#flooring stores portland

[simplefloorspdx]

4 Benefits of Wood Flooring- Simplefloorspdx

For many homeowners, wood flooring is a preferred option.

Several advantages of wood flooring are listed below:

Natural beauty: Wood flooring may give any space a cosy, unique feel.

Ease of maintenance: Maintaining wood floors is not too difficult. They may survive for a long time with the right upkeep.

Value: Adding wood flooring to your property might increase its worth.

Wood flooring are incredibly resilient to wear and tear and can endure high traffic.

#engineered wood floor #wood flooring portland #engineered hardwood portland #kitchen remodel cost portland oregon #wood floor showrooms #hardwood flooring stores portland #local hardwood flooring stores #factory flooring #flooring portland oregon #engineered flooring portland #discount flooring portland #portland oregon laminate hardwood flooring #hardwood flooring suppliers #hardwood floors portland or #flooring stores portland #portland laminate flooring #portland oregon hardwood flooring #crazy wood floors #lvt flooring near me

[theehorsepusssy]

TheeHorsepussys Portland : Vaseline Alley aka Stark Street aka Harvey Weinstein ( I always get that mixed up) Harvey Milk Blvd

Documenting some gay-ass history for the kids

Red Arrow - 2 blocks to Touche. Not gay but spent most of the 90s in that bar. Fancy looking dining room/pool room but mostly service industry clientele. Hard to find a spot to do drugs discreetly.

Green - Everyday Music. Where to sell vinyl for dope money.

Yellow - Big BIG abandoned, scary building. Looked haunted. Was eventually renovated. But gave you the heebie-jeebies walking past it at night. Gay bashing zone

Green Arrow - The City Nightclub. Underage nightclub. Chicken Hawks(is that Gus Van Sant?), lots of drugs, good DJ downstairs, GREAT DJ upstairs

Red - The Henry Weinhard Brewery (demolished) Made the area smell really, really awful. Gagging thinking of it.

(Stark Street starts to the right here. It looks like they built some weird barrier in the intersection..probably cuz drunk gays in middle of street)

Orange - The Bathhouse. Home away from home. I would sell rip-off size bags of meth to subsidize my habit. Sucked a huge penis here. Gagging thinking of it. Gay bar downstairs was called either Flossies or Silverado or both. Male strippers. Would buy my shitty little bags of dope.

Blue Arrow - at one moment in the 90s, a sex club I think owned by Fantasy Video. Robert would meet his side piece there . The director Todd Haynes, I fuzzily recall reading, was a patron. I went once. Weird vibe. There was a plaque on the wall outside the entrance commemorating the recording of Louie, Louie.

Orange - The Eagle. Bar where it was common to have sex. I saw a guy take a foot up his butt. Cops started randomly coming in to cock block. There is a new bar called the Eagle up in NE Portland up by the Heroin Fred Meyer (I suppose they all are now)

Blue - Transient hotel above the store I hated buying cigarettes from but can't recall why. Maybe it was expensive.

Green - Greasy spoon called Roxys. Horrible breakfast food 24/7. I think it used to be down the street on Everett. Had a tiny basement bar. Moved to Vaseline Alley in 90s. Had ginormous picture of Quentin Tarantino or some shit. Very 90s

Yellow - Three Sisters (Six Titties) dive bar/gay bar. Never really went there. At some point was a male strippers bar. Robert had me escort one of his side pieces there. Kid thought the stripper was really into him. I tried to explain. I won $600 on the poker machine and drove the kid home.

Orange - Django Records. Large amounts of cheap used records. 3 for a dollar bins! I bought Eyehategod In the Name of Suffering here. Also the Cruising soundtrack...33cents!

Red - Fancy, expensive hotel. Yell really loud underneath the windows. They like that. Cops always parked along this stretch. Drunk gays got their first DUIs around here.

Mint- block of amnesia. I don't think it existed

Red - Boxes. Gay bar where you did lines of coke/mda/meth in the bathroom without hassle. TV sets with Oprah or Steel Magnolias, shit like that on. Spartacus Leather fetish store was down a couple doors. Inside Boxes, you could take a wood paneled passage through the fish restaurant kitchen ( I don't think anyone ever ate there) and end up at.....

Green - the Brig. Named because dance floor had bars around it like a jail cell. Imagine the creative dance moves as the queens grappled bars, ass out while Madonna songs played on a loop. Your meth dealer could be found here, doing a fan dance. Don't wear black. Semen stains show up under the blacklights. (or do)

Yellow - the house paint store. Eventually became the Panorama in the age of MDMA. Rave type music. Went there once to meet a dealer. Obnoxious experience.

White - Silverado. Country Western night most nights. My roommate dj'd andtaught line dancing but dance floor was like 10 sq ft so it was just the gays holding hands and boot scootin' in a little circle for eternity. Bar I could get into underage.

Orange - Ben Stark Hotel. Like outta Barton Fink. But really,really seedy. Had some weird sex in there. Now a boutique hotel owned by some Donald Trump guy Gordon Someone who did something once. Probably haunted.

Brown - Scandals. Beer /wine bar. Big windows so you can people-watch and talk shit. Used to go in there underage until I got thrown out snorting a rail of MDA off the tabletop. Had electronic darts and video poker in the 90s. Me and Robert had a domestic dispute there.

Red - row of funky vintage/antique shops. Someone used to broadcast a pirate radio station somewhere around there in the 90s

Blue - Portland Underground. Small venue had some big shows early 90s. Top floor is where I swear I saw Econochrist play. But it's an office building. Maybe confused

Yellow. OBryant Square aka Paranoid Park. Skateboarders and street drugs. I got "chased" by AF Nazis here. Probably more like I ran my fat ass up the street after this girl I knew screamed "run!" And they probably just laughed. I didn't look back. I think it's demolished now.

White arrow- up the block toward the Galleria. Second floor toilet was really cruisy. Careful of cockblocking rent-a-cops. Kiosk by cafe I think was only place downtown to buy pipe to smoke pot

#long ass post #TheeHorsepussys Portland

[sweaterkittensahoy]

Clint/Coulson, Portland

Vacation.

Portland.

Phil and Clint and Lucky and a slowly but lovingly restored Craftsman house.

Phil smiles as he sips his coffee and eyes the freshly primed walls of the formal dining room. It's just off the living room and through the currently empty door jamb (Phil and Clint are going to the reuse store to check for door options this afternoon), Phil watches Lucky lift his head slightly, then drop it back to his paws with a small, contented sigh.

From the former bedroom off the living room in the direction Lucky is faced there comes the first, careful notes of Clint settling in for a cello session. Phil walks through the living room, pausing to scritch Lucky behind the ears. He stands in the doorway of Clint's practice room and takes him in.

Clint's eyes are closed, shoulders relaxed. He's wearing track pants and a purple tank top. His feet are bare, and his hearing aids are resting on the windowsill that faces the street. He never plays with his hearing aids in. He can hear the cello clearly without them as close as he needs to be to play, and he prefers to play by touch alone anyway. It's how he was taught, originally, by Bethany the Bearded Lady.

Phil makes a mental note to text Bethany while they're visiting. She lives on the Oregon Coast, running a Freak Show Museum. She doesn't know yet that this is the last vacation before Phil and Clint move out for good. Six months from now, they've decided. The house isn't nearly finished, but it's getting harder and harder to leave each time they come.

It's their own space, this house and this city, where people squint at them sometimes but can't figure out why they look familiar as they wander the farmer's market in regular clothes.

Clint plays a set of scales slowly, and Phil thumps his heel on the floor to get him to open his eyes.

"Play me something," Phil signs.

Clint grins and nods, playing his scales a little more quickly. Phil turns back towards the formal dining room to get to work and pauses when Clint starts playing a song. It takes a moment for him to figure out the song, having to translate it from cello and then back.

"Life's Been Good" by Joe Walsh meanders through the house as Phil puts down his coffee and crouches down to open the paint.

#clint/coulson #phlint #bowtie #portland #clint as cellist is the best head canon #ask #answer #prompt fill

[gigawatt-smile]

What is your favorite headcanon about Lucy?

It's a little convoluted and long and technically multiple but it all fulls under one basic thing:

What Lucy is like outside of her ghost hunting.

(This is mainly book adjacent because this is how i imagined it as I was reading it)

I think Lucy's room is something very personal to her especially as she started to feel more at home after TSS. I always imagined the roof to have a slant over where her bed was with a large window next to it where the skull would be sat on the far end. Her closet is on the other side of that and beside her bed is a tiny beside table which she uses the top draw to hold her very personal items (her sketchbook, her watercolour palette and some photos of her life before L&Co).

It's barebones at first but she'd add to it over time. She set up fairy lights around her bed on the slant with pushpins with the battery control blue tacked to the wall (when she left, she found that it had stained). She has polaroids and other photos of her, George and Lockwood (later, Holly, Kipps and Flo) on the ceiling above her bed. She would have her favourite band posters also on the wall, almost floor to ceiling.

You can almost always find her with music on, and given that it's the top room of the house, she can get away with having CDs blasting with little consequence. She added a CD rack as she collected more because she would frequent music stores and she would also probably get them from the people at Portland Row too.

It also helps because she never had this back up north, it was always sharing a room or being told off for having any music on. It's getting to live as herself with people who love her back.

I dunno man, she gets me really emotional

EDIT:

Whipped up a drawing of it

#side note but im a system irl and while i don't talk about it much we do have an introject of lucy who is our backup host #and a lot of our headcanons about lucy are based off of ghost #she's awesome #her favourite band is the crawlers #lockwood and co #lockwood & co #l&co #lucy carlyle #l&co headcanons

[rogueshadeaux]

Chapter Twenty-Six — Crossfire

I could see a bit of the sky now from where I was, since we were on the edge of the bridge. I couldn’t really see the stars anymore, something I’d grown accustomed to in Chapman’s ruralness and reinforced by Salmon Bay. It was the dead of night, and I couldn’t wait to get off of the floor and sleep the rest of the way to wherever this guy lived, even if that’d only be another hour.  But that would be too easy, wouldn’t it?

4.9k words | 16 min read time | TRIGGER WARNINGS: Canon-typical violence, Erosionverse-typical violence, guns, shooting, arguing, depression ? is that a tw?

It took three and a half days before we even crossed the border into Louisiana. 

Brent, Dad, and Dr. Sims would rotate who would drive — Brent only allowed to do so at day — and when I begged for a chance, not only did Dad brush me off, but he wouldn’t even let me leave my spot in the back of the truck. Every pit stop, every leg stretch, every dine-in at some fast food place — Dad was there, closer than my own shadow, policing everything I could do in that moment. 

I was about to fucking lose it.

I get that something was wrong with me. I understand that he’s seen me have a breakdown more than once in the past few days and was probably worried. But I wasn’t glass! He used to be big on independence, on letting us make our own mistakes and touting how he wanted us to live how we wanted, and just wanted to give advice when we wanted it. Now? I had no space, at all, and was seconds from going feral. 

Brent could see it. He didn’t say much at all, not audibly, but he did at some point message me are you okay? and sighed when I shrugged. I laid the phone back on my lap and it stayed there for all of seventeen seconds before it pinged again and I flipped it, a screenshot in the messages. 

Mei and Brent were still chatting away, Mei explaining how no one from the original group talked to Tommy much at all anymore. Even Cat stopped signing to her cousin. We’re all really worried about Jean, though…you’re sure she’s okay? We thought we saw her die in that footage of the seattle fight. 

She’s fine, Brent promised, just a bit banged up. 

Reese wants to talk to her. I mean we all do but Reese…well, you know her. She’s been at my house since new years and its been a challenge trying to get her to eat. Do you think Jean would want to reach out to her?

In the textbox was Brent’s message to me, a simple would you wanna? that he knew I’d see. 

And I looked at him and shook my head, turning away to look back out of the window before he could convince me otherwise. 

I couldn’t take the concerns or questions right now. I didn’t want to explain to them how something was wrong with me. And, God, how do I face them after what I did to Seattle? Why would they want to know someone like me, someone who could wipe them off of the face of the earth in an instant on some stupid mistake?

They were safer in Portland, with me in their past. 

I was surprised by just how warm it got the farther south we went. Like, sure, I knew some people would rush to the south during winter to avoid the snow — but it was spring weather down here! Sixty, seventy degrees Fahrenheit! We didn’t get those sort of numbers in Chapman till May. I even threw off the woven blanket at some point, storing it on the floorboard simply because it felt too good to need the extra heat.

As we made a gas stop in Baton Rouge and everyone got out to stretch, Brent stripped off his jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, complaining. “God, it feels gross out here,”

Dad seemed to agree, and Dr. Sims was too far away to join in the conversation — but he also stripped off his coat as he walked towards the convenience store, slinging it over his shoulder. 

Was it warm? Sure. But it didn’t warrant the forehead swipes or the gripes. “Maybe your steel insides have changed how you deal with temperature or something, because it feels amazing,” I said, hopping up from the tire so I could sit on the edge of the truck’s bed. 

Brent looked at me like I was insane. “Are you serious? It’s so muggy,”

“That’s gotta be the marshes,” Dad hummed, rolling up his own sleeves. 

“You’re both dramatic,” I teased. “I’d kill for Portland to feel like this,”

Brent’s bewilderment on his face grew as Dad regarded me for a moment before a half-smile broke on his face. “Do you feel the humidity?” he asked me.

“What humidity?”

He laughed, sliding the gas nozzle back into place. “That’s why you feel good — you’re probably in Conduit heaven. It’s humid right now, Jean. There’s so much water in the air it feels sticky,”

I had no idea what he was talking about. 

Well, now that he mentioned it, that soreness between my shoulder blades I could never seem to shake was nearly gone, and my wounds weren’t all that itchy or in pain. I even felt confident enough to move around without the arm sling, my braced arm free to the elements. That’s what Dad concentrated on — my exposed arm with no support. “Jean, you should put your sling back on—”

“I’m fine, Dad,” I swore, hoping I’d be able to stop this in its tracks before it got bad. I hopped from my place on the truck and said, “I need to go to the bathroom,”

“Hold on, let me get—” Dad started, reaching into the truck for something. 

“Dad.” I deadened. “I’m just going to the restroom. I’ll be right back.”

I scurried off into the dark before he could protest more, desperate to catch fifteen seconds to myself.

