Chaos Love: love, life, design and more.

For the last week or so, Portland has been in the icy grip of winter come early. It's been snowing pretty much every day: everything from a light sprinkle to a full blizzard with howling 50mph winds over at Troutdale, where cold wind has been roaring down the Columbia River Gorge. When the snow first started, the weather teams on the news were fairly unconcerned. They expected less than an inch of snow in Portland itself and told us that the system would move on soon. Here's Christine out in the light snow of the first day, when it was a fun novelty (as an Australian, I'm easily impressed by snow and still find it fascinating!).

However, it soon became apparent that the cold, snowy weather was going to set in for a longer period of time, and basically, all hell broke loose. As I may have mentioned before, Portland TV news is obsessed with the weather, and any sort of snow storm at all was an excuse for that obsession to become full-blown scare-mongering. You'd think it was the end of the world based on the coverage that a couple of inches of snow is getting. Entire news bulletins have been given over to the weather (Seriously! There was no other news at all, nothing local, national or international!), filled with radar and satellite images, ODOT highway camera shots and a veritable horde of reporters stationed at every potential motoring trouble spot around town. They went to tire shops to report that snow chains had sold out, we were warned to stock up on food in case we couldn't leave the house, they told us that roads were icy and impassable and that we shouldn't leave the house unless our needs were imperative and urgent. In short, a media-hyped "Snowpocalypse" was upon us, and yea verily, Portland trembled in fear.

Christine, having grown up in Idaho Falls – where they can get huge amounts of snow each winter – was incredulous. People interviewed on the news who were from Spokane and Montana were similarly dismissive of Portland's hysterical attitude to a tiny bit of snow. Because faced with the terrifying prospect of 2 to 3 inches of snow, the city basically shut down. Schools closed for the entire week. Businesses told their staff not to come in to work. Churches cancelled services. The roads are almost entirely devoid of traffic.

In a way, the hysteria is somewhat justified, purely because Portland just isn't used to snow. It rarely snows on the floor of the Willamette Valley, and sticking snow is rarer still. Until this last week, I had only seen tiny flurries of sad, wet snow that lasted for 20 minutes or so in Portland, melting almost as soon as it hit the ground. Sustained snow like this is a rare occurence and Portlanders don't know how to deal with it. Multnomah County only has a handful of snow plows and de-icing trucks. Even working around the clock, they can't keep all of Portland's roads clear. People aren't used to driving on snowy or icy streets - many people interviewed on the news have admitted to not knowing how to fit snow chains at all - and accidents then ensue. I've seen something very similar to this when I was in England in January 2004. A light dusting of snow across the south-east of the country basically brought everything to a complete standstill for three days for exactly the same reasons - little or no infrastrucure to deal with it, and a lack of knowledge amongst drivers.

The weather only really got nasty last night, as the snow turned into what is known as freezing rain. This rain freezes instantly upon landing, and covers every surface with thick, crunchy ice. The snow, which had been fresh and fluffy up until then, suddenly had a creme brulee-like crust of ice on top, which broke as you walked upon it. Cars were rimed with thick ice, which has to be broken off before going anywhere.

Here, Christine inspects our car as we attempted to thaw it out this morning. The engine is on with the heater at full blast to defrost the window from the inside - you can see a lighter patch of ice where it is beginning to detach from the windscreen. Then it's a matter of scraping and tapping the ice off the windows until they are clear. The process took us over half an hour; some of the ice on the window was a good 5mm thick!

This is the view as we drove down Interstate Avenue after freeing our car. A good few inches of snow mask the lane markings and the curb, but the All Wheel Drive of the Subaru does an admirable job of making driving in these conditions relatively easy. Certainly not anywhere near as bad as the news would have you believe. One thing to note is that the MAX light rail (the tracks are in the middle of the road above) was not running along the Yellow Line through our neighbourhood today. The points down at the Rose Quarter have frozen solid, making it impossible for trains to come our way! Trains are also not running to the airport for the same reason - not that it matters, as most flights out of PDX have been cancelled. I-84 through the Columbia River Gorge has also been closed due to the blizzard through there last night. This turn of events certainly merits the media's attention, but after having been told that the End of Days is upon us for over a week now, it kind of feels like the boy who cried "wolf!" to me now - if you sensationalise everything, then what do you do when things actually get bad?

