Month: August 2003

Power Outages Galore

A bizarre series of power outages. 1:30pm – Cascade campus looses all power. 1:50pm – transformer on the corner of our street explodes, taking power and hurting Michelle’s ears. 3:19pm – ID10T in the server room “tests” the UPS by shutting off the power, all 40+ servers go down. The message appears to be – stop working.

Well, I didn’t catch on until 7pm. But then Scott and I drove down to historic Aurora, OR to have a few pints with another BeerAdvocate Rich before he moves to Belgium next week. Conversation was mostly beer, and all enjoyable. He’s got a blog up as well, detailing the move.

School starts, Patrick inks a deal

Michelle finished her first day of her last year of law school. We met up with much of the usual crowd at Lucky Lab on Hawthorne last night. The seem generally happy and confortable with school and life. I still think they’re all crazy.

Patrick and Courtney also met us there. The Lucky is across the street from where Patrick will be working. He’s found a place to live, and will be moving in tonight or tomorrow. Its only a couple blocks from work, so he’s going to be situated nicely.

Drip Drip

Michelle and I installed a drip system today. Its immensely satisfying to have a highly efficient system for watering the flower beds. However, my fingers and thumbs are numb from punching holes in the 1/2″ hose. Hopefully by next year the flower beds will have overgrown the hoses, and the yard will be a wonderfully full and luscious environ. We’ll see.

megaburbs

During lunch yesterday I picked up a copy of Architectural Record, which had a piece about Megaburbs. Not a new concept, but the point is we’ve outgrown the term suburb. Suburbs were outer communities that required a central city for survival. Today’s suburbs have all the same utilities, centers, governments, and problems of their original cities, so they have no need for central cities. They have become Megaburbs.

Sadly most have developed without any overall plan of organization, or at least a coherent one. Just ask yourself – Am I in Beaverton? Am I in Tigard? Is this Sherwood? How will I know?

The author readily admits that its an unwieldy word which isn’t meant for common use. What to call them than? Leeches that have recently discovered autonomy? Cities? Single-story max? Drive-ins? Teenagers? Mall-towns? Next 3 exits? C’mon, you’ve probably got some.

Last Few Days

Michelle’s trying to enjoy the last few days before her last year of law school starts. Amazingly enough, she’s looking forward to it this year. Possibly because she’s chosen the classes, possibly because she’s been reinvigorated by working in a legal clinic this summer, possibly from speaking with a former student who is now a lawyer, and shared his opinion that law school was lame, or maybe its because its the last year, and the scholarship is a sealed deal now. Regardless, her last days of freedom have included doing homework, yard work, and tying up loose ends. Now we’re going to the DEQ to get the car’s emissions tested. Driving through the burbs is a great reminder why we live close to where we work. Stop, go, stop, go, stop, wait, stop, go, stop.

Friends interview

Friends Ben and C.J. were both in town for interviews. Ben was interviewing for a web design position in Vancouver with the school district (He’s very qualified, if you’re HR out looking :), and C.J. was interviewing for entrance to the local culinary school. It was fun to see friends from both high school and college again. We went out for dinner and beer at the New Old Lompoc, which was pretty dern good. Best of luck guys.

Tour de Fat

New Belgium (the brewery) sponsored a crazy bike festival & alternative transportation fund raiser in Portland today. They’ve been doing them all over the country, but this was the first I’d heard of it here. With Michelle out of town, rode on over. What a sight to behold.

There was a stage on which bands of varying talent played. There were bikes welded together from miscellaneous bikes and other things that might have been lying around the scrap yard. (See Here for samples) And these bikes were available to ride.

While there I spent several hours riding around the park on tall bikes (made by stretching a bike vertically, or simply welding one on top of another), lawn mower bikes, razor scooter bikes, hinged-bikes (my favorite – the back end swung freely from the front, so you could ride beside your front tire if you felt like it. ), Choppers, Cruisers, trikes, and other contraptions that defy description.

It was a blast to ride these things around. Once I finished and got back on my bike, I was quite disoriented. I wish Andrew could have been there, it reminded me of the crap we used to do in middle/high school.

Oh, and the beer was good. Then I had to shower and make a quick trip north to see Alan’s new place. Wonderful place, and cool people. First time meeting most of these people in a social setting rather than work, but it was very nice.

Singles Dining

Even though I know how to eat propperly, I’ve been relishing in my relapse into single’s dining. Here are some sample menu items from the last couple days:

1) Rosarita Frozen Bean & Cheese Burrito: Microwave 4 minutes, flip halfway through and put cheese on top. Serve with salsa.

2) Quesadilla: Two flour tortillas with mixture of Irish Castle cheese and Gruyere. Melt in microwave and serve with salsa.

3) Frozen Gardenburger Chick patties parmesan: Heat patties in oiled pan, melt Gruyere on top. Heat up canned marinara sauce, put on top of chick patties, sprinkle parmesan on top.

4) Curry Mashed Potatos Burritos: Microwave Tasty Bites foil package contents in a pyrex. Spread on the leftover corn tortillas because all the flour is gone. Skip the cheese this time. Eat over sink as to minimize dishes. Run disposal to rid of the drippings.

As you can see, there’s a running theme. Thanks to Darren for the gift of cheeses. They have been a life saver. And they’re on the menu for tonight :)