Monday, January 15, 2007

Here There Be Stupid Dragons...

Chinatown Dragon, NW 4th & Davis

A few photos of that controversial dragon sculpture the PDC recently installed in Chinatown. The biggest criticism of the dragon is that the symbolism is apparently all wrong. I'm not an expert about that, but the thing certainly looks ridiculous. That much is painfully obvious. I'm by no means the first person to say this, but it looks like something straight out of Disneyland. Ok, no, something rejected by Disneyland.

Really I suspect this cartoon-Chinese look was the intention from day one. The Powers That Be don't want a real ethnic Chinese neighborhood here, because that would be strange and foreign and insufficently upscale. No, they're redecorating the area to make it more attractive to rich, lily-white empty-nester Californian condo buyers, people who think they're exploring "pan-Asian" culture by guzzling $17 wasabi-ginger appletinis. The pseudo-Chinese stuff is just there as the latest trendy, meaningless design motif, an empty postmodern reference to what used to be here before the rich twits moved in. Just like the ugly wall of rusting railroad ties in Tanner Springs Park. For some reason people think it's extremely artistic and cultured to do this, even while sneering at Hillsboro subdivisions named after the groves of trees they replaced. In the end it's really pretty much the same thing.

Some people say the dragon looks like it's collared and chained up. To me, it looks like the dragon head is being extruded somehow. And I don't care to speculate much further regarding the "somehow" part.

davis_wok

Here's the overturned wok detail beneath the dragon. The overturned wok is supposed to be a symbol of bad business, bankruptcy, and famine. Nice. Nobody bothered to consult nearby businesses about this, of course. And why would they? The dragon's certainly not there for their benefit. The sooner they close up shop and make way for yet another exclusive doggie day spa, the happier the PDC will be.

We're told the PDC and the artist were astonished by the public outcry. Which is a typically Portland reaction: They did this with only the noblest of intentions, so why are people upset? It's not like they're in the Klan or anything, you know, and people should be grateful for wonderful urban goodies like this super-cute new dragon.

This happens a lot here. While we have a lot more money in town than we did back in the 1950s, we still tend to be ignorant, provincial, and poorly educated, and we get deeply offended when anybody calls us on it.

I haven't seen anyone remark on this, but to me the really alarming part is the severed duck head behind and to the left of the wok. I prefer my public art without the severed heads, thanks.

davis_dragon2

A closer look at the dragon. I swear, this thing is about two steps away from being Barney the Dinosaur.

davis_gateway

The dragon is just one of a series of decorative doodads. The dragon is the one across the street, while the closer one seems to have a sort of commerce theme. In place of the wok, we have some fish heads, an abacus, a calculator, stuff like that. Basically more random crap that's supposed to look vaguely "Oriental". I use that word advisedly: I've noticed that people in the target condo demographic, affluent 60-something white retirees, tend to still use it, with all its patronizing connotations. At least when they're among their own kind, or they've had one too many of those wasabi-ginger appletinis. A couple more of those and they start saying "chop chop" to the waiter, and it's all downhill from there.

You might assume that there's supposed to be a dragon head here too, but someone beheaded it, or it fell off, or something, but you'd be wrong. It sure looks like there ought to be one here, though, and without it it's not clear why the whole ring-holding-up-a-rock thing is here, since it's not doing anything in particular except holding up the aforementioned rock.

davis_fish

On the base of this particular doodad: More severed heads. Roly poly fish heads, this time. Nice.

The doodads are "gateways" to the new "festival street" on Davis between 3rd & 4th. "Festival streets" are a current urban design fad. Instead of an asphalt street with a raised concrete curb, the whole thing is done in sidewalk-like concrete, with car and pedestrian portions on the same level, separated by a row of decorative posts. This is supposed to make it possible to shut the street off and hold street fairs here, which apparently was impossible until we spent all that money. Never mind that there's been exactly one street fair here so far, a grand opening event staged by the city to show off just how festive a festival street festival can be.

Also, there are palm trees. In Portland. But I already ranted about that a few months ago, and I hate to repeat myself.

davis_japan

On the 3rd Ave. end of the festival street, we finally get a respite from all the severed heads. Instead, this doodad is about the internment of Japanese-American citizens during WWII. I don't even know where to begin on this one.

First, someone ought to tell the PDC that Japan != China. There was a memo, maybe they missed it or something. Ok, it's true there was a Japanese community in parts of Old Town prior to 1941, so maybe they wanted to commemorate that. That's perfectly understandable. But there's already a much larger (and more effective) historical monument about this in Waterfront Park, just 4 blocks east of here. And there's another up at the Expo Center, which was used as a way station for people being transported to the internment camps. So this has been covered pretty well already, and now we're veering into the curious phenomenon of white-liberal-guilt-as-vanity, in which we demonstrate our unimpeachable virtue (and boost our self-esteem) by endlessly wailing and gnashing our teeth over something that happened well before most of us were born.

And it's odd putting this somber item right in the middle of our wondrous new festival street, isn't it? I guess the idea is that carefree drunken revelers will stumble across it and suddenly be taken aback and it'll make them realize numerous Important Truths and whatnot. If that really is the point, and it really is crucial to have some sort of grim historical marker here, our city and state have a long history of mistreating people of Chinese origin, events that continue to go unremarked-upon and uncommemorated. The state constitution used to prohibit "Chinamen" from owning property or holding mining claims. I suppose that if we talked about this stuff too much, we'd have to mention the fact that the Chinatown we're celebrating was created by segregation, both official and unofficial. And that would put a real damper on the party. So we'll just put up yet another marker, a bland, third-rate one at that, about an event everyone knows about & condemns already.

davis_todo

This is on 3rd & Flanders, on the other new festival street, two blocks away (which will make for a rather awkward festival if you want to use both of 'em, but no matter, nobody's going to.) This is perhaps the scariest part of the whole installation. You see, there's more of the same on the way, and we can only imagine what sort of crap they've got in store for the city next. A sculpture of neatly folded and pressed laundry? A doodad with an "opium den / white slavery" theme? Some statues of "famous Chinese people" the condo clowns might've actually heard of, say, Charlie Chan, Fu Manchu, Ming the Merciless, maybe? Animatronic kids with straw hats and cartoon-slit eyes singing "It's a Small World"? The PDC has untold millions of dollars to play with, and no public oversight, so they can probably come up with something even worse if they really put their minds to it.

