Changes in the Neighborhood

The urban growth boundary is finally making itself felt in our neighborhood. We are seeing an incredible amount of infill, as there are currently around 20 new houses going up.

This smallish house once sat on a piece of land that was sold as five lots. The view from the house and gardens was amazing, but now they can probably only see the city from their top windows as there is a house directly below it.

This is the first house they built on the lot. It's a very nice modern house that fits well in the neighborhood, and had a great view until the house blow it was literally built right up against it. The million dollar view is now of the neighbors living room.

  

These are the second and third houses that were built on the original location. The house on the left is a nice looking house and they built it far enough down that they have a view and they didn't block the view of the neighbors above. The same can not be said for the house on the right. 

As you move down the hill there are a couple of new houses completed, where there will soon be another eight or so joining them. This once was an unused parking area surrounded by trees. The new houses are attractive, there just isn't much space around them.

Across the street is another new house with a second under construction. When the first one was built, I thought there was not enough space to squeeze another house in there, but, turns out I was wrong.

In another case of no space shall be left unbuilt upon, these neighbors sold their back yard, regretted it, but were unable to buy it back and now there is going to be a 5,000 sq. foot house going up. I imagine a house that large will take up every inch of this open space.

The next three pictures show the space where the remaining eight or so houses will be built over the next year. Again, the house designs are very nice, but not a lot of space, and probably another 20 cars that will be looking for parking spaces.

These two new builds are on the SE Belmont side of all the new houses, at the bottom right of the hill you were looking down in the last two pictures. We already have one neighbor trying to sell his backyard for development as you come up Belmont towards our house. I wonder how long it will be before we are totally hemmed in.

Last, and I am sure not least is the most interesting house of all. The house at 6659 SE Yamhill St. was built in 1910 and was occupied by the evangelist preacher John G. Lake for a few years in the 1920s. He is semi-famous for saying he say an angel on the path one morning as he was walking up to Mt. Tabor.

The garage was added in the 1950's and was the only solid part of the property. The rest was cracked foundation, broken windows and peeling paint.

The path going up past this house is not paved, but it is one of the thousands of unfinished "roads" in Portland that has to be maintained by a lawn mower.

This is the path up into Mt. Tabor park where John G. Lake says he saw the angel. About once a month, you can see a group of his followers holding a ceremony around this path or in front of the house. They have also been known to break off pieces of the house as keep sakes.

After a few days of heavy machinery at work, all that is left is one of the foundation walls.  I look forward to seeing what the new house looks like, I am sure it will be a welcome addition to the neighborhood.

Marathon Woman

Last New Year's eve Barbabra registered for the Portland Marathon as part of the celebration of her 50th year and yesterday she completed the mission. Months of training, getting up at 5:30 a.m on Saturdays, blisters, sore feet, paid off as she looked fresh and confident when I met her at the 22 mile mark. From there she cruised in to set a new personal best.

Congratulations! You are amazing.

Car Update

I haven't seen the car since June, so I thought I would go take a look. There has definitely been some progress. It is now prepped and ready to paint. All the dings I got on the hood in a 1984 hail storm have been popped out and sanded, as well as most of the other bad spots. Hopefully it will hit the paint shop this month and I'll be driving it before we run out of good weather.

Fun Birthday

Thank you to everyone for the birthday wishes. It was a great day filled with a lot of eating. I had a great lunch with the work folks at Corazon (1205 SW Washington St., Portland). The food is great, they have several different kinds of tacos as well as great guacamole, corn on the cob and spicy peppers. The location has not been successful in the past so I am a little worried for them, but hopefully they will survive.

 

Then it was home for a great dinner and my favorite cake, German chocolate from Helen Bernhard Bakery with some vanilla ice cream. It doesn't get any better.

Serious Yard Work

It's Monday and I am still really sore from the yard work I did on Saturday. 

Here in Portland we are responsible for maintaining the sidewalks around our house, so every few years I have to remove all the erosion and plant life that has covered it up and cut it down to one lane.

Hopefully you can see in these pictures a little of the before and after. My neighbor who doesn't do much to maintain his yard actually cleared up his area, I suspect he got a warning from the city, so that started the chain reaction of everyone else needing to clean up.

I went the extra mile and edged the grass around the curb too. It's the little things that make a difference.

