Chaos Love: love, life, design and more.

Don't believe it when people tell you the Pacific North West is always cold and damp. Today was my first, bona fide, 100°F day (40°C) in America. Luckily, there was a bit of a breeze in the morning, but the afternoon was still and stinking hot. Not as humid as Sydney heat, but still quite warm enough, thank you very much!

So Christine, Kim, Kevin and I went to see Body Worlds 3 down at OMSI - the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. I don't think this type of exhibition has made it down to Australia yet (although there are a lot of imitators and similar exhibitions, so I could be wrong), and it certainly is an eye opener. Plastinated (super super preserved, basically) human bodies arranged in action poses. Muscles, nerves, organs and brains are all on display in all sorts of creative and slightly nausea-inducing ways, but it really is fascinating. The exhibit goes to great pains to note that all the bodies are those of donors, and there's even a form for you to take home if you decide you would like to further science by having your cadaver shown kicking a soccer ball for the edification of future generations. Art, science or showmanship? I'm still not sure, but the sight of a plastinated bactrian camel was something to behold!

Posted in: chaosboy, portland, shows on July 10, 2007 at at 10:07:00 PM 1 comments    

So, we've been a little remiss in not letting you all know how our move to our new home went... I guess that we've been more caught up in the doing rather than the reporting of the event! So without further ado, here's some pix of the new abode!

Here's Christine grooving away in the main living/dining room. Dig that funky 1950s fireplace, complete with "floating hearth", as it was described to us. Looks like a nice place to sit during a freezing Portland winter night. We need to hide as much of that wood panelling as possible with awesome art!

This is the kitchen. Again, lots of woodiness on display, but it has heaps and heaps of storage space, a funky blue counter top and a dishwasher! Joy! The oven, fridge, stove and rangehood are all brand spanking new! Plus we bought a microwave at Fred Meyer for $60, so we're all set culinary-wise!

Here's the view up the stairs. We have a half-bathroom on the ground floor which is nice, and the main bathroom is at the top of the stairs. The bedroom is the first door to the right, and then our computer/study is closest to the camera. We love the open space created by the "balcony" at the top of the stairs!

This is our pride and joy... a totally cloud-like California King Size bed (there are two King sizes in America, Standard and California). After the teeny, rock hard futon we slept on at the old place, this bed is like heaven! There's quite a story to be told about our acquisition of this bed - suffice to say that I learned a lot about Consumer Protection Laws in Oregon! But it's here now and we loves it!

The computer room, otherwise known as The Temple of Geek. It has a lovely balcony that overlooks a little courtyard. We bought the cute green bookcase at Porchlight down on Mississippi Ave... gradually filling this place with furniture!

And a look down off our internal "balcony" to the front door. Isn't the light fitting awesome? All part of the style that we love about this place... hope you enjoyed your tour!

Posted in: chaosboy, home, portland on July 8, 2007 at at 8:50:00 PM 1 comments    

The Sound of Home
Originally uploaded by Senex Prime.

The Oregon Zoo has a display of lorikeets, small parrots that come mainly from Australia and New Guinea. To most of the visitors from the zoo, these are very exotic, colourful birds, rarely seen.

To me, they're home.

It's only once I heard their distinctive shrill screeches as I neared their enclosure that I realised what an integral part of the soundtrack to my life these little birds have been: I would wake up every morning in Sydney to the sound of flocks of Rainbow Lorikeets (has there ever been a more apt name for a bird?) flashing past my window. We are so lucky to have birds like this in the middle of the biggest city in Australia and we just tend to take it for granted. And it's not just lorikeets - we have Sulphur Crested Cockatoos (the definitive cockatoo), galahs, king parrots, black cockatoos and more. By comparision, Portland seems very quiet and less colourful. All I've really seen so far in the metropolitan area are seagulls, pigeons and scrub jays... none of which are quite in the same category as these wonderful little birds.

Posted in: australia, chaosboy, portland on July 5, 2007 at at 11:23:00 AM 1 comments    

So, its not the most exciting aspect of my life but I thought I would touch up on work here. While Cam gets to lounge at home I get to answer iPhone questions but mostly tell people that we don't have them. Its a cool product, don't get me wrong, but I am really enjoying how this product has taken over everyone's mind. People are crazed I tell ya. They come in and get MAD that we don't offer them. One woman tried to trade in her iPod. And its not that we wouldn't take it, she just wouldn't have it any other way than to get an iPhone in return. Store credit just wouldn't do. People should be lucky that Portland has some left at all. Chicago sold out in 50 minutes. So if you want to get an iPhone, get one, and then come to me for all your accessories. Cause, Apple will let us carry those. It's still fun watching the ongoing scurry.

We made our own iPhone.*


*Not real iPhone

Posted in: apple, chaosgurl, weirdness on July 2, 2007 at at 3:07:00 PM 0 comments    

Drats Are In Your Living Room!
Originally uploaded by Senex Prime.

So Christine and I have finally got out of our new little house to go and see what's up with Portland entertaiment-wise. On Tuesday night, we headed to the Crystal Ballroom to catch the mighty John Butler Trio (an Aussie band is the first gig I see in America, how ironic!). Christine had scored free tix because she helped the guys from the band buy themselves new MacBook Pros and iPods the day before. Sweet!