Sunday, January 14, 2007

Notes from the flight forward...

So apparently our Glorious Leader wants to set the whole Mideast on fire now. More fresh bodies for the meat grinder in Iraq, plus exciting new wars in Iran and Syria, and no doubt that's just the tip of the iceberg. Even with a Democratic congress, it's looking increasingly like there's nothing anyone can do to rein the guy in.
Naturally, nobody in the administration's giving any straight answers on what they intend to do about Iran. They make all sorts of threatening noises day in and day out, but we still get the "no definite plans to attack" charade, just like we did in the buildup to Iraq. That little stunt avoids having any public policy debate about what to do. They already know what they want to do, and they don't want the other 300 million of us to get a word in edgewise about it. And if past history is any guide, there probably is no detailed plan hidden deep in a Pentagon vault somewhere. The plan will just be to roll the dice again and assume a miracle will happen this time.

The title refers to a classic Billmon post from last April, which seems more prescient with each passing day:

What we are witnessing (through rips in the curtain of official secrecy) may be an example of what the Germans call the flucht nach vorne, the "flight forward." This refers to ta situation in which an individual or institution seeks a way out of a crisis by becoming ever more daring and aggressive (or, as the White House propaganda department might put it: "bold") A familar analogy is the gambler in Vegas, who tries to get out of a hole by doubling down on each successive bet.


Some people take comfort in W's recent statement taking responsibility for mistakes in Iraq. But even that statement is phrased in a very curious way. What he said, essentially, is that he takes responsibility to the degree that a CEO is responsible for any (purely hypothetical) failings by his underlings. He didn't admit to having personally screwed anything up. That's something we'll never hear from him. I imagine getting him to say the limp words he uttered was like pulling teeth, and he only agreed to it strictly as a PR move, not an actual change of heart on his part. If he'd had a change of heart, or a eureka moment, or any such thing, the response would not be to do even more of what we've been doing without success for a few years now.

Apart from the immediate situation, it's never a good idea when national policies are so closely intertwined with the personal psychological needs of the guy in charge. He won't believe he can make mistakes, and he won't change course, and we all have to pay the price. He's been reading all those history books lately, to the expected round of cheap shots about him reading books for once, but taking cheap shots at the guy just obscures the alarming "lessons" he says he's learning. He knows he's right, he's absolutely sure he's right, he's surrounded himself with toadies and cronies who praise him constantly and tell him he's always right, and now he's got what in his mind is "historical proof" that everyone will realize he was right in a century or two. Therefore, he's free to ignore public opinion, expert opinion (the Pentagon included), world opinion, etc., since he's totally sure that everyone will laugh at all those opinions someday. There's just not going to be any communication into the bubble at this point. He's all defense mechanism, all the time, and nothing gets through.

Reasonable people can disagree, of course, on whether Iran is really the global threat Cheney and friends say it is. I very much doubt that, but even if I was totally convinced, at this point I wouldn't put any faith in the current administration dealing with that threat successfully. They botch everything they touch. If you're a hawk, you probably aren't interested in my advice, but my advice is to find a competent successor for the current guy, and work to get him or her elected in 2008. And please, just put your remaining foreign policy goals on hold until after Inauguration Day. Don't ask anything more of the current bozos, and don't jump on the bandwagon if they're itching to start something new. They've done more than enough damage already.

Friday, January 05, 2007

Monday Miscellany

fog_usbb

Yet another jumble of pics and links and general babbling. Top photo: Big Pink, not very pink today.

fog_fremont

The Fremont Bridge, looking north

fog_river

Fog on the Willamette.

horsebarn_berries

Berries outside the police horse barn at NW 9th & Naito.

postal_squirrel

A squirrel in the Postal Corner Garden next to the central post office. Finally, a squirrel photo that isn't completely blurry. There were actually two squirrels chasing each other, but all the 2-squirrel photos were blurred. The Postal Corner Garden is an, uh, postage stamp-sized plot of land that I suppose is there to provide a calming, non-disgruntling activity for the postal workers.

Now some links & items:

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

mildly therapeutic edition

january sky 3

This blog is typically not the most personal of personal blogs. That's by design; the only thing less interesting than reading about me is writing about me, therefore I don't, usually. Right now I don't have anything more to add beyond what was in the previous post, and I'm not at home to tinker with the ol' Sun box right now, but I'm still feeling kind of rattled, and blogging itself can be a nice distraction. I haven't done one of these "misc. items" posts in a long time, and I haven't been inclined to, but it feels like it's time.

january sky 1

First, the photos are just some pics I took when I wandered out on my lunch hour. Nothing all that special, but it's fresh material, not just stuff from the archives. So whatever.

january sky 2

Anyway, here are the misc. items for the day:

Happy hospitalized freakin' birthday...

Right now, as I'm writing this, my brother's in surgery up at St. Vincent's. He managed to pick up a case of diverticulitis, a fun intestinal malady. I understand what they're doing is usually a routine procedure, but they had to run some tests first to see if he's got this exciting blood-clotting condition called "Protein S Deficiency" (more technical article here), which can obviously make surgery more complicated. It's a rare condition, but it's hereditary and a number of close relatives have had it, so . Some years ago, an uncle went in for similar "routine" intestinal surgery, had PSD-related complications, and died, when he was just a few years older than I am now. So I'm rather curious how my brother's test turns out, to put it mildly. Oh, and did I mention it's my brother's birthday? And this is how his new GF gets to meet the family for the first time?

