HELLO SAN FRANCISCO?

Since we've now spent two years in New York (Caspian celebrated 2 years on Sunday), and we've made a great new set of friends here, we're going to have to rename our blog so no one feels left out. So how about Hello San Francisco! ? Our future new home.

Anyway, here's a little tidbit I came across in Portland Monthly recently:

"Even in Portland, some neighborhoods are a little more waterlogged than others. "It's all directly tied into terrain and geography," says KGW chief meterorologist Matt Zaffino (who we, by the way, have shared a chairlift once at Mt.Hood Meadows - and seen hiking Ramona falls!) The downwind side of a mountain range -even a smaller one such as the West Hills - tends to lie in what weather guys call a "rain shadow", a relatively dry area. As you travel down and away from the hills, rainfall totals drop off, which means that PDX airport, where Portland's official rainfall totals are measured, derives an arid benefit from its location well removed from Council Crest.

But don't hang your laundry on the clothesline yet, Estacada (where I grew up and Caspian and I went to High School together) Portland's most easterly burgs are also influenced by their proximity to the Cascades; precipitation increases east of SE 82nd Ave as the clouds drop their moisture to clear that range. So just how wet is your plot? Consult these 30-year average annual rainfall amounts, and get splashing."

Portland: 37"
Hillsboro: 38"
Beaverton: 40"
McMinnville: 42"
Troutdale: 45"
St Helens: 45"
Oregon City: 46"
Vernonia: 49"
Estacada: 59"

Great Seats

Giambi Wiffs
Originally uploaded by Polish Carpetlayer.

Last Tuesday (4/17/2007) I found myself at Yankee stadium with some friends. We watched the Yankees pound the Cleveland Indians. After the game we walked over to a bowling alley and rolled a frame. I watched and took pictures as the bowlers blurred past me. My bowling game isn’t bad, but it’s not good either. I’d rather take pictures and share them with you. Enjoy.

Click here to see the whole set of pictures.

Movie Rain

Movie Rain
Originally uploaded by Polish Carpetlayer.

It doesn’t rain in New York, it waterfalls and people here don’t seem to understand that it’s not normal.

At Work:
“Caspian, you must like this rain. You feel like your at home, don’t you.”

“No, it doesn’t rain sideways in Oregon. This isn’t rain it’s soak.”

Its like god has a big fire hose and once in a while he breaks it out to blast unsuspecting New Yorkers as they go about their day. You are now wet. And pity the umbrella because it is going to die. One big gust and umbrella bones break, completely. Goodbye umbrella. It was nice knowing you. It doesn’t rain in New York. Ask Sadna and Colby the next time you see them. They now know what I’m talking about.

Scratch Meet the New Camera

Scratch in Black
Originally uploaded by Polish Carpetlayer.

DJ Scratch Talks
Originally uploaded by Polish Carpetlayer.
An old camera for Colby. A new camera for me. Better pictures for you. Colby is now shooting a Nikon D200 so he let me use his Nikon D1x. It's a beautiful digital SLR and, lucky for me, all of my Nikon lenses work on it. It's a big boy toy and I'm really happy to be playing with it. So get ready, because next time I see you, I'm going to have a 100-300mm zoom lens on it and a hand full of trigger happy fingers.

Verkeerder Kill Falls Hike

Verkeerder Kill Falls Hike
Originally uploaded by Polish Carpetlayer.

Easter Sunday was spent in the wind and snow in upstate. We took Colby and Sadna on a long hike to Verkeerder Kill Falls. It almost felt like we were in the Columbia George, only different. This is what Easter should always be like. Check out the all the pictures here.

Colby and Sadna

Colby and Sadna
Originally uploaded by Polish Carpetlayer.

Last Saturday Colby and Sadna dropped into Brooklyn and stayed for about a week. It looks like they’re going to be moving here within the next 4 or 5 months. Sadna’s going to grad school just like Michelle (Columbia or NYU). Unfortunately Michelle’s school is across the country in San Francisco. We just missed each other.

