Chuggnutt!

Category: Blogging

  • Things about Bend that I like

    That is, these are things that are new in Bend, or are a result of progress, that I like. It’s a balance to my Things about Bend that I miss post the other day.

    I like…

    • …the Bend Public Library building. I have fond memories of the old building they used to be in, but their newer building is far better.
    • …McMenamins’ Old St. Francis School. Can’t ever have enough microbreweries, and they’ve really done excellent work on the site. Plus, they brought back a movie theater to downtown Bend—a theater pub no less (which is what I always thought the Tower Theater should have been turned into)!
    • …The Old Mill District. For the most part. They’ve developed the area much better than I would have thought.
    • …newer restaurants like Zydeco, Mercury Diner, Merenda’s.
    • …Barnes & Noble.
    • …the Les Schwab Amphitheater.

    More as I think of these, too.

  • Things about Bend that I miss

    I miss…

    • …the statue of the of the homeless guy checking his wallet on the corner of Franklin and Wall. People used to decorate it for the Christmas season.
    • …when the Tower Theatre was an actual movie theater.
    • …when J.C. Penney used to be downtown. This is old school, it used to be on the corner of Wall Street and Oregon Avenue, the location of the (not-coincidentally-named) Old Penney’s Galleria. We used to buy our shoes there, and it was the only place in town I knew of that had a bomb shelter.
    • …The Juniper Café. Okay, I didn’t eat there that often, but it’s been in Bend my entire life.
    • …Book & Game. Before Barnes and Noble moved in, it was the coolest bookstore we had in town, out at the Mountain View Mall… I even have some bookmarks from there, still.
    • …hell, the Mountain View Mall itself, during its heydey, when the cinemas was there, and K-Mart, and the Emporium, and the arcade…
    • …Café Paradiso. The original coffee shop, with couches, lounge chairs, chess, a small stage… It was big, too, much bigger and more comfortable than the other places in town currently. Soba Noodles is there now.
    • …the Mexicali Rose. It was the lava rock building on the corner of Franklin and 3rd, where Bella Cucina is now. It was a neat little restaurant (when it was Mexican), even if parking was a little tight and weird. Now, with the awkward signage (like the banner hanging where the actual sign used to be), it just looks… wrong somehow.

    More as I think of them.

  • My mom’s blog

    So I’ve helped my mom to set up and start a weblog, to be found at DianeAbernathy.com. She’s a real estate agent, herbalist, teacher and more, it should make for interesting reading. Go check it out, I’m making the case that a weblog is much better tool for building an online presence and influence than a typical real estate agent’s website (for instance).

    Incidentally, I set the blog up using WordPress, which I mostly find to be pretty good software. I’d recommend it for anyone who has their own server, it was about the quickest and easiest software to set up that I’ve ever seen. And so far it works pretty well, too.

  • Cougar! The Return

    Following up my Cougar! coverage from last night… today on The Peak 104.1 radio morning show, they were having people call in to name the cougar. I missed it, but that’s classic. From the clips they were playing later it sounded like somebody suggested “Mellencamp.” That’s just so wrong it’s funny.

    And from the So which is it? department, all the local news reports are saying if you encounter the cougar, to not make eye contact, back away slowly, never run, etc. However, in the Wikipedia Puma article (cougars are technically pumas), the advice for an encounter is to stand and face the animal and make eye contact (among other things). Huh.

  • 3 years!

    Just a quick note, today is the three year anniversary of when I started this blog (April 22, 2002). It’s also Earth Day, but this is more important :).

    Kind of crazy to think it’s already been three whole years… I guess I’ll have to celebrate, somehow.

  • The Bulletin’s reference

    I got a copy of Wednesday’s Bulletin today (the Community Life section) that mentions my blog (see The Bulletin quoting my site?). The article is about both Reynolds Pond and Mayfield Pond, both east of Bend, as little-known oases in the desert. I wasn’t quoted directly, but I got a paragraph:

    Go to www.chuggnutt.com and you’ll find a wistful description of Reynolds Pond written by a person who spent a lot of time out there as a child. On a return visit 12 years later, the author noted that several barren islands in the pond were now covered with vegetation.

    That sounds about right. I don’t know about spending “a lot of time out there” but I did write that I frequented the pond growing up, so that’s fair, I guess.

    Jim Witty, the Bulletin’s travel writer (I think), wrote the article. When we used to get the paper, I enjoyed the accounts of Oregon and beyond he would write for the weekend travel section. Thanks, Jim!

  • The Bulletin quoting my site?

    We don’t get the Bend Bulletin anymore, so I missed this, but apparently yesterday the Bulletin ran an article in their Community section (which they don’t post online) wherein they quoted my blog on the subject of Reynolds Pond (with attribution—to my blog, but not to me by name). I found out today when my mom told me about it, and then someone at work told me they saw it, also.

    I’ll get a copy, and I’ll definitely comment on it when I do, but in the meantime, has anyone else seen this?

  • Not much to speak of

    Don’t have much to write about. Okay, that’s not totally true; I’ve got some things I want to write about, but they’ll run long and that’s not really what I feel like doing at nearly 11:30 at night. The topics? You’ll see why I’d run long:

    • Evolution
    • Ebooks
    • Reviews of some regular books I’m reading

    So instead, tonight, I’ll stick with the mundane things that tend to bore the hell out of people…

    We steam cleaned the carpet this last weekend. It’s amazing how much dirt and pet hair had accumulated in the ten months we’ve been living here. Amazing and gross. Makes me want to get rid of all the pets.

    This next weekend we need to dethatch the lawn and try to restore parts of it. I hate lawn maintenance. Makes me want to get rid of all the grass.

    The week before last, when I was sick, it turned out I had a bronchial sinus infection. I ended up getting antibiotics to get rid of it, which is something I almost never have to do.

    I’ve been teaching my five year old to play checkers. She’s got a good grasp of the rules, though needs to learn strategy and how to see the big picture. I’m pretty impressed by how quickly she picked it up, though. I have a feeling the strategy part will come to her pretty fast and then I’ll be frustrated at how I get beat every time :)

  • Shannon’s bad dining experience

    Shannon had a bad experience at a new sushi restaurant in town, Kanpai. Now she wants to be the number one result on Google for Kanpai Bend, so I thought I’d oblige and try to help her out. Although at this moment, she’s already the number two result, so it shouldn’t take much.

  • Now with categories!

    Maybe some have noticed this, but I finally got around to making my weblog archives by category publicly viewable; you can view the summary list here. Yes, that’s a lot of categories; I model my system after The Open Directory Project‘s. And no, I don’t have all my weblog entries there; there’s a bunch that I made before I started categorizing. The list will grow as I assign the old stuff.

    And you’re not seeing the true hierarchy like ODP does, for simplicity’s sake I’m just showing the final category each entry sits in. And I tend to multi-categorize, too, so posts may show up under several. Anyway, it’s a whole new way to datamine my site. Enjoy.