Homestead website updated Monday, September 22, 2008

It took a little longer than expected, but I finally updated the Homestead Images website today to include some of the architectural shots I've made recently (and a few older ones too). More to come in the near future. Well ... sooner or later.

As usual, feedback is welcome, especially if you find a problem.

www.HomesteadImages.com

Sarah Harmer's long-lost twin?

Yesterday I interviewed and photographed Allison Russell and Awna Teixeira of Po' Girl for the next Headliners feature on Northwest CanCon.

After a couple of shows in Seattle last week, Po' Girl were in Portland for the taping of Live Wire!, a cool variety show that runs on OPB here in Oregon—think Garrison Keilor or Stuart MacLean for a less family-oriented (but still FCC-acceptable) audience.

Alli and Awna were great. We squeezed in a few minutes for an interview and photo session on Sunday morning before they headed to Eugene for their next show.

I'd never seen the band before, but when I got home and was looking at the photos, I kept thinking that Awna looked really familiar. It didn't take long for me to figure it out. I clicked over to Sarah Harmer's website and checked the photos ... they can't be the same person, because Sarah was playing a concert at Mt. Nemo (near Burlington, Ont.) Saturday night, but they must be long-lost twins, no? Maybe it's just me.

The funniest thing was that it turns out Awna is good friends with a girl that I knew (a bit) in high school. Small world.

Anyway, be sure to catch Po' Girl on OPB radio Saturday night, or pick up the podcast here. The interview with Po' Girl should be online before then.

(That's not my photo of Sarah, I borrowed it from the lyrics page on her website.)

Northwest CanCon Headliners: elsiane Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Just a quick heads up about the latest Headliners feature on Northwest CanCon, starring Montreal duo Elsiane. Find it here.

NEW! You should also be able to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. This link should get you set up.

[right] The name of Montreal group Elsiane combines the names of singer Elsianne Caplette and drummer Stephane Sotto. The result sounds like the singer's name, but Stephane is ok with that.

Street of Dreams 2008 Sunday, September 14, 2008

Not much to say about these ... some interior images I shot last week at one of the homes on this year's Street of Dreams. This home was built by KDC Custom Homes.










[left] I thought this one looked cool in sepia, and I added a bit of grain as well. [below] A shot of the garden in front of the home.










In other news from last week, I interviewed Elsiane on Friday for the next Headliners feature on Northwest CanCon. Later that night I saw them perform at the Wonder Ballroom. Elsiane was excellent.

Delerium, another Canadian act, is headlining the tour. They don't have any official singers; they're touring with Kristy Thirsk who often sings with them, and Leigh Nash whom you might remember as the lead singer for Sixpence None The Richer. I got a chance to say hi to her after the show, which was cool. Delerium's show was ... mostly fantastic, with one major problem. I'll write about that later this week on Northwest CanCon when I post the Elsiane interview.

Geocaching Tuesday, September 09, 2008

A plaque marks the site of the first geocaching stash at N 45° 17.460 W 122° 24.800, near Oregon City, Ore. The original cache was hidden there by Dave Ulmer on May 3, 2000, just one day after the government disabled the selective availability system that limited the accuracy of civilian GPS units.

Geocaches are all around you. You can't see them? Probably because you don't know where to look. It helps to find the coordinates on a website like this.

So what is geocaching? You can read the full history here, but basically it's a global game of hide-and-seek. Someone hides a cache somewhere on planet Earth, and posts the coordinates on the website. Then someone else plugs those coordinates into their GPS unit and goes to find it.

About a year ago, I think, my mother sent me a surreptitious email asking what I knew about GPS units, because she thought my dad might enjoy geocaching and she wanted to get him one for Christmas. Well, she was right.

Since then, my parents have been scouring the woods and cities looking for these little hidden treasures. When my dad discovered that the very first geocache was placed about 30 miles from my apartment, it went on his list of "must-dos" when they visited last week.

[right] Alison Ginn opens up the stash at the site of the original geocache.

A typical stash consists of an ammo box or other waterproof container with a logbook for visitors to sign, and some kind of trinket to exchange. The smallest caches—"microcaches"—are just a film canister, and usually don't hold anything more than a roll of paper to sign.

Since the geocaching phenomenon exploded around the globe, several variations on the game have developed.

Some caches, for example, contain a "travel bug"—a little metal key tag with a bar code on it. Whoever finds one is supposed to take it with them, log it into the website, and then hide it in another stash. You can track its progress around the globe. (I think my parents carried three back to Ontario.)

