Some Chicago Boyz know each other from student days at the University of Chicago. Others are Chicago boys in spirit. The blog name is also intended as a good-humored gesture of admiration for distinguished Chicago School economists and fellow travelers.
Near Portland there is a great aviation and military museum called the “Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum“. I highly recommend that you visit this campus, which includes an IMAX theater, if you ever visit Oregon.
The highlight is the “Spruce Goose“, the immense wooden plane designed and built by Howard Hughes which resides inside the facility. It is fantastic that the museum was built at a large enough scale to keep this plane indoors else it would likely soon be lost to the elements.
Recently I re-located to Portland, Oregon. While Portland has a reputation as a rainy, gloomy place, we had a great April through November, with lovely and mostly sunny weather. In December, however, things have taken a turn for the worse.
I grew up in the Midwest where it snows all the time. The difference, however, is that we salt our roads and plow them with vigor. This wikipedia article shows the “salt belt” of states that use this method; Oregon is not one of them.
While snowfalls are infrequent in Portland (some parts of Oregon see immense snowfalls… like this town and anywhere near Crater Lake) we have already had 2 “major” snowfalls that snarled traffic to an inordinate degree – the city ceases to function and everyone stays home when they heed the weather warnings (if they turn out to be accurate). On Wednesday, however, the snowfall and ice occurred during the evening rush hour and caused chaos with hundreds of abandoned cars litering the streets and highways. Commutes that would take 20 minutes could take 4 or more hours; many (including myself) went on foot.
Streets were still icy and treacherous a day later, since the temperature remains below freezing. Cars that drive were generally either all-wheel drive, trucks, or used chains. I had to buy a pair of chains for my Jetta for $85 but I hope to never need to use them.
Recently I moved to Portland, Oregon. Portland is a very clean and safe city, albeit one with a lot of homeless people allowed to camp out on the street. Crime here is miniscule by the standards of Chicago – rather than seeing murders every day (with multiple murders and shootings compressed into one story since it isn’t “news”), you can actually see leading news stories about a guy who got his bike stolen, with a picture of the thief from a security camera.
Now Portland is in the national news for a different reason. After the election, protestors have been taking to the streets. I was in a cab back from the airport Thursday night and my twenty minute ride became a 1 1/2 hour ride since the protestors were blocking bridges and highways. It was a bit unnerving because you were just sitting in traffic with no information and it could go on indefinitely.
The protestors have been walking through neighborhoods and shopping areas and blocking bridges and the police have mostly left them alone. They did break business windows in an area less than a mile from where I live such as this Bank of America ATM bank branch. They set a couple of fires in dumpsters too. But generally they were pretty calm and the police followed them and didn’t bust their heads, Chicago-style.