Sunbeams illuminating a coastal forest in Port Orford, Oregon

Chuggnutt!

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  • In which I let you all in on the secret

    That secret being: I’ve been "officially" unemployed since mid-June.

    I use "officially" in quotes because the Dire Employment Situation began earlier than that, but it wasn’t until June that I was entirely laid off.

    What happened was, well, I was working for a builder, and we all know how the local economy has been treating home builders and real estate, right? Anyway, I guess it was in March when I found out that my hours were going to be cut back to half-time at some point in the near future, and then that happened in April. (I think; my timeline on this is a bit fuzzy.)

    Thus, I became a part time employee for a couple of months. I started searching the local job scene but avoided blogging about any of it at the time, because

    1. the status of my current job was still unclear, and I didn’t want to rock the boat unduly one way or another; and
    2. I didn’t want to tip off potential future employers with something that could potentially be interpreted the wrong way—i.e., it was something I’d rather discuss in person, if needed.

    Then June came, and the official layoff came to pass. (It was myself and two other employees from a small-ish sized staff, to give you an idea of the scope.) In some ways it made everything easier—with the kids out of school, I could be home with them, I could devote my time fully to the job search, etc.—but of course this kind of thing is never easy.

    Several people have asked why I didn’t blog about getting laid off sooner, and use the blog as a networking tool. Good question.

    Here’s one reason: I screwed up my application for unemployment compensation and didn’t manage to get that resolved until just last week, so I didn’t want to somehow compound the problems I was having by blogging something inadvertent until it was fixed.

    That’s a true answer; I really did screw up the unemployment and I really was a bit paranoid about blogging it—but it’s not "the" answer. Not that I can give you an alternate reason, other than I just wasn’t ready to write anything about it.

    Anyway. For the past month and a half we’ve been watching our budget closely, I’ve been seeking employment (I’ve had a few interviews, too—two as far away as Portland and Lincoln City), and ideally I’m doing some freelance web development work to make ends meet while job searching.

    I’d like to say that I took the extra time to really focus on my writing and blogging and trying to turn them into viable revenue generators, but, well…

    So. I’m currently unemployed, and if anyone should have any leads on a computer- or internet-related job (I specialize in PHP and MySQL web development, don’t ya know), I’m available.

    (I don’t do Bar Mitzvahs.)

  • Pictures to accompany my Coast notes

    Finally, some pictures to accompany my Oregon Coast travelogue post from the beginning of this month. Nothing earth-shaking here, just what you’d expect.

    Tillamook Cheese Factory

    Their big sign on Highway 101. You can’t miss it.

    Click through for the rest of the pictures

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  • One of those ideas I wish I’d thought up

    The Mount Rushmore Of… is a new blog that is one of those obvious-in-hindsight ideas I wish I’d thought up, because it satisfies the “Top X List” jones of twitchy web surfers everywhere.

    Everyone knows what Mount Rushmore is, right?  Mount Rushmore is a National Memorial featuring the sculptures of the heads of the most influential Presidents of the first 150 years of the United States.  The Mount Rushmore Of takes that same principle and asks the question of who’s head should be carved in stone for other subjects, like:

    • Who is on the Mount Rushmore of Baseball?
    • Who is on the Mount Rushmore of Punk Rock?
    • And so on…

    Debate encouraged. Naturally.

    Incidentally, Neal Stewart, the mastermind behind it, also writes the highly entertaining Turkey Sandwich Report. Oh yeah, he works in beer, too—a marketer, but I don’t hold that against him.

  • Here’s something I bet you didn’t know about Ashland…

    I’m referring to Ashland, Oregon, naturally, and something I found out from this article (via Jack Bog) (emphasis mine):

    Ashland city ordinances allow nudity anywhere in town, but genitalia must be covered in city parks and the downtown commercial district.

    I was pretty surprised when I read that; I don’t remember a single naked person while in Ashland last year. But overall—that’s pretty crazy; I had no idea it was that liberal of a town.

    You can bet I’ll be reading the Bend city code pretty closely the next few days to see what our local ordinances say about the subject.

    (The article overall is about a fruitcake “activist” who likes to wander around around (nearly) nude, and the city of Ashland’s refusal to allow her to be in their Fourth of July parade. She’s claiming “discrimination” against her by the Ashland Chamber of Commerce, claims she’s “not trying to get attention” (riiiiiiiiight), and for good measure even throws in a hint of creepy pedophilia in there. Seriously, she sounds mental. I’d deny her, too.)

  • Oregon Coast travelogue

    We spent the weekend on the Coast, and while I don’t feel like writing a 2000+ word recap like I did for our Ashland trip last year, I wanted to highlight some of it—the (shall we say) less obvious things. So I thought I’d present it more travel guide style.