It's strange how, even now in 2007, so many guys won't go to the doctor no matter how bad they feel. It always requires a great deal of hassling and cajoling from someone of the female persuasion before they'll go, like it was still freakin' 1955 or something. That's what finally got my brother to the doctor, and I remember my dad behaving the same way a few years ago, and I've done it before as well. I came down with a spot of bronchitis a few years back, and it was literally weeks before I was persuaded to go in and have it looked at. A couple of antibiotic pills later, I was good as new, which really ought to convince me to go without being told next time, or at least to go without being told repeatedly. And I know I probably should, and I'd hope that I would, but I can't say with absolute certainty that I will.

On the other hand, I'd like to sing the praises of another stereotypically male trait, the ability to compartmentalize things and simply choose to think about something else for a while. Medical stuff grosses me out, and thinking about it worries the hell out of me, so it's good to just set it all aside for the moment and think about something I can actually do something about, like puzzling out how to netboot a Sun Ultra 30 from a Mac. I picked up this el cheapo Sun box last week, and everything seems to work except for the SCSI CD drive. The OpenBoot firmware on the Sun box doesn't even see it. The cables look ok, and it has power, but the drive doesn't appear to spin up when you insert a disk, so I think the drive itself is broken. Sure, I could just go looking for a new SCSI CDROM drive, but this netboot stuff is way more l33t. I haven't quite gotten it all working yet, but the process works something like this:

  1. Client (Sun box) sends out a RARP request, asking what IP address it should use. On the server side (OSX box), rarpd needs to be able to map the client's MAC address to an IP addy, which you configure by editing /etc/ethers
  2. Client then grabs a bootloader from the server via tftp. Tftp is usually disabled on OSX, so you need to edit /etc/xinetd.d/tftp and hup the xinetd daemon if it's running. The filename the client asks for is based on the IP addy you just gave it, so that you can have different bootloaders for different machines, if you need to.
  3. The bootloader asks the server where to find the rest of the OS. I haven't quite gotten this step sorted out, but it can involve either bootparamd or dhcp, apparently. In any case, the response is the name of an NFS share where the netboot OS image lives.
  4. When you share stuff from the Finder on OSX, you aren't setting up an NFS share, so you have to do this on the command line, or with a 3rd party tool like SharePoints. Setting up a Solaris boot directory on a Mac seems to be rather complex, so right now I'm trying to get NetBSD/sparc64 to start up, and hoping it'll see the Solaris UFS partitions and be able to mount them read/write without trashing anything.
  5. Then do a "boot net" at the Sun's 'ok' prompt, and away we go, if we're lucky.


Alright, I guess I omitted the details of how to get an 'ok' prompt when you have a headless machine like this one. There's a null modem cable, and therefore a USB-to-serial adapter on the Mac side, connecting with serial port 'A' on the Sun side; knowing to send a 'break' character in lieu of the Sun keyboard's 'Stop-A' to drop to the 'ok' prompt; changing the nvram's "auto-boot?" variable to false so the machine doesn't boot off the internal HDs for now. There's probably something else I'm forgetting at the moment.

The Sun box already has Solaris 8 on it, and all I'm trying to do right now is boot enough of an OS so I can reset the root password. Once I do that, everything else should be a breeze. Hopefully.


So you see, being able to compartmentalize is a sanity-saver at times like this.
Good luck, and get well soon, bro.

Monday, January 01, 2007

More Kelly Butte photos

Looking east from Mt. Tabor

Since my previous Kelly Butte post has attracted a bit of interest lately, I thought I'd post a few more pics of the place I had lying around in iPhoto. The top photo is an another pic of the place from Mt. Tabor, similar to the lead photo on the original post. Kelly Butte is the hill on the right.

In the distance, out towards Gresham, you can see one more hill and a small part of a second. Gresham is full of volcanic hills, collectively known as the Gresham Buttes, which are pretty obscure unless you live in Gresham, which I don't. I'm guessing the one directly "below" Mt. Hood in this photo is Grant Butte [map], which is due east of Kelly Butte, between Division & Powell out past 182nd. I can't find a lot of info about the place, other than one colorful urban legend:

I also got one from here where I live, in Portland OR.
On the border of the cities of Portland and Gresham there is a hill called Grant Butte (Mount Baldy by the locals due to a fire some years ago). This hill has a colored history. I will recite the history as far as I have been able to verify by news clippings and public record.
Around the turn of the 20th century (1900), the area was completely forested (later turned to farms then from the 50s onward into houses and neighborhoods) and the area was extensively logged, both for building and fire materials and to clear ground for farms and ranches.
Back around the mid 40s, there was a sufficient number of houses to warrant a water tower on the hill. The structure was made of red brick and stood about two stories high. The remains of the old tower and pumphouse are still visible today on the SE side of the hill. This tower is signifigant because a couple of years after it was built, two boys were playing near it and one boy saw a brick fall and hit the other boy in the head. In a panic he ran home to his mother and described the scene, including a copious amount of blood and some brains, something an eight year old boy of that time would not have known about. She called the cops and ambulance and rushed up to the tower only to find the dead boy asleep at the base of the tower, uninjured. The first boy was sent to psychaiatrists (sp?) and they determined he was telling the truth. This story appeared in the Oregonian.
The next bit I have been able to find is the installation of the North water tower in the 70s. This tower was larger than the old one and entended a couple of stories underground, though a good bit was above ground as well. When a landslide rendered this tower useless, a massive water tank was built on the south face of the hill in the late 80s. I cannot even guess the size of this cavernous beast. This water tower is still in use today.
Now for the good stuff, the legends.
During the logging years, it was common practice to just strip the logs on the site and toss the branches into a furnace designed to keep the loggers warm at night. Legend has it there was one of these on the top of Grant Butte (there IS a very old smokestack up there, caked in rust). Now, this particular legend says that a stack of logs broke loose and rolled over a few loggers, killing some and maiming others. Now instead of transporting the bodies and wounded all the way back to Portland (at the time five+ miles away through forest), they just tossed them all, dead or alive, into the furnace. Apparently this is where the rest of the legends got their 'fuel'.
Although I have no specific incidents, other than a couple of my own personal experiences, I have heard of some strange things on the hill. Stuff like satanic rituals inside the north water tower during the mid 80s (when it was emptied) and into the 90s (before it was sealed). I have seen the evidence of these rituals myself, though they looked haphazard and like those who were drawing the symbols were either in a hurry or had no clue as to what they were doing. A lot more of it still just looks like graffiti.
Other than my own experiences, that is about it. Most of my experiences were rather mundane, strange noises or mild feelings of dread. The only two note worthy incidences that I have experienced are a sighting of a pair of disembodied red eyes charging me and a low fog like mist over an area of the forest in mid afternoon on a sunny summer day. Both I cannot really describe in any more detail, other than to say I honestly found the mist to be more frightening than the eyes.


