This isn’t a snow town. We’re more a rainy and cold sort of folk, and when the “white stuff” hits PDX we all panic a bit. Now, I’m a native lowlands northwester and never learned to drive in the snow, so I’m not sure what excuse all you transplants from the midwest and east coast [...]

Mine is a pretty cynical generation. Most of us in our 30s have spent the majority of our lives in a recession, in a war over oil, facing climate change, and enduring political parties that fail to inspire much less to lead us to a better tomorrow. We’ve lacked hope that things will get better, [...]

One of the wonderful things about running a creative agency is that on the rare 70 degree mid-October day you can play hookey and enjoy the sun. You can’t take a gift like this and stay inside in the Pacific Northwest. No! It’s an imperative to get outside, recharge, enjoy the weather and get some [...]

Maybe it’s that I’ve played team sports since I was 5, but I love me a team. Not watching teams, but being part of one. I love the cameraderie, the friendly competition, the way the whole transcends the sum of its parts to become something new, better, more awesome. Nothing brings this home for me [...]

Just as I was about ready to post my long-overdue August monthly mux, I found out that the RIAA had shut down Muxtape. Whaaaa? Yeah, I heard the needle scratch on the record as the tunes came to a halt, too. And then disappointment in the RIAA set in. Is their goal to stop people [...]

Remember in high school when you had to read Homer’s Odyssey? Your teacher probably bored you with discussions of archetypes, heroes, and a whole lot of crazy Greek gods, goddesses, and weird offspring and creatures like Charybdis. Maybe if you had a really cool teacher and you got to watch Star Wars as a treat, [...]

I’m not normally the adventure-seeking type, but when our rafting guide suggested that I “ride the bull” for my birthday this weekend, I couldn’t really find fault with the idea. That’s me on the front of the raft, holding on tightly in case the river consumes me, throwing the f*ck yeah horns high in the [...]

It turns out that the sun DOES still exist, despite the doubts created by an unusually cold and cloudy Junuary. The month of July one of my favorites, since it brings softball games after a month long break, camping, hiking, garden-fresh produce, evenings in the back yard, lazy afternoons in the hammock, and – oh [...]

When I received Ticketmaster’s concert update newsletter announcing that The Decemberists and Death Cab for Cutie would be playing together in Bend over Memorial Day Weekend, I knew I had to buy tickets. How could I miss seeing two of my favorite bands, much less see them both in the same show? That would be [...]

When was the last time you said that to someone? Remember making mix tapes in high school, maybe even in college? Break up tapes, I have a crush on you tapes, a tape of Alphaville’s “Forever Young” repeated over and over… Then you used the photocopier to make fancy covers for you tapes, gave them [...]