HinesSight

Zambia Night -- belly dancing and coffee buying for a good cause

It's a tough job, being charitable.

Yesterday I had to stand unmoving for a whole four minutes, leaving my vanilla latte unsipped for a while, as I video'd the Artemis Tribal Belly Dancers at a benefit for the Elizabeth Bowers Zambia Education Fund.

Actually, I could have stood there for four hours.

I love to watch belly dancing -- for all the right (and wrong, if there are any) reasons. And thanks to the troupe for only trying to entice females into attempting some moves at the end of their performance. I was ready to run for an exit, but didn't have to.

Gerry (who is a fellow Tai Chi student) and Linda Bowers showed a deeply moving video about their trip to Zambia this year to officially open a Memorial Library in the village of Lumwana West.

Their daughter, Elizabeth, died in a bicycle accident in Zambia seven years ago while serving as a Peace Corps volunteer. However, she lives on through all the good works being done by the Elizabeth Bowers Zambia Education Fund.

The people of the village danced, sang, and were otherwise beautifully ecstatic over the opening of what we take for granted here in the United States: a library. 

This fund has become my favorite charity. Donations go a long way when they're being used to offer Zambian girls an education that would otherwise be denied them. Women are the key to eradicating, or at least lessening, poverty in Africa.

It's satisfying to know that when I give some money to the Fund, it's being used highly effectively. From the web site:

So little money goes so far:

$35 books
$55 uniforms
$160 sponsors a student in grade 8
$105 sponsors a student in grade 9
$280 sponsors a student in grades 10 and 11
$350 sponsors a student in grade 12
$2,000 funds a two-year college degree
$10,000 funds computers and equipment
$11,000 funds communications
$24,000 funds library solar power system

Thus I didn't mind throwing caution to the winds when I bid on an African coffee-themed gift basket at the Zambia Night silent auction. I like coffee almost as much as I like belly dancing. So I was determined to go home with the basket (which also had teas, an African music CD, and other donated items).

When Gerry saw me carrying the basket after the silent auction closed, he said "Did you get a good deal?"

"No," I told him. "It was a terrible deal. I think I just paid $30 a pound for this coffee." Somebody kept upping my bids by $5 up to $70. So I decided to jump up to $100 and see if that stopped my competition for the basket.

It did.

I was happy. Because there's no way I could overpay, knowing what my money would be used for. I'm going to get a lot of cups of strong coffee out of my gift basket. But I'm already buzzed by what the Zambia Education Fund is accomplishing.

See for yourself.

2009 Oregon State Fair photos: a bit of everything

Armed with a free entry pass, because I was going to participate in a Tai Chi demonstration, I headed off to the Oregon State Fair this morning on my Burgman scooter. What I found was pleasing variety and a fresh vibe that coexisted nicely with traditional fair offerings.

Here's the photographic evidence.

First off, I got a great parking spot right across the street from the entrance. Well, bicycles, motorcycles, and scooters should receive bonuses like this, being more sustainable alternatives to auto energy hogs.

As soon as I enter the fair, I get an oh, yeah feeling. Whether six or sixty (like me) big colorful rides are a turn on.

Whac-a-mole! Beautiful. Reminded me of Iraq terrorist strategy not too long ago. Fairs give us so many wonderful metaphors.

I thought about trying to win a giant stuffed tiger for Laurel. But the chances seemed slim. And I was going to look pretty damn ridiculous driving home with it tied to the rear seat of my scooter, if I did manage to win one.

These are all Christian t-shirts. The whole display was about double what's shown. Jesus was big at many booths. I looked for Lao Tzu t-shirts. Didn't find any.

Over at the Sports and Recreation area, we did bring some Taoism to the fair via a Tai Chi demonstration. The woman in the cowboy hat was a kick. I had a good time talking with her. She's a devout Christian who loves Chinese culture. Had lots of positive energy. Enjoys trying new things.

I found a great way to feed my curly fries addiction without clogging up my veins with excessive heart-stopping cholesterol. Since the smallest order of fries was way more than I wanted to eat, I shared with Warren, our Tai Chi instructor, and two fellow students.

Had to throw in at least one animal photo. This miniature horse was nervous, being its first time at a fair. The owner had to tell it to behave.

This struck me as sheep cruelty. Put a helmet on a kid and have him ride an unwilling animal who got dragged around an arena while being slapped on the rear. It's legs collapsed just after I took the photo. They had to get a replacement sheep. The fair needs to lose this disturbing event.

Part of an order of curly fries wasn't going to sustain me through the whole fair experience. Fortunately, the Vegetarian Gods led me to this booth, the only one of its kind (not surprisingly, given the food most fair-goers were happily chowing down).

Probably wasn't a positioning accident that this booth was right across from the vegetarian fare. I'd already signed a petition to legalize medical marijuana clinics in Oregon, so they didn't want me to sign again.

When the medical marijuana guy saw me taking photos, he said "Here, snap this one." Pretty cool. He tucks the end of his long white beard under his (reversed) baseball cap and puts his dark glasses over it. Perfectly appropriate for a marijuana-related booth.

I really, really wanted to take this home. I have no idea what we'd do with it on our ten acres, and it cost $63,000. But it sure looked like fun.

Waiting for the Youth Rodeo to start.

I like this photo -- yin and yang. The girl carrying the American flag to kick off the rodeo entered from the sunny end of the arena.

This cowgirl and cowboy were sitting on the rails when the National Anthem started to play as the American flag rider rode around the arena. They had to figure out how to stand up on the rails. A nice patriotic moment.

Not your old-style State Fair: a nifty open ride BMX course.

This guy got some serious air. I impressed myself by getting this telephoto shot on a first try.

I heard "Sea World" sorts of talk coming from an arena. Poked my camera over the heads of onlookers and got a nice shot, thanks to my Sony's powerful zoom and tilting viewfinder.

This ride shot people straight up a scary long ways, before dropping them down on bouncy cords. I couldn't capture the screaming. Just some legs.

Marion County sheriff reveals affair. So what?

This doesn't feel right. Like so much else that goes on in the unduly uptight and moralistic United States. Even pleasantly looser Oregon.

The Marion County sheriff, Russ Isham, has admitted to an affair. He also has submitted his resignation. 

Why?

The investigation determined that there was substantial evidence to support a charge of misconduct — a misdemeanor — based on the sheriff’s efforts to hide a personal impropriety, Green told the Statesman Journal.

"If convicted of this misdemeanor, a defendant likely would receive probation with time in jail," Green said. "There is no evidence the sheriff used his position for personal financial gain."

Given the evidence and the likely result of a successful prosecution, Sheriff Isham agreed to resign from his post and surrender his public safety certification, Green said.

"In exchange, the DOJ agreed not to bring this misdemeanor charge to court," he said.

Surrendering his public safety certification means Isham cannot be a law enforcement official in Oregon again.

Isham was accused of attempting to persuade a subordinate not to report the subordinate’s discovery of the sheriff’s personal impropriety, Green said.

Isham lives next to our neighborhood. I've met him. He seems like a great guy. By all accounts he's been a good sheriff.

Yet because he wanted to keep his personal life private, Marion County has lost a highly qualified law enforcement official.

Something is wrong here. And part of that wrongness is how many people would disagree with me saying, something is wrong here.

Salem's fenced-in 2009 "Summer in the City"

Yesterday I hopped on my beloved Suzuki Burgman scooter and two-wheeled to downtown Salem, wanting to check out the 2009 Summer in the City vibe.

I'd read in the paper that Pepe and the Bottle Blondes were playing on one of the pavilion stages at 2 pm. And also that this year it was going to cost $7.50 to get in.

But in to what? I was curious.

Because this music and wine festival was being held on a couple of blocked-off streets. I guess my progressive politics has a libertarian side, because I wondered how it'd be possible to charge $7.50 to access public property.

When I got to Court Street and heard Pepe's salsa-style beat, I understood.

Standing on the sidewalk, I could hear the band just fine. I also had a decent view of the Bottle Blondes (I guess Pepe was with them; wasn't paying much attention to him) over a chain link fence that enclosed one of the three "pavilions."

Which is a pretty fancy term for rectangular chain link fencing that separated the wine and beer tasting in-crowd, who were willing to pay $7.50 ($10 on Saturday) for the privilege, from the common people like me who wandered the public sidewalks and streets freely.

The whole setup had a funny feel to it. Typical of Salem.

I appreciate the effort that went into planning and putting on the 2009 Summer in the City. However, walling off the center of downtown streets didn't produce a friendly, welcoming, inclusive atmosphere.

OK, maybe there is some sort of rule that wine and beer tasting can't happen in a public setting where, god forbid, a teenager might cop a sip of alcohol (which is probably the least consciousness-altering substance he or she would have imbibed last weekend).

If so, I wish the under-21 and over-21 separation could have been accomplished in a less chain link'y manner. The Salem Art Fair manages to do this in a much less obtrusive and prison-like fashion.

Heading down Court Street with some friends to eat at Venti's, which thankfully was accessible at no charge (and is my favorite downtown dining spot), I was struck by how empty "Summer in the City" looked. Almost depressing.

While we ate, the four of us dissected this year's downtown event. One woman had paid to sit in the Pepe and the Bottle Blondes pavilion while the rest of us cheapskates stood on the sidewalk outside.

She said that not one single person, not one, got up to dance. Would this have happened in Eugene or Portland? I doubt it. Only in Salem, where people sit on their hands to Latin music.

And chain-link off the center of their downtown streets for a city celebration. (Lisa Anne, another Salem blogger, had the same reaction to this that I did.)

Salem sucks: Trader Joe's coming to Corvallis!

Reason #437,618 why Salem, Oregon's tribute to boring white bread living, sucks big time: Trader Joe's has chosen to open a store in Corvallis rather than here.

"It's really about the income of the community and the education level of the community. Those two points are really important in Trader Joe's world for analyzing a site," said Martin, who specializes in retail properties. Corvallis ranked a bit higher than Salem on both points, she said.

Salem Mayor Janet Tayor has been lobbying hard to get a Trader Joe's in Salem. Great job, Mayor. Somehow her efforts were useless in convincing the company that a city of 155,000 people is a better Trader Joe's site than a town of 55,000.

My wife and I would drown our woes in a gallon of Two Buck Chuck, but we can't buy any -- because there's no freaking Trader Joe's near us! Now, it looks like...forever.

My new Sony DSC-HX1 captures Salem World Beat Festival

 A great weekend: I've fallen in love with my first high-end point and shoot digital camera, a Sony DSC-HX1 that I got last Friday (a three-month early birthday present from me to me, figuring that if I waited to give myself this gift, I'd miss a lot of summer photo opportunities).

And I got to try out the camera at Salem's 2009 World Beat Festival, where I always have a good time.

I went yesterday with Laurel, and returned today by myself -- wanting to apply some photo lessons that I'd learned my first time out and soak up more of the multi-cultural vibe.

I'll tell you what I like about the DSC-HX1, which has gotten quite a few laudatory Amazon reviews, in the course of showing some of the photos I snapped at the festival and Riverfront Park.

Yesterday I got some blurry shots of the Salem Carousel using the camera's Intelligent Auto Adjustment feature (point and shoot mode). Guess it's not intelligent enough to know that something is in motion.

Today I used the "S" mode (Shutter Speed Priority Shooting) to get a faster shutter speed and sharper photo.

Pretty cool -- you can set the shutter speed and aperture manually, either singly or together. Mostly I found that the point and shoot setting worked fine, but it's nice to be able to play around with some manual settings.

Some dancers, using a mild zoom.

The camera has a 20x optical zoom, which was one of the key features I wanted in a new camera. My old Olympus Stylus just had a 3x zoom. More examples of the marvelous 20x zoom later (which can extend to 34x and more, if you shoot at a 4x6 or 5x7 resolution quality, or less).

I lucked out today, getting to the main stage while a Taiko group was still playing. So much energy, so much power. I felt it even through the camera's viewfinder as I played around with various settings.

I sat close to the stage. Still, without the powerful zoom I wouldn't have been able to capture the shots that I did.

Quite a few acrobatic and athletic moves in Taiko.

I got chills up my spine from the emotion of the drumming. The rhythms are addictive. I wanted more, as soon as the group stopped.

Then I headed to a demonstration of Indian dancing. Beautiful colors on the beautiful women.

Again, my new camera's zoom came in handy. I couldn't get super close to the stage, but with a 20x telephoto, that doesn't matter (the DSC-HX1 has image stabilization that works great on high power zooms with shaky hands).

No way am I getting this shot with my dinky 3x Olympus zoom, unless I clamber up on stage and shove a camera in this woman's face. With the Sony, no problem.

Even closer.

I loved the shapes of the dancers -- meaning, how they used their female contours to form such interesting vignettes.

Nice colors. And mood.

Speaking of colors, wow!

This guy was another kind of Indian. He had a large crowd around him. The Sony has a swiveling view finder, so I could turn it almost upside down, raise the camera over my head a bit , and get an unobstructed shot while still using the view finder.

Returning to the main stage area, Darryl Thomas (who I believe is a dance instructor at Western Oregon University) had gotten the audience to do some hip-hop steps in unison (more or less). I demurred, being more interested in getting additional Sony shots.

Here's some first-day World Beat Festival photos. This guy was standing in deep shadow under an awning. I figured the point and shoot setting wouldn't handle that very well. Actually, it did fine.

A girl grooving to some bluegrass music.

This sort of situation is where the tilting view finder comes in handy. I don't like to look obtrusive when I'm taking a photo of regular (meaning non-performing) people. With the tilting view finder, I could sit on the grass, put the camera on my lap, and glance down to take a photo in a casual fashion.

Here's my best "maxi-zoom is great" example. Standing on the riverfront, this is how a boat appeared without any zoom.

And this is how it looked at the camera's maximum zoom, with the image stabilization at work. Taking the shot hand held, I could see the image trembling at the high zoom (probably about 34x). But the photo turned out pretty darn sharp.

Lastly, here's an example of the panorama feature, taken on our deck.

I selected the panorama mode, held down the shutter release, and panned the camera from left to right. Somehow the Sony stiched everything together nicely (have no idea how I'd print this out, though).

2009 Salem Tour of Homes photos -- million dollar house & condos

Yesterday Laurel and I took a look at three of the 24 properties featured in the 2009 Salem Tour of Homes -- the two most expensive homes, and The Meridian condos.

First stop was the $1,065,000 house built by Kaufman Homes at Sahelee Court, SE. (3,849 sq. ft.). Now, a million dollar home is no big deal in southern California. At least, it wasn't before the housing boom went bust down there.

But up here in sleepy Salem, a million bucks should buy you some pretty damn impressive lodging. And from what we saw, it does.

The kitchen was impressive. We weren't wild about the overly ornate woodwork, though. Mostly the house had a clean Oriental look. But the kitchen cabinets and island were much busier.

This is a covered patio, off the kitchen and dining area. Pretty sweet. A whole lot fancier than our basic grill and patio furniture.

Laurel is pointing out large hanging heaters that keep you warm on cold Oregon nights (and days). Nice outdoor fireplace.

Our house is so limited in storage, being of early 1970s vintage, Laurel drooled over the giant walk-in pantries and closets in the million dollar home.

Any resemblance to our laundry room is purely coincidental.

The master bedroom was nice, but not spectacularly impressive. I liked the connection to the outside, though. A water feature is just beyond the bedroom's patio.

Master bedroom bathroom, simple Japanese'y look. Understated, compared to other bathrooms in expensive homes we've seen at other Tour of Homes events.

Next stop was a $650,000 R² Properties house on Muirfield Avenue (5,387 sq. ft., wow!). 

This out-of-focus iPhone photo is included to show one of our Tour of Homes question marks: what's up with putting a television over the fireplace? Both expensive homes had this. Seems like you'd get a neck ache from craning your head to look up.

The defining feature of this house was its way steep lot. Which made for a three level design. Laurel is looking over the edge of the top level deck.

Which leads a long way down. Good idea, to have a curved top railing. You don't want your cat to jump on it and make a misstep.

Great location for a soaking tub. No prying eyes this high up, with a forest outside.

We get walk-in shower envy every time we visit the Tour of Homes.

The second level featured an impressive rec room: wet bar, pool table, strong colors (albeit rather bar-like).

These days every fairly expensive new home has a media room, it seems. Our TV is in an utterly un-dark area. I could get into cocooning in this room on a soft couch with a big screen to keep me entertained.

The eventual owners of this house are going to need a baseball bat to fight off all the neighborhood kids who will want to hang out in the lower level. Given how steep the lot is, the builder was able to include a basketball hoop and climbing wall (there's a lot more air room above the top of this photo).

Our last stop was the The Meridian Luxury Residence Condominiums. This is the first major condo development close to downtown Salem, which hasn't been a condo town.

We were curious to see what the units looked like, since we know some people who are moving into the Meridian and missed out on the development's open house a few months ago.

This is the back of the building, facing the Willamette River, where residents park and enter.

First impression: it feels like a fancy hotel. Way different than the country life we're used to. I immediately thought, "We're not condo people."