OMG, We met Youth Group

Last night we saw my favorite band Youth Group at Maxwell's in Hoboken, NJ. Yes, Hoboken is an unlikely place to see such an awesome band, but It was such an amazing show. The venue was very small, the crowd was light and afterward we met Toby, the lead singer and Cameron, the guitarist. They were so nice and down to earth; Cas asked great questions like: "Why did you name yourself Youth Group?" (to which Toby explained it was a joke. Anyone who's been to youth group gets it.) and other interview-like inquiries while I stood there like a complete dork- super happy to meet them, my smile couldn't hide it.

In case you forgot, Youth Group is on our 2006 Christmas compilation. If you get a chance to see them, please do. You won't be disappointed.

UPDATE: To listen to Youth Group's two albums, click MY RADIO under POLISHCARPETLAYER'S MUSIC on the left. After you click it, go down under PLAYLIST and click YOUTH GROUP. Enjoy. I've put up two of there albums, Skeleton Jar and Casino Twilight Dogs.

-caspian

It’s Music On helloPORTLAND

It’s music and I’m excited. Look to the left on the blog under For Your Ears. I’ve just figured out how to put our music up on this site. So now you can listen to the playlist we put together or you can listen to all the albums we have up. There’s even a way to subscribe to the music through your iTunes (I’ll tell you how to do that later). In the coming days I’ll be working to put more music up, but for now it’s up and working. So the next time we go to a concert, like last week (Menomena and Bloc Party), or listen to a radio show that’s particularly interesting, we’ll put up audio as well as the written word. Happy listening. Yeahhhhh!

Fresh from Costa Rica....

Although we lost them in Costa Rica, we found them in a beige package on our front porch. Here are just a few of the pictures we took when we were on our vacation (we lost another 500+ pictures). The inn owners at Dante Corcovado Lodge were kind enough to ship them to us. Click here to check out the pictures on our flickr account or just watch the slideshow below. The pictures are a perfect companion to the stories we’ve already told you.

Flickr Slideshow

What we found (and lost) in Costa Rica

My senior year in college was hell. I took 19 credit hours the first semester, 21 the second and all the while I was writing my senior thesis. Writing the thesis alone can be compared to some sort of medieval mind torture technique. Your trying to hit a moving target that they (the professors that incessantly hound you) describe as “original thought” while fretting over the exciting, impending future of graduating from college and putting that $100,000 education to work as a beer jockey at McMennemins or throwing carpet around for your father. It’s awesome and it’s a yearlong process. I’ll save you the details, needless to say I had to jump through something like 43,000 hoops to finish my “original thought”. You might be wondering at this point why I’m writing about this story. Well here’s the crux, and by crux I mean absolute worst part of the story that I never wanted to experience again but somehow, on some sort of alternate type of mid-30’s just got back from an amazing freaking vacation kind of way that reminds me of that beautiful time in college and I’m experiencing it again, crux. That kind of horrible crux. So I was maybe 75 percent done with my thesis, kind of hitting my stride, when I popped in my floppy disc one winter day (yeah I said floppy). Nothing came up. I tried again, but nothing. Damn. Nothing. Damn! Damn! Damn! Nothing came up!!! Fast forward to 2007, the last day of our trip to Costa Rica.

“Michelle, I left the memory card with videos and over 500 pictures of the trip in your bag. Can you get it for me?”
“It’s not in there Caspian. I looked.”
“Are you sure.”
“Yeah. I looked everywhere for it and I can’t find it anywhere. You had it last when you took the camera out this morning. Maybe you still have it.”
“I don’t.”
“DAMN!!!”

So there you have it and there we don’t have it.

- Caspian

P.S. For full disclosure I must say that we did get some pictures from the trip back to Brooklyn and we are working on getting some more so not all is lost. We will be putting those pictures up soon so get ready to see an amazing beautiful place.

P.S.S. The information technology department at Lewis and Clark was able to recover about half of my thesis for me. Those guys are awesome. Do you have any idea how hard it is to come up with another “original thought” after you’ve lost the first one.

P.S.S.S. Costa Rica was awesome!!!! You should go.