Paddlers will be out in force tonight as the Park District hosts an open house comment period on its proposed whitewater play area/spillway redesign at Colorado Avenue. The long overdue project is still in the planning phases and citizens still have an opportunity to shape the final product, but the project already incorporates many important recreational and safety elements that the entire community should get behind, including safe passage for floaters, a whitewater play area and fish passage through an open, free-flowing channel, as well as protection of existing gravel and spawning beds below the dam.
Roll On Deschutes
Posted inNews
Going South: Why San Francisco is still THE CITY
If there ever was a homer newspaper columnists it was the late Herb Caen of the San Francisco Chronicle. Caen loved his city its grandeur, its people and its unique way of life.
Posted inNews
Making an Issue of Bradbury's MS Is BS
Kari Chisholm of the BlueOregon blog says there’s been speculation about whether Bill Bradbury’s multiple sclerosis will make people question whether he’s capable of handling the demands of the governorship.
“Over the last year, many people have wondered aloud – here on BlueOregon, and in hushed tones in person – whether Bill Bradbury’s health will be an insurmountable obstacle to his gubernatorial ambitions,” Chisholm writes.
Posted inCulture
The Hemingway of Hoops: Sherman Alexie has a National Book Award, a new hit book, but I just want him to write more about basketball
Sherman Alexie has recently published War Dances, a much-praised collection of short fiction and poetry that he's referred to as a “mixtape” and when he appears at The Nature of Words next week, he will almost certainly read from this work.
Chances are his 2007 novel, Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, which earned him a National Book Award for “Young People's Literature,” will also come up in his discussion. And it would be near shocking if Alexie didn't address the fact that this is the same book that was yanked from the in-class curriculum of Crook County schools because it – brace yourself – featured foul language and mentioned masturbation.
Posted inOutside
Break the Curse: Black cats, pumpkins, corn, vampires, hares and hounds
It's that time of year. Soon we'll be seeing witches, ghouls, Michael Jacksons and Farrah Fawcetts lurking all over the neighborhood. A black cat has already found its way into the crawl space under my house. It's not just crossing my path, but living under my path – which explains the cursed condition of my life right now. Plus, Mercury went retrograde and I have Uranus in my sign, opposite Saturn in Virgo. I don't know exactly what that means, but apparently it's not good.
When life feels bedeviling, the only thing to do is have fun with it. So, here are some light-hearted outdoor events to put on your race calendar.
Posted inCulture
Oh the Humanity!: Paranormal Activity shows the reel life of a terrorized young couple
Paranormal Activity is terrifying and not just jump-out-of-your-seat-screaming scary – this one will have you seriously considering rearranging your life so that you can sleep only during daylight hours.
A couple of young yuppies, Micah and Katie, are experiencing some strange goings-on in their suburban San Diego home. Micah buys a camera and sets it up in their bedroom each night. He becomes such a camera nut (the latest in clichés, for this new wave of faux reality movies) that he also documents much of the rest of their lives within the house. In the style of The Blair Witch Project, we are presented with the found footage, provided by the local police department for our entertainment.
Posted inCulture
Live or Die: Saw VI solves the health care issue
Saw VI's gory beginning features a pair of contestants with contraptions on their heads, hacking away at their flesh to save their own lives. From that moment, this installment of the episodic franchise takes off where the previous chapters left off, and doesn't let up. It's an impressive entry for a series that constructs its own chronology as it goes, even if the gig may be running thin after half a decade of ongoing horror.
The interwoven subplots in VI that connect the dots to Saws I-V are done in exceptional form. Please note these aren't sequels: these are episodes. You seriously cannot see any of them without seeing all of them and therein lays the genius of Saw. Though Saw IV and V seemed like missteps for the series, they clearly laid the groundwork for Saw VI, which feels more back on track with the intricate mind games that began with Saw III.
Posted inCulture
A Real Cliffhanger: Uncharted 2 is a wild, Indiana Jones inspired romp
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves begins with a dramatic letdown. Nate Drake, a young treasure-hunting adventurer (sort of Indiana Jones with hair gel), awakens bleeding on a red velvet seat in an old passenger train that is dangling off the edge of a cliff in the Himalayas. Suddenly Drake's seat falls, taking him with it. Tumbling out of the train car's back door, Drake manages to grab onto a rail, leaving him hanging above an icy gray abyss. While the train creaks and moans overhead, it's my job to quickly guide him upwards to safety.
Posted inFood & Drink
The Winter Warmer
It's the time of year when going out involves more than two pieces of clothing and a pair of flip-flops. Jackets, hats, scarves, gloves, earmuffs, mittens, ear warmers, nose warmers and a myriad of other clutter is strewn about once everyone is gone from the bar and we turn the lights up. And of course, whoever is missing these abandoned items is positive someone stole them, and ninety-nine percent of the time whatever has been lost is really just on the floor getting danced on.
One night, a young man would not give up the notion that someone had certainly hijacked his beloved AC/DC sweatshirt that he shanghaied from his big brother in 1994. He bemoaned that his sweatshirt was his best friend and his identity; and he couldn't believe someone would take it. I too couldn't believe someone would take it, because I'm fairly sure there is not a hot second market for ratty, has-been band sweatshirts. And apparently there's not – as we soon found it right next to where he had been sitting all night.
Posted inFood & Drink
Something Special: Off the menu and right on target at Staccato
Three things I know to be true: Salad is only as good as its dressing, pasta as good as its sauce, and pizza as good as its dough. Naturally, all this comes down to a restaurant that is as good as its chef.
Staccato at the Fire Hall's Executive Chef James Malone has worked in the restaurant industry all his life; from his beginnings in a family-run bakery and deli in Spokane; to his apprenticeship with the renowned Michel Richard at DC's famed Citronelle. There, Malone set out to challenge himself amongst what he called “the masters of French cuisine – the black belts.”