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Susan's Online Guide to Portland Let me Help You Find a Home and a Neighborhood |
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Welcome to my Web site about the Portland, Oregon, metropolitan area. It's my way of helping you become acquainted with the neighborhoods and communities of the Portland metro area and to inform you about the Portland area housing market. Your comments and suggestions about my Web site are always welcome. If you have questions or if you are interested in buying or selling a home in the Portland area, contact me online or call me at (503) 497-2984.
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Community News |
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'Leverage' holds 'thug camp' casting workshop to help unemployed construction workers in Portland February 8 − Douglas Hines is feeling, in his words, like "a fish out of water." "I've never done this before," he says, as he looks at a script. Hines, a burly 42-year-old, is attending "thug camp," part of a weekend "Leverage"; seminar. Hines has never acted before. Now the Vancouver resident, who's unemployed, is trying to figure out how to convincingly portray the prosperous owner of a sports team on TV. It is, Hines says, kind of a stretch. The "Leverage" event, which ended Sunday at the University of Oregon's Portland campus, was designed as a combination showbiz/work-force development effort, according to organizer Lana Veenker. Classes for experienced local actors provided behind-the-scenes insights about "Leverage," which stars Oscar-winner Timothy Hutton. Read more...
Portland's services to students learning English still need work, state says February 8 − The Oregon Department of Education continues to withhold a portion of federal funding from Portland Public Schools after state officials found the district still isn't meeting federal standards for serving students learning English. In a letter to Portland last month, officials said the district had only fixed some of the problems outlined in a 2009 audit. Furthermore, the state reported new problems with the program. Some students still don't have access to core classes such as algebra and history or are not receiving support in those courses. New findings reported that some students were exiting the English Language Learner program without evidence they had learned English. Read more...
Oregon leaders shrug as pension crisis looms February 7 − The elephant in the room, the Oregon public pension system, is about to swallow an additional $1 billion-plus from school districts and other public employers over the next two years. Members of the board that governs the Public Employees Retirement System warn this is only the beginning, that without a strong runup in the stock market, PERS could pull billions more out of the operating budgets of schools, state agencies and municipalities over the next two decades. Yet there is no sense of urgency in Salem. On the contrary, when senators raised a PERS issue last week it was only to discuss the Democrats' desire to override a governor's veto and repass a bill requiring the system to pay retirees extra benefits mistakenly promised as a result of miscalculations. That won't cut PERS' costs -- it will increase them. Read more... |
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House, Home, & Health |
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Living Green |
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Trash in Portland: Hold your nose and dive into your bin February 7 − In a perfect world, the city of Portland would whisk away my household trash twice a day in a pneumatic tube. Instead, the city wants me to spend more time with my garbage -- smelling, sorting and staring at it as part of a plan for all residents to recycle their food scraps. The plan is rather nauseating, considering the shrimp peels, poopy diapers, expired yogurt and other aromatic items that make my trash a poor companion. The idea's also ripe for mockery: Once again, Portland tries to out-liberal itself, this time by pushing collective composting onto the masses. Read more...
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Sports and Outdoors |
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Northwest Outdoors calendar, Feb. 6-21 − Saturday, February 6, 1 p.m. Learn how you can join other outdoor enthusiasts to raise funds for breast cancer research at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Peaks include Mount Adams and Mount Kilimanjaro. To register for the meeting, call 206-667-6252 or send e-mail to dkirsner@fhcrc.org; to register for Climb to Fight Breast Cancer, go to www.fhcrc.org/climb. REI Portland, 1405 N.W. Johnson St. Read more...
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Portland Blogs and Web Sites
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Susan Marthens |
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© Copyright 2000-2009 All rights reserved Web by Dasan Design ● Telephone (503) 819-0011 |
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Columbia
River salmon runs plentiful now, but don't count on the trend continuing
February 8 − In some Northwest streams, it seems like a return to the storied
days when it was said salmon ran so thick you could walk across their backs.
Record numbers of coho have returned to the Columbia River in recent years,
and this year forecasters predict the same for spring chinook. But it's
not time to pop the champagne corks and declare victory in the nation's
most expensive wildlife restoration venture. The reason: Most scientists
agree much of the thanks for the recent runs, in addition to improved river
conditions and more hatchery fish, goes to favorable circumstances in the
ocean where the salmon mature after being born in fresh water. "It looks
like the abundance of adult salmon that we see come back to the rivers appears
to be set or at least strongly regulated by their early ocean experience,"
said Nate Mantua, a climate scientist and fisheries researcher at the University
of Washington.
Oregon
Zoo's orangutans say New Orleans Saints will go marchin' into victory at
Super Bowl February 8 − Orangutans at the
Poor
snowpack could shrink NW hydropower February 7 − A thin
snowpack and predictions of low runoff this summer have the Bonneville Power
Administration forecasting a financial loss for the year, and Northwest
water watchers hoping for more snowy weather before the winter's through.
In a forecast issued Friday, the National Weather Service's Northwest River
Forecast Center predicted that water flows past The Dalles Dam will be 79.2
million acre feet between January and July. That would be 74 percent of
the 30-year average for the period -- 107.3 million acre feet -- and the
eighth lowest flow in the past 40 years. Anxiety levels remain fairly low.
February and March can still be big snow months in the Columbia River Basin,
filling the region's virtual reservoir. But the numbers have gotten progressively
worse since the early bird forecast in December. As winter pushes on and
the big snows fail to fly, the predictions begin to harden into reality.
Hillsdale
2-story home February 7 − This house combines style and
spaciousness near walking trail. Easy to entertain inside and out: the gourmet
kitchen opens to family room with fireplace with views of landscaped backyard.
Outside slate patio features another kitchen, surrounded by yard and trees.
Plantation blinds, built ins, high-end sound system, gleaming floors. Master
bedroom on upper level, Bay windows, bonus room, many built-in features,
central vacuum system, closet organizer, formal dining room, formal living
room, kitchen island, pantry, security features, high-end sound system,
walk-in closets. This 3,519 square foot home just $670,000.
Stumptown
rock February 7 − Even before construction was complete,
the Stump House was turning heads. When its green-minded future owners learned
of its shining environmental résumé, they knew they’d found a place to call
home. Perhaps it was Jess and Jered Bogli’s colossal-but-cordial rottweiler,
Oliver, who spearheaded their move to a highly sustainable home in Portland,
Oregon’s Alameda neighborhood. While walking Oliver one day, the couple
spotted a contemporary-looking house under construction and got to talking
with the builder, Darryl Erlandson, about its green features. They passed
by the house frequently after that. “It was on my running route,” Jess recalls,
“and eventually one of the builders yelled to me, ‘Come in!’ Another day
one of them even said, ‘Throw out an offer.’ And we did.’”
Oregon's
Steens Mountain could soon have wind farms February 7 −
Ruggedly beautiful 
Hail
to the reef February 7 − Even from a safe distance, surfers
say, you can feel the concussion in your chest and stomach, rattling internal
organs. When the wave breaks, the impact sounds like a shotgun blast. During
a big swell, the Scott's Reef wave 15 miles north of Newport has so much
energy it pulls water backward as it forms, opening what looks like a hole
in the ocean. Curling, it kicks up a blast of white foam -- Devil's Breath,
they call it -- that shoots sideways out of the tube just before it topples
and explodes on the reef. Boom. "If you ride that wave and you don't die,
it was a good day," said Hawaiian pro surfer Garrett McNamara, who cut his
face on Scott's Reef last January and had a sea urchin spine removed from
next to his eyeball.
