DanRochman.com

Well, Day Zero and Day One. Day Zero was Friday (July 18th). Em got into town that night, and after I picked her up at PDX we drove around a little bit (and squeezed in a quick stop at the AWESOME Powell’s!) before heading back to the hotel for bed.

Day One (Saturday, July 19th) started off nicely. We slept in (ahhh!), then got up and walked over to Portland’s famous Saturday Market (which has the rather funny tagline “And Sundays Too!”) to some windowless window shopping. It’s a nice market in a nice setting (”Old Town“), with a whole bunch of crafts we’d never buy, a half-decent food court, and live music. Plus it was HOT and SUNNY, which was a bit intense, but a nice change from the typical San Francisco weather. We shared an “Elephant’s Ear” in the food court - a local snack that’s basically a flat piece of fried dough, shaped (?) like an elephant’s ear (duh). The whole thing is then brushed with melted butter, and either dipped (DIPPED!) in a cinnamon-and-sugar mixture, or else smeared with some sweet topping or other (jam, sweet cream cheese - whatever). I’ve always said that you can’t go wrong when you stick with the Holy Trinity (Fat, Sugar, and Starch), and the Elephant’s Ear certainly supports that claim. Try one if you get to Portland - but just one, and only after consulting a physician.

After the market, we walked back (past Chinatown) to the car and drove to Washington Park. Em wanted to check out the famous International Rose Test Garden (hey, Portland *is* the “City of Roses” - really, it is), which was really beautiful - and it turns out there are amazing views of Mount Hood from up there. After that, and since it’s also in Washington Park, I figured we’d make a quick stop at the Oregon Zoo. We passed on most of the zoo (short on time), but all I really wanted to do was get inside the walk-through butterfly aviary, which we did. Check out the link - they’ve got two cool QuickTime vids that really show off some beautiful specimens. And we found out that there’s a type of butterfly (the “cracker” butterfly) that can make really loud crackling noises - very cool! If you ever get the chance to be in a room filled with (hundreds of) butterflies, TAKE IT.

On the way out of the zoo, we stopped by the Insect Zoo exhibit, where we saw some HUGE walking stick insects (yes, I know they’re ALL huge, but these were even huger than that, okay?), and I got up close and personal with a madagascar hissing cockroach. Turns out it was a male (you can tell by the large ridges on the back of the head), because they don’t handle the females much, because (get this!) female hissing cockroaches give LIVE BIRTH! (It doesn’t say that on the Oregon Zoo site, but someone there told me that and it checks out. Really.) Anyhow, I think they’re super cool, and would make great pets, but Em won’t let me have any (because she’s a meanie). She also won’t let me have any snails (I LOVE snails), or earthworms (cute and wriggly!), so I’m totally out of luck for pets. I’m thinking of asking for a hermit crab next - she might just relent and let me have one. Just in case, feel free to suggest good names for a pet crab.

After that, we headed over to the (in?)famous Northwest 23rd Avenue shopping strip - also (aptly) known as Trendy-Third. It’s a stretch of street lined with yupscale, one-of-a-kind shops. This page has some really fascinating info on how the street got to be the way it is, and what the (urban planning) downsides of such a place are. We mostly window-shopped, and bought a few CDs at the quite-cool Music Millenium to listen to in the car…

After that we had a little siesta, then headed to Gino’s for dinner, which is a really nice Italian restaurant in the Sellwood district of Portland. After dinner we headed over to the Laurelhurst district, to check out a place called Staccato Gelato, which on a little stretch of Northeast 28th that’s known for good food. And mmmmmm, it was yummy gelato. I took some photos of the place as we walked in, and one of the owners (who was working the counter) asked me if I was from CitySearch! Apparently they were waiting for the photographer from CitySearch to show up so they could get their listing up - which also explained why we had tried in vain to find them on CitySearch earlier that very day. Funny world. I just checked, and they’re up on CitySearch now…

After a looooooong, full day, we headed back to Powell’s for a relaxed hour (with coffee!) among the stacks. Em got some bargain retro cookbooks (mostly), and I got a cool book (with CD!) on hand drumming - we’ll see if I actually get past the first chapter.

