Lamb Roast & Vigil - Easter 2011

[4/24/2011 10:31:38 PM] ac: Happy Easter!

[4/24/2011 10:32:11 PM] Aro: Happy Easter!

[12:43:18 AM] ac: still keepin' it real, Australia?

[12:45:07 AM] Aro: impossible to do anything but!

[12:45:41 AM] Aro: what is goin' on this Oregon Easter?

[12:46:10 AM] ac: lots man, it was probably the most eventful Easter of my life!

[12:46:22 AM] ac: And seeing as how i'm still up i suppose it's still goin'

[12:46:35 AM] Aro: wow! what was so eventful?

[12:49:53 AM] ac: a guy we know from church purchased an entire lamb and we seasoned, prepared, tied, & roasted it in his backyard on a spit beginning at 2am. Complete with scripture readings & other selections through dawn and alternating lamb watching/rotating shifts. Then church, errands, phone calls etc. etc. etc. then delicious Easter feast at their house etc. etc. etc.

[12:51:05 AM] Aro: wow! a whole lamb!
[12:51:15 AM] Aro: you've been up since 2 am???
...
[12:59:30 AM] Aro: p.s. why are you still up/awake?
...
[1:03:11 AM] Aro: I still can't believe you were roasting a lamb since 2 am this morning! That is hardcore manlyness


2am-ish. It starts:



First reading:


Empty cavity




Stuffed cavity


"Hey doc, could you give me a hand with this here?"



"Snipe-nose, stat!"


"Suture!"


John


Dorris


Choate


Galic clove-stuffed shoulder



Massage oils


Heintzman. "You guide me."



Yep.


Another reading:


"Our souls wait for the Lord more than sentries for the dawn. Indeed, more than watchmen yearn for the morning.
-Psalm 130



Our canvas was organic - delivered by Bald Hill Farm, Corvallis. 80 lbs hanging weight.


Dawn




Hendrix. An artist's work is never done:



Some curious on-lookers:



Post-fest fun:

Write around town - ¿por qué no?

a short freewrite i did on a family date

Evergreen

This is from a while back at the Japanese Gardens. Enjoy the zen of tall trees and wind chimes.

A bike part that found me

This is the foil backing to a bike tire patch i had to use recently. A small, sharp stone punctured & embedded itself into my front tire and caused a very tiny hole in the tube. So instead of buying a tube i just put a patch on the existing tube. I'm a member of the PSU Bike Hub co-op now, which i'm excited about 'cause i can fix the bike at school if i need to, & it was certainly a Godsend that day!



Note country of origin. I have tire patches at home, but needed one there, so i ended up with the German-made glue patch. For the record, much more complicated than the patches i have at home, but probably more sturdy & will hold longer as well. The whole repair cost me a grand total of $0.40 as i was able to execute the repair myself!

I have also topped off my tires a few times at the Bike Hub, lubed the chain & gears (with soy-based lube they provide), and today attempted to fix my rear brake which came loose on the way to school. Unfortunately i will have to get a new brake cable & housing, and i didn't have time to execute much more than a few basic adjustments today, so i got it back into a semi-working state & will have to fix it for real perhaps Wednesday or so.

I also created some bike art which i am quite happy with! I submitted it to a contest today to win *hundreds of fabulous prizes*, so cross your fingers for me (bzw druck mir die Daumen). Hopefully it will win & get displayed, though either way i plan to post it here soon.

Eco Fashion, Eco Sports, Eco Film, Eco EXCELLENT

Here is a photograph of me and a giant Salmon at this past weekend's (including Friday, when I went) Better Living Show. I had thought I'd also snapped a beautiful portrait with Woodsy Owl, icon of the US Forest Service, though i guess i just imagined how awesome it would have been and then made that imagination a reality in my mind. Looking at the actual photographs i have saved on the camera, there is no owl-mascot-with-Yours-Truly specimen to be found, sadly. I did get a Woodsy button though, which i plan to sport proudly in the near future as apt occasions arise.



Shockingly, i could not convince Kirsten at any point to join me for one of several Eco-fashion shows they held at the event, though i offered multiple times. (Ladies, when was the last time YOUR man asked you on a date to a fashion show?!?)