We were so close to this special person that supposedly had all the answers. I couldn’t remember the guy’s name, I was always bad at that — but I did remember how Dr. Sims insisted he was important. He’s the closest we will ever get to talking to Cole MacGrath. 

Cole MacGrath. The DUP had spent so much time painting him as a demon that even now you’ll find people that consider him a terrorist. They’d always point to the footage of him blowing up that section of Empire City and scream how he killed thousands. But there were stories from refugees from New Marais or people who snuck out of Empire City before it was decimated that touted him a hero. Footage from some old newscasters that snuck past the quarantine line to interview survivors of the explosion that happened in the city repeating the same: that he was a champion. Saving people, defeating rogue gangs that rose up in the aftermath of the explosion. 

The other side would always scream back That he caused!

After the DUP fell and the government had to declassify a bunch of documents in their UN case, people were forced to acknowledge he actually wasn’t that bad a guy. How different was he from Dad? Not much. And that’s what I held on to initially; he was a guy trying to do the right thing. Even if he fucked up, he did more than others. Definitely more than the government did during the quarantine. Isn’t that enough? 

I wonder how much guilt he carried to the end over everyone he couldn’t help. 

Either way, he was the first recorded Conduit, apparently someone who’s seen tar like Augustine’s, and we’d have to go to the next best source to learn more since we couldn’t ask MacGrath without performing a séance. What kind of guy — normal guy, apparently — was a good enough replacement source for the Cole MacGrath? 

There was a sudden knock on the door of the women’s restroom and both the woman walking towards a stall and the one washing her hands with me froze. We glanced at each other the way strangers in situations did; awkward, wordless side glances as we debated whether or not it was worth speaking up to talk to each other. Who knocks on a multi-stall restroom door?

Unfortunately, I knew exactly who. 

“Jean?” Dad’s voice called from the other side. I felt like I was going to explode from embarrassment, my face in the mirror quickly turning red. “You in there?”

“Oh my God,” I whispered, thinking about going humid on the spot and never returning to my solid body. He could not be doing this and not see that it was absolutely humiliating! The other women definitely sensed my embarrassment, both turning to regard me as I mumbled some sort of apology, shook my hands out till the water from the sink seeped in, and gripped the handle of the door with white knuckles, barely able to take a deep breath before opening it. 

Dad was there against the wall, barely allowing enough room for anyone to pass — and closing that space immediately when I stepped out. “Hey, there you are,” He greeted, like he wasn’t trying to infantilize me. “I told you to wait for m—”

“I can piss on my own, Dad.” I snipped, shoving myself into that small space between him and the wall and slipping past, briskly walking away. 

Dad caught up with ease, falling in step beside me as the automatic doors to the gas station’s convenience store opened. “You shouldn’t be going anywhere alone right now,” he stressed, ignoring my bite. “You’re not…”

“I’m not what?” I demanded, spinning on him. “Capable? Competent? It’s the bathroom, Dad! I get that I fucked up and I’m broken now—”

“Jean, don’t curse—”

“—And that I can’t do anything right, but that doesn’t mean you’ve got to treat me like a toddler! I’m not going to drown anyone while washing my hands.” 

Something in Dad’s eyes changed. “That’s not what I meant—”

I didn’t want to hear it. Any excuse he would have given me would have just made it worse. I shot a hand up to stop his tangent, and demanded, “Don’t, Dad, just — how far’s New Marais?”

Dad’s eyebrows sewed closer together. He had that look, that expression he’d reserve for analyzing people on the stands. “It’s about an hour and a half away.”

“Let’s just go,” I said stiffly, walking off towards the truck. The sooner we got this over with, and the sooner we found a fix for whatever in me was fucked up, the sooner I’d get Dad off of my back. 

Still, I put in my headphones and made sure my music was loud enough that everyone else in the car could hear its reverberation, just to make sure I didn’t have to deal with anything else along the way. 

Brent got to drive us towards New Marais, and not only because he was Dad’s special little Conduit that wasn’t a walking hazard sign; in between choruses in my ears, I could hear Dad and Dr. Sims begin debating on whether or not we would be able to take back roads the rest of the way. “They don’t have cops that can do something about that?” Dad asked from the passengers’ seat. 

Dr. Sims shrugged beside me. “There’s not enough of them. Too many older cops are retiring without any replacements, and those that do replace the old ones…well, there’s a big turnover rate. Criminals and wanna-bees have figured this out and—”

“And now they snipe drivers?” Dad scoffed, amazed that’s where their criminal minds went. 

“Why am I driving, again?” Brent asked sheepishly. 

“Because you’re the only one with built-in armor, and it frees Eugene and I up so we can protect you both. There’s really no other way?” Dad spun in place to ask Dr. Sims. 

Dr. Sims shook his head. “Not until we cross the Lake Bonheur Causeway. It’ll take us into the city center and we can ride the backroads to the reclaimed swampland.”

“Man couldn’t live in a condo,” Dad grumbled, turning to face the front again. 

I took out my headphones and put them away, the clack of their charge box catching Dad’s attention. “Jean, hey,” he started. “We’re—”

“I know,” I cut off. “I heard.”

Something simple changed in his eyes as he looked at me, but he didn’t mention it, instead continuing, “Okay, good. I’m going to need you to get on the floorboard.”

I blinked. “The—Dad—”

“You can’t be in view of any windows,” he cut me off with that aggravating finality in his voice, honed by years of law bullshit. “Eugene will be able to protect you if something happens, but you need to stay low.”

“Stay out of the way, you mean.” I grumbled. 

Not low enough for Dad not to hear. “Stay safe. None of us are outrunning a bullet, but you’re the only one that’s not gonna recover.” The truck did that slight lurch as we went from asphalt to concrete, the start of this infamous Bonheur Causeway lit up in the night by the amber lights screwed to the suspensions above. I remember this bridge from one of Brent’s infodumps; it was one of the longest bridges over water in the country, no land for miles. Just concrete, steel, water, electric roadsigns — and four Conduits that could control them all. 

Not that Dad wanted me to. “Jean.” He commanded, voice firm. “Down. Now.”

I scoffed, rolling my eyes and undoing my seatbelt. “Better hope Brent doesn’t crash either,” I snipped. 

“Hey—” Brent started. I didn’t get to hear much else, I was already trying to fit myself in the small space between my seat and Brent’s. 

This was humiliating. I was stored away on the bottom of the truck’s floor like some wine cooler they didn’t want the cops seeing, and I was, what, supposed to just be okay with it? I was shoved next to the plastic bag that held our trash — and right now, felt no better than it. 

The cab of Dad’s truck flashed amber as we passed under lamplights, and Dad rolled down the windows of the truck, letting in this damp and dank smell that was part salt and part rotting egg. The smell definitely was enough to get a reaction from Brent. “Eugh, Dad—” he began to complain. 

“Shh.” Dad commanded immediately. 

I could see Dr. Sims from my spot on the floor — he was really the only thing I could see. He leaned over ever so slightly so he could look past the front seats and out of the windshield to the bridge, eyes scanning from behind the glare of his glasses. His one hand crept to the middle seat, closest to my head, and tensed, like he was preparing to call those angels up any minute now. 

