From Waud Bluff, 31 March 2021. Olympus OM-1n/OM Zuiko 35-70mm zoom/Kodak Pro Image 100 A couple weeks ago Jonathan Maus over at BikePortland posted about the “PDX Sidewalk Joy” map, a guide created by a few people highlighting the weird, interesting, and cool things that can be found on Portland sidewalks. I always love stuff like this, as does Jonathan. I think he was expecting a “Wow! Cool!” response. Instead, what he got was grousing about how the map ignored several areas of the city, particularly deep SW, where the most vocal criticisms came from. These folks will be the first to tell yo ..read more

Mount Tabor, 18 March 2024. ashica YF–Yashinon 50mm f/1.8–Kodak Portra 160 Since I got my Brompton 2 1/2 years ago, my radar has become more attuned to what’s being said about this eccentric British folding bike. Some of this is because I sought it out, especially when I was trying to figure out how to bring my Brompton to Japan. And some I just come across because I follow the blogs of a few Brompton users, and then I discover through them other Brompton sites like Bromptoning. These wee bikes with 16 inch wheels and proprietary parts inspire a lot of devotion. It’s almost like it’s a…cult? N ..read more

12 April 2024. Olympus OM-1n–OM Zuiko 50mm f/1.8–Kodak Portra 160 It’s Tuesday April 23rd. If I had stuck to my plans, I’d be waking up at Ainsworth State Park in the Columbia Gorge, on my first bike camping expedition of the year. But instead, I’m at home. What exactly got me here, or more correctly, what didn’t get me there? The weather is beautiful, sun and highs around 70F/21C, so that’s no excuse. My Bantam touring bike is in working order, so that’s not the problem. No, the problem is me, or more specifically my body and mind. Okay, let’s back up a bit. I’ve been wanting to go bike campi ..read more

Last month Danny over on the Fountain Pen Chronicles lamented the decline of the vintage fountain pen hobby. Interest in vintage pens is waning at a time when interest in fountain pens is growing. Why is this? …Society and its love affair with the BSO syndrome (Bright Shiny Objects) … it is all about the latest and greatest new stuff, the desire to have the first, changing taste, the love of a disposable world, the discovery of fountain pens, and all the glitz and glam. This lament interested me because of the hobbies I’ve gotten into over the past five years. Both fountain pens and fi ..read more

Me rockin’ a pair of Aero-Tech Designs knickers at Overlook Park, 18 Sept 2023. Camera: Olympus XA2 Film: Lomography LomoChrome Color 92 (ISO 400) From time to time I’ve lamented the lack of practical bikes on the market. When I really got this blog going in late 2010, it seemed like we were on the cusp of a Practical Bike Revolution, where smartly provisioned steeds would carry us all through town and suburb for our daily needs, and spandex and lycra would only be seen on the dwindling ranks of roadies. Alas, what dwindled was those practical bikes (unless they are of the e-variety.) Now peop ..read more

Downtown Austin skyline, 4 April 2024. Olympus XA/Kodak ColorPlus 200 From April 3 through 11th, Emee and I were in Texas, with the majority of that time spent in Austin. This is the third time I’ve visited the state’s capital. The first was in 2005, right after spending part of the winter in Tucson. The second was in 2018, when Emee, her kids, and I visited during Thanksgiving. I’ve been interested in Austin since the first time I heard about it back in the nineties when it came on the radar as a “cool” city. This “90s Austin” was portrayed in movies like Richard Linklater’s Slacker.1 On top ..read more

Well, look at that: A vintage rangefinder with a fancy leather bag. So…urban. On my birthday last August, Emee gifted me a Yashica YF rangefinder. It needed some TLC before I could really go to town with it, so I dropped it off at Advance Camera and picked it up after I got back from Tokyo in January. The Yashica YF is a pretty rare circa 1959 machine that uses interchangeable lenses with the Leica Thread Mount, or L39. I had owned four rangefinders up to that point, but they were the consumer-level fixed-lens machines popular in the 60’s and 70’s. So this was a different beast, one that takes ..read more

Hey all, just got back from Texas. Yesterday was brutal: We were supposed to catch an 8:30 AM (CDT) flight out of Austin, connect at San Diego, and then get into Portland around 1 PM PDT. But that flight leaving Austin got delayed by seven hours, necessitating two reschedules of the connecting flight. We didn’t get into Portland until 11 PM! Add to that waiting for an hour for baggage that never came (it’s showing up today), making for a very long travel day. (Did I mention that I don’t like flying?) Anyways, I’m home and sorting it all out. There’s film to be developed and a longer blog post ..read more

Hello, folks. I’m currently in Austin. Emee and I came down here late last week. While Emee always has an excuse to visit this Texas town, as she lived here before moving to Portland and still has friends here, this time we came here specifically because of the eclipse. While Portland was just outside the totality portion of the 2017 eclipse, I was stuck at work, only catching 97%. While this is still cool, I was very frustrated that I couldn’t see the whole thing. I’ve been fascinated by eclipses since being a young astronomy nerd. This frustration was one of the factors that I quit the host ..read more

Well, this is embarrassing: There now seems to be a pattern where every year my Raleigh Superbe is out of commission for three or four months. In 2022, I snapped the rear axle, last year it was a broken spoke. This year (or technically last year) it was a flat I got on my December 23, 2023 ride I did after Coffee Outside. When I noticed that the rear wheel was losing air, the light was dim and I was just a mile from the MAX, so I wheeled the bike to transit and put it aside when I got home. When I finally got around to tending to the flat, I noticed that the rear wheel had two nasty gashes on ..read more