Public service announcement: The Bend/Central Oregon bloggers are getting together tomorrow (Wednesday, July 21) at six o’clock at the Bend Brewing Company. I’ll be there, and I know a few more of us will be, too. See you there!
Category: Blogging
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Stumps
The previous post got me thinking for some reason about the 2000 year-old tree stumps found just off the Oregon coast, in Neskowin. You haven’t heard about them? Judging by the amount of time searching to find any pointers or references to them, most of the Web hasn’t either.
This is from KXL.com’s Coastal Tour Guide page:
This downright spectacular oddity is almost a rare sight in Neskowin, but you may not know just how spectacular it is unless you know what it is you’re looking at.
They look somewhat like old, ragged pilings leftover from something manmade – but they are, in fact, stumps of a 2,000-year-old forest. As many as 100 are sometimes visible in various shapes and sizes. It’s theorized that around 2,000 years ago a massive, cataclysmic earthquake abruptly dropped this forest as much as six feet. This wound up preserving them, rather then destroying and scattering them as natural erosion might’ve done.
An article on these appeared in 1998, and I remember being awed and amazed that these artifacts from the era of Christ and the Roman Empire were being exposed right in my backyard, so to speak. Scouring around the Web, there’s only a couple of decent articles I was able to find on the subject: this Herald-Sun Newsbrief from March 18, 1998 and this archived Sunset article. Good to know I’m not completely crazy.
Anyway, if you find yourself in or around Neskowin, Oregon, find your way down to the beach and check it out.
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Back
Yes, back from Portland since yesterday, but I’m finally catching up on everything—internet connectivity has been spotty at best here for some reason, so last night after not being able to connect to anything for the umpteenth time, I said, “Screw it!” and gave up.
Portland is where it’s supposed to be. Bend is where I left it. Good enough.
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Blog software chart
For anyone looking at other weblogging software (Jake), this is really good: Blog Software Breakdown. It has a fantastic chart of features on ten popular weblog packages.
This chart displays attributes of different user-installed blog software packages side-by-side for comparison. Only server-installed scripts will be included in this list. (Sorry, no Radio, Blogger, etc.)
Via Ensight.
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Random thoughts
Ever since someone at work talked about VH1‘s “50 Worst Rock Songs” special, with “We Built this City” as the number one worst, I’m having a hard time getting that song out of my head.
Why is it anymore that when Law & Order: Special Victims Unit has a celebrity guest star (which seems quite often these days), they’re predictably always the Main Bad Guy? (It’s getting stale!)
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MT Comment
What with the current brouhaha over Movable Type‘s licensing and payment scheme for the version 3 software (what, you want a link? Feh, go Google it), all I can really say is, damn it’s sure handy to have written my own system.
:)I notice that a lot of people are seriously considering migrating to WordPress. That’s cool, it uses PHP and seems pretty solid.
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Social Circles
So, what’s even geekier than meeting up with a bunch of fellow bloggers? Well, blogging about it, of course! So, here’s my summary of our Bend Bloggers meetup tonight.
Nine of us showed up, which was pretty impressive. In no particular order, they were: me; Shannon of There’s Always Something; Jake of UtterlyBoring; Jesse of Bring Back the 80’s!; Barney of Bend.com; Roger of High Desert Skeptic; Simone of On the Bright Side…; Dane of Brainside Out; and Kerry of Bend Buzz.
I had a good time; it was cool to put the faces to the sites. Though I gotta say, I was nervous enough at first and was sitting in just enough sun to warm up and start sweating like a pig for a while, which, you know, is just great for impressing people you meet for the first time. Yikes. Sorry, guys.
When someone asked how everyone got into blogging, I gave the entirely lame (but mostly true) answer of, “It sort of just happened.” Which is true, but sucks as an answer and could definitely be fleshed out. Sometime soon I’ll give a whole history, both to how I got started blogging and where “Chuggnutt” comes from.
And as to a couple of conversations that got left unfinished:
Shannon: McMenamins is known for buying up older, historic sites and turning them into brewpubs, bed-and-breakfasts, restaurants, etc. The Kennedy School in Portland is a good example, which has a brewpub (or two), a restaurant, bed-and-breakfast (old classrooms are the rooms), a cigar bar, a liquor bar, a movie theater, and more I think. The Edgefield is similar. And they’re buying (have bought?) the Old St. Francis School here in Bend and are supposed to be opening it up this fall (although they’ve said that the past 3 years).
Roger: Now that I’ve thought about it, it seems like I recognize you from somewhere as well. Hmmm…
Dane: Well, no actual unfinished conversation that I recall. I just had to say, Damn! You are animated, dude.
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Bend Blogger Meetup Tonight
Reminder: the first Bend Blogger meetup is tonight, May 12, at 7:30pm at the Bend Brewing Company downtown. If you’re a blogger and in Bend tonight, come on by.
BBC’s address:
1019 NW Brooks St.
Bend, OR 97701And here’s the map to Bend Brewing.
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Bend blogger meeting, done deal
Well, it’s official, there’s gonna be a Bend blogger meetup on Wednesday, May 12, at 7:30pm at the Bend Brewing Company. Jake blogged it here, and there’s even a Bend.com press release on it here. All are welcome, the more the merrier.
The funny thing about this is, my wife saw the press release on Bend.com and knew about it before I did. Aren’t I supposed the one who’s plugged into this stuff?