I couldn’t remember how long the bridge was; I was sure if I asked Brent, he’d be able to rattle off a number down to the centimeters, but I didn’t dare break the silence of the truck’s cab. Not even as my legs began to cramp from how I was crouched and the bridge gained some light from more variable-message signs appearing, directing the flow of traffic to different parts of New Marais. “Merge left,” Dad simply said, the click of the turn signal coming on almost immediately. 

“We’re almost off the bridge.” Dr. Sims muttered above me. I didn’t realize he meant it to be a reassurance until his eyes flashed down to look at me. 

Good. The sooner I could get out of this uncomfortable crouch, the better. 

I could see a bit of the sky now from where I was, since we were on the edge of the bridge. I couldn’t really see the stars anymore, something I’d grown accustomed to in Chapman’s ruralness and reinforced by Salmon Bay. It was the dead of night, and I couldn’t wait to get off of the floor and sleep the rest of the way to wherever this guy lived, even if that’d only be another hour. 

But that would be too easy, wouldn’t it?

The truck hit another crack in the bridge, rocking around a bit with the force. The things in the back bounced around a bit, the ice in Dad’s cup rattled — and, under it all, something clicked. Dr. Sims heard the noise too as it rang around very slightly outside of the windows, warning, “Del—”

He was cut off by the back windshield suddenly shattering, a bullet flying through the space between Dad and Brent and impaling the radio, sending sparks and glass flying around. I shielded my head as glass rained down on me, poking away at my arms as Brent yelled, “Dad!” 

“Just keep driving!” He demanded, unclipping his seatbelt. The window began to roll down as he added. “Steel on, now!”

Dr. Sims’ arms lit up and he spun in place, looking through the shattered window and out to the bridge. “D, we’re being followed!” He warned. 

There was sudden tire screeching, and Brent cursed under his breath before the truck jerked right. “Dad!” He shouted, more urgent this time. 

“Keep going, get off the bridge!”

“Where are you going?” 

I could barely see the bottom of Dad’s feet from where I was as he pulled himself up onto the roof of the truck through the window. It creaked a bit under his weight, a resounding thunk that barely covered up the sound of a handgun cocking. I could feel the vibration from Brent’s hit as he smacked his driver’s side door, the plastic of the cab’s interior being overtaken by rapidly-growing steel, the encasing just finishing its growth as it became dented from bullets. Dr. Sims had a hand out of the gap the shattered windshield left, the blue around his wrists spinning like Doctor Strange gauntlets before pulsing bright and shooting off actual swords towards whoever was behind us. 

I was thrown over onto Dr. Sims’ feet as whoever was on the right of us slammed into the truck in an effort to make it spin out, Brent’s overcorrection throwing me back just as quickly. I went from being on my knees, to my face, to my ass — all in perfect time to see Dad’s form as he fell from on top of the roof. 

“Delsin!” Dr. Sims yelled out. 

Dr. Sims was too distracted; he watched what I assumed had to be Dad’s body as it hit the pavement, concentrating more on that than whoever was behind us now returning fire. He was hit in his right arm, in that meat just below the elbow, the bullet tearing through him entirely and lodging into the back of the passenger side seat. Dr. Sims choked out a couple choice curse words, gripping his arm close and slouching down out of the view of the back windshield. 

“Does anyone see Dad?” Brent demanded from up front before cursing again. The truck jerked around once more as he avoided something — or someone. “Jean, do you see him?”

I shook my head like Brent could see me, panic beginning to settle in my chest as I looked at the bit of sky the broken windshield allowed me to. Where was he? Dr. Sims looked all but useless; his face was going gray as he looked at the wound, and he made no move to sit back up and keep fighting. Could he even do it with an injury like that? There were pieces of tissue hanging out of the hole in his rolled-up sleeve. There was another bullet that blasted past and narrowly missed Brent’s head, taking out the front windshield instead.

I couldn’t stay here and just wait to see who’d recover or die first. I couldn’t stay on this dirty and glass-covered floorboard waiting to see what happened to Dad. I had to do something. 

There was a stint I went through in Sophomore year, where action movies were my everything. I had just gotten into the idea of comic writing, and wanted something thrilling. Something exciting, something that’d catch an audience’s attention enough that they’d ditch the Valentine Crime Noirs and maybe I could bring an interest back to the storytelling form. Dad was all for it; it gave him the chance to introduce me to some of his favorite movies, and while some of them absolutely sucked, there was one that I adored watching with him again and again: John Wick. This guy had reached his limit after everything was taken from him, and God, the fight scenes — they were something else entirely. Not just action packed and exhilarating, but accurate. 

It was there that I learned a bullet is useless in water so long as you’ve got a few feet between yourself and the gun. That’s all I needed to give us — a few feet of water. 

I pushed up from the floorboard and laid my hand on the seat, a nice shard of glass immediately introducing itself into my palm through the space in my cast. I didn’t let that stop me, nor when Dr. Sims seemed to try to make some sound of objection through his sharp gasps; I flitted through the shattered window on my own wave of water, landing atop someone’s bag and nearly tripping as I resolidified. 

There were two trucks, one directly beside us and swerving to try and push us into the guardrail of the bridge, another behind with at least four masked people in them. All armed. 

No Dad. He was nowhere to be seen. 

“Jean, what the fuck are you doing?” Brent yelled from the truck. 

I steadied myself and rose, trying my best to look at the hood of the car behind us without worrying about the fact that everyone in it looked ready to mow me down with their weapons if given the chance. I definitely was giving them plenty. Water pushed down from my shoulders and began to swirl around my forearms as I let that tenseness push into my chest, a hold binding my ribs closer and closer until I pushed out and the pressure burst away with it. 

A halo of water expanded quickly, this giant forcefield of wet that washed over me and everything else in the back of the truck, pushing over its roof and all the way to the front and farther still. I extended my arms from in front of me to beside me, holding them as steady as I could as I built more into the bubbling shield, trying to pile on enough to make it an actual wall and not just a barrier. 

It felt…different, this time. Something about pushing around this much water…it didn’t feel like it used to. There was more strain to it, an ache in my shoulders even though I knew, without a doubt, I didn’t need to drain. The truck on our left inched closer still, tried to push past that barrier I was making and force its way into my little bubble, and a hole opened up in the siding Brent had built so he could stick his hand our and shoot a volley of steel spheres, the metal rusting the moment they hit my water and exploding upon impact with the highway robbers’ car. The windows shattered with the hit, causing the truck to swerve away with a squeal of the tires. 

Even with the swirls of the swell I tried to keep the water clear enough to see through. I wasn’t exactly wanting Brent to drive the truck straight into a median barrier, after all. But it left things clear enough for me to see the muzzle of an assault rifle settle on the center console of the truck behind us. I was suddenly back in that alley somehow, a gun pointed at my forehead, at my family, the threat that tore so much apart in the blink of an eye. 

I was not going to be the damsel in distress this time. 

I moved my right hand in front of me, pushing more water into the barrier between us and the truck following close behind just as their gun let off a volley of bullets, shattering the windscreen on the front of their truck and sending a good dozen bullets straight for me. 

The first three managed to make it through the water, each narrowly missing me — one even snagged the flannel I had tied around my waist, shredding a hole through the fabric. But as the water caught up with my intentions and became denser, the other bullets stuttered to a stop in their shots, wavering in the water before slowly falling away and onto the road. 

