Portland has decided to at least hurry their spiral because at least if you are going to fail you might as well do it quickly. For those who do not know Portland has gotten much more violent having more then 900 shooting incidents in 2020 and more then 1300 in both 2021 and 2022 and it looks like its another year over a thousand incidents.
We have among authorized sworn members has only been able to this date keep the rate from he rate in 2021 when it was lower then 2005, that is almost twenty years ago. Portland still has a prosecutor that does not want to prosecute, and a city council that doesn’t want to deal with the unpleasant reality and a growing issue with businesses feeling more uncomfortable, almost a third of business vacancies in the city and that is going up in a year where people are learning they cannot survive in a city that very simply, does not care.
So we have 880 authorized sworn workers in the police and we have in a thirty day period 19,099 calls for the month of January, that is top to bottom. The average response times for high priority calls, your really nasty crimes, in January is 16.5 minutes. Considering it was at 20 minutes in October, it is going down but unfortunately it is not going down enough to make people safe. Here is a number that gets me angered.
81% of high priority calls will be responded to after 5 minutes. You got a four out of five chance that whatever is so bad you need cops yesterday you have a 4 out of 5 to survive 5 and anyone is been in an abused situation or has been hurting or bleeding. Those five minutes can seem like years. All of these numbers are all looking through the Portland police department data dashboard.
This is just to show that all the things are not getting better, but I think a different tack is needed. For this I have something I would like to ask anyone reading this.
If you had a chance to ask a question or a couple questions to the homeless of Portland, what would they be?
Let me know.
Stay strong.
Also, yes. I did have this lined up and just forgot to hit the post button. One of those days.
College is fun when you can’t get a loan because the government (Sallie Mae) and the school don’t understand some crippled people are actually trying to gain skills for a future, but hey, so far, no loans. Look on the bright side of life. It will save you headaches in the long run. Outside of that, I found one can make hard-boiled eggs in the air fryer.
Fifteen minutes at 300F and letting cool naturally works excellent for some medium eggs. Suitable for some healthy snacks. Also, we had to do some shopping around, but we found a couple of stores had our five dozen eggs deal for 7 dollars, which we are going to take that all day. It is always nice to make a couple of new snacks. Good for something else to work on later. I would say try other seasonings against what I can make, but that would be humiliating to my opponents.
For all that has happened in Portland, I am starting to look at some properties to see what I need, and right now, the cost can be best described as too damn high. It is going in the right direction. Most people want to avoid starting a business in Portland. I need to figure out what to ensure my employees in different areas are happy. Can I pay 100k each? Most likely not, but I can find the right combination of pay and benefits where people want to work with me for a position.
I would remark on the city of Portland itself, but that is a level of things that needs its own post. See you tomorrow.
Welp, it’s been a couple of weeks again. Sorry about that. Unfortunately, some numbers have come out based on the city where it has to be said. Portland is now in a position where the problems they have constructed for themselves will be fixed slowly, which is unfortunate. This was brought up by KOIN 6 news and reported on by the News for Reasonable People channel( A name I get a giggle from whenever I watch their videos). Also, they are a channel with a view on more of the business and property lens. However, human issues make enough appearances to be counted on being shown.
So, what am I talking about? Currently, the violence in Portland has been growing, and the cost of living has been rising throughout the country, even more so in Portland. More drugs, less quality public education, and less business have been happening. Now we have a business vacancy rate getting close to a third. That means that about 73% of spaces are filled. Which would be good, except most people need to learn that cities account for something like 95% to be filled on a bad year for tax reasons. If businesses are not in buildings, they aren’t making money, no money, no tax, and the budget is reduced, and while a lot of places have had to deal with many of these things, Portland has been ranked third last in recovering from the pandemic. We are ranked 60 out of 62, with a wild guess being able to figure out the two below us.
This has now reached a point that, save for a miracle of high-class thought and action from our city commissioners, this will not be good for a while. Five years, maybe ten, maybe thirty. The time frame depends on how shit others are after this. What will be something is that now we are in a position where it will most likely be this way for quite a while, and a lot of Portlanders are okay with that.
Not because there is a wealth of ideas or thoughts. Actually, it’s because most Portlanders only know or care to know once they have to. As a result, portlanders generally boil down into two groups.
They are in a position to ignore everything until something happens, as they get robbed, their children are in danger, or their life’s work is destroyed.
They are so poor and just trying to hold it together; unfortunately, they just had to get used to it.