Powell’s closes at 11:00 every night, so after they kicked us out we headed off to bed fairly pooped, and wanting to get up early for another jam-packed day…

…on the way to Portland. Sigh.

I’d booked an Economy car online, but when I got to Seattle on Tuesday (July 16th) the guy at the Budget counter tried to upsell me on a convertible (only $8 more a day!), but I told him I’d pass. For what I think was the first time ever, I DIDN’T pass on the (costly) supplemental coverage - I’m not sure why. The guy then told me he’d give me a Mercury Mountaineer at no extra charge. At that point, I had no idea what a Mountaineer was, so I took it. As it turns out, it’s pretty wildly far from an “Economy” vehicle. Whatever. I figured it would definitely get me around, and get me to Portland.

Seattle was fine, but all work. A lot of getting. I got into town, got my bag, got my car, got to the Days Inn, got checked in, got to bed, got up, got dressed, got checked out, got to the client site, got done, got dinner, and got on my way down to Portland. I’ve seen Seattle before, and probably will again, so that part was alright. I had a coffee in hand, and decent music on the radio, and a fairly scenic three-hour drive down I-5…

Except that I slammed into a deer around 30 miles north of Portland, near some town called Kelso. Had I been upsold on the convertible, or been given an actual Economy car as I’d planned, things would probably have gone VERY badly for me. As it went, things went VERY badly for the deer, but not nearly as badly for me. I had been going around 70 mph (the posted limit) in the middle lane, in near-darkness, with few cars around me and a truck coming up behind. The deer came out of the center of the highway, so it must have already crossed the northbound lanes at some point, but by the time it was in the cone of my headlights I was less than 30 feet away. I hit my brakes, but I didn’t slam on them - it’s better to hit a deer a little faster than to risk losing control of your vehicle altogether, or getting rammed from behind by another. I had a brief vision of the deer looking up at the headlights, then another (pretty awful) vision of the deer spinning off on its side across the left lane and shoulder and back into the center divide area, and I checked my mirrors and hit my hazard light button and got myself onto the shoulder as quickly as I could. The trucker behind me followed me there - he’d seen the whole thing, and wanted to see if I was alright. We were both blown away by the fact that the Mountaineer was basically sound. The driver-side headlight was toast, and everything left of the grille and forward of the wheel was hurting, and there was a huge dent across both driver-side doors - BUT it was still easily in good enough shape for me to be able to get back in and drive it.

I called Em to tell her what happened, and she was my On*Star, guiding me to the nearest open Budget location - which turned out to be the Portland airport. Amazingly, since I’d opted for all the extra coverage you can buy, they basically swapped the keys out with minimal fuss or paperwork, and they gave me a Lincoln Town Car for my trouble. So I ended up driving into Portland like a true Pimp. I got to my hotel, the 5th Avenue Suites (thank you, Priceline.com!), and crashed out bigtime. The place is fairly swank, and it has free wireless internet access in the rooms! Woo hoo!!

Back from Portland - had a great trip, and details will fill up a couple of entries, plus maybe a new album in the gallery.
There’s no time for any real posting right now, though. Got back from Portland late Monday night, and last night Donovan and Karie came over for dinner, and tonight a bunch of folks are coming over for Alison’s goodbye party, after which Em and I have to go pick up Em’s mother, sister, and nephew from the airport. And right now I’m late for the door - gotta be at a client’s office in 30 minutes. Bye!

Much Ado. The week ended on a high note, with Manly Night III going down at the Parkside Cafe. Beer, Burgers, Fried Things, Ping Pong, and vintage cinematic masterpieces - much of it on a cool patio. After that we came back here for a quick viewing of (most of) the Animatrix DVD and some Scharffen Berger chocolate. Okay, it doesn’t sound that manly, but it did alright. We’re thinking that the next one will involve fishing, or firearms, or something like that.

