The Portland/Vancouver Metropolitan Area is heavily into mobile devices. When I ride the bus or TriMet MAX light rail, roughly half of my fellow passengers are using an iOS, Android or Windows phone device.

Uber has limited penetration here because of the Portland taxi drivers. Many of the people around here regard the taxi companies as Racketeer-Influenced Corrupt Organizations because there are far too many drunk people and far too few taxis on Friday and Saturday nights.

One can ride the MAX Red Line non-stop to the airport from Hillsboro, Beaverton, and Portland for I think $2.50.

One takes the Blue line from Gresham then transfers to the Red at the 99th Avenue Transit Center.

One takes the Green from Clackamas then transfers to the Red.

One takes the Yellow Line from Portland State University just South of Downtown then transfers to the Red at the Rose Quarter (ie. Moda Center) as well as from North Portland South to the Rose Quarter.

There are two C-Tran express busses that will get you to the Light Rail for $3.50, or you can take any of a half-dozen bus lines to the Westfield Vancouver Mall Transit Center, transfer to the #4 Delta Park / Vanport MAX bus then transfer to the Yellow Line.

When the Yellow arrives at Delta Park / Vanport, just about always the #4 into Downtown Vancouver then most of the way across Vancouver to the mall Transit center is waiting right there.

Amtrack goes from Vancouver to Portland and back. I find it hard to understand the controversy over running the Yellow line over the recently-cancelled Columbia River Crossing. Oregon insisted on light rail into Vancouver, Washington now has to repay the Feds $500,000.00 because its refusal to fund light rail led to a desperately needed new Interstate 5 bridge being cancelled. Washington and Oregon each spent $250,000.00 before Washington withdrew.

There are no busses to the Vancouver Amtrack Station. Nor is it ever advertised. Ticket prices at brick-and-mortar Amtrack stations are significantly cheaper than online at Amtrack's website.

You can reserve a ticket at a significant discount without actually paying for it until you board the train, but only at the stations.

This leads me to believe Amtrack commuter rail into Portland, which meets the Yellow and Green line as well as lots of busses is quite cheap if one reserves fares ahead of time for every day one expects to work on the other side of the River.

There are 4,000 homeless people in Portland. The city is carefully constructed so as to keep all the homeless in Oldtown and Chinatown; that's where the soup kitchens, rescue missions, shelters and subsidized housing are to be found also the Portland Police Bureau and private security guards are completely cool about sleeping on the sidewalk in Oldtown and Chinatown.

But not in the Pearl District, Downtown or PSU neighborhoods.

All over the wealthier parts of Portland's central core are solar-powered trash compactors, with a few recycling bins that permit one to recycle a can or bottle but not remove it from the bin so one can claim the five-cent deposit.

But there are very large conventional trash cans in China Town and Oldtown that the homeless dig through to get their five cents. However there is nowhere to actually claim the deposit anywhere in Oldtown or Chinatown.

Some of the larger grocery stores have automated recycling machines. Rather than dispensing cash they issue a ticket that one can exchange for cash at the checkout stands.

One can only obtain that cash while the grocery store is open. Despite that some of the grocery stores open at 5:00 AM and all the rest at 6:00, the recycling machines are down until 9:00 each morning. I don't know when they shut off for the night but the grocery stores close anywhere from 9:0 PM to 1:00 AM.

None of those grocery stores are anywhere near Oldtown or Chinatown. Oregon's bottle bill limits one to recycling no more than 200 cans at any one merchant. At five cents per beverage container, that means you make ten dollars then you have to go find another supermarket.

Most homeless people as well as the vast majority of mentally ill are reluctant ever to stray far from their homes. I just love to roam all over Creation but I know lots of people who spend decades in Oldtown without ever setting foot in Chinatown let alone riding MAX to a supermarket for recycling.

Back in the day Portland rent was quite cheap and there was lots of it.

What with all the startups, the VCs, the highly paid engineers, web designers, graphic designers, sales and marketing people as well as Oregon's No-Fault Eviction Law rents are skyrocketing. An apartment that rented for $600.00 ten years ago is now $3,500.00.

I personally prefer to rent a room in a shared house. Not because it's less expensive but because I regard any more than one room as wasteful, also I prefer living with other Bohemians.

But AirBNB saw through my Evil Plan.

Many cities are passing ordinances to outlaw short-term rentals. Portland requires a hotel license but the Portland Police Bureau don't enforce it.

So were I to rent one single room in a shared house anywhere in Portland, the very instant my landlord clued into AirBNB I'd be out on the street.

Parking for those who commute to Downtown Portland is quite expensive, also there is a traffic jam from six in the morning until nine in the evening on all the highways.

Then there are your car payments, scheduled maintenance, replacing worn-out tired, unexpected major repairs, insurance, traffic citations, sales tax if one purchases one's car in Washington as well as the higher price of one's home if one has a garage and a driveway.

That's why the Clark County Council as well as the Vancouver City Council are so adamantly opposed to public transit. Someone actually wrote a Letter to the Editor of the Columbian.

"You don't want light rail into Vancouver. Everyone knows what happens when light rail goes in."

What? Economic prosperity all along the railbed and for several miles on other side?

The cafes I like to hang out? Restaurants? Pubs that serve Oregon's world-reknowned craft beer? Ethnic cuisine?

I would far far far prefer to live in Portland I regard Vancouver as a total shithole but among the reasons I am here is that I was born in Spokane and so regard Washington as my family's ancient homeland.

I am determined to reside inside Vancouver's herpes-ridden anal fissures because I have a duty to fix my ancient homeland's cluelessly asinine clusterfuck problems.

That's why I don't live in Canada any more because War on Terror, Surveillance State, hatred of immigrants even legal ones and the occasional unarmed black man.

Is This the America I Love?

I learned in the Boy Scouts that upside-down flag signals an emergency

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/11/25/641/18793