October 18, 2008
Historic Permits
Here's an interesting item for residents of older houses in Portland, Oregon.
There is now a very interesting new feature on Portland Maps: Historic Permits. Portland Maps has always been a really great city website. It's a simple GIS interface to all sorts of city data: schools, crime, census; as well as all the details about specific properties, including all the permits on file. All the newer permits would have been recorded electronically, but what to do about all the old paper ones? Well, now it seems that many of them have been scanned and entered into Portland Maps. Search on any address, and you can find scans of old (even really old) handwritten and typed permits that were taken out with the city.
So far it seems to be mostly plumbing permits, but even that has provided an unique glimpse into the history of my house. It's an old house (built around 1899), and we've already found a couple of interesting pieces of history in it. There's a cigar stub embedded in the concrete foundation in the basement by the water heater. There was a metal plate from an old harmonica in the crawlspace, and some shreds of newspaper (used for insulation back then) advertising the latest '98 bicycles clinging to a rafter. And I have a big bucket full of various bits of old iron (and a few pieces of coal) that I've found when digging in the yard. Rumor has it that our house and garage (original to the house) belonged to a blacksmith, but I have yet to confirm this story with the Brooklyn Historical Society. But thanks to the new historical permits on Portland Maps, I have a name to put to that imagined turn-of-the-century blacksmith, John Schmid. Good German name for the very German neighborhood.
And I also now know that our street was first connected to a city sewer in 1911, but it wasn't until five years later that a bath tub was installed. Fascinating.
And I got a new roof on the house yesterday. Hurray!
October 10, 2008
Random October Post
Several things I meant to post about over the recent weeks, but never got around to.
Trip to Hood River and Indian Heaven Wilderness: Just a nice little getaway for a couple days. Weather was a bit foul, especially up high in Indian Heaven, we were socked in with light rain and hail for most of the 7+ mile hike. But it was still lovely, and very lonely.
How to Cross the Ross Island Bridge (without falling under a car): Aaron made a little slideshow movie to demonstrate how difficult, but possible, it is to cross into downtown, on foot. We're also encouraging him to apply to be on PDoT's Pedestrian board. I've been subjected to a never-ending rant about various pedestrian difficulties around town, and I really hope he goes through with it and gets appointed so he'll have a more constructive outlet.
From the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" file: Finally found out today that there is a sneaky hack that will make the idiotic "genre" column go away in the new version of iTunes. So I can stop fuming about that.
It's going to be a long hockey season: The WinterHawks don't seem to have improved at all in the off-season, and the Flames got blown out by the f'ing Canucks in their first game of the season. I did finally succumb and joined a couple fantasy leagues this year, so even if my team becomes an embarrassment, there are still a bunch of players on other teams I can cheer for. Hoping also to catch a Capital's game in DC when I go visit my mom after Christmas.