Sunbeams illuminating a coastal forest in Port Orford, Oregon

Chuggnutt!

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  • 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.

  • 55,000 year old trees at Yachats

    This story from Bend.com last week reminded me of the Stumps posting I made a year ago.

    An Oregon State University oceanographer has discovered remnants of an ancient forest in a seaside cliff near Yachats, with exposed tree sections that have been dated at older than 55,000 years.

    Those trees, which apparently were flattened during an ancient landslide and preserved in sediment, are now being exposed – and may help shed light on the tumultuous historical natural conditions along the Oregon coast, researchers said.

    Of course, those trees at 55,000 (or greater) years old trumps the “merely” 2,000 year-old trees at Neskowin, but it’s amazing to me the kinds of things that are washing up on the Oregon Coast recently.

  • Win a café in Eastern Oregon

    You can win a café in Eastern Oregon by entering Ma & Pa’s Café Essay Contest. Really! It’s a diner located in Imbler, Oregon, about 12 miles northeast of La Grande. All you have to do is submit a 500-word essay and $150 entry fee by August 1st, and you have a chance to win the café and $50,000 in start-up cash.

    It’s a prototypical old-school diner in a tiny agricultural town (Imbler only has about 380 people); check out their pictures. Not only would you have to have a burning desire to run such a place, but you’d also have to commit to living in rural northeast Oregon (largest cities are Pendleten and La Grande, at about 16,000 and 13,000, repsectively). It’s certainly an intruiging notion, I’d be tempted to enter just to see, though I think that’d be a tough sell to my family :).

    Still, I notice that there’s no obligation or limit to what the winner can do with the place, and there also appears to be a scarcity of microbreweries in eastern Oregon… that would be an interesting thought.

    Bend.com has a write-up on this, too, with a detailed interview of the couple “selling” the café.

  • Cougar! Reloaded

    The cougar problem will continue, according to the Bulletin. There’s just not enough manpower to devote to it, and in fact there’s only one agent for the “Animal Plant Health Inspection Service, Wildlife Services Program” for all of Deschutes County… and he’s tied up with every other wildlife issue that arises.

    And this strikes me as funny:

    “It is so hard trying to run through back yards and jump fences with these dogs,” Spencer said. “And then you have all these domestic animals so you have to be careful because, as far as dogs are concerned, a cat is a cat.”

    Just the image of a guy with a bunch of baying hound dogs running through suburban Awbrey Butte makes me smile.

    Meanwhile, Hillside Park is still closed. Near as I can tell, anyway.

  • The Burger King creeps me out

    Creepy plastic Burger King maskThis topic on ORblogs prompted this post. What the hell is up with that creepy Burger King mask? All I know is, if I see that thing anywhere near my house, burger or no burger, I’m going for a gun.

  • 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.

  • Cougar!

    When mountain lions attack! Apparently there’s a young cougar attempting to establish territory in Bend, primarily on Awbrey Butte and possibly Shevlin Park. This is not unusual for Central Oregon, but the way the local news outlets have been covering this story you’d think the world is ending. I actually find all the hooplah amusing.

    Here’s the online rundown:

    The Bulletin actually has the better coverage; makes me long for the days of Barney at Bend.com.

    Speaking of Barney, KTVZ has been covering the cougar nightly, too. I get a chuckle and shake my head every time I hear them talking about it; something about their delivery, maybe, but when one of the items reported is about a sighting that turned out to be a house cat, well, you just have to laugh.

    Look, I’ve lived here most of my life, so to me it’s just not shocking, freaky or worriesome when this type of thing happens, it just gets dealt with. Face it, this isn’t just cougar country, it’s also bear, coyote and rattlesnake country, and that’s not changing anytime soon; this Chicken Little syndrome is getting old.

  • $40 a day

    So one of the shows we watch on Food Network is $40 a Day, where Rachael Ray has a budget of “only” 40 dollars and traipses around the city du jour looking for the meal deals. The tourist-y part of the show is interesting, but the fake-suspense-building (will she go over her budget? Will she??) annoys the hell out of me.

    So far I know of three Oregon towns they’ve filmed episodes in: Portland, Salem and Ashland. I think they should do an episode right here in Bend.

    The question is, then, where could you go to get three meals and an afternoon snack or drink with a 40 dollar budget, and still capture the essence of Bend? Without consulting the budget (so I may be off), my own choices would be:

    Other suggestions?