Lower Lewis River Falls & Yale Lake

Here are Scott's amazing photos from Sunday:

Lower Lewis Falls:

Lower Lewis River Falls, originally uploaded by sweber4507.

Yale Lake:

LewisRiverLakeReflectionWest, originally uploaded by sweber4507.

Afternoon at Lewis River Falls -or- Day We Almost Lost Mom

Yesterday, Scott, Sheena, Ma, and I took what we thought would be a short drive to the Lower Lewis Falls at Gifford Pinchot National Forest. However, we didn't realize 40 miles from I-5 would take hours on winding forest roads. We finally got to the falls about an hour before dusk. Scott scrambled to take pictures (which I hope to post).

At some point, Scott, Sheena and I took the stairs down to the falls. I thought mom saw us from the viewing area overlooking the falls, but apparently she thought we headed back to the car. Worse, mom took a different path to another parking area. When we came back up and didn't find mom at the car, we all became worried. We were basically in the middle of nowhere in a vacant park, out of cellphone range, looking for mom in a dark, densely wooded area with poorly marked trails. Of course, we then started to assume the worse like she fell down the canyon into the river or some horrible Blaire Witch scenario (the only soul we saw in the last miles into the forest was a suspicious-looking hunter). Fortunately, Sheena found mom after twenty minutes of worry. In hindsight, the area between the river and parking lot was relatively small, but still it was creepy not being able to find mom right away.

B-B-Beacon Rock

On Saturday, Scott, Sheena and I hiked up Beacon Rock in the Columbia Gorge. Even for the gorge, the wind was brutal.

Pilot Foils Terrorist Birds

plane_crash_7_screenshot, originally uploaded by truthislove_org.

Few CNN news alert e-mails ever deliver good news, so reading something in my work inbox about a commercial airplane having crashed in the Hudson river was foreboding. However, seeing the first pictures of the plane intact with survivors really made my day. Just amazing.

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Bush Jr.'s Good-bye: "9/11, 9/11, 9/11, good and evil, and, um, 9/11"

Well, at least he succeeded in making his father's one-term presidency seem far less embarrassing.

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Adding Pin Wheels to the unnecessary Vancouver SUV bridge doesn't make it "green" or sustainable.

press snubs Bush Jr; Kathy to Portland!; Seattle tunnel; Ptld Auditor Cash Give-Away

I'm toying with the idea of posting news items I find interesting. Not sure I'll stick with it though.

"On a more amusing note (or maybe just sad), Milbank also references a bulletin to the White House press corps issued prior to the press conference. The memo set a tone importance and fanfare for the event. But, when the moment of the event rolled around, there was apparently such a dearth of reporters and spectators in the room that White House interns were conscripted to fill the empty chairs." (HuffPost)

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Woo-hoo!:

"Comedienne Kathy Griffin has added two more shows in Portland, where the quirky outspoken comic will be taping her Bravo show special this March.

"On March 4, the 48-year-old actress will be at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall at 6:30 p.m. and again, at 9 p.m. Griffin will also tape her show, "Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List," at the shows." AllHeadlineNews.com

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Seattle to build $4.25B tunnel to replace ugly/noisy Alaskan Way Viaduct (NWCN.com)

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Portland City Council to give-away at least $100K+ for uninteresting Auditor election. (Merc)

Kathy Griffin!!!

Scott, Sheena, and I saw Kathy Griffin in Seattle last night! The show was sold-out and even though I thought I bought the tickets early, our (cheap) seats were in the very last row at the very top of the balcony. Here's the view from our seats:

Here's what we would have saw had I splurged on better tickets:

2-time Schmemmy winner, originally uploaded by stacy73.

Kathy's stand-up act was terrific. Her hilarious insider gossip included a wide-range of topics: Sarah Palin, her mother's box of wine habit, Larry King, Anderson Cooper, Nancy Grace, Bette Midler, Donald Trump, Rosie O'Donnell, Cher, the Shemmys, the Emmys, Don Rickles, and ended with a blue quote of Betty White. She also mentioned that her manager, Tom, had some unexplained phobia about Portland which may explain why Kathy hasn't come to Portland recently.

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Before the show, we wasted time at the Volunteer Park Conservatory and Lake View Cemetery.

Among the many interesting headstones, Sheena and I discovered Bruce and Brandon Lee's headstones. Apparently, their headstones are the main tourist attraction to the cemetery as noticed many people paying their respects.

