Things I love about Portland

Striving for %100 positivity here

• I have a west facing high window and can watch the sunset every clear night
• Vegetarianism coexists next to a "Let's eat that entire pig or better yet a goat" culture
• Fred Myers , the local hyper-market that backstops every other shop (if they don't have it at X, I can always get it or something like it at Freddie's)
• They put hazelnuts in everything where it makes sense.
• In addition to the OPEN/SHUT signs that are ubiquitous on business doors, I saw one where the "N" was cut off an extra "OPEN" sign and appended to the front to read "NOPE"
• The cyclists aren't as aggressive as the SF area
• Now that it's Spring I can see that there are a lot of cherry trees.
• Everyone likes that they're here but no one says stuff like "It's the best place on Earth" like I've heard in SF and NYC
• Sophie Soong doing the weather.,and interviewing
• Most street parking is unmetered and that portion that is is only $1.60/hr (takes coins and cards)
• No sales tax. I like this more for not having to do math on a full stomach than for saving the 9.75% to 10.5%
• It's seems equally acceptable to be a hipster, to make fun of hipsters, or to make fun of people making fun of hipsters
• Every place that sells food seems like it will sell it to you on a house made biscuit as well.
• Damian Lillard, gonna be NBA Rook of the year
• There is a place not to far from me with Skee-ball

More Weather stuff that only I care about

So how much is good weather worth? about $600/month it seems (at least in terms of rent). Blue is where I used to live. Purple is where I live now.

Weather Comps

I guess I really wasn't prepared for how much worse the weather is here than in the Bay Area

From NOAA, Nov 2012

8.23 inches of rain here vs 4.06 at SFO
11 degrees cooler (on avg) for a high and 8 degrees cooler for a low

                    PDX  SFO

CLEAR  (SCALE 0-3)   0    10
PTCLDY (SCALE 4-7)   9    15
CLOUDY (SCALE 8-10) 21     5

Still better than Troy or Rensselaer, NY without a car!

Portlandisms to adopt

In the same vein as "open/shut" signs, food service personal sometimes ask if you are "Staying or Going?" , I am used to the question being asked about my order, "For here or To Go?". The Portland way seems more personal. Though I admit that if it's a woman doing the asking I feel like I'm at the start of country music duet and want to croon a reply, "I'ma stayin' darlin. I'll always be by your side. 'least till this buttermilk scone is nothin' but crumbs and good memories"

First hail today.

Sunday was the first time I "came home" to Portland after being away overnight.

Update: ok, now it's hailed two days in a row. WTF did I sign up for here??

Update: 3rd hail on Dec 17

I wonder if there are uniforms

"Develop a cheese packaging organization capable of producing desired business results"

This may be may favorite job ad snippet so far. It's real and for the Tilamook creamery out by the coast. In 2006 on a road trip to a wedding in the Seattle area I stopped in for the tour and an an ice cream cone.

If I were to have this job, I would repeatedly speed dial "Wait, wait, don't tell me" every week.

As usual, confidence is 180 degrees out of phase with capabilities

Double thumbs!... then I proceeded to come in 10th out of 10. In general I think I can do something and find I'm woefully unprepared OR I think something is impossible and then I ace it. There very little middle ground when I evaluate a project/obstacle for the necessary skills/preparation, do the work, and fulfill expectations exactly.

As some past girlfriends have said: I'm all black and white. She said I needed to find my shades of gray... oh , I think I now know why she was tightening my tie so hard when she leveled that constructive criticism.

Loop de loop

Walked around inner Portland today
16 miles, one muffin, one bagel, one 12" pizza

Givin' muhself another month

I've now secured a sublet for the month of October in the St. John's section of Portland. It's not a share or a furnished basement in a home or anything like that. It's my place for 31 days.

So , no I haven't decided if I'm staying yet. It still hasn't rained and I still haven't had a local job interview despite applying to a few dozen relevant online ads and schmoozing about bid-ness on many Meetup hikes, paddles, happy hours and a couple of Yelp events.
Am giving myself two weeks to decide if I'm staying and then will use the balance of the month to action that decision.