Okayyyy.... Anyway, back to our photos:


The Road to Kelly Butte

From the locked gate to the park, this is a shot of the road going down the hill. You have to drive, or bike, or walk, or unicycle up this to get to the park. It looks pretty bad, but really most of the regular streets in the surrounding neighborhoods look a lot like this. For the near-$60M price tag of a certain aerial tram, I have to wonder how many neighborhood streets could've been paved (some for the first time ever) in outer SE Portland. But of course that would involve spending taxpayer money on the non-rich, which simply isn't done anymore.

Entrance gate, Kelly Butte

This is the aforementioned locked gate at the park's "grand" entrance. No sign for the place or anything, just a locked gate.

Guardrail, Kelly Butte

A bit of the guardrail on the road past the gate, close to the top.

Lichens, Kelly Butte

Lichens on a tree branch, somewhere in the forested part of the park.

Forest, Kelly Butte

Yet another spooky-looking tree in the forest. Maybe "spooky" isn't quite the right word. I saw this tree and started looking around for Ewoks... Ok, maybe "spooky" is the right word.

Old Drive-In Theater Sign, Kelly Butte

The weatherbeaten sign for the old drive-in theater that used to be on the south side of Kelly Butte. The theater itself has been gone for many years, and I think the current owners of the property operate carnival rides or something. Which I guess is convenient; they can just send someone up to look for homeless camps on the butte any time they need to hire some new carnies.

Mt. Hood from Kelly Butte

Another shot of Mt. Hood from the meadow atop Kelly Butte. No, the mountain isn't actually tilted quite like that. I was just holding the camera kind of crooked, which is sadly typical. Although I fully expect this shot to be used in someone's outlandish Mt. Hood conspiracy theory, because this photo's on the interwebs, and this is what always happens eventually.

Abandoned Nuclear Bunker, Kelly Butte

A detail of the nuclear bunker entrance. I like the "Impeach Bush" bit over where the front door used to be. Nice.

Happy Gnu Year

As the proprietor of this humble blog, my first official act of the year was to officially put my Flickr photos under a Creative Commons license (attribution + share alike, if you're a license dork and care about this stuff.) The issue really hadn't come up until recently when a couple of people used my Kelly Butte photos. So just for future reference, that's cool. And the "share alike" part is a request, not a requirement, as far as I'm concerned. And if it's not too much trouble, let me know when you use something of mine. Not because of permission or licensing issues or anything; I'm merely curious, is all.

As for text content here and on this blog's various siblings, it would be fair to assume the same CC license terms apply as well. I haven't put a copyleft logo on the site just yet, but I'll get around to it eventually.

Doing this is only sort-of idealistic, really. I'm not making any money doing this, and doing so in the future doesn't seem overly likely, so I figure I might as well be generous, since it's not costing me anything. In some parallel universe, where people are lining up wanting to pay me gazillions of dollars for exclusive subscribers-only content, this licensing stuff probably wouldn't happen. And that's cool too. Until the FSF folks figure out how to craft a license that applies across all possible worlds in all possible universes, I think the current arrangement will be just fine.

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Rocky Butte a.k.a. Weathertop


[View Larger Map]

Some pics of Rocky Butte [map], up in far NE Portland next to I-205, just south of the airport. I was going to start this post by saying Rocky Butte needed no introduction, since (unlike Kelly Butte) everyone knows about the place already, and there's lots of useful stuff about it on the net.. Everyone takes their out-of-town tourist friends there to snap a few quick photos. Everyone goes there in the summer to watch the sunset with a loaf of bread (legal, I think), a jug of wine (technically illegal), and that special(ish) someone (legal, up to a point). Everyone went there when they were 17 to slam down a 40 of Old E (illegal), attempt some crude graffiti (way illegal), attempt to set stuff on fire (illegal, duh), and engage in some juvenile fumbling with that special(ish) someone (possibly illegal). Not that I would know anything about any of that, of course. No, really, I mean it.

(Btw, if Google sent you here and you're really looking for info on Kelly Butte -- which actually happens a lot -- you've come to almost the right place. The post you're really looking for is here. If you aren't sure which Portland-area butte you're looking for, you can just wander through the posts tagged "mini-volcano" and see if I've covered the one you're interested in.)

moss & stone, rocky butte

I really thought everyone knew about Rocky Butte already, which would've saved me the trouble of writing, doing research, etc., but I was talking to my mom today and she'd never even heard of the place. "Is that the place with the jail?" she asked. Anyone over a certain age who doesn't know about the park is bound to ask the same question. So yes, there used to be a jail around here until the Justice Center opened back in 1983. I'm not sure where, exactly, but I think it was down by the base of the hill, near, or possibly under where I-205 is now. There used to be signs on the freeway long ago ordering you not to stop or even slow down for any reason whatsoever on this stretch of the freeway, and fer chrissakes don't pick up any hitchhikers, especially ones dressed like male dental assistants in bondage gear. I could be a bit hazy on the precise wording of those signs. It was a long time ago.

sun & clouds, rocky butte

Besides the old jail, the place's other big claim to fame is the Grotto, the Catholic theme park, er, sanctuary on the north slope of the butte. These photos are not from the Grotto, though, since religious stuff always creeps me out, plus they're still running one of those crowd-drawing holiday festival-of-lights extravaganzas, and I'm not into that very much either.