    (Inspired largely by the Fodor’s Pacific Northwest guidebook I picked up from the library for ideas. It covers a lot of ground but is still frustratingly sparse.)

    Tillamook, Oregon

    First thing to note: Tillamook smells like cows. Lots of cows. To me it’s not at all unpleasant since I grew up around cows; to others, it depends. Sometimes it smells only like cows, sometimes there’s also a bit of cow manure in there too.

    The Tillamook Cheese Factory – This is the thing to see when in Tillamook. Open seven days a week, from 8 until 8 during the summer (8 until 6 the rest of the year), tours are self-guided and best of all, free. Kids will love it, as you get great views of the vats, production, and packaging lines—but note, the packaging line (the biggest part with the most moving parts) only operates from Monday through Friday. So if you come on a weekend (like we did), you’ll just see a lot of inactive machinery.

    There are two gift shops, a café and, of course, a full range of flavors of Tillamook ice cream for sale. You can’t stop here and not get a cone.

    Blue Heron French Cheese Company – Down Highway 101 a ways from the Tillamook Cheese Factory, Blue Heron specializes in French cheeses: Bries, Camemberts, blue cheeses, and the like. The have a charming gift shop/deli/wine bar with lots of samples of all sorts of foods: cheeses (naturally), dips, sauces, jams and jellies, wine tastings, and more. They also have a very decent beer selection by the bottle (not that I’m an expert for the area, but it could be the best in Tillamook for all I know).

    There is also a “petting farm” for the kids; for 75 cents you can buy a small bag of animal food and feed it to the goats, donkeys, and miniature horses on the property.

    Oceanside, Oregon (9 miles west of Tillamook)

    This beachfront community strikes me as being almost entirely a vacation rental “town.” Aside from a couple of restaurants (one of which was closed) and a gift shop, it looked like there were only vacation rentals and very nice houses. Odd, that.

    Down on the beach, there’s a great find: a tunnel cut through the cliffside that juts out into the water, leading to a very secluded rocky beach on the other side. Great adventure for kids.

    Roseanna’s Cafe – The only restaurant of note in Oceanside. It overlooks the beach and occupies a creaky old building built in 1915 or something. It was pretty good food, but we had a bit of a wait—they don’t take reservations. Other than that, it was worth the visit.

    Newport, Oregon

    Newport is my favorite city on the Oregon Coast (though Lincoln City and Pacific City are tied for a close second). There’s just so much to like about it: their Historic Bayfront, the Nye Beach district, the Oregon Coast Aquarium, good food, and of course, Rogue Ales.

    Prepare for chillier weather than you’ll get elsewhere on the coast, though. Lincoln City was in the 70s (and maybe 80s) during the weekend, and Newport barely broke the 50s and low 60s.

    Fishtails Café – This has to be the best-kept secret in Newport, because in my opinion it’s the best breakfast place in town. Though I had their excellent salmon hash, the breakfast they’re known for is their marionberry French toast. Check this out:

    A favorite at Fishtails Café, we take our homemade bread rounds and stuff a slightly sweetened Cream Cheese mixture between two slices, dip it in Cream and Eggs and sautee it to a delicate golden and top it with our homemade Marionberry sauce.

    It’s a steal at only $6.95 (I’m not kidding), and this thing is huge and freaking delicious. The restaurant itself is homey and charming and over in the South Beach section of town (across the bridge).

    Port Dock One – This restaurant is located on the Historic Bayfront and overlooks, er, Port Dock One. The food is decent, but the real draw is the view. Not only of the Bay, but also of the sea lions that tend to sun themselves and nap on the piers below the main dock. It’s like every visit comes with a show.

    Rogue – Being the only brewery in Newport, Rogue is of course big in the area. Most restaurants have Dead Guy Ale on tap, but you’ll definitely want to visit their Public House, also on the Bayfront. Not only are all the Rogue beers on tap (along with several from their Eugene and Issaquah breweries), but they also have their full line of Rogue Spirits, and good food. Plus, there’s an adults only section of the place decked out with video poker and pool tables, so they’re covering all the bases.

    You can visit the actual Brewery itself in South Beach, where they also have a tasting room and restaurant and gift shop. Tours are available, as well.

    And across the lot from the Brewery, in the South Beach marina area, is the Rogue Spirits Distillery (though their main one is in Portland). You can pop in here to check out their distilling operation (three years old) and get a drink from the bar. Beers and gift shop breweriana are also available.

    Ugh, did I say I didn’t want to write 2000-plus words? I’m already approaching the halfway point for that with this post. So I’ll wrap it up for tonight, but I’ll probably have a bit more to write about Newport before all is said and done. And of course, I have some pictures, but I don’t have them on the computer yet so those will have to wait for a later post as well.

  • Kung Fu Panda

    The headline refers to the movie, of course, which I took the kids to see today. It was great. No, I mean it—it was great.

    (No spoilers.)

