A couple events have come up within the past two months that were fit to make a graphic for.

The first was my sister’s 30th birthday. My family surprised her and her husband with a trip to NYC including airfare, lodging, a Yankee game, and Sex & the City tour. The graphic below was made into stickers, which covered a mock travel folder. I made paper airplane tickets, a room key, and baseball ticket stubs as inserts for the folder as well.

The second occasion was Valentines day. Below are a couple graphics I made, which sadly never made it to any loved ones. Until now, of course.

FRONT                                                            BACK

*Disclaimer: On the back of the first valentine, you will notice that there is no punctuation on “thats”. That is not because I don’t know my grammar, but because the font didn’t have an apostrophe. The font [New Theory] looked very odd with an Arial apostrophe, and I just couldn’t make the valentine peacefully with it in place. Therefore, I left it out for the sake of its look–not because of poor spelling.

Enjoy and have a happy March!

Programming a Community

Thursday nights are typically loud in Portland bars. Crowds and alcohol are a winning combination for a rowdy night. At the Lucky Labrador Brewery, however, you’ll find the back wall lined not with trendy bar-goers drinking pints on tap, but a row of laptops snaked with extension cords to every outlet. Thursday nights are a time when a many of Portland’s most computer-savvy find solace in solving technological problems with cohorts over shared laughs and a pitcher of beer.

Freelance developer Ben Hengst organizes these weekly meetings, calling them hackathons.

“Some people are freelancing, others bring their day job with them. Other people work on side projects,” Hengst says. “Some nights we don’t get anything done and work on games.”

Unlike his weekly Portland group, nationally organized hackathons are generally technology-themed conferences where people get together to work on a certain project over the course of several days, Hengst explains.

In comparison, Hengst’s hackathons encompass all types of computer work. Participants bring everything from their computer science homework to code written for a new website. Young people in their twenties and thirties typically come for help, while those in their fifties who are well-seasoned in their field come to finish work and impart advice.

Hengst falls squarely in the middle, with experience to his name and a strong curiosity. He sits at a thick wooden table donning a cable-knit beanie, full beard, and a laptop opened to scrolling computer language. A giant pitcher of beer sits in the center of the table, surrounded by three other laptops, making for a small hackathon this particular Thursday evening. Turnouts for Hengst’s hackathons vary—sometimes he works solo, while other times as many as thirty people can be collaborating on their computers.

“Since I work from home, this is my one regular time out of the house,” Hengst says.

Hengst’s workdays differ greatly from the Thursday evenings he spends at the Lucky Lab. By day Hengst works from home doing freelance software development and instructing an online course in Perl, a computing language. Hengst says working around likeminded folks during hackathons makes it easier to receive help and bounce ideas off one another.

“You’re not spending an hour asking Google how to solve this problem, and there’s beer, so that helps,” Hengst says, chuckling.

Despite the Lucky Lab’s relaxed atmosphere, the hackathons can be nerve-wracking for first-time attendees.

“It’s a little intimidating for those who have never programmed with other people in public before,” hackathon participant Selena Deckelmannsays.

Deckelmann is no stranger to programming. She graduated with a computer science degree from the University of Oregon and has been working in Portland since 1999. In 2008 she co-founded Open Source Bridge (OSB), a conference revolving around the use of open source software, programs with licensing that provides users access to the source code of a program and allows them to modify it.

Creating software via open source is a collaborative and public process as opposed to proprietary software, which only allows the copyright holder access to the source code.

“It is a pretty tightly knit community at this point,” Deckelmann says. “We know each other very well, especially those on this open source project.”

Because Portland houses such a large assortment of cafes and bars, many tech groups choose to meet in these locations.

“We have such a great coffee and beer culture in Portland as well,” Deckelmann says. “So a lot of the people in the tech community also share a love for beer and coffee.”

PDX Tech Coffee exists for those who prefer to program in the morning while sipping a cup of joe, while Portland Perl Mongers is preferred by those who have an interest in Perl. If programmers don’t consider brewpubs an ideal work environment, they go to South East Portland Coders Night at the Side Door, a café providing a quieter atmosphere.

Deckelmann says Portlanders have worked hard to make the tech community social.

“You have to be very collaborative,” he says. “You have to accept their ideas.”