Posted in: chaosboy, portland, weather on December 21, 2008 at at 3:36:00 PM 1 comments    

The ad shown above is possibly the most reprehensible piece of television advertising I have ever seen. Whoever thought this concept up should be taken out and force-fed the advertiser's product until they throw up or something.

It looks to me like the ad is trying to play off the success of Borat – simple people from a strange foreign country who are all craving the taste of America. And therein lies the problem - surely there should be places in the world where people just don't eat burgers. It's not part of their culture or their way of life. What right does an American burger conglomerate have to come in and feed them this stuff, even for just an ad? It smacks of arrogant cultural imperialism to me and makes this ad extremely unpalatable.

Note the way that the ad actually says very little that actually backs their claim that "the Whopper Virgins have spoken". There's no "9 out of 10 Inuits tested prefer our burger to the competitors", the ad just says "these individuals prefer the Whopper". So maybe only the three or four people we see actually prefer the Whopper. What if they fed burgers to 400 Thai tribesmen and only one liked it? Ah, weasel words at their very finest.

Finally, the look on some of their faces as they point out the Whopper seems to suggest they'd rather be eating anything else than a burger (Check out the Romanian lady at 19 seconds). However, they're only given the choice between the two burgers in front of them. It's almost like they're being asked "which pile of mud tastes better?" and a victory seems damning with faint praise.

Really, the only way this ad could be worse, be more cultually insensitive, is if they'd decided to take their beef-filled sandwiches to a small village in India and ask them what they thought of it.

Posted in: advertising, chaosboy, united states, weirdness on December 15, 2008 at at 10:24:00 AM 1 comments    

We have wheels!

Although Portland is a great city for biking around and has great public transport options, there are times when you just need a car. Whether it's for a shopping trip, a party in the far reaches of south-east PDX or – most importantly for me – for getting the heck out of of town on weekends. Up until now, we've got by with using Zip/Flex cars for shorter trips and hiring cars/hitching rides for those longer journeys, but these do require some degree of planning and aren't exactly spontaneous methods of transport.

So we started looking around at options for a car of our own. By the strangest of coincidences (or not), Christine's mom was looking to get herself a new car and was more than willing to cut us a good deal on her old Subaru Forester. We just had to come up with the cash in a lump sum, as she rightly said that monthly payments to her would put an unnecessary strain of family friendships. We had around half of the money already, so set out to obtain a loan for the other half.

To cut a long story short, it was an adventure in itself. We found out that while I am on my "interim" 2-year Green Card, I actually don't exist in terms of a credit rating. My rating is ZERO and will not move until I qualify for my full 10-year Green Card. This meant that Christine had to qualify for and take on the responsibility for the loan all by herself - my income could not be added to hers as proof of ability to repay the loan! In the end, we had to take a secured loan where the car itself stands as equity and the interest rate is somewhat horrific. The good news is that Christine will have an awesome credit rating when we finish paying the loan off!

Once the money was secured, we just had to get ourselves to Idaho Falls to pick up our new car. Plane fares the day after Thanksgiving are possibly the cheapest fares of the holiday season, and the planes themselves amongst the emptiest I have travelled on in the US. We spent a couple of happy, lazy days with Keener and Karen (gotta love having a beer in the hot tub out on the deck!) before taking possession of our new wheels and driving back to Portland.

I had made sure to get an Instructional Driving Permit from the DMV before we left, meaning that I can drive so long as a licensed driver is sitting next to me. It's kind of embarrassing to be treated like an "L" driver when I've driven for over 10 years in Australia without a single accident, but them's the rules! This meant we could share the driving on the way home, some 760 miles (1,200km) away. We took two days to drive home, taking the (slightly longer) scenic route rather than racing home along the (very dull) Interstate. Along the way, we stopped off at two of the most amazing places I have ever seen – Craters of the Moon National Monument in Idaho and the Painted Hills in Central Oregon.

