the time I get home. As a convenience I sometimes stop by the Whole Foods/Wild Oats on Burnside to pick up groceries, and I’m a bit embarrassed by the being hot and having helmet hair while I’m walking through the store with my pant leg tucked into my sock. With a city such as this with a ton of bike commuters, I would assume that the employ would see plenty of people like me, but even with the pile of bikes out front (Dear Whole Foods, please get more bike parking, kthx), I didn’t see another person looking disheveled in the store.

I’m not an easily embarrassed person, but I’m wondering what the consensus is on this kind of situation: Do you hop into the store with your hair plastered down and mingle with the hipsters, or do you go home and cool down, then go back the mile and a half to the store while looking at least somewhat presentable?

Photo by Rich Oskin

As gas prices are rising local Portlanders are looking for alternate means of commuting around town. Bicycles are a number one as far as this city goes (we all know that!). But have you noticed more mopeds on the road? We’re talking small motorized engines with pedals here–not scooters! I certainly have.

According to founder and co-owner Patrick Fitzgibbons, local scooter shop P-Town Scooters has been selling new Tomos mopeds by the half dozen load every week. Portland Craigslist has been popping up quite a few vintage ones as well.

In my personal opinion, it’s a great thing that more people are hopping out of their cars and riding mopeds. They are efficient little machines that get about 100 miles per gallon. The vintage mopeds can be a bit of a pain with how much you have to repair the aging parts and mechanisms but so worth it once you get it running.

Now–for full disclosure–I am a part of the local moped gang Puddle Cutters, a part of the national Moped Army. Much like the local bicycle culture, we have our own scene. What is amazing beyond the transportation issue is that Portland produces such unique subcultures such as this one.

The Puddle cutters are having our annual rally this weekend, Hold My Beer, This is Going to be Awesome. We are raffling off a brand new Tomos moped with the generosity of P-Town Scooters. Raffle is this Sunday at Plan B, 5PM. Don’t miss out on the other events, rides, and parties either!

Lest you get the wrong idea, I’m a big fan of Willamette Week. I read it religiously, and think they do a bang-up job when it comes to investigative journalism, and getting the news out about the various things that happen in our fair city in any given week. That said, I’ve read some stuff lately that’s raised a minor hackle.

First, this article. Specifically, the sentence “So, yuppies who can afford a $22,000 new Prius get a tax giveaway. Meanwhile, the poor get squeezed—even though their daily commute is cleaner.” The author seems to be attempting to make the following points - one, that no tax credit should be given for those who buy hybrids (fuel savings should be incentive enough), and two, that he or she seems to believe that only yuppies can afford them, and therefore don’t deserve the tax credit. Well, if it’s true that only yuppies can afford to buy hybrids, then shouldn’t we keep the tax credit to help non-yuppies afford such a vehicle? Maybe there’s something I’m not getting here. Or maybe I’m just not understanding why a vehicle with an entry point of $22,000 (which is fairly low as far as new cars go) is so exclusive as to be available only to yuppies. Further, I think that we still need to do everything we can to promote alternatives to gas-guzzlers, and that the tax break should remain intact. Finally, of all the people I know that own hybrids, none of them would qualify as anything you could remotely call “yuppie”.

Anyway, I thought that particular angle was a bit Larson-esque - strange from such a normally progressive paper.

One other gripe was in the “Finder” - a glossy, IKEA-catalog looking thing that you can find at a number of locations city-wide. This “Willamette Week’s Guide to Portland” has some pretty good stuff in it. There’s a breakdown of the city neighborhood-by-neighborhood which is a great read, and made me proud of the town we call home. However, there was one article “Breeders and Beer” which gave me pause. The article listed a number of local joints where you could drink beer AND take your kids. The article then goes on to rate each establishment by “Supervision level”, ranging from “Toddlers need to be watched” to “Little needed”. Rogue Ales Public House on Flanders is rated as “some supervision needed”. Parents, your local pub is NOT a nursery. It’s true that the Laurelhurst has a playroom - but it’s still not a nursery. You need to watch your kids. And more than “some” supervision is needed in places like the Rogue. While it’s true your child is not likely to be abducted, it’s more than a little annoying (and dangerous for the serving staff) to see little Johnny running up and down the aisles while grown-ups are trying to unwind after work. Even at a place like the Laurelhurst, your kids are going to need more than just a little supervision.