Ghost Town

Act I: Missed the train this morning, so I walked back to our building and drove to work. Act II: After school, I actually forgot that I had driven and took the MAX home. Act III: In preparation to go meet Montana for our night out, I took the dogs for a walk. I noticed that our car was missing from its space. What?! Was it stolen? Did I rent it out and forget I did so? No, you idiot, you left it in the Benson High School parking lot. What to do? It's Friday night, so all of the Cars2go within a thirty block radius have been sucked up by PSU students. So, me, I'm back on the train, riding over to Benson and hoping I can retrieve our car in time to meet Montana. Singing those ole multimodal transportation blues. #PDXproblems

An Idaho prof asks a very serious question. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/28/opinion/when-may-i-shoot-a-student.html

Trimet has lost half of this train!

Clyde.

Clyde.

Somebody gave Bill Roberts crazy eyes.

I'm sure we could think of a few more... http://www.wweek.com/portland/article-22064-26_reasons_to_love_portland_right_now.html

Last weekend for the winter market. Then two hellish weeks with no farmers market at all before the big one opens downstairs from my building. If we live until then, we can survive until the end of this Portland winter. http://www.portlandfarmersmarket.org

I am going to document here for the NSA, IRS, and whoever else might be listening in from that sector: When I typed "getaround tax" into Google, I was trying to find out how we pay our taxes on our income from renting out our car through getaround.com . I believe in paying our fair share of taxes. I wasn't-- as one might guess from the first two pages of results that Google returned-- trying to learn how to get around paying our taxes at all.

My wife and I are visiting our northern neighbor next weekend. What are some must-dos on a weekend in Seattle? We've only been once, and did the most obvious touristy things that time (Pike Place, monorail, EMP, water taxi).

Snowpocalyptic Ankeny Alley: mail carriers in shorts and Voodoo Doughnuts with no line.

Clyde.

Austin.

Austin introduces himself to a snowman in the park.

I learned something today. My MAX ride home was slow, and I knew the buses were also running slowly, so I made the foolhardy decision to go pick my wife up at UP. It turned into a two-hour epic journey. We finally made it back downtown and I was driving down 11th, where the streetcar runs. It's a one-way, and we saw a car stopped facing us, which was kind of ominous. I dodged the wrong-way car and then started sliding and eventually got stuck. There were about three cars unable to move on that block. Then a couple of guys came over and told me to turn to the right and get on the streetcar tracks, as I'd be able to get better traction there. And it was true! We were able to drive the rest of the way down 11th on the tracks. So if you are foolish enough to be trying to drive in these icy conditions, try to find some streetcar tracks, I guess.

Hope I don't get towed.