A tense moment at the velodrome

 

A view from our house

 

We live in a small house in an industrial district. However, not too far away from us there is a big cutesy shopping district with lots of people with expensive handbags. We mostly ignore them, and stay around our own block. A lot of the old buildings around are very beautiful even if they sometimes have been disused for a long time. Right across from us is a giant parking lot, where hospital employees park. Originally this was used by a trucking company, and they still own the building. We recently got word that it would be developed, presumably to become condos. However, we will get to enjoy the peace for a year more at least. I like the expanse of asphalt that the parking lot creates, billowing off in the distance, and I hope that we will still be able to maintain our neighbourhood as a quiet corner.

On another note, this picture and a bunch of others I have put up recently have been generated from scans of medium format film. An interesting and anachronistic process in todays world of inexpensive digital cameras; I like it even though it is quite cumbersome.

Pride parade

 

 

Our dear neighbour Carrie is starting her own production company, and she is doing this with two other cool ladies, Lorie and Chelsea. Carrie signed everyone up to support Lorie in the Pride parade last weekend, and we got roped into doing it with them. It was a blast, although the parade felt really short (it only took something like twenty minutes). Afterwards we went home to prepare for a workout, while a bunch of the ladies continued drinking coctails. I have to say I was a little jealous.

State championships

 

This year OBRA decided to take no chances with the weather for the six day races, so the state track championships were moved to early June. It feels ridicolously early, but those are them breaks. On friday we raced the kilo and 500, and we both busted out new personal records for Alpenrose. Yesterday, we had half of a sprint tournament (the womens had time to finish before it rained out, but the men's tournament had to be postponed). I brought home a new silver for the kilo, and the third fastest 200m time of the day. Amelia fought it out with the fast girls, but narrowly missed the podium (however, even to be in contention with women of the caliber that showed up to race is awesome). In the picture you can witness the rage face necessary for quality 200m timing.

(Photo courtesy of Ed Norton)

Blow up

By the way, if you click on these latest pictures, they blow up to insane size while maintaing high resolution (well, I am sure the quality sucks butt for real photo nerds, but it impresses me).

Our neighbourhood

 

 

 

I have recently gotten into traditional film photography and as a result we have spent some time documenting our neighbourhood. We are nestled in an industrial area, and there are many beautiful areas around. It feels good to record what our environments looks like because today's Portland is really transient. Behold.

 

 

 

We live in bridge country. There are people sleeping under most of them, or in their parked cars. We conduct our daily life, and they go about theirs.

 

This is the side of what is left of the Portland fixture that was the house of dolls---Oregons creepiest second hand store. Now an art gallery, and next door neighbour to the Escobar.

We control the lower floor

 
 

This is two very important people for us: Our first floor neighbours Finnegan and Carrie. Finnegan is a gentleman in his best years whose interests include looking for food on the floor, chasing small dogs who has not been neutered, pondering what is on NPR, and doing the paw. Carrie is immaculate, has a large personality, and a big heart. Together we have had many adventures, and shall have many more. Moreover, we control the first floor of our building. If we do not like our upstairs neighbours, they have to climb up the outside of the building or pay a toll. Almost.

Mexican wedding cowboys

 

So the other day, I step outside to go to the velodrome, and lo and behold: There are mexican cowboys hanging out in the parking lot next door. In principle, this is not so surprising. We lived next door to a party space where there was mexican weddings every saturday and sunday all summer long when we lived on Mississippi, and we live next door to a catholic church now. Everyone dresses up a lot for these affairs (you see eight year old kids running around and going on slides in ostentatious suits and puffy dresses). However, this was the first time we saw actual vaquero outfits. Very cool. The guys were very nice, and showed off their mad skillz for the camera.

The day of the never ending bbq

 

On monday there was a silly american holiday, memorial day I believe, and most people had the day off. We decided that this would be a great time to have a back yard barbeque. We started at one in the afternoon, and ended at nine at night. It was a great time, and lot of quality and nonquality conversation was had. Just like it should be. Our backyard, which was pretty abysmal when we moved in is shaping up quite nicely.

 
 
 

People showed up from as far as North Portland, like Donny and as near as two blocks away like Kelly, Esco and Rachel.

 

Some old friends showed up, together with some new ones too. Here KC and Jason, socker fiends.

 

Amelia has made a really scrumptious potato salad with olives in it. A food frenzy broke out whenever a new guest arrived and found it on the table.

 

Of course there was live music too. We found this awesome sound system at a garage sale during our recent trip to San Diego. Not only can you play tapes, you can sing along too.