Also, though i wanted to badly, i was unable to meet the 2nd most green athlete in the US (?) who also happens to be the #1 most eco-friendly athlete in the NFL, at least according to some(one). Travis? Dad? Others? You heard of him before? That's your team, right?!

The films Deep Green & Bag It were also shown, which i caught good portions of. I got to meet the director/producer of the former (he added the title "janitor" in referencing himself :o) and i was impressed by both productions, though the latter is rather irreverent. Hopefully i'll get a copy of the former soon, though.

Lots of exciting stuff coming up in the coming weeks/months, so hopefully i'll have more good content to report!

eMG (not a Sprite?)

This one's for you, Gregg. Had lots of fun helping restore the ol' Sprite w/you, man. Brought back lots of great memories of *negotiating* (with a hammer). It's even the right color!

eBugs

These are for you, Ed. Saw them in the wild this afternoon (aka the Better Living Show). More reports to follow I hope.

El arte fino del apodo

...and a few words to steel the wool.

Urban (Mega)fauna

I found out where at least some of them are hiding out. Sasquatch is of course still as blurry as ever.

ME GUSTA BROOKLYN STREET

It's been raining a lot lately

but it hasn't stopped this guy* from enjoying his shower:



He's part of a cool rain catchment/bioswale system* at the Seven Corners New Seasons on SE Division. I actually went to the store at that particular location with a certain A. Humphrey on one of my earlier trips to Portland just before we moved here. In fact, we ate there right after he took me to an interview I had which eventually landed me my first job in Oregon (not counting tour guide/roadie extraordinaire during the Winter of 2004) Here is a potentially more zazzling shot of our showering friend:





(*As of publication time: unknown artist(s), bioswale designer(s), title)

"What more can you ask for in the Rose City?"

Thus spake the Green Line MAX operator this morning on my one stop stretch between City Hall and the University up the little hill to campus. The question was preceded by the observations: ~ "It's sunny out [which it actually wasn't at the time he said this, though it had been sunny earlier in the morning] and the high today is 47 degrees."

Anyway, his mirthage/jollity was one blessing among many on the way to school this morning.

It also got me thinking: What more CAN we ask for in the Rose City? What more can we find? What more can we hope for? (Oh yeah, and note to self: be thankful for what you got!)

The Aaron Choate Collection

This was an art exhibit in Portland in which some of my books and such were displayed (thanks, Grandma, for the Nixon era Presidential Poster!). A personal experience of the boundary (or lack thereof) between art and life, 'twas. Perhaps an alternate title could be "My Shelflife"! The project is explained by the text in the last photograph. It ran from March 1-7th at the Field Work gallery (www.fieldworkspace.org). There also exist some set up photos and other information. Here is an in progress link, which also includes my box o' stuff as well as someone else's "Stranger in a Strange Land" by Robert A. Heinlein. Kirsten's blue birthday mug makes a guest appearance (i snuck it into the display for the photograph), and i had to wait to publish this until now 'cause it wasn't her birthday yet and thus i still hadn't given it to her!

Recently i sat in on a German philosophy course in which the professor outlined how existence (la exsitencia, Existenz, etc.) comes from the Greek "Ekstatika" (ουσ. ύπαρξη? Sorry, not sure if that's right - "it's all Greek to me!" :o), but anyway, it basically means "to see oneself outside of one's own body". Nice! I used this concept recently in my German class by taking photographs of students and then displaying them immediately as a slide show with the projector. A sort of out of body experience, and it was a success i think. Hopefully i'll have more chances like this to do art-type things in the near future!

Some Favorite Treefriends

that accompany me on these cloudy days. As usual, photographs don't do justice, but something is better than nothing.

South Park Blocks


Near PAM, aka Portland Art Museum. Building on right part of museum. Note mossy ferniness. Treebeard.


Nearby. In the background, view of First Congregational Church--one of the older ones in Portland, plaque on the building says organized 1851, this edifice was the 3rd built in 1895.