So what you're looking at in the photos is not the old jail, all appearances aside, and it's not the Grotto. It's also not related to the uber-scary old military school / megachurch on the north side of the butte (more about that later). This is the weird castle-like structure on the very top of the butte, which is a public park open to all and sundry. The city calls this "Joseph Wood Hill Park", and the steep forested slopes surrounding it are the "Rocky Butte Natural Area" which I think exists just to preserve the view from the top. The "fortress" was built as a WPA project back in the 30's, around the same time Timberline Lodge went up, and I think you can kind of see a resemblance in the stonework. It was basically built to give tourists a reason to stop and spend money in the neighborhood around 82nd & Sandy, in the rural olden days of yore back before "lingerie modeling" was invented.

The place does provide one useful service, actually. Right in the center of the flat area atop the battlements, there's a fenced-off area with a metal tower, and atop the tower is a rotating beacon for the airport, located due north of here. I don't have any pictures of that tower. It's not very photogenic, and I'd probably get a visit from a nice (ok, not very nice) man in black from Homeland Security if I had any and posted them here, and I don't want that. So no pictures of the tower. It's not the prominent radio tower on the south side of the butte, which you'll drive right past on the way down. That's just a regular radio tower, as far as I know.

Updated 2/9/2011: It turns out that I was completely wrong about the beacon, and there's an entirely non-waterboardy explanation for it. The beacon dates all the way back to 1931 (when the main Portland Airport was still located at Swan Island), and it was an important navigational aid back in the days before LORAN and GPS, basically functioning as a sort of lighthouse for airplanes. It was officially put out to pasture back in the 60s, and is now part of the National Register of Historic Places. No, really. The National Park Service's set of guidelines for aviation-related Historic Places specifically mentions the beacon. There's more about the beacon, and Rocky Butte generally, in Laura O. Foster's Portland Hill Walks (a book I've recommended here more than once).

north from rocky butte

There are a couple of cool winding roads up to the top. The way I've always taken is to turn onto NE Fremont going east off 82nd. Just stay on the main road as it winds up the hill and changes names a couple of times, and soon you'll get to the aforementioned religious mega-complex I mentioned, which is quite large. It features a couple of huge brownish domes and an array of smaller, older, and very military-looking buildings. I don't know exactly where they stand, theology-wise, but looking at these buildings I suspect the "Left Behind" series is required reading, and people pray to Dubya in the hope he'll intercede with God on their behalf. That's my guess, anyway. I could be wrong. It started out as Hill Military Academy long ago, and only became a religious institution much later, so they were stuck with the existing buildings. Maybe they're a sect of pacifists, and they cringe at the sight of the military buildings, for all I know. But I kind of doubt that. Anyway, if you keep driving eventually you'll pass the thing and continue on up the hill. There'll be stone retaining walls on your right most of the way up the hill; these were also part of the WPA project. Here and there you'll see a smattering of recent surburban-style houses. Nearly all look like they were built after the old jail closed, which I guess is understandable. When you get to the top, there's a loop road around the base of the fortress, and you can take the other road to the bottom. If anything, the other road is even cooler, although both have recently been defiled with speedbumps. At one point on the way down there's a tight hairpin turn inside a freakin' tunnel, if you can believe that. Yeehaw! Our fair city's legions of Zoobombers would absolutely love this place, if only there was a quick and easy way up to the top, the lazy bastards. I don't have any photos of the road or the tunnel, since I was busy driving and all.

eastern sky, rocky butte

So what's there to do here? Other than the aforementioned, mostly illegal activities, I mean. There aren't any hiking trails that I can see. If you want to go downhill from here, you don't so much "hike" as "plummet". So it's pretty much the viewpoint at the top, and that's about all. If it's cloudy, there isn't even that. Whatever the weather, I suppose you could imagine you're on Weathertop, fending off besieging ringwraiths, if you're into that sort of thing, or orcs if you don't mind bending the canon a little. You have to admit the place sort of looks the part. Ok, besides that, in the summer it's a popular spot to tie the knot with that special(ish) someone (legal, if you have a $97.50 permit from the city). And you can watch planes coming and going at the airport, if you're into that sort of thing. When I was little I was often dragged along on plane-spotting outings, and at one time I could identify most or all of the airlines and airliners that flew in and out of Sea-Tac, up in Seattle. That was a while ago, though. If the subject interested me, I could probably get up to speed again, but really what would be the point of that?

As for the view: The best things to see here are the mountains: Mt. Hood, Mt. St. Helens, and bits of Mt. Rainier and Mt. Jefferson off in the distance. There's also the Columbia River and the entrance to the Gorge. Sunsets over the West HIlls, and I suppose sunrises if you're weird and deliberately get up that early. This is not the best place for pics of downtown Portland, though. Rocky Butte really is pretty far east from downtown, and the buildings are little more than specks off in the distance. You could go buy an expensive telephoto lens and a tripod, but it's much cheaper to just go somewhere else closer to downtown, like the Eastbank Esplanade, for example. Looking north there's also the I-205 bridge and the airport. Looking east, if you know what to look for, there's the tiny burg of Maywood Park, a town of a few hundred people just on the far side of 205, entirely surrounded by the city of Portland. The town was incorporated in an attempt to prevent 205 from going through, which obviously wasn't very successful. I understand that now the residents prefer to remain independent because their city taxes are vastly lower than in adjacent parts of Portland.