This is sad because what comes next is not going to be fun for a lot of people. It will not be able to be fixed quickly because people do not want to see it. It won’t be the end of the world, but for those who think Portland is going back to the 2000’s era dominance, this will be bad news.
Good times will come at some point, but we have some choppy waters.
You ever just get into a thing where you do and keep doing until you get to the point you are exhausted and on autopilot and look back to wonder what you were doing to that point. That is EXACTLY how the past two weeks has been for me. Running for chair of the school senate committee on Government operations and finance, homework, nerve attacks, passing out, taping myself back together. Sometimes though, things work out in a way where you are just happy to have.
Despite being exhausted that running for the chair, well it is something more then that now. The problem is that a lot of things going on I am finding needs more then someone to help good ideas, they need someone willing to take the field as well. Always something to be done, and despite it my body is not the font of energy it once was and sometimes, especially since my nerve damage there are limits that have to be respected physically or there will be more problems then whatever good is done in those few moments.
The fraility of existence unfortunately is not something that can be mentally broken sometimes. It must be dealt with, in that dealing though new answers arise. Moments of thought sometime occur here, I like to call them sigma moments, not because of things like sigma grind set, but because it would be something Sigma the character (overwatch) would most likely think of.
So ya, a lot of things are happening here, which is why I went radio silence, things have gotten so hectic I have to actually use a calendar like a responsible adult. You know what I hadn’t looked at what has been happening in Portland since trying to help the students I represent. Hopefully it was a slow news week….
Ever ask yourself why you should ever ask a question that seems to be the start to disaster?
We are starting off with the Willamette Week, who did some interesting journalism this time. Some progress in some areas, but this article is about the value of money.
I am just going to save some pain and just go to the numbers. 82 units, refurbishing a building from 1911 and the refurbishment will cost 36.15 million dollars. Which is about 480,000 per unit or just about 13,00 per sq foot for units that have no bathroom or kitchens. I do not know about you, but this so expensive that anyone tries to explain this as a good value needs their head examined because the only reason this money is of some value is if it’s in someone savingsd account because you aren ot getting that value or even half of it on the work.
I would fire the people who okay-ed it, the people who accepted the contract, the company, anyone who thought this was a good idea. There would be mass firings of the failure that allowed this to stand. Why would all this be important, why would the value of things be needed especially now?
Portland fire and rescue have to freeze spending both of them are within the range of the project or even could be heavily aided by the half that could be cut by the building if someone with a calculator worked in Portland politics.
Get some progress done, bask in the bright light if this stupidity and then try to make your day a little better
Seeing as I do not have anything to say but to keep in the habit of making posts. I am going to do something different.
This is Clodsire. It is cute, and I hope it brightens your day.
Yes, I will do serious posts again. Just felt that sometimes a little spontaneous brightness is fine. What are some thing you like? Could be pokemon, pets, favorite animals. Just things that make you happy.
Recently the week has been rough. Things were going well, but I realized a reason that I had not heard from someone was that they no longer with us. It kind of stings because this teacher was someone who I had talked to the last conversation was about my nerve damage had blocked me from a lot and she just said “You will make it.”
Well, cut to a couple months after that conversation, she died, no one told me, she never made mention that she had been sick for a couple years afterward. Just, it stings, I felt like I should have put it together, but from what I heard after being shocked by the news, no one else knew either. Meaning she kept it to herself. Which would be like her, it’s just stings because there was something that could have been something she would have liked to work on since I am a student senator. Unfortunately, she was someone who did not want to show weakness and it hurts.
She was smart as a whip, and honestly the world is a little dimmer now that she is gone. It hurts that I did not know for so long. One of the few times I cried too, but she was an anime fan. So this would be something she would have been happy with me using.
With all the flappery about people complaining about gas grills there is enough to squabble over. I will just say the following on gas stoves. They are not going away because it would hamstring every restaurant most of those that have survived for any time will laugh at you for trying also. I read the report, and considering they tented up particulates without calculating dispersal rates, how much is breathed in on a regular basis, or even the difference of psi for the gas between residential and professional meters then I am not even give it a second glance. It has more holes then a mini golf course and the second time I went back to study’s website it had been taken down. Arguing against gas stoves right now just shows you do not know how important it is in cooking.
That aside, because that one was really bad something else has been happening over and over again. To quote George Carlin.
“We got some dumb-ass motherfuckers in this country.”
Now, you may think this is some political rant based on my own party. Well SIKE!
