It's that time of year again...
Jun. 10th, 2017 03:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kengrFriday I went to run some errands. Mostly a trip to the hardware store to get a nut for the grabber thingie I bought a while back. I need that to get stuff off the floor without having to bend over, or worse kneel down.
I'd been picking up some recycling that'd spilled from the bag it was in, and all of a sudden "Spung!" one of the two suction cup shaped things was gone.
After some search I found it,but not the acorn nut that had held it on. Since I'm trying to get the place presentable in anticipation of the "annual" inspection (I use quotes because this is the one by the management company, there's another one by HUD later in the year, and sometimes others) I needed to get it working again.
Getting the 71 to the Parkrose transit center was easy. But once there, texting the Tri-Met info number with the stop ID said the next 21 was "scheduled" for half an hour from then. When it says "scheduled" instead of how many minutes that either means the bus in question doesn't have GPS (so they don't know exactly where it is) or (rarely) that there's problem.
The time came and went. Finally the *next* bus (which also showed "scheduled" (WTF?) showed up.
Note that the driver of the 71 had said there were some sort of problems, including one lane of I-84 being close. and there'd been an insane amount of traffic on Sandy.
Any, t was only a few minutes to the hardware store.
I found the nut with the help of one of the staff and got two, just in case. After all, I still don't know *why* the original one came off!
I'd also asked if they had any grabbers. They did. They had a different sort one of which was longer and *cheaper* than the one I had. It also had a different gripping mechanism than the first, which I thought might work better for things the original had trouble grabbing. (It does!)
I got a couple other things and headed out of the store. I saw the 21 near where I thought the stop was. It was already a bit past it but stuck in the heavy traffic. By the time I got to the sidewalk it had advanced maybe 1050 feet, so I took a chance and got the driver's attention.
He was kind enough to let me on, though he did grump about "you know there's not a stop there?" I said yes and apologized, but noted that he *had* been stuck in traffic so it seemed worth trying.
Got to the transit center (after much longer than usual due to the *heavy* traffic. Fortunately there was a 71 there and the driver was on break. I scooted across (it'd started raining while I was on the 21).
Traffic wasn't that bad on Prescott so I got home fairly fast. Had to try dodging raindrops to get from the stop to the apartment.
I turned on the news and put things away.
Then I found out why the traffic and buses had been so bad. Part of it I'd sort of expected. It's Rose Festival (or as a late friend called it Gross Vegetable) and the fleet was coming in. Or as some folk's in Portland joke "the sailors are coming upstream to spawn" :-)
So several of the downtown bridges had to open repeatedly to let the ships get upriver to dock at the seawall. But there was more to it. Some asshole had left a backpack at the Max platform at the Hollywood transit center (or possibly on a train there) then he'd called it in as a suspicious package.
So they closed the adjacent freeway lanes and streets while the bomb squad checked things out. Then they had to check *all* the other trains and buses. No wonder things were delayed! Ditto for the weird traffic patterns.
I suspect that he may be in for quite a surprise. The laws about calling in bomb threats have the *same* penalties whether there's an actual bomb or not.
I also realized that several other errands I'd planned for this weekend are going to have to wait. I wanted to hit Saturday Market, but with it being right next to the Rose Festival "Fun Center" that's a no-go. The crowds would be insane. Ditto for hauling a few things to my storage locker It's too close to downtown and the buses will be packed.
Oh well, I can do more stuff around the apartment.
Which brings me to another not fun realization. My bike was stolen from the hall outside my apartment door back in November(?) of 2015. Losing it meant I didn't go out nearly as much as I used to. And I hadn't realized how far out of shaped I'd gotten until I had to do more running around recently. I'm in *pitifully* poor shape.
The bike I'd been planning to get fixed and use until I can afford a new one turned out to be in worse shape than I thought, it it got junked.
Fay has offered to let me use her bike, but I'll probably have to at least get a lock for it, and probably get it tuned up. So that will wait until next month at least.
The hardware store trip plus a few other recent ones, have me looking at air conditioners. Looks like I can get something decent with the money I have on hand. Gonna get a portable so I don't have to have the apartment handyman install it in the window (a fair sized hassle).