Even if the place is completely fogbound, there's always the fortress itself and its stonework to look at. It's the usual high quality WPA workmanship, stuff you couldn't duplicate today with any amount of money. I sure do miss FDR. The guy died many decades before I was born, but I still miss the guy. Of course, I could go off on a pet tangent of mine, which is that societies that devote a lot of effort to building enduring monuments to themselves are usually in serious trouble. Sometimes it's the Depression, others it's barbarian hordes from the deserts (Egypt, China), or globalization (France), etc. It's a pop sociology notion I play around with sometimes, often after reading about yet another new war memorial or worshipful presidential monument going up in DC.

ramparts, rocky butte

So anyway, what else is there to say about the place...
  • Like basically all the other hills in town, Rocky Butte is a small, extinct (we hope) volcano. The US Geological Survey has the dirt about that here. Apparently it's one of at least 95 known or suspected volcanic features in the Portland area. Jeepers!
  • The butte is a popular climbing destination, for people who like to go climb a rock wall to unwind after work, although opinions about the place are decidedly mixed, what with the litter, car breakins, and other urban problems.
  • The link about the military academy (above) mentioned something about a 1930s incident where an academy student died while exploring a cave close to the school. So apparently there are caves here. Not a huge surprise really -- where there's lava, there's often lava tubes. But still, it's fun to know for a fact that they're up there somewhere, because caves are the best. Yay, caves.
  • Besides the city park at the top of the hill, Metro owns another 5 acres on the butte, and there's supposedly a "Rocky Butte State Park" around here somewhere too, according to most maps. I can't find any sign of it on the ground, but I think it's part of the steep eastern slope of the butte, right next to the freeway. Maybe it's what's left of the jail grounds, I'm not sure. I didn't search that extensively, since I wasn't up for poking around in the brush next to the freeway, right around sunset on a cold December day. Maybe I'll look for it again when the weather improves, if I can find out anything more about the place and it seems like a worthwhile destination.
  • Elsewhere on the interwebs, posts about Rocky Butte at the Dirt Cheap Guide to PDX, the Zinester's Guide, iExplore, Home & Abroad, PortlandBridges, SITO, & Klaas Acts, the last calling the place "the park in the sky".
  • Oh, and as mentioned in the comments below, this humble post now has interweb linkage. Check out the post over at Goldfishcake. The photos over there are better, too.

Sunday, December 24, 2006

semi-nocturnal

rusting_chunks_sunset

Today's photos have sort of a "night" theme, in honor of the shortest day of the year a couple of days back. These are mostly older pics from the archives, which should tell you that I don't have any fresh material at the moment. No photos, nothing to write about, not even any low-quality video clips.

Above is yet another pic of the infamous (on this blog) sculpture Rusting Chunks #5, a.k.a. Leland One, in case you were waiting for another of those. This one makes it look all Stonehenge-like, which seems appropriate given today's belated winter solstice theme.

tabor_sunset

Sunset over Mt. Tabor, a few months ago.

annuals

Flowers under streetlights, taken in the middle of the night sometime last summer. There's something vaguely unsettling about this photo, but I can't really put my finger on it.

koin_tower

A rather blurry photo of the KOIN tower at night.

sidewalk_gloom

Your basic b+w photo of the sidewalk, streetlights, & shadows, downtown.

you_gameboy

The mirror in the men's room down at the Tugboat brewpub. I think it was night outside when I took this, probably.

Thursday, December 21, 2006

An evil scumbag pervert pays a visit

Weird Google hits are usually good for a laugh or two, but earlier today this blog got a search hit from some pervert looking for kiddie porn. I want to describe just how angry and disgusted I am, but words fail me. If I had the guy's full IP address, I'd post it. If I knew his name, address, phone number, etc., I'd post those too, and alert the authorities, whoever they might be in this case. Sadly I don't have all that info, but here's what I do know about this scumbag. He appears to be in Olavarra, Argentina, using Telefonica de Argentina (a.k.a. speedy.com.ar) as his ISP, with an address in the 190.48.21.* range. So probably he's a dialup user, and having the full IP addy would be of limited use anyway, unless the ISP's willing to cooperate. He showed up here at 2:47:34 PM Pacific time, and his browser info string is "Firefox Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; es-AR; rv:1.8.0.8) Gecko/20061117 Ubuntu/breezy-security Firefox/1.5.0.8". I bet the guy's using a bootable Ubuntu CD to avoid leaving cookies, cache files, etc. on the hd of the machine he's on. This suggests to me that he's afraid of getting caught. And he should be, if there's anything I can do about it. His exact search phrase was pretty bizarre: "zubr - tiny little ones child sex galleries!.url". Eeewww! It's hard to tell from that whether he's a native English speaker or not. I have this mental image of someone like that creepy JonBenet guy who popped up in Thailand, but it could also be a local who thinks he might have better luck searching in English. I'm mystified how this blog popped up given that search string, and there's no way in hell I'm going to try his search url to find out. Whatever it was he was looking for, I sure as hell don't want to find it. I'm just happy that nothing caught his interest here and the sicko didn't click on anything once he arrived. Good fucking riddance, and I sincerely hope all his other search hits were just as unhelpful.

And yes, I realize posting his search string might potentially reel in more guys like this slimeball. If they show up here, I'm posting their info too, guaranteed. The evil bastards.

Yechhh!!!! And I repeat: Yecchhh!!!!


Updated: I was right, I've gotten additional search hits for the same thing. The precise, identical search phrase, in fact, which is more than a little peculiar. One hit a few days ago from Voronezh, Russia, and earlier this morning another from Harlow, UK -- with the caveat that geographic info is whatever the browser reports, so that can obviously be faked. I was in a rush when the Voronezh hit came in and I didn't take down all the particulars, but here's what I've got on the perv in Harlow, as reported by his browser:
  • IP address: 86.8.111.# (NTL Internet) <-- NTL is a large ISP in the UK, so this doesn't tell us much.
  • Reported latitude/longitude: 51.7833, 0.1667
  • OS: Microsoft WinME
  • Browser: Internet Explorer 5.5 [Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows 98; Win 9x 4.90)]
  • Visitor's Time (GMT) : Feb 9 2007 1:22:37 pm
  • Resolution : 640 x 480
  • Color Depth : 1 bits

    It's the last bit that makes me wonder whether the browser info is faked. WinMe+IE5.5 wouldn't surprise me; given my low opinion of these morons, I think it stands to reason they'd happily use a "please-sign-me-up-for-your-botnet" OS & browser. But I doubt anyone looking for images would settle for 640x480 monochrome, unless they're on some sort of ancient laptop or something -- and I'm not sure one of those would run WinME.

