SCRAP Iron Artist Competition

Saturday I went to the SCRAP Iron Artist competition over in North Portland. I had planned on going to the Adult Soapbox Derby up on Mt. Tabor beforehand, but realized I would have to hoof it to the top of the hill in four inch heels to get the pictures I wanted. I decided to skip that and headed over to the SCRAP event directly. It had just started when I got there, so there was plenty of time to hang out and have a beer before taking photos. The teams really did a great job of getting into the competition with loads of costumes, heckling, and a sense of humor regarding the whole thing. They had tents set up, and bleachers out in the sun for those who were being spectators. The only sucky thing was the beer garden was stuck behind the bleachers, so it was hard to see what was going on if you wanted to have a beer. I loved the Tchotke girls walking around with cigarette girl type carriers selling handmade odds and ends of stuff. I bought a decopaged Altoids container with a plastic baby and lace inside, and a couple of buttons.

I spent most of the time wandering around and checking out what people were up to. I don't know how crowded the event has been in the past, but this year they had a really good turnout. I'm sure it helped that the weather was super nice and not too hot. After the competition, and I couldn't hear who the winning team was, there was a drum corps playing out in the street. They were awesome. I always get goosebumps. People were out dancing in the street and having a blast. Overall it was a lot of fun and it was great to see so many people get excited about the event. I think I might need to join a team next year. I think it would be a blast.

Getting The Right Picture

I'm fairly new to photography, having waited until digital cameras became affordable before even trying it. I'm very ADD, so I want instant gratification when I take a photo. I also want to have the option of eliminating the bad shots instead of paying for the development of a roll of film and finding out I got one decent shot out of the bunch, which is usually the case.

I'm always trying to find opportunities that will provide good subjects. One of my favorite things about Portland is that there is always something interesting to photograph. I like to take "walkabouts" at various times of the year and bring my camera with me in case I run across something interesting.

The picture above isn't mine but it's been a huge influence on my subject matter. It completely captures the essence of who these people were at one point in their lives. I have no idea where I found this, it was years ago, so my apologies to whoever posted the original image.

This picture I did take, and it really captures his personality. My friend G works graveyard shift on the weekends, so afterwork drinks are usually around 8:30am if I meet up with him. We were at Holmans, and sat next to this guy who's name was Dustin. He was a little loaded but really interesting and fun to talk to. Holmans is one of those places where if you hit it right you can meet some interesting people who aren't the posers that show up after 12:00pm and take over the place.

If you've been there you know exactly what I mean.

One thing I like about photography as a medium is you are always going to get better at it. You don't have a small window of opportunity to excel and then you're past your prime. I also like the fact that you're recording pieces of your life. It's cool to look at photos and be able to say, "that's right I was there." My brain gets so overloaded at times that it seems like pieces of it are being written over and potentially lost at some point, so it's nice to have visual post-its I can pull up when I feel like it.

I started posting stuff to my Flickr sight a while back. Part of it was to have an easy place for people to access what I've done. The other probably more selfish reason is to see what people are interested in. This picture has had the most hits of any of the others. I don't know if it's because of the subject, or if it's a good picture. I would tend to think it's the subject. The party I went to had a lot of people in costumes, and I took a ton of pictures, but most of them came out blurry. I think it was a combination of too many cocktails and four inch heels on grass that probably hindered my ability to get a decent shot, but I'm glad I managed to get this one right.

New Tattoo

When I go through major changes in my life I like to get a tattoo to remind me that I've made it through something really challenging and survived in one piece. My ex husband left me about two and a half years ago after being together 11 years. He "met someone" in Las Vegas on a company thing for Wild Oats, and came back and told me he was through with me. He split, cancelled my health insurance and car insurance and left me paying all the bills for two people. The good thing is I met G about four days later. We were both at a pretty messed up point in our lives, and we were sort of like survivors of a shipwreck clinging to bits of floatsome trying to survive.

