Andy – Page 187

When can I eat raw tomatoes again?

The CDC has a list of safe tomatoes available. Oregon is absent from the list. My garden isn’t producing tomatoes yet, and salads are kind of boring. Plus, today is the Interstate Farmer’s Market, and I’d like to make some caprese salad. When do we get the OK? Is it safe to get locally grown toms?

I’ve had salmonella before, and I’m quite wary of having it again. Last time my appendix was taken out because the pain I had was symptomatic of appendicitis. After it was removed and I wasn’t any better, it was discovered that I had salmonella. Imagine a moose standing on one hoof on your stomach. That’s what it felt like.

Eagle Creek

Yesterday Ella and I joined several friends (Joe, Lindsay, John, Jim & Rachel) for a hike up Eagle Creek. It’s a spectacular trail that’s really quite easy. It’s also very close to Portland and it was a nice day, so it was clear that it wasn’t an original idea. But the weather was so nice and no one really wanted to stop, so we hiked all the way up to Tunnel Falls before finally turning back. Round trip was about 14 miles and Ella did incredibly well in the backpack for such a long trip. I think the view along the trail, which is constantly interesting, was enough to maintain her enjoyment. (She didn’t get a sunburn either)

Here are some photos. My shoulders are sore.

No more shuttle

My employer’s free shuttle service ended yesterday for the summer. I’m not sure how much money I’ve saved this last year by taking the shuttle, but it’s been a treat to not have to think about traffic, car maintenance or filling up. All that reality is about to set in again if I don’t figure out some alternative mode of transport.

Return to Forever

As a sort-of-Father’s day present, my dad took me to see Return to Forever last night at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. I don’t expect that most people would like the show – fusion jazz is really not for everyone, and really, there’s lots and lots of bad music in the genre. However, Return to Forever is one of the three major groups from the genre that are truly amazing. I was raised on Chick Corea in one form or another, and I still listen to him with some frequency. He’s innovative, unique, sometimes overly complicated, but always interesting. Last night’s set was all of the above, but really, really amazing.

Normally when you see a live song that lasts 25 minutes, and you’re not stoned, you get a little bored. The way these four play prevents that from happening because unlike rock, there are somewhere between 10 and 30 timing changes and such complex interplay between musicians that your brain joyfully tries to keep up.

The musicians all seemed to be equally in love with the audience and we were with them and it made for a really fun show. They played for over 3 hours with a short break – and had both an electric and an acoustic set. I’m a big fan of the bass guitar, and Stanley Clark is amazing. While his playing was stellar, his solo on the upright base was moving. There were elements I’ve heard elsewhere, but his entire solo was unique and haunting. I hope I remember even 1/4 of it.

Seen: Cedar Waxwing

4 birds landed on the garage roof. They were dullish brown when I first looked from the computer screen to see them. When my eyes focused, I noticed bright yellow piping around their eyes. Cedar Waxwings! I don’t think I’ve seen any since living in Wyoming. I couldn’t get to a camera fast enough.

They are such classy birds, at least to look at. My neighbor says they have incredibly fast digestive systems and to never stand under them.

Drinking Water

Portland residents just received their annual water quality report, something that would normally go unnoticed by most if there hadn’t recently been a big to-do in the national media about finding trace amounts of caffeine, Acetaminophen, Ibuprofen, and anti-biotics in several major cities drinking water supply. Portland was one of the cities identified, and the Water Bureau has done an excellent job of presenting water quality and addressing the contaminants:

“At the amounts detected, an individual would have to drink 1 gallon of water a day for more than 13,000 years to consume the equivalent of one Tylenol.”

Now there’s some perspective.

I do a half-cringe, half-laugh when I see people buying bottled water in Portland. The Bull Run water is the most wonderful drinking water I’ve ever had. The stuff in Wyoming was pretty good, Yakima was OK (the well water in the Nob Hill area is gross), and the water in Nebraska was wretched. Every time we fly back to visit I’m always so happy to be back at the Denver airport to get some good water again. I guess I’m a water snob.

One artist’s rendering

Let me start this post by saying that Sketch-Up is probably in my top 5 favorite applications right now, but I’m still a rather novice user. Despite my lack of experience with the tool, I’ve used it twice recently for real designs – both the chicken coop and now our basement. Our incomplete basement.

