The Multnomah Villager

Last week, while I was innocently out of town on business, Jr. V and Mrs. V drove over to the Oregon Humane Society and adopted a dog. Daphne and Velma, the cats, are not amused. They are adjusting, but not quickly. Same goes for me I guess - I’ve never had a dog before. Their lack of respect for a person’s boundaries and general doggishness has never really appealed to me. Still - we’re now a part of the Village’s Dog Culture.

This is Sally, the Incredible Two-Faced Dog(TM). She’s half terrier and half boxer, split right down the middle. Seriously. This dog has one eye that’s 100% boxer, and one eye that’s a regular terrier eye. Weird looking animal. But it’s friendly and I suppose we’ll adjust to having her around. One thing I should point out though is that the animal is somewhat larger that she appears in this photo, with noticeably large paws, so I suspect that Sally the Dog will be getting somewhat bigger in the future.

Nowhere near the size of our across-the-street-neighbor, Jefferson, the World’s Largest Dog, whom we stopped to meet, touch snouts with and generally muzzle nuzzle on the way home from dinner last night. Sally looks like a guinea pig next to that thing. She came home completely soaked with drool. Nice.

We’ve dropped bucks at Healthy Pets Northwest, we’ve walked to both Gabriel and Custer Park and been stopped in the street more times than since Jr. V was a puppy. Including by someone who recognized Sally from the pound. And yes, last night we walked up to the Lucky Lab and had a slice of pizza outside with the dog tied to the table.

Sally can’t go to the dog park until she’s had a few more shots, but until then, you’re liable to see us slinking around the neighborhood from time to time.

Well, now things are starting to get back to a more manageable pace. I stopped by Journeys on Monday for the first time in over a month. It felt good to slide back into my corner seat at the bar, and just in time for the Laurelwood Red!  To quote Michael Jackson from back in the day, the job’s “got me workin’, workin’ day and night.” Late enough last night that I’m taking some headspace hours this morning and going out to breakfast. I’m going to walk up to Fat City in a few minutes and read the paper, then hit my noon Tae Kwon Do class over in Sellwood and roll into the office this afternoon.

Two eggs any style will help with my recovery, indeed.

Today, Jr. V was at the SW Community Center for a few hours at his friend James’ birthday party. Since it is such a gorgeous day, after I finally cut my lawn Mrs. V and I decided to walk over and get him. We headed down through the woods to the park, and up around to the Community Center, noticing several folks laid out on the grass, soaking up the sun. Yes, a mid-60’s day in October can’t be wasted since the rain is surely coming back soon.

I noticed something though on the way back - although real estate prices seem to be just as sky-high as they ever were around here, more and more properties that once were for sale, are now for rent.  This seems to be a particular feature of Jeff Parker’s properties, since I understand that he often buys houses from the owners and then resells, instead of just brokering a sale. But this development is more widespread than just Jeff’s business. “For Rent” signs, conspicuously missing from in front of Village properties of late, have been making something of a comeback.

No profound insights here, feel free to provide them in the comments. Just an observation.

On another subject, seems like there are more pumpkin patches than usual around the neighborhood this year, and our neighbor just had a massive pumpkin harvest out of her very successful patch today. We are admitted pumpkin seed junkies, and we’ll have to pick up a few pumpkins before they disappear to make way for Christmas holiday decorations, already creeping into the aisles of the stores.

Clearly, I’ve been a little busy lately doing something other than blogging. Our vacation is now behind us - I think I’m getting a little breathing space at work, although I shouldn’t say that for fear of the whammy, and so I should have a chance to actually walk up to the Village and participate in life a little bit. It was nice to pop back into Journeys last Monday after returning from Maui, and we went for our usual Sunday morning breakfast at O’Connor’s this morning, so we’re easing back into it a bit.

School starts on Wednesday, this week is First Friday and next week is the MNA meeting (I’ve skipped the last two months) so things out to start looking up around here.

