Highlights for 2009

Tonight 2009 draws to a close, and with it brings about the end of the '00 decade. We know that a lot of people have had a rough go of it this year and wish we could say that we were footloose and fancy free, but that would be a lie. However, a new year approaches and we choose to accentuate the positive. The best way to do that is to post our top ten highlights from 2009. In true New Year's Eve/David Letterman countdown fashion, here is our list starting with 10 (of course).

10) First off, we experienced our first full year in PDX. We experienced all four seasons, dove into the local culture, started to learn the true meaning of the phrase "Keep Portland Weird", rode mass transit, and started to explore the abundant natural wonders in and around Portland.














9) We accomplished several household projects. We hooked up our old desktop computer to our TV, and freed ourselves from the bonds of Comcast cable. Our bedroom finally got painted and decorated (pictures coming in 2010). Our biggest accomplishment this year was our patio garden. We successfully grew tomatoes, lettuce, herbs, peppers, and even strawberries. It was great having fresh produce right outside our door. The cats even helped monitor the crops.











8) Saw the Wienermobile in person. In October we traveled to Kansas City to attend the marriage of some friends. While there we enjoyed a nice mini vacation which involved a tour of Boulevard Brewery, and a road trip to Lawrence, KS to see the University of Kansas campus, as well as enjoy a meal at Local Burger. But this trip will forever be remembered as the time we saw the famous Wienermobile...awesome!!











7) Discovered nerd heaven aka OMSI After Dark. The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) hosts a monthly evening for adults only, so the 21+ crowd can enjoy all the fun interactive exhibits without snot-nosed kids getting in the way. And for an added bonus, you can do this while enjoying a beer. We attended a couple times and learned all about Da Vinci's inventions, the Mona Lisa, and even got to be crime scene investigators in true CSI fashion. Below are pictures of Peter getting ready for file his investigation report with CSI Director Gil Grissom and Sara as a very striking Mona Lisa.
























6) Visited the Oregon coast more than a few times. We walked the beach, ate clam chowder, saw the iconic Haystack Rock (pictured below), and embraced our inner Goonies.











5) Enjoyed a few brewery tours. During the summer we toured Widmer Brothers Brewery (in Portland), and Full Sail Brewery (in Hood River, Oregon). It was a pretty neat experience to see how beer is made, and to see where the beer we drink comes from. We also visited Boulevard Brewery in Kansas City (there is great write up about the Boulevard Brewery tour here). The tours inspired us to try our hand at home beer brewing so stay tuned for that adventure in 2010.














4) Attended some really great concerts. This year we were fortunate enough to attend an amazing and FREE Hold Steady show. We also saw The Shins, Starlight Mints, Ben Kweller (where we got to help him celebrate his birthday), and Mates of State with The Black Kids in separate but all equally awesome concerts. Looking forward to see some more great live shows in 2010.











3) Saw the Pixies perform during their 2009 Doolittle Tour. In November we drove up to Seattle and spent a glorious evening with the Pixies as they played the entire Doolittle album (plus B sides). We had every intention to blog about this shortly after the concert, but the shear gravity and awesomeness of the show has rendered us speechless ever since. Let's just say it was one of the greatest moments of our lives; the Pixies are true artists. Below are some pictures of the concert. If we ever find the right words to provide more detail, rest assured you will be the first to hear about it.








































2) Watching the inauguration of President Obama. This is the first time we got to see someone we voted for assume the presidency. It was a great day. We know there are a lot of 2009 wrap-ups that are taking more detailed looks at President Obama's first year. So, we just want to simply say that he inherited quite a mess, and that some people need to stop wasting time with non-issues and focus their energy on healing the United States.















Plus President Obama uses beer to bring people together (see "Beer Summit"), which is awesome!


1) Developed an obsession with craft beer. Just in case you haven't been paying attention during the rest of this post we have mentioned beer several times, and that's because we are living in Beervana. Beervana is the prefect word to sum up the overall craft beer culture that exists here in Portland, and we have officially been sucked in. We have done the brewery tours, the beer fests, and visited just a few of Portland's many brew pubs. We even watched an OPB special about beer in Portland. This year we learned about the process of brewing beer, the difference between a larger and an ale, the many various types of beer and the corresponding tastes, and started to learn what beer should be enjoyed with what food. Yes, it does sound kind of pretentious but remember it's just beer; the working man's beverage and Ben Franklin's favorite refresher. And you know what? That kind of sums up Portland-a little pretentious, a little working class, and a little intellectual.











