Shannon has a post that she wanted me to blog... Roller skating this Friday at the Central Oregon Indoor Sports Center.

re-live those junior high skate parties! come skate and dance the night away with the renegade rollergirls friday, august 4 at the central oregon indoor sports center (20795 high desert lane) starting at 8 p.m. admission is $3 or $6.50 with skate rental. drinks will be provided for those 21 and over. all ages and skate levels are welcome.

Sounds like it could be fun. I haven't roller skated in... eons, I suppose. I'll have some other things going on this week, so I doubt I can make it, but don't let that stop you!

There's a new Bend Oregon Restaurants blog (not to be confused with the original). So far it seems to have just started, but looks promising. And the writing is fun and just the right amount of snarky...

The best part of Bend, or Deschutes County for that matter, is that while restaurants offer the organic ingredients, their to go containers are (or can be) Styrofoam. Good thing you carry a nalgene to reduce waste but you look silly walking to your Hummer carrying your Toomies lunch meal deal in a Styrofoam box. Good going.

I hope he keeps the reviews coming... BrENDa's reviews (the original I linked to above) seem to have petered out since April...

I keep hearing about Redmond's Music on the Green on the radio and forgetting to blog about it. It's Redmond's free summer concert series, held every other Wednesday in Sam Johnson Park. Free! There are four concerts left this season, starting on Wednesday.

• July 26 (this Wednesday): The Alliance
• August 9: Molly's Revenge
• August 23: Blackstrap
• September 6: Hokulea Dancers

The concerts run from 6 until 7:30 in the evening, and there are food vendors on-site. Has anyone been to one of these yet? Are they good?

KTVZ has posted a couple of advisories that I thought I'd point to.

• First is the heat advisory. Pretty sure we're all aware of this one by now. They're predicting 103 degrees for Saturday.
• The other is unusual: measles advisory. Unusual because I haven't heard anything about measles in, what, years?

So watch out for heat and disease this weekend. Wouldn't it suck to have the measles and no air conditioning?

I wrote about the Bond Street Barber Shop on my other blog a few months back, and I wanted to mention it here as well. It's an old-school barber shop that looks a bit like a sport bar as far as atmosphere goes (whereas the other barber shop in downtown, L & K Barber Shop, is almost entirely old-time barber decor), and all the barbers are men.

The big draw is the complimentary beer or wine you get while waiting for your haircut. Aside from a couple of Bud Light clones, the beer is from Cascade Lakes Brewing, very decent stuff. And they're nice guys down there too; perhaps a little on the slow side, but you're drinking beer, so who cares?

They're located at 841 NW Bond Street, downtown. Hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 8 to 5. You can make appointments (the number is 541-312-2121), or just walk in and take a seat. There's a beer in it for you...

A promo-note to any garage salers reading: my brother and his girlfriend are having a garage sale today (Saturday the 15th). Among other things, he was planning on selling some of his older video game systems (Nintendo 64, Super Nintendo), with games, and we took a toddler mattress over there for them to sell ($45 OBO).

They live over on Douglas Street, just off and north of Wilson. I told them to post an ad on Craigslist, but I don't see one there...

(And yeah, I'll pimp out your garage sale here too... ya just gotta bribe me!)

Tomorrow is the start of the Bend Summer Festival, in Downtown Bend. The streets central to downtown (Bond, Wall, Oregon, Minnesota) will be closed, and arts and crafts vendors will have their wares spread out in booths along those thoroughfares, with food, beer and wine available too. And live music, don't forget that.

I wrote about last year's SummerFest and that's probably a pretty good indicator of what to expect. The fest will run Saturday from 11am until 10pm, and Sunday from 11 until 6pm. We'll be down there, checking things out, and I'll try to remember the camera to snap pictures for the blog. Anyone going down that wants to meet up somewhere?

My wife reminded me about this: tonight is the First Friday Gallery/Art Walk downtown. The first friday of every month (excluding January, I believe) downtown galleries and businesses stay open late, with food and wine and music in some places. It's an art showcase, running from 5 until 9PM. You're sure to see someone you know.

Somewhat related, BendNights.com has a decent downtown walking map, though it only shows locations for restaurants, ATMs, and parking—there's no art galleries (or other shops) listed. (That would be a good project for the near future... a downtown walking map with multiple layers for this kind of thing...)

Today is the first day of the annual Munch N Music concert series down in Drake Park. It's free! Well, almost—you have to pay for your food and drink. But the music is free. Here's the "three second explanation" I wrote on my other blog last year:

Thursday evenings during the summer in Bend, free concerts in Drake Park are accompanied by food and craft vendors, and a beer garden. Parking is hell.

It runs every Thursday over the next six weeks, until August 10th. Here's the music schedule:

• July 6: Roomful of Blues
• July 13: Jerry Joseph and the Jackmormons
• July 20: Katt
• July 27: Jackstraw
• August 3: Liquid Soul
• August 10: Highstreet

Interestingly, the folks over at BendNights.com also have an "unofficial" Munch N Music site... but that site comes up when you do a search online and the official one doesn't.

Also take note that dogs are not allowed! It could cost you $500 otherwise.

The morning of the fourth found us downtown at the Pet Parade with a decent spot to watch across the street from Wells Fargo. It was pretty good this year, and everybody looked like they were having a good time. My brother was in it as well, carrying one of the banners, so I took the camera to get pictures, and ended up with quite a few to post here. Check 'em out after the jump...

More...

Among other things happening this July 4th (which I'll blog about separately), the Bend Public Library is having one of their big book sales on that day. It's running from 10am to 4pm down at the Library Administration Building at 507 NW Wall Street (just south of the main library building), on Tuesday the 4th. Their blurb says, "Thousands of books of all kinds for sale: fiction, nonfiction, travel books, children's books. Music CD’s and free books too!"

The sign I saw at the library said hardcovers would be priced at $1, and softcovers for 50 cents (or cheaper, maybe). That's a great deal, but in general, the earlier you can get there, the better. Pickings get pretty slim as the day wears on. At any rate, I think I'm going to try to get down there sometime after the Pet Parade, if all goes well.

Here's an odd thing: the traffic lights at the intersection of Bond St. and Oregon Ave. downtown this morning were off. We were driving through around 11, and they were dark—no idea what was going on; the other lights downtown were working.

Anyone know what's up? Was it just a temporary thing this morning, or is something bigger going on? At any rate, if you're downtown around there, pay attention, and make sure to stop and look for traffic before cruising on through...