Dog Run

Last Saturday morning I met up with the Red Lizard Running Club for what I thought would be a normal road run. What I didn't know is that every second Saturday dogs are brought out from the Multnomah County Animal Shelter for runners to take on the run. I was like, hey, I'll do this and I was given the most rambunctious Labrador puppy, Kimbo. Kimbo, in Cambodian, means dog who will do everything he can to pull your arm from your socket and trip you.

Actually, it wasn't that bad, Kimbo was super jazzed to be outside and around other dogs so he was constantly pulling to get up to other dogs in the lead. If I ever passed up other people and was out in the front, Kimbo settled down and healed much better.

A weimaraner from a weimaraner rescue program was also brought out for the run. They seem like really cool dogs, I like the grey coloring.

Top Projects 2008

Apparently every year the Vancouver Business Journal (VBJ) has a special supplement showing the top construction or development projects in the city of Vancouver. Vancouver is a city across the Columbia River from Portland and is known of more of bedroom community for Portland workers who don't have to pay property tax in the State of Washington.

Two of the projects struck me as being inordinately lame:

#44 Sonic Drive-In on 850 NE 192nd Ave




Another project of dubious merit but not officially listed because information was not available:

Dutch Bros. Coffee - a franchise based drive-thru coffee chain in the Northwest. Its a drive-thru coffee place, how is it a top project?






I have no idea how a burger or coffee chain's construction of another franchise location is representative of a city's top project.

Movie Wrap Up

I saw 2 movies on the big screen this week:

Batman: The Dark Knight - I really enjoyed it. I saw it on an IMAX screen, right up close and that made it all the more engrossing. I would highly recommend it, there's been a shift from the original campy comic book feel from the movies with Micheal Keaton to a dark plot driven and action driven story about heroism and the baser mentality of people. I thought Heath Ledger was an awesome Joker, really creepy!

FLOW (For Love of Water) - A documentary on the world water crisis. Visiting numerous towns and villages around the globe we were shown how water is becoming a commodity that is increasingly controlled by large multinationals who aim to profitize the water supply/distribution in regions were people can't afford the water and will continue drinking water from polluted rivers and streams. Other issues are the displacement of people with dam development and the other problems associated with dams - algal growth and methane production (methane is a greenhouse gas). Closer to home, Nestle, CocaCola, Pepsi who sell bottled water often go into a community and develop a large well that draws so much water from the aquifer that streams dry up, sink holes form, and other people's wells dry up.

This movie was shown at the Hollywood Theater as a benefit for Engineers Without Borders. I haven't heard how much money it brought in for projects, but the theater was full and a bunch of raffle tickets were sold - so I'm sure the goal was acheived.

Flex Nuts

The weekend before the 4th went camping a couple of weeks back with Brandon, Andrew, Gabe, Michelle, Danielle, Sabrina, Laura, and TQ. It was very cool weekend at Beverly Beach. We started early and stopped at Camp 18 for huge, huge breakfast.

We also stopped at the Tillamook Cheese Factory. That was fun. Danielle took some great photos!
Beverly Beach

After camp was set up, we started right off with some Absynthe. Then onto vodka.












That night Andrew and some others went and took some cool photos on the beach.

















Saturday:
I went on a hike with Laura and TQ to the Yaquina Bay lighthouse and met up with the group at the Rogue Brewery Public House. We got back to camp and hung out, then I cut up pre-cooked sausage, Gabe did the potatoes and onions, for Hobo stew. Hobo stew is a bunch of sausage, potato, onions, carrots, and a little bit of butter wrapped up in a tinfoil pouch and put on the fire for about 20 minutes. They turned out really good. Brandon did up some yams or sweet potatoes in tinfoil on the coals which were awesome too.

Why is this post titled "Flex Nuts," well Andrew has got me onto Lil' Wayne and one of the things he says in one of his raps is flex nuts. Flex nuts is what the camp cop did when he came into our campsite at 11:45 pm asking to see the leader of the group. Brandon came out of the tent and answered all of his questions, handed over her driver's license and waited up while the real cop was supposed to come back and give an official fine of $100. He told us he gave the first warning by just driving by and that he has a second option, he can evict us from camp. He was trying to flex nuts and thats not cool.

