The new mix­tape is up for down­load and lis­ten­ing over on the side­bar. It is more or less inspired by the things that I think about while I’m out on what­ever walk. I talk a lot about the ben­e­fits walk friendly cities can have on com­mu­ni­ties. Addi­tion­ally, one of my favorite ben­e­fits is being able to clear my mind and find new things. Any one of my var­i­ous hikes has led to dis­cov­er­ing some­thing I had never seen before. It gives me a chance to put a dif­fer­ent spin on life. Hik­ing and get­ting fresh air can do a bunch to ben­e­fit mood and reduce stress caused by the chal­lenges of day to day life.

On Mon­day I took the bus up to the bot­tom of OHSU, to take an unplanned hike through Maquam Nature Park. I never knew this trail sys­tem existed up until Sun­day when I was search­ing for a way to get out of the urban envi­ron­ment, but still be close to a bus line. When I arrived at the trail head I set my sites on the 4T trail that leads up to Coun­cil Crest, then over to Wash­ing­ton Park. After about an hour I arrived at Wash­ing­ton Park I moved off the 4T trail and on up to Hoyt Arbore­tum. I spent over an hour walk­ing through the Arbore­tum soak­ing in the trees, sun and fresh air. I wan­dered through a few of the trails and learned to iden­tify some of the trees I see around the North­west. I got onto the Wild­wood trail and fol­lowed that over to the Pit­tock Man­sion and then down into For­est Park where I ended my jour­ney at MacLeay Park.

It was a fan­tas­tic day, and I really needed to get out of the house. The thing that I really enjoyed about it was being able to get away from of all the noise and stress of the city, but still be close to home. When you don’t have a car, and are lim­ited to pub­lic tran­sit and foot travel, park sys­tems like what I expe­ri­enced are a won­der­ful way to con­nect with nature. I didn’t spend a sin­gle dol­lar, and had more fun than I would at any bar, movie the­atre or most other enter­tain­ment sources. Here is a rough route of my adven­ture, click on it to make it bigger.

Next week I plan on set­ting out on a much larger hike. I will take the Tillam­ook County Shut­tle to Tillam­ook and then hike back to For­est Grove, where I will either walk home or take Trimet. Just depends on how I feel. My friend Andy might come along. We have been talk­ing about going out for a walk while he is on his break from PCC. I just need to get my paper­work from OHSU, so I can sign the forms and send them back. And then I am free until my start date on the 28^th. Below is my intended route, which is about 52 miles. Which should take 3 days. If the weather is nice, I might keep going and hike out to another des­ti­na­tion. Look­ing for­ward to the free­dom of the woods and open road.

I’ve won­dered for a few years now while con­tem­plat­ing being car-less, and now being car-less if it would be pos­si­ble to travel to and from mul­ti­ple cities via pub­lic tran­sit. It turns out it is! Evan Siroky has assem­bled var­i­ous routes to prove the point. You got to love the efforts peo­ple make to share points on just how […]

First, the good news. Start­ing June 21^st I will no longer be unem­ployed! After more than 8 months of incon­sis­tent income, over­whelm­ing stress and gen­eral eco­nomic slumps — I will rejoin the work­ing class. Awe­some, and I have 3 weeks off until then to work on odds and ends with­out dwelling on the future. I put […]

I love this. It encom­passes a total grasp of clas­si­cal con­cepts, with a con­ver­sion to mod­ern archi­tec­ture. Beau­ti­ful wraps of glass, stun­ning hor­i­zon­tal and ver­ti­cal planes, and inter­est­ing angles. Looks like I found another rea­son to get myself to the Acrop­o­lis. Archi­tects: Bernard Tschumi Archi­tects Loca­tion: Athens, Greece Asso­ciate Archi­tect: ARSY Bernard Tschumi Archi­tects Team: […]

I have kept my opin­ions on the Gulf oil spill to myself. Mostly for the rea­son that there are more knowl­edge­able fig­ures to take on this sad, sad topic. And with igno­rance I can focus on the weigh­ing prob­lems in my life. But this cat­a­strophic baloney that is hap­pen­ing out­side of my self­ish world has pissed […]