There was a sudden shift in the shadows, a flash in the darkness between street lamps, and Dad was on the roof of their truck, smoke dissipating from his form. He gripped the barrel of the gun sticking out of the truck and pushed some sort of heat into it from his blackened hand, the barrel going red-hot before he bent it to a ninety degree angle. The people in the truck reacted to his presence, shouting, one lifting another gun, but it didn’t stop Dad; he turned back into a plume of smoke and darted into the truck from its shattered windscreen. 

I could only describe what happened next as a movie scene; Dad disappeared and reappeared again and again, choking out someone in the backseat as a cloud of smoke, solidifying to kick the other one in the side of the jaw. He was gone again and suddenly in the front, elbowing the person in the passenger’s seat before grabbing the steering wheel and trying to fight it away from the driver. 

The driver gave him a hard time, managing to land a headbutt that sent Dad reeling back and prompted him to turn to smoke. The embers and ash rushed out of a window and to the top of the vehicle, resettling as Dad on the roof again. 

The smoke didn’t dissipate from him; it stayed close, swirling around him like a twister, pulling in as he stayed crouched, the ash around his arm turning bright red as it shifted to literal fire. Could he control fire? 

The guys on our left swerved suddenly, and pushed into the side of Dad’s truck, throwing me off balance — and making the water shield around us disappear. I had to drop fast in order to not be thrown out of the car, something roughly popping in my side and making me cry out in pain. 

“Jean, get back in the truck!” Brent demanded somewhere behind me. The guys beside us had their own guns, and an entire clip was emptied just over my head. I ducked low, covering my head with my arms, barely able to see Dad through the gaps between them.

He jumped, a plume of ash and red-hot embers as he shot to the sky like rockets, all burning fuel and smog. He was nearly touching the peak of the bridge’s suspension arch when he formed from the ash, suspended in midair for only a moment before turning in the sky, aiming for the truck behind us, and shooting down like a missile, heat on the tail of his form. 

There was this brief half-second of calm that came in the pause of the guy in the truck beside us reloading his gun that gave me the chance to turn into a small wave and flit back into the truck, landing on the cushion of the back seat — and sorta on Dr. Sims’ leg. “Shit, sorry,” I apologized immediately. 

He didn’t care, he wasn’t even paying attention; he was looking out of the back window at Dad’s form as it zeroed in on the hood of the trunk behind us, yelling, “Hold on to something!” before blue light took over his arms. 

I couldn’t really keep track of what happened next. 

Dad slammed into the hood of the truck behind us, his body sinking away into smoke and ash the moment it touched the gloss of the truck. Smoke coupled and pushed out as the truck’s front pushed down into the street under it, axel snapping away. Then there was blue, a wall of hard light as that smoke billowed outward in all directions, a blast force behind it. 

The back of the truck lifted, the smoke hitting the near-opaque wall and pushing around it. Unfortunately, this also pushed the truck around, and before I knew it, I was thrown into the door as it flipped on its side, the steel on it barely doing anything to cushion me. My vision blacked out and I wasn’t sure if that was from the smoke, the rolling, or simply from me. 

The truck skidded some ways before it stopped, Dr. Sims only kept from landing on me by the seat belt around his body. There was no sound outside of the truck. All I could see past the window was the remains of smoke as it dissipated in the air, and smelt nothing but burnt rubber and fumes. I let my head settle, sucking in a shaken breath and coughing out the exhale, lungs screaming for air that didn’t burn. Brent was visible from where I was, head leaned against the steel wall at his side, unmoving and unsteeled. “Brent?” I coughed. 

He didn’t move. 

#infamous second son #infamous erosion #delsin rowe #brent posting #jean posting #infamous 2 #infamous #cole macgrath #Eugene Sims #I FINALLY GOT TO WRITE AN ULT THIS WAS SO FUN BRO #fanfic #sucker punch productions #hey wanna watch me get hunted for sport when my friends reach the cliffhanger? #god I love putting guys in situations

[alphacrone]

got hyped up on an espresso martini last night and wrote this in my notes app without any actual idea of or plans to write a fic around it whoops. (TCS au where lucy doesn't flee to portland row)

-

To his surprise, and minor concern, it was Barnes at the door.

“Inspector,” Lockwood said. “What can I do for you?”

“Is Carlyle here?” Barnes asked gruffly.

Lockwood raised an eyebrow. “No, sir, she hasn’t lived here for several months. I can give you her new address-“

“I’ve just come from there,” Barnes interrupted, rubbing his eyes tiredly. “May I come in?”

Lockwood let Barnes brush past him, and they settled into armchairs facing each other in the sitting room. What sort of trouble could Lucy have already gotten herself into? It hadn’t been all that long since they’d worked the cannibal job together.

“Have you seen Miss Carlyle recently?” Barnes asked, pulling Lockwood from his thoughts.

“Yes, about a week ago,” Lockwood answered. “We hired her for a case brought to us by Penelope Fittes.”

“What day exactly?” Barnes pulled out his notepad and started jotting things down.

“Er…Tuesday,” Lockwood answered. “Or I suppose Wednesday, since it went all night.”

“So the early hours of Wednesday,” Barnes summarized. “Have you heard anything from her since then?”

“No…” Something felt wrong. There was a tight look in Barnes’ eyes. “Inspector, what’s happened to Lucy?”

“She’s missing,” Barnes said. “Missed a job with Rotwell and the supervisor couldn’t get a hold of her, so he reported it to us. A team went to her flat and found it ransacked. None of her neighbors have seen her since Wednesday afternoon.”

It was like all the blood drained from Lockwood’s body at once. He felt cold and lightheaded, chest hollow, heart stopped. Lucy was in trouble. Lucy was in trouble and he couldn’t help her.

“Have you phoned her family?” Lockwood heard himself ask. “Her mum and sisters?”

Barnes nodded. “They haven’t heard from her.”

Lockwood mentally cycled through everyone else Lucy knew. Him and George and Holly, obviously. Arif, though she had no reason to stop by his store these days. Their usual cabbie, Jake, thought he tended to keep to the area around Marylebone.

“Kipps,” Lockwood said. “They’re…almost friends. Maybe he’s heard from her.”

Barnes wrote that down. “I’ll have someone give him a call.” He paused, then gave Lockwood a serious look. “We…we are suspecting foul play. Like I said, her place had been trashed. Can you think of anyone who might have a motive?”

“Adelaide Winkman,” Lockwood said almost immediately. “Though I would think she’d come after me first.”

“I’ll post someone outside your house for the next few days,” Barnes said. “Just in case. Anyone else?”

Other than the Winkmans, most of the people Lockwood and Lucy had pissed off in recent months were dead. Fairfax, Joplin, many, many relic men…

“No,” he said quietly. “Not unless Mr. Aickmere is still upset about the poltergeist incident.”

It had meant to be a joke, but neither of them laughed. Barnes set down his notepad and fixed Lockwood with a serious stare.

“Anthony,” he said softly, chilling Lockwood to the bone. “You need to prepare yourself for the worst.”

The worst. So Barnes thought Lucy was already dead. Perhaps that was logical, given how long she’d been missing. But she couldn’t be dead. Lockwood was certain he’d know if she was, would have felt it as keenly as he had felt her absence every day for months.

