Wednesday, October 18, 2017

A very pleasant Good Morning to you! Time for a quick 5-minute readup we call the Daily Drip for Wednesday, October 18, 2017. It will be windy and it could rain some today, with highs of 62. But then we tap into a long stream of stormy stuff that extends all the way from Asia, and between Thursday and Sunday we could get over two inches of rain in Portland. Maybe twice that in Seattle. A high wind warning begins at noon today at the coast. Sunrise 7:31 AM. Sunset 6:19 PM

Maybe these storms will hit the reset button on the Oregon Coast, which is coming off a strange summer. They’ve got a dead zone between Florence and Newport, with unexpected fish and weird creatures.

We saw the effect of the extreme weather in Oregon’s September unemployment report, when the state lost 3800 jobs, and the unemployment rate went up a blip to 4.2. The sector that suffered the most is the hospitality biz, including the inns and eateries who lost a month to the many wildfires.

The California wildfires are now officially the worst in state history. But with firefighters gaining the upper hand, some Oregon Strike Teams have returned, while others are getting ready to. Pacific Power line crews are there now, restoring the lights in burned communities.

According to the White House, President Trump “spoke to the families of those KIA in Niger to offer condolences on behalf of our country.” But a Democratic Congresswoman who was riding in the car when the president reached one widow says Trump told her, “He knew what he was getting into, but I guess it still hurt.”

With baseball’s off-season fast approaching (especially for us Cub fans, with the Dodgers now up 3-0), here’s something to dream on around the hot stove…or rage against on the Internet…veteran MLB columnist Tracy Ringolsby, in Baseball America, reports that big-league ball for Portland is on a fast track, and: “There is a legitimate ownership group in Portland that has the necessary financing along with support for a stadium.” No names. MLB has already said that Portland will be on the short list for expansion. And the legislature years ago created a $150 million bond for a stadium that would be paid by a tax on player and executive salaries. $150 million is not nearly enough for a stadium. If they want public money, they have a very hard sell.

The Portland Trail Blazers begin the NBA regular season tonight on the road against Phoenix. 7 PM on Rip City Radio (620). Scott Lynn’s at the mic until Wheels gets better.

I hate to debunk something so funny, but the photo supposedly from a Portland neighborhood Facebook group, showing somebody washing what they think is a lost dog, but is really a coyote (“he’s really dirty, and a little aggressive”)…is a joke from out of state….

The owner of a pony found wandering near Vancouver Mall has sheepishly come forward, saying somebody had left a gate open…

A woman is suing Ashland’s Standing Stone Brewing Company is over a skewer than she swallowed along with her lamb-burger that left her with serious health problems.

Aside from last weekend’s Oregon Symphony performance of Shostakovich’s Fith, the highlight of Portland’s concert week is that Knuckle Puck plays at the Hawthorne tonight.

A paranormal investigator says there have been some major Bigfoot sightings in California, with five of the creatures running on a ranch near Avocado Lake in Fresno County. One seemed to have a pig over his shoulder.

Archeologists are puzzling over something they’ve noticed in a Google Earth photograph from high over the deserts of Saudi Arabia: what looks like “gates,” up to 1700 feet long, carved in stone, and invisible only from high altitude.

So…that’s the early morning edition of the DD! What’s up on your planet?