It seems to me that people in groups seem to take something say like the gas stove and then try to make themselves the Grand Poobah of idiotic decisions. We got people out here in groups trying to get the team award for the Dunning-Kruger effect.
For those who do not know Dunning-Kruger from the Britannica, not the best source for everything but does well for majority.
“Dunning-Kruger effect, in psychology, a cognitive bias whereby people with limited knowledge or competence in a given intelligence or social domain greatly overestimate their own knowledge or competence in that domain relative to objective criteria or to the performance of their peers or of people in general.”
Now, on this blog I have in full view explained my own bouts of wall to wall stupidity and have had to take the heat from them and tried to give as good as I got. Some people hear the protest of the first, and then just run their gas stove just because. Then one group thinking stoves are Hitler and the other one using it as their potpourri are dueling and there has to be a portion of the population who looks at the groups of dipsticks and wondered how the dumbest are also the loudest. Well, I have been practicing so if you know someone that is belonging to either group, either everything is evil or we must overuse to the point of stupidity the things the first group mocks sit them down right here.
They here? Okay.
The world is not going to end and just as much as you want to help, wagging your finger does nothing, trust me, I know. This blog is a almost a decade of attempts, because remember was a leftist here.
Getting people to change stoves to electric, which is an investment for the majority of people, would be a further energy drain on many systems already taxed too far, does not have the quality as gas, and often takes half a year to ship even if someone decides to do it. You are not reading the room, in fact you are clueless.
Can there be good electric stoves, yes. Do they do some damage? Most likely. Did the study fail in describing that? Yes. It makes you look like a snob and no one wants to help you when people think you are putting your nose up or forget a few other factors that can be pretty important to people.
Read the room, read how other people are living, and you may make this place better and find some common ground places everyone can start. Good? Alright. Go have a nice meal or something. For the love of all that is good in the universe do not cut your gas line out of protest without letting the gas company know.
Alright, time for the other side of the show.
Yes, I know arguing it was stupid. Yes. I did read the paper.
Just give me a couple moments because what you are doing is not helping the cause you want to defend, I understand their has been some stupid calls by people who think they know better and did not have a clue if you gave them two consonants and a vowel. It may be very cathartic to tweak their nose and have them smell the shit we all call living in modern year (2023)
All I would ask is this. If they want that then sum it to a challenge. If someone can make an oven that runs off a clean fuel that is not electricity and is safer, let them make it and give it a try. You don’t need to mortgage your home, when you have the chance be open to it and honestly do so. Tweaking and trolling is fun. It is getting to the point where some of the people who say such things as just running it for fun or the other side sawing through their gas line are really doing it and would you like to know how I know?
I did work taking calls for a gas company, that guy who you had to tell smells like rotten eggs after bifurcating the line behind the stove and asking him if you should try to take a look? That was me at some point for about a year of my spare time. Taking calls for accounts and working on things there would be at least a half dozen calls for our team that only worked for customers in two states all about something smells like gas, how someone tried to dig a pond in their yard and hit a pipe, how someone shut down the gas to a hospital and fire department.
You may be laughing because people just COULD not be that stupid? Everyone who has worked for a gas company is nodding because they get those calls too. In short, be open be thoughtful, do not troll so much and please do not protest where you have to call someone saying it smells like rotten eggs. It happens every day, and I have facepalmed hard enough the other teams could keep track for an accurate count.
Something I hope to look back on and see a bunch of things crossed off, and if I remember it an easy and entertaining call back at the end of the year.
Release something, now with projects going on what I have and if it may be under my name will be something different. As long as it came from me, under whatever name I use for different reasons I hope to release something like a book, program or something.
I would like to live on my own. Currently I have been living with a roommate and have been doing it long enough, I need my space.
Continue doing well in school, at this point I have had a problem in just one class and I am still on honor roll despite it.
I would like for the blog to do better, although granted to define it as off the rails from original purposes is an understatement of the greatest caliber.
Do a physical event again. Despite being disabled I feel I have been getting much better health wise especially over the last twelve months.
Get my teeth fixed. Unfortunately why my body does not use some minerals despite ingesting them, like calcium is something we are still trying to figure out. Luckily we caught it before bones went fell osteoporosis.
I want to do more on twitch, and been trying to push it further. Currently the goal is to get to 500 followers but I need to work on being more entertaining.
I would like to travel to another country finally. I have never been to another country and there are a few places on my list. I would count something out of state or going to conventions again
Start a successful business. Pretty simple as to why.
Be happier then I was last year.
If I remember this I hope to go back and see how many of these got knocked off the list.