With the chicken coop, it was more about creating a rough design with relative dimensions and such – mostly about visualizing the product. This time, I spent much more time trying to include real dimensions and went through several drafts – each time boring Michelle a little more. Still, I think the visualization exercise was useful and I was actually able to take the dimensions and use them to fit pieces (stereo, speakers, tv) into the overall scheme. Here’s the latest rendering:

$One artist\'s rendition$

Now that we’re closing in on the end of the project, I’m really curious to see how accurate the rendering is. I already know of a few changes, but it seems to be fairly accurate still.

edit: Here’s a mock up of the cabinets that are on the east wall. I built them after prototyping them in sketchup with the dimensions of the sill and beam that they had to fit between. Then I was able to find out the size of the pieces needed so I could make sure I had enough plywood. Really, it’s a simple and powerful tool.

Strange Map situation

When Hilly, Michelle, Ella and I got home from dinner, there was a car parked akwardly in front of our house. Hilly, who inherited my mom’s insuppressible urge to help people checked to see if they were lost. They were, in fact, lost. Four Korean 20-somethings were headed from Federal Way to Manzanita. They were operating with a google map print out that was too focused (and indirect) to get them there. They had already missed the route to the coast, so we redirected them with a hand drawn map.

While I was helping the proficient english speaker, the others were letting Ella play with the steering wheel, and were so smitten they gave her a bag of sweet rice treats that were the Asian equivalent of kettle corn. I ended up giving them a crappy tear out map from the Thompson guide which I annotated for their trip, and we sent them on their way. They quickly returned to the front door for a picture with us for the memory. It was cute.

Basement upgrade

Ella helping with framing

I’m at home with Ella today, and she’s just gone down for a nap, so I’m taking the opportunity to post some pics of what we’ve been up to in the evenings and over weekends the last 2 weeks.

Two weekends ago, we were supposed to go camping with Ella for the first time, but the weather was going to be abysmal: cold and rain. Not much fun in a tent. Instead, Michelle, my parents and I started working on the basement – an addition of walls and eventually carpet and ceiling to make the somewhat dank and scary TV room in to a livable family room. Over the last weekend, we managed to tear down, frame and sheet rock and start taping and mudding the walls. It was amazing how quickly we worked, and it put us a month ahead of schedule.

Over the next couple days I worked on sanding and mudding more, but had to stop to clean for the Kroger for AG party we hosted. Then, Friday I was able to sand and mud one last time so we could sand and prime on Saturday. Michelle’s mom and friend came down over the weekend and watched Ella so we could keep working. They all went to the zoo and had a great time while Michelle and I worked unfettered for a few hours. By Sunday night, we’d primed and put 2 coats of paint on all but one of the walls. I was also able to get some framing for a panel wall that I’ve been dreaming of. The green in the pictures doesn’t reflect the actual color very well. In the pics, it almost looks like 70s gauche.

Since Sunday night, we’ve not accomplished much downstairs other than laundry. Today I went to
Rebuilding Center and CrossCut to buy wood for the finishing touches. I wanted to use reclaimed old growth, clear vertical grain Doug fir, but had trouble finding the quantity and quality needed for the project. I ended up getting most of it from CrossCut, but the wood is beautiful, and the Doug fir veneered plywood will make for excellent cabinets where the stereo and such will sit – well above kid hands. Ella helped me push the wood around and I think she had as much fun at both the Rebuilding Center and CrossCut as I did. Here’s a gratuitious photo of the pile of wood in my garage:

Now we just need to finish the cabinets and one last section of drywall then we can put up the fir and be happy. We’re experimenting with wood panelling for the ceiling, but mixing wood types can be dangerous. We’re looking at Luan for its cost/sustainability/look, though the jury is still out.

Magic Carpet

Michelle and I have been working on finishing the basement so that its not scary to be in during, well, most times of the year. To make it livable, we put some old carpet down on the floor to hep us pretend that it was a real room. Before cutting out chunks of the concrete floor to repour, we rolled up the carpet and put it in my parent’s truck so we could take it to ~~East County Recycling~~ Environmentally Conscious Recycling. ECR is one of the only options for recycling carpet in the Portland Metro area.

We needed to pick up some sheet rock with the truck, so we set the carpet roll out on the parking strip. Later that afternoon when we returned, the carpet had disapeared. There’s a phenomenon around here where you can set out some reasonable item you’re done with and a free sign and it’ll be picked up within 24 hours by someone. The phenomenon is so strong that the following things have happened:

Well, for one, someone took our doubly-old carpet
The hippie neighbors put out utter rubbish and it somehow all disappeared, though at slightly slower pace.
Occasionally you’ll see a pile of something in front of someone’s house with a “Not Free” sign on it to signal the home owner’s intent to use the pile

If you attempt to use this phenomenon, do not attempt to kick-start by posting something on craigslist. You’ll end up with multiple unhappy parties who show up to get the free item when some dude who was just walking by picked it up not 4 minutes ago. I mean, it’s not my fault they drove from Vancouver to get a few rolls of sod.

I love recycling, but I love reusing even more.