Mornin’! It’s Monday, July 30, 2018, and while we pour the first cup of the Daily Drip, we spy the very welcome words “significant cooling” in the National Weather Service forecast notes–but not until Wednesday. We maxed out at 99 yesterday. Today is Day Nine of 90-plus, as we aim for 95 to 100. Tomorrow will be Day Ten, and that will tie Portland’s all-time record for consecutive days in this sweltering stew. Wednesday looks like 88, then 75 to 80 starting Thursday. That will feel fine. Sunrise today 5:52 AM, sunset 8:41 PM. Shadows are getting just a little longer.
Smoke from southern fires has been drifting northward, and air quality dipped into “moderate” for Portland late yesterday. It improved overnight, but haze will continue to drift in. We’re counting on a little wind to clear it away late tomorrow. And check this out: computer models indicate that the first week and a half of August may be below-normal in the temp department–and there’s even a possibility of rain
next week.
We’re sending all forms of positive energy–and along with that, we’ve sent Oregon firefighters–to the people in Redding, whose town has suffered incalculable losses from the Carr fire. Six lives were lost, eighteen people are unaccounted for, and 657 homes burned down. The fire’s turned away from town, for now, and evacuees are returning, but other communities are in peril, and more evacuations were ordered from Trinity Dam Road to Douglas City. It’s one of seventeen major fires burning in California.
But here in Oregon, firefighters turned a hot corner on the Long Hollow Fire south of The Dalles: it’s 58 percent contained, at 34,500 acres. Folks are going home. This is happening at the height of the wheat harvest, and it’s believed that a spark from a combine is what touched it off. Almost a quarter of the wheat crop in Wasco County may be lost between this fire and the one last week.
Folks who ducked into Washington Square to flee the heat had to fly right back out again when a grease fire broke out in a roof vent above the food court. The whole mall was evacuated, and TVF&R, Tigard PD, and mall security knew exactly how to do it–they practiced that exact scenario only two weeks ago.
A homeless man was stabbed by another over a barking dog in the middle of the night at Montavilla Park. The suspect is a skinny white guy last seen walking north on 82nd Avenue; the victim should be OK, and somebody else is taking care of his dog.
Traffic reminder to avoid the Banfield: the ramp from 84 westbound to 5 northbound is closed for another week, so bearded hipsters in orange vests with heavily tattooed arms can “craft a highway,” at least according to the ad on the back of TriMet buses.
I ran into a friendly couple at SW 3rd and Taylor Saturday, as they stopped off to slurp water from a Benson Bubbler after riding all over town on those new Bird scooters, and I was trying to find my car. They’d been back and forth across the river, and loved it all. On the other hand, I nearly dinged my Subie trying to make a simple right from SW Main onto 2nd because a stencil on the pavement says the turn lane is for buses only, implying that 2nd is, too, so I veered out of the lane and just barely avoided swapping paint with another car. This city really, really doesn’t want you to drive downtown.
A pretty good thump roiled the waters off the Oregon Coast around 7 Sunday morning, as a 5.3 earthquake was recorded west of Florence. No side-effects of a tsunamic nature.
An emotional end to a tight match on a hot night: the Portland Timbers beat the Houston Dynamo on a tap-in goal in the 80th minute by Nigerian forward Fanendo Adi–in his last night wearing Timbers gear. Reports say that he’s been traded to the expansion MLS club in Cincinnati.
We are 100 days from the November 6 election.
Congressman John Lewis, a lion of the civil rights struggle, is out of the hospital with a clean bill of health following a medical emergency during a flight.
Seen moving and grooving in a VIP suite at a Beyoncé and Jay-Z concert: Michelle and Barack Obama.
A Democrat running for Congress in Virginia accuses her opponent of being a “devotee of Bigfoot erotica.”
Phantom of the Opera is at the Keller all this week
A Florida man carried a live alligator into a convenience store on a Bud Light run. The gator is bad enough, but Bud Light?
Something good, please?
–“Dog named Lucifer saves owner from house fire”
–“Charity shop discovers 70-year-old wartime love letters in donated curtains”
–“DACA recipient starts tortilla factory in Iowa City”
–“12 year minor leaguer, Francisco Arcia, finally gets a chance and sets MLB record with 10 RBI in his first two professional games”
–“Pawn shop buys violin for $50, finds out it’s worth $250,000”
*****
Henry Ford was born this day in 1863, and I want to end this morning’s DD with his words:
“If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right.”
And “Wuthering Heights” author Emily Brontë, born 200 years ago today, said it this way: “Your will shall decide your destiny.”
My immediate destiny is charge into this warm morning and get to work! Yours too, maybe?
Portland's Daily Drip 