Monday, June 11, 2018

Well, good morning, starshine! It’s Monday, June 11, 2018. Portland’s weather meanders back to dryness today with a high of 70. It’s a chilly 49 on my deck. Does anyone have any dramatic weather pix from the weekend? Bunch of people got hail, there’s video of some cloud rotation in NE Vancouver, and I saw some scary ragged clouds hanging down over, like, Mollala. I just got my hair rinsed a few times. Felt good.

This deserves note: Today’s sunrise of 5:21 AM is the earliest of the year, and there it will hang for the next eleven days before beginning the slow march in the other direction. I don’t know why we don’t celebrate the earliest sunrise; other high-latitude civilizations do or did. There was a huge festival when we were in Reykjavik a couple of years ago at this time. OK, it turned out to have been Pride Weekend, but still. Sunset tonight is at 8:59 PM, four minutes shy of its latest, which we will attain on the Solstice a week from Thursday.

The ultimate test of President Trump’s claim of being a master deal-maker comes very soon in a face-to-face showdown with Kim Jong-un of North Korea. It begins at 3 PM Pacific in Singapore, where it will already be Tuesday.

A Fox News host apologized for calling it a “meeting between two dictators.”

Tired of the on-again, off-again tapwater alert for Salem, city officials there have decided to keep the water advisory in effect for the next two weeks. It pertains to vulnerable populations only, as the capital city’s leaders insist the water is perfectly safe for everyone else.

Fire demolished the Hillside Bible Church in Forest Grove over the weekend. They had a Sunday morning service anyway, gathered around the ruins.
.
The handsome ships of the Rose Festival fleet depart our fair city between 7 and 10 this morning, requiring the occasional hoist of the Burnside, Steel, and Broadway bridges.

While most students are still no doubt cheerfully and fully engaged in class, it’s the first day of vacation in the Portland Public Schools. Portland students will pay for their early exit by planting themselves back in class on Monday, August 27.

This is the day parking rates go up a few bucks a day at the long-term and economy lots at PDX. MAX is still two and a half bucks each way, no traffic, no parking fees. Total steal. I did it just the other day.

A steering committee today takes a good look at plans now being hatched for light rail in SW Portland, which will someday run from downtown via Barbur to Bridgeport. I only mention this bureaucratic stuff because every time a new MAX line opens, people complain they had no input. A draft environmental impact statement is Googably up for review, it’s full of specifics, and there’s no better time than now to articulate your view. The official public comment period begins Friday.

American network censors hit the bleep button for Robert De Niro but the crowd was on its feet at the Tonys last night, as he shook both fists and dropped an F bomb on President Trump. (He wasn’t, however, bleeped in Australia). “The Band’s Visit” swept the night with ten awards.

Portland Beer Week is underway. Beer Week is actually ten days, because this is Portland and that is beer.

Sure had some good strawberries this weekend!

This is the day in 1977 that Seattle Slew won the Belmont Stakes, capturing the Triple Crown. Very rarely are such dreams justified.

Oregon State and Washington are both headed to the College world Series in lovely Omaha.

Ferris Buehler’s Day Off hit theaters on this day in 1986, and the Beatles’ “Twist and Shout” was soon back on the charts. Folks who related to Ferris and his friends, back in that day, are now…Dad. Mom.

Tell me something GOOD!

–“Family’s pit bull alerts them to house fire, helps drag infant to safety”

–“College student shot by Taliban in 2016 graduates with honors”

–“Restaurant owner who says Anthony Bourdain changed their lives donates profits to suicide hotline”

–“Cardinals rookie using his NFL money to pay off his sister’s student loans”

Ooof…time to roll… today I have to cram a week of work into one day, because I’m having a minor and not even worth talking about outpatient surgical procedure tomorrow. So I’ll be out for the rest of the week, though through boredom or medication, I might start a morning thread, you never know!