I wanted to have this be the end-of-year post where we look back at the time and what has been done and bring some hope to the future. That is what I wanted. However, some things happen that make you feel like you got to take yourself out of whatever mood and deal with some weapons-grade stupidity.
For those who did not know, there are some problems with the D.A. of Portland. The work put forward has caused many of the city’s woes, and there have been many posts based on lousy decision-making. Things get worse for an entire year, having the area break records you do not want to break if you are in those positions, crime rate, murder rate, and gun violence are things you want to keep down.
All of this may be news to those in the offices of the city commissioners and the county district attorney. Still, I like to think it is that journalistic integrity that makes you stay, and I wrote all of that with only half of the usual sarcasm. This has to do with the D.A. specifically because I went to the county website and found the papers for the compensation or pay rates for everyone hired through them. Now, it is government, so you would expect some egregious, shocking, or brain-numbing numbers, and here is what was found.
Despite the work being a cavalcade of failure, despite it being some of the worst any D.A. has put forward in position for the county and the cost of everything up going up due to horrible financial decisions on almost every level of government. It would look bad if everyone had gotten a cost of living increase, but that would be at least understandable to a degree. Looking at the papers, you can see that it seems very much across the board there is an increase in spending.
After all, these people have to work for the government and to do it without hitting the escape hatch on life because all their work goes to very little, at least in this area. Some compensation is at least in the realm of possibility. There is one specific case thought that I would like people to look at. Now, as you can see from the pic above, the pay rates are active on July first. Looking at the difference between the two sets of paperwork, it would look really bad for someone to get a large raise, like 10% or 12 % even would be really bad.
How about a raise of almost 50%? Below is where I got the evidence, straight from the horse’s mouth
A 30k raise in the salary for some of the worst work that a D.A. has put on record. Failure so shocking it has brought down the whole county. This is someone in charge of charging people for crimes who push sentencing, and for all that was done, his office has been so soft that marshmallows look to it as a goal. A pool of water has more of a backbone than that office and the fact that with more death, more gun violence, and fewer things to charge for because now one can carry a small amount of any drug, those charges are gone. Antifa has been slapped on the wrist, often getting low bail or a misdemeanor when their records would dictate they should be in for years. Andy Ngo did a great set of explanations on that on Twitter @MrAndyNgo
Between 21-22 and 22-23, the Multnomah County D.A. has gotten a raise of almost 30k in their salary for work that would be best described as abysmal, and I wonder what they believe the reason is they earned that money.
21-22 salary table for District Attorney (D.A.) at 63k22-23 salary table for D.A. at 93K
I would like anyone to explain why that raise was a good idea, to explain it because I am lost. I would rather give that money to the waffle house employee who decided to give everyone who hopped over the counter a free sampling of hands. Most likely, she would get something done versus what we have now.
I have an idea one that you may not see in connection to this blog if I did it right. Something where I hope it will get me more to the efforts of trying new things and in doing so show people success can be had. There has been progress on goals and for that I am grateful. It just is not enough.
What do you do when things are not working, well you go to do something else and see if it is better. Cannot say it will be, but for what I hope it will be enough for me to get some supplies together because one thing that had to be pounded in my head is one cannot give if one does not have and that means this year has to be my best one yet, granted college has been good for me but it cannot last.
For this project thought it is integral I do not speak of it again until it is done. For the progress on that I am looking for there needs to be something to be removed and this experiment. I hope at the end it will be something that we can look toward as something that could possibly shed light on a question because over my writing I hemmed and hawed for so long that soon some of them would go to grade school if they had been children.
The experiment will be based on this, because what if someone who is wanting to do something has no name? My guess, is that there will be an openness that come with it and to do so while there will most likely be some imitators on the case that there is any level of success and there hopefully will be, it just is something that sometimes I do not feel proud of the progress I have done or the thing I have and it just is held for some reason so hopefully this experiment takes care of that.
What the other thing is well, I have been very angry and while trying to make it positive there is a point of rage for me that is not hot, it is cold, it is ice cold and it is not something fun for others to be around. I do need to use it though so maybe this is the way to make sure things can stay separate until maybe some of it is used up. This year was rough and I have been dealing with more then what I can handle and talking to therapists had been something that has been rather fruitless.
Even though the experiment will have some releases there should be some this next year, we shall see.
Stay strong and happy new year
Question for those who stayed, what are some things you are afraid of in your projects and some things you would like to get to?
BigTAnderson in Portland 