Weblog
15/08: All Points West
I went to the All Points West festival last weekend. My buddy Darren came up from good ole' Virginny to join me and to hang in the NJ. It was billed as the "Coachella of the East." Now, I've never been to Coachella but my guess is that, despite a valiant effort, this was not an equivalent show on the whole.
I mean, for one thing, Prince did not play at All Points West (APW). I digress.
The day was filled with an eternal public-transportation commute to the show which had us passing by at least 3 teams of canine-powered police units. Once there, we had to walk a mile or more to get to the gate of the show and then another mile to the main stage.
After arriving around mid-afternoon, the skies threatened to unleash a might rain, wind and hail cocktail. There was nowhere to hide either so if it was coming, Darren and I were going to get it on the noggin.
The majority of the bands that we got to see were not good. Not one bit. However, we really came to see Radiohead. This was our first time seeing this band live and the hype was huge. Every review of this tour has been glowing and, well, the band continues to reinvent itself with every album so the possibilities for the show were endless.
Needless to say (or is it?), they did not disappoint. The show was unbelievable. The band played flawlessly. Throw in a futuristic light show (apparently powered by solar energy) and a video production that brought basically within touching distance of each band member and you had an experience that we won't soon forget.
The setup of the festival was not great with the beer gardens being out of sight and sound of every stage (there were 3) and the band choices consisted of many 2-man groups playing turntables, drum machines and mixing consoles. I know there's a lot of good music being made using those "instruments" these days but it's BORING to see it live. How does one rock out on a mixing console? Answer: they don't.
I attempted to Twitter my way through the entire show and got a few pics uploaded via (Twitpic). You can see the stream of consciousness here. A lot of my photos didn't upload due to bad connections (curse you EDGE network!) but Darren sent along some good ones that I'll post up shortly.
This was my first attempt to do some live lifecasting/micro-blogging/etc using my new Blackberry Curve. It was fun but Darren laughed at me.
All in all, it was a great time. I got the day off, saw an old friend, heard some great music and drank a few beers. Not bad.
[Jeff]
10/08: The Panic of 1819
I've been reading a history book on and off over the past 10 months. It's an atlas-based view of world history and covers, at a high-level, much of the modern world's history. It's been quite fascinating and I've enjoyed re-emerging myself in the histories of various countries, renewing my knowledge of past events and learning about new-to-me events in history.One event I learned about recently struck me as strangely poignant, especially given today's financial crises. Following the War of 1812 there was a brief but dramatic period of economic expansion in the US. People were pushing West-ward and beginning to expand the viable areas of settlement beyond the original 13 colonies. Here's where it gets interesting.
This period saw massive migrations out of the major cities and out towards undeveloped lands. Jobs were in abundance. Real estate was being bought and sold quickly and widespread, un-monitored, non-standard lending practices financed these new entrepreneurs.
In 1819, it all crashing down on them. These predatory lending practices, wild over-speculation on land and new markets coupled with reckless spending caused the economy to collapse in 1819. Banks foreclosed on lands, called in loans and ultimately, collapsed themselves. Unemployment skyrocketed. Prices mushroomed too and many life-savings were lost.
Sound familiar?
Now, I doubt many Americans could tell you about the Panic of 1819. Hell, I didn't know about it until a few days ago and I consider myself educated. However, it seems history has, yet again, repeated itself. Perhaps those that caused this new crisis knew about past economic crashes. Perhaps not. What's important to get out of this though is that greed is ultimate amnesiac. Nothing can make you forget the past than the promise of fast cash in the present and near-future.
The Panic of 1819 has repeated itself in 2008 -- a mere 189 years later. The numbers may be greater this year but the cumulative impact of this crisis is likely being felt on the same scale. Perhaps if we just took a second to learn our history, pay attention to it and not get blinded by omnipresent dollar signs, we could avoid something like this again in the future. I know I'll be paying more attention.
[Jeff]
01/08: Another photo gets published...
Yet another one of our Portland photos got published in this online city guide called Schmap. You can see our photo of the fleet coming through the Broadway Bridge during Fleet Week at this web site.
