It gave me pause, the white bike, a familiar object, alone and riderless, chained to a street sign. I noticed it last spring while cruising up and down Killingsworth Street on my way to substitute teaching jobs. The nickname “ghost bike” came to mind. It seemed to only represent tragedy, an accident, death. It implied that  something awful had happened at that spot with the bike serving as a reminder.

The Internet was full of links to information and photos. Still I hung back from researching. I wasn’t ready to dig in.

When we moved to Portland we had an avid bike riding neighbor.  I’m more of a commuter type, but this guy went on long bike rides around town. He mentioned having had a couple of intense bike accidents. I began to expect the same fate. Sooner or later I feared I’d suffer a serious crash that would involve scrapes or broken limbs. I’ve been lucky so far. I’ve suffered only two minor falls. Once wherI got tangled up with the Max tracks and fell over. Another was a low speed, goofball flip over my handle bars that earned me a compliment from a nearby biker but caused no damage. I’ve had my share of wild riding when I’m late for work but I try to be safe.

Wikipedia talks about the bikes being set up as roadside memorials where cyclists have been killed or injured. The Willamette Week, in an article from October of 2005, mentioned that the ghost bike project in Portland was started by Forrest Burris to honor his brother Christopher who had been killed on Martin Luther King Blvd. Of course anything and all things bike related are well covered by BikePortland.org.  I admit this was about as much research as I was willing to do. I don’t want to associate a name  and details with the ghost bike on Killingsworth. It makes that much more intense.

A bike conscious place like Portland provides bike lanes and bike corridors that create the means for a alternative transportation system. I’m hoping people driving in cars and riding on bikes take time to consider the ghost bike. It’s a worthy reminder if it helps people slow down and be a tiny bit safer.

While looking online for ghost bike information,  I was struck by a link that led to a list of people who had been killed on bikes in Portland. It was a stark reminder of the risks of cycling. It had me considering the need to read and obey stop signs and be careful about pulling into and riding with traffic. I hope it makes me more aware of bike riders when I’m driving. The ghost bike is a bit like that “there but for the grace of God go I,” saying. I have to remind myself to steer clear of becoming a roadside memorial. Looking at these pictures I took last spring has the ghost bike doing what it’s supposed to do. It haunts me.

See also a Portland Orbit video piece on this subject: https://youtu.be/kKuYhNIFaRE

It was decided. The new year became the time to change the eating habits in our household. It’s like the character, Jules Winnfield, played by Samuel L. Jackson in Quentin Tarantino’s movie Pulp Fiction, says, “my girlfriend’s a vegetarian which pretty much makes me a vegetarian.” I took it as an opportunity to experience something I’d wondered about for a while which was whether or not I could stop drinking coffee for any amount of time. I decided a month was the right duration to use for this challenge. 

My coffee habit had gone into hyper drive over the last couple of years. A rough estimate had me up to five cups a day, but it was the constant focus about when I was going to have my next cup, the expense, the always having to buy it, make it, the packing the thermos for work, the extra cup or two when I should have laid off, the jitters and occasional insomnia when I thought I could drink coffee at night or late in the afternoon that made it all seem like too much.

The first realization about what I was doing was that my timing was wrong. Winter is the best time to wake up with something warm to drink. I picked the wrong time to stop drinking coffee. Going cold turkey presented physical challenges. By Sunday evening of the day I stopped, I felt my body heating up, followed by a massive headache. That evening my skin was flushed. I threw up and couldn’t get off the floor for an hour. All signs pointed to caffeine withdrawal. The next morning my headache was gone and I felt fine enough despite the empty hole in my morning ritual. My self-imposed coffee stoppage had begun.