Deer and such

Today i saw three deer peacefully grazing in the marshy area near the river trail, which brings my current count of deer seen within the Portland city limits up to a total of 5. They were beautiful! The other two i saw each on separate mornings last July or August on my way to the Deutsche Sommerschule passing through the Riverview Cemetery. It's nice to see large wildlife in the city, even if it is in a protected area. Also, the ride through that portion of the trail along the river really does me good. One can really smell the trees, bushes, and marsh, which all have pure, rich earthy smells. It's nice to breathe deeply from what seems like a generous oxygen source. Breathing so heavily as a result of riding the bike feels very clean in that stretch, especially in comparison with the bus, train, and other vehicle exhaust i'm usually inhaling. A few portions of the trail are flooded right now, which are kind of fun to ride through on a bike, though one has to lift up one's feet so as not to get them completely soaked from the water that's churned up. It still feels very wintery with the wet and cold, though i know spring is lingering in the buds and in the branches just waiting for winter to give way. There are also a few flowers and trees already in bloom who got faked out by the sun and warmth a few weeks ago before this polar blast came to town. The tree right outside our front window has a few little pink blossoms on it as well, and as soon as the weather changes again the whole tree's going to explode with bright pink.

Saxomophone!

As i was riding home last night (later than usual) i really thought i heard someone playing the saxophone at about 11th and Division, though looking all around in the direction I thought the music was coming from i found no such horn nor player. I am still not sure if i was just imagining the music or if there really was someone playing nearby, the former possibility being likely a result of too intense readings of 1960s Austrian explorations of apocalypse via the neutron bomb and subsequent sole survivor separation from civilization. (Marlen Haushofer - Die Wand) Either way, it made me think about when the last time i picked up that old friend, which was probably then:



That was a different time and i a different person, to be sure. However, all this plus a few conversations i've recently had with some family and good friends made me think i ought to pick it up again. Wail away even, if my fingers, lungs, and lips can remember their old gusto.

Back to Normal - Thanks, Kirk

My daily ride over the bridge was back to normal this evening. "Working Kirk" aka, the guy with the white tuxedo and the Mickey Mouse hat, was at his usual post off to the SW side of the Hawthorne Bridge and was about his usual antics. Today he happened to be toying with the Flintstones' Theme Song on his trumpet as i rode by. His expanding ball, slide whistle, 3 toss juggling move, and a circle-turns-into-a-square magic trick are other favorites, some of which i've seen, others of which i guess i need to hang around for a bit to witness. Thanks for bringing smiles to people's faces and hopefully a little joy to their hearts, Kirk.









P.S. - I thought that some of the most interesting lines in the linked article above were the ones about how he's potentially saved people contemplating suicide and given nearby quartered prisoners a reason to keep living.

Gotta Love Portland - Valentine's Day Special

Today in honor of Valentine's Day, or, more accurately, in honor of some special someones, i wore a pink shirt and some pants-sheared-shorts with a few sparse red threads worked into the pattern. K & i went on a Valentine's morning date before i had to go to class while the little one was being watched & entertained by a family friend & corresponding munchkin. The lady and the little lady each received a flower which now sit in vases (pronounced "VAHZ-ehz") on the dining table. (The table is not dining on things of course, but rather is FOR dining.) Later i donned my Valentine's-Day-red Wost Day of the Year Ride shirt, which is a little bittersweet 'cause i wasn't able to ride this year (last Sunday) due to still being in recovery mode from an illness which more or less wiped out the whole fam for about a week. At least the shirt is festive feeling and color appropriate. I put a Super Mario power-up mushroom button on to add a little more festiveness.