Other caches are puzzle problems—the website doesn't reveal the actual location of the stash, but it sends you out to find clues that reveal the necessary coordinates. Once you have all of those, you know where to locate the cache.

[left] Peter and Alison Ginn read the log book from geocache no. 1 Sept. 2 near Oregon City, Ore.

When you find a cache, particularly at urban sites, you have to be on the lookout for "muggles." The term, adopted from the Harry Potter books, refers to anyone not aware of the sport of geocaching. Sometimes muggles stumble on hidden caches and take them, so you have to be a bit stealthy when you are trying to pinpoint your target in a busy area.

Today there are more than 650,000 geocaches hidden around the globe, and tens of thousands of people looking for them.

Columbia River Gorge Sunday, September 07, 2008

Peter and Alison Ginn hike along the Latourell Falls trail Sept. 2 in the Columbia River Gorge east of Portland, Ore. Latourell Falls is one of several 200-foot-plus cascades in the area.

Last Tuesday was my parents' last full day in Oregon, and we had saved some of the most scenic sites (sights?) for the end.

We headed east from Portland on I-84 as far as Troutdale, then took the historic Columbia River highway. That route goes up and down along the edge of the gorge, providing spectacular views of the river as well as the numerous waterfalls that plunge hundreds of feet off the cliffs.

The stop at Latourell falls was pretty arbitrary—when I was researching online the night before, it was the first hike I came across that was a reasonable length and had some positive recommendations. After prematurely parking on the side of the road on the west side of the bridge, we discovered a large, empty parking lot on the east side.

You can see the lower part of the falls (about 250 feet) right from the parking lot, but you have to hike in about 1.5 miles to see the shorter (about 100 feet) but prettier upper falls. Definitely worth the walk. We tried to return to the parking lot on the other side of the river, but the trail stayed on top of the cliff and kept heading west (we needed to go northeast) so we backtracked, crossed the river on a fallen log, and headed back to the car the way we had come.

After that Latourell Falls, we continued east and stopped at Bridal Veil Falls. That is one of the most popular falls in the gorge, but I'm not sure why. There is a bit more of a park there, and the falls are decent but didn't really stand out in my mind.

The final waterfall of the morning was Multnomah Falls, undoubtedly the most popular (and most well-developed) site in the area.

Multnomah Falls (left) may be the most-photographed sight in Oregon. Easily visible from I-84, the 620-foot chute is the second-highest year-round waterfall in the United States (after Yosemite Falls). It attracts nearly two million visitors a year.

Multnomah Falls drops 620 feet (189 m) off Larch Mountain in three steps: nine feet, 542 feet, and 69 feet. We hiked up as far as the Benson Bridge between the two larger cascades.

We had planned to have lunch there, but we didn't see any suitable spots to picnic, so we drove to Hood River and ate at a swimming beach that appears to have been developed just this summer. The wind was surprisingly still for the gorge, which was nice, but it meant that there weren't any kite boarders or windsurfers to watch.

After lunch, we drove around the "back" of Mt. Hood as far as Sandy. Instead of heading directly back to Portland (via Gresham), though, we cut cross-country toward Estacada to find a geocache. I'll write more about that in the next post.

[right] Obligatory photo of Mt. Hood (11,249 feet). This is looking roughly north from OR-35, just east of the junction with US-26.

The Coast rock the coast Saturday, September 06, 2008

Just a heads-up to my loyal readers ... the interview I did with The Coast at the end of August is now online at Northwest CanCon, along with a portrait of the band and some concert photos. And this snazzy new podcast logo (left).

As you can see, there is a bit of a thin spot in the Portland-area Canadian concert calendar over the next couple of weeks, but after that we get hit hard and fast with at least 13 acts between Sloan (Sept. 27) and Celine Dion (Oct. 16). Other big names over that period include Great Big Sea, Tokyo Police Club, Stars, and Born Ruffians. I probably won't be able to cover them all, but I'll keep you posted on what is coming.

Playing the tour guide again Thursday, September 04, 2008

Peter and Alison Ginn read stories of the pioneers Sept. 1 at the End of the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center in Oregon City. The center teaches visitors about the six-month journey that tens of thousands of immigrants made from Missouri between 1843 and the 1870s.

After a couple weeks touring around Crater Lake, Redwoods National Park and the Oregon coast, my parents stopped back here for a couple more days in and around Portland.