A Little Deck Work

When we first bought our house, there was only one small deck off the living room and master bedroom and it had a gross awning that was more mold than awning. When we replaced the awning it brightened the deck up a lot, but it was still a little scary as it is cantilevered out from the house, with a three story drop to the ground.

After a few years of living in the house we added a lot more deck space, with a larger deck below the existing one and another running the entire length of the ground floor of the house. This spring I was cleaning up those decks when I decided it was finally time to give the upper deck a facelift.

I measured everything and went over to the local lumberyard to order the wood, under the delusion I would be able to take on this project myself. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I soon realized I was in over my head and called my friend Mark, who is a contractor, to take over.

I knew I had some rot on the face boards that are exposed to the weather, but I didn't expect to find problems on the joists. Mark was able to cut away all the rot and shore up all the joists with pressure treated wood, so we won't have any more problems.

The end result looks great, and it is so much sturdier I think we could have a dance party out there now. Can't wait to get the new awning up.

Spring Cleaning Goes to New Heights

It's strange to look out your window and see a person there, especially when you are on the side of a mountain and he's almost four stories up in the air. You have to be pretty brave to clean windows in our neighborhood.

If you are looking to freshen up your house, getting your windows cleaned is a great idea. You'll be amazed at how much more light comes in and what a difference it makes. If you are in Portland, call David Valoff at Professional Window Cleaning, (503) 236-8329, and he will set you up.

Spring Cleaning continues

Seems like as soon as you get one thing looking good, the other things around it start to look tired. So it was with the deck. I cleaned it and stained it and then the chairs started to show their wear. Barbara sanded them down to get all the splinters and mold off, then we wiped on the teak oil. They clean up pretty good.

Car Progress

I went to visit my car today. This is something I do every few weeks, just to remind myself that I still own a car. We are making some progress. Most of the dents have been smoothed out and the new grill has been fitted. Still need to get the bumpers fitted and then finally get it repainted. I am hoping to have it back in time for some summer driving.

Spring Cleaning

An unfortunate result of all the rain and trees in our neighborhood is green slime and mold on our decks. Every year or two you have to get out there and freshen it up, so I spent the long weekend pressure washing and staining the wood to make it look a little better. The easy part is the floor of the deck, the mold comes off pretty easily and it's also easy to roll the stain on. The challenge is all the vertical parts. It's time consuming and back pain inducing to reach all the nooks and crannies. It is also a challenge trying to paint anything outdoors in Oregon, you never know when it will start raining. Luckily, the deck had most of the day to dry before the down pour started on Saturday night.

Record Disaster

This Saturday afternoon started with excitement and anticipation, as I finally found a record player that fit my expectations and budget. I had been looking for several weeks and had decided I could not justify paying $500 for a new audiophile turntable as I only had a few records left and I probably wasn't going to spend hours listening to them like I did in the old days. Also, the iPod has made us so lazy that flipping over a record every 20 minutes seems like a lot of work.

I set my budget at $200 and started scouring record and audio equipment stores for a good used record player. There are a lot of good places out there, Echo Audio on SW Washington in downtown is very helpful. They have all the best new stuff as well as a good section of used equipment. Fred's Sound of Music on SE Hawthorne is also a very interesting place. It looks like a pawn shop from the outside, but they have a lot of high end stuff. Unfortunately I think the prices are a little on the high side. I ended up finding a great 90's model Denon player at Clinton Street Record & Stereo. The guys there are a little quite, but they obviously enjoy buying old players and fixing them up, and their prices are great.

So, I get my new (to me) record player home set it up and start playing Never Mind the Bullocks by the Sex Pistols, which I got with the player, and it sounds pretty good. Here is where things start to go horribly wrong. Barbara comes down to pick out one of her records to play and it's pretty badly warped. This is upsetting, so she picks out another and another and so on until we go through all 50 some records and only three are playable. Needless to say this is a sad day. At one time I had several thousand records, but I got sick of carrying them from move to move so I sold them all of in a big garage sale when we left LA. When I was loading up the moving truck I found a few records that did not make it into the sale and Barbara's collection. I thought they had been sitting safely in a closet for the last 17 years, but it turns out there was some water damage, or heat damage somewhere along the way and we are now down to three.

Carless in Portland

I have been without a car since November of last year. At the end of the summer I put the hard top back on my car and when I pulled the car back into the garage I hit a ladder. How do you hit a ladder in the garage? Well you lay it down on its side to store it, then for some reason it falls over just enough that the leg drives into the front headlight as you drive in, crushing the front end of the car and destroying the ladder.


