Isaac Laquedem

Ted Cruz would eat his words, if he had electricity to cook them with

Except now it's Texas that can't perform even basic functions of civilization as millions of Texans are without power because the state elected to go it alone with its electric grid.  Ted Cruz took off for a vacation in Cancun, where the state government is able to provide power and water.

Are you better off than you were four years ago (II)?

We got A Pluses for our recent hurricane work in Texas and Florida (and did an unappreciated great job in Puerto Rico, even though an inaccessible island with very poor electricity and a totally incompetent Mayor of San Juan). We are ready for the big one that is coming!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 12, 2018

Fifty years ago Dr. Harding put Schmalz on his skis

Not quite 50 years ago, but close: it was in 1968 or so that Portland psychiatrist H. Clagett Harding, known to his friends as Larry, taught his dachshund to ski.  Dr. Harding and his family lived off NW Cumberland, and no snowy winter in Portland was complete with a photograph in the Oregonian of Dr. Harding and Schmalz skiing down a city street in the Northwest hills.

It occurred to me that the Zoobombers might be able to go in for winter sports: it's a bit of a hike from the TriMet Zoo station up to Fairview Boulevard, but then there's a nice downhill with a few challenging turns.  Ski MAX?  It would be a very Portlandia way to market mass transit.

Switch to TriMet: "I'm frozen"

Mrs. Laquedem and the Laquedemitasse report that the inch of snow that is paralyzing Portland is also affecting MAX: some of the track switches have frozen and are being set by hand, which reminds me of the passage in Atlas Shrugged in which, after the Taggart Railroad's system of warning lights stops working, Dagny Taggart writes out train dispatch orders by hand.

California has nothing on us, mellow-wise

We're so laid back that the schools don't close until two days after it snows.

W.S. Gilbert describes our weather

As I looked out on our gray skies this morning, these four lines from a Gilbert & Sullivan musical popped into my head, with the emphasis unaccountably on the "I know not why."

Tomorrow it may pour again,
I hear the country wants some rain,
Yet people say, I know not why,
That we shall have a warm July.

     -- William S. Gilbert, The Pirates of Penzance

Isaac camps in a freeway for rush hour

Tuesday's snowstorm gave me the unlooked-for opportunity to pass several hours in the urban equivalent of a camper's caravan: parked with five other cars next to the center barrier on the Stadium Freeway, toward which we had all slid in the late afternoon.  I'd not noticed it while driving, but the center barrier is lower than the travel lanes, something we all came to notice with apprehension as we watched the wheels of stopped cars slide toward us.  During the three hours that we were stuck, we watched with great interest as northbound cars tried to climb the 4th Avenue off-ramp.  Once free, three hours after sliding off, I was able to average a respectable four miles an hour on Interstate 5. 

It was an interesting and pleasant experience, though not one that I'd want to have every winter.  The high point, for me, was being able to talk on my cell phone while standing in the middle of a traffic lane on Interstate 405 during the peak of rush hour.  I'm practicing for tomorrow, when the new law kicks in.

PPS shouldn't be so close-mouthed about closing the schools

Last week the Portland Public Schools cancelled school when it got cold.  This week the district cancelled Tuesday's classes at the last minute, catching many parents unaware.  While reading Jack's hilarious Storm Center 9000 series (here and here are two examples), in which he mentioned this, I noticed a response from Sarah Carlin Ames, the district's media spokesperson (the12th comment in the second link to Jack).  Ms. Ames said that the superintendent makes the decision to stay open or to close with the best information available at the time, and takes into account the fact that many children ride to school with parents who don't know how to drive on snow and aren't smart enough to put on chains first.  (She said it more politely than this, but that's a fair translation.)

I don't quarrel too much with that, but something did go wrong with how the district communicated that decision.  I had an appointment Tuesday morning that depended on whether the Portland schools were open: if they opened, then I had to be somewhere at 9:00; if they didn't open then I didn't have to go.  When I awoke to snow I checked the district's website, which linked to a page of school closure information and said that Portland schools would be open.  I left Laquedem Manor at 8:00, which allowed plenty of time to get downtown. 

At 8:30, stuck on a blocked freeway on-ramp, I called in to check on the meeting, and the Able Associate (now on to bigger and better things), who has children in PPS, said that the schools were closed and I didn't have to show up.  I got back home at 8:45 and checked the PPS website, which still said that the schools were open through its link to school closure information, and in fact didn't say that the schools were closed until about 9:00. 

Something went wrong with the district's internet posting.  It may be that the district relied on the pooled closure service and didn't think to post its own bulleting until later.  It would be reasonable for PPS to post its own bulletin on its front page at the same time it sends the school closure information to the pooled closure service.