The for sale sign is in the front yard. The house is listed online. The time has come. After almost 10 years of residing in Oregon, my wife and I are packing up and moving back to California. I am starting a new job with a wonderful nonprofit organization dedicated to the scientific study of […]
It is often said that state capitols do not make for great cities. This is undoubtedly true along the West Coast. Sacramento is exceedingly lame compared to its much cooler cousins San Francisco and Los Angeles. Salem is fairly forgettable and not so interesting when lined up against Bend, Ashland, or Portland. And then there’s […]
Want some crack, eh? No, thank you. Ok, no worries. Sooory. Want some company for the night big guy? No, I’m ok thank you. Oh, ok, sooory. The drug dealers and prostitutes in Vancouver, British Columbia were most cordial. It was 2002, I was living in San Francisco and primed for adventure. While an undergraduate […]
The sun beamed gloriously as I motored into Astoria. That, in and of itself, was a revelation. Astoria is many ways favorable: historic, quaint, picturesque, fortuitously sited at the mouth of the mighty Columbia—but sunny it is not. Gray and silver, alloyed with an understated mousy ashen hue, serve as the team colors. It rains. […]