Category: To Occupy my Time

End of the 6 in Kenton


When I moved to the Kenton neighborhood, I was thrilled that not only was I smack dab in the middle of two Max stops, but that one of the stops was a “Transit Center” meaning a number of bus routes converged at that point.  I was in public transit heaven.  I could take the yellow line downtown. Or I could take the #4 to George Middle School where I volunteered for two years.  I could also take the #4 back toward downtown taking me through Mississippi’s hip neighborhood.  I could take the #75 to the St. John’s Movie theater or the other way to a variety of places: Trader Joe’s in Hollywood, Laurelhurst Park, Hawthorne Blvd.  I could also take the #6 to Jantzen Beach and once they cut the amount of service on Sundays, the #6 was my quickest route to church, depositing me a short three blocks away.  Living near a transit center is awesome.

I still have the Yellow Line,  #4 and #75 at my service.  But beginning September 1, the #6 route changed “to  eliminate duplicate service.”

I understand that Trimet is stretched to capacity, but as someone who doesn’t own a car, some of those duplicate services are important.  Now if I want to go to Jantzen Beach I have to take the #75 to MLK and transfer to the #6.  If I want to go to church I get there way too early or way too late.  I’m disappointed to lose the #6 route through Kenton and I hope service will be restored someday.

This was an awesome vacation!

I know not why blogger chose to rotate my photo that was in the correct orientation before I uploaded it.  Blogger is not my friend right now.  But onto the point!

This vacation was awesome!  Every time I have a long school vacation I make myself a planning calendar.  It has the days of the vacation and sometimes the goals.  Then I write in what’s happening and have the whole vacation at a glance.  This vacation I accomplished all my goals:  paint bathroom, paint bedroom, garden, finish reading a friend’s book, clean out physical inbox, catch up blogs.  Not only did all that get done, but I did social things with my friends, did work trades with my friends, watched a whole lot of (mostly Channing Tatum) movies and even read.  It was fabulous!

Non-Matt Muddy Buddy

The job of Athletic Supporter requires standing around with a camera ready to capture whatever action is happening with the athlete you are there to support. Because I have so few opportunities to capture the athlete and so many opportunities to capture everyone else, I inevitably come home with a lot of pictures of the athlete and then even more pictures without the athlete that I just like.  Here’s a tour of the Muddy Buddy, without Matt.

So the “buddy” aspect of the race means there are a lot of “twins” outfits.  This is fun.
 

The race itself had people walking around taking photos.
 
The “buddy” aspect of the race means two people are often doing the same thing at the same time.
 
Two of the photo people.
 
One of the better male outfits.  Way to embrace the chest hair!
 
This man doesn’t know it, but he’s an Athletic Supporter, too!
 
The blue line registers the athletes start when their chips cross over.
 
This guy reminded me a bit of Julie McCoy from Love Boat.
 
There were two other guys with Julie McCoy hyping up the crowd at the start, though it looks like there’s about to be a fight.
 
I think this lady is not an Athletic Supporter, because she was standing on the side where normal spectators weren’t.  I think she might have been with the male announcer.
 
She kind of looked a bit bored.
 
This photographer’s efforts to get the kids to cheer resulted in the kid in the red running back to his mother.   Which resulted in me laughing.
 
Fans!  Much more so than the woman checking her phone.
 
Waiting to start.
 
This blue mat is not quite right.
 
South Salem High School’s ROTC were the volunteers.  There were two guys who had to stop people from walking across the course when athletes were coming through.  It was a tough job and I was interested in the contrast between their ROTC role, their job stopping clueless people, and the demeanor they projected.  I faced this guy, so got more photos of him than the other one.  I tried my best to capture all of the above, but I don’t think I did.
 
 
 
These guys had the fun job of pulling people over the wall, which was sprayed in fabric softener to make it even more slippery.
 
A younger competitor waiting for his partner.
 
Both of these women wore shirts that said, “I will step on you to win.”  They were a bit scary, though less so, post shower.
 
Done showering.  Just wait!  These guys will appear again.
 
We were at Kruger’s Farm.  There were chickens.
 
First place already!
 
I loved this interaction between Kate, the owner of our gym, and her race partner.
 
Heh.  This team placed in the coed category.
 
Hey!  It’s the guys from before!  Being weighted as part of the “Beast” category (Over a combined 450 pounds). I liked the interplay between all these people.  This is my favorite picture I took.
 
They turned out to be the winners!
 

I love John Green and his love of learning.

For those of you who don’t want to spend the four minutes listening, I’ve transcribed some choice bon mots to convince you to invest those four minutes.

“..sony my first mustache..”

“Who wants to read the Taming of the Shrew? You basically have to translate it from Shakespeare into English, when there is already an excellent filmic translation avaliable in the form of  10 Things I Hate About You.“

“But yes, your teachers may be stupid.  So are you, so am I, so is everyone (except Neil Degrasse Tyson).  The whole pleasure of being a human is in being stupid, but learning to be less stupid together.”

“I pay for your schools because I want you to grow up and make my life better.”

“Your education is not just about you. Your nation is making an investment in you because they believe you are worth it.”

Sourdough pancakes


I bought a sourdough starter with hopes of making my own whole wheat sourdough bread.  And other products.  Here’s my first attempt at pancakes.  I neglected to take any photos of the final product.  They were thinner than I would have liked, which is something that I can fix next time. They were a rainbow of brown hues, due to the fact that cooking pancakes in a cast iron pan involves a range of temperatures from “a bit too cold, still” to “darn it, this pan is much too hot.” 

Why I don’t watch the Olympics


Things I like about the Olympics:
Weird sports get their every-four-year moment in the sun.
It’s really cool, all those athletes coming together to compete.
I read somewhere that there is a lot of sex happening in the Olympic Village, given that there are a lot of people in peak physical condition who, once their events are over, spend time hooking up with other people in peak physical condition.  I find this fact delightful, and the reward an excellent payoff for all that boring training.

Things I absolutely cannot stand about the Olympics:

  • News organizations’ weird need to package every single athlete into a “top story line”
  • The annoying fixation on how many medals the US is going to win.
  • The “horrible anguish” the announcers launch into when someone who was thought to win gold “only” wins a silver medal.  They won a medal at the Olympics!  That’s a very cool thing, man.
  • The asinine commentary in general.
  • The fact that the events I want to watch are surrounded by 42,000 commercials, idiotic commentary, “heartwarming” stories, and events I could care less about.

Sadly, the things I cannot stand about the Olympics outweigh the things I like about them.  So I will not be watching the Olympics this year, but I send well wishes to all, especially that woman from Bulgaria who isn’t even going to place in the finals, but is going to have a lot of sex with a lot of different guys.  Well done, lady!