Blog entries posted in Off Piste

Helping Hands Needed For Scouts' Chicken Coop Raising

Eric Flowers — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 18:54:15 +0100

Attention handymen and handywomen.

The Bend Community Center is looking for volunteers to help with a chicken coop and greenhouse raising project this weekend, which also happens to be Earth Day.

The project is spearheaded by a pair of local middle school girls who coordinated the group effort as part of their Girl Scouts’ progra...

Getting Neat with Nature in Zion

Tara Reynvaan — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 13:22:15 +0100

Attempting to catalog the events of 2012 thus far proves to be somewhat of a challenge...I'm reminded that my occasional memory loss (of the sort commonly reserved for those who receive senior discounts at Wal-Mart) Is my passport to a state of ignorant bliss...Thanks genetics! - Best year yet I think?
Several minutes later, after reviewing the teetering stack of tick tacs equating my value as a human according to the 8a.nu, I'm fairly certain my mind was left somewhere in the M...

Saving Grace opens new center

erin foote marlowe — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 17:32:27 +0100

Women and children experiencing domestic or sexual assault related violence will soon have a new place to get help.

It’s called the Bend Crisis Center and Saving Grace, Central Oregon’s primary resource for people experiencing such violence, wi...

Oregon Capitol News goes bust

erin foote marlowe — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 13:45:08 +0100

Another casualty of the troubled journalism industry announced defeat today. Oregon Capitol News, an online news site devoted to political and investigative reporting in Salem, said today that it will shut down immediately, according to a news release.

“We just ultimately decided that the business mode...

Tart is closing! Hola! is opening! Things are happening!

erin foote marlowe — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 19:29:25 +0100

Holy S are things happening with restaurants downtown! Sit down, ‘cause you’re going to need to focus for all this.

First, Tart will close its doors this weekend on the corner of Bond Street and Minnesota Avenue.

Stunning, we know. Stunned the restaura...

Barrio opens for business

erin foote marlowe — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 20:01:10 +0100

Barrio Restaurant and Tapas Bar opened for lunch today to a crowd of folks happy to try new things or get their fix of old faves from the restaurant’s precursors, food carts El Sancho and Soupcon, which used to sit on the corner next to Blacksmith Restaurant.

The owners of the carts, Steven Draheim and Joel Cordes, both classically trained chefs from Bend, are focusing their Spanish-based menu on t...

Nostrafilmus: I’m A Cyborg, But That’s OK.

Jared Rasic — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 17:40:33 +0100

For those of you not keeping score, South Korea has an amazing track record for making not just good movies, but excellent ones. Actually, they might have the strongest output of any other country in the world right now, including the USA. Directors like Bong Joon-ho (The Host, Memories Of Murder...

Blacksmith Founder Bankruptcy Contested

erin foote marlowe — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 22:34:01 +0100

A roadblock was thrown in the path of the bankruptcy proceedings of founder and manager of the Blacksmith Restaurant, Gavin McMichael, earlier this week when one of his creditors objected to the bankruptcy.

James Orsillo, owner of Amalia’s restaurant in downtown Bend, claims he loaned McMichael money for his restaurants, including the Blacksmith, Bourbon Street and Gatsby’s, based on McMichael’s representations of the financial health of the restaurants that were not ...

Nostrafilmus: Hulk Smash?

Jared Rasic — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 17:40:08 +0100

Today, the internet caught on fire a tiny bit with the release of the first picture of The Hulk from The Avengers, due to be released in May. It’s interesting because we’ve got Mark Ruffalo (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) replacing Edward Norton (Fight Club) as the eight-foot tall green harbinger of doom, yet the facial design for the completely com...

Get cheap Mt. B pass, support CASA

erin foote marlowe — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 20:00:00 +0100

Central Oregon’s CASA chapter was recently picked by Mt. Bachelor for the mountain’s Fourth Annual Charity Ski Week fundraiser, and if you act now you can support CASA and ski for cheap.

CASA stands for Court Appointed Special Advocate Association. This mostly volunteer crew o...

WinterFest Highlights (with pics!)

erin foote marlowe — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 22:23:40 +0100

Even if winter never showed, the rest of us had a great time at WinterFest. That goes especially for the Source staff—we got to spend most of the weekend in the Bent Lounge, 20 feet from the only bar at the festival serving hard drinks. (Sigh). It's a hard life.

