Updates from a Brick Fanatic (Part 1)

So on Friday I found out about this crazy event happening this weekend called "Bricks Cascade", which is basically a Lego exhibition put on by the local Lego fanclubs of the area, primarily by PortLUG (Portland Lego User Group). If I had known about the entire conference, I would have gladly signed up for the weekend workshops! Sadly I only found out about the public exhibition, which is crazy busy. My phone actually died, so I am sitting here writing this blog post, letting it recharge, in the convention center. I would have gone to find some place to eat, but I just had food before I left, so I'm not really all that hungry. (Plus, everyone knows convention center food is way overpriced.)

Being in a Convention Center feels weird for me. Its takes me back to Model UN, one of the only events I relatively enjoyed that the local high school barely sponsored. It brings me back to the thought of temporary shows and conventions, and what roles they serve in our lives?

Have you ever had that thought of emptiness once you leave an event such as a convention and/or gathering? The event was there, and you enjoyed every bit of it, but in the end, at least for me, it feels as though what I've done is meaningless. Once you break from an experience, you leave it in the recesses of your mind, only to be re-lived with the nostalgic thoughts of an enjoyable couple of days.

As I have moved on to where I am now, these experiences, especially more recent conventions, have at least left me with some lessons I have taken back to work or my life. But these are usually small lessons or little tips that I find useful every now and then. I guess my original idea was that the convention was supposed to leave me with a big lesson or idea with which to implement into my life. Maybe by thinking about this, and the different meanings behind the events themselves, is the lesson?

As for the Brick Cascades event, all I know is that it is purely for me to marvel at the impressive sets, and for me to check out all the different Lego sets and creations around the floor, and there are tons. I will do some analysis and some posting of pictures in Part 2.

The Story of Music and a Dulcimer

Today I went up to Kelso, WA to attend a Veterans Resource Fair being held by the local Congresswoman, Jamie Herrera Butler. The ceremonies were nice, and we handed out a ton of booklets and information, but the event and the drive back left me feeling empty afterwards.

After stopping by the office to pick up some paperwork for a meeting tomorrow morning, the bus almost blew past me, and left me disgruntled, angry, and just simply in a terrible mood. After coming home, I discovered that my instruments had finally come in the mail, along with chocolate and a note from my cat (and family) for valentines day.

The package simply made my day.

After a quick inspection and a chocolate dinner, I got to fiddling, tuning, and playing my instruments.

There is no feeling quite like picking up something you love, and have practiced so much, for a reunion. I quickly found myself tuning the instruments, remembering the knobs and metal strings involved.

The fiddle is of low quality, a simple, elegant looking thing, but poorly made. I take pride in this. I have rocked the fiddle at different concerts, and I don't think one needs high caliber to enjoy music and entertain others. I acquired the fiddle from my sister for taking lessons at college, or at least both classes offered, and I simply fell in love with it. I am not the best player, but it just thrills me to find the customization in sliding, changing your fingers every so much, and getting the strains out of the notes as you slide the bow across the strings. And there are equal parts in mastering the position of your fingers on the board (without frets, a challenge all to itself), and handling the bow to get the perfect sounding note. Besides Lego's, and perhaps the occasional really enjoyable video game, I don't think I have ever experienced the joy that comes with sawing out squeaky notes on metal strung across wood.

The dulcimer on the other hand has a lot more behind it, but has some of the richest local stories behind it:

When looking for a dulcimer, my mother found this beauty on Craigslist offered for $20. She inquired immediately, since dulcimers at this point have become a relic for nostalgiaists to spend lots of money on to play a shiny recently made instrument. The woman got back with her, and said if they could organize a way to meet, she would go halfway and sell the dulcimer.

The weeks never worked out from either of them, and one day the dulcimer just showed up on our doorstep in a fake Christmas tree box, wrapped with brown paper. No note, not explanation, just a dulcimer. My mom inquired, and eventually the woman got back with us and told her she thought I was determined enough and it would be better when played in my hands than hung on a wall. Because my mom exchanged addresses with this woman for meeting up half way, she decided to mail her $40 for the trouble of packaging it up, and shipping it to us with no expectations of payment or explanation.

