Category: Local

You Missed One Helluva Show

If you weren’t at last night’s Cascade Winds concert, you missed one hell of show. The place was absolutely packed, our food drive for COCAAN was a huge success, and we had a heck of a good time (and I know the audience did). Playing at the Tower Theatre was probably the best thing we’ve done, despite being cozy up on stage (we had to do the percussion section in two rows, but it worked), and we’ve already reserved the Tower for two concerts next fall as we had to turn people away. But we played great, the crowd screamed and yelled, and we had a ball up there. I’m looking forward to the season starting up again this fall.

I have no idea if anybody that reads this site came to the concert (I didn’t get to mingle in the audience during intermission much) so if you did and want to share you comments (good, bad, or otherwise) feel free to share here!

June 13, 2006

Welcome Bend Bulletin Readers

Apparently, despite only having a two minute conversation and making clear that my opinion wasn’t very well informed, I was quoted in today’s Bulletin in a Net Neutrality story (which, since it’s the Bulletin, you have to pay to view and BugMeNot won’t be able to help you). Peter Sach, the reporter who wrote the story, is a nice guy, and I know he was on deadline, I was just hoping that he’d be able to find somebody with a more well-informed opinion (it’s just not something I’ve really had a chance to read up on). Since I can’t copy/paste the story (which somebody was kind enough to e-mail me) without getting sued, here’s my quote:

Jake Ortman, a Bend resident who runs the blog UtterlyBoring.com, sees both sides of the issue. Noting that consumers must pay more for faster Internet service, he doesn’t think requiring the same of companies is so unreasonable.

“Somebody’s got to pay for it,” he said.

<sarcasm>Bure brilliance, ‘eh?</sarcasm> You’ll just have to find a copy of the paper to read that in context.

June 6, 2006

More Northwest Blogs

The Inland Northwest Blogger’s Association is a group of bloggers from the lesser-talked-about parts of the Northwestern United States: Eastern Washington, Eastern Oregon, Idaho, Western Montana, or Northwest Wyoming. According to the site’s webmaster and group’s founder, it’s basically a network of bloggers helping bloggers. They have no dues, or membership fees, and are really just a loose knit group of bloggers who help each other promote their blogs and the image of blogging. Be sure to check it out.

June 5, 2006

Cascade Winds in Concert at the Tower Theatre

Yes, it’s that time of the year again. Coming next Monday, June 12, at 7:30PM, live in concert at the Tower Theatre is the Cascade Winds Symphonic Band. Yes, we’re moving up in the world and we’re playing at the Tower (to quote Snarky, we’re big tits now!), and we’re expecting a (hopefully) packed house so we can do two concerts next time around.

Among the pieces we’re playing:

Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin

Procession of the Nobles by Nicholas Rimsky-Korsakov

Poeme Montagnard by Jan Van der Roost

In The Winter of 1730 by James Swearingen

Americans We by Henry Fillmore

Tuba Tiger Rag by Harry DeCosta

And let me tell ya — that Poeme Montagnard piece is one of the most wonderfully intense, entertaining and challenging pieces the band has played, and I really think the concert’s worth coming to just for that reason (we’ve been working our rear-ends off on it). Heck, any piece has to be good when it’s stocked with a crapload of percussion, a harp, piano, celeste, and a bunch of recorders (yes, those things we all played in the third grade, just much higher quality and much better sounding).

Tickets are free and are available at the Tower Theatre (they’re in short supply) and they’ll be letting folks in at the door after all the folks with tickets have been let in first. More information is available at the Cascade Winds concert page. That page says that you can get them from band members, but I know I don’t have any extras (and if I manage to get ahold of some, I’ll be giving them to the Tower).

And I know a couple of local bloggers live a few blocks from there, so I expect to see you there </guilt trip>

June 5, 2006

I Say We Roll Kegs Of Microbrew Down Pilot Butte

Similar to that annual cheese-rolling competition in England (where 25 people got hurt this year), I say we get some kegs from the various local micro–breweries, roll them down Pilot Butte, and let some lunatics chase after them. Anybody want to organize it?

