After one too many times riding the #75 and feeling deaf and broken afterward, I decided to record what it sounds like on the bus with my iPhone. This is the raw audio. No amplification, modification or anything else. It's only 90 seconds long.
I bring you -- the music of TriMet. (And yes, it is just as deafening and teeth-rattlingly horrible as it sounds.)
I'm sitting in the very sweet bar at the Renaissance Toronto Hotel Downtown. I'm here for a conference and
didn't realize that this is the only hotel in the world that is attached to a stadium. The entire wall of windows in the hotel restaurant and bar run along left field. They have rooms that are above the field, as well. It's like sitting in a huge, air-conditioned luxury box. The Blue Jays are playing the Washington Nationals and they have the audio piped into the bar.
I'm sitting here working on my remarks for the conference while watching the game. Not a bad way to work. This is the view from my table. (Click on it to see a larger view.)
Frank Thomas just hit his 496th home run. The crowd is going nuts.
Well, back to it!
I'm staying at the Doublestink... I mean Doubletree Hotel San Diego/Del Mar. It stinks.
The service is excellent, the price is reasonable, the rooms are well put together and comfortable. The problem is this: I asked for a non-smoking room. I got a room that no one is allowed to smoke in, but that reeks of cigarette smoke. The hallway was smoky and disgusting last night, but the room was fine so I went with it. When I got back to my room tonight it smelled like an R.J. Reynolds convention guest room. And of course all my clothes had been steeping in the rancid smell all day.
It turns out that the opposite end of my floor is a smoking section. What's up with that? Is this 2007—or 1957? It's disgusting.
They moved me two floors up and to the opposite side of the building. I'm smoke free at the Doubletree. But I won't stay at another Doubletree Hotel until they go completely non-smoking.
Overheard at Tiny's Coffee on SE 12th in Portland:
Customer: Is Tiny's a chain?
Barista: There are two locations in Portland.
Customer: Well I'm from Atlanta, Georgia -- as you can tell by the accent -- and we have the Starbucks and Caribou, but nothing like Tiny's. This is so neat!
Barista: Well welcome to Tiny's!
[Editor: Note to self: Never, ever go to Atlanta, Georgia. If forced at gunpoint to go, insist on being allowed to pack a french press. And a pound of Hairbender blend.]
I'm in San Francisco today and saw a woman on the street do something that took me back a few years to a time when I was in Manhattan, mid-dotcom boom.
I was in New York City visiting a client and arranged to meet a friend for dinner. He'd been living there for at least two or three years. We decided to catch a cab to a favorite restaurant. He stepped out to the curb and started waving, whistling and hollering at every single cab that came down the street. And as you can imagine with it being Manhattan—perhaps the taxi capital of the world—there were quite a few. He grew more and more frustrated when none of them pulled over, now waving both arms ever more frantically.
Living in the smaller, public-transit utopia that is Portland, Oregon, I don't have occasion to take cabs much. And he knows this. So I just didn't have the heart to risk embarrassing him by sharing my little secret: If the light on top of the cab isn't lit, it means it's not available!
The small type in the photo here reads "Your Adventure begins here." It's an ad for Chariot Carriers, a brand of child bicycle trailer. I'm just not sure that's the slogan I'd choose for this product. When I'm out pulling my child behind me in a cloth-covered trailer behind my bicycle, I think I want to avoid "Adventure"
(with a capital 'A' no less!) as much as possible...
I've been seeing child bicycle trailers more and more lately. I can see the allure: parents want to get out on their bikes and don't want to leave baby behind. But is it worth the risk? Is baby really into the ride and enjoying it?
It's a clever idea, these trailers. And they look neat, too. But they kind of freak me out. I love my bike and try to ride responsibly. I also own a car. Whether in my car or on my bike I'm aware of how dangerous it is for bicycles on the road. Just yesterday I was in the car with a friend in heavy traffic. She went to take a right turn and, as she was already cranking the wheel and about to step on the gas, a bicycle appeared out of nowhere and went bombing by on our right. If someone had honked or anything else at all had distracted her at that moment, that bicyclist could be in the hospital—or worse. Of course it would have been her fault. But who gives a damn?! There's still someone badly hurt or dead and someone else who will pay the terrible consequences, including having to live with that for the rest of their life. All because a bicyclist decided to take advantage of the letter of the law. The letter of the law won't protect your fragile body from the hard steel of a car. I digress here, but I'm blown away by how many bicyclists I see riding in busy traffic on main thoroughfares (like Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard) when they could just as easily be one or two streets in on one of the bike routes with a fraction of the traffic and far fewer stops.
So back to the child bicycle trailers...
Happy Summer Solstice! Today is the longest day of the year -- and, in San Francisco anyway, one of the most beautiful. It probably hit 80 degrees here today and there wasn't a cloud in the sky.
I went out for lunch with some colleagues. While eating, they told me there was a free concert across the street in Union Square that they wanted to stop by on our way back to the office. Turns out it was India Arie! I own her album Simple and it's excellent. She was wearing pretty much the same outfit she has on in this picture -- including the wings. I heard her perform two of my favorite songs, Brown Skin and Video before we had to head back to the office.
I hear the weather back in my adopted hometown of Portland, Oregon was beautiful today, too. I fly back tomorrow night so I hope it holds out for the weekend...
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