Incursio

It has been too long since I posted, so I will kick off my return with this helpful Venn diagram I created today after walking to and from my office:

Why is it that some times it seems like every wheel chair in the city rides my bus? Not that I mind wheelchairs on fixed route service - in fact quite the opposite.  Every ride that we can move from "Lift" paratransit service to normal fixed route service saves taxpayers over $30. But every time my bus gets hit with a ramp deployment it means another minute. Maybe I just notice it more.  Or maybe I am riding the short bus and never noticed until now...

"the way that people respond to summer madness" Keller fountain, Portland, Oregon. "there's an air of love and of happiness and this is the Fresh Prince's new definition of summer madness.  Summer summer summertime.  Time to sit back and unwind."

First ride on MAX green line.Green means Go!

The "residential" cruise ship: "The World", is docked again in Downtown Portland. It has been maybe 5 years since the last time it was around. I am sure that a hundred people and sites will be posting more and better pictures, or more in depth information. But here are a few quick snapshots...

Taken at the Portland Rose Festival "waterfront village". "No photos of our [crappy] display allowed" Editorial comments added by me... I can only guess either they are scared that I will copy their business model, or that Disney will find out they are using Disney materials. Either way it was fun to take pictures of their "no pictures" signs.

In this wonderfully beautiful Portland weekend, have a great time! Let's all remember that Memorial Day is about remembering the almost 1.5 million American Servicemen who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our great country. These beautiful images of our wonderful city would not be possible without them. Thank you to every soldier who has given their lives. May we "earn" what you have given us.

Unless GMC is sneaking out plug-in Yukons, this person needs a ticket and reading lessons...

Kerr Bike rentals is now operating on the Willamette River, in downtown Portland. They are located at the west end of the Hawthorne bridge, at the Salmon Street Springs fountain. They rent surreys (pictured), bicycles, quad sport bikes, tandem bikes, kids bikes, and a variety of other pedal power contraptions. Prices range $6 to $30 hourly, and some items rentable by the day. Their phone is (503) 808-9955 and their website is http://www.kerrbikes.org Looks Fun!

Only 1 million payments of $4000 each!

Today after work I wanted to walk a bit. Since I needed to be at Gabriel Park this evening I figured I would give it a shot. I cheated a little by taking the streetcar down to South Waterfront, and riding the Tram up to OHSU. Which was pretty cool in and of itself, as winds were around 50mph and the car was swinging...

From a recent article in New York Magazine: New York’s streets are getting new ownership. Lane by lane, curb cut by parking space, in steps so scattered and incremental that they hardly get noticed, people on foot are wresting control of the asphalt from those behind the wheel. and the basic unit of urban life: the street. There, lifestyles intersect and city dwellers co-exist with people different from themselves. It’s where we learn toleration, where leisure shares space with urgency, commerce with activism, baby carriages with handcarts. When it is narrowed by garbage or overwhelmed by traffic, then the street reverts to its most primitive use: as a corridor. But a truly public place allows people to move at many different paces, or not to move at all. The article talks about Robert Moses. Who was Robert Moses ? He was an extremely powerful developer and politician for four decades in New York City. BikePortland has an i nteresting article and subsequent discussion about...

I have been involved in many discussions held in many forums about the Portland OHSU Aerial Tram. Now, all controversy aside - one common opinion that I hear frequently concerns me. Often, the Tram will be disregarded as a valuable link in Portland's bike network. To all who would say that the Tram does not provide a valuable connection or link for bicyclists, I would suggest heading down to the base of the Tram and look around. I did.

Previously I have written about trying to find good sports bars in Portland that allow people under 21. First post , Second post . For crying out loud, people under 21 like to watch sports too! We have found another one in inner SE Portland to add to the list.

On Thursday night this last week, I had to drive into Tigard and Beaverton (two cities on Portland's west side) during the night time. I was amazed to see that a major construction project on Oleson Rd. was running during the night! Oleson Rd. is a very valuable connector in the hilly southwest part of the metro area. It has been undergoing a redesign and repaving project for what seems like forever. But it runs almost 100% through residential neighborhoods. There is almost zero non-residential property actually on Oleson. But Sunday through Thursday nights, they are working through the nights on the road. With bright lights and loud equipment. Many, probably hundreds, of homes are within mere feet of the road construction. As they widened the road, the yards of these homes shrunk considerably. Lots of the homes are now within one dog-leash of the new sidewalks. And there are significantly more homes in close proximity. So apparently those communities would rather no...

We just wrapped up the first band of 5 that are playing Crüe Fest 2008. Trapt just finished a short set. Trapt rocks, we have at least one of their disks... Sixx AM is getting ready to start. Trapt was great, and they promised to return to Portland in a few months. We have the "cheap seats", all the way in the back of the Rose Garden arena, about half way up. For Trapt , the area around us was largely empty. Except of course for the one guy directly in front of us with only one brain cell. I seriously want to tell him that the band can't see him and the band can't hear him and no one likes his bonehead attempt at stadium seat head banging and moshing. F'ing loser, blocking my view. So far the crowd seems really really diverse. I am excited to see Papa Roach and Buckcherry , and really excited to see the Crüe . It has been 10 years since we saw Motley Crüe at the Schnitzer. And I really like their new album. Well, hopefully the asshole in front of...

A Portland Police officer sitting on the SE 9th Ave Pedestrian overpass clocks people coming off the Ross Island Bridge onto SE Powell Blvd. There were about 6 officers waiting down on 9th to take off and pull over the offenders. Here is the spot on Google Maps: View Larger Map

What motivation would you need to spend 4 billion dollars on one single highway project, 4 billion dollars on one single 5 mile stretch of highway. 4 billion dollars on one single project that would be considered the single most expensive public works project ever in the history of the Pacific Northwest? Would one of the nation's worst traffic bottlenecks qualify? I mean if you were going to spend twice the city of Portland's annual budget one one single project - would a nationally known and recognized traffic bottleneck be a good place to do so? If you wanted to spend four times the State of Oregon's education budget on a single 5 mile stretch of highway - would you want to cure something that was pretty bad - I mean really bad? If you were going to ignore peak oil, or climate change, or air pollution, or gas price trends, or vehicle miles traveled trends, or economic advice - and build one single massive project that is likely to suck up regional transportation fu...

Here are some random image thoughts that I have from around the Portland area. Image thoughts. Those are images that struck me in one way or another, and here are my thoughts about them: Seen this week at Fred Meyer on NE Broadway & 30th. Best sale EVAR!!!! This is another one that I took a few years back (Feb 2003 to be exact). I figured I would include it here, for posterity sake. Good thing these price adjustments are "Automatic" because otherwise I would worry about the folks running the store. Or maybe we should anyway, because even if the computer spits out the signs auto-magically, some human has to take the sign and tape it to the products in question. These two photos were taken more than 5 years apart. Why was the "bug" in the software which allows "automatic price reductions" of zero to occur and print out not found and fixed within those 5 years? You can barely make this one out. But it was a food-shoot. It is inside ...

There is a new neighborhood networking community site, over at PortlandNeighborhood.com . Their new community component can be found here: Community @ PortlandNeighborhood Check it out, join up, and start networking your friends and neighborhoods! It is young but has lots of potential!