  Inside the doors, the Meridian looked even more like a hotel. We were greeted by a staffer who pointed us to the elevator. The Tour of Homes units were on the third floor.

  First condo we saw didn't impress us at all. Too brown, too small, too few windows.

There sure is a different pricing structure with condos. $232,000 for 926 square feet. Plus $170 a month dues. If someone doesn't want the trouble of taking care of a house, why not buy a small home for $232,000 and then use the $170 to help pay for a gardener and cleaning person?

The next furnished condo looked a lot more appealing. Wood floors made a big difference.

But here's the view from the dining area. I just couldn't get excited about the idea of looking at a gas station and convenience store.

And what's the point of a balcony less than a foot wide? Makes window washing easier I suppose. Otherwise, useless.

Typical condo bedroom. Small. No windows. Claustrophobic, compared to what we're used to.

The views on the river side were pleasant. However, I'd expected that the windows would be larger, to take even more advantage of the view.

Our overall impression of The Meridian: some of the units were attractive and will appeal to a certain clientele. Just not us. 

2009 Salem Dog Days -- a downtown canine carnival

Yesterday Salem engaged in a search for the area's cutest dog. June's First Wednesday downtown event featured canines of all shapes, sizes, and breeds, wandering the sidewalks, owners in tow.
Download Salem Dog Days article

Naturally Serena and I took part, though as I say on my You Tube video of the event, we declined to enter the most adorable dog contest.

Not that I doubted Serena's chances in a fair cuteness fight.

Obviously she is the most beautiful dog in the world. I just figured that the little white fuzzy dog lobby would have biased the judges against 65 pound Shepherd/Lab mixes.

Here's my video. You can judge relative dog cutenesses for yourself.

Wings of Wonder -- beautiful butterflies in Independence, Oregon

First off, if you're looking for a video that shows butterfly sex (and why wouldn't you be?) -- you've found it!

Disclaimer: there is a human variety of "butterfly sex," and there is the authentic kind, what butterflies themselves do. This blog post is all about authenticity.

Yesterday my wife and I took visiting relatives, my sister and brother-in-law, to a wonderful local attraction that we'd never been to before: Wings of Wonder in Independence, Oregon. If you love butterflies (and who doesn't?) this is a must-see if you're in the area.

For us rural south Salemites, getting to Wings of Wonder was just a short drive down Buena Vista Road, followed by a pleasant ferry trip across the Willamette River.

If you're arriving via the ferry, keep on going straight onto a gravel road (Willamette Ferry Street) when you get to the stop sign. There's no sign for Wings of Wonder at the intersection. Have fluttering faith, head on down the unpaved road, and soon you'll come to the educational center on the left -- which we were told recently became an official non-profit organization.

I'd never been to a butterfly exhibit. At least, not one where the butterflies are flying around within a large tropical plant-filled enclosure kept at 90 degrees. But my sister and her husband had been to four or five. They said Wings of Wonder was the best.

After being escorted in through double doors, to prevent butterfly escapes, and getting some instruction about how to conduct ourselves (such as "look down, some butterflies rest on the floor"), we spent an exceedingly pleasant 45 minutes or so admiring the wide variety of colorful butterflies.

Uplifting music is played, most appropriately.

Biggest thrills, both on the video: (1) Having a butterfly alight on my hand and stay a while, even though, so far as I know, I bear no resemblance to a flower, and (2) Watching a couple of butterflies have sex.

Which, before you get excessively excited and rush to my You Tube production, isn't very action packed. In fact, there was no action at all.

Either butterflies practice a form of tantric sex, a Zen variety of contemplative mating, or the male had died after doing his reproductive thing. I'll go with the first theory, being a happier option, but a Wings of Wonder employee seemed inclined to the second when we asked what was going on with the motionless entwined pair.

Enjoy the video.

Salem to Silverton: a trip from boring to charming

It's only about 28 miles from my house in rural south Salem to Silverton. But it seemed like light years yesterday, as we traveled from Oregon's stodgy conservative capital to a charming progressive small town.

Amazingly, Laurel and I had never been to the Oregon Garden, which opened ten years ago. With my sister and brother-in-law visiting from California, we were finally drawn to check out Silverton's prime attraction.

Well, let's say #2 attraction.

Because Silverton's Stu Rasmussen is the first openly transgender mayor in the United States, and he's gotten a lot of attention since being elected last November.

Including the possibility of starring in a reality show.

We'd headed to downtown Silverton after quickly touring the Oregon Garden by tram (snap review: Impressive! Beautiful! I want to return when we have more time to walk around and admire the amazing variety of plantings).

Having wandered through an antique store and an art gallery it was time for a caffeine pick-me-up. So after chatting with some locals who were ensconced at a table outside a Water Street coffee house, we went inside to fuel up with food and drink.

And were thrilled to see Stu saunter down the sidewalk and join the group. (He's impossible to miss, believe me.)

I felt like we were blessed with a celebrity sighting -- like when Laurel and I visit my daughter in Hollywood and see a movie or TV star in a restaurant.

Leaving, we conversed some more with the locals. First visit to the town in many, many years, and it took me about two seconds to realize that I really like Silverton's style.

Everybody we encountered was warm, open, out-going, and more than a little quirky. A wonderful counterpoint to Salem's much more guarded atmosphere. Part of the difference is due to small town/big town, but that isn't the entire explanation.

When I told the group that my wife and I were from Salem, one of the locals said, "That's a great place to be away from." I heartily agreed, expounding on my it's a nothing at the center of everything theory.

The worst-kept secret in Oregon? Salem is a boring town. I like to say that Salem is the amorphous undistinguished center between four interesting one-hour-away compass points. North is Portland. South is Eugene. West is the Pacific Ocean. East is the Cascades. And in between all these wonders? Blahville USA.

I want Salem to be able to elect a transgender mayor. I want Salem to be as diverse, artsy, progressive, and green as Silverton. I want Salemites to be as welcoming, humorous, and eccentric with visitors.

(One of the locals told us to be sure not to miss Silverton's Chinatown, which reportedly consisted of two doorways in the next block, one or both of which I believe led to a Chinese restaurant.)

Here's what a resident had to say about why he loves Silverton. After one visit, me too.

A rose cleavage tattoo: to stare or not to stare?

Ah, I enjoy etiquette questions of this sort (especially when I get to both ask and answer it):

Q. Mr. Manners, if an attractive young woman wears a low-cut top, showing off a rose tattoo nestled in her shapely cleavage, is it proper to admire this work of body art in an obvious fashion?

A. Absolutely.

That's my short answer. Here's the explanation, and some background.

Recently I went into a Salem business and was approached by a twenty-something female employee. I was immediately distracted from my intended task by a more enjoyable activity.

Namely, appreciating the sight of an artistic rose tattoo that had the good fortune to occupy the nicely-curved valley between her breasts, which were exposed (but not excessively) by a scoop-necked blouse.

Since I'm about six feet tall, and she was considerably shorter, I couldn't avoid gazing at the tattoo and its surrounding busty environment.

I did make a desultory attempt to maintain eye contact with her as she asked if she could help me, but quickly realized that this was going to be impossible. Like a living bobblehead, I found my eyes bouncing back and forth from her chest to her face, which was nice to look at -- but considerably less interesting than the vivid red rose.

I just spent some enjoyable moments with Google looking for a photo of a similar tattoo. No success. This page has some cleavage tattoos, but not the right kind. And the rose tattoo here is way more chest-expansive.

Contemplating the etiquette of the situation after driving off, I decided that my response was entirely appropriate. Such was confirmed by a couple of friends, one male and one female, who supported my reasoning when I asked their opinion.

Which is, that if a woman (1) exposes her cleavage via her business attire, and (2) draws more attention to this part of her body via a bright red tattoo, it would be discourteous not to stare at what she obviously wants admired.

There are, of course, limits.

I'm glad that I didn't whip out my iPhone and snap a photo of her breasts (though I admit this thought later passed through the inappropriate-action area of my male brain -- which comprises a significant fraction of the whole neuronal mass).

My Googling did reveal that some consider cleavage tattoos trashy. And one commenter on a "Dress for Failure for Women" post said:

I’ll never forget the marketing assistant in a client’s office who perpetually wore ample cleavage coupled with a prominent rose tattoo…. well, you can probably guess where. Talk about a distraction. Unfortunately for her, the distraction was primarily humerous. We could never quite get past the thought of how close the tattoo artist might have come to puncturing her (ahem) chest.

Well, I can only speak the manly truth: I enjoy visiting business establishments where the female employees are attractive. If they dress provocatively, that's even better.

Given a choice between being helped by a busty young thing with a rose tattoo showing in her cleavage, and -- gosh, just about anybody else -- you can guess where I'm more likely to take my return business.

(Check out some responses to the question, "Is it rude to stare at someone's tattoo?" No, say the tattooed. Just don't touch, usually.)

Salem is a tourist draw? Only for bland lovers.

Don't believe everything you read in the newspaper. Especially if it's a front page story in the Salem Statesman Journal with the headline, "Is Salem a tourist draw? Absolutely, bureau says."
Download Salem, a tourist draw?

I'm a long time Salem resident (I moved there 31 years ago, but now live about five miles south of the city limits). I know Salem well, obviously.

When family or friends come to visit for the first time, Laurel and I start to panic. "What are we going to do? Where are we going to take them? There's nowhere interesting to go."

So I guess we're not going to be spokespeople for Travel Salem, the snazzier name of what formerly was the Salem Convention and Visitor's Association, which has introduced its new "Absolutely Oregon" catch phrase.

We like Salem -- but mostly for reasons such as the vast expanse of free on-street parking spaces downtown (because there's not much to draw people there).

In this regard, as I've documented, Salem is better than Portland.

But otherwise my blog posts on the subject of Oregon's yawn-inducing capital city have been along the lines of Salem sinks further into mediocrity and Here's why Salem is so depressing.

That said, I've no doubt that Travel Salem will be able to attract conventioneers to the area.

Groups such as the Bland Lovers Association and People for the Abolition of Excitement will come here like moths drawn to gray. Also, the Watching Paint Dry discussion circle.

If I sound critical, it's because Salem deserves to be criticized.

Along with every resident whose tastes are so strip mall, big box store, and fast food'ish, the rest of us are doomed to mediocrity when cool businesses reject the area after a marketing study.

That's what I've been told turns Trader Joes off when they considered coming to Salem: the lack of cultural creatives -- who are willing to spend money on healthy, organic, cutting-edge, innovative items.

Recently we ate at the P.F. Changs restaurant in Bridgeport Village south of Portland. There's nothing like it in Salem. Great atmosphere. Excellent food. Reasonable prices.

We begged the server to tell her bosses that Salem needs a P.F. Changs. Badly. Her reply started off sounding encouraging.

"I've heard that we're thinking of opening up a new store in...Bend. But not Salem."

Laurel and I were shocked.

"But Bend has like one third the population of Salem. Come on, we don't have a Trader Joes; we don't have a Whole Foods. There's plenty of good locations in south Salem, where the greatest enclave of P.F. Changs-friendly people live."

She said she'd pass on our request to management, noting that she hears similar pleas from the many Salemites who frequent P.F. Changs. I won't hold my breath for a restaurant here.

The most amusing quote in the Statesman Journal story came at the end, from the executive director of the Salem Area Chamber of Commerce, Mike McLaran.

Salem, as a whole, is unified in absolutely the greatest place to be -- to live, work, and do business.

Wow, that's hilarious. My wife and I both cracked up when we read that. Mike has a sideline waiting for him in ironic stand-up comedy.

Grouchy complaining about Oregon's big snowstorm

It's Christmas Eve, so I need to get some Grinchiness out of my system before the clock strikes twelve and negativity becomes politically (and religiously) incorrect.

First, a few personal positives about Oregon's biggest-ever December snowstorm.

Our electricity never went off here in rural south Salem. None of our pipes froze and our heat pump kept working. We drove around fine with the aid of tire chains and all wheel drive. Today's rain has gotten our driveway clear.

So we got through the storm better than lots of people, for which we're grateful. Friends in Turner (on the other side of I-5) haven't had electricity for five days. That's terrible.

Still, it'll feel good to get some gripes off of my chest and into the blogosphere.

Portland TV coverage. We're still ABC-less, due to the ridiculous pissing match between DISH network and Fisher Communications/KATU. So my irritations with how the Portland stations covered the storm is mostly based on watching KGW, and a bit of channels 6 and 12.

Rest of Earth to Metro area-centric KGW: Through the miracle of cable and satellite technology, people can see your weather reports even though they're far from Portland. So you might consider adding qualifiers like "metro forecast" to your end-of-report summary.

Otherwise we mid-Willamette valley'ers get freaked when we see a prediction of six inches of snow, yet the National Weather Service says much less will fall in our local area.

On that subject...I found that National Weather Service web sites (here, here, and here) were much more informative and up to date than the weather page of the television station sites.

Store snow clearing. My wife grew up in Illinois and Wisconsin. She says that parking lots almost always are cleared by merchants after it snows. Not here in Oregon, judging by what I found when I drove into Salem yesterday and today.

The slipperiest part of my journey wasn't on the roads; it was navigating parking lots filled with crusty, rutted, slushy snow and ice.

Not always easy to drive on without chains, traction tires, or four wheel drive. And equally unpleasant to walk on. I saw that one establishment had a snow shovel by the front door, apparently so patrons could extricate their car if it was stuck.

Well, I'm not selling anything. And we've got a damn long driveway. Plus, I don't have a real snow shovel (just ordered one from Amazon, a post-Christmas present to myself).

Yet I managed to make our driveway drivable. Yes, it took some shoveling work. But it sure seems like Fred Meyer and other merchants could assign a few young studs or studettes to clear away the worst of the ice and snow in their parking lots.

Postal service not living up to its reputation. Our newspaper has been delivered every morning by car, no matter how bad the roads have been. But we didn't get any mail on Monday or Tuesday of this week.

Today I went into the Vista station to pick up our mail, wondering what happened to the "Neither rain nor snow, nor sleet nor dark of night shall stay these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds"?

Arriving a bit after noon, I was told that the carrier had already taken all of the undelivered mail for delivery today. But when the clerk checked on this, it turned out that our mail was still sitting at the post office.

So I grabbed it and drove home in our Prius on almost completely bare roads.

A small North Carolina newspaper was asked about mail delivery during bad weather and published an informative Q & A. Here's part of the answer.

One of the ways they [USPS] are saving money is by using Contract Delivery Service providers. Contract delivery service is performed by one of three types of carriers; rural, city or contract. CDS carriers are not USPS employees but are independent contractors, often unionized, providing service on specific routes. They are not bound by the Postman's Creed and can elect when and where they deliver based on their own assessment of conditions. If they feel your driveway is too slick and they don't drive a 4-wheel drive vehicle they do not have to deliver your mail.

Well, this probably explains why a couple of inches of snow resulted in a decidedly unswift completion of our carrier's appointed round.

To be fair, this is the first time in eighteen years of living in the south Salem hills that we haven't had our mail delivered when it was supposed to be.

I think we have a different carrier now -- a woman in a Subaru wagon, rather than our previous guy in an old Jeep Wrangler. He could get through anything.

It seems to me that if you're going to contract for mail delivery in a hilly rural Marion County area, you should be prepared to drive on some snow and ice. With tire chains, any car could have navigated the roads in our neighborhood, but I guess putting them on was too much trouble for our carrier.

OK, just a few hours away from Christmas. Got to start getting into my Jesus (or Buddha) like loving mode. Enough grumbling.

Oh, can't resist one last grouch: National Weather Service, after praising your forecasts earlier in this post, a pretty healthy snow shower just came by. I took our SUV up to the end of our driveway and barely made it up the incline.

There weren't any weather alerts or warnings for the mid-Willamette Valley today, though you did correctly forecast a possible inch of snow for our zip code (97306).

I suspect some drivers were lulled into complacency by the rainy almost 40 degree weather earlier today and got caught in some slippery stuff this evening.

Not a big deal, just a last opportunity to express my inner Grinch.

Let's block off the Columbia Gorge

After having watched countless TV weatherperson explanations about why Portland and the Willamette Valley are locked in a record-breaking snow and ice spell ("worst storm since 1968...40 years!") the solution is obvious:

Block off the goddamn Columbia Gorge.That's where the cold air keeps coming from.

I wouldn't have needed to put on and take off tire chains several times this week if it weren't for the gap between western and eastern Oregon that keeps on funneling frigid winds into the Portland area, and thence down into the usually temperate central valley.

Normally, as a card carrying 1000 Friends of Oregon member, I support preserving the environment.

But I also like being able to drive into Salem without slipping and sliding, and having our electricity stay on.

The final straw came when I took our dog for a walk this evening and discovered that when a large canine who has a decided tendency to pull on the leash is placed on an ice-covered road, the human holding the other end of the leash will be on the edge of his feet during a two mile meander under a freezing starry sky.

So when I got home, fed up with having to deal with cold air that should have the good sense to stay where it belongs on the other side of the Cascades, I did some research.

