My first experience indoor bouldering was ridiculous. I felt completely out of shape. My fingers burned, my forearms swelled and my shoulders ached. I grew blisters in places on my hands I didn’t think could blister. Unlike traditional top-rope rock climbing, bouldering doesn’t use any safety ropes. I watched other climbers skitter up the walls like Spiderman while I clung to the holds like Mary Jane awaiting rescue.
…and eat it, too | Cooking with beer is a venerable tradition that is finding new life among culinary craftsmen.
Thanks to the delicious effects of the craft beer movement, using beer as an ingredient has progressed far beyond the basic beer-battered fish and chips we are used to seeing on happy hour menus.
Classy cocktails for the college budget | “You need three ingredients for a cocktail. Vodka and Mountain Dew is an emergency,” says Peggy Olson, Don Draper’s secretary on Mad Men. Words of wisdom if you work at a high-priced advertising agency and can afford good liquor. For the poor college student, sipping a fancy cocktail in a Manhattan executive suite is a few years away.
Portland’s best comfort food pampers the homesick heart | When you’re far away from home, feeling stuck in an unfamiliar place, food is an easy way to find solace. Sometimes just sitting in a warm, bustling restaurant where the waitress calls you “sweetie” before serving you a steaming vat of mashed potatoes and meatloaf can give you the strength to carry on—or at least put you in a food coma until you feel better. When you need a pick-me-up, try these Portland comfort food staples.
The local watering hole you’ve always wanted | There’s nothing better than meeting a group of friends for a drink after a long day juggling school and work. The problem is finding a place that everyone can afford, that offers cheap yet delicious food and that isn’t a food cart.
As week five fades away and week six finds you anxiously awaiting midterm grades, you may begin to feel the effects. A bit of strain in your neck, an ache in your temples. Perhaps your road rage has increased, or you’re beginning to imagine your not-so-reliable lab partner as a human-shaped punching bag.
While many of us filter through our emails each morning over a cup of coffee, Portland State Mechanical and Materials Engineering professor Mark Weislogel and his team of graduate students get emails from space.
In 2010, thousands of people dashed through Portland dressed as rabbits, mad hatters and Cheshire cats. Last year, they ditched their teacups for torn pants and blood-spattered shirts and were driven through town by an endless hunger for brains.
There is a creature that can survive without oxygen. It can live for weeks without water.
“We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once,” Friedrich Nietzsche once said. Fortunately, Portland is a dancer’s paradise, offering so many options that dancing only once a day seems ludicrous. But whether you’re a seasoned dancer or an established wallflower, Portland State’s dance clubs will help you get your groove on at least once a week.
When she was only 10 years old, Kate Bonn’s father handed her a gun. Since he kept firearms in the house, he wanted her to understand the importance of gun safety. So he took his little girl to the shooting range and gave her a .410-gauge shotgun, and she broke six out of her first 25 clay targets.