The Multnomah Villager

So we’re walking the dog over to Gabriel Park yesterday in the dead of winter, and Jr V runs into one of his classmates on the playground. The only other kids there actually, did I mention it was cold? They’re playing together for a while and I’m sitting on the high curb in the back wrangling the dog when I notice a car driving down the walking path through the park. It was that certain late model of US car that indicated either older person or government employee and sure enough, there’s a City of Portland sticker on the side door. Two guys in the car, big yellow and green magnetic stickers reading “RANGER” on the back fenders of the car. The CAR. that they were DRIVING down the walking path of Gabriel Park.

I guess the park is officially patrolled. Well the path anyway.

How is it that I have NEVER seen hide nor hair of anything labeled “Ranger” in all the years I’ve lived here. And what exactly are they hoping to spot from the car?

Either way, the whole thing seemed odd. And this patrol would have only worked on a day like today - they’re not driving down those paths on any normal weekend day when it’s warmer than 40 degrees, cause it’s wall-to-wall people.

Odd.

Somebody just came to this ‘blog off of a Google search for the phrase, “the Citizen Kane of Talking Pig Movies”.

Glad I could be there for ya.

I mean, I am aware that sometimes streets abruptly end and the re-start as if from nowhere, and that things are’nt laid out on a grid an all, but so far, I’ve not had to resort to using a compass and topo map to find my way around… No so with these people….

Columbia River Orienteering Club explores the Village

I just got a site visit from Rancho Cucamonga, CA (off of Google) with the search term “Multnomah Village is Cute”.

Word has apparently gotten out.

So Jr. V and I were headed home last night when we spotted the SCA (or some such group, it might not have been the actual SCA) having combat practice on the basketball court beside the Multnomah Art Center. As you know, it’s hard to keep a 5-1/2 year old away from a bunch of armored, battling knights (same goes for his nerdly Dad), so we walked over to hang out on the playground for a while and catch all the soft-sword action.

Ah, apparently this is the “real” SCA. This was the Three Mountains Armored Combat Practice. More information about the local “Barony” of the SCA is Here. General information about the Society For Creatve Anachronism can be found at SCA.org or in the Wikipedia entry for the SCA.

Jr. V was fascinated by the real armor, and the swords. And enjoyed clambering around on the play structure while these fellows (and they were ALL fellows - athough there were a couple of women on the sidelines) battle it out. We’ve seen these folks before - there seem to be two schools: one which uses padded swords and lots of armor and painted shields, and then a smaller group that uses metal fencing sabers and small metal shields.

This group is much more serious about “proper” combat than the larger, less authentically costumed gangs of sword fighters that pop up in Gabriel Park on a fairly regular basis during the non-rainy season. the Gabriel Park goup is more along the lines of the “bopper battles” that I may or may not have been involved in back in the 80’s … you know, if I had been in the Dungeons & Dragons club, which is certainly something I won’t admit to on THIS ‘blog.

All in all, the Village seems to be a locus of local swordfight simulation action!

So I’m driving out Capitol to Barbur on Friday night, about 9:45 and what do I see walking along the side of the road? A coyote! I’ve seen them up in the hills, and on the golf course at Red Tail, but never so close to the village. I guess it makes sense though, with the expanse of woodlands and parklands that we have right around Multnomah. Still, I was suprised.

Mrs. V, typically, does not believe me and is convinced that I saw a dog. Mrs. V vastly underestimates my powers of animal identification.

So I’m driving out to Barbur via 35th the other night, and I pass by this parking lot. I noticed that there was a trailer in there - kida the same size trailer you see pulling ATVs or something - with the sides opened up. It contained a bar. I’m not talking about your run of the mill concession trailer either. This thing had tables, chairs, and a TV. There were a couple of people sitting in there! Now I’m sure this is all kinds of illegal, as far as the city’s concerned, so I’m not posting any pictures, or saying exactly where this was (is), but it wins the Unexpected Thing Award for last week.