Not much, because I'd already made my mind up that a gate needs to be shut across the Columbia Gorge at the beginning of winter. A few seconds of Googling gave me a scientific rationale.

An impressively titled study: "The Structure and Dynamics of Columbia Gorge Gap Flow Revealed by High-Resolution Numerical Modeling."
Download Columbia Gorge wind study (large PDF file)

I couldn't understand it. But all I needed to make my case for the Gorge Gate was this introductory graphic.
 

"Great impact on large 1 million plus population. Wind, frigid temperature, snow, freezing rain."

Exactly. So why do we keep putting up with this crap?

Obama is looking for large infrastructure projects to revive the economy. Constructing a gigantic gate across the gorge that shuts off the wind flow when it threatens to cause me to put on tire chains down here in Salem sounds like an excellent way to spend a few tens of billions of dollars.

More or less. I haven't worked out the cost. Nor how to build the gate. Or what the environmental consequences (aside from warmer air for me and other western Oregonians) would be.

I leave those minor details to others.

All I know is that more snow is forecast for Christmas Eve and we've got dinner reservations on the 25th for the vegetarian buffet at Salem's terrific Marco Polo Global Restaurant.

So build the Gorge Gate! Like, tomorrow. Or soon thereafter.

Dikes to keep out the North Sea have worked for the Dutch. No reason why the Willamette Valley can't have an air dike to keep out air from eastern Oregon.

Build, baby, build!

No snow in south Salem: joy!

Usually we habitually bored Salemites feel inferior to the way cooler Portlanders to our north. But today I've been happy to gaze at our outdoor thermometer and watch it hover around 37 degrees -- where it is even now, at 6:30 pm.

From watching Portland TV (but not KATU, curses be upon you) I know that most people in the metro area wish they could be less cool in a climatic sense at the moment.

Those damn gorge winds are bringing you much more snowy and icy precipitation results compared to Salem and points south.

Seemingly the tug of war between cold air funneled into the valley from the gorge and the push of warmer air coming from the new storm is being played out just a ways north of us.

Hope it stays that way.

I've been happy to listen to rain on the roof, having already done a usual winter's worth of snow and ice shoveling the past week. And it isn't even officially winter yet.

Earlier in the week it looked like there'd be no end to the arctic air mass hanging over the northwest. A series of snow storms was in the forecast, highly unusual for western Oregon.

Which got me to thinking about global climate change -- how quickly it could happen. What if usually temperate western Oregon went into a deep freeze like we've had the past week?

And didn't come out of it.

An article in Fortune, "Cloudy With a Chance of Chaos," talked about how the climate control system could be more like an on-off switch than a dial. Things could change fast.

How bad could it get? Imagine Europe suffering floods and heat waves on a vastly greater scale than those endured in 2002 and 2003, while northern regions experience intermittent deep freezes as atmospheric and ocean circulations struggle to find new equilibrium. At the same time, droughts and floods not seen since ancient times would afflict some of the most densely populated regions on earth.

So we in the frigid northwest should look upon our unusual recent weather as a wake-up call to get serious about global climate change. "Unusual" could become "usual" if we sit on our carbon-soaked hands.

Also, let's not forget who we turn to when widespread problems hit: government. Public employees are out there plowing and sanding roads. They're also getting people around on public transportation when private cars are stuck in driveways.

It's funny (but not really) how those who gripe about high taxes are the first to complain when government has trouble responding to an emergency.

Well, duh, dude. If you want a road plowed quickly, you've got to pay for it.

Europeans are a lot smarter than us in that regard. They understand that pooling money together through taxes and buying public benefits is wiser than individuals frittering away their extra income on inessentials.

I can tell you that we'd have been pleased to pay a bit more in taxes if Marion County could make it possible for us to get into Salem without chains by sanding and plowing Lake and Liberty roads.

We need government. We need to deal with human-caused global climate change. When the snow and ice go away in Oregon, those truths won't.

Saving Salem through magical thinking

Depending on how the weather turns out tomorrow, my wife and I may be getting a We Saved Salem medal from the city fathers. Well, city mother -- since Janet Taylor is the mayor.

Why?

Because this afternoon we (actually, "me," since in our household sex role equality hasn't trickled down to putting chains on) got the Highlander Hybrid ready to tackle the six miles of icy south Salem roads separating us from essential winter storm supplies that we hadn't gotten on our first expedition.

Like, organic coffee beans.

I panicked when I made some pre-blogging coffee yesterday and realized that I wasn't going to be able to get through the week properly caffeinated.

Out here in the country we don't have an expresso stand in every farmer's field. That's one of the drawbacks of Oregon's land use system that could use some loosening up. Though I'm an avid environmentalist, I'm also a caffeine addict, and the bean trumps green for me.

There were other things on the list that I carried into the nearest Fred Meyer store after learning how long it takes to get into town at 20 mph rather than my usual...um, higher speed (I know for a fact that police read blogs).

But once Laurel and I got into Winter Storm Panic Mode, our two shopping carts quickly filled with way more stuff than we'd intended to get.

It was a lot of fun. And good for the economy.

Fun, because I enjoyed the camaraderie of being out with other parka-clad Salemites taking advantage of the last clear sunny (and freaking cold) day before more snow hits Oregon.

I found myself chatting with people I usually would have ignored, or been a lot less open with. All of us had navigated semi-treacherous streets to have the opportunity to crash grocery carts in the crowded Fred Meyer aisles.

Smiles seemed more common than usual, a jovial prelude to the forecasted storm.

I couldn't believe how many newly discovered "essentials" ended up in our carts. I'd wanted to get another gas container so we had more fuel for our generator in case the power went out.

Then I figured a siphon device to get gasoline out of our cars would be handy. And why not pick up another driveway-clearing shovel, since it seemed a bit lighter than the one I'd been using?

A box of raisin bran struck me as absolutely necessary to get through worsening weather.

Plus all sorts of other food items that health-conscious vegetarians like us can't get along without (eating a veggie-burger without a whole wheat bun -- a prospect too horrible to contemplate).

We made a couple of additional stops at the Great Harvest Bread Co. and Life Source Natural Foods before clanking our way back home at tire chain speed. Our decision to leave the dog at home was wise, since the cargo area and back seat both were filled up by the time we'd finished our panicked snow is coming! shopping spree.

The last thing I said to Laurel as we exited the natural food store was, "Now that we've bought so much storm stuff, for sure it won't turn out to be nearly as bad as expected."

The first thing I did after I unlocked the front door was to check for an updated KATU forecast on my laptop. What I found was quite a bit different from the pre-shopping prediction.

The coast and Salem are expected to reach above freezing Wednesday.  A wintry mix is expected at times along the coast tomorrow early morning before changing to all rain.   Salem will see morning snow develop and then warm above freezing during the day with a rain - wintry mix likely.

Not great, but quite a bit better than before.

When Laurel walked in, I told her "We did it! We've saved Salem! Our storm shopping paid off. Now it looks like there won't be as much snow -- all because we prepared for a lot of it."

Magical thinking. Hey, it works for me. Especially if Mayor Taylor comes through with those medals for us.

Oregon winter storm! Will we survive?!

The electricity is still on. Don't know for how long. Need to get this report out to the blogosphere while I still have a warm laptop.

Things are desperate for us here in Salem. I just checked: there's an inch of snow on the ground! And it's twenty-six degrees! Pray for us, rest of the country.

Because Oregon's Willamette Valley doesn't get much snow. So this storm is a shocker. Laurel and I are taking it seriously. Our lives -- or at least lifestyles -- are at stake.

Panic started to set in yesterday.

We'd been tuned in to the Storm Tracker bulletins on every Portland TV station. We knew what was coming: a couple of inches of snow! Below freezing temperatures! (and loads of exclamation marks in blog posts)

Our essential supplies seemed to be in order. Gas for generator to keep the laptop and DSL router going. Silk soymilk creamer to go with the coffee needed to write blog posts.

But then we took a closer look at the pantry. Yikes! Just a few organic walnuts. And only a few crumbs of raisin bran. I felt like the Donner Party, facing starvation.

Sure, we have an all-wheel-drive Highlander. And tire chains. But the natural food store is eight miles away! (winter storms bring out italics in addition to exclamation marks)

I got together an emergency bag: ski jacket, gloves, hat, rain pants, salted soybeans. Threw it in the back of the SUV along with the chains, which I'd practiced putting on. Got the wife and dog in the car so we'd live or die together. Set off for Life Source Natural Foods.

Made it fine.

Especially since it was sunny and forty degrees. Felt a little silly walking into the store dressed for an Everest expedition. But you can't be too careful when an inch or two of snow is on the way.

Some of it appeared this morning, which is when our winter ordeal really began.

I turned on the TV to see how panicked the Channel 2 Storm Tracker team wanted me to be. Plus, to watch Meet the Press while I ate my Sunday pancakes.

Yikes! (redux)

The DISH network receiver wasn't working. Then I remembered: the final episode of Survivor is on tonight! The Donner Party didn't have to deal with that -- just minor stuff like deciding whether to survive by eating dead bodies.

I got up on the roof. Brushed some snow off the satellite dish. Wondered how much more God was going to make me endure. Got an answer when I realized that I'd missed recording all of Meet the Press.

Shit! Now I really had a winter storm story to tell my grandchild. Assuming I could bribe her enough to listen to it.

At the moment we're in the eye of the storm. Well, actually according to the Storm Tracker folks the storm is over -- until a new one rolls in middle of the week. And that could bring another inch or two of snow.

It makes me feel better to know that people in Minnesota and New Hampshire realize what we're going through here in usually temperate Oregon. (It's now 25.7 degrees; that's a .3 degree drop since I started writing this post -- I think I can hear the wolves starting to circle.)

Portland blogger Jack Bogdanski has been keeping my spirits up with his storm updates. He started with "Breaking News: Snow in Portland" and now informs us "Weather excitement intensifies."

Portland's storm miseries appear to be taking a turn for the worse, as it appears that it is now getting dark. The darkness is expected to cut visibility in many areas, and these conditions may persist until morning.

When it'll be a brighter day, the Storm Gods willing. And as long as I'm appealing to a higher power, please let the 57 year old physics teacher dude win Survivor.

“Fill the boot” should take a hike

I'm all for raising money to fight muscular dystrophy. I just donated to the Muscular Dystrophy Association online.

But not through the "Fill the Boot" program, which recently slowed down traffic in Salem (Oregon) at rush hour once again, as firefighters walked up to cars stopped at red lights, asking that donations be put into a firefighter's boot.

I find this irritating and intrusive. I'm not alone, judging from some comments to a Texas newspaper story and what some friends said today when I asked them how they liked being asked to fill the boot.

Last Friday I encountered the firefighters at the Market Street and Lancaster Drive intersection, one of the busiest in town. Escaping the boot the first drive-through, after doing an errand I drove out of my way on a different return route to avoid the hassle.

How come panhandlers can't come up to your car window, nor fundraisers for any other worthy cause, but firefighters can on Fill the Boot days?

Last year the Medford City Council put its foot down and refused to allow an exception for firefighters. Good for them. Common sense ruled the day.

When it comes to enforcing the law, Medford police Chief Randy Schoen doesn't play favorites… Schoen said the City Council does not have the authority to grant an exemption that would supersede state law and allow firefighters to conduct their fund drive in the road on Highway 62.

… At the council meeting, Schoen encouraged the firefighters to find alternative methods to conduct their fund-raiser. He suggested using an area where cars can move out of the flow of traffic or in front of a business in a private parking lot, similar to the Salvation Army's red kettles at Christmas.

The Medford Police Department sets up phones to help take pledges for Jerry's Kids and its second annual "Tip a Cop" campaign is scheduled to take place at Red Robin on Sept. 29. The charity event raises money for Special Olympics with police officers filling water glasses and clearing tables in exchange for an additional tip from customers. Schoen said last year's drive was the most successful to date.

"What we did was legal and safe," Schoen said. "Cops do it for free and do it for a great cause."

Further discussion and legislation is possible, including laws that would make panhandling illegal at lighted intersections, Schoen said.

Just as they would when citizens complain about a homeless person impeding traffic to solicit, police would enforce the law if firefighters chose to act out their charity drive in the road.

Giving shouldn't be coerced. And having someone come up to your car window while you're stopped in traffic smacks of coercion to me.

With a little creative thinking, I'm sure firefighters could come up with ideas to raise money for muscular dystrophy that would be a whole lot less irritating to motorists, and even more productive for this charitable cause.

My wife and I give a lot to charities. But we almost never make a donation after getting a phone call. I tell the person, "Mail me something, and I'll take a look at it. We just don't believe in donating over the phone."

Donating through a car window when I'm at a red light is even less acceptable to me. Like the Medford police chief said, why not have firefighters hold out their boots in a highly visible parking lot next to a busy road?

That way those who want to give can, and those who don't won't be bothered or held up in traffic.

I suspect that support for Fill the Boot is connected with the public's high regard for firefighters. Which is well deserved. However, quite a few other occupations deserve an equal amount of respect.

Teachers. Nurses. Mail deliverers. Welfare workers. To name a few.

If firefighters get to walk up to stopped cars to solicit donations for a worthy cause, so should other groups. Special exemptions for Fill the Boot, as California legislation allowed, are politically correct but don't make sense.

Salem Art Fair purchases reflect my sophistication

I'm such a patron of the arts. Well, once a year anyway – when Laurel and I visit the marvelous Salem Art Fair, which opened today and continues through Sunday.

Here's two artistic creations that I brought home this afternoon. I'm deeply pleased with them.

I'd set out for the fair this morning with a primal intention: to find a coffee cup. We only have two that possess the correct vibe (and capacity) to hold my pre-meditation dose of caffeine, which, after thirty or so years of meditative practice, I've found is the main cause of the uplift that I feel.

You'd think it'd be easy to find a coffee cup at an art fair as large as Salem's, but over the years the number of potters has diminished. The artistic offerings are much more eclectic now, which is all to the good.

But it means that someone, like moi, whose sophisticated art collecting has centered around coffee cups, has to work harder to find just the right one.

This mood-elevating yellow cup (especially on gray wintry days) was spotted after pawing through a storage bin at a booth that the artist told me contained additional colors that weren't on display. The sacrifice I made for art, kneeling down on the hard Bush Park ground while holding up a plywood door, added to the satisfaction I got from my purchase.

I like the unevenness of it. Anyone can make a round cup, but it takes an artiste to fashion a irregular one. The artist told me that someone once said that her style was a cross between Martha Stewart and Fred Flintstone.

A good observation. I replied that I enjoyed the look, because it did seem like something that could have been hammered out in a prehistoric cave – to drink saber toothed tiger blood, or such.

Then, I made an impulsive buy. I hadn't realized that what was missing from my life was a bamboo pen holder until I saw the one in the photo. As its creator gave me change for the $10 bill I handed him, he told me that the bottom comes out of it, so the bamboo can be folded up.

I said, "If I ever decide to go on a knapsack tour of Europe, your pen holder is coming along." He thought that was a fine idea.

Here's my final, and most significant, art fair purchase from Firebelle Metalworks of Portland: a three-stone tres cool Chinese'ish rusted metal piece. It's going outside my office window, where I'll be able to glance up from my laptop and contemplate whatever the heck it means.

Stones suspended in air spoke to me. What they've got to say will unfold, I suppose.

We went to the Salem Art Fair with some friends from Seattle, Ron and Rita. They go to quite a few art fairs and they say that Salem's is the best.

Absolutely. The giant oaks and other trees in Bush Park provide shade and a beautiful backdrop for the art. The free music on the main stage is high quality, and the food…well, it's what you'd expect.

Not too healthy, by and large. Heart-clogging deep-fried Elephant Ears still are being sold by the downtown Rotary club, which I used to belong to. For lunch I had a vegetable egg roll and a great $3 baked potato topped precisely as instructed (not too much butter and sour cream, medium with the cheese and chives).

If you're in the vicinity of Salem, head to Bush Park Saturday or Sunday. We're going again tomorrow ourselves. Not a whole lot goes on in sleepy Salem, but the Art Fair is one weekend when the city wakes up.

Help me save Oregon strawberries

I can't eat the whole 2008 Oregon strawberry crop, but I've been trying. So help me out – buy local, buy often.

I was pleased to see Loaded Orygun's recent post on this important subject: "Not just strawberries – OREGON strawberries. Please?"

It mentioned my "As Oregon strawberries go, so the state" musing from a few years ago. What I said then still is true now.

Oregon strawberries are special. Research has proven that they're sweeter, redder, and simply better. But they're on the decline. Just like our state. Like a canary in a coal mine, the Oregon strawberry reflects the health of our previously vaunted livability.

I've been doing my best to keep Oregon strawberry growers in business. Almost every day I buy a carton or two from Roth's Sunnyslope Market in south Salem, which admirably sells quite a bit of local produce.

It isn't hard to decide between the delicious Oregon variety and the tasteless (by comparison) California berries. The latter travel better, so most of the country has never tasted a real strawberry.

When we were in Bend last week I made the mistake of buying a big container of California strawberries at Costco. They tasted fine.