    Several things contributed to it’s greatness. First, not knowing (until the credits roll) who any of actors doing the voices are, except of course for Jack Black. I think sometimes on animated movies I get distracted by actually knowing who the actors are and then listening for them, rather than enjoying the movie.

    For instance, the voice behind Tai Lung (the snow leopard villain) was really good—really well cast—and itchingly familiar. Turned out to be Ian McShane, who played Swearingen on "Deadwood" (possibly the best TV show of all time), and that was masterful. But had I known it was him beforehand, I would have been listening for "Deadwood" instead.

    Jack Black, by the way, is also perfectly cast. But you probably already knew that.

    Second, this movie doesn’t suffer from what a lot of animated movies these days (particularly Dreamworks ones) does: slapstick humor propped up by "modern" or meta-themed jokes. In other words, nothing is out of place here (plot-wise, humor-wise)—with one exception which I’ll get to—and comedy doesn’t rely on "outside the box" or "frame of reference" jokes.

    (An example? How about Pinocchio wearing thong underwear in "Shrek 2"?)

    Third, that "one exception": Po the Panda—as played by Black—is such an otaku of kung fu and the hero characters that he actually has action figures and posters of them (the "Furious Five") all over his room. Yes, this seems out of place in ancient (? or medieval?) China, but it’s what pulls this movie together; Po is the ultimate geeknerd, the comic book-type obsessive who already knows (cerebrally, anyway) all about the Five and kung fu and the history of the epic battles of good and evil just like the "modern" geeknerds on the internet and in comic book shops today. It works because it resonates, I suppose, and if you’ve actually read this far then it’s very likely you know exactly what I mean and it resonates with you too.

    Fourth, it’s great fun with elaborate, enjoyable kung fu fight scenes. Ah, the wonders of animation.

    It’s well worth seeing. Thumbs up.

  • Braindump

    Just offloading some things and ideas that have been rattling around.

    • CNN ran a story last week entitled, "Nine cool jobs that pay well." (Paying "well" is relative in their article, I guess.) Top of the list? Brewmaster ($42,430).
    • And good news if you want to take advantage of how cool it would be to be a brewmaster: Beer is recession proof.
    • Where are the open source MySpace/Facebook clones? Are there any? In particular, I’m wondering if there is an open source social networking application written in PHP. There didn’t seem to be any last time I checked, so I was half thinking of writing one myself.

      …not with the intent of competing with MyFaceSpaceBook or anything like that; for that matter, anyone can create a free social network on Ning. I was more thinking in terms of, what if I wanted to create a separate, private social network site that didn’t rely on the Ning shared hosting paradigm? Or plop that software down on an intranet somewhere, behind a firewall? Any PHP apps out there I can just download and install for that?

      Hence my thinking on writing one. Mostly just because.

    • "Digital nostalgia." Not sure where I’m going with that yet, but it’s sparked by William Gibson’s comments about eBay in this interview.

  • Indy

    First summer blockbuster of the year: we went and saw “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” this past weekend. I rather liked it, as I knew I would, though for me it’s not as good as “Last Crusade”, although that’s forgivable (for me) because it’s only been nearly two decades since the last movie was released.

    More to say, but spoilers are in effect… click through with caution.

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  • A portable text game console. Yes, please.

    Boing Boing Gadgets asks the rhetorical question: Who’d like a portable text game console? With some neat mocked up possibilities, too.

    I’m raising my hand, by the way.

    The intent behind such a device would be, in their words, to “open up the possibilities to the world’s vast back catalog of ASCII-style titles.” In other words, to play any and all ASCII text-based games.

    Like Nethack. Or text adventures (hundreds, if not thousands, of them). Or any other game that just used plain text.

    As long as it was a cool gadget. With a long battery life.

    For that matter, why don’t they have this type of thing for Commodore 64? Basically a handheld C-64. With keyboard and everything. It could be done.

  • So, American Idol…

    Yeah, I’m aware that this is the first blog post I’ve made here this month, and it happens to be an American Idol post. I suck, now let’s move on.

    Basically, after watching all this season and tonight’s finale, my pick for the winner is David Cook. I thought both finalists did really well, but my criteria is this: I pick the one who I would actually listen to on the radio. David Archuleta has got an amazing voice, and can really sing, there’s no doubt—but he sings real yawners, stuff that I just wouldn’t listen to. I get bored most of the time when he sings.

    Plus, David Cook is a lot more dynamic on stage, and actually seems like the exact kind of personality-slash-performer the whole competition is staged to discover.

    So Cook should be the winner. Of course, the judges all disagree and voted for Archuleta, and they’re usually right.

    In that case, it’ll be another Daughtry phenomenon… Archuleta will win, but he’ll fade into obscurity almost immediately while Cook will go on to have a successful career. You’ll hear him on the radio within the year.