Running for the Bus

I am more likely to run for the bus in the evening than I am in the morning. The reason is that the bus comes by more often in the morning, so you don't feel the need to run. In the evening, if you miss the bus it could be 20-30 minutes to wait for another one. That said, the bus is more likely to stop for you in the morning if you are not at the stop.

In the morning I have a short walk to and from the bus stop. I walk down my street, then down a set of stairs to Belmont where the bus stops about 150 yards down the street. You have to be on Belmont if you want to catch the bus, there is no way you can run fast enough to catch it if you're on the stairs. In the evening, I walk up 12th to Salmon to catch the bus home, about a 10-15 minute walk. If you are about a block from Salmon and you see the bus, you can catch it if you run fast and you get a little lucky with the light. The problem is the bus drivers won't stop for you if you don't make it to the stop. Yesterday I saw the number 15 approaching as I was coming up 12th (you need to make sure it's your bus, you don't want to run for the wrong bus!) and I took off after it. I made it to the stop just as the light changed but the bus took off. I was pissed because I know the bus driver saw me. I kept after him and caught him at the next stop about a block and a half away. When I go on the bus a few people clapped and one guy said, "nice sprint." I was happy to make the bus, but it was a pretty sweaty ride home.

Battle with the Bike

They say driving a bus is one of the most stressful jobs in the country. Some psychologists put together a matrix that showed the higher your responsibility and the lower your control at your job, the more stressed you were. Bus drivers have a lot of responsibility, they have to keep a few 1000 people safe every day as they drive them around. But they have very little control over their job as the route and the time they have to get around is all dictated by a transit planner. So I was not surprised to see the bus driver go off the other day when someone defied his one little piece of control, the yield sign. I was surprised however that it was a cyclist that was ready to get into a fight with the bus.

When the bus signals that he is leaving the bus stop there is a yield sign that flashes. The law says you must stop and let him out. The other day a cyclist did what most cars do and ignored the yield sign, trying to get around the bus before he could leave. When the bus pulled out the cyclist smacked the bus and yelled at the driver. Usually that is the end of the story, however in a 20 year bus riding first I saw the bus driver stop the bus and go off on the cyclist about how she had broken the law and almost got herself killed. I have to say I was totally with the driver on this one. Too many cyclists disobey traffic laws and then get pissed at drivers when they almost get killed. Today I saw the same cyclist pull up behind the bus and stop. Hopefully she has learned a lesson.

Run DMC - Raising Hell

Obviously Run DMC's take on Walk this Way is the song that blew this record up for white people. You couldn't watch MTV for more than 10 minutes without seeing the video. It was truly the biggest cross-over rap hit there had been up until that time. I would even go as far as to say that this is the record that put rap on mainstream radio. It also changed the way rap had sounded up until then, with the heavy guitars it was a fusion of rock and rap. Walk is not the only game changing song on this record. My Adidas was the beginning of rappers featuring the brands the loved in their songs. Peter Piper, It's Tricky and Proud to be Black have all been endlessly copied, sampled and stolen. This is important record that is also still fun to listen to.

There's no accident too small for paperwork

Ever wonder what happens if the bus gets hit while you are riding it? You get to get off and wait for the next one. Turns out they have to fill out a report no matter how small the accident. Today on the bus, a van clipped the mirror and while it didn't seem like a big deal to me the bus driver went off. He started yelling at the van and then he got up to ask us if we saw what happened, but it was so subtle no one saw a thing. For a moment I felt like we were all denying it happened, but truly a bus getting hit on the mirror doesn't really rock the boat. The good news is we were already downtown so I didn't have to walk too far to work.

Portishead - Dummy

Again this is a band that you should own all their records, which will not set you back too much as they only have three. Speaking of three, Third is the name of their first record in over 10 years and it is an instant classic. But back to the recommendation at hand. If you only have one Portishead record in your collection, it should be Dummy. Beth Gibbons has an amazing voice which is layered over dark, mysterious melodies like an instrument. She sounds like she is in real pain, some kind of futuristic soul singer for the rave generation.

The Human Race

About 30 or so people showed up on Sunday morning to participate in the W+K version of the Human Race. If you haven't heard of it, the idea was to get 1 million people around the world to participate in a 10K run on the same day. There were 26 official race sites, including New York, Austin, Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland in the US. The hope was to spur some competition between countries to see who could register the most runners, have the fastest time, etc. Looks like Portland won the US with an average of 58:33, but Vancouver B.C. edged us out for the North America overall win. I am sure the Portland times were lowered by all the fast people at Nike who hosted a race on campus. It looks like London was the fastest of all the host cities. I should move to Austin or Istanbul, whose average times were closer to my finishing time of 1:28:07, not very impressive. I haven't seen all our times, but at least I was not in last place, I beat Dan Wieden by 1:30! Even though I didn't set any records, it was fun to get out there and get running again.

Nostrana Restaurant

We hadn't been to Nostrana for a long time and we hadn't originally planned to go there last night, but we got a sudden pizza craving and we decided to give them another chance. When they first opened they were awarded restaurant of the year by the Willamette Week. What followed was hour long waits and a sever strain on the already mediocre service. While we always enjoyed the food the service was too bad to bear, so we dropped them from the rotation. Back to the present. We were seated right away, probably due to the holiday weekend, and were pleasantly greeted by one of the long time waitresses who recognized us. We stuck to the stuff we have enjoyed in the past, the Nostrana salad, a radicchio Caesar and the Margareta pizza with prosciutto and arugula. Both looked a little smaller than we remembered, but tasted great. We also had a nice bottle of Barbaresco, my only quibble being the wine list feels a little over priced. In a nice touch the waitress comped out desert, a great pear and Marion berry crisp, which was delicious. She told us they were glad to see us back, and I have to say it worked. I don't think it'll be as long between trips next time.

Nostrana
1401 SE Morrison St

Portland, OR 97214

(503) 234-2427