Until I got back to Salem, walked into Roth's, and saw that local strawberries from Blue Heron Farms were on display. Now I can barely bring myself to eat the California berries.

Loaded Orygun's Torrid Joe has some good news. After describing how tests show Oregon strawberries to be objectively better than competitors from other states, he writes:

And so armed with those selling points, the push is on to identify Oregon strawberries by name in order to drive demand and a taste for a specific variety--like Alaskan salmon or Maine lobster, Vermont syrup or Wisconsin cheese.

Excellent idea. The decline in Oregon's strawberry acreage has to stop, or local berry addicts like me are going to face serious withdrawal problems one of these Junes.

Why can’t Salem be more like Bend?

Or…Portland, Eugene, Ashland, Corvallis – any number of Oregon towns with that special something that Salem so sorely lacks.

Laurel and I cruised around Bend one day last week. Our first stop was the NorthWest Crossing development. We were charmed.

We were involved with the effort to convert Salem's Fairview Training Center property into a sustainable mixed use development. So far it hasn't come to much, aside from the admirable progress of Pringle Creek Community on a small portion of the site.

NorthWest Crossing reminded us of what Salem lacks, because it incorporates many of the elements of the Sustainable Fairview master plan.

Homes are unique, not fashioned from an architectural cookie cutter. They all have a, well, homey feel to them. Porches encourage residents to face outward toward their neighbors.

Cars and garages are relegated to alleys. It's amazing how much better a street looks when it's people-focused rather than automobile focused. The alleys are the least attractive aspect of NorthWest Crossing.

These townhouses have a similar appearance to the detached homes.

This part of the development faces a large open area, left largely natural. As a laudatory description of NorthWest Crossing notes, most subdivisions plat the lots and leave whatever is left over as open space. Here, by contrast:

"The plan, developed by Walker Macy's Doug Macy, Mike Zilis, and David Aulwes, is organized around a large central circular park with mature pines ringed with higher-density homes, creating a distinctive heart to the community and a memorable identity. The plan begins with these placemaking elements, which contrasts with the conventional model of blanketing a parcel of land with lots then trying to carve out open space from the unbuildable remainder."

Family pet in tow, we walked to a commercial area of NorthWest Crossing.

A dog boutique featured a convenient hitching post. We got some lattes at a coffeehouse, sat outside, and enjoyed hearing "cute dog" as a girl and her mother drove by in an open-air Jeep.

Later we drove to the Old Mill District. Shopped at REI (don't have one in Salem). Watched my wife browse at a Chico's (don't have one in Salem). Ate at the yummy Café Yumm! (don't have one in Salem). Then went across town to the Whole Foods Market (don't have one in Salem).

See the pattern? There's a lot that Salem doesn't have, and Bend does, along with Eugene and the other cities I mentioned.

Poor us.

But we have no trouble finding a parking space in downtown Salem. Not much of a silver lining, but Salemites take whatever solace they can get after visiting a town like Bend that makes us realize what we're missing.

Ah, the “joys” of country life

If you live in the city, probably you have fantasies about moving to the country. Quiet. Open spaces. A laid back lifestyle. Bliss.

Yeah, sometimes. But not when your well pump gives out on the Friday before the long Memorial Day weekend and you're visualizing what it'll be like to live without running water for longer than you want to.

Which, it turned out, was about half an hour. That's when the newness of washing hands and dishes from one of the emergency water containers we keep on hand wore off.

When I lived in cities, I can't recall ever turning on the tap and having nothing come out. When you're on a well, that can be a frequent occurrence.

Electricity goes off – no water. Pump breaks – no water. Pressure tank system malfunctions – no water.

And no fun.

Nothing ruins a three day holiday like no water for the house. So I ran to the phone and dialed the number for Bello Pump & Well Service, who had left a helpful sticker on our equipment to remind us that they'd replaced a previous pump.

There's nothing like hearing a well guy answer the phone and tell you, "I'm in your area. I'll be there in a few minutes." Bella, Bello Pump.

Some testing revealed that likely our pump was the problem. It couldn't be replaced until the next day, so we roughed it overnight.

But this morning, there Rich Bello was, armed with a piece of equipment that his father had made the last time our pump needed to be pulled – a device made from a wheel that fit over the casing and helped roll the flexible (and heavy) 200 feet of continuous pipe out of the well.

Bello Pump & Well Service is a family affair. I like how their Yellow Pages ad says "Owner present on all jobs…Richard and Paul Bello, owners, workers, YOUR PUMP MEN!"

Not quite accurate, because Rich brought his wife and oldest daughter along to help out. One drove the Bello SUV up our driveway, slowly pulling the well pipe as the rest of us helped guide it out. Felt like a community barn raising. Except, not so much when I sat down and wrote Rich a check.

But I was happy to do it. Getting competent, friendly, and prompt well service on a weekend is priceless. Well, not really. I don't want to give Rich unreasonable financial expectations next time we need him.

It took quite a while to drain the orangey irony water that filled up our well after all the work that'd been done on it (our water needs to be heavily treated, as is common in marine sediment aquifers in the south Salem hills). And it looks like we still have an intermittent circuit breaker problem.

That's how country life goes. You learn how to deal with problems that city folk don't have.

Walking the dog late in the afternoon I met a neighbor driving home. When he asked, "What's new?" I had a pump tale to tell him, adding that days like these make visions of a downtown condo look appealing.

"I know what you mean," he said. "But dealing with challenges keeps rural life interesting. I've learned a lot about how to fix things since we moved out here."

True. It doesn't take much for me to reach my level of mechanical incompetence, though. Especially when the problem is 200 feet underground.

That's when you need a well guy. If you're in the Salem area, make that a Bello guy. (And maybe a gal, though I got the impression that Rich's daughter had other career choices in mind once she's finished with school).

Belly dancers show need to shake up Salem

Beauty. Artistry. Color. Diversity. Energy. Passion.

Not words usually associated with downtown Salem, Oregon. But yesterday Silverton's Raks Sarama belly dancing troupe, performing at a First Wednesday celebration, showed that this sleepy city has potential to wake up.

In my You Tube video (embedded below) you can hear a conversation between me and a fellow progressive friend, Frances, where I extol the virtues of my Flip Video camera.

Before that, Frances told me that she'd just been extolling the virtues of Lloyd Chapman, who is running for mayor against the incumbent, Janet Taylor. She ran into some Taylor supporters and told them that Chapman was a better choice for Salem.

Amen to that.

I can't vote for Chapman since we live outside of the city limits. But I sure hope he wins, defying the odds against dislodging Taylor from her entrenched position as a defender of unplanned growth, reduced quality of life, and favoritism toward big business over the average citizen.

We recently got back from a Hawaii vacation where shopkeepers asked us innumerable times "So, where are you from?"

I got tired of muttering, "Salem, Oregon…it's pretty boring with not much going on…Portland and Eugene are a lot more interesting." Had to speak the truth, though.

It's sort of hard to put a finger on exactly what it is Salem lacks. Whatever it is, Janet Taylor and her hidebound city council aren't the ones to bring it to town.

Chapman promises to shake Salem up. And god knows, we need it.

Raks Sarama showed me that. It was great to see the sidewalk in front of the Salem Center mall filled with smiling clapping people rather than just a few moribund shuffling shoppers.

At the end of the video I include a dig at Hillary Clinton. Understand, I'm much more of an Obama lover than a Clinton hater. There's a lot to like about her.

However, this country needs to be shaken up even more than Salem does. More of the same won't cut it. That's why I'm for belly dancing in the streets, Lloyd Chapman, and Barack Obama.

“Subdivided” points to ugliness of Salem

Sometimes, well often, when I'm driving around un-beautiful Salem, Oregon, I look at the atrocity of Commercial Street, Lancaster Drive, or the shuttered stores of downtown, and think "Who the hell foisted this ugliness on us?"

It's amazing, really.

We've gotten so used to the sterility, car-centeredness, garish billboards, utilitarian strip malls, treeless parking lots, and people-devoid sidewalks of the typical American town, the monstrosity of it all has left us numb to truly noticing it.

That's why it takes a documentary like "Subdivided," which Laurel and I saw a few nights ago at Salem's Progressive Films Series, to open eyes.

The movie is about the rise of isolated cookie-cutter suburbs and the decline of creative urban neighborhoods with a genuine sense of community.

Now, we're not exactly poster children for the new urbanism. We live on ten acres five miles from the Salem city limits, sucking up fossil fuel every time we drive into town – notwithstanding our hybrid cars.

But someday, when maintaining our uneasy care yard and the rest of our property gets too much for us, I can see us comfortably settling into a condo or townhouse within easy walking distance of the necessities of life: a coffeehouse, natural food store, bookstore, parks, walking/biking trails.

"Subdivided" showed that lots of people much younger than us also want a lifestyle that isn't centered on a three car garage, a postage stamp yard, and fences (both physical and mental) that separate neighbors.

One striking image in the movie recreates the filmmaker's experience of suburban isolation. Here he describes it in an interview.

When I moved back to the Dallas area (after living in California), one of my first experiences with people in my new subdivision was when I saw this guy across the street mowing his lawn. I figured this would be a good opportunity to introduce myself, but as I walked across the street and the guy saw me, he turned and mowed his way into the back yard.

This is by no means something isolated to North Texas - during research for the film I learned about attitudes like this all over the U.S. in suburban residential areas.

Years later, it says in the movie, he still hadn't met his neighbors. To our neighborhood's credit, we're more tightly connected than that – largely because our development has a commonly owned area and easements for riding/hiking trails that meander behind most of the lots.

Architects interviewed in "Subdivided" point out that this is important: having a focal point where people gather. In suburbia, that doesn't exist. Stores are just a place to run into and out of.

By contrast, in the small town where I grew up, going to the grocery store was a social event. Almost always you'd meet people there who you knew well. Shooting the breeze was as important as buying the milk.

We've got some of that here in Spring Lake Estates, which makes our 1970's era development pleasingly different from most semi-rural neighborhoods.

A community lake and picnic area is our focal point. Laurel and I walk around it daily. Most of the year we rarely see anyone else, but during the summer children and families flock to the common property. Then, conversations are common.

Where is there anything like this in Salem? A public gathering spot that draws people not for a commercial reason, but simply because it's a pleasant place to be.

In college I spent a semester abroad, in a Yugoslavian town on the Adriatic Sea, Zadar. In the late afternoon and evening people would promenade along the seawall. I recall that girls would walk in one direction, and boys in another, for maximum meeting potential.

In downtown Salem youth hang out at the Coffee House Café and a few other "with it" spots. I enjoy seeing them in their black-clad, cigarette-smoking, body-pierced splendor.

Thank god, someone is on the sidewalks of Salem. I even enjoy being accosted by panhandlers; that's how boring downtown is most of the time.

Salem, like every American town suffering from the stultifying effects of suburban subdivisions, has a chance to come alive again. The riverfront area has the potential to be a gathering point now that the Boise Cascade plant is slated to be replaced by a mixed-use development and public areas.

Connecting with people. Disconnecting from cars. Getting out and mingling. Good urban (and suburban) design is pretty simple. We just need to do it.

Starbucks wants to be my new best friend

It's sort of touching, those signs that have popped up in every Starbucks store. "We're your neighborhood Starbucks."

Well, actually you aren't. I live at least seven miles from the nearest Salem Starbucks. And that's the way this rural resident likes it.

If I want a friend, I'll get a dog. In fact, I have a dog. Pretty much all I want from Starbucks is a skinny venti vanilla latte a couple of times a week.

However, atmosphere does matter.

When I have a latte choice, I head for a locally owned place like the Coffee House Café. I like how they serve my "for here" drink in different looking cups, depending on what's clean. And how different baristas make my drink differently.

Starbucks has belatedly realized that becoming the coffee store corporate equivalent of McDonalds isn't such a good strategy. What was cool a couple of years ago now seems dated, predictable, commercialized.

A few signs touting Starbucks' neighborliness isn't going to change the vibe. Especially when the signs are obviously fashioned from a single corporate marketing cookie cutter.

About a week ago the head honcho of Starbucks, Howard Schultz, unveiled his "innovative customer-facing initiatives" and "vision for transforming the Starbucks customer experience and reinforcing a strong foundation from which to grow."

Great. This customer is ready to have his Starbucks experience transformed. I can hardly wait.

Free stuff would be an excellent place to start. Along with lots of others, I've complained that Starbucks sucks with its high-priced wi-fi.

So it's good to see that this is about to change. I found that out by perusing "My Starbucks Idea" on the Starbucks web site.

At first this struck me as just a corny superficial way a corporate giant tries to look like it's listening to customers, without really taking them seriously. But actually it's pretty interesting.

You can browse through the ideas and see which are under review (such as a punch card system) or coming soon (such as free wi-fi).

Unfortunately, "Lower your prices" hasn't struck the fancy of Starbucks management yet.

Instead of spending mucho $$ on advertising, just lower the prices a little. Old customers will return, new customers who are frightened by everyone who talks about "$5.00 for a cup of coffee!?!" will be lured in, and existing customers will feel 'special'.

I also liked "Go back to the European coffee house."

Please go back to your original idea of an European coffee house and get rid of the extraneous items like cds, stuffed animals, countless foods and all that factory holiday junk. I love the original Starbucks better.

And here's a shocker.

Until recently I'd been getting a grande latte (medium), but have switched to venti (large) because it seemed a better price per ounce deal. I assumed that a venti had an extra shot of expresso. It doesn't!

I never understand why extra milk is the only difference between Vanti and grande drinks. It is expected that there should be an extra shot!!!!!! Most of people don't even know this "secret".

Some apologists who commented on this suggestion said that coffee places have a formula for their drinks, adding an extra shot for every eight ounces. Since a venti is just four ounces bigger than a grande, it doesn't qualify for an extra shot – which supposedly would disrupt the harmonious balance of ingredients.

More caffeine the better, that's my recipe for harmony. So like some other commenters, I'll probably be going back to grande. If I want more milk, I'll take a few sips then fill up my cup with the free moo juice on the Starbucks counter.

Maybe that doesn't sound neighborly. But none of my neighbors charge me almost $4 for a large cup of coffee.

A newbie Democrat sees Obama in Salem

Oh, yeah. Now I've really jumped into the Democratic deep waters, after a lifetime of swimming around as an independent.

Today I made a pilgrimage to see the reason I became a Democrat: Barack Obama. He came to Salem this afternoon. An hour late, but he made it.

Guess I can't complain (though I do on the video below), since it took me several decades to make myself into a Democrat – and someone who cares enough about a presidential candidate to go to quite a bit of trouble to hear him speak.

It turned out that Laurel and I didn't need the tickets that I so proudly acquired a couple of days ago. Nobody checked if we had them, probably because the Salem Armory ended up not being completely filled with Obama supporters.

But it almost was. And they were damn enthusiastic. For a couple of hours sleepy Salem woke up. Amazing.

I especially enjoyed the energy of the many young people. They made this baby boomer recall his 60's activism, a twenty something wild about changing the world.

Here's how I saw Obama, through the eyes of my Flip Video. Three hours condensed into less than ten minutes. We weren't one of the first to arrive (I'm not that avid a Democrat) so got seats pretty far back.

Hey, if you want a close up of Obama, watch CNN. If you want to see what it's like to stand in line for a chance to see Obama far away, watch my You Tube video.

[Update: Look! Proof! We were featured in a Statesman Journal photo of the event today! Well, by "featured" I mean that we're the two tiny heads a bit below, and to the left, of the waist of the woman raising her hand. Get out your magnifying glass.]

Obama coming to Salem – I got tickets!

Below is some video of an enthusiastic crowd in downtown Salem today, waiting to snap up tickets to Barack Obama's appearance in our normally sleepy city on Friday.

The Coffee House Café must have done some bang-up business. Proving that laid-back counter culture types also can have business sense, a nicely tattooed employee worked the line (which stretched most of the way down the block).

As you'll see, I was desperate to cover up the corporate latte that I'd just bought at a nearby Starbucks. That's where I heard about the ticket giveaway, which led me to head down the street, venti latte in hand.

I enjoyed being part of the Obama excitement. I'd wondered about how it was possible for a presidential candidate to fill up a large auditorium with thousands of supporters on short notice.

With Obama – and the electronic age – it isn't difficult. His campaign put up an online ticket issuing site, but the (accurate) word on the street was that it'd been closed. That made those of us waiting in line feel better about our chance to score the two tickets each person could get.

A guy next to me was phoning friend after friend, telling them to get their butts downtown if they wanted Obama tickets. I could see people hurrying down the sidewalk, having heard about the Coffee House Café ticket opportunity.

I chatted briefly with a reporter from the Statesman Journal who I knew. He's covered local politics for many years, and said that this was the first time a viable presidential candidate had come to town.

Mostly they skip Oregon, our May primary usually being irrelevant, delegate-wise. But this year is different. Obama's coming to town.

And I've got tickets. It's been a long time, like maybe never, since I've been enthused enough about a candidate to spend a couple of hours in the Salem Armory at a campaign rally.