Well, we are both back on our feet and are probably stronger because of the trauma. He's got his kids pretty much full time, and a house and chickens. He and his kids got me addicted to Invader Zim, especially GIR, so I figured this tattoo would remind me of where I was and where I am now.

And the ex, his new "girlfriend" dumped him after a month, he's been living in various roommate situations that haven't seemed to pan out so well, and he managed to drink away and have repossed the stupid mustang that he paid double for and that only had three car payments left. So it goes to show you that karma will kick you in the ass sometimes.

Family Get Together at Eagle Crest

Last week was our annual family get-together that we do every summer. We usually have about 30-40 people each year, and we've been everywhere from Fort Warden up in Port Townsend, to Long Beach Washington, and Sun River in Bend. This year we stayed at some nice condos at the Eagle Crest Golf Resort. The weather was fantastic by the time my son and I actually made it over there.

My son Nik has recently started driving down to Portland from Poulsbo, and it's been sort of hit or miss sometimes. The first time he came down he ended up on the Westside which wasn't good because I live on the Eastside. I was waiting for him to show up with my friend G. and was starting to freak out. He was totally lost and we were talking to him on the cell phone and trying to figure out where the hell he was. We were driving around Portland trying to follow Nik's clues and basically hitting deadends. He didn't realize he was on the wrong side of the river even though he's been down to Portland many times. G. finally told him to pull over, go find a land mark, and wait for us. Nik gets out of the car, takes a look around and tells us that there is a brick building for rent. That's our landmark. We finally figured out that he was over by Portland State and had him follow us back over the Marquam bridge to get him over to my place. I was a complete wreck that day. We didn't make it to the retreat that year because Nik didn't want to have to drive the three hours to Redmond.

So this year Nik makes it down to Portland fine, and we're planning on taking his car to Eagle Crest near Redmond. We run errands, get everything packed up in his car, and make it from 16th to 82nd avenue and then his car overheats. The meter totally goes into the red, and so we pull over to figure out what's going on. Of course the weather decides to be kind and it starts pouring. We lift up the hood and see coolant all over his car engine. It's also totally overflowing from the jug or whatever it is that you call the thing where the coolant lives. So Nik grabs a towel and starts wicking it out. We let the car cool down and get back in and take a right on 82nd and onto Powell. We figured it would be a straight shot, and would be able to limp back to my place and grab my car.

No such luck, we end up pulling into a Bridgestone service center. Nik goes in and they tell him they can do a stress test in about 30-40 minutes, but he'll have to hang out there. So I catch the bus down to my place, go get my car, go get lunch for us because now it's about 2:00pm. I get over to the place, and after waiting for them to do the test they tell us that we need to replace two hoses and it will cost $28.00 per hose and for them to fix it would be $300.00 including an oil change and a flush. Nik loses it at this point, so I tell the guy to give us the info on the parts and we limp back to my place. Nik is now pissed off not only about the car, but about the fact that we can't take off right away because we're hitting traffic hour on Friday, and we're going to have to wait a while to take off. We can't stay at my place because they've started tearing the bathroom apart being that I told them we'd be out of town over the weekend.

After trying to figure out what to do, and Nik getting more pissed off by the minute I call G. and ask if we can come over and time ourselves out at his place for a while. Being the incredibly generous and understanding person that he is he lets us hang out while he's finishing his nap and getting ready for work. We hang out for a couple hours until traffic dies down a little and then head out.

Traffic had not died down and it took forever to get even to Sandy, but we made it over the pass and into Redmond at about 10:00pm. In the meantime I'm freaking out because I can't get ahold of my mom to let her know what's going on. Finally my brother calls on his cell phone and I can relay that we're way behind. By the time I hit Redmond I'm exhausted and stressed out. Just as we get ready to turn right off the main drag within 10 minutes of our destination a cop pulls me over and tells me that my tags are expired, even though I still have a couple days to go on them. He lets me go, and we head out. We finally make it to the condo in pitch black with my brother waving a flashlight to signal where to go. I had a lot of glasses of wine that night to calm down.