Now, I've always been aware of the John Butler Trio, but I don't think you could say I was a huge fan. Some good songs, but not great was my opinion. If we hadn't got freebies, it's not a show I would have paid to go to. Wow, would I have missed out! They are definitely a band that grow an extra leg live... they rocked all night and had the crowd (the venue was sold out, probably about 2,500 people there) screaming for more at the end. The night ended with a huge 10 minute drum solo (which was NOT boring!) and even the jaded event security guy we talked to at the end - who had never heard of the band before - was mightily impressed.

Then last night, we headed off to take in a Portland institution - "Last Thursday". On the last Thursday of each month (strange, that!), Alberta Street in NE Portland is lined with art, craft, performance artists, buskers and food and everyone in town comes along to soak up the atmosphere. Unfortunately, it was raining last night, so we spent most of our time indoors at The Porch, a live music venue that is normally the front porch of a house, but which was the living room last night because of the rain! The band that was playing was Drats (pictured), who Christine and Kim have both told me about and they were excellent! Certainly not easy to pigeonhole into any one genre, but definitely high energy and very entertaining!

Posted in: chaosboy, music, portland, shows on June 29, 2007 at at 11:31:00 AM 0 comments    

Posted in: chaosgurl, chaoslove on June 27, 2007 at at 8:03:00 PM 0 comments    

This is the first in an occasional series about things that I feel are different between Australia and the US... just stuff that I have observed and feel is noteworthy, and perhaps more importantly, whether I like it or not!

So today's discussion point is bar tabs. Whenever you go into a pub, bar or brewpub here in Portland, the bar staff will always ask you whether you want to run a tab. It doesn't matter if it's just you or a group of people, one drink or many, they'll still ask you. Tabs in Australia are generally only run for large groups and often only with prior arrangement with management, so this took a little while for me to get my head around.

So you hand over your credit or debit card and it gets kept behind the counter, often in an unused glass. You can then order all your drinks and food throughout the night without having to fish for money, or having to leave behind dollar bills for tips each time you buy a drink. At the end of the night, you simply ask for your tab, add one tip based on the total amount spent, sign your name and head off. Just don't forget to take your card back, or even worse, forget you have a tab running and just leave!

Overall, Chaosboy gives bar tabs American style a big thumbs up, if only because it stops me worrying about how much I should tip for each round of drinks!

Posted in: chaosboy, general musings, portland, united states on June 23, 2007 at at 10:55:00 AM 0 comments    

I don't think I've told you yet just how ridiculously good Portland is for bike riding... the place is literally criss-crossed with bike lanes which can take you just about anywhere. I ride my bike almost every day and love how much fitter I am feeling already. There's a big hill from the city to our neighbourhood which absolutely killed me the first time I attempted to climb it... I went that way again a couple of days ago and cruised pretty easily all the way up. I have one of those dinky little bike computers now, so I know I'm doing about 8 to 9 miles (13 to 15km) each day, and I have reached a maximum speed of a whopping 47.4 mph (76 km/h!!) when I was coming down from the top of Rocky Butte... that's some hill!

So here's a picture of me in full bike-riding mode, sitting on the lower deck of the Steel Bridge as we waited for it to close after letting a big ship through... got the gloves and everything! :-)

Posted in: chaosboy, portland, sport on at at 10:42:00 AM 0 comments    

Despite the fact that we missed out on a medal this year, the Rose Festival on the Willamette River was a blast. In this hastily put together video, Team Fusion qualifies (barely) in the first race for the Semi-Finals. The team works on their technique and focuses for the upcoming race which would ultimately put them in the Finals. I was in the first heat and therefore was not chosen for the next one, which gave me a chance to make this short documentary. I'm sure you can get a sense of the mood the team shared despite the tension that loomed in our bones.



I am happy to have educated those who showed up to see a few races. Although I still feel quite new to the sport, I have developed pride in it and its no contest that we definitely look cool out there. And I was thrilled to be able to use our sweet new camera to capture this gloomy but high driven Sunday, June 10th.

Posted in: chaosgurl, portland, sport on June 13, 2007 at at 9:17:00 AM 2 comments    

We have a venue for our wedding! The ceremony will take place at dawn (around 5:45am) on the 21st July, 2007 at the grandly named James Wood Hill Park, set high atop Rocky Butte, an old volcanic plug. It has spectacular 360° views with the Cascades arrayed to the east and Portland itself to the west. If the day is clear, we should be able to see from Mt Rainier in the north to Mt Hood in the south... truly majestic!

We had originally planned to hire Council Crest Park in the hills to the south-west of Portland, but it proved to be unavailable for that day. S after a little research on the internet, we decided upon Rocky Butte and booked it immediately, sight unseen. So the next day, I jumped on my bike and went to have a look. I had to walk my bike up the last mile or so, as the road to the top is rather steep, but the views are certainly worth it, as you can see from this stitched panorama:



Try clicking and holding inside the movie to scroll from one end of the view to the other. You can also zoom in (Shift key)and out (Control key or the PC equivalent!).

The initial view is to the north and the panorama scrolls anti-clockwise to the west, past Portland International Airport (PDX) on the south bank of the Columbia River to Portland itself to the west. The Cascades run all the way from the south to the north on the eastern side, although all the major peaks are unfortunately hidden by cloud in this picture. The Columbia River runs through the spectacular Columbia River Gorge to the north west.

Posted in: chaosboy, photography, portland, wedding on June 11, 2007 at at 10:15:00 AM 0 comments