We kept busy, filling both days with as many touristy things as we could.

Since Monday was Labor Day, we decided to postpone our trip to the Columbia Gorge until Tuesday, hoping that the crowds would be smaller.

Instead, we spent the morning at the End of the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center in Oregon City. It looks like they get a lot of school field trips through there, with plenty of hands-on activities for the kids. For the most part though, I found it a bit disappointing considering that it represents such an important part of American history. There were some artifacts there, but the exhibits were really text-heavy.

After we left the Interpretive Center, we found three geocaches near the center. I'll write more on geocaching in another post in the near future.

After lunch and a quick stop at home, it was off to the Portland Japanese Garden. That was definitely worth the price of admission.

Like most of the places I took my parents, this was the first time I'd been to the Japanese Garden. Before going, I guess I thought of Japanese gardens as those flat expanses of combed white sand.

That, of course, was there, but the five-and-a-half acre property has five distinct garden styles. And looking at them, you realize that they each look like Japanese gardens you've seen in a movie or on TV.

The Japanese Garden was designed by Professor Takuma Tono in 1963. According to the garden's brochure, a former ambassador of Japan to the United States described it as "the most beautiful and authentic Japanese garden in the world outside of Japan." The gardens use stone, water and plants to "realize a sense of peace, harmony, and tranquility."

The garden was pretty busy in there; not surprising, I suppose, for a pleasant holiday afternoon. Even so, the sense of tranquility was clearly evident. It would be a great place to go for some quiet contemplation on a weekday afternoon.

Once we'd seen enough of the garden, we wandered around the area looking for more geocaches. We found all three on our list, including one in the International Rose Test Garden, which is right next to the Japanese Garden.

I was impressed with the rose garden, considering that we were about two months past its peak season (June). Here's one of my dad's pictures of the roses.

The Coast tours the (west) coast Tuesday, August 26, 2008

A couple of quick pictures from The Coast's performance tonight at the Towne Lounge in Portland. Ben, Ian, Luke, and Jordan put on a full-energy show for the small Monday night crowd.

The Toronto-based quartet are in the midst of a lengthy tour of the United States. They play in Eugene Wednesday night (Aug. 27) before turning the van to the east.

You can keep up with their tour by reading the blog they're doing for Exclaim.

Look for more photos and an interview with the band on Northwest CanCon in early September.

Dan Mangan interview online Monday, August 25, 2008

The interview I did with Dan Mangan a couple of weeks ago is (finally) online at Northwest CanCon, along with a portrait and a concert photo. Click here to check it out.

Here are a couple of bonus photos for your viewing pleasure. We shot these down at the train station in Portland before his show.

(The one at left is the same as the one on Northwest CanCon, but with a bit of additional post-processing. What do you think ... good or bad?)

Tourists in Oregon Saturday, August 23, 2008

A look at Portland's south waterfront from the aerial tram.

My parents were in Portland for a couple of days last week, visiting me before heading out for a couple of weeks touring around the west coast. Since it was their first visit to the Rose City, I figured I ought to take them out to see all of the touristy places I've never been because I live here.

Wednesday was pretty rainy, but we managed to fit in a walk to Powell's Bookstore, a wander around the Pearl District, and a street car ride to the aerial tram, then back home in time for tea.

[right] The Portland Heights neighborhood in the Southwest Hills is well-populated with large 100-year-old homes with fantastic views of the city, just a couple of miles from the heart of downtown Portland.

My parents are into geocaching, so after tea we went looking for a geocache pretty close to my place (it was really easy to find), and then wandered around the Portland Heights neighborhood looking at houses I'll never be able to afford.

I didn't bring my camera, so I'm posting a couple of my dad's pictures (hope you don't mind, Dad).

Out in the Willamette Valley

Alison Ginn reads a placard Aug. 21 at the Evergreen Aviation Museum. The museum in McMinnville, Ore., is home to the HK-1 Flying Boat, better known as the Spruce Goose.

On the second full day of my parents' visit, the weather was better and it was time to head out into the Willamette Valley. I've driven past the Evergreen Aviation Museum in McMinnville several times but never been inside, so that was on the agenda. And if you're out in McMinnville, how can you go home without stopping at a winery? But first, the airplanes:

Back in 1942 the Hughes Aircraft Co. set about designing an airplane to transport troops and materiel out of the reach of German U-Boats. The bulk of the HK-1, later re-designated as the H-4, was built of wood (mostly birch, not spruce) to minimize the use of critical war materials like aluminum. It had capacity for 750 troops or two tanks.

