Handrail shadows on the ramp.

The other day when I went to the Moda Center before work, I enjoyed the shadows cast by the handrail at the ramp from the Commons down to the street.



And from the street back up to the Commons. It's interesting to see a place you're very familiar with in a new light, at a new time of day, from a different perspective.

Pure-T excited! That's how I felt when I got this series of photos! I hope you're able to guess what I photographed!

Photo #1.



Photo #2.



Photo #3.



Photo #4.



Photo #5.



Photo #6.



Watching this happen, working on the post, I couldn't help but think of this part of a line from Omar Khayam: The moving finger writes, and, having writ, moves on.

I paraphrase it here: The rising bubble escapes, and having escaped, moves on. I only am sad that I didn't get a photo of it's demise, a quick-happening burst.

Here's the back story about this series of photos. Friday morning before work I went to the Portland Trail Blazers office to pick up the opening night T-shirt that had been on the seats in the arena. I was too sick to go that night, and my season-ticket-holder lady Anna had saved it for me. The photo above is not one that I took Friday but some years ago. I include it here to give you a bit of context on the fountain. The series of photos that follows it has to do with the fountain in the Commons at the Moda Center where the Portland Trail Blazers play their home NBA basketball games.

Pure-T excited! That's how I felt when I got this series of photos! I hope you're able to guess what I photographed!

Photo #1.



Photo #2.



Photo #3.



Photo #4.



Photo #5.



Photo #6.



Watching this happen, working on the post, I couldn't help but think of this part of a line from Omar Khayam: The moving finger writes, and, having writ, moves on.

I paraphrase it here: The rising bubble escapes, and having escaped, moves on. I only am sad that I didn't get a photo of it's demise, a quick-happening burst.

Here's the back story about this series of photos. Friday morning before work I went to the Portland Trail Blazers office to pick up the opening night T-shirt that had been on the seats in the arena. I was too sick to go that night, and my season-ticket-holder lady Anna had saved it for me. The photo above it not one that I took Friday but some years ago. I include it here to give you a bit of context on the fountain. The series of photos that follows has to do with the fountain in the Commons at the Moda Center where the Portland Trail Blazers play their home NBA basketball games.

Pure-T excited! That's how I felt when I got this series of photos! I hope you're able to guess what I photographed!

Photo #1.



Photo #2.



Photo #3.



Photo #4.



Photo #5.



Photo #6.



Watching this happen, working on the post, I couldn't help but think of this part of a line from Omar Khayam: The moving finger writes, and, having writ, moves on.

I paraphrase it here: The rising bubble escapes, and having escaped, moves on. I only am sad that I didn't get a photo of it's demise, a quick-happening burst.

Here's the back story about this series of photos. Friday morning before work I went to the Portland Trail Blazers office to pick up the opening night T-shirt that had been on the seats in the arena. I was too sick to go that night, and my season-ticket-holder lady Anna had saved it for me. The photo above it not one that I took Friday but some years ago. I include it here to give you a bit of context on the fountain. The series of photos that follows has to do with the fountain in the Commons at the Moda Center where the Portland Trail Blazers play their home NBA basketball games.

Foggy, then, not now.

Foggy near the Moda Center, not what to expect tonight when I go the Portland Trail Blazers' last regular season home game. It's Fan Appreciation Night. On Facebook, the Blazers gave fans a chance to vote on the favorite opening video to be played pre-game. The one I like best is "Lights." Right now, it's got a slim hold on the lead.

How my team enters our court for every single game. Seen at Player Palooza, Feb. 2, 2015

Totally exciting and satisfying to be able to walk through this tunnel between the team's locker room and the basketball court at the Moda Center, the name of the Portland Trail Blazers' arena. I believe that this is our house and that I'm an essential part of that plural possessive pronoun.

