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EW asked birder Noah Strycker a question we’ve been mulling over: Is birding a sport? In 2015, Stryker set a new world record by seeing almost 60 percent of the known bird species on Earth in a continuous round-the-world trip, traveling through 41 countries on all seven continents. Continue reading
Kaden Lipkin, 17, reaches across the foldout table and bro-handshakes his teammate Michael Russell, 18, in the middle of expressing nothing but appreciation for being a part of the water polo club. “I love you guys,” Lipkin says, perfectly summing up the energy at Echo Hollow Pool, which hosts Eugene City Water Polo — a grassroots club geared towards the 18-and-under crowd that wants to kick some ass and be a part of a team. Continue reading
“Wear argyle socks,” the website insisted. Apparently this is a real requirement for those actually competing in the American FootGolf league. Also, this league is a real thing. Unfortunately, I do not have argyle socks, so I am not eligible to go pro as a FootGolfer. Continue reading
It’s a calm Monday night in Eugene’s Whiteaker neighborhood, but Crux Rock Climbing Gym is packed. Or at least it looks packed. For Crux it’s actually a slow night, with about 30 or so climbers, ranged between middle-school-aged to late 50s, gripping handholds and falling onto thick blue mats. Tonight, it looks as though I might be the only newcomer. Continue reading
Dancers and drummers perform outside an Afro-Cuban cultural center in Havana Continue reading
Hey, hold on just a second before you fire up that weed — it could be toxic as hell. A shiver ran through Eugene’s marijuana community Feb. 5 when the Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA) ordered the stop-sale of Guardian, a popular pesticide, after it was discovered the product contained abamectin, an insecticide that is highly toxic to bees and marine life, and which in high doses may lower sperm count in men. Continue reading
Event producer Krysta Albert says she's gearing up for another year of celebrating all things Eugene, despite a lack of sufficient volunteers and wildfire smoke descending on the Festival of Eugene last year. The Festival of Eugene, created in response to the surprise cancellation of the Eugene Celebration in 2014, will take place Aug. 20-21 this year in Skinner Butte Park. Continue reading
Surprise! Fat people have sex. Fat people have really good sex and lots of it. If you believe what you see in the media, you would think I was full of beans. I am most assuredly not. We are portrayed as loud, obnoxious and completely devoid of style. We are never appreciated as sexual beings. We are never the leading lady. We are never the love interest. Instead, we are the butt of every dumb joke. We are made to look so unfortunate and homely — it’s offensive. This is antiquated and extremely problematic and not at all how the world actually works. Continue reading
Thanks to a gun law in Texas, Eugene is now home to relationship author and blogger Duana Welch. She moved to Eugene last year after her home state of Texas passed a law allowing guns in classrooms. As a college instructor, Welch says she retired in protest, and she and her husband moved to Eugene in search of political ideals more closely matched to their own. Continue reading
It’s hard to imagine creatures more enigmatic than the gray whales that migrate along the Oregon coast each year. Ever since the ban on the commercial slaughter of gray whales took effect in the 1930s, the species has slowly recovered, and now thousands of these graceful marine mammals make the yearly journey up and down the West Coast, from Alaska to Baja California and back. Each summer, around 200 whales decide that Oregon is the place to be, and rather than go back to Alaska for the summer, they stop in Oregon and hang out until it’s time to return to Mexico. Continue reading