Can you believe it’s been one year already since I first set foot in Portland? Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana. Wise words, those.
I was trying to think of something exciting in my life to write about, but like so often, nothing comes to mind. Most of the chatter these days is about the upcoming elections. I’ve voted already, so that’s done with. And if you know me at all, you shouldn’t have to think too hard about who I guessed for.
But I’ll give you a hint: I could never vote for someone with the IQ of a box of rocks, who in all seriousness is just a few heartbeats away from presidency. And that whole “but she’s just like us” tripe? People, this is presidency here… we don’t want someone like us. We want someone better than us. Someone who knows what they’re doing. Someone who’s actually read the job description, for that matter.
So, I encourage you to vote responsibly. I hope we’ve learnt from our mistakes these past (long) eight years. Ideology is a dangerous thing. Especially in the hands of the incompetent.
Obviously this looks a bit different from what you’re used to seeing. I had found the same template in WordPress as I had used in Blogger, but I couldn’t get the links working. As a result I chose another theme that integrated better. Let me know what you think.
Depending on when you visit, you’ll notice any variety of changes to the site. Instead of sending you somewhere new, this time you’re staying in the same place and I’m just doing a little bit of reformatting. And if you’re reading this from an rss, you probably won’t notice anything at all.
I had originally been publishing this site with Google’s Blogger. I liked it well enough, but it was a bit limiting if you wanted to publish externally. So after we got internal blogs at work, and at the recommendation of a friend (thank ABC), I decided to try out their software.
We’ll see how that goes. And mind the mess until I get this all straightened out.
And every now and again, for reason of edification or of boredom, I feel the need to post something that has nothing to do with my life, yet I find horribly interesting.
To that extent (and please, don’t bother if you don’t have sound), I present for your viewing pleasure, The Evolution of Dance:
So one of the interesting aspects of moving somewhere very far away is the type of disasters that happen. Getting a blizzard here would phenomenal. Getting one in Pennsylvania, while not common place, wouldn’t be anything that special.
One thing that happens here with enough frequency so as not to be extremely shocking, is landslides. On Wednesday, a house near the main campus of where I work slowly started coasting down the hill and into the neighbours’ houses. Click the picture for a larger image, or you can read about it here.
I don’t live anywhere near any hills, so I’m in no danger of landslides. Now if Mt Hood decided to blow, that’d be another story…
So tonight we went to watch the end of an annual event known as Chapman’s Swifts. Every year, hundreds of Vaux’s (pron: vox’s) Swifts–Chaetura vauxi–rest on their migration to warmer climes in chimneys and other dark vertical surfaces. Portland, as it turns out, has one of the largest populations in the country.
As a result, each year hundreds of people show up to the Chapman school before sunset, bring their picnic meals, and watch the sky fill with hundreds of birds all making their way into a rather large chimney. It’s actually quite a spectacle. There were literally tons of birds circling the school in a giant cyclone of swiftiness. Very reminiscent of Hitchcock’s The Birds.
And to give you an idea of what we saw, the power of YouTube. Mind, I didn’t take the footage, I just found it. To wit:
