Portland, Oregon - Part One

Portland, Oregon is becoming our favorite U.S. city to visit. We were there last year in October for the first Machine Quilters Expo West, and returned again this year. The focus at the conference was learning about the Intelliquilter system, but we had plenty of time to wander around town, visit yarn shops, and eat far more yummy food than is good for us!

This is probably my favorite photo of our visit. We were headed into downtown for dinner and caught the Max train at dusk. The combination of the sky, train, architecture of the station, and the convention center towers really amazed me when I saw it in the camera. Another 30 seconds later and I don't think the sky would have had any detail at all.

Dinner at Bridgeport Brew Pub. Mussels for Linda with a rasberry infused vodka. Cottage Pie for Ernie with a pint of Porter. When the waitress asked if we knew what we wanted to order, we replied that we'd known for a year what we wanted to order!

Our Max pass meant that we could go anywhere that was on the Max train streetcar routes. That meant we were able to visit 5 different yarn shops. I think Portland may have the highest ratio of knitters in the population of anywhere we've visited (at least it felt that way). We met one knitter as we were heading for downtown on the train and she was headed for the same shop. In the photo, Linda is wearing the new sweater that she had finished the day before the trip. We found some wonderful Madelintosh yarn for Linda's next sweater project as well as some Opal "Starry Night" that Linda had been seeking for socks.

The weather was absolutely gorgeous this year and we heard lots of comments about how wonderful it had been, but this sign at twisted shows that Portlanders have a certain fondness for rain (last year we learned a new weather forecasting term - "sun breaks"). The staff explained that the fall usually brings rainy weather, which is just the perfect thing for knitting.

Portland has quite a food-cart culture. At least one full block in downtown is surrounded by carts, and there are pockets like this throughout the city.

Portland has a very old-fashioned feel to it that I really like. This auto-parts store is not only in an old building, but this guy was in the back patiently rebuilding an engine. You won't find that kind of thing in your local AutoZone and you just sense that if you needed an engine, this was the kind of guy you wanted to be building it for you.

The converging lines of the train and streetcar lines really captured my imagination.

Of course, you can't visit Portland without spending time at Powell's City of Books.

Imagine and entire city block, 3 floors high, that all looks like this! Oh, and the technical books are in yet another building across the street. So many books, so little time...

I guess I just had a thing for converging lines on this trip. We wandered into this kitchen supply store as we walked between a yarn shop and the streetcar.

More from Portland next time...

God's Plans

This summer I spent several weeks fighting problems with my 1973 Porsche 914. It started when I was bringing Nate home from his first day of Discovery camp. The engine suddenly bucked and misfired terribly and I didn't think we would make it home under our own power.

Now normally, the fuel injection system on a 914 is very reliable, in spite of the fact that it is 50 year-old technology. In addition, I had the distributor rebuilt only 5,000 miles previously so I really didn't suspect the component that ultimately turned out to be the problem - the injector points that reside in the bottom section of the distributor.

One of the best ways to diagnose a problem like this is to change out parts with known good/new parts. One of the parts that I changed out along the way was the cylinder head temperature sender. The one which I bought turned out to be the wrong one for my car, but the resistance measurements were very close to the correct unit and it seemed to run pretty well so I left it in place because I wanted to see how it did over the long term (since the correct part is made of unobtainium). Of course the original unit got safely tucked away in the glove box for "just in case".

That's my friends Brant, Jim and Kevin at the Red Rock Classic event in Beaver, Utah the weekend of September 8th. My car ran flawlessly for the whole 800+ mile weekend, but Jim's orange 914 had a fuel pump go out on the way there. After the Saturday drive to Cedar Breaks National Monument, a new problem developed when Jim's car suddenly died and was obviously flooded. Although we could get it restarted, it would not stay running. Finally Ed Morrow (who came all the way from Massachusetts) diagnosed the problem as an intermittent problem with the cylinder head temperature sender - something he'd never experienced before (and Ed has years of professional 914 experience!).

As is usual for these kinds of things, the question get's asked "who has a spare xxxx", and often I'm the guy who has a spare because of some previous failure. So that's Brant in the photo, changing out the bad unit for the spare that I had in my glove box. Not only did I have a spare, but the new unit which I had purchased was the right one for Jim's car.

