Happy Caturday!

And Now Time for a Beer!

A new season means ... another beer festival in Portland! This time around we present the Spring Beer and Wine Fest, in the Oregon Convention Center. This two-day event showcased craft beer and wine. But, there also were booths selling cheeses, desserts, puffed corn, limo rentals, and mobile internet. A food court was also setup, and live entertainment available.

Much like the other beer festivals in Portland, you pay for admission, a cup or glass, and tokens to pay for the tastes. We went early, so we got free admission/5 extra samples. One token ($1) gets you 4 oz of beer, while 4 tokens gets you a full serving (picture?).

Spring must be IPA/PA season, because every booth had a craft IPA or other pale ales to try. We at okctopdx are not fans of pale ales, so we were resigned to try other selections. We found a few beers that we liked, and we've started compiling a list. But, you'll have to wait until we attend the three other beer festivals before we put up our final list.

Having a co-pilot on this journey helped double the samples. Sara would get one kind, while I would get another. Then we would share (and I took one for the team and drank the remainder of the nasty ones).

Having a MAX stop right outside the convention center made getting to and from the event safe and convenient (don't drink and drive!).




Widmer Brothers booth - some of the best hefeweizen out there.

Thunder in Portland

For those of you expecting to read a weather-related post, please stop now (although it did hail yesterday). No my friends, this post is about basketball.

The OKC Thunder were in town, taking on the Portland Trail Blazers. This gave us a chance to catch an NBA game, and of course do another OKC-Portland comparison. And let's be honest, how else can you really tell which city is better than in the form of a professional sporting event. I'll let the professionals take care of the sports write-up (here). Let's just say... it wasn't close. The Blazers hung 113 points on the Thunder, which could only manage 83. But enough about scores, let's talk about the event!

We had decent seats - first row of the upper section. So we got to have a great view of the court and all the other goings-on in the sporting "event". The game was exciting if you were a Blazers fan. Here is a summary of other activities that occurred before and during the game. In an announcer's voice:


Yes ladies and gentlemen, we have everything you need at the Rose Garden. Snack bars on every level...beers on tap, both domestic AND microbrews... In this corner, the Blazerdancers and in the other corner the Blazers stunt squad...you may even see the occasional hip-hop or break-dancer...watch out for Blaze, the lovable mascot...Oh! There is the inflatable Ford Edge dropping coupons to lucky winners...boy do we have giveaways: free egg mcmuffins, chalupas, pizzas, hats, cds, trips to Mexico... oh, don't forget, we do have a basketball game going on...


Here are some quick stats about the Rose Garden arena (I gave you a link to wikipedia, because the official Rose Garden site is littered with adds for "Celtic Women Theater of the Clouds" and Taylor Swift). The arena opened in 1995 and has a basketball capacity of 20,630. The arena also is powered entirely with renewable energy (SOURCE??). In comparison, the Ford Center in OKC opened in 2002 (when we first moved to Oklahoma) with a capacity of 19,599.

The Hold Steady - Private Show

A few weeks ago we were lucky enough to get tickets to an invite-only show put on by Jack Daniels featuring The Hold Steady. The show was at our favorite Portland music venue the Crystal Ballroom on a cold rainy Monday night. There were free Jack Daniels themed drinks, pizza, and giveaways. The opening bands were decent, Suburban Anthem was first up and they were sort of the same vain as All-American Rejects or perhaps Blink-182. The second opening band, Morning Teleportation, has recently relocated to Portland from Austin, TX...so take that Austin! The band had a great sound (you can stream their songs on myspace), and they might just be a band to keep an eye on.

Now to the main event!! The Hold Steady were amazing, as if there was any doubt. We positioned ourselves front and center, just one row back from the stage. Craig Finn and band were on fire, they played non-stop for 2 hours. They played a lot of songs off of their Almost Killed Me, and Separation Sunday albums, which I had not had the pleasure to see performed live. The band also played their standard rocking songs like Chips Ahoy!, Massive Nights, Party Pit, Sequestered in Memphis, etc. Of course they ended show with Stay Positive, which left us so pumped up. The show was great but with that said there is one thing to take away from the experience if you plan to be up close and personal at a Hold Steady show be prepared for the spit to fly...Peter called it Finn Rain (so germaphobes beware). But it was worth it, I would do it again in a heartbeat. And now here are the pictures.

To the DMV... the DMV!

What is more fun to blog about than beer fests and bike wars? How about trips to the DMV? Okay, I know the DMV (tag agencies for our Oklahoma readers) is not that exciting, so just humor me and read the post. You'll get to see my ID picture in the end!

To stay within the letter of the law, these transactions occurred a while ago. But, it has taken us until now to actually get to writing the details. Obviously, an out-of-state move requires some changes in documentation. We had to make ourselves and our car 'legal' in the state of Oregon. Not to mention make it easier on the waitstaff when we order drinks (often we thought our server didn't believe we had real licenses when we showed them the Oklahoma ones).

It took us four tries to get our licenses. NO! Not because we couldn't pass the test. We wanted to get to the Oregon DMV early to avoid waiting too long. Well the first attempt ended when we kept hitting the snooze button and didn't want to get out of bed. The second attempt ended when we got out of bed, but wasted away the morning watching TV (the desire had gone). The third attempt ended because we thought they were open on the weekend, but when we got to the location it was closed. Finally, we made it on a weekday... but it opened an hour later than usual. This gave us a chance to practice our line-forming skills - we were the first to enter and get processed!

They require new 'settlers' to the state of Oregon to take a written test before transferring a license. Fortunately, that only cost $5. And is a lot better than in Oklahoma, where you have to go to the Deparment of Pubic Safety just so you can have an official confirm your identity. THEN you go to a tag agency to actually get your license.

Transferring our car title was pretty easy, and nearly the same as in Oklahoma. The only exception was the $21 emmissions test (VIN inspection included). Oklahoma only charges you $4 for the VIN inspection and lets you slowly kill the planet with your smog. You can go to any satellite Oregon DMV office to show that you ... I mean your car passed the emissions test and get your new title, registration, and tags.

So that was our general process, now for some fast comparisons:

1) Oregon requires license plates on the front and the back (example tags), Oklahoma only has a rear plate (example tags new / old). This required some car modifications on our part.

2)All things license and registration are handled through the Oregon Department of Motor Vehicles (part of Oregon Department of Transportation). As for Oklahoma, you are split between the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety (for the initial license and testing) and the Oklahoma Tax Commission (title and registration). You read that correctly, the Tax Commission!

3) An Oregon driver's license is good for 8 years (a cost of $59), while in Oklahoma a license is only good for 4 years (but a much lower cost of $21.50)

4) Getting a car titled in Oregon costs $55. I believe it is $11 in Oklahoma.

5) Our registration in Oregon is good for 2 years at a cost of $59. You must pay for registration every year in Oklahoma, and can set you back anything from $91 (for years 1-4), $81 (years 5-8), or as low as $21 (after 17 years for the car).

Finally, the ID comparison!

Happy Caturday!