Some "local"ness has seeped in:

• While at Last Thursday at Alberta Arts (which is, one night a month, what insular quasi-religious 'real americans' think San Francisco is like 24/7) I randomly ran into someone I know, the guy from whom I'm subletting, and someone else mistook me for someone she knows (who is also named Scott).
• I had brunch. Which is considered a blood sport here but I'm new so I went to a place that takes reservations instead of standing in line at Tasty'n'Sons or Screen Door or Pine State Biscuits
• Went to the public show at the Portland Juggling Festival and recognized a Bay Area juggler.
• Used a "Honey Bucket" (aka port-o-potty) at a Food Cart Pod.
• Made fun of someone from across the river in Washington state.
• Volunteered at the Ocean & Wave Energy Conference and saw the Governor, ex-Governor, and local Congresswoman speak.

Anyway, was kind of hoping to win the Powerball but that's beyond the 95% happiness threshold. Also thought one of you might have nominated me for a MacArthur Genius award in slacking but that didn't pan out either.

Am now open to visition (from those of you that know me)

I know what's different

It's taken me a while to figure this out. Portland has felt fundamentally different from the Bay Area in some way. It's still and calm... and that's it: there's no wind here. There's wind right next to the rivers and up in the Gorge and a couple of hours from here is the country's largest collections of turbines. But just out the window and on the street, the trees don't move.

Accidentally walked by this last week, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy5oN7fv8aw , happens every night for a couple of weeks each September. People sit out on lawn chairs in the park at sunset to watch. When I stumbled upon it I first thought they were waiting for an outdoor movie to begin after dark.

Karmicly strange: the best job opportunities so far are NOT in Portland and one in Portland at a company with the unfortunate acronym, 'UTI'.

Sublet ends on Tuesday midday and still haven't arranged next place.

Shana Tova

Hiking and still being unemployed

This is a trick of perspective. I'm not actually getting any side-boob action here on Natalya. The pic is next to the shelter on the way to McNeil Point on Mt Hood.

Resumes still being bounced back by Applicant Tracking Systems about as fast as I send them out. The minor tweaks aren't working. Might have to go full SEO and embedd keywords in white. Or volunteer for 6 months, again. Or return to the Bay Area and grift.

Too far

Multiple places have Gluten-Free bagels here. WTF?

Just go without! That's a little like the places in Scotland that had vegetarian haggis.

I thought of another way to act like I'm home

Eat the seasonal offerings at the local chain. Didn't go all that well.
Review is here

Went hiking out in the gorge this weekend. Very, very nice waterfalls and a calf-killing climb to a cliff.

Still no heat on jobs. Still staring at my resume trying to figure out how to tear it apart and put it back together.{John Stewart voice ON} "Damn you ATS's!" {John Stewart voice OFF}

Tomorrow, will start looking for another short term sublet for post Sep 25

Bears! (not wild)

I went to the coolest park today. It was called "Portland Zoo" Park I think.
As soon as I started from the 'trailhead', bam! bears on the left of me climbing up a tree.

Portland t-shirts and bumper stickers

Read 1984
I listen to bands that don't even exist yet.
Keep Portland Weird {Imported the slogan from Austin,TX}
Keep Portland Beered
Weird isn't Working! {I like this one because it works on multiple levels}
Portlyn

Jobs I could totally fake

So Milo and I have spent a gloriously warm and clear Portland Labor day inside seeking Labor opportunities. Let's skip the fact that I'm not sure I've spent an entire day inside since April and get right to the hottest prospects:

• Synchronized Swimming Coach  - this job is located in the nearby burb of Beaverton, Oregon (I kid you not. Milo is deadly serious about these things)

• Field Artillery Tactical Data System Specialist - "What do you have here, an 8 -week program? which is *perfect* for me." Actually it says 10 weeks now and I'm excluded because of age. For some reason, this one appeared while I searched a 'green' jobs site. Maybe they refer to the uniform color.

• Python Django Developer - I hear this is going to be an awesome Tarantino movie. Not sure whether my role would be in front or behind the camera.