Craters of the Moon is a giant lava field spreading across the Snake River plain, a huge black scar that suddenly appears as you drive along the highway. Within the park, giant cinder cones rise up above the twisted black lava, while underneath your feet lie huge lava tubes – caves left behind as rivers of lava cooled over, forming long tubes. We spent a long time exploring the park, going down into one of the lava tubes, Indian Tunnel. This tube is the only one you can explore without a helmet and a light source, as regular roof collapses have left many "skylights" along the tunnel's 800 foot length. The tube is over 50 feet wide and 30 feet high and is an amazing sight. One day, we will return properly equipped and explore the other tubes, some of which have permanent ice on the cave floor!

The Painted Hills – which we saw on the second day – are part of the John Day Fossil Beds, one of the most important sources of prehistoric mammalian fossils (and their entire ecosystem) in the world. The hills themselves are an ancient riverbed, with layer upon layer of different coloured alluvial soils – and their attendant fossils – now compressed into beautiful folded hills. Much like Uluru in Australia, the hills can change colour completely depending on the light and the forms created by light and shadow are nothing short of amazing.

We were treated with more spectacular sights as we reached the home stretch – the Cascades mountain range spread out before us, high volcanic peaks dotting the horizon from north to south, with Mount Jefferson (below) and Mount Hood being particularly view-worthy as sunset approached.
Finally, we reached home and began our new life with our own transport. Now we just have to get enough cash together to register the car in Oregon, and I have to get around to getting a real driver's license!

Posted in: chaosboy, idaho falls, oregon, photography, travel on at at 8:57:00 AM 0 comments    

The end of year holiday season lasts much longer in America than it does in Australia - it starts at Halloween and continues unabated until New Years. Between candies in October, turkey dinners in November and the festivities of Christmas still to come, I have come to a horrible realisation – I'm gaining weight in an appalling way.

I hadn't weighed myself since I arrived in America, but I knew that when I arrived I was around 80kg (176 pounds). Well, someone thought it would be a good idea – believe it or not – to have a set of scales at a Thanksgiving dinner (why, God, why?). Weighing in for a laugh, I was shocked to discover that I was weighing in at 190 pounds (86kg), which is as big as I have ever been. Last time, I had the benefit of backpacking around Europe, walking 10-20km a day and living on a diet of bread and sausage for six months to help me get back down to a svelte 70kg (154 pounds). This time, however, I'm going to have to do this the hard way.

Even though I ride my bike all over town, it hardly seems to count as exercise anymore. My body has got so used to riding that I barely get puffed even going up the big hill along Interstate Avenue on the way home. With a gym membership out of our price bracket at the moment (not that gyms have ever really worked for me before!), I decided that I would have to start jogging to get a better all-over workout. Christine got me an iPod Nike+ kit cheap through her store, and I set out for my first run. For my first run, I thought I'd start easy and do a 4-mile loop along a cliff-top road near our house. Boy, was I in for a shock.

I could barely run for three minutes at a time without being completely out of breath and getting a really sore back. Walking at a moderately fast pace was okay, but I'm going to need to do more than that to burn some calories. Fortunately, the Nike+ website that links to the device you put in your shoe has a training program that builds you up from a walk to running over a 12 week period. I've been doing it for just over a week now and I'm already feeling a little more capable, although there's still a way to go! I find that the training program is all the incentive I need to get out and do my half-an-hour a day, although the incredible cold snap (temperatures well below freezing from Tuesday through Friday, with a big chance of snow sticking in Portland itself) that Portland is about to go through may tax my resolve over the next few days! Here's to continued exercise and weight loss... kind of like a New Year's Resolution a few weeks early!

