The Multnomah Villager

Hopefully, you all got a chance to get out and walk “the circuit” on Wednesday night. A serious impro9vement over the bitter cold of last year, after braving the crowds up in the Village earlier in the evening, Jr V took us out on his trick-or-treating route.

He was dressed as “Ash Ketchum“, who’s the main character in the Pokemon cartoon series. His costume had been a hit among Pokemon fans at the MaplewoodHalloween parade earlier in the day, and sure enough - we hadn’t gone far before he was getting some knowing thumbs-up from kids and adults like who are familiar with the characters. In particular, there were a group of sixth graders up on Canby Street who paid particular attention to him, which impressed Jr. V a great deal. So thanks David, and your friends, for being cool and letting a first grader tag along on your trick-or-treat route. He was pretty excited to be hanging out with the big kids and you guys really helped make this Halloween night a great one.

The Wild West came to Thinker Toys yesterday, part of their ongoing 13th birthday celebration, which continues, pony-less, today.

(click the poster for a larger view)

Tomorrow night’s the big night. With apologies to “A Christmas Story”, it’s one of the “biggest nights of the kid year”. Anticipation of this sugar-fueled bacchanal has been building in our household for a long time. Looks like we’re going to get lucky and not have to wear rain gear over our costumes this year, too. It’s good to plan ahead in Oregon, and try to direct your kid towards weather safe costumes. Mountain Climber…. Commercial fisherman in yellow rain slicks… Walrus… That sort of thing. Yeah, that doesn’t work in our house either.

Starting off the night tonight will be the Multnomah Village Business Association’s “Halloween in the Village”. Billed as an event to give the kids a safe, fun alternative to the wilds of the untamed village back streets, this event “starts” at Starbucks (where parents can score a free cup of coffee, which will be usefulm it’s going to be cold.) and a walking map of the route. Sounds like a fun event for little kids. Especially if they like advertising! No - really, I’m not trying to be all cynical about this - and Mrs. V and Jr. V will probably go. But I can’t - ’cause I’ll still be at work.

I annoyed Randy at the last MNA meeting by making this comment, but 3:30-5:30PM? I mean, I understand that it costs to stay open late and business owners have kids too and they need to get home and all - but you know, we don’t even pick up Jr. V from Kids’ Corner until around 5:30 usually…

Anyway, that’s nitpicking. This sounds like fun way for little kids and moms and dads that stay at home or get off early to have some fun while it’s still light outside. Thanks to the participating businesses. If I can get off early, maybe I’ll stop in too.

In case you’ve missed the HUGE SIGNS tacked up all over the Village for the last several days, there is another in the series of town hall meetings to discuss Sam Adams’ ongoing effort to develop a “citizen supported” tax program for repairs and upkeep for area roads and bridges.

You can read about this more here, at safeandsoundstreets.com (which is a pointer domain to a page at Portland Online) - and if you’re interested, show up at Wilson tonight from 7-9PM. Given the recent spate of bicycle vs. car fatalities - expect a heavy turnout from the pro-bike lobby.

Jr. V and I recently headed over to Holly Farm park, to check things out, and for me to find out where this park actually is. It’s over by the Library on Capitol Highway, and it’s really nice. There’s a large grassy area with new sidewalks circling the park, and a circular forum/gathering area at the NW corner.

The sidewalks are perfect for some scooter action, which Jr. V quickly discovered and overall, this park is a great little area to visit. Ironically, this is the first actual park in the West Portland Park neighborhood.

There’s a new playground with a nice range a equipment for little kids. Those of us who live near Gabriel Park can only dream of a layout like this. There are a couple of picnic tables near this area.

But of course the main attraction here is the skatepark. It’s a bowl, with a couple of entrances, rails along the edges, and a good assortment of drops, banks and other features. Both time that we’ve been there, there have been an assortment of teen and twentysomething (and a few older) skaters taking turns busting moves out in the bowl. All the skaters that we’ve watched have been practicing great ethics, waiting for the previous skater to exit the bowl before dropping in themselves, and watching out for spectators and younger kids. I suspect that people who oppose skateparks on the grounds of the parks attracting “the wrong element” would be surprised after spending an hour or so watching a lot of these kids use the park.

