* Oregon's a big state geographically, but not, um, knowing-people-ally. Latest it's-a-small-state-after-all example: Me walking into my office building this morning next to a woman who looked at me and asked "Have we met?" "Uh," I replied, "I look kind of generic." Turned out the woman in question was a librarian at the high school in Hermiston, Oregon, where I was a writer-reporter on the school beat for three years. And yay, she remembered me happily. (Had it been a particular Umatilla Chemical Depot commander I had dealings with, a man I once described as "J.T. Walsh without the charm," it would've been a much different and far more uncomfortable encounter.)
* Before that, I rode my bus through the fog to Southwest Portland, and that fog hid the Portland Aerial Tram even better than David Copperfield hid the Statue of Liberty. I watched for the first glimpse of the lower tower's sleek edifice rising above I-5 and SW Macadam, and finally, like in a suspenseful moment in a film, the tower slowly faded into view. Dramatic, yo. A few minutes later I boarded the tram car. "You won't believe it," the car operator said, "but it's clear at the top." And soon after the car passed the lower tower, with a gauzy view below us of the freeway traffic moving past, we did start to lift up out of the cloud layer. Sun-lit cloudy beauty commenced, with the sun rising near Mt. Hood and the tram cables seeming to be swallowed up by the fog. And I wished I had a functioning camera with me. Plenty of photographers who indeed had functioning cameras were at the upper tram station, snapping shot after shot of the fog-laced panorama. I lingered at the station to soak in the view. Now THAT'S a way to start the day! As the operator also said, "I'm getting paid to watch this."
* Oh, and finally for now, this week's Portland Mercury wants you to rawwwwwwwwwwk! Grarrrrrrrrrrrr! *throws metal horns*
*throws out his back attempting to throw metal horns*