This winter is one for the record books.
I love seeing how the sheet of ice coats everything, even if it makes it hard to do many of the things that need to be done. 
Tag: Portland
The birds have been here
Trimet Transit Mall, downtown. I don’t know what brought them all here, but they stayed long enough to make a huge mess.
Not the best thing to see out your window
When the gas leak that caused an explosion that leveled a building is fresh in your mind, it is little comfort to see that you are on the outside of the caution tape of an area that is being evacuated due to a gas leak.
I left early, as did everyone still in my office.
All was fine though. No explosions.
Tiny snowman
When you don’t have enough snow to make a regular snowman, this tiny one will have to do.
Half the sky
Walking over the Steel Bridge this morning.
The east side of Portland has the sun, but the clouds are creeping in from the west side.
Protest sign on sign.
The weekend plan. And some ice.
Apparently there wasn’t much work to do during my work-from-home day. Good thing I could fill the time with tasks.
That 11:00 list? Library, x-mas stamps, grocery shop? That was optimistic. I thought the ice would have melted off by then, but it was just as slick as it was first thing in the morning. I made it to the library and back home, but it was no 20-minute round-trip journey. I made it to New Seasons, but Fred Meyer had to wait until the next day. The Christmas stamps weren’t bought until the next week.
Here’s a backyard visual. It doesn’t look bad, but man, it was tough to walk on. I used my trekking poles and they kept me upright.
Cleaning out the wallet: $900 in TriMet Passes
TriMet monthly passes go on sale on the 20th of the month, so I always buy the upcoming pass while the current pass is still working. This means I put the new pass in my wallet behind the current month pass, and then forget about ever removing the out-of-date passes. 
Theoretically, this is $900 of TriMet transportation. But seeing as how each month is only valid for one month, and then becomes worth zero dollars, you are actually looking at a running total of $900, actual value: nada.
I think the first time I bought a monthly transit pass was for the T in Boston. It was probably 1997, and cost $35.00, or maybe $37.00?
Soon these types of passes will go the way of the dinosaur. TriMet is moving to a refillable card, something I’m not at all happy about.
Here come the decorations
Waiting for the bus, I caught a picture of these women bringing the holiday decorations for Big Pink. It’s a big building, so I guess these decorations will scale nicely wherever they end up.
The two gray lines in the picture are designs in the glass of the bus shelter.
Mural Finished
I recall that I never posted a picture of the finished mural. Here it is. We’ve added some fantastic clouds in a purple sky. I don’t love this mural, but I like it better than a blank wall and I think it fits the occupant of the building (Disjecta Contemporary Art Center) quite nicely.