Several good prospects, but getting them home may be a problem. Several places do online sales and free deliveryy but that pushes the arrival near the end of the month. Oh well, I'll figure something out.
Back to cleaning...
I'd been picking up some recycling that'd spilled from the bag it was in, and all of a sudden "Spung!" one of the two suction cup shaped things was gone.
After some search I found it,but not the acorn nut that had held it on. Since I'm trying to get the place presentable in anticipation of the "annual" inspection (I use quotes because this is the one by the management company, there's another one by HUD later in the year, and sometimes others) I needed to get it working again.
Getting the 71 to the Parkrose transit center was easy. But once there, texting the Tri-Met info number with the stop ID said the next 21 was "scheduled" for half an hour from then. When it says "scheduled" instead of how many minutes that either means the bus in question doesn't have GPS (so they don't know exactly where it is) or (rarely) that there's problem.
The time came and went. Finally the *next* bus (which also showed "scheduled" (WTF?) showed up.
Note that the driver of the 71 had said there were some sort of problems, including one lane of I-84 being close. and there'd been an insane amount of traffic on Sandy.
Any, t was only a few minutes to the hardware store.
I found the nut with the help of one of the staff and got two, just in case. After all, I still don't know *why* the original one came off!
I'd also asked if they had any grabbers. They did. They had a different sort one of which was longer and *cheaper* than the one I had. It also had a different gripping mechanism than the first, which I thought might work better for things the original had trouble grabbing. (It does!)
I got a couple other things and headed out of the store. I saw the 21 near where I thought the stop was. It was already a bit past it but stuck in the heavy traffic. By the time I got to the sidewalk it had advanced maybe 1050 feet, so I took a chance and got the driver's attention.
He was kind enough to let me on, though he did grump about "you know there's not a stop there?" I said yes and apologized, but noted that he *had* been stuck in traffic so it seemed worth trying.
Got to the transit center (after much longer than usual due to the *heavy* traffic. Fortunately there was a 71 there and the driver was on break. I scooted across (it'd started raining while I was on the 21).
Traffic wasn't that bad on Prescott so I got home fairly fast. Had to try dodging raindrops to get from the stop to the apartment.
I turned on the news and put things away.
Then I found out why the traffic and buses had been so bad. Part of it I'd sort of expected. It's Rose Festival (or as a late friend called it Gross Vegetable) and the fleet was coming in. Or as some folk's in Portland joke "the sailors are coming upstream to spawn" :-)
So several of the downtown bridges had to open repeatedly to let the ships get upriver to dock at the seawall. But there was more to it. Some asshole had left a backpack at the Max platform at the Hollywood transit center (or possibly on a train there) then he'd called it in as a suspicious package.
So they closed the adjacent freeway lanes and streets while the bomb squad checked things out. Then they had to check *all* the other trains and buses. No wonder things were delayed! Ditto for the weird traffic patterns.
I suspect that he may be in for quite a surprise. The laws about calling in bomb threats have the *same* penalties whether there's an actual bomb or not.
I also realized that several other errands I'd planned for this weekend are going to have to wait. I wanted to hit Saturday Market, but with it being right next to the Rose Festival "Fun Center" that's a no-go. The crowds would be insane. Ditto for hauling a few things to my storage locker It's too close to downtown and the buses will be packed.
Oh well, I can do more stuff around the apartment.
Which brings me to another not fun realization. My bike was stolen from the hall outside my apartment door back in November(?) of 2015. Losing it meant I didn't go out nearly as much as I used to. And I hadn't realized how far out of shaped I'd gotten until I had to do more running around recently. I'm in *pitifully* poor shape.
The bike I'd been planning to get fixed and use until I can afford a new one turned out to be in worse shape than I thought, it it got junked.
Fay has offered to let me use her bike, but I'll probably have to at least get a lock for it, and probably get it tuned up. So that will wait until next month at least.
The hardware store trip plus a few other recent ones, have me looking at air conditioners. Looks like I can get something decent with the money I have on hand. Gonna get a portable so I don't have to have the apartment handyman install it in the window (a fair sized hassle).
Several good prospects, but getting them home may be a problem. Several places do online sales and free deliveryy but that pushes the arrival near the end of the month. Oh well, I'll figure something out.
Back to cleaning...