Obviously I was very sad to see my lovely car scared. I always get a little depressed when I hurt it (when you have had a car for almost 30 years you tend to think of it as more than just a car). But there was more pain to come. I started to take it to body shops around town and no one wanted to work on it. Despite the fact that I have a great insurance company, all I heard was, "this is going to be too much work" or "I don't want to deal with that."


Finally I found a place that will tenderly nurse it back to health. The only drawback is that it's taking a long time.

So, I am carless in Portland. There are a lot of younger people I work with that don't have a car or only have one between them and a spouse, so I thought no problem. Plus, I am a big fan of public transportation, but it has its limitations. When the bus is the only way you can get somewhere it's not so great and cabs are damn expensive. It might only be once a week or a few times a month, but there are times you really need a car.

Hopefully we'll be reunited soon.

March Madness

It's back, the most exciting sporting event of the year, The 2011 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament or as it is more affectionately known, March Madness. As always I am posting my picks so you can track how I am doing and make fun of me when 50% of my teams loose in the first round (click on the bracket to expand).

One thing I am a little upset about is this trend among some pundits who are picking Texas to go out in the first round against Oakland. Luckily this doesn't seem to be too wide spread, as several experts on ESPN have them in their final four. I don't see UT getting past Duke, if they get that far, but as always I would gladly trade the $1000+ I would win in the pool to see UT win it all.

Go Horns!

Don Younger, July 11 1941- January 31 2011

Portland lost one of it's great citizens this week with the passing of Don Younger. He was the founder and longtime owner of our favorite local pub The Horse Brass. You might think it is strange to lament the loss of a publican in a town like Portland that is renowned for great pubs and great beer, but the truth is Portland wouldn't be all of those things if it weren't for Don Younger. He is hugely responsible for the Portland becoming Beervana. He was one of the first people in Oregon to support and promote the craft beer movement. The Widmer Brothers credit him with helping them get their brewery started and giving them the early support that helped get their beer on the map. He created Oregon Craft Beer Month and was a leading authority on all things beer.

The first time I met him was pretty intimidating. He was a tall man despite his hunchback, and he had long white hair and a shaggy beard. I was in his smoke filled office, across the street from the pub, to ask that he keep our client Henry Weinhard's beer on tap. Miller had bought the brand when Stroh's went out of business, but they did not want to buy and maintain the old brewery in the Pearl District. People in Portland were super pissed off that the brewery was closing and they blamed Miller. My point was that Miller had saved the brand and even though it was not being brewed here anymore, they were still making it in the Pacific Northwest up at the old Olympia Brewery. I knew it would be a hard sell and things got off to a bad start when Don opened the conversation with, "so you are the assholes that closed the brewery." He was having none of our appeal and told us he would never carry Henry's as long as it was brewed outside Oregon. I have to say, I left in total agreement with him. I was as sad as anyone that the brewery was closing, but I was also bummed that we would no longer be selling Henry's in his hugely influential pub.

The next time I encountered Don Younger was on a very busy Friday night as he sat at the end of his bar having a beer. The smoking ban had just been initiated and I knew he had been adamantly against it. He was a heavy smoker, and he had lobbied hard to stop the measure, going as far as saying it would hurt his business. I know I probably shouldn't have incited him, but I couldn't help myself. I made a quip about how full the bar was and that the smoking ban may actually be helping business. For the second time in my life, he growled at me, and told me to "f--- off." I wear it as a badge of honor.

He was a great man and he will be missed. If you are so inclined, you should visit The Horse Brass on SE Belmont, order a pint of Rouge Brewing's Younger's Special Bitter (named after his late brother) and toast one of the men that made us the beer capitol of the U.S.

Monster Attack

I saw this crazy car decoration today and I have to share. The dinosaur and action figures are glued to the car, not placed there by some kid.

The Most Amazing Graph Ever

Planet Money produces a radio show for NPR that attempts to simplify economics for the non-econ majors among us, who are interested in understanding what a credit default swap is, why Ireland has gone broke, and how economic aid is or is not helping Haiti. They do a great job of taking complicated economic theories and making them understandable in an entertaining way. You can download their twice weekly podcast from NPR.com or listen for them on NPR news shows.

