'I Got Him, Dad, and He Bites, Too!': My son's fearless reptile wrangling

Posted inOutside

'I Got Him, Dad, and He Bites, Too!': My son's fearless reptile wrangling

Jim Anderson

A lot of kids, when suddenly confronted by a snake, freak out. My oldest son, Dean, from the moment he could crawl wasn’t that way – he’d go after it. His younger brother, Ross, is that way, and so are my other four, for that matter.
Dean, however, was always one jump ahead of everyone else. Not only did he have the ability to make instant decisions as a child, but his curiosity and reflexes have benefited him as an adult – today, he is an F-16 Viper pilot and is presently on a year-long tour of duty as a peace-keeper in Afghanistan.

Posted inOutside

Clearing the Air: Smoke, big time rides and more about chip seal

Michelle Mercer

I used to live in Los Angeles, where every bike ride exposed me to air thick with pollution. I would try to ignore it and not think too hard about what I was breathing. Frequently, local news people would report almost gleefully that exercising for a given amount of time, say 45 minutes, when the air was particularly bad was akin to smoking a pack of cigarettes. The message seemed to be that one should exercise inside like an animal in a cage, or just forget it and eat something instead.
Last week's forest fire was a good reminder of the clean air we consistently enjoy in Central Oregon and how easy it is to take it for granted. After only two days of not riding outside, I had full-blown cabin fever. Fortunately, the wind began to usher out the smoke on Friday. By Saturday, it was almost completely gone.

Posted inOutside

Work It, Baby! Metolius-Windigo trail is good to go as COTA crews continue their high elevation work

Source Weekly

With recent warm temps exacerbating the dusty conditions closer to town, riders would do well to focus their energy on shaded and high elevation trails where summer has been slowest to chase the moisture from the soils. The snow's recent retreat has allowed crews to ramp up their trail clearing efforts at elevation, opening up more miles of riding a little further from town.
Some of COTA's recent work includes the not insignificant task of clearing the entire Metolius-Windigo trail from Todd Creek to Park Meadow trail head and north toward Sisters. Crews have also been out in the Vista Butte area just north of Century Drive where single track riders should find that most of the blowdown and debris from this past winter has been cleared. Please keep in mind the Flagline trail will be closed until Sunday, August 15 to protect elk breeding habitat. Wait until next week to ride that, please.

Posted inCulture

Cops and Jokers: The Other Guys pokes fun at the cop movie template

Hilda Beltran

If you're looking for some laughs, there's no reason not to see The Other Guys. Writer-director Adam McKay and his MVP Will Ferrell are funny guys, indeed – but maybe not quite as funny here as in some of their other movies.
This one begins big, with some other big-name guys. Samuel Jackson and Dwayne (formerly “The Rock”) Johnson are perfectly cast as a couple badass NYC cops – chewing the scenery in a hysterical display of male-hormone-induced hubris within the first fifteen minutes of the film. The now-open honorary slot of baddest-ass-cop-duo beckons not only the more obvious hot-shots on the force, but perhaps also the “Other Guys” – those familiar, unnamed cop-genre extras who populate the background of the kind of movies this one parodies, uniformly identified as stock-character nobodies by really bad ties.

Posted inFood & Drink

Little Bites: Eat, Drink and Be Merry: A glimpse inside the Source's new Happy Hour guide

Source Weekly

If you picked up a copy of last week's Thirsty: The Happy Hour Guide, you know that Central Oregon has more than its share of cheap food and drink specials. In making the guide, we tried some of the best happy hours we didn't know existed. If you haven't picked up a copy of the Source Weekly's new happy hour guide, grab one before they're all snapped up or head over to www.tsweeklychow.com for a full listing of Central Oregon's Happy Hours.
5 Fusion and Sushi Bar
Daily 4:00pm-6:00pm, Fri. and Sat. 9pm-midnight Drinks: $3 beers, $5 cocktails, $5 wine Food: $5 assorted appetizers and sushi rolls. Lilian Chu of Hong Kong Restaurant fame and Soba founder Di Long opened their joint venture in Deep's former Wall Street location last year. Though named for the core seasonings in Chinese cooking, you won't find any chow mein on the menu here.