When I finally came home from college for a break, I saw it, and immediately started messing around with it. I shook it, and there was a piece of paper wrapped up inside. My mom gave me a photocopy of what it said:

What a history this dulcimer has. After much tracking down, and the investigation of the engraving in the dulcimer, we figured out it was made by M. J. Amburgey (Morris Amburgey in the note) in Hindman, Kentucky, who was a student at the folk school in Hindman and was locally and regionally known as a dulcimer craftsman. This one is #37, so I can only assume it is number thirty seven of the 200 or so he made (or at least reported in the sources we could find).

At one point M. J. must have worked with the engineering department at the city of Lancaster (Ohio, it makes the most sense regionally) and given this particular dulcimer to Cleo M. Lanier on M. J.'s next to last day with the city. There are two more clues to who the Cleo is in the story: His/her name is written on the inside of the tuning peg chamber on the dulcimer, as well on the outside of the same chamber on the end piece of the duclimer.

Eventually, the dulcimer must have been given to Don Swick, presumably by Cleo, three years after M. J. gave it to Cleo. Don was the father of the woman who we bought the dulcimer from, so now we have a direct connection to the present...

But there remains one striking question: How did Cleo put his/her name on the inside of the peg chamber, if he did not build it, and who was he/she? What is their connection to this story? Another great observation is that this dulcimer has had an incredible geographical journey:

It started out in Hindman, Kentucky, where it was made in 1974, and eventually brought to Lancaster, (Ohio?) in the early 1980's. This is the same Lancaster where I would spend many of my years of my childhood and adolescent life just a mere twenty years later. It then found its way to central southern Ohio, to rest upon a wall as a decorative piece until 2011 when it would be discovered via the internet, and shipped closer to its 1980 home.

Then the dulcimer would be driven back and forth to North Carolina, passing within 20 miles of its origin point of Hindman, Kentucky many times. Finally, it is currently in Washington state, shipped over 2500 miles from its origin, to be tuned up, strummed, and still enjoyed by a person who most likely met direct decedents of its creator in person or in passing within the small city he enjoyed before he set off to college.

We put lots of value on physical things in this world, and I don't necessarily think that is a bad thing. Physical objects help qualify our current condition, and help us to enjoy and understand the temporary presence we enjoy in this increasingly nonstop world. And this dulcimer, through its stories and relatively modern history, still fulfills this promise via its nailed together body, and staples for frets. 

Three strings are a simple setup, and the smell might not match a 100 year old instrument, but its good enough for me, and makes me ponder the unknowns. Everyday tomes hold so much weight behind them, and as much as I like to look at personal relationships and interactions throughout time, its always good to step back and look at some of the more permanent static things.

The Realness of the Small Town Diner

So I'm blogging on the road today, from Stevenson, WA. Being here feels like going back into my comfort zone. As soon as I got out of my car to enter the diner I get into the swagger of the rural, walking in like I own the place.

I look around to observe the setting. The sheriff and some county workers are having their lunch together and a family talks among themselves about what to do with the rest of the week.

A new family comes in and orders their food. I see an older man come in, and replace a walking stick he was apparently testing out. As he starts to leave, a young boy calls out and says "Hi Grandpa!" They chat for a minute, and as he leaves the diner, the waitress says "Bye Grandpa!"

Finally, an older couple comes in and decides to push away the dishes to get the rare but dirty seat by the window. No complaints, no difficulty to the staff. Just a friendly chat about the mess.

I am in my element.

I don't want to leave.

Sunday Escape to the Forest (Part 2)

So we left out last time as I was leaving Lucia Falls and on my way to Yacolt and Amboy. I figured the last post would be too long, and seeing as though we are switching geographical regions, its a good time to split the posts.

