So, after all of my complaining, I decided to actually do something about it and write to someone about it. First I thought that it was a city thing and twittered Sam Adams about it. He told me that Lombard was an ODOT road and that he suggested that I contact them.

I found this nifty little feedback form on the ODOT site where you can send in your thoughts to the state. Glad that they have this – it shows a real commitment to listening to citizen comments. So, I wrote a little letter to them outlining my feelings about the state of Lombard between St Johns and I5, and never really expected to hear much back. I expected it to go into a little box where they check-marked the number of citizen complaints.

Well, count me wrong. Today I received an email back from Bob Walker at ODOT:

Thank you for your comments concerning the pavement condition on N.E. Lombard between the St. Johns Bridge and I-5.

The pavement in several areas of Lombard certainly does need repair. What is needed is a full width grinding out of the existing asphalt and placing back a new layer.

To do this would require several million dollars and unfortunately there is no such large project slated for Lombard in the near future. The section of Lombard between the St. Johns Bridge and I-5 is classified as a Urban Minor Arterial and has a much lower level of daily trips compared to other parts of the roadway system. As such, it is a lower priority for funding.

Our regular maintenance funds don’t allow for large scale projects. Last year ODOT North Portland Maintenance paved four areas on Lombard that we felt were the worst.

These areas were N.E. Fortune to Montieth, Greenwich to Interstate Ave., Polk to Alma and Portsmouth to Olin at a cost of $108,000.

If ODOT North Portland’s Maintenance can stay on track with its 2010 operating budget, we hope to repave another two or three of the worst areas this summer.

I wish I had better news on the future of Lombard Ave. but the hard fact is maintenance sections just do not have the funding available to do all the work that is needed.

Again thank you for your interest in the State Transportation system.

Bob Walker, District 2B Manager (Interim)
Oregon Department of Transportation

I was happy to get the letter.

That being said, I also know that the state has a large pot of money that they distribute around the state. I remember hearing a while back that a big chunk of the recent economic stimulus money was going to go to widen a highway out by Sun River. My first thought was of course about why they were more deserving than my beloved NoPo community? Isn’t Sun River a resort community? You get my feelings of inequity.

Well, I can only hope that we get some more of the pot to take care of Lombard. Maybe if we’re the squeaky wheel we can get more attention. Please drop your comments to ODOT here. If you’re polite, I bet that at very least you’ll get a letter from Bob too.

There’s a short interview with Robert Jordan about the routine here.

I have one criticism that I’d like to lay out there about the performance by a man whom I’ve seen live. Heck, I saw him in my youth with my parents at Market Square Arena in Indianapolis back in the 80s. Yup, it’s Mr. Neil Diamond.

I for one was rather depressed when I saw his performance at the Grammys. He’s got an amazing voice, and while it might not be what it was back in his heyday, he’s at least still got one that he can use. When he talked his way through ‘Sweet Caroline’ it just made me depressed. He should be able to do much better than that. Good lord, Neil. It’s a great honot to perform at these events. Step up to the plate for gosh sakes.

Oh well, I’m still a fan. Will probably still go see Super Diamond the next time they swing through town. The ‘real’ Neil is way too expensive for my budget these days. And heck, if he’s going to walk his way through one of my favorite sing-a-longs, I would have been depressed to have shelled out so much for a ticket anyway.

Yeah, I’m willing to bet that everyone in the Pacific time zone is spending time after work burnishing their resume.

Heck, I just came across this list of 6 things that you shouldn’t do in a resume today. While I can see the points being made in this post, I have to say that I don’t necessarily agree wholeheartedly. There are word recognition software algorithms that are run on resumes, and while it might read as a more unique and special resume if you make the requested changes, you might miss out being picked up by the HR department’s resume scanner… Not a risk that I’m willing to take in these times.

• Portion of his (GW Bush’s) presidency he has spent at or en route to vacation spots: 1/3

That just made me sick to see. Especially in light of his comment last week where he said (I paraphrase)

“You may not have agreed with all of the decisions that I made, but you’ll have to agree that at least I had the courage to make them.”

It surprises me that he was even around enough to “make” any decisions at all. And considering that it’s his job to make decisions, I don’t really need to give him any credit at all for that. Bah. His last week being the president, and he still has the ability to make me angry.

I’m all inspired after today’s inaugural speech, so hopefully many of these negative thoughts will go by the wayside.

http://twitter.com/the_real_shaq

Looks to be almost as fun as following Darth Vader:

http://twitter.com/darthvader

Hey Shaq how about another batch of McDonald’s Fries? Yummmmmm.

One thing that I’d like to request of all other Portland residents on these mornings. I’d like to ask that on these mornings everyone drive with their lights ON. I know that it isn’t necessary for you to see where you’re going, but it’s critical for everyone else on the road to see you. I had a couple of scares this morning where I almost merged into some gray cars on the freeway that didn’t have their lights on.

So, for the safety of all of us, help me out here, turn your headlights on.

Typically each sponsor is given a chance to speak for a short time in front of the audience, but this time the organizers asked for a video. I had a great time pulling together our video for the event. We have a ton of great people Extensis who have a good sense of humor and were willing to hit themselves in the head with a product box for the cause. Here’s the result:

Overall the crowd was very respectful and had a great time with all of the presentations and sponsor videos. To those who cheered our video, and those of other sponsors, thanks! To those who ‘boo-ed’ the Microsoft short recognition, you are disrespectful twats and a pox on your house. They were kind enough to sponsor the event that was FREE to you, so suck it up and act at least a little dignified – no matter what you think of their products. Didn’t your mother tell you that if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all?

Yet, these folks were from Salem, and seemed to be bound and determined to be afraid of the “big city.” They rode the elevator up with me, and kept repeating their worries and itinerary to everyone in the elevator car.

“Oh, we’re just up here to check out our retirement with the PERS (public retirement plan) people and then we’re leaving right away!”

“I just don’t understand life in the ‘big city,’ that guy could steal everything out of our car while we’re gone!”

Good lord, people. Get over yourselves. I’m sure that you’ve heard all of the “bad” things that happen in Portland from the news, and immediately assume that every single one of them is going to happen to you while you’re up here. It’s a city, period.

As many bad things happen per capita in smaller towns. Heck, Salem is probably more dangerous per capita since the main jail and mental institution is there.

I repeat, get over it and simply relax. People are people everywhere, and those of us who happen to live in the big city aren’t all out to rob you blind, attack your grandmother and steal your organs. It’s your own xenophobia that your should be dealing with. Sheesh.

I put it up on both YouTube and competing online video provider, Viddler. I definitely prefer Viddler, but will double-post to YouTube just because they were one of the first on the scene and have an audience. Here is the video as it is posted to both sites. You can see just how much better Viddler’s compression is.

The Viddler version:

The YouTube Version

Though, I do have to say that embedding a Viddler video into a WordPress.com blog is a bit of a pain in the patoot. WordPress.com needs better conversion of the embed code into their proprietary embed string. They do it OK with YouTube, but not so much with Viddler.