The next day was much better. The boys played Magic, and my mom, my sister, and my brother's girlfriend went into Bend and hit our favorite bead store, a farmer's market, and had lunch at McMenamins. It was gorgeous and clear and not too hot. Later we cooked dinner for 30 people, and had one of the nicest evenings with our family that we've had in a long time. Everyone was on their good behavior, including me, and all the kids were playing frisbee while the grownups played giant Jenga. It was really nice to see everyone so happy and having fun together. It made it worth the trip to be a part of the experience, and I do have to say that Nik pulled through insisting that we still go.

The trip back wasn't too bad, and Nik found that he could get the parts he needed for $22.00 total and have my brother put them in for free, so it worked out just fine. I don't know if there's some sort of moral hidden in the experience and how we dealt with things, but Nik and I have learned that when we're stressed we seem to make things worse with each other and that we have to time ourselves out and not talk to each other for a while. Other than that it's nice to know that he's willing to fight to get to our destination because it means that much to be with the family. That's pretty cool. For some reason I kind of like my kid even if he drives me to tear my hair out every now and then.

It's Haunting Time Again!

The summer is here and it's time again to start getting ready for the Fright Town haunted house. Saturday we did a corpse making workshop to get started. Tom Johnson from Fright FX had us

all over to create corpses for the house. You start with a medical grade skeleton, which by the way is pretty damn heavy. After reinforcing the bits that want to fall off you hang it up and start covering it with spray adhesive, saran wrap, and latex. You would think it would be easy, but we spent at least five hours working on these things, and they still need more latex, paint, batting, hair, etc. The drying time is pretty long because the latex has the consistency of mayonaise and takes forever, especially if you've put it on thick which you kind of have to do to get the right texture.

The trickiest part was learning that you need to put the plastic on in multiple layers, before adding the latex. You would think that's just logical, but we didn't realize how much saran and adhesive you have to use to get the correct shape. It's not as easy as it sounds, being as the saran is sticky, and you are sticky with all the spraying and stuff. We used a ton of latex as well, so you end up sticky and smelling like a rubber band. It's cool though.

Sunday we went over to Glowing Greens, a black light indoor putt putt place that will be opening soon downtown over by Pioneer Courthouse Square. Raymond the owner formerly of 13th Door Haunted House is making the coolest place in Portland that's open to kids and adults. The course is full of 3D props, and will also include some animatronic characters. The most awesome part of the whole thing it that everything is set up to be viewed by black light. We went over to help paint, and construct some of the set pieces. I helped paint a shack by the graveyard. Painting for black light is interesting because you pretty much are painting in the dark under black light. Once you apply the paint it pops out at you. The color of the paint under normal light is completely different under the black light. It's a bit of a challenge but the results are awesome. I'm going back next week to help do some more painting. They have a good crew but a lot of work ahead of them. Their website is http://www.glowinggreens.com/ if you want to see what they're doing. This will be the perfect place to have those hard tween birthday parties. You'll be able to rent the entire course, and have pizza with your golf.

Back to the haunted house, once we get done with these corpses we have a bunch of other props to build, and we also have to figure out the rooms, and the makeup/costumes and props we need for each one. I think this year is going to kick butt. I'm not going to give away any secrets, otherwise I will be drawn and quartered, but we're working on some interesting ideas right now, and these guys really know what they're doing. Tom's one of the original crew from Scream at the Beach, our evil nemisis. Last year we gave them a run for their money, and these year we're bringing in secret weapons. If you can't tell, haunting is a little competitive.

Here's what the end results will potentially look like on the bodies. The finished texture is really gross and sticky. It looks like dried human skin. Yummm.

The Hidden Hand

With President Dan Bernstine leaving Portland State it made me reminisce about working in the President's office back when I was employed in University Relations . Theoretically I worked for the Development Office which was housed in the same space, but I ended up helping out with the President's staff on tech stuff and other odds and ends of things. I was very fortunate to work with Dan, as he preferred to be called, and have the opportunity to see someone in action who quietly made things happen at PSU, and successfully completed a $150 million dollar capital campaign.