But this election is different. Obama's coming to town.

Size matters with county commissioners

Is five preferable to three? Absolutely. Personally, I think seven is even better. But last night I learned that no Oregon county has more than five county commissioners.

It's hard to imagine that a meeting with the geeky title of "Marion County Governance in the 21^st Century" would be as interesting as it was. Before I headed off to the Salem Public Library to attend this Friends of Marion County forum, I considered taking along a super-sized latte to be sure I stayed awake.

But it was surprisingly engaging. The reason for the get-together was to explore the pros and cons of expanding the Marion County board of commissioners from three to five members.

Voters in Clackamas County recently approved such a move. Ron Johnson, former chair of the county Planning Commission, said that unchecked dysfunctional growth convinced both political leaders and citizens that more heads around the board of commissioners table would make for better decision-making.

Peter Sorenson, a Lane County commissioner, gave the same message. Five commissioners leads to fewer problems and better results.

The math is simple: two people making a decision versus three. With five commissioners it takes more talking to get something done. And that's good.

Under Oregon's public meetings law, a majority of a decision-making body can't discuss an issue up for a vote in private. So two people on a three member board can't have a working coffee or lunch together. With a five member board, they can.

I asked Sorenson why the usual governmental system of checks and balances doesn't apply at the county level. Usually there are separate executive, legislative, and judicial branches – like the President of the United States, Congress, and the Supreme Court.

But in Oregon a board of commissioners can administer county departments (including hiring and firing managers), pass ordinances, and then make quasi-judicial decisions on those ordinances.

I said that this seemed like too much concentration of power. Sorenson replied that in land use planning matters there'd been a state legislative effort to have cases appealed to a state hearings officer, which makes a lot of sense. It didn't go anywhere.

Too bad. However, enlarging the number of people making county decisions, quasi-judicial or otherwise, would help to diffuse the power of a single commissioner – which obviously is high in a three-person board where two rule.

Those attending the meeting filled out a questionnaire asking which of various options they preferred. Three or five members? Elected county wide or by districts? With an elected chair or a rotating chair?

It'd take an initiative to change the board structure. That could be referred to voters by the current board of commissioners (the easy way), or signatures could be gathered (the harder way).

Even harder would be changing Marion County from a General Law to a Home Rule governance. This is an ever geekier subject that I won't attempt to describe.

Janet Carlson, chair of the county board of commissioners, came to the forum and made some remarks as an audience member. Kudos to Commissioner Carlson. The current board should seriously consider expanding from three to five members.

Hopefully there will be enough interest in this issue to keep the discussion going. Admittedly, it isn't the most provocative political topic at the moment, with the presidential race so hot and furious. Still, it holds the promise of improving how Marion County is governed – an undeniably good thing.

Suddenly I felt very old

Damn you, Coffee House Café! You're one of the few hip, happening, alternative gathering spots in downtown Salem. And I'm a hip, happening, alternative guy who frequently stops in for a latte.

I enjoy having my drink prepared by a tattooed, pierced, black-clad barista with an attitude, a pleasing contrast with the staff at the squeaky clean Starbucks down the street.

During the day I feel like I fit right in at the Coffee House Café. Beard. Longish hair. Impeccable '60s counterculture credentials. Progressive politics. We're on the same radical wavelength.

But last night I realized that our relationship has some rough edges.

Laurel and I met up at the Coffee House Café at 7 pm (well, 7:20 for Laurel – she was her usual late self) for an Argentine Tango lesson that'd been billed on a café bulletin board.

We clutched our dancing shoes in bags. I noticed a neatly dressed older guy (meaning, given the age of the evening regulars, over 25) sitting on a stool, also holding a shoe bag.

As 7 pm approached 7:30, and no sign of a Tango lesson was in evidence, aside from chairs and tables cleared to the side to open up the wood floor, I walked over to the guy to learn what he knew about the delay.

"Somebody told me that the instructor is on his way," he said. "Otherwise, I don't know what's happening." Nobody else seemed to either. The café staff appeared blissfully unconcerned that the lesson was already half an hour late. No apologies or even an announcement.

I couldn't tell who else was there to learn Tango, and who was just hanging out. Bongos were drumming outside. Cigarette smoke was heavy over the sidewalk. Skateboarders bounced in and out, carrying their ride. Sneaker-clad youths ran this way and that, meeting up with and parting from friends.

The only people who looked at all uptight were us old fogies who had the obviously unrealistic expectation that just because a café had said there'd be a Tango lesson at 7, somebody should be concerned when 7:30 comes and goes, and the prospective Tango'ers are sitting around clueless about what's going on.

This was the first moment I felt very old. I started to reminisce about going to concerts in Golden Gate Park and other Flower Power venues back in the late '60s.

We never cared when the happenings happened. Often a band – the Jefferson Airplane, say – would be hours late. We'd just go with the flow – easy to do when you're stoned out of your mind and 20 years old.

Not so easy when you're high on a caffeinated latte and pushing 60. Suddenly today's counterculture seemed dreadfully self-absorbed, unorganized, and lacking discipline. Hell, I've got better things to do than watch a bunch of weirdly dressed kids run around trying to get their act together.

That was thought #1. Thought #2 was, Oh, shit! I'm sounding just like my mother did in 1968, when I was 20 and she was 56.

As the evening wore on, I felt even older. The distressingly youthful Tango instructor finally showed up. He looked about 16, just like our family doctor does. A similarly young crowd materialized around him, eager to try something new.

Dance shoes weren't in evidence. The other older guy had taken off, realizing sooner than Laurel and me that this wasn't his scene. We stuck around for a bit longer, perched safely on a couch, not wanting to markedly raise the average age on the crowded dance floor with our geezerish presence.

Plus, it was obvious these kids weren't taking the lesson seriously. They were fooling around. Not paying attention. Joking with each other. Dancing however they felt. Not respecting the instructor's authority.

Oh, shit, I'm sounding like my mother again!

Laurel and I went home, feeling older than when the evening began. But not in a bad way. It'd just dawned on me that my baby boom generation has passed the counterculture baton on – some time ago, really. I'm now the person I rebelled against in the '60s.

And that's OK.

We'll continue to take Tango lessons at the RJ Dance Studio. On a nice clean floor. In an organized class. Which starts and ends on time. Wearing neat clothes.

I'll still drink lattes at the Coffee House Café, supporting a place for youths to hang out until they become like me – old enough to wonder What the heck is the matter with kids these days?

Starbucks sucks with its high priced wi-fi

Being a frequent Starbucks customer, I've noted laptop users in the ubiquitous stores tuning in to what I assumed was free Wi-Fi. After all, these days even the most humble coffee house usually offers a complimentary Internet connection, so why wouldn't this corporate giant?

Greed, I guess.

Because after my router decided to stop routing this morning, I packed up my ThinkPad and took it with me to the West Salem Starbucks, where, after chatting for a bit with friends, I opened it up for some well-deserved Internet access.

Well-deserved, because my habitual grande nonfat vanilla latte sets me back $4.00, after I plunk the sixty cents I get back in change for the $3.40 drink into the tip jar.

And I've bought a bunch of them over the years, each contributing to Starbucks' profit margin. But today when I needed twenty minutes of Wi-Fi access with my latte, the only web site I could reach was T-Mobile's HotSpot page.

Where I learned that I could use my laptop all I wanted at Starbucks for a "mere" $29.99 a month, or $9.99 for one day's access. One hour would cost me $6.00, even if I just needed a few minutes of connect time.

Everybody at my table, all regular Starbucks customers, was surprised. Shocked, even.

I can go into downtown Salem's humble Coffee House Café and enjoy free Wi-Fi, even though this establishment neither has "bucks" in its name nor nearly as many in its cash register.

Returning home, I figured out how to bypass my recalcitrant router and found quite a few others dismayed by Starbucks' squeeze out every nickel from patrons corporate policy.

Unhappy customers can be found here, here, and here. Starbucks' defense of their price gouging was pretty lame. Basically it was that we have lots of locations where we can rip you off for Wi-Fi access, so be grateful for the convenience.

I read that one argument for charging Internet users is to keep people from hanging out at tables all day long for the price of a cup of java.

Well, somehow independent coffee houses with free Internet deal with this problem (or non-problem). And as this guy suggested:

If I ran Starbucks I would drop the T-Mobile partnership and provide a Wi-Fi WPA key on the receipt that's good for 90 minutes with any purchase over $2.50. That way they wouldn't have the problem with people hanging out all day without buying anything just to use the Wi-Fi and it's also certain to increase sales.

He should be running the Starbucks marketing department. Because I'm vowing to take my latte business elsewhere, whenever possible.

I like to get a latte after my Wednesday Tai Chi class. There's a Starbucks half a block away. But the Coffee House Café is just a short walk further. To me it's worth a few extra steps to stand up against a corporate rip-off.

I need my lattes. And I also need my Internets. Once I've paid for my caffeine fix, I shouldn't be gouged again for my broadband addiction.

Hopefully Starbucks will come to realize that treating customers right is a surer route to long-term success than squeezing them for every nickel and dime (hourly Internet access is ten cents a minute).

The Starbucks stock price has dropped a lot this year, obviously due to bad Wi-Fi karma. Open your eyes, Starbucks management.

Radio Free Salem offers hope to Oregon’s gray zone

Praise be!

Help is on the way for the oppressed residents of Salem, we who have the misfortune of living in the depressing I-5 gray zone between the bright spots of Eugene and Portland (along with Albany and Woodburn, but Salem is the capital of mid-valley ho-hum ness).

The December Salem Monthly asks "Could 88.5 FM be the new home of a community radio station in Oregon?"

It will, if aspiring community radio station operator Karen Holman succeeds with her FCC application for a non-profit radio license.

Holman is a chemistry professor at Willamette University. I hope she brews up a creative blend of alternative music, talk, and reportage, a la Portland's KBOO.

You can read about the plans for Radio Free Salem on her MySpace page.

I'm excited. I'd love to host a Church of the Churchless program where the heathens, infidels, pagans, godless, and damned of Salem can talk about our faithlessness.

The radio station would be a terrific addition to a community that comes up way short in culture, creativity, energy, and excitement – as documented with depressing regularity on this blog here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Best of luck, Karen. We Salemites await news of our air waves liberation.

Oregon is a nasty place to live, really!

The winds have died down. The rain has stopped. I've taken the chain saw out of my car, which I drove around with for the past three days, ready to cut my way through roads blocked by fallen trees.

Things are starting to get back to normal in the Northwest after the biggest Pacific storms in a decade roared through.

Here in south Salem we did fine. No power outages. No flooding. Just a bunch of fir branches blown loose by the 45-50 mph winds.

But elsewhere in Oregon and Washington havoc ruled. Many roads are closed, including the I-5 freeway between Portland and Seattle.

It's hard to see a silver lining in news stories that begin with:

A pair of storms that slammed into the Pacific Northwest had much of the region under water Tuesday, leaving five people dead, thousands without power and major highways shut down.

But I can identify at least one: maybe this will help convince people who are thinking of moving to Oregon that this state is a nasty place to live. It is! Really!

And I'm not saying this just because I recall with fondness Gov. Tom McCall's famous admonition, "Come visit us again and again. But for heaven's sake, don't come here to live."

He said that in 1971, the year I moved to Oregon. So it obviously didn't have the desired effect on me. Nor on so many others that now we need lots of Tom McCalls.

I'm hoping that these storms will do what McCall couldn't: keep people from moving here.

Heck, already I have to spend an increasingly disturbing number of minutes every week in Salem "rush hours" (which for a long time have been called "rush minutes," but threaten to become the real thing).

And, aspiring Oregonians, you need to know a few other things about this godforsaken state.

One of which is that it is indeed godforsaken, being the most unchurched state in the nation. Not surprisingly, Portland is believed to have more strip clubs per capita than any other U.S. city.

So if you want to tick God off (and trust me, that isn't a good idea; just look at the storms that hit the godless), go ahead and move here.

If you do, prepare to spend a lot of time smelling gasoline fumes. Because Oregon is one of two states that don't allow you to pump your own gas. You can self-serve your own suicide, however.

Bottom line: don't even think of coming to Oregon. North Dakota, check it out. They're just trying to scare you off with all that Badlands talk. I hear it's a terrific place to live.

Salem’s newspaper gets an “F” in journalism ethics

In the past two days I've learned a lot about the Salem Statesman Journal's concern for journalism ethics. Bottom line is, they couldn't care less.

My ethical eyebrows got raised when I noticed that a draft editorial about Oregon's Measure 49 contained absolutely zero information about what this soon-to-be-voted-on ballot measure does.

Yet the editorial endorsement was "no." Unbelievable.

How can a newspaper run a content-free editorial about an important statewide vote? How is it possible to say you're against a piece of legislation without describing it?

After exchanging lots of emails with the editorial page editor, Dick Hughes (who wrote the editorial), and Brian Priester, the newspaper's president and publisher, I've concluded that both of these guys are clueless about what it means to be a responsible journalist.

Even I, who was a journalism major at San Jose State College back in 1967 for just a semester, knows more about the ethics of editorial writing than Hughes and Priester.

I sent them a link to the Basic Statement of Principles of the National Conference of Editorial Writers. I pointed out that the first two principles are:

1. The editorial writer should present facts honestly and fully. It is dishonest to base an editorial on half-truth. The writer should never knowingly mislead the reader, misrepresent a situation, or place any person in a false light. No consequential errors should go uncorrected.

2. The editorial writer should draw fair conclusions from the stated facts basing them upon the weight of evidence and upon the writer's considered concept of the public good.

Note that "facts" are mentioned twice. Opinion has to be based on facts. Yet when I told Hughes about the significant factual errors in his editorial he emailed me:

Disagree. It's clearly Opinion. It's an editorial. It's biased. It's opinion. IT'S NOT A NEWS STORY.

Well, my first comment is that you shouldn't use all caps. Bad form. My second comment is what I told Hughes: read what the National Conference of Editorial Writers considers to be ethical editorial writing.

It sure isn't what Dick Hughes wrote. Because one of the most egregious factual errors in his Measure 49 editorial is this statement:

In fact, the only people who may benefit from Measure 49 are the lobbyists, interest groups and lawyers on either side.

This is obviously wrong. It shows that Hughes either knows nothing about Measure 49, or he's choosing to ignore the facts so he can make a predetermined recommendation to vote "no" without looking like more of an idiot than he already does.

Because if Hughes had said, "We're recommending you vote 'no' because we favor large subdivisions on farm, forest, and groundwater limited land. We don't want Measure 37 claimants to have transferability rights that will allow buyers of their property to develop it themselves. We're opposed to letting spouses of Measure 37 claimants be able to inherit the waiver. We favor allowing industrial and commercial uses on Oregon's most valuable farmland" – readers of the Statesman Journal would have said to themselves Why the @#$$%&! Is the newspaper taking this position?

This is why I strenuously argued that the editorial violated both of the ethical principles above.

It took an underhanded duplicitous approach to its "no" recommendation, failing to mention even one thing that Measure 49 would do if passed, and failing to mention any of the negative effects that Measure 37 will bring Oregon if left unfixed.

The National Conference of Editorial Writers says that fair conclusions have to be drawn from the stated facts. Yet Hughes presented no facts, none, to support his statement that lobbyists, interest groups, and lawyers may be the only people to benefit from Measure 49.

That's patently false. And Hughes got plenty of emails that informed him of that fact in response to his request for comments and suggestions on the draft editorial, as I reported yesterday.

Today I heard back from Brian Priester, president and publisher of the Statesman Journal. It's obvious that he, like Hughes, doesn't understand that an editorial is supposed to be based on more than personal opinion – which easily shades into crazy-ass fantasy, as was the case with Hughes' piece.

I could say, "Vote no on Measure 49 because it lets government bureaucrats come into your home and kill your dog or cat." Oh my god, that's shocking!

Well, it should be. Because I just made it up. Just like Hughes made up the sentence about Measure 49 not benefitting the general public.

This afternoon I heard from publisher Brian Priester. He wrote me:

The one you quoted as most egregious – "In fact, the only people who may benefit from Measure 49 are the lobbyists, interest groups and lawyers on either side," strikes me as 1) clearly opinion (by the use of the word "may" as opposed to "will") and 2) an accurate characterization and reasonable conclusion based on the information at our disposal.

Since it speculates on future events, I don't see how it could be construed as a factual error. At most, one could argue we drew the wrong conclusion from the arguments presented to us - and I am sure readers will argue that point in letters to the editor. So, no I don't consider this a "factual error."

Um, Mr. Priester, didn't you read the principle #2 that I sent you in an earlier email? To repeat:

2. The editorial writer should draw fair conclusions from the stated facts basing them upon the weight of evidence and upon the writer's considered concept of the public good.

Sure, it's the Oregonians in Action and Salem Chamber of Commerce party line that technical problems with the wording of Measure 49 won't allow any of the law's stated benefits to go into effect. But nobody believes this other than the most extreme Measure 37 fanatics.

