So someone at Fuel TV is really liking Bend. In the recent installment of "Snowboard Diaries," a documentary style show that follows some of the best riders in the world through a winter season, they tail Hampus Mosesson, and Jacob Wilhelmson as they film for their new production company Actionhorse Films.
Bend is Killing it.
Posted inCulture
Steep and Cheap: Skiing Hoodoo under the lights
Adam Sather shreds it up under the lights.Nightlife in the winter can sometimes seem one-dimensional. The music
scene grows a bit stagnant; the bar crawl can bring on fits of déj vu.
Most of winter's allure derives from the prospect of hitting the
slopes, and it's an activity that many of us partake in regularly.But even with as much skiing as we do, night skiing is a pastime mostly unfamiliar
to us Bendites. Mt. Bachelor being so close, most of us would probably
rather hit the hill early the next day than make the trip to Hoodoo,
Ski Bowl or Mt. Hood Meadows.
Like most great ideas, my decision to
drive to Hoodoo was made on a whim. A particularly nasty
day-after-Christmas storm and low visibility sent us home early from
Mt. Bachelor still hungry for a few more turns. With the snow still
falling, we loaded up the car, popped in our clear lenses and took off
to Hoodoo's opening night. About an hour later we pulled into the
parking lot, quickly threw on our gear and rushed off to meet our
friends who were already enjoying the heavy and steady extra-light
snowfall.
Posted inNews
Hey Ma, Are We Bankrupt Yet?
If The Bulletin plays the story on its front page, it must be official: Bend is broke.
Posted inNews
Weekend Forcast
Finally we are going to be graced with a little snow in the hills. Although I was having fun ripping down groomers and spraying people who stand on the downslope of hills.
Posted inNews
Unemployment: Cutting Through the BLS BS
According to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics calculations, the unemployment rate in Bend is 9.9%. But what is it really?
Posted inOpinion
Barbarians in the Badlands
Assuming they're able to read, some of the morons who get their jollies
from trashing the natural landscape might have read that the Badlands
wilderness bill is about to get passed and decided to get out there and
do more damage while they could.
David Eddleston, organizer of the
group Friends of the Badlands, sent us a report from the battlefront
last week. According to him, he and other "Fobbitts" patrolled the area
on Jan. 8 and found signs of "recent incursions from both quad ATVs and
powered dirt bikes at various points."
Signs marking the area
as closed to motor vehicles had been blasted with gunfire. "Oddly, a
locker had been dragged approx 200 meters into the Badlands and
securely installed on a rimrock ridge. And that had also been used as a
target," Eddleston added.
Posted inOutside
Calls to Action: For Meissner, the Metolius and mutts
CONTRIBUTE TO
THE MEISSNER GROOMING EFFORT
Have you skied at Meissner Sno-Park this year? Have you parked in the new lot, checked out some of the new trails or warmed up in the new shelter? If you have, you are the beneficiary of the tremendous efforts of the Tumalo Langlauf Club (TLC).
Unfortunately, the grooming at Meissner is in peril of being discontinued before the end of this month for financial reasons.
Posted inOpinion
Inaugural Musings: Wheelchairs, seizures and a math check
The 44th
So I'm watching the Inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama as our 44th President, trying to calculate the number of coal-fired electricity plants and oil-burning cars, buses and planes utilized to make this day so special, guesstimating that the Earth will heat at least 1ยฝ degrees before D.C. is done celebrating itself. It was all we expected, indeed deserved, our millions of dollars in donations ensuring that hope is still alive. And then the following happened:
Lord Cheney Not
Looking So Well
Wearing a fedora that matches his old pal and Indian-giver Jack Abramoff, former (oh the joy in being able to write that!) Vice President Dick Cheney was in a wheelchair, and purposely well hidden behind bulletproof glass. Maybe there's tact in the old grumpy Halliburton hack after all: He could have faked his death months ago and we'd now be celebrating Condi Rice as our 44th - African-Americans still pleased but the GLBT community ecstatic at the thought of our first butch prez.
Posted inOpinion
Take Another Look at Safety Law
This week's letter of the week comes from local entrepreneur Katie Stewart who asks readers to rally behind her and other small business owners caught up in a new product safety crackdown. Thanks for the letter Katie. We can't change an act of Congress but we will give you a shiny new pint glass and a cold beverage to fill it for your winning letter. Swing by our office at the corner of Bond and Georgia to collect your prize.
Many of us have heard of the toy recalls that occurred as a result of some lead-tainted toys sold in 2007 and some of us have heard of the resulting law, the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, (CPSIA) that was passed this past summer and takes effect February 10th, 2009. There has been some news coverage of the potential effects of this law on thrift stores and resellers of children's products, mostly the closing of these stores as they will be unable to test all of their inventory to ensure it all meets the new safety standards. This is a terrible effect of this law, no doubt, as many families around this country rely on these secondhand stores to provide quality clothes and other products for their children, and my family is no exception. However, many Americans face an even greater problem as a result of this law, and there has been an unfortunate lack of media attention given to this.
Posted inOpinion
Barriers Not Always The Best
As an emergency services provider I'd like to offer a response to H. Bruce Miller's opinion piece in the January 15 issue about installing a Jersey Barrier on Hwy 97.
I believe in Jersey Barriers; they save lives. But there are many concerns that communities must weigh before committing to those barriers. I am no traffic expert, but with 28 years of emergency service experience I must weigh in on the negatives that I see. The first is response time for those called to help (in a timely manner) to the scene of an accident or other emergency. The barriers on I-5 are one example. Between Brooks and Woodburn the barrier has contributed to increased response times. If an accident is, for example, just a half-mile south of Woodburn in the northbound lanes, emergency services must come from Brooks and travel up to twelve miles to provide assistance.