One of the interesting aspects of working there, especially at the reception desk, was dealing with some of the plain crazy people who would come in and want to meet with the president for a variety of reasons. One guy came in and sat and talked to his invisible friend for at least half an hour while he waited for a non-existant appointment. We also had a lot of people come in who wanted us to publish their "manuscripts" which included handwritten rants and carefully typed conspiracy theories.

Our favorite guy came in quite a few times. His name was Phillip and he had a head shaped like a potato. His "manuscript" that he'd been working on for years was called "The Hidden Hand." The title came from a 1942's B-movie, but had absolutely nothing to do with the content. It had a lot to do with christian homeless shelters, churchs, Satan's Pets, and Janet Beldon's Face!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (his punctuation). There were a lot of comments about 20' tall bears, especially polar bears, attacking at a church and various other places where polar bears hang out, like the lobby of an apartment building. He had a lot of biblical quotes, and mentions of demons, satan, the saviour, etc. He originally started out typing this 45 page tome and then I think got frustrated after the fifth page and started writing in freehand. You could tell his mood by how sporatic and crazed the writing would get in certain sections.

Alex was our receptionist at the time, and whenever a good piece would come in she would make a copy for me to check out. Our favorite part of Phillip's manuscript was when he listed "Satan's Pets!!" This was a list of demons and their earthly equivalents. Some of the examples are: Demon of the Clam (Clamato Juice); Demon of the Pig, Hog, Swine (Salisbury Steak, Bologna); Demon of the Tuna (Sandwiches); Demon of the Rabbit (Easter Bunny). I think you get the idea.

The entire 45 pages are sort of a freeform rant, conspiracy theory, and obsession with Janet Beldon's Face!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I would almost like to publish it because there is some great material buried under all the crazy talk. I think Satan's Pets would be an awesome name for a band. I've hung onto a copy of it for the past eight years as a source of inspiration when I'm looking for examples of words thrown together that might make sense if you were coming from that twisted point of logic.

Anyway, Dan will be missed at PSU but I'm sure he isn't going to miss some of the oddballs he no longer will have to deal with at the Law School Admissions Council in Pennsylvania where he's moving to. I'll just make sure to warn him about potential polar bears hanging out in the lobby.

Watching The Fireworks From The Bridge

Friday was the beginning of the Rose Festival, and my usual tradition is going up to the train bridge across from my apartment with a couple of beers and my camera and snapping pictures. It's a great view because you can see all of downtown Portland with the fireworks in the foreground. Usually it's packed to the point of feeling the bridge move whenever someone else comes up to sit down. This year it was pretty sparse for some reason, which was fine by me because it's kind of high up, and the thought of the bridge breaking and dropping us down onto the traintracks is somewhat scary. I have a thing about heights anyway, and it's taken me a while to where I can walk up the three flights of stairs and not freak out when I hit the top. Here's a view from the top of the stairs at dusk looking into the city. The fence is kind of a pain to deal with, but I try to incorporate it into the frame sometimes.

This year I was hoping to focus on the people watching the fireworks. The three people in the photo at the top of the page were from out of town, and it was cool to hear how excited they were to be viewing the fireworks from their vantage point.

A couple of years ago I was able to get some really good pictures including this one that came out sort of heart shaped for some reason. Those are the real colors too. It was a little bit cloudy so they were able to show up better against the sky then they do when it's clear out. I have many fond memories of watching the fireworks in Portland, including the first month I moved here from Seattle after some pretty bad experiences that happened in that messed up town. My aunt, uncle, cousins, and my son who was five at the time all brought a cooler, and blankets down to the rock bank by OMSI and sat and watched the Blues Festival fireworks close up. That was the first time I had a chance to see them so close. My son Nik was old enough to appreciate them even though we had to wait forever so it was dark enough for them to get started.

I may have to bribe someone with a view from the Westside so I can get a different perspective for the July works this year. I used to be able to sit on the roof of my old apartment and see both the Portland fireworks and the Vancouver ones. Oh well. Hmm, maybe someone with a boat.