Author: Brian

To: TriMet Contact Us
From: Brian Moon
Subject: Driver early, inconvenienced riders

TriMet line #33 McLoughlin, Bus ID 2630. Driver was early and knew it because she waited about 5 minutes at SW 1st and Madison before crossing the bridge. Waited again at the Hawthorne Bridge stop (east side of river), then again at the next stop on MLK, while she talked on the phone with dispatch.

While on the phone, another #33 passed us.

There were about 6 passengers on the bus with me. When the driver got off the phone, she let us know that she had to wait for 10 minutes because she was early “and I can’t be that early.”

Driver should have communicated with us about being early BEFORE being passed by the on-time bus.

When I pointed that fact out, the best she could do is tell me I could get off the bus if I was in a hurry. That’s simply adding insult to inconvenience, and very poor customer service.

Good thing I wasn’t kissing anyone or I would’ve been thrown off and blacklisted by the drivers.

There’s something in the air tonight. Is it a full moon? I’ll have to check (sadly, I don’t just automagically know the phase of the moon. That would be a dumb super-power). Is it the fact that the summer solstice was yesterday? Is it the weather – a little sun and warmth and everyone’s suddenly running around with a heightened sense of sociability and friendliness and, dare I say it?, sensuality?

‘Cause I’m feelin’ it, too. And I’ve been putting out feelers here and there, and getting responses like crazy. I smile at an attractive woman and she smiles warmly back. I say “hi” to another one and she says “hi” and pauses to talk, for all the world giving me the impression that she was just waiting for me to say something, or for anybody to say something, to give her the opportunity to interact.

Earlier I was sitting in a coffee shop by the window, employing my male gaze and watching the attractive women go by (and don’t get me wrong, I have a wide variety of tastes. You might be surprised) and the least response I get is a quick, last-minute swiveling of eyes in my direction, to see if, in fact, I was looking their way.

And some of the responses are almost unbalancing, startling me with the hunger and need to be entertained, laid naked and bare with the simplest of opening lines from me. I’m no Casanova. I’m not “smooth” or a player. I’m just a funny guy who’s learning to put aside his fear and take some small chances in the world. I’m trying different things. And it seems that companionship (yes, I’m being vague on purpose – I’m not just talking about the lowest common denominator, but the wide spectrum that the phrase represents) is right out there waiting for me to take, if I want it.

This sudden availability is causing me some whiplash of the heart. It’s challenging my assumptions. And, like the over-thinker I am, I’m trying to pinpoint the reasons, the causes, of this change. When instead I should be reveling in it, rolling in it like I’d roll in clover; itself a phrase that is linked in my mind with love and embrace and crazy childlike joy and, especially especially, with just plain winning.

Here I was, steeling myself to dive into water that I expected to be freezing cold, mentally braced for the iciness and frostbite, telling myself “I can handle it and it will be fine once I’m in there”, taking deep breaths for my plunge to the bottom… only to find that it’s blood warm and buoyant, supporting me on comforting waves. Imagine my surprise.

Imagine my surprise.

Is it illusion? Am I imagining it? How much “real” is this, and how much is like faerie gold, golden yellow at first but turning into dry leaves if I try to spend it?

Aw, poetry. Can I just enjoy the looks, and the “hello’s” and the brief conversations about nothings? Is it enough for my eyes to trace the curve of cleavage only to look up to knowing, smiling eyes? Is it enough to put out a call “is there anyone out there?” and hearing “I’m out here, too”?

Maybe. And maybe the more of those I get, the more of those will advance to the next stage. I’d hate to reduce the music and dance of human interaction to mere numbers – but numbers have their own music, as any geek will tell you – or any musician, for that matter.

I’m so ramble-y tonight. I’m going to go out and prowl the night for a bit before I hie me hence to bed.

And apparently the moon is only 57% full, according to this page.

Everyone who knows me knows I’m a brand loyalist. Apple computers. Levis jeans. And for running, my beloved Brooks shoes.

Sure, I’ve tried other brands of running shoes. Had a pair of Nikes when I was first starting out. Tried Adidas Supernovas, and a pair of Asics Gel GT-2100s at one point. But I always came back to Brooks.

The Adrenaline line has been my personal running touchstone, always in a men’s size 10 EE. But with the Adrenaline GTS 7s… something changed. They were loose, floppy. My feet felt supported but my foot rolled around on top of the support like they were on pillows. And my heel, my right heel, got sore, and painful, and stiff, and in spite of several-times-a-day stretching and icing, almost every day, the pain and stiffness never completely went away.

I knew that the shoes were part of the equation. Tracy just knew that my wearing Chucks, with their complete lack of support, all the freakin’ time I’m not running, might be aggravating the problem – or even causing it in the first place.

With all that in mind, yesterday I wandered into Portland Running Company’s SE Grand store, with Tracy as my chorus and cheering section, to try something different.

Rob was funny, and agreeable (almost too agreeable, actually), and he sniffled a lot (it’s allergy season) but I got the impression that he knew shoes. And after much trying-on and running-while-Rob-watched and shoelace-adjusting and thinking…

…I bought a pair of Nikes.