Thanks for sticking with us through 2009. We know our blog posts were less than regular, but 2010 is a new year and we promise to keep you up to date on our adventures in Portland. We might even include one or two looks back at Oklahoma. Happy New Year and best wishes for 2010!!

Merry Christmas!

Here is one of our favorite Oklahomans reading a holiday classic. Have a very happy holiday everyone.

Happy Caturday!

Coming Soon: Goonies Museum

Our loyal readers probably remember the post we did back in June about the Goonies landmarks in and around the Astoria, Oregon area (click here if you need a refresher). Well we have an exciting update...Clatsop County is giving the iconic jail from the movie to the county Historical Society, which plans to turn the old jail into a Goonies Museum! The museum is set to open in June 2010 just in time to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Goonies movie (wow, that makes us feel old). The museum will also pay tribute to other movies film in Oregon. Here is a link to the original KGW story that brightened our day, and was really like an early Christmas present. Thanks Santa for the Goonies Museum, it's just what we always wanted!!

Happy Hanukkah!!

Post in Pictures: Columbia River Gorge

One of the cool things about living in the Portland area is that when the weather is nice we can do some great sight seeing very close to home. Back a few weeks ago we had a rare nice day so we decided to head out to the Columbia River Gorge and take some pictures.


These pictures of the gorge were taken from the Crown Point Vista House, which you might recognize from the movie "Short Circuit".


We drove the winding historic Columbia River Highway to reach Crown point. Below is a picture of Crown Point from a bend in the highway.

Civil War - like Bedlam only with Ducks and Beavers

Thursday night the Oregon State Beavers will battle the University of Oregon Ducks. Okay, not that kind of battle, but it is a big deal in Oregon. Every year the Beavs and Ducks take their in-state rivalry to the gridiron. Past years the only thing the winning team took home was the Platypus Trophy. But this year the match-up has huge implications. The winner will go to Pasadena to take on another OSU (Ohio State) in the Rose Bowl. This is the first time in the 100+ years of this rivalry that the Civil War has determined the Pac-10 Champions. Portlanders have been so excited about this match, the news stations have been talking about the game since last week. Honestly, we thought it was going on last Saturday, they way they were covering the event. I think it will be a good game, but wear sunglasses if you watch it. On one side you will have optic orange and on the others side... well... who knows what the Ducks will be wearing.

Happy Caturday!

Touring OPB

A few weeks ago, we had the privilege of touring our local PBS/NPR studios. Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) distributes all things PBS to TVs and NPR to radios all over the state of Oregon. For comparison, OETA (Oklahoma Educational Television Authority) provides the PBS while individual partners (e.g. KGOU) provide NPR in Oklahoma. Since OPB covers the entire state, their "station identification" takes a while. For TV we see a screen with:

• Baker City: 13.1
• Bend: 11.1
• Corvallis: 7.1
• Eugene: 29.1
• La Grande: 13.1
• Portland: 10.1

But when listening to the radio we hear: "In Albany - KOAC FM 91.5, in Astoria - KOPB FM 96.3, in Baker City - KOBK FM 88.9, in Bend - KOAB FM 91.3..." Well you get the picture, this goes on for nearly 30 cities.

But back to our tour...

A nice retired couple took us around the radio and tv studios of OPB. They have been volunteers for OPB for a while and know all the ins and outs of the station. We got to see master control, behind the scenes of one of the jazz stations, the volunteer phone banks (a fund drive was on while we visited), and some of the editing rooms. Since there were no video recordings going on that weekend, we were able to walk around in the main tv studio. The room was very quite, despite being right next to a busy road. We learned that the walls are filled with sand... interesting. Local advertising companies and even CNN occasionally use the studio space for commercials or news reports. We even found out the original California Rasins commercial was filmed in this very studio.

The station receives multiple PBS feeds and records many of the shows via satellite for later broadcast. They now have a multi-terabyte supercomputer for storing shows and other videos. I believe they nick-named the computer "Barney"... 'cause it's purple. OPB has more listeners during morning and afternoon rush hour than any commercial station in Portland. Pretty crazy huh?

Happy Spooky Caturday!!

Mythical Mt. Hood

I know what you are thinking, and yes we have already done a post about Mt. Hood but we are going to do another one anyway. The thing about Mt. Hood is that it is frequently obscured by clouds so glimpses of Portland's neighbor are often few and far between. In fact, my parents have visited a couple times, and only managed to spot the elusive mountain three or four times. My dad even refers to it has "mythical Mt. Hood". But on a recent return flight from Kansas City we got a good view of the mythical Mt. Hood, sorry Dad it really does exist and I have the proof. And here it is:

Happy Caturday!

