Winter Olympics in the NW

by Travel Geek on February 4, 2010

in Events

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In case you have been living in a small cave for the past few years, the 2010 Winter Olympics, hosted in Vancouver, British Columbia (that’s in Canada!) begin Friday, February 12. Though I don’t follow professional sports, I have always been a huge fan of the Olympics in general, and the Winter Olympics in particular. I even took figure skating lessons when I was young, though being a 5’8”, 135 pound 12 year old effectively ended any dreams I had of Olympic glory.

With Portland’s proximity to Vancouver, BC, it is only natural that Olympics fever should begin to infect the city. At Portland International Airport, Alaska Airlines employees sported stick-on soul patches, in honor of local Olympian Apollo Anton Ohno’s signature facial hair.

To celebrate the Opening Ceremonies, Oregon Sports Authority and KGW are hosting a free public viewing event at Pioneer Courthouse Square on Friday, February 12. There will be two giant LCD screens, and they will show local Olympic programming beginning at 5pm. The official NBC broadcast of the Vancouver 2010 Opening Ceremony begins at 9pm. The event also includes interviews with Oregon Olympians, warm drinks and a hockey goal-scoring challenge. What a perfect way to celebrate the Opening Ceremonies with fellow Olympics-loving Portlanders.

In conjunction with this event, you can also visit Winter Celebration at the Square for your chance to win a trip for two to the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, including men’s cross-country skiing and the Closing Ceremonies! Entries must be submitted by February 11, 2010, so enter soon!

(Editor’s Note: Travel Geek is another brand-new author here at OurPDX. Please welcome her!)

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LOST? Found…

by Betsy Richter on February 2, 2010

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LOST – The Final Season | PDX.FM As LOST fans already know, the season premiere starts at 9 pm this evening. But instead of huddling around your own little television in your own little hovel, why not go out, drink beer, eat tots and have a communal viewing experience at the Bagdad Theater? (If I were a LOST fan, I'd be there…)

As ever, this is yet another labor of love presented by Cort & Fatboy (with an assist from PDX.fm and the man who loooooovves to see his name in print on OurPDX, RobertWagner/@pdxsucks. Oh, and the Merc’s also on board here…). Admission is free, of course — which means no one gets a cut of anything, so you may want to share your tots with Cort and/or Fatboy — but you must be 21 or over to attend.

Can't make it tonight? The entire final season of LOST will be presented live at the Bagdad.

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Fight! Fight!

by Cosmic Charlie on February 1, 2010

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Ever miss the good ol’ days when you’d spend Saturday night down at the watering hole, getting hammered and belligerent to the point where you had to clean the floor with everyone in the bar? Okay, me neither. I made it a point to get out before closing time, because that’s when the real action begins.

If you’d like to vicariously experience all the fun and frolic of hanging out in a rowdy bar with obnoxious hooligans, check out Cort and Fatboy’s Midnight Movie, Road House. You can bring a date: It’s got Patrick Swayze in it!

I like how at the bottom of the poster it says “Be nice.” If not? Swayze will come back from the grave and kick your ass.

He has Ghost powers, you know.

ROAD HOUSE
Bagdad Theater
Friday, February 5th
37th & SE Hawthorne
Doors at 10 PM
Movie at 11 PM

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@mayorsamadams: Twitter On!

by jgx on February 1, 2010

in News/Views, People

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If we are not part of the conversation or listening to the conversation, then what are we here for? For me the conversation takes many forms today. My personal preferred way is face to face. But that’s not always the way it happens or needs to happen.

We have at our fingertips tool after tool to have a conversation with people that we might not otherwise be able to have a conversation with. Those tools seem to grow in number as much as in controversy, Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, Foursquare, Yelp, Brightkite, Text … do I need to list more? And any site you can go to that offers a tool or tools to communicate or measure communication is about listening to the conversation.

Yesterday, I saw this tweet:
pdxsucks

So, of course I click the link for OregonLive to read Anna Griffin’s post on OregonLive. “Sam Adams needs to toss Twitter and get back to the big picture for Portland” By Anna Griffin. Really? I disagree. I sometimes wonder what people are really annoyed or mad about when they write something like this? He is the Mayor. Twitter is one of the most transparent communication tools today!

“This is attention-deficit governing, driven by insecurity and enabled by the iPhone. In the short term, it creates the false sheen of engagement. Over the long haul, it’s no way to build public support for the hard and expensive decisions to come.”

False sheen of engagement? Engagement is engagement, Twitter is immediate and it’s timely. And why not use any tool available to build public support?

It would be like me saying: “I think the radio creates a false sheen of engagement because they are driven by sales and their advertisers have agendas contrary to mine. So Mayor Adams should dump any communication with radio.” Right — dumb, ill advised and limiting. Not to mention narrow-minded.

I find it so curious that people will participate in the very thing that they are complaining about. Instead of accepting the change and adapting to progress they fight it. The conversation is going to happen whether any of us want it to or not. So will we participate in it and use it for good? Or will we fight it and try to limit how we connect and tell others how they should communicate?