Bridges, railroad cars and the Portland Trail Blazers

Seen from the Steel Bridge, the Broadway Bridge and, in the distance, the Fremont Bridge. The train snakes along slowly and keeps all of that freight on the tracks. To the right of this sight and across a couple of streets stands the Moda Center where the Portland Trail Blazers play their home games. I'm off on my Trafalgar tour, missing a couple of pre-season games, but I will be back in plenty of time for the first game of the regular season at home against the Oklahoma City Thunder on October 29. When I took this photo on October 25, 2008, the arena was still known as the Rose Garden. A lot of us still miss that name for the building.

Blazer fans arrive early evening Sunday, before game four, first round NBA playoffs. The Moda Center, home of my Portland Trail Blazers!

Yes, I consider this team mine. And I'll wager each fan does much the same in whatever sport or sports that they love to watch. We went on to win game four, in overtime by three points. That was the third overtime game in the four played up until that point. It's a best of seven series--the Trail Blazers have it 3-1 right now. Game five is in Houston tonight. Go, Blazers!

Lillard, Damian Lillard that is, is our point guard. Rookie of the year last season, All Star this season. He's a treat to watch play and a treat to listen to his interviews--he's a well-spoken young man who knows that in the end, it's the entire team, not just him, that makes things. By the way, when he's introduced, Mark Mason says, ". . . wearing the letter O, Damian Lillard!" I love it!

Portland Trail Blazers' unique way to involve the fans in our first home play-off game since 2011. Total fun!

Friday night, as tip-off time approached, the Moda Center filled with red-light-LED-sticks. Each who entered accepted one from the greeters and heard this instruction, "When they tell you to, pull this tab out and turn it on!" All 20,302 of us did! While the Blazers lost the game to the Rockets, the standings were 2-1 for us, in the best of seven series. I've typed this post on Sunday night after the 4th game in the series. We won, in overtime! We won! We're now ahead in the series 3-1. The next game is Wednesday night in Houston. Go, Blazers!

Along the west bank of the Willamette River, No. 9

Not everyone at Tom McCall Waterfront Park took photos while I was there. A few minutes after I took this photo, he stood up from what looked to have been a comfortable nap, picked up his bag and walked away. I took this photo at 6:36 p.m. on Friday, March 21, looking northeast towards the Steel Bridge. You can see part of it over the tops of the trees. Notice that gray roof with the shadow beneath it, above the blooming cherry trees, top right corner of the photo? That's the Moda Center where the Portland Trail Blazers play their home games. It is on the east side of the Willamette River. The other roofline is on a grain elevator along the east bank of the Willamette River. I have a season ticket to the Blazers' games and am looking forward to the rest of the season, then the playoffs. Go, Blazers!

I sing the praises of Blazers' President & CEO Chris McGowan and the Moda Center Maintenance Crew!

Back story: This season in 32 home games, the average attendance is 19,695 for our Portland Trail Blazers. Lots of those people are women who flock to the ladies' restrooms at half time. Creature of habit that I am, I usually luck out and get to go to the same stall that I always go to before the games.

At least three nights in February, I ended up in a different stall. Imagine my surprise when the door came open before I put my hand on the latch to open it! What? I knew that I had closed the latch as far as it would go! Then, at the next game, I heard women on each side of me saying, "What? Why did the door just open? I know I had locked it!"

Curious person that I am, I decided to investigate my idea that the latch wasn't catching properly because it was not going far enough into the slot, so on purpose on February 26, after our State of the United season ticket holder event when we heard all about the business side of the operation (Chris McGowan, Blazers' President and CEO) as well as the basketball side (Neil Olshey, Blazers' General Manager), I decided to take a closer look at the latch. Lo and behold, the latch barely touched the slot that was supposed to keep the door locked!

