Doc's on 12th Street at night - Astoria, Oregon

Walking home along the river, I took this from in front of the Wet Dog. The colors came out much more intense than in real life.

I spent another day uploading pictures to my Picasa Web Albums. I have so many more I want to put online and finally, I've found a solution I like. Wherever I put them, it needs to enhance the rankings of the TPF gift shop, and this seems to do the trick, so it's two birds, etc. Fun. I worked mostly on tapir photos today. There are fifteen tapir albums, not counting the blogs, so there should be a good place to put just about everything. Now comes the fun of searching the hard drive and the paper files. I chose Picasa Web Albums because the photos I have on the blogs each have an album set up for them already. I had no idea until the other day that this is where Google stored the photos. Also, it's related to Panoramio through Google, and I've been using Panoramio for our Paris trip photos and pix of Astoria (so far). Also, if you run out of space for the albums, you can buy more at a very cheap rate. And then I found a bunch of fun tools, so while I haven't played with any of the other web albums, I'm very happy with this one. I could only suggest one or two changes, but Google will probably think of them anyway.

The Minghai on the Columbia River

This picture could have been taken almost any day in June 2003, because I found it in the folder for June, and my camera at that time didn't have a date stamp in the file, or not one that worked very well. I was gone June 27-29, so it could be any other clear and sunny day, but not those three.

The colors here are striking, and I like the scene with the old pier, because it was the view from my first apartment in Astoria. I must have taken this from the sidewalk next to the apartment, due to the angle. The ship is the Minghai; I found two other photos of it here and here.

July 17, Astoria: More pictures along the waterfront and some cool facades

This is the pilot boat in its dock at the foot of 12th Street. Just beyond the buildings is the walkway on the pier that's dedicated as a park. I blogged some photos of it yesterday.

Here's the old corrugated building just to the right of the pilot boat as you look east up the river. I love this old building.

Standing in approximately the same location, you can look across the River Walk to the back of Andrew & Steve's Restaurant. It's surprising all the places art turns up in Astoria and on its buildings.

Here's a closer view of the painting.

And here's the front of the cafe. Kate and I ate there and I've gone back a couple of times. I started getting up really early to go to Toastmaster's held in the back room here. I can't believe I'm getting up this early, but I wanted to meet people and try to get better at public speaking. The group consists of only about seven people when the regulars are all here. They're very nice and I feel welcome.

I haven't taken many pictures of the town itself yet. The main downtown area is only a few blocks wide and about twice that long. The Liberty Theatre and the Elliott Hotel are both venerable old landmarks.

I love interesting architectural detail. This is the top of the building cattycorner from the Liberty Theatre at the corner of 12th and Commercial. I grew up in Corona, California, where my ancestors were founders three generations before me. When I grew up we had buildings of this vintage and intricacy, but the town went through a horrifying "urban renewal," which was actually a complete travesty. The beautiful buildings are gone (this link shows only a few of them). Astoria seems to value its old structures more, and I'm happy to see that.

Fourth of July bash at Doc's on 12th

I liked this image, so I snapped it. I'd decided to walk down to Doc's on 12th Street to mingle a little. I'd been doing my best to talk to people although I'm not very outgoing by nature. It had become a survival tactic here where I didn't know anyone. This window is on the corner of Marine Drive and 11th Street near the entrance to the Columbian Theatre.

The building really is on one of the docks. The "Doc's on 12th" name probably comes from the fact that there are dentists and other offices on the top floor. There's now a wonderful restaurant called Baked Alaska on the lower floor, where Kate and I had our farewell dinner. I had a couple of other pics of the river showing what an overcast and dreary day this is for a 4th celebration, but the photos were so bad I didn't use them. Here in the dark foreground you can see old pilings. You'd think the 4th would be a sunny, warm day. They were like that growing up in Southern California and later living in Colorado. In Santa Barbara, I remember a number of 4ths that were cloudy and even fog-bound and drizzly. Here in Astoria, my guess is it can be anything.

Bright colors on the docks. The event is open to all.

The beer garden is cordoned off with bright orange barricades.

I'm not sure which local band this is. I'll have to ask Kathy.

I moved the new green shelf temporarily to get a photo of what it was replacing. This black thing was not intended to look like a place of worship or sacrifice, but it consisted of some of my still-full bankers' boxes of stuff from the move. I was trying to (for once) have uncluttered living space. How long would that last?

. . . and in my attempt to unclutter, some things just had to go. In 1985, I'd made this collage painting in Santa Barbara of photos I'd taken on the beach and printed in my bathroom darkroom. The monster-looking thing was the cartilaginous skeleton of a nurse shark or basking shark or something like that. The glob is a pile of seaweed. I'd made the stretcher bars out of found wood (uneven in size and shape, and now broken, too). The edges of the prints were curling. I did my thing: take a photo and dump the original. Bye bye. Another piece of my life was gone (I have trouble throwing things out), but I'd saved a couple of pictures of it for the memory book.