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Susan's Online Guide to Portland Let me Help You Find a Home and a Neighborhood |
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Welcome to my Web site about the Portland, Oregon, metropolitan area. It is my way of helping you become acquainted with the neighborhoods and communities of the city and to inform you about the Portland area housing market. Your comments and suggestions about my Web site are always appreciated. If you have questions or if you are interested in buying or selling a home in the Portland area, contact me online or call me at (503) 497-2984.
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House and Home |
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Rate of house prices declines slowly in second quarter according to Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversightht August 28 − U.S. home prices fell in the second quarter of 2008according to OFHEO’s seasonally-adjusted purchase-only house price index.The index, which is based on data from home sales, was 1.4 percent lower on a seasonally-adjusted basis in the second quarter than in the first quarter. This decline was less steep than the 1.7 percent decline in the prior quarter. Over the past year, prices fell 4.8 percent between the second quarter of 2007 and the second quarter of 2008. The decline is the largest in the purchase-only index’s 17-year history, but is much smaller than those of other indexes. Read the full report from OFHEO... |
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Green Zone |
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Plastic containers Q&A August 28 − Some of the containers in my kitchen do not have a recycling number on them. How do I know whether these plastics are safe? Why do some companies not put numbers on their products? The best way to find out is to call the manufacturer. The "resin identification code"—the number that appears in the recycling triangle—isn't actually required by federal law and doesn't appear on every plastic product you buy. It's a voluntary system aimed primarily at helping recycling centers identify and sort various products. Some states require companies to put resin codes on bottles, but they aren't required on products that aren't easy to recycle, such as bowls, dishes, toys or bottle caps. Learn more at the Green Guide Website... |
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Sports and Outdoors |
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More than 500 sockeye return to central Idaho mountains August 28 − More than 500 endangered sockeye salmon have arrived at a central Idaho fish hatchery, the most in more than two decades. The arrival of the sockeye, listed as endangered under federal law in 1991, has started to slow in recent weeks, but state fish biologists said 507 arrived at fish traps near the Sawtooth Fish Hatchery near Stanley as of this week. To reach central Idaho, the sockeye travel about 900 river miles, gain 6,500 feet in elevation and pass eight dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers. Biologists said the returning fish are from 180,000 smolts released in the valley's lakes in 2006 for the journey down the Salmon, Snake and Columbia rivers to the Pacific Ocean. Some of the returning fish were artificially spawned at the Eagle Fish Hatchery in southwestern Idaho as part of a program to help boost the sockeye returns. Read the full story in The Oregonian... |
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Neighborhood and Communities News |
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Economic downturn boosts college enrollment numbers in Oregon August 28 − Students started returning to class this week as Oregon colleges gear up for brimming fall enrollments fueled in part by a sluggish economy. When the economy bombs, college enrollment booms, primarily at the community college level, college admissions officers say. Community colleges in Oregon and across the nation are expecting enrollment increases this fall, said Norma Kent, spokeswoman for the American Association of Community Colleges. Read the full story in The Oregonian... Coworkers, coincidence help Wally come home August 28 − Wally, the lost but found basset hound, is the thing of Disney movies and children’s books. After two weeks of wandering in Central Oregon, Wally reunited with his Sandy owner — a reunion made possible by a lot of luck, coincidence and a few degrees of separation between Gresham City Hall employees. Heidi Seipert was camping and four-wheeling with her husband, Scott, and their two children, Audrey, 10, and Ben, 6, in rural Wasco County over the Fourth of July weekend when their two dogs took off chasing something. Read the full story in the Portland Tribune... Overhauling our high schools August 28 − Say you want your kid to take Advanced Placement history or try a class on video production to see if that would make a good career. Or simply plug in a laptop in math lab to do the day's calculus assignment. There's not a single high school in the Portland district that offers all those opportunities. Portland Public Schools wants to change that with a systemwide high school reorganization on a scale it's never attempted — more than tweaking programs, changing school names or moving staff. It would mean offering demanding classes at all 14 high schools, incorporating career education at all campuses for its 13,500 students and upgrading buildings with some of the latest technology. The overhaul obviously won't happen overnight, but the school district is devoting this year to making decisions and writing the blueprint. Already, district officials have generated dozens of reports based on staff research, community meetings and in-house discussions. Read the full story in The Oregonian...
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Green
home tour September 20
Green can be modern and hip. Green can be small and cozy. And green can
be the energy geek's high-tech fantasy. All this -- plus rainwater
harvesting and earthen floors, gray-water plumbing and granny flats,
even habitable shipping containers -- is part of the annual Build It
Green! tour, sponsored by Portland's Office of Sustainable Development.
Twenty new or remodeled green homes featured on the self-guided tour,
which will include a stop in Estacada as well as stops in Southeast,
Southwest, North and Northeast Portland. Tour-goers will have a chance
to visit with homeowners as they explore the latest green-building
practices, products and technologies. Parents, take note: The tour and
information fair will be kid-friendly. In addition, seven tour sites
will be wheelchair accessible.
At
the zoo, a baby step forward as the elephant herd is reunited
August 28 − Asian elephant Rose-Tu continued Wednesday to behave as a good
mother should, especially after she became reacquainted with the cows in
her herd. The anxious pacing that had troubled keepers -- and kept the 4-day-old
calf from nursing as often as keepers wanted -- seemed to slow after Rose
reached her trunk over a metal gate and touched her companions, Chendra
and Shine. Because elephants are social creatures, keepers speculated that
Rose's anxiety meant she missed the others. Keepers reunited them to calm
Rose, who will turn 14 Sunday, and to introduce the calf to the herd. Chendra,
who has a close relationship to Rose, made an excited noise that keepers
described as "a chirp" when she saw Rose. But Shine and Chendra, separated
from the new mom and calf by a tall metal gate, didn't appear to notice
the baby boy -- at first.
This
‘protest’ was a bit, er, cheeky August 28 − Oh yeah, they
were naked. Sort of. They were also part of a nationwide “protest” – a publicity
stunt, really – focusing on excess product packaging. More than half a dozen
employees of Northwest Portland’s Lush Fresh Handmade Cosmetics store stood
on the sidewalk for about an hour at noon Wednesday, covered only in store
aprons, distributing flyers urging customers to “go naked” by purchasing
products that don’t have a lot of packaging. Employees from two dozen Lush
stores in 36 cities across the nation doffed their duds for the event. They
wore aprons with “Ask Me Why I’m Naked” printed on the front to catch the
eyes of passersby.
