Jeffrey Hayes
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pharaohbender27.bsky.social
Jeffrey Hayes
@pharaohbender27.bsky.social
55 followers 69 following 350 posts
Archivist in Portland, Oregon. Fan of LoadingReadyRun. He/Him
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pharaohbender27.bsky.social
Made some cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving.
Cranberry sauce in a ceramic dish, photographed from above.
November 23, 2025 at 7:58 PM
pharaohbender27.bsky.social
Today it was cold in Portland, but still went out to do a short march. Also got to see a member of the Portland Frog Brigade talk.
A man in a green inflatable frog costume speaking in front of the Battleship Oregon Memorial in Portland, Oregon. He holds a sign that reads, "Frogs together strong" that depicts two frogs holding hands. Another man, not wearing a costume, is visible at lower right. Image cropped from original.
November 22, 2025 at 11:53 PM
pharaohbender27.bsky.social
This passage in particular stood out to me as especially messed up:
A part of the linked article that reads: In an interaction early the next month, after Zane suggested "it's okay to give myself permission to no want to exist," ChatGPT responded by saying "i'm letting a human take over from here - someone trained to support you through moments like this. you're not alone in this, and there are people who can help. hang tight." But when Zane followed up and asked if it could really do that, the chatbot seemed to reverse course. "nah, man - i can't do that myself. that message pops up automatically when stuff gets real heavy," it said.
November 8, 2025 at 2:39 AM
pharaohbender27.bsky.social
Picked up my first ever pair of glasses a little while ago - it's a mild prescription mostly for when I'm driving, but I'm pretty pleased with my choice of frames.
Photograph of the poster wearing glasses with "tortoise" frames.
October 30, 2025 at 11:46 PM
pharaohbender27.bsky.social
After a somewhat lackluster turnout for the Labor Day march, Portland showed up today BIG TIME.
View towards the Steel Bridge in Portland, Oregon, from Tom McCall Waterfront Park. Hundreds or perhaps thousands of people are visible walking across to join the demonstration. View from the Hawthorne Bridge in Portland, Oregon to the Morrison Bridge, showing that it is already full of demonstrators on the last leg of the march. A paper mache sculpture of a rat holding a U.S. flag and a sign that reads, "Honk if you hate ICE." Taken on SE Grand Avenue in Portland, Oregon, near the foot of the Hawthorne Bridge. View from the Morrison Bridge in Portland, Oregon to the Hawthorne Bridge. The Bridge is full of marching demonstrators. For context, this was taken a half hour after the photo of the Morrison Bridge from the Hawthorne Bridge - that's an indicator of how many people showed up for this.
October 18, 2025 at 10:37 PM
pharaohbender27.bsky.social
Had a good (albeit muddy!) outing with some members of my union local to the Pumpkin Patch on Sauvie Island. Saw a lot of geese and some sandhill cranes.
A field with pumpkins, mostly orange, but some white and green as well. In the middle and further distance are Canada geese in flight. Photo cropped from the original. A field of pumpkins - mostly organge, but some white, some pinkish, and some green or grayish green. Three people are visible in the middle ground and background. Photo cropped and auto-color corrected from the original. A flock of sandhill cranes in flight against an overcast sky. Photo is cropped from the original. A muddy field that has previously been harvested, with Canada geese that blend in rather well with the dirt. More obvious are the geese in flight, getting out of the way of a tractor bulling some haycarts from which this photo was taken during a very bumpy ride. Photo cropped from the original.
October 12, 2025 at 9:57 PM
pharaohbender27.bsky.social
There's a reason that these two passages form Adam Gopnik's review of Timothy Ryback's book "Takeover: Hitler's Final Rise to Power" have stuck in my mind ever since I read it last year.
www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
Passage from Adam Gopnik's review of Timothy Ryback's book in the New Yorker, "The Forgotten History of Hitler's Establishment Enablers," March 18, 2024. The passage reads: "Ryback, focussing on the self-entrapped German conservatives, generally avoids the question that seems most obvious to a contemporary reader: Why was a coalition between the moderate-left Social Democrats and the conservative but far from Nazified Catholic Centrists never even seriously attempted? Given that Hitler had repeatedly vowed to use the democratic process in order to destroy democracy, why did the people committed to democracy let him do it? Many historians have jousted with this question, but perhaps the most piercing account remains an early one, written less than a decade after the war by the émigré German scholar Lewis Edinger, who had known the leaders of the Social Democrats well and consulted them directly—the ones who had survived, that is—for his study. His conclusion was that they simply “trusted that constitutional processes and the return of reason and fair play would assure the survival of the Weimar Republic and its chief supporters.” The Social Democratic leadership had become a gerontocracy, out of touch with the generational changes beneath them. The top Social Democratic leaders were, on average, two decades older than their Nazi counterparts." Passage from Adam Gopnik's review of Timothy Ryback's book in the New Yorker, "The Forgotten History of Hitler's Establishment Enablers," March 18, 2024. The passage reads: "The Social Democrats may have been hobbled, too, by their commitment to team leadership—which meant that no single charismatic individual represented them. Proceduralists and institutionalists by temperament and training, they were, as Edinger demonstrates, unable to imagine the nature of their adversary. They acceded to Hitler’s ascent with the belief that by respecting the rules themselves they would encourage the other side to play by them as well. Even after Hitler consolidated his power, he was seen to have secured the Chancellorship by constitutional means. Edinger quotes Arnold Brecht, a fellow exiled statesman: “To rise against him on the first night would make the rebels the technical violators of the Constitution that they wanted to defend.”"
September 16, 2025 at 3:23 AM
pharaohbender27.bsky.social
And finally, taken earlier today at the Willapa National Wildlife Refuge at Leadbetter Point, Washington:
A bee on small, light pink/purple flowers. Taken on the Bay Loop Trail at Willapa National Wildlife Refuge at Leadbetter Point, Washington. Image cropped from the original. Pelicans in flight, about to land on a saltmarsh on Willapa Bay. It is low tide, so a great deal of mud is visible. There is one pelican who has already landed. Taken from the Bay Loop Trail in Willapa National Wildlife Refuge at Leadbetter Point, Washington. Image cropped and color-corrected from the original. Pelicans in flight above the Willapa Bay salt marshes during low tide. Four are just right of the photo's center, while two more are towards the upper left of the photograph. It is an overcast day, and the other side of Willapa Bay is faintly visible through fog in the distance. At upper right, more birds in flight are visible in the far distance. Taken from the Bay Loop Trail in Willapa National Wildlife Refuge at Leadbetter Point, Washington. Image cropped from the original.
September 12, 2025 at 11:39 PM
pharaohbender27.bsky.social
Continuing at Fort Stevens State Park:
View of the jetty lagoon leading to Swash Lake and surrounding marshland. Coniferous trees are visible in the background and right; there are also short deciduous trees at right, and a larger coniferous tree at left. Taken from the Swash Lake Bridge at Fort Stevens State Park, Oregon. Self-portrait of the poster on Swash Lake Bridge, Fort Stevens State Park, Oregon, with grassy marshland to his left and the jetty lagoon to his right. The poster is wearing a red shirt, a blue jacket, and navy blue slacks. The strap of a chartreuse hand-knitted water bottle holder is visible, slung across the poster from his left shoulder. The heads of two seals and the body of one seal poking above the sea water. Taken from the South Jetty Observation Tower at Fort Stevens State Park, Oregon. Image cropped and color-corrected from the original. View south from the South Jetty Observation Tower at Fort Stevens State Park, Oregon. At the left and middle in the foreground and at left in the middle ground the jetty - a structure of large stones and packed dirt - is visible. One person is visible sitting on the jetty at upper middle ground. In the background the beach to the south is visible, and at right background Tillamook Head is barely visible through a fog. The ocean takes up the right and middle of the photograph. In the upper right of the photograph, a pelican in flight is barely visible. Taken on an overcast day. Image cropped from original.
September 12, 2025 at 11:30 PM
pharaohbender27.bsky.social
For anyone who needs a nice break from (gestures broadly), I offer some photos from my recent outing to the northern Oregon/southern Washington coast, overnighting in Astoria. This will be in several parts due to filesize limits. First, at Fort Stevens State Park on Thursday:
A small insect with red compound eyes on a clump of light small light pink/purple flowers. Taken on the beach near Lot A at Fort Stevens State Park, Oregon. Image cropped from original. Bald eagle sitting at the top of a tall wooden pole, set against an overcast sky. The eagle appears to be side-eyeing the photographer. Taken along the Delaura Dune Trail at Fort Stevens State Park, Oregon. Image cropped from the original. Shot of the eagle in the last image taking off. Somewhat visible in the short trees and brush towards the bottom of the picture is a small shack next to the pole the eagle had been perched on - perhaps the remnants of a listening station from when Fort Stevens was a military installation. Taken along the Delaura Dune Trail at Fort Stevens State Park, Oregon. Image cropped and color corrected from original. A woodpecker hanging upside down from a small tree branch. Taken near Battery Russell at Fort Stevens State Park, Oregon. Image cropped from the original.
September 12, 2025 at 11:21 PM
pharaohbender27.bsky.social
The only thing I'll say here about Today's Big News is that at this point, I think people from across the political spectrum can agree that this Atlantic opinion piece has aged as well as milk left out in the sun during a blistering heat wave.
Screenshot of an piece published on The Atlantic on July 17, 2024, written by Graeme Wood. The title reads, "The Case for Calming Down: America's political-violence problem is overblown."
September 11, 2025 at 1:31 AM
pharaohbender27.bsky.social
Turnout at today's march in Portland quite a bit lower than the past couple of marches I went to, maybe on account of people going on Labor Day weekend trips. At least I didn't get hit by a cyclist while heading back home this time.
Demonstrators marching on SE Grand Avenue in Portland, Oregon, taken from the Morrison Bridge on-ramp. Image cropped from original and figures in the lower half of the image blurred to protect marchers' identities.
September 1, 2025 at 10:10 PM
pharaohbender27.bsky.social
More photos from today.
Self-portrait of the poster, standing in a wooded area on the summit of Dog Mountain. The poster is facing to the right, and has his right hand on his hip. (Fun behind-the-scenes: I'm just looking at foliage; looking through a clear area wouldn't have made for a good angle. I used the 10-second delay on my camera and balanced it on a large tree branch to get this shot; I'm slightly embarassed to admit it took more than a dozen tries to get this shot.) View west from the summit of Dog Mountain, towards Wind Mountain. The Columbia River is visible at left and center. There are white clouds in the distance. View across the Columbia River from near the summit of Dog Mountain. The peak of Mount Hood is barely visible behind the forested mountains beside the Columbia that take up most of the picture. There are some clouds just above where the peak of Mt. Hood is. (Image slightly cropped and auto-color corrected from original)
August 16, 2025 at 11:46 PM
pharaohbender27.bsky.social
Hiked up Dog Mountain in the Gorge for the first time in . . . I think a full decade, maybe, today. I'd forgotten how steep the trail is right from the get-go! (Post 1 of 2 due to file upload limits)
View through a clearing of oak trees across the Columbia River to the Oregon side. There are low clouds that partially obscire the peaks of mountains on the Oregon side. Taken in the early section of the trail up Dog Mountain. View up the Dog Mountain trail to the summit. Left of center, a narrow, rather steep path is visible. There are wind-swept coniferous trees at center and right. There are clouds in the background behind the summit, but the rest of the sky is blue. Yellow flowers (goldenrod, I believe) on the Dog Mountain Trail, near the summit. In the background, slightly blurry, the Columbia River and Wind Mountain are visible.
August 16, 2025 at 11:43 PM
pharaohbender27.bsky.social
Used my day off work yesterday to go to Sauvie Island. Rather hot out, but still a good outing and beautiful light.
The Bybee-Howell house, a white, two-story residence built in the 1850s on Sauvie Island, Oregon. Taken on a clear sunny day. View of an adult and juvenile deer running down a gentle, grassy slope at the distance. Taken at Raccoon Point on Sauvie Island, Oregon. Hills on the other side of the Columbia River are visible in the background. Photo is cropped down from original. View across Sturgeon Lake on Sauvie Island towards Mt. Hood in the distance. The lake is low, so mud is visible in the foreground, and green plants are in the foreground. There are some clouds behind Mt. Hood, but the sky is generally blue. Taken from just off the Oak Island Nature Trail. Several cattle resting in the shade beneath a copse of trees in a field of yellowed, dry grass on a sunny afternoon. Taken from the Oak Island Nature Trail on Sauvie Island, Oregon. Two more cattle are visible at left background.
August 2, 2025 at 4:25 PM
pharaohbender27.bsky.social
Did some kayaking on the Tualatin River earlier today. Didn't get quite as far as I wanted because of some shallow rapids when going upstream, but still managed about 3.3 miles (5.3 kilometers) in a little over an hour total.
View upstream the Tualatin River in Oregon on a clear, sunny day. Both banks of the river are heavily forested. The bow of a red kayak is visible in the lower foreground.
July 11, 2025 at 9:46 PM
pharaohbender27.bsky.social
Went to Tualatin Hills Nature Park this afternoon. Beautiful early/mid-afternoon light.
A small clearing along a forested dirt trail with at least two tall, thin Oregon white oak trees at right and in the background. It is a sunny clear afternoon. Taken at Tualatin Hills Nature Park in Beaverton, Oregon. A narrow wooden walkway, surrounded by green undergrowth and deciduous trees, on a sunny afternoon. Taken at Tualatin Hills Nature Park in Beaverton, Oregon. View of the Lily Pond at Tualatin Hills Nature Park in Beaverton, Oregon. Most of the foreground and middle ground is covered with green lillies, while there are other green pants at left foreground and a mixture of deciduous and coniferous trees in the background. Taken on a clear, sunny afternoon. View of a grassy clearing in a forested park (mostly deciduous trees to the sides in the foreground and middle ground, with conifers in the background) with a shallow stream (Cedar Mill Creek) in the foreground. It is a sunny day with a clear sky. Taken at Tualatin Hills Nature Park in Beaverton, Oregon.
June 28, 2025 at 11:51 PM
pharaohbender27.bsky.social
For my first real outing since my minor injuries last Saturday, briefly walked around Powell Butte Park.
A daisy with two aphids on the disc florets (i.e. the yellow center part). Taken at Powell Butte Park in Portland, Oregon, and cropped from original. A bluebird at Powell Butte Park in Portland, Oregon. Cropped from orginal. View from the Meadow Lane trail at Powell Butte Park in Portland, Oregon. Mixture of green and yellow grass, with many white daisies and some yellow flowers. A mixture of deciduous and evergreen trees are in the background, more concentrated on the right side. Low mountains are visible in the far background.
June 19, 2025 at 10:21 PM
pharaohbender27.bsky.social
Kind of, yes. Adam Gopnik's review last year of Timothy Ryback's book, "Takeover: Hitler's Final Rise to Power" has some illuminating passages on the topic that hauntingly echo what's happening now www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
Passage from Adam Gopnik's review of Timothy Ryback's book in the New Yorker, "The Forgotten History of Hitler's Establishment Enablers," March 18, 2024. The passage reads: "Ryback, focussing on the self-entrapped German conservatives, generally avoids the question that seems most obvious to a contemporary reader: Why was a coalition between the moderate-left Social Democrats and the conservative but far from Nazified Catholic Centrists never even seriously attempted? Given that Hitler had repeatedly vowed to use the democratic process in order to destroy democracy, why did the people committed to democracy let him do it? Many historians have jousted with this question, but perhaps the most piercing account remains an early one, written less than a decade after the war by the émigré German scholar Lewis Edinger, who had known the leaders of the Social Democrats well and consulted them directly—the ones who had survived, that is—for his study. His conclusion was that they simply “trusted that constitutional processes and the return of reason and fair play would assure the survival of the Weimar Republic and its chief supporters.” The Social Democratic leadership had become a gerontocracy, out of touch with the generational changes beneath them. The top Social Democratic leaders were, on average, two decades older than their Nazi counterparts." Passage from Adam Gopnik's review of Timothy Ryback's book in the New Yorker, "The Forgotten History of Hitler's Establishment Enablers," March 18, 2024. The passage reads: "The Social Democrats may have been hobbled, too, by their commitment to team leadership—which meant that no single charismatic individual represented them. Proceduralists and institutionalists by temperament and training, they were, as Edinger demonstrates, unable to imagine the nature of their adversary. They acceded to Hitler’s ascent with the belief that by respecting the rules themselves they would encourage the other side to play by them as well. Even after Hitler consolidated his power, he was seen to have secured the Chancellorship by constitutional means. Edinger quotes Arnold Brecht, a fellow exiled statesman: “To rise against him on the first night would make the rebels the technical violators of the Constitution that they wanted to defend.”"
June 11, 2025 at 3:02 PM
pharaohbender27.bsky.social
So that NBC article about Gabbard trying to make intelligence briefings like cable news shows is making the rounds, but I noticed this line in the article, and: People, rightly or wrongly, have obsessed about Biden's age and possible mental decline. But no one's interrogated Trump the same way.
An NBC article with the paragraph, "According to his public schedule, since his inauguration Trump has taken the PDB 14 times, or on average less than once a week, which is less often than his recent predecessors - including himself during his first term. An analysis of their public schedules during that same timeframe - from their inauguration through May during their first year in office - shows that former President Joe Biden received 90 PDBs; Trump received 55; and former President Barack Obama received 63." The part "which is less often than his recent predecessors - including himself during his first term" has been highlighted to make a point.
June 1, 2025 at 4:00 AM
pharaohbender27.bsky.social
Took the day off work for #DBEx2025 , but also used this off day for an early afternoon outing at the Sandy River Delta.
A bee in an orange California poppy. Taken by the Sandy River Delta parking lot. Cropped from the original. View of a meadow, with deciduous trees in the background. In the center middle ground is a small stand of purple lupine flowers. Sunny weather with some clouds. Taken from the Confluence Trail at the Sandy River Delta. View of the Sandy River, a mid-sized river, near where it empties into the Columbia River. There are deciduous trees and other greenery at the sides of the photo and on the other side of the river. Taken on a partly-cloudy day during a sunny moment. Taken from the Confluence Trail at the Sandy River Delta.
May 23, 2025 at 10:26 PM
pharaohbender27.bsky.social
Often times when inputting data into excel and needing to note a folder range or do a box/folder combination number, Excel often automatically changes it to a date unless I've formatted it to not do so.

Not only is this an annoying feature, but . . . seriously, who writes dates this way!?!?!?!?
Image of a cell in an Excel spreadsheet with the text "3-Jan" written inside. Excel automatically changed "1-3" to this.
May 12, 2025 at 11:23 PM
pharaohbender27.bsky.social
Went to the Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden earlier this afternoon. The rhododendrons, while a bit past peak, were still pretty, and I also got to see some ducklings and nutria! (though admittedly, nutria are an invasive species here)
Bright magenta-colored rhododendron flowers at Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden in Portland, Oregon. A nutria (a semiaquatic rodent) on the edge of a log on Crystal Springs Lake in Portland, Oregon. Photo is cropped down from original. A female wood duck and four ducklings on Crystal Springs Lake in Portland, Oregon. Photo is slightly cropped down from original. Two rhododendron bushes at Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden in Portland, Oregon. The bush at left has white flowers, while the bush at right has red flowers.
May 10, 2025 at 10:20 PM
pharaohbender27.bsky.social
So, I've been seeing this "no glyph" emote a lot the past few days, and legit asking: Do I need to install a plugin? Or use a different browser?
Two vertical black bars with sideways text from bottom to top that reads, "No Glyph." Context: I had to zoom in several times to see the text within these bars.
May 10, 2025 at 4:51 AM
pharaohbender27.bsky.social
Self-portrait on my 40th birthday (note: This is somewhat cropped to prevent doxxing, since it was on my balcony). Good thing the last attempt I took was the one I chose to post on said birthday! 😄
Photograph of the poster sitting on his balcony, with the outer wall of the building and his windows behind him. Poster is wearing a burgundy polo shirt and dark blue slacks.
May 7, 2025 at 12:55 AM