My roommate Jeff and I participated in North Portland Santacon (NoPDX Anticon) this year. Often mistaken for “Official” Santacon, Anticon is a mass gathering of Santa-clad revelers spreading merriment from one dive bar to the next in North Portland. “Official” Santacon is, apparently, not pub-crawl focused. What the focus is, I could not tell you. The creators seem to want to make it difficult to know what it is or to participate. So we opted not to do Santacon.

Anticon was a blast, however. Photos:

Jeff & I on the MAX riding to the meeting point (Paul Bunyan):

One of the Santas gave the Santas on our train Santa name badges. You know. So we don’t get mixed up.

Duct Tape Santa

Thirsty Santas

My friends toward the end of the night:

This is a sign at the corner of NE Fremont & 57th Avenue. I don’t think they turn it on anymore and it seems someone started to paint over it and gave up at some point. I really enjoy old signs like this, pretty grand for just a mini-mart. I wonder what it was before.

Portland has a lot of Neon Signs and other grand old signs I want to take photos of.

A great little video showing all the great things about Portland:

Of course there’s no homeless people or rain or strip clubs in this video, of which Portland has many… but a nice video nonetheless :)

Portland has many 4-way intersections with no stop signs. Seriously!

Sure they are mostly in quiet low-traffic residential areas. But it still freaks me out and Peter and I have had a couple of close calls where we didn’t realize the cross-street didn’t have a stop sign and we almost got hit.

And when you do meet cross-traffic at one of these ghost sign intersections it is one of those awkward “you go” “no you” or a simultaneous “FINE, I’ll go” tangos.

If I had to guess I’d say this is perhaps actually meant to improve safety and traffic calming, because it forces you to slow down and look around at each intersection. But if you aren’t used to it, it’s kinda dangerous.

This plays into our theory that Portland is anti-signage altogether. Exhibit B is streetsigns. They love to get bent or turned so you can’t tell what street you are driving down anymore. Or they love to hide behind trees so you can’t read them at all. I have a little tree-hugger in me but come on, you gotta trim that up. Some of us don’t know where we’re going yet. If Portland wants to create more jobs they should hire people whose responsibility is to maintain signage visibility/existence. It will help us all get where we’re going, and safer!

/soapbox

© studentofrhythm

The Northwest – specifically Oregon and Washington – have a chain called Burgerville. From the appearance it looks like a 50s-facade diner serving up greasy grub. In reality it’s a 50s-facade diner serving up fresh, thoughtful, in-season foods. Their commitment to sustainability and environment is evident through their recycled and recyclable packaging. The food is fresh and ingredients locally sourced. After our walk yesterday Peter was craving a burger. I went for the cherry walnut salad since cherries are their featured seasonal item right now. After we paid I got this receipt:

Most restaurants don’t want you to know their nutrition info. Burgerville prints it on the receipt. That is so so awesome. I love to be deliciously informed. I really hope other restaurants follow suit.

Kudos Burgerville, and Kudos Nutricate.