Redfern Place

This last Sunday Yvette, Meg, Bill and I rode into Portland to participate in the first (and hopefully not last) Sunday Parkways event. The City of Portland closed off a 6 mile long loop of street to all motorized traffic and opened the streets to the people. Everyone was welcome to come and enjoy to traffic free zone from 8am until 2pm. Thousand and thousands showed up from all over the area. This is my video tribute to the event.

The event is called a ciclovia and is modeled after the ciclovia that takes place in Bogota, Columbia one Sunday each month. Portland has a long way to go before it is even considered in the same class as Bogota’s ciclovia. In Bogata they close 70 miles of streets once a month and up to 2 million people come out to enjoy the roadways. StreetFilms hosts a nice video of the Bogota event.

The weather is finally starting to turn for the season. So far I’ve been able to log only about 400mi thus far this year. Should get to add close to 100 more this weekend.

Any earlier post shows pictures of leaves that I was building. Those leaves did not weather the winter very well. They are quite curled at this point. This was my main motivation for changing the grain direction on the new leaf design. Now I have a fair chunk of short cherry blocks to figure out what to do with.

It looks like I finally finished my solid cherry dining room table! It took less than a year, which is saying something, because I still have a bookcase that has been in progress for at least 8 years. The table looks great and we just moved it into the dining room. No chairs yet. We’ll be buying those eventually. Also no leaves yet.

To the pictures!!!

The slides on this table will hold up to 5′ in leaves. I’m going to build, I think, two 30″ leaves. Right now I’m planning on building the leaves such that the wood grain runs perpendicular to the grain on the main table. I’m doing this primarily for structural reasons, but it might actually look nice to. I did notice that when the table is fully extended, the slides do bow a little bit, maybe 1/2″, without any weight (from leaves or food) on it. I think the I’ll be building a center leg to support the middle of the table when extended. Thirteen feet between legs is a mighty long span.

The finished table weighs about 200lbs. The finish is 6 coats of a simple but tough water-based polyurethane brushed on with a foam applicator.

The first big dinner served on the table is going to be Mother’s Day family brunch. Don’t know where we’re going to sit…

Yvette and I stayed at Timberline Lodge last Sunday night. Some pictures.

This is not something you come across very often on the web unless you’re really looking for it. The picture below is the kideny stone that tormented me from September 3rd, 2007 until 10:15pm December 24th 2007. Almost 4 full months this thing has been growing inside me. I only cost me one trip to the emergency room in early September. Despite the MRI and tasty contrast fluid the doctors did not see anything. The did give me a presciption for Percoset and said if the pain get too bad take some. They didn’t offer me any else, basically saying “there’s nothing to do, just wait it out”. I did. And 4 months later, with intermittent periods of tolerable pain, this stone came tumbling out. Fortunately the exodus was completely painless and only took about 3 seconds. It is 1/4 inch (6mm) from tip to tip and about 1/10 of an inch (2.5mm) thick. Like I said…TMI

If that’s not enough for you, check out this gallery of kidney stones.

Bubba Cat takes a bath in front of the fireplace on a coze winter’s eve.

You may remember the post below with the picture of Yvette and me at Timberline lodge. Here’s a video from that same ride. This was taken a few hours later on the decent to Hood River. We get to see Yvette pass a couple of guys on the road.

This picture is from Yvette’s second shoot with Fred Meyer (she’s done four so far). Looking good!

My friend Meg just created this site as a gathering place for PDX Cyclists. Check it out. Join the fun.