Things started to feel whatever I thought normal should be. I know I was spacey and sluggish, but I thought I was managing. I got jealous when I saw people walking down the street with coffee. There were cravings. It was tough to see a guy standing outside of Figure Plant drinking from a mug, not that I had thought about coffee jacking him, that much. My coffee obsession leveled off. Weekend afternoons were tough when all I could think about was going out for coffee but I had a point to prove. One afternoon my wife smelled the fumes of a cup of decaf coffee I’d made. Ronna explained that what I was really detoxing from was uric acid. What? I was thinking, there’s acid in coffee?

There’s a mystique about coffee and coffee shops that I’ve tried to make a part of my Portland experience. When we first moved here there was time to hang out. I remember writing to friends back east about how I was sitting around in the coffee shop drinking hair bender coffee. Living in Portland at a time when I had no job gave me a chance to hang out. It felt like freedom. A couple was talking to their realtor at the old North Star coffee shop and the mystique grew. In Portland people do business over a cup of coffee. Now the coffee shop lifestyle seems to equal time and money. Something that’s in short supply. Still there’s nothing like sitting in an old building, sipping from a mug, taking a breather, soaking in the ambiance. Usually there’s no way to tell who the unpublished novelists are with everyone pecking away on laptops. There usually aren’t frantic scribblers around and I mostly end up reading old newspapers during coffee shop visits.  

There’s great coffee places around and I’m sure with a bit of searching or through good old proximity a comfortable fit can be made for anyone  who needs their own space. Arbor Lodge Coffee has been a nice place to visit. I appreciate the bottomless cup at Cup which replaced Northstar. No Wave Coffee, off of Lombard, plays crazy good music, but you might expect that from the name. The Bison Coffee House was an oasis on rainy days when I found myself subbing in the Cully neighborhood and Posies adds a touch of class and character while filling a huge void in downtown Kenton and it’s only a block away.

In the end I found I could survive a month without coffee. I’ve since gotten back on the wagon. The light at the end of the tunnel kept me going. I was counting the days. It was a sad, but due to poor planning, my fast ended at a 7/11 one morning before work. Somedays any coffee is coffee enough for me. The coffee obsession has roared to life, but I also noticed that it’s got my brain and body moving again acting like an internal lubricant. The Tin Man didn’t need oil, just a pot of coffee. I survived thirty coffeeless days and realized that in the event of an earthquake, supply chain disruption, coffee bean blight or a change in my daily routine, I’ll at least know I can live without coffee, not well, but I made it a month and I’ve lived to tell about it.

In an over caffeinated moment I ran into film maker Jon Meyer at a Fred Meyer’s (no relation) grocery store. It seemed like he was in a hurry, but I couldn’t let an opportunity pass to talk to him. I had just seen on Facebook that he was working on a fund-raising campaign for a documentary. In our conversation, Jon made the point that instead of people supporting some guy’s interest in making potato salad they should help finance film projects. It made sense to me. Jon explained how he’d use the money. He was in the middle of documenting the life of Talilo, a rap artist. I watched a 10 minute rough cut of the film he’s working on which is now posted on the gofundme site and I saw three storylines unfolding. There’s a family member with a major health issue, living quarters being provided for the artist from what seems like an unlikely source and there are also glimpses of the artist supporting himself teaching a hip hop class. I picked up on the struggles of an artist in progress. The film explores what will happen.

Hip hop class in session.

Jon Meyer lives and breathes video production. He brings enthusiasm to every angle of it from cameras, associated gear of any and all kinds and editing software. From the days I experienced seeing him at Attack of the Flix screenings, he was always interested in sharing his work and appreciating the work of others. Also the guy has an uber-bohemian aesthetic and philosophy about living on the cheap that tells me he will make great use of the money he collects.

Talilo with his sister.

I remember reading in-depth about Jon’s lifestyle and approach to film making in an article about his Free Box video series in the Portland Tribune years ago where it was revealed that Jon used to live in a van. Whether it was down by the river like the Chris Farley bit, I’m not sure, but it had to be saving him rent money.