Well, no fine has been sent to Brandon yet and its been two weeks so its not too likely to happen now.
AC's Photos

This embedded video from Youtube is sort of how it was like driving back home. Isn't Will Arnett hilarious?!

Dirty Half 08 - Better than last time

After training for about 7 weeks I ran the Dirty Half Marathon on June 8th, 2008. This is a 13.1 mile course on single track in Bend, Oregon. I ran it last year at 2:00:00 and this year at 1:57:00, that's about 15 seconds better per mile than previous, I think my time was actually better because Horner and I were late to our heat, we had to run to the start a couple of extra minutes there. It was another great experience: I had a great time training, spending time in Bend with Daver & Horner, and running the race!

There was beer provided by Deschutes Brewery and veggie burritos after the race, I'm not so sure the beer was a good idea because I ended up not feelin' too hot later on.

http://dirtyhalf.footzonebend.com/images/dirty_half.jpg
I finally downloaded the software to take the GPS data off of my Garmin watch. It can only store one run or course, but it is really cool.

I can produce any number of graphs showing heart rate, distance, elevation, speed, time, pace. The Garmin software can also output the way points to Google Earth and each way point is clickable to display the heart rate, distance, elevation, speed, time, pace. Really cool!!

Zenger Farm

I'm in this volunteer mini-camp where every Saturday we do a different volunteer activity related to sustainability. It hasn't really been explained whether its environmental or economic sustainability we are supposed to be learning about, but I'm pretty sure its the environmental kind.

Zenger Farm is located far out in SE Portland. Zenger Farm does outreach and educational programs relating to sustainable agriculture. I think they have camps for kids to come and look at the vegetables and pull off veggies. The farm itself is operated by 47th Avenue Farms, an organization that provides fruit, vegetable, and eggs to people depending on the kind of share they purchase. In return for using the land 47th Ave Farms lets Zenger Farms use their crops as a classroom.

I went out there last Saturday as part of my sustainability teamworks deal. In the first picture we're 'hilling' potatoes. Hilling potatoes is where you take soil (I can't call it dirt according to my soils professor, its soil) and pile it up over the stalk of the plant leaving about 6 inches exposed. The potatoe is a very hardy plant and this will help produce more potatoes. See that's sustainable, if you have only a limited amount of space, as this farm does, then by hilling you are increasing your yield without using arable land.


We also put trays of seedlings into the hoop house for the farm to get starts quicker then replant. Looked like tedious work putting one individual seed into about 72 little holes per tray. Other people are filling the trays with soil and another person tops the trays after they've recieved seeds.






That Saturday was also a special work day for share holders that reduce their seasonal cost by working at the farm and they'd be having a potluck afterwards. Well, I wasn't sure whether I wanted to stay but after I'd heard that someone was making ice cream I had to. For the meal I got a sausage and chatted with some of the guys that work full time for 47th Ave Farms. Really cool people that want to get more experience with growing their own food.

I was talking with a couple of guys and I asked him if they've ever thought about getting some really big speakers, there was a pause and I said ya know to play music...Not a big speaker like Al Gore, I thought that was going to illicit some laughs but they started on about how they'd met some another sustainable farmer that was doing some cool things with seeds and maybe he'd like to come and speak.

Well, the ice cream was awesome and a girl that I'd worked with on the potatoes went down to the raspberry plants and brought them back up to the farm house and gave people each a few to drop in their ice cream. That made it even better!

Rafting

I went to a Junior Chamber of Commerce last night and the topic was getting you personal finance in order by evaluating your debt situation, income, and goals. If you want more information about how to get your finances in order definitely eliminate your debt after creating a 3-month emergency fund then visit Yahoo finance to get ideas on how to start building up savings or a retirement.

Anyways, most of the people at the JCs like to party so that's why I go, plus to learn about personal growth topics like I briefly shared above and to find out what other cool things are going on around Pdx. I learn something new about most of them every time I go which is very cool

Well, we might have a rafting trip in August led by a new member named Pete, who is a really cool guy. It'll only be 50 bucks which is really cheap. He also likes to buy road bikes of CL and fix them up, he might be a good person to talk to when I want to get a little faster commuter bike.