“Right,” was all he could say in response.

Barnes gripped his shoulder tightly for a moment, a small gesture of comfort, then rose to his feet. “Call me if you hear anything. You have my number.”

Lockwood nodded and followed Barnes to the door, seeing him out. As soon as the man was gone, Lockwood sank to the floor.

#lockwood & co. #lockwood spoilers #anna writes things #ok to rb

[hometoursandotherstuff]

This big building is someone’s playground estate in Portland, Oregon.  People think the giant glass structure with two massive pools is a recreation center. Most people say, 'Oh my gosh, I never knew this existed, this is someone's home?’

The entire property is 3 acres, which is approximately the area required for a baseball field. First, there's the outdoor pool, it's called a lagoon here, that stretches out for about a half acre.

It’s an almost wall-free living space where there is a sports court in one corner and huge play spaces around the floating kitchen. And that's just downstairs.

The owners wanted an environment in which to live and play, inside and out.

A steel structure -- typically used for commercial construction -- was used since the owners didn't want unmovable load-bearing interior walls. That way, they could have the flexibility to use the open space or put up interior rooms.

The house has 6 bedrooms and 7.5 bathrooms. This is the master suite, on the upper level, with a high, upsloping ceiling. Sliding doors lead to a deck.

But there are also enclosed playrooms like this space filled with every game you'd find in an arcade, from foosball tables to Pac Man and other video games.

The indoor basketball court that has a bench for spectators. Having a ceiling that soars more than 40 feet helps with wild free throws.

An expansive garage not only stores eight cars but has a mechanic space in which to work on them.

The owners used discarded rock from Commuter Rail construction to build an 80-foot privacy and sound barrier. As tall as the structure is, and as near to the highway as it sits, passersby still can't see it.

Over the years, the owners have hosted parties for their kids, grandchildren and community. They hired a 12-piece orchestra to perform at a holiday party.

Looking through the towering glass panels, guests can see the resort-like lagoon and waterfalls, and from the second-level terraces, the sun setting against the coastal mountains. They can wander through the garden that produces vegetables and wild berries.

Or they can just hang out inside near the palm tree-lined indoor pool surrounded by radiant heat floors.

The built-in bar.

They wanted a hacienda-like feel. Southwest flare is visible in the cobblestone flooring and the courtyard-like area around the indoor pool.

Despite its vastness -- the main level is 10,000 square feet -- it still feels "intimate" in places.

They created miniature environments.

Built in 1995, it has environmentally friendly features, but it does need some updating.

Conversational seating that makes the home feel cozy.

https://www.oregonlive.com/life-and-culture

#playground estate #quirky homes #unique homes #rich people homes #architecture #long post

[etakeh]

Before making this decision, we invested heavily in strategies to prevent and stop theft and organized retail crime in our stores, such as adding more security team members, using third-party guard services, and implementing theft-deterrent tools across our business.

Paraphrasing: we tried to alienate the locals, make community members feel like thieves, and were sure to cast a pall of mistrust across our various stores. Dunno why that didn't work.

On the up side, the big downtown Target closing means an opportunity for a massive adult "Discovery Zone" type thing, with multi-story slides into a massive ball pit, maybe a bowling alley, some zip lines into a massive ball pit, multiple game and movie rooms, a rock wall with a floor that is a massive ball pit.

#target #portland #ball pits #yeah I'm not serious about the ball pits they're gross and unsanitary and just ew #but I'm absolutely serious about the zip line and slides

[wumblr]

in the interest of using my journal as a journal, this week i have...

got a drill (literally essential to almost every other item on this list). this pairs well with my extremely long extension cord (another essential product recommendation) since the nearest outlet to my living room is halfway up the attic stairs

went to menards (this isn't the first time, but i joked about never quite getting there, and then never posted about it when i did, which is a violation of my menards influencer contract) and found a nest chair on clearance (thing that has been on a list for years)

put up curtains, put up curtains, put up curtains (two windows and one room-dividing red curtain to hide the HVAC in my attic bedroom. i was sort of going for like, theater style curtains or twin peaks red room or aurora album cover... the lighting is wrong, the fabric is neither quite the right color nor texture, i have half as many curtains as i need, and i couldn't find exactly the right kind of rug to drive the illusion home, but it does make the whole thing seem a lot more like sleeping in a bedroom than squatting in a half-remodeled attic like some kind of modest mouse frontman, so, i guess i'll buy a used spotlight to pair with my used disco/dj/classic skating lights and keep looking for rugs to cover up the stain on the floor that i hope is from a long-past roof leakage and is not the spot where a previous tenant died)

put up wall art

anchored my bookshelves

deposited my tax return (i'm sorry for posting so many yoshi tax evasion jokes all these years and then just dutifully filing my taxes. or, if you're a tax auditor, this is not a joke)

got a kitchen table and chairs and put them together (regret to inform you i did not really have chairs this whole time. like i had chairs once. terrible chairs. and i got rid of them when i left portland. pleased to inform you my new ones are really nice). also a kitchen shelf. because i have the world's smallest cupboards. 6.5in wide. i measured them. what are you even supposed to do with these

replaced a fraction of the cardboard boxes that i've been keeping everything in with actual containers

i still need to...

take the old, mismatched, outdated front license plate off my car (augh) (surely this is illegal), an impossible task that requires the absurd notion of taking a screwdriver outside

fix... my studio... (it looks exactly like it did in the picture i posted and i'm actually mad i didn't have more time to use it in that state but now there's also a former kitchen table and a clearance nest chair in there. i have also sort of half-commited to a standing desk in the closet, which has shelves that are not exactly the same height, so now my if-you-give-a-mouse-a-cookie ass needs a piece of lumber, and i haven't even stained my spice rack board yet)

strip the seasoning off my cast iron pan (don't ask... i am learning about polymerization the hard way. i spread it on too thick. rookie mistake. how do you even start over. i am learning about depolymerization)

go to the hardware store because i used all my fucking screws. this is a literary technique called bookending and lets the reader know that the character's life is an endlessly repeating cycle of screwing and getting screws

[spacefuneral]

the number of times i've defended homeless folk from people is astounding. portland is so liberal and they act like a homeless dude asking for a cup of milk is going to get our job targeted. at my first bakery, the store got broken into and people started pointing fingers at this poor guy who camped nearby and had psychosis, and i s2g i stood up and was like "don't fucking talk about him like that" all he ever wanted was something to drink, he showed no signs of violence. there was another guy who i watched slowly get worse with addiction, and he was Never Violent and my boss fucking lied to me and said he assaulted someone so that i would stop letting him in. i spoke with him and he was like "i'd never hurt anyone, i wouldn't" and i stood there like... fuck... what do i do? and it wasn't until later that i caught my boss in her lie and i just... i felt so floored. is it really so bad to feed him a donut and coffee once a day? he can fucking have my free donut and coffee for all i care.

anyway. i will never stop being like this.

