2016 Comic-Con Preview!
San Diego Comic-Con was this weekend and a ton of exciting trailers were premiered. Here are a look at a few of them I found exciting. Wonder Woman: It’s about damn time. Gal Gadot reprises her role as Wonder Woman in this WWI set action fantasy continuing the DC cinematic universe that started with “Man…
Balloons Over Bend
Sourcecast video: Balloons over Bend on Saturday morning
Bend Park and Recreation District board approves reopening of passageway at Bend Whitewater Park
Bend, Ore. – The Bend Park and Recreation District Board of Directors voted to approve a plan to reopen the passageway channel at the Bend Whitewater Park. The vote occurred at the public meeting on July 19. District staff presented information about the evaluations done after the recent closure, and recommended that the passageway channel…
Go Here 7/20-7/27
Prineville Bike Park Kick up the dirt in Prineville! After a combined three years of planning and construction, Prineville Bike Park officially opened this past Saturday, July 16. The bike park is the first of its kind in Central Oregon and was designed to be versatile for all types of bikes and all skill levels.…
When is a Park not a Park?
For the citizens of Bend, Troy Field has become a de-facto park. Soccer teams practice there, local residents exercise their dogs there, and community members gather there for picnics and potlucks. It is a major urban open space in downtown Bend and for children who live nearby, the only place to run and play that…
Sides Notes 7/20-7/27
We’re Number 16! Bend is accustomed to making all kinds of “Best Place To” lists: best place to retire, drink craft beer, play golf, play outside, or just plain live. But our little drinking town with a mountain problem didn’t even make the top 10 list of the Most Successful Cities in Oregon. Online career-finding…
Giving Back by Paying it Forward
Ten years ago, Kaci Jo Alderin’s family was able to purchase a home with assistance from Bend Area Habitat for Humanity. Now she is raising money so she can travel to Trinidad & Tobago this fall to help another family achieve the same goal. When Sophie Paez, ReStore executive director and a friend, first suggested…
The Plight of the Western Pond Turtle
In this helter-skelter age it comes as a shock (to me) when suddenly someone says, “Hey, when was the last time you saw, this—or that—animal?” And that was the case when my herpetologist pal, Jesse Short from Central Oregon Community College, sent me photos of a western pond turtle, all excited about spotting it on…
Letters 7/20-7/27
Vote This Way As a native Oregonian, I’ve always known that the Bend community was a dynamic, sun-filled recreational community as well as a growing economic environment. On a recent vacation, we explored the Lava Cave, walked the Lava Cast Forest loop, floated the river and played golf at nine different courses. We were blown…
Too Many Tourists?
When Katy Bryce sat down on the front porch of her west side Bend home last month to write a blog post, she didn’t know that she was about to voice the frustrations of thousands of local residents. Bryce, a freelance writer, wrote about walking along the Deschutes River that morning, about how she’d found…
Britt Orchestra Celebrates National Park Service Anniversary
Established in 1902, Crater Lake is the fifth oldest national park and Oregon’s only national park. Its stunning blue water has inspired awe in nature enthusiasts, artists, and photographers from all over the world. On July 29, the Britt Orchestra and Music Director Teddy Abrams will introduce music lovers to the majesty of the park…
High Desert Hilarity
The Old Stone Church has been many things over the years; at times, it was actually a church. But for the most part, Bendites know it as a concert venue, stand-up comedy spot, film shoot location and just about any other type of event you can imagine. Recently it has become the Old Stone Performing…
More Than It’s Worth
Pretty much everyone in Bend is aware that we have a seller’s real estate market. This often makes sellers price their homes for more than they are worth. While it is natural to want to get the maximum return on your home investment, it is very important to price it correctly. In our current market,…
“Art of the West” Raises Crucial Funds For High Desert Museum
The High Desert Museum’s annual "Art of the West" exhibition and silent auction kicks off July 21 with a free opening reception. The exhibit will display 59 works of art by 38 artists with each piece offering a unique depiction of the Western U.S. Attendees will enjoy a first viewing of the exhibit and the…
Spiritual Landscapes
Rusted Root came together in Pittsburgh, Pa., in the early 1990s when front man Michael Glabicki dropped out of college to start a band. Their 1992 indie release “Cruel Sun” became their opening salvo into the music scene, combining an acoustic jam band style with socially conscious world music. From 1994 to 2009 the band…
The Nation’s Best Beer, By Mail
Beer-of-the-month clubs, where members pay a flat fee each month and receive regular shipments of craft bottles, have been a “thing” since the early nineties. Tavour (tavour.com), meanwhile, is an alternative take on the concept. The difference? Better variety, total flexibility, and a selection of rare and seriously well-curated beer. Available in Oregon and nine…
Three-Part Perfection
The Wailin’ Jennys sound like peace. Heather Masse, Nicky Mehta, and Ruth Moody’s distinctly different voices blend together so flawlessly that they create a seamless whole. The common ground between makes each of their records a delicate balance between alt-country, folk, and something altogether more ephemeral. The Canadian group started in 2002 when a guitar…
Little Bites: A Sip of Cork & Barrel
Drinking wine for a good cause is something we can all get behind, and I was lucky enough to do exactly that last Friday at A Sip of Cork & Barrel at Broken Top Club. In addition to beer, cocktails, and a vast array of red, white, and blended wines from nearly a dozen wineries…
NFL Just Says No to Pot
Back in March, Smoke Signals wrote about the state of cannabis in the NFL. The league has a zero-tolerance policy on cannabis, with a cannabis-related arrest or positive urine test costing players upward of $500,000, depending on salary, and resulting in a suspension of one to four games, up to a quarter of the season.…
Bullwinkle in Bend
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I heard that a restaurant called “Moose Sisters” had opened in the Cascade Village Shopping Center. But I did have expectations, and not particularly high ones. I imagined walking into a dingy, musky room filled with tacky, lodge-style décor: animal heads, thick wood beams that should have been…
Gerwig in a Box
There is a specific type of indie romantic dramedy that has popped up over the last few years that owes a deep debt to the work of John Cassavetes. He brought a cinéma vérité style to American independent films that added a gritty realism to a genre that had only ever been light and fluffy.…
Brobusters
We should get the elephant in the room out of the way first. “Ghostbusters” 2016 is a reboot of the classic 1984 film and the less classic 1989 sequel (plus numerous video games and an animated series). The four new Ghostbusters are also women played by Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Leslie Jones and Kate McKinnon.…
Picks 7/20-7/27
Thursday 21 The English Beat LIVE MUSIC—Munch & Music is always a fun time, but getting to see the seminal British ska/punk band play in Drake Park will be legendary. No other two-tone, three-chord ska band ever came close to sounding like these guys, and their catalogue is filled with so many classic songs, it…
