IS there a person that is lovely?

Do you have a neighbor, a friend, a person for whom you know is out there and just needs a simply hour of a week, a day or a few minutes of one's time? May be some one whom is in a skilled nursing home?

Like a child whom over the last twenty years has just been dumped in front a television or computer, some of the older generation choose this fate as well. Spending un-needingly on paid chat phone lines, buying junk from home shopping networks or are wheelchair bound and could simply use a case of the some one thought or prayed for them?

If you have been a reader of any blog or of mine, I ask one thing of you :)

Please, go find that heart that is within you. Call that far away neighbor, email that aunt or sister you have not had time to say some thing wonderful to in a long time. May be it is son or daughter in another state? Or with an ex-husband out on a weekend retreat with the children.

Or help that Grand child write a wonderful letter or paint a picture for Mom or Dad whom may be overseas? May be you know some one whom just needs a few minutes of your day to Hello, thank you? Hi THERE!?!?!

You never know what a few minutes of your time can mean in the attention starvation that happens in today's world, where a little can mean so much.

After breakfast this morning, I plan to do such. I plan on going to a skilled nursing facility to see a sick family member, then I shall board a local C-tran bus and say hello to not just the driver, but to look down the aisles and let every one see in my eyes that same verbal hello meant some thing.

MY goal for this whole day is to simply and justly, try to put smiles on as many faces as I can! And what harm could one special memory of a person you helped create by one simple act of kindness?

SnoozeMedia, are you considering?

I want it to be known that I support quality journalism. the Seattle Times in Mid March will be erecting an online barrier to encourage people to subscribe. Will this have an effect on their web site traffic? Will it have an effect on the pop-unders and overs and other ad graffiti I find coming from their site?

If you read in the latest edition of the Seattle Times, they have laid out the reasons of why they are putting in a paywall like the New York Times and many other online media that are focused on the bottom line. Their ink based medium simply cannot pay for its basis any more. And neither can the ad supported online editions either.

So to be fair to the people that pay for the online edition of the Seattle Times, they are activating an online block from random readers or mass online consumers of their site without paying for the work that their company put their hard earned time into.

Some may not agree with my sentiments. And that is fine and their right to not go to the Seattle Times and consume the content posted there or post in their online forums or associate with the blogger core they have.

But my concern was if the local newspaper of Clark County was considering erecting a similar paywall to content on their site. I know through the use of multiple ad trackers and web design widgets they use, that they are certainly and acutely aware from where their online customers come from, to what areas they haunt and if they are associated content makers of their site.

So their web development or IT infrastructure is sure to know some basic statistics of what is important to their readers? And if it is not enough, the editor lovingly loves to host coffee parties in downtown Vancouver with the who's who of local rabble scratch to find out what is going on and what people think?

And if you think he DOES not know enough, why get on the horn blower or through some form of other means and let him know how you feel? He always LOVES to hear from his readers! If you don't know, do a search on Press Talk through one of the various search engines!

That is his weekly attempt at humorous applause and thoughts of what has happened during the week or to address issues he feel are necessary to comment on without having a fully paid PR person standing next to him with a crayola set ready to tell him how to improve it...


My question and concern is and he can address well next week in his column, does he think the paper will ever consider a pay-wall for the paper, if finances get so bad, they have no option.

Folks, remember. The owners have already gone bankrupt once over a really nice building they built next door. So if it may happen again, it might be really serious. I would go wave at the city hall they built FREE for them the next time you are in the area...

I am just not sure pay walls will help this industry, financially. Either for the Seattle Times or the newspaper of record? All they are doing is simply just causing the new readership to go elsewhere to consume news... 

Let me say it in the best way I can. When I am up in Seattle, I tend to pick up a paper or two. And if I could afford a subscription, I might just drop one for a Sunday edition - online edition. It is worth it to me.

But for what I see from the local newspaper week after week? One has to creating a comedy train wreck if they think I will spend one iota for a digital subscription.....

What I really think: the CRC of twenty years...

What I really think about the Columbia River Crossing project?

For the years I have attended the meetings and there are very few than I (with the exception of former local politicians?) I have been concerned about the presentations offered. Any one hear about the local high capacity transit study done by the SWRTC that justified the use of Light Rail and BRT going forward?

I was really angered about the repeated ignoring by the task force, project sponsors council and various other sub committees in how they handled and at one point, if my memory serves me right, the project sponsors council "ignored" it.  I may have to go look back through my memory banks and notes, because I believe this is what happened. BUT unless I have proof, it has no merit or consequence on this project.

All I have ever wanted to see from this project is three goals"

"Deliver a project that handles the traffic flow between our communities that is: Efficient, Effective and broad enough to help us into the years we will be paying for it?"

That is what I said in 2008 to several local officials involved in the project. Now what concerns me most, is the local politicians of various stripes are again ignoring the locals. Jut brush them aside like they are dirt on the floor and get on with the project like they have no thought or feelings.

Folks, we may be paying for this bridge going into thirty years from now. I probably will be in my seventies by the time it may be even close to paying off the principal and interest on the bonds held in trust for this bridge.

I really want some thing that isn't built and smells of special interests for the past twenty years getting its way from both sides of the river. And every one crossing the bridge will have to pay until 2050+ for it?

Thank you Governor Inslee...

If you would like to know what imperative Governor Jay Inslee thinks about the Columbia River Crossing and the transportation budget, please jump to about fifteen minutes into this linked video. And he also goes into what he thinks about light rail and his new transportation secretary from the Clackamas County commission..

SnoozeMedia, why do you? White courtesy phone, please...

If you take a look at the new blogging platform template being used over at the SnoozeMedia (tm) like over at the APIL or All Politics is Local  looks very similar to similar blogs hosted through Google, which I and several other local bloggers use to publish various commentaries. on various subjects. So why would the local newspaper of record want to copy the same template? or blogging platform?

Or did they move the whole blogging platform to Google's Blogger? I would curiously like to know the answer?

Portland's own Malcontent...

Well, if you need to read some one with a little bit of a nice hell bent from the multnomah village economy and axe grind, please head over to Jack Bogdanski's blog. He'll show many how it is done!

Another answer to effective transportation management?

I thought of a few things that I have thought of related to the Columbia River Crossing..

Why could we not use Ride Share with a background check system? Use a reputation based app on a cell phone and have it also based on facebook - social media connection? If someone is going in the same area as you, why not share the gas?

What happens if you have less than ten people in the same area going to an employment center in Portland or Washington County? Why can't we have a metro-wide solution of private vans operating? With the same type of cell phone app? And not leaving a van sitting idle in a parking lot when people are working eight to ten hours and then drives home?

Why can there there be multiple uses - users?

I know of the incentives from Washington State (though I have a feeling that Oregon might?) to make the transportation system better. And not require a new bridge like the Columbia River Crossing. No, I know that the different metropolitan transit agencies in the area may not like this idea since it is competition.

But if we need, we can offer special rides for the disabled if they do not fit these special vans. I know of one or two local taxi cab companies that operating in Portland and Vancouver that would just LOVE this business!

I do not care if the local transit agencies forms an inter-local agreement like they have now for transit service and light rail use in Portland for the Number 4, 65 and 44 to Jantzen Beach and Delta Park and the express service they offer from all of the different bus transit centers on this side of the river.

So I am just trying to get a conversation started? Why waste several billion dollars on this idea?