Posted in: chaosboy, exercise on December 13, 2008 at at 7:41:00 PM 0 comments    

Let's get one thing straight: Portland – or more specifically, Portland TV news – is obsessed with the weather. Maybe it's because the four local stations, KATU 2, KOIN 6, KGW 8 and FOX 12 all seem to have four news shows running directly after each other and they need to fill them with something. And I'm not kidding here... the evening schedule on KATU looks something like this.

• The 4 o'clock news (FIRST AT FOUR!)
• The 5 o'clock news
• The 6 o'oclock (national) news
• The 6.30 news
• Some other TV programs getting in the way of more news
• The 11 o'clock news

Geez! Really? Portland ain't that big of a town and, when it comes down to it, not a lot happens here. So for one network to give us more than four hours of local news a day (there's also the morning news to consider!) is kinda ludicrous.

So it ain't surprising that they fill a lot of this time with inane banter between the anchors and that great time-filler, the weather. On a really slow news day, the weather can be the big top story of the day. "And in breaking news, we cross to Rod, our chief meteorologist, for more news on that rain that could be coming our way on Veterans' Day." I made that story up, but it's not too far from the truth.

Each channel prides itself on its extensive weather coverage: "Your Storm Watch Team!" intones the Voice Over Man™ solemnly, or, "your trained local meteorologists!" followed by, "Doppler 8000 radar!!!" (whatever that actually is!) and every channel has a veritable arsenal of weather cameras dotted around northern Oregon. Out at the coast, along the Columbia River, on every tall building in Portland – just waiting to show you what it currently looks like outside. I dunno, if I wanted to know what it was like outside right now, I could just... go outside.

Look, we all like to know what the weather's going to be like (although at this time of year in Portland, "rainy and cold" is probably the answer pretty much every day), but do we really need vast tracts of time every night given over to the subject? I really bet the forecast hasn't changed that much in the five minutes since they last gave it to us...

Posted in: chaosboy, general musings, portland, weather on November 9, 2008 at at 6:32:00 PM 0 comments    

It's almost 7:30pm Pacific Time here in the United States, and the race for the Presidency - the most powerful job in the world, as they say - is almost over. At the moment, Barack Obama holds 207 Electoral College votes to John McCain's 135. Under the US's remarkably obtuse voting system, once a candidate reaches 270 votes, they have a majority and are declared the victor.

More importantly, Obama has just (and I mean minutes ago!) been declared the winner of the state of Ohio. Much like the Federal electorate of Eden-Monaro back home in Australia, it is the bellwether state - you just don't win the Presidency without winning Ohio.

I haven't commented on the election yet on this blog, basically because the one thing everyone hates is a know-it-all foreigner telling them how things should be done and who you should vote for. But, on the actual night, and with America on the verge of history, I feel that I can offer a few observations.

The electoral process in this country takes far, far, far too long. The initial primaries and caucuses to select the Presidential candidates begin in January, the election itself is in November! The period inbetween is filled with campaigning, saturation of television with increasingly negative and vitriolic ads, followed by more campaigning. It's draining, annoying and ever present. The amount of money raised and spent by the campaigns over this period is staggering, ridiculous and even slightly obscene. At least electoral campaigns only last six weeks or so in Australia - a blessed relief!

Sarah Palin. I'm not even going to dignify her with a comment.

The Obama campaign has done a remarkable job encouraging young people and minorities to get out and vote.

The financial crisis couldn't have come at a worse time for the Republican party - if you preside over a meltdown like that, it's always going to be difficult to win an election, even with a new President at the helm.

The Senatorial battle in Oregon between Jeff Merkley (D) and Gordon Smith (R) has to be one of the dirtiest, nastiest no-holds barred fights I have ever seen.

Finally, I feel that Barack Obama is the right choice for this country. He's not perfect - no politician is - but he is a statesman, something America desperately needs after eight years of President Stupid. At this point in time, change is needed and that's what Obama offers.