Have a look at this film project and kick in what you can. I feel like if I inspire one person to donate I’ll have done something to support this cause. Looking over the footage included on the gofundme site reminds me that he deserves an opportunity to make the kind of film he aspires to make and he’s not asking for much to make it. With one percent of the budget of one of today’s blockbuster movies (well below what he’s asking for), Jon Meyer could create the projects he does as long as he wanted to and that would be way cooler than potato salad.

http://www.gofundme.com/talilo

Read an all too brief article about Jon’s days working on Free Box. I could not find the Tribune article:

https://www.oregonbusiness.com/high-five/3854-lowcost-webshow

Stills from the Talilo Documentary Teaser shot by Jon Meyer.

If there’s a sound or sounds that best exemplify summer I’d say it’s a guy calling a baseball game that you hear from a radio. The full effect may be best heard on an AM radio station driving in a car but an old radio on a porch would work. Crickets may be a close second as a summer sound but I prefer a ball game. Even though I’m not following baseball much this season, besides knowing the Red Sox are in last place, hearing a game on the radio gives me that summer feeling.

I stumbled on a Hillsboro Hops broadcast while surfing the AM dial one night in late July. I was drawn into the game not because I knew anything about the players or the league they’re in, but because the play-by-play announcer started telling a story. I haven’t heard much about the Hops. I may have stayed away over disappointment about losing the Portland Beavers, the Portland area minor league team, who seemed to get kicked out of their stadium (in favor of soccer!) and then left town. I was trying to get to a game but never made it.

As I absorbed the sounds of the baseball broadcast I was comforted by the soft whooshing background noise that’s made up of fans at the game. Then there was the voice. So it was two guys that made up the broadcast team but the play-by-play man had a radio perfect voice–golden tones not too deep or too high–a baseball voice that cut through the night.

His story began in the middle of an inning. This seemed like a challenge because the play-by-play guy still had to call the game. His tale described an old baseball coach, maybe he was from a community college, who had been flipped off by one of his players. He had me going with the whoosh in the background, the summer feeling rushing into me, but there were interruptions. He’d break into his story with game descriptions like 2 and O count or batter swings, typical game phrases. At one point there was so much action going on. I began to wonder, out loud, if he was going to get back to the story. I feared he’d forget to finish. The guy was a pro. Sure enough he got back to talking about the coach and the player who flipped him off.

The kid was given a choice. He could quit the team or go with the coach to a gymnasium. The player decided to stick it out and accept his fate. Once in the gym the coach told the kid to put on a helmet. I don’t know what kind of a helmet, but the player at least had a chance to protect his head. The coach proceeded to pelt the player with baseballs giving the player an opportunity to run in a confined space and do some dodging. There wasn’t much more to it than that. The coach, an old baseball coach, could pretty much get away with whatever he wanted to do.

The story reminded me of the kids of books about baseball I enjoyed reading in the 70’s, books by Joe Pepitone, Sparky Lyle as well as Bill Bouton’s Ball Four. How I managed to never read the book by Bill “Spaceman” Lee is beyond me. Those books brought out the crazy side of baseball personalities the stuff I was getting from the radio on a summer night. There’s a lesson too that it’s never a good idea to flip off a coach, any coach whether you’re on his team or not.

A couple of weeks ago I helped an ex-coworker move. He was paying me a generous rate and it was a good opportunity to catch up with an old friend. When I noticed his Neighborhood Emergency Team gear, I had to pick his brain about emergency preparedness. Most Portlanders have heard for years about the impending earthquake that’s over due. This became more prominent news based on a New Yorker article about the earthquake that is expected to hit the Northwest. Not having read the New Yorker article, I did see some responses to it on Facebook. This was a motivation to explore emergency preparedness and take additional action to get ready for the big one.

