Things have been happening at the City of Roses Motel site.

I haven’t been able to take any pictures because it’s become very dark in the morning, which is when I encounter this site.
But things have been happening!  First of all, they have removed a wall of shrubs that separated the house on the right from the motel site.  They also took out a tree in the back part of the lot and pulled down the ghetto palm growing on site.
Everything has been leveled (the kitty hangout depressions in the earth are gone) and gravel has been spread.
And the site has been wrapped in this.  I’m never sure if this is supposed to keep debris in, or keep prying eyes out.  Perhaps both.
My guess of what’s coming?  Row houses.  Maybe 12 of them, with underground garages. Although the rental market is tight, so it also might be more units than you thought possible with no parking.

Bicentennial Man

Part of the Ruby Oliver Film Festival.

A movie so lengthy I felt as though I had lived 200 years by the ending.  Full of Chris Columbus hallmarks like the bratty kid (for no discernible reason) and the overly intrusive maudlin score. It was an interesting selection as it was the first Robin Williams movie I watched after his death, and given that the bicentennial man wanted to end his life after a certain point.

Cost:  free from library
Where watched:  at home.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/1999/bicentennial_man_ver1.html

Comparison Contrast two houses on Belmont Street.

Waiting for the #15 bus, I got to looking at these two houses located on Belmont just off Cesar Chavez.  They seem to be the same house and presumably built the same time, so I thought it would be fun to do a comparison.  Plus, I get to geek out with Portland Maps.
This is 3921 & 3923 SE Belmont.  It was built in 1908 and is a duplex. It has 2,169 square feet.  Both residences in the duplex are owned by a couple with an address in another part of the city so this is presumably a rental.  The couple purchased the house in 2001 for (get ready to clutch your hearts, real estate hunters of today) $132,000.  Portland Maps tells me that it also sold in 1992 for $59,000 and in 1991 for $42,500. It’s current assessed value is $198,500 and its market value is $273,700.  There are some fun historic permits on file for plumbing inspections.

This is 3927 and 3939 SE Belmont.  It is owned by a couple who live in the house, though I assume they rent out the second unit.  It was built one year earlier, in 1907, and is a tiny bit bigger at 2,171 sq feet. The couple bought the house in 2003 for (again, get ready to clutch your hearts) $47,800. The type of sale is listed as Bargain Sale and Deed and I don’t know if that’s why it was such a steal, selling for so much less than its neighbor.  The historic permits on file list Albertsons, Inc. as the owner in 1965.

The upper story: you can see the type of siding and the roof which I would characterize as in good condition.
This one has shingled siding and what I would guess is a new roof.
Second story.  It looks like the windows have been replaced with newer vinyl-style.  You can also see the “peak” of the porch is placed to the right on this house.
This house still has the old aluminum frame windows and the “peak” is placed further to the left on this house.
Here, our house has an open porch, probably retaining the same style as it was built with.
This house has an enclosed porch, which I am not a fan of.  They seem less pleasant to hang out on and they tend to become a place to stack things.
One thing that interested me was that both houses have heavy 60s/70s era doors that don’t match the rest of the house.
Based on this, I assumed that both houses were owned by the same owner some time in their past. But no!  Was there a traveling door-to-door door salesman with an irresistible pitch?
The carved wood, the dark stain, the brass mail slot!  Does not match!!!
It looks like these steps have been scraped.  Perhaps they are getting ready for a new coat of paint?
The steps on this house are not as wide.
These columns look as though they’ve been renovated at some point.
I would bet these are original.
Thus ends our comparison/contrast.

Librarian Book Group a bit overwhelming this month.

Librarian book group is on the right.  The probelm is the middle readers.  Usually they are very short books that I can whip through quickly but this month we’ve got a tome, Egg & Spoon, by the author of Wicked, an opus about a remote inn with mysterious visitors (Greenglass House) and a volume about a  boy who can talk to ravens.  (Gabriel Finley)  All of these are only marginally interesting to me and yet they go on and on.  I did just start the one with the flames on it (Firebug) and it’s quite promising. It’s YA, a teenaged firestarter with a boyfreind who smokes.  I’m down with that.  Thank goodness the books on the top and bottom of the pile can be read in 20 minutes.  Though The Farmer and the Clown has had the song “Territory Folk” in my head off and on all week long.)
On the left?  The final two of the 10 books to read for this year’s Mock Printz.  They aren’t due until January.

The end of Powell’s 2, nee Powell’s Technical Books

Once upon a time Powell’s Technical Books was at the corner of NW Park and Couch in a big white brick building with a store cat named Fup. Time passed, Fup died of old age, things changed, Powell’s Technical moved a few blocks north and became Powell’s 2.  The white brick building was torn down to make way for student apartments and a coffee shop with incredibly slow service.  
Walking by today, I see that Powell’s 2 has moved back to the mother ship, and so I bid goodbye to another piece in what was once an empire. Which will survive, of course, but in a different form than before.

Oregonian, you have got to be kidding me.

Just in case you don’t want to out-click, I’ll transcribe for you:
Thank you for being an angry and reluctant subscriber to The Oregonian.  We are sending you this sneaky postcard with many words to tell you that your subscription includes the newspapers published on Thanksgiving and Christmas.  These two newspapers are piled high with advertisements and have practically no news content to them.  We know that you, along with many other subscribers, grabs the three inch pile of ads and immediately transfers it to the recycling bin so you can get to the actual content of the paper which is, of course, news–not that we’re doing much of that anymore.  And remember a few sentences ago when we said that the extra newspapers are included in your home delivery subscription. What we really mean is that we are actually going to charge you extra, three dollars (that’s two dollars above the regular newsstand price) for the Thanksgiving Edition and one dollar (which is more than you pay for your weekday paper) for the Christmas one.  So be aware that your bill may come sooner than usual because of this.  If you’ve read this far and comprehended that we are completely screwing you over, please call our Customer Service Department where you can wait on hold for long periods of time before someone attempts to assist you.
Have a joyful Holiday Season, sucker.  
(We hope you will stop subscribing so we can claim circulation declines and forgo publishing altogether because we now pay our reporters based on how many “likes” and “pins” they get, not on their actual competence as a reporter. I mean really. The “free press” is so twentieth century.)
Your “friends” at the Oregonian.