This is the second photo of ours they've published and are considering a third photo of ours from Montreal. There's no money in these publications but it's cool that someone thinks our photos are worth reprinting somewhere.
[Jeff]
27/07: The Mess
These kids of ours are fantastic but the one thing they (and most other kids) don't seem to grasp is the overhead in cleaning up the messes they create and leave behind. To them it's all part of playing but the cleaning part is certainly NOT a part of that. I'm sure that any of you reading this that have kids can relate and this is not new news but occasionally the kids take the mess-making to an extent that makes it worth mentioning. Thanks to the magic of digital photography we've got the photo evidence to share two recent mess-making triumphs for them and big cleanups for us.In the first scenario, Carrie stepped away for roughly 90 seconds and when she returned the girls had decided that the best way to get to the bottom of a box of Lucky Charms was to lay them all out, individually, on the floor and then pick out the best part -- the marshmallows. Here's the scene she returned to:
The scene of the crime:
Caught in the act:
Busted with marshmallow on their faces:
The second scenario had Sophie calmly eating a bowl of yogurt until she got full. Once full. Sophie loses interest in eating whatever's in front of her and focuses on launching it. In this case, she passed on launching and decided to paint.....herself.....with the yogurt.
Behold, the artwork:
[Jeff]
27/07: Yard Sale Pics - finally...
As I mentioned in the last post, we had a yard sale 2 weeks ago. We took some pics and I've got them on Flickr now. Here are some samples below.[Jeff]
Part of the set up:
Gracie at her lemonade stand:
14/07: A weekend of firsts
Lots of firsts happened this weekend.First (ha!), we had our inaugural yard sale. We decided to do some summer cleaning and purge the house of bulky items, toys, dishes, linens and stuffed animals that are of no more use to us. Guess what? It worked! Due to our phenomenal location -- a high traffic suburban street -- we had tons of shoppers and we sold an incredible amount of goods. The best part is that these goods were the bluky items and so, all of a sudden, there is a ton of free square footage now available in the house.
It was a HOT day but we lasted the whole time. Gracie set up a lemonade stand and she did great! Most folks gave her $1 for her $.25 lemonades but then let her keep the change. She cleared nearly $20! Thats amazing for someone seling drinks at $.25/cup.
The main key to our success was the mutual realization that we were not out there to make money. We were out there to get rid of things. So we haggled a little bit but let most things go at ridiculous prices. It was pretty sweet.
The other first thing that happened was that we caught Sophie singing along with a song from the TV. Her current favorite show is Yo Gabba Gabba and she loves the songs on that show. She started singing along and we just sat there in awe and watcher her do it. It was so sweet and cute. She's quite a cutie.
We have photos and videos of all of these things available, on the camera. I'll get them off asap and put them on here for your viewing pleasure.
[Jeff]
07/07: An extra photo...
I found this photo on my dad's Flickr page today so thought I'd share:Sophie eats a ginormous sandwich. I'm not even sure what's on there.
[Jeff]
07/07: Our photo got published!
A photo that either Carrie or I took got published in a guide to Northwest activites. Specifically, the photo is of Fleet Week during Portland's Rose Festival. We took this photo from our balcony in the temporary apartment we were living in when we first got to Portland. Who knew someone would like it besides us.Check it out:
Full link to the Flickr page is right here.
And finally, a link to the publication known as the Schmap.
Scroll down to where it says "Rose Festival Fleet" to see the picture in action.
I grabbed this Schmap widget from their site to see how it would look on our site. Hey, it promotes Portland and shows off some of our amateur photography.
[Jeff]
29/06: I love the Onion
In this amazing video produced by The Onion News Network, we're educated on how to pretend we care about the election. Now, those of you that know me, know that I care a LOT about this election but this clip is hilarious. These guys crack me up. Quick heads up, this contains a little bit of adult language. Not a lot, but a little and not super bad words (I don't think).Today Now!: How To Pretend You Give A Shit About The Election
Enjoy.
[Jeff]