Yacolt and Amboy are outliers in the scheme of Clark County. Amboy fits the stereotype of small towns, and is smaller (naturally because it is the farthest community before you hit Gilford Pinchot National Forest. Its main street is comprised of two or three dilapidated buildings, and houses that are so old and far outside the city they still used wood burning stoves. The entire town had a hazy smoke to it as I drove through it.

Yacolt perplexed me the most. As I drove into the town it was painfully obvious the main reason it was there was as a stop on the rail line for the lumber industry. The main stretch of road paralleled a still in use train track for the fizzling industry. The restored train station was beautiful, and the railroad was obviously a source of pride for the town. Not much different from my hometown of Thurston.

The part which made me do a double take was the development that had taken place on the eastern side of the tracks. The tracks literally separated the "new town" and the "old town". Brand new houses, built most likely in the early 2000's, were arranged in typical subdivision style, as a miniature place to raise 2.5 kids. The houses looked exactly the same: all white siding, all with a garage, all with a white picket fence. Its one of those things that looks so out of place in a small town with houses that have been there forever. (Thurston also has this, although it's development consisted of really nice double-wides and carports.)

West of the tracks, each house had a history. It was like the walls and the architecture of the structures were literally speaking to you as you drove by. The roofs were aged, the chimneys with a small stream of smoke coming out of them. And porches! Some of the houses had beautiful porches, something you don't find in the modern design of houses.

This contrast baffled me while I was driving through the town. I had never seen such a shocking developmentally divided town. I wonder what the residents though of it. Was it a nuisance that these people had moved in and completely redeveloped an area of the town so quickly? Or was it that the town was happy to have more residents move in, and welcomed them with open arms into their community? Have the integrated? If only I could live there and get to know the town...

Regionalism and my definition of rural have both changed as a result of this chapter of my life. I have come to realize that regions are much more difficult, and significantly easier, to define. The "Northwest" has so many commonalities across its urban and rural areas. The lives people live, the industry that ties them together, the general increased accessibility and attitude of acceptance towards new ideas. It pretty much jives with all of the people I have met here.

Rural areas encompass much more than just farmland also. I loved studying the "industrialized rural areas" of America in many of my college classes, and learning how industrialization is not only limited to the city. But I never lived the experience. Most of the rural areas I have seen to this day are financially impoverished, and suffer from brain drain to the extreme. The very life source of many communities I've seen has simply disappeared, for better or for worse.

Yacolt and Amboy defy this. They prove that logging is, albeit diminishing, still a very strong income earner for local residents. The industry holds seemingly responsible view on many things.

After Amboy, the sun was setting, but I decided to press on, to get some shots of it from Gilford Pinchot. All of this reflection about industry and identity shows how we can come to get views such as this:

Sunday Escape to the Forest (Part 1)

Winter has finally come to the Northwest. I sit here writing a post about a perfectly sunny day in a beautiful park, and outside the snow is relentless:

View from Street Outside Work

View from Outside My Window at Home

If you didn't read the time signature, I am posting this around 3 PM PST. That means I got out of work early. But it is such a beautiful site.

But on to my other adventures. Last Sunday I visited a regional park called Lucia Falls. It boasted an impressive set of rapids and waterfalls, like the name said. I used it as a good excuse to escape from the suburban confines of Vancouver. It was a nice escape.

The drive around Clark County can be surprising. I always thought of it as this weird mixture of leftover farmland which hasn't been developed into suburban housing yet. I never really comprehended there were the foothills of the Cascades and a National Forest in the county. Upon arriving at the park I found a beautiful moss covered deciduous tree:

The tree looked out of place in the middle of the vast majority of the coniferous evergreens. It also had a little area cleared around it, like it was a relic which withstood the little pasture which would come to be.

The park invited me in, and I found myself reverting back to one of my most common methods of collecting myself: Running away to the woods.

This was a technique I would use often when I was in Barcelona. The beautiful thing about that city is that it had so many parks, small and large, to go run away too (that also didn't require a car to get to.) I had at my fingertips any number of wooded areas with lots of paths and hiking. I was also fortunate enough to have Park Güell basically at my doorstep, so that invited me many times as well.