However, it takes a long time to create a plane that exceeds all existing aircraft in just about every way, and the war was over by the time the prototype was finished in 1947. The H-4 made just one short test flight—about one mile at an altitude of about 70 feet—piloted by Howard Hughes himself.

More than sixty years later the Spruce Goose remains the largest wooden aircraft ever built. With a wingspan of 97.5 m (319 feet, 11 inches), it still holds the record in that category as well.

The Spruce Goose has been at the Evergreen Aviation Museum in McMinnville, Ore., since 1993. The museum's collection includes numerous aircraft and replicas from before the Wright brothers' first flight to modern fighter jets. The museum opened a new building in June to house its space collection. They hope to acquire one of the space shuttles when they are retired in the next few years.

[left] Grape vines stretch over the hills around the Sokol Blosser winery in Dundee, Ore. [below] Peter Ginn looks for photo opportunities Aug. 21 at the Sokol Blosser winery.

After looking at the airplanes for a couple of hours, it was off to the Dundee Bistro for lunch. Then to the wine tasting.

We didn't really go hardcore on that part; none of us are connoisseurs, so just two stops—Sokol Blosser followed by August Cellars. Needless to say, we walked away with several bottles of Oregon's finest.

[left] August Cellars in Newberg, Ore., is home to multiple wineries, but also produces Pinot Noir and other varietals under their own label.

Containers Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Here are the photos of the containers I promised in my previous post. Maybe not that exciting, but I thought they looked cool. And remember, these are each 9-1/2 feet tall ... big stacks of who knows what.

Port of Portland Monday, August 18, 2008

M.V. Angela unloads at the Port of Portland Aug. 14. The Panama-registered vessel carries bulk goods around the world.

I had the cool experience of shooting at the Port of Portland on Thursday, where the M.V. Angela was unloading steel billets at Terminal 6. When the stevedores took their lunch break, I got to go aboard the ship for a look in the hold.

[right] Steel billets sit inside the hold of the M.V. Angela.

It was pretty much what you'd expect—basically a big void inside the hull, separated by four bulkheads. Really, there's nothing but space in the ship forward of the bridge. Still, pretty impressive in a 17-metre (55-foot) deep by 32-metre (106-foot) wide boat. (M.V. Angela is 190 metres (623 feet) long. Read more about it here.)

Terminal 6 is mainly a container terminal. The stacks of containers looked pretty cool, so I took some pictures. But the blogger system seems to be down right now so I can't upload them ... you'll have to wait until later.

Dan Mangan Saturday, August 16, 2008

Vancouver musician Dan Mangan performs at the Towne Lounge in Portland, Ore., Aug. 10, 2008.

I had the opportunity to interview and photograph Vancouver singer/songwriter Dan Mangan last weekend, and then take in his show at the Towne Lounge.

Dan was super cool and very accommodating, to the point of helping carry some of my light stands around when we were making some portraits of him.

[right] Dan's girlfriend, Kirsten, helps him plan out his set list before the show. She traveled with him for this tour which started in New York in late July.

His girlfriend has family in the Portland area, so this was a good stop for him at the end of his U.S. tour. Hopefully we'll see him back here again.

Look for the interview and more photos on Northwest CanCon later this month.

[left] Dan says he's given the "thumbs up" pose at every picture stop on this trip across the country.

Way up north Sunday, August 10, 2008

Paul Bunyan stands watch over the intersection of N Denver and Interstate in Portland. The 37-foot-tall statue was erected in 1959 to honor Oregon's timber industry. It was restored in 1986.

My travels took me to the "deep north" of North Portland the other day, where I re-discovered Paul Bunyan.

The statue made headlines in February of this year when a businessman wanted to buy it and move it to North Carolina. The neighborhood association in Kenton nixed that idea.

[left] Kenton is home to the Kenton Club, by all appearances a generic smoky dive-bar. I don't know what makes it "World Famous."

U.S. sweeps women's sabre in Beijing Saturday, August 09, 2008

Beaverton's Mariel Zagunis (left) probably looked something like this when she won the gold medal in Women's Sabre at the Olympics yesterday. She also won gold at the Olympics in Athens.

I woke up this morning to news that the U.S. women's fencing team swept the medals in Sabre at the Olympics. These were the first three medals for the United States at these games.

You might remember that the team was here in Portland back in April for the National Championships. Two of the three medalists are from the Rose City. Here are some of my pictures from April.

