Ironing board follow-up

Oops. I realize I should’ve followed up on the ironing board story. Sorry to leave everyone hanging like that.

When I rode by there two days later it had vanished. The U-lock remains. What does that mean? Will it be back? Usually when people leave an expensive U-lock behind it means they plan to return and they want it there to lock up with.

On the other hand…. might the ironing board have managed to wiggle out of it somehow and escape? Could happen. Especially given the way its foot was bent up already. Easier to slip it through, maybe.

So you see, I’m left hanging too. I can’t give you a definitive answer. But here’s a shout-out to the library staff of the Hollywood branch: Hey ho! If anybody there knows what happened to it, could you write in and let us know?

Wheels do not a shopping cart make

I saw the saddest thing on the train to Gresham this morning. I caught the MAX at the Hollywood Transit Center, as usual. It came at about 9:30. I forget which stop it was -- maybe as far up as 182nd or so -- when the loudspeaker comes on and the voice of the driver, a woman, booms out: "The lady trying to get on with the shopping cart? Shopping carts are NOT ALLOWED on the MAX. You may NOT come aboard with a shopping cart!"

I pictured one of those homeless people trying to bring their huge, overloaded, steel grocery-store cart onto the train, and I thought, wow, someone is actually trying to do that. I always wondered if they ever tried to get on, and what would happen, and now I know.

I looked down the platform till finally I saw a woman get off with..... a cart, yes. But hardly what you would call a shopping cart. She pulled behind her a nylon net pull cart, the kind you might take with you on a walking trip to the grocery store. She looked like she's been on the planet for about fifty five years, and not the easy kind of years.

Good Grief, Trimet!! Get your rules down! It reminded me of the bus drivers not letting me onto the buses with my "bike." For crying out loud, that is obviously NOT what is meant by "shopping cart." Clearly this was a new driver, who'd remembered reading "no shopping carts" somewhere in the rule book and didn't think it through. People get onto those trains every day with suitcases and strollers the size of her pull cart, and bigger.

I really felt for that woman. She was only trying to go to the store -- using the public transportation, like we're always trying to get people to do, right? Except that she probably wasn't using it to be noble, but because she didn't own a car. The cart was empty (you could see through the netting) and she could've collapsed it down flat, but she was too tired, and probably too embarrassed at having been made into a public spectacle, to do anything but trudge away, looking downcast. I hope she tried again and had better luck with the following driver. Anyway I'm going to give Trimet a call in her behalf, because she seemed much too trodden down to even think she had a right to complain.

My Other Broom is an Ironing Board

If you had to choose a household appliance as a means of transportation, wouldn’t you tend to reach for a broom? Who wouldn’t think of that, first thing?

But someone has had a much better idea. Why not an ironing board? Much more comfortable. A plethora of possible riding positions. As good as surfing, if not better.

There’s one parked outside the Hollywood library. It’s locked to the bike rack with an expensive U-lock, so obviously someone cares about it. The landing gear is a little bent, so it’s been around. Clearly not something grabbed in haste for a joy ride and then dumped. Surely the owner will be back for it. But when? It’s been there for several days……

I know it doesn't belong to one of the library employees because I've seen it there early in the morning and late at night.

Another one of mankind's nasty habits infiltrates the animal world

Here's the promised Crow Trying to Smoke a Cigarette essay. This was last October, hence the scruffiness of the grass and the dead leaves in the gutter. Been meaning to post it ever since. I hope you appreciate it because it made me late for work. This seemed more important at the time.....

Hey!

Lemme see that a sec!

I know what's in there!

Got to get the damn thing open....

Come ON, dammit! God I hate the packaging industry!
Grrrrrrrr!
I have so HAD IT with this. Enough already!
To hell with it, I quit.

Oregon summer is here at last

good grief, I can't bear that grey picture another minute, it seems so inappropriate now that the weather is gorgeous.

No time right now, but I've been preparing a photo essay of a crow trying to smoke a cigarette. Don't believe me? Just wait....

The Candle Method

Today was the kind of day that everyone should know about before they do something rash like move to Oregon. Keep in mind that it’s mid-July and this picture was taken at 4:30 in the afternoon.

