Fun weekend

This has been a great weekend, lots of good stuff going on. Actually, too much good stuff - we had to skip the first-year anniversary party for our local coffee shop, The Funky Door, because we had a few obligations in North Portland. That was sad, because two of the girls who work at The Funky Door were gracious enough to work as servers at our wedding reception, and they took a bunch of funny photos of a little gnome statue at the wedding (it's an inside joke with their boss, Diana). We got to see the album of gnome photos this morning, and they actually had quite a few quirky ones from our wedding (which made us happy to see that Corinna and Jillian were having fun there as well!)


Anyway, on Friday night Jill and I went to see a couple of local bands play at a nearby theater. We'd never heard either band, but the headliner, Talkdemonic, has gotten consistently great reviews over the years. So, we hadn't been to a show in a long time and decided to check it out. We went out to a nice dinner first, then got to the show earlier that we planned. We went on a walk around the neighborhood to kill time, and came across a sweet view of the river and west side that I'd never seen before. We were right across from the new South Waterfront development and OHSU tram, as the Ross Island Bridge. Unfortunately, we were also right next to McLoughlin Blvd, which an ugly, noisy, busy highway between central Portland and points south. Still, it was nice enough that we stayed to watch the sun set over the West Hills.

The bands were excellent. The opening band was Point Juncture, WA, an exuberant five-piece that included a vibraphone, one of my favorite instruments. Many of them shifted around to play various other instruments throughout their set. It was a bit quirky, a bit poppy, and lots of fun. I don't think they have an album out yet, but we'll keep an eye out for it. We really enjoyed that band. Then Talkdemonic came on, and they were incredible. Well worth all of the hype. They featured a dynamic combination of a woman on violin and a guy on drums, along with various pre-recorded instruments and beats for accompaniement. No vocals, but lots of intense, energetic music. The show convinced us that we should probably go out to see more local bands, there's been a large influx of musical talent to Portland over the past decade or so.


Saturday morning was our usual routine of coffee and pastries at the Funky Door. After that, I had to go help out at my company's booth at the Mississippi Street Fair. That was a huge event, one of the best street fairs in the city! I believe it's the only one where they actually close off the street, for about half a mile or so. It makes a big difference. There were expected to be about 10,000 people there. You can see from the photo that it was big. Fortunately, one of our sales staff, Ed Han, lives right on N. Mississippi and we just finished installing a 2-kilowatt photovoltaic system for him. And, it was right up the street from our booth! That helped us while we were talking with potential customers. I also get to spend a lot of time telling people about solar attic fans and how great they are. I feel like an evangelist for them now, since I think every house should have one to increase comfort and lower energy consumption. We had a lot of people sign up to get bids and more information from us, and raised more awareness for solar. It was a fun, successful event. I also ran into a few friends there, and Jill picked up some new jewelry and a cool new T-shirt.

After the Street Fair, we biked up a couple more miles north to an ice cream social in honor of Bastille Day at a co-housing commnity called Peninsula Park Commons. I know a few people there through Shift, a bike fun group. Actually, they had a Memorial Day party a couple of years ago that was Jill and my second date. It was an okay event, but we both felt less inclined to socialize by the time we got there. There were tons of people there, and lots of them with kids. The kids were having a great time, splashing around and playing with a hose and such. We ran into a few people we knew, including one of my old friends from the Green Party. And, there was an enormous amount of excellent homemade ice cream! Jill had made a triple-layer chocolate cake for the event, but it got jostled around in it's container on the back of her bike. The top layer was salvaged and savored by folks, but the other two layers were basically mush. She was disappointed, but for the most part she really enjoys the process of learning to make the cakes. We grilled some food, hung out with a few people we knew, and then decided we didn't really feel liking hanging out much longer. Unfortunately, my good friend Ken showed up right as we were leaving, we don't hang out anywhere near as much as we used to. But, it was time to go.

We rode back home, a fairly straight, fast route down N. Vancouver Ave. (with a double-wide bike lane, so we could ride side by side and talk!) and onto the Eastbank Esplanade, which took us most of the seven miles home. We had time to drop off a lot of our stuff, and then took off again for the Hollywood Theatre in NE Portland, another four mile ride. One of Jill's friends from high school had appeared in a movie shot in Portland back in 1999 called "The Sum of the Parts," and it was just now being released. This showing was the "world premiere." Jill was hoping to see her friend Melody, but we got there just before the movie started. The movie was, um, interesting. The acting was perhaps more suited to the stage than the big screen and they had a bit of trouble with the pacing. And, it was very low budget. There were a lot of interesting elements to it, and I liked some of the style, but the plot simply tried to cover too much ground, and it all got muddled. Basically, a sci-fi, techno-thriller with a lot of hard-core geek information embedded in it. It was a valiant effort for a first time director (and writer, and lead actor) but I think he would have been better off narrowing his focus and making a better film that way. Afterwards, there was a Q&A session with the director. Jill again hoped to find her friend, but couldn't make her out in the audience, and we were tired enough by that point we didn't want to hang around until it was all over.

We got to sleep in late this morning, and have a relaxed day. More coffee and pastries at the Funky Door, and then we both tried to catch up on some work. Jill had to go into her office for a few hours, and I worked on a few things from home. In the afternoon, we went to see another movie, "Day Watch," that we'd been planning to see for quite a long time at the second-run theaters, but were worried wouldn't be there much longer. It's a sub-titled Russian sci-fi/fantasy movie and the sequel to "Night Watch," and they're both based on a bestselling series of Russian novels by the same names. The two movies have broken all box office records in Russia. The first movie was great, with an interesting story and special effects that reminded me of "The Matrix" even though the budget was only $5 million. They did a helluva lot with that money. I've also been reading the novels as the English translations have been released. [an amusing interjection - my friend Ken just called to say that he was biking past the Laurelhurst Theater, and decided to see "Day Watch" tonight, and invited us to join him. That's such a weird coincidence!] Anyway, the second movie wasn't that great. Jill enjoyed because she went in without expectations, but I was disappointed at how much it differed from the books, and the plot was kinda silly. The novels are much more intricate and well-developed. Ah well, that's movies for you. And, it's nearing the end of our weekend...