Ohhhh K. So now I get it a bit better. Portland is pretty cool. And weird. And full of freaks. I was down there last weekend for an old timers hockey tournament. The Vancouver Island Silver Marmots were in the wrong division. Most of the guys we were playing against looked like they were too young for a legal drink. At least when we played a team of firefighters, there was always at least one paramedic on the ice. Still a little sore with either a cracked rib or I pulled something. Either way I am popping a few Ibuprophins this week rather than the diet of craft beer, street food and donuts that fuelled the weekend.
Came back with tonnes of pics and inspiration. Those folks do up wood well. Found some great books at Powells, including one on pallets (yes, there is always something to learn), a '50s era furniture design book and bargain on Contemporary Bar and Restaurant Design. The pic above is of the front desk of the Jupiter Hotel (we were staying in the dive across the street). Great work. Love the use of Simpson Strong Tie lag bolts, something usually used behind the scenes with decking hardware. I used the same lags on my food truck tables and benches for Beta at Dockside Green. If I am going to compete, though, I need two things: a bunch of ink, and a beard. Our goalie, Pillows, went to a beard competition (for charity) at Dante's. That's the bar that has the 'Keep Portland Weird' sign on the back of the building. I don't think I will ever match his full-on lumberjack look. As far as ink goes, I was contemplating getting a hammer done on the forearm until I walked by a tattoo parlour with two of the artists outside having a smoke. They had full sleeves and their legs between their boots and jean cut offs showed nothing but tat. They took one look at my unsullied arms and both shook their heads. Weird. Guess I was the freak! To start working on my Portland vibe, I am off to watch this: The Man Issue (Portlandia)
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So I tweeted out a couple pictures of my prototype food truck table (above) and I got a bunch of responses, retweets and favourites, which was nice. Every thing is salvaged. Every piece of wood tells a story. We are testing the table and benches in front of the Coast Lunchbox food truck at BETA at Dockside Green. You can find owner/chef Josh Wilhelm there most days through the week (that's him in the window working on my Thai Salad, which was awesome!). The strangest / coolest 'favourite' was by a restaurant in California: Buri Tara Thai on Ventura Boulevard in Woodland Hills, CA. That's strange. Maybe they picked up on me thanking Josh for the Thai Salad. What's cool is that the restaurant is a ten minute drive from this: Recognize it? I sure as hell do. Daniel LaRusso lived there. So did Mr. Miyagi. Yep, that's the apartment in Reseda, California that was used for the filming of The Karate Kid. The original Karate Kid. I spent several summers cooking in fishing resorts on the BC Coast. The first year was 110 straight days on the MV Marabell, a converted WWII minesweeper that was the sister ship to Jaques Cousteau's Calypso. We had three VHS tapes to watch for the whole summer. Top Gun, The Karate Kid, and three quarters of The Never Ending Story (seriously). You can do the math on the date by 'VHS' and the movie selection. I pretty much know every line and scene in Top Gun and The Karate Kid. Hated the other one. I figure the favourite by Buri Tara is as close as I am getting to Reseda any time soon. Does that get me a couple degrees closer to the Karate Kid?
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AuthorAndrew MacDonald is the owner/operator of all things Hammer & Tidy. Archives
January 2017
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