    So anyway, this is the info I've got. If all of these hits are from one guy trying to conceal his identity, or possibly traveling around the world, I hope the proper authorities catch up with him. If the identical search string means there's a global ring of these sickos out there, I hope they catch all of them.
  • mostly about sidewalks

    sidewalk tiles

    Another batch of mostly-unrelated photos, some from today, some from the archives. The top photo is of some ceramic tiles embedded in the sidewalk on NW Flanders near 14th, close to the Rogue brewpub. I'm sure there's a "who" and a "why" behind this, but I know nothing more about it than what you see here. Kind of cool, though.


    moss & cobblestones

    Moss growing between cobblestones near SW Harrison, downtown.


    s-umpqua

    Morning over the South Umpqua River, southern Oregon.


    banana

    A banana peel on the sidewalk somewhere in the Pearl District. I swear I didn't put it there, cross my heart, etc., so I gather that someone else sees the Pearl much the same way that I do.


    midwinter moss, lovejoy fountain plaza

    More moss, this time on the steps in Lovejoy Fountain Plaza. I hadn't posted a new photo of the place in days, so I figured it was way overdue. Although if nobody else on the planet feels that way, it wouldn't come as a complete shock to me.


    emergency_generator

    No, this isn't the logo of some forgotten folk-rock band from the 70's. It's a sign on the Elizabeth condo tower in the Pearl. Apparently this is where they keep their emergency generator, and you can tell from the sign that it's an upscale emergency generator, probably imported, because in the Pearl not just any old generator will do, even in an emergency.

    Wednesday, December 20, 2006

    Merry Blogoversary

    Today is this humble blog's first birthday, and to celebrate I'm sitting here at home with an annoying head cold. Yay. I'm not going to do a retrospective of the past year, because I think that would be stupid, plus it would be more work than I feel like doing just now. So I'll just say it's been a good year, for the most part, and I'm looking forward to doing more of whatever I'm inclined to do over the next year. How's that for a resolution?

    Rather than waxing on lyrically about crap, here are a few bite-sized items related to sitting around at home with no energy and no attention span. This post will probably be somewhat underwhelming for anyone expecting a momentous monumental year-end post. If you fall into that category, feel free to take the issue up with my Customer Service department.



    • First, a couple of awful movies. It's good to have a stack of awful movies on DVD when you have a cold. Monster from a Prehistoric Planet is your standard cookie-cutter 60's Japanese monster movie (or "kaiju"): Researchers go to primitive Pacific island, find baby creature (called a "Gappa"), take it back to Japan, mom & dad come looking for it, stomping all over Tokyo in the process. Eventually people wise up and give the baby back, and the happy Gappa family flies off into the sunset. Some posters on IMDB assert it was supposed to be a spoof, but I'm just not seeing it. Still, if you've always wanted to see Tokyo attacked by huge jet propelled lizard-chickens, this may be your only chance. I'm not really a kaiju fanatic -- no, really, I'm seriously not -- but I've seen enough of them to know this isn't the cream of the crop.
    • Second bad movie of the day is the "classic" Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. This is my dose of Xmas spirit for the year. Well, this and the occasional holiday-themed beer. Sadly, I didn't have any holiday-themed beer handy. It probably would've helped. Kids on Mars are sad, and do nothing but sit around and watch Earth TV all day. It's a planetary crisis, so the leader of Mars and several helpers go to Earth and after several thrilling adventures they capture Santa and a couple of kids and haul them back to Mars, to be their Santa for a change. Everyone seems happy with the new arrangement except for a handful of grumpy malcontents. They plot against Santa, and "mirth" ensues. The baddies lose, and Santa & the kids head back to Earth just in time for Christmas. Yay!

      If this had been on TV when I was 6, I might've actually liked it. Yes, it's corny and stupid. I defy you to name a single Santa Claus movie that isn't corny and stupid. (No, Bad Santa doesn't count.) Yes, the costumes are really poor, and continuity breaks down at several points -- what ever happened to the rescue mission from Earth, for instance? On the other hand, the mod 60's Martian house is pretty damn groovy, if you ask me, and when the bad guy rants about TV turning people into imbeciles, you have to admit he makes a valid point.

      This movie usually shows up on lists of the worst movies of all time, but that's unfair. It's a kids movie, and you can't compare it against grownup or even teen fare. And even as movies for kids go, there's far worse out there, even if we limit ourselves to holiday movies. The Star Wars Holiday Special is wayyyy worse than this.
    • Today's new taste sensation: Smoked salt caramels from Fran's Chocolates. Amazing. I've read a number of raves about salted caramels recently but had never tried the stuff, so when I saw these at the grocery store, I thought I'd give them a try. It doesn't sound like this would be good, and it's not easy to describe the taste or why it's good, but it is. The only similar thing that comes to mind is the late, lamented bacon caramel milkshake you could get for a short while at one of the food carts on 5th avenue in downtown Portland. If you had one of those when you had the chance, these are kind of like that, but not cold or bacony.
    • I was going to write about a fun 1903 astronomy textbook I found at Powell's the other day, but I'm not feeling sufficiently brainy to really pull it off. But I will note that the maps of Mars show the canals. How cool is that?
    • The local news today was nothing but handwringing about those stupid missing mountaineers again. Yes, I said "stupid". If you go climbing an 11,000 foot mountain in December without basic safety equipment, that qualifies as stupid in my book. It's not like they were climbing to search for the rare cancer-curing moss that only grows at the top of the volcano, or anything worthwhile like that. Other than being able to tell people that you did it -- boring them to tears in the process -- there's nothing much on the reward side of the risk/reward tradeoff. But then, I just don't really get mountaineering, I don't see the attraction, and using the stock "because it's there" excuse on me is just going to lead to more questions.
    • Oh, and I haven't forgotten Iraq. I haven't posted about it lately because it's just been more of the same, day after day, but now it looks like our Glorious Leader has a great new plan that's bound to work out great. Somehow, the results of the last election, weekly poll results, and events on the ground in Iraq have all been filtered and distilled and tweaked and stretched to the breaking point, so that now we're told that what the public really wants is a massive escalation, not a withdrawal, and all this time we've actually been begging George to please, oh, please, send another 20-30,000 troops into the meat grinder. Really. I had no idea that's what we were asking for. Shows what I know, I guess.

