onfocus

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.

Note to self: don't broadcast on 121.5 MHz. Area Man's Television Sends National Distress Signal (aka Mystery signal traced to TV). Television malfunctions, hilarity ensues.

Update: This story is now international news. (Corvallis is world-famous for a malfunctioning TV!)

The biggest question I have after moving to the Pacific Northwest: Should I carry an umbrella or not? Since the move, there have been more rainy days than clear here and I've noticed that there aren't too many people with umbrellas. Sure I spot one here and there, but why aren't they everywhere? Why don't businesses have umbrella bins near their entrances so I can stash my umbrella until I'm ready to leave? Why isn't every store selling designer umbrellas, and why aren't street vendors shouting "umbrella!" from every corner? When it rains in San Francisco, you see umbrellas lined up—bobbing up and down the street—one in each hand. Oregonians seem to have a different relationship with the rain, and I feel self-conscious when I pop open my umbrella. I imagine that every long-time Oregonian turns when they hear that umbrella woosh and whisper under their breath how gauche, heads held high in the rain.

skp and I went out to the Oregon coast today. We visited Newport and Waldport, and toured two lighthouses. The gray, rainy day gave the lighthouses an eerie feel—especially since the power was out at Yaquina Head. Walking up to the top of that lighthouse, I felt my legs shake a bit as I saw the stairs spiraling below me. Waves were thundering against the rocks outside, and it sounded (and felt) like a sharp slamming door. We had a nice chat with the interpretive guide at the top, though, and I was just fine on the way down.

To keep my camera dry, I made it "waterproof" with a plastic bag I found in the glove box and a stretchy-hair thing (wrapped around the lens) that skp had. I'd like to find something like it that I can reuse in the future, but I don't remember seeing waterproof cases for camera bodies in any shops.


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Downtown Corvallis