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Archives for September 2004

September 30, 2004

I'm back from my trip. Since I'm still a bit jetlagged, and haven't completely joined the living again, y'all have to wait a wee bit longer until I'm ready to post pics and stories from the trip.

In the meantime however, I do have a special little nugget for the alert reader interested in photography: An article I wrote for O'Reilly on food photography.

The article's been well received so far - the Digital Photography Blog has included it into their lineup of useful articles on the topic, and USA Today Online has mentioned it in conjunction with highlighting the O'Reilly Digital Media site as one of their picks for "Hot Site".



September 14, 2004

Now this is cool: The city of Toronto has a website where you can check the food safety rating of every restaurant in the city.

The Dinesafe Web site is designed to provide information to the public concerning the Toronto Public Health Food Premises Inspection and Disclosure system.

The inspection report information posted here describes conditions found in food premises within the City of Toronto at the time of the most recent Toronto Public Health inspection.

Halleluja. All hail to those Canadians. Man, they've got it figured out!

Thanks much to Kerry for the link.



September 13, 2004

A heads-up, folks: I'll be leaving on a trip to Europe tomorrow, so this might be the last blog post for a couple of weeks. I'll try and log on when I can, but I'm not making any promises...

In the meantime - the cockroach story from yesterday produced some interesting feedback. Jake linked to it, and a couple of people commented that they'll never go back to that restaurant. Good.

A less encouraging comment came from my friend Laura, who shared her story of once actually finding a roach INSIDE of her burrito. That was down in California though. But - does it get any grosser?

On the Bright Side: I called the Deschutes County health inspector guy today, and left him a message, detailing the incident. I hope something will come of it, even although I'll be out of the country ..

Follow-up: Just got off the phone with John Mason, at the County Eco Health Department.

He told me that all three restaurants in that building (corner of Wall & Minnesota) have had problems with cockroaches, partially because the building is very old. The restaurant owners claimed the "little pets" (as John called them) had imported themselves with some produce. "Usually", he said, "this area has little to no problems with roaches."

He promised though that he would go down there and alert all three restaurants that the problem had popped up again.

Overall, he seemed nice enough, but a bit too relaxed for my taste. He didn't seem alarmed at all.

And also, when I asked him if the Super Burrito place had had past health code violations, he said yes, but only very minor.

Too bad really that we can't check up on that ... really should be publicly accessible info, no?



September 12, 2004

According to the StateofOregon.com website, the city of Bend sports over 100 restaurants - although I've read somewhere that the true number is much higer. In any case - not bad for a city of roughly 50,000, right?

Right. So in the spirit of always experiencing new taste sensations, I went yesterday in search of a place I hadn't eaten before. On the premise that often times small hole-in-the-wall places serve the best food, I stumbled into the "Super Burrito" restaurant in downtown, just across from the well-known Thai place "Toomies".

I remembered that a friend had told me a while back that they serve a mean burrito for real cheap - and sure enough, the instant I set foot into the tiny, darkish place, I felt transported back to Mexico. Fond memories of deliciously home-cooked meals, devoured hungrily after hours on the dusty road, sprung to mind.

So I ordered a burrito and Jeff got a dinner plate. As I bit into the hot, tortilla-wrapped goodness, flavors of cilantro, chilis and tomato delighted my palate. I was just about to comment on how authentic the flavors of this meal were - when it happened.

There, on the woodboard-covered wall right above our little table, sat possibly the most hated animal in the universe: a cockroach. It was brown, about an inch long, and quite obviously a youngster (I've come across adult cockroaches in my travels, and they are significantly larger).

My first reaction was one of astonishment. Then, as I fully realized what I was looking at, there was horror and deep disgust. I instantly dropped my burrito. Jeff dropped his fork.

We were out of that joint faster than you can say "cockroach". Worst is - you just *know* that that little roach wasn't a loner. I bet there is a Mama Roach, a Papa Roach, and several, if not hundreds, of Sister and Brother roaches. Maybe even an Uncle Roach, and a Grandpa Roach.

So now - what to do? Who to tell? The health inspector would be a logical first place. But the website says nothing of who to contact in case of a roach encounter. Sure, the is a food illness complaint page, that advises you what to do in case you get sick. But neither of us got sick from yesterday's food. Not yet anyway.

And also - how can we proof we even saw the roach? It will be the "Super Burrito" owner's word against ours.

While I will try and investigate further, in the meantime I'll advise anyone not to set foot into the "Super Burrito" restaurant.

If you, the alert reader, has any ideas on how to proceed, please email me.

Addendum: Looks like they also haven't renewed their business license in a few years. Thanks to Jake for the tip.