Emergency preparedness has been on my mind for a while. I’ve learned enough to consider what’s in store for the Portland area. The science behind it confirms the “meganess” of this quake. My denial about our impending doom has me wishing for a little earthquake that would jolt us into the idea of getting ready to deal with a major one. Maybe because it hasn’t happened for 300 plus years and due to the nature of our subduction zone a doozy is expected. We’re dealing with a disaster that’s hard to get one’s head around. Rumor has it that not everything around town has been seismically retrofitted to withstand tremors. It feels like we’re in store for an epic and real life disaster movie or maybe it will seem more like a play because it will happen in real life. I’m sure I could get a sense of if from seeing the movie San Andreas with all it’s CGI bluster. So far I’ve decided to pass on seeing it. It feels like there’s a bit of a safety net living some distance from the coast which is expected to get the worst of it. The first step is to survive the quake itself. I had forgotten that I need to consider what to do when the actual event hits. Stop, dropping and rolling isn’t going to cut it. I even thought I’d be a bit more secure if I had an idea of when earthquakes generally occur–is it early in the morning, afternoon, or whenever the mood strikes? Nobody seems to know anything exact except the inevitable.

When I think basics, food and water top the list. At the very least a three-day supply of water and food is a necessity. There’s probably old food in our refrigerator that would get us through that. I think there’s hope that after three days the Government will help but I can’t rely on that. I hate standing in line too much. My goal is a two-week supply of provisions. There should be no procrastination in this matter. The shaking could start at any moment. All I have to do is drill up the plastic barrel I was going to use to capture rain water. If I fill it with the hose we’d have 55 gallons.  Based on the recommended water suggestions, I’ve calculated needing 42 gallons for two people and a dog for two weeks. I’m not going to pile 42 jugs in the basement. Water is crucial. The last time Portland had an issue with drinking water and there was a water ban due to contamination I felt cut off. I was struck by that feeling of not having access to something and then craving and obessing over it. I was dying of thirst.  A coworker at the time told us that hours after the water ban people were fighting over it at our local Fred Meyer and every last drop was bought up. I used a couple of the older gallon jugs from the basement and felt prepared.

My wife and I have one plan that may not be realistic. It involves me dragging two kayaks and a dinghy for the dog and crossing the river to the west side where she will be involved with dealing with the emergency situation at her job. As absurd as any plan might be its at least good to consider one. What would you do?  Think about how your plan might change at different times of the day because in an earthquake all your other plans will change. It’s worth imagining the hardship we will face due to this particular type of natural disaster. I’m trying to get my head around two to three months of electrical outages, the horror of the event itself (at least the Rock won’t be running around or even flying above in a helicopter) and the disruption of schedules, social order and the general agony (think telethons) that would come with this type of situation. I may be imagining some grim times ahead, but  for me there will be a challenging aftermath to endure.

Then there’s at least one special wrench you need for turning off gas. That sounds intimidating but I’d like to prevent fires. Everything from where you’ll be going to the bathroom to what you’ll eat and heat sources and lighting has to be considered. So it seems obvious to me that I better have a roll of duct tape.

My friend broke it down and offered a few tips. He had done a presentation for one of his college communications classes so he was well versed in these matters. He talked about about starting small, getting a few extra cans of food a week at the grocery store.  If I’m starving I’m not going to be picky, so pinto beans it is. He said you should have cash in small denominations so you don’t end up paying 50 bucks to the guy who can’t make change. We’re also going to need to present our financial and identification info to FEMA at some point so we better have the important banking, insurance and other information and numbers available on a USB drive or a DVD in a safety deposit box. He went so far to pack Jack Daniels and coffee for possible barter. Soon after the hoopla of this article we managed to order a new crank radio to replace the battered old one. I’ll save the new one for emergencies. We also have something called a Lifestraw for filtering water and flashlights that work.

Earthquake reality is something we have to live with and a bit of action may help with the anxiety it creates. Should it all go down, I’m sure I’ll have a blog post about it six months after it happens.

Can you Survive a Portland Summer?