Posted in: chaosboy, politics, united states on November 4, 2008 at at 7:27:00 PM 0 comments    

A couple of weekends ago, our good friend Leah called me up in a bit of a tizzy. Leah works in the campaign office for Jeff Merkley, the Democrat's Oregon candidate for the US Senate, and needed my help in a hurry. Her usual graphic designer had gone AWOL and they needed some posters and postcards for a huge campaign event – Al Gore was coming to town to talk and endorse Jeff – and they were needed yesterday. Could I help? Never one to let a friend down, I stepped up to the plate and produced the material n record time. The front of the postcard is above... not ground-breaking work, but it does the job and was commented on favourably by all parties.

Leah, recognising my hard work, went to her boss and asked that he pay me for my work. However, asking a campaign manager for money for what they consider to be "volunteer work" a few weeks out from election day tends to be a fruitless exercise – how can you pay for all those interminable TV spots if you're handing cash over to some graphic designer? Leah stuck to her guns, saying that I had have earned something for my work, and in the end managed to score Christine and I free tickets to the event. And not just any tickets, these were "have your photo taken with Al Gore before the show" tickets, which were being offered to the public for the tidy sum of $1000 a head.

I'll admit that initially I was quite bemused by the offer of the tickets: while I admire Al Gore, especially for what he's done outside of politics regarding climate change, I felt a little distanced from him, like I didn't know enough about him to deserve the chance to meet him. However, by the morning of the event, I was pretty excited.

We both dressed up for the event – it's not often you meet ex-Vice Presidents and you'd like to look your best – and headed down to the Convention Center after work. We found Leah soon after arriving and she made sure that we got what she had promised us. Another volunteer only wanted to give us general admission tickets – Leah was having none of that! Pretty soon, we were lining up with all the others to meet Mr. Gore, but we were waiting for almost an hour. Christine's (very cute) shoes weren't designed for standing around in for so long and the small waiting room got hot very quickly. Surprisingly, for a $1000 price tag, there was no food and drink available for the people waiting, but everyone was extremely happy and patient.

Finally, we were told that Al Gore was on his way down and to form a queue. As the event was starting soon, we would only have time to greet him, shake his hand and have our photo taken - no time for chit chat or political discourse! We gradually made our way into the room where the photos were being taken, and we were both struck by his immediate presence: he's a tall, barrel-chested man with an extremely calm demeanour, which seemed to affect everyone in the room. When it was our turn, he somehow managed to make us both feel very welcome with just a few words and a confident handshake. I wasn't starstruck by him, but he definitely has an aura. Photo taken (it's going to be emailed to us soon!), we headed into the auditorium to hear people speak.

The first few speakers were other Democrat candidates for all sorts of public offices (Americans vote for everything all at once on Election Day), who all exhorted us to vote Democrat all the way down the ballot. Some of them tried a bit of cheerleading... "Who are you going to vote for??!!" and expecting everyone to chant "Merkley!!!" back at them, which frankly, was a little embarrassing. That kind of stuff is best left to high schools, football games or rallies with around 50,000 people.

Jeff's speech was somewhat better, but everyone else's words were forgotten the moment Al Gore came to the stage. His speech was amazing, there's no other way to describe it. Powerful, thought-provoking, funny... tying together the economic crisis, alternative energy, the war in Iraq and more into a tangible and spell-binding narrative, all of them giving reasons to vote for Jeff Merkley. Easily one of the best political speeches I have ever heard and totally inspiring. Listening to him speak like that, one can't help but wonder how different a place the world might be now if he had won that election eight years ago... I certainly can't imagine that he would have reacted to world events in the same way that the Bush administration has...

Posted in: chaosboy, politics, portland, united states on October 25, 2008 at at 8:28:00 AM 0 comments    

Flickr is awesome. Not only does it enable me to share my photos with family, friends and like-minded photographers from around the world, but it also acts as my agent. Companies of all sorts need photography, and it seems to me that they are increasingly turning to sites like Flickr instead of traditional (and highly expensive) photo libraries like Getty Images.