Posted inMusic

Picking Away: Pickathon makes beautiful music in a beautiful setting

Sara Roth

This year's Pickathon brought together 44 bands, covering styles ranging from folk to indie rock and Americana on Pendarvis farm in Happy Valley, OR. Originally conceived as a “better way to throw a party,” by founder Zale Schoenborn, an engineer by day, the festival, now in its 12th year, welcomed more than 4,000 people to the sprawling 80-acre farm.
By most anyone's standards, the festival was a mellow affair. The weekend's uniform was flannel, wayfarers and a generous amount of dirt mixed with sweat that made for a natural sunscreen covering every inch of exposed skin. The mellow vibe was aided by the fact that each band played multiple times during the festival. Each of the six stages was intimate, from the 50-person indoor Workshop Barn to the Woods Stage, which, like its name suggests, was in the middle of the woods and made from tree branches twisted together. The main stages, the Fir Meadows Stage and Mountain View Stage, allowed anyone who desired to stand at the foot of the stage, and those seated on the lawn were shaded by huge spider web-like swaths of white and orange fabric.

Posted inMusic

The Quick & Easy Boys – Red Light Rabbit

Mike Bookey

The Quick & Easy Boys
Red Light Rabbit
PerCapita Records

Well, The Quick & Easy Boys have done the seemingly impossible – they've managed to make a largely funky record without coming off even the least bit corny. Those who've seen the Portland band live and wondered how the trio's energy-packed live show would translate to the recorded medium have a firm answer in Red Light Rabbit.

Posted inNews

Yelling Fire in a Crowded Forest: Rooster Rock spares Skyline but highlights the danger of homes in the forest

Eric Flowers

When the Rooster Rock fire ballooned from a few acres early last week to more than 3,000 acres in a matter of hours, it threatened more than just homes and trees south of Sisters. The fire, which grew to more than 6,000 acres before firefighters got the upper hand on the blaze, threatened to turn the dream of a community forest outside Bend into a moonscape of smoldering ashes when it started burning into the Bull Springs Tree Farm. The 33,000-acre nursery, known to Central Oregonians as Skyline Forest, is one of the longest running conservation efforts in Bend and one that seemed to be growing closer to realization before flames from the Rooster Rock blaze started licking at the edge of Skyline property, threatening to consume a large portion of the forest as state and federal fire fighters struggled to contain the fast-growing conflagration.

Posted inNews

The Big Leak: Why an act of treason ought to wake up the country

Source Weekly

MUMBAI–“An appalling irresponsible act.” That’s how General James Nattis, fresh at the helm of U.S. Central Command, characterizes the release of more than 76,000 classified Pentagon reports released by the website WikiLeaks.
You may recall that the Pentagon, headquarters of the Department of Defense, is the same outfit that loaded $24 billion in $100 bills onto shrinkwrapped pallets and loaded the cash onto C-130 transport planes bound for Iraq–guarded by enlisted men who earn $20,000 a year. Not one of those Benjamins has ever been heard from since. Which, given that the money was supposed to be paid to corrupt tribal sheikhs, is just as well. Don’t be surprised if you see contractors installing one of those great new Gunnite pools at the house belonging to your recently discharged veteran neighbor.

Posted inCulture

The Sights of Summer

Source Weekly

Every summer there is an array of blockbusters vying for our attention, but only a few resonate with us and are still memorable years later. The Source editorial staff shares our favorite summer movies, which may be some of your favorites, too.
Stand by Me (1986)

Filmed in Oregon, this is one of the greatest coming-of-age films ever put on celluloid. Adapted from a Stephen King novella, Rob Reiner’s cinematic rendering captures the restless spirit of a tribe of young boys on the cusp of adolescence who embark on one last summer adventure – a quest to find the body of a dead schoolmate – before they outgrow such childish escapes. I’m not a fan of voiceovers, but Richard Dreyfuss' narrative is pitch perfect. – Eric Flowers

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