April 26, 2006

To The Battlestations
Oi. Too much W-O-R-muthafuckin'-K. I'm dreaming of a calmer time when I can sip cold beverages in the Hammock and listen to Twins games. Although the hammock can be a dangerous place these days. My neighbor's kid has an arsenal of high powered 'Water Canons' that would make Donald Rumsfeld blush. This kid is partial to his new gun which houses a special chamber that keeps water at bone chilling temperatures. I've told him time and again that he doesn't want to start this war but he seems determined to escalate things. I predict a complete 'Shock & Awe' overreaction on my part followed by a swift rebuke from the neighborhood council. Hoses are at the ready...

April 24, 2006

The Arrival of Baby Quinn
My brother became a daddy this last Friday and I became an uncle. Baby Quinn arrived in all her glory Friday at 4:30pm. She came into the world weighing seven pounds and nine ounces. She was 19.25 inches long. The new Aunt and Uncle are very excited. The misses was a tad disappointed tho that the baby didn't hold out until Saturday as Saturday was the misses' birthday and she wanted to share the date with baby Quinn.

So much to celebrate.

April 21, 2006

Typo Detective
When it comes to finding typos, the misses has extraordinary mutant powers. She doesn't read. She proofreads. I admire her skill, mostly because I lack it. Lack it completely. I used to fear her reading this blog because of my penchant for typos. If it wasn't for the invention of in-line spellcheck, I don't think I would have written one bloody word after High School. Still, I need the technology to be way smarter. I constantly use words that, although spelled correctly, are not the words I was really after. For example, 'courtroom trail' instead of 'courtroom trial'. My brain just sees the two words as one in the same.

Unfortunately, Donald L. DuPay did not hire my wife as a campaign proof reader before he went to print with the above. The Oregon Primary Election Voters Pamphlet arrived in the mail yesterday. Over 60 pages of information on candidates and statewide measures. It didn't take the misses more than 30 seconds of paging through the pamphlet before she said with a chuckle, "Look here, Donald DuPay used to be a Homocide Detective!" Ouch. My guess is Donald's going to get some shit from his old police buddies for that one. But I feel your pain Donald. I shan't cast any stones least I get buried underneath an avalanche of broken glass.

Mr. Dupay has a blog! My Favorite line (taken completely out of context): "All my talk about alcohol has made me thirsty. Think I'll go get a Jello shot!!"

Indeed.

April 18, 2006

Portland At-A-Glance
A Brilliant and spot on little diorama of life in Stumptown: "A dirty Carhartt jacket, a barking dachshund, a German station wagon, a little craftsman pad, the mean streets of Sandy, all with a sunset Portland backdrop." (via Coudal).

Last night the misses and I brought home a bag of frozen Salmon Burgers from Costco. Then said bag was left on the kitchen counter overnight. When I discovered our mistake this morning it had turned into a smelly, mushy, warm salmon log. The cats were circling it like vultures.

Bonus: Are You Hot Enough To Play With Journey? (thanks Brian).

April 17, 2006

Sorry, I Can't Come Out To Play
Fear not gentle readers this blogging lull is only temporary. For good and ill the work hours have been long and crushing. It's a big mountain. The summit is still far off above the cloud line and my Sherpas are in desperate need of some social tact and enduring material discipline.

Obviously, the last thing I want to do with afforded downtime is continue typing on keys and further sizzle my retinas on the blaze from monitors. So until someone develops Teleblogging ™, where I can just slap a stylesheet on my thoughts, the blog does suffer.

For some totally unexplainable reason, the home Hi-Fi seems to be stuck on a constant rotation of Journey's Greatest Hits and a celebration of the entire Tangerine Dream catalog. Weird times.

April 10, 2006

Getting Lost on The Street of Dreams
Spent Saturday slogging through the rain in order to spy on other peoples homes. Luckily, this was sanctioned spying. It was sanctioned by the organizers of The Street of Eames, a home tour highlighting Northwest regional modern architecture and design. The misses and I are still getting our geographic bearings in this fair city, and we are completely unfamiliar with the Northwest quadrant of the city (we just don't get invited to those parties). So we killed a lot of the day "Exploring" our new city. But we did end up making it to all the homes. At each home we had to put on those little blue hospital booties so as not to scratch and sully the nice floors. Which was funny cause all the owners had spit shined their wood or (even better) concrete floors. The combination of cloth booties and slick floors turned living rooms into dangerous ice skating rinks. I had visions of guests going double axel before face-planting into a Noguchi coffee table.

