Wow, after reading my entry from 2010, so much has changed! And I realize how much I miss the coast, but it is just an hour drive away. I am now single, not liking that really, but I'm working on it. I will be 47 in April, though thanks to good genetics and staying out of the sun, I still have a lot of young energy and often get carded, LOL. I own a home in Saint Helens Oregon, which is about 30 miles North of Portland. We are 39 miles from Mt St Helens, and it looms on the horizon like doomsday, Very large and blindingly white this time of year. To the South of it is Mt Adams, again, snow capped, and resembles the "Prudential Rock". To the South of it, we can see the chiseled peaks of Mt Hood. During the Summer it looks as if the sun rises out of the point of Mt Hood and it is very cool and inspiring. Saint Helens is a gloomy town, lots of knobby hillls and gulleys, the areas are terraced and there are many dead end streets and triangular intersections. It is often foggy here and often raining on days that are sunny near by. I am about 300 feet from the Columbia River, and and can hear fog whistles day and night as barges the size of many city blocks are tugged up stream to Portland. This town also takes Halloween very seriously. Much of it is said to be haunted, which one might guess anyway as you make your way through old town with the old gray stone buildings and Glorious gothic victorian architecture. The structures and bridges between here and North Portland are also just off-the-hook cool and mesmerizing.
I am sort of re-connecting with a lot of things I didn't have time or space for over the years. I love to oil paint, and worked as a professional pictorial artist in the past, creating photo-real displays of products for commercial outdoor advertisers. I have painted more than my share of 40 ft long new cars and things like work boots or appliances on billboards lining I-5 through the state.
I am re-connecting to my CP addiction also. It is hard to believe that I first took interest and began to attempt to grow VFT nearly 40 years ago. I am assembling collection of CP again, and building a cold frame greenhouse within the next couple of weeks, it will be 8x12. I still have a massive collection of Darlingtonia, maybe a few thousand of them, and that after selling and trading quite a few recently. A decade ago I ran a CP "drop-shipping" business, and would sell wholesale to website owners who would offer our products at a mark up, then I would ship them where they needed to go, with the site's return address. I would also provide support for questions they might get from customers. That went really well until the nation's supply of propagated VFT dried up. Over the years I have grown countless thousands of all sorts of CP, and always enjoyed it, they are Always on my mind and I have vivid dreams of finding Drosera plants in new and old places.
I live with my adorable 5 year old Maltese pup, his name is Blacky, he got a pirate name since he was born on the coast. He is 17 pounds which is Huge for a Maltese, and he is tough as nails, incredibly strong like a little tank. We adopted a Sister for him last year, her name is Mandy-Lou, and she is a mixed breed, smaller than Blacky. She is sarcastic and funny, and was all smiles from day 1 with us. We were ready for each other I guess.
I have played guitar since 1981 or so, and gravitated toward heavy metal which I still love to play. My listening preferences have changed, and I most often listen to traditional jazz, my heroes include John Coltrane, Duke Ellington, and Hiromi Uehara, who I think Everybody should check out, she is flat-out AMAZING, and I was thrilled to meet her last Spring.
I currently play guitar in a Portland metal band called Arachnid, and we are fairly active with shows at this time. It has been a lot of fun, we have some great shows coming up in the area.
Pictures and links about all of this will follow. Thanks for reading! -Phil
Current band page-
https://www.facebook.com/ArachnidPDX
Here is a vid of an Arachnid show last September (2014) "Webs of Doom"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5g13mPpUeM
My youtube page with music and other vids from over the past 20+ years-
http://www.youtube.com/philcore
Artworks from childhood to current-
https://www.facebook.com/BarnabasOfTheD ... 467&type=3
CP Collections from the past 2 decades-
https://www.facebook.com/BarnabasOfTheD ... 467&type=3
Heavy Metal!!-
https://www.facebook.com/BarnabasOfTheD ... 467&type=3
pic below: Show gear. All circa mid 1980's. The Gibson is a Firebrand SG Deluxe, a 1983, it was my first guitar, I bought it that year and still play it more than my newer ones.
pic below: Manders-Lou
pic below: Mt St Helens as seen from the clearing at the end of my street.
pic below: Playing at the Hawthorne Theater in Portland in 12/2014
pic below: The spooky St John's Bridge, very inspiring.
pic below: Me in Central Oregon near Warm Springs. In the high desert. Most of the state is high desert, actually.
pic below: Me and Blacky at Multnomah Falls in the Columbia River Gorge.
pic below: Hanging out with the Trailer Park Boys! This was after one of their stage shows in Portland.
pic below: Camping sabbatical on the beach in 2011. I went all caveman-like.
pic below: With my last band, GAME OVER, at the Red Room in Portland.
pic below: My Blacky-Bear. I do Everything for him, he is my pride and joy and the reason I carry on. Pure awesomeness
pic below: A tree that very much resembles an elephant, at Oswald Park North of Manzanita Oregon.
pic below: Playing bass with legendary Portland death-metal band Spawn in 05/2013
pic below: Showing a dormant Cobra plant that was at the end of a stolon root several feet long. In the background, a painting of St Helens I did on the woodshed with leftover indoor latex colors in 10/2013.