Measure 49 was carefully reviewed by legislative counsel before being sent to the voters, which means that it will accomplish what it says it will do.

So when Priester says that Hughes' editorial is factual and draws correct conclusions, that's hogwash.

I've been a Statesman Journal subscriber for over thirty years and have always considered the newspaper to be a valuable asset to the Salem community.

Now that it's owned and run by Gannett, it sure seems like the corporate culture has changed. There's an arrogance to Hughes and Priester that screams "We can do whatever we want, journalism ethics be damned, because we can."

That's sad. Salem deserves better.

Vote "yes" on Measure 49. Show Hughes and Priester that the citizens of Oregon know the difference between right and wrong, even if they don't.

Salem sinks further into mediocrity

Ah, Salem. It's sad how you're never able to rise above the moniker of "Oregon's boring capital city."

Today's Statesman Journal had three stories on the front page that demonstrated how far Salem has to go before it's worthy to be considered anything more than an I-5 gas stop between Portland and Eugene.

First, there's "Lefty's Pizzeria on State Street closes suddenly." I didn't go to Lefty's often. But I knew that it was one of the few places in Salem where you could enjoy live blues, jazz, and comedy.

Believe me, if you live in Salem you're used to singing the blues. And you definitely need comedy to cheer you up whenever the thought "Oh, my god, I'm stuck in Salem" won't get out of your mind.

Second, I read about "Residents to repair, not own, Salem's sidewalks." Now, I don't live in the Salem city limits. But even so this strikes me as a ridiculous idea.

The City Council's notion is to make each property owner responsible for repairing the slice of sidewalk in front of their home or business.

As one of the commenters on this story said, why not also make people maintain the part of the public road in front of their property? Or the sewer and septic lines? It's one more nonsensical city decision that makes residents sigh, "Ah, (or ugh) Salem."

Third, I learned that "City's troubled properties create thorny problems for officials, eyesores for unhappy neighbors." This story was about Salem's dangerous and derelict buildings, only one of which is downtown.

However, many more downtown buildings are empty, boarded up, and also eyesores. I've noted that the best thing about downtown Salem is the plethora of vacant free parking spaces, because there's so little reason for anyone to go downtown.

Earlier in the week there was another depressing Salem story, "Fairview site may be sold to pay creditors." The 245 acre Fairview site was supposed to be a model sustainable development.

My wife and I owned shares in the LLC (Sustainable Fairview Associates) that bought the Fairview property and eventually sold it to a group led by a Portland developer, Phil Morford.

Our decision to cash out when the opportunity presented itself looks really wise in retrospect. Because now Morford probably will have to sell the property to someone else, and the sustainable zoning looks shaky – reading between the lines of this quote in the newspaper story.

Last week, the bankruptcy trustee met with Salem city officials and discussed the property's zoning and infrastructure. Plans for the Fairview site are flexible and shouldn't deter a potential buyer, McKittrick said.

Translation: "The city doesn't give a rip about sustainability and would be just as happy to see a traditional development be built, if that's what it takes to get more property taxes flowing into Salem's coffers (not that we'll pay for sidewalk repairs even then)."

Seemingly recognizing what's in the cards for Fairview, given the Mayor's and City Council's eminently unGreen credentials, the Statesman Journal editorialized "Ecologically friendly plans should be in land's future."

Well, we shall see. There's no sign that the black cloud of boring mediocrity is going to lift from Salem anytime soon. Maybe Fairview still will be a ray of creative sustainable light.

But I doubt it. Even without Lefty's Salemites are still singing the blues.

Here’s why Salem is so depressing

For a brief moment, oh so brief, the headline in today's Statesman Journal gave hope to my terminally depressed Salem mind.

I've pretty much given up hope that Salem ever will be anything other than the bland, featureless, fast-food loving, strip mall adoring, second (or third) class city that it is now.

But my heart fluttered with unfamiliar optimism when I read:

Keizer Station a boon to area economy. More stores set to open; grocery store is a possibility

Grocery store is a possibility. Why, that could mean…dare I hope?...no, not in Salem…maybe, though…be optimistic…keep reading…they might be referring to…

A Trader Joes. Which my wife and I, along with countless other Trader Joes-deprived Salemites, have been visualizing for quite a while.

Reading on, I came to mention of Keizer Station's Area C.

Area C, west of the railroad tracks and south of Chemawa Road, remains undeveloped and unplanned, but a change could be made there to allow a 120,000-square-foot building that could house a grocery store, developer Alan Roodhouse said.

Hmmmm. Undeveloped and unplanned. Doesn't sound promising. Then, three paragraphs down the line, my Salem depression returned with a this town is so goddamn #@$%^! vengeance.

If the changes are approved, the store could be in by the end of 2008 or mid-2009, Roodhouse said. Store candidates include Fred Meyer, Safeway, WinCo and Wal-Mart. Stores not interested in the site include Trader Joe's, Whole Foods Market, Albertsons and Roth's, but Roodhouse said any of them would be welcome in the spot.

Dear God, why hast thou forsaken Salem!? Is it because we share the name of a city known for its witch trials? Whatever the reason, lift the curse, the black cloud, the life-sapping vibe, that hangs over Oregon's second largest city.

Lord have mercy – not another WinCo or Wal-Mart!

My sentiments were shared by many of those who left online comments about this story, which begin here and continue for several more pages. Trader Joes was mentioned longingly.

Just what is it going to take in order to get Trader Joe's to come to either Keizer or Salem? Come on folks, we need something new! I am sure that the people in the area may be able to use a Walmart or Freddys, but wouldn't it be nice to have something that we don't already have? We need a Trader Joes!

I think the powers that be at Trader Joe's are doing themselves a disservice. They need to think outside the box and take a chance on Keizer Station. Their bean counters are too focused on demographics and not interested in reality. People in this area are dying for Trader Joe's and I believe it would do quite well.

I too would love to have a Trader Joe's in Salem. About once or twice a month we drive up to the one at the I-5 & 217 interchange and stock up on a lot things that you can only buy there. I have heard the reason that Trader Joe's will not come to Salem, is that the average disposable income in Salem does not fit their model. This is the same reason Whole Foods and other stores avoid Salem. As the article said, the management of the development would welcome them here, but the stores don't want to come. Does the term, "one horse town" ring a bell here?

I was in Bend for a vacation a couple of weeks ago, and they are building a Trader Joe's there. I couldn't believe it. I do not understand why the heads of that company seem to think Salem or this area wouldn't be a good place for a Trader Joe's. Trader Joe's is not an expensive store, at least not to me. So I don't get it.

I don't understand Trader Joe's reticence in not wanting to come here. Salem has a mixed population, but there are many people who make lots of money and appreciate their products. I believe they would do well in Salem. They would also draw people from other areas that may not go to Portland to shop them. For them to snub Salem makes me think twice about shopping Trader Joes at all.

Would LOVE to see a Trader Joe's! I drive up to the one in LO now & could spend even more at one here with the gas money I'd save.

My sources tell me that Trader Joe's will locate here within the next couple of years but only in South Salem.

Well, that last comment left me with a ray of hope, a slight parting of the perpetually gray clouds that hang over Salem's shopping and restaurant scene.

Keizer Station, for those who are fortunate enough to have missed its trendy-in-1980 big box shopping center design, currently has such yawn-inducing stores as: Target, Sleep Country USA, Ross Dress for Less, Lane Bryant, and an OSU Beaver Fan Shop.

(Oh, yeah. That's just where I don't want to head, after watching OSU lose to Cincinnati in such a dreadful fashion last week.)

Such is Salem, land of Wal-Mart, Target, and all-you-can-eat dining. But here's the thing, Mr. or Ms. Trader Joes location planner, who I hope will read this post one day after Googling "Salem + Trader Joes."

Your store would make out like gangbusters here. Really. Especially if it's in south Salem, which is populated with a larger share of health-food friendly creative class types than, say, the penitentiary neighborhood.

Build it and we will come.

Qwest, I’m waiting for DSL…still waiting…

I'm seriously seeking DSL in our south Salem neighborhood, now that I've tasted the faster broadband life at our cabin in Camp Sherman. Yes, Camp Sherman, a hamlet of several hundred full-time residents in central Oregon that is as beautiful as it is isolated.

Five miles from Highway 20. Ten more miles to Sisters, the nearest town of consequence. Yet one of our cabin co-owners just arranged to have Qwest DSL installed.

So now when we're in Camp Sherman I can sit down with my laptop, facing Ponderosas and the Metolius River, out in the middle of nowhere, connecting to the Internet at about twice the speed of my WildBlue satellite service here in Salem at about half the cost.

What gives? I've written before about my frustrations with Qwest. Three years ago a supervisor told me they could get DSL to our area, but they weren't going to, even though we've just five miles from the Salem city limits and two miles from the nearest existing DSL "crossbox."

Wouldn't pencil out, I was told. "Well," I thought (and still think), "isn't Qwest a public utility? Doesn't this mean that it should serve the public? Or am I expecting too much?"

Recently I asked someone in Camp Sherman how they were able to get DSL. I was told that at first the Qwest attitude was "you will never see it." Sounds familiar. However, a flurry of calls were made to the "proper politicians" and some area businesses testified to how much they needed broadband.

After that, gosh, the technical problems that supposedly made DSL an impossibility in Camp Sherman went away. That gave me hope for our neighborhood, since we're a whole lot closer to DSL civilization than Camp Sherman was.

So a few days ago I optimistically dialed the number on one of the innumerable ads we get from Qwest inviting us to sign up for DSL.

It rings. I'm asked to press "1" for English. I do. Then the line goes dead. After a while a voice tells me, "If you want to make a call, please hang up and try again." Not an auspicious start to my communications with what's supposed to be a communications company.

Second time I reach an actual human being. But not the right one. She gives me another number to call. Now I get someone who seems concerned about our plight. I tell my tale about how I have DSL in Camp Sherman, but not in south Salem. I tell him that a couple of years ago I was informed that DSL was technically feasible to install in our area. The stumbling block was cost.

Yet somehow Camp Sherman got around that roadblock. "So," I said, "I'd like to plead our case to someone in Qwest who makes DSL decisions." I could easily get dozens of neighbors, including a bunch of home-based businesses, to send cards and letters to Qwest, since there are more people living nearby than in all of Camp Sherman.

I was put on hold. The guy needed to talk to a supervisor. After five minutes or so he came back on the line. "No way will you get DSL," he said. "It'd cost a million dollars to install." He told me that I should get my neighbors to go to the Qwest web site and request to be notified when DSL is available in our area.

Which would evidently be never. Since I'd already asked members of our neighborhood association to do that back in 2004, I figured that going through the exercise again would be as useless as it was then.

My next bright idea was to phone the Salem Center retail Qwest store. I couldn't find any other Salem number for Qwest, which clearly isn't big on letting customers talk to local employees. For when Brandi returned my voice mail message, she said that she'd have to talk with DSL-knowledgeable Sam in Vancouver, Washington.

I couldn't talk with Sam directly. But she'd ask him my questions about why we didn't have DSL and let me know Sam's answers. Those, in brief, turned out to be "too far away" and "load coils."

I'm still trying to talk with Sam, because this smells much more like a brush off than a definitive technical answer. Three years ago I was able to speak with a DSL installer and he told me it'd be simple to get DSL out to us. It'd just require some equipment upgrades.

Meaning, Qwest would have to spend some money to improve service in our neighborhood. Again, not an unreasonable thing to do for a public utility.

A little Googling confirmed my cynicism about Qwest's stonewalling. I learned that "load coils" is a common phone company explanation for why DSL isn't available in an area. These thingies improve voice quality at the expense of frequencies where DSL functions.

They have to be removed before DSL will work. OK, then remove them. If I ever get to talk with Sam, I'll ask him why this can't be done.

Apparently a modern switch can replace old load coils. However, an acquaintance who works for Comcast and seems to know what he's talking about told me that many Qwest phone lines are horribly outdated. He said this is why Qwest hasn't been a takeover target. They haven't invested in equipment upgrades, so no other company wants to buy this technological dinosaur.

I don't know if that's true. And I sure don't know much about load coils. Still, my good friend Google taught me that there's something called a Smart Coil which replaces load coils. A Smart Coil lets you have fine voice quality and DSL if you live quite a ways out, like we do.

My hope is that somebody will read this post who either (1) is a Qwest employee who can tell me how to break into the company's DSL installation decision-making loop, or (2) knows someone who has this information.

I don't think Brandi is high enough up in the Qwest management food chain. She's going to keep giving me the company party line: "too far away" and "load coils."

Qwest's CEO, Richard Notebaert, looks like a nice guy. Maybe he reads blog posts about his company. If so, I just want to say that I'm waiting for DSL, Richard. Still waiting. With my Lucy Liu Qwest fantasy intact.

Give me a call. I'd love to chat with you. You have my number.

Salem Art Fair is unfairly female centric

Men, it's time to stand up for our rights. We've been second class art fair citizens for too long. I'm tired of seeing those Homo sapiens with XY chromosomes looking bored like this…

While the XX's are happily browsing a few feet away from them like this…

Now, these female Salem Art Fair'ers happen to be Laurel, my wife, and Rita, a friend from Seattle who visited us this weekend along with her husband, Ron.

So they aren't associated with the bored-looking men in the first photo. But Ron and I were right there at the waiting bench with these guys, wondering along with them: How long can a woman spend in a handmade clothing booth where lots of the stuff is on sale?

Answer, we found: A really, really long time. And not just once. Laurel went to the Salem Art Fair by herself early on Friday to glom onto several on-sale jackets being sold by Brie Kreibel.

Then she returned on Saturday with Ron, Rita, and me to rummage through the "Wearable Art" collection again, earning for herself what must be Brie's highest accolade: "You're my best customer."

There's little doubt that for most of the over 200 booths, that honor went to a woman. Because art fairs are seriously slanted toward female sensibilities. Ron and I kept our eyes open for one, just one, item of men's clothing for sale other than hats and belts.

Nope, zilch.

And the art fair sexism didn't stop there. Over and over we'd see an enthused swarm of women buzzing around a booth with not a single man among them. Ooh, earrings! Jewelry! Baby stuff! Dresses! Flowery objets d'art!

Don't get me wrong. I enjoy art fairs. And they teach me a lot. Like, patience and forbearance, which I practice while my wife studies a seemingly endless number of dichroic glass earrings before telling me, "I've got to think about these; we'll have to come back to this booth later for another look."

After several hours of browsing I'd just about given up hope that I'd find anything up my alley. Then, praise the Fractal God!, I came upon Dennis Brady's blend of art and fractal geometry mathematics. (Could he be David Crosby's twin?)

I was instantly mesmerized. Dennis and I had a great conversation about the meaning of the cosmos. Fractals are a reflection of the "whole universe in a grain of sand" thing.

Dennis pointed to one of Bush Park's majestic oak trees and said that he tried to explain to some visitors how the structure of the entire oak tree is mirrored in each of the large branches. Also, in each of the smaller limbs. And even the leaves. He said the adults didn't get it. Some ten year olds did.

After a lot of picking through his fractal art collection I ended up with two yin and yang'ish 5 X 7s: the hot "Dragon's Lair" from his 2007 collection and the cool "Snowy Ridge" from his 2005 collection.

It was hugely satisfying when Laurel and Rita came into the booth and said, "We'll meet you ahead because you're taking such a long time." Oh, really? Let me tell you what a "long time" in an art fair booth truly is, girls. Though you should know.

Ron also ended up doing OK on the shopping front. He got a glass ball for their garden – not this one, though we all liked it. Today Rita and I took him back to a hat booth to buy a cap that he chickened out on getting yesterday.

I liked the leather look. Ron was on the verge of getting it until I made the mistake of mentioning the Village People.

It took Rita and me almost twenty-four hours of reassuring Ron about his heterosexual masculinity until he was agreeable to returning for the cap today. Then he wimped out and chose a wool version. It looked fine, but the leather one had that MG driver look to it.

Lastly, I'd be remiss if I didn't share a final photo of Ron getting a five-minute art fair massage. I feel like there's some perfect caption that should go along with this image.

Can't quite come up with it, but feel free to supply one on your own. Oh! Just thought of one…

This guy doesn't look anything at all like Glenn of the Village People (so far as we can tell).

Oregon elected officials shouldn’t make land use decisions

A lot of weird stuff goes on in Salem. We're the home of the state legislature, mental hospital, and penitentiary – each of which is filled with certified crazies.

Now the Salem City Council is joining the crowd that makes me think What the @#$%&! ??? when I open the newspaper. Last week the Statesman Journal headline was "Editorial prompts delay on development decision."

The not-so-savvy city attorney, Randall Tosh, got it into his head that publishing an editorial or sending an email about a land use issue constitutes ex parte contact (a communication to a decision maker made outside the hearing process).

Since the Statesman Journal had editorialized against allowing a major shopping center on an already-overcrowded street, Kuebler Boulevard, and had urged readers to tell the City Council how they feel about the Pac Trust development, this was way too much free speech for Tosh.

So the Council postponed a decision on a zoning change, re-opened the hearing, and scheduled more testimony for August 6. Ridiculous.

