Category: PDX

Mr. Pencil and I are making a point of strengthening our library of local and regional history books. We have the biggest collection of Raymond Hatton books (mostly about Central Oregon) on all of LibraryThing. Recently we tried to buy a first edition (from 1928) of Lewis McArthur’s Oregon Geographic Names, which is now in [...]

Rare Snow Covers Portland : Natural Hazards: “This satellite image of the snow covering Oregon was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite on December 16. The highest concentrations are in the Willamette River valley and on the Columbia Plateau east of the Cascade Mountains.” download large image (4 MB, [...]

In photos. Officially the most snowfall since 1968 and it’s still going. It won’t die.

I cannot recall it being as frigid and treacherous in Portland for so many days in a row–ever, actually. For over a week it’s been a snow-sleet-ice-hailing killstorm. Yesterday things took a turn for the worse and now we have seven or so inches of snow under half an inch of ice under what looks [...]

On my way to the doctor this morning up Washington Street, watching pedestrians in sarongs and suits standing on either side of me passing. The sun suddenly looked different. Like the opposite of a blink, more light than ever. Not right for ten in the morning in July. Not the same, like hard white gold [...]

My friend Autumn tried out the new Deschutes Brewery in the Pearl and wrote about it on her blog. I find it funny. not totally thrilled my reuben was going to cost me $11.95 i was downright flummoxed to see that the kids menu listed grilled salmon as one of its offerings. grilled salmon? seriously? [...]

No, I don’t mean native, I mean hanging around the offices of the well-established newspaper here. My mom has worked for The Oregonian longer than I’ve been alive. Long enough to have been around in the days of the Journal, Portland’s then-afternoon paper (our late family friend, Donald Sterling, was at the helm of the [...]

Oregon City, Ore., operates a public elevator that is technically a vertical street! From the Oregon City Municipal Elevator Public Art Project Blog (whew, that’s a mouthful): The Oregon City Municipal Elevator continues to operate as one of only four municipal elevators in the world and “Elevator Street” remains the only “vertical street” in North [...]

Did you know that when Pettygrove et. al first planted their roots in “The Clearing” on the west bank of the Willamette River (later known as Portland, Ore.) that Portland wasn’t even technically in the United States? If politics in the following few years had veered differently, we could be living under the British flag. [...]

An apt topic, giving today’s sudden swelter: The Weather Ball in downtown Portland. Once I was driving with Mr. Pencil, on the off-ramp from I-5 south, city center exit, and said “Oh, the weather ball says it’s going to rain.” And Mr. Pencil: “The weather what?” “Surely you know about the weather ball.” Just a [...]