After high temperatures in the 80s and 90s in the past week, what kind of weather will the coming workweek hold? Check our local weather coverage.
In case you missed them, here are some of the top stories of the weekend:
We Vancouverites have conflicted feelings about Portland. That always-hipper-than-you metropolis lies just across the Columbia River — have you noticed? — but so many of us on the Washington side avoid going there.
Is it the voodoo in the doughnuts? The lovely Rose Garden that morphed into Moda? The twee, one-joke TV show that just put a bird on it and called that funny? Or is it that scary bridge (our bad), the impossible chokepoint on the freeway (their bad), the fear that a bridge lift (whose bad? boats?) may strand you south of the border forever?
Whatever the reason, don’t keep steering around Portland. When Vancouver was recently named the “most hipster” city in America — yes, it really was, by shameless clickbait generator MoveHub — Portland didn’t do all that badly in the same contest: No. 12. (Doh!)
We recommend exploring that runner-up city to the south, and thought we’d provide our own championship hipsters with a guide to Portlandia’s second-tier hip. We skipped the most obvious, most famous Portland attractions (Powell’s Books, OMSI, the Oregon Zoo, brewpubs on every block) in favor of the funkier and farther out.
But seriously, folks: Isn’t the divide between Portlandia and The Couve an obsolete mental block? We’re all friends here. Everybody’s got hips, and you can’t walk without a pair of them. Welcome to our hipster club, Portland! Here are 20 things we love about you.
Read the full story: Bridging the divide — 20 things to love about our neighbor, Portland
In our most recent round of Clark Asks voting, 66 percent of you wanted us to answer Mary Elkin’s question: “Where do the neighborhoods get their names? Image Neighborhood, I learned, and it was interesting! Almost no one in our neighborhood knows.”
Perhaps no one in the county could help answer that question better than Jollota. She literally wrote the book on names around Clark County. She wrote the first edition in 1993 for the county historical museum’s booth at the Clark County Fair, and an updated version in 2002. She said she has another updated version of the book, but no publisher to put it out.
“(Names) tell you the history,” she said. “People will name things after themselves or where they came from.”
Read the full story: Clark Asks: Revealing the history of ‘hoods
It’s not out of the ordinary for drivers near East Mill Plain Boulevard and Grand Boulevard to see people wearing hard hats and climbing gear gathered around a steel tower next to the road. These are students, and their training is actually becoming more common.
More students than ever are enrolling at the Northwest Renewable Energy Institute, a program offered by the International Air and Hospitality Academy. A career as a wind turbine technician, with strong starting wages and potential to travel but requiring little education, has made the program grow faster than its culinary, air steward or railroad conducting programs.
Admir Sabic, director of education, said enrollment has doubled in the last two years. “The numbers are pretty spectacular,” he said. “It’s a great way to get a family-wage job.”
Clark County may not have any wind farms nor any large-scale solar projects, but demand is growing for workers in renewable energy. Solar panel installers and wind turbine technicians are the two fastest growing jobs in the United States, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Local economic development officials have targeted renewable as an industry of the region’s future.
Read the full story: Renewable energy field’s flourishing brings new careers