On Saturday, Em and Sharon and Erika did the Scharffen Berger factory tour (alas, no Oompah Loompah sightings), while I did nerdy things at home like building SILC and Firewall Builder on my SuSE 8.2 virtual machine. After that, Em and I went for dinner at Delfina, followed by a trip to Erika’s for some homemade cake. Wow - stuffed…

On Sunday, Jebava came over in the morning for homemade waffles made on Em’s NEW waffle iron (oooh, aaah), along with yummy fruit and some of the maple syrup and bilberry (?) jam that Carolyn and Jason had brought us. Then we all headed out to Point Bonita, which is so unbelievably beautiful that I can’t believe we’ve never been there before. Particularly considering how close it is to where we live. And we even had great (sunny, fogless) weather! Oh, that was nice… I took a ton of pictures, which I still need to publish in the gallery. That was followed by a quick break at home, then dinner with Alison (who’s moving back to Ohio - waaah), and then we came back home and Em and Alison played piano/flute duets. I may have an audio snippet of that to post as well.

All the gallery stuff may have to wait - until I get back from Portland (Oregon). I leave tonight for Seattle, spend tomorrow at a client in Bellevue, WA, and then drive down to Portland tomorrow night. I’ll be working at a client site in Vancouver, WA (yes, there is another Vancouver, and this one is next door to Portland) on Thursday/Friday/Monday, but the weekend is all mine, and Em’s flying out to join me. We’ve never been to Portland, so this should be a lot of fun. I hope to have a lot MORE pictures by the time I get back next week, which will probably put me even further behind on my posting-pictures-to-the-gallery chores. C’est la vie. Gotta run - there’s a company meeting in Vacaville I have to get to before I head back here to catch my flight.

Who doesn’t love a Cool Link of the Day? And who doesn’t love rubber duckies??

Rubber duckies bob along in world’s largest tub (Pilot Online/HamptonRoads.com)

Okay, that was my 4:40 cool-link-of-the-day break for today. Now it’s time to finish off the work day with some actual work…

UP: Carolyn and Jason came to visit - we had a great time on the holiday weekend, and did fun touristy and/or holiday weekend things: Lombard Street, Stinson Beach, Muir Woods, Tartine, Valencia Street, a 4th of July backyard BBQ at Jebava’s place, watching fireworks from the top of the hill we live on, Amoeba Records, Sutro Bath ruins, et cetera. I even have some pictures - they’ll go into the gallery this weekend.

DOWN: Caught a nasty head cold (like there’s a non-nasty kind - whatever) and had it hit me on Sunday, right around when Jason and Carolyn headed off to Yosemite, and just in time for the work week. So, I’ve been working like a maniac since Sunday night and sick the whole while.

UP, redux: Over the hump of the work-week, and coming off the cold - still sniffling, but mostly mended. I should be right as rain for this weekend, which will be kicked off by the third Man Night event on Friday…

This is my first post using Zempt (version 0.31), which is pretty sweet… Coming along VERY nicely (may even replace w.bloggar?!), considering that the last time I tried it (version 0.2) I couldn’t get it to work at all. Also, it now supports the lovely WMPamplog, so you all can see what I’m listening to right now. And I can tell you that I bought it at Amoeba this weekend.

Another great (and prideful) day! Happy Birthday, Canada!

In honour of the day, I (spelled honour with a ‘u’ and) just ordered Canada Firsts and More Canada Firsts from Amazon.

I’m excited about Canada Firsts - mainly because I first heard about from Ralph Nader himself, when I saw him speak at the University of Toronto manymany years ago. He ranted that Canadians OUGHT to be (more) proud of their achievements as a nation, and their place in the world. Maybe not the rabid flagwaving (some of) the Yanks are infamous for, but maybe a little less national self-deprecation. It was a great speech. I remember him telling people that they didn’t know how good they had it, and took a lot of great things for granted - and that if they lived in the US for a little while, they’d “come back and build a WALL”.
I also remembered that he said he was working on a book of “Canadian Firsts” - I thought he was kidding. But now, manymany years later, I get around to checking for it online and (whoomp) there it is. Go, Ralph.

Em and I have been living in the US for over four years now… Wow. Time flies. I’m still a “loving subject”, though, and as proud as I’ve ever been.

What are YOU doing for Canada Day? Among the readership we’ve got (at least) a lifelong Torontonian, a recent transplant to Toronto (from Montreal), a Canadian living in New Jersey, and an American who lived in Canada for a while… Hopefully all of you are having a great day, and spreading the love.

Read on for a little history of Canada Day… Most of this was news to me.
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