Posted inSalem

Help Save Salem’s Community Vision: meeting Oct. 18, 2013

Kudos to Geoffrey James, a Salem architect, for organizing a community meeting next Friday, October 18, 2013, Grand Theatre (191 High Street, downtown), 6:30 pm. Everyone who cares about the future of the downtown area should attend. See info below from James. What makes this meeting even more important than it otherwise would be is that James recently met with the Salem City Manager, Linda Norris, and three other high-ranking City officials. Basically he was given a brush-off and told that the City wasn't interested in hearing what citizens think about the important issues below. That's a horribly heavy-handed way…
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Posted inWeb/Tech

I hate the useless MyDigitalO Oregonian

Ten days after I said the new online Portland Oregonian that replaces the print newspaper for screwed-over subscribers three days a week sucks, I am not pleased to report that... it still sucks! Why my subscription price hasn't been reduced by 3/7, or thereabouts, baffles me. There is absolutely no way I can read the Oregonian on my Retina MacBook Pro laptop or iPhone 5.  At least, not without experiencing so much frustration, any interest I have in the newspaper's content vanishes within seconds.  Early in October, right after the dreadful digital rollout, I expressed my dissatisfaction to the powers-that-be…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Obama, stand firm on federal shutdown and debt limit

I watched President Obama's press conference today. He made a heck of a lot of sense. No, a hell of a lot of sense.  President Obama intensified his pressure on House Republicans on Tuesday, calling on them to “lift these threats from our families and our businesses” as the federal government remained shuttered into a second week and the possibility that the United States would default on its debts grew closer. Mr. Obama, holding firm to the position he first took more than a year ago, said at a lengthy news conference that he would not negotiate over the essential…
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Posted inEntertainment

“Gravity” movie messes up some basic physics

Last night my wife and I saw Gravity, 3-D style, at Salem's eating/drinking-friendly Cinebarre movie house.  My overall impression was great movie. Not least, because no matter how bad a day I have from now on, remembering what it was like for Sandra Bullock to be lost in orbit, oxygen almost depleted, with no apparent way back to Earth, utterly isolated, will remind me that there are way worse sorts of days. Watching Gravity, though, there were times when my semi-scientific mind went Huh? How could that be? It turns out that I was justified in my skepticism about the…
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Posted inSalem

REI comes to Salem, but not to downtown

Good news. REI is coming to Keizer Station.  REI has signed a lease for space at Keizer Station. Bethany Hawley, an REI spokeswoman, confirmed today that the outdoor gear retailer had leased space at the Keizer shopping mall. “Unfortunately, that’s all the details I can share at this moment. We will have a formal announcement next week,” Hawley said. Several stores recently opened by REI have hired about 50 employees, according to the company’s website. The size of its newer stores has been in the range of 23,000-square-feet, Founded in 1938, REI is the nation’s largest consumer cooperative with 5.1 million…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Salem

Salem City Council asking strange downtown parking questions

Hmmmm. Something is strange here, and not in a good Strange Up Salem way. Take a look at how a survey of downtown businesses requested by the Salem City Council at its last meeting starts off. City Council is considering whether to remove time limits for on-street parking in the Downtown Parking District.  In the meantime, the holiday season is rapidly approaching. Last year, the time limits for on-street parking were extended from 2 hour limits (once a day per block face) to 4 hour limits. City Council would like to have feedback from downtown businesses about your preference for…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Proud to be a Democrat on October 1. Obamacare rocks!

This image says it all. About the difference between Republicans and Democrats these days, the Party of No vs. the Party of Yes. On October 1 the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare, started to provide health insurance to the 30 million or so people in this country who live under the fear that they will be unable to get and pay for needed medical care. That same day, Republicans in Congress shut down the federal government in an effort to deny millions of people the health insurance they desperately desire. If you doubt this, read the stories about the Obamacare…
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Posted inUncategorized

New online Oregonian sucks. But could suck less.

Bottom line: one day into the Portland Oregonian's venture into being an online newspaper for subscribers on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, I hate it. The online reading experience sucks. But maybe, just maybe, it could suck less. Here's my reasons for saying this. (1) A digital facsimile of the Oregonian is stupid. The Oregonian's quasi-erotically-named URL for its online version is www.mydigitalo.com. Clicking on that leads to a digital.olivesoftware.com site. So the Oregonian has signed up for an off the shelf Olive Software digital newspaper. It should have been left on the shelf. There's a wonderfully simple and effective way to…
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Posted inDogs Salem

My damn fine reportin’ on today’s Orygun storm

I am one HELL of a stormchasin' reporter. Proved that today with my coverage of what I call an Oregon Stupid Storm (copyright reserved, all that legal stuff, blah, blah, blah). For the technically inclined envious out there, all you need to make professional-quality storm-reportin' videos like this is (1) an iPhone, (2) the way cool Lumify app, and enough stupid in you to keep hauling your unwaterproofed phone out in heavy rain.  
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Posted inHome life

Trying to be positive as DirecTV lacks Pac-12 Network

When I realized that both the Oregon State and Oregon football games today only were being shown on the Pac-12 Network, I leaned toward spending my weekend cursing DirecTV. After all, DISH has come to terms with the Pac-12 Network, along with most cable outfits. This is the second football season I've been irritated, annoyed, and otherwise pissed-off at DirecTV (see previous blog post blasts here and here). My first thought was to come up with more creative curses to direct at DirecTV. Yiddish tradition has some pretty good ones that I could embellish. (Though I was thinking along more…
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Posted inSalem