As soon as I read the newspaper story I rushed to my laptop and sent an email to the Statesman Journal opinion editor. I urged her to run another editorial the next day to show the City Council that the First Amendment is still alive and well in Oregon.

That's what happened. And I was pleased to see that their "Memo to Salem council: don't read this" included a quote from my email.

As one Statesman Journal reader wrote: "To my mind Tosh's position strikes at the heart of informed public discourse. He seems to be implying that a newspaper can't publish anything about a land-use case that is still being considered by decision-makers. That sounds really Big Brotherish, allowing government to operate in secret."

Right on, reader. I can't help agreeing with myself.

I'll go even further than this, though. A bigger problem than elected officials making land use decisions in secret is their making the decisions at all. Why the heck should a city council or county board of commissioners be interpreting complex laws and ordinances when they're incompetent to do so?

My wife and I know whereof we speak, because we've appealed several neighborhood land use cases to the Marion County Board of Commissioners.

As reported in "Another Measure 37 outrage," two of the three commissioners are openly dedicated not to enforcing county ordinances, but to feathering the pockets of those who want to build large subdivisions on groundwater limited farmland. They don't bother to even go through the quasi-judicial motions of a land use decision appeal.

A letter to the editor, "City puts developers above its citizens," made a similar point about the Salem City Council.

On nearly every significant decision by the City Council and mayor, when given the choice between the private interest vs. the public interest, utter contempt is shown for the authentic interests of the residents of Salem.

The latest actions of the City Council in trying to cover their tracks in promoting the PacTrust development on Kuebler Boulevard SE over the objections of local residents simply underscore the obvious.

Time and time again the City Council shows itself as a wholly-owned subsidiary of real estate/development interests.

The public deserves a lot better. Elected officials should be shut out of land use decision appeals. They're addicted to letting their personal political beliefs determine how they vote on an issue. The Marion County commissioners love Measure 37, so they tilt toward virtually every Measure 37 claimant, no matter how egregious or unlawful the land use case is.

Here's what's frustrating for citizens like us, land use activists who are out to protect Oregon's livability. Our opponents are out to make money. So for them the cost of an appeal is a business expense. For us it's money directly out of our pockets. In our current case, also out of the pockets of forty neighbors who with us have formed a Keep Our Water Safe committee.

The first step in Marion County's land use decision process for that case was the Planning Commission. It's made up of volunteers. They're opinionated and biased, like most people are. But at least they held three lengthy hearings on this Measure 37 subdivision application and made a halfway decent decision.

Which we appealed, along with the applicant. Now, you'd think that the next level of decision-making would bring you more objectivity and competency rather than less. And this is what we'd have gotten if the case had gone to an independent hearings officer, an attorney who specializes in land use law.

But instead the county commissioners decided to hear the case themselves. This usually happens in high-profile, big-ticket development decisions, because this way the three elected officials can interject politics and personal preferences into the decision. (In fairness, Commissioner Janet Carlson is pretty unbiased; it's Sam Brentano and Patti Milne who are the problems).

So generally the Marion County Board of Commissioners, like the Salem City Council, will end up making an even screwier decision than the Planning Commission did. Now a neighborhood group like ours has its own decision to make: continue on appealing to the Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA), or give up?

It costs around $10,000 to $20,000 to take a case to LUBA. This is why elected officials often get away with their baseless land use decisions. Opponents don't have the money, time, or energy to keep on fighting. In our case, we have all three.

But we're fortunate to be getting either low cost or no cost legal assistance with our LUBA appeal. This usually isn't available to people who've been shafted by a city council or board of commissioners.

The best solution would be to take elected officials out of the land use decision appeal route entirely. There's no place for political prejudices in quasi-judicial hearings.

How would you feel if you were given a speeding ticket that you didn't deserve, went to appeal before a judge, and heard him say "I'm personally opposed to speeders. There's nothing good to say about them. No one has a right to speed. Now, what's your problem?"

You expect that a judge would have an open mind. But elected officials don't. They get elected because they have a particular political viewpoint. That bias doesn't disappear when they turn into decision makers on land use cases.

Salem Monthly publishes what Statesman Journal wouldn’t

[Next day update: I'll give the Statesman Journal credit for printing my letter to the editor today, "Well users have property rights too." I'd rather have had 500 words than 200 words to make my case, but thumbs-up to the S-J for giving me this smaller soapbox after they rejected my bigger one.]

This is why we need alternative news outlets. So stuff that's too edgy for the mainstream press gets out of the street. In the case of my Measure 37 subdivision opinion piece, out into the blue Salem Monthly boxes sprinkled around downtown.

I picked up a copy of the July issue yesterday in the alternative Coffee House Café, appropriately enough.

Turning to page 8, I saw myself staring back at me below a "Rural wells threatened by Measure 37 subdivision" headline —though thankfully just my head and shoulders, not the full body publicity photo that I'd sent off to the editors, which was shown with the online story.

I look excessively stiff and serious in that posed shot. I'd had it taken for the back cover of my serious philosophical book about Plotinus.

Figuring that wells going dry because of over-development deserved a fairly solemn visage, I emailed the photo off to Salem Monthly. Along with a heartfelt thanks for printing what the Statesman Journal wouldn't feeling.

The 500 word piece Salem Monthly snapped up was rejected by Salem's non-alternative newspaper. I was told that it was too critical of the county commissioners, Sam Brentano and Patti Milne, who approved the subdivision against the advice of Marion County's own water experts.

Well, it seems to me that the opinion page is precisely the place for well-deserved criticism. I didn't write anything that wasn't either undeniably true or strongly supported by factual evidence.

So kudos to Salem Monthly, which isn't exactly Salem's equivalent of Willamette Week yet – but is getting closer with every issue.

This month's articles about downtown Salem were excellent. I liked how "Downtown Facts of Life" told it like it is: (1) Downtowns are dirty, (2) Downtowns are often noisy, (3) If they're successful, downtowns are crowded.

It's encouraging to me that more panhandlers and street musicians are showing up in downtown Salem, along with spiked hair, black clad, Goth-type young people. Thank god, at least someone is filling the sidewalks.

Maybe someday the title of my tongue-in-cheek "Why Salem is better than Portland" post will have some serious reasons behind it.

Salem’s Sustainable Fairview looks less Green now

My wife and I were early investors in Sustainable Fairview Associates (SFA), the group that took over the 275 acre former Fairview Training Center property.

We had high hopes that a model sustainable community would sprout in Salem—which sorely needs some Green pizzazz to offset this not-so-fair city's deservedly bland image.

As I said in my "We check out of Sustainable Fairview" post, about a year ago we sold our shares after a bittersweet and often frustrating relationship with the management of SFA. Nonetheless, we still had high hopes for the 246 remaining acres (one chunk was sold to Pringle Creek Community, which is doing a great job).

Yesterday the Salem Statesman Journal ran a front page story, "Fairview project is developing," about how things are coming along. The story began with:

Plans are taking shape to develop the former Fairview Training Center property into what is expected to be one of the largest mixed-use projects in Salem's recent history.

Pacific Development and Associates, a company owned by Portland-area developer Phil Morford, has submitted a preliminary site plan to the city for the proposed Fairview Village development at 2550 Strong Road SE. It calls for 816 single-family homes, both detached and attached, and open space on the southern portion of the 246-acre property.

The northern 96 acres is expected to include multi-family homes, retail and office space, a 5-acre park and sites for a school and possibly a YMCA, Morford said.

The entire property, which is bordered by Reed, Pringle and Strong roads SE, will comprise more than 1,650 residential units, Morford said. The amount of commercial space will be driven by the market.

Hmmmm. It seemed strange there wasn't any mention of "sustainable" in the first four paragraphs. That came later, but it was telling that the reporter didn't focus on the sustainability aspects of Morford's plans.

I suspect that's because he's emphasizing the mixed use character of Fairview Village—which has to be one of the most uncreative names Morford could have chosen. Four years ago I did much better. But, hey, if you pay more than $21 million for a property, you get to name it however you want.

What I'm more disturbed about is the site plan that accompanied the newspaper story. Wow! That's a lot of dwelling units and not much green space. Excellent for maximizing developer profit. Not so good for other reasons.

Here's how the Sustainable Fairview Associates Master Plan looked. A lot different. Now there's no "The Woods." Nor, "The Orchards." These are beautiful parts of the property with many trees. Which apparently will be chopped down so more homes can be crammed in.

It looks like wildlife corridors also have been sacrificed. I sat through quite a few SFA meetings at which the notion of allowing wild furry creatures a safe way to get around the development was passionately argued for. Last I knew there were deer and lots of other wildlife on the 246 acres. They won't be happy with the current Fairview Village Plan.

Tony Nielsen is quoted in the story. He's a developer who was a principal in SFA and won a 1000 Friends of Oregon Citizen Award for keeping Oregon "livable and lovable."

Reading between the lines, I suspect he isn't wildly happy with Morford's site plan.

"We never expected a developer to come in with exactly our plan, so some modifications and adjustments are to be expected, but the general principals we hope will be applied," he said. "They may be applied in variations or in different shades, but we have high hopes that it will be a great neighborhood."

Well, me too. But at first sight, Fairview Village isn't looking all that Green to me.

Salem developer trashes large trees. Again.

George Suniga, a Salem (Oregon) developer, has this thing about beautiful large trees. He loves to cut them down. With or without a permit.

Here's his latest piece of work. Until a few days ago these marvelous oaks were some of the few trees left on Suniga's Waln Creek Estates subdivision.

My wife and I drive past the property just about every day. And for many years we had the Oregonian delivered to a paper box on the corner of Holder Lane and Liberty Road (we live too far out in the country for home delivery).

So I got to know the trees along Liberty pretty darn well. Every time I got out of the car to grab the newspaper, I'd be aware of the presence of these old massive denizens of Oregon—who were here long before I (or George Suniga) was, and deserved to live on well after us.

Now they're gone. When I saw them laying on the ground, I was suspicious as well as sad. Suniga's history with trees isn't going to win him any Arbor Day awards, to put it mildly.

Back in August of 2006, Suniga was fined $10,000 for illegally removing trees on the Waln Creek Estates property. His city –approved development plan required that he leave a maple, a spruce, and three fir trees. Suniga's excuse was lame.

A contractor removed the trees by mistake after their roots were damaged during the demolition of a house on the property, he said. "We cautioned them, but heck, you get those young guys bulldozing and they don't pay much attention," Suniga said.

Yeah, right. An opinion piece in the Salem Statesman Journal got it right: "Protection of trees was responsibility of home builder."

Suniga has been in the business for 45 years. It took me about one Google minute to learn how to protect trees from construction damage. It's hard to believe that the trees weren't removed on purpose.

As someone said on a Statesman Journal forum, $10,000 is pocket money to a developer. Until a fine is large enough to really hurt, some environmentally unconscious builders are going to continue to cut down trees without a permit in order to pad their bottom line.

Which is what Suniga did again just a few months later, on a different development.

This time he got fined $47,250 for removing 58 trees, three of which were larger than 24 inches around, without waiting for city approval. (Here's the newspaper story; couldn't find it online, but Beth Casper, the reporter, was kind enough to email me a copy). Download salem_developer_gets_second_fine_for_tree_removal.doc

And now, the oaks. I phoned the City of Salem and reached Brandi Dalton, a tree permit staffer. She told me that Suniga had permission to remove 11-12 trees along Liberty Road, adjacent to a right of way. The supposed reason? Sidewalks.

Hmmmm. I wasn't mollified. Some of the sidewalk along Liberty had been put in before the trees were cut down. The rest of the right of way had been graveled in preparation for the remaining sidewalk construction.

I took this photo today, two days after the photo above. The downed oaks already had been removed. I wanted to confirm that the sidewalk was quite a ways from the oak trunks.

It is. Much farther than the three feet that should separate a sidewalk and the trunk of a tree. A little web research also revealed that if a tree is close to a sidewalk, "deep-root trees such as oaks and maples are preferable to shallow-rooted trees like spruces and poplars."

So we have large oaks well away from a sidewalk right of way. Why cut them down? I phoned Ms. Dalton back, saying that I needed to know more about the reason a permit was given to remove the trees.

The message she left on our voice mail said that the contractor wasn't required to remove the trees. But improvements, which I gather meant the sidewalk, would affect the health of the trees. And some supposedly needed to be removed to build the sidewalk.

Well, the large oaks certainly didn't need to be removed, because they were still standing after the leveling and graveling for the sidewalk had been completed.

However, Ms. Dalton was right about the health of the trees being affected by the construction. Needlessly, in the opinion of my wife and me.

As we drove past the subdivision a week or two ago, we noticed that earthmoving equipment was working right around the base of the oak trees. Laurel said, "They're not going to survive."

It sure looks like the trees were damaged purposely, so there'd be more justification for a removal permit. Dirt was mounded up around the trunks to a depth of several feet.

You can see in this photo that the dirt had to be excavated before the oaks were cut down. In effect, the burial took place before the killing happened.

Experts say, "If you move large amounts of soil within a tree's root zone, you will likely kill the tree. Generally, any tree covered by more than 24" or more of fill should be removed."

Which is what happened. But Suniga is responsible for moving the dirt around the oaks, compacting the soil, and covering the trunks with several feet of fill.

He trashed the oaks. Then he got a permit to remove the damaged trees. What a _____. (I've filled in the blank in my own mind. I invite you to do the same.)

If you're thinking of buying a lot at Waln Creek Estates, consider what you're buying into. This is a subdivision that hasn't respected either the surrounding neighborhood or the trees on the property.

I've talked with some people who live in the area. They don't like Suniga's style: "He's irritated the majority of us," I was told.

This afternoon I phoned George Suniga's office. Most politely, I told the woman who answered the phone that my wife and I frequently drive past Waln Creek Estates and we noticed that the oaks along Liberty had been cut down.

I said that saddened us. But if there was a good reason for their removal, that'd make us feel better. Could she tell me what the reason was?

She laughed in a brittle "ha, ha" fashion. "I can't help you," she said. Click.

That told me a lot. You'd think that a builder would want to stay on the good side of the public, especially since it looks like lots are beginning to be sold at Waln Creek Estates. But all I got was an "I can't help you."

Well, I'm pleased to be able to help prospective lot buyers by providing some of the tree-unfriendly history of the subdivision.

You get what you pay for. In this case, part of what your purchase price would buy is the unnecessary destruction of some majestic old oaks and other trees.

Like they say, buyer beware.

Here's a cynical, yet accurate, observation that I heard an architect make: "Most developments are named after the property's attractive natural feature that got bulldozed away." You can bet a subdivision named "Tall Firs" won't have many, if any, left.

Similarly, there's no sign of a creek in Suniga's scorched earth development. But I didn't look in every culvert.

Lastly, just to show that I'm not completely negative toward real estate developers, here's some Internet-related advice:

If you think that some prospective buyers might search for information about your subdivision by typing the development's name as a URL, WalnCreekEstates.com, for example, early on you should spend $8.95 and reserve that domain name. Otherwise, someone else could.

Visualize a Trader Joes in Salem, Oregon

Come on, let's do it: manifest a Trader Joes in Salem. "The Secret" says it's possible through the Law of Attraction. Thoughts become things.

Now, I'm skeptical that The Secret really works. But if everyone who reads this post thinks, "There will be a Trader Joes in Salem, Oregon," hopefully your believing will overwhelm my skepticism and a local store will fill the TJ-gap between the Portland area (six) and Eugene (one).

[See *** below for another approach.]

However, I'll rain on my own parade. Rumor has it that Trader Joes researched Salem and concluded that our semi-fair city wouldn't support a store.

I can understand why they'd come to that conclusion, given the feverish excitement that a new "big box" development or all-you-can-eat buffet produces in the citizenry.

Mayor Janet Taylor wants to spread the word that "Salem is a city with arts, culture, good schools, and fantastic sports and music programs." Okay, sort of true. But it's also a city with loads of bland overweight, under-exercised, and healthy food-averse people.

The good news for Trader Joes is that there's more than enough connoisseurs of exotic, creative, organic, and imported foodstuffs to keep a store hopping. In our group of friends, this is universally agreed: Build it, Trader Joes, and Salemites will come.

I've been told by someone who works for the city of Salem that they've tried for quite a few years to attract a Trader Joes. Well, they probably didn't use The Secret.

Step 1. Ask. Let the universe know what you want. The universe is your catalog. Place the order.
Step 2. Believe. It is already yours. You don't need to know how it will come about.
Step 3. Receive. Feel the way you'll feel when it arrives.

Ah, I feel great. No more driving an hour or more to get Trader Joes' authentic Tandoori Naan (Indian bread) and Apple Raspberry Sauce, among other delights.

In her recent "State of the City" address, Mayor Taylor lamented the large number of employees who commute to Salem from homes in Portland or Eugene. Well, I suspect a good percentage are cultural creatives who look upon Salem as a wasteland.

Entirely understandable. But a Trader Joes would be an oasis around which they, and we cultural creative locals, could congregate.