Our favorite was the Joss House, built by Pietro Belluschi in 1942. The house, which had a Norwegian Country vibe to it, was cozy to the core and decidedly modern. But not showy or pretentious. No cameras were allowed inside the homes or I would have taken a bunch of snaps. The whole tour had a look but don't touch vibe to it. At the Joss house, I wanted to take some wood and build a little fire. Then I'd grab a book off one of the built-ins and just cozy up in one of the big chairs.

Surprisingly, the super modern penthouse condo owned by Ann Sacks had very little tile in it. And the tile that was in it was very mellow. I suppose tho, maybe after a long day at the studio/office, the last thing you want to look at is a bathroom full of your own funky tile.

Also, saw the movie Brick this weekend. As a fan of all things Noir, I enjoyed it immensely.

April 05, 2006

Everyday Style Stealing
That damn Rachel Ray is totally biting my Spring Nederland Style. She's got no love for the World Cup. She couldn't tell the difference between a hot maple Stroopwafel and a dirty ash tray at the Pannekoeken Huis. I hear, she doesn't even like the color orange (*gasp*). And yet, there she is on the cover of the April edition of EveryDay, flying the Dutch voetbal colors while holding a baseball glove and baseball. Oh. I get it. You're sooooo fucking international Rach'.

OK. Truth be told. I'm not jumping on the 'Hate Rachel' bandwagon. I dig her. Just look at what's inside the latest issue. Foolproof recipes? I need 'em. Backyard Wine Party? I'm drunk just thinking about it. Girl's Weekend? I'm so there. We can all wear the same orange jackets!

I actually bought my Adidas Dutch World Cup jacket this last Friday as part of a uniform requirement for watching Sunday night Sopranos. Last night I saw it on Rachel in the magazine racks at Barnes & Noble. When I finally walked up to the cashier, I was purchasing the EveryDay magazine and a book called 'American Hardcore: A Tribal History'. American Hardcore is a history of the HardCore music movement between 1980 and 1986. The front cover depicts Danny Spira of 'Wasted Youth' bleeding all over himself. At the point when I reached the cashier, I thought to myself, "this has to be one of the most discordant purchases I have ever made". I defy anybody to top that combination.

I stayed up way too late last night reading the HardCore book. There's a pretty good history of Black Flag with commentary from all the key players. However, like any shared history, I was disappointed by who got left out and who remained a minor footnote. I don't care what anyone says, Naked Raygun was the best HardCore band ever! I bet Rachel Ray is totally into them.

April 04, 2006

Where I Become the Self-Appointed President of The Minnesota Twins Fan Club - West Coast Division.
Dust off the bobbleheads and oil up the glove, it's time for Baseball. The Magnolia tree is in full bloom, the Japanese maple is glowing a young green, and I got a cupboard full of Speckled Malted Milk Robin Eggs. It must be spring. It must be time for baseball.

I think I like this part of the baseball season the best. The pre-honeymoon part. The part where your team hasn't even played one inning. It's just all possibility and promise at this point.

This will be a different kind of season for me as I no longer live in the same state as my home team. Luckily, there's MLB.TV. God bless the internet for this technological addition. I'm looking forward to getting it all set up on my Pocket PC so I can weed the garden, lord over the BBQ, or simply lie in the hammock while listening to the Twins disembowel and bleed their opponents to death.

April 03, 2006

Cheese Nerds vs. Fighter Jet Nerds
Just wrapped up a visit from the in-laws. My father-in-law is a big time World War II buff so we went and visited the Evergreen Aviation Museum outside of McMinnville. The museum is home to that magnificent creation of Howard Hughes - the Spruce Goose. All I can really say about it is that it's big. Especially when you see it parked alongside other seemingly massive aircrafts that are absolutely dwarfed by The Goose. The museum is also home to lots of WW II vets that walk around in green vests adorned with a thousand patches. If you stop too long to gaze at any one particular aircraft, a vet will swoop in and immediately start rattling off a laundry list of statistics regarding the craft you are looking at. Allow them to prattle on, and they start going into the minutiae of flight plans and the controversy surrounding which American P-38 actually shot down Admiral Yamamoto's plane.

There was a time when all these airplanes would have been really interesting (like when I was 12). Now, I would have to say my favorite part of the museum was a display tucked way in the back that housed a collection of mod flight attendant uniforms.

On our way back from the jet museum we stopped at the Erath Vineyard and got down to some wine tasting. The wine was very good, especially the Prince Hill which tasted like liquid dessert. But the wine played second fiddle to the cheese tasting! The aged Fontina put out by the Willamette Valley Cheese Company is worth your entire tax return. I found it much easier to digest the detailed cheese nerd talk then I did the airplane nerd talk. Maybe those World War II vets need to walk around with a trays of cheese!