The Multnomah Villager

So I’ve been thinking about integrating a calendar feature for a little while now, but haven’t done so because of the work invovled with gathering information and keeping it updated. So I was happy to discover that the Multnomah Village Business Association has done the work for me! Well, for us. I’ll be adding a sidebar link to this, but for now..

The MVBA Multnomah Village Events Calendar is here.

I notice a new domain in my site stats this AM, and a link to this site posted at Portland Connected dot Com which is a site from an outfit called Neighborhoods Connected dot Com, which in turn is a service of something called Portland Power Search which seems to be the online face of Keller Williams Real Estate. The Portland Connected site is well organized and informative, and a pretty good example of these “find a neighborhood sites”. Although the folks in Hillsdale may have something to say about using a picture of Bertha Station in the center of the Multnomah Village neighborhood page….

Thanks for linking to me!

This morning, I was eating a quick breakfast at Fat City (excellent as usual, although I defy you to eat one of their biscuits without a fork, since the first bite pretty much renders the thing a pile of smallish bits of unconnected biscuit-essence) while reading the SW Community Connection (again, it was the only thing handy) and I noticed that Rick Seifert, founding editor of the Connection, has started a ‘blog. I made a note to check it out when I got in front of my computer.

Imagine my surprise when I found an email from Rick waiting for me in my inbox (sent last night) introducing me to his site! Synchronicity. I’m at work (Shhhh) so I can’t spend time reading just now, but go on over and visit his ‘blog at theredelectric.blogspot.com and see what’s going on up the hill.

So about a week ago, I noticed a URL in my site stats from outside.in. Now, you Portland people know that there’s a homeless youth shelter in Portland called Outside In, which is waht I initially assumed this link was. After noticing more hits from this URl yesterday, I decided to click through and find out what the deal was. The URL in question is http://outside.in/97219. Turns out it’s a Google Mashup blog aggregator based in Brooklyn, NY. I got the following info in my email later in the day.

I’m writing to let you know about a web site called outside.in that launched about an hour ago. It’s a site that’s aiming to capture and organize all the neighborhood-centric information on the web, drawing, in part, on the amazing work being done by local bloggers like yourself.

Our vision for the site is this: You sit at a computer and type in a street address, or a neighborhood name, or a zip code — perhaps for your own home area, perhaps for a place you’re visiting or interested in — and within seconds the screen gives you a glimpse of all the textured, real-world issues and conversations and news unfolding in the location you’ve entered. Up to now, only the most connected local experts in any neighborhood could keep up with all these evolving  conversations. outside.in is designed to let you see it all in seconds.

Today I see some links from another blog called The Future of Real Estatee Marketing that apparently is run by someone in or near the Village, which provides quite a nice writeup about outside.in, so go read it over there.

I have very mixed feelings about blog aggregators that place ads and make money off of other people’s (mine) content, and this blog is certainly not a calculated part of the “Future of Real Estate Marketing”, but it is a resource for future homebuyers who Google the Village, or so I’d like to think.

Turns out I’m part of hte “hyper-local blogger movement”. Who knew?

• At the meeting on Tuesday, Brian mentioned something I had noticed from the street, but not investigated, which is that there is an OLCC permit application notice on the front door of the house which used to be the location of Village Beads, before their recent move. Apparently, this application is on behlf of something called “Half Full LLC” and is to result in a “beers of the world” tasting room. There was some concern about whether or not the Village needs another establishment selling alcohol. One resident voiced concern over the rear parking situation, but I pointed out that her concern would be better directed at outdoor tables, since the house has a very large backyard. If it were my beer tasting place - I’d have tables out back. Brian pointed out that the backyard of this lot is zoned residential, but I’m not sure I believe that, since Jackie’s (next door) has the nursery in the backyard, wouldn’t they be zoned the same?
• Much hair-pulling and gnashing of teeth about the new stone facade of the Soleil day-spa thingy on the corner just as you come off of the bridge on Captol Hwy into the Village. I thought “they” were building a house behind the spa, but it turns out that the spa is expanding. Personally, I think the stone looks cool, but there are many folks who feel like it’s out of place in the Village. For my part, considering how many businesses have been in that space before, it’s nice to see something expanding - they must be doing well. Yes, I know Sip D’Vine used to be there, and they’ve apparently grown well too!
• I notice there’s a rug store in the advanced stages of moving in to the old Multnomah Post offices, across from the Bento Hut where there was breifly a computer business.
• What is going into the Village Yoga Space? Anyone?
• Oh, and for record-keeping’s sake, thanks to a pickup by Jack Bog’s Blog, yesterday was my single biggest traffic day in the year-and-a-half history of this ‘blog. I’ll admit that there is a temptation to “go political” in order to hang on to these types of numbers, but I’m sticking with my formula - still - I hope at least one or two of the new readers comes back once or twice!
• And the last housekeeping item - I remain amazed at the frequency with which the Wikipedia entry for Multnomah Village leads people to this ‘blog. I noticed that hits have started coming from Answers.com, which mirrors the Wikipedia content, and now includes the link to this site.
• Interestingly, there’s a new bit in the Wiki entry today, stating “Multnomah Village was, for a long time, home to the world’s first wiki, WikiWikiWeb, which was physically located in an office there. The website has since relocated.”

So I just got this email from someone who is looking for an online forum in which to discuss some issues she’s having in her part of the neighborhood. Issues with shady characters and potential crime. So this has led me to admit that I’ve been remiss in mentioning that there is a Yahoo! Group for the Village online at well, Yahoo! groups.

I am not involved in this group, although I have joined now, even though this was mentioned like 4 months ago at the neighborhood association meeting. I am just not really into the whole Yahoo! group thing. Not sure if this will help the sender of this email - I suspect that posting the contact information for our nieghborhood’s police officer would be more useful. That will have to come later, I’m at the office and left his card at home.

So if you’re into the Yahoo! groups thing and you want to talk about the Village, go join up.

So a couple of days ago, a link to this ‘blog was added to the Multnomah Village entry on Wikipedia. Since then, I’ve gotten several hits from this link. That doesn’t suprise me. What surprises me is that there are apparently so many people looking up Multnomah Village in the Wikipedia! Go figure.

That’s enough navel-gazing for today. Thanks for the hits, Wikipedia!

I’m getting alot of hits from Oregon Live’s weblog page, which has listed the Multnomah Villager in their “Other Weblogs” section, kinda stuck down the middle of the page between a boatload of ads and Oregonlive’s own weblogs.

Despite the challenging visual design, people are finding the link and clicking over. Thanks for the link, and readers - thanks for visiting.

I found this reference to this site on Metroblogging: Portland

The Multnomah Villager. Run by the Villager, who is married to Mrs. Villager and father to Villager Junior. Gag-inducing cute factor aside (yes, I respect your need for privacy but it’s so saccharine!) the Villager produces some quality content on a fairly regular basis. Interesting snapshots of local (and by local I mean confined to his set of hilltops) politics and land-use.

I know, I know, it is cheesy… But seriously the single initial thing is so overdone.
Thanks for the mention, I appreciate it!

So, as you may or may not have noticed, provided anyone has read more than one entry on this ‘blog - I link to the Wikipedia for definitions and biographies. Well, thanks to my Sitemeter, I found out this morning that Multnomah Village has an entry in the Wikipedia! Nothing you don’t know, but still pretty cool.

Multnomah Village Wikipedia entry

In other linking news, a ‘blog called Disc Golf Craze has picked up my entry about the Portland Luncthime Disc Golf Course from last week.

That’s enough of that for now. Time to go out and do something I can post about.