Stretch Armstrong

It seems like forever since i've visited the site but nary a week has passed before I doth putteth letters upon this page. A few winners and losers of the past week.

Dorks in a goofy looking hats scored a big win in WINTER STORM '09! You may laugh but as I stood at the bus stop for over an hour and a half my ears were completely toasty? How about yours? Oh... you were inside... dang you. Unfortunaltely for Brynn, Jack Frost forgot to inform her of his plans and she ended up freezing throughout a hellacious four attempt to leave downtown Portland and get home to the warm, warm, heater that I had turned on for her. I believe she got off at 5:00 and caught the 4:15 Sherwood Express which deposited her safely at the transit center around 10:00 pm. At least she wasn't the lady look forlorn when she learned that her bus was due at 6:00... AM! To paraphrase Brynn when the snow blows into Portland all bets are off as people turn into crazy aborigines, stabbing everyone looking to just get ahead.

Your tax dollars lost a big one this year as Portland proved that it is consistent in one thing... year in year out they are woefully unprepared for the frozen miracle from the sky. Let your votes do the talking.

What is it about money and losers. Unitus Credit Union who I allowed to protected by my banner of "they can do no wrong" screwed us over majorly as they told us we would not qualify for a loan or a credit card (no history) to pay for Brynn's education. If that wasn't bad, they were the same people who gave us the advice to wait until we really needed it to apply for said loan before leaving us scrambling on how to finance the term. Tom, the same guy who signed us up and called month after month reminding us that we could sign up for an unsecured credit card broke the news so this one's for you...
Finally we end on a positive note. Christmas. Always a winner was made even sweeter by spending time with two families this year. I wish there was enough time in the world to visit with each one of you during Christmas and New Years but suffice to say we love you all and may the new year bring many great treasures.

We are free!

Happy December, Water Crisis 2009 is finally over and we've apparently go clean water running again (or so they say). The way I kind of understand it is that Portland stores it's waters in reservoirs around the city, the ones in Washington Park and Mt. Tabor Park being the ones I actually know of  and then pipes it from there to us. Both are open reservoirs which though they are gated, they are open, out in the air. In the past they have argued about closing them up but to that end I remain in the dark on what happened other than the fact they must have said no. Following the issue, I read that they may not know where the E. Coli came from but i'm sure the whole of Portland should be on the edge, as this serves as a nice reminder to everyone to keep extra food and water on hand. What was surprising was how many members (including us) were unprepared and had to boil water which would have been an easy problem to remedy had we been prepared with a few extra gallons of water. Lesson learned.
Thanksgiving was a hoot and am grateful our families lives so close. We have a few friends who have to travel back and forth to visit their families out of state (and who would want to leave this sweet land of Oregon)  I can only imagine how dreadful that on a regular basis (especially if you are poor newlyweds). Yay for Dallas and Salem, Oregon!