This is clearly not any kind of a “permanent” temporary thing, like all those “mobile” lunch wagons downtown. Just had to be in the right place at the right time I suppose. I’m still kicking myself for not walking up and grabbing a table.

So, I noticed Brian Grant’s car as I was driving through the Village tonight. Looked like he was hanging out in Acapulco’s Southwest Gold, chowing down on some Mexican food. The car in question is a silver Ferrari F360 which is quite nice. We’ve spotted it before, down in Fulton outside that French restaurant. For the record, BG’s got his iPod hooked up inside.

Mrs V was very.upset. to hear that the Blazers were unable to come to terms with Brian Grant, one of our favorite players from the post-Drexler era to be sure. Yes, I am one of those Portlanders who does not approve of the recent Blazers and longs for the days of Clyde, Terry, Duck, Jerome and the “good old guys”.

Well, we discovered something interesting in the Park today…

The family dropped by Gabriel Park for a short time around 6:30 this evening, so Jr. Villager could have some bike-riding practice. Upon pulling into the parking lit, we noticed a tent set up, covering a table with several computers and what looked like a video feed. This whole setup was wired to a contraption that looked like a couple of shotgun mics on some sort of plywood shoulder-mount rig, affixed to a large tripod. There was also some sort of radio antenna. We wondered what this group of people was up to. I mentioned to Mrs. Villager that we should go over and find out the deal, that it might make for an interesting ‘blog post.

However, dinner time called and we headed out without investigating. Until we were driving back up Vermont and noticed another tent, this one with what appeared to be a large radio antenna out front. I truned the car around to investigate and when we got closer wo found that it wasn’t an antenna at all, but a rocket and a big one too.

Jr. Villager was fascinated, and so was I. We walked over to find out the deal. Turns out that this rig belongs to the Portland State Aerospace Society, and they were indeed testing radio and communications for an upcoming launch!

Details are on their TWiki site (definition), linked above, but in a nutshell here’s the deal: This was an “LV2 System Test Day”, during which the launcher was set up (sans solid fuel) and communcations were tested. Apparently there had been another test day at the park last week (on the 3rd) as well. The current rocket is being prepped for a launch on August 20th in Brothers, OR. and is expected to send the rocket up to 25,000 feet in the air. Did I mention that the rocket has a live video feed? This must have been what I saw on the screen down at the parking lot. This thing is a big deal, it’s backed by a NASA grant, among others. If I’m in town on the 20th, I might just trek out to Brothers to see the thing take off!

Here’s more info about PSAS, and again, the full story is on their site.

The Portland State Aerospace Society (PSAS) is an educational aerospace project at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon. The group consists of undergraduate and graduate students, faculty and staff of PSU, and local community members- ranging from high school students to engineers in industry- who are interested in aerospace engineering.PSAS is based out of the College of Engineering and Computer Science at PSU, and has members and advisors in the Electrical and Computer Engineering, Computer Science and Mechanical Engineering departments.

Our vision statement – or long term goal – is to “put nanosatellites into orbit”. That’s an absurdly hard undertaking when you consider the technical, logistical and financial issues involved. So although we will probably never get there, having this goal allows us to ask the question, “what’s the first step in the process?”

We decided that the first step towards orbiting nanosatellites is to develop an inexpensive, highly modular and actively guided sounding rocket. Sounding rockets are small to medium-sized rockets that are “suborbital” - meaning they can reach extreme altitudes, but then fall down back to the Earth (i.e., they don’t go into orbit). Sounding rockets are useful for scientific research in such fields as astronomy, earth science, materials science, and of course, in engineering.

Our rockets fall into the class of “amateur rocketry” – smaller than commercial rockets, larger than model rockets. We certainly have not build the biggest or highest altitude amateur rocket, but we do hope that we’re building one of the most sophisticated.

That was an interesting walk in the park. You never know what you’ll discover around here. Isn’t Portland cool?