There wasn't enough time left to take a photo or two that night, so it wasn't until last Monday that I got to do that. Then last Wednesday, I e-mailed them to President & CEO Chris McGowan. In the first e-mail, I explained what I had noticed, what I figured was causing the stall doors to randomly come unlatched--lots of vibration caused by the vast numbers of women opening and shutting nearby doors--and that I would be sending one more photo to him. I didn't hear anything back, so I figured if I saw him at Dr. Jack's, the newly renovated restaurant space across the courtyard from the Moda Center, I just ask him if he'd had any e-mails from me that day, not that expected to run into him since I already done that on Monday when I had a few minutes to take a look at Dr. Jack's.

Once I found somewhere to sit, I ordered some food and people watched and waited for my order. After a few minutes, I saw him walking towards me--I called his name and he walked over to where I sat. When I asked if he'd gotten two e-mails from me, he said he had and that he'd replied that the maintenance crew had checked out each stall and had made the necessary repairs. Shocked and pleased, I stood up and asked if I could give him a hug. He agreed, and we smiled at each other as he continued on his way.

I ate my supper and went straight to the bathroom stall once I was inside the arena. Yep, as you can see from photo 3, all is now functioning properly. I checked out several stalls, too, all fixed. The game started late because we were on ESPN, I think, so I e-mailed Chris and asked his permission to sing the praises of the Moda Center Maintenance Crew and him on my blog; he e-mailed back, "Awesome. Yes please. Go for it on the blog." Oh, he had e-mailed me earlier--I finally found them in the iCloud inbox on my iPhone. I don't understand having two places to get Gmail, but thank goodness I realized that I ought to look there.
      

Photo 1, shows the lack of latch functionality.
 

Photo 2, shows the depth of the slot, along with the way the latch barely goes into the slot.
   

Photo 3, shows how the latch fits properly into the slot. Hooray!
 

Blurry cell phone photo taken at the State of the United, one of three meetings for season ticket holders held each season. We meet with members of the Trail Blazers' management who make statements and answer our questions--I really like getting the chance to attend these. On the left, Chris McGowan, President & CEO; on the right, Neil Olshey, General Manager. This one was on February 26, the night Chris gave us his e-mail address.

Public Art, outside the Moda Center which used to be the Rose Garden--it's where the Portland Trail Blazers play NBA basketball

I took this photo at 3:06 p.m. on March 9, 2013, a particularly nice blue sky day for us. That's I-5 you see there behind The Little Prince. Those buildings are in an area known as the Lloyd District which is in Northeast Portland. One of these days I plan to be in good enough shape to walk there from my apartment. I'll take my camera and take photos to share with y'all!

In the past I've taken several other photos of this public art and have posted them on the blog. Click here to see four of them. In case you don't have time to click there to see the photos and read about the sculpture, I've copied and pasted the info for you here.

Bits I discovered online about the sculpture.

• The Little Prince, by Ilan Averbuch. Copper and steel, 1995.
• The Little Prince is a partially buried copper crown located at the south end of the arena in the Rose Quarter. It is a piece about imagination, desires and aspirations, conquests and struggles. It is the job of the viewer to create the story that goes along with the crown. Is it a victory and position of honor waiting to be claimed, or is there another story? Only the viewer can say.
• Ilan's inspiration for this piece was the "Little Prince" by Antoine De Saint-Exupery, in particular, the first chapter where he talks about his drawing of a boa constrictor swallowing an elephant being misunderstood as a hat.
• Ilan Averbuch's "Little Prince" and the Portland Trailblazer's Rose Garden Arena. Portland, Oregon . . . legend has it that the crown will be stood upright when the Blazers with their next championship.
• The Little Prince, 1995, is a gigantic fallen crown, an image of a ruin of ancient majesty, of one-time splendor, and a version of another recurring theme in Averbuch’s work: the obsolescence of the monumental, former monuments in the soil, like ancient relics.
• The Little Prince (Ilan Averbuch, 1996) is a copper crown, standing 15 feet tall in front of the Rose Garden. Inspired by the French children's story by Antoine De Saint-Exupery, the artist asks that you use your imagination to think of a story behind the crown. The crown is resting on its side perhaps waiting as a prize to be claimed or as a symbol of a triumph to come.