Dave Knows Portland

Archives for July 2007

U20 World Cup viewing venues in Portland

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U20 World CupThe FIFA Under 20 World Cup is being quietly (as far as the US media is concerned) played in Canada this summer.

Tonight at 4:30pm on ESPNU you can watch the first semi-final, between Austria and the Czech Republic.

Kells, no doubt, will be showing the game; probably the Thirsty Lion and the Marathon Taverna, and various sports bars around town.

Tomorrow the second semi-final, between Chile and Argentina, will also be broadcast at 4:30pm on ESPNU (perfect timing so that you can head up to PGE Park after at 7pm for the Timbers game).

The Final is Sunday at noon, also on ESPNU. Or you can watch it replayed on ESPN2 at 7pm.

Find your neighborhood’s Walk Score

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Walk ScoreEnter your address and press GO at Walkscore.com and you are presented with a Google map mashup showing you all the local walkable grocery stores, restaurants, bars, schools, libraries, etc. You also get a “walk score”. On a scale of 0-100, the walk score gives you a general idea of how walkable your neighborhood is (here’s a full explanation of how it works).

Downtown Walk ScoreIt’s not perfect (it cannot, for example, determine if that freeway cuts you off from otherwise nearby businesses, or if your street lacks sidewalks), and of course some of the Google map information is inaccurate, but in general I’ve found it to be a useful tool.

I grew up in a not entirely unwalkable suburban neighborhood that scores a 60 now (though would have scored much lower when I was a kid), but my current residence (downtown) scores a 98. Check out that pretty cluster!

Mississippi Ave RestaurantsNext month I’m moving to the Boise Eliot neighborhood, however, and my new address only scores a 74, but I’ll be right on Mississippi Avenue, so I think it’s a fair trade (see some reasons to the left).

TriMet by text message

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Portland TransportChris Smith at Portland Transport has created an interface to get TriMet TransitTracker arrival times via mobile phone text message. For slow texters like me, using this tool might not be any faster than calling 238-Ride, but it doesn’t hurt to have options.

It’s very simple to use, as he explains:

To get arrival times send a text message to 415-676-8397 or sms@411sync.com with the following message text:trimet <stop #>

Example:

trimet 2719

(a stop on SE Holgate) returns at this moment: 17 Holgate to Portland: 23 min

Read the whole post; Chris asks for readers’ opinions and suggestions on this prototype. Oh, and don’t overlook the disclaimer:

Disclaimer: text message usage costs are the user’s responsibility! That’s between you and your carrier. Portland Transport and 411sync don’t charge for this (although I suspect that 411sync gets a cut from the carrier).