rose & passengers, waterfront park

Aviary Birds, Oregon Zoo

The aviary next to the African Savanna exhibit is my favorite part of the zoo. I've never been able to explain why, much less convince anyone, but that's ok. You have to stop and sit and watch for a bit; it's not really an instant gratification sort of exhibit the way the elephants are, for example.



You'd think that since I stopped and sat and paid a little attention, I'd be able to identify the birds pictured here and provide some useful trivia about them. But sadly that's not the case. As I said in the last bird post, feel free to chime in and identify these birds if you know what they are.

Pics: KOIN Center

A slideshow about downtown Portland's KOIN Center. As with the recent post on the nearby Wells Fargo Tower, most of these photos have appeared here before. There are a few new ones at the end of the slideshow, so feel free to watch the whole thing and wait for those. Or just open the photoset in Flickr if you'd rather do that. Or whatever.

I'd forgotten how controversial the building was initially. In the short period of time between the opening of the eastbound Vista Ridge Tunnel (1969) and the KOIN Center being built (1984), you had a great view of Mt. Hood right when you exited the tunnel. The KOIN Center blocked that view, and was itself topped with a blue pyramid that looks vaguely like Mt. Hood. Which depending on who you talked to was a coincidence, a respectful architectural reference, or the designers adding insult to injury. I tend to believe that if you need unimpeded views of distant mountains, being in the middle of a city may not be the right thing for you.


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idle gossip

I can't decide if I want to wring my hands about anthropomorphizing zoo animals, or just run with it this time and give this photo a silly LOLCAT-style caption. Or there's always option 3, have a self-referential meta-discussion about my dilemma.

Option 4 would be to mention what sort of birds these are and point at a reliable source of further info. That would be more in keeping with what I usually try to do here, but the signage in the zoo aviary isn't that great, and I didn't take a photo of it anyway (or write down names for that matter), and the zoo website doesn't go into detail about aviary birds for some reason. And in short, I have no idea what sort of birds these are. So Option 4 is out, unfortunately.

Also, I can't think of any funny captions at the moment. Feel free to chime in if you have any bright ideas. Or if you can identify the birds, for that matter.

Thx. Mgmt.

tweets & retweets, september 3 2010

So this is kind of an experiment. I've seen other bloggers post daily tweet roundups now and then. It seemed like an interesting idea, and a simple way to diversify the subject matter on this blog a bit more. Putting this together by hand was kind of annoying, though. I haven't yet run across any tools that compile tweet summaries automagically, but now I really think there's a need. It may be time to break out that Twitter API book I haven't gotten around to reading yet...

• RT @OFGProducerEd Oregon's Owyhee canyons to get national monument status? http://tinyurl.com/2cofanw
  
• [blog] Church of Elvis: It's baaack! Portland's legendary 24 Hour Church of Elvis returned recently, after a long...http://bit.ly/dAvU4O
  
