Tuesday, May 31, 2011

I'm breaking up with Portland

At the risk of alienating all my friends and family that live in Portland, I have to finally admit that I don't like the city.  This is nothing against any of you as individuals.  However, the things that make Portland unique and a place that the people there love are the things I can't stand about it.  Going to the Portland Timbers game this weekend was the last straw. 

I had been looking forward to this game for months, since single game tickets went on sale.  I was excited to see the atmosphere and check out how the old lady I once knew as Civic Stadium now looked in its newest incarnation as Jeld Wen Field.  First thing I noticed was that I was not the typical Timbers fan.  I had no scarf.  I had no jacket with patches of obscure bands sewn into seemly random spots. I was definitely not wearing shoes with individual toe pockets, like the fellow next to me.  I had no facial hair or piercings.  I felt strangely out of place in  a sweatshirt and baseball hat.  The Timbers Army, while I admire their fanatical devotion, I can't get into the constant chanting and intricate chants. If you want me to yell "Timbers!" at some point or clap, I can probably do that, but this full sentences or whole songs while the game is going on, I can't do.  I want to watch the game.  I loved that after the game, a blog on the timbers army website (timbersarmy.org) blamed the loss on the Army being too hung over from the night before, and asked members to abstain from drinking the night before the next afternoon match.  The comments portion of the blog begrudginly agreed, but also seemed to put the blame on first time fans, or "noobs" as they were referred to.  I suppose I was one of these noobs, but I paid my money just like they did, and I'll enjoy the game how I see fit. To seemingly cap off the bizzaro sports culture I now found myself in, Mr. "I'm wearing gloves on my feet" next to me was carrying on a conversation with the guy next to him about his family's yurt that he was going to be vacationing at next week.   At this point, Rachel looked at me and said "we don't belong here."

I started to defend my home city, but when Rachel said "what is it that you like about Portland?" I knew my goose was cooked.  I can't say one thing I like about Portland other than the climate.  I don't particularly like ethnic food, so the food carts don't really have much pull with me.  I'm not a liberal.  I have a long standing and well known dislike for bicycles.  Driving downtown is a nightmare.  You have a lane for buses, a lane for bikes, a lane for MAX, and a lane for cars, which may or may not have a bizarre green box in the middle of it with no indication of what it is for.  I know these boxes are for bicycles, but I have no clue how they should be used.

So Portland, I'm breaking up with you.  You'll always be home to me, but I can no longer defend you when people from other parts of the country say less than flattering things about you. 

Friday, May 13, 2011

Time to blog

My mind feels the need to blog, even if I can't really think of what I'd like to blog about. We'll see where this goes.  I might post it, but then again, I might delete it, in which case you'll never know that this was written.  Here we go:

We had a Spiderman marathon at our house last weekend, watching all 3 Spiderman movies.  Jonah is a superhero nut, so of course this led to me being the Green Goblin and throwing bombs that never seem to hit him while he runs around in his Spiderman costume slinging webs at me. Rachel happened upon something online promoting "Free Comic Book Day" which is akin to "Free Scoop Day" at Baskin Robbins.  A comic book store in Salem offering a chance to "meet Spiderman" when you came in.  Jonah loved this idea, and wanted to wear his costume to meet Spiderman "for real life" as he likes to say.  So we loaded up a three foot Spidey in the car, fired up the GPS and headed off to Danger Zone Entertainment to meet the man himself.  On the way up, Jonah's excitement was tangible.  He was holding the GPS and giving me directions like "We're going to go around a corner, Dad....Dad, you're going around a corner right now, ok?  Dad you just went around a corner."  As we got closer, Jonah would count down the tenth's of a mile until we arrived.  "4.4 to go, no 4.3!   It's 4.3!  Now it's 4.2!!!!" and so on and so forth.  We could've been going to see a documentary on Post-it Notes and I would've been fired up for it....that's how infectious Jonah's excitement was. 

We show up, and Jonah says "SPIDERMAN!!!! I SEE HIM!!!!"  Sure enough, there's a guy outside in full Webslinger gear, waving to passing cars.  The first thing Jonah says is "Spiderman looks fat!"  Picture your typical comic book store frequenter and you're probably picture either the skinniest person ever or a slightly overweight guy that wears T-shirts that are funny only to computer science majors.  This guy was the latter.  Jonah didn't seem to care, as he walked around the comic book store like the proudest person ever.  He shook Spiderman's hand, posed for a picture with him and then spend quite a bit of time looking at himself in the mirror.  Free comic book day is about what you'd expect is what I decided....lots of kids and an equal number of adults in intense discussion of hoping that the rumored "Wonder Woman" show is true to its mythology. 

And now for some quick observations:
  • Had an episode at work yesterday where someone claimed to have seen something on my facebook page that definitely was never there. It ended up going to HR, which resulted in me having to "defend" myself. It's over now and I'll probably never find out who tried to throw me under the bus, but it's yet another reminder that facebook can be dangerous in professional settings even if you don't actually post anything. Technology makes us great and pathetic as a society at the same time.
  • Mowing your lawn in a diagonal pattern rather than straight up and down makes it look better.  I have no idea why, but it's true.  I think I'm switching to diagonal permanently now.  Makes me feel like the groundskeeper at Fenway Park or something.
  • About a year ago, I posted a blog that outlined my list of 5 celebrities that I would hypothetically hook up with if the opportunity arose.  After this week, I've had to revise my list.  The list now includes:
    • Lila McCann - Because of the lifetime membership rule listed in my previous blog.
    • Annie Wersching - In because of the one redhead rule, but she's hanging by a thread since 24 ended....unless she gets another TV gig soon, she'll no longer be a celebrity and therefore ineligible for the list.  I'm pulling for ya, Annie.
    • Pippa Middleton - Sister of the future queen of England.  Made the ettiquite mistake of looking better than the bride on her wedding day, but holy smokes. 
    • Natalie Portman - Saw two Portman movies this week (No Strings Attached, Thor) and she's just plain cute.  Sidenote:  Her real last name is Herschlag.  Fascinating.
    • Autumn Reeser - Played Taylor Townsend on The OC, one of my favorite tv characters ever.  She was also the best thing about the crummy tv show No Ordinary Family.  Also in danger of not being a celebrity if she doesn't find some new work soon.
So there's my list, now up for criticism.  Feel free to mock the 2011 Andy List.