Techno/Marketing/Creative Gun For Hire
Every city has it’s nicknames but I’ve never seen a city with so many as Portland. The Rose City, Stumptown, P-Town, Bridgetown, Rip City, PDX. Did I miss any? I think I read that The City of Roses is now the official nickname so congratulations, at least we decided on something. My favorite is Stumptown. It is a somewhat obscure historical reference and has a good ring to it. I also love the coffee.
Coming from California to Portland this year we were really looking forward to some snow this winter. Boy did Portland ever deliver for us. Not only did we get some snow but from what I understand it never snows this early. I hope that means we may get some more as we get deeper into winter. We are so appreciating getting some actual seasons here. Summer was warm and dry, fall was fantastic with color and winter is actually wintery. I think it’s easier to enjoy summer when you’ve been through a cold and wet winter. In California it’s hard to appreciate anything because it’s warm and dry all the time. It’s monotonous. So thank you Portland for some actual winter. That was fun.
I’m constantly amazed at the number of tattoos I see in and around Portland. All kinds of people, young and old, male and female, every race and creed is tattooed in Portland. I once read Portland is the most tattooed city next to San Francisco. It certainly makes for a colorful and interesting place. Forgive me for my naiveté for remember, I came from Orange County, CA, one of the most conservative parts of the country. While we are on the subject, let me also recommend a great book called Tattoo Machine by Jeff Johnson of the Sea Tramp Tattoo shop right here in Portland, OR. It’s a good read and provides real behind the scenes insights into the tattoo world and the running of a shop. Have I thought about getting a tattoo? Sure. Will I ever get one? Doubtful.
I have noticed a lot of differences from Southern California since moving here, but one of the nicest is fall. The temperatures have fallen nicely and the fall color is dazzling. Compared to Southern California where the temperatures never seem to change, I am loving the chill. The changing of the leaves is yet another thing we just don’t get in California much, at least not like I’m experiencing in Portland.
You might think it would be so great to be warm and sunny all the time with little to no rain. Trust me, it’s monotonous. Oh, I know people who do love it and wouldn’t leave California to save their lives, but I have always enjoyed feeling the change in seasons.
People like to give Portland a hard time for the weather. I don’t see the problem.
Housing website and blog Zillow has published their top cities for trick or treating and Portland ranks #3! Zillow uses an interesting data set to come up with their rankings including walkability, crime and house value. It’s not always the richest neighborhoods that have the best candy by the way.
Who ranks better than Portland? Among others, at the number 1 spot, the old nemesis to the north, Seattle! Doh!
I love a good breakfast, simple and easy. Give me a nice egg with some toast and hash browns and I’m a happy guy. What I have discovered, much to my delight, is Portland is a great place for breakfast. In Southern California I could never find many good breakfast places and when I did it was usually a larger corporate related place. Portland has so many “mom and pop” places that can’t be beat. My recent favorite is Bumblekiss which I found by while searching Yelp.com. Don’t think social media is important to businesses, especially local business? Think again. Let me know in the comments you favorite breakfast places in Portland.
Oh how I wish it was a post about Led Zeppelin. Alas, in the past two weeks I have become somewhat of a lead paint abatement expert. We are now working with a lead expert to complete the stripping of our house of the old lead paint. He has also done testing of the soil outside and dust inside to see what the level of contamination is. More than likely, we are going to have to pay a hefty sum to have the interior of the house cleaned and made lead safe. We may even have to pay for our neighbors house to be cleaned depending on if lead got in their home. Every day is another mini disaster.
Now you would think, no problem, go after the painting contractor for all the money and that would be a good idea, except since he is not licensed, he has no bond to sue against. That leaves me with the option of going after him personally. This is likely more time consuming and difficult but at this point all options are on the table. How many assets does this guy actually have? I’m guessing not that many.
I’ve seen others who have gone through this experience become lead paint zealots. I have no intention of doing this, but if you need some advice or information on lead paint removal feel free to shoot me an email and I will share with you what I know.
It’s been a hellish week here in Portland. The home we bought is very old and had ugly siding when we bought it. One of the first things we knew we wanted to do was remove the siding and repaint. Everyone told us this would be a fairly easy project; No problem. What nobody figured out was that because the house is very old there was a very good chance the paint underneath the siding would be lead based. Being lead based, removal of this paint could be difficult and very expensive.
This is exactly what has happened. Lots of lead based paint and it’s in terrible condition. Once we ripped off the siding though we were stuck going through with stripping of the paint. We could have put on more siding but nobody does that and it really defeats the whole purpose.
So here we are handing over a check for way more than I ever expected to pay to restore the outside of the house and they are taking open flame blow torches to it. I have since learned there are several ways to strip lead paint from a house, none of them wonderful or neat. The blow torch heats up the paint until it bubbles at which point it is easy to scrape off. If you heat the paint too hot however lead paint fumes are released. Not a good thing at all. For this and other reasons it’s illegal to use a blow torch to remove lead paint in Oregon. Our company insisted what they were doing was perfectly safe. They were wrong and as we found out later they were also in violation of a number of other legal requirements form removing lead paint. Not only that but the company itself was working without a proper license as it had been revoked. Now we are stuck with a house one third stripped and looking again for a company we can trust.
Portland is known for many things. I have heard it called Stumptown, there are the bridges and of course the beer and coffee. In living here a few months, however, there is another moniker that needs to be applied, Dogtown. I’ve never seen a place with so many dogs. I especially like all the affordances dogs are given at businesses. Many shops have special dog treats or at least a water bowl for visiting dogs. Dogs regularly ride in special carriers on the back of bikes. I haven’t fully figured it out yet, but Portland loves it dogs.
After much delay, I have finally launched Action Dads PDX. This is a website and blog about and for highly involved dads in the Portland Oregon area. Rather than a generic daddy blog like so many others are doing, Action Dads PDX is hyper-local, focused on being a dad in Portland specifically. I also want to make the site a resource with great ideas and listings for great parks, cool places to eat, and road trips, all for a dad to experience with the kids. I’ll be looking for and needing plenty of input from the community, so please don’t be shy to drop by the site and add your ideas, knowledge and experience.
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