OK I’m lighting a candle for all the people out there who’ve moved to Oregon by mistake, for whom this kind of weather is Sylvia Plath on a plate.
There. See? When you can do nothing else, you can light a candle. For example if you’re desperate about something and it’s beyond your control and you can’t pray because you don’t believe in it or you don’t know how or you’re not in the mood, or if you’re so mad that you would knock the head off anyone who made such an annoying suggestion, you can light a candle and the candle will do all the work. It’s a Catholic thing, but anyone can use it. The Tibetans have something similar. Tibetan prayer flags. Every time the flag ripples in the breeze, it counts as a prayer.

Stick a candle somewhere, light it, and then you say who or what you’re lighting it for. Even the most avowed heathen can do that. At least it’s something.

PS: Like it says on the box: Never leave a candle unattended: no telling what the cat will do -- burn your house down. If you have safety issues, maybe you need to buy one of those little battery operated candles and just turn it on by the little switch on the bottom.

Here’s a bit from a poem/song by Leonard Cohen called Anthem:

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.

Frequent Light Rail User Weighs in on Proposed Solution

OK everybody! I'm in the newspaper: my opinion about riding the MAX and how to fix it. You can read it here. You'll see it's really tame compared to some of the stuff I've written here, but it sure isn't my purpose to scare the general public away from using the MAX.

Au contraire.

Forget anything bad I've ever said about the MAX and just GET ON IT. That is what will help. Please note that I have not been murdered. I really haven't had any harmful behavior directed specifically at me except for the occasional verbal abuse in response to my occasional POLITE attemps at the behavioral modification of other riders. And then if you consider peeing on the platform and in the elevator harmful, you can count that too. But....change is a'comin! Read all about it.

Brompton takes a bus ride

I recently had a little chat with Trimet on the phone. After my third incidence of bus-driver melt-down over bringing my bike on board -- yes, I am indeed talking about my Brompton foldable -- I felt I had to inform them about their own policies. I received a positive response from the person who took my call when I suggested introducing the topic at their next staff meeting. She sounded completely enthusiastic about the idea and I have no doubt she'll see to it.

As you know, I usually use the MAX train, in combination with my bike. Lately there was some construction going which Tri-met dealt with by providing shuttle buses that ferried passengers past those areas. All the people would disembarked from the train and run over to a waiting bus which then took them to where they could pick up the train again and continue their trip.

To my shock, when I would wheel up to the door of the bus and prepare to fold, I was met with wild protestations from the driver!

Here's a composite of the way it's been going:

Driver: You can't bring that bike on!
Me: It's ok, I'm going to fold it down. [I flip the back wheel under.]
Driver: Nope! Sorry. NO BIKES on the bus.
Me: But wait! [I'm unscrewing the middle bolt.]
It folds way down! [I swing the front wheel to the back.]
Driver: I don't care what it does, NO BIKES ON THE BUS!
Me: What do you mean? [I push the seat all the way down on its post.]
This exact bike has been advertised on the side of tri-met buses! [I'm unscrewing the handlebar hinge.]
Driver: Yeah, well I haven't seen that.
Me: That's because you're always IN the bus. You can only see it if you're outside the bus. [by now I've collapsed it all the way down now, to its foldup size of a large typewriter.]
Driver: OK, so now where do you think you're going to put it?
Me: I'm going to keep it right next to me, just like a baby stroller, only much MUCH smaller.
Driver: Yeah, well what if everybody gets one of those?
Me: That would be a good thing. Tri met wants people to buy these. Really! I'm not making this up! If you call Trimet security right now, they won't come.

In each instance, I boarded the bus anyway. I don't like to be a smarty pants or anything... however..... since I knew without doubt that I was right, I made an exception and flouted authority.

I did not get kicked off. No one called security. But like I said, I later called Tri-Met to inform them of the discrepancy and they said they'd take care of it. Good grief, I don't want to have to do battle every time I board a bus. One driver even said I'd have to put it on the front rack. Can you imagine? That would be like trying to pick up a baby with a forklift.

I guess the drivers don't read about Trimet in the papers. If they did, they would've seen that foldups have been frequently mentioned as a great solution.