Email opened lines of communication like never before. We could read an article on line, email the author, and they would respond. Now we can mention a favorite author or individual on Twitter and the chances of you getting that “@someone is now following you on Twitter”, is pretty high. They are listening! And they’d better be!

If you’ve read the book “Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work & in Life, One Conversation at a Time” by Susan Scott, you are familiar with “Our careers, companies and relationships succeed or fail, gradually then suddenly—one conversation at a time.” and “No one engages; nothing changes.” If you haven’t read the book, I recommend it!

Susan writes, “Yes, the conversation is the relationship. One conversation at a time, you are building, destroying, or flatlining your relationships. It is possible, however, to create high-intimacy, low-maintenance relationships – one relatively brief conversation at a time.”

Are you listening to the conversation?

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This past weekend was my tryout for the Portland Timbers. As mentioned before, there were a few things that were standing in the way of my potential run for glory — mostly my age: 40.

The two-day trial started Saturday morning and as I checked in, I noticed that I was clearly the oldest one there. Fortunately, I had a wool hat on so it was difficult to see my grey mane.

The first round were 8-man short-side matches. We were all getting our legs under us and the first match yielded some decent soccer, but the best was clearly yet to come. In the second match, I had what I am now calling the second-best goal in my life. Near the end of the match, a ball arced high over my head about 15 yards out. I had only one choice — and that was to shoot.

The ball dropped over my right shoulder, and I waited to tee it up. What happened next could either be classified as superior soccer skill (not likely) or pure luck (more likely). I caught the ball square and fired a rocket into the right side of the net. The goalie got a hand on it, but I managed to sneak it through. My celebration, though entertaining, was muted — a little twirl of the hand complimented by a “I can’t believe I just did that” giggle. My teammates laughed along because I think we all knew that this was my moment of glory and it would be fleeting.

At the break, Coach Amos Magee noticed I was on my iPhone. He winked and said, “don’t forget to tell them about the goal.”

I am really glad I decided to do this. Not only did I meet some very nice people, but I got a chance to get out and knock a soccer ball around. I also saw the Timbers organization a little bit from the inside. I can say, without question, that the Timbers are A+. It was 100% cool, 100% class the entire weekend. Portland is very lucky to have this team here and I hope that you all get a chance to support them as much as you can this and every year.

Over time, I can guarantee that the legend of this goal will grow. In a few years, the shot will have been from 50 yards out with 4 defenders and the cast of Snow Falling On Cedars draping me in a 60 mile-an-hour headwind. But even if the story changes, the result will be same: I had one goal in an open tryout for a professional soccer team — at age 40. On Sunday, as I hung it up early, Coach Magee said they were still talking about that goal.

And I couldn’t be more proud to have given it a go.

(If you’d like to see proof that I was there, check out the Timbers Facebook Fan Page. I am #56.)

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Looking For Tales of Portland Parking Woes

by Betsy Richter

I’m working on a piece for tomorrow about experiences parking in downtown Portland.
Yes, it’s a follow-up to this piece. Yes, it involves a towing story or two. And yes, I’ve already gotten a ton of feedback in email, thanks to a Twitter call out earlier today. But I want to [...]

01.23.2010 See the rest → 14 comments

A Portland Flyer’s Lament

by Rabbi David

I have a little secret. At least, I think it’s a secret. At least, I’m pretty sure not everyone knows about it. My “secret” is that I’m an aviation buff. I love airplanes. I love reading about airplanes. I love looking at pictures of airplanes. I even still like riding in airplanes, despite all the [...]

01.22.2010 See the rest → 8 comments

Measures 66 & 67: Let’s Do The Math

by Gil Johnson

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: “Businesses don’t pay taxes; they just pass the cost of taxes on to—“
OK, so you’ve heard that. Most recently, you probably heard that from the opponents of Measures 66 and 67. One of their arguments is that Measure 67 in particular is nothing more than a sales [...]

01.20.2010 See the rest → 6 comments

Fitness Role Models? How’d *That* Happen…?

by MizD

On Tuesday, January 5th, we woke to the alarm at 4:15am
Holy crap, what were we thinking? Last time Dave (aka @chefchopper) and I crawled out of bed that early, we were sprinting to make the redeye ferry off of San Juan Island and back to our beloved Portland. We are NOT early morning [...]

01.20.2010 See the rest → 3 comments

From Our Mailbox: Gardeners Go Road-Trippin..!

by Betsy Richter

My friend LeLo (a Master Gardener, don’t you know) sent along the following information in hopes that those interested in traveling to the Seattle for the Garden Show would rather travel by bus with a bunch of fellow local gardeners.
The Northwest Flower and Garden Show in Seattle is the kick off for spring [...]

01.16.2010 See the rest → 3 comments

OurPDX Shared Links for 1/15 – Local Efforts to Support Haiti Relief

by Betsy Richter

Here’s what we’ve found as we’ve traveled the local PDX web (complete with our comments) for January 15th:

Local Portland shops help you help Haiti : The Neat Sheet
Karen Vitt's The Neat Sheet has a nice roundup of local businesses donating a portion of their sales to help the relief effort in Haiti. Supporting local merchants [...]

01.15.2010 See the rest → 0 comments
International Response Fund