The conversation after the successful fix was something like this: "Since CHTs almost never go bad, what are the odds that someone would have a spare along, and the right spare too?" My answer was a line from an old hymn from the Psalter Hymnal - "God works in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform", which got an affirmation from Kevin.

There's a verse that also came to mind, and which came up again in this morning's sermon at Church of the Resurrection - Ephesians 2:10 "For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."

As I was fighting with my car problems in August and wondering if I was going to have my car roadworthy in time to make the trip to the event, I often muttered to myself "why me, why now?" Well, God was preparing in advance a good work for me to do and an opportunity to share my faith.

You just can't make this stuff up.   

Reading

I'm embarrassed to look back and see that I haven't posted anything in a month. It's been a busy month, but the biggest reason is that I've been reading.

I love to read books, and historical fiction is a particular favorite. My tendency with books is that I either put them away quickly or can't put them down and they consume as much free time as I can come up with. Historical fiction tends to be rather lengthy as well, so you can see where the trouble lies.

I just finished reading Ken Follett's "The Pillars of the Earth". I've long had a fascination with the great cathedrals of Europe and their amazing architecture. Knowing that this was the story of building a cathedral, it's been on my to-read list for quite awhile.

This is a great read. After turning the last page, my thoughts were about how amazing God is. In the forward the author makes a point of insisting that he does not believe in God. And yet the closing pages which weave in the historical fact of Archbishop Thomas Becket's murder, make the point that God is unstoppable. Even the misguided actions of sinful men who claim Christ's name cannot stop the advance of God's message.

I'm going to hold off on reading "World Without End" for a bit - I've got blog posts and a few other things to catch up on first.

Budding Photographer

Almost-3-year-old Eve went for a walk around the block with Oma (Linda) while she was spending last weekend with us. She loves taking pictures with our digital camera. Sometimes you think she just likes seeing the flash go off, but she's actually got a pretty good eye!

Us tall people forget what the world looks like at the height of a 3-year-old.

I think she has a future on the balance beam as well. ;-)

Yard Work

Well, work IN the yard, not work ON the yard. Today was just about perfect fall weather - temperatures in the mid-70F range and only a light breeze. When we ripped out the carpet and installed the laminate floors, we also replaced the dated slab interior doors with something with more character. The doors & moldings have been up for quite awhile, but I had not gotten around to painting them and I really wanted to get that done before winter gets here.

Because I wanted to spray the doors, today seemed like the perfect day to do it. Of course that didn't factor in the tiny flying insects that apparently love freshly painted white surfaces. In fact they love it so much that they'll fly right into the spray so they can land on the door and get painted!

Then there was the door that I had standing at a little too-vertical of an angle, and when the only gust of the day came along the door ended up flat on its freshly painted face. The "gust" was so gentle that if the door hadn't fallen I would not have even taken note of it. Fortunately, latex paint responds well to a hose/nozzle and some scrubbing so that I could paint it again.

The good news is that in the end the doors look really good. Painting the frames and molding can happen any time, and now that the doors are hung they provide motivation for making the rest look just as good.

Change of Seasons

It's amazing how fast time goes by. I knew I was behind on blogging, but it's shocking to look back and see that July 2 was the last entry!

It's that time of year when you can feel a change in the air as Summer gives way to Fall. I think it may be my favorite time of year. As I write this, it's 46F outside at 10:30 p.m. with a low of 40 predicted for tonight. Tomorrow is supposed to get up to 73F. Warm days, and cool nights is what this time of year is all about.

Cooler nights are also what the picture is about - I've been looking forward since April for cool enough weather to be able  to wear the hand-knit socks that I purchased in the Netherlands. So the photo is what I'm up to tonight - something to read, flannel pj bottoms to lounge in and wonderful socks for my feet.

I'm in heaven! It won't be long before I'll be able to wear a scarf again - something I've really missed ever since our April trip.

Maybe I'll be able to catch up on some of the blog topics that I've neglected - I'll give it a try. I've learned that blogging regularly is much harder than it seems.

Jesus Loves Me

Eve & Ellie, performing "Jesus Loves Me" in their own unique way.