• RT @DCdebbie Ironic that Glenn Beck had to wear a bullet-proof vest to his own party. He likes 'em armed, but cant trust 'em. Isn't God on his side?
• RT @neologismist Spellchecking ads is not a priority when you're under investigation for fraud http://yfrog.com/nc4w9j #ronideutch
• Lumia Fountain at Aria, CityCenter, Las Vegashttp://t.co/wTJsMwP via @youtube
• Cloud Chamber http://t.co/odZxBpL via @youtube
• RT @marsroverdriver I swear to god, I think of this Trek clip every single time I have to lead. "Risk is our business":http://is.gd/eTUnE
• http://twitpic.com/2kyfay - Big fire to the south of #pdx. Anybody know what this is? Looks like OC/Gladstone area
• RT @AlexisDelCid Someone in the newsroom made a powerful argument as to why pigs-in-a-blanket are a health food. This is my new favorite person
• RT @dreadpiratemick Duke Nukem Forever is trending? What the hell is this, the end of days?
• Leaves turning already. Not yet, dammit, not yet!
• RT @MrWordsWorth When it comes to drain cleaners, I want to know which one werewolves prefer.
• RT @PDXfoodcarts Stop 6 Kim jong grillin. Korean specialties.#foodcartchamp http://twitpic.com/2kwqi8
• RT @LuthorCEO When I think of the little people who gave their all to get me where I am today, I can only shake my head and wonder what they were smoking.
• RT @MarsPhoenix Missing link? @MarsPhoenix data suggests Viking landers found building blocks of life on Mars in '76:http://bit.ly/93T0Od
• RT @GeekToMe I'm totally using this line RT @XeniJardin RT @anildash: Gurl, I'm looking to be the priority in your inbox.#geekpickuplines (@amyguth)
• ScienceDaily | Researchers Discover How to Conduct First Test of 'Untestable' String Theory - http://j.mp/aIBf8z
• RT @mcsweeneysbooksOther Hallowed-Ground Prohibitions. http://bit.ly/dhmaFF
• RT @yottanあ、上から見られまくってる。http://movapic.com/pic/201009030624394c801617bdd61
• RT @manuelquinziato Just learned how to do the "windsor" knot for the tie! Thanks to youtube! Tomorrow there's the wedding of one of my best friend.
• RT @ArchaeoNewsNet The New Science of Network Archaeology http://nblo.gs/7tHYg
• RT @marsroverdriver Ah, yes. Who indeed can fail to recall many a pleasurable hour spent playing Pac-Gentleman?http://su.pr/6LNKQe
• RT @ladygaga http://twitpic.com/2kq73s - CAUTION: Stuffed princess' or otherwise thrown on stage will meet similar fate. Skinny bitch.
• RT @vertegrez Glenn Beck reckons that universities are as dangerous as N. Korea and Iran: http://bit.ly/cpTmRs#ohnohedidnt #politics
• RT @Bill_LCMedia @eddieizzard HuffPost:"Glenn Beck Not Even King for A Day" Beck's racists stunts on Morning Zoo radiohttp://tinyurl.com/39ephnr
• Given the 20th century Spain had, they can't really put up statues of *anyone* w/o giving mortal offense, so modernism it is. #vuelta
• Today's #vuelta observation: They put a lot of weird crap in the centers of roundabouts in this part of Spain.
• RT @Dan_Christensen wow todays days is 90210 who can ever forget that date. wait that's 9-11 or was that a show? ...I'm better at ancient history.

acorn, waterfront park

Church of Elvis

It's baaack! Portland's legendary 24 Hour Church of Elvis returned recently, after a long absence I'd assumed was permanent. It has a new Old Town location on NW Couch near 4th, but other than that it looks the same as the original, mumble-mumble years ago, right down to the psychic Commodore 64 computers. I fed one of them a quarter for old times sake, and took a couple of photos, which attracted the attention of a few passers-by in the process. As I always say, I like to believe I'm performing a valuable public service when this happens.



That's why the 3rd photo is so crappy actually: A woman wanted to show it to her young daughters, passing the bemusement on to the next generation. So I snapped the last photo quickly and got out of the way. Most real photographers would have told them to go right ahead and would've been delighted to have some live people in the photo. But that's not really how I roll here, for good or ill. This humble blog is basically about places and things. People, not so much.

De Brazza's Monkey, Oregon Zoo

A few photos of a De Brazza's Monkey at the Oregon Zoo. Is he thinking the deep bittersweet thoughts of a zoo macaque? Or is he just waiting for a bus that never arrives?

Whitaker Ponds expedition

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Today's adventure takes us to Whitaker Ponds Natural Area, on the Columbia Slough just south and west of the Portland Airport. The park is essentially two large ponds connected to the slough, surrounded by a fringe of low-lying land, which in turn is surrounded by assorted industrial businesses. The "Natural Area" designation isn't misleading, exactly, but it's only true up to the park boundary.

I don't know the full story of how this spot ended up as a park and the surrounding properties ended up as machine shops and such. I suspect it was just too expensive to bring in fill dirt to fill in the ponds. Many of the other ponds and side channels along the Columbia Slough ended up as golf course water hazards, so maybe this area just got overlooked. I suppose I could have gotten the full story if I'd gone into the visitor's center and asked, since unlike almost all Portland parks it does have one of those.

The Columbia Slough as a whole has been abused, neglected, and maligned since roughly the moment urban development reached its shores. People who think about it at all tend to assume it's hopelessly polluted now, an environmental lost cause. I've seen enough of it to suspect that isn't completely true, but I'm still not signing up to go swim in it.

