Remember that the Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival is in Woodburn until the end of the month. Fun for friends, families, or just couples. Probably not as fun by your lonesome… but what is?

All orders of $40 or more will receive 10 free Iris Reticulata, from now through June 1st.

I recommend taking a look at your garden now, so you know what flowers you may want for next year. Remember, you plant most bulbs right before it tends to get really cold. Also, great deals to be found right now. Typically, when I buy my bulbs at the festival, I get free entry the next year.

Pictured to the left are tulips from my own garden! I bought them at the festival last year.

Enjoy free art today! The Portland Art Museum offers free admission on the fourth Friday of every month from 5-8 p.m.

You can enjoy portraits galore, along with other permanent exhibits.

Even if you think you’re not an appreciator of the arts, just go, because it may make you smarter… and did I mention that it’s free?

At noon, you can grab a free cone of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream today. Four locations in the area to serve you.

Ben & Jerry’s Hawthorne
1428 S.E. 36th Avenue
Portland, OR 97214

Ben & Jerry’s Uptown Center
39 NW 23rd Place
Portland, OR 97210

Ben & Jerry’s Portland Pearl District
301 NW 10th Street
Portland, OR 97209

Ben & Jerry’s Yamhill
524 SW Yamhill
Portland, OR 97204

This is a fantastic idea. I actually can’t believe that students had to pay for buses in the first place. Having grown up in a considerably smaller city than Portland I rode a yellow school bus in elementary and middle school – and then drove in high school. We didn’t have bus service for high school – and city bus service was relatively sparse, so nearly every upperclassman had a car… lots of beaters, but we almost all had cars. But those freshman and sophomore years were tough – you had to rely on older siblings or friends to drive you places. And since your high school friend base now spread much farther apart then when you were younger – it was much harder to hang out with them after school or in the summer. In a city with public transportation as good as Portland – allowing students to use it is a no brainer. Plus it frees up parents from having to play chauffeur constantly and gives the kids more freedom to get after school jobs, do extra curricular activities or just hang out with their friends who may not live near by.

Good work Tri-Met!

This week, the Multnomah County Library announced that it will now offer the MyLibraryDV service, which provides library patrons free, on-demand access to movies and television programs via computer download.

Of course, there are some disclaimers to go along with this new service. For one, it’s is only available to computers running Windows 2000 or Windows XP. The service is definitely not something to attempt if you’re on dial-up, and you’ll need to ensure you have enough space, at least 1GB, on your hard drive to store the programs downloaded. Any movies downloaded through the service will be deleted automatically after seven days.

Looking at the list of TV shows and movies currently available, it doesn’t make me want to clear off any of my music to make room for a temporary download. I think I’ll stick to borrowing DVDs from the library for now.

That said, maybe you’re interested in checking out a cooking program that you missed on PBS or want to watch Birth of a Nation without your neighbors knowing. Just be sure any library fines are paid and then you’ll be free to download!

Then you need to put Around the Sun in your RSS reader/bookmarks.

She’s offering up a list of free events around town every weekend, plus other money-saving tips. This weekend’s list offers book readings, free musical performances, and even a chance to score some wine and appetizers while you honor Oregon’s Book Award finalists..!

Who’s behind it? From the site…

I am not a financial expert; I’m just a regular girl trying to make the most of my money. This blog is a way for me to chronicle my financial choices, as well as share money-saving deals that Portland has to offer.

Now, can someone else out there in PDX help me find some free time?

I started writing this entry at the Tulsa International Airport on my way home from a business trip. When I powered up my laptop, I had my fingers crossed that I would be able to find free wi-fi to check my e-mail accounts before boarding my flight.

Alas, the only working wi-fi in range belonged to the airport and there was a fee attached. That’s when I became thankful for the free wi-fi available to passengers at PDX.

Over the past several months, I’ve traveled through many airports and there’s always a fee attached to logging on. I suppose I should be used to it by now but it’s still a shame that businessfolks and tourists alike aren’t able to connect for free considering we’re paying through the nose on food and beverages post-security check-in since the airlines cut those “perks” down to a 2oz bag of pretzels and a cup of soda.

While it may not seem like a big deal, those fees add up and considering I’m only in the airport for maybe two hours, usually less, paying $10 is a lot given the inability to transfer the remaining time/credit over to another airport or location. There’s also the assorted connection fees hotels charge for using their wi-fi.

Sure, I get reimbursed for these expenses, but I’m lucky as I’m sure most folks have to eat these costs as the price of doing business. Thus, the question becomes, can I wait to check my e-mail, or do I pull out my credit card?

Don’t eat meat? Can’t get to a Taco Bell between 2 and 5 pm? Rather not help enable corporate America, thankyouverymuch?

Donate your taco instead. The folks behind Donate Your Taco hope to use a little Internet viral marketing pressure to get Taco Bell to set aside some of the gazillions of dollars they are prepared to throw out for the free taco giveaway into something more tangible: Red Cross relief efforts for the California wildfires.

Y’know, I wasn’t going to line up for a taco anyway – so I’ve tossed my taco into the donation pool. What about you?

Update: I’ve gotten some funky comments and a healthy dose of skepticism aimed my way about this – so caveat emptor. I’d like to believe that it’s a grassroots viral uprising – but my skeptical side agrees with Dieselboi that it could be all about the email address harvesting at the end of the day. I’m not going to delete this post, though – just warn you to cast a closer eye than I apparently did…!

Before you get all excited, well – they’re Taco Bell tacos. And they’re only free between 2 pm and 5 pm tomorrow (now today – Tuesday, October 30th.) And you can only get one free crunchy beef taco.

Why are they free? Some guy somewhere stole a base, that’s why. But you’ll probably wait in line forever and a day, because people flock to Free Stuff. And – oh, yeah – people were probably watching that baseball game (some little national pastime called the World Series, I guess), so they might be duct taping the sidewalks as we speak.

But hey – knock yourselves out, ok?

Hey – check your Comcast bill for 2 free tickets to see the Portland Beavers!

Cool – I haven’t been to a game yet this year… oh wait… never mind… the coupon has to be used on or before July 22nd.

Now – I know the bill has been sitting on my table for a few days – but not that long.