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Lyza Danger Gardner

Favorite Secret Shortcuts

I don’t remember who said it. Maybe it’s someone I know. Maybe it’s someone I read. But someone once said something like: “If it were easy and people knew about it, it wouldn’t be a shortcut. It would be the way.”
Having grown up here in town, I have a few favorite, lesser-known back-paths to get [...]

09.22.2008 See the rest → 2 comments

Growing up with the Local News Anchors

I have a woven existence with the news media in this town.
During my childhood, one parent worked for The Oregonian and the other briefly produced the news at KOIN-6. One of my stepparents is a former local news anchor. I’ve been to anchor weddings and newspaper lamb roasts.
Despite the KOIN/CBS connection (or perhaps perversely because [...]

Sometimes We’re Too Nice with the Driving?

by Lyza Danger Gardner

SE Morrison Street is a bit of a trial right now between about 12th and 6th. Two of the three lanes are closed for a while (months? I think?) while the sewer is dug up and replaced. In attempt to ease the snarl, the city has placed a big ol’ sign up on the sidewalk [...]

09.08.2008 See the rest → 2 comments

Calling Nerds who Like Books: Neal Stephenson in PDX

by Lyza Danger Gardner

For those of you who like your novels witty, visionary and geekoriffic, you might want to know that cyperpunk maestro Neal Stephenson will be at the Bagdad Theater on Sept. 16. The author of the seminal and comic sui generis Snow Crash and the Baroque Cycle series will be talking about (and signing copies of) [...]

09.03.2008 See the rest → 3 comments

Motorcycles in PDX

by Lyza Danger Gardner

I purchased a motorcycle this weekend, my first. It’s amazing how fast that makes one a member of a certain “club.” Motorcyclers seem to stick together and have a strong regard for compatriots.
I had a few nice conversations this weekend in which other motorcycle folks who asserted that they thought Portland was a fairly decent [...]

09.02.2008 See the rest → 2 comments

Friends of Library needs Space for Fall Book Sale

by Lyza Danger Gardner

The Friends of the Multnomah County Library’s amazing Fall book sale needs a home. From an email today:
We need your help for the fall sale. We are seeking a warehouse-type site of
around 15,000 square feet in Multnomah County for about 10 days in October.
Our preferred dates are Sunday, Oct. 5, through Tuesday, Oct. 14.
We prefer [...]

07.30.2008 See the rest → 1 comment

Portland is a Clean City…Well, Sort of

by Lyza Danger Gardner

My husband came back from the brewfest last night angry.
He’d walked home to our inner-SE abode via the Burnside Bridge and through the Central Eastside Industrial District.
“Sometimes I want to move away from Portland,” he said. “It’s so dirty.”
I did about a triple-take. Our Fair City has always been lauded for its crisp, clean streets [...]

07.25.2008 See the rest → 9 comments

How Infantile!

by Lyza Danger Gardner

Full disclosure: I am not a breeder. I watch my good friends hitting that baby-making age and watch with some fascination and trepidation. Babies everywhere! But this was an enlightening experience.
My good friends Kes and Aileen recently had a daughter, who is now eight weeks old. This past weekend, I suddenly understood what parents mean [...]

07.22.2008 See the rest → 54 comments

Alleviate my Awkwardness: TriMet Signaling Advice!

by Lyza Danger Gardner

I’ve been using TriMet since the days of the aluminum-and-orange buses. You’d think I know the ropes. And yet a few niggling things always bother me. Perhaps some advice is needed.
I often wait for buses in locations where several bus lines use the same stop. I have to stand there and wait for my particular [...]

07.14.2008 See the rest → 3 comments

Just How Messy is it? Are you Sure you Want to Know?

by Lyza Danger Gardner

I’ve always known that good old Eastside Metal Plating Plant #5, poofing out smoke and dust and full of clanking, strange industrial-revolution-era machines and strange chromed products, was quietly dangerous. You can look at it and just know: that factory is up to no good with respect to human systems and groundwater and amphibians and [...]

07.09.2008 See the rest → 2 comments

Cry ‘Havoc!’ and Let Slip the Dogs of War

by Lyza Danger Gardner

How serendipitous that I recently read Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, as it is being performed free at Washington Park this summer. The Portland Actors Ensemble is giving performances on July 10, 11, 12, 17, 18 and 19. It’s free.
I’ll be at the show on the 12th watching Brute give our eponymous hero the what for. I [...]

07.08.2008 See the rest → 1 comment

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