Seattle

Scott and I finally spent the weekend in Seattle that we've discussed for months now. It was a great weekend! Here are Scott's pictures:

On Saturday, we started the day at Snoqualmie Falls. The falls was featured in one my favorite shows, Twin Peaks.

IMG_0271.jpg, originally uploaded by sweber4507.

We then went to Seattle's Pioneer Square area and Smith Tower. The tower boasts 42 stories and was tallest building on the west coast from 1914 to 1962. It is a beautiful building with the original manually-operated Otis elevators and Alaskan marble throughout the interior.

IMG_0458, originally uploaded by sweber4507.

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IMG_0611.JPG, originally uploaded by sweber4507.

The view from Smith Tower is great -- it's much closer to Seattle's downtown than the Space Needle. We bought a Seattle architecture book which kept me preoccupied while Scott took photos throughout downtown.

IMG_0503.JPG, originally uploaded by sweber4507.

IMG_0460, originally uploaded by sweber4507.

On Sunday, we took the ferry to Vashon Island and then another ferry to Point Defiance. We visited the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium. I always forget that zoos are usually filled with noisy, sticky kids running all over. It's a nice little zoo, but once is enough. The peacocks that were running lose were amazing though.

IMG_1462.jpg, originally uploaded by sweber4507.

bring back Starbucks' boobies!!!

Anyone who has visited the original Starbucks store at Seattle's Pike Place Market knows the surprise of seeing Starbucks' original, topless, logo:

Bifurcated Starbucks Siren, originally uploaded by majorbonnet.

So it was exciting to see Starbucks launch their Pike Place Roast last week with the old logo -- but it's not the old logo!!! It has been censored:

What can brown do for you?, originally uploaded by chrisphoto.

Are 'merican consumers so supposedly puritan that they can't handle the sight of historical boobies? The seemingly soul-less corporate giant seems to think so. There's an interesting blog about the various incarnations of the logo change.

Ironically, a friend mentioned that Pike Place Market prohibits corporate chain stores, so the corporate giant's original store probably would not be able to lease space unless it had been grandfathered-in. It's also one of the market's top tourist attractions now.

Bush Jr's Dept. of Justice: Lesbian "worse than being a Democrat"

As pointed out in this week's This American Life, the Bush Jr. Administration's auducity is unbelievable. On Wednesday, NPR broke the story that a highly respected Department of Justice lawyer and loyal Republican may have fired for being a suspected lesbian.

. . . 'Even Worse Than Being a Democrat'

[Infamous Monica] Goodling's conversation with [Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA)] focused on whether Republican Party loyalty factored into her hiring decisions. But by all accounts, Hagen was a GOP loyalist.

So, what was Goodling's problem with Hagen?

The Justice Department's inspector general is looking into whether Hagen was dismissed after a rumor reached Goodling that Hagen is a lesbian.

As one Republican source put it, "To some people, that's even worse than being a Democrat."

Also, This American Life spotlighted a relatively obscure international dispute involving the DOJ attempting to fire another loyal Bush supporter for observing a US treaty (SeattlePI.com).

Sometimes, I really do want to give conservative Republicans the benefit of doubt and believe these really are fair-minded people who happen to have a different perspective. However, it's amazing that so few Republicans are willing to speak out and save their party of the corruption and disaster of the Bush Jr. Administration.

Mt St Helens

23 copy.jpg, originally uploaded by sweber4507.

Scott took this picture of Mt. St. Helens on Sunday. We were supposed to hike Ape Cave with Sheena and her friends, but the park appeared to be snowed-in.

Seattle day trip!!!

On Saturday, Scott, Sheena, and I took my visiting cousin, Travis, to Seattle for the day. We started off at the touristy Pike Place Market. As always, Scott took great pictures:

Pike Place Market, originally uploaded by sweber4507.
Pike Place Market in color Originally uploaded by sweber4507	IMG_2705.JPG Originally uploaded by sweber4507
Pike Place alley, originally uploaded by sweber4507.
IMG_2714.JPG Originally uploaded by sweber4507	IMG_2711 copy.jpg Originally uploaded by sweber4507

Frank Gehry Building housing EMP/SFM, originally uploaded by sweber4507.

Travis loves sci-fi and music, so we took the Seattle Monorail to the Sci-Fi Museum and the Experience Music Project. The Sci-Fi Museum added a terrific costume exhibition and some Star Trek models since our last visit in December. I was impressed with the Deep Space Nine model from ST:DS9 and an Enterprise-D model from ST:TNG. The biggest surprise was the Battlestar Galactica uniform from the current series -- (possibly worn by Jamie Bamber even!).