The access to parks and green space here exists, and it is well represented. But it is not the same type of green space one would find in Barcelona, or in other cities for that matter. Many of the parks in Vancouver are just open fields with a picnic table and some sort of sports court, and nothing more. There are rarely any trails, and rarely are they forested.

For that exact reason I had to use my car to go out and explore.

Well actually, lets back up. Originally I wanted to go grocery shopping, which did end up happening. But the day was so perfect, sunny, bright, and somewhat warm, so I decided to run off. I heard about Lucia Falls Park, so I decided to venture off in search of it. After driving about 30 minutes past the last large town with regular bus service I crossed into another version of Clark County.

Previously all I had seen of the city, and county, included a concave structure of dense urbanization, thinning out to a mixture of empty lots, some farmland, and apartment complexes. Lots of trees compared to what I had driven through to get here (see earlier posts), but not necessarily a forest. Here was an environment similar to my alma mater. There were pastures, forests, rolling hills, complete with beautiful streams and rivers:

Path Through the Forest

The East Fork of the Lewis River

Small Stream Leading to the East Fork

Eroded and Flood Area of the East Fork

Rapids on the East Fork

I really appreciate the fact that Clark County has protected these areas. These falls, and their corresponding rivers, are so important to the ecosystem and salmon population of the area. There were signs all around the park saying to not make contact with the water, less it disturb the salmon or transfer a potentially harmful disease to the habitat.

The falls themselves were also very impressive. It amazes me that rivers here are so huge, and that this is considered a "fork" of the main Lewis River... Which is also massive.

The falls bid me goodbye as the sun began to sink below the mountains around me. But I didn't let that stop my exploring. After seeing the falls, I began to drive farther out, to see the communities of Yacolt and Amboy. See Part 2 for reflections on the few small independent towns that remain in Clark County.

How the Road Beckons

As far as nostalgia goes, I used to have a lot of it, but little fibers of it remain.

I drove my car for the first time in two and a half weeks yesterday, and because it was low on gas, I filled it up. Then... I went for my usual drive around Portland.

I find that I drive mostly for fun. Some places like the Blue Ridge Parkway say that driving is America's favorite recreational sport. Well... I think that is somewhat true. I really enjoy driving. The independence, the control, the fact that you are the sole pilot of your own little steel and fiberglass landship.

I have a hard time explaining this to people, who see cars solely as a means of commute and maintenance money robbers. To them, cars are a "necessary" expense. (I put necessary in quotes because many people I talk to have the resources and ability to ditch the car, metaphorically, and rely only on public transit and carpooling to get around.) To the average commuter, the car is a four wheeled machine designed to accelerate your life and to get you where you need to go. I don't like to see it that way. That is what buses and other people's cars are to me.

The car (or truck, van, motorcycle, or other personal automobile) is an embodiment of the space to which you dedicate your "inbetweeness". You are in the space between two destinations, and to some that would be called the journey. And we all know that old phrase.

My car, her name is the Catalyst, is... well I've already given it a name so far in the description. That should tell you loads about what I think of personal vehicles. I see it not necessarily as a person, or autonomous character, but gendered with a personality. She gets cranky, her underside is rusted, the exhaust rattles like you will bottom out. Her parts are shaky, and the inside is rarely pristine. Its not the most comfortable ride, we are talking about an economy car here, but on the open road with landscapes too grand to imagine, she will get you 40+ miles per gallon.

I wouldn't quite use the phrase the band Queen so wonderfully wrote a song about: I'm not in love with my car. But I do appreciate such an intricate, interlaced, multicomplex gathering of steel, copper, and plastic, which to no end or means of studying I will ever be able to fully understand.

