Portland bowling
posted February 13, 2012 8:16 PM   RSS | iCal | +googleCal

Sun March 18 at 3:00 PM, Grand Central Bowling
829 SE 9th Ave, Portland, OR, USA (Map & Directions)
Grand Central Bowling, 3pm on March 18. Probably food/drink nearby afterwards.
posted by curious nu to Meetup (68 comments total)

Tugboat.

Oh wait, wrong thread. Sorry.

Anyway, I'll add Interstate Lanes Cosmic Bowling as another possibility. BUT...I've never been to any Portland bowling alley and have no personal preferences; I'm just parroting what I've found online.
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:16 AM on February 14, 2012


I have only been to Hollywood Bowl; it was fine. As previously stated, I am unavailable the second weekend in March.

Perhaps this is the meetup where we ignore tugboats.
posted by mimo at 6:18 AM on February 14, 2012


Hollywood Bowl is perfectly nice bowling alley, and conveniently located at a transit station. I haven't been to Grand Central yet, but I've heard that when they renovated it they made it especially shiny and nice. Isn't it right next to the Green Dragon?

Don't consider this my vote as of yet, just dropping off some info on bowling alleys.
posted by Secretariat at 7:18 AM on February 14, 2012


I had a company party at Grand Central, if we were able to get coordinated about what we were doing, we might want to consider them. We can do a reservation of two lanes and get a bunch of food and beer thrown in as well, they are pretty well geared towards entertaining groups.

Hollywood looks like it offers the same level of service as well, and spitting distance from the Hollywood MAX.

I'd say we would want to get a could count first, and then pick a date, and then find whichever place can fit all of us. If we do it as a group buy, chances are it will work out a lot better.
posted by mrzarquon at 10:32 AM on February 14, 2012


We'll be out of town March 24/25, so any other weekend should be good.
posted by nickthetourist at 10:58 AM on February 14, 2012


Anyone have objections to March 18/19?
posted by mimo at 11:07 AM on February 14, 2012


I'd prefer Saturday the 17th; Sunday the 18th would be my second choice.
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:28 AM on February 14, 2012


That weekend sounds good to me as well. We will be gone the previous weekend.
posted by cortex at 12:18 PM on February 14, 2012


whoops, I changed the day the calendar starts the week on. Yes, the weekend of the 17th/18th. Except that the 17th is St. Patrick's day, which could be a mess and would certainly suggest reservations.
posted by mimo at 12:21 PM on February 14, 2012


Hmm, good point. That brings us back to mrzarquon's suggestion, with the added incentive to not delay over-long in coordinating. So yeah, I'll cast my vote for the weekend of March 17/18; Grand Central and Hollywood Bowl are about equidistant from me time-wise so I have no preference there.
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:56 PM on February 14, 2012


I vote Grand Central because I always think about suggesting a meetup whenever we drive by which is usually after leaving the Green Dragon.
posted by nickthetourist at 7:18 PM on February 14, 2012


Then we should check and see if they have availability on the 17th before we go any further.
posted by mimo at 8:06 PM on February 14, 2012


> Oh wait, wrong thread. Sorry.

There is no wrong thread for tugboat
posted by churl at 8:48 PM on February 14, 2012


Reviewing the thread, I note that Hollywood Bowl is rather damned by "adequate" praise; a Grand Central group-type event is looking more and more like the way to go. I believe the ball's in your court er, alley, nu.
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:52 PM on February 14, 2012


The Tugboat which can be spoken is not the eternal Tugboat
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:54 PM on February 14, 2012 [1 favorite]


How many people are we talking about? 10? And what time? Here is the pricing list for Grand Central. I don't actually see anything on the site about reservations but I can check when I call.
posted by curious nu at 7:55 AM on February 15, 2012


For what it's worth, I have in the few times I've been bowling in the last several years never seen a bowling alley at something like capacity. We maybe need to worry about league events or such, but beyond that I'm not sure it's really a huge problem.
posted by cortex at 8:35 AM on February 15, 2012


But isn't St. Patrick's Day a huge holiday for bowling?
posted by mimo at 8:42 AM on February 15, 2012


Ah, I have lost the plot and we have come full circle. I am still working on coffee.
posted by cortex at 8:44 AM on February 15, 2012


St. Patrick's Day ain't all beer and skittles, y'know.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:44 AM on February 15, 2012


But isn't St. Patrick's Day a huge holiday for bowling?

