Things I'll Miss About Oregon: Volume 7 [Full Service Gas]

Oregon State Law does not allow self-service gas stations. While the intent of this is to create more jobs for the often-depressed economy, a residual benefit is that I don't have to get out of the car in the rain to pump my own gas. Hooray for me being lazy.

A lingering downside to the law is that most people who pump gas, especially in the Portland Metro area, are either 12-years-old and scratch my car or are meth-addicts, with few or no teeth. The funny thing is that gas in Oregon is generally cheaper than across the river in Washington, even though it's self-serve up there. I guess meth-heads work on the cheap.

Not the meth-head who pumps my gas.

[Here's a fun little project: go to Google Images and search meth-head. Look who's picture #1]

Things I'll Miss About Oregon: Volume 4 [New Seasons]

[I wonder if we'll average one of these posts per day before we leave. I'll certainly do my part to get there.]

We live 8 blocks away from New Seasons, a local, Portland only grocery store that we frequent almost daily; we prefer to shop in the European style. Many of our finest meals have started or been enhanced here. And they have fantastic weekly tastings.

Now all of you are probably thinking 'I'm sure it's some super high-end, organic only, straight-from-the-farmer store. When did those 2 turn into such high-end yuppies?' Well, you'd kind of be right.

But the great thing about New Seasons is that not only can you get grass-fed, hand-massaged, don't-walk-too-fast-but-feel-free-to-wander-because-we-love-you beef, but right next to the organic peanut butter is the Jif. Next to the organic locally grown potato chips are the Lays. This place has all the cool stuff of Whole Foods, but cheaper. And all the ease of Fred Meyer (or Johnny's Foodmaster or Stop & Shop), but with less moldy carpets.

I went there earlier tonight, and had this fantastic series of events, all of which are way funnier in my head than on this screen:

I walk in and do my shopping: quesadillas and chips & salsa for dinner, so some tortillas, cheese, and chips & salsa. No problem. So, as my cashier, a 40-something balding guy, is checking me out, this middle-age guy wearing overalls and dust all over his face, walks up with two 30 packs of Pepsi and a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon. This was the exchange that followed:

Cashier: That'll be $19.24. On the card...
Me: um, ya...
Overalls (out of nowhere): 'got a call from the kids this afternoon, askin for some pepsi...i said, we gots two 30 packs sittin out back on the deck, drink them. but they said, nope, tweakers got em.
Cashier: Oh, those tweakers. (to me) Sign here.
Overalls: so i went backs there, and wouldn't you know, them tweakers stole them two 30 packs of pepsi. and they got away with 40 yards of copper wire [quick note: why did this guy have a spool of copper wire on his back deck? maybe he was an electrician?] [quick note 2: tweakers steal copper wiring from everywhere out here: roofs, schools, power substations, downspouts. then they sell the metal to the scrap yards for more meth! yay!]. damn tweakers.
Cashier: (with a total blank look, having no idea what this guy is talking about) Oh, those tweakers.
Me: Thanks (running out of the store).

As I was leaving a saw a dog that had dreadlocks. Only in Portland. And maybe Vermont.

Not the dog with dreadlocks I saw.

I'm sure Kimberly will have something to say about New Seasons, since she used to work there and is the one who introduced me to its greatness.

Sometimes, It Ain't So Bad

Sometimes my job is pretty cool, especially when I get to go on rooftops of tall buildings. The subject building is 12 stories tall, located right on the major east-west thoroughfare on the edge of the coolest, hippest part of the City, the Pearl. It was built 2 years ago and won a bunch of awards for Architectural Design, Sustainable Green Architecture, etc, etc, etc. Its a jewel in the City's affordable housing crown.

This building contains over 150 affordable housing units; I think technically, they're apartments, but it seemed more like a half way house. There were some sketchy characters walking around.

The marketing plan for our current client - let's call them "Captain Hook" - is to focus on low-income and minority users; they're not shy about letting people know that this is their plan. We didn't know it, but we were walking right into the middle of Captain Hook's target market.

A few of the guys had on their Captain Hook jackets, showing off what I have to admit is a pretty cool logo. It started while we were gathering outside.

"Captain Hook! I just got you and I love you." Cool.

"Captain Hook! What are you doing here? I love you." We're putting up a new site. Thanks.

"Captain Hook! I should advertise for you. You guys sell to poor folks - I know lots of people." OK, that's a little weird. And yes, that is our target market, in fewer words than we prefer. Thanks though. [Half of our group had to ride in an elevator with this guy - I wish I could have squeezed on that car just to hear his advertising pitch and to see the looks on the faces of my team members.]

"Captain Hook! No credit check, so no one knows if I'm using a fake name. This is the best thing to happen to my business since the pager." Target market reached.

Anyways, back to the original reason for this story: building rooftops. Its been snowy here, so the views weren't the best on this day. But its always fun to be up there and pretend you're cool because you can look down on people.

That's a bridge in the not so distant distance.

But there was this!

Large, antenna array.

I've heard that those are the microwave links for all telephones from Portland to Seattle and San Fransisco and Boise and the rest of the world - it's how we stay connected here in Bridge City. It is shooting out thousands upon thousands of Watts at all times of the day. I was standing almost directly in front of it for, I don't know, 30 minutes. If I had a canary (or a radar badge), it would have been chirping out of control. And now I can't have kids - sorry wife :(

On a lighter note, our architect got locked in a stairwell and couldn't get out: the door at the top and to all the hallways were locked, the door at the bottom alarmed. He banged on a door for 30 minutes until one of the "residents" opened the locked door for him. If I were him, I don't know if I would be more annoyed that: (a) none of my "team" members noticed I was missing for 30 minutes or (b) my fate lay in the hands of a sketchy character in a sketchy building in a locked stairwell. He was surprisingly chipper for the experience. And he did say he found a bottle of wine in the staircase. I don't thik he took it, although I don't know why.