Apparently you guys are getting sick of seeing our cats because this picture was submitted by a reader. Thanks Dustin!

Post in Pictures: Japanese Garden

Happy fall everyone (well everyone that is still reading our blog after we took a month off from writing, sorry about that)! Back in August I visited the Portland Japanese Garden and really the best way to describe it is through pictures so enjoy and welcome back readers.




I'm hoping to go back and visit the garden when the leaves are in their full fall color. Again Happy Fall!!

Happy Caturday!

Beervana

We've been busy this summer sampling a myriad beer festivals. Over the past year we have sampled nearly 100 different craft beers. Portland truly embodies Beervana - the enlightenment of all things beer. Portland has great water (fed by snow melt), access to fresh and local hops, more breweries than any other city in the world, open consumers, and a desire to share their creations.

At the end of June, we got to sample organic beer at the North American Organic Brewers Festival. The picture shows some organic beer in a compostable corn cup and one of the beer tokens - made of recycled plastic of course! The highlight for us was a strawberry brew by Samuel Smiths. It was similar to soda-pop, but with an alcohol content.

Last year I went to the Portland International Beerfest (link). I didn't hate it, so in mid-July the whole crew went to the Park Blocks. Our favorite from this festival, which is available in the U.S., is the Spaten Premium Lager.

On the last full weekend of July, we went to the Oregon Brewers Festival. It was just as big and just as awesome as last year. We found a good number of beers we liked. Unfortunately, not all are available stores. One of the best was by Full Sail, the LTD03 (available in 22 states). Another star was the Chuck-A-Nut Lager (we have yet to find it in the wild).

Starlight Mints

Once again we have been neglecting our own blog to write for Salad Days Music. Read our review of the Starlight Mints show that took place at the Doug Fir Lounge on 7/30 here. Above is a picture of the limited edition (only 100 exist) Change Remains album on rainbow vinyl we picked up at the concert. We have been doing some fun stuff around the Portland area lately so stay tuned for more posts soon.

Happy Caturday!

Pardon Our Dust

We are currently elbows deep in painting and decorating the master bedroom and bathroom, so we will get back to blogging when we finish...hopefully this weekend.

Our Survey Says...

I like maps and I like standards. Maybe I should have been a land surveyor. Well, it is a little late for a career change, so I will just bask in the glory of other surveyors and imagine what it would be like to be the first surveyors of the Pacific Northwest. In the 19th century a stone marker, the Willamette Stone was placed in the West Hills of Portland. Now it wasn't just placed anywhere (uh this looks like a good spot). No, it was placed at the intersection of a pre-determined meridian (the Willamette Meridian) and a baseline (not to cross the Columbia River).

In 1851 the location was marked with a cedar stake, but now an official metal marker and state park denote the location.

The Willamette Stone is an significant surveying marker for the Pacific Northwest. In fact, all sections and townships in Washington and Oregon are based off of this one point. And since we are a) nerds, b) have a car, c) live in Portland, and d) had time to kill waiting for a restaurant to open, we decided to check out this historic marker.



It may not have as grandiose a monument to its existence as four corners, but at least the Willamette Stone is in the correct location.

Happy Fourth of July Caturday!

Goonies Never Say Die!

One of our favorite movies of all time is "The Goonies". You can't go wrong with friendship, treasure hunting, pirates, and the Fratellis! And who can forget that kick ass Cyndi Lauper song! Even better, the kids are not annoying in this movie.

The movie took place in Astoria, Oregon, which by the way is less than 2 hours away from Portland. We thought, "...wonder where they filmed some of the exterior shots of The Goonies?" So, we started doing some research and found this awesome website dedicated to the movie (link). These guys did a great job finding the locations and organizing the info nicely on their site. Props to them! So we decided to grab a camera, hop in the car, and have a Goonies adventure! Don't worry, we didn't stumble upon any "booty traps".

Remember our friend Haystack Rock, from our coast post? Well, it was an intergral part to the guys' triangulation of the starting point for the adventure.


The jail from which Jake Fratelli escapes:


Astoria football field:


A welcome to fellow goonies at Mikey's house:


Mikey's house (in the "Goondocks"):


And last of all, no trip to Mikey's house would be complete without the truffle shuffle (NSFW):


So the next time you watch The Goonies (we will probably watch it after we publish this post), keep an eye out for these landmarks. You'll see all of them in the first 15 minutes (or so) of the movies. Perhaps you could even enjoy the movie with a nice Baby Ruth or some rocky road.