NW Explorer

Northwest News and Links for June 25, 2009

Will — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:42:46 +0000

Roseway Neighborhood Association Joins Twitter

June 25, 2009 – Always good to see local businesses and neighborhood associations show up on Twitter and get involved. (Portland)

Movies in the Park » Multnomah (7/3)

July 3, 2009

Northwest News and Links for June 18, 2009

Will — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:54:48 +0000

Back Fence PDX Turns One Year Old: June 17th @ Mission Theater

June 17, 2009 – Fun stories AND bikini models? If I wasn’t flying out of state at 6 the next morning, I’d so be there (Portland, OR)

Summer Concerts in Wallace and Couch Parks

June 17, 2009 – Anything that includes “Old-Timey Strings” is a winner in my book (Portland, OR)

A guide to upcoming music festivals

June 17, 2009 – Plenty of summer music festivals in and around Bend and central Oregon (OR)

Northwest News and Links for June 17, 2009

Will — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:39:37 +0000

$8 million aquarium opens on Vancouver island; 'our ocean lives here'

June 17, 2009 – Sidney is about 16 miles (26km) north of Victoria. (British Columbia)

Bachelorette continues in Whistler

June 17, 2009 – I know you girls like it, so I had to include at least a little sumthin-sumthin. (British Columbia)

Unemployment number surges to record high

June 17, 2009 – Over 240-thousand Oregonians were out of work and looking for work in May. “This is not a good time to be looking for work.” says Oregon Employment economist Art Ayre … Well, that’s just great, isn’t it?

Northwest News and Links for June 13, 2009

Will — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 17:07:29 +0000

Thursday afternoon practice: Hawks open training camp for public

June 12, 2009 – This. Is. Awsome. (Seattle)

Portland Roller Derby: The High Rollers | June 13

June 12, 2009 – The Derby girls I’ve known are equal parts terrifying and awesome. (Portland)

Oregon parks offer stay-two, get-one-night free

June 12, 2009 – Sweet. (Oregon)

Group seeks to halt Umatilla mustard gas burning

June 12, 2009 – Probably related to the radioactive wasp nests… (Oregon)

Crews to Dig Up Radioactive Wasp Nests at Hanford

June 12, 2009 – Now if this doesn’t sound like the beginning of a B-rate horror movie, I don’t know what does. (Montana)

Kosovo in Idaho: Igballe Rogova to Speak on International Women's Rights

June 12, 2009 – Looks like a good chance to educate yourselves and grow as individuals in our awareness of the world… gah, how pompous does that sound? (Idaho State University, Pocatello, Idaho)

Ferry Ride on Francois Lake

June 12, 2009 – Francois Lake loop + free ferry ride = win (British Columbia)

Fringe Sports: Bike Polo

June 12, 2009 – Of course it’s played on Alberta!

Idaho man lives to tell after bear attack

June 12, 2009 – Isn’t not provoking momma bears wilderness Rule # Numero Uno?

Northwest News and Links for June 12, 2009

Will — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:34:20 +0000

Hagg Lake is Forest Grove's recreation gem

June 11, 2009 – I stumbled quite accidentally into Hagg Lake a few weeks ago on a Saturday drive. I think I’m going to be spending plenty of summer weekends out there in the water…

Solstice Weekend at Raccoon Lodge

June 11, 2009 – I love the Lodge. Good food, decent beer, nice laid back atmosphere. And have you heard about the different varieties of French Fries??

NFL | Jim Mora believes Michael Vick deserves reinstatement

June 11, 2009 – I’m inclined to agree in theory, but any team that actually picks up Vick (save Oakland and Dallas) is going to face a PR nightmare with Vick.

Oregon record its first Swine Flu death

June 11, 2009 – WE ARE ALL DOOMED.

Video: Weinland at McMenamins in Bend

June 11, 2009 – Is it just me or does their lead singer look like a little kid with a puffy fake beard taped on?

The Travel Less Roaded

June 11, 2009 – Looks like a pretty interesting documentary. If you’re around Missoula, you probably should check it out.

Human Skeletal Remains Belong To Boise Man

June 11, 2009 – It’s like CSI: Idaho

The guys at reddirtkings.com put together this awesome infographic detailing the "months long"…

June 11, 2009 – Personally, I think turning the Boise State Broncos into the Boise State Muthaeffing Wizards Who Never Die would have been pretty awesome.