"I say, Biff, are you doing any traveling this year?"
"Oh yes indeed; Muffy and I have booked a bowling holiday in Cleveland this March!"
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:48 AM on February 15, 2012


So, for Grand Central:

* they do take reservations
* they do NOT take reservations for times after 7pm (unless you make a reservation with the event coordinator but I'm not sure if this would qualify, forgot to ask about that); those are first-come, first-serve, though they have a wait list available
* Fridays and Saturdays can get very very busy, Sundays are typically pretty even
* manager said that St Patrick's day is not actually that busy compared to other days, so it'd be anyone's guess as to how busy that particular Saturday will or won't be
* they do not have leagues, so nothing to worry about there

I'm kind of thinking Sunday, because if there's any desire for hanging-around-a-pub-or-something before or afterwards, that might be too crazy on Saturday. Of course, this would once again run into our "No one can hang out late at the meetups because they keep winding up on Sundays and everyone has to work the next day" thing.
posted by curious nu at 1:44 PM on February 15, 2012


In that light, maybe the thing to do is start earlier, say 5 or 6pm, and avoid the rush. That way even if we spend a couple hours bowling there's still time to go to a pub afterwards and avoid the later-evening rush there. Especially if we do it on Sunday instead of Saturday, though I bet Saturday would work anyway if we went for the Early Bird plan.
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:48 PM on February 15, 2012


If we do it sunday, at Grand Central, we can go to the Morrison Hotel across the street, which has a pretty nice tap selection, and great booze. Also I know some of the bartenders there (and they a fellow red sox fans).
posted by mrzarquon at 3:09 PM on February 15, 2012


I tugboat, I mean second, the motion.
posted by Greg_Ace at 7:03 PM on February 15, 2012


Date: Sunday, March 18th (one month from today)
Time: TBD
Location: Grand Central, no reservations required
followed? preceded? by the Morrison Hotel

Thoughts?
posted by mimo at 7:10 AM on February 18, 2012


Thoughts?

Yes - I think we need to figure out that "TBD".
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:31 AM on February 18, 2012


Mid-afternoon on the 18th?
posted by nickthetourist at 10:08 AM on February 18, 2012


3pm! Enough time for folks who just want to come in for bowling, and gives us a chance for continued drinking / hanging out after an hour or two of bowling.
posted by mrzarquon at 12:34 PM on February 18, 2012


Updated and confirmed.
posted by curious nu at 2:05 PM on February 19, 2012


So the price sheet shows $30/hr. Is that per lane, and if so how many people fit on one lane?
posted by fiercekitten at 11:22 AM on February 26, 2012


Side-by-side, or lengthwise?
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:36 AM on February 26, 2012


I think 4 to 6 people per lane, or it gets too long between successive turns.

Also, cycling through more bowlers per lane would presumably make each individual game longer, thereby extending the time required for all bowlers on a lane to finish a game. There must be some function that calculates the time-per-game to bowlers-per-lane trade-off, but I don't know what that is.
posted by mimo at 4:18 PM on February 26, 2012


Yeah, I'd say four to a game is about the max before it gets a bit silly with the taking forever. Especially with none of us presumably being aces bowlers who'll be knocking out the strikes on a regular basis and thus shortening the number of throws per game.
posted by cortex at 5:03 PM on February 26, 2012


(That is, four people playing a single game on a single lane. If our head count is between 5-8 and everybody feels like doing a bit of bowling all at a go, probably best to get two lanes side by side rather than sitting and waiting to bowl the next game.)
posted by cortex at 5:05 PM on February 26, 2012


... none of us presumably being aces bowlers

I can safely say that I am as good at bowling as I am at putt-putt golf (so yeah, my handle is pretty much a lie). And I'll also second the opinion that we've got enough people coming that two lanes would work best.
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:02 PM on February 26, 2012


We had a work thing this week at Hollywood Bowl and we were able to get in 2.5 games in 2 hours with 4 pretty poor bowlers per lane.
posted by fiercekitten at 10:19 AM on March 4, 2012


A weekend event! I think I can make it this time.
posted by Sibrax at 10:38 PM on March 14, 2012


Tomorrow is bowling day!
posted by curious nu at 3:48 PM on March 17, 2012


It's like boxing day but with fewer concussions!
posted by cortex at 3:56 PM on March 17, 2012


It's like boxing day but with fewer concussions!

