Portland writer Brandy Slagle has an interesting article in Forbes this week about custom libraries.

If you’ve ever wondered what the Saudi’s do with all that money you pump into your SUV, it might surprise you to learn that wealthiest people on the planet wish they had Powell’s around the corner.

I came home from a long trip the other day with nothing to look forward to but baggage claim. Then something wonderful happened. As I was trudging out the gate, this gorgeous blond was playing guitar by the security checkpoint.

All of a sudden, I was in no hurry to get anywhere.

There are concerts and there is the sound of home. When they come together, PDX may be the only venue on Earth that requires a boarding pass.

You can check out their music schedule online. Leave a little earlier and check out Rebecca Helmer in December; she’s worth it ;-)

My mailbox was packed on Friday with election junk mail–No less than 15 pieces!

My ballot went out a week ago. Maybe the out-of-state interest groups chasing our votes don’t realize we vote by mail here.

* Mayor Tom Potter called my house and his machine left a message on my machine.
* My radio stays off as the unlistenable OPB pledge drive drags on for it’s second week

These guys are reinventing communication.

As I sit down with my ballot this evening I’m thinking about the dumbots we don’t have to deal with here in Oregon:

* We mail in our votes so we don’t have to line up for the Diebold machines.
* We can’t pump our own gas so we don’t even have to get out of the car.
* We have voting measures so that our legislators won’t get bogged down making decisions.

Once in while, I get a treat when I return from a business trip. At the PDX airport, there’s this fellow named Tom who drives the shuttle bus to the parking lot. And riding the Tom-bus is something special.

Tom is a little slow, but he makes sure to welcome every passenger and reminds them that it takes just a few muscles to smile. Like some lovable Forest Gump, he’ll even tell a joke to anyone who’ll listen.

And when you see your fellow passengers brighten up from their harried, mobile lives, it has this contagious affect on you. That ride to parking lot becomes the part of your journey that you remember most.

Tom may not not the smartest guy around, but he is one of the brightest stars that Portland has to offer.

So I got a letter today from the League of Women Voters. I thought it would be a message encouraging me to vote, which it was.

The surprise was that the LWV are taking sides in this letter on the term limits referendum, Measure 45.

Since we vote by mail here in Oregon, this might not seem as strange to some people. But most everywhere else in this country, the LVW are the people staffing the polling stations.

The LVW positions on these measures aside, does this creep anybody else out as much as it does me?

I thought this organization was all about getting out the vote, not getting votes for a particular political agenda.

Compared to the Bay area or Seattle, one thing that Portland does not seem to have is a lot of tech jobs. Now that Intel has restructured, it would seem to follow that the job market around here is going to be more competitive than ever.

I heard that Intel has let thousands of people go in Hillboro. Could those numbers be right?

Ashbrook has reportedly been recording a new album up in Seattle for the past couple of months so it will be great to see him back on stage. His original music makes for the kind of gig that keeps people coming back every chance they get. Check it out.

But one thing we are cursed here with is a daily newspaper that is home to one crappy web site called Oregonlive. With a page design right out of 1995, this eyesore is laden with blinky ads and a gosh-awful color pallet. No matter, it’s the content, right?

Want to know the weather? Click on the cloud and be taken to a page that wants your zip code, gender, and year of birth in order to “serve you better.”

Hey, Oregonian, serve us better by switching off this monstrosity.