Mind The Gap

Just some random bits from the trip.

Pinball game in one of the airports.

Monument to capitalism at a mall near the hotel.

Mounted police letting their horses drink from a fountain downtown.

Fun juxtaposition of colors in Chinatown.

Old sign in Chinatown.

Bus advertising it’s own use of biodiesel in the shopping district.

‘Twas a fun trip, and those are all the photos I have.

On our one major afternoon of exploring, one of our stops was the Chinese Gardens. It didn’t take us long to wander through, which made the ticket price seem disappointing. However, I think one could have made much more of an event of it than we did (such as by going on one of the guided tours or renting the gadget that has pre-recorded info about various stops in the garden).

We sort of just meandered through, looked at things, snapped some photos, and then wandered out.

Some neat bonsai.

Ryan’s silhouette in front of a willow tree across the lake.

Stone pattern on the ground.

More miniatures.

Ryan in front of the flowering tree.

I was thinking of editing this image to remove the dirt smears, and then printing it to frame at the office.

Another nice view through one of the decorative windows.

Tiny sign at the very bottom of the wall of the tea house.

City skyline behind the pagoda on the lake.

Close up of the willow tree.

View from inside one of the buildings.

And thus concludes our summary of the Chinese Gardens.

Been a busy couple of weeks.  But, I’ve finally uploaded a few more photos from our trip to Portland earlier in the month, so here we go.

We stayed at the Doubletree at Lloyd Center.  The hotel is undergoing renovation (environmentally friendly renovation, I might add).  Where they are in the overall project plan, I do not know, but I found that several area’s are already redone, while some others are not.  We had a newly redecorated room, that even underwent some enhancement during our stay (new chair brought in, new curtains hung), while some others in our party on a lower floor were still stuck with the 80s furniture and formica.

Anywho, I took several pictures of things around the hotel, such as the views from various windows, Ryan and I, and a bit of amusing signage.

Views from the hotel:

(Mostly from our room, a couple from another room we briefly visited.)

Ryan and I:

Amusing Signage:

(I liked that it was room 666, and there is a no smoking sign…)

Only one or two more installments of Portland pictures to go!

There are loads more pics from the trip, but I’ve decided to siphon them out a few at a time, because I feel like it.

On today’s menu we have the few pics I took of food and drink.  (I meant to do more of this, but ultimately kept getting distracted.)

This is a photo of the paper chopstick cover from a little sushi place where Ryan and I had lunch on our first day in the city.

Beer sample from the Rock Bottom brewery/restaurant.  All of them were good (although the seasonal stout is to be recommended especially), and the food was also rather tasty.  A+++ would visit again.

Photo of sake from a fancy sushi place (the name of which unfortunately escapes me).  I took several pictures of the serving setup, but ended up settling on this one.

This is my favorite photo of the serving because the sake is poured so that it overflows into the secondary dish there as a symbol of abundance (we were told), and meanwhile beside this symbol of abundance is a chipped plate, and it’s generally considered bad form to serve a guest from cracked or chipped dishes.  I found the juxtaposition amusing.

The sake itself was also of interest.  First, the bottle is comically huge, at over a foot tall.  Second, the sake is a milky white color instead of clear, is a bit milder/sweeter than normal sake, and is served chilled.  We sampled a few and as a group chose this one (Murai Family Nigori Sake).  Bit of info here.

One of our projects around the house is creating a drink cooler out of an old broken washing mashing, and decking it out to look like a victorian styled time machine.

One of the major hurdles of the project is removing the agitator shaft from the washing tub.  (Taking off the cover is easy, but the metal shaft itself is another story.)

We finally managed to get it cut out, and here are some artistic photos of the damage.

Since then I’ve sealed up and padded the remaining stub using kitchen/bath caulk, and have primed and painted most of the case, and the control panel.

Next steps are:

1. Drill hole (so I can paint the last panel)
2. Install drain tube and faucet (using aforementioned hole)
3. Paint control panel components
4. Reinstall control panel
5. Add wood trim
6. Install brass handle
7. Paint textured panel  on lid
8. Paint and attach sign panel on front
9. Install thermometer and hygrometer inside lid
10. Paint inside of  lid with instructions for use

For your browsing pleasure, here are some photos of some dread extensions that I made and installed.

The whole set together:

A close up of the leopard printed dreads, and the solid black ones:

The leopard printed dreads are made by just making blond dreads (the hair I used was a medium blond and white blond mixed together) and then painting the leopard spots on them with acrylic craft paint. Painting on hair was a new experience, but I think it worked out okay.

Close up of the highlight transitionals:

These are black hair transitioning to a blend of chocolate brown and the blond mix (blended just a bit, so that there are still streaks of color, rather than the solid/consistent color created by blending very thoroughly).

Black to brown transitions:

These are black transitioned to the dark brown color.

Highlights:

These are black, brown and blond, blended together just a bit so that there are still big streaks of the colors visible.

Black/brown blends:

Black and brown blended together, blended a bit more so the color is a little more subtle.

Colors Used:

• Black: 1B
• Brown: 33
• Blond: 27/613 (bought pre-blended)

Other notes:

There are 20 double-ended dreads total for this install (I have an undercut so I only install dreads in the longer hair at the top).  The two leopard print dreads are just rubber banded on to the braided in dreads, so that they are easy to remove and replace with other accent colors without having to undo any of the braids.

Photos of the install:

So I’m in Portland now.  After Ryan got up and headed down to do some conferencing, I worked on getting our stuff laid out so that the hotel room would be more comfortable.

It’s been a pretty good morning.  All of our clothes and toiletries are put away, I’ve run through all my email (slow day so far, it looks like), and all the rss feeds have been scanned.  After a little bit of doing, I figured out how to operate the in-room coffee maker, so now I’m drinking fancy coffee while lounging in the nice armchair by the windows.

And let me tell you about these windows.  We are on the 11th floor, and the far wall has floor to ceiling glass, most of which consists of some very large sliding glass doors. These open onto a narrow (~1.5 feet) but functional balcony.

The view is impressive, for the most part.  Sure, there are some unattractive roof tops, but there is also something of a mountain line at the horizon, as well as a well-treed park next door, with a few skyscrapers and plenty of city lights scattered about in between.

So far, I dig it.