There was a bit of a geek summit a Journeys last night, when talk of wi-fi router configuration between Brian and myself attracted some other bar-goers, who turned out to be blog readers and recent commenters. Yes, it was K2 (of Zella.org) and Lame-o Bike Commuter (of Sustainthis. org). Turns out we work not far from each other. K2 whipped out her….. Linux phone from China, and there was much oohing and aahing, plus discussion of kids, the best routes over Terwilliger and how many years ago any of us were anything cloe to TJ’s age. Nice to meet you both, hopefully we’ll see each other again, and yes one of those times will be on a bike.

So on Sunday we all went on a nice bike ride around the Willamette river paths, and along the Springwater corridor to Oaks Park. Since I work over in the inner east side industrial district, I popped up the block to my office and left my bike there, intending to pick up some mid-day miles when I had a chance over the next couple of weeks. Instead, I decided to do somethng I’ve been meaning to do for a while - ride home to the Village from the office. I have wanted to do this for the following reasons:

• The main thing that stops me from riding to work when I can is the perceived difficulty of riding home.
• I have trouble fitting excercise into my routine, and a bike commute would be a good way to do that.
• Some half-baked sense of cutting down on driving, although six miles here and there ain’t getting me on Al Gore’s Christmas card list.
• I like riding and wouldn’t mind riding to work now and again.

Here’s the deets:

• It was 6.44 miles from my office to my home.
• It took me 43 minutes, which is an average speed of 8.8 MPH. It’s all uphill man.
• Top speed? 27 MPH and that was cruising down 35th from Capitol to my house.
• I ride a mountain bike, a Cannondale F500 with offroad tires. If I had a road bike, or hybrid or road tires, I’d have cut some time off the ride.
• I had to stop a couple of times briefly. It’s all uphill man.

Here’s the reasons I don’t, and won’t, ride more often:

• It’s a hard schlep after a day in the office - even a day in MY office, we’re not exactly baling hay.
• It’s dangerous. See below.
• I can only ride two days a week, and sometimes I have meetings that require me to be across town. On Tuesday and Thursday I take Tae Kwon Do at noon in Sellwood which requires a car to get to and from. On Wednesdays I spend lunch helping out my grandmother in Calaroga Terrace over by Lloyd Center, which also requires a car. So Mondays and Fridays it is, if I don’t have meetings. I am a total casual fair-weather biker.
• Frankly, and I know it’s selfish, I like having my car during the day should I decide I want to run an errand or go to lunch or something more than a few blocks away.

Now here’s the specifics of this particular ride home from downtown. Your mileage may vary, as they say, so feel free to contradict these claims or share your own stories in comments. Yesterday was Monday. The first Monday after the 4th of July weekend, so I imagine that commuting traffic was pretty typical, since everybody should have been back to work from their long weekends and time off. What is it 80-something degrees? Felt good to me. I left my office on SE 3rd at around 5:15PM. All day I have been debating which route to take - should I opt for the hardcore uphill of Terwilliger, or the danger of Barbur, or the extra length but enjoyable ride down the river to Willamette Park? I just didn’t have Terwillger in me - there’s no way I could have made it up that hill, and there’s the chaos of downtown to consider. I figured I’d set out across the Hawthorne Bridge and decide when I got to the west side which way to go.

I opted for the gradul uphill of Barbur, even considering the traffic and what I anticipated to be some hairy merges (I was right). I flipped onto Front Avenue, which has NO BIKE LANES and headed towards Barbur. There was a tricky bit when the traffic merges in from the Ross Island Bridge, and then I had to dbate whether or not to ride through the tunnel to connects to Barbur. Deciding that the tunnel was likely a death trap, I took the short hill up to Barbur behind Caro Amico (full disclosure: I got off and walked up the short but steep hill). Once I was up on Barbur I crossed at the crosswalk (no one yielded - I waited for a break) and then proceeded to what I anticipated would be the trickiest area. Riding the right hand curb towards the signal by that one convenience store there are two lanes coming out of the tunnel to your right. I found myself riding in the middle of three lanes of rush hour traffic, with two lanes of cars between me and the suddenly existent bike lanes. It was dangerous to turn and look to determine if I could get over, and kind of tricky to get over, but I’m posting this - so I made it.