We all know I'm going to end up in either sales or crime or both. The only question is how low the bank balance must go before I entertain those options.

Everyone say hello to Milo

Milo is my new computer. He came today. He's my first new "new" computer since 2001. I got that "my new gadget will make everything in my life organized and efficient" buzz that will go away soon. Milo's main job is to help me get a job. On the side he provides a much better platform from which to blog, find the next sublet or month-to-month apartment / plan more travel (actually, now that I'm sitting here... Milo is too frickn' big for comfortable overseas travel {it's Atikins for you Milo! [smears raw meat onto new laptop]}) , write Yelp reviews, and entertain myself with DVDs from the library.

Here are the Meetup picture links from Mirror Lake / Tawanawas Falls last Thursday and from Ramona Falls / Bald mountain last Friday.

I'm going on someone else's moon hike tonight. I pointed out that a true moonrise can be seen on Saturday which is a better day for people to get there on time anyway.. but it's not my hike. Hopefully the duct tape will hold on the broken plastic bit on my headlamp.

Tomorrow I'm going kayaking on the Willamete river south of Portland with a padding club.
Sunday, maybe the Portland Symphony free concert in Lake Oswego (home of the NBA's Kevin Love!). No love from employer's yet.

Trying hard to settle

Made cookies
Gone on a group hike
After 3.5 months of static, changed the presets on my car radio.
Got a library card.

What else do people do when they're home? (Besides work, date, and have more than 26 days till the next change of address. Am already pushing those stones uphill)

Have till Oct 16 to change voter registration.

Maybe I should buy some props and juggle behind a hat somewhere.

Photos of Oregon

Last seven are water photos from Mt. Hood and the columbia gorge from hikes I did alone. When I add my photos for the hikes I did with Meetup,  i'll post those links as well.

The streets of Portland are filled with familiars

Moved into my one-month sublet around 3:15pm Saturday. After downing a couple slices of pizza on Alberta street 5pm I was walking towards dessert options when I saw a guy on the corner who resembled my friend Eric. Eric and I went to spring training in Arizona one year and also went barry bonds hr recording breaking game. He lives in San Francisco. No big deal though, half the guys in Portland look like Eric: shave head with stable, facial hair but not quite a bear, a t-shirt with some kind of ironic meaning, jeans, and a messenger bag. But this 'Eric' was standing next to Nicole! (Real Eric's longtime friend & roommate {also my friend}) Holy cow it was them

"Whassup Bitches!", I blared on approach. To which I got a slow,  "oh my god" from Nicole. These are two of the hardest people I know to schedule and they just bumble across my path. They're up her for four days looking around and visiting some folks.

Not sure if I should take this as an omen and if so, what kind? 'You will find friends easily in Portland', 'return to the Bay', or since I slotted in a 2nd dinner of Thai food with and eventually still did add a chocolate dipped waffle for dessert, 'you gonna be fat'
--------

Jump to Monday. I'm walking on the eastern part of Hawthorne in prime uber-portland upscale-slum-we-kept-it-real land when I walk right past Fred Armiston heading onto location to shoot a scene for 'Portlandia'.

Weird days. It hasn't rained yet.

More Portland observations

One can take the train to a shopping center within about 200 yards of IKEA.  Wonder if hipsters can get their flatpacks home with a train and a skateboard

Have eaten at food pods, collections of food carts that are part of the culture, four times and have yet to wowed by taste,  value, or speed.

Was going to post about the general standard of homeliness that prevails here but the librarian today was very cute. And not in the "girl with the glasses , hair pulled back, who never looks you in the eye" way. She was cute in the way that if you brought her to a party all your friends would say, "she's cute"

Portlanders do watch 'Portlandia' but hate to admit they have TVs

_____________________________

Anyway, I am going to stay for a month and see if employers here are just as dismissive of me as there capitalist brethren by the Bay. Am letting a room in a kind of boarding house (private bath, private room, shared kitchen ). Wish me luck on daily human interaction
Will likely buy a laptop to facilitate job search without having to queue up for computer time at the library.
Money saved switching to monthly and far less driving should pay for it.