Month: May 2005

Birthday at Edgefield

For Michelle’s birthday and a belated celebration of Doug’s, we all made a trip out to Edgefield for some food, beer, and golf. It was a great day for it, so we weren’t the only ones who though it would be a good idea, which meant our tee time wasn’t going to be until 5:30. Luckily, there is plenty to do, so we grabbed a lunch, wandered the grounds, visited the winery, walked the halls, and dodged wedding photographs.

Shortly before our tee time, we picked up our clubs (a wedge and a putter) and introduced Michelle and Debbie to the game (or mindset) of golf. Having never played before didn’t hurt their scores much, and both showed improvement throughout the course of nine holes. Jason, Doug and I, who had played before, showed no improvement and shot inconsistently. Still, it was a blast, and the pitch and put course is excellent.

Following our round of golf, we had dinner at the Black Rabbit. I think we were all surprised at how good the food was, and our rich food and desert finished of a full day.

ICQ again

To add to an already busy week, my ICQ account quit working and told me my password was incorrect. I’ve been using the account since my sophomore year in college, and in the 6+ years I’ve used it, I never changed the e-mail address listed with the account. It still had my old Western address which finally got the axe last year. I’m not sure if I didn’t change the address because I was lazy, or if I was suspicious of ICQ once it was acquired by AOL. Either way, I couldn’t retrieve my password because it was sending the hint to an expired account.

I finally created a new account once I realized that ICQ support wouldn’t reset it for me without any proof of ID. I don’t like having a member number that is so big. Makes me look like a johnny-come-lately.

So how close was I?

How Close Were You?
I had a nagging suspicion that our home wasn’t in an orange circle despite it being the second closest to date. A quick glance at ArcMap showed that we were not in an orange slice of ideal, but damn close. Now I just have to figure out what shaved off the rest of the circle.

Oh, we’re the red dot towards the bottom right. Its on what would be the outer periphery of the circle had something not removed it.

updated
Ok, we’re the house near the bottom right. The blue circles are restaurants, the blue area is the resulting “desirable” area from my project. I checked to see what was missing, and it appears that we’re over 1/4 mile from a park. Not by much, but that was the omission. We’re not in a “avoid” area, which is good.

Alberta, Alberta

Barley's new digs
Michelle and I found a house. We saw it at 12:30pm, made an offer at 4pm, and the seller accepted it by 5:30pm. It had been on the market for less than 12 hours. Portland is hot, but so is our new home

We’re going to be living about a block north of the Alberta Arts district. Within 2 blocks are a thai restaurant (though the locals say the other one down the street is better), a southern bistro, a taqueria, a sushi/tapas place, a wine bar, a donut/coffee shop, a fish & chips place, a locally owned video rental spot, a pizza shop, and more than I can wrap my head around. More will follow. There’s going to be a balloon tied to our mailbox, that’s for sure.

Here’s a piece about the neighborhood from last month and carried by several major papers, including my birthplace’s paper. And here’s a walking map and pictures of the neighborhood.

Olmsted – Public Duty to Community

John F. Kennedy is remembered for his “Ask Not” speech, but nearly 60 years earlier, John Charles Olmsted made a similar declaration about people and their communities:

“It is constantly becoming more generally and more clearly realized that every inhabitant of a city owes to it, in return for benefits and advantages derived from it, certain duties not specifically compulsory according to law. Among such duties is that of aiding in every possible way to make the city more beautiful and more agreeable to live in and work in and more attractive to strangers.”

– Report of the Park Board, Portland, OR 1903

Poor Writing

I was somewhat surprised to learn that my instructor thinks I have poor writing skills. Shocked, actually. When he mentioned his surprise in class last week at the lacking in some of our writing, I assumed he was talking about someone else. Well, he was, but he was also talking about me. All through high school and college I had always thought of myself as a proficient writer.

Some clarity came from the instructor’s comments though, as I realized it wasn’t my writing overall that sucked, just my scientific writing. Well of course it sucks, nearly all the writing I did in high school and college was creative and I was trained never to use personal pronouns. Then, add nearly 4 years of uncritical, unedited, and mostly artless blogging… I’ve developed a style that’s not compatible with scientific writing.

So now, armed with Strunk & White, I’ll see what I can do to remedy the situation. Look for more conciseness. Look for less passive sentences. Look for me getting to the point sooner and citing things correctly. Staring tomorrow.

Portland Parks and open spaces

In order to obtain financial aid, I had to find a 1 credit class. With no colloquium, I chose a field trip class on open spaces in Portland. One evening lecture and a day in the field? Sounds nice.

The lecture provided a decent background on the Olmsted vision for Portland, and our century long progress towards it. The field trip included visits to several parks in the area mostly focusing on “natural” parks like Marquam nature park, Johnson Creek Nature Park, Beggar’s Tick natural area, and a section along the Columbia Slough. The sites varied from archetypical midwest lamplight lawns with winding paths and large deciduous trees to tangled messes of native and invasive plants. Some were created over a century ago and some were gifted, traded, or reclaimed. The variety of opportunities is immense, though one of the classmates was only interested in the sites that offered opportunities for fishing.

John Charles Olmsted, adopted son of Frederic Law Olmsted (Central Park) came to Portland in 1903 and developed a park master plan for the city. Although much of it was shelved, sections like Forest Park have an immense legacy for the city. Over a century later, Portland is trying to recreate a circular trail Olmsted had envisioned, connecting the city by greenway between open spaces. It appears that the city is close to realizing this goal, due largely in part to a tireless band of dreamers and the support of the citizens. A 40 mile loop of nearly connected trails is in places and more are planned that would bring the count to 160 miles.

I think this summer is going to have to include a bike circumnavigation of Portland.