Neighborhood Notes

Tom Heinicke is Agent503. Tom's mission is to assist Portland's home-buyers and investors in the acquisition of residential real estate at attractive prices. To this end, Tom has developed a sophisticated set of tools to identify the best deals in the area. Having worked as an analyst for several Fortune 500 companies, Tom applies a rare level of professionalism and analytic diligence to every real estate transaction.

Tom Heinicke is a licensed real estate agent in the state of Oregon, affiliated with Meadows Group Inc., Realtors. He can be reached at 503.810.9285 or tom@meadowsgroup.com.

Alex lives in the Hollywood neighborhood with her husband, two dogs, and three cats. She works from home as a graphic designer through her design studio Defteling Design. Alex is passionate about paper – as a matter of fact, she loves paper so much, she launched her own greeting card company in early 2007. While Defteling Design keeps her busy full-time, in her off hours she now designs and sells her own pretty paper products through Cecily Ink. When not working on either business, she enjoys riding her Dutch Oma bike down to the local farmers market or hanging out in the backyard on a sunny afternoon. Life doesn’t get any better!

Barbara Hart currently curates three venues and places art in numerous others on an as needed basis, and is working with a developer on private art events. She attended too many colleges to list, but has an extensive background in making art and in art history, with a masters degree in education. She adores Portland, and interacts on a regular basis with visual artists. Barbara is a docent in training at the Portland Art Museum. photo: Horace Long

Rebecca Shapiro is an artpreneur who lives and works in SE Portland. She paints, writes, sews, illustrates, invents and sells her work on her website. She's the founder of gallery verno, a fine art gallery dedicated to representing and selling green art (www.galleryverno.com). She's also the Portland leader for Ladies Who Launch (www.ladieswholaunch.com) an international organization that supports women to embrace creativity and entrepreneurship as a lifestyle.

Patience grasshopper—profile coming soon!

Erich Stiefvater is a trainer and e-learning designer for a nonprofit education company. He and his wife and daughter live in the Rose City Park neighborhood. Despite growing up in the Portland area, Erich didn’t truly appreciate the city’s charms, amenities, and livability until after he lived on the East Coast for several years. He enjoys blogging, bike trips to parks and farmers markets, and exploring Northeast Portland.

Geoff Kleinman recently relocated from the SW Suburbs to Laurelhurst so that he could spend less time driving places and more time walking. A professional writer, entrepreneur and Dad, Geoff recently worked as the publisher and editor of a major entertainment magazine for nine years before turning his attention to writing about Portland. An avid reader and blogger, Geoff has a true love for the written word, narrative and the way in which people communicate with each other. Geoff lives with his wife (who is also a writer) and his three kids. One of his long term projects is to catalog the history of his 1913 home which passed between lumber barons, Rock Star Ex-Wives (Jenny Alexakis), and famous poker players (Annie Duke).

You can follow Geoff on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/geoffk or read his blog at http://www.kleinman.com/geoff/

Jennie Burget has been the official Portland Water Bureau, Water Blog "Blogmistress" since December 2007. While she does so much in her job other than just run the blog, water blogging is definitely her favorite part.

Jennie has been with the Water Bureau for 2.5 years, working in an outreach and/or public information capacity the whole time. She has learned so much about Portland's water system in the last 2.5 years, it almost makes her head spin! Want to know something about Portland's tap water? You know where to turn! Remember, from forest to faucet, the Portland Water Bureau delivers the best drinking water in the world!

PS- Jennie only drinks tap water and she's proud of it!

Josie is a chef, foodie, wine lover, and likes to play in her garden.

A western NY transplant, circa 1998, she thought she'd hang out here in Oregon for awhile and then return to real life back on the east coast as soon as she became an adult. She is still waiting for that moment, along with her husband of 8 years and her four-year-old son. She calls the southeast Division/Clinton St. neighborhood home. For now. Until things get, like, serious. Could be any day now.

An almost Oregon native, Kate grew up in Eugene and left Oregon for college, grad school and her first real job. While grateful for the opportunity to live in other parts of the country, Kate missed the northwest horribly. She managed to get to back to Washington State where she stayed for three years before finally returning to Oregon. Kate has been in Portland for ten years now. Home is in northeast Portland, but she can be found downtown at the Central Library five days a week, thanks to her job as a children’s librarian. She is always ready to recommend a good book.

