onfocus

The Bridge Pedal this weekend was quite a spectacle. It's amazing the city of Portland can pull it off—they close or limit traffic on 10 bridges that connect the two sides of Portland. Part of the interstate is blocked off, and 15,000+ bikers take to the streets to enjoy it. Frank over at Bike Hugger mentioned that it's one of the largest bike events in the country. Here's sk and I in full biking regalia on one of the bridges:



(I'm not angry here, just holding the camera funny and couldn't find the button.)

There was a band playing at the top of two of the bridges, and REI had "bike tech" stations everywhere to help people fix any problems along the way. (One REI guy helped me fix a front brake that was sticking.) It was a highly organized, very well-run event. It didn't hurt that the weather was perfect.

Even though the ride was festive, and people were nice, it was a bit dangerous. We saw a woman fly over her handlebars landing face-first on a bridge after someone in front her stopped in the middle of the road. And we saw paramedics in a few other places helping out after crashes. You really had to keep moving and be aware of everyone around you to avoid running into people. My only critique of the event is that they should provide a bit more safety instruction to the riders.

But even with the stress of riding with a large pack, it beats sharing the road with cars. Here's a look at the top of our last car-free bridge of the day:



Getting up to the top of a few of the bridges was a lot of work for us novice bikers, but I felt like we had a really good ride. We're both tired today, but there were no injuries, no major soreness, and a good time was had by both! I have a few more pictures at Flickr tagged Bridge Pedal. And then there's the global Flickr tag Bridge Pedal. And you can also check out other Oregon blog posts that mention Bridge Pedal via ORblogs.

Update: Check out this picture of the Fremont Bridge over at Portland Ground.

I've been light on posts lately, but I'm still alive. Last weekend my folks were in town and we went over to Bend for a few days. We happened to catch the annual Pole Pedal Paddle where contestants punish themselves with a few intense hours of skiing (both kinds), biking, kayaking, and running.



I found a great first person account of the event at someone's blog: Pole Pedal Paddle.



What I liked about PPP is that it turned largely solitary activities like kayaking, skiing, and running into a communal event. You wouldn't always want to kayak with hundreds of other people, but once a year it builds community. As I watched I thought about communal events in the virtual world, but couldn't come up with too many. In the early blogging days there was A Day Without Weblogs (now Link & Think) every year. But maybe weblogs are communal enough already so an annual group activity isn't necessary.

The scenic highlight of the Bend trip was Tumalo Falls:



Unfortunately, the Cascade Lakes highway is still covered with snow—which we found out the hard way. But the road to Tumalo Falls had just opened, and the falls is probably at its peak this time of year. There's a short path that lets you walk up to and look over the falls.

We saw plenty of these little guys at the Lava Lands Visitor Center:



I also saw the Da Vinci Code while I was in Bend. The movie is being universally panned, but I actually enjoyed it. (Maybe because I haven't read the book.) I think I enjoyed it because the hero of the story is a history professor. At one point in the film they're rushing through a city being chased by bad guys and Tom Hanks actually says, "I need to get to a library, quick!" Not your typical action hero line. We need more movies where knowledge is a more useful tool to the hero than a gun.

According to this MSNBC/Forbes article—Safety first: The best places to live in the U.S., "Every location in the country is exposed to one disaster or another..." But Corvallis, Oregon came in at #8 on the safest places list. A quake topped the list of dangers here, and there is a fault off the coast. Honolulu, Hawaii was at the top of the list. Of course now that Corvallis is on the safe list something is bound to happen. [via Chuggnutt]

It somehow makes sense that the high prophet of pastafarianism is from right here in Corvallis, Oregon: Corvallis man's parody is Internet 'monster'. You can read his original letter at his website.

I'm going to be heading to Portland on Friday for the Webvisions conference. If you're in the area, and interested in where web design is heading, this one-day event is a great way to stay in the loop. There's also talk of an ORblogs get-together during the lunch break, and I'm hoping to meet some of the folks behind the sites I read regularly.

The town of Corvallis, Oregon (where I'm currently a proud resident) was recently ranked the 7th best place to live in the United States by Men's Journal. Local Paper: Corvallis: We're Number 7! Men's Journal is often considered the foremost expert on livable cities. ;) Here's their teaser article with the top picks: 50 Best Places to Live. Oregon had a good showing with Bend listed as the Best Adventure Town, and both Portland and Ashland getting a nod.

Here's the Google Map of wifi near Corvallis, Oregon. Now I know where I can take my laptop to surf. wow!

Last night I played around with worldKit—a Flash mapping program. (You may remember this from such flash maps as The World as a Blog.) Their tagline is "Easy Web Mapping", and that's very accurate. I decided to build a geographic map of recent posts by Oregon bloggers, and I had it up and running in about an hour. worldKit has a simple XML config file, and it accepts geo-tagged RSS as input. Using their MapProxy, you can build custom images based on satellite photos, topographic maps, or the tiger census maps. With a few tweaks to the tiger URLs the MapProxy provides, I had the map I wanted. And "Oregon as a Blog" was born on the ORblogs Cities Page. (Of course you'll need Flash installed to view it.)

Speaking of radios, a trio of Oregon bloggers were interviewed on OPB for a weekly show called Oregon Territory. Infamous locals b!X, Jack Bog, and RoguePundit discussed the state of blogging in our state. If you didn't catch it live, you can listen on the website. (No radio required.)

I haven't seen The Incredibles yet, but writer/director Brad Bird grew up here in Corvallis, and he snuck some references in—

Sharp-eyed moviegoers familiar with Corvallis perhaps noticed the picture's two tributes to Bird's roots. Both Spartan Stadium and the now-defunct Western View Junior High pop up...

via the Gazette Times: 'Incredibles' gives a nod to Corvallis

I registered my copy of Konfabulator today because I like the weather widget. But I just realized I'm in Oregon in winter. It's always going to look like this:



I could have used this screenshot and saved $25.

Hey Oregon amateur photographers, you may be interested in this photo contest: Photo of the Year. There's a $15 submission fee that goes directly to the Multnomah Outdoor School.