They also have a great blog that is updated regularly and it is there that I found the most amzing graph ever. This is a 4 minute video that tracks the world's countries economic growth versus their life expectancies. You can see the incredible increase in both since the 1890's, very positive stuff.

How Income Inequality Effects What We Eat

A week or so ago I wrote a short post about income inequality and it seems to be a sticky issue. This week I was reading an article about the "food divide" when I found more evidence of how income differences are effecting us here in America.

Among the lowest quintile of American families, mean household income has held relatively steady between $10,000 and $13,000 for the past two decades; among the highest, income has jumped 20 percent to $170,800... Whole Foods—the upscale grocery chain recently reported a 58 percent increase in its quarterly profits—while the number of Americans on food stamps has surged by 58.5 percent over the last three years.

The article Divided we Eat, was in the 11/22 edition of Newsweek, and you can read it on their website. The story is quite compelling, and basically outlines how wealthier people can afford to eat better than poor people (and by better, I mean healthier).

While food prices overall rose about 25 percent, the most nutritious foods (red peppers, raw oysters, spinach, mustard greens, romaine lettuce) rose 29 percent, while the least nutritious foods (white sugar, hard candy, jelly beans, and cola) rose just 16 percent.

This is probably not a surprise, but what is a surprise is how government programs reinforce the problem. There are also some creative solutions out there that local governments are coming up with to help, like making your food stamps worth more if you use them at a farmers market. Another interesting finding is how Americans think of food versus other countries, most notably France. If you have ever been to France you know they have quite an incredible foodie culture, but did you also know they all tend to eat lunch at exactly the same time (and they see it as a time for social interaction, not a time to provide nutrition):

In surveys, (researchers) found no single time of day (or night) when Americans predictably sit together and eat. By contrast, 54 percent of the French dine at 12:30 each day. Only 9.5 percent of the French are obese.

In case you are wondering, more than 30% of Americans and 17% of American children are obese. And obesity is more prevalent among the poor than the rich. The USDA found that people on food stamps are more likely to be obese than those who are not. One of my favorite food writers, Michael Pollan puts it in succinct terms, “Essentially, we have a system where wealthy farmers feed the poor crap and poor farmers feed the wealthy high-quality food.”

So, I will leave you with the most startling paragraph in the article, and the reason I can't stop thinking about income inequality:

According to studies led by British epidemiologist Kate Pickett, obesity rates are highest in developed countries with the greatest income disparities. America is among the most obese of nations; Japan, with its relatively low income inequality, is the thinnest.

I am glad that is over

If you are a University of Texas football fan, this has been a long and painful year. The misery ended with a well fought, but mistake prone loss to in-state rival Texas A+M. This game was a microcosm of the entire season. The Longhorns gave-away four turnovers, they had stupid penalties at the worst times, and the ball never seemed to bounce their way. The coup de grace came on the final play of the game. UT got the score to within seven and forced the Aggies to punt with a few seconds left. Instead of fielding the punt, they let it drop and the referees run the clock out as the players stood around wondering what was going on.

There seemed to be a lot of people standing around wondering what was going on this year. Coach Mac Brown did not have an explanation for the Longhorns reversal of fortune, going from the national championship game to 5-7 in one year. All the players on the team were highly recruited and all the coaches who put together a 13-1 season last year were still there.

So, what happened? There is no doubt the coaches attempt to become a running team was a bust. We didn't have the offensive line for it and the receivers not only didn't do a great job of blocking, they didn't master the fundamentals of catching either. There are a lot of opinions and I don't think anyone really wants to hear mine, but I have one theory that I have not heard elsewhere. The team and coaches never seemed to be focused on the opponent of the day. After the first two losses there was talk of still winning 10 games or still winning the Big 12 South. After a few more losses all the talk was of getting bowl eligible and getting the 13 extra practices. Don't get me wrong, we needed those 13 extra practices, but I don't think a bunch of teenage kids are motivated to win by the thought of more practice. I never heard the coaches talk about what they were going to do to beat OU or A+M. The years UT has done well, there was no looking ahead. The coaches only talked about the next game, they didn't talk about 10 wins, or national championships; they talked about what they had to do to beat Iowa State, even if they were a terrible team.

To get on back on track, the coaches need to spend the next nine months thinking about how they are going to beat Rice on Sept. 3rd, 2011, not how to get back to winning 10 games a year.

Texas A+M vs. UT

Texas A+M is an all male college located in Bryan/College Station, Texas, which are the worst two towns in Texas put together to make one even crappier city.