Here's some other highlights from the weekend.

The plethora of food options was killer this year, with new carts like Real Food Street Bistro making WinterFest their debut. Here Country Catering employe...

Tonight's Music: Pickwick, Polyrhythmics

Mike Bookey — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 16:22:11 +0100

I'll cut to the chase here: I've been listening to essentially one band for the past two days and that band is called Pickwick. They are a bunch of nerdy-looking Seattle indie rockers who have, seemingly impossibly, decided to play soul music.

And the soul music they play is incredible. More incredible, perhaps, is the fact that they're playing a free show tonight at McMenamins Old St. Francis School.

Here's a video of the band playing "Hacienda Motel" in the studios at KEXP. If...

PPP Logo Unveiled

Eric Flowers — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 15:56:41 +0100

We’ve only just received our first real winter storm of the season, but some the folks at MBSEF are already looking forward to the end of the season and the annual Pole, Pedal, Paddle, Central Oregon’s signature multisport race. Event promoter MBSEF unveiled this year’s official logo that will emblazon marketing materials and competitors' ubiquitous commemorative T-shirts. This year’s winning design was developed by Paul Leighton of Stellar Design.

It is to our ...

Win Tickets to Larry and His Flask's NYE Show

Mike Bookey — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 20:46:57 +0100

As we mentioned in this week's paper, there are some great live shows happening around town for New Year's Eve. One of those shows is Larry and His Flask's show at the Old Stone Church, featuring a seriously cool slate of opening acts.

The show is selling fast, but Rise Up Presents is giv...

Julianne Moore channels Sarah Palin; Tina Fey Eat Your Heart Out

Eric Flowers — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 21:16:33 +0100

In keeping with our movie trailers theme, this week. Here's an intriguing one of the upcoming Game Change, which features Julianne Moore channeling former Alaska-gov. reality TV star and one time beauty pageant participant Sarah Palin. The movie is based on the book of the same name that chronicles how the then little-known Palin was inserted onto McCain ticket in 2008, a move that ignited John McCain's campaign into a tea party conflagration that had flamed out by election day.

[video...

BLM Acknowledges Rough Handling of Wild Horses

Eric Flowers — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 22:08:20 +0100

The U.S. largest land management agency acknowledged on Wednesday that it’s contractors had been overly aggressive in their handling of wild horses during a Nevada round-up that was stopped short on judge’s order after animal welfare activists objected to the tactics.

The Bureau of Land Management said Wednesday that its contractor had made mistakes, but said those incidents did not amount to abuse and that the round-up which resulted in the capture of roughly 1,200 wild ho...

Reader Survey: Music Streaming

Ethan Maffey — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 17:08:46 +0100

A couple of weeks ago I profiled Spotify, one of the newest streaming music services available in the United States. With news last month that the Swedish service has passed the 2.5 million paid subscriber mark worldwide (10 million registered users) and is opening up their API to App developers; I’m starting...

Bend's Bathroom Bandits -- Where are their manners?

Eric Flowers — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 18:28:30 +0100

Like mugshots, police incidents logs can make for great office banter. Here's a gem from this past week's press log courtesy of the Bend PD. Sorry if it's a little hard to read, but don't worry, you don't have to strain your eyes long to get to the punchline.

Our Deconstruction Project

Eric Flowers — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 20:03:24 +0100

Downtown denizens have probably taken note of our ongoing construction project here at the Source. We've fielded a few questions already about just what the hell is going on at 704 Georgia, so we figured we'd go right to the source of all this consternation, our contractor Paul Biskup, to explain why the building seems to be disappearing one brick at a time.

In case you can't make out Paul's response from the video due to the ambient traffic noise (who knew cars made so much noise) he'...

Redmond Horse Business Wins Venture Capital Competition

Eric Flowers — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 18:09:07 +0100

This year's Bend Venture Capital Conference winner is more Butch Cassidy than Bill Gates. A Redmond horse equipment manufacturer took home the top prize, a $250,000 cash investment, at the Bend Venture Conference, organizers announced on Thursday afternoon.

RES Equine reportedly wooed potential investors with its equine safety equipment that has high margins and global appeal, according to Economic Development of...