The tight-knit nature of Portland’s tech community is largely credited toCalagator.org, a website providing information on technology groups and events in the area.

“[Calagator] was such a community effort,” Audrey Eschright, Calagator’s founder, says. “It wouldn’t have happened if there weren’t dozens and dozens of people that didn’t want it in Portland.”

Calagator was started in January of 2008. At first it featured a bare-bones interface with the basic function of posting an event. Feature upon feature was added until the site was completed by the following summer. Thanks to Calagator, Hengst gets a good turnout Thursday nights at theLucky Labrador.

“Portland would be a very different place if it wasn’t for Calagator,” Hengst says.

The website’s popularity has broadened the tech community and made it easier for others to find colleagues working on the same projects and to learn about upcoming events.

Eschright says Calagator’s popularity “is a sign that everyone who worked on it at the start was right about what everybody needed.”

Calagator’s success has inspired Eschright and other developers to help non-tech communities in Portland connect with one another.

“Portland has been unique to grow the kind of community that we have,” Eschright says. “We’ve started to reach out to see if we can reach out to the art community and political activists groups.”

Eschright says Portland fosters an environment encouraging collaboration, sharing, and do-it-yourself—often abbreviated DIY—culture.

“People share what they know,” Eschright says. “This idea about sharing your knowledge—it comes from Portland.Portland is the kind of culture where [sharing] is just the activity that makes sense.”

According to Eschright, not all tech communities on the West Coast share this culture.

“People who decide to specifically live in Portland … are interested in it because they came here to be a part of that [community],” Eschright says. “If they wanted a big paycheck, they would move to the Bay Area.”

Jeffrey Slabaugh has come to the same conclusion. Slabaugh grew up in Carmel, California, and attended Claremont Mckenna College. After graduating in 1993, he moved to the Bay Area and worked as a software developer. Dissatisfied with the work environment, he moved to Portland in 2005

“[There’s] a little more room for growth [in Portland],” Slaubaugh says. “It isn’t quite the same shark-infested waters as the Bay Area..”

At first Slabaugh enjoyed the fast-paced and dogged mentality of his peers while living in the Bay Area. After more than a decade, however, the high-pressure environment lost its luster.

“The Bay Area is a wonderful place if you’re interested in taking advantage of what it has to offer,” Slabaugh says. “[Eventually] you realize it’s a very expensive place to live with a lot of self-interested people, and it is very crowded.”

Slabaugh explains that meeting new faces in the technology field and spending time with co-workers off the clock makes work more enjoyable.

“I think there’s a huge awareness of work-life balance in this town,” Slabaugh says. “Work is not the end-all, be-all. Portland has a better grip on that balance.”

Each city’s tech community varies depending on the personality of the city itself. Portland isn’t a fit for everyone, but with seemingly as many different tech groups as people, it isn’t hard to find a place to fit in. Eschright says it took time to find her niche, but after seeking out others in the technology field, she was able to find a group focused on Ruby, an open source programming language.

“A lot of times people think I am weird and I’m totally an outlier,” Eschright says. “[That’s] totally within the range of normal [in the tech community], but if you don’t start talking to other programmers, you would never know that.”

Eschright’s participation in the Portland tech community has compelled her to be proactive in initiating projects and providing resources for others to use, like she has done with Calagator.

“Encourage your own part of the community to be welcoming,” Eschright says.  “That’s why community organizing is so important to me. I wanted there to be a community where I’d be welcome, and if it meant so much to me then I should get involved and help build it.”

Portland’s emphasis on collaboration and sharing among the tech community has distinguished itself from other cities and carved a genre all-its-own some call the “Silicon Forest.” However, unlike in the Bay Area, Hengst says you won’t be seeing people meeting in suits and ties.

“Here were just a bunch of ragtag kids,” Hengst says. The tech community may characterize itself as ragtag, but the success of Deckelmann’s Open Source Bridge Conference and Eschright’s Calagator are proof its members have perseverance to see their vision through and aren’t afraid to commit time off the clock.

“I think that the biggest thing that people find about Portland is that the tech scene here is so inclusive and social,” Hengst says.

The combination of collaboration and informality has made for a unique tech community existing nowhere else. No matter the software or programming language, there is a group for it in Portland.

Click to view and explore the experiment, TextLife

Click to view and use the Lady Gaga Timeline

University GTF gets paid while getting schooled

Travis Williams talks about the efforts taken in the past and present to improve the health of the Willamette River. This is the video I produced for the final assignment in Gateway 3.

Read it below or online here

Lynnae Oxley slaves over a plastic white box with immense concentration, her fingers flying as she ensures her entry for the judges is no less than perfect. The box contains ribs she began cooking hours ago. Now with only four minutes left, Oxley carefully frames the ribs with parsley and, after two days of cooking five different types of meat, carries her final entry in for review.

Oxley is a competitive barbecuer.

“This is my fourth summer [competing],” says Oxley, who has worked in food service for 30 years. After being introduced to competitive barbecue by her neighbor, she was hooked. “I was fascinated. I was blown away and thought it was amazing that something could taste that good.”

Oxley is the owner of Sugar’s Barbecue and Catering based out of Portland, Oregon. Barbecue is not commonly associated with the Northwest, but has found a following in all corners of the nation.

“The Carolinas are vinegar-based and mustard-based. They like it tangy. Texas is big on their brisket; it’s smoky and savory,” says John McGee, who owns Wine Country “Q,” a private catering company and barbecue team based in Duvall, Washington. Although the Northwest is known more for bike trails than grill marks, this small community has created a barbecue classification in its own right.

“Up here it’s all about balance,” McGee says. “The judges don’t like it too sweet, too spicy, too wet, too dry.”

Oxley and McGee are members of the Pacific Northwest BBQ Association (PNWBA), which holds several monthly competitions in Oregon, Washington, and Canada. Prizes vary by competition, but the typical first place award is $250 and a trophy. Some PNWBA events are qualifiers for larger national competitions, where the grand prize can be up to $125,000. Like any competitive endeavor, barbecue changes its nature when there is a time constraint and objective involved.

“You work with what you got based on your cunning, your knowledge, and your skill,” Oxley says.

Categories are broken down by type of food, ranging from chicken to brisket. Each entry is due every couple of hours throughout the course of a competition. There is often a timed auxiliary category in which participants are thrown a cooking curve ball. In some cases, they are given a bag of vegetables to make a sauce; other times, they must prepare an uncommon meat. Whatever the event, competitive cooks have to tailor their entries to what the judges want.

“It’s an old adage that if you hate your food the judges will generally like it, and if you really like it the judges will hate it,” Oxley says.

There isn’t a surefire recipe for success, she adds. At the end of the day it comes down to judges’ preference, which doesn’t always align with what the cook likes.

“Every year [judges’ preference] seems to change, but not a lot. It’s not like one year they like it sweet and the next year they like spicy. It’s very subtle nuances,” Oxley explains. “It takes me two to three contests at the start of the summer to figure out what the judges are wanting. To me, it keeps things exciting.”

When it comes to the actual judging, competitions are double-blind and a submission is rated in three areas: texture, taste, and appearance.

“It’s fun to be a judge because you’ve been a cook and you know what [the participants] are trying to achieve,” says Ryan Ositis of the PNWBA. To become a PNWBA judge, one has to take a certified judging class hosted by the association. A background in barbecue isn’t required though it is often the case for many of the judges.

Ositis also judges for the Kansas City Barbecue Society (KCBS), the largest barbecue organization in the US with over 14,000 members. The KCBS hosts the American Royal World Series of Barbecue. With over 500 participating teams, it is the world’s largest barbecue competition.

Although scores are based on preference, judges try to be as objective as possible. “These people work really hard on their food,” Ositis says. “As cooks, they spend lots of money and lots of time. To honor that you have to understand that you have to be really serious and really dedicated [as a judge].”

The qualifying competitions hosted by the PNWBA allow winners to advance to national competitions, such as the Jack Daniel’s World Championship Invitational Barbecue (known in competitive circles as “the Jack”). Both Oxley and McGee participated in the competition last year in Lynchburg, Tennessee.

“I was looking at my opponents. I was looking at who was signed up to judge,” Oxley says. “What they like, what they don’t. Stylizing my food and really looking at it from a big picture perspective.”

Since the competition is held in Tennessee, the participants know to change their barbecue to fit the preferences of that region’s judges.

“We finished in the middle of the pack, and after the competition my wife asked a team that did well, ‘What do they like down here?,’” McGee recalls. “They all answered in unison: ‘They like it sweet!’”

The McGees hope to return to the Jack this year, but getting a place at the championship means earning an invitation. For this honor, a participant has to win a number of qualifiers (a competition with at least 25 entries) in the months leading up to the Jack. Each win earns a bung, or whiskey cork, with the competitor’s name. The cork is placed into the barrel of the state where the competition was held. The more bungs in the barrel, the greater the likelihood of receiving an invitation to the Jack.

“We’re in search of a few bungs, and we’ll go a little further [from home] if it’s a qualifier,” says Rhana, McGee’s wife and fellow barbecue lover.

Heated as competitions are, Oxley says relationships among the cooks usually stay amicable.

“Most of us are all friends; it’s very civil. We’re all supporting each other, helping each other out,” she says. Although Oxley has won a number of trophies from competing and even earned a banner from the Jack, the prizes aren’t her primary source of motivation. “It’s the people; that’s what keeps me coming back.”

Read it below or online here

Following the carnage and heavy American casualties of the Vietnam War, President Gerald Ford suspended portions of the 1940 Selective Training and Service Act that required most American men between the ages of 18 and 25 to register with the Selective Service System. This was the agency responsible for operating the military draft. Since 1973, no active draft had been in place, but men still had to register.

Ford’s action had seemingly put to an end a system that had sent tens of thousands of Americans to die in a war for which they never volunteered. But just five years later, fear of an impending conflict with the Soviet Union, following that nation’s 1980 invasion of Afghanistan, was cause for President Jimmy Carter’s administration to reinstate the Act. To this day, most healthy American men still must register for a term of military conscription that may never materialize.

Globally, sixty-four countries have a mandatory military service requirement. All but eight require service exclusively for males. The age of eligibility ranges between eighteen and thirty-five, with a service duration of a maximum of three years. For some countries, not reporting for duty can earn a penalty of up to ten years in prison.

In the United States, the thought of being forced to drop all priorities for a long duration of service goes against the very premise of the country: freedom. But for most young adults outside the US, it’s a part of life. Many nations place a priority on conscription as a safeguard against what their governments view as direct and immediate threats.

Gang In Her, a native of South Korea, had to leave the University of Oregon after his freshman year to serve twenty-two months in the South Korean military. “I had no choice. I had to do it. All Korean [males] have to do it,” Gang says. “Nobody really likes it.”

Making the transition from student to soldier proved difficult for Gang. “They take your freedom,” Gang says. “I was not ready for that; that was a big problem for me.”

For Gang, this time was less than a happy homecoming. During the two years he spent in service driving military vehicles, Gang had to adjust to a different lifestyle. He was often subject to pushing and yelling from his superiors, and was forced to live in cramped spaces with nothing more than a bunk and a few cubbies to his name.

But despite a punishing routine, Gang treasured the three hours he had to himself before bedtime, which he used to reflect on his life and what he would change once he was out of the military. He is appreciative of the life lessons he learned while in the service.

“After I went to [the] army, I learned how to speak with people. I learned how to work with people. I learned how to be responsible.” Gang served in the military when he was twenty-two—not an uncommon age even for a US soldier; however, the compensation given to South Korean soldiers is not comparable. He served a two-year stint and was only paid the equivalent of 70 or 80 dollars a month.

Gang experienced the ramifications of being two years older but no further in his studies when he returned to the University this past fall. Gang dislikes being a twenty-four-year-old sophomore. Now that he has returned, Gang’s friends, who didn’t have the burden of conscription, are graduating.

“They’re looking for a job, and I’m still studying,” Gang laments with a sigh.

Trading in school I.D. cards for dog tags has more implications than just falling behind in school. Gang’s military service in South Korea required memorizing specialized jargon used in the army. After twenty-two months of not speaking English, Gang forgot some of what he mastered in the States.

“It was so hard because in two years I couldn’t practice any English,” Gang says. “I couldn’t hear anything at all. I had no idea what people were talking about. I stressed out a lot.”

As serving in the army is undesirable to most South Koreans, many young Korean men go to great lengths to avoid military service. In the past, a popular method was to get large tattoos. South Korean military law states that men with “excessively large” tattoos are exempt from conscription and are instead assigned to public service. This practice sprouted from the idea that the appearance of a tattoo is “abominable” to fellow soldiers.

Though South Korea only subjects males to conscription, Israel and seven other countries
requires females to serve. passport However, Gang says that the military has caught on to males intentionally getting tattoos to avoid conscription. Gang was among fellow soldiers who had large tattoos on their backs.

“They had no problems being in the army. I’m pretty sure [the military] doesn’t really care about it by now,” Gang says.

Though South Korea only subjects males to conscription, Israel and seven other countries also require females to serve. Shiran Stern was born and raised in Haifa, Israel, and like her mother, was forced to serve in the military.

“I think it is a great honor to serve your country. I think more countries should adopt this approach, giving women equal opportunities,” Stern says.

In Israel, a draftee must be at least eighteen years old and in proper health. Most are drafted immediately after high school, although some serve after their university studies. Men are required to serve for three years, women two. Exemption is used only for those who fail the physical exam, are mentally impaired, have a moral obligation, or for women who are married or pregnant.

Stern was drafted December 14, 2005, when she was eighteen years old and was released approximately two years later. As an artillery instructor, Stern’s role and involvement was not menial. Her specialty involved teaching soldiers about different kinds of shells and how to load and fire canons.

“I learned how to use a weapon, how to navigate, and how to survive in the terrain. Being an instructor taught me how to stand in front of [a] group of people with confidence and control,” Stern says. “Being in the military makes you appreciate civil life, your home, and family.”

However, like any country that requires mandatory military service, there are always people trying to find a way out.

“Some don’t like the idea of wasting two to three years of their life serving their country,” Stern says. “They make up excuses, which release them from the military such as faking a mental or health disorder, or pretending to be a peaceful person who morally cannot fight people, [or] women marrying at an early age.”

The penalty for refusing service isn’t cheap.

“If you are in the military and refuse to continue, you are considered to be a deserter,” Stern says. “If you avoid it from the beginning, you are looked at [in] a disrespectful way.”

While nations like Israel and South Korea hold military service in high esteem and as a social responsibility for their young people, other countries with a history of conscription have begun to rethink the policy. Thomas Frank has lived in the US since 2009, and is currently a graduate student at the University. He grew up in Austria where, at the time, military service was required for eight months. Luckily for Frank, Austria offers an alternative option to serving in the military: a year of compulsory civil service called Zivildienst.

Zivildienst allowed Frank to serve a non-government organization of his choice for a year and receive a small stipend once completed. Most Austrians serve immediately after high school, but if too much time passes, they have no say in their assignment.

“You never know when [you’re going to] get the call. They can call you anytime and say ‘It’s happening now, you have to do this,’” Frank says. “It can disrupt your life.”

Frank was fortunate enough to serve on this own accord. After his undergraduate studies, he served as a press officer for the Vienna Integration Fund for one year. Frank wanted to get a job that would benefit his career so he took the chance of delaying his service.

Frank might be part of the last Austrian generation to experience conscription. Its Trans-Alpine neighbor, Germany, began phasing out mandatory military service in 2010 with plans to fully suspend the practice this July. Because of their close historical relationship, Germany’s policies often trickle down to its language-sharing southern neighbor, and currently there is a debate in Austria on whether or not to follow Germany’s lead on this most recent issue.

Austria’s military is different from the United States’ in more than one way; there’s also the issue of public perception. When Frank moved to the US in 2009, he was surprised by America’s view of its armed forces.

“People are being asked as veterans to stand up. There are ROTC programs. All kinds of bumper stickers, you know?” Frank says.

According to Frank, Austria’s military isn’t admired.

“The societal support for the military is not very big,” Frank says. “In Austria you’re being ridiculed if you’re in the military. It’s something that losers do.”

Frank’s experience with military service was easily avoided compared to nations like South Korea and Israel where compulsory military service is heavily enforced.

So long as countries see themselves under constant war or threat of war, they will likely maintain conscription as a means to support large standing armies. And so despite an increasing number of European countries phasing out the practice, for many young people around the world, reaching the age of legal adulthood continues to mark access to both new freedoms and new responsibilities.