The Nike Air Structure Triax 10, to be exact.

You thought I was going to say I got the Brooks, didn’t you? It’s OK to admit it. I was surprised myself.

Rob was also able to sell me on some shoe inserts. Biofoam, I believe they’re called. Because of my heel pain, he suggested I needed more support, and I will give them a try. I’m also wearing the inserts in my Chucks – which feels odd and weird but they do seem to help, even after a single day. Tracy likes being right about stuff… and she’s been right about a lot of things lately. She’ll like this being pointed out in “public” (as public as a blog that gets about 500 readers a day is, at any rate…).

Ken and I were on our way to lunch (delicious Taco del Mar) (oh, and Tracy was with us, but she was on a phone call so might not remember), driving down SE Grand Ave.

Ken said “Wowsers” in response to… something. Probably an attractive woman walking by or something. Yes, actually, I’m sure that’s it.

I replied, feeling kinda rhyme-y, much like Fezzik, “Bowsers!” But then I added “…but that’s not really a word.”

“Yes,” Ken said, “it is.” He pointed out the window, in front of us. I saw a large tanker-type truck. “That’s a ‘bowser’.”

“Really?” I was excited at learning a new word.

“Yep,” Ken said. “I drove bowsers all the time in the Air Force. It’s basically a big tank on wheels.”

“Oh, I see. Is that just military slang? I’ve never heard that word before. Is it new? Old?” Anyone who knows me knows I love learning new words.

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. We had these tanks on wheels, fixed in the back, steerable front, and we’d fill them up with fuel and tow them around with trucks.” He paused significantly. “Hence, we called those fuel bowsers.”

“Oh. Oh, cool.” I thought a moment. “So that one” I pointed at the truck, still ahead of us “is a milk bowser?”

Ken nodded. “Yes.”

“And one filled with…” What, I thought, would be an outlandish liquid that you’d cart around in a truck? “…canola oil, would be a canola oil bowser?”

“Right. Though that could also be used as biodiesel.” Ken’s a big proponent of alternative fuels.

We arrived at the restaurant and the conversation shifted to other topics.

All of this is prologue to explain why I sent Ken an email, containing a link to this story from the Oregonian, with nothing else but the phrase

“Pig’s blood bowser!”

in large, friendly red letters.

I hope he laughed out loud when he read it.

As I alluded to earlier, I had an idea for an awesome road trip. I’ve been doing some preliminary planning, and it looks like it would be a bit expensive. I’ve decided to start saving for it, and tentatively plan on doing this next year.

But, what is it, you ask?

I call it, “The Home of the Blues”. The idea is to start in Chicago, and drive south, tracing (basically) back along the Mississippi River all the way to New Orleans, stopping along the way in the towns legendary in American music, representing country, jazz and the blues; St. Louis, Nashville, Memphis, before ending up in Crescent City, my favorite city in the whole wide world.

(Being a baseball fan, I’d likely also make a side trip to Louisville…)

There’s so much to love about this trip, at least for me (Tracy, though a big fan of driving, greets this idea with a shrug – for herself, anyway). Except for the Big Easy, it’s all part of the country that I’ve never seen before. The cities I mentioned are (according to Google Maps) all between 3-5 hours driving time apart, so if I took a week to do this, I’d have about a day in each city to do some sightseeing. And since New Orleans is my all-time favorite, and since anticipation is as much, if not more, of the pleasure, I’d have it to look forward to the entire time.

But riddle me this, Batman: why is a one-way ticket from PDX to ORD more expensive than a one-way ticket from MSY to PDX? That seems odd, though it might be a result of the dates and times I was using to plan my trip.

(Random things one finds out with “teh google” – MSY is the airport code for Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans because the airport was situated on the former grounds of the Moisant Stock Yards, named after a regional aviation pioneer, John Moisant, who crashed there.)

Alas, between a car rental and the two one-way flights, this is out of budget for me on a spur of the moment. I will put it off a year and start saving up for it. That will give me some more time to plan out the stops I’d like to make along the way.

I so want to do this, though.

The average human gets 400 miles per gallon.

So claims this guy.

He figured out how much energy is in a gallon of gas, and then figured out how much energy a human gets and did the conversion and math and stuff and it came out to 400 MPG at 3 miles per hour.

Now that’s some serious blogging. I’m just posting random stuff I make up off the top of my head, or conversations I’ve had. No way I’m gonna do math just for a blog post.

Just to clarify: I’m not actually in Vegas this week. I had to give some notice. I’ll be on vacation the first week in July.

And… I’ve been mulling over a different idea for my vacation, but I don’t want to commit to it in public just yet.

Nothin’ says “summertime is here” like planning a road trip to Vegas.

Where by “planning” I mean telling the boss I’m not coming in for a week, renting a car, grabbing the gold card, and driving south.

Cross-posted from my running blog.

The official results for the Mt. Tabor Challenge 5K are posted.

My official time was 27:59, for a 9:02 average pace. Not my best time, but a solid second-best time.