They have many strange traditions at TAMU, like having a small portion of the student body dress up as World War I reenactors every day and parade around the campus waving their swords. At TAMU you are supposed to greet other students by saying "Howdy." If you don't do this, they assume you are a visitor from the University of Texas and they beat the snot out of you for not being polite. They also build a large bonfire every year before their big football game against the University of Texas. This is the one thing they know how to build, but unfortunately it frequently falls down, sometimes with lethal consequences.

Another strange tradition is that their fight song is all about beating the University of Texas, and they sing it no matter who they are playing. This can be confusing to out of state visitors who are often heard saying, "maybe they would be playing better if they knew they were playing Ohio State and not UT." It's also strange that they are called aggies, but their mascot is a small sheltie dog. Maybe they are trying to deny their history and would be embarrassed to have the all-male cheerleaders dressed as auto mechanics (in case you didn't know the A+M stands for auto mechanics).

While they started as a school for auto mechanics, TAMU has also branched out into landscape services and animal husbandry. They also have a campus in Galveston, on the Texas coast, that trains people to clean aquariums and sell small fish. They don't call their alumni, graduates; they refer to them as "Former Students," this is probably due to the low graduation rate.

Over the years, aggies have been the but of many jokes, which is unfortunate that more abuse is piled on top of people that have already made a bad college choice. On top of being academically inferior they are also not very good at sports. TAMU's biggest football rivalry is with the University of Texas, but it seems to be a very one sided rivalry as UT leads the series 75-36-5. This year however, it looks like the tea-sips (this is how graduates of the University of Texas prefer the aggies refer to their academic and societal betters) are venerable. Usually a win against the "varsity" is enough to make an aggies year and save an embattled coach. This year it is the other way around, and it's the Longhorns that are desperate for a win to earn a bowl game and avoid a loosing season.

Unfortunately it is not looking good for the home team today, and it is very possible there might be a big crowd of future farm hands and auto mechanics out on 6th street in Austin tonight looking for women to celebrate their sporting achievement with.

Blinded by Science

For years I have heard about the evils of the AMA from chiropractors and dietitians, and sometimes doctors have done themselves a disservice by barely listening in consultations and only offering up a drug or surgical solutions to problems. But I am not here to tell you to avoid doctors or not to use antibiotics when you need them. The advances in medicine over the last 100 years are mind boggling and almost all of us know someone who's life was saved by a great doctor. What I would like to advocate for is some balance from the AMA. Doctors can be a skeptical bunch (it took them years to believe that sterilizing their hands before surgery could stop infections) but they need to see that there may be alternatives other than drugs and surgery.

The NY Times article Epilepsy’s Big, Fat Miracle chronicles the story of a writer who's son has epilepsy. The child was experiencing as many as 130 seizures a day. These are not the kind of seizures where you fall to the ground and convulse, but they are very debilitating. The kid blacks out for a few seconds at a time, making it hard for him to learn to read, watch a movie, ride a bike, swim or do just about any other kid activity. The family tried almost every drug available, but the side effects were terrible and the seizures continued. Finally they heard about an alternative dietary treatment that made a huge difference. The idea is to put the body in ketosis, where you drastically reduce the amount of carbs you take in and the body begins to burn fat. Amazingly this has an antiepileptic effect and reduced the child's seizures by 80%. The problem is the diet is very hard to maintain. The mother in the family had quit her job so she can take care of her son full time. The hope is that after two years on this diet and a reduced drug regimen the child will be seizure free and able to return to a regular diet.

All this is to make a point. The doctors in this story were initially very resistant to look at diet as a course of treatment. I imagine it seemed too simple to them or not worthy of their scientific training, but now over 100 hospitals offer this treatment. The ironic thing is that dietary treatments are not even a new idea:

In the 1930s, three scientists won a Nobel Prize for discovering that a substance in raw liver cured pernicious anemia, a disease that was almost always fatal. Eight Nobels were awarded just for work related to vitamins. And, it turns out, the ketogenic diet was developed back in the early part of the last century, too, only to disappear from medical literature for two generations.

The article goes on to suggest there may be dietary regimens that can help in Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and cancer, as tumors need glucose to grow and there is very little sugar in a keto diet. It is already reducing tumors in test mice. How ironic would it be it after all the ridicule he took in the 1990's if Dr. Atkins was right?