The image above is an initial cover concept for a novel that is being produced by a Dutch publishing house - and that's my photo on the cover! They found it on Flickr and asked me whether they could use it for a fee. After some negotiation, we came to an agreement and the result is above: I think it looks great!

This is the third image I've sold through Flickr in the last year, the other two being this and this. I've also donated this image to the Bath Abbey Trust, and a whole heap of images to the Crater Lake Trust – I'm always open to helping non-profits out with my photos, especially ones where I feel a connection.

Posted in: chaosboy, photography on October 11, 2008 at at 5:52:00 PM 2 comments    

When it comes to a declining economy and everyone, including the media, always reminding you so, begins to sink into your mind. You begin to think, that your calm little world is about to explode into a chaos of havoc and crime and will to sink into a demise similar to Gotham. That's kinda how I feel this week.

At work, people every other day come into report that their computer/ iPod/ hard drive, etc. was stolen and we are meant to do something about it. These people, I do take seriously and we send out emails to staff reminding them to keep an eye out for so forementioned stolen object. That gets 10X more serious when your own sister experiences her first break in by some desperate meth head/kid who saw her shiny white laptop and made a run for it. The guy (we'll assume its a guy) busted in through her bedroom by pushing in the air con and the continued to scavenge his way through the small apartment, nabbing a backpack in order to throw the laptop and a digital camera into. On his way through, he spots Kim's vintage cookie jar with "Munchies" painted on the side in old 70's style. He snags a chocolate bar and takes a bite of it. Upon realizing its baker's chocolate, he abandons the unsweetened bar and proceeds to grab Kevin's screwdriver in order to hit up the next door neighbors' apartment. (They had fortunately moved out the week before). The police made their stop at the apartment and went through the protocols but the forsenic inspector found the best fingerprints, nonetheless, on the abandoned candy bar in the kitchen. If this guy has every had his prints logged before, an arrest can be made on account of a CANDY BAR.

Meanwhile in other news, that same night, the lights were stolen off my bike. This is very unfortunate for me because if I get anywhere, its on bike. However, the situation is almost laughable.

Meanwhile today, two more people reported stolen laptops. What kind of country are we living in?

The best part about living in economic decline is seeing your friends on the daily news – alone sitting at a bar, as was the case with a co-worker friend of mine. The story was about how not as many people are going out to eat or drink in this past few weeks. I'm going to vote that drinking has not been affected.

But there's hope!
Get out and vote!

Posted in: chaosgurl, portland, technology, united states on September 28, 2008 at at 9:47:00 PM 0 comments    

I saw on the news the other day that the US Mint is planning to introduce new designs for the penny in 2009 to celebrate the bicentenary of President Lincoln's birth. I have a better idea - get rid of the useless things.

Coming from a country that discontinued use of its one cent coin in 1991 (the year after I left high school!), the use of the penny here shocks and astounds me. If I get one in change, I just don't take it. I see no reason to clog my wallet/pocket/house up with a coin that I'll never actually be able to use as a meaningful piece of money. The sooner the Australian system of rounding purchases to the nearest five cents happens, the better!

On a side note, one bank here does do rounding up to the nearest five cents - but on electronic purchases. Let's say, you spend $24.43 on something and pay for it with your debit card. The bank extracts $24.45 from your checking account, but puts the extra two cents into your linked savings account! Clever! One could imagine that all your transactions over a given period of time might add up to a considerable boost to your savings.

On a further note, when the designs for the new penny were unveiled, certain conservative members of the community worked themselves into a lather. According to them, the words "In God We Trust" had been removed from the penny – a sure sign that atheists and communists were running the country and the end of the world wasn't far away.

What they were (conveniently?) forgetting was that all the images of the new coin designs are only showing the obverse of the coin. The reverse of the coin is remaining the same, and on that side of the coin is Lincoln's head... and the words "In God We Trust".

Posted in: chaosboy, united states on September 25, 2008 at at 8:25:00 AM 0 comments