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This guy seems to be on the same wave length as Tom and I.
Tom and I’s newspaper stand @ Pioneer Square
February 11, 2008Some of you may have heard already that Tom and I are opening a newsstand at Pioneer Square this summer. Now that I have some drawings and our plans are more concrete I thought I would post a little something.
The kiosk is on the corner of 6th and Yamhill in the old entrance to the underground bathrooms across the street from the old Powell’s map store. In theory it should open some time in June. Since the kiosk is on the new Transit Mall and spitting distance from the two original MAX lines we’re trying to set it up as a really fast place to get a cup of Stumptown and a paper or magazine. Also since it is near seven or eight high-end hotels we are going to cater to the visitors as much as possible. We’ll offer advice and steer them towards more interesting stuff than what you might find in the POVA guide or the Powell’s map. We’ll also offer them some normal Lonely Planetesque guide books and also some homemade sight seeing tour guides. Since I’m going to be stuck in this little metal box for 10 hours a day I want to make it as clever as possible. No idea is too outlandish. Post to the comments anything you might come up with or if you think there is some way you can help out.
Now I’m late for Brew Club. Claire’s going to punch me in the poo spot for sure this time.
NAHBS and the Rapha Roller Races
February 10, 2008$18. Thats how much it apparently cost to get into the bike show. I love Ira. I love Natale. I love keeping my money in my own pocket. Therefore I snuck into the show on Friday during the media pre-event. It was a simple matter of looking like I was supposed to be there and having a believable cover of delivering my fancy Ira Ryan bike to the fancy show. Going in the loading dock probably helped too.
True to all the hype there were a lot of very pretty bikes. Racks, retro looks, and wood are very in again this year. To be honest though I didn’t stick around long. Bike nerds make me nervous and Ira and Natale were too busy to hang out. It was fun though and I heard the crowds got out of control later despite the ridiculously overpriced cover charge. I’ll stick to Portland’s home grown show next year. I’m more into seeing what my friends are up to and the fruits of their hard work. The out of town builder’s bikes were cool but I like to keep my money and sweat equity in the family. Without the generosity of Ira, Cool Breeze, Meagan, Claire and others I wouldn’t have the cool crap I do. I certainly wouldn’t be able to afford it anyway.
The real action was Saturday night at the Rapha sponsored roller races. Again the organizers were charging a fat cover to get into their event that was sponsored by the makers of the most expensive cycling clothing known to man (not women, they don’t even make women’s clothing.) the event was put on along side the Teams of Portland show over at W+K. Each Portland team put three of their riders up on rollers against all the other teams and who ever could peddle the fastest won. There was one wild card team that just happened to be made up entirely of bike messengers who had dominated the open qualifiers on Friday. So the PÜMA was made up of Eric (Sharky), Damion (Corndog), and Nerf. the wild card team was Chaz, Will, and some messenger from SF. Sharky, Damion, and Will were eliminated in the first round. Nerf was beaten by his own hair in the second round.
I don’t know when the SF kid went down. It was at least the second round. Chaz took the whole thing. I’m sure someone can do a play by play better than me. The gist of it is that it was one of those sports underdog stories of the working messenger against a semi-pro Spandor. Chaz was cool under pressure, peddled really fast, and was a good sport about the whole thing. It all paid ofF with a set of custom pink rollers and a custom Ira Ryan frame.
A Very Belka Christmas
February 10, 2008 
Anne and I passed some sort of relationship mile stone over the holidays. Not as big as deciding to raise chickens together but still significant. For Thanksgiving Anne went to Colorado to see my family, eat, get drunk, and shoot guns. For Christmas I went to Utah to see her family, eat, not get drunk, snowshoe, sled, and make fun of Mormons. It all worked out so well a think we’ll do it again next year.
Awesome homemade cargo bike
February 10, 2008
Click the photo to see the rest of the set.
I’m sure it is hard enough to build a Long Haul when you have tubing cut to spec. Who ever built this did it with parts of old bikes and crap that must have been lying around their yard. Pure genius.
Dee & and Claire’s Brew Clubb so Pathetic is still alive and kicking
February 10, 2008I slacked off a lot over the holidays. I was coasting on the glory of our Xmas porter which was a big hit. Claire and I had 10 gallons of punk house ale racked and in carboys. Also Claire and Cliffy had several carboys of grape wine and cider bubbling away. But the holidays ended and the ale started looking a little funky. Claire wanted to bottle it and I kept putting it off. Finally I gave in after some pointed threats to my safety. Claire claimed she could punch me in a place that will make me crap my pants. When we finally went to bottle the ale it was true that it did look really gross. But when we tasted it it was delish. Not to mention that the hydrometer rang it up at 10.5% abv! The Punk House ale is a Belgian farmhouse ale fermented for 3 months with a new Wyeast saison strain and also spiced with cardamon and orange peels then bottle fermented.
So thats the old news. The new news is pretty good too. Claire figures her basement hovers around 50 degres all winter and we could do lagers down there as a very seasonal project (Brew Club does everything very traditionally ie simple equipment, slightly dirty, and with as small an outlay of cash as possible. I think old Belgian farmers would really like us). Right now there’s 10 gallons of some micro brew clone I can’t remember the name of down in dark. Tomorrow we’re doing another 10 gallons of pre-prohibition lager with the first ones yeast mother and our home grown mystery hops. They should both be ready to drink by early summer or whenever it gets too warm to lager them in the basement. Whichever comes first.
The future looks good also. We’re brewing up some Thunderblured for both the Westside Invite and the NACCC in Chicago. R Kelly has us making 20 gallons for the Rickreal Open and Eric at Stumptown Printers has us for another 20 for his wedding. The Brew Tower of Power is still coming together as Thud finds time. Hopefully we will get to do some of these bigger batches on it in early summer.
Claire and I are happy to do special batches for our friends. We just need a month or more warning. We bill you for just the ingredients and we keg it, deliver it, set it up, and help you drink it. What a deal!
Bike Messenger Prom: 2 Tickets 2 Paradise
January 23, 2008
Bike Messenger Prom: 2 Tickets 2 Paradise
Originally uploaded by sweetpeabicycles
“Holy shit! Check out my strapless dress!”
-Claire
Stranger #28 Flower Girl
January 10, 2008
Originally uploaded by i5prof
Anne was blogged again a couple of weeks ago. Is blogged a word? You should read the comments. Talk about self esteam building.
No one likes goats. Everyone likes Meagan. Meagan likes goats.
December 12, 2007 
So this lady tied her goat off on a tree in front of the Starbucks at Pioneer Square. Meagan wanted her picture with it and I obliged. I put this photo on my bag and now a couple of times a day I have to explain why this isn’t the strangest thing I’ve ever seen working downtown. Actually I can’t think off anything weirder off hand. I’m going to pull the veteran card right now. I have been working on the street so long now that I don’t know any more what the weirdest thing I’ve seen is anymore. It all kind of runs together. Still I am going to tag this one Meagan Queen of Messengers.
Let’s jump right to Thanksgiving
December 12, 2007So Anne and I headed off to Colorado. I have an Aunt Amy and Uncle Lyndon that run a ranch out there. Aside from the booze, guns, and Cousin Kiffen it would have been a total Norman Rockwell painting. The reality is that this Thanksgiving set the bar so high for holidays that from now on that I may just have to set off for Deer Trail for Flag Day and Arbor Day too. Switch to the Flickr and you might get a better idea.
