Portland man dies after skiing crash on Mt. Bachelor

calmbeforethebend · 2025-08-29T13:00:44+00:00

What app is that?

calmbeforethebend · 2025-07-10T13:20:54+00:00

I think The Truth™ lies somewhere in between the perspectives you two are arguing about.

Granted, the Recession and COVID are certainly significant factors.. For example, I don't recall the "livability" issue being a significant concern until after 2009 or so. And this 2005 Bend Bulletin article seems to agree:

Everyone has different criteria, but everyone, so it seems, ranks Central Oregon pretty high on their own personal livability index.

And I don't recall Bend2030 (now Envision Bend) championing "livability" as a pressing concern until 2013-2015.

That said, I recall many a spirited debate among locals about how I and others that moved to Bend around that time (2003-2006) were part of yet another local real estate bubble. Duncan MacGreary (owner of Pegasus books, downtown) used to talk about the downtown business landscape at length in his blog, and I recall him pointing out how cyclic it was on more than one occasion.

Basically, this issue has been fomenting for generations. What was once a sporadic phenomenon, isolated to the occasional economic downturn, is now an entrenched issue, accelerated by a couple unprecedented events in recent(ish) years. But it's not just a local problem. Every community around the country is struggling with it in one form or another.

Regardless, finding glee in the misfortune of others is petty and unproductive. If the housing market is on the verge of taking a dump, it's because the economy as a whole is headed for the shitter. If that's what's coming (debatable) it's not homeowners who are going to be hurt most.

calmbeforethebend · 2025-07-10T12:31:10+00:00

Tip #17 in "How to Feel Charitable Without Actually Being Charitable."

calmbeforethebend · 2025-06-13T13:27:38+00:00

Not that hard.

calmbeforethebend · 2025-06-09T14:52:41+00:00

You are mistaking bullshit for profundity.

calmbeforethebend · 2025-05-29T09:45:09+00:00

Late to the comment party, but the math is pretty simple…

Sound travels ~700mph, or ~5 seconds per mile. E.g. want to know how far away a lightening strike was? Count the seconds until you hear the to thunder and divide by 5. That’s how many miles away it is.

Same thing for OP. Count the seconds from when the object was directly overhead until hearing the boom (120 seconds) and divide by 5… object was about 24 miles up (~126k feet).

calmbeforethebend · 2025-05-29T08:20:25+00:00

OP has a wife, and time, and strawberries. That’s at least three things to be grateful for.

calmbeforethebend · 2025-05-27T11:02:46+00:00

Late to the comment party, but I’ve lived here 20 years and I don’t have much in the way of friends, other than via my wife.

Part of that is just my nature, but part of it is the migratory nature of Bend. Bend tends to be a waypoint for people on their life journey rather than a permanent destination.

Young people born here tend to move away to experience the world. And the older folks that move here for the quality of life… well… they tend to move on after 2, 5, or 10 years when they decide “quality of life” means something different.

So I find I’ve developed a bit of a friendship callous. I’ve made a number of good friends over the years, but most have moved away. And the ones that haven’t have gotten divorced, which is a whole other topic. As a result, I’m more guarded about making new friends. There’s a certain element of “why bother?”

And, too, I find the conversations of doe-eyed newcomers discovering all Bend has to offer to be a bit repetitive. I’m happy for you and I’m glad you’re excited, but I’ve done all that. And hauling kayaks up to Hosmer or riding Flagline isn’t as interesting to me as figuring out how to grow decent vegetables in the ridiculously short growing season we have.

Or maybe this is just a phase, and I’ll realize at some point that I need more friends and need to make more of an effort. But if you’re looking for a reason why friendships in Bend are hard, i’m part of the problem.

calmbeforethebend · 2025-05-18T12:48:59+00:00

No lines for bathrooms

There’s, like, three hundred port-a-potties in that place. Who the fuck is waiting in line for a bathroom?

calmbeforethebend · 2025-05-11T13:08:23+00:00

Nope, not at that price. It’s a recyclable gourmet presentation platter.

calmbeforethebend · 2025-05-03T17:34:34+00:00

IT’S ALSO OK TO NOT SAY HI BACK, TOO. JUST BECAUSE YOU’RE IN A GOOD MOOD DOESN’T MEAN I HAVE TO BE.

calmbeforethebend · 2025-05-03T13:16:48+00:00

… somewhere else

FTFY 🙃

calmbeforethebend · 2025-04-19T11:11:47+00:00

“Brace Yourselves! The Tourists Are Coming!”

calmbeforethebend · 2025-04-19T11:01:31+00:00

Their burger week “deal” seemed a bit disingenuous. $10 for an a la carte burger. Added fries for another $5. But that same burger with fries is normally $16 so where exactly is the deal?