I am in awe of many things in this world, and my imagination is captured quite easily. When driving along the stretch of I-5 going northbound opposite of downtown across the Willamette, I couldn't help but feel as if I were in an average car, rolling down a concrete and asphalt ribbon in the late 70's.  Led Zepplin was on the radio, blaring "Rock n' Roll" and the overpasses of the city streets and signs just felt like I was on the ultimate independence granting journey among the new found youth in an aging decade. A place and essence so enticing that I even role played that I was in that time and city; its soft yellow lights refracting through a haze ridden skyline, a dying timber industry giving rise to a new tech culture, and the face of a city which would lead the charge against so many paradigms about living urban.

A MAX train whizzed past, and broke my spell, and I took the exit back to I-5 north, switched the radio to modern country, and felt the cracking pavement on that nearly 100 year old remnant of a more traditionally industrial time. How the road beckons once more, tempting me to see all the landscapes I can, and never being able to fully know all the places that exist even within my tenuous home states.

Fog Wrapped Lights

Tonight walking home, I found myself thinking about the stars, the clear night, and how happy I was to see the lights of the port as I crossed over the I-5 bridge. It may seem silly, but There is something to be said about a bedroom community.

Attempting a definition here is quite a request, but I feel up to it.

The fog sinks into the road as we cross the river. The weather patterns vary on each side of the Columbia. It must be a microclimate effect with the large body of water. It could be raining in Portland and when back in Vancouver all is clear, roads wet with cold steam from the moisture that lingers in the air. Each light takes on its own shimmer of fog, a chill not quite as harsh as rain, but not as crisp as winter. An in-between.

It seems as though I have lived on the in-between my whole life. Nothing is as solid as it would like to think. Ohio being the intersection of two major landscapes, the city of Asheville being the mixing of two socio-economic cultures, Barcelona being a hub for commerce, tourism, and flavorful tastes from all around Spain. Vancouver fits well into these seeming dichotomies, with being the ultimate definition in contrast to the other; the other being the city of Portland.

When discussing the proposed "Columbia River Crossing" project (a new bridge from Portland across the Columbia into Vancouver), there is always contention with the addition of light rail on the bridge. Some slogans in protest to the bridge and the light rail addition called it "the crime train", which would bring in all sorts of crime from Portland. As if Vancouver wasn't without its fair share of crime.

But this brings up the more important point: What if there isn't a "solid state" where something is definite and absolute? Even the weather does change and mix across the river, usually creating a dense fog which envelops everything. 

Air stagnation is a new concept for myself as well. That is the effect when air cannot flow because of the two mountain ranges essentially trapping it. It just constantly hits these barriers, and keeps rolling onto itself, eventually slowing down, and loosing the force to exit the valley. As much as this does trap the pollution and particulates in the valley, it does create some great calming situations.

On a dark street at 10 at night, the fog rolls in quite quickly. The motions are amazing, and barely noticeable as you walk down the street. All at once, there is a fog. But this is not the scary ominous fog that creates the dark where bad things lurk. This fog invites you to get wrapped up, to get lost and to show you the very filters from different lights which can't show themselves in clear weather.

As you embrace it, the moisture and ground clouds reveal a mysticism to the everyday objects you walk by on your morning and evening commutes. The light on the porch of the house three blocks down now flickers on as you walk by, and reveals a hazy soft light, much different from the luminescent directness you usually experience. The warm light shows you your path, and brings the individual droplets of water in the air to the forefront of your brain.Those droplets hang stock still, only shifting to the slightest breeze.

The port is much like this from a 50 mile per hour bus crossing the I-5 bridge. It reveals to you the warm structures, like a megalithic alter of modernity which sits off in the distance, inviting you to investigate more. The cranes, booms, and pulleys now obscured by the fog and lamps, into a soft radiant orange, an impressionistic smudge in the now smeared outline of the city.

The people on the bus don't notice this, except for a small woman in a heavy coat laden with bags. We make eye contact for a minute, but she soon gets off the bus in town.

A suburb and city have never seemed to capture my imagination this much before. Perhaps you can come visit, and if we are lucky, there will be some fog late at night.