#w/ the last guy i would still pop out of the shop and give him food #he was in a rough way #i hope he's ok

[simplefloorspdx]

A Cost-Effective Alternative: Exploring Laminate Flooring

A popular and adaptable flooring option that is less expensive than hardwood or tile is laminate flooring. It is composed of many layers, usually a core layer of compressed fiberboard or resin, a decorative layer with a high-resolution picture of wood, stone, or other patterns, and a tough melamine wear layer. Under intense pressure and heat, these layers are fused together to produce a solid and robust flooring material. The ability of laminate flooring to approximate the appearance of natural materials without the added expense and upkeep is one of its primary benefits. The decorative layer offers a variety of design alternatives to suit different home designs. It may accurately imitate the appearance of hardwood, ceramic tiles, or even actual stone. 

#portland oregon laminate hardwood flooring #hardwood flooring suppliers #simplefloors #hardwood floors portland or #hardwood flooring stores #flooring stores portland #portland laminate flooring #portland wood flooring #portland oregon hardwood flooring #crazy wood floors #lvt flooring near me #flooring pdx #pdx flooring #bamboo flooring portland #bamboo floor #wood flooring #engineered wood flooring #flooring installation portland #portland oregon bamboo flooring #flooring store portland #hardwood flooring store #hardwood floor

[reallysadcarcrash]

can I grind your dick up in a cheese grader and serve it to you as a substitute for cheese on your spaghetti?

ummmmm i thought very long and hard about this and i think my answer is very clear. while some believe that simply grinding my dick and serving it as cheese is a suitable alternative for a trip to the grocery store, this is not the case.

first, we must take into account the angle of my own penile erection when faced with a cheese grinder. according to years of study and observation, i have calculated that my erection stands at a 87 degree angle to my thighs and six pack. now, the average cheese grater is created in a trapezoid-shape that, when used correctly, can shred a block of cheese to grains in seconds. while this may be ideal when faced with blocks, the angle of my penis compared with the shape of a cheese grater would make grating conceivably impossible. any attempts to grate it will simply result in my erection slipping and sliding all over the place.

you may say, "hold it in place, and try again." to that, i must bring up yet another point of interest. many are unaware, but during excitement my penis has been known to get wet and slippery, essentially eliminating any dreams of holding it. many have tried in the past, to no avail.

secondly, we must bring in a comparison between the taste of my ground penis-flakes, and the average spaghetti cheese. in a 2017 survey amongst people of all demographics living in the cities: charleston, chicago, boston, and portland, researchers found that the strongest majority of people prefer cheddar cheese on their spaghetti. in my own experiences with cheddar cheese, i have found it to be salty, fresh, and chewy, working within itself to create a sort of party in my mouth. now, while very few have tasted the skin of my penis, i have heard from many that the taste is more akin to that of a cooked salmon, or a can of tuna. please, if you may, consider the image of a delicious bowl of spaghetti, sparkling with spices and delights, topped with a wondrous meat sauce and 4 slimy meat balls. your mouth waters as you see a waiter approach, one hand behind his back and one outstretched, holding a cheese grater. now picture your face as he reveals his other hand, not unveiling a delicious block of cheddar, but rather a FISH! he drops it unceremoniously onto your plate, a mischievous smile tickling his lips. you leap from your chair, outraged. how dare he! a man such as himself, bearing you such disrespect in front of your family, friends, and peers. the fish flaps wetly on the plate below you, splashing your chest with spaghetti sauce. at the look of anger you level towards him, the waiters smile melts slowly to horror. he backs away slowly, insisting that it was all a joke. oh, please mr johnson! it was merely a prank. just a yank on the old crank. i swear! haha! you look him in the eyes. "haha," you answer back, before grabbing a bread knife from the table and charging him. by this point, the waiter had backed himself half way to the kitchen, but as he turns and runs it becomes apparent that his submissive, unathletic build is no match for your perfectly toned thighs. you chase him into the kitchens, jumping just as you reach the doors. you grab his shirt from behind and haul him to the ground, straddling yourself over him and flipping him to look you in the eyes. "not so funny now, is it?!" you scream, plunging the knife into his chest. he screams loudly, blood gurgling from his throat and splashing your face. you pull your knife out and plunge it back in, repeating and repeating until his screams turn hoarse. from behind, another man, a chef 👨‍🍳 , grabs your arms and attempts to pull you off. you waste no time in turning to the side and plunging your knife into the full meat of his calf. a manic laugh escapes your lips as you yank the knife sideways, cracking bone and splattering blood across the kitchen floors. the chef falls to the ground with a scream, and you leap into the air. at this point, kitchen staff has gathered all around, keeping a far proximity from the flailing men on the floor. you straighten your collar, wiping blood down your shirt and removing any wrinkles. you rebutton your cuff links, bearing one curt goodbye to the kitchen staff before walking out of the kitchen. you walk slowly back to your table, where your family and colleagues are enjoying their meal as normal. as you approach your wife, you lay a hand on her shoulder and lean down to plant a kiss on her cheek. "sorry about that darling," you whisper. "ready to eat?" she nods and you take your seat next to her. the fish still lies on your plate, no longer flopping but still sullying your meal. you look around, eyes settling on a waitress taking a drink to another table. you wave for her attention then beckon her over. "excuse me. is there anyway i could get a new plate of spaghetti? this one has a fish on it." she smiles and nods. "of course sir." she flashes her teeth before turning away. "and waitress?" she turns back. "with cheese, this time." she laughs, and turns towards the kitchens. you survey your table, filled with friends, lovers, and family. these are the people you will spend the rest of your life with. your interactions among them will determine your days from now until the end of time. you look around, and you smile.

for these reasons, i would have to give a resounding NO to your proposition. my cock is not suitable to be used as a replacement for cheese on spaghetti. pleases keep this in mind for future reference. thank you very much.

[zip001]

so my sis is the worst

there was this man who boarded the metro car that i was in. once he went thru the sliding door, he proceeded to slowly lower himself to the floor until he lay flat. he then grabbed the back of his pants and that was when i decided to place my backpack to the front of my body and start to walk backward to the other end of the car.

i texted my sis - told her what was happening.

i intently watched the man as he started to get up and luckily he moved further away from me.

i was like ready to throw my laptop backpack into his face and stomp on him if needed be. i took my metal spork out of my purse as a pseudo brass knuckles. i cursed myself that i decided against wearing my doc martens mary janes and only wore some lightweight soft mesh fabric salomon hiking sneakers. i made a mental note to myself that going forward doc martens is the way to go when doing public transportation solo.

so when we went to next stop, i jumped out and ran quickly to get to the next car.

in the safety of the next car, i checked my messages and saw my sis responding. bubbles bubbles and then finally

sounds just like scene from ‘train to busan.’

she just sucks

she later laughed at me when i told her how everyone in the car did not blink an eye at my shenanigans nor at that man. maybe he does this all the time - he was just tired.

am i overreacting?

probs

as an fyi - this is my metal spork that i purchased at a seaweed* store in portland maine. i also have a tiny plastic pie/cake knife from tour les jour in case i am at some party and we need a knife to cut a cheesecake or birthday cake.

* yes i confirm that store sells seaweed amongst sporks and tshirts

#spork

[whostolemygoldfish]

I have a story, that I was reminded of by a poll about purses.

So my great aunt died from cancer in early 2020 from lung cancer. It came out of the blue, because she was only in her early sixties and had never smoked, and was always healthy, except for her slight leg issues which she had a cane for. I live in the middle of nowhere, right on the Washington/Oregon border on the east side of the state. She grew up here too with all of her sisters, however she moved to Portland and lived there since the eighties or nineties. She always came home for summers, holidays, parties, and she was a big part of all of it. She always had an old little digital camera that she constantly took photos with.