There are more facilities than you'd expect at a city-designated Natural Area, and the facilities are even well maintained:

• There's a parking lot off of NE 47th Avenue, with a fairly easy to find sign.
• A couple of docks, presumably for canoes or kayaks.
• A well-marked trail between the slough and the west pond, with a couple of educational exhibits along the way.
• An old house converted into the headquarters of the Columbia Slough Watershed Council. Which may explain why the park has all these trails and docks and such.
• The standard set of environmental education facilities, including a gazebo with a grassy ecoroof.
• Oh, and if you follow the trail to the far end, there's a baseball diamond sandwiched in between the Columbia Slough and the east and west ponds. A baseball diamond surrounded by water on all sides is not the ideal place to hit a really powerful home run, or any sort of foul ball.

Assorted links and tidbits:

• The Master Plan for the park.
• Amanda Fritz's blog: Response to Field of Schemes, relating to said master plan.
  
• Various fall photos
• OregonLive: "A walk in nature the best way for kids -- or any of us -- to learn"
• Center for Columbia River History: "The Future of the Columbia Slough"
• Portland Monthly: "Behold, an Oasis"

Updated: This post is now linked to by PortlandParks on Facebook. Yay!

Royal Terrace Falls

A few photos of Royal Terrace Falls, in Linn County's McDowell Creek County Park, a few miles NNE of Sweet Home, OR. It's a rather attractive waterfall, and these are far from the best photos of it you'll see on the interwebs. The key problem is that in mid-July there just isn't a lot of water flowing over the falls, even in a cool wet year like this. The light was a problem too. Noon is rarely a good time to take photos, period, and when noon means bright sunlight from directly above and behind the waterfall, that tends to be a rather bad thing.

So we've established that I went at the wrong time of year, and the wrong time of day. But I'm just happy I finally managed to get to McDowell Creek at all. The park had been on my TODO list for a couple of years, and it's far enough away that I can't just go and do it on a whim before work some morning. So places like this are what staycations are for, assuming you define "stay" somewhat loosely.

A miscellany of useful links:

• Photos & info at OregonWaterfalls.net
• The Waterfall Lover's Guide to the Pacific Northwest gives it 3 stars.
• The Waterfall Companion also gives it 3 stars.
• A blog post about the falls at Greyhound Gardens
• and one at Sullivan's Trails

And some of those better photos I mentioned earlier: On Flickr: Photosets by Lhtnup & Cliff Zener, individual photos by Dave Putzier, Michael Karr and Ed Hodney. You'll quickly note that all of these photos show vastly more water going over the falls than mine do.

Elsewhere on the interwebs, you might also enjoy Some photos from Cee's Photo Art, A PBase gallery by fotabug, A 2007 photo from the State Archives, and a photo from nuffer.name

Ralph Friedman's "In Search of Western Oregon" mentions the falls, and includes a vintage (or now-vintage) photo. I'm embedding that page here instead of just linking to it, merely because I've never done that before:

Pics: Wells Fargo Center

A few photos of Portland's Wells Fargo Center, the tallest building in town, and one that tends not to inspire strong opinions either way. Everyone recognizes it, sure, but I've yet to meet anyone who's told me they particularly love or hate it. Although I admit that's a question I tend not to ask very often. There's a comments section below, so feel free to chime in if you do happen to have an opinion of some sort.


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So you might be wondering how I came to have a big photoset about the Tower of Meh. It was kind of a retroactive thing, actually. I started wondering how many photos I had where the Wells Fargo building made at least a cameo appearance, and the pile grew and grew and eventually I figured there might be a blog post in it. Which was true, apparently, if this blog post is any indication.

In the unlikely event you're a longtime Gentle Reader of this humblest of humble blogs, some of these photos might seem vaguely familiar. For the purposes of this post, ignore the feelings of deja vu and the flowers or whatever in the foreground and just note the presence of the building. It'll be almost like seeing the photo for the first time, sort of.

squirrel, august 2010

As seen near Lovejoy Fountain Plaza. I haven't taken many photos of squirrels lately, but this one was glaring at me as I walked past its tree. It didn't run away and squawk at me, it just sat there glaring. This clearly went against the natural order of things, so I figured I'd show it who's the boss by taking its picture and putting it up on the interwebs. Take that, squirrel. Neener, neener, neener.

korean tacos

A trio of tasty Korean tacos, from the Korean Twist cart at SW 3rd & Washington, downtown Portland.

I really haven't taken a lot of food photos, so this and the previous post are something of an experiment. These were taken on a park bench in Waterfront Park, on a hot day, at a point where I really needed to eat something. So it didn't occur to me to rearrange things so you could get a clear look at the other two tacos. They were basically variations on the same ridiculously delicious theme though.

green tea mochi