Unfortunately, photographs were prohibited, so no great pictures from Scott. However, I found some other pictures from less courtesy Flickr contributers:

DSCF1834
Originally uploaded by Julia C. Gulia

follow-up: Vantucky hate crime probably staged

An arrest was made yesterday regarding the alleged Vancouver, WA, restaurant hate crime that I wondered about in December. According to an article in yesterday's The Columbian, the feds arrested the restaurant owner's brother for arson.

The restaurant's owner, Jimi Jouzine, has not (yet?) been charged, but is appealing a 2002 deportation order.

(Hat tip: Aaron at Metroblogging Portland)

Portland/Seattle sight-seeing

IMG_6121 Originally uploaded by sweber4507.	IMG_6130 Originally uploaded by sweber4507.
120906_ScottAndLaceySeattle2.jpg Originally uploaded by nojam75.	120906_LaceyAtStarbucks.jpg Originally uploaded by nojam75.
120906_ScottAndLaceyInSeattle5.jpg Originally uploaded by nojam75.	121006_ScottAndLaceyAtPioneerSquare.jpg Originally uploaded by nojam75.
121006_LaceyAndScottAtAquarium.jpg Originally uploaded by nojam75.

Scott's sister, Lacey, visited us this weekend. She has visited Portland before when Scott first moved to town, so we decided to go to Seattle. I haven't entertained very many people from out of town before, so I'm not quite sure what is really interesting or worthwhile for people to see. Also, the weather has been rainy, so that kills many of the outdoorsy sighting seeing like the Columbia Gorge. However, I think we had a good time. Here are some of the highlights:

• McMenamins St Johns Theater & Pub: (see prior post)
• Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame, Seattle: We started our weekend in Seattle at Paul Allen's Sci-Fi museum inside the hideous Frank Gehry building at the Seattle Center. Outside of Star Trek and maybe Star Wars, I know very little about science fiction, so much of the museum seems obscure. Although Scott and Lacey were excited to see the alien from Aliens. While not as interesting as Star Trek: The Experience in Vegas, it was neat to see Captain Kirk's original captain's chair. They also had the scale model of the original series sets that were used for planning the production.
• Space Needle: This was a great time of year to do the touristy Space Needle. There were no lines like when we visited last summer.
• Monorail: A ridiculously short transportation system, the monorail is still a fun excuse to ride the short distance downtown.
• Pike Place Market: We were too late to see any fish throwing, but we did spend some time at a comic book store and did see the original Starbucks store. The line was too long at the original Starbucks store, but we did manager to visit two other Starbucks earlier that day.
• Dilettante Chocolates: In the Capital Hill neighborhood, we made sure Lacey experienced our favorite tiramis. Soooo gooood.
• Elliott Bay Book Co.: On Sunday morning while we waited for the aquarium to open, we had coffee at the Elliott Bay Book Co.'s cafe which is supposedly the inspiration for the coffee shop on Frasier. However, I don't think they promote this association.
• Seattle Aquarium: The aquarium fed the octopuses chicken drumsticks while we were there. We noticed that all the kids would scream "Dory!" whenever they saw the familiar blue fish.
• Sungari Pearl: Back in Portland, we ordered Chinese take-out which allowed Lacey more chopstick practice.
• Portland Art Museum: Scott and Lacey saw the ancient Egypt exhibit at the art museum.

hate crime in Vantucky?

Yesterday, I saw a KGW report [clip] about a Vancouver, WA, restaurant that was vandalized with anti-Arab hate graffiti and set on fire. The mediterranean restaurant, Galilee Cafe, is owned by a man from Israel.

I was surprised that there was relatively little coverage of the possible hate crime. However, the Oregonian reports that the one of the suspects told the police that the fire was set for "monetary gain". It seems unfair that to let a comment from a suspected arsonist undermine a possible hate crime victim, but it seems the media reports are handling this case carefully.

Seattle trip

112506_IKEA.jpg Originally uploaded by nojam75.	112506_ScottEnjoyingMeatballs.jpg Originally uploaded by nojam75.
112506_ScottAtSeattle.jpg Originally uploaded by nojam75.	112506_ScottInFrontOfSmithTower.jpg Originally uploaded by nojam75.

Scott and I took our semi-annual Seattle day trip today. We spent too much time and money at IKEA. Then we hung-out in Seattle. Scott took numerous pictures of Smith Tower.

We got back this evening. It was nice getting out and seeing another city for the day.