I got in my car and drove four hours in the middle of the night right after I got the call from my grandma saying that she'd passed. I spent the next few days in Portland mourning and cleaning out her house with my family, and my life was a dark blur. The will was read and I got a small sum of money, not that I cared much about it, but I also got her camera. She left it to me in particular. I went and found the camera in her bedroom, it was in her little brown leather bag that she always carried it with. It didn't work, no matter what I did, and I was devastated.

So, I took it to a little electronics store in downtown Portland to see if I could get the photos off of it. I'm sure when I walked in I looked like hell, my hair was wild with curls and my green dyed section had faded, and my eye bags were probably just as dark as my all black mourning clothes. They guy at the counter, maybe a few years older than me, asked what I needed and I explained. I'm sure there was some tears, but I was too tired to notice. He said he'd do it for free, because he could see it really mattered. So i waited. It was about an hour later when the guy walked out from the back of the store, with a sim card in hand. At least I think it was a sim. I'm not good with stuff like that, hell I can barely run my phone sometimes. He handed it to me after putting it in an envelope with a smile, and I drove back to her house.

I was staying in her living room on a blow up mattress, my cousins had already taken the couch and the other blow up mattresses, and my grandma and her other sisters were sleeping in the other two bedrooms, her office, and a hotel down the street. You really feel it when you're surrounded by her, in her house. I sat down on my impromptu bed and pulled out my crappy little laptop and got one of my cousins to help me get all of the photos on to it.

And there it was. Thirty years of photos. My mom's fifth grade graduation was some of the first photos on it. Then there was her and my three uncle's middle school and highschool years, all laid out in their grainy glory. Next was my mom's collage dorm, and then my tiny newborn body laying in the hospital. My mom was only twenty when she had me. My cousins when they were first born, too. Then our entire lives. Every Christmas, every beach vacation, every birthday, every wedding, of anyone we've ever known was all in film right before our eyes. We cried all together on the floor there. Me, my cousins, and my little brother.

I brought them home, and had them all printed. They were at her funeral. Now they sit in a small seashell box, she loved the beach. I carry the little bag that the camera was in as my purse, and it makes me think of her every time I use it, and I smile.

Love you, aunt Sal.

[magenta-fantasies-illustrations]

I had a great time at Furcationland in Portland, Maine, last weekend! I didn’t take any photos of my setup, since there wasn’t much to see. I was situated in the game room, along with a TV and electrical access provided by the hotel. Outcasts of the Rift looks astonishingly amazing on a large screen (about 40”.) The graphics don’t lose any resolution, which is surprising since the assets are mostly small image files rendered in 72 DPI.

I was scheduled for two hours, but since no one told me to leave and no one else was scheduled to use my space, I stayed for an extra four hours! Eventually less people were interested in playing games and I walked around downtown Portland. It was surprisingly quiet, possibly because it was a foggy evening. Most of the stores were closed and not many people were walking around. I had a light dinner at The Bar of Chocolate, an excellent bar/restaurant serving desserts, a few small plates, wine, and cocktails, most of which involve chocolate.

The photo is from the top floor of the parking lot of the Holiday Inn By The Bay, the most elegant Holiday Inn I’ve seen. Furcationland had this neat light display on the side of the hotel building that was also visible from the nearby streets.

There was only one negative part. It’s a good thing I arrived at Furcationland almost an hour early, because they told me when I was picking up my badge that I had to show a negative COVID test from the last 48 hours or my COVID vaccine card. And Furcationland took place AFTER the State of Emergency was lifted! It was almost as if I entered a time machine that took me back to 2021. I even had to wear a mask! I don’t remember the last time I had to do that. Although 95% of the time, I didn’t wear my mask, since half the other people present were not.

#Outcasts of the Rift #furry convention #furry con #Portland #Portland Maine #Portland ME #video game #indie game #game developer #game dev #indie game developer #furry game #furry gamer #women in gaming #Furcationland

[todoinke]

Whiter Shades of Construction: Top White Cement Picks

The importance of cement cannot be overstated. It's the fundamental ingredient that binds together the bricks, stones, and sands to create structures that stand the test of time. Among the plethora of cement types available in the market, white cement stands out for its versatility and aesthetic appeal. Renowned for its purity and brightness, white cement is the preferred choice for projects where a pristine finish is desired. In India, where construction is booming, the demand for the best white cement is on the rise. Let's explore some top picks for white cement, including where to buy them and why they stand out in the market.

Best Cement in India: When it comes to selecting the best white cement in India, several brands deserve recognition. One such brand is UltraTech Cement, known for its high quality and reliability. With a strong presence in the market, UltraTech offers a range of white cement products suitable for various applications. Whether it's for flooring, plastering, or decorative purposes, UltraTech Cement is a trusted choice among builders and contractors across the country.

Buy White Cement: Purchasing white cement can sometimes be a daunting task, especially for those unfamiliar with the construction industry. However, with the advent of online platforms and specialized construction stores, buying white cement has never been easier. Brands like Birla White Cement have made their products readily available through online retailers, making it convenient for customers to purchase white cement with just a few clicks. Additionally, local hardware stores and construction suppliers also stock white cement, catering to the needs of DIY enthusiasts and professionals alike.

No 1 Cement in India: In the competitive landscape of the cement industry, being recognized as the number one cement in India is no small feat. JK White Cement, a division of JK Cement Ltd., holds this prestigious title for its exceptional quality and consistent performance. With state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities and stringent quality control measures, JK White Cement has earned the trust of customers and industry experts alike. Its superior strength and durability make it the preferred choice for critical construction projects across the country.

Ordinary Portland Cement: While white cement offers a distinct advantage in terms of aesthetics, ordinary Portland cement (OPC) remains the cornerstone of construction. OPC serves as the primary binder in concrete, providing the necessary strength and durability to structures. Brands like ACC Cement offer a wide range of OPC products tailored to meet the diverse needs of the construction industry. From residential buildings to infrastructure projects, ACC Cement is synonymous with reliability and performance.

The world of construction is adorned with whiter shades thanks to the exceptional qualities of white cement. Whether it's for achieving a pristine finish or enhancing the visual appeal of structures, white cement continues to be the preferred choice for discerning builders and architects. Among the top picks for white cement in India, brands like UltraTech Cement, Birla White Cement, and JK White Cement stand out for their unparalleled quality and reliability. With the convenience of online purchasing and the availability of white cement in local stores, embarking on construction projects has never been easier. And while white cement steals the spotlight, let's not forget the enduring importance of ordinary Portland cement, exemplified by trusted brands like ACC Cement.

JSW Cement: Among the top contenders in the Indian cement market, JSW Cement has carved a niche for itself with its commitment to innovation and excellence. Offering a diverse range of cement products, including white cement variants, JSW Cement has emerged as a formidable player in the industry. With a focus on sustainability and customer satisfaction, JSW Cement continues to redefine the standards of quality and performance in the construction sector. Whether it's for residential, commercial, or industrial projects, JSW Cement remains a top choice for builders and contractors seeking nothing but the best.

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