Monday, October 22, 2018

Good morning! Here we are popping out of a brilliant fall weekend and into an eventually sunny Monday, October 22, 2018. It’s Day 295, with 70 left to go in 2018. Fog has wrapped itself into the treetops and pumpkin fields, but the day will mature into a fair and lovely 70 degrees. Tomorrow’s the day of the downturn, with light rain developing in the afternoon and highs of 62. Sunrise today 7:36 AM, sunset at 6:12 PM. We lose exactly three minutes of daylight today.

A head-on crash caused by a wrong way driver shut down I-5 in the Terwilliger Curves overnight.

A Hillsboro officer and a teenage cadet were injured when they were hit in an intersection by a car whose driver didn’t heed their red lights and siren.

There’s an air stagnation advisory east of the Cascades, where high pressure is trapping pollutants close to the ground, and air quality will be moderate to unhealthy, at least until the front blows in on Tuesday. The air on the west side of the mountains isn’t a crystalline blue, either–Portland’s air quality index at sundown was 80, in the moderate range. I unwittingly picked Saturday night to light a campfire in the pit out back and listen to the Ducks on the radio.

Anybody notice a weird smell downtown? Like vinyl burning, or maybe something electrical? I’m seeing internet posts with reports from the Broadway Bridge to 10th and Alder. It may be related to the stagnant air; maybe something industrial, or burning tires or a radio daddio, warming his hands and listening to the Ducks tank their Pac 12 title hopes.

Police are trying to find a homeless man who might have been shot by someone he’d confronted on the Springwater Trail at the SE Lambert crossing. It’s unknown whether the bullet hit the man, who ran into a homeless camp and disappeared. The shooter says it was self-defense, and he called 911 himself.

A Portland Police officer shot and killed a pit bull who was chasing firefighters as they tried to battle a brush fire near 111th and Holgate, east of 205.

Clark College, the 14,000-student public institution in Vancouver, has blown off an entire day and evening’s worth of classes to avoid the kind of trouble that Patriot Prayer seems to attract to its rallies, one of which is scheduled on campus today at noon. The message from President Bob Knight reads in part: “Given the history of violence associated with this group, as well as with the groups that often appear in reaction to it… we feel that suspending operations is our most prudent course of action.” Some students appreciate that prudence, while online posts by others point out that it’s midterm exam season, and they need the class time to learn the material.

Both the Ducks and the Beavers are smarting after those nightmarish football games. I’d rather talk about what happened at Autzen Stadium the week before–during the Oregon win over Washington. At a break in the game, a young Army veteran named Matthew Van Hook was brought onto the field to be honored for his service in the military, He’s now an MBA student at Oregon and dealing with PTSD. His fiance Makenzie Kruger–ironically, a proud UW graduate–looked on lovingly as the crowd cheered for him. But the cheers grew even louder, and her jaw dropped wide, when he took a knee and asked for her hand in marriage. Loud noises like crowds tend to set off his PTSD, says Matthew, so he just focused on making it about her, not him. Always wise advice.

Thank you to all the folks who turned out for the walk/run in Tualatin on Saturday, to raise funds for scholarships in the name of Matt Lembke, the local high school graduate who lost his life on the battlefield in Afghanistan but continues to have a major and positive effect on people today. And a shout out to all K103 morning listeners and Daily Drip readers who came over to say Hey! “We love STJ and TMSG” is something I heard over and over!

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Numbering seven thousand, the northbound group of mostly Honduran immigrants has crossed into Mexico, on their way to what they’d hoped would be a life free of violence from drug lords and gangs; President Trump has vowed to stop them from entering the US, even if it means bringing in the military to do it.

A magnitude 6.8 quake jarred the ocean floor off Vancouver Island last night. But it was not a Cascadia Subduction Zone quake, and we’ve received no tsunami warnings.

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Thai Airways is apologizing after a flight from Zurich to Bankok was delayed two hours because two off-duty pilots demanded first class seats while the cabin was completely sold out. The plane was only able to take off after two passengers agreed to a bump down.

Nine members of a southern California drug ring have been indicted for trying to ship 25 pounds of meth disguised as Aztec calendars.

A 72-year old man in India has been ‘stoned to death’ by a group of “rogue” monkeys who threw bricks at him from a tree. Monkey attacks have been on the rise throughout the country.

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Don’t know about you…but I could use something a little smileworthy!

–“Political rivals stun voters with unexpected guitar-cello duet”

–“She called off her wedding — then gave it away to a bride she had never met”

–“Sheriff deputy wins 1K in a raffle, donates winnings to hurricane relief”

–“Dad lets 3-yr-old daughter choose her picture day outfit..what could go wrong?”

–“Tesla is working on a ‘dog mode’ to keep your puppies safe and cool inside vehicles”

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Well, I was able to write that much before the BC Tel pulled the cable on the internet for maintenance. So I’ll come back shortly and add stories that didn’t make it in under the wire.