Thanks Cheryl for the cheese link.

June 1, 2006

Just Because We Know The Rules of The Road…

…doesn’t mean we follow them.

Whether your own asphalt experiences lend it credence or not, Oregon drivers remain the most knowledgeable about the rules of the road, according to the second annual GMAC Insurance National Drivers Test, released as the big summer travel season begins.

Oregon held the top spot for the second straight year in the survey, with an average score of 91 percent on the 20-question test of licensed drivers, similar to the typical DMV written drivers test, the company reported Friday. It takes a 70 percent score or higher to pass the test; Washington came in at No. 2, while Rhode Island ranked lowest this year, but still passed, with an average score of 75 percent.

Take those results with a grain of salt, however. Last year, California drivers were ranked 43, and this year they were 14, according to the rankings, and we all know how those guys drive <ducking to avoid objects thrown at me>. I got 100% on the test, how’d you score (so I know who to avoid on the road)?

Thanks Barney for the tip.

May 28, 2006

Somebody Really Needed A Smoke

So much so that they took a Lava Rock and broke into a local gas station and stole 11 packs.

Update Actually have a functional link now, not the email address for a local blogger (Ugh…this has been a long day).

May 18, 2006

I’ve Heard Of Pot Brownies…

…but I hadn’t heard of Meth Bread.

A search of the 1998 Honda Civic yielded a large quantity of meth hidden in a loaf of bread that was in the back seat, Porter said. Ramirez-Avila was taken into custody without incident, and his car was seized, along with $130 in cash, he said.

The 1.25 pounds of meth seized during the investigation had a street level resale value of more than $57,000, Porter said. It would have been enough to provide a single dose of the drug to more than 2,300 meth users in Central Oregon, he said.

Glad to hear it’s off the streets.

On a related note, I still wish I could buy Sudafed without working my ass off to do it, as it works (at least for my wife and I) far better during allergy season than the Sudafed PE-variants too. But thanks to the Meth-addicts, I’m going to have to order the crap online as by the time I get to a store to buy some (as only a few pharmacies locally still sell it), the pharmacy’s closed. So thanks to the habits of a bunch of local druggies (who are getting their Sudafed and drugs from other states/countries anyway), those of us who use the drug legitimately get screwed.

And remember: If you’re going to gripe about not being able to buy your decongestant, don’t joke about having a meth-habit and you’re just trying to get your fix. Rent-a-cops don’t like that.

May 14, 2006

200 Local Blogs Now Indexed At BendBlogs.com

Yeah, it’s no ORBlogs with its (as of this writing) 1057 blogs, but we now have 200 blogs listed at BendBlogs.com with the 200th being written by a Bend-La Pine school board member.

I’ve now automated the process of searching for new blogs (and I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before) using Google Alerts and the searches I used before.

Some of the feeds don’t get updated that often, but the are some interesting new blogs that I’ve found recently including a local chess club, Harold’s blog, a Central Oregon endurance racing blog, great commentary by Talapus Pete, a Prineville Healthblogger, Simone’s latest venture, Jon’s latest venture, as well as a bunch of LiveJournal and MySpace blogs.

Be sure to check out all these newly found local blogs, and if there is anything I’m missing, something that needs to be removed, etc…, please let me know or submit it here.

May 11, 2006

A Much Needed Feature For BendBlogs.com

This is one of those things that I’ve been trying to get around to doing for quite a while, but there is now a site submit form and an about us/FAQ page. The content of each of those pages is subject to change but it’s at least much better than it was before.

So if anybody has any submissions for blogs that need to be added to BendBlogs, use those forms on that page so I can keep better track of them. As it stands right now, we have 169 blogs getting indexed, with a few more added today.

Also of note, if any of you folks reading this are using a Blogger.com (aka an *.blogspot.com blog) or a LiveJournal blog, and want a different FavIcon, if you can find a place to host it, I can manually tweak my settings in BendBlogs to show that icon. Just use the submit form to submit your new FavIcon URL.

April 30, 2006