A world traveler and Foodie with a penchant for 80's music, Vanessa (who also makes a mean scratch Bolognese and a fierce risotto) moved to Portland on Halloween, (OMG! Can it be?) 11 years ago from her home state of Cali and has never looked back. She is on her second husband (Todd), her first child (Juno) and still hammering out that first novel (Tourniquet.) The proud owner of the most expressive Russian Tortoise (Lucy) that you will ever meet and a tortoise shell colored cat (Dori) who thinks she's a dog, NoPo Ness keeps up on all the latest in the 5Q whilst juggling motherhood, creativity and an ever-changing palette of hair colors.

NW Nola is quite a mysterious little lady! You'll never know her true identity, but know she's always lurking, watching, observing around NW Portland. She and her new husband live in a tiny little Nob Hill condo with their two cats. Nola works as a free-lance writer for a variety of different, local publications..

Nola hails from the land of the flat - Kansas. She spent the first part of her life there, always knowing it wasn't her destiny. In 2005, she made the leap, moving to Portland only 6 weeks after visiting Portland for the first time. She met her husband, got a job and the rest is history!

Andrea lives and works in the Pearl with Ellie, her Golden Retriever. Before starting pdxdog.com she owned the Pearl Retriever, a cool little dog store. She loves dogs, dog people, dog-friendly businesses and building a community with other dog people. In her professional life, she specializes in collaboration, partnership and alliance building and practical evaluation methods. She moved here from Palo Alto four years ago and loves Portland!

Can you believe that I haven't written my own bio? It's on my list. swear!

(Performer, Arts Management) began her dance training in Yakima, Washington and studied privately for many years with Phyllis Cyr. After moving to Seattle, she danced for Washington Contemporary Ballet as a guest artist, and then joined Spectrum Dance Theater under the direction of Donald Byrd. Now living in Portland, Renee has been dancing with BodyVox for two years and has recently taken on the role of Outreach Director; coordinating kids dance classes, assemblies, community events, and most recently Kids BodyVox Dance Camp. Renee also performs with Bouand DanceCompany, as well as volunteers as BDC’s executive secretary, and teaches at many Portland and Vancouver dance schools.

San Francisco native, Portland evangelist, Rebekah moved here in 2006. Still in honey-moon mode with Portland, Rebekah takes every opportunity to gush to Bay Area-suckers about how great it is here, nah nah nah nah nah nah! Rebekah works in the Pearl for a design firm, is on a quest to find a house in Goose Hollow, and teaches performing arts across the PDX-Metro area. She occasionally stops to breathe, raise her brood of boys and cook dinner for her husband once in a while.

I make pretty pictures, talk about development and land use (sometimes babbling incoherently), and like to try new places to eat.

connector + owner + founder of souk

Finds interesting facts about the Pearl and Portland.

Jen & Michelle are two food-loving Portland girls who live to eat, drink and be merry. Sometimes too merry. Together they write TableTalkPortland.com, a blog chronicling their explorations of Portland's new and notable culinary hotspots, "Table For Twelve" supper club events, and other gastronomic misadventures.

TeachStreet is a new, great resource to find everything from a local gymnastics class for your child to French lessons for yourself!  It's essentially a free directory to find anything you want to learn (from parenting to puppetry to piano), with literally hundreds of teachers and classes in your own community. With thousands of listings in the Portland Metro area, TeachStreet is the spot to connect with other life-long learners and to find really great teachers and classes that are reviewed by your own neighbors and friends. We're hoping to help you learn something new and showcase a lot of the great teachers and classes in the Portland area, so stay tuned!

Brian moved to Portland a few years ago, and is still exploring Portland-each day, he finds something new or rediscovers something! He is an advanced displaced worker, but is currently enjoying his roles as art advocate, community supporter, volunteer, consultant and friend. Brian lives in Old Town Chinatown.

I live in King and write about NE Portland.

Tim Krause is an ardent vegan who loves to cook using fresh, local ingredients, especially those that come direct from his backyard garden. When he's not promoting local Latino arts and culture for Miracle Theatre Group, Tim shares his favorite vegan recipes on his blog Veritable Vegan.

Best friends Caitlin “Lulu” Wood and Toshio Meronek founded whereslulu.com way back in '07, when you either had to hear about business accessibility through word-of-mouth or call a place ahead of time (while often getting the wrong information). Now there’s a reliable place online to find out for yourself. Lulu lives in PDX, where she enjoys eating delicious food and drinking delicious drinks. Toshio lives in San Francisco, CA, where he writes for a green living website, DJs, barhops, and bikes. They both hold doctorates in cold rockin’ it.