Anyway, let me get to the point: riding home today across the Hawthorne Bridge i saw a few guys out of the corner of my eye who were holding a cardboard sign which appeared to say "free eggs", though as i rode past the guy asked me (i think) "Hey, do you want any free range eggs?!" It would not seem so strange to me, especially in Portland or any large-ish city in general that some random people are just standing on the side of a bridge trying to peddle eggs, but the fact that they were out loudly peddling their wares to passersby in the dark and amidst what my wife described as hurricane-like dangerous winds and rain seemed a little...odd. Then again, i probably shouldn't be that surprised. I also didn't notice any eggs that they may have had, though i was going pretty fast and as I said it was dark, so maybe their egg stash was partially concealed or just plain out of sight. Anyway, that experience was "eggsellent" and as i continued across the bridge i came upon a walking guy who appeared to me at the time like a koopa troopa. More accurately stated, he looked like one of the koopalings that has spines on their shellback, but i did think that carefully at the time about what he should technically be called. All i thought was something like, ok, there is a koopa troopa walking across the bridge! After i passed him i looked back and from the front could see that he had spiky hair and several buttons or patches up and down the shoulder straps. Nice.

Here is a photo to set the mood (add your own wind and rain):









This is not the guy i saw, but the backpack looked quite similar to the one pictured here:












Happy Valentine's Day!

What happens when you study too much

Hippo Hardware

Hippo Hardware is a difficult concept to explain. The best way for you to understand would be for you to just come to Portland and see it. Which i hope you do so i can have an excuse to go there more often and show it off. I tend to explain it to people as a smaller, more eclectic version of The Rebuilding Center, except with a behind-the-scenes modern, new inventory in addition to antique fixtures and such. ...but then one has to know what The Rebuilding Center is, another Portland phenomenon, and so i just end up explaining the concept as a whole anyway. In short: reusable and reclaimed materials, often antique or vintage. Hippo Hardware has a large collection of Hippo paraphernalia, which i'm assuming has grown over the years due to donations or at least the owners/associates bringing in or donating hippo gear. I would love to go on a hippo hunt with you, not of the sort of hunt where hippopotami are in fact slain, but rather a scavenger hunt to see who can find the hippo in the store that is the most __________ (80s, sustainable, huge, toothy, crocheted, stuffed, useful, etc.). I went alone this time to Hippo Hardware in search of a replacement cartridge for the faucet in our bathroom which had been leaking (now fixed mostly: yay!) though Ed sort of accompanied me in a way. Actually he was present right before i showed up at HH for a longer period of time (via cellular telephone) on a visit to the Multnomah County Central Library, and was the beneficiary of many inane comments regarding that structure and related literary homage. By the time i ended up at Hippo Hardware it was time for him to eat breakfast and then watch the Super Bowl and time for me to stop yakking so much and fix a leak.

Here is a mural on one of the doors which either may not work anymore or only is in use during the summer. I did not examine the situation carefully enough to say one way or the other.


Note tattoo on first hippo in foreground's left arm:


Bike there!


Walk there!





Bike there while being a hippo!


Young love.


More hippos on bikes--including one with a child carrier seat much like ours:


Photo from last February for comparison (nearly a year ago now, wow):

There was even a place where my disciplines intersected: German, true love, hippopotamusology, and plumbing. Oh yes, Happy Valentine's Day! (just HOURS till midnight--can you even wait?!)

Portland Hodgepodge

Some of these or their lookalikes someone took the liberty of using on their blog, but i'm republishing a few here 'cause i like them and i want to show some of the scenes i've been seeing of late. Typically one would be able to see the span of the Morrison Bridge in this shot and probably some others in the background but for the thick, delicious fog:

Hawthorne Bridge. Go!

Hood (r) Tabor (l). Sorry about the highrise.

Die Festung Hohensalzburg??

(the real deal)

Note helicopter to right

Getting flown per Hubschrauber to pill hill. Love how the blade just floats there in photographs.

The only redeeming factor about that bridge is that it appears in Elizabethtown. Most everything else about it is atrocious (design, year, variety of transit options, i.e. one). It is kind of fun to ride over the top though. Building in center, Twelve West, has on-site wind generators and is purportedly a very energy efficient building. Haven't met Gus Van Sant yet so i can visit him, though i am rumored to have had a brief non-encounter with him at Laughing Planet Cafe on Belmont (i've heard it said he lives there?) but maybe i can get a tour some other way.

B EAST

We recently took Sierra to a new doctor and let me tell you, the experience was something like the label we found in the parking structure for a particular section of the thing. Needless to say, we are still looking for a good doctor on this new plan. Hopefully we can find someone who is not a: