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Category: Anniversary

Portland’s Beer and Blog: Celebrating two years of beer-ing and blogging. But mostly beer-ing.

Because every Friday for the past two years the best place to meet and chat with the Portland tech community has been Beer and Blog, a gathering of bloggers helping bloggers over beers that has steadily grown to become the de facto happy hour for the Portland startup and tech scene.

Rick Turoczy on January 8, 2010

[HTML1]Whenever I hear about tech types from out of town swinging by Portland, the first question out of my mouth is always—always—this: “Any chance you’re going to be here on Friday?”

Why? Because every Friday for the past two years the best place to meet and chat with the Portland tech community—as a community—has been Beer and Blog, a gathering with humble beginnings as an ad hoc support group of bloggers helping bloggers over beers that has steadily grown to become the de facto happy hour for the Portland startup and tech scene—whether you happen to blog or not.

And now, that little happy hour is all growed up in Internet years. Beer and Blog is celebrating its second anniversary today. Read More

Silicon Florist is two today. What a short strange trip it’s been.

In the wee small hours of August 7 2007 I dragged my ass out of bed sat myself down in front of the computer and registered siliconflorist.com. I posted the first Silicon Florist post a few days later.

Rick Turoczy on August 7, 2009

Roughly 730.5 days ago, I sat up in bed at 2 AM with an idea. Who knew it would be an idea that all but ensured I’d rarely be in bed at 2 AM ever again?

In the wee small hours of August 7, 2007, I dragged my ass out of bed, sat myself down in front of the computer, and—giving life to what seemed like a bit of a strange idea with a wacky name—registered siliconflorist.com. After some hosting setup and WordPress wrangling, I posted the first Silicon Florist post a few days later.

The concept, in my mind, was to highlight what folks in Portland were doing with tech startups. To shine a small light on developers and open source folks who were focused on building cool stuff, but who didn’t have the time to focus on promoting that stuff. Read More

Beer and Blog Portland shall be referred to as Free Beer and Blog this week thanks to AboutUs

For many Portlanders, there are few things that taste better than a cool microbrew on a hot summer day. In fact, I can really only thing of one thing that might top that: making that beer free. And that’s just Beer and Blog Portland has done this week in conjunction with AboutUs, the awesome Portland-based wiki.

Rick Turoczy on July 17, 2009

For many Portlanders, there are few things that taste better than a cool local microbrew on a hot summer day. In fact, I can really only think of one thing that might top that: making that beer free.

And that’s just what Beer and Blog Portland has done this week in conjunction with AboutUs, the awesome Portland-based wiki that’s creating an editable catalog of every single Web site in the world.

Oh, I’m sorry. You’re here for the free beer? Yes, there’s free beer courtesy of AboutUs. But why? Well, there’s reason to celebrate. You see, AboutUs turned three-years old last month. Read More

Happy 10th Birthday, MetaFilter!

And while we should be proud of MetaFilter as a product of Oregonian ingenuity for any number of reasons, I’ve got one more reason to add to the list: MetaFilter just turned 10 years old.

Rick Turoczy on July 14, 2009

One of the most widely read yet least often recognized as a product of the good old Silicon Forest has to be MetaFilter, the quintessential Weblog of random facts and finds. And while we should be proud of MetaFilter as a product of Oregonian ingenuity for any number of reasons, I’ve got one more reason to add to the list: MetaFilter just turned 10 years old.

A blog that’s been around for a decade? (TechCrunch, for example, is four years old.) That’s impressive for any project. Let alone a project that discusses everything from dinosaurs to blasphemy to the truly and completely random site. Read More

Somebody get this on the calendar: Calagator’s birthday is today

Rick Turoczy on January 19, 2009

CalagatorOn January 19, 2008, a group of folks got together for a codefest.

Today several of us met during the Code Sprint gathering at CubeSpace to talk and work on the calendar.
Participants: Audrey Eschright, Selena Deckelmann, Igal Koshevoy, Reid Beels, Paige Saez, Daniel Etra, Anselm Hook, and Bill Burcham.

I was a little slow on the uptake. But a few days later, I managed to crank out a post about the “Portland Tech Calendar” project, highlighting:

Last Saturday, the Portland Tech Calendar group dove headlong into a code sprint around the problem of aggregating all of the tech calendars for Portland, Oregon, and the surrounding areas. The result? Calagator.

The group made a great deal of progress during the code sprint. A full recap is available via Google Groups. Highlights are available on the Calagator blog. (That’s right, they have the beginnings of code and a blog. These guys have accomplished more in a weekend than I’ve accomplished in the last six months.)

What came out of that initial meeting was more than code, and more than an app. Much more.

Calagator remains one of my favorite examples of Portland ingenuity, Open-Source teamwork, and the underlying culture of Portland’s Web tech community. And I sincerely hope that they continue doing the same kinds of things they’ve managed to do over the past year.

Happy Birthday, Calagator. And thank you. Not only for aggregating the Portland tech calendar, but for providing a shining example of that which this community is capable.