In the category of "just about the coolest site ever": PortlandMaps.

So, I get done watching an episode of Angel ("Epiphany"), and notice the sound of a helicopter outside. It's hovering over the neighborhood, then after a while moves a couple of blocks east and hovers again. It's black, with maybe some red & orange decoration on the side, and I think I can see something hanging off its nose (like a camera?).

Tell you what I think: this is the city of Portland helicopter taking aerial photographs for city planning. From the website above, it looks like they do this every year now. It'll be exciting to check in a couple of weeks and see if they've entered a new photo for my area. The trick to telling will be that the helicopter was up there around five, so there should be significant shadows pointing east, falling maybe halfway across the street.

Hey, check out the photo of my place from last year! You can see the Svan sitting right outside my front door...