You haven't seen my bowling.
posted by mimo at 4:59 PM on March 17, 2012


It's like boxing day but with fewer concussions!

Dude, just because they're your servants doesn't give you the privilege of throwing gifts at them! Especially if you've given them bowling balls.
posted by Greg_Ace at 7:19 PM on March 17, 2012


OH MY GOD GUYS WE'RE SERIOUSLY GOING BOWLING
posted by cortex at 12:34 PM on March 18, 2012


This whole morning has been an agony of waiting.
posted by curious nu at 12:37 PM on March 18, 2012


Perhaps you should scale back your anticipation. There's no way this can live up to your expectations.
posted by mimo at 12:45 PM on March 18, 2012


No way. OPTIMISM.

Also: boredom.
posted by curious nu at 12:48 PM on March 18, 2012


I'm just hoping my game doesn't live DOWN to my expectations.
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:15 PM on March 18, 2012


I will race you to the bottom.
posted by mimo at 1:54 PM on March 18, 2012


I am en route and, thanks to being so sexy and brilliant about opportunistic alteration of bus itineraries, will be there a half hour or so early for no good reason.
posted by cortex at 2:17 PM on March 18, 2012


Am here and in the bar/lounge attached to the alley, at the bar.
posted by cortex at 2:45 PM on March 18, 2012


If you guys keep the thread updated I can probably catch up with you in a couple hours, either for the tail end of bowling alley or if grabbing food/drink/whatev afterward
posted by churl at 2:47 PM on March 18, 2012


We were foolish and did not reserved lanes which means we are drinking instead of bowling at the moment.
We do also now have a reservation for 5:00 for 2 lanes.
posted by nickthetourist at 3:11 PM on March 18, 2012


We'll be heading over to Green Dragon shortly.
And them returning to Grand Central just before 5:00.
posted by nickthetourist at 3:17 PM on March 18, 2012


Nobody currently at the bar. Will start awkwardly approaching tables when my husband gets back from moving the car out if the ice storm.
posted by alygator at 3:19 PM on March 18, 2012


We have migrated a block south to Green Dragon to eat and drink until the five o'clock lane reservations.
posted by cortex at 3:33 PM on March 18, 2012


We have lanes 11 and 12.
posted by nickthetourist at 5:22 PM on March 18, 2012


Can't make it. Bummer

Random, but: anyone interested is welcome to join me afterward at Curious Comedy theater (on NE MLK) for "attack of the flix", an anything-goes open-submission short film (<10min ea) screening they do there monthly. Heading over around 7:30 or 8
posted by churl at 6:52 PM on March 18, 2012


That was wicked good fun. Bowling should most definitely be put into the meetup rotation.
posted by nickthetourist at 7:59 PM on March 18, 2012


It was a fine time. I would enjoy making this a recurring thing.
posted by cortex at 9:40 PM on March 18, 2012


And cheers to alygator and Byron for braving the wilds of their first meetup.
posted by cortex at 9:41 PM on March 18, 2012


Seconding (or thirding or whatever) the "let's do this again" sentiment.
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:11 PM on March 18, 2012


Guys who won

Tell me who won
posted by churl at 1:19 PM on March 19, 2012


The beer, churl...the beer. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:32 PM on March 19, 2012


I think I won all the games I played, but not by much. I think my 112 and 115 were the two best, Sibrax rolled a 110 on the former of those, mostly we were all in the 80s or 90s or very low hundreds on lane 12. I've got pictures of score breakdowns.

Greg obliged me in a breakneck 2-person game to eat up the remainder of our waning two hours, and neither of our scores benefited from the hurry or the fatigue or the beer.

I couldn't really feel it when I got up this morning, but boy am I feeling it now.
posted by cortex at 1:35 PM on March 19, 2012


As predicted, I had the lowest thee-game score; but I still managed to bowl better than I have in a long time. I'm going to start practicing in secret.
posted by mimo at 2:08 PM on March 19, 2012


I think you just blew your cover, mimo...
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:36 PM on March 19, 2012


Aha! But I didn't say what I'd be practicing.
posted by mimo at 3:54 PM on March 19, 2012


Fair enough.
posted by Greg_Ace at 5:56 PM on March 19, 2012



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