Creative vision for Salem City Hall and Riverfront Park expansion

I've told Geoffrey James, a noted Salem architect, that he needs to be cloned. One Geoff can keep on with what the original is doing. The clone should be in charge of urban design for the City of Salem.  (See my previous post, "Architect Geoffrey James critiques Salem's lack of urban design.") Last night I was pleased to get an email from Geoff that went to me and many others concerned about development in the downtown riverfront area. More great ideas.  I really like his "Proposal for the Expansion of City Hall and Riverfront Park." As the City should be…
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Posted inWriting/Weblogs

My unfriendly advice for blog comment spammers

Hey, spammer dudes and dudettes, wherever you may be, which pretty obviously isn't in this country given the fractured English you use... I am not at all thrilled when you try to leave comments on my blog posts in order, I assume, to get a better search engine ranking when your spammy URL is included with the comment. But if you're going to pretend to be leaving a cogent observation about one of my posts, I really wish you'd put some effort into it. How about at least taking a quick glance at what I wrote, and attempt to say…
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Posted inSalem

Salemians should vote on downtown parking meter ban

Tomorrow the Salem (Oregon) City Council will decide how to handle the stupendously successful citizen initiative petition that seeks to ban parking meters in the downtown area. It's on the Monday meeting agenda. The staff report notes that almost 9,000 signatures were submitted in just a short time.  The people have spoken. For quite a few reasons, making people pay for onstreet downtown parking is a really bad idea. Stop Parking Meters Downtown explains why.  So let's have a vote in May 2014 on this issue. The City Council should choose that route, rather than putting the initiative into effect…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Craziness of today’s Republican Party is unparalleled

Has any political party in American history been crazier than the current Tea Party-fueled antics of Congressional Republicans? Not in my lifetime. And I'm getting to be damn old (65 next month). Threatening a shutdown of the federal government because of Affordable Care Act hatred, along with holding the nation's economy hostage with a threatened refusal to pay bills Congress already has incurred (a.k.a. not raising the debt limit) for the same reason -- this is new Crazy Territory. Listening to reasonable talk radio today, I heard a historian say that maybe, just maybe, politicians in the mid-1800's acted even…
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Posted inSalem

Architect Geoffrey James critiques Salem’s lack of urban design

Below you'll find a spot-on critique by Geoffrey James of how the City of Salem does urban design. Or more accurately, doesn't.  James is an architect here in Salem. It's fair to say, a noted architect, judging from a portion of his bio: Geoff began his long career in design in 1963 upon graduating as an architect. First licensed in the UK in 1966, he has worked on prestigious buildings around the world from England, Wales, Scotland, and Egypt, to the USA. Licensed in the US in 1979 he has designed buildings in seven states i.e. Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Alaska, Hawaii,…
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Posted inSalem

2009 Pringle Square plan way better than 2013 version

Plans to redevelop the old Boise Cascade property on downtown Salem's riverfront have, thankfully, fallen through. Mountain West Investment's attempted land grab of the Carousel parking lot in public Riverfront Park for a private access road to an apartment complex on the west side of the railroad tracks was met with intense opposition from concerned citizens.  And somehow the development team missed an obvious fact: conversion of the park land to a private use would require National Park Service approval, since federal funds were used to build Riverfront Park. The 6(f) conversion application would take two years to process, or…
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Posted inSalem

Photos: imagine what Salem’s Riverfront Park could become

After Jack Bushek sent me his new vision for Salem's old Boise Cascade property, which became a blog post, last Thursday I took a sunset walk in the south end of Riverfront Park. I wanted to imagine what Riverfront Park could be like if the land west of the railroad tracks was added on to the park, and if the Pringle Creek banks were remade into a cool mixed use area. Also, how the Park would have been changed (for the worse) if Mountain West Investment's original development plan for the Boise Cascade property hadn't fallen through. Here's the photos…
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Posted inSalem

A new vision for Salem’s old Boise Cascade property

With the seeming demise of Mountain West Investment's ill-considered Pringle Square plans, there is a fresh opportunity to make this downtown riverfront area into a place that will elicit a Wow! rather than ho-hum from Salem visitors and residents.  Here's a letter that Jack Bushek, a long-time West Salem resident, sent to me. He has shared it with Salem Weekly, the Statesman Journal, Salem City Council, Mayor, and others. Hopefully it will get the attention that it deserves.  I like Jack's ideas. They fit with the basic vision of the 2006 Urban Land Institute report that analyzed the best uses…
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Posted inSalem Skateboarding

Video: senior citizen skateboarder rolls at Salem Sunday Streets

I had a great time at the Salem Sunday Streets event a few days ago. Well, my experience could have been even greater if I'd gotten the media coverage that I had shamelessly sought in my Statesman Journal press release. Which began with: For immediate super-important stop-the-presses release Salem's Senior Citizen Skateboarder, a.k.a. Brian Hines, a.k.a. me (though I will speak in the third person for greater dramatic effect) will be making an appearance at the Salem Sunday Streets event tomorrow. All available Statesman Journal reporting and photographic resources should be diverted to this locally, stately, nationally, and, arguably, cosmically important event. …
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