Then it was all bike lane all the time down Barbur. My plan was to head down Barbur to Fred Meyer and bail out toward Custer Park and up Troy/Canby to the Village. The bike lanes were good except there are several instances where foliage has grown out and obscured as much as half of the available lane. This being Oregon, most of that foliage is blackberry, which has thorns and cuts if you ride through it. There were a few spots early in the ride where there was no alternative, and one bush in particular nearly turned my handlebars. I had space on Barbur though and dodged the thorns. Going across the one high bridge is kind of freaky. The busy intersections on Barbur in front of A-Boy and Fred Meyer were no problem, although the turn right at Burger King was an adventure. It’s not much easier in a car.

I had to stop twice on the way to Custer Park and up Troy until it turned downhill into the Village. I was blowing like some kind of walrus. The hill behind Loaves and Fishes was a breeze, since I had enough speed from the short downhill where Troy turns into Canby. Same for 35th. Resisting the temptation to stop at Journeys for my Monday beers a few hours early, I got lucky on the intersection and blew through, which gave me enough speed to get up the bit of hill by Key Bank before the fast run down 35th to my house.

My conclusion: If I was in better shape, rode more, smoked fewer cigars and had hybrid tires, I could probaby ride to and from work OK. Actually, if I just rode more it would get easier - although it’s tougher now at 40 that it was at 25. Anyone who’s bike commuting from downtown, especially coming over Terwilliger (which seems to have the best bike lanes and is a beautiful route) is working hard for their commute. I sometimes read about cities that talk about facilities where you could lock your bike, and have access to a shower, etc. That sort of thing in the heart of downtown would make it easier to adopt a more frequent bike commuting schedule.

Still, I’m glad I tried it, but the Village… well, we just aren’t a biking paradise over here. Great scenery, but you have to work for it!

EDIT: 7/10 - Well I’ll be darned. Apparently you can take your bike on the much vilified aerial tram. THAT has the potential of changing everything, since with a Tri-Met pass (or a ten ticket pack, since I’m only potentially bike commuting a max of two days per week) I could bypass the vast majority of the uphill and most of the danger of riding home…. I gotta try this.

OK, “Post” - it’s OK to byline me by name,  but if you’re going to do so - get the name right.

Well, a sure sign of warmer weather is that “Rock and Roll Guy” is back on the streets in full effect. I know that there has been talk about certain Village residents feeling uncomfortable with him around, but personally, I’d only be worried if I found out that he wasn’t actually listening to music.

So my Mom and Stepfather have been in town over the last couple of days, as they are preparing to leave on a huge driving tour of the west and parts of Canada. We all walked up the Village Sunday morning and managed to avoid the every-ten-minutes rainstorm. We hit all the open stores, starting at Switch Shoes and then crossing over to Peggy Sunday’s where Mom picked up a thing or two for my notoriously hard to shop for Grandmother. We popped down the hill to pick up another great boquet from Kelly’s and poked around M Antiques and talked to Heather for a bit. Then we meandered down the street to the bookstore and poked around in there for a while during a HUGE downpour. Thinker Toys of course was our next stop, where Jr. V was captivated by his latest obsession, “Ugly Dolls“. We wandered a bit and hit up Birdie’s where Mom scored a nice handmade card for Grandma and then we made our way home. We’re going up to Journeys for a beer later tonight. I ran into Brian on the sidewalk and he tells me that the new food menu is up and running!

So Jr. V and I walked up to the playground at the Multnomah Center last night. I was a wonderful warm evening, and SCA fight practice (which I’ve posted about before -> “Knight Court”) was in full swing. So to speak.

We hung out for a while, while Jr. V gleefully entertained a pocket-sized 8-week-old puppy and played with another kid that was there with her bright-pink-haired mom (owner of the dog). It was a pretty full turnout, knightwise, and we ran into another one of Jr. V’s friends on the way back to the sidewalk and home.

Later, at Journeys, Bob was amazed to hear about the knight fight. Here! Photographic proof!