[left] Becca Ward of Portland, Ore., won the bronze medal after losing an emotional match to Zagunis in the semifinals. [below] Sada Jacobson of Dunwoody, Ga., won the silver medal.

Northwest CanCon finds a new home Friday, August 08, 2008

Northwest CanCon has moved to a new home on the web, www.TrilliumMediaServices.com/nwCanCon.

The new address is just one of a number of changes to the site. Some of them are obvious, others less so.

What won’t change is the content: we will continue to bring the latest news from the Canadian music scene to Oregon and Washington, as well as original content that you won’t find anywhere else, including interviews and photographs of the many talented musicians that perform here in the Northwest.

The most significant change should be hardly visible at all: we have switched the engine that drives the site from wordpress.com to wordpress.org. The subtle distinction between the two means much more flexibility for us in terms of the look of the site, and allows us to add certain features that we couldn’t include on the old site.

Chief among those is advertising. You will notice that the site now includes advertisements from Google’s AdSense program. While we do not wish to clutter up the site with obnoxious commercials, this is the first, necessary step in making the site self-supporting.

Another noticeable change is the opening page: instead of starting on the news page, the new site opens with the concert calendar. We are still evaluating whether this is the best landing page for the site, but the thinking is that the concert calendar is the heart of Northwest CanCon: the site is all about finding acts that are playing in our region, which is the point of the calendar. If you move to a different page on the site, you can always click “Concert Listings” to get back there.

Our news stories have moved to their own page: click on “Canadian Music News” or bookmark this page.

If you subscribe to our RSS feed, you will have to change your subscription. Click the link near the upper right of the page, or here.

The other major opportunity that the new site affords is better stats tracking. While the old site offered some measure of our readership, it couldn’t (or wouldn’t) tell us anything about the geographical distribution of our visitors. By moving over to the .org system, we can now use the statistics tracker of our choosing, which will ultimately help us to serve you better.

At some point in the future, Northwest CanCon is likely to have its own domain. Until then, you can find us at www.TrilliumMediaServices.com/nwCanCon. Be sure to look for exclusive interviews with The Pack A.D., Thee Manipulators, and Dan Mangan over the next three weeks.

The Pack A.D.

Becky Black of The Pack A.D. unleashes the lion Aug. 7 at The East End in Portland. The duo from Vancouver, B.C., is nearing the end of a six-week U.S. tour. Their second album, Funeral Mixtape, will be released Aug. 12.

Here's a sneak preview of something that will appear on Northwest CanCon in the next couple of days. I caught The Pack A.D.'s show at The East End tonight, and talked to them afterward. It was a short set for them, the second of the day after driving from Bozeman, Mont., and there were only a handful of fans there to see them.

This is a terribly cliche thing to say, but let me tell you, these girls know how to rock, and rock hard. It's been said elsewhere, but this is a band you ought to see now while it's still pretty cheap.

[right] Maya Miller bashes the skins as Becky growls.

Flugtag hits Portland Sunday, August 03, 2008

The "Back to the Future" craft plunges into the Willamette River Aug. 2 followed by members of its pushing crew at Flugtag Portland 2008. More than 80,000 people flocked to Tom McCall Waterfront Park Saturday afternoon to watch 31 teams from across the West compete in the event.

Sponsored by Red Bull, Flugtag started in Austria in 1991. More than 40 events later, "flying day" has spread around the world from Ireland to San Francisco.

This Saturday, it made its second trip to the Rose City. Flugtag is a little too commercialized to be truly hip, but it is the kind of weird that Portland loves. More than 80,000 packed into Waterfront Park to watch competitors push homemade "flying" vehicles off a 25-foot high ramp into the Willamette River.

The teams are ostensibly competing for distance, but clearly creativity and panache are at least as important. Entries were modeled on a range of themes from Lego airplanes to a Chinese food take-out box.

Read more about the event on the official website. The Oregonian's report is here.

[right] Team Yakima used their Big Wheel-themed glider to maximum effect, winning first prize with a 62-foot flight. [below] Competitors and their homemade craft wait in the staging area before launch.








[below left] Tom McCall Waterfront Park was packed for the event, and dozens of boats crowded the Willamette River as well. [below right] Event staff clean up the wreckage of "Space Balls," a team from Everett, Wash., based on the 1987 Star Wars spoof. Although the vehicle broke apart as it left the launch ramp, the team went home with the People's Choice award.