We’ll go back early in the AM one of these days so Jr. V can kick around on his scooter before the skaters show up for the day. He’s not to the skateboard stage yet, which is probably a good thing for our insurance rates. Down there in the upper bowl are some of his friends, including Sean who he was at West Hills Early Childhood Learning Center with. Small town, this. Holly Farm is a great park. There was a recent article in the SW Connection about its official opening, thanking among other Amanda Fritz, whose blog I often link to, and who is running for Sam Adams’ seat on the City Council. Great work everyone- hopefully this is a sing of how things will be at Gabriel, once “our” skate park gets built.

Here’s an interesting story about the park’s evolution at the Portland Park’s Foundation’s newsletter.

Additional Links:

• Holly Farm Page at Portland Parks website
• Post about the Park’s opening on Amanda’s Blog
• Holly Farm Category @ Skaters for Portland Skateparks Blog

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.

Enjoy your last Tuesday off…. Well, not likely but starting next week, Journeys will be open five days a week. They’re starting off with a wine tasting next Tuesday. I’ll follow up with more deets when I’ve got them all.

Colette Cassinelli (yes, she’s Village Beads’ Michelle’s sister-in-law) has added a great set of Multnomah Days Parade pictures to the newly created Flickr group for Multnomah Village. This group is open to everyone, so feel free to go to Flickr and join the group. If you use the following tags, it will make it easier for us all to find your images.

Multnomah Village - for general Village pictures

MultnomahDays2007 - for Multnomah Days pictures

Thanks Collette for all the great pix! I checked ‘em out when we were still in Maui, and it was nice to see everyone having a good time.

That said, I’ve heard from several sources  that the parade is getting a little too big, and seems to go on forever with all the groups that are coming out to be included. There were a couple of parade entries that have caused some additional comments, which I won’t share here, but you can get the gist of things by checking out the Letters to the Editor in this month’s Multnomah Village Post. According to everyone, there were certainly more people in the Village this year - perhaps the fact that it wasn’t 200 degrees helped. Man, last years parade was HOT even in the morning.

Yeah, and I agree with Commissioner Adams on this one - many of the clowns are pretty scary.

Been getting some great stuff in comments lately, much of which deserves to be seen on the main page. I really appreciate all the comments that I get, thanks everyone!

This is a week or so old now, but a commenter tells me of an unfortunate situation over at Gabriel Park

Speaking of park safety, our van was broken into in the south parking lot while my son and I were walking in the park today. The passenger side glass was shattered. Just a word of warning to anyone who might park over there.

So you might want to take the usual precautions, and be a little more watchful that usual. I know it’s easy to get used to the relative safety we have here and get lax with leaving stuff in your car, leaving a door unlocked, or (especially timely in the summer) a window open. Of course, even if you don’t do any of these things, you can still be the victim of a property crime. Smash and grabs are rare though - it’s unfortunate to hear this…

Russell Senior from Personal Telco tells me…

Just wanted to mention that Personal Telco installed a node in the Lucky Lab in Multnomah Village about a week ago. This has been in the works for some time, but only just recently did it get off the ground. Sorry for the delay! If other folks would like to host a PTP node in Multnomah, please contact us (info@personaltelco.net). Thanks!

This is totally cool news - I’ll schlep my PowerBook up there shortly and check out the signal.

Scandal!

JUICY SUITS: Saab and Volvo Dealer Fingered for Rip-Off
http://www.wweek.com/wwire/?p=9079

It’s one thing for a car dealer to sell a lemon. It’s quite another to take the car back and give no money in return. That’s what one customer claims happened at Saab and Volvo by Mats, a dealership at 3011 SW Canby St., in a lawsuit filed Monday in Multnomah County Circuit Court. Customer Vicki Cohen accuses the dealership and its owner, Mats Almfeldt, of selling her a 1999 Saab 9-3 in January 2006 for $9,141 without telling her it had once been totaled.

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.