Oh, yeah, I have a blog!

   Alright, so I'm not much of a blogger, so sue me.
 I did a vanity search and my blog came up in the results. "Oh, yeah, I have a blog I've only posted in once!"
I think it only matters if someone reads it. Blogger says this blog has 0 followers.
Anyway.
      So Portland is lovely in the spring.  I know, almost everywhere in North America is lovely in the spring, Put Portland is extra-special. Rhododendrons in bloom, pretty girls in dresses on bicycles, signature gatherers, new street kids from Cali...
    Seriously, though, It's festival season The Portland Rose Festival is going on, then the Blues Festival. I will probably volunteer for the blues festival, especially since I get in for free that dad, and a really groovy T-shirt. I ran into my friend Hawk the other day,  and he told me the line up. John Mayall, Taj Mahal, and Little Feat, for starters. Which is great, (fantastic, actually)  but I always like hearing the unknown bands at the smaller stages as well.
    I heard in the coffeeshop today that there's a spill in the Persian Gulf as wall now, that's been kind of hush hush. Add that to the 600bbl spill out of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, and the 20-30, 000 bbl spill off the coast of Singapore, and of  course, BP's little monster, spewing away down in the Gulf. Sheesh. And I found out online that this exact thing happened in the gulf in 1979.
  Never knew Armageddon would be so slippery!

A little remodel

   I did a little remodeling to the blog, so maybe I'll actually post on it once in awhile.
I was inspired by Jamie and Martin, The Seat of Our Pants crew, who started a blog so they're parents wouldn't worry while they traveled the world, and my friend Liveonearth at we live in Interesting Times, who publishes all sorts of miscellany she finds in the interwebs.
   Things could be looking up for me, there are more hash slinging jobs showing up on craigslist lately, and a few other projects I've had on the back burner for awhile are coming along. All in all, I could have a worse new years.
   I'm really new and green at this blogging stuff, so i apologize in advance if a link or some other feature doesn't work properly. We'll get things rolling here with a bit from a great American and one of my personal heroes, Dr. Hunter S. Thompson.
Hunter S. Thompson on Letterman, 11/25/88

A little remodel

A few words about the (former) title of my blog

    When I first arrived in Portland, almost 11 years ago, I was agog at the very science fiction-esqe light rail system, MAX (Metropolitan Area eXpress), especially how the high-tech westside line interfaced with the woodsiness of Washington Park. One curious feature was the automatic voice message, "The doors are closing" That played in each car just prior to (you guessed it) the doors closing. This intrigued me, as I was homeless at the time, and being in that community, was face to face with the doors of opportunity closing, for myself and others, here in what was supposedly the most prosperous nation in the world, at the same time we were using the public infrastructure pf that society (like the MAX) to survive. I had thought for a long time that this would be a great title for a book about my homeless days in portland. Only more recently have I linked it in my mind to the concept "When one door closes, another opens.
Being in poverty (in pocket, if not in life) for most of my adult life, I practiced what I considered to be a sort of creative opportunism, a set of skills I've honed since the Eighties to live well, or at least relatively comfortably, without having a lot of cash, or sometimes even a job. After reading several blogs having to do with "lifehacking," or "lifestyle design" did I realize that I had lived my whole life according to alot of the same principles that these blogs were pushing, namely, you are free to live your life in an untraditional way in regards to income, housing, travel, etc. Its amazing that I utilized a bunch of clever hacks in my life to exist, sometimes on a whim (being homeless by choice in Illinois in the Nineties) sometimes out of necessity (Getting he county to pay my rent twice in three months, when the max was once a year.) A lot of times, I was embarrassed by the techniques I used to get the bills paid. Only recently have I realized that making money without a regular job, living aboard a sailboat, traveling, not finishing college, etc., are valid lifestyle choices and I should be proud of and further develop the skills I have to independently live the life I (not society or mega corporations) choose to live. In this blog I'll attempt to document and share the process of living and making and income independently, variously called lifehacking or lifestyle design. In addition, I'll probably write a bit about photography, the outdoors, food, sailboats, alternative lifestyle/housing/income generation/thought, travel, bits of my personal life, and anything else that grabs my fancy. It's both a journaling experiment and my first foray into the big wide world of blogging, which I had previously ignored. So If/when this goes public or live and someone's actually reading it, welcome! My mind can be a dark and scary place sometimes, and I don't live a snowy white life, but as the great Dr. Thompson said, 'You buy the ticket and you take the ride'

Word.

Hi. This is my first entry in blogger. I'm not sure yet if I like how its set up. This blog is going to be about my life in Portland, past present and future, with old stories as well as new finds and adventures in the Portland, Oregon area. Stay tuned for updates!