Washington wolves and cows

June 1, 2009

Historic steam train touring Northwest

June 11, 2009 – I don’t care what anyone says, I love trains, have loved trains since I was a little kid, and will probably be a 70 year old man who loves trains in 2053.

You can catch me checking out the train in Portland on July 3rd!

Oh, Please Mind the Mess

Will — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 07:01:15 +0000

It’s been a busy, busy week (or at least since Monday night when I stayed up till 3:30am) here at NW Explorer. I’ve had the idea for this blog since February, but some layoff scares put it into hibernation where it effectively stayed dormant ever since.

But an absolutely breathtaking trip into south-central Washington and back into the Columbia River Gorge via the spectacular Kilickitat River changed my mind in a hurry about the Explorer.

So, since then I’ve been in a mad dash installing WordPress, setting up the basic plugins and the like, trying to organize the site’s categories, plan for future pages and blog posts, setting up and organizing a massive Google Reader feed of websites from across the four states (and one Canadian province!), and much, much more.

There’s a lot to be done still, including putting the finishing touches on my custom designed user interface in Photoshop and then turning it into a functional WordPress theme. Past that, there’s a lot of content writing to be done – at least twelve articles and a couple pages (ala that About page you see).

I’m hoping this weekend will be fuitful. Not many folks know about the Explorer yet, and that’s for the best. But if you’re just dropping by, here’s the reason things look to be in utter dissaray – because they are.

Northwest News and Links for June 10, 2009

Will — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 05:41:30 +0000

48 hours in surprising Spokane

June 9, 2009

Broadway Books to Hold Book Club Mixer

June 10, 2009

Summer Free for All in Portland Neighborhoods

June 10, 2009

$5 Bike Helmets Available in Portland Metro

June 10, 2009

We’re #4! We’re #4! YEA!

June 9, 2009

North End Networking Grop

June 11, 2009

Lewis & Clark Festival in Great Falls

June 9, 2009

The Wild and Scenic Klickitat River

Will — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 03:11:57 +0000

This past Sunday, I left my house intending to go on an hour jaunt around town, get out of the apartment for a while, and eventually make my way back to Safeway for a stock me up of groceries.

Too bad things didn’t end up that way.

A few hours later, I emerged from the beautiful grey cloud cover west of the Cascades andwas greated by the sun and sparesely beautiful high desert and farmland near Goldendale, WA . Not wanting to put in the extreme amount of time to head up to Yakima and through the White Pass – or wanting to explore further into southeast Washington – I decided to turn back onto State Route 142 and ended up being pretty much amazed at what I saw.

St. Route 142 meanders for several miles west of Goldendale through farm and ranch land, but you get about a mile or two past Blockhouse Butte and find the road descending sharply into a decently deep but rather narrow canyon or gorge carved out by the Klickitat River.

The next 15-20 miles are spent with me slackjawed at the sheer beauty of what I’m seeing.

About the Klickitat River

The Klickitat River feeds off of collossal Mt. Adams in southern Washington.

I’m Will, and I Love the Pacific Northwest

Will — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 14:17:38 +0000

Every blog has got to start out with that daunting initial post, right? Well, it’s no different around here. So how’s this?

Hello, I’m Will, and I am falling in love with the Pacific Northwest (now say it, everybody: hi, Will).

I moved to Portland, Oregon about three years ago from Oklahoma and now have a hard time thinking I’ll ever leave. It’s not enough that Portland is awesome , but just the entire region continues to blow me away. I suppose the fact that I spend about half my free time racking up the miles driving around the region is only making me more and more enamoured with every weekend drive.

So far, my longest trips have been circumnavigating the Olympic Penninsula and a drive to Yakima via the Dalles and back West via the Cascades (two seperate trips, I swear!). And that’s not even taking into account a sixteen mile hike in flip-flops I took in the high desert wasteland between Burns and Ontario in August 2008 (true story I’ll tell you about sometime).

The fact is, I am amazed by the Northwest. The mountains. The super, uber, wonderfully tall pines and firs. The beaches. The wide open high desert. Mountain rivers. The whole shebang.

I’m so amazed that I want to record some of my random trips around Oregon and Washington (such as my discovery of the wild and scenic Klickitat River in Washinton this past weekend) and create some sort of central place on the web for people to discover what makes the Northwest so amazing.

Should be a wild ride!