Portland Adventure

Costco Gas Station Hillsboro Oregon

It seems I can only get things done every other day. I do something one day and then I have to take the next day off. Thursday I drove to Pill Hill, downtown Portland, St. Johns and Beaverton before heading home to Hillsboro. Oh yeah, don't forget the stop first thing at Costco for gasoline. Buying gasoline is an expedition these days. It's always been a bit of a nuisance. There is a Chevron station on Cornelius Pass Road that is an easy stop, but they want real money for their gas. I think they keep the price high enough so that not many people stop there, so when someone does stop, there isn't a big line. Fred Meyers has a fueling station half a block away but they have Fred Meyer prices so the place is always clogged with cars. Or it's closed. I haven't figured that part out. Have they run out of gas? Or maybe they have run out of attendants. Seems I've seen help wanted signs around offering $17 to $25 an hour. I would think that would be enough for one person to live on and possibly two. Pretty thin if you are trying to have any fun, or raise a family. Especially after they take the taxes out of your paycheck.

Pill Hill

Stopped at Pill Hill to drop off Andy's truck. He was here with two cars and his kids were in Alaska so he didn't need both, and I was without a car so he lent me his truck. Then he got sick, his kids showed up and eventually (two weeks later) I realized that they could probably stand to have the truck as well as the car. Of course I screwed up and left my wallet in the car. Wouldn't have happened if I hadn't stopped to buy gas. Wouldn't have happened if I wasn't getting senile.

Residential Electric Service Weatherhead
Not mine. Why don't I have a picture of mine?

Stopped downtown to drop off some merchandise and then we head up to St. John's to check on the re-siding project. Noticed the electrical service conduit used to have a couple of guy wires attached to the rain head, but they had been cut. I suspect this was done when the new roof was installed a couple of years ago. Question is, do we really need these guy wires? The power lines cross the street where they connect into the middle of the main line hanging between two power poles. How much is that line pulling on the top of the conduit? The conduit is not showing any sign of strain, but it's hard to tell just by looking at it. If we do replace the guy wires, the other ends will need to connect somewhere on the back side of the roof, which means caulking and sealing, always a dubious proposition. Bah, double bah and humbug.

2006 Mitsubishi Endeavor Warning Lights
The car-shaped icon at the bottom is the new one.
If it was in focus you see that there is a key inside the car icon.

Our stop in Beaverton was at the locksmith. I bought three new magic keys for my wife's SUV there earlier this summer. I checked all the remote controls when I picked them up, but I didn't check whether they would all work in the ignition. Turns out two of them were fine but the third one was a dud. Put it in the ignition lock, turn the key and it cranks the engine but it won't start. All the warning lights come on in the instrument cluster, which is typical, but also one that I hadn't seen before. Something about an invalid key or some such. Whatever. Cranked fine but wouldn't start. Weird. Evidently the programming didn't take, so yesterday we made it one of our stops in our round of errands. Didn't get there until after 4PM and we were there waiting while the tech went through multiple gyrations trying to get things sorted. He did, eventually, though it was after their 4:30 closing time. We won't talk about how hot it was.

Canyon Road Exit From Highway 26 Westbound

We won't talk about how I missed the Canyon Road exit either. The Canyon Road exit is just past the Sylvan exit at the top of the hill, Eastbound on Highway 26 (the Sunset Highway). The cute thing is that this exit merges with on ramp for people getting on 26 from Sylvan, so if you stay in the right lane it will just take you back onto 26. If you want to get onto Canyon Road you have to veer left at the bottom of the off ramp and follow the road through the underpass. The good part is that will put you on Canyon Road. The bad part is it will put you on Canyon Road. Evidently my subconscious decided it didn't want to be on Canyon Road so we got back on the freeway and went on down to 217 and hence into the heart of Beaverton where we picked up the other end of Canyon Road. It might have taken another minute, but I didn't have to take Canyon Road. Not sure why I don't like this stretch of Canyon Road. Is it because of all the new car dealerships? Or is there something alien about it? I don't know, whatever it is, it bugs me.

Jaume Serra Cristalino Brut

Anyway, that was all Thursday. Friday I stayed home, blogged and napped and drank a bottle of Spanish Champagne. I picked up a couple of bottles at the local Plaid Pantry the other day. $10 each. Costs a little more than fancy beer, but it's not as fattening. That's my rational, but at this point I don't care. What was curious is that it seems to be from a specific vineyard in Spain, it wasn't some mixed bag of something from a giant wine mixing conglomerate. Thought that was pretty cool, direct from a Spanish vineyard to me via the local Plaid Pantry, and only ten bucks.

The foil wrap over the top of the bottles was a bit of a surprise. It seems to be unusually stout. Is it all aluminum or is it some kind of polymer-aluminum foil hybrid? It looks like foil, it feels like foil, but it's awfully stout. I'm thinking it must be three or four mils (thousandths of an inch) thick. Would the vineyard really spring for the good stuff? They must be pretty proud of their product. Was the champagne really great? I couldn't tell you. I liked it, it was good enough for me.

Wrote all this last night but decided to hold off posting it until I was sober, fixed the typos and added the pix.