      The really weird thing is that everyone keeps presenting this as a step towards getting out of Iraq. Really it's a step instead of getting out, taken purely to make it look like George & friends are "doing something", without having to face any uncomfortable facts or make any fundamental policy shifts. Everyone wants to pretend otherwise, but that's what it is, just another stupid publicity stunt. Anything else you hear is just more lies and spin, and I'm surprised anyone believes that crap anymore. Maybe they're the same people who always sign on for the fad diet of the month, where you're supposed to stuff yourself with nothing but steak and chocolate frosting every meal and still drop 300 pounds in a week. If the logic part of your brain is broken or missing, I guess you'll believe just about anything George says.

    Monday, December 18, 2006

    a better sunrise

    sunrise2-4

    In a recent post, I offered a couple of sunrise photos while whining about having to get up so incredibly early. These are from the very next day -- when I had to get up early yet again, and the sunrise was way better. Go figure. I didn't post the pics then because two days in a row of sunrise photos would be... what's that word again, the word 'X' that means "X is to tedious as tedious is to exciting"? I'm drawing a blank at the moment, but two sunrise posts in a row would definitely be a steaming pile of X, whatever it is.

    sunrise2-3

    So it's been a safe waiting period now, and here they are. They're just too purty not to post, and there aren't a lot of other natural sources of bright colors this time of year, so I'm making the most of what's available. Just so you know, they haven't been GIMPed or Photoshopped or tweaked or enhanced in any way. To the extent that a digital camera captures 'real' colors, this is what it looked like. To the extent that I remember anything clearly from that ungodly hour, before I'd even had any caffeine, this is exactly what it looked like. These were taken in downtown Portland, looking east (duh!). If any out-of-towners are reading this, the pointy snowy bit off in the distance is Mt. Hood.

    sunrise2-2

    As a sop to dialup users, I promise, swear up-n-down, that the next post won't have any photos in it. I'm way overdue for a post with some actual writing in it anyway, so this way you win, I win, we all win. Yay for us!

    sunrise2-1

    sunrise2-5

    sunrise2-6

    cold day at tanner springs

    tanner_ice3

    Winter at Tanner Springs Park, deep in the Pearl District where the shadows lie. This is always fun to see, since 9 out of 10 Pearlies are rich Californians who've never seen weather this "severe" before, and it scares the bejeezus out of 'em. Until this morning, they'd had no clue that ice occurs in nature outside of a highball glass. While I was at the park taking a few photos, it was nothing but one rich twit after another walking past, all bundled up in designer mountaineering gear, strutting along with their darling pugs (in matching designer mountaineering gear, of course), all serious and determined like they're running the freakin' Iditarod. With pugs. How much sense does that make?

    ice, tanner springs


    I'm probably supposed to make some comments about how calm and contemplative and "Zenlike" it was at the park, since (as always) nobody else was there. Plenty of busy passersby, sure, but nobody stopped to soak up the purity and inner calm the design-junkie crowd keeps lecturing us about and telling us we need. Never mind the fact that if a.) we need inner calm, and b.) it can be provided at taxpayer expense, the park ought to be located somewhere in outer SE portland, not here. If we're going to prioritize who's in the greatest need of some serenity and inner calm, I'm not convinced that the richest 1% of the population are the people who need it most. Do something to relieve the constant stress of low wages and economic insecurity for everyone else, and then let's talk about the idle rich and their designer yoga mats. Do we have a deal?


    tanner_ice2

    All that said, I do tend to come away with reasonably interesting photos of the place. I rather like the cobblestone one at the top. For contrast, here are some earlier photos of mine from back in August and September, and an earlier rant about the place (and a few other places) from last January.

    frosty

    icy ivy 1

    Has it really been a week since I've posted anything here? Am I really that busy? Apparently I am. That, or I'm running out of stuff to say, like that goofy Gartner study predicted just the other day.

    ice, lovejoy fountain plaza

    We're coming up on this blog's first birthday in a couple of days, and I'm almost at the golden 365 post mark, believe it or not. So expect a number of smallish posts over the next couple of days, to boost the all-important post count up a bit.

    icy ivy 2

    Oh, and about the photos: It was really cold this morning. By Oregon standards, I mean. No actual, y'know, carbon dioxide freezing out of the atmosphere like you'd see on Mars, nothing serious like that, but it was still pretty cold.

    Aerial tram in the mist

    I guess it's nice to see that the tram can operate under these conditions, considering how much we paid for it. Eventually I'm going to get tired of taking pictures of the thing, but right now it's still so weird...

    Monday, December 11, 2006

    Tram, tram, tram and eggs



    Thrilling video of our fair city's new aerial tram, taken fresh this morning. Watch in astonishment as it inches its way up Pill Hill. Gape in awe as it glides by, kind of like a ski lift only much more expensive. Ok, so the tram's the little grey bit off in the distance. Stupid camera didn't want to zoom any further than that in movie mode, unfortunately. But hey, it's what I've got, and here it is. Besides, you aren't paying a cent to watch this, so what's the use in complaining?

    Don't bother turning up the sound; all you'll hear is road noise from nearby Interstate 405. I mean, be my guest if you want to -- it's basically just white noise, almost like listening to the ocean (but not as relaxing). It's just that the audio track contains nothing remotely tram-related, which presumably is the reason you're visiting this post. So, well, whatever.