***As a backup or addendum to The Secret, also do this: take a minute and fill out the Trader Joes Location Request Form. Ask for a store in Salem, Oregon. Then tell everyone you know to do the same.

Thank you, from the bottom of my Trader Joes bereft heart.

Salem’s Paragon Construction lives up to its name

Thank you, Paragon Construction, for helping to heal us. About ten years ago we had our downstairs bathroom remodeled by an incompetent company that just about drove us insane. As I wrote in our 1996 Christmas Letter:

Laurel…was able to maintain her equilibrium during a seemingly endless series of delays, mixups, and screwups by using a time tested therapeutic tool for stress reduction: almost daily, she would calmly step into the center of the yet unfinished remodeling project, making a sacred space by pushing aside the myriad tools and pieces of sheet rock that littered the floor, then fold her hands in front of her while taking a vital breath of life, and utter a powerful healing mantra: "I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS IS HAPPENING!!"

What a difference a decade and, more importantly, a different company makes. Recently John Eibert of Salem's Paragon Construction finished some earthquake renovation work that was recommended after we had a seismic survey done by a structural engineer.

Our house was built in 1974, before stricter earthquake codes went into effect. We had wood posts supporting the main floor beams that weren't rigidly connected to either the beams or the concrete pads on which they sit. Our carport was equally shaky. And a large roof beam in our living room wasn't firmly connected to a supporting column.

John and his co-worker did a great job. Plus, they love dogs. And were pleasant company during the time they worked on our house. (John is on the left; the photo shows one of his newly installed unpainted carport support structures).

Paragon Construction doesn't do much work for individual home owners, so we felt grateful that John took our project on. I kidded him about not having any direct presence on the web. Or even an email address. Maybe this bit of blog praise will raise his Internet visibility.

I recall John saying that he was raised in Minnesota. I can believe it. He's got that solid, no-nonsense, straightforward, honest way about him that I associate with the upper Midwest. When he'd sit down with us and talk for a spell, I'd almost forget that he was our contractor. Friend seemed more like it.

"Paragon: model of excellence or perfection of a kind." Yes, John picked a fitting name for his company.

Why Salem is better than Portland

Bet you think this will be the world’s shortest blog post, given that title. Hah! Dream on, overly proud Portlanders. This Salem resident is about to show you what you’re missing if you don’t live in Oregon’s capital.

[Blog fact check: our address has “Salem” in it, but my wife and I live five miles outside the city limits. Nonetheless, we’re Salemites through and through, as evidenced by our bland dispositions.]

What you're missing is: plenty of vacant free downtown parking spaces. Now, admittedly this photo was taken around noon today, a rainy Sunday, but this is a typical Salem street scene: no people.

That’s because there’s not much interesting to do or see downtown. But the plus side is that if for some crazy reason you actually find yourself in central Salem you’ll have no problem parking, since you’ll pretty much have the place to yourself.

I took this photo outside of one of downtown’s two Starbucks. Surprisingly, I captured a distant fellow human. Also surprisingly, on this block there were quite a few cars. They probably belonged to patrons of Starbucks, just about the only places where I found signs of life on my two block walking tour.

Outside the other Starbucks I snapped an image of the excitement that surrounds the Salem Center mall on a Sunday. If you don’t see signs of such, you’re seeing correctly. But if you get turned on by easy-to-find free unlimited on-street parking, downtown Salem is orgasmic.

Also if you like going out of business sales. The Mervyn’s store, part of Salem Center, was having an “everything goes” sale today. Maybe that’s where these shoppers had just come from. They looked happy, which made me think they were from out of town.

I say this because Salem either attracts depressed people or, once they get here, the town fosters a chronic condition of seeming moribundity. Sort of like Salem’s Lot, but without the thrills.

Last night we hosted the monthly meeting of our Salon discussion group (most of the members live in Salem, so sitting in a living room and talking for three hours is wild compared to what we generally experience socially).

Irmgard, had recently come back from two months in Europe. She told us something amazing: in Vienna and other cities people are eating and drinking wine in restaurants at midnight! Not surprisingly, Irmgard said that she was having trouble adjusting to “life” (such as it is) back in Salem.

We also heard from the couple I wrote about in “Salem escapees head for Portland’s Sellwood area.” Lynda and Mark used to live in Salem until they came to their senses. They’ve continued to be part of our discussion group.

I suspect they enjoy comparing the “lives” (such as they are) of us Salemites with their current Portland experience, in the same way as a recently-released prisoner drives past the penitentiary and thinks to himself, “Man, it sure feels good to be out of there.”

At one point my wife commented that LifeSource Natural Foods is one of the good things in Salem. Lynda couldn’t resist blurting out that close by their Sellwood condo there are three, count ‘em, three, major natural food stores to choose from.

I put fingers in my ears and chanted “can’t hear you, can’t hear you, can’t hear you” (that’s what I do when I risk hearing news of the wonderful world outside, to avoid becoming even more depressed), but her words still came through, damn it.

Recently Laurel and I drove up to Lynda and Mark’s for a respite from Salem. They took us to a Greek restaurant in Sellwood. It was a real culture shock. As soon as we walked in the door we heard a strange unfamiliar sound.

Loud laughter. And animated conversation. I guess this must be what Vienna is like. People congregating and having a good time. Having driven up from sleepy Salem, for us it was plain weird.

It didn’t take long for us to begin to enjoy ourselves, though. I felt like the shelter dog from the Salem Humane Society that Laurel took to this year’s Dog Parade. Wide-eyed, tail wagging, happy to be out of the confines of the kennel.

Well, back at home now we try to look on the bright side of Salem. Which is, um…give me a moment to think…oh, yeah, I remember: lots of free downtown parking spaces!

Got to be something more…come on, Brian, think…keep thinking…didn’t you read something this morning?...

Yes. Got it. A quotation from Tai-hui in D.T. Suzuki’s The Zen Koan as a Means of Attaining Enlightenment.

The main thing is to shut off all your sense-organs and make your consciousness like a block of wood.

Ah, excellent. This is exactly how Salem makes me feel. Wooden. Enlightenment must be near.

Slow down, you’re trying to move too fast

Downtown Salem was gridlocked last Wednesday evening. Not exactly like New York City, but it was a pretty good imitation of gridlock for generally sleepy Salem. I’d parked on the right side of Court Street at 4:30 to go to my Tai Chi class.

When I went outside at 6:15 I saw that traffic was barely moving. I went into Starbucks for my traditional post Tai Chi grande nonfat vanilla latte. The barista told me she’d heard there was an accident on Front Street. Plus, the windstorm had reportedly disabled some traffic lights.

I told her, “Fortunately I’m heading south on Commercial. Shouldn’t be a problem, since I don’t need to get on Front Street.” After a few sips of caffeine, I was feeling even better about the situation.

Getting into my car, I saw that the left two lanes on Court were moving fine. These led onto one-way Commercial. My only problem was going to be backing out of the diagonal parking on the right side of Court, where the traffic was moving glacially as people tried to get onto the nearly gridlocked Front Street.

I put my car into reverse. Backup lights shining the universal automotive message, “Here I come; let me out,” I reversed a few feet to more clearly indicate how much I wanted to leave my parking space. I glanced in the rear view mirror and saw that I was hemmed in.

“Patience, Brian,” I told myself. “Eventually that lane of traffic will move a little and the person behind the hemming-in car will let you back out.”

Nope. They didn’t. They inched forward as soon as the car in front of them did. Well, at least now I saw different sheet metal when I looked behind me. I turned on Air America and listened to some chortling about the election results.

Enjoyable, but I still preferred to be moving while rejoicing with the chortlers. I backed up a few more inches to advertise my intention more clearly. Still no Good Samaritan.

This was starting to get irritating. I was going to immediately get in one of the left lanes, so I wouldn’t even be taking up any space in the barely moving Front Street lane. I toyed with the idea of putting the car in park and walking out to have a chat with the driver of one of the cars hemming me in.

“Hey, man, got a car length to spare? I’m an out of work disabled veteran trying to get to church.” Something like that.

Thankfully, a lady finally came along who stopped and beckoned to me to back out. I gave her my finest wave of appreciation in return. And was speeding along Commercial Street a few moments later.

What gives with us Americans these days? Okay, it was stormy and people were trying to get home after a long work day. Yet this wasn’t enough stress to justify acting like a jerk. Letting someone on a busy street back out of a parking space doesn’t require being a Mother Teresa.

It just means being willing to get home a few seconds later. We need to slow down and not try to move so fast, just like Simon and Garfunkel told us to.

I’d continue this rant by pointing out in more detail the ridiculousness of those who leave their Fred Meyer shopping carts butted up against other people’s cars rather than push them a few feet to a cart drop-off area, and also of those who take their (and other’s) lives in hand to pass a couple of cars on a two-lane mountain road just so they can be #13 behind a slow-moving tractor trailer rather than #15.

But I need to practice what I’m preaching. Time to get really slow on the couch in front of our TV set.

Up with old time saw shops. Down with Lowe’s and Home Depot.

Salem’s State Street Saw Shop is a thing of beauty, isn’t it? Aside from the alliteration, consider what I enjoyed during my visit this afternoon.

I parked fifteen feet from the front door. No trudging in the rain through a vast parking lot, then coming out and wondering, “Where the hell is my car?”

I walked in and immediately saw what I was looking for—a Stihl BR 550 Backpack Blower. No wandering endless aisles searching for the one thing I wanted out of countless things I didn’t.

I got immediate knowledgeable service from two mature guys who have forgotten more about chainsaws and other manly tools than the young whipper-snappers at Lowe’s will ever know. No waiting forlornly for someone to come along and answer my questions.

I stood by a counter with character roughed up over many years by the touch of countless hard-working chain saws, got hands-on instruction in how to start the blower, and watched one of the guys fill up the tank with gas. No way you’ll get that at a big box store.

A few years ago I bought a Stihl chain saw at the State Street Saw Shop. I briefly considered going somewhere else for a leaf blower. Could have saved some money elsewhere, I’m sure.

But I love old-time shops like these. They’re an endangered breed. While I was trying on the BR 550 to see how it felt on my back I overheard a conversation between the other customer in the store and one of the employees.

“We don’t carry those any more,” I heard. “We used to, but Lowe’s and Wal-Mart discounted them and we couldn’t sell any. You’ll have to go to one of those places to get it.”

Thank heavens for companies like Stihl. Basically they only sell their well-regarded products through independent servicing dealers. On their web site Stihl explains why you can’t find their chain saws at Lowe’s or Home Depot.

Good for Stihl. My wife and I frequently buy stuff at Lowe’s, Home Depot, and Wal-Mart. But it’d be a huge loss if big box stores ever drive the little guys out of town. So when I can, I’ll be bringing my business to the State Street Saw Shop.

What a terrific honest name for a store.

It’s on State Street. It sells saws. And it’s a shop. My kind of shop.

Images of 2006 Salem Dog Parade

Once again this year I guaranteed a loss for Serena in the Best Costume category by simply tying a bandana around her neck and heading off to yesterday's Salem Dog Parade.

I’d considered entering the dog/human look-alike contest, but couldn’t decide whether to dye my hair blonde or Serena’s fur gray. But this couple looked muy adorable even with different colored coiffures.

T-shirts and micro-skirts were, as always, popular on larger dogs. Next year we’re going to dress Serena up properly, I almost promise.

If I was an Oregon State fan, I’d caption this photo “A dog of an Oregon cheerleader.”

Anyone allergic to Cute needs to stay away from a dog parade.

Laurel, Official Humane Society Dog Walker Volunteer, took a shelter dog to the parade. “Shaggy” (don’t know its real name) attracted a lot of attention. Be nice if it’d pay off with an adoption.

A fetching Oriental look. For future dog dressing reference, I asked the owner how she was able to keep the hat on. She had a big roll of the secret in her hand: duct tape.

Pink ballerina skirts on big white dogs. A big cliched, but classic.

When I met up with Laurel at the end of the parade Serena showed just a teeny bit of jealousy toward Shaggy. All in good dog play fun, though. Sort of.

Here are two contestants in the Waggiest Tail contest. The little dog on the left won. While standing there taking photos, the M.C. asked me to show off Serena’s tail-wagging stuff. Pretty pathetic. Big tails just don’t move like little tails.

Lastly, I’ll fight against every instinct to the contrary and throw in a photo Laurel took of me and (half of) Serena. For the past few years, every time I look at a photo of myself I think, “Nick Nolte mug shot.”

Images of Salem Art Fair 2006—I liked it hot

When we had no trouble finding a parking space yesterday just a few blocks from this year’s Salem Art Fair, I knew that Oregonians are indeed heat-weenies. And when Laurel started to complain about how hot it was even before we’d passed through one of the semi-voluntary gates, I knew that I was married to a true Oregonian (albeit one born in Illinois.)

The $5 suggested admission fee this year is semi-voluntary because it would be easy to walk around the barrier. However, some pretty fearsome Girl Scouts were manning, or rather, girling, the gate. I wasn’t about to chance incurring their wrath.

Right away I saw something that I wanted to buy and take home. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see how it would fit in our Prius. Too bad. I like flaming art. Especially on a 102 degree day. (I grew up in a part of California where that’s par for the summer course).

Being a horse lover who worries more about things than she wants to, Laurel seriously considered getting the “Sit loosely in the saddle of life” plaque. She worried about whether it would fit with our other decor, though. So it's a possible purchase when we return this evening to enjoy Dirty Martini. The music group, not the drink.

A few art fair booths had a “No photos” sign posted. I don’t understand why. Am I going to run home, print out this picture, and then reproduce this un-reproducible chair in my (non-existent) workshop? It was beautiful. And comfortable.

The artist didn’t seem to mind my taking a photograph of her work. I said, “It would be cool to have a whole house filled with colorful furniture like this.” She replied, “Let me show you some photos of my home.” As she thumbed through the album, I kept thinking, “Cool.”

The Salem Art Fair is mostly shady. No excuses, Oregonians. The Fair is on from 10-6 tomorrow (Sunday). Get on down to Bush Park and enjoy the best outdoor art fair in the Northwest. Even on a warm day.

There’s natural art in the shapes of the
old oaks. I love looking up at them. Hundred degrees and large oak trees. I felt like a boy again, back in the Sierra Nevada foothills.

While Laurel considers a purchase of wearable art, another man waits for his own female companion. A familiar scene. I’d say, “Great, here’s another clothes booth. While you’re browsing I’ll check out the men’s section. Oh, I forgot! There aren’t any men’s clothes here.” Or, at any other booth. Isn’t there a federal law against sex discrimination?

Lastly, I’ll continue the tradition of me sharing my most common view of the Art Fair.

Belly dancing on a hot day

Beautiful girl with a sword: a great combination. God, I love to watch belly dancing. Even on a hot day. Here are some other photos taken yesterday during the Americanistan peformance at the Salem World Beat Festival.

I went back to the Festival around noon on Sunday, hoping that I’d find it more upbeat than the desultory late Saturday afternoon vibe. It was. A few degrees of coolness seemed to make a lot of difference to both attendees and performers.

These Samoan dancers were wonderfully colorful and enthusiastic. Audience members had just gone out and thrown dollar bills around, which accounted for a lot of the enthusiasm (and prone positions).

The Falun Dafa folks even had a visitor to their booth. On Saturday it was completely deserted when I walked by.

Body suits and black masks on a 90 degree day. These fencers earned my admiration as I watched them in shorts and a t-shirt, and still felt like I was roasting.

Only one thing left to say: Go Beavers!

I haven’t been much of a baseball fan since my 1960’s San Francisco Giants obsession. This year’s Oregon State team has rekindled my enthusiasm for the game, however. Game 2 of the College World Series was a gem. Hopefully the Beavers will sparkle as brightly today.

Salem World Beat Festival ’06: hot!

This blog reporter can sum up the first day of the 2006 Salem World Beat Festival in one word: hot! I’ll add some additional verbiage, but will let my photos do most of the talking.

Longest line was at this booth. Not surprising.

By contrast, this booth was deserted. Truthfulness, benevolence, and forebearance isn’t a big draw compared to shave ice.

The spinning bunny is at the festival every year. I like his (or her) mellow attitude.

Sadly for the main stage performers, Oregonians weenie out when it hits the mid 90s. Colores del Alma played some nice World Beat music and deserved a bigger audience.

The amphitheatre “crowd” reminded me of cows huddled under the only bit of shade in the pasture. Laurel and me were part of the herd.

We got to see some hair that usually isn’t par for the Salem scene. Nice.

Even nicer: some spontaneous belly dancing. Damn that hat.

I call this shot “Dancing in the shade.” Maybe Bruce will pick up on the title and write a song about it.

The Willamette River looked cool and inviting—an underappreciated side of Salem.

Oregonians know how to make use of their umbrellas on a cloudless hot summer day.

Leaving the festival, we were forced to engure a view of the butt-ugly Boise Cascade building that provides such an architecturally disastrous transition between downtown Salem and the riverfront. When the military gets back from Iraq, I’ve got an idea for how to dispose of several 500 pound bombs.