2nd Addendum: According to an article in today's Bulletin, Bend currently has 290 restaurants. Thanks to Barney for the tip.



September 9, 2004

Last night's blogger meetup was fun. Jon is right - the Cascade Brewery rocks. "Boo" to all the ones who said they were gonna come, and didn't - you know who you are. ;-)

It wasn't exactly the drunken beer fest Dane had so enthusiastically announced, but playing pool and "Donkey Kong" beats drinking yourself into a stupor anyway.

To Jon - here's a pic of my property in Todos Santos, Baja, as seen from our neighbor's house:

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The piece of land is actually the one *behind* the casita in the foreground. You can't see it in the pic, but it's actually got a pretty view of the ocean, the Sierra De La Laguna mountains, and the town of Todos Santos. I can give ya more info if you want.

And Dane - I'll be damned if I can find my map of Baja. Me thinks it has probably been lost in the depth of the old, beatup travel backpack I usually take to Baja with me. This is the best one online I could find in a pinch. Los Barriles is actually one of the very few places I haven't been in Baja, but it looks like you'd definitly be better off flying into La Paz than Cabo anyway. The bad news is that Alaska only flies into Cabo, so you'll be stuck flying Aero California. All's I can say - buy life insurance and say goodbye to your loved ones before you board one of their planes ...

In any case - let's get together after I'm back from my Europe trip and I'll do a brain dump on Baja for ya.



September 2, 2004

There's an old saying: "You snooze, you lose".

In today's case, some other artist did snooze (and subsequently lost), and so Starbucks asked me to bring back my photography exhibit from August to their store.

I figured the good folks working there and the ones frequently getting their caffeine fix at the establishment might be tired of looking at scenes from Guatemala after over 4 weeks, so I decided to make more prints and popped those into the existing frames and matting.

So this month's theme is "The Painted Desert" - and actually, I think I like the new exhibit quite a bit better than the old one.

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So folks - go down there and check it out. It will be up after noon today.



September 1, 2004

The world has been askew the last week or so.

In how many ways? Oh, in many many ways.

It started last Friday innocently enough. I had a poker game to go to in the eve and had some time to kill, so I decided to go down to Drake Park and mill around with my camera, looking for interesting stuff to shoot. I made it barely ten paces from my car, when this homeless guy starts yacking at the side of my head. He tells me he's the "Birdman" (Alcatraz comes to mind) and proceeds to point out that there is a pair of Bald Eagles that hang around Mirror Pond. Allright - interesting enough.

Minutes later though, some goth kid starts yacking at the other side of my head. I can't tell if he's severely ADD, just weird, or is trying to pick up on me in some sort of odd oedipus way (I am at least 15 years his senior). Curious that I am though, I entertain him for a while, and learn that he lives on $141 a week, and the only hot meal he gets is heating a can of soup with a propane lighter - and the free hot dogs some charitable organization distributes on Friday nights at the park. Aha. That explains the rather large gathering of black-clad youths, hanging around like some gothic murder of crows.

The kid also sports a very odd name, which, after some deeper inquiry, turns out to be an alias - his real name is Chris. I ask him why he hangs around the park and what he generally does while he's here, and he says that he's got nowhere else to go, and that him and his friends like to just chill, or sometimes wrestle. He proceeds to tell me about the many fights he's had ... and bla bla bla ... I'm bored.

I decide it's time to hightail it outta here, so I jump back in my car, feeling momentarily guilty about driving a luxury automobile while people out there live on $141 a week. But I make a mental note to myself to come back and photograph these odd creatures, if just for documentary purposes.

As it turns out, my poker game falls through that night.

Since then more odd things have accumulated: I come upon a nasty accident one day; manage to piss my good friend Adam off on another day; clients have not been getting their invoices from me or have forgotten to pay them; my cat has been aloof and vanishes for days; and MCI charges me 43 bucks for a 22 minute long distance phonecall to Washington State, although I have cancelled my service with them months ago.

So what it is, I ask? Maybe it's the evil mojo of a large gathering on Republicans in one place, seeping through the fabric of the universe, or something ...

On The Bright Side: I've been poking around the Mac G4 my friend Jaume in Switzerland has asked me to bring him from the States (it's got Yellow Dog Linux pre-installed on it - something that's impossible to get in Europe). He urged me to make myself familiar with the machine, so that I can pretend it belongs to me when asked at Swiss customs.

Damn, that G4 is a nifty little machine. And so pretty. Could make me almost want to buy one... I find the DVD player, and decide to try it out. It's so cool. Hubby can watch his mind-numbing cable sports, while I get me some eye-candy movie. Too bad I have to give it back to Jaume in two weeks...