My brain dead summer series continues. I’m exploring personal reactions to living in the Portland area.  If you’re looking for a more Orbit like theme you can get your pet cemetery fix at the Pittsburgh Orbit.

Note: I’ve got nothing against The Rock who stars in the disaster flick San Andreas. All I know is that when the earthquake hits it’s sure to put me in a bad mood and a muscle bound hero type running or flying around saving everyone is going to be annoying.

Let the Red Cross help you:

http://www.redcross.org/or/portland/preparedness

If I find the right inspiration and dodge distractions I can get a blog piece posted on time. It’s time I take the deadline serious too. It has the feel of a self-imposed deadline but I’m learning the hard way how important deadlines are. Things get in the way. Take, for instance, a sunny Friday afternoon when I’ve been asked to help volunteer for the community garden where I learned about a community garden plot that you have to pass through a trailer park to find. This volunteering took my wife, Ronna, and me into the neighborhood of our favorite pizza place so we had to stop for happy hour. Dinner followed a trip across the street to a garden store where we picked up some kale starts to replace our potato crop that we harvested and Ronna made into the best potato salad I ever ate. Kale starts meant we had to go to our garden plot to plant the kale and water the garden. I bog you down with this minutiae because I was planning a completely different blog post that needed photos and was something that was going to be a long-winded piece that wasn’t going to come together in a half hour like this one might. Now I can take more time to put a cohesive touch on my next blog post due to an inspired last-minute switcharoo.

Needless to say I’ll be written up for missing my deadline. It’s a violation of the sacred tenants of Orbit customer service. Even if only one person was expecting to read a post at the usual time and place and couldn’t, I’ve failed. If it makes you feel any better it was all worth it to blow off blogging for a few hours on a sunny Friday. I was trying to get to writing but I ran out of time. Word has it that I will be receiving written notice, a warning from Orbit big cheese Simmon Wills.  He’s given himself the complicated and meaningless title of Managing Editor of the Orbit Partners Limited Corporation and the inflated salary to go with it. I cower in my cube every time I see him blasting through the halls in his three-piece suit. No matter, I’ll make more of an effort to plan ahead and I’ll be ready to slap something together to avoid future confrontations with Mr. Wills. I also want to sincerely apologize to those I kept waiting.

To placate the missed deadline in some way I empty out the confines of the photo backlog that had no place to go until it was time for them to be strung together in this manner.

Of all the randomness I’m about to document I took this picture because I liked the image. Pasted on a strange, long, skinny, rectangular traffic signal sign near the Denver Ave MAX stop train tracks there seems to be no way of telling what the sign is trying to say except perhaps “don’t drive, walk, or bike here.” Plain, simple, direct lines create a cool image that breaks up the slanted bar mystery sign monotony.

When I encountered John Wayne peering down on the Bison Coffeehouse in the Cully neighborhood, it seemed like a coincidence or then again a strategic marketing plan. Regardless I liked the juxtaposition of the cowboy looking over the cowboy coffee shop with its buffalo heads and cow hide chairs. John Wayne’s image is shilling good will for the Foundation for a Better Life in one of those Pass It On campaigns. The black and white treatment served to upgrade the aura a bit.

This bulletin board caught my attention when I was coming out of a TJ Maxx restroom. I was struck by trying to figure out what the phrase “Leveraging Differences” could possibly mean. If it’s something that has to do with a retail strategy it’s still an utter mystery.  It seems so mystifying that no one could think of anything to put on the bulletin board that used the phrase as a title.

Being downtown this week on foot, I saw this sign on the door to Mary’s Club, one of Portland’s historic strip clubs. I couldn’t pass up a photo op because the sign created a minor contradiction in my mind. Is it fabulous or cool inside? Why can’t it be both. If a certain degree of fabulousness overrides the cool factor can’t someone update the sign? A full investigation would have made me late for my temp job interview.  Anybody’s speculation is probably better than mine.