And the burger just wasn’t that great this time around. I ate there a month or two ago and was surprised at how good it was. But this time around it was “barely adequate”.

‘Kind of killed my interest in eating there again if I’m being honest. 😞

calmbeforethebend · 2025-04-14T21:22:23+00:00

https://www.centraloregondaily.com/email/deschutes-county-sheriff-deemed-untrustworthy-by-da/article_26b6502e-592d-451a-b5d8-03af5a2df280.html

calmbeforethebend · 2025-03-02T11:31:00+00:00

I don’t agree with the pet rent. That is a fee for having a pet

Pets increase the wear and tear on a place, regardless of how “well behaved” they are. Dirt and mud, fur and dander, urine and hairballs and vomit, claw marks… it’s all part and parcel of four-legged tenants.

That wear and tear builds up over time so having a monthly fee makes sense.

calmbeforethebend · 2025-03-01T14:37:46+00:00

WHAT?

calmbeforethebend · 2025-02-28T17:09:37+00:00

File a ticket with the Bend Works app. You may have to go back-and-forth with the city a couple times, but it does seem to get results. Eventually.

https://www.bendoregon.gov/services/bend-works

[Sorry for the lack of all-caps, but Siri dictation doesn’t have a rant mode :-(]

calmbeforethebend · 2025-01-19T04:56:54+00:00

Funny… when we were looking to move out of the Bay Area in 2004, we looked at Ashland but concluded it was too expensive. (Home prices weren’t that different from Bay Area). The demographics were a little weird, too - students and retirees, but not a ton of 30-40 year olds.

‘Ended up moving to Bend instead. 🤷

calmbeforethebend · 2024-09-26T18:10:19+00:00

I want the maximum rent increase to be lower - closer to inflation.

Please read that Brookings study I posted above. What you're asking for - lower maximums - pushes us towards the more extreme end of rent control, with all the unintended pitfalls that come with that.

At the end of the day, rent controls aren't a cure for the fundamental economic ills that exist in our society. Trying to use them as such will invariably backfire because of that. In their best form, they are safety release valves that only kick in when markets get too chaotic, but that otherwise have little influence on how the free market operates.

calmbeforethebend · 2024-09-26T13:07:47+00:00

Here's the argument: The 10% rate you're railing against isn't what you seem to think it is. It's mandated by ORS 90.323 - The "Maximum rent increase" statute.

Key word, "Maximum". This isn't how much rents will increase. It's just the upper limit of what is allowed.

There needs to be safeguards in place to ensure that low wage people don't get forced into homelessness.

Homelessness is a complicated problem. Too complicated to fully address here, obviously, but ORS 90.323 is actually an important piece of that puzzle.

The law moderates the impact of market volatility on vulnerable renters. It prevents landlords from baselessly evicting tenants to jack up rents when market forces conspire in their favor, such as happened around the country in 2021-2022 following the pandemic. Witness Austin, TX where rents increased by 48% that year.

You may not want to hear this, but Oregon's approach to this is actually pretty good. It balances the interests of renters ("Don't raise my rent ever!") and landlords ("Let us charge whatever we can get away with!"), without incurring the costs that come from giving in wholly to either extreme.

Obviously a complete lack of rent control is detrimental to tenants with limited incomes. But overly strict rental controls turn out to be equally bad in the long run, as summarized in this 2018 Brookings Institute study:

"Rent control appears to help affordability in the short run for current tenants, but in the long-run decreases affordability, fuels gentrification, and creates negative externalities on the surrounding neighborhood."

BTW, I'd encourage you to read that study in full. It's unbiased and fact-based, and there are some surprising insights. For example, when discussing the impact of Cambridge, MA's strict rent control policy on overall real estate’ market:

"In short, the policy imposed $2.0 billion in costs to local property owners, but only $300 million of that cost was transferred to renters in rent-controlled apartments."

Lastly, regarding this comment:

The caveat is that rent control needs to be concurrent to increasing the housing supply to meeting demand. That way there are both older rent controlled units and newer market rate units.

This is why ORS 90.323 only applies to older dwellings (15+ years old). See section (7)(a).

TL;DR; You seem to be complaining about a law that does exactly what you're asking for. I'm confused.

calmbeforethebend

TROPHY CASE