Sweet Nectar of Life

If you are going to be from Portland, you have to have a Portland address. So I decided I was done living in “Not Portland” and needed to buy yet another house. This time I didn't want something tiny. It might be all the rage but I have many kids and am not ready for that level of Portland yet. I also didn't want something gauche, I wanted to host backyard BBQs and game nights. I also decided against anything too opulent, I might be a wealthy blogger but I also pride myself on being accessible and relatable to the common man/woman. I don’t want to slap my common friends in the face with a mansion in Forest Park or Southwest Hills. Have to stop getting my house on the front page of the paper. To really be from Portland, I’m told you needed to live on the Eastside; where true Portalders live. I picked NE Portland for its mid-range cost and ease of access to downtown. It’s screamed common man as I drove past gravel driveways, brown lawns, and burnt-out cars. The hunt began. A self...

I love coffee and the last time I got some, it was amazing. I assume the next time will also be amazing. But, this blind faith in coffee can lull you into a false scene of stability. For example, It was a typical day, sun shining, air clear. I zipped up my coat and slipped on my favorite pair of white Jordan Air 1 OGs with university red accents. Pulling the door securely closed behind me, I left the house with an exciting spring in my step. The car chipped happily back to me as I climbed in. The engine blinked to life without a sound and a choir of angels sang as I pulled out into light traffic. It was only 3 miles between me and coffee. One red light, a right, a right, a left followed by a quick right, snake through the parking lot and pull into a not great but not horrible spot. At least I didn’t have to pay for it. As I walked into the shop, I was backhanded by the smell of a Kenyan roast; I love this place because for days after every visit people can smell the aroma of co...

In the land of "keep it weird"- it should come as no surprise that not only do people love sitting on Instagram but so do their pets. Hailing from Montana and having a whopping 328 followers, I felt like I was doing OK. I mean, I am not a famous actor or brand account, but it turns out, there are dogs with more followers and active engagement than me! That kind of hurt. I am, however, 1000% confident if I stuck an avocado on my head I would not get 75k followers - I would probably get banned. I know you followed the link and found that I'm not lying... But you may say this is a one-off, not every dog has an Instagram... wrong!!! There are thousands of them out there,  here is a Beagle's account that's only a few months old with a mere 5 pictures - yes FIVE!!! - and he has more followers than me!! Pets have taken over Instagram to the point where accounts for animals now outperform verified humans. It's Animal Farm out there people. The pets are infl...

I read "Shoe Dog" so now I am an expert on Nike and all the other brands that are trying to be them. The coolest part is Portland was the major pivot point in their succession, I assume they reign supreme because Nike is so cool and awesome and better. At some point, I'll have to find the Shoe Dog Adidas book. I'm sure it's an amazing story of how greed and corruption lead to their ultimate demise to superstar underdog Nike, I mean Puma is already a skeleton in the closet... SO Nike is king in Portland. And don't worry that I jumped to an overtly biased conclusion with little evidence, it's all the rage right now among news reporters, millennial bloggers, opinion columnists, politicians, and people holding Master's degrees in French Polynesian Art. Shoes have strange prestige in Portland. Nike makes a few thousand pairs of these special shoes a few times a year and 180 million people want them on drop day. Anyone that cops a limited edition pair of...

Portland is slowly climbing the ladder (depending on who you ask) in the food world. But we are not top dogs yet. When you ask people, why are you visiting, I will rarely hear of all the restaurants they must go eat consume in order to fulfill their destiny. I don’t mean to rag on the food in Portland, it’s just the same as a Paris or Bangkok or Copenhagen. But I have read so many articles talking about how Portland is the end-all destination to eat, I'm just not seeing it, I mean there are like two places in town to find a door Chicago-style deep dish pizza. If you can barely cover the US, how are you going global? https://flic.kr/p/imJrtk The problem is, everyone in Portland thinks PDX is the most amazing place in the galaxy to eat. They protest - no, my co-workers heard from their dog walkers that her neighbors youngest sister's former grade school teacher traveled in search of great food for 34 years and only found it in Portland. The pride in our food is bl...

Well, my kicks are lit, my ride is lit, my job is lit, my life is lit, but something is missing. As a Portlander, you can't just talk the talk, walk the walk, and protest the things you hate - you have to do more. So, today I decided to learn to play the Bass While this may be out of left (or right/independent/I don't vote or care) field, it has actually been a long time coming. Throwback to a Thursday in 2015. It's October, I'm in Arizona for the Annual The Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. I just got my wife her first iPhone. It was a space gray iPhone 5s with 16Gb of memory. I know what you are thinking - 16Gb - WTF, it's basically unusable. And while you would be correct, she wasn't big on apps and relied heavily on iCloud to store pictures. Overall it was a good phone, hand-sized, and took what was at the time the best mobile phone pictures. Even though in retrospect the pictures were crappy, it was miles ahead of my android.  So I'm in ...

Commuting is the necessary evil of the Parisian lifestyle. Portland, being the large-small town that is claimed to be, has a Metropolitan Area Express or MAX for short. This modern light rail system with a tap to pay and its own app is for the most part useful bordering on useless. As a Portlander, I pride myself on this cute little transit system and have much respect for the person that has figured out when and where each train, bus, and streetcar stops. It, however, leaves much to be desired. First off, the platforms. If you have ever traveled the underground systems of NYC or London, toss that image out of your mind. The MAX is an open transit system and as such many of the stops are literally a Ticket station on an otherwise unsuspecting sidewalk. You are walking along one second, and the next you are at a MAX stop getting run over by people pouring onto the sidewalk. If you are not looking you can easily miss the "Hop" post, a cute pole with a touch less pay box o...